Scott Benner 9/2/22 Scott Benner 9/2/22

#746 In Vitro, Pregnancy and Loss

Karen has type 1 diabetes and is here to talk about IVF, pregnancy and miscarriage.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 746 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Karen has type one diabetes, and she's on the show today to talk about what it's like to manage blood sugar's through pregnancy. We're also going to talk about her experience with in vitro fertilization. And I'd like to warn you before the episode begins, that Karen expected to be pregnant while she was recording this, Karen was pregnant previous to when we recorded this episode. But she very sadly and unexpectedly was not when we actually recorded. I didn't want that to be a surprise for you when you heard it. So I just wanted to tell you upfront, if you're a US citizen who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver of someone with type one, it would mean a lot to me and to many other people. If you went to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box and filled out their survey, it's super simple to do, it does not take long at all. You'll be helping people with type one, you'll probably be helping yourself and you'll be supporting the Juicebox Podcast, there's a lot of good that goes into those 10 minutes at T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox.

Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one, a great diabetes organization who has asked me to ask you to check them out. And you can do that at touched by type one.org or by finding them on Facebook, or Instagram. The podcast is also sponsored today by Ian pen from Medtronic diabetes in pen is an insulin pen that does much more than you expect. Learn more about it at in pen today.com The ink pen may cost you as little as $35. Listen to the end for details. At our house, we buy Ardens Omnipod and Dexcom supplies from us Med and you could to call 888-721-1514 or go to U S med.com forward slash juicebox. To get your free benefits check. You can find links to us med in Pen and Touch by type one in the show notes of your podcast player, or at juicebox podcast.com. All I need from you is to click on my links or to type them into a browser if you're interested in anything you hear in the advertisements. Doing that supports the show. And I very much appreciate it.

Karen 2:53
Yeah, my name is Karen and I was diagnosed with type one. When I was 35. No family history. I have a cousin once removed who has type one, but I don't think that's close enough for the doctors to even count it as family history. So it was a shock and No, no obvious symptoms. I didn't have the normal like paying a lot or thirsty or that kind of stuff. I went to the doctor for a totally unrelated reason. And then they caught it. And so yeah, it was it was shocking. And I'm happy to talk about that in more detail. But I'm in and I reached out to you to maybe come on the podcast because I was doing IVF and my husband and I were doing IVF to try to get pregnant and yeah a lot actually has happened since I wrote you so we can we can Yeah, we can go and

Scott Benner 3:59
pick it apart for sure. I want to tell you that I count a cousin once removed as a family history. Okay, I would count I would count celiac thyroid a grandmother who was tired all the time I would count on you so okay you don't I mean like it's it's weird how autoimmune pops up in people's lives but I get what you're saying like in your in your circle in your family circle there's there's nothing like that. Are there other autoimmune issues that you found?

Karen 4:27
Not Not that I know of. But then for me after the diabetes then we've had realized the infertility issues and that they think was primary ovarian insufficiency which is basically like premature menopause which is an autoimmune problem. So you know, I know when you have one autoimmune issue, you're more likely to have multiple and so I guess so I've had I've had now that pop up but no other autoimmune disorders in my family.

Scott Benner 4:59
You You don't want your autoimmune diseases to be lonely. That's a Yeah, definitely. I mean, just think of, I guess, by themselves with no one to talk to. So how old are you now?

Karen 5:10
37.

Scott Benner 5:12
So this is just all in the last two years. Yeah. Prior to your diagnosis and learning all this, had you had children or thought about having children before?

Karen 5:22
I mean, I always wanted children, but I just took a while to find the guy who I wanted to have children with. And so we just got married two and a half years ago in August. And, and so it was at that point that, you know, we started to try to have kids

Scott Benner 5:39
Oh, you got diabetes for you as a wedding gift?

Karen 5:42
I did. And actually, so I had undiagnosed terrible de diabetes at my wedding. And I didn't know and I'm so glad, in retrospect, that I didn't know at that time. And then it was, like six weeks later, but I was diagnosed,

Scott Benner 6:00
you know, my wife, and I have two children. And she's still looking for a guy worthy of having kids with. So wait a minute. So you had were you just like, thrilled you look great in your wedding dress? Or what was going on there? How long?

Karen 6:15
Yeah, actually. So I said, No, no, obvious symptoms, but I had lost weight. And so that was just very convenient. Yeah, it was nice. And then for my wedding, I had lost, I lost weight. But I lived my husband and I lived in Rwanda, the year, that year prior. And so I just chalked up the weight loss to like a different diet and living in, you know, Africa. And I had a couple infections like an eye infection, I had, like, come back a few times when we were in Rwanda, but again, I just, like, chalked it up to like different, you know, I don't know, different bacterias and viruses and a different country. And so I didn't, I never suspected, you know, diabetes, I guess I got back. And it had been two months. And I hadn't put weight back on. So maybe I should have maybe that should have been a red flag to me. But

Scott Benner 7:13
we had a reason. Otherwise, right? Like, it's all you need is like one thing to go, oh, yeah, it's probably that. And then you can kind of let it go.

Karen 7:21
Yeah, and my husband's a doctor. And so like, I remember also, I had some numbness in my toes. And I told them that, but it was he was like, Well, you know, take a hot shower and see if that helps and stuff. But we just didn't we never thought critically enough. You know about these little things. Yeah. And then I just I went to the doctor because my knees hurt when I run. And I wanted a physical therapy referral. And my doctor knew that I wanted to get pregnant. So she was like, Well, do you want to reduce blood test just to have kind of your baseline records? Your baseline is on record, because when you get pregnant things can get out of whack. So it was like, Sure, I guess. I mean, we could have just as easily not done it. And then we did it. And then she called me back that afternoon and was like, Whoa, I need you to come back in right now. I don't know if like this is a mistake or what but my blood sugar I think was 448. And my, my Quincy was 13.2 was diagnosed

Scott Benner 8:21
Wow, you had had it for a while. So you know, for people who listen to the show a lot. They heard you say Rwanda and they thought, oh God, we're never going to get into her story because Scott's going to ask why she was in Rwanda, which I am going to ask so can we we do that first? Did you have to go all the way to, to Rwanda to find a doctor to marry or what are you doing?

Karen 8:40
Now, um, I met my husband before Rwanda and, and I, I'm a journalism professor, and we and I wanted to apply for a Fulbright fellowship. And so I when I met my now husband, you know, I told them, I'm gonna I'm gonna apply for these Fulbright's when we just started dating, I was like, Hey, you should apply to and we looked and there were some medical ones available to in Rwanda. And so we both applied to be Fulbright Scholars independently, like we didn't tell them we were dating or anything. And we both got it. So we both went. And we're Fulbright scholars in Rwanda together for a year, which was just like, awesome. It was set we were so lucky to both both get that that opportunity and then the same country so we're both teaching and researching in Rwanda for a year.

Scott Benner 9:35
That's crazy. Hey, for the remainder of the podcast I'm gonna refer to your husband is Dr. warm shower just so you know. That's what he got out of medical school. It's hilarious. Okay, so you're home now from Rwanda, you're having these problems. You end up with the doctor, you know, because you wanted to, you wanted a physical therapy appointment. That's an odd route to it. Have you come back to her office? That heart right? You said, Yeah. And yeah. How does it go from there?

Karen 10:07
And then she finger picks me again. And it's still super high. And she said, you know, you have diabetes. And I, you know, like, I think probably most Americans might not and not my knowledge, diabetes at the time was, you know, next to nothing. And so I was like, what else? Could it be like? What else could high blood sugar be? You know, what are some other things? Like me? Yeah. Nothing means you have diabetes. I was I think I was really just in disbelief. And. And she called, we called my husband and, and it was kind of like, do you want to come, you know, over here, like, for this talk, and I was kind of like, oh, I don't I don't think that's necessary. Like, I definitely was in shock and didn't understand the the gravity gravity of what this meant. And, and but yeah, so she, you know, taught me how to prick my finger and how to give an insulin shot and sent me home with you know, prescriptions to stop and get insulin and and get a CGM she sent me home with what's the one that's not Dexcom Libra. Yeah, she sent me home with a FreeStyle Libre. So I had that for the first couple months. And yeah, I mean, I was just really surprised and then just started, like digging into try to learn as much as I could about diabetes. And then of course, had an appointment shortly after with an endo. And so when we got when she first diagnosed me, she didn't know for sure if I was type one, or type two or 1.5 kind of situation. But then it was. Then my endo said I was a type one. Although I've recently changed endocrinologist, because I moved and my new endo was like maybe Euro, Lada. And maybe we'll test for that, but not until after a lot of this having babies stuff is over. But anyway, I was diagnosed with type one. And then yeah, thankfully, my endocrinologist was wonderful. And mean, he spent three hours with me that first appointment. And even every appointment after that was, I don't know, an hour and a half or something. I hear a lot of people complain about their, their diabetes team. And I was really lucky to have excellent doctors and educators and stuff. But still, it just shocks me how little information you get, even, even when I had several hours. There's just so much to know, and so much to learn. I mean, I think when people are diagnosed, they automatically need to be enrolled in a class, you know, where I don't know, we just spend the next six months or something learning about diabetes and how to manage it, because there's just and I understand why they can't tell you everything in that first appointment. It would just be overwhelming. But there's so much to know,

Scott Benner 13:21
I was really shocked that you said that she just gave you like a script for insolence and needles and sent you home. That was I just expected. You know, I talked to so many people who are getting children diagnosed and then they go to the hospital after that. And the hospital brings their blood sugar down slowly and helps them understand everything. And I would have mentioned earlier but I was imagining your husband rooting around the house looking for the receipt for you to see if you were still in warranty or not. So

Karen 13:52
I know I was like, Oh my God. Yeah, it was like when we said in sickness and in health. I don't think you were gonna you thought this was gonna happen so soon.

Scott Benner 14:01
I was just trying to be positive. I didn't know it was gonna be next week. Yeah, yeah, no, no, I yeah, that's, that's fascinating. I can I take a slight detour there. Did you have the wherewithal to think about that, like, how long did you had you two been together prior to your marriage?

Karen 14:17
Um, we had been together? What, like two and a half years? I mean, not. Not terribly long time. And but no, I mean, there was no, there was no question. He definitely didn't want to leave me because of my diagnosis. But I was lucky that that he is a doctor because he, you know, understood it. And it was also just an incredible resource for me to you know, I was asking him 100 questions a day in the beginning about it. And he's been, I mean, just a saint with handling it all. And so I've been very, very lucky and in the doctor diagnosing and she was was fantastic. And she, you know, explained as much as she could to me, I don't know why they didn't send me the hospital, I guess because I felt fine. I wasn't in decay or anything. And she set me up to like, first just give like four units a day and for a couple of days, then up to six and up into eight, you know, until it leveled out. And so she, I mean, she told me how to how to slowly bring my blood sugar down. And she also knows my husband, and he's a doctor. So I feel like I definitely had, you know, people who knew what was going on and, and I knew what, what to do as much as I could at that point. But yeah, I have I have wondered, like, how do you decide when to send somebody to the hospital or not when they're being diagnosed? If they're not in DKA,

Scott Benner 15:47
you may find it interesting to know that when I speak to people who have a medical background, they feel that doctors assume they know what they're doing. So I did wonder about that. Did she know your husband was a doctor and maybe she just thought like, ah, Dr. warm shower will take care of it. That'll be it. You know, like that kind of thing.

Karen 16:05
She knew my husband, but she was she I mean, she was great at explaining things to me and getting me in with an endo as soon as she could. And, but I have definitely had that in their appointments with with diabetes appointments, or just or the baby related appointments and stuff that the doctors when my husband's there and they know he's a doctor, they definitely talk at a higher level. And sometimes I have to be like, Okay, bring that back down for me. I'm not a doctor

Scott Benner 16:34
journalism major over here. Yeah. I didn't study the bigger words. Well, that's okay. So how long did it take you? Or maybe I'm speaking for you? You don't? But how long did it take you to feel comfortable? Like you knew what you were doing?

Karen 16:51
Um, good question. I mean, I think pretty quick, I guess relatively, I mean, I got my so my agency was 13.2. And I was diagnosed. And then the next time it was taken, which I think was three months later, it was 6.5. So I came down right away. And I, I mean, at first I was on the shots. And it's funny, when I was first diagnosed, my instinct was, Oh, I hope I don't need an insulin pump like that just, I just associate an insulin pump with like, I don't know, being sick. And I don't want this device hooked to me. And so and then as I learned more about what it was about type one diabetes, then it became clear, like, Oh, I definitely want an insulin pump. And I'm so lucky to be able to have an insulin pump. And so I got that maybe three months or less after I was diagnosed. So I had the CGM from the get go. Although in a couple months, I switched to Dexcom. And then I had the pump just a couple of months after being diagnosed and, and I'm on Omni pod and that, I mean that those both helped a lot. I really liked the flexibility of being on the pump, being able to, you know, not have to plan ahead. Like if I don't know that I want to have dessert, I'm not going to have to give an extra shot. If I decide I want to have dessert later. Like it's just easier to put it into the pump. So I mean, I guess within by the time I got all the gear like I felt, I felt pretty comfortable.

Scott Benner 18:35
I mean, you're able to see came down remarkably. And then you upgraded your gear, are you interested? Or do you even know about the Omnipod? Five was just announced the other day that for the algorithm?

Karen 18:50
So yeah, I am aware. But um, I so my, my endocrinologist actually recommends that I not go to the automatic system. Well, I'm trying to have a baby because my control is better than he thinks it would be on automated system because they have to. And he didn't know about the Omni pod. But the the other companies Yeah, you had to set or you could not adjust. I think you had to set your goal blood sugar at 100. I think and so, you know, if you were sitting at then it would give you give you sugar, or you know, it would want you to go back up. Right. And so he was saying that, you know, he actually thought that my control is better without that and because you didn't know about Omnipod but figured it would be that same standard of 100. So I mean, do you do you know

Scott Benner 19:51
that no. So it is Ollie pods of 110. If I'm not mistaken, I think control like us like 112 and a half which is I must, I don't know, it's an odd number. But yeah, they're both in their first generation still. So I think that was what they could safely and kind of quickly get through the FDA as a target. But you're right. If you're doing better than that on your own. You're gonna want your agency lower while you're trying to get pregnant for sure.

Karen 20:17
Yeah, and I definitely want to go to the automated system when, you know, I don't know, maybe when they come out with the next one, and you can have a lower range or something, because I do think, of course, that would help with like eliminating the nighttime alarms and stuff like that. But yeah, but right now, that's my doctor didn't recommend that. And it makes makes good sense to me. Because yeah, if I'm sitting at I don't want to go up. Yeah,

Scott Benner 20:42
no, I mean, now that you said, it makes sense to me as well. So you guys, I mean, I'm assuming like, You're not listening. You're not old, Karen. But you're at that spot where you were kind of like, I guess, if we're gonna have kids, maybe we ought to do it, right. How long do you try before you think like, I'm getting tired of having sex, and we're not pregnant yet? Like, like we? I mean, did that happen? Were you just like, Oh, my God, we're gonna have to do it again? Or, what's the length of time before you start wondering what's up?

Karen 21:12
I think for like your average couple, I think they want you to try for at least a year before you start looking into it. But for us, because I knew I was going to be a high risk pregnancy because of the diabetes. And because of my age, I think six months was enough for them to say, okay, we can start doing some tests. And so yeah, I think it was. I'm trying to think of the timeline, though, it might have been, it might have been a year, or a little less than a year before we actually got all the testing. And then, you know, then they said that we had a very low, like, less than 1% chance of conceiving naturally. And they recommended IVF, which was another big shock to us. And so then we will took some time to decide if we wanted to do that or not. And then we decided to. And so that's why I thought it would be helpful to come on and talk about like, how to manage your diabetes when you're going through IVF because you're taking all these shots and being pumped with hormones, and it affects your your insulin needs and everything.

Scott Benner 22:28
Why definitely. Yeah, but wait, since I'm sorry, something

Karen 22:32
well, now now. And we can still talk about that. Now. I feel like I'm remembering not as much as I hoped. I'd remember for that conversation, because of all what's happened since then. So since then, I did two rounds of IVF. And then we had our first embryo transferred, they call it like implanted, and it worked, and I got pregnant. And then I was five months pregnant, and we lost the baby just

Scott Benner 23:04
okay, sorry. Sorry, I didn't know. And now I'm thinking of every stupid thing I've said over the last few minutes, and I'm getting

Karen 23:11
no, no, no, it's all good. There was just less than two weeks ago. So it's still very raw. But um, yeah, we lost the baby due to genetic abnormalities, which was really shocking, because we did as part of the IVF process we had our embryos genetically tested, which should check which checks for genetic abnormalities, and we, you know, only transferred the embryo that was genetically normal. So we thought we had ruled that out, we knew that I you know, because of having diabetes, I was at higher risk of other pregnancy issues like preeclampsia and that kind of stuff. But that was the one thing we thought, okay, well, we're in the clear for at least we don't have to worry about, you know, genetic abnormalities, and then and then that's what happened. So it turned out we were just in like the one to 2%, who had the false positive originally, and, and so we just lost the baby. And so that is another thing that affects your, your blood sugar. And so I feel, in my mind, it's much fresher now to talk about diabetes management during the first trimester of pregnancy and into the second trimester and then with pregnancy loss. But also, of course, go back and talk about the IVF process to

Scott Benner 24:47
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I would like to do whatever you're comfortable with actually I'm sitting here I'm I'm shocked that you didn't just cancel this I thought about

Karen 29:23
it this is I have been like off work and this has been the first time that I need to be like on you know since since and so I was a little I thought about canceling it but um I don't know. I mean, I didn't want to like have to wait another, you know, months and months and I just thought I mean maybe there are other people out there who you know have lost a pregnancy and would benefit from hearing about like blood sugar perspective of it all. So

Scott Benner 29:57
that is very kind of you I really applaud Shit that very much. So we'll just tread lightly. And we'll talk about what you're comfortable with. But yeah, I mean, I'm so sorry, because I feel like you're gonna walk all through this, but you know, so you, they fertilize an egg outside of you, obviously. And then they they say that there's eggs that are ready to be implanted. You put it in? And how, like, how many times did you have to try that implantation process? Was it just once?

Karen 30:30
Yeah, so, um, yes, it was the first time we we had done that. So we got lucky it worked on our first time. So they they retrieved the eggs. So which is a surgery, which is another thing where I was like, giving the anesthesiologist my phone to look at my eggs calm the whole time, because that was the first time I am. Actually that was one anyway. So you do the egg retrieval, they retrieve the eggs, and then they mix it with the sperm in the lab. And then the embryos grow for five days, and then they freeze them. And then they biopsy them to check for the genetic problems. And then and at each step of the process, you you lose eggs and embryos. So it's like maybe you get a dozen eggs, when you're there retrieved. And then you know, only half of them fertilized, and then only 10 70% of them grow properly in the lab for the five days, and then only 40% of them come back genetically normal. So by the time we got to the end of the process, we had just one supposedly genetically normal embryo, which is the one we implanted. And we did another egg retrieval. And from that, in the end, we ended up with two supposedly, genetically normal embryos. So we still have two that are frozen, and we'll try to transfer those, you know, in a few months when it's safe to do so. But um, so, yeah, so but we had only had the one embryo transfer and, and there was about a 60% chance that it would result in a pregnancy and so it did so we thought Yeah, IVF can be really awful for a lot of people so we thought that like okay, we we've had a pretty good go IVF you know, we did two rounds and then we got pregnant in our first try. And so we thought like, you know, worked out okay for us.

Scott Benner 32:47
Yeah, I'm gonna have to just ask a childless question. It's not going to leave my head when they fertilize the embryo you bring that sperm in fresh or do you have it prepackaged from another day? How does that

Karen 32:58
fresh is ideal if that's not possible, you can have the sample given earlier and then they freeze it but fresh is what they prefer. And actually is kind of a funny story because my husband had a surgery for heartburn he had surgery today days before my my egg retrieval, and then so he came home from the hospital. It's like a major operation. He came from the hospital the day before like the night before my egg retrieval. And then the next morning like at like 6am I had to get ready and go in and he had to give a sample then and so he was like totally you know, fresh home from the hospital after surgery and like that is the last thing you want to do get woken up at 6am and have to give a sample so it poor guy Yeah.

Scott Benner 33:59
I think it's not that exciting. I need you over here oh my gosh. They need it so fresh sample. Alright, I'm just going to ask because I I'll again I'll wonder surgery for heartburn was his what is

Karen 34:13
really, really bad heartburn. Like all the time and taking the highest doses of just over the counter meds and so yeah, it's called it's called like I'm not gonna remember the name of partial nip nip in fund optic what funded the location or something and I don't remember but anyway, it's a surgery I think they take part of your like esophagus and like or your stomach and tie it up around your esophagus to shrinkable to tighten, because your esophagus gets like opened up or loosen. So to tighten it so

Scott Benner 34:56
yeah, that's insane. I mean, honestly, the entire conversation. I mean, despite your outcome, you know, initially with your first try, all of this is just crazy. As far as medical technology goes, I mean, honestly, it's it's it's absolutely unreal. And you said, you said earlier, you're gonna try again. You're, you're up for it.

Karen 35:19
Yeah, I mean, not today. But I definitely I mean, we definitely, we want kids and like, you know, I'm not getting younger. And so yeah, we'll try it takes a couple of months for all of the like, hormones from pregnancy to normalize and for your uterus to shrink back down to close to its normal size. And so we have to wait, we have to wait a few months. But But yeah, I mean, we'll try again. And hopefully, I mean, there's no reason to believe that our remaining frozen embryos, you know, have any problems. We were just, I mean, we've thoroughly investigated all of this. And it turns out, like, I think it was just really bad luck. And we just fell into that small percentage who got a false positive,

Scott Benner 36:10
right? I'm gonna ask you about the diabetes stuff in just a second. But first, I just was wondering if you could maybe articulate a little bit. I'm assuming you've been on like a roller coaster of emotions, right? Like, you got married, you waited? Listen, you did. But you did what I tell my kids to do all the time. Like you waited until you were a real person and you understood yourself and you understood other people, and you found a really good match. You get married five seconds later, you have type one diabetes, you realize in short order, you're having trouble conceiving. I mean, are you okay? Like, it feels like, I'm saying, like, that's a lot for a person to go through in a short amount of time. And I'm wondering what the impact has been for you?

Karen 37:00
Yeah, I think, I think I am okay. I agree. It's been a lot. I mean, and I was totally healthy, you know, for the first 35 years of my life, and then all of a sudden diabetes, and then infertility and then losing this baby. It is a lot. I think that. So in, I've had like, a really kick ass life. You know, up until these recent problems, my life is still great, but I had a really great life. My mom died when I was 12 with cancer. And that was awful, of course. And that was like the one big tragedy of my life. And otherwise, I've had a really, really great life to the point where I almost felt like, I'm I did feel like, I feel like I'm due for something bad to happen, because everything's just been so great for many years now. And, and then, yeah, kind of got hit with these things. And, but I think to answer your question, I mean, I think I'm doing okay, I think mostly because I'm lucky to have resources, you know, like, I have great health insurance, and I have excellent doctors and I have excellent support system with friends and family. And, you know, I'm, like, proactive to try to make sure that I stay okay. So, you know, like, when the baby died, and now participating in a support group, you know, of other mothers who have had similar situations, and I've, like, when I got died, but diagnosis, diabetes, I got a therapist, just to like, I was okay, but just to like, be proactive, because I didn't want to have that diagnosis result, you know, anything. You know, bad. So, I think that I've been, okay, coping because of, yeah, those positive things in my life, like a good support system. And in good doctors, yes,

Scott Benner 39:08
solid insurance, even just, you know, things that you can count on, whether they're people or institutions. Those things can leave you not feeling completely alone when stuff like this happens.

Karen 39:21
Yeah. And having lived in Rwanda the year before all this, and we hasn't, and I definitely think a lot like, if we lived in Rwanda, like if we, you know, grew up in Rwanda, we wouldn't have you know, how things would be different, wouldn't have all of these resources and it would be totally different. So I'm grateful to have all that

Scott Benner 39:44
Yeah, that should that trip must have packed out a lifetime's worth of perspective into you. You know, yeah, just seeing just seeing people live differently in a different part of the of the world. Okay, so, I mean, what part do you want to go through? Like, you know, how did management change at conception? Or through IVF? Where do you want to start?

Karen 40:08
Um, I guess let's start with IVF. Although I have to admit, now, I don't remember many details, I should have taken notes. But what I do remember is, so when you do IVF, you take daily, multiple daily shots, where you're giving yourself hormones to make you grow a lot of eggs, and those drugs make you those hormones, cause insulin resistance. So and you do that for about two weeks, and like 10 days to two weeks before they do the egg retrieval. And so as that, that two weeks happens, you become more resistant to insulin. So I definitely had to, had to like up my amount and then you know, after they retrieve the eggs, then be prepared for that to drop back down. So that's what I remember during that part. And I remember when I had the surgeries for the egg retrievals I yeah, like I asked that you used to intercede theologist to watch my phone the whole time. And but it was no problem, my blood sugar stayed stable through that, and then getting pregnant. So So I was pregnant for 20 weeks, and it's definitely you know, roller coaster, your needs are changing, could be weekly. So I think it's just a lot of monitoring and adjusting. I felt like usually, you know, when you're not pregnant, my endocrinologist want me to kind of see a trend for maybe several days or a week before I would make an adjustment because of it when you're pregnant. My new endo says you know, if you see a trend for two days, then make an adjustment because things just changed so fast. But, and then something interesting I learned when you're pregnant during kind of an earlier part of your pregnancy, like toward the end of the first trimester. You need less insulin and and I read in the there's a book pregnancy type one diabetes, and they said that your body starts making its own insulin again a little bit, which doesn't make any sense to me, because how could these beta cells die and then come back alive? So I don't know I haven't. I haven't fact checked this. But I mean, my endocrinologist also says, said that, yeah, you your body starts making a little bit of insulin on its own, which is kind of it's very cool on one hand, but it's also just messes with your your management because you're giving insulin and then your body's giving some to then it's

Scott Benner 43:00
a honeymoon almost where you just you can't be sure if your needs are really what they are. Did you find it actually happened that way?

Karen 43:08
Well, I didn't find it to be so so clear as maybe I had read about it being for other people, but my insulin needs definitely went down. I didn't notice it was like a specific sharp decline. I don't know but I my insulin needs definitely went went down. And then I know you know, as your pregnancy continues, like in the second half of pregnancy, you'd become insulin resistant and need much more. I hadn't gotten to that point yet. For me, my insulin needs had gone mostly just down although I should be more specific. My Basal needs went down. My Bolus needs went up and I'm a little odd with my I require very little basil and then a lot of Bolus so I was only I only have like about six units of basil a day but then have like a right now like a one to six insulin to carb ratio. Wow. So yeah, that's why my new endo was like maybe your a lot of maybe we should test for that.

Scott Benner 44:16
You're getting like point two five an hour through your pump.

Karen 44:19
Yeah, I mean, I have a couple different settings throughout the day. But yeah, from like, point two to point three. Yeah, roughly point two five. Exactly.

Scott Benner 44:28
Do you be willing to share your weight with me? Just yeah, yeah.

Karen 44:31
Of course that's fluctuated a lot in the last couple months of pregnancy, but yesterday, I was 129 129

Scott Benner 44:39
Wow. My daughter weighs up about what you weigh. And her Basal knees are like 1.1 an hour. And yeah, and her hurt. Her carb ratio is like one to four and a half. So that's really something Wow, no kidding. Um, So when you when you introduce the, I mean, it seems clear when you introduce hormones no matter what, whether it was during IVF, or your body doing it during the baby growing needs, fluctuated. How far do they fluctuate with the IVF? Like, what did they go from to when you started doing the injections?

Karen 45:22
Um, I wish I now I don't remember, but my best guess would be I mean, not a huge maybe like 15% more. Okay, and insulin and I needed

Scott Benner 45:37
basil went up about that much. Yeah. Okay. And then did you your current ratio change at all?

Karen 45:44
Um, I don't remember for the IVF. It did for pregnancy. So I was at a one, one to eight. And then I went to one to seven. And then I went to one to six.

Scott Benner 45:57
Did you find the IVF to be personally tumultuous? Like people talk about, like, with your relationship? Did you find yourself feeling like all over the place when they were introducing hormones and things like that?

Karen 46:11
Um, I felt like it wasn't as bad for me, as I had read about. I remember when we are trying to decide whether to do it. I read one study that showed that women who do IVF have just as much like stress and anxiety as women, cancer patients. And I was like, Whoa, that's heavy. But um, no, it wasn't, it wasn't as bad for me. Maybe that's because that was when after COVID started, so I was working from home, maybe it was less stressful having you have to go in every other day for ultrasounds and blood work. And that's, you know, just demanding just on a schedule. You know, if you're working, and you have to leave work every other day to go to the doctor, and you have to give shots multiple times a day. And, and so maybe it was a little easier that I was at home, my husband was also at home, and he was giving me the shots, which helped. And also I have diabetes. So I've given myself shots before. And so that wasn't you know, as big of a shock, as I think it is for a lot of people. And then as far as just emotionally. I did. Like, after about a week of being on the hormones. I did feel more emotional. Yeah. But it was kind of short lived. And it wasn't. It wasn't anything super dramatic. For me. I know it is for a lot of other people. But I actually thought that that part of it wasn't as bad as I was imagining. It could be,

Scott Benner 47:46
you know, or you weren't kidding, your life was going well, I just realized you were like in your local newspaper and things like that. And yeah, things were, well, listen, I listen, I can tell you something. I've never gone through what you've gone through. But I have been alive about 15 years longer than you. And it comes back around again, is like the best thing I can say is it just like no matter where you are, it doesn't last, the great stuff doesn't last and the bad stuff doesn't last, it's all sort of about moving forward. And you seem to have that attitude, like I've been trying to figure out for the last 40 minutes. Like your personality. And, and I'm getting I think I'm starting to get to it. Like at first I was confused because I didn't realize that you were you were here and all this had happened. And you were probably nervous and upset while you were talking. But you've loosened up over the last 10 minutes since you told me about the baby. And, and but you're very matter of fact, like you must work well in journalism is what I keep thinking. If that makes sense.

Karen 48:54
Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I, I would describe myself as being very, like, open and direct and very, like, logical and, yeah, analytical and stuff.

Scott Benner 49:07
So is that the part of you that you're using to move forward with all this? Like, I mean, trying again, seems like a big step. But to you, it just seems like an obvious step. Because you went through all this. You still have the eggs, and you still want to have a baby. Right?

Karen 49:20
Yeah, I mean, to me, it seems like Yes. Obvious. You're right. I mean, I just, I mean, this is this has been, you know, devastating, but I don't, I don't see how waiting would you know longer than what is medically advised. I don't see a waiting and longer would be helpful. If anything, it would just be harmful because I'd be older and you know, the older you are, the more risks you have with pregnancy. And so, and I mean, ideally we'd like to have two kids. We are completely realistic and under understand with two frozen eggs and They're 60 60% chance of working, but we might not get two kids, we might get one kid. But, you know, I definitely want to want to keep trying. And I think I'm generally an optimistic person. So

Scott Benner 50:15
you seem like, Listen, if you want to I have a kid about to go to college, if you want the whole experience, I could I ship, you could pay for the school and do all the stuff. And sure, it'd be wonderful. I know, I'm looking forward to it. And she has diabetes. So you guys could talk forever, you could share insulin pump supplies, it would really be terrific. Let me get her over there. I'm gonna get her on a train right now. But But seriously, though, I just think it's kind of crazy. Like, not crazy. It's nice, because I never heard you say, you know, when we thought about not doing it again, or we're going to give up or we're not going to try like that was. I think that's brave. And it sounds like it's rooted in a lot of strength, in my opinion. So thank you. Yeah, but you've also now you're, you know, as you're relaying your story, you've been through some things. I mean, living through your mother's passing at a young age is, you know, I mean, it's obviously impactful. But it also builds, you know, what I mean? Like some people go through hard stuff, and you come out the other side a little better prepared to deal with the next difficult thing. That's really a it's kind of wonderful. In a sad, the sad but but very human way. I am enjoying your story. So how long do you have to wait? Is it the, I mean, this just would you say this just happened two weeks ago?

Karen 51:37
Yeah, less than two weeks ago. Um, well, the IVF, doctors said that they recommend waiting six months before trying again, but they said, you know, that's not a strict rule. And we can just revisit that conversation with the doctor and a few months, they said, it definitely takes a few months for, like I said, the hormones to stabilize and the uterus to shrink. So I mean, definitely two or three months, and then after that, we can have another conversation about it and see, if everybody would feel comfortable doing it. You know, sooner than six months, I imagine we'll do an ultrasound and see if my uterus is the right size. And so we'll just see how it goes. But hopefully, you know, in about six months or so,

Scott Benner 52:24
how did this impact your husband? The the loss of the baby, did he handle it differently than you did?

Karen 52:30
Um, he handled, I would say we've handled it. Similarly, which I'm thankful for, because I know that, that pregnancy loss can definitely, you know, impact couples in a negative way. So far, I feel like we've really been a team. He took, he took a week off work, which I was really grateful for, because, you know, I think a lot of men especially feel like, pressured to keep going. And, but all of the people we talked to who had been had had similar experiences, gave the advice of, you know, making sure that we took time and a lot of people said, I wish I would have taken more time or men that didn't take time said they wish they would have and so I'm glad that he did and it was really nice that we had then a week together at home to be able to like properly grieve, you know, we had our we had wanted to have the sex be a surprise, but after we found out that we were losing the baby, we looked and he was a boy and we're able to like get him cremated and just make like, read some books about loss and do things together that I think helped us both heal. So yeah, I mean, I know grief hits everybody differently, but actually feel like we've been pretty similar. One difference is that I was more like sitting on the couch that week. And he he he copes more by staying a little busier just around the house, like cleaning or doing home projects is more helpful to him than just sitting there. So that was one difference. But like overall, we've been pretty similar.

Scott Benner 54:33
Will you were you working through this? Or

Karen 54:38
um, I mean, I was I when you know, we found out that we are going to lose the baby I am you know, I asked for a week but but it's a little messy because I I am teaching a class right now. And frankly, it would be a lot more stressful and more work. For me, it will try to like hand over my class and prepare content for someone else to manage my class than for me to just do it. So I've continued teaching my class and then I'm the I have administrative responsibilities. And so those I've mostly handed off and then I do research and that I've just had to put on pause. So it's been a bit of a mix. Would you

Scott Benner 55:23
mind if we took a huge U turn here in our conversation? Sure. Okay. Is your opinion, obviously, are we are we screwed the way we're getting our media now, like that, that, that there's not some like grizzled person who's not really making a ton of money, who nobody knows who they are, who spends four months writing an article that we read, and it's well researched? And, and, I mean, we're in a world now where everybody like, right, like, your, your money comes from clicks. So your banner headlines are more important. It almost doesn't matter sometimes what the article says. It just seems like it's, I don't know, I just, I'm old enough to remember being delivered, but felt like the news. And now I feel like I'm being delivered. Like, I don't know, the report from my team. You know what I mean? And I was wondering what you thought about that, and if young people coming up in journalism, aren't even aware of where it used to be.

Karen 56:30
I mean, I think you're not alone in feeling the way that you feel about it. In journalism, I have a lot of problems right now. You know, just going back to losing its business, its advertising business model when the internet really came about, and then, you know, a major lack in public trust. And, you know, this whole fake news and extreme partisanship, and it's, it's no joke, these are serious problems. And it's, it's a hard time. But I am asked to talk optimistic, and there is, there's really good journalism out there. I think the bad thing is, it's harder to find, and you have to be intentional about finding it. And I think, you know, big issue is, is media literacy. So I think we should do a better job about teaching people, you know, how to analyze and interpret news stories, and where to look for good news stories. So I actually do research on more socially responsible ways to report the news. So there are some there are some forms of news reporting called like constructive journalism, or solutions journalism, where we, it's still, you know, rigorous, like black based reporting, but where you kind of don't just focus on the problem, you take an extra step to look at, well, who is doing what about this problem? Who, how are people responding to this problem, and then focusing on that, you know, to to make people feel more empowered, and to have better effects on news audiences, because a lot of the news that people read today just makes them feel hopeless and depressed. And so I think there is really good journalism out there. But yeah, it's harder. You have to be kind of have to know where to look. And you have to be smart thinker. To figure it out. Hard,

Scott Benner 58:42
it also seems like the people who still do it with any kind of, you know, ion quality, have had to go to subscription models and work for themselves, basically. And then that puts me in a situation as a consumer to say, Look, I can't give, I can't give every journalist in the world $15 A week that I need to hear from like, some conglomeration needs to come together, identify those people pull them together in one place, like I can give that person money. You don't I mean, I can get and they can pay them. And I also see why those journalists might not want to do that. Because with a smaller audience, I think they're making more money than they ever have really working within institutions. So they might be doing great work, but I don't know how to, like, I don't know how to collate it, like, how do I find it and put it all in one place? So I can see like, I can't spend my whole day. You know what I mean? Like, I think that ends up being the bigger issue is that there is something there was something special about knowing that, like, you're going to crack open the New York Times, and it's going to it's going to be the New York Times, and now, it may not be and maybe no newspaper is really and then you think well, okay, well a TV channel could do it. But then they start falling into camps of like, well, we'll lean one way or the other and then you know, it. Eventually it just becomes about sir Giving you news that you want not the news that exists. And I don't know, it just seems like when I talk to younger people about it, they have no concept for it because they've they've kind of grown up in this place where their phone has fed them exactly what they're interested in. And they don't they don't even think about looking at things that they disagree with. It seems to me Yeah.

Karen 1:00:21
And they're definitely not willing to pay for news, which I understand. I mean, why would we expect people to pay when they can get news for free? And also when they read the news, and it makes them feel terrible? Like, why would we expect people to want to pay for that product? And so it is hard, but I know, you know, there's a lot of people experimenting with a lot of different business models in journalism. And that's still, you know, still something that needs to be worked out is how, how we can do it effectively and still make enough money to do it effectively.

Scott Benner 1:00:54
Yeah, it's funny, as I'm saying this, I'm realizing, I mean, honestly, that's my business model those who like I have a, you know, I make a living, feeding diabetes content to people who are interested in it, but it just seems, it seems different to me, because I'm not, it's not like there's some other perspective on diabetes. That's the way the other side thinks about it. And I'm not I don't know.

Karen 1:01:20
I mean, there's definitely like, what you what you have that's different is basically advocating tighter management. I mean, I think, I think there is kind of an other side, like endocrinologist to go by basic guidelines of, you know, keep your blood sugar between 70 and one ad, where, if you or I see one ad, we, you know, think of that as being high and aim for a better target than what a lot of the kind of guidelines recommend. So I think in one way, you do you do have a unique?

Scott Benner 1:01:58
Well, I have to say, that would be a hell of a podcast. I don't know how you keep that going very long. Just wherever your blood sugar lands is fine. Don't worry about it. You'll be okay. Are you want? Let's, let's dance in the rain. Yeah, I don't know where you'd go with that. But I take your point. I mean, I guess I have picked a perspective that probably prior to me talking about it, there were only a few people who, who would jump out in public and say, I think you should be working harder to keep your blood sugar lower and stable. Most of those people, I mean, even people who think that often or are scared to say it out loud. It just seemed obvious to me when I started doing it. Like, like, why would why how? I always thought like, how would it be that I know how to do this. And I wouldn't share it with other people. That just seems ridiculous. But

Karen 1:02:47
anyway, thing that always seemed interesting to me is, you know, when you're pregnant, they have stricter standards for your blood sugar and want you to stay between 65 and 140, at least 70% of the time. And the goal is to have a resting blood sugar between 65 and 95. And the goal is to not be over 122 hours after your meals. That last one was always hard for me. But um, but I always thought it's interesting. Like, why is this the standard only when we're pregnant? We should care and invest in our health and our bodies, not just when we're also caring for the baby inside of us, but for ourselves, too, you know?

Scott Benner 1:03:29
Yeah, Jenny. And I laugh about that sometimes that I mean, not laugh, but we're like, how is it that we say the same thing as a why is it more important that you're healthy when you're pregnant? And the rest of the time? So yeah, whatever. But But I think if you dig down deep into it, the part of me believes that. I mean, you said it earlier, like there's not a lot of like a lot of information for people, most people aren't going to have that information. So you're gonna, you'd be immediately setting them up for failure, which could have them backslide, or just tumble out of concern at all, and just let it go. Like maybe if you give them something that's reasonable for most people to achieve. Maybe the idea is, then most people can feel like they're being successful. And we'll keep more people in a healthier range. Instead of fewer people in a tighter range, and everybody else just gets thrown away. I just happen to believe that that doesn't have to be the case. I think everyone can hear the information and then achieve their own level of success. Like we don't have to. We don't have to paint with such a wide brush. You know what I mean? There's no reason why you can't feed the information to people in a way where you take one thing out of it and your blood sugar doesn't go over 120 and another person takes something else out of it and their blood sugar doesn't go over 140 and etc. And why can't everybody have their own level of success instead of you know, saying that this is success and this is failure and you either fall into it or you don't? I don't know.

Karen 1:04:55
That's what I think there needs to be classes like when it when someone's diagnosed, they're automatically be enrolled in these classes, because you need to be given all that information. And it is it's too much to be given in one appointment when you're diagnosed, but there's so much to learn. I mean, I've been learning for two and a half years, and I feel like, you know, there's still so much to learn. And now I just can't believe that things I didn't know, when I was diagnosed. Right, you know, just little things like, like, fiber, you know, like the impact of the different types of things you eat, and how that, how that should cause you to adjust how you're giving me insulin, like stuff like that is so important. And, you know, like, when, when I got diagnosed, the what they told me was, when your food is hot, take your shot. So like, you know, take your insulin right at the time you start and you start eating. And, you know, I know, some people are told to always Pre-Bolus, like 15 minutes before they eat. But, I mean, it just massively depends on what you're eating. And I do eat foods that are have a lot of that are more slowly digesting. And so I often, you know, would, it would not be good for me to Pre-Bolus. And so, and during pregnancy, your digestion slows. And so I find needed to extend a lot more. And, like that kind of stuff is really crucial to know, and you just, you don't get that when you're first diagnosed.

Scott Benner 1:06:29
Certainly don't be that's I listen, I bang that drum as loud as I can. And I do think this format is as successful, as I've seen so far delivering that information, because like you said, there is so much you can't get all at once. So it's nice to just sort of pop in once in a while, listen, absorb something, go put it into practice, come back at something else. I do think that's I mean, the way people learn is, you know, of paramount importance when you're trying to set something like this up. So I don't know, I know, if you put me in a class, I would leave with nothing. I just know how my brain works. Anyway. Karen, is there anything we haven't talked about that you wish we would have?

Karen 1:07:14
Um, well, I hope we didn't just get too wrapped up in, in my story and didn't talk about diabetes manager enough.

Scott Benner 1:07:27
Here's what I got from that. More homework, more hormones, more insulin, right, quick, quick changes, nothing, you can't be waiting 234 or five days to make a decision you saw you saw needs increase, and you had to increase with them quickly. Those needs also could have gone away just as quickly, especially with the IVF shots, right? Like it was there and then it wasn't.

Karen 1:07:50
And with losing the baby, that's something you talked about. But as soon as the placenta is out of you, you can expect your insulin needs to drop, like up to 20%. And I saw that happen.

Scott Benner 1:08:04
Well, I'll tell people here too, that there is a pregnancy episode inside of the diabetes Pro Tip series. That's me and Jenny Smith talking about all this stuff. And I also have a series called, oh my gosh, what's it called? Am I gonna forget? It might be she's having a baby, where we we followed the same person talk to her at the end of her first trimester, second, third, and then a few months postpartum and had four different conversations along the way. Which I hear from other women has been helpful for them. I am me too. Yeah. Was it? Oh, I'm glad I am. I don't want to say I'm sorry. But I am. I am. I don't know you well enough to say this. I don't think but I am. So sorry for everything you've gone through. I'm grateful that you talked about it here today. I, I listened. Let's not make any promises. But if you want to come back on like a year from now, and tell me how it's going. I'd love to hear back from you again.

Karen 1:09:07
Yeah, I love that. Hopefully, it'll be great to be back on with more positive news, for sure. Certainly would

Scott Benner 1:09:15
be. Yeah, I'd be up for that. So I'm not saying keep me in the loop or you don't have to send me like a, like an announcement or anything like that. But, but an email would be wonderful. And then we could get something together afterwards. Okay, thank you very much for doing this. I really do appreciate it. Would you hold on one second for having

Karen 1:09:33
me. Oh, my pleasure.

Scott Benner 1:09:41
Well, first, I really want to thank Karen for coming on the show and persisting despite her situation. I also want to thank Ian pen from Medtronic diabetes and remind you to go to in pen today.com to learn more and get started. Don't forget to go to touched by Type one.org and find them on Facebook and Instagram. And of course to get your free benefits check from us med you can call 888-721-1514 or go to us med.com forward slash Juicebox.

Podcast if you go to juicebox podcast.com Go to the top of the page and click on diabetes pro tip. Actually, let me tell you about the whole top of the page episode list. diabetes pro tip the Omni pod five Pro Tip series a list of best endocrinologist that juicebox Doc's dot com there is a link to the free private Facebook group and a one cm blood glucose calculator. The blog, the signs of type one diabetes, a merch store, hardens diagnosis story and more at all the top of the page just click on it takes you right to it. You can also scroll down a little bit and find links for Pandora, Android, iPhone, Spotify, Amazon Music places where you can click right on the link and open up your app. And you can subscribe to the podcast and listen. There's lists of sponsors on this page. When I say like click on the links at juicebox podcast.com. It's there. And also a few of the series within the podcast you'll find right on the face of juicebox podcast.com. But back to the top of the page where you click on diabetes protip.com takes you to a sub page where I've put players for all of the almost all of them getting to it all let's just say all of the all of the series within the podcast 44 episodes of defining diabetes. There's a player right on the page like I'm on another computer right now watch this I'll just click on something. In this episode of defining diabetes, Jenny Smith and I are going to define honeymooning. See that is that odd and unpredictable time I will pause Hold on a second. I got it sorry. So the defining diabetes series there all 44 episodes in an online player, scroll down a little bit bold beginning series and then the variable series diabetes pro tip links to the sponsors again, after dark series mental wellness episodes asks gotten Jenny 18 episodes of that and running algorithm pumping interested in Omnipod five control IQ or loop we have episodes about that. I think we even have one about that one from Medtronic. Defining thyroid series right a lot of you have thyroid issues. Here is thyroid disease explained. It's all at juicebox podcast.com.

#745 Midnight Gnocchi

Margaret has type 1 diabetes and she can can dance.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 745 of the Juicebox Podcast

you will never know just how close this episode came to being called Yukon s shaker. On today's program, I'll be speaking with Margaret, she has type one diabetes. And that's pretty much what you need to know. I don't even know why I bother doing this at the beginning. Just listen to the episode. It's great. Trust me. While you're trusting me, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin. See, I'm still it's not too late for me to change the name. Don't know how to put that. I don't know if I can put asked in the title. Or if Apple will kick it out. Dammit. The second title is great, too. But you can't have a shaker. You have no idea. All right. It's probably called Nokia at midnight, but in my heart, you know what I mean? Oh, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box fill out the survey. Thanks.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor. Learn more@dexcom.com forward slash juice box. And while you're there, see if you're eligible for a free 10 day trial of the Dexcom G six. Speaking of free trials, you may be eligible for a free trial of the Omni pod dash a 30 day trial actually, go check it out at Omni pod.com forward slash juice box not looking for the Omni pod dash. You want something a little more automatic, like the Omni pod five. That's it the link as well. omnipod.com forward slash juicebox.

Margaret 2:11
Hey, I'm Margaret. I am a musical theater performer and actor. I live in Canada and I was diagnosed with type one diabetes three years ago at the age of 27.

Scott Benner 2:24
There are fine arts in Canada.

Margaret 2:27
Yeah, they're you know, it's not like it's Broadway. But yes, there are fine arts in Canada.

Scott Benner 2:33
You know, I said that because there's one person I have in mind that will be bothered by that statement. I said it just for them. So the refiners in Canada? How old are you? 30 How old? Were you when you're diagnosed?

Margaret 2:47
27 Oh, recently? Yes, yes, it is recently.

Scott Benner 2:51
Yes. And I don't get many of these. Your age is like, I don't get many diagnosed late 20s. Still kind of in it. Oh, this will be fun. Good. And I think you all should be questioning yourself about a podcast where the host says this will be fun after a person says they were given an incurable disease three years. Great. This will be fun. So how did you Well, wait, no, what am I going to ask you? Is there any? Are there any other autoimmune issues in your family?

Margaret 3:24
It's so funny, because I thought the answer was no. When I like when I was first diagnosed, they're like, Do you have anyone else who has diabetes? And I was like, no, no, this is very weird. And but my grandfather had celiac disease, but he was diagnosed at like 75 and was really, really bitter about it the whole time. So he's the only one with autoimmune diseases.

Scott Benner 3:49
Okay, hold on a second. Your 75 year old grandfather was diagnosed with celiac and it pissed them off.

Margaret 3:54
Oh, he was furious. And like, my my mom is really they have a have they had a funny relationship. Like he really likes to get kind of be like, this isn't good enough. And she really wanted to make things nice for him. So she would try and make all these like, family desserts without any gluten and he would be like, where's the up like, where's the other desert? That's impossible to make without gluten. So it was like, kind of a I think it was mostly a joke. Like I think he thought it was funny to be like, Rob, I hate celiac disease. But yeah, it really pissed him off.

Scott Benner 4:26
Make me bread that tastes like bread. Dammit. Do it now. Yeah, like

Margaret 4:30
bread like he was he was he's like figured it out. But yeah, he was he would get mad thing. Oh to Italian. He'd be like, what's it like?

Scott Benner 4:36
What's the point of this? Do you think I'm the only one excited to get old so that I can be like that? Oh,

Margaret 4:42
I think it'll be awesome. Like, he was so cool. We went on a family trip. And he we went like we went to Greece and we went up the Acropolis and we were he was like, kind of walking around and we asked him what his favorite part was. And he was like, walking through other people's pictures and ruining them. And he was so like, he was like old. He's almost windy. So everyone was just like, oh, this man is tottering around and he's no, he's walking through their pictures on purpose to ruin the pictures.

Scott Benner 5:11
It's the nicest story I've ever heard in my life. That's wonderful. Excellent. So you realize that that's an autoimmune issue. You have one now, but you were saying when the doctor asked you, I don't know. Anybody else has diabetes in my family. Yeah. Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about what led you to go to a doctor?

Margaret 5:30
Yeah, it was kind of like, it's a little bit of a two parter story. Like I went to the doctor when I got diagnosed for like, a physical like, I went to get a pap smear. And, and but I was having I had been having like, long distance vision stuff. And I had gone to the doctor, and they were like, are the eye doctor and they're like, you're watching too much TV. It's fine. And I was like, yep, that checks out. Great. I'm watching too much TV. And, and then I went to my family doctor who's really awesome. And he was like, that seems weird. Let's just like, you know, let's just do some bloodwork. Just for kicks, let's let's do it. Let's see if there's anything going on. And then he called me the next day and was like, Hey, I'm the lab technician called me in the middle of the night, your blood sugar is 38. And I was like, I looked it up for conversion purposes. It's like 684. And he was like, Do you have any symptoms of diabetes? And I was like, Man, I don't think so.

Scott Benner 6:28
anymore. Is that Yeah,

Margaret 6:30
like, seems weird. And he was like, Well, you know, go and get your blood sugar tested again. It might have just been a fluke, get your agency tested, and we'll see. And, and then I was he kind of told me what the symptoms were. And then I thought about it and was like, you know, yeah, like, I have been drinking a lot of water. But there's a ret radiator right next to my bed and my, it makes my house really hot and dry. So it's just really hot and dry. And I have been peeing a lot. But, you know, I've been drinking a lot of water. So I've been peeing a lot. And I also like, hadn't been feeling great. But I had a really just a really not great year, the year before leading up to diabetes, like I had a friend pass away and a really bad apartment fire. And I was working out of town while these things were happening. So I just like didn't have a ton of time to process any of that. So it just kind of left me with like, a lingering in the background not feeling great. So I was just like, Yeah, I'm not feeling great, but like this year was really terrible. So anyway, but I called the doctor back and was like, I have been having some symptoms. And he was like, you know, maybe just like, go to the hospital and see if they'll give you insulin and then you can just leave and I was like, Okay, that seems like a reasonable plan. And then I will

Scott Benner 7:53
slow down with hindsight. You look back on that. You're like, what am I right? Like, maybe a little bit yeah, okay. Yeah. And you're talking to a real doctor right? Not like and I don't mean to be ham fisted about this, but like a polar bear with a phone or something like that. Like you're in Canada. I don't know what part are, you know,

Margaret 8:10
he's a great doctor. He was a like, has been a lovely Doctor throughout the years. But yeah, retrospectively, I'm not going to get not very good advice.

Scott Benner 8:20
Are you telling me that back before you were sick? He was a great doctor. And then when you needed an actual help, he got shaky.

Margaret 8:27
No, I don't even think that it was that I think he just thought it was so weird. Because it was such a high blood sugar to be not having really intense symptoms. That I think he was like, he didn't I don't think he thought that that was really what was going on. Like I think there was still a part of his mind. That was like your, we're going to test you again. And that's going to be a mistake and you won't have diabetes. You are, by the

Scott Benner 8:51
way are so lovely and Canadian. We've only been talking for eight minutes. If I tried for the next hour and a half. You would not say anything bad about that person. That's amazing. It's just it's like you're Midwestern. But without that accent were you because Why are you not following an on party candidate? Are you in ish?

Margaret 9:07
Um, Toronto? I'm sure I will. I'll give you I'll give you an A I'm sure. I say all the time.

Scott Benner 9:14
You put the R in Toronto, so I was pretty uplifted by that. Well, I'm glad I'm glad to give service this morning. But you know, it's t o r. But yes, a lot of you want to say T are like on toe Yes. Toronto like that. Yeah, don't worry. I mispronounced every word. And here I am like I'm aware of it when other people do it but when I do it I'm like I don't hear it. Water hilarious. So okay, so well meaning doctor sends you to the to the to the hospital. You get there and

Margaret 9:45
yeah, I got there I sent me emergencies and he also again not that I'm thinking about it. I'm like this was weird advice. But he was like, just don't any eat any foods that are high on the GI index and I was like okay, so My roommate came with me and we brought a bunch of like almonds and apples. And it was just sort of depressing. Like, we were just there's like a vending machine and we couldn't eat any chips. I was like, this sucks. And then

Scott Benner 10:13
we realized, you know, the glycemic index before you had diabetes? No, I googled it and was like, um, I think that's just right. Like, I don't really Canadian Internet had all that information.

Margaret 10:24
I mean, yes. I mean, it's the same internet. I mean, I don't know maybe it's not it only ever used Canadian internal Margaret,

Scott Benner 10:31
this is gonna be so much fun. You're not hearing my sarcasm either. We're gonna have such a good time. Okay. All right. Okay. So you're, oh, my gosh. So you're at the hospital eating your bird food, and what happened? Sorry.

Margaret 10:46
And then I got my blood sugar tested again. And there was a lot of like, I think they were confused, because I'm an adult, obviously. And, but I'm like, quite tall and quite thin. So you know, stereotypically I don't present as somebody with type two. But then when they tested my blood sugar, it had come down to about a 15. So they were like, you don't need to be here at first, like, that's a totally reasonable number for someone with diabetes. And I was like, No, I don't have diabetes. And they were like, oh, but you have diabetes. And then they admitted me, I think, just to kind of like, get my blood sugar lower and did some sort of, like, brought you sort of pamphlets and stuff to explain what's going on. And I think the reason I was in there for five days was that they couldn't figure out what my doses were, I think their expectation was, they would give me insulin, and it would go way down, but that just it just sort of didn't stabilize for a while. Yeah, it was weird. I had some people who were very, very lovely. And you kind of had a variety of doctors throughout the time, and some of them were so lovely. And we're kind of like you, this isn't gonna change your life, you're going to be totally fine. Like, this is just gonna be something you have to manage. And then I had a couple other people like this one man came in, and I was only eating the hospital food. And he was like, you really got to bring your blood sugar down. And I was like, Okay. How would you suggest I go about doing that? And he was like, well stop eating so much pizza and ice cream. And I was like, I've only eaten your sandwiches. And then obviously, I started to cry. And he got so uncomfortable and was just like, Oh, I didn't mean but yeah, it was it was like a mixed. It was a mixed bag for sure.

Scott Benner 12:46
He wasn't a hospital employee. He was a nurse. Yeah. Oh, and he just led with stop eating pizza and ice cream. But you weren't eating pizza and ice cream.

Margaret 12:55
No and annoyingly leading up like the month before I was diagnosed, I was doing my friend and I decided we were going to do like a really healthy month and like cut out all sorts of sugar and stuff. So I had been eating like, not good food, like like salads all month. And so I was so mad cuz it was like, I haven't I haven't eaten any treats. In a really long time. This is so annoying.

Scott Benner 13:23
Plus, you don't understand sarcasm and you're lovely. So people should not be picking on you. You don't I mean?

Margaret 13:29
Yes. I mean also it was kind of awesome. Like I I wrote a note down in my phone of all the crazy things people said because it just I also had it was just so funny. Like it was like you're saying like, I had one nurse who just said some wild things like she, what did she say she at one point, she was like, I dated someone with diabetes, and they had a heart attack at 45. And I was like, why are you telling me this? Like, so crazy.

Scott Benner 13:55
Hey, you're not doing much for the Canadian healthcare system?

Margaret 14:00
Or yeah, I guess not. I was like, by experience was great. And I'm thinking about it like that. Was this happen

Scott Benner 14:05
right there in Toronto? Yep. In Toronto. Oh, I see. Okay, so not up in the hinterland or anything like that. No, you weren't in let me let me test my knowledge. The Yukon that's a place in Canada, right?

Margaret 14:22
No, sorry. I was not in the Yukon. It was not in the Yukon but actually. I brief I have lived there I worked there I was a can can dancer there for five months.

Scott Benner 14:34
Whoa, okay. Everyone's slow down. First of all, we just skipped over the fact that I think I was right that the Yukons in Canada. All right. Yeah. Yukon is in Canada. I want some credit for that. And then the second thing is Kent Kent camp, like kick dancing like guns.

Margaret 14:51
Yeah, like like jump and kick and toss your skirt around in a bar in a casino, which isn't better.

Scott Benner 14:59
Isn't better. There's so there's a casino in the Yukon.

Margaret 15:05
Yeah, it's actually the oldest casino definitely in Canada. I think maybe in North America. Definitely in Canada.

Scott Benner 15:13
How do you get the whale blubber into the slot on the slot machine to play?

Margaret 15:18
You have to push it really hard and it makes a big mess. So okay,

Scott Benner 15:21
you so when you were younger, I'm guessing. Yes. You you went to the Yukon edge? I mean, we can just say shook your ass, right? Like for for people basically. Yeah. And how long did you do that for?

Margaret 15:36
Five months?

Scott Benner 15:37
Can I be honest with you? I wish that my ass was such that someone would be interested to look at it if it was shaking. But I have a very, very flat butt. So I don't think this is gonna happen. You know, when you look at

Margaret 15:53
it, just like I was. I don't know. Like mostly, but particularly No, it was also on the flat side realistically at the time.

Scott Benner 16:00
You also said you were tall. Now I'm challenging you how tall were you? Are you

Margaret 16:05
five foot nine?

Scott Benner 16:06
Oh, you're tall. Good for you? Yeah, heights. No. Yeah. All right. You said thank you. You're like, Yes, I am tall. Thank you.

Margaret 16:12
I am indeed. And I did it all myself

Scott Benner 16:14
by myself. I made it happen from a young age. I decided I was gonna be tall. And I worked hard at it. Okay, what did you go to? Did you go to college? Yeah. For what?

Margaret 16:27
Musical Theater? Okay.

Scott Benner 16:29
And interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Okay, so now you have diabetes. We've gotten through the the sketchy medical advice, which you won't call sketchy medical advice. But any doctor who's like, I'm not sure if you have diabetes, but go to the hospital. Maybe they'll give you insulin. Trust me. That's dodgy advice. And so and you get there, they do the testing. I imagine they say congratulations. You have diabetes, you meet mean nurses? Who are probably well meaning but not great at communicating? What Yes, what state of mind? Do you leave the hospital in?

Margaret 17:03
Um, honestly, like I, I have a friend who has type one. And we were friends before I was diagnosed. And he's also in musical theater. And we had worked together and we were the kind of friends were like, We got along really well. But we weren't super close. So I didn't, I knew he had type one. And I knew he was didn't it didn't really affect his life, as he presented himself other than he talked about it. So and he had an omni pod. And so in my mind, I was like, oh my god, this is like this is he's, this is not a big deal at first. Because I like when I was first in the hospital. And because I was like, Oh, just get an AMI paddle, stick it on my arm and then like be this will be awesome. And and then they started explaining carb counting and everything to me. And I was like, what, like, he's been doing this this whole time. This is insane. Like, this is so much work. But that was really helpful. Because I had somebody who was I knew and they just did everything that I wanted to do. And also, this is a bit weird. But I've been I've like somebody who kind of my whole life has been a hypochondriac and not in like a cute fun way. Like you know, you're really convinced you're dying and it kind of ruins your life. Oh, Margaret

Scott Benner 18:37
home what time? What would a cute fun, wavy?

Margaret 18:41
Oh, no, like a Woody Allen way where he's like, Oh, I'm so nervous about this thing. Like, I think I have a stomach ache or whatever. Like it got to me like a charming way

Scott Benner 18:50
you're on the floor like this is it? It's over?

Margaret 18:53
Yeah, like 100% I'm convinced I'm dying. And. And so I had, and I've also like, had a very nice life like my parents. Up until that point, things have gone pretty well. And I think the combination of those things kind of made me have this sense of the back of my mind that was like, well, if something horrible is going to happen at some point, like this just can't, this is something's going to happen. And probably I'm going to be diagnosed with cancer and I'm going to die. And so it it just never crossed my mind that I could be diagnosed with something and it could be manageable. You know what I mean? Like it would just you'd get something and it would be you just deal with it. And so I think my initial reaction was kind of like oh my god like this is I'm not I just have to give myself needles and like this is so manageable, this is not This is fine, like this is best case scenario in terms of being diagnosed with something you and I

Scott Benner 19:51
have more in common than I thought at first. So I I used to set these arbitrary like I had Oh, no. Ages in my head, like, you know what I mean? Like, if I make it to 21 without this happening, that'll probably never happen. If I get 30 Without getting, you know, something that'll probably never happen, like, I don't know why. And it wasn't, it's not like a real prevalent in the front of my mind kind of way of thinking. It's not obsessive or anything weird like that, but it is, like, I have, like, tucked myself into believing based on what I see around me, like, you know, my friends in their 40s You know, who were going to have heart attacks had them, you know, by the time they were like this age, so if I make it this far, that probably is good news from my heart. You have a lot of that in your head. Hmm. But yeah, totally. And so. But you had the wherewithal to say, this is all been going to easy, something's got to happen.

Margaret 20:49
Yes. 100%. That's really interesting, by the way,

Scott Benner 20:52
I agree with you. I don't think anybody gets through this unscathed. You know?

Margaret 20:57
Yeah, I mean, the thing is it like it did happen, right. But this is still kind of like, well, this is in terms of the things that could happen to you. This really isn't the worst one, that's for sure.

Scott Benner 21:08
No, no, I agree with you. I really do. What, how do you make a living? Like, what do you do day to day?

Margaret 21:17
That's a great question. Um, before the pandemic, I was a musical theater, actor and performer. So I would, I have a dance background, like I did competitive dance growing up. So I would do musicals, basically, to make money. And then once the pandemic hit, all my contracts obviously got canceled because you can't gather with people have so since then, I've been doing a little bit of like film and TV stuff, and then working. I worked at a bakery for a while. And then now I'm working at a barbecue restaurant and an antique store.

Scott Benner 21:56
Oh, okay. Do you think you'll get back to the performing thing?

Margaret 22:00
Yeah, that's the plan. It's starting to open up a bit. And hopefully once we just don't you know, sir, that's my blood sugar. Oh, girl. Um, is that low? That's high. Yeah. What do you call it? High? 8.9. So like, one 161 60. Yeah.

Scott Benner 22:29
Do you know how to figure that out so quickly? Margaret,

Margaret 22:31
do you have a converter on the Juicebox Podcast website?

Scott Benner 22:35
I do. Is it juicebox podcast.com. Forward slash conversion. Margaret. Good job. Thank you. I'm considering calling this episode Yukon as shaker.

Margaret 22:49
Oh my god. I mean, that would be I would sound way cooler than I am. So that would be sick. And only tell everyone I don't

Scott Benner 22:55
think I can use the word ask the title I'm gonna have to go with but and you're a former wouldn't be funny if it was UConn but shaker and then in parentheses, former after former, like, well, not as good but close. Well, listen, that bakery closes down. And you might I mean, I gotta go back. You might be up there. Yeah. You understand that? In my mind? You were dancing for like, gold miners, right?

Margaret 23:20
You're gonna be thrilled because that was sometimes the case. Really? Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:24
I am thrilled. How did you know? I'd be thrilled. That's amazing.

Margaret 23:29
Yeah, it was like it was there was kind of a tourist season. So sometimes it would be older people who went on cruises, and then sometimes it would be sort of forest fires, forest firefighters and miners, which was a weird contrast for sure.

Scott Benner 23:44
But yeah, please tell me that at least once in your life, a toothless man with a scraggly beard through a nugget of gold at you and said shake that thing, honey.

Margaret 23:53
Oh, I wish it was that. It was mostly just people not quite like that intensely rugged looking. But they didn't have gold nuggets. They just they had like casino chips. But we did get casino chips thrown at the stage.

Scott Benner 24:08
That's the meaning. But I I'm sorry. I didn't realize as I said it. I was like, Oh, that's a hard if you but you were probably like, throw the chip like you need the chips. Right? You're like, come on.

Margaret 24:19
I mean, it was a little weird. Not weird, but like, I mean, yes. The answer is yes. We didn't get to keep them. So that was annoying. They had to go in like a pot for everybody. But it was a little bit strange. Like I it it. It did kind of you felt like you were a stripper and I was like, this is interesting. Like I didn't intend to be a stripper and now I get to kind of see what this feels like and do I like it or not?

Scott Benner 24:46
What was the answer to that question, Margaret?

Margaret 24:47
I think it was no, okay. Um, I think sometimes it was valid, validating sometimes I was like, Yeah, I am so hot that you're throwing your chips at me. And then other times It was like, this feels a little I don't feel I feel kind of degraded.

Scott Benner 25:03
It's possible my grandfather would not be okay with this. Yeah, he would be like, I don't know what he would say, well, he just walking in between the dancing and the chipping and just wander around like he was lost. I would imagine I get in

Margaret 25:14
people's photographs be like, where's the gluten free bread?

Scott Benner 25:18
That's it. By the way, I find all this very interesting. I hope other people do too. Okay, so it wasn't as easy as putting it on the pot on your arm. But did you get an insulin pump?

Margaret 25:31
I don't have an insulin pump yet. No.

Scott Benner 25:33
Okay, so what How's management been going? Are you wearing a CGM? Yeah, obviously, you are we heard a beeping. And it's beeping. So you're using Dexcom.

Margaret 25:43
I'm not using Dexcom. The I don't have private insurance. So I do my insurance through the there's like a Canadian government program that lets you get prescriptions and right now they cover the libre sensors, but they don't cover the Dexcom which is very annoying. So I've bought one of the like a meow meow like thing that you stick on top of your libre and turn it into a CGM.

Scott Benner 26:10
Gotcha. So you have libre. And then there's this like third party thing you kind of put on it that gives you more access to real time stuff. Yeah,

Margaret 26:19
it gives you alerts and alarms basically. And and it's the graph style is kind of the same of the ducks as the Dexcom. Like it's little dots. Whereas the Libra is just an arrow and an eye the dots are it's so helpful.

Scott Benner 26:31
Yeah, okay. Okay. So it's, um, right to say it's a third party thing though, right? It's like from a private company. Okay. Yeah. All right. And you're doing that with MDI. So yeah, how's that going? Like, where's your where's your care at? Are you trying to make adjustments or are you good with yourself like, where yet

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Margaret 31:31
Podcast would say I'm pretty unhappy with my I don't know I'd say like I'm solidly intermediate level I want to get a pump. I honeymooned I'm pretty sure for about two years. So there I didn't have a lot of the background fluctuations that I have now just with like period hormones. And that in protein rises like that just didn't come into play. So it was it was I was low more than I wanted to be. But it was pretty chill. Like I had an agency in the in the fives consistently. But now that that's ended, it's just a it's my last day when she was six. So I'm happy with that. But it's more work than I think it needs to be.

Scott Benner 32:17
I say, so. Are you listening? Have you been listening to podcasts for long? Yeah, yeah, I do. Listen, so you're bumping and nudging, and you're too involved? You're saying?

Margaret 32:27
Yeah, it's just I feel like I'm having to adjust a lot and, and I ended up playing catch up a lot. Because I want to be able to just, I find that I'm more insulin resistant, is sort of when I'm ovulating and then more insulin sensitive by kind of a lot when I'm on my period. And but I haven't tracked it. So I don't have like a precise knowledge of when that starts and when it ends. So I'm I'll give myself my Lantis. And then that period will kick in, and I'll be like, Oh, no, I need more. But then there's a moment where you're like, maybe it's just today because I'm I'm gonna wait. And then you're spending sort of two, three days playing catch up. And then it by the time you've got it kind of right in, you're like, yeah, now I can be more aggressive, then it switches into more sensitive time, and then you're low all day. And you're like, Well, I don't want to do that again. And so it just, it's just, I feel like it's more work than it needs to be

Scott Benner 33:24
a number of period tracking apps allow you to make notes day to day where you could just easily write like, you know, sensitive or, you know, resistant or whatever words you decide to use, or take little notes about how meals went, I bet you in a month. I mean, I bet if you did it for two months, you you'd have something you could start comparing and maybe you could start seeing some similarities to distances of time between, you know, ovulation, the event and other things like that. Possible. I mean, it's worth an effort. I mean, you're totally, you're just is Canada ever going to open back up? Or is it?

Margaret 34:05
That's a great question. I think so I'm hopeful soon that we're going to start going back to somewhat normal. Yeah,

Scott Benner 34:13
cuz I went to a play like two months ago, just so you know.

Margaret 34:16
Yeah. It's, it's, it's very wild. I have a couple of friends who live in the States and like, what this is just, it's like an alternate reality or something like I don't I don't know. It's very strange.

Scott Benner 34:27
I believe I learned yesterday that a number of like northeast states are dropping mask mandates for kids at school in the next four weeks. And I mean, like I said, I had to wear a mask but I mean, I saw To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway and it was a packed house. And you know, I assume I assume you'll get back to it eventually.

Margaret 34:47
Yeah, I think so. It's, I think part of the trick. This is maybe boring, but I think part of the trick up here is just we don't have the money, like the Canadian theatre scene is, is just operates on pretty tight I mean, theater always kind of operates on a tight margin, but we operate on a very tight margin. And so you can't, if you want to do a musical with 25 people, that's a lot of people to pay. And you kind of need to guarantee that you can have a bunch of people in the audience. And because we were just more intense about keeping things a little bit more locked down, and things have kind of opened up and shut back down. I think they're just nervous about doing anything like that.

Scott Benner 35:28
Yeah. So you get the production up on its feet. And then something happens. And now you owe people money, and you don't have any ticket sales. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I saw I mean, Jeff Daniels was in mind. So there was, there was some costs to seeing the affair. I got those tickets as a Christmas gift. Awesome. Nice gift. Yeah. And I knew I was I was gonna get, I knew I was going to be in a good seat. Because when my wife handed them to me, she's like, just don't check into how much they cost. And I was like, okay, she's like, just let's just go to the play and have a good time. And we saw his last performance, which was really, oh, that's so cool. It's really lovely. And nice. It was a great, it was a great play. It's a great play for all of you who can't see it now, because the actor is no longer in it. So, all right, well, are you? Do you date? Do you have anybody in your life? Or do you live with a roommate? Anything like that?

Margaret 36:24
I live by myself. I do date. But I don't have a partner.

Scott Benner 36:28
Gotcha. How is dating with diabetes?

Margaret 36:33
Oh, it's hard. Mostly because like the the diabetes itself is fine. Like the the telling people is totally fine. But I always get adrenaline before the date. And I keep making plans to have like nice foods. And then I don't I have my blood sugar goes high. And I don't want to Bolus for because I don't want to go low. Like it's just I it's like a moment when I'm like, Oh man, like this is really interrupts the enjoyment of a date sometimes.

Scott Benner 37:11
So sure. So like on a first date, you feel like me see if I'm following this correctly, you get anxious because it's a first date. And you're going to tell somebody you tell them right away. You have diabetes? Oh, yeah. Okay. And you're gonna tell somebody have diabetes right away? And is there a thought in your head? Like, maybe I'll get rejected because of this? I

Margaret 37:29
mean, if they rejected me, I'd be like, great, you know, because we'd some out faster. Yeah, we'd demote faster for sure. And also, it's like, well, I have diabetes. So if you if you don't want to date someone with diabetes, and you don't want to date me, because it's not like, I can pretend that I don't have it. Well, we date,

Scott Benner 37:47
right. So okay, so that's in your head, your blood sugar kind of jumps up, but then you think, if I Bolus I don't also don't want to get low in front of this person? Yes. Do you have a lot of anxiety around that? I'm getting

Margaret 38:01
low. Um, sometimes I really feel my lows, which is great. But I don't like being low in front of people, because it just feels really vulnerable. And also, like, you're in an altered state. And, like, you can kind of like see somebody, especially people who I'm, I know, like, I've, you know, people that I know, well, but I met a really close to me, but I haven't spent that much time with them since being diagnosed. So they've never seen me low before. And it's, it's it is a weird, like, they just kind of like they look at you weird and are like, because you can, and you don't really know that you're talking in a high pitched voice or behaving strangely, but you are. And they're kind of looking at you strangely, and it just feels really vulnerable. And I don't, it's not great.

Scott Benner 38:56
Yeah. Plus, your perception is probably off too. So it's probably intensified, I would imagine. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. That's not something that people talk about very often. So in order to not feel like that, or to be like that around other people. You may make decisions about your care that you wouldn't normally make. Yeah, totally. But but when you normally Bolus for anger, like first, like stressful situation, do you get low afterwards? Or is it just the fear?

Margaret 39:25
I will get low afterwards. If it's if it's, if it's adrenaline. I also often get like, you know, I'll get adrenaline around doing an audition or doing a show sometimes. But I don't want to Bolus for that because usually those environments are like cardio environments. So it will bring it back down. But then a date obviously. So then it's a little hard to tell because it'll sometimes will go low, but that's because of the cardio whereas the date is different, like I guess actually don't I haven't really thought about this. I don't usually go low. In a date, it would just be there

Scott Benner 40:09
the whole time. Yeah. So we're learning it is exciting to date.

Margaret 40:14
Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I

Scott Benner 40:17
mean, I want to take it away from diabetes for a second. Like it's such a great barometer for stuff that normal people, that normal people, that's not what I meant, people normally go through that you don't get to see because they don't have access to their blood sugars and other internal workings. But you actually, you actually get to see your excitement or your nervousness.

Margaret 40:37
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. It's really interesting, actually, like, if you detach it from, from the frustrating parts of it that are hard. It is very interesting like I am, every time I don't get enough sleep, I'm like, Oh, my God, you need a lot of sleep like this is just so interesting how much harder it is to manage when I haven't. It's it's a it's like, that's just happening in everyone's body all the time. They have no idea. Yeah, it's very

Scott Benner 41:05
interesting how important sleep is. Also, I imagine you will be able to tell if you don't like a date, right? Because if your blood sugar doesn't go up, you're probably sitting there thinking like, Oh, this isn't too exciting. Yeah, I don't care that much, apparently. So, Margaret, just for clarity, because you're older. And if your parents share this, they hear this. Are you basically sitting there thinking like, I'm never gonna have sex with this guy. So it's not exciting. How quickly to women judge that that's my real question.

Margaret 41:33
Upon? That's a great question. I don't necessarily think I'm a great example, because I am. I like very much need some sort of, I mean, maybe I am exactly the right example. But I need some sort of, like, emotional connection before I really want to have sex with somebody in that way where you're like, yeah. But I don't know. I feel like there's like, two parts of it. I don't know, like, there's like two parts of it when you're on a date, right? There's like, how attractive is this person? How attractive do I find this person? And then there's the like, what's their personality like, and those barometers can kind of go up and down and change how interested you are in the person. See

Scott Benner 42:17
now that there's for sometimes men will like if men meet, like women they find attractive, and then the woman says nothing for an hour. Guys can pretty much ignore that. But you can't ignore that like so. A handsome boy who? I'm sorry, we never like really hammered through that. But Boys, boys and girls, okay, okay, so a handsome person. And then then you look at and you're like, Oh, God, they're totally boring. And then it doesn't matter.

Margaret 42:44
Yeah, I mean, it'll be fine. It'll, I'll be I'll be fine with it for like two or three dates, and then it will just become too obvious. I'm like, no, okay, I'm sorry, this, this isn't gonna happen.

Scott Benner 42:55
Gotcha. It takes a couple of dates. That's it. So you don't have like a, you don't walk into a room ever and be like, ah, there's a wasted night. You don't?

Margaret 43:05
I mean, sometimes really? Okay. Yeah, yeah, there have been some dates that I've been like, oh, no, that was Gotcha. But usually at least they're funny. So that's worth something

Scott Benner 43:16
to tell them. What do you just like? How does How do you stop? Like, because you're at a really interesting age. Like you're, you're, you know, you're not young, and you're not old? Yes. 100%, right, which is just, it's a really interesting age. So you don't you're not looking to waste time, but you have some time to waste. So you meet a person you like them, like as a person, but you're not interested them as a partner? And how do you like, like, Is there something you do to make that clear? Or do you just let it kind of drift away? Or how does that work?

Margaret 43:46
Um, depends on the person, I'll usually pretty be pretty clear. If it, yeah, if I know that it's not going to go anywhere, I'll usually send them a text message just along the lines of like, Hey, thank you so much. I think we'd better be better off friends. But no, thank you. And then we just generally don't actually stay friends.

Scott Benner 44:08
Yeah, I don't see why you would like, yeah, it's not called a friend finder that you're on. Yeah. No. They have all this technology in Canada, too. It's amazing. You know, internet and like applications for your phones stuff. Oh, yeah, we

Margaret 44:23
have so many applications that we can use various dating apps,

Scott Benner 44:29
so many applications that you can use. I am having a good time talking to you. I don't know if we've talked about anything yet. But I'm like, what are we talking about? I don't know you were talking about everything you say that I find interesting. More boys or girls or does it not matter?

Margaret 44:50
Um, lately, it's been more girls. But that's more because for a while it was only boys. So I'm like, I want to date all the girls because that's interesting to me

Scott Benner 44:59
to balancing it out. Oh, yeah, gotcha. Do you think about having kids?

Margaret 45:04
I do. I this is I don't I really don't know. And, and 30 is a bit old to still be like, I really don't know. So yeah, that's, that's the answer to that.

Scott Benner 45:18
Yeah, but I really don't know. But I don't know. Yeah. So you're not sure? Would it matter? I guess it wouldn't matter, right? Like, it wouldn't matter if you like, what if you got really serious with a boy versus a girl or girl versus boy, like, he's just the way you would have a baby would change. But it's not like the desire? I wouldn't imagine. I think it

Margaret 45:38
would matter a little bit, just because it would be harder, like, you know, with the with your dating a boy, it's like, quite easy.

Scott Benner 45:46
Yeah, I've been involved in it.

Margaret 45:48
I imagine, you know, firsthand experience painful. It's like you have all you need to make the thing happen, you know what I mean? Whereas if you're dating, it's two girls. There's just a question of like, where do you get the sperm? And how do you get it and what, like, there's just, it just becomes, it has to be so much more of a design decision. So I mean, I think in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn't make a difference. But

Scott Benner 46:13
can I can I share something with you? Yes, there's an episode that's going to come out soon that will, in hindsight to listen to this be months and months before anybody hears yours. Where a person talking about in vitro says back she said back when sperm was cheap, she said it? She said it like it was like, I don't know. Like it just was like it was a normal sentence that people spoke all the time.

Margaret 46:43
Correct. It sounds like like an apocalypse situation where it's like sperm is the currency or something.

Scott Benner 46:51
Yeah, I dined. Like, I'm actually I want to make it the title of the episode, but I think it's possible no one will listen to it. I don't know. But it's just it enthralled me when she said it. And we were not having a particularly like uplifting conversation. But it was just, it was just kind of hilarious. Anyway, backwards, sperm was cheap. There's no way that's going to be the title of the episode, but it damn well should be. Yeah, I take your point, though. And so but you don't have a real preference, right? Do you?

Margaret 47:21
Not really, I think at this point, it's probably women, but it's like it's shifted. Touch many times

Scott Benner 47:28
I hear you. Well, are your parents alive? They are. Yeah. Okay. Are they very involved in your diabetes?

Margaret 47:36
No. You know what I say that I take that back, they are really, really involved in emotionally supporting me around diabetes. Like they have listened to me talk about it. So so much and retrospectively and like way too much like that must have been so annoying to listen to me talk about it so much. But in terms of the management, they're really not involved.

Scott Benner 48:04
Okay. You think that's because you just didn't grow up in the house with it. But so you're seeing from them, like a desire to be involved, but no real way because you don't live with them? Yeah. Okay. Do they follow what you tell them? Do you think? Do they remember it? Like,

Margaret 48:22
yeah, yeah, I think so. They definitely do and not my mom will be like, what's your insulin to carb ratio? Now, sometimes I'm like, that's nice mom. The only thing? Yeah, they generally do. The only thing they have trouble with is is is Pre-Bolus times like, I'll go to their house for dinner. And it you know, they'll tell me, it's ready in 15 minutes, and I'm like I have there. I cannot trust you. There's no way it will be ready. And I have no idea what time it will actually be ready, but it will not be 15 minutes. But other than that, they're like, they definitely know. What's they couldn't manage it for me? Right? I'm definitely not. But they do retain what I'm saying.

Scott Benner 49:07
Gotcha. Okay. Well, that's nice. Did Does that feel good knowing that they're trying to be involved? Yeah,

Margaret 49:12
they are. Definitely. Yeah, it feels really nice. It's like they're very, very supportive, in all the ways the only thing that it it would be like, I know that I'm the only person who knows how to manage my diabetes. Which isn't. It's, it would be, it would be nice. It'd be reassuring to know that somebody else knew what to do.

Scott Benner 49:36
Yeah. Well, who would who could that person be for you? If you're not in a in a steady relationship? Do you think?

Margaret 49:42
I don't know.

Scott Benner 49:44
I, I'm thinking about it. I I was just trying to put myself in your position because, you know, if you're not with somebody, like that's, like, I guess living with you, basically. Yeah. Then how would they be able to see it enough to understand it? You couldn't Small Yeah, you know? So is that, is that a concern for you that in the end you, you kind of feel by yourself.

Margaret 50:07
I think a little it has been especially, especially since like, the first year that I had diabetes, for a good chunk of it I was working with, I was doing shows with this friend of mine who has type one. And so that was awesome. Because you, he could just be like, he just helped me so so much. And there was someone there to just who knew what to do. Like, I felt like you just feel safer with people who really understand what, what to do. And then when I came back to Toronto, and was with my friends who were here, they don't know anything about diabetes, and and also hadn't lived with me for the first year. So they hadn't like been around me as someone with diabetes before. And so that was tricky. I felt more alone in that situation, because I think they also they just didn't it's you know, it's complicated. And so they just didn't really understand like that there were things that a year and I didn't at all know what to do, or like how to do. Because I think they were just like, well, you've got it figured out now and it's fine. And it's all just not a thing. That's not really how works. And it's just so hard to explain to anyone who doesn't have to like really explain.

Scott Benner 51:35
Yeah, so you basically left them as a person who didn't have type one and reappeared in their life as a person with diabetes. Yes. And that's awkward, I imagine. Yeah. Did people handle it? Okay.

Margaret 51:49
I think so. Um, I don't know, it was hard. It was just like, they just, they were so supportive and lovely, for the most part, my close friends. But it's just a reality of really, like, they just really didn't understand what would be a problem and what would not

Scott Benner 52:09
right. Yeah, there's no way to in how would you

Margaret 52:11
ever know, and I didn't, I didn't express it, because I was kind of too caught up in the problem. You know what I mean? Like, I was like, Oh, my god, how am I going to this is a problem rather than being like, hey, it would be helpful if we we had a, like a Halloween gathering last year. And at the time, it was kind of coming out of the honeymoon period. So my blood sugar's were really all over the place. And it was really stressful. And my best friend cooked us a meal. And we were having gnocchi, but she took it took longer than she wanted it to. And so we ate gnocchi at like, midnight. And I was like, This is the worst thing that's ever happened. But I but how was she to know like, she doesn't, she didn't know that that would be a problem. And I didn't say anything. But it was a it was really, really, like I just it was so stressful and so unpleasant. And it felt like she was kind of doing something. Like it's so easy to be like you're doing this on like you are doing this to me, you are creating this scenario where I'm going to be up really late dealing with this blood sugar, but she didn't know how to do that. And I didn't say anything.

Scott Benner 53:24
Do you think? Do you think you were you reasonable? Like in your mind? Are you pissed at the time like unreasonably? Oh,

Margaret 53:32
I was totally pissed. Okay.

Scott Benner 53:36
Geez, you might have renamed the episode Nokia at midnight. It's a shame. Really, because I was really falling in love with the other one title. But he didn't even do it that long. I don't think so. The whole budgeting thing I don't even think yeah, it was only harder to do. So you have this like, do you think you well don't don't think were you low? Were you like hungry? Were you like leading up to this meal? I was hungry. I wasn't low. Okay. And it felt like an affront like this. This whole process is messing with what I need to do, even though they had no way of knowing that.

Margaret 54:16
Yes. And there's also the thing of, you know, I just wanted to have a nice time was the other thing I like I didn't want to have to it would have it would have been a lot easier to have said to them, Hey, I can we eat this not at midnight, this would be a lot easier for me, or even to just be like you should eat this at midnight. This will be wonderful for you. I will have a really small amount and I'll have a dinner a different dinner earlier. But I it Yeah, it was really like the first in the first bit of time of being back with my friends while still having diabetes. And I just didn't really want to have to ask for any accommodate Asians, like I just wanted to just do whatever everyone else was doing and not have to think about it. And then, but then when you do that, you have to deal with the consequences of that.

Scott Benner 55:12
Right? Which are, there's forces around you that you're not in control of that don't know that you could really benefit from having dinner a little sooner or something. Yeah, I think that's an interesting look into a part of having diabetes that I don't I don't imagine most people would even consider, you know, when you when you stop and see the big picture, but that there's this whole dialogue going on in your head between you and your, you know, just in your to yourself about how you're being, you know, put out and how this is going to be more difficult. You don't want to have to mention it to people. But really, you should you might have been mad at yourself for not saying something, you know, very possibly. So there's, there's a lot going on, and how often do you think there are little plays in your head like this, that are unseen by other people? Like how often do you think diabetes creates those scenarios? Or is it getting better as you're with it longer?

Margaret 56:10
It's definitely getting better. It's, I mean, part of the reason it's getting better, it's just that there's less, I know what to do more. So there's less thinking about it required, like it's easier to just be able to like, Okay, this is what this is what we're eating, this is what I'm going to do, and I don't have to debate it, or wonder about it for as long

Scott Benner 56:31
so midnight dinner, not as big of a deal today as it might have been three years ago.

Margaret 56:37
Yeah. Because I would I would be like, Okay, I would know, kind of the options of what, like, I would know, my options for this outcome. You know what I mean? Like, I would be like, Okay, I eat dinner at midnight, maybe I have to stay up late, maybe it's worth it. If it's not worth it, I'll eat dinner earlier. Whereas at the time, it just felt like, oh, this thing is happening to me. And I don't want it to happen. I wish it wasn't happening. But I don't feel like I can really do anything to stop it happening this way. So now I'm just gonna deal with the outcome of it, which is, and then not really tell anyone that I'm dealing with the outcome of it, because I just want everyone to have a nice time. Yeah, and not know that that's happening. The bigger

Scott Benner 57:18
picture I'm actually fascinated by this, like bigger picture. I think it's really interesting that there can be so many dot, you know, just dialogues in your head about things around diabetes that other people would never wonder about. Like, I mean, I guess you could be sitting at a table at a restaurant, you're MDI, right. And you might be thinking, like, do I inject myself here in front of these people? Do I excuse myself and go somewhere? Like, when do I do it? Do I tell them what I'm going to do? Like, I guess that stuff is is very real. Yeah,

Margaret 57:50
it's interesting, or not interesting. But I imagine it would be different for everybody. But the there are certain things that I don't think twice about, like the injecting myself in public. I'm not concerned at all about I don't I'm not concerned about whether to tell people about it. I'm very okay with people seeing all of that. It's more of the timing and amount and, and stuff around around meals. Yeah. Like the okay, if I'd give myself this now. Like, what's better? Is it better to dose now, as soon as I order my food, and then be a little bit stressed the whole time that the food's gonna be not there within my sort of Pre-Bolus time? Or is it better to dose when the food hits the table and wait 15 minutes and have it be cold? Like, which would which scenario would I prefer here?

Scott Benner 58:47
Right? Yeah, that sucks. Can we switch gears for a second? Yeah, sure. Does. dating women make you aware of yourself more when you're dating men?

Margaret 58:56
Whoa, that's a great question.

Scott Benner 58:59
I know. I mean, thank you.

Margaret 59:03
Um, it definitely makes you aware. I'm gonna sound like such a millennial. But it makes you more aware of the gender roles in the situation. How, just like when I'm dating men. There's certain it just sort of, it's cool. I don't know it's clearer. It's more straightforward to go on a date with a man. I don't know if that would still be the be the case. But there is just an element of like, this is how I engage with men and it feels very easy. And I'm like, I know how to be on a date with a man I've been like, conditioned into me, since I was a child from watching like movies where women go on dates with men. But then, with women, I found it because I started dating women later and like in my sort of mid to late 20s. And I found it less so now. But I found it harder to get to know kind of how to behave. I'm, I also have a lot of friends who are women who I go out for drinks with. So I was like, Am I just out with my friend? No, I'm not. Am I attracted to this person? Or do I just like, having a nice chat with them? Like, do I like them as a friend? Do I like them as a romantic partner? It just felt a lot like there was fewer. There was like, no limits to what could happen, and therefore it was confusing. Do you ever

Scott Benner 1:00:31
see a behavior or an attribute in a woman that you're dating? And think to yourself? I don't like that. And I recognize that I have that attribute. Oh, yeah, for sure. Interesting. And then does that change anything? Or you just like it, because it's hard to change who you are like you don't? I mean, like, it's not like you. But it would just seem to me that it would be easier to mirror because I'm imagining that I'm irritating in 1000 different ways, right? But when I look at my wife, she's, you know, she's irritating in different ways. So I never see myself and her really, but I just found myself wondering, like, what if I saw myself in my wife? Like, would I be like, Oh, God, I do that, too. You don't eat meat more frequently? At least I don't. Yeah,

Margaret 1:01:18
yeah. No, I totally. This is funny, because people want to learn how to listen to this. But I have been dating somebody who we look a lot alike, which is really weird. And she is somebody who I notice things in her that I'm like, ooh, that's something that I noticed. That is something that I noticed in myself, and that's a negative quality. And I totally do, try and try and change it. I don't think that's necessarily because she's a woman. I think it might just be because, but also we look a lot of like, so maybe it is I don't know,

Scott Benner 1:01:55
maybe maybe maybe it hit you deeper, because you almost see yourself. That's it. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to ask any weird questions about how close you look like and whether or not like, you don't I mean, yeah, we're not gonna talk about that. Like, he doesn't feel like being with yourself, right? No, okay. All right. No, not at all. Okay. That's all do you think right? Yeah. Nevermind. You know, I mean, I could ask, but I want everybody to be able to listen. It's got to stop somewhere. You know, Margaret, I have a, you know, this is not the first time that I've interviewed somebody who's you would consider yourself bisexual,

Margaret 1:02:36
I guess. Yeah, like pansexual.

Scott Benner 1:02:39
Probably. Okay. Yeah. Well, you define those for me. So I understand I

Margaret 1:02:43
wanted to present bisexual is you're attracted to both women and men. Pansexual is you're attracted to people regardless of gender. It's like kind of a limited distinction. But like, you're not limited. It's like it's not it's a pretty subtle distinction. But yeah, I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:03:02
Would that cover? Like, if I was? If I was a transgendered man, yeah, that would cover that. Yeah, gotcha. Okay, I understand. I'm old. So in my mind, there's, you know, there's less distinctions. So not that I don't understand that there are, it's just that when I think about them, they don't pop into my head that way. You understand? It's so funny. There's an episode of the podcast that was recorded. It's one of the ones no one's ever heard. So if you've ever heard me talk about it before, I did one with a with a girl who asked me later not to aerate because her and her partner were traveling abroad, and they were literally afraid they'd be they'd be identified. I think she was giving the podcast little too much credit, but she that they'd be identified her partner was concerned because her partner, I don't, I'm not being I'm not being light hearted, but I remember words like Zim, and things like that. But this was like, a long time ago, like years and years before, like, anybody was trying to understand gender like in, in, in the world that I existed in, I guess. And so I She explained the whole thing to me. My mind was fried at the time. Yeah, but I really do wish I could air it because it's a person like trying to understand it, just new ideas. You know what I mean? It was it was I had such a hard time tracking it back then. I think I would have an easier time now. But anyway, no one's ever going to hear it because they were they were scared that they would would. There'd be some sort of retribution if people knew who they were. Anyway, I was lost in the conversation. She was explaining it and I'm just like, I could not follow and it was just I don't know. Anyway, I probably would be embarrassed by it if I heard it, but nevertheless, it

Margaret 1:04:55
is like, I don't know. I found it. It's still confusing sometimes because it's like Things that you have known, you have known or been taught or whatever for your whole life, and someone's trying to explain something to you that like, kind of fundamentally shifts thought and that is like hard for your brain to do.

Scott Benner 1:05:11
Yeah, it's the it's like the pronoun thing like my, I don't not want to do it. But it's, it doesn't happen all the time. You know what I mean? So yeah, I don't know, the it's just a weird, it's a weird situation to be in. And the older you are to the less agile your brain is, like, there's just that seriously, there's no way around that, you know, some things are just like, fried into your mind at that point. You can, like, hear it and then go, Oh, I didn't mean that. But it's, you know, that's it. It's just it's a very, yeah, it's a very interesting situation to be in. And things morph much more quickly now. And we're all aware of each other because of social media and the internet and everything before as the world morphed a 45 year old, 50 year old person didn't, they weren't even aware of it. Like they wouldn't, they would never know, you know what I mean? They'd be like, oh, there's some kids living in Toronto, they do that thing. You know what I mean? But I'm over here. And I don't know about it. And anyway, it's interesting. All right, which is better boys or girls? That's my last question. Which is easier,

Margaret 1:06:15
easier, which is easier? Boys, they're easier.

Scott Benner 1:06:19
Boys are easier than girls. Yeah. Can I say something? Yeah, I assume that because of my experiences with girls. But easier, like just less dramatic?

Margaret 1:06:34
No, I'm just just more straightforward. It's just like, I had a bit of a hard time knowing that I was not straight. Like, it took me a bit to figure it out. And so there's just some like, being like, you know, I was, like, the high school that I went to there was like, it was at the time when you were like, you're so gay is like the worst insult you can say to somebody. So there was, there's still some just like, not so much anymore. But for a long time, there was some like, okay, it's okay, that you are gay, like that took, there was a lot of like, figuring that out. And it was all sort of tied up with dating women. So it's just way more complicated, right. And also, the women that I would were was dating were kind of also doing to some degree, not all of them, but also doing that same thing. And there's the like, figuring out just how to do it was just more complicated

Scott Benner 1:07:34
there at times can be two people who are in that same state of figuring themselves out. Totally. Whereas when you're with a guy who's straight, he knows he's straight. And that's not up for debate. Yeah, okay.

Margaret 1:07:45
And it's also like, you know, your parents dated and got married, their parents dated and got married. There's just so many examples of how to do it. So it's just very easy to be like, Okay, I'm going on a date with a man. And now we go out again, it's it mean, it sounds kind of stupid. And like, it's not that complicated to go on dates, but it is more straightforward with guys than it is with girls, for sure. I found that anyway,

Scott Benner 1:08:08
I have a ton of compassion for dating in a digital age. Like I think it it can't possibly be easy.

Margaret 1:08:16
Yeah, I'm not very good at it. I will say that.

Scott Benner 1:08:18
Well, listen, you're 30 years old, and you're still using Margaret. Like, people don't call you Maggie or anything like that. Right?

Margaret 1:08:24
They do. It's just not if it's ever stuck.

Scott Benner 1:08:28
It's funny. So I while we were talking, I made it my mission to find a photo of you, which I've done.

Margaret 1:08:34
And you don't know if it's me, though, it might not be me. There's lots of Margaret. I was gonna say my last name. There's lots of Margaret Thompson's in the world. I don't mind. Well, you

Scott Benner 1:08:41
did say your last name. Yeah, that's fine. Well, first of all, Margaret, I know I found you because you're in my Facebook group. Oh, yeah. I am in your Facebook group. Yeah. So I was able to find you. And you, you know, I was trying to find out what uh, Margaret looked like. At 30. You don't I mean? Yeah, right. Because in my mind Margaret's like, it's an it's a it's like a more proper older name. Yeah, it's

Margaret 1:09:04
like an 80 year old lady name.

Scott Benner 1:09:07
But you're adorable. Like you're just a little like, you're you're you're like a you're you're a nice looking look younger person. I'm old. I don't know how to like, I can't interact with you because I don't feel creepy. But you're cute. So. And do you not look like a Margaret? That became my question that I had to ask myself and then I realized you do now look like a Margaret because I know you. Yes. Right. I mean, for now. I know you're for an hour. But I can totally see that being your name. That's all Catholic. No, like United Church. Oh, you don't sound very religious.

Margaret 1:09:42
I don't know. When when we went to church growing up like my mom, we would take us to church, but my dad's an atheist so he would stay home. And it was nice. Like I liked the singing, like the part where the guy would sort of talk about ideas but Oh, I didn't I don't know about I don't know about church.

Scott Benner 1:10:03
Do your parents know you're pansexual? Yeah. And what was that? Like? Did they were like, Did one of them go? Yeah, we know. Or was it like, oh, okay, how did it go?

Margaret 1:10:16
Um, it's funny. I retrospectively my, I probably should have made it a bit of a bigger deal. But yeah, my parents are just very lovely. Like, they're very supportive, we have a very nice relationship. So, I kind of and I had sort of started dating women, and I was like, feel weird that haven't said anything to them, but I don't really think it will matter. So I think I just told my mom, that I was going on a date with a girl and she was like, Oh, that's interesting. And that was kind of the extent of the conversation. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:10:47
nice that she disseminated that information to your father. Yes. Yeah. Would you have loved to have been there when she's like, sit down, I have to tell you something

Margaret 1:10:56
like, this is such a big deal.

Scott Benner 1:11:01
I would die to know how she put it to him.

Margaret 1:11:06
Yeah, it was probably so nicely and properly phrased. It would,

Scott Benner 1:11:09
yeah, or just the complete opposite. And it would have shocked the hell out of you. Like, I'm probably gonna bleep this out. But like, can you imagine your mom's and your father down and go, Margaret? Oh, I wish That's what she said. That is odd. or something ridiculous. You know what I mean? Horrible. Yeah. Just and then your dad just goes, all right. Oh, my God, that Wow. Sorry, I imagined it was probably dainty. And she was probably like, I need to tell you something. And I was talking to Margaret. No,

Margaret 1:11:46
I'm that what you just said, as a racing, whatever I thought would happen. And that's forever what my visual of that experience is gonna be just let it be

Scott Benner 1:11:55
that in your mind, it'll be more fun that way. Oh, it's way more fun. Yeah. Your parents could be people. You don't even realize how many siblings do you have are none. I have two brothers. Two brothers. Are they older than you? They're both younger, younger. Okay. Any of them live with your parents, though? No. Okay. All right. Yeah. I don't know your parents could be having a wild time over there. I don't know. I mean, think about your grandfather.

Margaret 1:12:17
They watch a lot of like art lectures and

Scott Benner 1:12:21
copy shows. Maybe naked. They're watching them. Oh, my God. I don't know what's happening. You don't either. I'm just saying oh,

Margaret 1:12:33
I don't. That's the problem. I don't know that that's not happening.

Scott Benner 1:12:38
I'm not gonna be happy till this podcast ends with you imagining your mother with a riding crop. That's all Oh. All right. Well, this has gone off the rails. Margaret, is there anything we haven't talked about that you wanted to?

Margaret 1:12:51
I mean, we didn't talk at all about like diabetes of musical theater,

Scott Benner 1:12:54
though. Okay. Well, go ahead.

Margaret 1:12:57
But I'm like now I don't even really know what I would want to talk about.

Scott Benner 1:13:01
I think that's my charm. Honestly, Margaret, if I'm saying one of my secrets is that, you know, I think that when people think about their diabetes, and talking about it, they come up with these very concrete, like, narratives. They're like, Well, I am in musical theater, and I have diabetes. And that's interesting. But I think that the interesting stuff about people is the stuff they don't even ever think about. So, like, if we kept talking, if you told me right now, we only have 10 more minutes to talk, Scott, I'd want to know about managing your type one, during like intimate situations. I'd want to know more about what you hide from other people, what you hide from yourself, what you wish you could just talk about out loud and why you're holding yourself back. But most people, when they think about coming on the podcast are like, well, I'll talk about the fact that I dance and I have blood sugars, and they get low sometimes, but everyone knows that already. Yeah. So I just think about it differently. But anyway, I'll talk about whatever you want. What do you want to say?

Margaret 1:14:01
No, I'm like, Well, I don't really need to talk about that. Because that's kind of it.

Scott Benner 1:14:05
Yeah. I mean, you listen to the podcast, right? Just it's exercise and set temp basals and if you are MDI, maybe, you know, there's certain things you can eat to help hold your blood sugar up while you're dancing. And I mean,

Margaret 1:14:18
yeah, I mean, that's it that really is it right?

Scott Benner 1:14:21
That's that's like, I don't know, like that's, that's in the prototype episodes. Go get an amen. Yeah, you don't need you don't need Margaret to explain how she gets to dancing.

Margaret 1:14:31
No, and I'm like, medium added at best. So don't listen to me goes to the protests. I like

Scott Benner 1:14:37
at this point. You've described your diabetes management is mediocre I think and medium. Yeah. But do you think if you had a pump, it'd be different?

Margaret 1:14:51
Yeah, I think so. Um, I also like, I think my diabetes management is is good. It's just not good. It's still a work in progress. You know?

Scott Benner 1:15:02
What do you what do you consider good? Like, what's your one say? Your last one is a six. Six is great.

Margaret 1:15:07
Yeah. And it's been the six is like it's been in the fives basically since I was diagnosed, and I've been trying to like get a little bit more wild with my food choices, so it went up a little bit,

Scott Benner 1:15:18
and you're out of your honeymoon. Now you think? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. And you have a six. I think that's terrific. Yeah,

Margaret 1:15:24
I'm like, I'm totally happy with it.

Scott Benner 1:15:25
I think you tried to get back to pizza and ice cream. So you can go find that nurse?

Margaret 1:15:29
Oh, yeah. I can be like, Listen, lady, my onesies amazing. And I'm eating all the pizza I want.

Scott Benner 1:15:37
I'll tell you what, I eat whatever I want. I gotta six. You were wrong now. Your boyfriend? What was it? She dated a guy that he died? Yeah,

Margaret 1:15:46
he was he had a heart attack. And he had diabetes. really awful. Actually, like, that's terrible.

Scott Benner 1:15:50
All right, that's really any health care worker who thinks that that's a good way to approach a newly diagnosed person is off their rocker. That's just ridiculous. Although in every walk of life, people say things that I'm stunned by all the time. You know, it's just, it's hard to think and communicate, people aren't great at it. But what are you gonna do? You're gonna live, you're going to work in that bakery until they open things back up, you're gonna get back to doing what you love doing? And then you're gonna get on with yourself. Yeah. What kind of you bake in the bakery? Or do you sell in the bakery? We sell in the bakery? Do you guys make this stuff there? Or do you buy it and just repurpose it?

Margaret 1:16:31
Um, some of it, we repurpose it, you know, I do, but it's funny. We bake like the cookies there. The rest of the stuff comes from kind of a central bakery where they're very good at baking, we just kind of scooped cookies out and bake them on a tray.

Scott Benner 1:16:48
Took baking for three years in high school. Oh, my God,

Margaret 1:16:51
are you good baker?

Scott Benner 1:16:52
I am. It's a skill I don't get to use very often. But here's what happened. I hated school. Like with a burning passion. I did not like being in school. And we were leaving Middle School, which is probably not what you call it. But it was like my eighth year of school, eighth, ninth year of school, depending I guess, if you count kindergarten, and getting up to high school, which I don't know what they call that in Canada. But there were, there was the opportunity to go to, you know, like, there's like an industrial school where you can learn a trade, I guess they would call that trade school. And I had no interest in it, we were in a, you know, like in an auditorium being told about all of our possibilities for high school. And I was not paying attention. And this person explained the schedule for trade school in the schedule was this two weeks of high school, solid than two solid weeks of trade school than two weeks of high school than two solid weeks of trade school. And I quickly did that math and thought, well, if High School is three years long, and I go to trade school, high school is now only a year and a half long, and it's broken up into week increments. And that seemed very doable to me. So I went to the, you know, they walked us around the trade school, and you could go through every class and see which every class was to your liking, small engine repair, there was hair care, there was like, you know, there were all these different things. And at the end of the day, I just chose where the most girls were, and took that

Margaret 1:18:28
is a good strategy.

Scott Benner 1:18:29
It's all anything I had. So I mean, because I didn't care. I didn't, I wasn't I didn't want to go to trade school. I wanted to not go to high school for three solid years, or to you know, so I just I literally just I got home, I had the form of my hand, I thought there were a lot of attractive girls in the bakery. And I honestly, I made the decision probably the same way you would Margaret. And I, and I, and I, my mom's like you care about that. I'm like, I'm a pretty decent Cook, it'll be okay. And then I learned how to bake over the next three years, but it like large scale, like not a cinnamon bun, but 1000s of cinnamon buns and not a loaf of bread, but hundreds of pounds of loaves of bread. And I learned how to bake on a large scale.

Margaret 1:19:14
That's very cool. That's like probably the best decision you could have made because you have an actual skill that you're going to use. And you got to chat to lots of ladies like That sounds great.

Scott Benner 1:19:25
I made a absolute crazy good pancake the other day. So I was really good. Like it's it's one of those cakes. It sits in the house and people pick at it until it gets stale. And then we just shove it into the trash. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do have that skill and the girls were fun. So and by fun, I mean fun in the most inappropriate way. So it was a good time. I got suspended once for being in the ladies bathroom. Oh my god. Other than that it went okay. Yeah, it was fine. Margaret is a different world. You know what I mean? You don't know because you know Oh,

Margaret 1:20:00
I don't I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:20:01
You really don't know. Yeah, it was a personal relationships were measured differently in the 80s. There were there were, I'll tell you about it. We're done recording. Anyway. Do you have anything else? Are you good?

Margaret 1:20:16
No, I think I'm good. I totally understand because I, you know, I listen to the podcast. And I totally understand why people are like, I don't even know what we talked about afterwards. I don't know what all we talked about.

Scott Benner 1:20:27
Now, you're in my mind, it's moving slightly faster than it should be. So it's a it's good times. How long have you been listening to this show?

Margaret 1:20:35
Um, a while, like, I think I started listening maybe a month or two after I was diagnosed.

Scott Benner 1:20:40
Oh, wow. And how'd you find it?

Margaret 1:20:43
Oh, I joined like a type one diabetes athlete Facebook group, like shortly after being diagnosed. And just for like, management tips. And someone had posted I actually remember this. So clearly some woman, there's a woman who was managing her granddaughter. And she was like, what I do when I want to have a cupcake is I watched the Dexcom line and I wait to see when it dips. And then I have the cupcake. And I was like, That is so cool. And then in that same comment post, they're like, you want more like, it wasn't like this, but it was kind of like you want more tips like this, check out the Juicebox Podcast and I was like, great. I'll I'll check out the Juicebox Podcast. And then yes, I had a 20 minute walk to work at the time. So I just listened to it whenever I was walking to work, and I

Scott Benner 1:21:31
captured your imagination here your

Margaret 1:21:34
your I Am. Yeah. Well, thank

Scott Benner 1:21:35
you to all the people who so unabashedly pimped the podcast for me, I really appreciate that. Thank you. You found Margaret, and now Margaret's here and think who you'll find next. A year from now we can be having another scintillating conversation with someone who was found the exact same way. Listen to me, I'm marketing now for myself. Alright, I'm gonna let you go. But hold on a second. And I'll tell you how we interacted as children in the 80s. Okay. All right.

Huge thanks to Margaret for coming on the show and sharing her story. And thanks to Dexcom and the Dexcom G six, head to dexcom.com forward slash juice box to get started. I'd also like to thank Omni pod and remind you that the Omni pod five and the Omni pod dash can be gotten gotten getting go in at the Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox links in the show notes, links at juicebox podcast.com. To these and all the sponsors. When you click the links, you're helping the show. So please do that. I'm also going to include a complete non sequitur for the beginning of the podcast that got edited out. I don't know why. I just enjoyed it. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Margaret 1:22:55
I mean, I could even just

Scott Benner 1:22:57
Can you imagine if we reenacted it, and then later told people it was a reenactment of you eating toast?

Margaret 1:23:04
Like just so you know, not? Oh, my God.

Scott Benner 1:23:07
I'll tell you. In my mind that would be the equally the most boring and enthralling five minutes that a podcast ever opened. Right now you're listening to Margaret eat toast. Oh my god. And then tell the story about the Bolus and then say, now we weren't recording when this happened originally. So this is a reenactment and in the background we just hear you going like just like like just eating like daintily. You know, I think it'd be hilarious. I don't know. Oh,

Margaret 1:23:33
I hate listening to people choose so that would probably make like I would that would be my worst nightmare I think is that would be like the intro to the episode. No. I wouldn't I would turn this episode off so that's great.

Scott Benner 1:23:46
Oh my God, that's hilarious. Arden's texting me right now. Can you make me waffles when I get home? And I'm saying yes.

#744 Shots Fired

Stephen has type 1 diabetes and he's made some major improvemtns to his health.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 744 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's episode we'll be speaking with Stephen who is an adult living with type one diabetes and Stephen made a major adjustment in his life. And he's going to tell us about it today. While you're listening to Stephen, tell me about the thing in his life that I then recorded and gave to you. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. You ask a resident who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver of someone type one is that you are you one of those people. If you are please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Join the registry. Take the survey, complete the survey. Help people living with type one diabetes, help yourselves and help the podcast it's that easy, takes fewer than 10 minutes. Super simple, easy survey to do. T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Thank you for considering it. And now I take you into the podcast to speak with Steve.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. The episode is also sponsored by Ian Penn from Medtronic diabetes. Please go to in pen today.com To learn about the insulin pen that does much more than you might think.

Stephen 2:00
Hi, I'm Steven. I've been diabetic since 14. I'm now 3420 years.

Scott Benner 2:07
Yeah. Stephen. What I mean they just blew my bandit right out like it was nothing. He didn't even like didn't even act excited for me. It's okay. Don't worry. I'm sorry. Yeah, he's got 20 years. You were you were? See I you know, I just did there. I talked myself right, right out of listening. Just do it again. Sorry. Just do the intro. No, no, no, just tell me how old you are again.

Stephen 2:36
I'm 3434 and I was diagnosed at 14. Okay. easy math.

Scott Benner 2:41
easy math. It was really super easy. I'm going to be honest. What? Looking back now anybody in your family have type one or other autoimmune diseases?

Stephen 2:52
Yes, um, some grandparents have had diabetes, either in type one or type two. My mom has type two. And my sister has thyroid problems.

Scott Benner 3:04
Okay. Do you happen to know if her thyroid is called? Do they call it hypothyroid? Or they call it Hashimotos?

Stephen 3:10
It's neither of those. It's she had Greg don't know how to explain it. It's something else.

Scott Benner 3:16
Oh, okay. All right.

Stephen 3:18
Don't worry about that. I just has tons of thyroid brat.

Scott Benner 3:21
There's a lot of thyroid problems. Okay, nothing, nothing simple to put into a box. All right, right. What do you remember about being diagnosed?

Stephen 3:30
Um, so that I used to be really big into paintball. And we were going with our church group to a PayPal event. And everybody knew I was the guy that played PayPal. So I was really tired and lethargic that day. I was drinking a whole bunch of water couldn't figure out peeing a lot. In the middle of one of the games, I just couldn't stand it. And I shot myself in the foot to get out. I was like, I've got to get off the field. So I shot myself. I was like, Hey, we're off. I got hit. We left the field and my parents were like, oh, there's something wrong. We need to take care of him. We didn't know what was going on. It had been going on for days. But my sister picked me up from paintball. And we went to her work. She worked at Chucky Cheese at the time. And I got a coke because I needed a drink. So suck it down a coke and you know still not feeling good and went home and took a nap and just peed all night all night all night.

Scott Benner 4:32
They ended up taking you to the hospital or how did it go?

Stephen 4:34
Yeah. So that the that night grandpa was in town and he was like, why is that kid going to the bathroom so much. And so my dad went to 24 hour Walmart got some ketone test strips because mom was diabetic but didn't take care of herself. So he had me pee on a ketone strip and I didn't know what it was. And he was like, Yeah, we got to take you to the doctor tomorrow. No clue, still not telling me what's going on. We went to the doctor And they said, Yeah, he needs he needs to go to the Children's Hospital. So okay, we we pack up and we go get gas and I again, they're not telling me what's going on. So we stop at the gas station and I get a coke and a candy bar. Nobody's telling me that anything we get to Children's Hospital and they finally get my blood sugar. Tell me kind of what's going on. My blood sugar was at like, 749.

Scott Benner 5:24
Wow. How long? How long? Do you remember what you're able to see was?

Stephen 5:28
No, that's, that's before I knew or they probably told my mom. But

Scott Benner 5:34
yeah, I was just wondering how long? I mean, how long did you think it was going on? Like severely?

Stephen 5:40
Um, it had at least been weeks because I knew I came home from school one day, the nurse thought I was sick. And I couldn't like, stand up straight. I was acting kind of the drunk. And my sister just kind of told me Hey, go to bed, you'll be okay. But I like physically couldn't. So I was like pacing around the house and I got a coke. Because that's what we had in the house at the time, I drank a coke and felt fine. And looking back, I could see all the signs, like put it together. But then it was just like, Oh, I just needed to drink and I was fine.

Scott Benner 6:11
So the thirst. The thirst thirst was the driving force the whole time. Yeah. And I have to ask you, soda a big part of your life now. Are we done with it?

Stephen 6:24
I am drinking a Diet Mountain Dew as we speak. But I do do a lot more water right now. And green tea.

Scott Benner 6:31
Okay. Yeah. Wow, it was just a staple in your house on Coca Cola. Yeah, round is

Stephen 6:36
just Coke was there. I mean, balm had Diet Coke, but it didn't taste the same at the time. So

Scott Benner 6:42
20 year old Diet Coke. I don't even remember it anymore. Right? I do remember it coming out and people trying it and be like, ah, like, like it like it was fire on their tongue. But some people I knew who were older or had diabetes would drink it. That's such a it's such an interesting thing. We think about soda so much differently now than even 20 years ago. So what So what's it like? I mean, you're 14 like you're right in the middle of puberty and everything else. What did they give you to manage with? Was it? Did you get needles? Or were you doing? How far go? Tony

Stephen 7:13
I got needles at a test strip and they in the hospital they IV me and brought what my hydration levels back to normal. And then they they kind of told me I got carb counting. And then they sent me on my way.

Scott Benner 7:30
How long do you think in the hospital? Um, four or five days? Okay.

Stephen 7:35
And that was not long

Scott Benner 7:36
transition to home. Do your parents help you? Or do they just leave it to you?

Stephen 7:43
For a while they helped me. But it's more like nagging Hey, test your blood sugar. Hey, take a shot. Did you take your shot this morning? I love my parents, but they were not really into the diabetes early. And that'll probably come out later in my story. Because I was uncontrolled for years. But it probably started there was it was like, Hey, take your shot. So you don't die tissue blood sugar, so you don't die. But the those things didn't sink in the so you don't die didn't sink in until probably last year.

Scott Benner 8:21
No kidding. Yeah. Wow. Okay, so the extent of the again, I don't mean to cut down on your parents either. But the extent of the the direction from them is they told us at the hospital that if you don't do this, you're gonna die. So just do it. Like, yeah, so mom's

Stephen 8:38
type two. So it was test your blood sugar, and II take your Metformin, or whatever she had at the time, but taking a shot for me and like counting carbs and finding the ratio, and it just wasn't a thing tracking numbers. It was like, Oh, it's a good number. I can eat her. Oh, it's a bad number. I should take a shot and then eat.

Scott Benner 9:02
And that was it. That just wasn't that simple. Yeah, I listen. I don't think the technology existed. And the understanding definitely didn't exist. I mean, it doesn't sound like it. I mean, your mom didn't understand her type two, you know, and to be perfectly honest, 20 years later, I don't know how many people understand their type two still. You know, it's it's becoming more and more understood, but I talked to people and they just don't seem to have the first idea about their diabetes. I think type one. You know, they can fall into one or two categories where they get it because it's so immediate, that they have to get it or they'll maybe do what a lot of people do, which is just keep their blood sugar high, but not so high that it's not going to cause them like a significant issue in the moment. And then just sort of try to, you know, hope that tomorrow never comes I guess.

Stephen 9:54
Yeah, that's that second way is is how I live or lived up until like Honestly, I found your podcast, then realized I had to get my life under control. I was gonna die.

Scott Benner 10:06
Oh no kidding. Wow. Well I'm glad you found it. That's great. Oh, what kind of E onesies did you have over the last 19 years?

Stephen 10:15
Um didn't check very much. We not going to get there regularly. Not going to the doctor got got an endocrinologist and the guy was fantastic. But he was like, You got to get this under control diet and exercise. Have a good day. Six months later, well, your diet and exercise you you're not taking care of this. Get it? Okay. So we finally does introduce me to Dexcom my first year of college. This is like the Dexcom two or whatever, the thing where you manually inserted it. And then it came with its own little thing that looked like a teardrop that beeped at you all the time.

Scott Benner 10:56
Was that was that the four? How did they? Arden Hi, I don't remember how the with the designation seven, seven plus that I don't remember the the numbering system started out oddly.

Stephen 11:09
Yeah, it was it was way early though this thing was big and clunky and loud and unwieldy during class. When when it wanted to go off. It went

Scott Benner 11:19
off. It was the it was the one where you push down the plunger?

Stephen 11:24
Yes. If you had to remove the safety and manually push down the plunger? Yep. Then pinch it and peel it off.

Scott Benner 11:31
That's the G four. And then the the receiver was like an egg shape? Almost. Yes. Arden had this. Yeah. I remember staring at that thing for a long time. Dexcom is current available? Yeah. On a wait seven plus the new gen four sensor. You know, I have my timeline? Well, I think it was seven plus then G four. If I'm gonna have to check into that. But a long time ago, you had one of the very first ones. Yeah, it

Stephen 12:01
was still experimental. Like they, it was expensive. And they were like this, this is gonna change your life. But they didn't like explain how to use it. It was like, Oh, you'll get your numbers like, Oh, great. I don't have to test anymore. But then you had to calibrate it like four times a day. And yeah, I think I think you're right. I think it's the GE for now that I'm looking at it.

Scott Benner 12:27
Yeah, right. Is a long time ago. Long time. 2006 2006. And that that was college age for you? Yes. 2006 was called. Wow, how am I with the years get past me, Stephen. Like I just when you said that was causing it. That's not possible. He's diagnosed me as 14. College would have been four years later. And then I couldn't Oh, boy. All right. Don't get old everybody. So you have that. But it's I mean, going back that far, it was better than anything that ever existed. I'll say that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it was absolutely amazing. In the end, I remember back then being more focused on just like the arrows of the important part. Like don't worry too much about the number test if you want the number, but the arrows are super important. Like it'll, it'll tell you if you're falling or rising. I remember using it like that. See you

Stephen 13:20
you have the wisdom beyond your years. I as the diabetic was like, Oh, my number is good. Okay, I can eat.

Scott Benner 13:28
So falling raw. So if you had an 85 blood sugar, and it was two arrows up, you'd be like, it's time for lunch? Right? Yeah,

Stephen 13:35
the arrow didn't matter to me. I didn't understand, you know, rising falling milligrams per second, whatever that calibration is. Yeah. Like, if I would have understood that I could have written a book back then and made made a lot of money.

Scott Benner 13:48
It would have been ahead of the curve, that's for sure. Yeah, well, okay. So, alright, so you have that, and you're in college. So what is college like?

Stephen 13:58
Horrible. That's all I had. I mean, that's what I kind of switched to buying insulin at Walmart. And because it was cheaper, I stopped going to the endocrinologist. I got this deck Psalm and every couple of months I'd have to call and get a refill prescription but that was the extent I'd wear it and then eventually after like a year, I got tired of wearing it. Because I'm a college student and I have to carry this thing around and you don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. So I stopped doing it.

Scott Benner 14:32
So you went back to like the Walmart insulin so you were you using a fast acting insulin and then you went then you went and use that OG Walmart stuff?

Stephen 14:42
Yeah, like I had the prescription for the the name brand, the slow acting and the long acting that you mix in the morning. And then you take the fast acting with your meals, but you know, I'm a college student mom gives me money for for my medicine. And so look, I've got all this money. I might as well get find a cheaper medicine and I can I don't understand my diabetes. Yes. Isn't that a thing?

Scott Benner 15:08
Yeah, yeah. So you see you were you had a Basal insulin, a slow acting Basal insulin, you had a fast acting mealtime and so on. But for clarity, for everyone listening, Walmart now sells, basically its NovaLogic rebranded, so you can get NovaLogic at Walmart now. But that's only in the last couple of months at that's existed prior to that. What were you getting? Like? Is it was it called Nova lint? What was it called?

Stephen 15:34
Yeah, rely on Nova Lin.

Scott Benner 15:38
And that's more like, just it's an older insulin. It's a it's like regular and mph kind of lifestyle?

Stephen 15:44
Yes, that's exactly like it has to be kept cold. It has to be kept. Like within its dates.

Scott Benner 15:51
And this was not directed to you by a physician. This was directed to you by your like, if I buy cheaper insulin, I'll have more cash left. Yes. And it didn't matter. You

Stephen 16:00
can even buy more, and it can last longer.

Scott Benner 16:04
And then oh, the mom sends more money and you don't even need to spend it on insulin the next time. Right? We get you almost the genius doing. So, so close to having that figured out. But you don't have any like direction from a doctor about switching back and forth between those answers, because they're completely different management's. No, no, you just did it.

Stephen 16:26
I just did it myself. My own college smartest person in the world itself was like, I get, I can just switch to this other thing without asking and it'll be

Scott Benner 16:35
fine. And you don't even know how it went because you weren't measuring your you weren't measuring a onesie. So what were your average blood sugar's like, like your best guess.

Stephen 16:46
Stayed the low end was probably two thirds to four days, and then ventured up. When I when I finally started going back, I'll jump ahead and then we'll come back here. And I got married and started going to the doctor again. My one C's were 1413 and then 12. Wow. So there was probably up there for the second year of college all the way until my third year of marriage. So probably good. Five years. Wow.

Scott Benner 17:13
And so when you think of your, like when I think of Arden's graph, when I think of like the low end, I think of 70. And when I think of the high real high end, I think of 180. But you know, mostly I think of 140 or 160. And when you were thinking about that, it was to 30 to 40 as your low end, and then as high as it would go to your high end.

Stephen 17:36
Yeah, like it would go off the off the chart, and I wouldn't even care be like, it'll come back down later. Or I'll go play water polo, I'll go play disc golf. It'll come down at some point, I'll take some insulin.

Scott Benner 17:50
And day after day after day, there was never one time where you're just like, I'm gonna just today I'm gonna get on top. Did you have concept that your blood sugar should be lower? No, no, not really.

Stephen 18:01
It was it was kind of keep it on the on the Palm Pilot Keep it keep it within breeding, if I took my blood sugar, and it said, Hi. My meter said hi to me. I was like, oh, I should probably take a shot.

Scott Benner 18:15
Wow. And, and you only started paying a little bit of attention because you got married somebody, like asked you to take better care of yourself, or how did that even happen?

Stephen 18:25
Oh, I kind of just knew something was off. And I'd been out of jobs with insurance. So kind of just got out of it and says so as soon as I got a job that I had insurance, I was like, Okay, I should get an endocrinologist and go talk to them and see and maybe get some guidance here. I still don't know what's going on. But maybe I should start talking to somebody did you found so we're in Memphis, Tennessee and i i Just one day just make an endocrinologist appointment. I'm like, Okay, this is, this is what I'm gonna do.

Scott Benner 19:01
Right? Was that hard? Was the hard to walk in there and be like, Listen, I've been doing this wrong for a really long time. Don't judge me just, I need to start over. Or?

Stephen 19:11
Yes. I would imagine it's very hard to walk in. Doctors are very judgy

Scott Benner 19:18
it was an embarrassed was it to the point where it was embarrassing. You just had to overcome it. Yeah, yeah.

Stephen 19:24
But then, like, I knew none of the technology. Like I told her I'd been on a Dexcom at one point and she's like, how long ago and I told her same thing. I told you I was like, I don't know how to plunger. She was like, holy cow. It's changed since then.

Scott Benner 19:39
And this is only just recently that you went and did this.

Stephen 19:44
That's about

Scott Benner 19:47
2000 12am I getting my days right

Stephen 19:52
18 Okay. 2018 2000 Because my, my daughter was born later that year,

Scott Benner 19:57
but you had that point had not heard the podcast. You just feel like I got no, I'm still I'm still flying blind. Gotcha. Okay. Go just the back for a second. Did you finish college? I did. Would you get a degree in?

Stephen 20:13
I have my degree in marketing and business management.

Scott Benner 20:17
Did you have trouble at school because your blood sugar being hired was your body used to it at that point,

Stephen 20:22
it was so used to it. Like, once I finally got my my stuff in shape, I'm now gaining a lot of weight back that I had lost because my body was extremely toxic.

Scott Benner 20:35
Yeah, no, you were if your blood sugar was that high, you must have been thin. Actually, I would imagine.

Stephen 20:40
I was. Yeah, I'm kind of jealous of how I looked, then it's kind of a body image thing right now. But

Scott Benner 20:46
well, listen, I'll say this. I know a lot of people think that insulin makes you gain weight. But calories make you gain weight. So you know, you can take your insulin in a healthy way. And, and not gain weight. It's just, you know, it's a matter of, it's a matter of like food choices, I think, you know, it's I just put up an episode about disordered eating. So it's in my head right now. It's such a weird thing to talk about, it's hard to understand how a person who has disordered eating, like how their mind even thinks about their body image and food. And it's a it's a weird world that I don't think a lot of people understand. And I'm still just, every time I have a conversation with somebody just wrapping my head around that a little farther and a little farther. Anyway, so Okay, so you're, I mean, Steven, we have to get to it. It's about time, right? Like, how do you how long? I mean, how do you get locked out what happened?

Stephen 21:46
Okay, so yeah, that's actually with this insurance I got, I got on an insulin pump, I got on the Medtronic. 770 or whatever was new at the time, and was going along life just fine. And I got caught in something with a regional manager of a company I was working for told me it was okay to do something. So he and I were doing it being the best salesman in the region. And then corporate calls, and they're like, this is this is theft, this is embezzlement. So we get, we get called in and my boss pins everything on me because we'd been using my code. So I get I get the full blunt of it, and they throw me in jail for it's not long, but it's long enough to really have an effect on you. I got thrown in jail for about a week and a half or two weeks. Okay.

Scott Benner 22:43
So then, do you think they were trying to make a point to you? Or do you think that that was just the extent of the punishment for what you did?

Stephen 22:51
Oh, they were they were trying to make a point. And an example, because I'd already agreed to pay back the part that was my fault. I'd already flipped on my boss and told them his part. And like, I had made deals. So you had it all in paperwork. I don't know why they wanted me arrested. But they, they called in the police and had me arrested and, you know, gave him back that gives you kids that gives you years and years and years of trouble. It's not just like when you get out, you're done. There's years of cleanup afterwards. It's not worth it sticks

Scott Benner 23:24
to you now. And like when you apply for jobs, like people know about it, that kind of stuff.

Stephen 23:30
I kind of tell people now just as a clarifier, but I have everything wiped, because it wasn't all my fault. And I did my community service and my time but jail is not fun. And for diabetics, it's just not because they they put me in cuffs and take me downtown. And I've got my insulin pump on me, I probably got a day's worth of insulin left in it. Go through holding an intake and I've I've still got my pump on me. They finally get me to like, take me upstairs and they're like, what's that was like, Oh, it's my insulin pump. Like you can't have that. Like, well, I got all the way through medical and all the way through intake. Like, they're like, well, we got to take it. Like but it keeps me alive again. I don't have a lot of knowledge about this. I know it gives me insulin, I take my blood sugar and I tell it how much and it gives me insulin right. But you're not I'm really dumb.

Scott Benner 24:26
You're not well, I don't think you're dumb. But you don't you don't have like a lot of like, you really don't like if you're having diabetes for as long as you did, like Did you know if they take that pump off you you're not going to have insulin and you actually would go into DKA you're aware

Stephen 24:42
that that is what I thought I knew. I knew at this point. If I went too high, I peed a lot. I drank a lot and I didn't feel good. I usually ended up throwing up and sleeping for a long time. Like I knew those things, but I hadn't made the correlation yet. Right. Wow, that those two so they They take my pump. And I was like, Well, how am I gonna get insulin? But it's like three in the morning. So they don't want to answer any questions. So go up, go to sleep. Breakfast comes the next morning and I'm like, Well, I can't eat. If I eat, it's going to drop my blood sugar up. But if I don't eat, it's a blood sugar's gonna go down, like,

Scott Benner 25:19
Well, yeah, I mean, listen, without insulin, your blood sugar was never going down. I would imagine that when you woke up that next morning, your blood sugar was probably five 600 Without basil for all those hours. Plus, you've been under a ton.

Stephen 25:32
Oh, I'll never know what it was then. But I know well, eventually, I decided I was going to eat some of the toast. Because that's all that was edible. And about two hours after after the meal, they call me and I was like, Oh, I'm getting out of here. And they're like, No, we're gonna test your blood sugar. Gonna give you a shot. I was like, Okay,

Scott Benner 25:52
how long? How long had it been since they took the pump off you at that point?

Stephen 25:57
3am to? Let's call it 9am Breakfast is at eight. Okay. 930. And so my blood sugar's at 635

Scott Benner 26:08
Yeah, well, my guess was right on. Um, so yeah, I'm so proud of myself. That's after a piece of toast. So it's true. I didn't know about the toast to my guests. Alright, Fair's fair. I was hard.

Stephen 26:19
And then they're like, Well, it's a sliding scale. We're just gonna give you this much insulin. I was like, Well, how do you know? I knew a little enough that my body. I'm I'm bigger guy. So I am a little tight to like my mom a little insulin resistant. I was like, how do you know that's going to be enough? They're like, well, this is just what we do. It's a sliding scale. There's no special treatments, though. Just this is what we this is what we did or thrown your throw with that point.

Scott Benner 26:47
So then you're there for how long? In how long have you in

Stephen 26:52
jail? That's the that's the week that's a week and a half of my life. 10 day about a 10 day constantly. There's see it's wake up breakfast, two hours later, insulin. There's there's a gym time. Then back for lunch time, two hours, insulin has some free time, two hours insulin.

Scott Benner 27:12
What are you at that point?

Stephen 27:14
Um, since just a short time 18 My daughter's three. I'm, I'm 3031

Scott Benner 27:25
by 31. So 2416 You've had diabetes for like, 17 years at that point. And you functionally don't really understand it still.

Stephen 27:36
Yeah, I still don't understand the ramifications at that point

Scott Benner 27:39
of any of your decisions, how they could impact your, your health or your life, your without, like knowledge of still, and you've missed doctors and endocrinologist and lived your life never looked online?

Stephen 27:52
No, not something I was super interested in. I'm gonna say it was like a constant state of denial for for 17 years? I don't know.

Scott Benner 28:02
No, I mean, I, I've heard other people say similar things. So I'm not surprised by that at all. So every day, 10 days, sliding scale. If you were to stay there for 20 days, 30 days, 10 years, this is how they would have managed you.

Stephen 28:20
Yeah, this is this is where some of those stories from my friends who actually work in other jails. They said there there are some inmates that they're allowed to bring their own insulin, their parents or their family can bring their insulin and they can be given doctor's orders. And if you're you're isolated in the medical wing, you can have your pump. But they watch you you're in isolation, because they've had people try to fully dump their pump into their system

Scott Benner 28:48
to kill cells. Yeah, yeah. So

Stephen 28:51
there's all these stories and they're like, well, they don't train us. They just, they just tell you if the blood sugar is this number, you give this much insulin.

Scott Benner 29:00
So So basically, what you're telling me is that going to jail is almost a forfeiture. A fourth. Where'd that word go? For Fitch? forfeiture forfeiture, I had a right thing. I set it right and I tricked myself. It's a it's just a release of of your medical care. Yeah, you're just you're,

Stephen 29:21
you're putting all your care into what what would be the equivalent of a middle school nurse. And I'm not knocking them but they don't know the complexities of, you know, my ratio is Don't freak out. Mine's one to four right now. Yeah, but the guy next to me might be you know, 118

Scott Benner 29:39
Yeah, you say Don't freak out because you're just one of the four. Yeah, artists. I think it's artists is one to four and a half. Really? Yeah.

Stephen 29:47
I thought I was I thought I was super.

Scott Benner 29:50
Now we just manage it probably differently. Like Arden's Basil is pretty stable at one. One number her Basil is like one unit one point 1.9 in that range. And then we do a lot of the management side with the meal insulin.

Stephen 30:09
I'm at 1.33 right now and carb ratio 1.1 to five,

Scott Benner 30:14
one to five 1.31 to five. That doesn't sound crazy.

Stephen 30:18
That's not it. I thought it was worse than that.

Scott Benner 30:20
Yeah, I don't even understand the concept of worse. You just you have a feeling in your head that the more insulin you use the worst you're doing. Yes. Yeah, I don't think that's right. Steven, I think you use the amount of insulin you need. That would be a I try to let go of that thought if I was you, okay. You know, I mean, that's just not I hear that so much from adults. About You know, I'm doing something wrong. I'm using too much insulin or you know, that kind of stuff. And you got to meet the need. Your body has a need for insulin. You're meeting it. That's it. I mean, I don't know your diet. I'm sure there's things that everybody could you know, eliminate from their day to day eating. That would make it easier. But, you know,

Stephen 30:59
if, if, if the diet is a person, I am probably the devil. I work. I'm a manager at a pizza restaurant.

Scott Benner 31:09
Oh my god. So a lot of days.

Stephen 31:11
I eat a lot of pizza.

Scott Benner 31:14
Do they have cheese steaks there? Could you have that without the roll? Maybe? They don't. Wow. You poor people who don't live in the Northeast. The pizza place? Listen, if you move here, your pizza place is gonna have cheese steaks, spaghetti, meatballs, pizza. You know, different pastas, salad, garlic knots. chicken parm, that kind of stuff. You guys got to, you know, I don't want to over on the place. But we're so you don't know what pizza is? It's not your fault. But I mean, a couple of states though. But for the most part, you guys are just, I mean, you're living like monsters with your pizza. So yeah, we don't want you to eat too much pizza. That how do we get around that? Could I get you to snack on the cheese and the sausage? Maybe?

Stephen 32:00
Oh, I do the pepperoni and the salads. I'll take some of our fajita chicken heated up and put it on a romaine. That's nice. I do eat salads. It's just not as prevalent. But it's

Scott Benner 32:13
also I'm guessing and tell me if I'm wrong. But it's a financial thing. You work there. You're getting the pizza cheaper or for free. And it's a it's a value to eat it like fine. Yes. Yeah, I would imagine

Stephen 32:24
and I can bring it home. If I don't eat my whole large pizza. I'm a manager. I can bring it home.

Scott Benner 32:30
And then it's still it's money saved. Right? Yeah. Gosh, all right. Well, Steven, we gotta We gotta do something about that, too. But let's find out. Well, I do I do want to ask first. Do you are you managing a pizza place now? Because the legal troubles kind of lead you in that direction? Because it sounds like before you were doing sales or something?

Stephen 32:51
Yeah. I was doing sales and firearms. And I was actually very good at it. But you can't sell guns with a felony. So yes, currently the job at the pizza place started as as I had this fella, Dr. My back. And then while I was getting it expunged, I kind of just moved up and knew the business. I've got a business management degree. I was like, well, I might as well

Scott Benner 33:19
use it. You're good at running the restaurant. Right? Yeah,

Stephen 33:22
I'm good. It's an easy business. I've got a couple of side things I do. I own another business doing laser engraving on firearms and knives and stuff, but it hasn't taken off. So I just kind of stayed at the pizza place. And it's a wonderful place. It's not what I wanted to do with my life. Hey,

Scott Benner 33:43
strong possibility for your title. You can't sell firearms with a felony. I'll tell you what, Steven, you're in the wrong secondary business, you should be making T shirts and say that because that's at least funny.

Stephen 33:59
I'll prove that. Just it's,

Scott Benner 34:01
it's an obvious thing. So okay, so you're, you're rolling along? You've I mean, it's, uh, I mean, you had a lot happened to you. I mean, if I'm looking at you from the outside in, you got zero chance when you're diagnosed. I mean, if your mom's not managing your own type two, or understanding it, and then come, nobody takes any time to figure out the type one you're not getting that kind of information from doctors, either. They're telling you things like diet and exercise. See in six months. Thanks. It's great. Yeah, you know, you don't you don't have a functional understanding of diabetes, right, or how insulin works or even what your goal should be. Right? It I mean, it's it's a deep hole, you're dug into a deep deep hole and and to be expected to get out of it on your own. I'll tell you right now, if I was your attorney, I would argue that your blood sugar was so high that you weren't in your right mind. And I probably would have got you out of jail on that one. You know, because you're altered and you don't even know it you know your brain is not is not at its best when your blood sugar's highlight that for such a long time. I'm wondering when you find the podcast is that about a year ago now?

Stephen 35:18
Yeah. So a lady at church had her daughter diagnosed with diabetes. And so we just kind of connected. And she's like, Well, you gotta listen to this podcast. And I was like, Yeah, I'm okay. I'll, I'll look into it. I, you know, roll my eyes quietly. And then the next day, I'm like, Whoa, juicebox I'll look it up. And I started listening. And it was it was the first episode you did with Arden, where she was there. And I was like, Okay, this is kind of entertaining. And I started going backwards.

Scott Benner 35:56
Wait, you you heard meet Arden first? Yes. Uh, you haven't even like, you haven't been listening for that long at all. That might have only been like six months ago, right. Wow.

Stephen 36:12
I probably have it in my app, the first one I listened to I can look through. But then I went from there and just went back to the beginning. I mean, I went and started looking for your blog and looking for I was like this guy. He's, he's telling me things I didn't know he's telling me things. I'm not sure the doctors know.

Scott Benner 36:35
Wow, Steven, I got it. So first, let me tell you that Arden's episode called Meet Arden is episode 517. It went up on August 2, that's maybe six months ago. Wow. Not Not long at all. So did Arden save you? Like did her just like you know, if I said she'd be like,

Stephen 37:01
but I mean, I You could tell her that it was it was the entertainment. And then there was enough value in it that it made me go backwards. And just a few episodes, and I joined the Facebook group. And then after that, started asking questions and seeing people's numbers, and I was like, I gotta get back on the Dexcom. And good for you,

Scott Benner 37:22
man. You got a Dexcom G six now? Yes. Good for you. Oh, that's excellent. Are you pumping? Are you still shooting?

Stephen 37:29
I'm pumping. T slim.

Scott Benner 37:33
Are you I want to do what are you using control? IQ? I am good for you. It seriously, is your agency in the 60s Now are you? Where are you at?

Stephen 37:44
Ooh, you're close. Um, it's 7.43 weeks ago. Congratulations. That's and it was it was 7.16 months before that. And eight only went up because of the holidays. And I? Yeah,

Scott Benner 37:58
Steven, I tell you something very unexpected. Go for it. I feel like I'm gonna cry.

Stephen 38:04
I told myself if I made it through this without crying it was gonna be a thing. Because now if we jump back to that, right before then that episode, is when I almost died,

Scott Benner 38:17
though. Okay, hold on. I didn't mean to skip that guy.

Stephen 38:22
Before I found your podcast like right before. We're living where we're living now. And I have to go to work early in the morning I wake up. And I feel weird, but it's not like I don't know. It's not out of norm. I think it's just early morning, I go into my daughter's room. And I start telling her, Hey, have a good day. I'm gonna go to work. Be good for mommy. And this is all secondhand afterwards, kind of. I don't really know what I'm saying. My wife is telling me this story later. She said you weren't saying those things you were blabbering and unco here aren't and you weren't saying words. And Alyssa, my daughter was yelling for mom. She's like, What is Daddy saying? He's, he's going crazy. It was got out. You know, apparently I muttered the word work. And I tried to stand up and my wife pushes me down. And she's like, No, you're not going anywhere. And calls my mom and my parents and are really involved now, by the way, but he calls my mom and she's like, what, what do I do and she's like, test his blood sugar. And she finds a test kit somewhere in the house. And you know, I'm trying to leave for work. She pushes me down again and gets my blood sugar. I'm at 21 Oh, gosh. And she gets some honey under my tongue. And I was like, No, I gotta go to work and she's like, You don't know what's going on. You got to sit

Scott Benner 39:55
down. Right, right. We go back then Stephen. You No,

Stephen 40:00
yeah, yeah. So what happened was I got up in the middle of the night because I was feeling weird. I tested my blood sugar. And when I look at the history, it was 35. And without even thinking, I went, Oh, I'll be fine. And I fell back asleep.

Scott Benner 40:15
Wow. You weren't fine already. Yeah. And you slept all night and a blood sugar like that low?

Stephen 40:22
I think I think it was like 4am When I woke up at 35 and then I had to be to work I believe for work or I'm 630 to two hours later, is

Scott Benner 40:33
this on the control IQ?

Stephen 40:35
No, um, this is like right before literally right before I get the Dexcom in the pump. Okay, this was the final straw that it was like I'm hypoglycemic, unaware and I need something to wake me up. Wow, I'm like, I'm like shaking now.

Scott Benner 40:54
Wow, that's, that's Gosh, you're lucky

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Stephen 43:55
I was on my way to death's door.

Scott Benner 43:57
Yeah. You didn't have a seizure though. No. Well,

Stephen 44:01
not that I could recognize. It's probably the closest thing I've understood. Because most of my, my experience had been high. It was pee a lot. Drink a lot throw up, take a warm shower, drink a lot of water and take a nap and be fine.

Scott Benner 44:16
Your life has changed completely in the last six months, hasn't

Stephen 44:18
it? Oh, yeah, come? Absolutely.

Scott Benner 44:21
If I if I even got you on here a year ago. And I said tell me about your diabetes. You wouldn't even know to tell the stories that you've told. No, no, you would just be like I like Can you can you put into words what you would have said a year ago about diabetes. Like before you knew all this and knew to pay attention to what you're paying attention paying attention to now, if I said to you, oh, you have diabetes. What's that? Like? What would you have said

Stephen 44:47
i i Sometimes test my blood sugar. I take a daily shot every morning and I eat when I want and I try to count and shoot for it.

Scott Benner 44:56
That's it. That's the That's it?

Stephen 44:58
No Wow. And look, looking back. It's the worst thing in the world. And I, I would really rather my episode be a cautionary tale.

Scott Benner 45:08
Oh, I think like Steven, don't

Stephen 45:09
worry education.

Scott Benner 45:10
Oh, don't worry, I think you're covering all the bases on that one I think people are right now like I need to understand when something works, and I definitely don't want to do whatever got Stephen thrown in jail. So which by the way I know you probably can't talk about but you've teased around that enough. It's fascinating that it's about guns and sales. I'm i i So

Stephen 45:29
we were we were giving unapproved discounts for guns, which turns into embezzlement. And because it was firearms having to deal with the ATF, it turns into a felony even for as low as $10. So the amount is unimportant, it was embezzlement of a federally controlled firearm, so it was a felony.

Scott Benner 45:51
Wow. So so if you said, I know nothing about guns, even you know, I've never shot a gun.

Stephen 45:56
Oh, you should come down to the south state. So I'll let you shoot someone. Let's

Scott Benner 46:00
make sure your budget is nice and stable, and then I'll come so what 114

Stephen 46:04
right now are perfect. There

Scott Benner 46:06
we go. Um, and yeah, I, I live in New Jersey. So it's even hard to find like a range to even like even if you wanted to just learn how to shoot a firearm like it's hard to do around here. I think getting a license in New Jersey is next to impossible.

Stephen 46:22
It's one of the it's one of the harder ones. from Illinois, New York, California and New Jersey. Yeah, they're all the top.

Scott Benner 46:30
They're the one offenders the difficult. Yeah. So because I've I've said in the past to my wife, I was like, you know, what would it hurt if we went to a range and learned how to shoot a handgun, right? They might be like, a nice experience, like fun, you know? And then we looked into it. I was like, I can't find anywhere to even do this. So we just kind of let it go strange because I have a lot of friends who are cops. So I think I am the only one. But

Stephen 46:54
usually you can go to a cops range. You should ask them. We can talk later if you want to.

Scott Benner 46:59
That's interesting. So okay, so yeah, so back to the the part where you're a cautionary tale you definitely are. Don't worry. You're doing your part today for everybody. But I'm just like, I'm fascinated that you're like a new diabetic. Really? Yeah, right now. So you had a scare. And then that scare made you like, say, I got to pull myself together here a little bit.

Stephen 47:22
Yeah, like, I've got two kids now this. I literally could have died in my daughter's bed just trying to tell her Hey, have a good day. I have to go to work.

Scott Benner 47:33
And that that really is my point. Is that That's That's it? Right. That's the tipping point. It wasn't. That was yeah, it was very it was having kids. Yeah, yeah. That you feel very responsible towards. Yeah. And that pushed you through the the, what did you call it earlier? The denial about diabetes?

Stephen 47:57
Yeah, it was this. This is not going away. I mean, I've seen the trials for possible solutions, but until those become, you know, prevalent, this, this is my life and I have to take control of it. It can't just wait.

Scott Benner 48:16
Were you waiting for somebody to cure it? Yeah. You just thought it was gonna happen and then this would be over? Yeah,

Stephen 48:22
I you know, pill a shot. Even a once daily shot. You know, I took I took some insulin at one point that it was like, it's pre mixed. You take this and just go about your day.

Scott Benner 48:37
Right. Regular an MPH. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen 48:40
I don't even remember anything about it. It was super thick. It was clear and it came in a grey pen. I don't know what your day was like you took it once a day.

Scott Benner 48:50
It's interesting. I don't even know what that is.

Stephen 48:54
It could have been lied to it. I could have not understood it. I mean, let's let's be honest, I didn't understand a lot of things. He was

Scott Benner 49:00
like, I don't know. I was just injected. Do you have you had any like clarity moments in the last six months where you think to yourself about like, what might come from the years of not keeping your blood sugar down?

Stephen 49:15
Yeah, well, um, yeah. Another cautionary tale my my right eye is almost completely fuzzy. I have I've had laser surgery on both of my eyes now. And not like the good time where they're fixing it the kind where they shoot a laser into your eye to try to stop it from bleeding. My right eye was completely filled with blood because the retina was bleeding from high blood sugars. And so now that I've got it down under control to seven 7.1 to 7.4 We're gonna go in and I get to get shots in my eye each. Two months. Dude, I

Scott Benner 49:56
hear they I hear they work and I hear oddly they don't hurt If

Stephen 50:01
that's what he's trying to tell me, and I was ready to do it yesterday, and he was like, Well, you got to have somebody here with you to drive your home. I was like, Ah, I have to wait till next Monday.

Scott Benner 50:10
Well, I hope that brings you some comfort. I've spoken to enough people that say that it doesn't hurt. So I think you just have to, like, you have to stare at something and you can't move your eye. And that's pretty much the end of it. So I mean, it's weird to think of, but I hope you've get some corrective relief from it. I mean, has has it at least stopped? Like, oh, yeah, as the decline stops since you got your blood sugar.

Stephen 50:34
Yes, he's noticed a lot of great improvement. You know, even from that. A year ago, where I was at a nine point something now down to a seven. He's like, you can you can see the difference. No pun intended.

Scott Benner 50:47
No, no, no. Good for you. That's excellent. When your blood sugar's came down, did you experience dizziness at higher numbers than you would now today? Yeah.

Stephen 50:59
Um, so I'm sitting down at 113 right now, and I'm kind of feeling okay. But anytime like, 70. I start to get nervous, and I can feel it. You can feel low at 70 at 70. And they're like,

Scott Benner 51:15
as you were changing your your methods. Were you feeling low at like high numbers? Like, where did you use to feel low? Do you or did you never get low enough to find out?

Stephen 51:26
I never when it was uncontrolled. I never got low enough to, like found out. I guess I didn't have that happen. Okay. No, no, I just now it's 70 is where I start to feel it.

Scott Benner 51:40
Did you have any problems from coming down? Like you? How quickly did you come down from like, 1214 to 987? Did it take months?

Stephen 51:50
It's probably been a year, when I when I first got kind of like on this kick. Like to kind of start getting it under control. I got the endocrinologist appointment. And she was like it's at 12.8, right. And then I was like, Okay, we need to, I bought this test kit that came with automatic renewal of test strips. So it's like you have no excuse not to test your blood sugar daily. So I was doing that. And I noticed every time I was testing five times a day, like I was doing a way better job keeping my my numbers closer to 120 130, even 200. But when I'd had when I stopped for a day, or I missed a meal or something like that my blood sugar would just shoot up. Yeah, 300 400 500 You need the data. And that's when they were like, do you need the Dexcom? I was like, Okay, let's do the Dexcom. And then I was like, Well, I was on this Medtronic pump. What about that? And they're like, oh, there's better things now.

Scott Benner 52:50
And they gave me the control IQ. Yeah, we

Stephen 52:53
she gave me the options. And at that point, the Omnipod. Five wasn't out, which has now been released. And I was like, Well, I want this thing that will stop pumping if I start to go low, because that's my problem. Yeah.

Scott Benner 53:05
So you went from around a year ago from like, I got to do something. And testing then testing got you better. You went from 12. Eight to where do you think you went again? The next time you not 9898? That's great. And then you add CGM and a pump. And then where do you get to? Where do you think you're at when you find the podcast? That was that was probably at the nine. The Nines. Okay. And now you're just over seven? Yeah. Oh, you're gonna be in the 60s next time.

Stephen 53:38
I'm really hoping so my goal was 7.0 flat. But a 9.9 would be I might have a piece of cake.

Scott Benner 53:46
Yeah, it's funny. You just said 9.9. But you meant 6.0 I did. You were like, you're like, let's be honest. It's gonna be nine by nine. But no, you're you're onto it now like you. So what did you see? Even Can I ask? What the? I'm really genuinely interested. I'm not just I'm not fluffing myself here, which I think is a phrase I shouldn't use in front of children. But that's not the point. I couldn't think I couldn't think of a clean way to say anyway. Let's just get past that. I really want to know what you heard. And what thoughts moved you towards a seven a one see, like, what did the podcasts do for you? The

Stephen 54:36
ones I was on the Dexcom at one point and I don't know whatever said I've listened to. I'm gonna say 1000s of it just as a joke, but I've listened to hundreds of your episodes. So there was one you're talking about. I give the insulin and then you wait till the arrow goes down to start eating. Okay, I had never done that. Like I had preached I was like, Oh, I'm gonna eat a potato. That's, you know, five units of insulin. So I take five units and eat the insulin. I never thought you know, 30 minutes and 40 minutes ahead, you wait for it to start going down and then you counteract your insulin with food. I thought you always use the insulin to kind of beat your food down at the end.

Scott Benner 55:25
Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. You thought of it. Like, we'll set the whole house on fire, then I'll call a fire truck and try to put it out. Not what if we wet the house before we tried to let it on fire? Right. Yeah. Okay. And that

Stephen 55:39
insulin was being used as a defense instead of an offense. And now it's being used as an offense instead of defense. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 55:45
Oh, that's excellent. It was that alone enough to do this.

Stephen 55:49
That was, that was a big part of it was I've now figured out I have to take my insulin and I have to hit it in my pump about 45 to 50 minutes before I want to eat

Scott Benner 55:59
No kidding.

Stephen 56:00
Yeah, I'm, I'm that resistant. Now. I guess you said my ratios aren't bad. But I felt like I was using a lot of insulin for just a few pieces of pizza.

Scott Benner 56:13
Well, let me let me say this then let's talk about your management for half a second. Overnight, right, because you might have there might be room in your basil here. So overnight, where do you sit stable?

Stephen 56:28
It it's been gliding. My doctor didn't like me gliding at 90.

Scott Benner 56:36
So don't worry about the dog. Tell your doctor to shut up 90.

Stephen 56:40
I actually did. She was like us. Set your your Basal numbers pretty aggressive. I didn't tell you to do that. I was like, Yeah, I felt I was just a little high during the day. And so I just kind of upped it. Um, but today I'm sitting stable from midnight I about crashed last night. So I took half a swig of coke and went to bed. But from from then, till now I have been averaged 115.

Scott Benner 57:13
Yeah, I mean, I don't know that you can. I mean, on control, like you that's right about it. Its target with its target, like 112 and a half. So you're doing great, honestly. I mean, I was gonna say like, maybe Oh, you're showing me Hold on a second. Dude, your lines nice. Yeah. Now you're doing wonderful time and range. So what's your range? That? 70 To 180 70 to 180? You're in range. When you're out of range? Are you mostly lower high?

Stephen 57:44
Mostly high?

Scott Benner 57:46
Yeah, then maybe? Well,

Stephen 57:50
my correction factor is one to 25 card ratio is one to five.

Scott Benner 57:54
I wonder if maybe you're right, man, maybe you maybe you are a little insulin resistant. From all the years of beating yourself up. I wonder if there's not an oral medication that you could use along with something? Or? I don't know, you got to get a good doctor to really start talking about stuff like that, though. Yeah, I don't know that there's not more for you there. Because if you're sitting nice and stable in that 115 range overnight, mostly in the control IQs keeping you in that space. You know, I don't know if going heavier with your basil would help anything. Because if you had a little more basil, you might need a little less than your meal. Insulin is the only way he was thinking to so you see spikes after food. Mostly, and we

Stephen 58:41
we've recently adjusted the the carb ratio on food. Well,

Scott Benner 58:47
I mean, I'm listen, I think the common sense thing here is to like eliminate pizza from your diet from being overly honest. So

Stephen 58:54
what I can't hear you,

Scott Benner 58:56
this thing's not working. Yeah, I mean, honestly, if you're worried about the amount of insulin you're taking, I mean, you could you could try to cut down some of those tougher foods. You know, pizza is a good example. But higher glycemic load stuff, stuff that keeps you stuff that makes you spike and keeps you up. I think if you even if you eliminate it, like a couple of meals a week, you might see a big difference.

Stephen 59:25
That that's probably my next thing I need to get super educated on and I need to listen to more of those on like, the proteins and things like because I was like if I switched to like keto, or I forget what it was where it was the all you all you eat is protein.

Scott Benner 59:42
Yeah, like a like a low carb situation of Yeah, I switched

Stephen 59:45
to that, like how does that affect my blood sugar? Because I was like, I could just eat a bunch of chicken patties. Chicken breasts,

Scott Benner 59:51
and I don't want your life. I mean, listen, your life doesn't need to be like that. You don't I mean, like, have you been through the protests? Yes. Yeah, you hit the glycemic, low glycemic index one.

Stephen 1:00:03
I actually think that's that's one I haven't listened to, but it's coming up try.

Scott Benner 1:00:08
Try that one that I'll talk more about food and their impacts. And then I think you're right. There's a couple of episodes about fat and protein, there's a pro tip about it. There's a defining diabetes if you just want like a basic understanding of it, and then there's an episode called bolusing for fat. I think it's what it's called. Well, you think I would know almost, you put me into your show, not mine. I'm just telling you that I'm six months ahead of all of you. I don't know. I don't know where I don't know how you do it. Yeah. I'm in my head and six different places. Hold on a second fat. I just searched for fat and got 600 responses. So that's probably not right. bolusing insulin for fat episode 471. So, yeah, I think you just start, start learning more. I mean, you've made such an incredible improvement in such a short amount of time. First of all, I mean, congratulations. It's, it's spectacular. You must feel like a different person. Yeah. No.

Stephen 1:01:15
Yeah. It's fantastic. It did think it was just this this lady at church who was just like, oh, you should just offhandedly. You should listen to this guy.

Scott Benner 1:01:24
No kidding. You know her first name. Yes. Would you say it or no? Allison? Allison, look at you did such a nice thing for Steven. Wonderful. Tennessee, huh?

Stephen 1:01:37
That's where I was. I'm not there anymore. I'm

Scott Benner 1:01:39
not there anymore. Okay. I'm looking for a place. Steven, I need a I need a place to retire. Low humidity. Not too much snow. Where's the employee stealing? Does anyone know?

Stephen 1:01:51
My, my father in law had picked in between a couple longitudes that he couldn't move out of for retirement that met all those criteria. There's like a circle around the globe. Really? He's Yeah, he's he's the low low humidity, no snow. There's gotta be a lake. Like he's, he's got very specific goals for retirement.

Scott Benner 1:02:15
I like the way he's thinking. I'll look at it more like that. Forget, I'm thinking states, I should be thinking longitude and latitude. You're telling me right?

Stephen 1:02:22
Because like, you're gonna get a similar weather in Florida on the same latitude. Longitude as you're gonna get in Texas. Wow, that's all about where you want to be.

Scott Benner 1:02:33
You've taught me I've I've just I've been thinking about this backwards. Yeah. All right. Let's give me something new. I'm not there yet. I'm still reasonably young. I mean, ish. I don't know, man. I don't feel that young. You know what I mean?

Stephen 1:02:47
You look younger than me. I'll tell you that.

Scott Benner 1:02:49
Well, keep my fingers crossed.

Stephen 1:02:53
diabetes will do that, too. Yeah. Well, listen

Scott Benner 1:02:55
the way you do it. It does.

Stephen 1:02:59
Put a parental warning on this episode.

Scott Benner 1:03:02
Oh, this is an after dark for sure. And not because of the jail by the way, the jail thing is really nothing. It's the it's more of just the you're you're being very honest about living with diabetes and not understanding it, which I really appreciate. And I think so to the people listening. But it could be shot me I could be shocking to some people

Stephen 1:03:20
there. The DKA on a plane episode. That that was it. That was the one that just broke me down into tears. And I couldn't go on living the way I was.

Scott Benner 1:03:35
No kidding. That that was

Stephen 1:03:37
I remember, I was sitting in a car and it came on. And I listened to it. In a parking lot at a Kroger I finished it because I couldn't drive home.

Scott Benner 1:03:48
Hmm. Episode 478 For people wondering, DK or a mother bringing her daughter. Oh, you're gonna cry even if you okay. I'm sorry. It was really upsetting to you, huh? Yeah, yeah. Dude, I I heard Listen, when she was telling me the story. You got it. I knew it. I knew it worked out. Okay. And it was frightening. The way she told it. Absolutely frightening. What about it got to you. Are you able to tell me?

Stephen 1:04:20
Um, that that could be my kid. Oh, okay. Like, I'm, I'm diabetic. And so, you know, some people say or at least, when I started it was like, Oh, it skips a generation. It was like But my mom's type two. I'm type one grandma, grandpa granddad. One of them was was some sort of diabetic so and obviously, there isn't hard and fast rules. So my kid my kid could have diabetes, and that could be me.

Scott Benner 1:04:49
Yeah. Well, first of all, I think anybody could have diabetes and I it skips a generation does not sound very scientific to me and it never has. So youth is so Am I Am I to understand that you needed to understand diabetes better in case your kids got it? Yes. And you didn't want to not be there for your children as well? Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad it helped you. It sounds like it. Sounds like it shocked us right in the place. You were like, dammit, via CGM and some needles. Yeah, I gotta. I gotta get working here.

Stephen 1:05:24
I, I have I have the kit from a shout out for your your trial net. If there's still a sponsor kit from them. Did

Scott Benner 1:05:34
you? Yeah. When you send it back in I, I get credit for that. That's okay.

Stephen 1:05:39
Yeah. Then I'll do that. I won't just sit on the box.

Scott Benner 1:05:43
Yeah, well, that, you know, it's funny, when we were talking about doing it together, they're like, the biggest problem we have is getting people to return them. And I was like, Okay, so my numbers, it doesn't count to my number unless you send it back.

Stephen 1:05:54
It's, it's the fear of the answer. I've, I've got the question. Do I want to know the answer? Knowing what I know now and knowing what I've learned in the past year? Do? Do I want to know and worry about it? Or do I want to just let it happen? I think that's

Scott Benner 1:06:09
Are you worrying about it anyway? Yes. Well, then what's more than I'd rather know. I mean, unless you're living in like lala land on it, then. I don't see what the argument is. You're worrying one way or the other? Who cares what you're worrying about? It still worries me

Stephen 1:06:24
making sense that

Scott Benner 1:06:27
even I, you cut me off when I said no pizza. And now here with common sense.

Stephen 1:06:32
No, I like that. You're right. And sometimes, you know, I'm just oppositional defiant. I need somebody to just make me realize you're right.

Scott Benner 1:06:42
You're interesting, because I don't think you're I don't think that you are. What do I want to say? I feel like if God, there's no nice way to say this, I will just say different ways. I think if somebody would have adopted you, you would have had a different life. I don't know if it's where you grew up? Or how you grew up? Or like, what about is right, but the shift you made from not knowing to understanding and talking to you today, like you're a bright person. And you you get all this, but no one introduced it to you. You don't I mean,

Stephen 1:07:26
and I'm a gamer. So keep the keep the numbers between the lines is a game.

Scott Benner 1:07:31
And it's easy for you now that you understand that that's

Stephen 1:07:34
understand the rules, understand the purpose, and then execute goal. That interesting.

Scott Benner 1:07:42
Wow, did you you're well on your way. I mean, it sounds like it sounds like nothing but good things are ahead of you is really wonderful. Seriously, I'm happy for you. What does your wife say about it all? Um,

Stephen 1:07:56
we don't. She doesn't. We don't talk about it very much.

Scott Benner 1:07:59
Is that you're doing?

Stephen 1:08:02
I don't know. I would if she she asked, but you know, she doesn't listen to podcast. So I can say there's, in our years of marriage, she's got up to check on me. Overnight, either a lower high, maybe once or twice.

Scott Benner 1:08:19
You're you aren't paying attention to it. How would she know to pay attention?

Stephen 1:08:22
Right. I mean, but when you go out to the couch and swig three Cokes, and then pass out, you know, something's

Scott Benner 1:08:29
going on. Thanks.

Stephen 1:08:31
Somebody would come poke you and be like, Hey,

Scott Benner 1:08:32
are you okay? Dude, I would think having sex with you back then would have made her blood sugar high. Do you think it was really? I don't know if you can get a contact high from blood sugars. But if you could you were well on your way to proving it.

Stephen 1:08:49
That goes with all the doctors information I had early.

Scott Benner 1:08:53
Yeah, yeah. I don't think that's solid medical advice. But I just said they're

Stephen 1:08:57
out there. So so if somebody has low blood sugar, all you've got to do is and we're done,

Scott Benner 1:09:02
grab a hold of them. But that's it. I'll just do it. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you wanted to?

Stephen 1:09:11
Know? did? Did anybody post any questions about the JL?

Scott Benner 1:09:16
Facebook group? I don't know if they did or not actually. Do you think do you have some?

Stephen 1:09:21
No. I think when we started talking about this, six months ago, I posted something but I don't think anybody responded

Scott Benner 1:09:29
to it. Yeah, it's it's not something that I think a lot of people have experienced with. It's funny to, you know, not funny, but it actually makes sense. I have had four people set up to be on this program so far in over the years who have been imprisoned like, like, I'm not listening. I wouldn't want to be in jail for 10 days. Don't get me wrong, but I'm talking about people have been in prison for years, right with type one. And they've been, they've contacted me. They've said they want to do it, and then they get to some level of scheduling. And then they bail eventually, most often, I either hear parole issues, like they don't want to say anything and get themselves in trouble. Or they just kind of ghost me after a while. But I've never successfully gotten someone all the way to recording who's been in prison for many years. And I buttons on completely expunged

Stephen 1:10:20
so you can you can try to look it up. You won't find

Scott Benner 1:10:23
it. I can't find you anywhere. Yeah, no. Wow. Well, good for you. That's excellent, too. I mean, you deserve a second chance. I mean, I believe you went you're saying you kind of got LED wrong by a by a co worker. But uh, you know, nobody. I mean, listen, I'm assuming you weren't selling guns, the Contras. Right. You were you were basically given people off a little money like a discount on the on the gun, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen 1:10:49
Like there's, there's a regulated price they have to be we were giving a discount. lower than that regulated price.

Scott Benner 1:10:57
People hear that you you have cheaper guns, and then you do a lot of sales because of it. Even if they're only saving a few bucks. It's money saved and it gets right. And people know. Yeah, that's interesting. Do you own guns? Yes. Are you allowed to steal?

Stephen 1:11:10
Yes, I've since the expungement. I brought a couple of suppressors, to which take fingerprints and background checks. So I'm fully cleared out and everything

Scott Benner 1:11:20
you're back to good. Yeah, yeah. Does your wife shoot?

Stephen 1:11:25
No, no, she she grew up doing it. And her dad likes it. That's why he and I kind of connect and then she's just like, I don't want to do it. Okay. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:34
I gotcha. I try to, I'm sure my wife tries to stay away from me, too. I don't see her. When I have when I have hobbies. I don't see her like, Oh, I'll come. I'm more see a look on her face. Like, oh, he's leaving. Super exciting. Scott's going away for the afternoon. Yeah. Well, man, listen, I don't know what you're gonna do about trial on that, in my opinion, if you know, then, you know, then you can look out for things. You know, they do have protocols now that are having a lot of success holding off diagnosis for, you know, for for quite some time. If they find out soon enough, that might be a good enough reason to find out. Just so that you, you know, you can be aware might be a good enough reason to find out. And if you're going to worry about it anyway, at least your worries should do some good. I think that I think that your next steps might be to look harder at your nutrition. You know, for yourself personally. And maybe, maybe you won't need to go to more and more insulin to get that agency down farther and farther. And maybe you'll be able to impact it that way. You know what I mean? That I say go for a walk. And again, congratulations, you have to throw yourself a big, big party. Man. You did something? You did something that not a lot of people do. They seriously Mendy you pulled yourself out of a deep hole. And you did it by yourself is pretty, pretty goddamn impressive.

Stephen 1:13:01
Again, I don't want to rag on my parents and now that my dad's like, seeing everything he's like, I should have been involved. Why wasn't I involved? I was like, You were busy. You were at work. I also

Scott Benner 1:13:14
didn't know either, right? And your mom, I'm gonna guess this, your mom's got type two, it doesn't seem like a big deal, right? Because they don't really do anything. So there's no way to think of it as a big deal. He IT people don't even know the difference between type one type two. It's just not something they understand. Like, in your dad's mind, I bet you had the insulin kind of diabetes and your mom had the pill kind of diabetes. You know, and it's just not I mean, if you don't know you don't know, someone needs to step up. If some a doctor needs to step up and put it into perspective for you, and if you don't understand it, they should do it again and again and again until you get it not just say wow, you're not trying hard enough. You know,

Stephen 1:13:54
the death thing is real. It's not a joke. You can you can die.

Scott Benner 1:13:59
Yeah, yeah. Like in not used to. You just thought you were being scared. Like somebody's trying to scare you straight and you're like, I'm not falling for this. Yeah. Oh,

Stephen 1:14:07
that's that's not going to happen to me. I'm invincible. Yeah. Well, you're

Scott Benner 1:14:11
definitely not. You can't if you can't even get away with discount a gun. $5 Steven. I'm not sure it's fired. Yeah, well, shots fired. Ooh, I'm trying to be trying to name the episode calm down. That's my job. I really, I genuinely appreciate you doing this. I really do. This was was really wonderful. If you i and I'm super happy for you. I mean, honestly, in a way that I mean, we're in the middle of like, kind of joking around in the middle of this, you and you've talked about some serious stuff. And you started discussing your agency and I swear to God, I got overwhelmed. I really was just I was incredibly happy for you, you know?

Stephen 1:14:52
Now if only I could get my insurance to stop denying the Dexcom

Scott Benner 1:14:56
do you have to you can't get a letter of met necessity.

Stephen 1:15:00
We're working on it, but I've had to appeal it every month and it's always overturned, but it's just a pain.

Scott Benner 1:15:06
Yeah, get that letter from the doctor. You'll be okay. Yeah, if you have trouble with that there's a person in the wet in the, in the Facebook group who really understands all this

Stephen 1:15:17
stuff. So you've given me her name. Good. We've spoken

Scott Benner 1:15:20
Good, good. She's terrific. So all right. Wow, man, this is terrific. I really appreciate you doing this

a huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon. Find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGLUC AG o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. I'd also like to thank Stephen for sharing your story. And thank the in pen from Medtronic diabetes, head to in pen today.com by clicking on the links in your show notes, or at juicebox podcast.com. Or you can just type it into the browser in pen today.com.

I'd like to thank you for listening to the show and remind you that there is an absolutely amazing community for the podcast in Facebook. It's private, it's free. It's called Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. I think there's a link in the show notes to that as well. It's an absolutely fabulous place to listen, learn or talk about type one. And honestly, there's a lot of type twos in there to adults or parents. It's just a great space to talk about diabetes. And if you haven't filled out the survey AT T one D exchanged.org. Ford slash juice box, please do it for me today. It really will only take a few minutes. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.