#1050 Kick The Goat

Kristin is divorced and her child has type 1 diabetes.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 1050 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today, I'll be speaking with Kristen, she's the mother of a child with type one diabetes. Gonna talk about a number of different things here. I think Arden comes up in this episode, I think I call her doing it or text or something. And what else happens? Oh, Kristen is divorced. We talked about that with the impact of diabetes management, and a lot more. Honestly, I don't know what to call this one, so the title is probably not going to make any sense. While you're listening. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan are becoming bold with insulin. If you'd like to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com You can go get yourself sheets towels and clothing and save that 40% With the offer code juice box at checkout. You can also get a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order of ag one at mydlink. Drink ag one.com/juice box

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Kristin 2:44
My name is Christian. I am a caretaker for re an eight year old type one diabetic.

Scott Benner 2:52
Okay, right is eight. How old was he when he was diagnosed?

Kristin 2:56
She was Yeah, yeah. It's R EY like the Star Wars girl.

Scott Benner 3:02
Aren't you? Oh, like Ray. That's beautiful like that. I love that. Yeah. Okay. So she I'm sorry. So she was how old?

Kristin 3:13
She was six. So it was we're about in our two year in May two years.

Scott Benner 3:18
Okay, how did it present?

Kristin 3:22
Yeah. So she had had COVID in April of 2021. And then a couple weeks later started throwing up. And it was so funny because her sister I just had a stomach bug. So we really just thought no big deal. And then after a couple days, her dad took her to the ER because he said she seemed really lethargic all of a sudden. So I don't know quite what that looked like. But yeah, then she went to the ER, they gave her fluids and did the normal thing where they say, Okay, this is the fluid just go on home. And then right, then she started hallucinating. And then they said, nevermind. Let's keep her here a few more seconds. And then somebody finally thought to check her blood sugar, which I think was, you know, close to 700. And then it all became clear.

Scott Benner 4:04
Wow, they got to the blood sugar that quickly.

Kristin 4:08
Well, you know, it had been, I think it had been four or five hours of kind of like, okay, let's get fluids and monitor and she seemed so much better. So it did take some time. And then not long after, you know, the CDC came out with that report that said COVID leads to type one, so check for it. So I was really grateful thinking, you know, maybe next time they wouldn't have to be like super far into decay before it was, you know, discovered if someone came in post COVID They would just check. Select sugar right away.

Scott Benner 4:34
Yeah, someone would think Oh, look. Yeah. Okay. So that's a couple of years ago already. Right? How long was she in the hospital for?

Kristin 4:45
About four days? Four days.

Scott Benner 4:47
Did that seemed long to you? Or did that seem about right?

Kristin 4:51
You know, it was all kind of a fever dream. You know, I didn't sleep at all the first two nights because it was just so scary. The first night she was So, just still really hallucinating and kind of terrified and miserable. And then, and they kind of told me, you know, you're going to be here for a long time, eventually we'll transfer you to another hospital where you can, you know, go to diabetes school, but we got to stabilize, it could be a week here. So they were really telling me, I had it in my head, like, Okay, we're gonna be here for weeks. So in some senses it it seemed quick. But in other senses, you know, I'm, I've never been admitted at the ER before we always just go in and they say, Okay, go home. Right. So, in that sense, it just felt really surreal to be in a hospital for so many days. And they did transfer us but it was really just about two, two and a half days. And then she was at an ICU. And then then they had beds, the local children's hospitals, they moved us over there to like, go to diabetes school, and then we were there for, I think, just two nights and then came home.

Scott Benner 5:54
No context for diabetes at all in your family or anything like that.

Kristin 5:58
Yeah, so her dad's sister is type one, and it just never occurred to me. I don't think I understood that there could be some genetic links. And so I just didn't even think about that. And I was kind of curious if if he if her dad thought about that. When he took her in.

Scott Benner 6:21
Kristen, you broke up. I'm sorry, Sandra. You, Chris. I'm sorry. You broke up. You were wondering if? And so I think we're I'm not clear on this. So are you in her father not together?

Kristin 6:33
That's right, right. Yeah, we're divorced.

Scott Benner 6:35
So you, you said you wondered if that was in his mind when when he went to the hospital? But you don't know.

Kristin 6:42
Yeah, I don't know. And I have to guess no, just because I think he would have said somebody check her blood sugar sooner. If he had that in his mind at all. But yeah,

Scott Benner 6:52
you know, the longer I do this, I used to be kind of more shocked by that. Like, yeah, why would somebody not think of that, but then the longer I do it, I just think that that's not how it works. You know, we were talking to my son recently. And you know, Arden's had diabetes since she was two. Right? So for, you know, almost like two full decades, they live together with diabetes. And my son said something the other day, and I was like, that's not how that works. And he goes, No, and I'm like, You don't know that? And he goes, No, I guess I don't. And I and so extrapolating that forward, like trying to put my son in a situation 15 years from now, and he's in the ER with a baby going, I don't know what's wrong with this baby. Like, I don't know, if he would think to say, you know, my sister has type one diabetes. And

Kristin 7:41
right, yeah, it's strangely not top of mind. And I feel like I everywhere I go, I tell people like, Hey, did you know this is how she was diagnosed? Did you know that most type ones are diagnosed in adulthood? Now? Did you know because I just feel so traumatized by the experience. And I just think, how do we stop diagnosing and DKA it is a horrible experience, and how nice it would be to just routinely check it or have it more top of mind. But you know, it's just one of those things. It's rare enough that people don't think of it

Scott Benner 8:11
right. Yeah, the other side of that is, it's funny, you're bringing, it's really ironic that you're bringing this up, because right before we jumped on, I was running through my messages. There's this message from this person is like, you know, I'm doing a project for my journalism class, and my father has type one diabetes, and people don't understand that enough. And I was wondering if and blah, blah, blah, may ask the question. My thought was, well, you don't want me involved in this. Because what I'm gonna say to you is, I think it's completely reasonable that people don't understand type one diabetes. And then what's, what's the alternative? Like? What do we do we like, take a week out of everyone's life, and sit them down and explain everything in the world that could possibly go wrong to them? Because, yeah, that sounds like that would be overwhelming. And it's, but I take everyone's point when they're like, you know, it shouldn't get to this point. And it'd be so easy for doctors to do a finger stick check when they're certain symptoms arise. And I kind of, that's why I think it's more on the medical side, like, you're not just going to randomly expect everyone to understand, but if at least, no,

Kristin 9:10
you're right, because there's so many autoimmune disorders that I have so little information about, and it does seem like it must be frustrating to Dino to somebody else who doesn't understand like G tube and, you know, feeding tubes and stuff like that. And I just don't, I think the real frustration comes in, you're right, when medical folks seem to not get it, which I think we all run into. I see it you know, every day on the Facebook page, people run into medical staff that don't quite get it, which is very frustrating and or folks who kind of assume they get it, you know, and I think you know, maybe is it just like we need to respect each other more to understand that, you know, whatever you're going through, you're the expert of that. And yeah, I mean, I think doctors should know we had a dentist just tell us, we should be able to manage her type one with medication and we should stop giving her treatments for low's

Scott Benner 10:00
Really? Yeah, a physician told you that?

Kristin 10:03
Yeah, her dentist at the last appointment was like, Yeah, I think that's, I think you're thinking of type two and she was like, So you're telling me that her doctor wants her to have sugar? That was like, look, let's just move on here. Okay, I understand. I'm gonna try to avoid lows for you. All right, but that's, I'm not gonna get to a low and say, You know what? Your doctor doesn't want you to have sugar let's let's do something else.

Scott Benner 10:26
Sweet. In lieu of a vote cavity. Why don't we just dropped it right now instead? I don't want to have a cavity. Well, you know, cuz that's expensive for me. Yeah. Oh, my God. Insurance for dentistry is terrible. I was sitting in a in an infusion center recently getting an iron infusion, right? And I'm sitting there. And I've been there a number of times, I now have what I would loosely call a relationship with one of the nurses. And she just says like, what do you do for a living? And I was like, Oh, I make a podcast. And that's already a leap. People are just like, what now? You know, and then you're like, Well, I make a podcast and and then they go, Well, I don't understand how is that a job? Podcast reaches a lot of people. And then advertisers buy ads. And so I make a podcast and she's coming online. Right? Yeah. And then she goes, um, what's it about? And I said, diabetes? And she goes, Do you have diabetes? And I went, No. I was like, but then I explained that whole other thing, and she had met Arden once she's like, Oh, that little girl. And I'm like, Yes. And she's not little anymore. Go through this whole thing. Anyway, this leads into her telling me about her experience with diabetes and the hospital, and all the people that she saw, and what she tells people, and I want to tell you that about 87% of what she said wasn't accurate. Hey, guys, just jumping in to remind you that one of our sponsors better help is offering 10% off your first month of therapy, when you use my link better help.com forward slash juicebox. That's better. H e l p.com. Forward slash juicebox. Better help is the world's largest therapy service is 100%. Online boasts over 25,000 licensed and experienced therapists. And you can talk to them however you want text chat phone or on video, you can actually message your therapist at any time and schedule live sessions when it's convenient for you. Better help.com forward slash juicebox save 10% On your first month. Oh, wow. And so I was just sitting there like making a decision. I had like a, you know, a needle in my arm. And I'm sitting, and I'm gonna be there for the next hour and I just nodded through. I was like, Uh huh, uh huh. Yeah. Oh, oh. Uh huh. Thank you. And then I she said one thing that was so egregious that I turned her on it. And then I was like, What am I going to do? Like she's running around, by the way, I'm the only person they're lucky enough not to have cancer in an infusion center, you know? And so she's running around doing her job. And what am I gonna like, pull her aside and go, Hey, listen, you fundamentally don't understand any of the things that you just said, like, what would she have done next? You know,

Kristin 13:05
I mean, you could give her some episode numbers. Right? Well, I

Scott Benner 13:08
told her about the podcast, and I told her how to listen to it. I thought maybe she'll figure something out. She had worked in a hospital. And she knew she knew enough to deal with it the way hospitals deal with it when you're admitted, but you're not admitted for your diabetes. I guess it's the that's what she That's right. Yeah. But she thought she understood it. 100%.

Kristin 13:29
Yeah. And I think that's just the that's really the tricky part is just and that, I don't know, I have a little bit less empathy for that. I think I understand that folks in medical settings, have to just know so much information, but it does feel to me, especially when it comes to chronic illness that there, there could definitely stand to be a crash course or two about like, Okay, how do you deal with this? You know, when somebody's here, just like you said, I guess my only thought on that is that and this is generally how I feel with endos. It's like they have one job. And then as parents and caregivers or type ones, ourselves, we have a different job. And so we're going to fundamentally disagree. And that's not necessarily because we disagree. Does that make sense? It's because we just have different roles. And if you're a you know, medical professional, your job is public health, which means, you know, the best possible advice that's going to work for the largest group of people keeping things like compliance in mind. Yeah, and that's just going to be different advice than you would give your own child. I'm sure even an endo would say that.

Scott Benner 14:36
Oh, no, absolutely, uh, your your goals and their goals are different. You would think they're the same, but if you stop and really consider it, they're not you're you're talking about day to day, minute to minute care. And they're like, look, you're gonna be here for 48 hours. I don't want you to have a seizure while you're here. So we're going to keep your blood sugar at 200. Like that's,

Kristin 14:55
they're talking about advice that's going to work for every diabetic that comes in and I I always just say like, look, you're you're doing a great job for diabetics. But I, you know, I care in a broader sense about diabetic people. But in a specific sense, I care about one diabetic and that's my daughter.

Scott Benner 15:13
Yeah. And we're not going to let you do that today. So yeah, so it's something to stick up for yourself. You just sort of you educate in the moment for that moment, like, you're not trying to change their mind forever and ever, you're just trying to get you through that situation. And maybe that information sticks with the nurse or the physician or whatever. And they carried along to the next one, which is my expectation. And you know, Jenny always points out to me, adult endos overwhelmingly see type two patients and not type one patients. That's right. Yeah, yeah. If you have a child with type one, then you get this. It's a different experience. Like you go into a children's hospital, you know, generally speaking, and everything's very, I don't know how to put it like, it's nice. It's like you're ordering off the menu. You don't I mean, like, the place is really clean. And they tell you everything you need to know when you're having an experience. And like, and when you get to an adult, no, it's like, Hey, hi. What do you need insulin here, get out?

Kristin 16:12
Yeah, it's different. And it kind of relates to what you said is, you know, advocating in the moment for that moment and not trying to change the big picture. I think that is exactly perfect advice to deal with school nurses to you know, I was just talking about this with somebody else. But I feel like with school nurses that can feel like you need to get on the same page in a, in a broader sense. And you really just don't, you really just have to say, okay, how can we get this need met? And this moment? How do we make it so that, you know, I can call the shots in this particular moment, and then we can move on. But I think it can cause a lot of problems for families when they're trying to make sure you guys agree about type one management and that just might not happen.

Scott Benner 16:58
Yeah. Hey, listen, I'm sorry to do this in the middle of this, but I'm gonna call Arden because she's wearing a new CGM. And I don't know if the blood sugar I'm seeing is of a grand concern or not accurate. So I apologize. Hold on one second. I'm not going to stop the recording. So just give me a sec. Okay.

haven't done this in a while. On the podcast, I mean, she just texted me the word stop. So I'm assuming.

Kristin 17:32
Oh, my God, that's so funny. All right. Stop calling because I got this stop calling.

Scott Benner 17:42
Leave me alone. I'm trying to blah, blah, blah. She's probably running around or something like that. It's just it's a new sensor. And I sent her a text this morning. And I said, Hey, can you please calibrate this. And then there's a setting she has to flick kind of flip a switch and loop that she hasn't flipped yet. And now she's made a Bolus. A big she had a meal, very obviously, about 55 minutes ago. And at the moment, the CGM is indicating a 53 blood sugar with an arrow straight down. It just switched over now to 48. So I'm gonna guess that her blood sugar is not really 48 and it's clearly stopping like, so she knows the foods hitting her so she's not worried. And I mean, I've done what I can

Kristin 18:26
now only drops for like that. That's when I kind of sigh

Scott Benner 18:31
Yeah, it's, it's like it's just a brand. It's a brand new sensor. So I don't know if it's, like settled in well, or, you know, whatever. So, and I can never well, not never, but the process of getting her to test around a new sensor is she's she doesn't she hates it. She won't do it. Yeah, it will. She does it but I have to like cajole her sometimes. Yeah. So like, let's just check. You know, it's like, it's a couple hours old. Like, let's just be sure. Anyway, well, that was fun.

Kristin 19:04
I love the one word text. My daughter will just text me one word help sometimes. It drives me nuts. I'm like, Look, there are lots of things that that could mean and that's very stressful for me. It could mean you know you're feeling low. It can mean there's a shooter in a hallway. God forbid please text me something more descriptive than the word help mommy clean it means she wants to come home.

Scott Benner 19:27
Mommy, are you seeing the meteors falling out of the sky to down Shaolin pleases adjectives down to I can't think of the word I need for Exactly. Very helpful. Well, artists,

Unknown Speaker 19:39
my nerves can't take that word.

Scott Benner 19:41
Arden's direct she must be I'm guessing based on the time of day, she's rushing around to get to a class. Like she's, I think she's in her dorm room getting ready to leave. And she's she doesn't have the time to give away to me and my concerns for her safety. So anyway, we'll keep an eye on that as it goes because You know, whatever. Alright, so anyway, so yes, there's diabetes in the family. But no, nobody was thinking about it. You're divorced. And so am I to take from that there's not a ton of communication, or is the communication good?

Kristin 20:16
I know and maybe, yeah, it's okay. I would say that we kind of the way that we manage it is that we just do things separately. So like, even on her pump, we have separate profiles. And she kind of knows, okay, I just got to mom's I got to switch over to the mom profile. And I think in the beginning, we really tried it to kind of communicate and collaborate and it just, we just can't do it. We can't do it. Yeah, we just keep things pretty separate. And that makes it okay. I think it took us a couple years post diagnosis to kind of chill out about it and not think, okay, when she goes the other house, something terrible is gonna happen. We kind of settle and know that everyone's doing their best. Her agency is fine. She's doing fine. So yeah, I think that's about as good as it gets. For us.

Scott Benner 21:07
There's two management styles.

Unknown Speaker 21:08
Oh, yeah.

Scott Benner 21:12
I think I heard a lot in that. Oh, yeah. But okay. So it's a little higher and not as focused at one house. And at the other. You're a little more on top of things. Is that fair enough? Yeah. I

Kristin 21:25
mean, I think that's about how it feels. And I, I will say that I could go into clarity, for example, and try to measure and say, hey, look, on these days of the week, is she really more on range? I'm not going to go down that path. I don't feel like it's good for anybody. But my guess is you would see a better time and range. You know, I have my moments she was high last night. And I didn't truly know why overnight. And that's unusual. So I have times, you know, a sense or a one of those call this infusion site seems to fail or something and I have a she goes up high. But I want to say for the most part, I feel like I know what I'm doing. Fat pizza is still hard for me, but it's getting way better. But I feel like everything else, you do a secondary cupcakes, I can do cereal, like, Oh, that's good to go. And it I think the sense I get from the other house, at least in the beginning is that like, they don't mind if blood sugar is up high, as long as it comes back down within three hours. And that's kind of what they were told. And as far as I can tell, they follow the endo advice kind of perfectly. And and, you know, that is kind of the endo advice that that's okay. And I don't That to me is not a We missed you know what I mean? If we're up over 200. That's not like fine with me.

Scott Benner 22:48
So would you say that it's not apathy, right? Like they're doing? They're doing what they're supposed to be doing? It's just not what you would be hoping?

Kristin 22:57
That's right. Yeah. And I think I had to kind of come to that place in the beginning, where it was like, look, it's not like they're not giving her insulin. They're troubleshooting. When she's high, and trying to do something about it. They're up at night. And I think they both heard step by step mom there. I don't think they're married. But there anyway, she lives with them and has for years, they are doing their best. And I feel confident about that. And I say that was about 86% confidence. It's not that low. Yeah, that's not bad. So I'll take it 86%

Scott Benner 23:30
from a person who just said, I don't think they're married, which would indicate you don't have a ton of insight.

Kristin 23:39
You know, it's not my business. I think at first step parents, she does all the parents do stuff. And, you know,

Scott Benner 23:47
very nice. I mean, can you talk a little bit about what that's like, in the beginning, though, when, like, not now. But when you're doing a thing, I guess, five days a week, and then on two days, or however you're broken up, then it just changes? Does it make you mental? Are you like, Oh, my God, how did it hit you? And how did you get through it?

Kristin 24:08
Yeah, no, it was definitely really challenging. And I sound chill about it now, but I wasn't and I often am not. I mean, it comes up still, for sure. Because I think as a parent of a kid who has higher needs I, my, the way my trauma from the hospital has manifested is in hyper vigilance. And I have that's been a light switch that's turned on for me that as a first time thing prior to this, I was a very laid back parent to a fault. You know, we'd get places and I'd be like, Oh, God, we didn't eat a meal. That's so funny, you know, or, you know, we get to school without backpacks. That was just kind of normal. And that is not how I am anymore, you know, by necessity. And so it's very difficult when she's not here. I would say my anxiety is pretty high every night she's not here. Yeah, I mean, it's it's just so hard not being able to To control your kids well being as a parent period any time, but especially when there's something that does need so much input, and then you're physically not in the same house, that's really challenging. I think early on, there was a lot more. I think the kind of broad Crude Story We kind of told about our management styles was that she was always low at my house, and she was always high at their house. And I don't think either of those things were ever true. But that was kind of the story. So then there was like, extra anxiety every time she did go low here, because I felt like I was like, proving that story. Correct. And it was very stressful for me. Sometimes I would hear about it. And that was really hard. I didn't know in the beginning, how things would turn out. And I think now that we've had enough time, I can see, you know, over all, and you know, maybe 69% and range over there, maybe 70. And that's, you know, she's more in range here. So it evens out. So,

Scott Benner 26:03
yeah, can I ask them like in this situation, like just now with art? Which, by the way, do you think people are listening going, like, is art and alive? Could someone fill me? I'll tell you in a second or so but, but in a situation like this, if you were looking at like a dropping arrow, and it was frightening. You have the ability to call the house and say hi, is someone seeing this? Or is that not something you guys have?

Kristin 26:29
No, we don't have that. And you know what? I don't I don't look, I turn off on my alarms. And I don't wear my watch because otherwise I can't sleep.

Scott Benner 26:38
Yeah, no. Well, that Oh, Kristin. That's what I'm that's the thing I'm imagining like right now. If I wasn't able to reach out to somebody, like what would I do with the with the feeling you don't? I mean, I guess?

Kristin 26:52
Call therapist? Yeah, you know, it's, it's hard for sure. I have a lot of misplaced hypervigilance, and I think it lands on other stuff.

Scott Benner 27:01
Is your dining room very clean, or something?

Kristin 27:04
No, but I I started the grad school program. And I really do think that, you know, I think as far as I'm still I'm still the jury's still out on if me going into grad school is a misplaced way to spend my anxiety dollars, but I think it's okay, you know, it's me pouring into something that I can like research and learn more about and really do something productive, because I'm going to school to become a diabetes social worker. So it's it's a way for me to channel all of that like energy into the the stuff that I can control when I know ultimately, I have to just trust because calling Yeah, calling I did that once or twice. It doesn't it doesn't end well doesn't go well.

Scott Benner 27:51
It turns into the exact reason you're divorced.

Kristin 27:54
Yeah. It just doesn't promote. Uh, yeah. It doesn't do what I intended it to do. I'll just say that.

Scott Benner 28:04
It doesn't do what I do. Now. In fact, I wouldn't be fair in fairness, do you get on the phone? You're like you guys are killing or you're not paying attention? Or is it? Hi? Does it just know it's a mistrust? Even if you're like, Hi, I just saw that blood sugar's falling really quickly. And I was concerned and wanted to make sure that that just goes the wrong way.

Kristin 28:23
Yeah, I think every once in a while I have texted but yeah, I think in general, we try to keep contact really specific to logistics. And anytime there's other stuff. I would say I get more feedback than I give. And how old are you? What's that old? Are you? 37?

Scott Benner 28:45
Is your husband or your ex husband a similar age? Yes. How long were you together for

Speaker 3 28:49
abouts? Seven, eight years, something like that to meet

Scott Benner 28:53
when you were very young?

Kristin 28:54
Oh, we're in college. So average time

Scott Benner 28:58
I gotcha. Okay. I'm just trying to, like pick, you're doing such a lovely job of like, talking around at being you know, you're doing a good job of explaining your situation. There's just a couple of little details I don't have. Okay, so we understand how difficult that is, and you focused it into something else. And you because I'm imagining in those gaps of time, they probably just feel like time is paused. Right? Like they're like, the girls are gone. And then you're just sitting there like paused waiting for your turn again, hoping.

Kristin 29:32
Yeah, it's it was a it is it's still hard. You know, I kept thinking after a couple of years, I'll get used to them not being here. And I really haven't and still find it challenging. But I do think part of it is that experience I had in the hospital which really just rewired my brain. And I found like, you know in the couple of months, up to a year after I really just felt so spaced out

Scott Benner 30:00
So you're breaking up,

Kristin 30:01
hopefully remote at work, but I would get a call from the nurse. And it was like my brain was electric, I could think of a million things at once I knew every, you know, how many carbs was in each part of her lunch, and I could do any of that math. And I knew where all the supplies were and where the insurance did it. And so it was like all of my sharpness was like, retained for this one thing that was so anxiety inducing, and then everything else just felt like soup. And it's, it's not unlike that now, it's just much less extreme.

Scott Benner 30:32
Did you go to therapy? Is that how you got to this point?

Kristin 30:35
I have always been in therapy. But yeah, I did specifically call someone and say to

Scott Benner 30:43
them, Chris, I'm so sorry. You broke up. I'm getting like an unstable internet connection message from your side. So I'm not sure shoot. You've always been in therapy you called someone you called someone in what? Yeah, I

Kristin 30:56
called somebody and specifically said, I could use some help with this. And I don't want to talk about my feelings. I just really need someone to help me with the here and now kind of logistics of balancing this stuff.

Scott Benner 31:10
So in that calm in those conversations, what what was valuable for you?

Kristin 31:15
Oh, gosh, what a good question. I don't I don't really know, I think, a sounding board, I think, you know, you need connection to what's real. I feel like, you know, you just such a good job with that. There's a lot of, because our kids kind of are like, it's it's so hard to explain diabetes, right? Because it's like, listen, they're fine. They just could die. And like, those things are both true at the same time. And so you have to kind of balance between like what's real and that so like, yeah, your kid is has a 50 blood sugar, that sucks. But they're not actually really close to death, right? Like, kind of, how do you kind of ground yourself in that reality that they that if things keep going badly, they could die, but they probably will keep going badly? Because they're going to eat something?

Scott Benner 32:05
Yeah, because people don't understand. They don't have context for what you're saying. And it really is true. Like, I've listened. I've tried many times to explain it to somebody where I didn't sound crazy. That was always my I was like, Where can I get this out without me sound like I'm like being like, over the top, you know, hey, if her blood sugar is falling, and we don't do anything, it's going to end very poorly. But if we do something, it'll likely be fine. But we want to be vigilant about it and pay attention till we know speaking of vigilance, Arden's blood sugar's 16. Excuse me, 660 now, and obviously, her food hit her a few minutes later than she expected for it to. It's like 100% What's happening here? She made a nice.

Kristin 32:46
It's not still in a 57. I'm

Scott Benner 32:48
gonna guess from what I'm seeing on the Dexcom Oh, there it is. 72. Yeah, this is it. So that's why I got the stop email. Because what stopped means is, it's interesting, right? Because I'd have this conversation is coming together. But it's not much different than you calling your ex. Because I pick I picked her for a very good reason. Like, no one would say that what I did wasn't reasonable. Right. But in her world, this is already handled. Like I did a thing I ate. This is going to be fine. I know the CGM looks a little low right now. But I feel fine. So maybe she was never really, like, you know, like, she's probably higher. Like if we would have tested at 49. She might have already been 60 or whatever. And right. And now she's feeling judged and questioned. Right, right. And you're taking her out of her flow of her day and what she's doing, but none of that changes what it's like to be on this side of it. Right? And the to never even like, you know, we're sitting here almost joking, because it's between you and an X. But this is between me and my daughter who have we have a really great relationship. Right. And it's still honestly the same thing happened. Yes. And

Kristin 34:04
I'm aware that it will be that way soon, too, right. I mean, she's eight right now, but she's already arguing with me about a Bolus or you know, she has her own opinions. And I love that so much. And I really try to encourage it. And I'm aware that at some point, this will be me, you know, texting her going. Hey, hey, do you see that 15 Is everything good? And then she's gonna text back one word help, and I will have no idea what to do.

Scott Benner 34:32
I sent a Artem was on the beach on Friday. So Arden doesn't go to or does have classes on Fridays and she's close to a beach where she goes to school. I'm not like I don't pay attention to what she's doing moment to moment, you know, but I gotta, I gotta, I gotta signal and I was like, oh Arden's low and I looked and it wasn't like, like it was a low that kind of crap up on her. And I looked at her location and She was on a beach. And I texted and nobody answered. And I was like, Well, I mean it's loud there. So I sent like a find your iPhone signal to her phone. Oddly, that when I got back like hey, I'm okay, blah, blah this is what I did. I've already treated this, you know, I said I love you and she's like, that was nice like she hearted. My I love you. Which by the way, as you get older as a parent, it's interesting where you accept your like, reassurance from like, my wife, my wife will be like culpa hard on that and I'm like, you know the hearts the first thing you get to with your finger, right? Oh, jeez, but my wife's like, but it's a heart. I'm like, if the thumbs up was first you would have got a thumbs up. I'm just saying. This is about this is about finger travel. Not about feelings. But okay. And anyway, but so she was okay in her reaction was fine. And she was absolutely fine. Like she didn't mind that I helped that I was looking out for. And this time, I don't even know that she minds. I think if we got her hold of her right now. And as she'd be like, Look, I was just running around getting ready for, you know, class and, you know, I know was more typing than stop.

Kristin 36:13
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. And it's hard to know what that yeah, what that means to her if she would have she actually irritated by it. Or if she was like, Yeah, that was fine. I just want you to know I had it.

Scott Benner 36:25
Yeah. Anyway, let's Yeah, well, how do we how do we manage right? Is it MDI pumps CGM? obviously have a CGM. But what do you do?

Kristin 36:34
Right? Yeah, so she's on a control IQ.

Scott Benner 36:38
Okay. Oh, great. Excellent. How do you find that?

Kristin 36:42
You know, I really like it. I was just talking to somebody about this, who's kind of considering? Well, I don't know if she's considering looping, I was considering looping for her, I was encouraging her to look into it. And because she's on them the pod and so she was asking about control IQ. And I feel like what I feel about control IQ. And this is based on, you know, what I see, frankly, on the on the Facebook page about Omnipod. Five is that control IQ is an algorithm that helps you avoid lows and kind of get an edge on the creep up. But it doesn't get in your business too much. You can still do extended boluses, you can still jump in and it feels like Omnipod five is kind of designed for for more of a hands off approach. I don't know, I'm just kind of speaking based on what I see from folks. No, I really like being able to get in there and make my own decisions about bonuses and stuff like that.

Scott Benner 37:45
Yeah, I think Omnipod five is very specifically designed to be a thing that you don't think about. And right. And I agree that control IQ has a couple of more like options for you on a more like, I'm just gonna say on a manual, but you're not really a manual, you're still in the algorithm, but you can do a little more. And then lupus, lupus probably like the, you know, like the way the nth degree of that idea where you have a lot of, you know, autonomy to make changes as you go. And I think they all have their place for sure. And I think that if you if you ask people who are newly diagnosed, they'd say, I want the thing where I don't think like, I think that it's going that way, like I don't think people

Kristin 38:32
and I think it works for different, like you said it has its place, it works for different people. And I think control IQ works great for us, because we can set profiles, but it's not so manual that we're really fighting over every detail. So I really liked that we can kind of use it in our situation. If I if it was just me caring for her, her I would be really interested to try looping. But in my current situation, this works great. I really, I'm really inspired by some of the folks you've had on the lazy IQ. And then Jeremy but I really just leave it in sleep mode. I override every Bolus, and it's just how I do it. It makes sense to me. I was really, I think that's why I love the podcast right away. Because in the first episodes, I was listening to you were going look, I just looked at a plate of food and I go, Hey, that looks like 25 carbs, I'm gonna give five for the broccoli. I'm gonna give a couple for the burger go. And I was like, Whoa, that's perfect. That's how my brain works. I want to be able to just name the units and you know, think about it that way and not be so underwater with them with the math. So I really liked being able to Yeah, override Bolus.

Scott Benner 39:49
I think that can't. I mean, obviously it's the way I think so I'm going to agree with it. But I think I've seen it, touch so many people and have a similar impact that I really I mean, even Arden like, look, she went away to college and she's maintaining her. I mean, her agency went up like, I don't know, like point to like they don't I mean, in the first the first couple of months she was there. And then we very recently visited. So her spring break came. So it was the end of our Arden has an assistant with quarters, not trying, like not semester. So it was the end of the quarter, we took that opportunity art and traveled from where she is to where her brother is she spent a couple of days with him. Then we showed up and we spent like four or five days together. And then he had to kind of get back to work. So we went back to school with Arden and we got her like, you know, weekly, we helped her clean her dorm room and went shopping for food and stuff like got her set back up for the next quarter. And we were kind of at dinner one night. And I was like, Look, you're doing a terrific job. Like a really, really, really great job I'm very proud of. But here are the two things I need you to do that you're not doing right. And and I was like and they're not big thing. So I was like But you're looking at high blood sugar's a little too long. And you're not Pre-Bolus Singh long enough before your meals. And she's like, Okay, I'm like really hard. That's my only feedback. I said, I think you're, I think you're a one C could go back to under six, like in the fives. If you just do these two extra things, and it's saying a lot because her sleep schedule screwy. Her eating schedule school. The food she's getting is terrible. From right from the school. She actually is in the middle of trying to get an up a cot one of my I just said every word except the one I wanted a dorm that has has a kitchen in it because she wants to cook more of her own food. Yeah, like

Kristin 41:46
I can the college food holy cow that is impressive to be able to handle that even remotely.

Scott Benner 41:52
Oh my gosh, you have no I mean this Bolus that we're talking about this morning, by the way, her blood sugar's 107. Now for everybody who's concerned? Yeah, I mean, she Bolus 65 carbs this morning, which was almost 13 units of insulin. And you know, it. Sorry about that. It was I hate the set. By the way, whoever makes Nightscout I hate that noise, fix it, make it go away. Pick a different noise, anything at all. I mean, she didn't miss by much. Like, the reality of it is she probably ate five minutes too late. And if she wouldn't have this curve that she created would have happened a little sooner. Now if this 107 levels out. I don't know how to argue with that. Like, you know, then her her eating. She just she just started a little late. And that again, it's probably because she's rushing around. So I mean, she's 18 Right? Yeah,

Kristin 42:48
it's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, and I feel like it would be so much easier for it to go the other way where it went too high. And I I appreciate that perspective. And I definitely keep it in my head when she goes low. Before breakfast or something like that. Look, it was just a little the curve was just a little too soon.

Scott Benner 43:06
Yeah, stop fix it or whatever. It sounds like what Arden did was she was like that'll be fine. And because she knew that because she knew the food was in she probably if she responded back would have said you should have seen what I just the mess that these people just gave me that I just say trust me, it's gonna hit my blood sugar and and then right, yeah, right. But anyway, it's you know, and for people listening who have like a late high school aged kid who might be going to college. I have to tell you that I've one child who's gone through college has graduated already. And one child who's a freshman. The food service at the first school was terrible. But it was it was obviously terrible. Like you looked at it and you're like, Oh, God, like I'm so sorry. You're gonna have to eat this like if it felt like that right? Like he wants send us a picture of pink chicken. Oh, mom. And he's like, Hey, look, you know, here's a piece of chicken a kid got in the cafeteria the other day the kids blew the school up on on Instagram about it. Like they went after went after him on social media and the school responded with this like a like a government thing that said that because of the way they cook the chicken. It may look pink and that safe. Well, they didn't say I get you don't want your chicken to be pink. Or they just went after that's fine. It's safe. Like anyway, Arden gets the school and we're on the tour. You know, before she chose the school. And the cafeteria that she eats in is magical. Oh wow. If you walk in you're like oh my god, like I I'd happily live in here. You know, like beautiful like food everywhere and blah blah blah. But what she ended up telling me after not much time is she's like that this is all just really processed crappy food. And you know, she's like, even though vegetables are good like they're soaked in something that's not really butter, and I don't know what it is. And, you know, like, so it's just it's really impactful. Your kids are really going to need to know how to use insulin if they're gonna go to college. That's for sure. So,

Kristin 45:15
yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just a whole How do you feed that many kids without getting giant cans of green beans soaked in something, you know? How do you do it?

Scott Benner 45:24
I don't know. And that's the other thing is it's almost like the the conversation earlier about you need to understand diabetes better. But how's everyone going to do that? Like, what's Gordon Ramsay gonna show up at every school and set it up? And, you know, they're just, and it sucks. Because, you know, even she said to me recently, she's like, you know, everybody talks about, like, you know, they still say, like, I'm gonna put on the freshman 15. And she's like, maybe that wouldn't be necessary if this food was decent.

Kristin 45:52
Oh, yeah. I think that's what it is. 100% It's the food. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:57
well, that freaked me out. Because there's a person who has put so much effort into, like making small changes. You know, for my kids, like, I was like, Wait, so 20 years, I've been at this. And now I'm powerless. You want to hear a funny story? Kirsten, hold on. So my, my son moves, you know, to take a job. And I go with him. Like, because he is poor kids. Like he got a job. And they were like, you have to be here in two weeks and start it was in another state 700 miles from our house. He had never had a job before because he was a college baseball player. So baseball was his job. He's never had a job before he's moving across the country to take a job, right. And so I'm like, I'll go with you, I'll help you get the apartment set up. Like we had to rent him an apartment sight unseen, which was frightening. Anyway, we're in the grocery store, like two days before I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna leave like the next day. And we're trying he doesn't know he's walking around. Like, I don't know what to buy, you know, like, I don't know, you know. So I'm like, Here, grab some of this. Like, I'm just trying to get him going. And I go to get him some olive oil to cook with. And they don't have cold pressed olive oil in the grocery store, which for anybody who cares when you press oil and olive oil with heat, you change it and you fundamentally make it it's just not as healthy afterwards. Right? And it's a little thing, but it's a thing I figured out years ago, Kristin and dammit, like removing other oils out of the house like canola and vegetable oil, all that stuff. If none of that exists in the house. In my house. There's olive oil that is cold pressed, and there's coconut oil to make popcorn it like that's all in my house. Okay. So I'm standing in the grocery store. Oh my god. Alright, I'll just tell you, I'm standing in the grocery store. They don't have cold pressed olive oil. And I start to cry. Oh, I literally like not like, like, you know, like soap opera. But I was just like, tears started coming out of my eyes. And I was like, so frustrated that, like, I'm like, oh, no, like, I did all this to put him in this position. And now this, so this lady next to me goes. She goes honey, you okay?

Speaker 3 48:12
Oh, yes. Thank you. Like, how am I going to explain this to her? Just say they don't have code for methodology. She's gonna call the cops, you know?

Scott Benner 48:24
So I just shifted the conversation tiny bit I said is I'm I just brought my son to the city. He's staying for a job and I'm starting to realize I'm leaving. I just lied to her a little bit. Like this is why I'm crying. Meanwhile, you know,

Kristin 48:40
part of you were crying is that you were sad to leave your son. Well, yes,

Scott Benner 48:44
those a whole shopping experience was terrible. I walked around there with blinders. I try not to make eye contact with him. Because I was like, I was upset. Don't get me wrong. I was on the edge Kristin. But the actual reason that I couldn't hold it together was the freakin olive oil. And, and I just told her, you know, I'm just sad about leaving my son and she goes, Oh, sweetheart. She's like, it's the greatest thing. It's like, oh, okay, she's

Kristin 49:11
ready. Your kids. Yeah, she

Scott Benner 49:12
didn't like she didn't like her kids as much as I like mine. I don't think she was like, Oh, please, you're gonna love this, and I don't particularly love it. Okay, sure. But my bigger point was, I guess I needed to embarrass myself on the podcast. I haven't done that. But But the other thing, just like all this preparation goes into something and suddenly gone. It's not even up to you. It's over. You know? No, I

Kristin 49:39
totally get the freaking olive oil moment because it's, it's about like you just like, you know, kill yourself to make things happen for your kids and to get things together for your family. And in the end, you have no control. And I think being confronted with that realization is sobering and sometimes makes you tear up in the grocery store.

Scott Benner 49:58
Oh my God, I'm such Baby to I mean, there's no no way around it also, I'm calling this episode freaking olive oil. And but anyway, so you're using control IQ. Do you think there are people listening are like yes about control like you 10 minutes ago, and now we're back?

Unknown Speaker 50:19
For sure, yeah.

Scott Benner 50:20
But you're liking that. So you're using the Dexcom G six using control IQ, right? That's right. Do you intend to move to the g7 once it's compatible?

Kristin 50:30
Oh, yeah, I'm so excited. I am very much looking forward to a 30 minute warmup time. That sounds so nice to me. And the the transmitter thing

are you still there?

Scott Benner 50:52
Kristen, do you have a mountain bike? I

Kristin 50:54
mean, I I live in a mountainous area. There's not like mountains right next to me. Is it

Scott Benner 50:59
do? That's okay. But like a goats? No. No, no, no. Okay. Just you just kicked out. I'm sorry. g7. Oh, yeah, I'm

Kristin 51:09
looking forward to the warm up time being only 30 minutes. And the transmitter thing but I was just asking you guys are on the g7. Is that right?

Scott Benner 51:18
So Arden just used a g7 for 10 days. And going back to use up a couple of G SIX sensors. And then I think in about a week her the rest of her G sevens get delivered for people who are like, I don't understand how that happens. I'm happy to tell you. I got one promotional g7 For Arden to use because of the podcast. And while we were visiting with her, I said, Hey, why don't you wear this while I'm here. That way we can learn about it together, then you can switch back to G six. And then you know, go back to g7. And you'll have some context for it. So she worked for 10 days, she'll be wearing it again in like a week or two for the rest of it going forward.

Kristin 51:57
Cool. Cool. And so when you put it on,

Scott Benner 52:01
I can't believe you just broke up again. Kristen. That's hilarious. Just your connection is unstable.

Kristin 52:14
I think Oh, no. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I

Scott Benner 52:16
think they're the go just stop for a second. So when you say Yeah, I heard you say so when you put it on?

Kristin 52:22
Oh, geez, when you put it on? Is there something you have to do with the transmitter? Or do you just kind of ignore it and it connects.

Scott Benner 52:29
Okay, so you unscrew the little lid from the doohickey. Sorry, you push it against your skin, it kind of collapses this, like there's a ring, once you unscrew the lid, you'll see this kind of clear ring. And then you press down, the ring kind of goes up inside of it. So then the I'm doing a poor job of this, but then the The device is now touching your skin. You push a button on the side. I've seen I've seen it inserted now for a couple of different people about a half dozen times, nobody seems to notice any pain from it, close it down, put the cover on. And then you take your phone, scan the QR code on the side of the inserting device. And somewhere between like 25 to 30 minutes later just pops on and it's there.

Kristin 53:19
Oh, cool. Okay. And I was just wondering if there's like, you know, the getting the transmitter to connect always feels dicey to me. So I was wondering like, does this make that go away? Or does this just happen every time?

Scott Benner 53:33
Yeah, I mean, I've seen four of them so far. And so far, I haven't noticed the problem with that at all. Cool. Okay, that's great. The one thing I'll bring up, is that it doesn't delete the transmitter from your Bluetooth profile on your phone, which I know it can no, there's no way for it to actually happen. But I don't know if people pay attention to this or not. But every time you put on a GSX you put on and with a new transmitter, you're pairing to a new transmitter, you're making a new Bluetooth connection to something and then your your phone holds on to that as something that it's been it's good to delete the old ones is what I'm saying. Okay, and so on G six, you know, a transmitter last 90 days, you're really only deleting a few a year, but with g7 every 10 days you're gonna I would go into my Bluetooth and delete the old transmitter being very careful not to delete the one that you're using currently, obviously,

Kristin 54:27
okay, well that is totally I can do that that's worth the headache of it's just you know, it's like one more thing just the other night we had to do a a Dexcom change I finally gave up at two in the morning and decided to pull it because it was so bad and dad once I got it and so just you know picture me at two in the morning. Hunched in the bottom bunk of a bunk bed with the sleeping kid and you know, test strips trying to pry out the transmitter to get a new one in there. It was his a rough night. So I'm very excited for that just to be one problem. instead of to,

Scott Benner 55:01
well, just just that it's one thing, like, it's so cool. Like you peel it off, you like tossed in the trash kind of don't even feel bad about it. It's so small, you know, you're like, oh, and I asked Arden afterwards, I was like so g7 What do you think she was smaller? And I was like, Cool. Like, that's really what she had to say she's, like, smaller. And so she must have noticed that it was smaller. Yeah, yeah, that was, that was kind of it. It's, uh, you know, I've heard people say, like, oh, there's, you know, like, I'm seeing connection issues with mine, and blah, blah. And like I, you know, Arden didn't have any of those problems. So I don't know what to say. And the other person that I see using it is not either. Great. And I'm being a little vague, just because it's nobody's business. But maybe one day, I'll talk about it. Okay. That sounds

Kristin 55:47
like a story. Now. I'm intrigued. Oh, sure.

Scott Benner 55:49
It is always a story. Kristen has to be a story. What am I not talking about that you'd be interested in cover?

Kristin 55:58
Gosh, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I can talk a little bit about, you know, school stuff. That's kind of interesting. I don't know that I was I was kind of having a little impostor syndrome coming on here. I was like, gosh, what in the world would make this valuable for people to listen to? They've heard all about control IQ. And they've heard all about divorce. And they've heard all about anxiety and mental health stuff. So I don't know. I don't I'm not. I don't know if I have anything unique to share? Well, no,

Scott Benner 56:23
I think that the thing, like the massive thing that came out of this, I thought, was just the intersection of the conversation about what happens when, you know, when race somewhere else, and you don't have the autonomy to reach out. And then this thing happened art and all at the same time, which is weird, but I thought that was terrific. And I don't think there's anything wrong with reminding people that, you know, you have this kind of hypervigilance that's given to you by the diagnosis. And then it's really difficult. Like, I thought it was very cool the way you talked about aiming it at something else. Yeah. Honestly, I thought that was really valuable. Because I think what happens to a lot of people is that they just stare at a number on a screen and make themselves, you know, upset. Looking at

Kristin 57:11
which I do, which I do, do I just also to school?

Scott Benner 57:16
Don't get me wrong, Scott, I do that. So.

Kristin 57:20
Yeah, that's definitely part of the deal. And I wonder if if I imagine that's true for type one diabetics, as well that you have a lot of hypervigilance and in different ways, right? Because it is your body. And I was a part for a little while of a meditation group that was virtual, and it was for type one diabetics and their caregivers. And that was really cool. Because it was just kind of acknowledging the relationship you have with your body or with the body of the person that you care for, which is just really strained in some ways, because of chronic illness in a way that, you know, it's not for the typical person with a functioning pancreas trying to meditate, you know,

Scott Benner 58:01
would you get like you got together? Like, digitally, like over zoom or something? And then yeah,

Kristin 58:07
over zoom, and there were some guided meditations, it was so cool. I'm not sure when I stopped doing it. Except that, you know, everyone gets zoom burnout every once in a while. But it was very, very helpful to see a particularly a lot of the most of the people on it were diabetics themselves and adults, and they're talking about things like how difficult it is to trust your body to be well, when it might not be and how you kind of exist in that space of learning to build that trusting relationship. It might sound a little out there for some people, but I thought it was really helpful.

Scott Benner 58:41
No, I don't think so. I also I think that people do exist in different spaces, right? So you'll see people like us. Arden is an example Arden does her thing. The diabetes does what it does, she does what she's supposed to do. Sometimes she's high, and she fixes it. And sometimes she's low, and she fixes it. But for the most part, you'd be hard pressed. If if I pulled Arden aside and said, describe yourself. I don't know that she'd ever mentioned diabetes. Right? That's right. And I think there are people who you'd pull aside and say, describe yourself and they'd say, I have the first thing that come out of our mouth is I have diabetes, and right, you know, and then they'd go from there. So does everybody get where Arden is? I kind of think they do eventually. I think that the one thing, this is kind of a big idea from a personalized perspective, because I see a lot of people talking and I see a lot of people living with things at different points in their journey. I think eventually, if I could somehow make sure that the next 10 people I interviewed had had diabetes for 10 years but also understood it. You'd hear a lot of people talk like Arden Yes. You know, and I think if you find a lot of newer diagnose people, or people who are not quite in control their surroundings like you are they sound like you.

Kristin 1:00:03
Yeah. And I think it's I'm wondering if that's true. Like, I almost wonder because there's been so much stigma around diabetes, there are folks who've been diagnosed for a long time and they're very kind of loud and proud about it. And I, I do think you're true if we were to look 10 years in the future, what what are kids 10 years in the future who are diagnosed now going to be saying about diabetes? And I wonder if it's a lot like garden, you know, these kids are in a different time, where there's, it's not this grim diagnosis that it was, it's not people are showing their CGM is just this kind of de marginalizing of, of chronic illness that's happening. And I don't want to say, oh, things are gonna be great and easy, I still think you're gonna have to advocate but that's got to have an impact.

Scott Benner 1:00:48
Know, for sure. I, I, I believe that totally. And I always try to also think about all the people who are not on social media, because that is that is most people I just saw, I just kind of put people in slots. Like I didn't mention all the slots that I think of people there also people have had diabetes for a long time don't understand it are struggling terribly. And there are people who have given up, there are people who run high on purpose, there are people who run low on purpose and feed their insulin, like everybody's doing it slightly differently, which I think you mentioned earlier, like I do the thing that fits how, how we live and how I do it. So right. But in the end, my goal is for anybody to have the Act have access to information that would let them live a stable existence at a blood sugar that's not going to cause them a problem in the future.

Kristin 1:01:39
Yeah, people have a choice, right and not feeling like they're, they're kind of stuck in one way. And I'm curious how Ray is gonna go. I mean, for her right now she's very, she really likes having diabetes, it makes her feel special. I mean, in this morning, she just said to me, mom, before I had diabetes, my life was kind of boring, I didn't have much going on. And I thought that was so interesting that now she feels kind of like herself, like there's something to focus on. I mean, I don't know what that means. It was also you know, a pandemic, so who knows what kind of was working out for her mental health wise,

Scott Benner 1:02:19
that is interesting. Like, there's something that she identity wise, like, you know, like, you're like a little kid, and there's just you get up and you do a thing every day, and blah, blah, blah, and it's just over and over again. But all of a sudden, there's a thing about you that's different. And instead of, like, brushing up against and be like, I can't believe this happened to me, she's more like, Ha, there's a thing about me, that's different. That's cool.

Kristin 1:02:43
Yeah, and I was thinking this the other day, too. And I don't know how I feel about saying this, but I just know that it's true, that if, you know, tomorrow, we would wake up and they were to say, hey, look, there's a cure for type one, and it's totally accessible. Here it is, and that we're to go away from our lives. You have to feel this way about art. And I just felt like, way that would be pretty jarring. Obviously, I'd be happy. But also, I'd be really lost for a little bit in my connection to her. Does that make sense? Oh, no, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:17
you'd have to read kind of rejigger your focus of your life, I think that's what it really is, is that you've put so much effort into this thing. Now, that takes up time, it is part of your identity, right? Like if I asked you about you, at some point, you say I'm the mother, you know, a child who has type one diabetes, and you know, and then all if that all went away, it would take time to to, to settle again. And by the way, that's not I put this I've put this question online a couple of times over the years, just to kind of give people some comfort. But the amount of adults with type one who say they wouldn't give it away is interesting. Yes,

Kristin 1:03:58
I've noticed that too. I found that so fascinating. I mean, as a parent, I'd have to say Yes, take it away, because, you know, obviously there's just so much risk involved. But it is true that it would shake up myself in my life, but I specifically the kind of connection we have, you know, it's funny when she switched to the pump. I had this feeling of kind of loss and despair that was very not connected to like the fact that I was very excited. I knew it was the right thing and I and I that I sat with that for a while and I was like you know this feeling of loss I'm having is the same feeling I felt when we stopped nursing and she was a baby. It's like this connection I had to her and this way I provided for her went away and it changed my connection to her and so it was giving shots which is like a pretty weird you know, not super like loving you know, intimate connection with your child but it's still was in so many ways and you You know, obviously I still have that connection with her, but just like the the way I can make eye contact with her across the room, and we know we're checking in about blood sugar, you know, you know, she plays sports. And if I walk up to the edge of wherever she's playing, she knows to run over and get a snack like I value that connection, we have an that kind of understanding and the way she knows how proud I am of her for managing or the way she'll tell me, Hey, No, Mom, I think it should be this many units. Like that's a whole thing we do. What would it be like to just, you know, give her a meal in the morning and let her go play softball and not really pay attention, you know, to what was happening, it would just change us fundamentally,

Scott Benner 1:05:42
is the message here that because of diabetes, you focused on your kids in a way that you hadn't prior?

Kristin 1:05:53
100%? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sure it's true with any thing. I mean, even if it's just, your kid takes up a new instrument you have, you know, and say your kid starts playing the trumpet, and they get all this confidence about it. And you also play the trumpet, and you talk to them about I mean, now, that's part of your shared experience, and the way that they have, you know, they feel loved by you. And so I think that's going to be true with a lot of things. But there's something so relentless about diabetes. I mean, it is relentless. There's not something relentless about it. And yeah, it really changes the way the two of you connect. I mean, with Arden, if you suddenly never had a talk about diabetes with her again, I'm sure it would change the stuff you randomly texted her about, you know, instead of going, hey, oh, no, three, you know,

Scott Benner 1:06:49
we're definitely yeah, I mean, we're definitely closer because of diabetes. Right? That's for certain, like, it just it forces you together, you know, like, and it's not that you don't listen, it's not that you're not interested in your kids. But life gets moving. And sometimes you just like, Oh, it's on autopilot. And it's working. Like I'm gonna get through this week, I'm gonna get through work. We all ate, you know, everybody's clean. They went to school, like, you know, and that's that there's function things. They just keep happening. And you have a way of like, drifting, like apart, like during stuff like that. And this is something that holds you together. Listen, I've said this before. But I once wrote a blog post a long time ago about how lucky I felt because in the middle of the night, I hold Arden's hand, and I've watched her hand get bigger and bigger and bigger. And yeah, and no, you don't get that if you don't have to go test your kids blood sugar in the middle of the night.

Kristin 1:07:40
That's right. It's a bizarre, it's a bizarre kind of extension of babyhood where you're up in the night. And you kind of fill that role of the, just the Nightwatch. And it's become really precious to me, too. And it's always that way with kids, you know, there's always something. But this is a particularity of that relationship that is weirdly meaningful, despite, you know, all the challenges, and sometimes the, you know, just general regret of it, and wishing it would go away. Yeah, there's just some radical acceptance, I

Scott Benner 1:08:13
understand. you'd listen if you if I gave you the magic wand after thinking about it for a long time, you'd be like, Yeah, goodbye, diabetes, I'll figure out the rest of it later. But, but I understand all the pushing, but listen, about having something taken from you. This is not in the public Christmas. So this is just between you and I. But by the time people hear this, it won't matter. It will be out by then I decided to take a GLP one for weight loss. So I'm using weego V. and the details are not important here. But I mean, your appetite really does. Its I did not have a big appetite to begin with. I'm almost at the point now where I don't think about food at all, like to the point where I'm reminding myself to eat throughout the day, but I do recognize that in the evenings. Like if you sit and watch, like, even if it's just like, I'm gonna make popcorn while we watch this movie, or something like that, like you don't realize how much of that just the preparation of the food and the talking about and all that stuff is part of your day. So my wife and I sat down. I don't know, Saturday night to watch television together. We work really hard, like so during the week, my house just this very still. Nobody uses like TVs or anything. So we're like, we're really going to do this, like we're gonna stop working and like, we're all like, excited. And then I sat down and she looks over me she was are you okay? And I'm like, why? Yeah, I'm okay. Why she goes, You look sad. And I was like, I'm, I am. And she goes, why? And I'm like, I I I thought to make popcorn. And I was like, but I don't want it. Oh, no. And it was a really, really interesting moment where I was like, Oh my God, how much of my time am I filling with things I don't even want or need because it's the way Do it. Yeah, Rachel? Yeah, does that just just absolutely ritualistic and? And so I'm like, I'm not sad, like, um, but I feel empty. And yeah, and that that is the I sat there for like two hours enjoying what we were doing together, enjoying the thing I was watching. And I still had this feeling of emptiness inside. And I thought, oh my god, like, I'm like, so fundamentally broken about like, about food, like, Thank God for this. This, this injection, like, like, really like, I never would have like known this because I'm not a big eater. Like, I joke, I joke all the time. Listen, this is just this, these are the words I use in my private life. I'm like, I am the fattest person you'll ever meet, that doesn't eat. Like, I just don't take in a bunch of food, my body shouldn't. Like, based on what I take in, I shouldn't be this size. And I'm not I don't want you to give the impression that I'm like, you know, but I am like, I, obviously my doctor wrote me a prescription for something. And the insurance company said yes to it, because my BMI is high enough that I, I fit, I fit this need, right. But in that doctor's office a couple of weeks ago, I said to the doctor, before we start, because I think you need the context for why I'm asking about this. How much do you think I weigh? And I said, Please, can't hurt my feelings. I have a very close relationship with this physician. You know, it's almost like friends sitting together there. They're not going to like I stood up, I took my sweatshirt off. I spotted a circle. And she goes, I got you to 175 pounds. And I was like, Yeah. And I said, Yeah, I think that's part of the problem. And she goes, what I said, I weigh 233 pounds. And she goes, What do you mean, you think that's part of the problem? And I said, I look in the mirror, and I don't look at a person who looks like they need to lose weight. Yeah. And then I'm like, I don't know how I'm carrying it. Like, it's like, I'm broad shouldered Kristen, you don't need me. So like I just kind of like, I don't know, like, it's, it's the way you hear people say like, I just carry it differently. And doesn't mean I'm not gonna have a frickin heart attack 10 years from now from it. And so like, I'm like, I can't like I've done this, I've done this, I'm like, my body's breaking down and like, My knee is messed up, I can't ride the bike, I used to ride like, I can't, I need help, or I'm gonna, I'm gonna have a health issue. And I don't want that. And, and she was like, Yeah, let's like, you know, she gave me a full physical and everything. And then we started doing it. For context. In the first five days, I lost six and a half pounds.

Kristin 1:12:35
Oh, you know, I think I think one thing you're bringing up is really interesting, which is that we do have a lot of our food and our emotions are so interconnected, which takes us back to diabetes to but I do think that sometimes when we, I mean, this idea, right? And all these religious groups where there's like fasting, that when you take away a food ritual, like your popcorn at night, suddenly you have feelings there, and you're like, oh, wow, look at this. This is super interesting. This feeling was probably there before, but then there was also food, and there's actually help deal with trauma. I mean, this is real, you can't make this stuff up. And I was like, oh, that's why I used to get hamburgers all the time when I was going through my divorce, How fascinating. But um, you know, when you take away that food, then there's all this stuff there for you to kind of focus on. And what do you do with that? And how does that impact your relationship to all those things,

Scott Benner 1:13:36
I realized I could have busied myself with anything sitting there, right. Like, if I would have taken two sticks and tapped them together and focused on doing it, it would have been the same as eating the popcorn. And it's not gonna it's what I like, it's not that I don't like the popcorn, but what I realized is I would have made a bowl of popcorn, and then eaten half of the bowl, right? I would have been just as happy with a handful of popcorn. And you know, as far as the popcorn part goes, so for the there is value in the food part of it, but then there's the rest of it, which has nothing to do with the popcorn and the popcorn is masking it. And I was like, and the one thing I'm proud of is that in that moment, I was like, Oh, I'm doubling down on on what I'm doing. Not going the other way. Because I easily could have been like, I don't want to feel like this. I'll eat. I'll stop doing this need the popcorn. But instead I was like, no, no, I'm like, let this whatever that magic juices in that pen. Like let that help me until I can kind of rewire my brain around this.

Kristin 1:14:33
Yeah, yep. And just it'll be such a fun adventure to see what interesting emotions pop up. Yeah. And what's kind of there for you to sift through? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:14:44
I really agree. Because I don't I've said on the podcast before, like, I don't think of myself as my physical form. Like you said that you said something or you're like that might sound weird to people. Like I like if you asked me to describe myself, I would never describe my height, my weight my Like nothing, I think of myself as my thoughts. So the only reason I had to want to address this is I just want to keep being alive and thinking. And seriously. So like, I, it's not like I want to have ABS or I care what people think when they look at me, I'm not self conscious in public like nothing like that. And I also don't want to give the idea that I'm, you know, in some serious situation that other people might be in, because I'm certainly not right. I'm carrying, probably, but I mean, 50 pounds, to get me to 175. I don't think I don't think I want to be 175. But I would be at 190, I'd have a much healthier lifestyle, because I am carrying enough fat that you can't see it, and it's that much weight. So maybe my nails stop hurting, and I can actually ride my bike again. And maybe like, you know, maybe I won't be eating to fill like time because that really is what it was. In the end. It's like boredom. And yeah, you know, anyway. Well, that's interesting

Kristin 1:16:05
what you say about you really think of yourself as your thoughts you have picked the right career, because as a podcaster, you kind of are this. You're leaning into your thoughts. Everybody kind of knows you as your thoughts. Such a great way to be actualized and affirmed, as you really see yourself.

Scott Benner 1:16:21
I'm a disembodied voice scan. Just just me, I'm just like, I'm hearing you're in your head. But for me, it's about talking. Like, I don't even think without the podcast, that I would have understood the popcorn moment. Because, yeah, because I've had to talk to so many people and pick through their feelings like, I know it feels it can feel like I know something you don't know when you're listening. But you shouldn't think of me that way you should think of me is like a person who's like, Hmm, I don't understand any of this. And I'm just asking the questions that I think get me to understand it better.

Kristin 1:16:54
Right, right. So you've like, done all the work with all these folks. And now you can offer that to yourself?

Scott Benner 1:17:01
Exactly. Yeah, this, this podcast acts as talk therapy for me, but we don't really ever talk about me that much. Although I'm sure some people think all I do is talk about myself, but whatever. I saw I saw your review. Go to hell.

Kristin 1:17:18
Oh, that's funny. Oh, gosh.

Scott Benner 1:17:19
All right. Is there anything we haven't talked about that we should have?

Kristin 1:17:22
No, I think we've we've heard it all.

Scott Benner 1:17:25
Thank you. I really appreciate you doing this. I hope the goat is okay.

Kristin 1:17:28
Yeah, I'm gonna go check that honor. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:32
you're gonna absolutely when you listen back to this, you're gonna be like, Wow, I broke up more than I thought I did. Because there's times where I

Kristin 1:17:39
can be like this. I'm so sorry. Don't worry.

Scott Benner 1:17:41
I mean, maybe you should tighten the rubber bands or however it works. I like that you're like I'm in a city but a mountain. So Denver.

Kristin 1:17:52
Oh, my goodness. All right.

Scott Benner 1:17:53
Thank you very much. Hold on one second for me. I want to thank Kristin for coming on the show and sharing her story. I think I've decided to call this episode kick the goat. What else I want to remind you of the diabetes Pro Tip series has been remastered It sounds amazing and it runs between Episode 1001 1026. It's my humble opinion that if you listen to that series, you'll be able to maintain an A one C and the low sixes with very little trouble. diabetes pro tip.com and juicebox podcast.com is where you can find the series online. But listening in an audio player is probably much easier episode 1000 to 1026 Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast

a huge thank you to one of today's sponsors better help. You can get 10% off your first month of therapy with my link better help.com forward slash juice box that's better. H e l p.com. Forward slash juice box. If you've been thinking about speaking with someone, this is a great way to do it on your terms betterhelp.com forward slash juice box

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#1049 Parenting: Brainstorming the Series

Erika is a licensed marriage and family therapist who herself has had Type 1 diabetes for over 30 years and who specializes in working with people with diabetes and their families and caregivers—from those newly diagnosed to those experiencing it for decades. Today, she and Scott launch a parenting series. 

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android  -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 1049 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today I'm welcoming back Erica Forsythe and Eric and I are going to do something a little different than what we've done in the past. We're going to build an entire series around an idea. That series, as you can tell from the title is about parenting, it's going to expand beyond type one diabetes. But at the same time, I think that parenting skills and diabetes parenting skills go hand in hand. While you're listening. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. If at any point in this series, you think I'd like to check Eric out, she has a great website, Erica forsyth.com. She sees patients virtually and in person. If you're a California resident, check out her website to see what states Erica is licensed in. If you'd like to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com, you can do that with the offer code juice box at checkout. And to get a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order use my link drink ag one.com/juice box. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by us med us med is the place where Arden gets her diabetes supplies from her Dexcom and her Omni pods. But they have much more than that. You'll learn more about them when you check them out at us med.com/juicebox Or by calling 888-721-1514 You can get your supplies the same way we do from us med. Okay, so just so you know, like I've hit record already. Okay. All right. So I Okay, where do we want to start with this? You and I have never done this this way before. But this this is a pretty common thing that Jenny and I do. So Jenny, and I used to brainstorm privately about series. And then one day I said why don't we record the brainstorming and make that the first episode of the series. That way people can listen, decide if it's something they're interested in and get a fair idea for the direction we're gonna go in. So you and I are going to try that. Let's go. Yes, no, I was worried. I was worried. Because you are a careful speaker.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 2:46
Yes, yes.

Scott Benner 2:50
I still don't I don't think that matters. I think we can do this. So I'll give you a little bit of my thought. And then we'll figure it out. So I was thinking we could do sort of a parenting list like, I don't know, the first way it popped in my head was, you know, what are the worst parenting mistakes that you've seen in your job? And I thought through that, there's something and then I started thinking about a little more, I thought, well, maybe there are also good things that you've seen that are valuable. And like so I don't know what we'll call the episode yet. I think we'll figure that out as we're going. But I'm wondering if we couldn't build a list of things that you have seen that have been valuable things that you've seen that have been detrimental? And maybe a little bit of what's in between? Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. Yes. I'm gonna open up a file because you're, you're gonna be the thinker today. So I'll be the TypeR.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:49
Okay. I think it might be important to note before we start listing, you know, parenting mistakes, communication, mistakes, errors, just to not say the obvious that parenting is one of the most challenging things ever in life. And speaking as a parent, I am not I am far from perfect and make these mistakes myself. And but I'm sure Scott, you never do

Scott Benner 4:18
think my whole life is a parenting mistake, I would imagine. Well, you know what, I meant that to be funny, but it might be true. No, I don't mean just me. I mean, somebody parented somebody made a mistake lead to another thing that led to me that led to Bob about maybe it is all a learning mistake. But no, I think that so I don't think about it the same way. I don't think of things I do is like mistakes or wins or something like that. But I do think it's a continual learn learning process, but that there is a sweet spot and you no matter where you jump in, if you're not ready I don't know how to put this, you're going to be doing micro damages that, that you may never be aware of, or that may not like rear their head for, I don't know, 10 years or two generations, I have no idea. But it's such a bizarre feeling to think that I have the ability to do something that will create a problem or a, you know, a good thing for somebody that I might never even meet. super interesting.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 5:33
generationally, yes. Yeah. It's crazy generational patterns. Yeah. And I think even what you said, you know, you might not be ready most of us are most parents aren't. What? And how would you define ready? What does it mean to feel ready to parent another? That's another conversation too, but I think you do. It is an evolution of learning. And maybe mistakes is even the wrong word to use. And I think the first step would be the awareness piece, right? You might be acting or parenting in a way that you are not aware. That could be causing pain or suffering or damage. But that also might be a result of your own pain and suffering as a child, as well.

Scott Benner 6:18
Let's let's do something first, before we move, okay, because you're just right. I don't think I don't think of it as a mistake, either. You know, like, I had kids, when I was fairly young, I would be a different parent if those kids came out today. Right. But, you know, if you, if you use the Magic Wand idea where you took the thoughts in my head now and put them in the thoughts in my head when I was in 20, then I think overall, things might have turned out better. Like, and I don't say that they turned out poorly. I just there may have been, you know, I don't know, better decisions made them there by me. But if you make me 52 years old, and give me a baby right now, well, then I'm going to make some better decisions. And then some things aren't going to be nearly as good because I'm not have the same energy or etc. Right. But I guess the idea is, is to share with people, things that we've seen in our own personal lives, or that you've seen clinically, that with reasonable certainty led to something, but I don't want to call them mistakes. So let's find better words, and you'll be good. So what did we call it? Because I said mistakes and winds, which was way wrong, like it just not smooth? What are we really talking about?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 7:35
Patterns, maybe? Negative, harmful, harmful decisions, harmful patterns? inconsistent? Yeah, I guess patterns is there is really the, because we might have a really good method of disciplining. And then we might make, we might forget, or we might be tired. But it's really we're talking about the over, over time saying or doing the same thing, without changing or without either having the awareness or desire or the know how of how to change and in effect, positive change in your relationship with your child.

Scott Benner 8:21
So somebody asked me the other day that we were talking about, like interpersonal communication. And I said, the one of the things about me that I'm proud about as a as a matured person, is that I'm incredibly consistent. Like, like, and that person said back to me, you're very authentic. And I said, Well, that may be, but I'm consistent. If you ask me a question at 8am or midnight, you're gonna get the same answer for me that, you know, if it happens on Wednesday, or Sunday, or December, and everybody's had that Christmas anxiety or whatever I, I, I'm basically a common sense person. So I don't get ruled a lot by the things going on around me, if that makes sense. And I think consistency is incredibly important for anything for parenting. I think consistency is why the podcast as well, you know, and I don't even just mean like, what you're hearing. I mean, the way the podcast gets made when it comes out what people expect, right? And that's a trust. Like, think of that for a second, if you consistently make the podcast people trust that this thing is going to happen. That's what consistency brings to parenting. Is this comfort, right? Like, I hear my wife discuss sometimes, how she never knew what was going to happen. Mm hmm. And she once told me how she felt manipulated as a child. When if they were acting up, her mom would say, Hey, guys, if you're good for the rest of the day, we're gonna go to McDonald's. And then no matter how good They were or weren't. They were not going to McDonald's, like, and so it never happened. So it was like, it was like this carrot on a stick. That wasn't real. But the kids didn't know it. Mom probably couldn't even afford to go to McDonald's. She just said a thing she thought would shut them up for a couple of hours. You know what I mean? But interestingly, as an adult, four decades later, that feeling that it bred in my wife, I think it's still tournaments are the idea that you can't trust people when they they say things to you sometimes. So you don't I mean,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 10:35
yeah, so and that might also create their narrative for as a child growing into an adult that no matter what I do, I'm never good enough. Okay, that's pretty, that's pretty common.

Scott Benner 10:46
Yeah, that's so cool that you said that, not that that happens to people. But that, right, like, even a thing that, listen it again, we get in a time machine, go find my wife's Mom, 50 years ago, and say to her, what were you doing, when you did that? She's probably gonna say, look, I was out of my mind, I had four kids, you know, like, I needed them to stop, I had stuff to do, like, whatever. If you said to her, then that action turned one of your kids into somebody who doesn't believe their parents, and that that has ripple effects in their own life. And by the way, the thing you just said, and by the way, if we put four more voices on this conversation, for more people might come up with four other things that come from that. That's the kind of stuff you can't know, while you're doing it. So there has to be some sort of consistency to your decision making to stop these unintended and undesired outcomes. That, you know. I don't know that that's it, right? Like, okay, but still good conversation. But we did not come up with better word, a word good or bad. So Hey, viewers, why don't we just said positive? I just need language for my conversation, or I'm gonna fun for over it. So I'm gonna say positive. And for the moment, I'm gonna say unintended. Hmm, I like that. Okay. Or is it intended and unintended, positive intended? Everything I

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 12:16
did intentionally unintentional

Scott Benner 12:19
unintended. Maybe the conversation is going to reveal the words. So maybe the people listening right now are yelling a word in their car,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 12:27
they might say, yes, please share it.

Scott Benner 12:29
I've thought of this. Okay, so let's just I know, your brain doesn't work like this. So we'll get this out of the way first, okay, unintended things that people do, that you see over and over again, that don't lead to good outcomes.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 12:48
I think we could start with what you shared the example of your wife, the inconsistent discipline, slash motivation, okay? Just like the the, if you're good, then this will happen. And no matter how good the child was, they never got it. But I also, you know, you could see, the converse of that is, no matter what happens, the child gets the McDonald's. Okay, so, yeah, so it's just inconsistent follow through in the discipline slash motivation,

Scott Benner 13:26
or sprinkling some sort of praise or gifts on them for no reason. It's just as bad. So what's that idea of just kind of like, blindly?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:42
Oh, you know, usually people say nowadays, like everyone gets a trophy parenting. Yeah, praising, praising for every little thing, and not. Which could be again, going back to maybe as a child, you were not affirmed for any kind of behavior. And only were disciplined for negative. And so maybe as a parent, you're saying to yourself, I'm going to flip that, and I'm gonna praise the heck out of my child because I never got that. As a kid.

Scott Benner 14:16
I'm calling that Cecil over corrections. Nice. Because, because that's really how I think of it like right, you grow up being treated poorly. And then you want you want to correct that action. So as a parent yourself, you overcorrect and then instead of doing the right thing, you end up just making a different mistake. Correct. Right. So okay,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 14:48
a different choice in how to parent Yeah, a different choice.

Scott Benner 14:51
But it's not just a choice, right? Because you can say, I'm going to be more positive than my parents were. But what happens when it gets into that space where your kid walks over? Around believing that everything they do is perfection, like, right, like that's an overcorrection.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 15:07
Yes. And you might see if a if a child gets in trouble for the sun making, you know, something at school, maybe the parents might have a challenging time, acknowledging that the child could do something like that.

Scott Benner 15:25
Yeah, that's a great example. A teacher says, Hey, your kid did this, you know, my kid doesn't do those things. What are you talking? Yeah, great. But I even mean, the I mean, we all No, a child who, who believes in themselves more than they should did it. And I don't mean that you shouldn't believe in yourself. I mean, like, obviously, you want to instill, you know, good self confidence in people and self esteem. But when there's this belief that there's nothing you do that's ever been wrong, or even worth questioning you, it's how you make an asshole. Yeah,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 16:03
yes. Well, and just it's very, maybe a black and white thinking or rigid thinking and perspective of themselves, where they cannot except they might make an error. This is rare, I would say we usually see more children and teens and adults with lower self esteem. Right? It's rare to see the bravado kid, but it does happen.

Scott Benner 16:27
Yeah, well, not to say that maybe those kids don't end up in therapy. But they are out in the world, having a bad experience, whether they know it or not, maybe they're pretending it's not a bad experience, because I'm terrific. And you must understand how amazing I am. So. But you know, I have an example I've used in the podcast before, I'm not going to like belabor it here. But I've met a kid like that is the only the only child I've ever met my entire life that I couldn't find a way to like, get you know, it was really something. And then you look back at the parenting structure. And there's one parent who's kind of quiet in the background very kind, I've never had a bad interaction with a person once in my life. Then there was another parent who was a monster. But the monster was the one pumping up the kid. And it was interesting, like, again, nasty person, I guess is the way I want to say it. Like you could see like, I don't know how to put this, like when you're speaking to them, you can see ill intentions behind their eyes, like they're calculating everything. They're sure they're better than you, and everyone around you, they've put this into the kid. And the other spouse seemed too kind to do anything about it. That makes sense. So that is that's another that's another thing you could do, I'm still going to just stick with wrong for now. But so you could overpower the other parent and not allow their input.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 18:08
So I'd say having a united front would be the positive maybe spin on that. So okay, being united in in parenting, the decisions you make. You might have different opinions and perspectives about certain situations, but ultimately the bottom line you agree on, and that is around your the boundaries that you're setting for your child. So it's a boundary boundary setting or having lack of boundaries.

Scott Benner 18:40
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Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 20:43
I would say both. And for you to model to model for your child that you and your and your partner can have disagreements. But you're modeling? How did how to disagree? Right to how to have a conversation around? Well, I think I think Johnny should be able to go to the thing. And the other parent says no, I don't think so. And then you can model for them. Why do you have these different perspectives? And ultimately, you know, maybe, quote unquote, one parent wins in that conversation. But ultimately, the parents have or the, you know, the adults are modeling to the child how to have a disagreement and communicate in a healthy way and landing in a decision that may or may not be that they both are agreeing to but they've agreed how they came to the decision.

Scott Benner 21:33
So what I what I've put here for under positive is model communication resolution. Yes. Okay. But at the same time, is it not also important to let them know that everyone's not always going to agree?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 21:55
Yes. Not everyone's going to agree. But I think you know, the classic example that you would hear as I go, I go to mommy and ask for the lollipop. And she says no, but then I can go to daddy, and I know that Daddy's gonna say yes to the lollipop. So they learned children learn those patterns. And so you want to be united? In some of the basics, I would guess I would say kind of foundational boundaries. Yeah.

Scott Benner 22:25
But when mommy pulls daddy into a coat closet to tell him he's an idiot for giving the kid the pump? Like, is it okay for the kid to see that? Like, hey, he can't have that, you know, not to give that to him? Like, I see I from for my money. That's okay. I'm okay. With age appropriate, by the way, everything's age appropriate. Yes, yeah. But for my money, it's alright. For, it's hard for one of us to be right. And one of us to be wrong, like, like, statically correct and incorrect in a situation, it's already for one person to speak up if the person who's wrong, disagrees. They need to be free to, I don't know, discuss and give light to their thought process? Well, I don't, you know, dinner is not for three hours, I don't think the lollipops gonna hurt him. I'm okay with that. Because and do those, because I believe those interactions help people to learn what they don't want to be when they're adults. I know, I think positive modeling is incredibly important. And I think that following through, and a number of other things that we will talk about in a minute. But like, those things are all important for kids to see. But I don't have a problem with them seeing things not going well. Like I think my children are completely aware of my wife's and my shortcomings. And you know, to me, what they learned from them is maybe my dad does this, I have a personality like him, I'm going to try not to do that. But big picture, we're still a successful family unit. And that, you know, we exist in the world well, and everything and I don't know, because I think that what I see sometimes from younger parents, is an attempt at perfection. And then anything less than perfection is a dumpster fire in their mind. And therefore life is terrible. Everything's horrible. My kid's gonna grow up to be a meth head. Like like it goes from zero to 100 really quickly. So under negative i guess i What is it that perfectionism does the children. That's my question, right?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 24:46
I think leading them to believe maybe having those unrealistic expectations. I think that there's as a parent when we The whether there's a conflict and we can model conflict resolution, it's okay to have disagreements, I, I totally agree with all of those things. I think we are always able to model how to apologize and say, you know, what, we, whether it's a single parent thing or parents are made it, you know, felt like they mishandled the situation. One of the, I think the best parenting moves we can do is to say, gosh, you know, we had this conversation and I blew up at you, or, you know, we blew up at each other and trying to make this, you know, figure out this decision, and you know, we're sorry, next time, we're going to try and do it this way. Because then you get to model to your kid that, hey, we're going to make mistakes, we're going to say things incorrectly. And then I'm going to apologize, even if you're three years old, it's I think it's a beautiful intervention or, you know, practice,

Scott Benner 26:01
I would have put apology under a positive thing. And I, I wrote, arguing under negative. So I, my for my money arguing with children, like you are a child like, oh, yeah, they mean, like losing your shit. And then then finding yourself going, Oh, well, I'm as crazy as they are right now. Like, like that.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 26:30
happens. It happens. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 26:34
I've been involved in it. Yes. But but it's one of those things that you do have to stop yourself about also, on the apology thing. I want to be clear about this. You apologize when you're wrong. But apologizing can't be the scapegoat for your bad behavior? Yes. Right. Does that make sense? You can't willfully keep doing the same thing wrong over and over again, and then running back and saying I'm so sorry, because it's meaningless after a while.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 27:07
Because ultimately, and I just read this, quote, someone who focuses on boundaries, that if you continue to do the same pattern, same behavior, and then you continue to apologize. Ultimately, what you're really seeking is to kind of seek that comfort for whatever shame you're dealing with. Right? As opposed to apologizing to the person that you offended. You are apology, you're doing the behavior over you're asking for forgiveness, you're apologizing? And the person saying no, it's okay. It's okay. But it's, that's then then that's about you. So I think having going to that first step of awareness of my my doing this and asking for forgiveness, and apologizing five times a day, then I would look at that if it's.

Scott Benner 27:57
So I added that doing work on yourself as an adult under a positive thing. And to that, I mean, if you're having the same argument over and over again, if you're having the same thing that makes you upset, you have to remove yourself from the unit for a minute and go, Why am I doing that? You know, and, and so being willing to listen to a partner or your kid, like, you know, first some insight into yourself is important, because that's what you're looking for, you're looking for insight into yourself. But you first have to make the decision. Like what do they say, recognizing the problems, the first step or something like that, like so you have to get the figure out what the problem is first, and then say, I want to fix it. And if you can't find a path to that, then you have to go to trusted people and say, Hey, I do a thing. Do you have any idea why I do that? Or what have you noticed, like that kind of stuff? And of course, hopefully you have somebody to go to that you can trust who will have your best thing, you know, take care of you in that situation? And give you a good honest answer. Also, they might not know you may be married to a moron. I don't know. Like some Well, some of you, Erica. Erica, won't you say anything bad? That's your therapist. I wish I knew you as a real person and not as a therapist. Well, I'm similar. Here one day when I go my wife is married to one and you go oh, yeah, no, I see it. But, but I mean, that's really important that the idea that I guess seeing yourself as accurately as you can, is a real kind thing you can do for your children.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 29:39
And really difficult without either the the awareness desire and takes courage. I mean, you know, it takes a lot of courage and your desire to be authentic, right with who you are. And so to reach out and ask for insight or feedback You know, seeking feedback from your children from your partner from your co workers from your close friends. I mean, I'm just thinking about like, When is the last time? I asked other people that or I heard other people asked me that, you know, it's it's hard to do. Yeah, one of the problems is to seek that feedback. Yeah,

Scott Benner 30:19
one of the problems with being, oh, Eric, I'm going to use a word that makes me feel weird to say, but one of the problems with being present, is that is that life requires that is from you as well. And you also might be tired or sick or hungry, or any number of other things. And then there's these moments like I one of my biggest, like, one of the things I had trouble with, when I was younger, was if something happens, that needs attention, like right, in this moment, you know, if we get past this moment, it's going to dissipate, then all it's gonna be left is the bad thing that happened. Right? Like, like the opportunity to fix it is gone. But you can't literally stop. Yeah, that I hate that, because it feels like I don't know. It like it feels like, it feels like there's like a Geiger counter. And, and it's moved, sometimes it moves towards we're all gonna blow up. And sometimes it moves towards Don't worry, everything's fine. And once in a while you see it move towards, it's going to blow up and you go, Oh, I could bring it back to it's going to be fine. But you're on the way out the door that way, and I'm on the way out the door this way. And then it then it multiplies. Because instead of fixing it, you get in your car, and you're like she always does that. And now you're mad, right? Like, and then she's in the car, don't I my mom was right, he's such I gotta get out of this. And like, and that just keeps growing. And the counter goes the wrong way when he doesn't have to. I hope that made sense. But that's that. So a positive thing you can do is I'm just gonna say stop, drop and roll for now. And then we'll figure out a different, like, maybe even talk, there we go.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 32:04
And take a break. I mean, maybe that the stop, drop and roll, I like to you know, you're kind of before it's about to explode, and you're feeling you could feel it in your body. Your mind is racing or heated, things are being said quickly. Practicing just knowing when that happens is just okay to stop. And particularly if you're in front of the kids to stop, and it's not going to be solved and things can be. But that's the best thing you could do for you and your partner and your children is to stop and pause. Yeah.

Scott Benner 32:38
And the extension of what I said is that you should speak to each other when you're calm. So I think maybe the thing to do there is to make an agreement, while it's heated, that we're going to come back to this later when we're not busy. And when we're calmer. And never say the word calm your wife use a different word. There's a there's a there's a marriage tip from me to you. Also, I, my wife was yelling at me recently. And as I was standing there trying to figure out what happened. In my mind, like, she's like, What are you making that face for? And I couldn't say to her, I'm trying to figure out how this happened. But like, and then later, I'm literally I'm gonna say this people are going to be upset with me, I don't care. I have made myself a promise. I've been married for 26 years. There are three days during my wife's monthly cycle that I should not talk to her about important or emotional things. And yet, sometimes when it starts to happen, I can hear the voice in my head, go yo man, not now. And then there's another voice in my head that goes she's wrong. Just tell her she'll understand. And then 30 minutes later, I'm going well, what was I doing? What do they do? And so, again, I'm not saying women are not in control themselves. I'm saying that my wife, my personal wife has a heightened emotional state. It goes about three days. On one of those days, she likes me a lot. And then on the other days, if if you start to try to have like a deep conversation with her, her mind kind of goes to all the things that are wrong. Like and she gets a little like melancholy about it. And it's just not the right time to talk to her. There's also times it's not the right time to talk to me too. And I'm sure it's got to do with my hormones probably as well. But my point is my greater point is that you are not. It doesn't matter. It could be you and what was that British guy who was so smart during World War Two and everybody listened to him. Why am I not thinking of his name? This is ridiculous. Heavy guy cigar Churchill could be you and Churchill again. It's my wife on the wrong day. And she's gonna leave believing that you and Winston Churchill are idiots and that everything is bad. Like it shouldn't it's the wrong day to speak to her about that. And I know that and I still once in a while I step in it like a booby trap. And I'm like, Oh, my God, what am I doing. But that goes for your kids too. There are times you should not push things with people is Migrator. Trying to be amusing there for a minute, but you can't like you can't push things with people, they're not always ready for it. And what you're going to get out of them is not a give and take conversation, what you're gonna get out of them is whatever horribleness is inside of them that day, they are going to put it out into the world. And everyone does that. Male Female, happy, sad doesn't matter, people are going to do that. So you have to be good at choosing time in place to have conversations without letting it get past. So far past when it happened, that it's now push that push that needle too far to one side, and you can't get it back anymore. So you can make a fixable problem unfixable by not going after it and discussing it and you can make a fixable problem and fixable by discussing it at the wrong time. Yes, took me a while to do that. But I think that's

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 36:21
and that goes I know, we're kind of tutoring into, you know, the communication. Pros and Cons patterns. But I think the what you're getting at is not only being aware of your, your audience, right, and what they may or may not be going through whether you are knowing it or not, whether it's the cycle or the end of the day, or, you know, whatever else is going on, but also being aware of your state as well. And so, as you're entering into the conversation with your partner with your child, and you're addressing something that's maybe beyond just whether it's possible conflict, or ask to just be checking yourself having that awareness of how am I entering into this conversation? And how is the My the audience, the person I'm speaking to? Where are they at emotionally? Okay. And

Scott Benner 37:17
so what are some good traits of good parents so engaged, communicative, that I think being a good listener makes you a better person, better parent in general. What else?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 37:39
I think modeling as much as you can, healthy behavior holistically, not just how you communicate, but doing doing self care. We've talked a bit about that over the years of, because we know that parenting is 24/7. And even as you're working or managing other things, you're thinking about your kids, you're thinking about their blood sugar. And so it is so important for your kids to see you taking care of yourself in a way that might feel you might face the guilt or anything else. But I knew I know, sorry. We're sticking to just topics I go into your fine examples.

Scott Benner 38:21
That's what we're doing today. Okay, just pretend nobody's listening to us. And we're trying to figure out how we want to put this series together.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 38:26
Okay. So yeah, I think a pro would be to, to take that self care, take the timeout, so that you can be more emotionally present, when you are physically with them. And you're not just you're not running through that, you know, brush your teeth, clean your room Pre-Bolus and all those good things.

Scott Benner 38:48
So I ask people online about things they've seen. So I'm going to spend the rest of this time like talking about them, and then pulling out nuggets of what they've said, although I also want to throw in for myself. Being a martyr or overly dramatic is really not beneficial at all. Like it's, it's really it's a it's a mess, you should not do that. Okay, so. So this person says that good parenting is acknowledging a child's feelings, no, no matter how irrational they may seem. That seems good to

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 39:21
validate validate with a capital V. Yes. So validate.

Scott Benner 39:25
I like that you're going to be able to pull the words out of their thoughts. My parents would restrict sweets. And then when I started sneaking food and would get caught, they would shout at me for 10 minutes, which just taught me to hide it better. So what's the takeaway from that?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 39:42
I would say realistic and healthy boundaries, expectations around eating. Flexible, I'd say having flexibility

Scott Benner 40:00
Okay, so I got from that I got unrealistic boundaries and expectations. On the bad side I put be flexible on the good side with this is gonna work. Okay, hold on a second. I'm a single mom, I get no support. I'm the sole provider. One time my son was in this place where he would tell me he was going to live with his dad every time he was upset with me. I will up once and I said, go ahead and call him and see if he'll come get you tell him to pay for your insurance and all of your diabetes supplies. And let's see how long you stay alive. And she said, felt like a dick move. And I still feel bad about it today. But there's, there's a pro and a con in there. It's painful. It's for all of them, right? Because you can hear in that statement. She's struggling. The kid is being a kid and saying the worst thing they can think to say. But then she tells the kid, look, that guy doesn't care about you as much as I do. And if that's true, it's horrible for the kid. If it's false, it's horrible for the dad and the kid. And no matter what, it's not good for the mom. So what did she do? What did she mean? What did she mean to do that she could have done differently? That's, I think how we have to attack?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 41:28
Yeah, I think that's something just to speak to her. Obviously, I know you're she's probably shaming herself or videos. She's feeling badly about that, obviously, exhausted physically, emotionally. And so the comment came out, and it would be repairable if that is the one, you know, if that's a new a new type of conversation. If it's a common theme, I would encourage her. Sorry, I'm not answering your question.

Scott Benner 42:01
Sorry. Because you're helping therapy, you're, you're like me, here's my take from that, okay, you can never be degrading of your spouse. Like to your child, like it's, it's, it's their dad, like they, they are that they they look at that person or that woman, mother or father, and they feel like they're connected to that person. I'm partly you, if he's a piece of shit, then on a piece of shit. Like that's, I think, to me, that's the biggest mistake in there.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 42:29
I'd say yeah, if if there's one thing that when I'm working with with children and parents, who are divorced, that is one of the most challenging I know, but highly effective rules to follow is to not speak poorly about the child's other parent, when they're not when they're with you, you know, and I think that's really, really hard. But that's more about your own. That's between her and the dad.

Scott Benner 42:58
Right? I also think that they're, you know, taking her at her word, and this, she's being honest. And in a more age appropriate situ, I don't know how old this kid is, but under 18, obviously, but in a more age appropriate situation. I don't know that it's like if you're, if there's a parent that really is that much of a near dwell, and not helpful, then it's not wrong for them to know that, but I think you have to couch it to them in a specific way. You know, your dad, blah, blah, blah, your mom blah, blah, blah, you know, it's not, you know, they're trying or like to, you know, I think they're gonna, they're working on it, that kind of thing, even if it's not true. I mean, them knowing that the person isn't living up to expectations. Maybe he's, I mean, the kids got to know that. Right?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 43:50
Right. And I would also wonder, thinking about her comment saying, whenever she would ask him to do something that he didn't want to do, he would threaten or to say, I want to go live with dad. And so maybe she had tried various different ways to problem solve every time he would make that comment. And it got to the breaking point of like, Fine, you know, go. And so I guess that I would either I would, it's hard, it's hard to kind of say what it what could she have done differently, not knowing that journey of what happened all along the way? And how she tried to connect problem solved with her son every time he would make that thread, if that makes sense. But because there's something going on in the sun as well. That's like this just a complicated hard one.

Scott Benner 44:39
Trust me, this other one's terrible. So so there are more than more than a few people who as adults are saying in this thread, like, you know, I was beaten for a number of different things. My room not being clean when my parents were not good at keeping our house clean. So even that like it's Oh, taking the the hitting out of it for a second. You can't punish your children, for your crime because you feel bad about it. So you are a collection of neurons and bacteria and all the things that make you up and you made a baby that is probably very likely like you. And then you look up and that baby's messy like you are, you don't want to be messy. So you're going to try to save them from it. And so I don't know where the lesson is in that except to say, the apple, you can't you can't yell at the Apple for fallen next to the tree it fell off of like, I mean, do you know what I mean? Like that's, I think, yes. These no hitting on my list?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 45:45
Yes, yes, no hitting, I think the one of the things, if you have that awareness, the things that maybe irritate you or aggravate you, the most in your children are most likely the things that you don't necessarily like about in yourself. And so that's often why they might be frustrating, like if your kid is really stubborn. And you see that stubbornness at play when you're asking them to clean their room. That might really irked you. And you might not know how to respond to that. And that's something to say, Well, gosh, maybe I'm really stubborn in these ways. And this is kind of a simpler example. But to have that awareness of like, why am I why am I triggered so easily when my child does or says X, Y, or Z? It might be because you're tired and stressed. But it also might be something within you that you haven't quite either understood or faced or expressed. Going back to the grace and compassion towards yourself for why you're that way.

Scott Benner 46:49
This person said screens, it bothers them when people abandon their children on on some sort of piece of electronics. That yeah,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 46:57
I was gonna list I was gonna say one of the, you know, just having healthy technology, boundaries, which could be connected to also having, you know, quality time.

Scott Benner 47:13
Yep, too much. And quality, time means anything, right? It means together.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 47:22
It means together. And it means having that connection, and

Scott Benner 47:27
connected time, quality, connected time,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 47:29
quality, connected time where your child or even teenager knows that you are attuned to them. And I think one thing that gets in the way of this is that we think it has to be this long, fabulous, planned event vent. But it can be you walk in the door, and maybe we've talked about this before, but you walk in the door from work, or out of your office and you spend five minutes making eye contact connecting with your kid that builds attachment connection, and will feel like quality time for both of you. Or it's spending seven minutes outside playing catch, you know, it's it's it can be small segments of that quality time that builds up over time.

Scott Benner 48:13
Do you think that parents can be friends with their children and parent them at the same time? Hmm.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 48:21
That's a good question. And hard. I think you can be friendly, and have fun friend like moments. But where I guess it would depend on what your how you define being a friend as a parent.

Scott Benner 48:37
Yeah, I don't mean like smoke meth with her. But like, you know, I see what you're saying. But were you say, like, brings up like, there's a person here that says, Look, I'm very friendly with my daughter, we're buddies. But people say you shouldn't do that. But I like her. So I don't know that you can't be friendly with your kids. You just, you know, I guess the way to put it is I'm very friendly with my children. And we talked about like I told my eyes. I may or may not have made a weird off color comment to an x ray technician today who laughed like hell and then said something even funnier afterwards that I'm not gonna tell you about and then I texted my son because I thought it was hilarious. But like, that's fine. But at the same time, even at 23 years old, and taller than me and stronger than me. My son knows I am not fucking around. Like like it like when when the ship is happening. Like I'm his dad, like, we were when our son was in college for the first year. She came home or we went to see her during a break or something. She's talking about this kid she met that was doing this like crazy thing with money or something like that. And Arden said to me, you would kill me if I did that. And I And she's like, I would never do that. Like she and what I got out of that was their expectations. Right? There are rules lines and If I know if I cross too far over them, there's going to be an actual consequence. And I don't want that to happen. So that's, you know, I don't think that's not why she does anything, she doesn't do it because we kind of raised her in that direction. But she does know that if it happened, it wouldn't be okay. Like, I wouldn't just be like, okay, you know, there, I would do my job at that point, which is kind of how I say it is because nobody wants to beat like, it's not fun. Parenting sucks, in case people are wondering, it's not a ton of fun, like the love things, the only thing that pays you back, really the rest of it's really thankless. And but, but like, you still gotta do the thing. You know what I mean? Like, there's got to be rules. And and you also have to know, I think you also have to know that sometimes you make up rules when you're a younger parent, because they were things you did. You have to be it, you said be flexible, you have to be able to be flexible and go, You know what I've been saying this, but that's not necessary. Like maybe the times will change. Maybe my kid is different than I was when I was being parented for a number of different reasons. You have to adjust. But adjusting doesn't mean like moving the line, so that the kid can get away with anything they want, right? If adjusting means like reasonable adjustments.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 51:19
And I think what, in your example, with Arden, there, there has been consistency, right? So over time, she has learned that you love her, you guys can be playful and friends alike. But she knows there are boundaries and expectations. And so I think, yes, you can be friends with your child or teenager. But where I think it becomes challenging is as a parent to say, if you're if I'm your friend, it's gonna be hard for me to say no. Because then are you not going to we're not going to be friends still, you're not going to love me is that

Scott Benner 51:56
confusing to the kid if you'd like flip flop on them?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 52:00
Right? So what they but they what they need and what they are craving, as I think most parents really do know that they want those boundaries and expectations and for you to say no at certain times. That also instills security, safety, love a foundation of all of those really important things as opposed to saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Because I think that will make you love me more as a parent. That's, that's hard.

Scott Benner 52:27
There's this one response from somebody frizzy I'm just going to put your entire response into my document well done. overpowering the child loving the child with conditions expecting more than is his or her developing brain capable of training of any kind of bad parenting. Be respectful, you know, gentle approach to the child showing unconditional love responsiveness with no exemptions. This person has been to therapy. Because like, yeah, that's all good. Go through your own childhood traumas break your cycles, break your cycles is such a thing that sounds cliched right now, me because internet and everything, but it's 100% Probably the biggest thing you could be doing. Don't put children into their own anxiety by yelling. Don't threaten punishment. Let's see. And if it happens, realizing that we are the idiots we've helped. Yeah, apologizing, letting them live through their emotions respect. Yeah, I you know what? A lot of people tell their kids what they feel. That's interesting. They hold on, don't tell your kids how they feel? Or they tell them what or who they are. Have you know what I mean by that?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 53:50
I think you can you can affirm and praise kids just reminding them of their love and that they are valued and worthy. I think sometimes there there might be if you're waiting for that pause, your own anxiety might fill that space and get tell them what they're feeling or tell them because you're also your kids might not know sometimes they do need that language right to say, are you feeling this way? Or I wonder if you're feeling this way or that way? I think one of the greatest gifts is to give your give that space for your kid, your child teen to think

Scott Benner 54:29
there's a list here from a person who was a who was who is a I guess they have they're a daycare person. This list alone, like this is I can't I'm not going to read it. But when you don't feel good about society. These are the reasons some of these reasons are. I just gotta give you one of them. Pepsi and a baby bottle. Hey, go. So I'm going to assume that I am honestly going to assume that a person We'll put that Pepsi in a baby bottle isn't listening to this podcast, and we're gonna we're gonna raise the level of conversation beyond that. Yeah, I mean, a, I guess, you know, it's easy to say some people shouldn't probably be parents at the at certain times their life but, man, that's tough. Okay, so

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 55:22
the overpowering over protecting,

Scott Benner 55:27
overpowering protecting overpower

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 55:28
yeah overpowering over protecting could be a theme.

Scott Benner 55:35
You can also you have to think you have to be, you have to follow through. Like you're I think your children need to be able to believe that you're there. Like Like, just and I don't know what to call that exactly. But they have to be there has to be some certainty that you're the one. Right? Like, like when the bus is coming and we're all standing on the corner, you are definitely going to throw me out of the way and stand there and face the bus. Like like you you've got to be trusted.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 56:09
reliable, trustworthy, yeah.

Scott Benner 56:13
No matter what that means, honestly, like, like, you know what I mean? Like it doesn't like you don't need to be like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and be reliable. You can be a ditch digger and be reliable, like just consistent reliability, something that they can hang a hat on, like, say, I know this is gonna happen. Like, there's a lot of people in this thread that are like, you'd be surprised how many people forget their children in places? Or like, you know, never get them anything on time. And then how that actually does affect the kid. Like, if you have an anxious kid, and you're always late. That's gonna make that's gonna make the kid upset. Yeah. And so you kind of have to see. Let me say this, maybe I think I'm going to type as I'm talking. You need to be the parent, your kids need. Not the parent you needed. Or even be the person. You are. Like, sometimes your kids are going to need things you're not to. You still have to find whimsically? Yeah, you have to do those things. It's all on you. Like it really is. It's the worst of all the things nature doesn't do, right. Making penis happiness attached it owning a baby later. That's the worst thing in the world. Like, I understand why it happens and everything but terrible idea. Like, really, you should get a baby at the end of a 20 question. questionnaire questionnaire you take and you gotta get like 95% of it, right? And then maybe a baby pops into the room or something like that. And it's really hard to get them right. It shouldn't be like, Oh, that felt good, baby. I mean, imagine if babies came from eating candy. We'd be knee deep and babies. What does that say about sex? Is candy. Sex? Oh, gosh, oh

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 58:13
my gosh. I think I just want to pause that because as we're listing all these things, you know, I just wonder if you're, as a listener, or you're like feeling just overwhelmed. Like, oh my gosh, I you know, I can't do this. I can't do that. But like, it's also we're creating a list we're not, you know,

Scott Benner 58:34
listen, Eric is going to take this document and put it into real adult words and then that's what we're gonna make the podcast off. Then I'm gonna say silly shit in between Moreover, recording it, don't you worry. It's gonna be fun. I'm not the adult in this situation. Don't like like, really like, it is. You know, I've said this before, but I'm always very interested in watching you think? Because I will say the first thing that comes into my mind and then talk it through. You talk it through in your mind and then say the thing you mean? Like we know you don't just try stop at what you do. I if Eric and I were dating, I would sit across from her at a restaurant and go just blurt it out. We'll figure it out later. She'd be like, I'm almost done formulating my thought. But there's, there's a ton of I mean, obviously, that is that you're well suited for what you do for a living, obviously. You know, and because you're very welcome, though, the way I chatted through the spot where that could be a problem for somebody is because if you hear something I say that you like that makes your brain light up. And I haven't gotten to the point yet. You could really just go Oh, yeah, that guy said that. I'd be like that's not what I said. You didn't hear the seven words while I was still working it out. Eric has just been To say what she means and you can count on it that's that's why you're here because otherwise it just be me talking in circles and then at the end God oh my God does it mean that

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:00:11
but you lay on you lay on the plane you do

Scott Benner 1:00:14
fun while we're listening to it on the podcast, but like it needs a little bit of both. I have to say that we there was the rebellion episode we did. When at the end, I said, life's a crock pot and our potatoes aren't cooked yet. Oh, yes. And I looked at your face. You were like, Oh my God. That's exactly right. He's like, lovely look on your face. And I felt so good. I was like I did good.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:00:43
validated. Oh, I bought Yes. That was a good comment.

Scott Benner 1:00:48
I was like I did God. I felt good. I was like, yeah. Okay, so I mean, as we, I mean, we were throw it here. Like, there's a ton of stuff to consider, you are going to like for the lovely people put a list together, I'm going to send you links, the things that people said. And we'll we'll put some of those things together in conversations. But I think mostly this is you for a professional perspective. And as a parent, and me from my perspective, and what I don't know, even people know about you, like you have younger children

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:01:21
do. So have a four though I have a five year old, she just turned five girl and a eight and a half year old girls,

Scott Benner 1:01:31
my kids are 23 and 19. So and but you and I are similarly aged.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:01:36
But I'm old daughter? Yes. I am 45. I'm 45. Yes,

Scott Benner 1:01:44
you were like I'm not 50 to make sure they knew that. But But seriously, like it's two different perspectives. With your professionalism mixed in, I think this is a great idea. Because my idea for this is, is that nobody launches into life at the exact right time. And the exact right time would be different for every person, that time would change once you couple up with another person, like maybe you would be a perfect mom at 32. But I'd be a perfect Dad, I don't know 25. But we don't meet like that. So you know, everyone's gonna get thrown into it. Where the happy penis feeling puts them. And then, and then the baby comes out. And then immediately, I'm going to just tell you, your fear, and your your, your desire to do a good job and your fear or the overwhelming factors in the beginning, when the baby's born, you're like, I don't want to screw this up. And I don't think I can do this are probably what swirling around in your head. Even though I don't think the words come out like that from your mouth, you just have maybe a dose of love, oh, my God, that's probably a lot of that involves happiness and all that other stuff, because you're not exhausted yet. So you can still be happy. But like all that feeling is there. And then it happens, then it's a I mean, then it's a drop of water rolling down a hill, and it makes turns and gets absorbed and then gets rehydrated and then runs into a stick and gets diverted and you don't get to sit around and philosophize every time one of those things happens. So there's got to be a simple bag of tricks that you're honestly, Eric, I think the cats out of the bag. This is how I think about diabetes to write like a small tool bag that you don't have to think about. You just your hand goes in and you're holding it, you don't even know how it happened. You're like, I know what to do here. This is a Pre-Bolus. You know, I know what to do here. I need a Temp Basal here. I'm gonna pray I'm gonna Bolus for the fat here. If you have to think about those things, then they don't happen. But if there are things you understand, and things that have been kind of put into your head through storytelling, and podcasts and things like that, then when you need them, they're there. And because I can tell you or Erica can tell you all she wants not to do a thing in a situation. But the reason that's the thing people tell you not to do is because that's the human reaction in that situation. It's what people are going to do. And if you have to consciously not do it, you're probably going to fail at it. You need to it just needs to happen. So I'm hoping that that does this for people hope it helps them with their kids. And then I hope it helps them with their diabetes too, because I'm going to all finish up here and then I want to hear what you have to say. I think after talking to so many people who are adults who have been children with diabetes, that parent things more important with diabetes than even it may be in a regular situation, because there are a lot of extra things that can go wrong. And those things can lead to real bad health problems, not just you, you know, not liking blonde ladies or something like that. So, you know, which is how I would feel if my blonde mom was yelling at me a lot. Anyway like that, that I think is just anyway, that's what I say for this the bigger picture of it.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:05:11
No, I appreciate that. Because I was thinking, Did we explain why we were kind of taking a bigger, broader view around parenting? And so the hope is that if we can address some of these common themes, that that would ultimately help the parent child dynamic in your in the diabetes management piece, because sometimes we kind of narrow in on like, just tell them to Pre-Bolus Tell them to not eat data. But we're not looking at the bigger picture of like, well, why is that? Why is that dynamic occurring? So the hope is that the parenting picture would help the diabetes management,

Scott Benner 1:05:48
I read an interview that just went up, where this woman describes how she was diagnosed as a teen. And just it was long time ago, before management was very good. And they just didn't want to be bothered with it. So they would do background insulin and Bolus when they got high. And that was it. Like not even for food or anything like that. And she's on the show to talk about the fact that she's lost her sight. Already had a couple of transplants hoping to get another kidney, like that kind of stuff, right? Like really like the worst outcomes that you that you worry about when somebody tells you you have diabetes. And her reasoning, for the things that happened in her life are all very, like, I got every one of everything. She said, I was like I understand this, right. But all I could think while she was talking was Well, that's what you saw. What really happened? Like what got you to make that decision, like what did your parents do? Or not do? Or what did your life experience lead you towards? That when this happened? You made this decision. And to me that's about this like you, like, listen, we're all going to be good parents at times, and we're all going to be bad parents at times. But the difference between your kid having a reaction that just leads them to be I don't know, you know, a dick to a parking attendant. And, you know, not taking care of their blood sugar. There's a big difference between those two things. And I don't imagine that anybody has the time or the or the knowledge about diabetes or parenting while they're in it, to conceive of those issues, and find a way around them. So my idea is stop the problem before it starts. So that you're not just the person that 60 years old sitting around going, I should not have done that. And now this is what happened from it. And then you just sit there looking back feeling bad the whole time. So I actually think this will be a fun conversation that will lead to some value for people. So anyway, I appreciate you doing it with me.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:07:57
Yes, thank you.

Scott Benner 1:08:00
Thank you. Alright, I will see you next time.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:08:03
See you next time.

Scott Benner 1:08:16
Erica Forsythe is a therapist for families with diabetes. Check her out at Erica forsythe.com. Erica offers help for caregivers and families therapy for tweens, teens and adults and so much more. Erica forsythe.com I want to thank us med for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 Get your free benefits check and start getting your supplies the same way we do from us med

you're gonna get a new episode of this series once every week until it is completed. Today of course was the intro episode. I think I called brainstorm parenting episode parenting episode. How am I going to do this? All right, you're gonna get to figure this out with me. I guess we'll brainstorm the rest of this. I need to need titles. Like I have like, like the next episode is going to be called Understanding parenting styles pisode after that building positive communication. I'll tell you the next few in a moment, but I need a preface like you know how it's like diabetes pro tip colon Pre-Bolus I need a blah blah blah colon for this parenting. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's just parenting colon. This one's brainstorm. Intro intro brainstorm something like that. The next one understanding parenting styles parenting, understanding parenting styles. Parenting, building positive communication. Yeah, maybe that works right. Let me keep trying that with you. Parenting self care and personal growth for parents parenting creating boundaries and expectations, right? Parenting, avoiding unintended consequences of inconsistent discipline over involve parenting, how in the hell am I going to make that a title that I'm gonna have to slow down? That one would be parenting unintended consequences of inconsistent discipline and over involved parenting. I'll call that one inconsistent and over involved. Okay, I can do this, by the way, there's more episodes and just these five that I've mentioned here, but this is how it's gonna go. And you know, you'll listen or you won't, you'll decide what you think. I hope you love it. I'm super excited. And like I mentioned at the beginning, and I think that parenting in general and ideas, things that we don't talk about or think about sometimes they impact how we do things, we could always maybe make better decisions. I know I can. And I think that extends to diabetes. So whether you find that Eric and I are specifically talking about diabetes in the moment or not, I think the information and the conversations will help you in both walks of your life. I hope you enjoy it. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Thanks so much for listening.

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#1048 Flight Risk

Heather has child with type 1 diabetes and a few stories. 

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android  -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 1048 of the Juicebox Podcast

I'm laughing a little because Rob is now doing the editing for the show and he takes notes. It's not important he leaves me notes about the episodes so I can remember what they're about while I'm recording these opens. The episodes here are his notes are just hilarious right here for this episode. Apparently I'm supposed to call it flight risk. This is Heather. She's 32. Her 11 year old son was diagnosed with type one in January of 2022. He had to be life flighted to a hospital. And we ended up talking about that. And her time in the military. Oh gosh, a horrible thing that happened to her when she gave birth to her second child. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. While you're listening. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. I think it's worth mentioning that I the file name for this is the person's name and I put the word butthole in parentheses, so I don't remember why I did that. But let's go

this episode of the juice. Oh, you know what? I don't know who the hell this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by homeless second I gotta open up a document here. That was embarrassing. I guess it doesn't need to be embarrassing. I could just take it out. But I think we all know I'm not going to do that. So looks like Omni pod episode 1048. And no. Are you did that? Did that one? Oh, what's tomorrow's date? Is this fun for you guys hearing how the podcast gets made because it's bore the hell out of me. October right. Yeah, don't oh, he wanted and yet, we just did that one. Okay, this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash and Omni pod five. Learn more and get started today at Omni pod.com/juicebox. That's Omni pod.com/juicebox podcast is also sponsored today. By touched by type one touched by type one.org. Also find them on Facebook and Instagram. They're huge. Oh, their big event is coming up dancing for diabetes. I think there's still tickets available. If you're in the Orlando area. You do not want to miss it touched by type one.org. Alright guys, podcast here comes.

Heather 2:59
I am Heather. I am in Central Washington. My now 11 year old was diagnosed with type one last January. So we're just over a year in. I guess we can start with that son,

Scott Benner 3:16
daughter. Son, son. Yes. Was there any reason to think someone in the family was going to get an autoimmune issue?

Unknown Speaker 3:25
Absolutely not.

Scott Benner 3:27
Okay. So no one in the family has celiac or thyroid?

Unknown Speaker 3:32
We're aware of?

Scott Benner 3:33
Nothing. Nobody talks about?

Speaker 2 3:35
No. And we don't really see family a lot. They're all in North Carolina, where we're originally from.

Scott Benner 3:41
Is Is that why you're on their side of the of the century?

Speaker 2 3:46
Yes. Yes, it sure is. Oh, we gotta go. Well, yeah. Yeah, we first moved to Chicago or Northern Chicago. And we were there for 10 years. And we were like, we're not far away enough. So let's keep going.

Scott Benner 4:09
Chicago was too close. But what did they do take a train, but I happen to

Speaker 2 4:14
know they never even visited but it was still too close. Too close.

Scott Benner 4:17
That's excellent. All right. Okay, so no reason to think that there's going to be type one. What was the what was the onset? Like?

Speaker 2 4:26
Oh, gosh. So we just moved to central Washington. What years are now 23 So 2021 in July. And then I would say things started to get noticeably bad. At the beginning of January of 2022. And he was starting to get lethargic. He and it progressively got To where he had a failure to thrive, he wasn't getting up. He was laying down he had no desire to do anything. He was hungry but wasn't hungry. He was thirsty all the time. I didn't realize he was peeing all the time, because well, he's a 10 year old boy at the time. And like, I don't watch them use the bathroom. We were homeschooling. So he wasn't at school. And he was lazing around all day. And then it was like a battle. Remember, one afternoon, we got a text from a contractor that was doing some work that our house saying that they had been exposed to COVID. And they get tested positive, and he had been at our house. And we were like, Okay, well, maybe all of this is COVID. Of course, that seems silly. looking back in hindsight, but

Scott Benner 5:51
COVID doesn't make up, does it? It doesn't doesn't at

Speaker 2 5:55
all. But we didn't I didn't know about type one diabetes. I've only worked with people with type two. And I've never known anyone with type one that I'm aware of.

Scott Benner 6:07
Okay, what do you what do you mean, you work? You work with people with type two, how, where did you do that?

Speaker 2 6:12
I worked at a nursing home for about five and a half years. And I had several patients that I worked with with type two. Gotcha. But they had had it for years. And I just was the CNA that helped them like I didn't do their care plans or their treatments or anything like that. So I just didn't have the background knowledge of type one diabetes. tested negative for COVID. And then the next day, like, actually, I'm terrible at storytelling, and you're really good at it. So perfect. No just made me nervous.

Scott Benner 6:51
You feel like you feel like I'm judging you for how you're telling your story.

Speaker 2 6:55
No, I don't feel like you're judging me at all. I feel like I'm judging myself.

Scott Benner 6:59
Oh, don't do that. You're doing because I want to remember all of the pieces, just say the parts that come to you. I'll pick through the rest. So

Speaker 2 7:07
like the week prior, I noticed, like shortness of breath going up the stairs. I noticed, like a few days going into it like his neck was like pulling in with his breath. He was losing weight, but I just chalked it up to he's getting taller. But thinner is really active. You know, the things that we all do,

Scott Benner 7:33
even though you've never once seen another human being grown that grow that way.

Speaker 2 7:38
Well, I've never really seen a lot of kids I because you live in the word not? Well, because I just don't hang around a lot of kids. I don't know that I really like kids. No offense to everyone listening. By the way. I love my kids.

Scott Benner 7:52
You made that very clear. When you made sure to let us all know that you don't watch your kid pay. You were like, it's not like I watched them pay. I was like, Thank God she cleared that up. That I thought Oh God, should I start asking people that are watching children use the bathroom because maybe we can identify a lot of creepers that way you don't I mean,

Speaker 2 8:14
right? I met him and his brother have their own floor of the house and they have their own bathroom. And I just don't know when he's using the bathroom. Okay, so there's that. But I could just see the weakness happening. And then the next morning, he like collapses and the bathroom because he couldn't hold himself up anymore. And so it's snowing outside, we're in the hills. And I was like, we're gonna go to urgent care. But now we're gonna go to the emergency room. So I had my husband carry him down the stairs that were slippery. Put him in the truck. And I drove to the emergency room and on my way I called the hospital. And I was like, hey, like my son's in a lot of pain. He's almost unconscious. I'm bringing him in. And I need someone to meet me at the door with a wheelchair because I don't know that I can carry a dead weight of 80 pounds.

Scott Benner 9:17
Well, you're like one of those TV shows where they call from the rig and they're like, we're coming in and then you gave like, yeah, like this stuff. That's nice. Do you do I get that but do you know how old I am?

Speaker 2 9:27
I think you're about 50 Yeah, the

Scott Benner 9:30
answer is I'm so old. That the TV show that I pictured when I when I when I just had that thought. It's so old. I have to look it up because I don't remember what it is. And it was just when television color was looking good. All right, hold on, right. It was How old are you?

Unknown Speaker 9:54
I am 32

Scott Benner 9:56
You have no idea what I'm even thinking of then

Speaker 2 10:00
Hold on, I have to make sure what we're in 2023 Yeah, I'm 32 I'll be 33 this year.

Scott Benner 10:05
Yeah, I'm thinking of a show from the late 70s called emergency.

Speaker 2 10:10
Oh, I've seen that have you? And the only shows that I'll watch on TV are like medical shows, but I can't get into that one that you and your daughter love,

Scott Benner 10:21
Grey's Anatomy. My daughter Arden began wearing the Omnipod tubeless insulin pump on February 4 2009. That was 5093 days ago. Or another way to think of it 1697 pods ago. At that time, she was four years old. Hang out with me for a moment while I tell you more about the Omni pod Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Today Arden is 18 and still wearing Omni pod back then there was one choice just one pot, but today you have a decision to make. Do you want the Omni pod five, the first and only tubeless automated insulin delivery system to integrate with the Dexcom G six, because if you do, it's available right now for people with type one diabetes ages two years and older. The Omni pod five is an algorithm based pump that features smart adjust technology. That means that the Omni pod five is adjusting insulin delivery based on your customized target glucose that's helping you to protect against high and low blood sugars, both day and night. Automatically. Both the Omni pod five and the Omni pod dash are waterproof, you can wear them while you're playing sports swimming in the shower, the bathtub, anywhere really. That kind of freedom. Coupled with tubeless a tubeless pump, you understand it's not connected to anything. The controller is not connected to the pod, the pod is not connected to anything, you're wearing it on the body tube loosely, no tubing to get caught on doorknobs or anywhere else that tubing with those other insulin pumps can get caught Omni pod.com forward slash juice box that's where you go to find out more, you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash, you should check that out too. When you get to my link, Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. So if you're looking for an insulin pump that is tubeless waterproof, and automated. You're looking for the Omni pod five. If you want to do it on your own, and you're not looking for the automation, Omni pod dash for full safety risk information and free trial Terms and Conditions. Please also visit omnipod.com forward slash juicebox.

Unknown Speaker 12:42
Yeah, I can't get into it.

Scott Benner 12:44
I say something about Grey's Anatomy. I stopped watching for it. I stopped watching. They took an entire season to stand on the beach and bring back old characters as ghosts and I was like, Alright, that's enough. You crossed my line. That's weird. Yeah. Yeah. what it felt like was that the star wanted a year at the beach. That's what it felt like to me. They were they were like don't leave the show. What if we put you up in a beautiful beach house. And we did all the shooting on the beach. And she went alright, I'll do that. That's how it felt to me. Anyway, I'm done. rampart was the hospital name and emergency in the late 70s that I can actually remember from being a child watching that show. Not not the point in my mind. There's a guy with dark hair on like an old CB radio looking thing explaining the symptoms of your son as you're going to the hospital. That's how I see your story.

Speaker 2 13:36
Yeah, his he was having like stomach pains. I could see him gasping for breath. And it was it was really scary. I've never seen anything like it. I would like to not ever see anything like it again. And I 10 out of 10 don't recommend it for anyone. Yeah,

Scott Benner 13:57
your explanation of his neck heaving scared me.

Speaker 2 14:01
Oh, it scared me. Yeah. And it happened like overnight, like I could see it a little bit. But it wasn't that bad. He had had his COVID vaccine. So I was like, I mean, if it's COVID like they're not going to do anything for him. And then his shortness of breath, like kept increasing. And I was like, I kind of take them to the hospital. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 14:21
I mean, good job walked into

Speaker 2 14:23
the hospital or I mean, I guess good job. He had a 12.9 a one C and the doctors were like, he's about 24 hours from a coma. Like Good job.

Scott Benner 14:35
Well, at least that Yeah, we didn't get there. Before that. I kept. I kept firing at Arden. I was like, Gee, she's really skinny ish, lethargic. She's sleeping all the time. But then she eats like crazy. But then she's a zombie. Yeah. And I was like she must be must be sick. Sick. I had a kid already. It kid was like five years old. I had been sick a number of times. It did never look like that and still Right, we were just sort of like, Yeah, she'll probably get over this. She'll probably get her. Yeah, right. I don't even know that you think about it that deeply. I think what the real truth is, I hate to say it like this, you're the real truth is that we have no expectation of children dying. Like, that's how good medical, that's how good medicine is now, because if it's a few 100 years ago, you were making five babies hoping to keep two of them. You know, so like, but nowadays, like we don't we have no expectation of something like the following a child. And so right. When it starts happening, you think, Oh, this will go away? Because that's what's happens. Right, but not your situation. Okay. You were in the hospital now. Did they meet you with a chair?

Speaker 2 15:40
Oh, they met me with a chair. And apparently they immediately smelt the what is it that sweet smell or whatever the smell is on his breath, and they took him back? Almost instantly. They took him back and I was still trying to register at the front desk.

Scott Benner 15:58
Yeah. Wow. So they knew right away? Yeah,

Speaker 2 16:02
I don't have a sense of smell. I haven't since I was 1718 years old when I worked in the nursing home. That place smelled bad.

Scott Benner 16:08
You don't have any sense of smell. It is coming

Speaker 2 16:12
back finally. Real but it's been 15 years. Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:16
All that because the PP you were like, well, I don't want to smell this anymore. You think your brain shut it off? Yeah, I

Speaker 2 16:21
don't think it was the pee pee part of it. I think it was the they were patients with C diff, which is an infection in your bowel. And it smells horrendous. I started when I was 17. And my body was like, the new count me out.

Scott Benner 16:39
Talk to you out of being able to smell. That seems not like a technical description, but it's very interesting. So you couldn't smell his breath one way or the other.

Speaker 2 16:47
I smelled it one time, but I didn't know what I was smelling. Because I've never smelled it before. And I never smelled it again after that.

Scott Benner 16:53
Yeah, kinda like sweet or metallicky or something like that. I think yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 16:58
think it's I don't remember.

Scott Benner 16:59
I think it's the ketones are smelling. Yeah. Yeah, probably. So what happened? I mean, he's that close. Does he go right in the ICU? Do you get to see them? Like, is it COVID time.

Speaker 2 17:12
So it is COVID time. But the problem is, is we're in Central Washington. So we have one hospital in our county, I think, or at least local to us. And they do not have any not one single pediatric specialist here in town. So they were able to know enough to get a slow insulin drip in him. And then they called Seattle Children's and I'm sure other facilities to try to get him into there. And we ended up being life flighted to Seattle Children's. And that was quite traumatizing. But they did let me in the room. They came in and told me that he had type one diabetes, I ran all of his tests and all of this and I just like fell to the ground crying. My husband was at home with my youngest son. So I was there by myself. And we only have one vehicle, because we've just been a one vehicle family because both my husband and I worked from home and we don't need a second vehicle. And I was like, how are they going to drive to Seattle when the vehicles here at the hospital? We don't have family here. We just moved. We don't know a lot of people. There was so many logistics, and it was quite stressful. We figured it out, though.

Scott Benner 18:32
Yeah. A very overwhelming life. Like they put him in. They put him in a helicopter.

Speaker 2 18:37
Yeah, they put us on an ambulance took us to the airport and put them in a helicopter at the airport and flew us over the mountains to Seattle.

Scott Benner 18:48
Wow. Did they stabilize him at all before they did that?

Speaker 2 18:52
He was in and out of consciousness and on the entire helicopter ride.

Scott Benner 18:56
Did he have any insulin for the ride?

Speaker 2 18:59
They did have a drip going in. But I don't know how much it was interesting. But he was in and out of consciousness for probably the first 24 to 36 hours.

Scott Benner 19:10
Wow. Wow. Yes. Crazy. Did he have any deficits afterwards?

Speaker 2 19:14
No, not that we have. Not that we found? No. All of his organs seem to be working like they are supposed to be.

Scott Benner 19:24
Well, that's super lucky. That's I mean, yeah. Did you know why in hindsight that they move him did they feel like they couldn't help him there?

Speaker 2 19:32
Oh, they could not help him. They're not at all like they would not admit him because they don't have pediatric specialist here. Like there's not a pediatric endocrinology in my town. I have to drive three hours to get there.

Scott Benner 19:44
Over a mountain. Well, we fired them. That's a whole nother story. Find out they pulled them out mountain people are drawn to.

Speaker 2 19:51
Yeah, and then now we go the opposite direction to Spokane. Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:55
okay, tell me a little I've two things before I want to move on. So tell me why you stopped I've seen the initial doctors,

Speaker 2 20:01
we saw them 30 days post diagnosis. And they were like, we have this technology, we have this technology. And we wait six months to get on this. And mind you, I've already started listening to the podcast at this point. So I was already, like, a few weeks into listening. And I was like, I don't know how I feel about that. But I'll humor you. And we'll see what happens. And we get the Dexcom. After some, it felt like fighting with the facility. And I was like, Alright, so my son is starting to develop disordered eating habits, like he's choosing not to eat because he doesn't want insulin injections. And I'm not having that, because I'm not going to have my 10 year old starting with disordered eating habits. And we want to pump and they were like, oh, we can't do that. And I was like, oh, no, we can I want to pop. And they were like, You can't do that until six months, we need to prove whatever it was like, No, you don't. We want to pump I need you to send in the prescription. Because if you say it's gonna take six months, then we need to start now because I'm already gonna have to fight with insurance. Yeah. And on the six month mark, if that's what you're saying, I want to put a pump on his arm. And they were like, No. And I was like, yes. Do it.

Scott Benner 21:23
And instead of having the fight, you went somewhere else?

Speaker 2 21:26
Well, no, they finally put the prescription in. Okay. And then they thought that because insurance denied it that we were just gonna let it go. And I was like, Absolutely not. So I paid for the first month out of pocket and they were pissed.

Scott Benner 21:39
Oh, so you showed up, like right away with the pump? Because you were like, just said, You didn't go back? No, because you were just like, send send in the script. And you know, six months from now we'll get our pump. But as soon as the script hit, you made it happen. 100% I wasn't playing like I'm with them. Yeah. And you went to a pump for cash until you could get it worked out with your insurance.

Speaker 2 21:57
Correct. And the insurance wanted a medical necessity letter and the doctor wouldn't give it until we went back for our six month appointment. So I fired them, called a different doctor. Let them know what we needed. And they're like, Oh, I'll write you a letter right now. Yeah, so they sent out a letter. And like, the next month it was covered, and it was no big deal.

Scott Benner 22:17
I'm gonna talk about this in a minute. But first, I want to tell you something. I guess I'm gonna start by asking you a question. How does? How does food taste to you? This is gonna seem like such a left turn. But how does it? How does food tastes do? Do you have like a strong feeling for how food tastes or not really?

Speaker 2 22:33
I don't? I think it's a really good question. It's something I've thought about a lot. Well, let me tell you something. I don't know if I taste food the same way everyone else does.

Scott Benner 22:42
Whether you should google it. If you smell okay, ready? Here it is tasting tasting is actually smelling. I know it is commonly thought that the flavor of food is experienced by the taste buds on the tongue. In fact, the mouth distinguishes only rudimentary information on sweetness, saltiness, sourness and bitterness. odour molecules from food. I guess that's odor, am I gonna? Yeah, I'm just like, I'm on an Australian website. Like why is that spelled wrong? odor molecules from food, rise to the olfactory epithelium, and supplement the information from the tongue with a much more sophisticated with much more sophisticated data. That's why food tastes bland when you have a head cold. Oh, no kidding. The olfactory epithelium is clogged with mucus and can't function properly. Better. health.vic.gov.

Speaker 2 23:33
I told several doctors this and none of them seem to be concerned.

Scott Benner 23:38
Hmm. Okay. And then that thought leads me into this thought which I'm going to wrap back around to what you were saying because Alright, so my kids have like, flown the coop. You know what I mean? Like Arden's gonna have to keep coming back when in college breaks, but Cole left, he's got a job. It's going well, I'm pretty sure we're never gonna see him again. And and, and that's not sure we're actually gonna go visit him in a week. But that but and Arden's a college, right. And she has long, her college is set up for it. Interestingly, she gets a very long break at the holidays. But then when she heads back, she just got another break for like six months. It's they do it in quarters. And anyway, not the point. Point is, I don't have anybody here to worry about and Kelly doesn't seem to like it when I worry about her. So after 51 years, and I mean this like sincerely not maybe every one of my 51 years, but you know, my parents had trouble being parents. So I parented my brothers and my parents that sometimes. And then my father left, and I was literally raised my brothers from the time I was 13. My middle brother was eight, my youngest brother was three, like my mom got up every morning and went to a job and didn't come back till five or six o'clock. So like, yeah, you know, I raised them as well as a 13 year old maybe could raise two kids Then I met my wife, she had some issues with her family, we got through those than we had kids. And then there was like two years narrow us, like, look at how great and then boom, diabetes. I really think there were like two good years in my life, I think around 2000 2001. And then, of course, the World Trade thing happened in the middle of my good time, so not particularly good. And anyway, and then I've been paying attention to Arden's health, and then learning more about Kelly's health, and then my sons, and you know what I forgot to do, Heather, take care of your health, I did forget to take care of myself. Yeah, I didn't pay any attention to myself. So there's like a decade in the middle of my life where my iron was low, where I just suffered. I just suffered through it. And it was terrible, right? So I figured that out. And then I'm like, okay, that's fine. Like, this is probably it, you know, but they laughed, and I was like, Ah, I really, like I spent so much time like, I don't know, playing Doctor House, and being like, you know, what I think this means, you know, I think this could be that, like, I mean, the way I figured out Cole's Hashimotos is insane. I found a symptom buried in an NIH article, like a symptom that never happens to anybody. And I was like, that's this, and then boom, thyroid medication is okay. So I thought, let me turn this on myself a little. And I made an appointment with Dr. Benito, Who's the doctor who's come on and talked about thyroid stuff here. And his Ardennes, integrative endocrinologist handles Ardens thyroid and actually is going to start handling Ardens diabetes as an adult. And does my kids thyroid and my wife's and all this stuff, right? So I sat down, and I made this comprehensive list of everything that's been wrong with me my whole life. Because I was like, let me see if there's overlap between what I see with the kids, right, because maybe we have things obviously going on similar. I make this comprehensive list and make an appointment. I go into Dr. Medina, his office on Saturday, and she's like, tell me, you know, she's like, you're here because and I said, I just, I have some things going on. I'm living with them. Okay. But I look at my body. And I think it's not functioning properly. Like it's, it's just not like, Heather, I don't eat very much food. I weigh more than I should. I, you know, I'm Yeah. When I was active, this is what my body looked like, when the podcast got really popular. And I just sit here in this chair, most of the day, it didn't change. This is what I look like. Like it just it's always this level of like, I mean, I guess it's alright, like that kind of thing. And so we went through everything. And here's why you want to get a good doctor, Dr. BENITO heard my concerns, and said, Here, go get a blood draw. This is what I'm going to test for. She tested for thyroid, even though I don't have any thyroid system symptoms. She's testing for low testosterone. She's testing for like, everything my iron, like things that you would like things that I was like, Why do you test for this? She goes, it supports this here. I'm like, okay, whatever, just go for it. And I And she's like, if you want you can try an injectable to like, lose some weight with too. And I was like, really? And she was sure why not? I was like, yeah, why not? Like, why am I wasting my life trying to find this perfect avenue to fix something? Like why not? Like you don't have that I don't drink I don't smoke. I don't get high. Like I? Why not? Why not inject something once a week to see if it helps me lose weight? Or see if my metabolism? Who the hell knows. But why am I just okay with this? I don't know. Well, the reason is, is that every doctor I've ever gone to in the past looks at me and goes, you're right. Yeah, it's convenient. I agree with them. Right? But I wouldn't if it was my kid. I'd be like, no, no, you're wrong. Keep looking. What? It's me. It's me. I'm like, yeah, he's probably okay. I mean, I get up in the morning. So anyway, I don't know what's about to happen to me. My blood test is literally just out now. But this this lady is going to aggressively address anything that she sees. And and I think, you know, coming when it comes to diabetes, like that's what you need, you know, anyway, yeah,

Speaker 2 29:29
I will say that last year, I was fighting with my own doctors for my own health. Because visibly, I am a thin, healthy abled body that doesn't have any issues. Well, they were wrong. They were very wrong. I fought them for like six months. I'm a veteran. So I go to the VA. That's just a pain in itself. In my current clinic because I'm at a satellite clinic, because we're so far away from civilization. But it took four to six months for them to finally draw full panels. Like I was asking, I was like, something's wrong in my thyroid. Something's wrong with this. Why am I doing the work for you? They finally drew and they're like, oh, no, your ferritin levels are low. And I was like, Oh, I feel like Scott. My ferritin was down to 5.2. The day I had my first iron infusion.

Scott Benner 30:30
Wow, how are you even walking? That's crazy.

Speaker 2 30:33
I wasn't. I wasn't walking. I was in bed. I would say 18 hours a day. Because my brain wasn't functioning. My body wasn't functioning. Sure. And I was like, something is wrong with me. No, you're fine. No, I'm not that they

Scott Benner 30:51
tried to tell you what they did. They try to give you the like, the like the old like, you're just, you know, sad, or you need to exercise or eat that they hit you with all that bullshit?

Speaker 2 31:01
Oh, yeah, of course. But I'm a personal trainer and a nutrition coach. Like, I know, I need to work out I know how to eat. I'm good. But I can't do it. Because I don't have the energy.

Scott Benner 31:10
Right? That's interesting. I can't get out of

Unknown Speaker 31:13
the bed.

Scott Benner 31:14
How many it was? How many? How many infusions? What did they give you? They give you injector for to give you the other one?

Speaker 2 31:21
I had to have injector for before? Thanksgiving last year? Okay. How long like a new person?

Scott Benner 31:29
Yeah. Would it take a couple months for you to feel better? Yeah, I would say probably the

Speaker 2 31:33
beginning of this year, middle of January, I really started to

Scott Benner 31:38
feel good. Here's the fun question. Did you have a heavy period before this?

Speaker 2 31:42
No, I have endometriosis. So I actually use a birth control that stops my period, so that I don't have period issues, and issues with endometriosis. So I don't even have a period.

Scott Benner 32:00
You don't have a period. So new. All right. I'm going to say something. All right, Dr. House, I want to give it to me, I want everybody to keep in mind that I'm borderlining on an idiot, I almost didn't graduate from high school, etc, etc, and so on and so forth. But you know, how they say like, Oh, that 10 years ago, it was the data is telling us that people with type one diabetes are frequently low on vitamin D. And now in the last couple of years, the data is like, you know, basically the population is low on vitamin D. And, okay, endometriosis isn't an autoimmune disease. But isn't it interesting that you can't keep your iron up? Yeah. How? How? And isn't it interesting that you can't keep your iron up and your kid has type one diabetes, and I can't keep my iron up? And my kid has type one diabetes?

Unknown Speaker 32:58
Maybe it's just a coincidence.

Scott Benner 33:01
Maybe it is. But why is it we're hearing so much about people on the podcast whose iron is super low, and they're walking around like zombies, and nobody wants to do anything for them. And then it's up to the person to fight to get this test. I'm telling you, a ferritin level should be part of should just be part of your blood draw when you get a blood draw every year. And if you're, if you're not getting your blood work done, and you have insurance, what are you doing? Just let them do it. You know? And then you look Oh, I

Unknown Speaker 33:30
do it annually? Yeah, of course.

Scott Benner 33:33
So your first and was five you beat me? I think my lowest was 11.

Speaker 2 33:39
I don't want to compete with that one. No, I don't want anyone to have that nonsense.

Scott Benner 33:44
Horrible brain fog, right.

Speaker 2 33:48
I was in school. What I was trying to do school, I had three classes I was in and I'm just trying to function and live my life. And I thought I was dying.

Scott Benner 33:57
And you have two kids. One of them has diabetes. You have to climb over a mountain to buy a gallon of milk.

Speaker 2 34:01
Yes, yeah. You should get a cow. Yeah. I would if my homeowner's association didn't say that. We can't have livestock.

Scott Benner 34:11
You haven't heard it yet on the podcast, but I there was about a week where I got like, enraptured with the idea of raising chickens. And one person was like, why don't you get a cow too? And I was like, what? I can't do that. What would I do with it? Well, I

Speaker 2 34:25
also want to get I think it's goats that they say they help clear the sagebrush off the side of the mountain that we live on. They help keep it like clean and safe from potential fires. Yeah, I want to get a goat. They won't let you know I can't have livestock. We have a perfect place for chickens and we can't have livestock.

Scott Benner 34:44
What if a couple of goats just got loose?

Speaker 2 34:47
I know, right? I've considered it. I'm just saying I've considered it. Old Man dog, Nick. It just sucks. So the President is right next door to our house.

Scott Benner 34:56
Yeah. Let me the goats out.

Speaker 2 34:58
I don't know old man. Dog pays a lot of attention to a lot of things that goes into the neighborhood and I just don't like it.

Scott Benner 35:04
Gotcha. Well, maybe his iron will get low and he won't be able to stand up and look out the window. Like really like, be life altering getting the the infusion, right.

Speaker 2 35:16
Oh 100% The like I'm back, obviously in school again this semester. And my ability is like a hundredfold different than it was last semester. I can focus I can concentrate i Life is just better. I was having shortness of breath. I was having chest pains. They sent me to the cardiologist. They did a CT scan. They did stress tests, they did echocardiograms, like they did everything was like, my heart is fine. Yeah, my lungs are fine. That's not the problem. Yeah, but you're having shortness of breath. Yeah, I am. But it's not because of my heart and my lungs.

Scott Benner 35:53
I think what they want to say is, yeah, but you're having shortness of breath. And the three days that we spent on shortness of breath in medical schools tells me to do this. Because we're just trying to stop you from dropping dead right now, we're not actually worried about why your shortness of breath, if it's not because of lung or heart issues, then you should go see a different doctor about that. And

Speaker 2 36:12
that's what I told them. I was like, I know I need to see a different doctor, send me to them. But again, as a veteran, all of the processes have to go through like this referral process. And there's hardly any specialists here in town. So my hematologist is an hour and a half away. Like it's a disaster.

Scott Benner 36:33
Yeah, that's interesting. Are you making any changes to your diet to try to keep your iron up? Or are you afraid your body's just gonna use it up and you'll be back in the same boat again,

Speaker 2 36:43
my diet is no different. I was eating red meat at least once a day prior to, like, I was eating my fair share of iron. And I don't know what was going on. So no, my diet hasn't changed. I've had my what was it three month check. And they said my iron levels were well above normal, they'll recheck again and three more months.

Scott Benner 37:06
Alright, so if, if if Dr. BENITO was here, she would tell you to take vitamin C.

Unknown Speaker 37:12
You know, I have that in my Amazon cart.

Scott Benner 37:16
Well, how long does it take to come over the mountain? Did they drop it from a parachute? Or how does it get over there? I mean, just a mail truck guy in the car. Yeah. It's not as exciting where you live as I'm imagining. Like in my, in my imagination. You live on the Yellowstone ranch.

Unknown Speaker 37:33
I do live in between lots of orchards.

Scott Benner 37:36
Oh, that's lovely. That's very nice. Okay, so get get the vibrancy. And take it. Keep your iron out.

Speaker 2 37:43
Yeah, I do. I actually I lied. I do. I did change a little bit. I do eat a bit more berries because of the vitamin C that they provide with. And I

Scott Benner 37:53
did tell people why you care about vitamin C, because your

Speaker 2 37:57
body absorbs iron better if you take vitamin C,

Scott Benner 38:00
right, exactly. How did you learn this? Um,

Speaker 2 38:05
well, I've been anemic most of my adult life. And the doctor has told me one doctor was halfway useful before I moved.

Scott Benner 38:16
I don't want to be married to you. I don't feel like it would be fun.

Speaker 2 38:20
My husband probably thinks the same. But we're gonna hit 10 years in the fall, so it must not be too bad.

Scott Benner 38:26
Maybe he just likes the beatings. Who knows. You're just like, how did you describe that other doctor? I had another doctor who was halfway useful. Yes. Hard as a married person. I was like, oh, that's how Kelly feels about me. I know for sure.

Speaker 2 38:44
I find my husband to be very useful. He is way more useful than doctors are.

Scott Benner 38:50
Oh my god. Hey, Ida, iron deficiency anemia increases autoimmune disease risk, particularly in female patients and patients with certain comorbidities, clinicians should conduct further clinical evaluations and laboratory tests of autoimmune diseases and patients with IDA great oh, here's a little like, like view into that. I when I wrote everything down to go to the doctor. I told her that about four weeks ago on a comfortable but chilly day. I found myself outside not expecting to stay outside. So I was in a short sleeve shirt and pants of some sort. So my let I'm trying to tell you my legs were covered. My arms weren't I didn't have any thickness on the top. It was the temperature was in the 50s early like low 50s. And I found myself holding a shovel. My neighbor saw me and we started chatting. So now the shovel is at my left side. I'm holding it about midway through the handle. It's kind of balancing its own weight in my hand and we talk for, I don't know 15 or 20 minutes and I go back inside and jump in the shower. And when I get in the shower, I realized my fingers on my left hand or blue, but not where the shovel was. And I'm like, What the hell? So oh, now it's all making sense. I called Kelly, who probably thought I was trying to trick her into getting in the shower with you. But I was like, Look at my hand. And I was like, Is this right? nods? And she's like, No. And I'm like, what? And then I believed her. Meanwhile, she has no background, you know, it was like, All right, yeah. And it warmed up and it went away. And I told Dr. BENITO that story and she goes, maybe Raynaud's, and I said, I don't. That's exactly what I thought. Right? And I said, Well, I don't know when she goes, okay. Okay. And then just she kind of filed it away in her head while she's going. But I have trouble holding on to iron. My kid has type one diabetes, my fingers get over the it's only been like the last 10 years. If I have, I have a lawn mower, I just made that noise. Because I don't know how to explain this. I have a lawn mower where I operate it with my hands up in the air above my heart, and out in front of me. And if I do that, on cold days, my fingers get very cold. And there's some and if I lay on my back and hold my phone up in front of me, my fingers get like weird. Interesting. Yes. So instead of just like hoping I'm not going to die, I'm going to actively try not to. Like that's, that's my new plan. Now that I don't have everyone's everything to worry about all the time. Like, yeah, I've got a few years left for that one. Yeah, I'm doing this. Okay, so let's try to pivot to why you came on the podcast. Why did I come on the podcast? I know. I know. I hold on a second. But but it's by like, 40 minutes in. So it's been a lively conversation. And I forgot to bring up can you say at all for me? At all? Use it in the sense. I didn't like that at all. I didn't like that at all. Earlier in the podcast, everybody has to go back and like the first five or six minutes. You said to tall? You said you were saying at all but it like got caught in your mouth. And you were you were like, I didn't like that. That's all too tall. And I was like, too tall to tall, like, and then I thought is she doing an impression of Schmidt from New Girl? And I say probably not.

Unknown Speaker 42:16
Probably not. You're right.

Scott Benner 42:19
You should watch new girl. But nevertheless, that was interesting. And you kept saying vehicle instead of car truck. Is that colloquial to you're like where you're at? To use the word vehicle?

Speaker 2 42:29
I don't know I we have a truck. But

Scott Benner 42:35
you don't have to go to this other. Nevermind.

Speaker 2 42:37
Yeah, I don't know. I've never I didn't know that. I actually said it that

Scott Benner 42:41
often. You use the word vehicle. So many times. I thought I was in a commercial for the word vehicle.

Unknown Speaker 42:46
Oh, gosh, did I really get on my nerves? She's selling

Scott Benner 42:49
me on this word. I was like, I believe I get the vehicle. I got it. Anyway, you came on the show because you experienced a diabetes fast forward from the podcast. I did. Well, at least I felt that I did. Okay, so tell me if you did, or you didn't know what happened.

Speaker 2 43:06
We were doing really well with the dash. But then school was about to start and they were actually going back to school. And I was like, I want to get him on the five and let it automate and do what it's supposed to do. And I feel like I've had some good success with the five and then at the same time, I want to throw it out the window.

Scott Benner 43:33
Okay. Tomar it, it also

Speaker 2 43:36
doesn't help that he's still honeymooning. And his body decides to work sometimes and decides not to work sometimes like his pancreas. And that's quite annoying, because as you know that there's no like rhyme or reason to when that happens. And when it doesn't. So his pump will finally figure out that it needs to increase how much it's giving in the background. And then his needs will draw and then it'll give too much in the background. And then I'm just like feeding loads all day. Or then it realizes that he doesn't need as much insulin and then by that time, his insulin needs have gone back up again. And it there's just no consistency. I'm frustrated.

Scott Benner 44:17
Are you sure that's a honeymoon is that this is activities like wax the wax and wane or does it stay pretty consistent?

Speaker 2 44:25
It stays very consistent, but I'm fairly certain that it's a honeymoon, because he's 11 and the doctor at our last appointment said that he should generally be using between 30 and 35 units a day. Until the last two or three days he's been using under 25 Okay, between 15 and 25 units a day and most of it is in mealtime and he does not usually need a lot of basil. Okay, well that's like it's percentages are like 20 to 30 percent Basal,

Scott Benner 45:00
right? And because you're saying because the algorithm is trying to figure out needs, and then the needs keep changing that you see highs and lows, because the needs change, and then it goes, Okay, hold on, I'll change back again. And then before you know it, it changes again. Right? Yeah. So you think

Speaker 2 45:21
when I'm in manual mode, I can keep it stable? Because why would you do? I don't do anything. He has a consistent amount of basil every hour, like literally, his needs are the same. Well, I have the pump set where it's the same number for 24 hours, but it is always getting that amount of Basal every hour, like there's no pausing insulin because it thinks that he's not going to go high or low. It's just consistent all day long.

Scott Benner 45:51
What's that Basal rate that you use during manual? Well,

Speaker 2 45:55
a few weeks ago, we went into all mode, and he was using between point three and point four. And then last week, it went back down to point one, five,

Scott Benner 46:05
how much is the why, like,

Unknown Speaker 46:06
85? Maybe?

Scott Benner 46:10
Well, I think you're right, I think there's still a honeymoon happening. That seems like the most reasonable answer to me. But the algorithm is working off of what when you set up the algorithm, what did you tell his basil was? Point 3.4?

Speaker 2 46:25
Yeah, I wanted it to be a little bit higher, because that's what it is. Generally, I guess.

Scott Benner 46:31
Okay, so it's so it's interesting. So are you upset with the algorithm? Are you upset with the honeymoon?

Speaker 2 46:37
I'm definitely not upset with the honeymoon, like, I am annoyed, and would rather it be consistent, but at the same time, like if his body's gonna work, I want it to work as long as it wants to work, or as long as it's going to work. And I can't say that I'm mad at the system, because that's not fair. just frustrating. It is extremely frustrating. Yeah,

Scott Benner 46:58
no, I hear you. I mean, I think that I think this is the time that I would tell you that it sucks. But the variability is not going to stop. diabetes just sort of is this game? You know, right? Yeah. Right. Now it's a honeymoon, in two years, it'll be hormones, right, and it'll be activity. And then it'll be, you know, going to college and sitting up all night and, and eating a meal at two o'clock in the morning. And then, and then it'll be the next thing it's going to be in the next thing, it's going to be like variables are always going to impact insulin and the variables of your life, unless you're going to do you know, unless you're gonna make sure you do exactly the same freakin thing over and over and over again, then this is going to happen. So as soon as the honeymoons over, you should find more stability, I would think, yeah. When you were in manual, and you noticed a decrease in need, did you decrease the Basal than 2.15?

Speaker 2 48:00
Yeah, well, I would decrease it by point 05. Until you and it would work back. And I would figure out that it would need a decrease overnight when I was speeding was

Scott Benner 48:11
would activity mode on the on the pod five? How helped with this when his needs go down? Or setting the target higher? Have you tried either of those?

Speaker 2 48:20
I have set the target higher, and maybe it helps. But I don't want to target higher, like I want him to sit between 90 and 110.

Scott Benner 48:29
So when his needs go down, you set the target higher, he actually is higher than Yeah, gotcha. And you would prefer? Yeah, is that I mean, that's a limitation of it right there. Right. You know, I don't know that that would happen any differently. I was trying to think of other systems. But I don't see that that would happen any differently with other systems, either. Yeah, you know, because no matter what settings or settings, and goals or goals, so if your needs drastically decrease, and I mean, going from point four 2.15 is a drastic decrease in Basal. And so if that happens, like even if this was if this was Arden you were talking about and she was looping, the loop would still think this is her Basal. This is her insulin sensitivity. That's our goal. And as soon as it saw a number, it would correct it. And it would be too much if her needs suddenly dropped down. Like imagine if you're listening like the easiest way to think about it is just imagine that you're, you know, your Basal is one per hour, that's your need. And then suddenly, your Basal need goes to point to an hour, but we don't make any changes. We just keep pushing one one whole unit like you're gonna get crazy low. So that's what's happening to you. Yeah, that sucks.

Speaker 2 49:45
And sometimes we have some pretty number wise they're, they're pretty low, but he's never had a scary low while he did have one before he was on the decks calm. And that was when we were still pretty new. He was wrestling was my husband and, like, tested him. And I think he was in the 20s or 30s. And he was like, I don't feel good. And I was like, I bet you don't.

Scott Benner 50:07
Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. But you know, though, see, here's the interesting thing. It's happening to you, and you're aware of all of it. So while it's not what you want, you're not overwhelmed or confused by it. Is that right?

Speaker 2 50:19
Oh, crap. Yeah, not at all. Okay. I'm frustrated by it. But I'm not confused by it. I am not. Oh, my gosh, why is that happening? Like, it makes sense. I get it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 50:30
So what when you first wrote to me, you were like, you were saying like, I think the podcast is really like, brought my understanding of diabetes, like quickly, like up is that do you still feel that way?

Speaker 2 50:44
Oh, yeah. I mean, honestly, like, so my husband's cousins, whatever family member told us about the podcast, because they had a friend that recommended that. And so I started listening to it like a week after diagnosis. And I don't know where I would be today, if I haven't listened to almost every single one of your podcast, because the amount of value that is provided between the protests and just hearing the stories, and just hearing everyone else's experience, I wouldn't know the different thing that would be so much more fearful of each fall, or each double arrow down or, like, I wouldn't know what to do. And I would freak out. And now I'm like, Well, we're definitely not going to over treat that low. We're going to give you what you need. And then we're going to see what happens. And we're going to wait, and we're going to be patient. Like I know, you might feel a little low right now. But give it some time, and it will turn around.

Scott Benner 51:50
I imagine it helped to when the needs went down, it probably stopped you from just looking at the pump and being like, the thing doesn't work. Because that's, I think that's what happens to people. They just they're like, the thing stopped working. But like, you know, like, no, no thinking past it like that. Just I was using a pump and it worked fine. And suddenly it wasn't working anymore. And by working I mean, my blood sugar's weren't doing what I expected. It must be this thing. Instead of like, I wonder why? Because the because the thing is just doing what you tell it. Whether Yeah, think of it that way or not, is only it's a lot like, like, it's like, you know, people get scared about like autonomy. They're like, I don't want a robot, it's gonna take over the world, and the robots gonna do what the what you tell it to do. It's not going to start having feelings on its own. And when you go home at night, it's not going to reprogram itself. There. It does what you tell it to these pumps do what you tell it to do through settings. And that's it. But it's just the it's a delivery system for settings. And people are like, Oh, well, the algorithms are smart. Okay, yeah. But they're not really smart. They're just using your settings to deliver insulin based on your blood sugar. There's the the next write a manual pump is delivering insulin based on your settings. And your input of how many carbs you ate. That's what it's doing. And an automated system is doing that plus, making adjustments when it sees your blood sugar going up or down. And it doesn't make it smarter just makes it smarter. Yeah. It's not free thinking. We're pretty far from that. But I can't even figure out how to release three goats so that your neighbors say and I don't know how we're supposed to figure it out.

Unknown Speaker 53:42
Neither and I'm not the technology guru.

Scott Benner 53:45
Heather. I'm just so at night you just you just come in at night and then you put a couple of goats on the hill and nobody sees you're done.

Unknown Speaker 53:53
Right and then the neighborhoods to benefit to Yeah, they

Scott Benner 53:55
make baby goats and everything's fine. No, no, no, no,

Unknown Speaker 53:58
we don't we don't need baby goats. Well, how

Scott Benner 54:00
you're gonna need more goats.

Speaker 2 54:03
Yeah, I don't want baby goats. When you don't want more babies of any kind.

Scott Benner 54:08
Other. You don't. You don't like other people's children or baby goats. What happened to you?

Speaker 2 54:15
I think I missed the parental like desire that a lot of women get. Okay. I love my children and I'm so glad that I have them. I cannot have more.

Scott Benner 54:30
Because of your disdain for children.

Speaker 2 54:33
No. Like, my my, my second son did some damage. Oh, he

Scott Benner 54:38
grabbed all the horrible things on the way out. Yeah, he grabbed a hold of

Speaker 2 54:41
several things on the way out. And I had to have my tubes. I had to have a first permanent form of birth control. And I was too young for a hysterectomy. Oh, I'm

Scott Benner 54:52
sorry. So I thought you were saying intellectually you weren't going to have any more children? No.

Speaker 2 54:58
Okay, I don't have my tubes. So I don't have the connector point to be able to have more kids.

Scott Benner 55:04
Wow. They didn't just tie them they removed them. Correct. Was there a some sort of an obstruction or a tear or break?

Speaker 2 55:11
I had a fourth degree tear and ended up basically having a vaginal C section delivery with my son.

Scott Benner 55:19
Okay, that just gave me the shivers down my spine and I don't have an I don't have a vagina. So what is vaginal resection? Did they didn't cut your thing, did they? Well,

Speaker 2 55:28
they didn't. Well, they did try to cut it. And then he was like, Nope, I'm just going to rip it the rest of the way. So I was ripped. I think the word that you'd like to use is taint.

Scott Benner 55:40
I've also heard goop on recently, which I've enjoyed.

Speaker 2 55:42
Yes. So literally, from the back of my vagina all the way down to my rectum and ended up having to have a reconstructive surgery.

Scott Benner 55:54
I'm so sorry. Advice. By sorry. I mean, for me for hearing that, because it was very upsetting. It was very, very upsetting when you said that. I'm getting I'm sweating. My butthole syntax. Oh my god. What's the recovery from that? Like?

Unknown Speaker 56:15
It was not pleasant.

Scott Benner 56:21
So yeah, I mean, even if you hadn't, even if they hadn't taken the tubes, I assume you you're not up for one way or the other after that, right? Oh, yeah, I wouldn't do. Oh my god. Oh, yeah, I'd get my husband and girlfriend. If I was you. I'd be like, listen completely leave me alone. Stay away. Actually, we'll build an extra bedroom where I was gonna put the goats can live there with your Paramore and come in here when you want to talk about family stuff. Oh my god. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Have you told your son that or do you keep that from him?

Speaker 2 56:59
Oh, no, he 100% knows that he damaged me on his way out. How did you not? I can't have kids because of a big head.

Scott Benner 57:08
Or how did you not say he totally knows that he ripped me a new asshole. How did you not say that I was counting on you right there? Who's counting on you to cover for me? So I wouldn't have to say that. Well, that's insane. Oh my god, I have questions about how you poop after that. I'm sorry. I'm gonna ask them. I thought I wasn't going to but I am. So after the tear happens and they repair everything. How long does it take you to be able to do your business again?

Speaker 2 57:34
Well after so the reconstructive surgery didn't happen for six months.

Scott Benner 57:39
Wait, what? Why? You're making it hard again. How did that happen? Wait, why? Wait, stop, stop, stop. I'm not okay. Hold on. It took them six months to do the reconstruction.

Speaker 2 57:53
They didn't believe me that anything was wrong. Scott, what do you mean, they're doctors?

Scott Benner 57:57
This was not obvious when we examined your undercarriage that there was a problem?

Speaker 2 58:02
No, they sewed me back up just like they would everyone else. But my I'm gonna make you hot, some more. My

Scott Benner 58:11
not in the way I was hoping. But go ahead.

Speaker 2 58:15
My sphincter muscles. Were only at like 50% capacity. So they had to tear them or cut them again and then tried to connect them at a closer point. So that it could have like 75 to add percent working muscles in my anal sphincter.

Scott Benner 58:41
But you said you're good at telling a story that just oh my god, they're just paint a picture in my mind. I know that I don't know anything about anal reconstruction. And I understood what you were talking about. They had to kind of change the grab point for the muscle to make the sphincter close and open properly. Yeah. Yo,

Speaker 2 58:59
incontinent of urine and bowel for about six months before they realized that I was telling truth.

Scott Benner 59:06
Like I don't know how this took a turn out there. But are we talking like shards or like full things just falling out?

Speaker 2 59:14
I would say sharp. Okay. You would say I wasn't showing my pants.

Scott Benner 59:20
Anything that we could name the podcast? Yeah. Wow. So that's all okay, now everything's staying where it's supposed to?

Speaker 2 59:30
Yeah. Um, for now, they told me when I had the surgery, seven years ago now, that five to 10 years post surgery there may have to be an injection of or another surgery to put some sort of a port that sends signals to my sphincter muscles to make it continue working. Because it may just stop working at some point. I don't know. We're just waiting to see what happens. Wow.

Scott Benner 1:00:00
Oh, boy, that kid ever forgets your birthday or Mother's Day? Even one time, I'd be right on the phone. And I would, I would tell him that exact story you just told me, I'd be like, I would be like I was my birthday today and I didn't get a card. And I know you're 43. But I just wanted to tell you the story about when they had to restore the muscles in my sphincter. Get a drink, because it's gonna take me a while because you were really good at describing that other like, Really? Really? I think, I think on a desert island, I could take a shot at that surgery based on what you just said. So. Holy crap, that was terrible. Again, for me, I'm not even thinking about you. Just thinking about myself right now. Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah. Okay, okay. Okay. All right. Hold on. I was gonna you know what I was gonna ask you before we got to this, I was gonna ask you what you were in the military for? That. I was like, I'll just ask this real quick first. I didn't know what was gonna happen. Oh, my God. What were you in the military for?

Speaker 2 1:01:02
No, that was fun. I was. I was an electrician. By trade that never worked an electrician and did paperwork as a human.

Scott Benner 1:01:17
You were in the Navy. I was in the Navy. Okay. And you were you came in as an electrician. And they did not give you that kind of work?

Speaker 2 1:01:26
No. Okay. But that probably is because of I don't know, my reconstructive surgery and all the issues that came with that. Seriously. Yeah, I was medically discharged

Scott Benner 1:01:39
you weight from your but

Speaker 2 1:01:42
kind of that was part of it. I have depression and anxiety. The delivery caused lots of issues in my hips, which caused weakness in my knees, and I fell down the stairs carrying my youngest. Oh my god. So they were like your flight risk? Sounds like

Scott Benner 1:02:02
you're a flight risk, like a flight of stairs risk. Sorry.

Speaker 2 1:02:06
Yes. Yes. And they didn't want me on the waterwell or on a ship falling down the stairs or anything.

Scott Benner 1:02:14
Wow. You know, you mentioned stairs twice earlier in the show. When you were talking about your son's diagnosis, it was apropos of nothing at the moment like it didn't belong in the story. And you made sure to give me the detail that your husband carried your son down the stairs because they were slippery. You know you did that? I did? Yeah. And it's not if you think about that story from like, a third party perspective. Telling this who carried the kid down the stairs is meaningless to the story. Like it was important to you like you inserted it in the story on purpose. That at the time, I actually, I there's a note here in front of me about it, because it struck me is like out of place in the sentence. I was like, I wonder what that's about, but we got to it eventually. Okay. So your tech, by the way, flight risk is now the name of your episode. Finally, we found it. Beautifully found. Okay, so you're discharged honorably? I imagine after how long their medical discharge is?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:14
Just under three years. Okay.

Scott Benner 1:03:17
And, wow. And how's the anxiety been since then?

Speaker 2 1:03:21
Well, I see a therapist every three weeks. That's fine. It's okay. We manage. I intentionally do things that make me anxious to force me to work on my coping skills.

Scott Benner 1:03:36
I just thought of I just thought of a question. So inappropriate, that I'm not gonna ask.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:45
But you asked how I pooped afterwards.

Scott Benner 1:03:47
I know. But this is I found a different level. You just said something. And I thought, so. No doggy style, right. I mean, why not? I don't know. I didn't know if it made you nervous. For the exposure, you know what I mean?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:02
I mean, it's definitely not my ideal.

Scott Benner 1:04:06
Go to my ideal setup. I love how you word things. That's not my ideal set.

I'm so sorry. This got really away from us really quickly. Oh, my God, that's terrific. Okay. All right. So I'll leave you comfortable with me leaving that question in a lot. Okay. All right. I wonder if I

Speaker 2 1:04:34
mean, I literally told you about a reconstructive surgery and being incontinent.

Scott Benner 1:04:40
Yeah. So but that's medical. People don't. People don't like to talk about fun. They just want to talk about medical stuff. It's okay. If we talk about buttholes medically, if I if I made a joke about you know, any number of pie there's like six of them in my head right now that I could make that I wouldn't, that I wouldn't make. But then people be like, Oh, See what happens? Everything sexual?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:05
Well just tell people to get over themselves. Yes.

Scott Benner 1:05:07
Also your butthole is the least sexual thing I've heard in a while. Talking about being in the military, it sounds like a warzone down there. So, yeah, I mean, I'm like, I mean, I obviously I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding. Also, like, I'm thinking about not recovery and healing. It's just such a delicate place, you know, just had to have been long and difficult I would imagine.

Speaker 2 1:05:34
Oh, it was and then the the hospital let me leave without using the bathroom first. tested out once. No, I didn't. They just let me leave without using the bathroom. And, like not even peeing, and they gave me a saddle block. I don't respond to anesthesia very well. Okay. I had a colonoscopy, Don, and I woke up in the middle of it and pick the doctor and told him they had to stop like I don't respond to anesthesia very well.

Scott Benner 1:06:00
You woke up in the middle of oh my god, did you really like awake fully? Like aware? There's like, hey, there's something in my button. Everybody's here. Like you had like full consciousness.

Speaker 2 1:06:11
Yes. And I kicked the doctor and told them that they had to stop. I would have done and then they gave me more anesthesia. And then I woke up later, but I still remember the incident happening.

Scott Benner 1:06:22
Wow. Why is your life full of so many horrifying things to do with your butthole? I don't know. I don't know. Purpose, right? You don't have like, a fixation or anything like that. Just bad luck. Nope. That's that kitty Scrooge. Yeah. Well, literally and figuratively. Good luck. Yeah. That's really something. Maybe don't tell your son about this. This might really scarred like, Just tell him there were complications, but you're okay now. Let him suffer from Sure.

Speaker 2 1:06:58
I'll be fine. I limped through it. And I'm fine. I'm here to tell

Scott Benner 1:07:02
the tale. Yeah, no kidding. How long ago was all this? 10 years?

Speaker 2 1:07:05
Oh, my youngest is going to be nine in July. So around that distance of time,

Scott Benner 1:07:12
eight years ago. You're in your mid 20s. When this happened? Mid to late 20s. Yeah. You know, for some reason, that makes it more disappointing to me.

Speaker 2 1:07:21
I agree. That's when my therapy sessions really kicked into gear. Did you have any hits 24 When I had him?

Scott Benner 1:07:30
Seriously, do you have any anxiety prior to all this?

Speaker 2 1:07:33
I did. But it wasn't too bad. Yeah, I had depression prior to all of this. Okay. But the anxiety has been progressively worse and worse. And my family history is all sorts of disastrous for mental health. And all of these we heard

Scott Benner 1:07:53
you moved across the country. I figured that when you said I didn't. I didn't think it was over politics when you said that. So I mean, honestly, as oddly as we're getting to this, you have real medical trauma. Oh, yeah. No kidding. I had no idea.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:10
Doctors. Well, yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:08:12
gotta trust doctor. Yeah, no, I

Unknown Speaker 1:08:14
don't trust them at all.

Scott Benner 1:08:15
Yeah, that I got. So it's a double whammy because you're, you have a medical trauma and you needed doctors, and you already weren't in a position to try to trust them. And then that got worse when they do things like let you out of the hospital first, because you didn't finish that thought. But I'm assuming your first bowel movement after the procedure at home was not a great moment.

Speaker 2 1:08:34
No, and I didn't pee for 24 hours. So then I had to go back to the hospital local to me, which by the way, the surgery hospital was an hour and a half away at that time, then I had to go to the local hospital and get a catheter put in for a week.

Scott Benner 1:08:47
Wow. Geez, a bad day. You had some bad luck there for a while, huh? Yeah. Do you think you would have been? I don't want to say it like this, but I'm going to do you think you would have been better off if you lived in a more metropolitan area? No, no, you'll have lived

Unknown Speaker 1:09:00
in more metropolitan areas and they still

Scott Benner 1:09:05
have their eight star

Unknown Speaker 1:09:06
doctors.

Scott Benner 1:09:10
At the very least the ones you've met so far. Well,

Speaker 2 1:09:13
like as a teenager I got asked was I putting the blood and pus in my urine from having kidney stones? Because I thought that I just wanted pills. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:09:23
they thought you were what pills. Would you get from that though?

Speaker 2 1:09:27
painkillers? Yeah, that's what they thought that I want to.

Scott Benner 1:09:31
That's brilliant. Do people do that?

Unknown Speaker 1:09:34
Oh, where I'm from 100%.

Scott Benner 1:09:37
So I go into the doctor's office. Hey, everyone, here's a how to for how to skin pain pills. I don't mean it this way. But the people would go into the doctor's office, say hey, I have like give them certain symptoms that would make the doctor asked for urine and then you'd put like, blood into it to fake the things so that you would get the pain medication?

Speaker 2 1:09:56
I guess. I don't. It never made sense to me because I had blood The End person by urine and they were like, are you putting that in there? And I was like, Yeah, I'm squeezing, is it in the bathroom to make sure that there's a little bit of pus in here somehow, like, No, I would have brought it down, I would

Scott Benner 1:10:12
have brought in a baggie if I was gonna do it. But I hear what you're saying. Like, you can't count on this, that being there on the day, we got to pre plan for that. But you know what that is teaching me. Addiction is a real motivator. Like, seriously, because that's, I know that sounds silly, because it's such a weird and odd thing. But really, if you step back, you know how brilliant that is. Like, like, really like, like, that's a problem solving person right there. I need pain medication. I'm going to go to the doctor say these things, put blood and pus in my urine to mimic this issue that would end up with me getting paid. I mean, honestly, I wouldn't have thought about it would you know, just saying,

Speaker 2 1:10:56
I was like, 16? I mean, that's not gonna stop anyone from doing drugs. But like you I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't. I'm good. Something I didn't even consider that at the time. Yeah. And which is funny, because my brother was a drug addict. And my mom was an alcoholic or was an alcoholic. She's no longer with us. But like, I don't even consider that. Like, I don't even know that was a thing.

Scott Benner 1:11:20
Yeah, that's really I mean, it's just oddly interesting to me that that would be a way somebody would come up with drugs like to drug seat because what you're doing is drug seeking. But, but the way you the way you handle it, I mean, that's like, second, let's not just go in there and going, Oh, I hurt you like, let me let me show you. Let me show you testing that will show you I'm in pain. I don't know, it's pretty damn impressive. I'd be seriously. Especially because you got to think that the first guy that came up with it, and it was obviously a guy. The first time somebody came up with it, like it was probably during withdrawals. And they're like, You know what I could do here? That's gotta be Yeah, it's just fascinating to me. Wow. Okay, Heather, what have we not talked about that we should have? Oh, diabetes? No, no, in the middle, you said the podcast was really valuable and helped you. I heard you say that.

Speaker 2 1:12:10
It did it. I mean, truthfully, all the things that you say on the podcast, are so true. And my distrust for doctors was, I know that I'm supposed to consult my doctor before I do anything, because you're not a medical doctor. And this isn't medical advice, but they don't know what they're doing. None of them know what they're doing. And an endocrinologist that doesn't have diabetes definitely doesn't know what they're doing. And they're just guessing just as much as I am. But I'm seeing it every single day. And they're just seeing numbers on a piece of paper. So I have been making changes since three weeks post diagnosis on my end, because the doctors wouldn't respond to our messages, they wouldn't help us. They were neglectful. Just say the least,

Scott Benner 1:13:02
you know, it's funny, there's two things happening that you can't see right now, I'm gonna tell you about the first one and the second one. The first one is I have another monitor off to my other side where I was Googling things and stuff like that, like anemia and stuff like that. And my Facebook page is open for the private group. And it just populated in front of me because somebody tagged me. I had been waiting to be able to share this, but I didn't think it would be so soon today, my son's endo appointment is a once he was 5.2. His last one was 6.3. And though I had been casually listening to the podcast for a while, I had only recently, I had only recently started making changes to the settings on my own. We don't refer we don't restrict food activity, blah, blah, blah. But what that person just said is the same thing. It's fascinating. They just said the same thing you said, like I made changes to my settings. That's yeah, and we said earlier, diabetes is just settings. It's it's you get the right amount of insulin at the right time. And if you're on a pump, that happened through your settings, if your settings are wrong, you're not getting the right amount of insulin. If your settings are wrong on your insulin to carb ratio, for example, then you're Miss timing your meals. It's all just timing and amount. So yep. And for a little boy here, who by the way is adorable whoever's kid this is well done. And, and for you, a lady in her 30s Whose butthole one time exploit it doesn't matter if you're a little boy or a lady with an exploded butthole. It's timing and amount. And that's that. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Good. I appreciate you saying that. I mean, so the reason it was exciting to me when you reached out at first and you were like, Hey, I think I fast forwarded like with the podcast. I was excited to have you on because sort of behind the scenes. I get pressure from people and mostly happens. I don't want to say where mostly happens, but because it'll out somebody and it's unfair to put pressure on them. But there are people who We'll tell you, basically, when somebody is diagnosed with diabetes, don't tell them everything. It's too much. Yeah, like you don't, don't give them all the information, let them figure it out slowly. And I'm like, I don't understand that idea. Like, tell people everything. And then they can apply it as it makes sense to them. It just because this x person is easily confused by something, doesn't mean that everybody would be. And I think it's wrong to withhold things, protecting the one person who attend who would be confused by it. Because overwhelmingly, I mean, if you saw the numbers for the downloads of the podcast, and how many people are in the Facebook group and everything, you would see that overwhelmingly people can handle being told the truth. Yeah. So I like that idea. Because it is my, it is my feeling that if I knew when my daughter was diagnosed, what I know now that the first number of years of her life with diabetes would have been much better.

Speaker 2 1:15:58
So exactly, I feel very fortunate that I did have the background that I did with his diagnosis, like I already knew how to count carbs. So I don't have any issues with putting things on a scale. Like I've taught several clients how to do that, like it. That was a no brainer to me, having to figure out the insulin to carb ratio, like it's, it's a playing game, like you have to figure out what works and not all carbs are created equal. So you have to figure out what works for this living and what doesn't work for that food. And you just kind of have to learn and go with it. And like you say, be flexible. And take a chance and be bold. And if you have to catch a low later then catch a low. But I'd much rather fight. Well catch a low than fight a high all day. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:16:45
And you got that I'm not. I'm not speaking for you. But you got a lot of that for the podcast, right? All of that from the podcast. Alright, so Well, I'm glad. Remember I said I was doing two things that you couldn't see. You want to know what the second one is? Yes. Okay. This is so weird. I'm not wearing shoes or socks right now. If I cry, if I cross my left foot over my right foot, I can use my big toe on my right foot and the toe next to it to pull all of the toes on my left foot. Like I can crack the toes on my left foot by putting them in between my big toe on my, the second toe, on my right foot and pulling. I cannot cross my right foot over my left foot and accomplish the same thing. I can't pull the toes on my right foot with my left foot only my left foot with my right foot. I know it's not a big deal, Heather, but I work on it constantly and I can't figure it out.

Speaker 2 1:17:38
Well, I'm gonna make a suggestion for you. Go ahead wear shoes that you're gonna. No absolutely not. No, don't wear shoes. Wear them as least often as possible. Your feet need to connect with the ground. Do what is called cars. C A R S with

Scott Benner 1:17:58
Did you mean? Did you meet vehicles? Nope. I did it. And do it with your toes? Controlled articular rotation? Foot car, huh? Okay.

Speaker 2 1:18:12
Yeah. And it'll teach you different you'll I mean, it's gonna take a lot of effort because I can't do it still either. But lifting gesture big toe up, or lifting all of your other toes, but your big toe with your big toe being sitting on the floor. Just get some more motion and mobility. Really in your toes? Well, I'm

Scott Benner 1:18:32
gonna do that while I'm sitting here instead of the other thing. Yeah. What's my end goal with this just more control over my feet? You have more control over your toes. Maybe one day I'd be able to eat with them. I mean, sure. If you want it, there's no way you thought you thought your hips were bad. There's no way my foots get into my mouth.

Speaker 2 1:18:54
I don't think your your feet are the foundation of your whole body.

Scott Benner 1:18:59
Okay, so you said some are going to be that we're basically if you're bored, it's over now, but I have one more question for Heather. Okay, so I gotta find my phone. I found it. It's about electrical impulses.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:17
From the CANS unit.

Scott Benner 1:19:18
No, from the ground. Oh, second. I didn't know like we if you were getting into some hippie stuff when you said like your feet have to be on the ground like connected with the ground. Were you saying that? I mean, if you want

Speaker 2 1:19:31
to call it hippie stuff, but it's just the foundation of your body and many people don't have good the ability for their feet. They don't have a lot of people just don't use their feet. They use shoes and your shoes, take away the sensations that you would have if you walked on the floor.

Scott Benner 1:19:57
Okay, so It's like something about grounding. Yeah. Genuine Earth. There's like sleep systems beds that they say grounds you to the, to the earth. And I don't know why for. Why do I know about this? I don't know. Like, I mean, I don't know how true or false it is, but they literally want you to run a wire from like your bed to the ground outside to Oh, I'm not doing it to connect you to the grounds like, I don't know. Anyway, it sounded kind of hippy to me. But that sounds happy. Yeah. I kind of have thought you were heading there?

Speaker 2 1:20:36
No, I don't think you should connect yourself to the ground outside. Okay, I think when you stand up and walk you do that enough.

Scott Benner 1:20:43
Gotcha. How to connect the ground of your bed with an earth grounding Earth. It's called earthing, earthing or grounding. I don't know if anybody knows about that. I'm interested.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:53
I'm not. Yeah. Well,

Scott Benner 1:20:55
I'm interested because I think it might people. By might be by might be up saying them. 100% Sure it is. But somebody has a different experience with it. I would like to hear about it.

Speaker 2 1:21:09
Well, if it's a doctor, no offense, it's probably not going to be factual.

Scott Benner 1:21:14
Heather, are there people in other professions that you don't trust? Oh, almost all of them. Okay. Would it be easier to make a list of people you do trust? Yes, go ahead.

Speaker 2 1:21:25
Well, you You're not a doctor. And you just base yourself off of your experience and what you've learned. I trust my husband, not the youngest kid, maybe the older one. Yeah, I do. Trust him. He's really good. He's really mature. Even before diabetes. This one's had. Literally, um,

Scott Benner 1:21:50
oh my god. You never had that feeling like that. Like, oh, I really want to have a baby feeling. No. How did you end up having a baby? drunk at a wedding? No. Okay. It's usually you don't even drink it away. Does that did your husband like seriously? Does your husband want kids? And you were like, Alright, I guess so.

Speaker 2 1:22:12
No. Neither one of us had like the parental instinct. It just kind of happened. And we just.

Scott Benner 1:22:24
That's right. We're gonna do this. I really don't think you should let your children hear this.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:31
Okay, that part on mine?

Scott Benner 1:22:33
Yeah. leave that part out. Yeah. Mommy and Daddy are here. Yeah. Well, isn't it interesting how that even for a person who explains things the way you do? Now they're here? And would Can you imagine them not being here? No, not at all. Something, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Did your husband imagine it? Can I ask? Did your husband have a similar like family history? Growing up? US

Unknown Speaker 1:23:00
similar? Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:23:03
So you think is it fair to say that you are trying to protect other people from being treated the way you were treated?

Unknown Speaker 1:23:10
Oh, that's 100%.

Scott Benner 1:23:13
Okay, fair. So maybe back when you were younger? You couldn't imagine how to do that consciously. So you thought just by not making babies? It would stop you from being your mom or something like that?

Speaker 2 1:23:24
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because being her was, and still is one of my biggest fears. Wow. Okay. It's interesting, even though she has since passed, but yeah, it's one of my biggest fears.

Scott Benner 1:23:38
I understand. Alright, I think we've done a lot here today, Heather. Good. I think we're done. What's the rest of your day looking like? schoolwork? Oh, god, that's horrible. I'm gonna edit this podcast on my face falls off. I'll probably edit for the next. I don't want to say this. But I'm trying to go I'm going away next week. So you guys can't know that I'm gone. So I have to. I have to basically button up everything that I want to put out for like the next 12 days. So I think it's crazy. I think I'm gonna edit. It's two o'clock now. I'm gonna get something to eat. And then I'm going to edit probably until like 10 o'clock tonight.

Speaker 2 1:24:19
That's a that's a long day. Yeah. I mean, it's what two o'clock where you are?

Scott Benner 1:24:22
Yeah, it's gonna take about eight hours of editing. And then I'm going to then I'll pop up tomorrow Fresh as a daisy and I will record at 9am 9am Who put that on my schedule nine and whatnot. How? But This better be good. This better be a hell of a conversation for me to be up that early. I'm not. I'm just not even joking at all. And then I have a meeting at 5pm tomorrow for a new advertiser. speculations. Oh, we'll see. Hopefully they're in we'll find out And then I'll spend the rest of tomorrow and the next day making the content ready and scheduling it. And that's, I

Unknown Speaker 1:25:09
appreciate it what

Scott Benner 1:25:10
I'm gonna do. So it's my pleasure, as they say, yeah, yeah, that's what you're supposed to say bye. I'm supposed to say that. And that's what it actually is my pleasure. So, like joking aside, like, I don't know what this says about me. Or maybe we could figure it out if we had more time. But that your son is healthy, and that this like little boy got a five to and that all the people in the group are doing well, or on their way to doing well, or doing poorly and don't realize that they stay with the podcast long enough that they'll be doing well. Like all of their success makes me if you ever had a job that at the end of the day you were like satisfied with and you felt good about? Yes, yeah. That's how I feel. Like, it's just yeah, it's like, Oh, I did a good, I did a good job. And I did my job well, and people are going to do better because of that, like, I try not to get too. I try not to get too existential and think about it too far. Because I don't want to give myself I just don't think I deserve all this credit, because people do a lot of hard work, obviously. But there's no doubt in my mind that you meet a nine year old boy with diabetes, and he doesn't find the podcast, and you find one that does. And the one who does has a better chance of like, 30 years from now still being healthy. Yes. And, and like I tried to think about that I try to think about like, I'm going to get up today and do a thing that is going to save a person from something. years from now when I'm dead. And, and they'll never even know they were saved from it. So there'll be saved the physical impact and the psychological trauma of it. Right, and that'll be

Speaker 2 1:26:50
fine. We'll probably never know. I'm hoping that one day he'll listen to the podcast. But

Scott Benner 1:26:56
yeah, I just think I just think like, wow, like, that's something like I think because like, if you're talking about it, like in a business sense. I hope that we're creating doctors and CDs and people who stick up for themselves in doctors offices, and people who take the time to talk to their doctors about it, which people do people from the podcast all the time, they'll get into, you know, a setting with a doctor, the doctor will be like, I don't know how to you know how to do all this. And they'll literally pull out their phone and be like, I listened to this episode, and then this one and this one. And and that is great. You know, like, because it'll help people. But like, Are you the way I used to say it? Because people find it morbid, but like, I kind of hope that like, I kind of hope 1000s of people show up at my funeral. And they're all They're going like, Hey, that guy like he did a thing a long time ago when I'm healthy because of it. That's really like I don't and that's a again, a it's a bit of a euphemism. I don't actually want you all to show up at my funeral. To be perfectly honest, please leave me alone. But But, but I want that idea. Like I want that when my I want that one day when someone hears that I passed. There's five seconds where they think I think I'm healthy because of that guy. And oh, yeah, and not for me. I don't want it for me. I want it for what it means to them. That's just the way I'm explaining it. And if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:28:20
Yeah, I understand. Good. I'm gonna I'm gonna promote you for a second on your own podcast. So like whatever. juicebox Doc's dot com I think that's the website. Go to it. That's how I have my current doctor that knows about the Juicebox Podcast and supports the methods again juicebox Doc's dot com Yeah, go to the website and find a doctor local to

Scott Benner 1:28:47
you it's it's a list of doctors that people from the podcast suggested may go Yeah, I don't do a good enough job I have a lot of stuff sometimes I don't do a good enough job promoting all of it but that I actually thought that today when there's a person that Facebook group put up this it's a graph like a real up and down graph. And I popped in my said, like you're chasing the blood sugars. I forget what else I said I said like three other things is like in the person's like, we have to explain to me what this means. Like it would be nice if there was an episode about it. I thought you mother

Unknown Speaker 1:29:20
there's a whole podcast

Scott Benner 1:29:23
podcast about it. It's all been written down already for you. But no, I didn't really think that I just what I really thought was like, oh my god, I'm not doing a good enough job. reaching people. Has that information for him exists already. And so we just made sure you send a link like check this out. And you hope they make it to that because the answer to that problem is there. I mean, you

Speaker 2 1:29:43
can lead a horse to water I think that's the same you just can't make him drink. You literally have led everyone to the water. You may have the resources.

Scott Benner 1:29:53
Yeah, I mean, yes and no like it is possible. To be in is crazy. But it's possible to be in the Facebook group for the podcast and not even know about the podcast. I've actually seen it. Like I've seen.

Speaker 2 1:30:07
I've seen it too, but been in there for years. So like what podcast? Like, I mean, read the title of the page,

Scott Benner 1:30:16
give any idea how that makes me feel something like, oh my god, really? Like what am I doing? What am I not doing? Wow.

Speaker 1 1:30:26
Well, Heather, you were terrific. I don't think I can put the word butthole in the title because we already have an episode called butthole. Adjacent, which is about Jason's teen years didn't explode. Yours was decimated by childbirth. But

Scott Benner 1:30:42
wow, I bet you that takes sexy time away for like a whole year. Am I wrong? No,

Unknown Speaker 1:30:47
you're not wrong. Yeah. No,

Scott Benner 1:30:49
I'd be like, no, no, thank you. No, yeah. No, thank you. Keep your baby. Keep your baby stick over there. Thank you. Yes. Okay. I'm good. Oh, yeah, I bet. All right. Heather, thank you very much. You were terrific.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:04
Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:31:05
Hold on one second for me. Okay.

Well, I'm gonna thank Heather for coming on the show, of course, and I'm gonna thank Omni pod Omni pod.com/juice box, maybe you could get a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash. Or maybe you'll just jump right into the Omni pod five. I don't know what you're gonna do. You might not know either. Go check out the link, check out the link. I don't know. Go to the link, Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. When you support the sponsors using the links you're supporting this show. Speaking of the sponsors, touched by type one touched by type one.org. head there now follow them on Facebook. Follow them on the grammar that kids don't have on Instagram the grammar anymore, do they? It doesn't matter to me. Go do that stuff. Touch by type one.org Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of Juicebox Podcast.

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