#1588 Walking Contradiction

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Danielle, 35, from Long Island, talks about raising her 4½-year-old with T1D and newly diagnosed celiac. With PCOS and possible Hashimoto’s, we dive deep into thyroid talk—and share plenty of laughs.

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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 back to another episode of The Juicebox podcast. Hi.

Danielle 0:14
My name is Danielle. I'm the mother of a daughter with type one diabetes who was recently diagnosed with celiac disease. If

Scott Benner 0:24
this is your first time listening to the Juicebox podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcast or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management, go to Juicebox podcast.com. Up in the menu and look for bold Beginnings The Diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Please don't forget 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. The episode you're about to listen to is sponsored by tandem Moby, the impressively small insulin pump. Tandem Moby features tandems, newest algorithm control, iq plus technology. It's designed for greater discretion, more freedom and improved time and range. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox the episode you're about to enjoy was brought to you by Dexcom, the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. You can learn more and get started today at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox,

Danielle 1:49
hi. My name is Danielle. I'm the mother of a daughter with type one diabetes who was recently diagnosed with celiac disease. And

Scott Benner 1:58
you live on Long Island. I do. I do. I didn't mean to, like, pick it out that fast, but whoo.

Danielle 2:06
Oh, that's not a compliment, Scott,

Scott Benner 2:08
I'm the mother. I got it right away. I was like, whoa.

Danielle 2:12
I'm not I'm not gonna mention water, right? That sounds bad,

Scott Benner 2:16
too. Yeah, I would stay away from uh, so your daughter's how old now,

Danielle 2:20
she is four and a half, so she's had type one for a year and a half, and she's had celiac disease for one month.

Scott Benner 2:27
Yeah, after the type one diagnosis, when do you start noticing, like, stomach issues, that kind of stuff? Ah,

Danielle 2:35
no stomach issues at all, actually, until the day that we got the call in last month that her markers were super high. So ironically enough, she has a one to one nurse at her pre K, and she texted me saying, Olivia is complaining of stomach pain. And I got a phone call from her endocrinologist, who said, Well, we got her annual results back, and it looks like she has celiacs. So not fun. And I'll talk a little bit about celiacs if you want. But I'm finding it actually a little bit more emotional even than the type one, which might be a hot take. You know, when she got diagnosed with type one, our belief was we're not stopping the way we live life, the way we eat, the way we travel, the way we enjoy social settings. And now we're realizing, well, now we have to. So for a four year old who is very in tune to her body and you know, is dealing with these devices and life changes in general. This has been quite a journey the last month.

Scott Benner 3:30
I believe I've shared this before, but had I not been with my son without another adult and in a public place when I found out Arden had hypothyroidism, I might have put my head through a wall. Yeah. So, yeah, I know what you mean. Does she have what they call silent celiac? Like, is she doesn't have any, like, outward symptoms?

Danielle 3:48
Well, that's another fun thing. So usually, when they get the diagnosis or celiac, if it's really high markers, some doctors will suggest it's not even necessary that they go in and do a scope, but because last year, she had a completely clean slate, and I've been waiting for this. We'll talk a little bit about my anxiety, I'm sure. But my entire life, even at conception with Olivia, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And I just had this feeling. I had a sick feeling I wanted my husband to be there when I got the phone call, because even though she didn't have any symptoms, I just felt this was coming. So they didn't necessarily say silent celiacs, but when she was diagnosed, they also they wanted you to do the scope, like I said, since she was clear last year, and they also found a polyp, so they now we have an appointment in the summer to remove that. They said a polyp in that area is very rare. Usually they'll see it like in the colon, not so much at the bottom of the esophagus. So now we have to re scope and go in and get that out. Oh, my gosh, yeah. The reason they didn't take it out that day was because she was like, aspirating a little bit, and she wasn't really admitted into the ER, you know, it was like a routine procedure to do this, yeah, so we'll see how that goes. But. Did, the biopsy came back. It was benign. I actually like posted to your group and kind of spiraled about it, and a lot of people made me feel better, good, but it is benign, and it will get removed in July. But what I do want to mention for people maybe listening, who might have, like Silent celiacs or whatnot, her mood this last month, since going completely gluten free. She is a completely different child. She is happier, she is more energetic, and not that I noticed any real issues. I considered her like a typical four year old girl who was sometimes moody and sometimes tired after long days of like being involved with school and dance and extracurricular, but she's so much happier. She looks brighter. It's really reminding me of after the type one. Once we got insulin in her, her eyes got brighter, and I'm noticing that now too, like my husband and I keep looking at each other like she's just so happy. She's full of energy, she's social. She's not having these tantrums for no reason, but we never really had any real noticings of an issue she had, like normal, normal bowel movements. She never really said her tummy hurt, other than maybe if she didn't go for one day. But then she was fine. In ways, I was shocked, but also I felt like something was coming for us.

Scott Benner 6:15
You know, I can't believe that. 10 minutes before I came up here, Arden corralled me and she goes, she's laughing at something on the internet. Then all of a sudden she's making a serious face, and then she's like, I would kill you if you did this. And I was like, what? Who are we talking to? And she says, Look at this. She throws around her phone and shows me this video of this little girl. I don't know if she's like, seven, eight years old, as she's getting older, and she's like, this guy, this father videotaped this kid every time she cried to show her that she looked ridiculous, and then put it together like, I think the girl as an older person, put the videos together as a montage and put them online, and I'm watching it for crying, and then she's in a birthday Park and she's crying, then she's in a subway and she's crying, kids crying everywhere. And I thought I'd give that kid a blood test, I check thyroid, maybe silly. I couldn't believe I thought that, that you just said the same damn thing. And we came up here, and I was like, okay, all right, yeah,

Danielle 7:09
yeah. And like, you know, the one blessing of type one I feel is, if she didn't have this, there's no way that I would have gone to the doctors with, like, this occasional stomach ache, right? Yeah? I mean, she wasn't throwing up. She never, you know, she didn't. There were no real symptoms other than an occasional belly ache. So it's like, who knows how long? And we know it's developed within one year, because last year, like I said, she was completely clear. But you know, this could have gone on for years, so sure. Thanks type one for the screening for that. It's

Scott Benner 7:38
a good perspective to have. Let's go backwards a little bit here, because you are not without your medical issues. No, so I'm gonna start. I'm gonna kind of go back and start with you. So okay, I'm seeing here. PCOS, yes,

Danielle 7:53
Hashimotos. I've been told recently that I don't have Hashimotos. We'll talk a little bit

Scott Benner 7:57
about that. Awesome. How old were you the first time you thought something? It's not working, right? Okay.

Danielle 8:01
So I was diagnosed with PCOS when I was about 17 years old. They it was like, my first time going to an OB, GYN. They did an internal scan as, like a baseline. They saw some cyst. They did blood work. My what is it? AMH, no, not. AMH, I should have written this down. I don't know one level was, like, elevated that was also linked to, like, higher levels of testosterone based on the blood work and the scan and the fact that I was not getting a regular period, they diagnosed me with PCOS then, and I remember, like, all I've ever wanted was to be a mother, so at 17 years old, saying to them, like, is this gonna affect if I can have children? And they just said, like, with the way things are, you'll be able to have a baby, don't worry. So I went on birth control, and then within, like, you know, having relationships in college, I stayed on birth control. I never really loved it. Didn't like how it made me feel, but it did make me have a regular period. Then I was single at like, 23 got off birth control, didn't really get a period, gained some weight, whatever. I just had some issues. But never I'm a hypochondriac, too. So I was always going to doctors, my TSH was always checked. My t3 my t4 no real issues with my thyroid. At that point. I met my husband at 24 so we moved in together pretty quickly. We got married when I was 27 so this whole time we were like, never really careful, and I never got pregnant. Sometimes would get a period, sometimes wouldn't get a period, but was never on birth control since meeting my husband at 24 Okay,

Scott Benner 9:29
can I stop you for a second? What did you not like about being on birth control? Said you didn't like the way it made you feel? Yeah,

Danielle 9:36
I don't know how to actually articulate it, but I felt, I don't know. I don't really know the right word, maybe, like, sometimes more bloated, which might be counter intuitive. I think my hormones felt a little bit off, which I also think might be, like, counterintuitive to what it's supposed to do. I don't know if it was the estrogen. I'm not sure. I just didn't love it. You didn't feel right. Okay, I didn't feel right. And I also just felt like, I don't like. This doesn't feel like a fix to my issues, right? Like, okay, yes, I'm getting a period every month. But like, what is the real issue? What's happening internally? I just didn't love it. And I've always been the type that if I could, like, be on less medication, I'd prefer that, sure. So, yeah, that was that. But then right after we got married at 27 like I said, we were never careful, so I knew we were going to go straight into IUI or IVF need be. And at that point they diagnosed me. They said my TSH was slightly elevated, so I know from you, like you, like under two, and they felt the same, especially for pregnancy. And I think I was like a 2.5 so not terrible, not ideal for pregnancy. So we tried a few rounds of IUI, didn't get pregnant, ended up needing IVF, went through. I don't know how much you know about IVF.

Scott Benner 10:44
Let me stop you for a half a second and ask a question, like you've said, we weren't careful, but if you jumped right to I need IVF, you were more than not careful, right? You were active, yeah. Okay, so you were, that's fair,

Danielle 10:55
yes, okay, yes. That's fair to say actively trying, urinating on those sticks. Of telling me, was I ovulating? Was I not ovulating? So, yes, you're right, actively trying closer to, like, when we got married, okay, and I had all that evidence then for the doctor, when we went in, and I had two failed rounds of IUI, and the doctor actually was able to push IVF for me due to PCOS, I wasn't, like, growing enough follicles. They were saying we needed something more aggressive. I started IVF in March of 2018 with no breaks in between. And my daughter wasn't born until November of 2020,

Scott Benner 11:29
dear. So how was that like? Did you put on weight? Was it unpleasant?

Danielle 11:34
Yes, yeah. So I initially had lost a lot of weight trying to, you know, be in a better BMI level, feeling healthier, which I felt good at. And then hormones are crazy. With IVF, it was just, it was a lot. So it was two rounds of retrievals, which is more painful on your body. The one perk of PCOS is you get a lot of follicles that grow, and therefore usually a lot of eggs. So my first round, they retrieved 20 eggs. None of those ended up becoming my children. We went through all rounds, and none of them worked. My second time with a really great doctor who was like my sixth re, I want to say fifth or sixth reproductive endocrinologist, we got 40 eggs. Geez, yeah, which was crazy.

Scott Benner 12:20
Today's egg prices, that's almost $25

Danielle 12:23
you should know how much these eggs were, Scott, I think they were more.

Scott Benner 12:27
They were more than $9 a dozen. Yeah, for

Danielle 12:31
real, yeah. I know. I can't wait to tell my kids that one day. And then nine of them became like viable embryos, and or nine of them were genetically normal embryos, I should say. And now I have two children. So Olivia was born in November of 2020 and my son, Vincent, was born in March of 22 how pissed

Scott Benner 12:50
were you when the story started coming out of the women going on GLP medicine and then having babies

Speaker 1 12:54
all of a sudden? Yeah, I have heard that. And I Yeah,

Scott Benner 12:58
that would have been like, come on.

Danielle 13:01
Yeah. I do. I wonder. I do wonder, especially because after I had some miscarriages, I also my period became regular at one point. So I do wonder if I would have had maybe that type of help. Could it have aided that? I don't know, geez, but you know, then I wouldn't have my two children that I have. So 200

Scott Benner 13:18
years ago, they would have called you a witch and dunked you in a tank or something. Listen, I say stupid stuff all the time on here, but like, what women go through, especially ones that struggle with stuff like this, I have so much compassion for it's my heart to hear all of this, starting from when you're younger and you know, your periods not being right, your testosterone is off. You already know you're gonna have trouble having kids. Like, it's a thing you want. It's you know, it's a goal for you. There's nothing you can do about it, you know, a sit ups not going to help it. Like it's, you know what I mean, like it's not, doesn't feel like a thing you can actually impact. And somebody takes a bunch of money off you to get the eggs and, holy crap. Like it's just, it's a lot, you know, it is a lot. How old are you at this point? The Dexcom g7 is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and it features a lightning fast 30 minute warm up time that's right from the time you put on the Dexcom g7 till the time you're getting readings, 30 minutes. That's pretty great. It also has a 12 hour grace period so you can swap your sensor when it's convenient for you. All that on top of it, being small, accurate, incredibly wearable and light. These things, in my opinion, make the Dexcom g7 a no brainer. The Dexcom g7 comes with way more than just this, up to 10 people can follow you. You can use it with type one, type two, or gestational diabetes. It's covered by all sorts of insurances, and uh, this might be the best part. It might be the best part alerts and alarms that are customizable, so that you can be alerted at the levels that make sense to you, dexcom.com/juicebox, links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com, to Dexcom and all the sponsors when you. Use my links. You're supporting the production of the podcast and helping to keep it free and plentiful. This episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump and algorithm, the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus, which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control iq plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head now to my link, tandem, diabetes.com/juicebox, to check out your benefits and get started today. When

Danielle 16:08
I was going through IVF, I was from 27 and then she was born, I was like 30 and a half.

Scott Benner 16:14
Oh, gosh, mid 30s now. Oh yeah, I'm 35 geez, yeah. So it just seems like a lot. And it seems, I mean, listen, the world's not fair and all, but like, come on, it just go ahead. I'm sorry. I don't know. Like, I think it's because Arden has PCOS. It like, bothers me a lot, you know,

Danielle 16:32
I understand. I understand. And I also worry about, like, now my daughter, who has now type one and celiacs. It's like, is she also like, you know, I have no idea what either of those diseases feel like in your body, I could imagine. I don't want to project too much onto her, but it's like, I think of how I felt with just the PCOS and that struggle. And it's like, now, if she also has that on top of it, right? Yeah, my thyroid, who, which has been like, up and down, I just, it's really hard, but I try not to project my insecurities and my World Vision onto her, but sometimes in the quiet of my mind, when I think of everything I felt without type one and celiacs, it's hard to imagine her. And, you know, 1015, years, yeah,

Scott Benner 17:13
no. And I think one of the things you're it will stick in your head, it sticks in mind is that thing that you mentioned earlier is like, look, I didn't think there was anything like particularly off about her behavior, and now, like, the kid's not eating gluten anymore, and she's a different person, exactly, you know. And so how many other things I think about this all the time? Like, how many ways are we that we wouldn't be if our chemistry was right? Does that make sense

Danielle 17:38
all the time? I think that all the time, like her baseline. I don't even really know, without all of these I often wonder, what type of mom would I be if all these things didn't enter our life, right? But then also, what would my body feel like without these issues? What would her body feel like? So yes, that's the thought that I have all the

Scott Benner 17:56
time. Yeah. Well, I guess in the end, you look at people who don't have struggles, and they don't seem to appreciate it at all. So maybe you would just just be a dick, would be running around not appreciating all the good health that you had. Who knows,

Danielle 18:07
maybe I don't know, you know, she's also just been like scathing on bi since, like, day one. I got pregnant on March 17 of 2020, and that afternoon, like, the American reproductive society for medicine shut down all transfers. So, like, all elective reproductive procedures. So like she was transferred, say, at 10 in the morning, by 1pm they made that announcement. I also was pregnant with two embryos, like they saw two viable or two sacks, gestational sacs and yolk sacs, and then I miscarried her twin when she was born. She had shoulder dystocia, like she could have. There could have been a lot of issues there. I just feel as though this girl is like a miracle, and has been like skate, literally just getting by from day one.

Scott Benner 18:54
Are you telling me that because of COVID, they were shutting things down and you just got it done, elective

Danielle 18:58
procedures, correct? That's right. Okay, wow. And transfers are considered elective in under the wire, under the wire. When I was getting scans, then I was like, the only one left in the office, say, early April of 2020, because everything else was like, shut down, you know? And my doctor was like, I don't know how much longer we're gonna be open. Like, I might have to do a scan for you, like, behind a target, joking, obviously, but I'm like, what is happening here? You know, it was just, and you know, that was my first time getting further than six weeks in a pregnancy, and it's like that in itself. I was so nervous, like watching every day the news Cuomo watching, like everything tick up with the deaths, and here I am, like, growing a new life. It was just, it's just been a lot. It's been a journey from day one.

Scott Benner 19:40
Yeah, are things I was gonna ask if they feel settled now. But I think this not really right between this diabetes, the celiac

Danielle 19:48
Well, Scott with diabetes, I had just said to my mom probably a week before she was diagnosed with celiacs, like, I'm so excited again. Like, I feel happiness again. I haven't felt happy in so long. I feel like. Piece, I feel like we know what to do with her type one. We're going to the conference in Disney in July, and I was just felt like, so excited for everything, for life again, because I really have struggled with my mental health since she was diagnosed. And then this entered, I'm like, what is happening? Like, I don't know. I just have to keep pushing through. I

Scott Benner 20:21
guess I'll say something that'll get me in trouble with somebody. But now you know what it's like to be married to a lady. You're bad. Everything's fine. Today seems good. Why am I getting yelled at? My husband's

Danielle 20:33
definitely gonna crack up when he listens to that part. Yeah, no, you're right. Maybe I don't know. It's just life is unpredictable, but I do try to kind of put things in perspective. And she's kind of like my model for everything. She is so adaptable and resilient. And she'll just say, like, is this gluten free mom, or can I have this? Will this hurt my belly? And she kind of just goes on. And when I look at her, I don't get as sad, because I feel like she is adapting. But when I think of like another body system of hers that's now impacted that, like, turned on itself. That's pretty heartbreaking.

Scott Benner 21:05
Yeah, I look at it two different ways. I feel you about, like, you know, she's young, and maybe she'll just grow up not eating gluten, and she won't really think much about it. And, you know, hopefully that'll be the case, but at the same time, when systems start, like failing or, you know, attacking each other, or something like that. Like, it's hard not to think like, this is going to keep happening exactly, you know, like, and maybe it won't like, maybe this will be it type one celiac that'll be that, right? Or maybe, you know, you'll wake up and it'll be Hashimotos, like, 10 years from now, or something. And it just, the problem is, is you're never going to be able to completely forget about it, and it's always going to be in the back of your mind a little bit. You have to find a way to deal with find a way to deal

Danielle 21:43
with that. It is hard. And, you know, I'm very like, hyper vigilant in nature, and I'm very like, I think, in catastrophic ways at times. So like this almost feels like it confirms for me that, like it's my brain is right in thinking like this, like I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop, but like, the other shoe does

Scott Benner 22:02
keep keeps dropping. You're like, she's paranoid, and you're like, I'm not paranoid. I'm

Danielle 22:06
ahead of the curve, right? I mean, I remember in before. I don't know if we're gonna go back to the diagnosis story, but like, two weeks before she was diagnosed, I knew it was me who kind of found it, and I was sending things to my husband. He's like, there's no, like, we don't have any type one in our family. There's no way that this is it. And like, I knew in my gut, I just, I was like, This is not normal. This is not normal. She has this disease. And even when I called my doctor at first, it was kind of dismissed, until I started really pushing. So I just feel like it's me who finds everything too. Even with IVF, I wanted to get added, I wanted to add cytomell. I don't know if you're familiar with that t3 medication. Yeah, sure. Oh, she does. Okay. That was really, I think one of the things that helped me get pregnant with IVF. They basically say that cytomol helps speed everything up. And in those early days of pregnancy, it was able to, like, speed up the cell division for the embryo, was the thought process. But I had to find a doctor in Seattle who was willing to prescribe that to me, because none of these endocrinologists in New York, Long Island or city based were willing to prescribe me 25 micrograms, micrograms of cytomol. Yep,

Scott Benner 23:11
I'll talk about that in a second, but I wanted to be there the first day that you told your husband, I'm hyper vigilant, because I think he would have said, is that what we're calling it, that was the nicest way anyone's ever said to me, I'm very type a Scott, I might have a problem. You were like, I'm hyper

Danielle 23:26
vigilant. You know what my husband always says whenever I have to call for something like a 504, meeting or just like customer service, he'll just laugh and say, like, I feel bad for the person on the other side of the phone, because I get what I

Scott Benner 23:40
want. Whoa, so t3 like, so I count us very lucky to have Arden endocrinologist. Right? This woman has been, you know, she's been on the show, Episode 413, she discusses everything about thyroid issues. She's lovely. And, you know, met her originally because Arden was struggling with things, and we were going, I mean, we're going to chop like, you know, not a small Children's Hospital, and Arden's got thyroid issues, and then one day, she starts having real problems, like she's, like, shutting off, you know, she'd come home from school fall asleep face down on a countertop. I've told this story probably 10 times, but like, we have so many photos of her asleep on hard objects, disturbing, like the places she'd pass out, like you'd be working in a room she'd come up to talk to you fall asleep on the floor. Was this before the hypothyroidism? No, she had so here's what happened. Is that Arden's diagnosed with hypothyroidism, they give her medication, and things are good, then suddenly she starts developing these symptoms of, like, falling asleep, lethargy, like, really, like, and instead of someone, it would have been nice if any of us thought of it, but instead of someone thinking, oh, you know, Arden has gained a significant amount of weight since we. Put her on this thyroid medication, because Arden was also, she was the smallest kid in her friend group. She might have been the smallest girl in her school. And today, Arden's like, five, seven, weighs 130, pounds, wow. And I think she started growing when we gave her the thyroid medication. Interesting. That makes sense. But then she gains, puts a lot of weight on and not bad weight, like good weight, but like, she puts on all this weight, and no one ever says, you know, she might need more of this thyroid medication than we gave her the first time, because, you know, she weighs poor now. So we skip over looking at her thyroid dose, which I still beat myself up about. I mean, I figured it out quickly enough. But after I was at, like, a cardiologist, where they're, like, doing DROP TABLE tests on her and stuff like that, because they think there's something wrong with her heart because of how, like, quickly she's just, like, not passing out, but just shutting off, you know, and her blood pressure so incredibly low. And like, you know, she was a, like, a wreck. And like, middle school, maybe. And then one day, it just finally hit me, oh, my God, she's gained a bunch of weight. We haven't changed her dose.

Danielle 26:10
But, like, you shouldn't have to do that. You're not the doctor. Well,

Scott Benner 26:13
you would think. And so then I call the doctor and I say that, and they go, Well, you know, let's keep up with this. She might have pots. She might have this now we're like, I don't know which way we're running. And now you know what I started doing. I just started giving her an extra thyroid pill. Let's see what happens when we give her more. So I started off by giving her an extra one a week, and I was like, okay, and then I ended up giving her, like, I think I ended up starting to give her an extra two a week, and then she started coming back to life. So then I called the doctor, and I said, Hey, I gave her more, and she's better now, so figure out a new dose for and they did that, and we stopped going to all the specialists and everything, and she's okay. But then at some point in the future, it still didn't fix everything, and she was still very tired all the time, and she could just never get rested, like she was never it didn't matter how long she slept, and she'd sleep for fucking ever, and she just wasn't rested ever. So I realized that chop wasn't gonna be the ones. I reached out to a friend of mine who's a doctor, and I was like, I need you to like, like, give me some names of like, forward thinking endocrinologist. And then I started calling all kinds of doctors and asking them all the same kinds of questions, until I got this list of three endos that people were, like, these people are integrative. They're thoughtful. Like, you'll get help with these people, yeah. And I chose Addie. And then I contacted Addie, and she's not taking patience, because she's good and she's full, you know what I mean, and so she's not taking new patients. And then I what they i Oh, I harangued her. Finally, I'm talking to somebody who's gonna know my words. I hopped her in China. You understand Danielle, I got it Okay, all right. And then, but nicely. And then she took Arden on, and then helped Arden. And I said, you wanna help me with my wife too? And she was like, Cool. So then I got her to take care of Kelly. Now, we're lovely. We just texted the other day then, so she's looked at Arden. She said, Well, let's try giving Arden a little cite a mill, which is a thing she thought of right away that not any other endocrinologist was going to think

Speaker 1 28:22
of. Did she stop falling asleep everywhere? Yeah, wow, yeah. She stopped

Scott Benner 28:26
falling asleep everywhere. Turns out, she didn't have pots. She didn't need to be hung upside down. Her heart wasn't exploding. Her thyroid just wasn't managed well, and it looked well, because I don't know if people understand, like you take the t4 it gets your TSH in range, but then your body's not picking up the Listen, I'm not great at describing this, but your body's not picking up the thyroid hormone properly. The t3 helps it pick up the t4 so your t4 level looks right, but without the extra t3 you can't use it correct, right? So, yeah, so we get all that going. Then years later, couple years later, when my son's personality changes on a dime, and we're like, oh, is he gonna turn into a dick? And I was like, could test his thyroid? We tested it, and we kind of got, like, an in between test and missed it once. So it took a couple of extra months, and then the problem is, just like everything else, then he got, like, a worse symptom that made people stop looking at what we were looking at. So in July, we were thinking thyroid, but the testing didn't support it. And by November, he was breaking out in a full rash, wow, hives, actually. And like, we went to, like, a dermatologist, and, like, did all the things they said, and took a couple of weeks. And I've told this story before, but like, he was miserable, like he had to stop. He couldn't work out. He couldn't move. If his body warmed up, he broke up in hives. Wow. He couldn't even laugh, like, if he started laughing, he'd just break out nice. He had to run outside in the winter and just stand out in the cold till his body

Danielle 29:55
cooled off again. Is that an autoimmune thing or what is? Well, I.

Scott Benner 30:00
If you're me and you sit up late at night and dig through enough NIH writings, you'll figure out that it does happen sometimes to people around thyroid, which got me right on the phone with Addie. And instead of having to fight with a doctor who goes, Oh, that's not what this usually is, she's like, boom, throws tyrosine right at him, goes right away, wow, yeah. So all you need is a good doctor and a little bit of, what did you call it hyper vigilance?

Danielle 30:25
Yeah, or my husband would call it something else, but, yeah. So anyway, vigilance, yeah. And Doom scrolling too. You have to do some dooms, right? You have to go through, like, I just, I don't think, as I'm a Special Ed English teacher, I don't think that that should have, like, have to be my job in the middle of the night where I'm looking up symptoms and coming up with all these things, right? Like, I'm not a doctor. I'm not and I know I could, like, piece these things together. But you know, the endocrinologist that I went to last week told me, Oh, your antibodies for Hashimotos have been normal for years. You don't have Hashimotos. I don't know who told you that? And I was like, Oh, well, do you

Scott Benner 30:59
have the symptoms, I don't know, because, wait, you're on the medication.

Danielle 31:05
So, okay, I'm on Levo. Yes, I'm on levothyroxine now, right? Because I was my TSH. We're done having children now, but my TSH was creeping up a little bit. I don't eat poorly. I really don't, and I feel like I should be a lot thinner than I am, and I can't go on a GLP right now, just for, like, insurance things, it's way too much. But I was starting to feel a little foggy and a little like, just off, and I feel like my weight was creeping up a little bit. It didn't match what I was in eating, and just a little tired. So they added in this doctor put me on the levothyroxine with, like, a 2.4 TSH, he's it's a low dose. He'll monitor me every six months, but when he checked the antibodies, they were not there. And when he went back in his records from years ago, they haven't been there. So the only time I had Hashimoto antibodies was around the time of going through IVF. Okay, so he felt but my thing is, I don't once you have autoimmune Hashimotos, you have it

Scott Benner 31:59
right? Like, I don't care about the antibodies. If you have hypothyroidism without Hashimotos, like, you still have the you still have the symptoms Correct. Yeah. And then yeah. So I mean, the fogginess, the weight gain, where's your TSH, now,

Danielle 32:14
what was it, I think, 1.1 Okay, so that's awesome, yeah. So that's fine. I'd

Scott Benner 32:19
also like to point out, now, Danielle, this is a good time to point out that I barely got through high school. Through high school and that you should not be talking to me about this, and no one listening should be taking my my thoughts seriously at all.

Danielle 32:31
But you're on to something. 53

Scott Benner 32:32
days of my senior year of high school, I just went and worked at a sheet metal shop so I could make $4.50 an hour. I mean, if you're listening to me, I know tough and you've run out of options. Oh my god. But I would say like, I don't, I mean, I don't care if it's, call it whatever you want, if I've got symptoms and the medications keeping my TSH down and I don't have symptoms because of it, then right on, then that's what I'm doing. If I'm you

Danielle 32:56
exactly. I think also the doctor might have thought that I had it, because my sister does have Hashimoto. She's always had the positive antibodies, positive Ana. She does not need Synthroid. Her TSH is always at a perfect level. But we both have like, nodules on our thyroid, so there is, like, some symptom, you know, we have to get that monitored as well.

Scott Benner 33:15
Yeah. Well, I mean, if she doesn't have symptoms, I don't want her taking the med either, but, like, exactly,

Danielle 33:19
she doesn't need it. And she she was super fertile. She didn't have any of those super fertile, complete opposite of her sister, but that's okay. But yeah, so I feel like, because there was that autoimmune from her, I feel like the doctors also felt like that. My dad has psoriasis too, so there's definitely some autoimmune in our family? Yeah, sure, but I don't know. I don't I think I just have regular hypothyroidism right now, maybe that's what

Scott Benner 33:46
we'll say, yeah, fair enough. I mean, whatever. I mean, listen, as long as you're taking care of it and it's and you want a GLP, you just your insurance isn't

Danielle 33:53
covering, yeah, I work for the New York City Department of Education, and they will only cover any of those. They won't do any like ze bound or anything. They'll only cover Manju with a 1c I think over 6.5

Scott Benner 34:04
they won't cover it for weight they'll only cover for type two diabetes

Danielle 34:08
for weight correct only for pre diabetes or or type two diabetes.

Scott Benner 34:13
Listen, Daniel, if you have PCOS, don't you have insulin resistance?

Danielle 34:19
I don't think so. I don't know a 1c

Scott Benner 34:21
That's right. 5.1

Speaker 1 34:24
I don't think that's insulin resistant.

Scott Benner 34:27
Okay, sorry, looking for a way, but

Danielle 34:31
we'll see. We'll see. I am trying and losing some weight slowly, but, you know, it just like I said. And I just listened to that episode that you did with Jenny about nutrition, and it's like when I think of what I eat, I should just be much thinner. But I think there are things against me, you know, but I just have to maybe. I had a

Scott Benner 34:46
private conversation with somebody yesterday who was telling me about how they were approaching a neighbor who, you know, just needed, like a GLP. I saw the neighbor again. I'm trying to keep this like vague. Saw the neighbor again and said. What he said was, like, I could see in her eyes that she was on the GOP. They were brighter, like, and I approached and said, like, Hey, you got the GLP. And the person was almost like, how did you know? And they lost a little bit of weight, but, like, everything. And then he went on to say, like, he's like, I listen to the podcast. God, he goes, you have more energy since you've been using telling your voice, yeah. He's like, I can tell listening to the podcast that you're better off this person he was talking to, does the, you know, does the thing that says, like, you know, you hear a lot of people saying, which is like, well, it helped me with my weight, it helped me with my hunger. It helped me with the things it was supposed to but here's another list of things it's helping me with. I just didn't imagine would be happening. And I just think that moving forward, you're going to keep hearing those stories, and like to hear you say, like you're I eat well already, like you listen to Jenny talk about nutrition, you said to yourself, well, I eat like this. Yeah. So if there's other things at play, I almost say, Who cares what they are? Yeah, if you can affect them, then awesome. Like I'm just fundamentally a different person than I was two years ago. I mean, at some point I'll have my wife on to talk about, like, her use of this, like, through thyroid and, you know what it did to her weight over years and everything, and what she's seeing with the GLP, because she'll be really thoughtful about it, but I want her to get through her whole like, journey with it before she starts. I don't want to talk about it in the middle. You know what? I mean, it's just doing things for people. My wife is convinced it's helped her significantly with her long COVID, for example. And the amount of women online who are like, I've had PCOS, I can't get married, you know, like, they like, I have sex with impunity, and I don't get married, and I don't get pregnant, right? And then I start shooting this GLP. And even before I lose a bunch of weight, even I'm pregnant,

Danielle 36:41
it's amazing. Yeah, we'll say it's, I do have, like, a long term goal with it to maybe, you know, try to save up a little bit, and by December, if I still can't lose weight, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try.

Scott Benner 36:51
So we'll see. There's a lot of companies making biosimilars too. Okay, so you'll start seeing them pop up in Canada first in 2026 I think so. I think the patent expires more quickly in Canada than it does in the US. So you'll see the biosimilars will pop up in Canada, and then I think it's, I think it's a number of years before they can come here, at 2030 or 2031 maybe until it's in America. But I mean, still, you know, you've got to imagine that, that more insurance companies will have to, like, start helping you. Like, how much weight do you think you should lose? 40, okay. I mean, that's, that's a significant amount of weight, yeah. Like, people could say, oh, that's not that bad. You're gonna meet me. You'll see me in July. We'll be, I'll be, yeah. Okay, so have you ever met me before? Never. No, okay, the person you're gonna meet in July, it looks completely different than the person you would've met two years ago. And I've lost 60 pounds. 60. Wow, yeah, okay. I say that because I think people hear 60 and go, that's not that much. It's a lot. Oh, definitely, you don't realize until it's happening, like, the places on my body where I was like, well, at least I'm good here. Now I look back and I go, I was fat there too.

Danielle 38:08
So, but yeah, so we'll see. You know what, usually this episode will probably come out like, in five to six months, right? Is that,

Scott Benner 38:15
like, we're on a better we're on a better schedule now? Oh, okay, probably about two months. Probably

Danielle 38:19
okay. So maybe by the time I hear that, if I haven't lost more weight, I'm gonna, I'll make a phone call and say, I

Scott Benner 38:25
want to say, first of all, if it works for you, right? Because I do talk to people who are like, I just didn't do anything for me. But those people are more often either type ones who don't also have insulin resistance. Because, you know, you've heard some of the stories in the podcast of type ones have taken it their insulin has gone way down. Yeah, from what I'm hearing from people, from people, I believe those people are type one, and if they didn't have type one, they would probably be pre diabetic too, like, they would probably, like, show up as having insulin resistance. So it's helping those people, for sure, right? And it's helping people lose weight, which you know could then, if you were overweight in type one, but didn't have insulin resistance, lost weight. I think you would see your insulin go down as well. So there's a lot of different pathways to it helping you, but I've also seen it like not help people at all. Like, or some of them don't figure out how to traverse. Like, if they get a GI issue from it, or something like that, then you know, and you know somebody listening is going to be like, I write a story about a lady whose stomach explosion. Stomach exploded. Like, I'm sure there have been people who have had terrible outcomes with every medication on the planet, but I think that, you know, there are some things that just happen. The people don't get enough advice on how to, like, tough through, like, not like, real, like, horrible, like, you know, irreversible medical issues. But like, some people get real constipated, or some people get, like, goes the other direction on them, and they don't know how to, like, manage it and get through it till their body kind of adjusts and and the other thing I would, I've, I've said all the time, like, like, it took me 50 years to get in this shape. Mm. I put a lot of food in my body that probably wasn't good, and did a lot of things it wasn't good, and everything. And, like, I didn't mean, what do you expect to come out? Like, daisies, you know what I mean? Like, the horribleness is going to come back out again. So, like, it's

Danielle 40:13
true. Well, a lot of things too, I've learned to, like, think about food differently also, since her type one and celiacs now, especially, like so many of the things, well, I feel like I've been over compensating, especially since the celiacs, because I feel the sadness, like, for example, she goes to softball, and there's always snacks after, and if she can't have something there, I feel like I want to have, like, a nice replacement for her, you know. So I'm almost trying to, like, overcompensate or be over indulgent, where I'm like, this isn't even really food, like, it says bio engineered on the packet. Like, probably not the best thing for her. And she's such she prefers such healthy food. She loves her berries. She loves cucumbers, like, cucumbers and any type of dip is, like, her favorite thing to have. She gets excited for, like, I don't know, like turkey pepperoni and peppers on it. So it's like, I'm trying to think, like, Oh, I feel like she's being left out by not being able to have the regular Doritos, which, let's face it, what are Doritos, right? Like, even listening to, I don't even know, Jenny, speak, like, that's what is that? Really? What is that?

Scott Benner 41:14
I don't know what they are, but they're awesome. They are pretty awesome. But

Danielle 41:19
like, then you know what like my husband will make. He is actually like, carnivore. He had lost like 60 pounds, and is like in the best shape that he's been in then. He really just likes, like, steak and eggs, which I know might be controversial for some people listening, but his numbers have never been better. He's off his heartburn medication. He feels more energized. His knees don't hurt. He's like, he's almost 40, and says he feels better than he did ever. He also doesn't drink anymore. He used to be a big drinker, yeah. So, I mean, he thinks of food just as, like, these whole foods on like, the perimeter of the food store, and that's what we really have in our house. But since to see, like, I'm like, oh, maybe we should try this, like, gluten free brownie. And my husband's like, You're making it worse. Like, now we're feeding her almost like, unhealthy foods, because you feel bad that her peers are able to have Doritos and she can't, you know, so there's a reframing I have to do. I think,

Scott Benner 42:09
yeah, I understand how you get caught up in that. I understand why anybody gets caught up in that, but at the same time, like, who cares? I know I would be a hypocrite if I said otherwise. Like, because when Arden was younger, I would tell her all the time, like, our first thought is your health like, so if somebody's uncomfortable with you getting an injection or changing your pot or something in public, that's too bad, because your health comes first. If you meet a kid and they're mean to you and that makes you feel like you're not going to take care of yourself as much, then we don't talk to that kid anymore, because your health comes first. Like, we put your health first and and you, I mean, you know what's happening to you, like Jenny and I are talking about it, and it's despicable on some levels, but like, you're just being marketed to with colors and flavors and tastes. It's just somebody just wants your money, that's it, and they're taking it from you. Because I don't know what that stuff is sprayed on, whatever that thing is, but those Doritos are awesome and whatever else. Like, you know that fear of missing out, or I don't want to be different, like, you know what? If being different means healthy?

Danielle 43:09
Well, that's my thing is, like, it's so ironic that my daughter has two chronic diseases, and when I looked at what her peers eat for lunch, or even before she had type one, she went to this pre K class, and all the teachers always mentioned, like, she has the best lunches, and that's what she wanted. You know, this was before type one, before insulin even entered our lives. And I feel like she does. She's always liked really healthy whole foods. Why do I have to negate that? Because I feel bad, like I think almost the outside world or these other parents might think, Oh, like that, poor girl. She's unhealthy. She has these two diseases where it's like, if food could be like our medicine, which, in many ways, I think it is right, and how we nourish our body. She's really healthy. Why do you care what they think? I don't know. I'm messed up. Scott, I don't know it's I'm in therapy too, I have a lot of issues. I have a lot of issues with like food and diet culture and like yo yoing my whole life, and just fat

Scott Benner 44:10
when you were younger, or drawing attention to your weight, also

Danielle 44:15
feeling more like self worth when I was thinner and got attention like both from, you know, boys or girls, like just feeling valued and valuable when my body looked better. So I don't know, and I feel like maybe because I'm not 100% happy with how I look and feel right now, it just feels and let's face it, type one is so misunderstood, and celiacs is misunderstood as well. People make it like it. No, they don't think it's that big of a deal. No, of course it is. Yeah. So again, that hyper vigilance, or like me having to, having to justify things I don't know at 35 I really shouldn't care as much. I really shouldn't, yeah, and I should just pack her the things that she likes. She's like, loves when I give her strawberries with a little bit of like, Cool Whip to dip in. That's her favorite snack. So what? Why do I need to buy like, this gluten free brownie that's, like, dense and kind of gross and hard to Bolus for and, like, I don't know. So it's something I have to work on. I have to just give her the choices. And,

Scott Benner 45:11
yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's a hard it's the struggle that, like me, you're seeing it with the celiac you hear people talk about with diabetes too. Like, I don't want them to miss out. I don't want it to be different. I don't want to. I'm like, I don't even know why that matters. Why that matters. Honestly. Like, no, I don't. Why does it matter? But if it does, it does. Like, if you're having that kind of struggle, then you're having it. You know what I mean? Like, everybody can't, like, I don't give a what people think, yeah, but like, I can't give that to you if

Danielle 45:35
it was me, right? Like, I don't look at my co workers lunches and think, like, Oh, that's so nice that she's having that bagel, or she's having that wrap, like, I make what I want to eat, and I feel good eating that, right? But when you're four, and she'll tell me, like, oh, this kid brought in that snack, or this kid had this nice sandwich, or this person's allowed to buy school lunch, it's like, you want your kid to be able to be to feel comfortable fitting in, right? Like as a 35 year old, I don't need to fit in. Maybe as much.

Scott Benner 46:04
Stop yourself for a second. Does she not fit in? Well, she

Danielle 46:08
has friends and but she will come home and say those things like, oh, all these kids got to buy lunch. Can I buy lunch so in the beginning of the middle of the year, which, let's face it, Scott, school lunch looks disgusting, disgusting. And the lunches that I make are so much nicer. But I think she thinks it's cool when the lunch ladies like, drop it off at their class, all the kids get excited. So we were letting her buy lunch. Like, once a week. Is

Scott Benner 46:32
she too young to help her? Like, can't you just let her feel snobby about it? Be like, listen, those other kids are morons, you understand, and we're way ahead of them. Like, do that thing. And I don't think that, by the way,

Speaker 1 46:42
she's, like, she's the sweetest girl she I couldn't do that. You

Scott Benner 46:46
don't want to pit her against everybody else.

Danielle 46:49
No, but we did go to a birthday party recently, and I had it was the first time I had to bring the gluten free pizza and a separate cupcake. So we went to this bakery near my house that has, like, really nice gluten free cupcakes, and a few of the kids near her wanted her, so that was cool, but I don't know. I don't know. I think it's just these things are important in elementary school, and she does fit in. She has good friends. We have a great family, good support system. She's a happy girl. It's my own projections. It's my own issues with with food and

Scott Benner 47:17
down that hyper vigilance a little bit there

Danielle 47:20
I do well, I was turning it down, Scott. I was so excited for Florida, and I was like, just feeling like, you know, you don't know, because you never had a baby, but like postpartum, like haze and like, exhaustion is a real thing, right? And each time I got out of that, I felt so good, like I felt I was getting myself back. And with, I'm telling you, in March and April, I felt like I was getting myself back after type one. And I do feel kind of pulled back in, because with celiacs, the hyper vigilance of cross contamination is intense. So it's not just having access to gluten free foods, but it's making sure that other people aren't, you know, touching the food with gluten. So I'm now having I was chill for a little bit, and now I'm back with my hyper vigilance.

Scott Benner 48:03
I like that. I'm so feminine that you were like, You know what it's like, Scott, after you've given birth, and you were like, oh, no, wait, maybe he doesn't, but it sounds like he does when I'm talking. Oh, I took it as a compliment. I just want you to know I was complimented

Danielle 48:16
by it. Oh, that's funny. Well, I just I listened to that episode that you like pregnant Kate Winslet. So pregnancy, and why is

Scott Benner 48:23
everyone bringing that up recently? I'm getting a lot of that online. By the way, pregnant Kate Winslet is hot. Like, let it be. I get

Danielle 48:30
it. Pregnancy is a beautiful thing. It's beautiful. But, um, you know, there is that fog, and I feel like I was really getting out of that fog of type one now, and here we are, but it's okay. We'll, we'll make it work.

Scott Benner 48:41
I'm sure you'll get through this as well, and it won't, it won't feel as omnipresent, and it'll be more of like a background thing for you at some point. Yeah, but, I mean, I take your point. You also have that other kid who's being ignored wholly, right? Scott,

Danielle 48:53
have you heard about, like, glass child syndrome?

Scott Benner 48:57
What? No, what are you saying? Good, well, when

Danielle 48:59
you think of glass like you could see through it, right? That siblings children say, either with disabilities, medical or intellectual disabilities, can often feel like a glass child that their parents have like seen through them to hyper focus on their sibling. And I do worry about that actually. You know, I worry so much about him also developing type one one day, because I almost feel like he feels left out in ways. It's hard. It's really hard.

Scott Benner 49:22
Are you addressing that, or are you just turning the kid into a vase? What are we doing? Exactly? Well,

Danielle 49:29
he's also very happy, and I think he's fine. I mean, the first three months when she was diagnosed with type one, it was really bad. She was diagnosed in December of 2023 and I always think of he had this, like, adorable blonde, bleach blonde hair, and it was for a really short period of time until it got darker. And it makes me think of when she was diagnosed, because he had that. And like, I feel like I I didn't see him. Like, I look back at pictures, I'm like, I don't even remember what he was doing. One time, I had to call the endocrinologist because she wouldn't, her numbers wouldn't come down. And. I heard him fall down the stairs. He was like, hysterically crying. It was awful because I just wasn't present for him. Now, I would say we've really adapted to type one. It is just kind of part of our life, and I think I heard it once on the podcast. It's like the annoying cousin you have to bring along, right? Like it's not ruining our days, but type one is always there, being brought along. But he's happy and fulfilled. He loves school, and he's fine. I am we are seeing him now, but I would say those first three to four months were

Scott Benner 50:26
pretty bad. How many days a week are we going to therapy?

Danielle 50:29
Just why do you think i should i up it? Should I outfit?

Scott Benner 50:32
We do. I don't think two would hurt.

Speaker 1 50:35
I do. I do it every other week.

Scott Benner 50:37
I don't think that's enough.

Danielle 50:41
That's funny. She's actually my therapist has a child with type one. That's funny. She might listen to this and be like, Thanks, Scott. I'm gonna bring in more money,

Speaker 1 50:50
get another co pay. I know I see it,

Danielle 50:53
it's a lot. I don't know. I just, I'm very like, meta of how I think about everything. But my son is happy. He's not a glass I don't think he's a glass child. I don't know,

Scott Benner 51:02
listen, I didn't think that about my son, but He it affected him. Like he talks about it as an adult. He's like you were, and it's, by the way, the amount of time and effort we put into him while he was saying it, it was almost hard to hold it inside not just be like, Are you kidding me? I take his point like, you know, like, no matter what you do, he remembers the other

Danielle 51:21
thing, you know, what we make, either the same mistakes our parents made, or we make new mistakes. And I just read a book recently called anxious people, actually, but it wasn't about anxiety so much. Our kids always remember the things that we didn't do. Unfortunately, no,

Scott Benner 51:35
it's funny, because we sat with him and we were like, listen, I hear that. That's how you feel. And, you know, we discussed about, you know, why some of that stuff was necessary. It wasn't like, it wasn't lost on him, why it was necessary even. And I said, But Cole, like, you know, you and I, like, we went around, like, the East Coast, playing baseball, like on weekends, we were gone sometimes, like the entire weekend and evenings and nights. And I'm like, you played baseball in college. I with every one of your games, like there's no gap where this didn't happen. And he's like, I know, but it just feels like we were always dealing with something for Arden. And then if you talk to Arden, she's like, you know, we were always at baseball for coal. And I was like, Oh my God, you know, I should have put you all in the garage and started the car. There's no way out of this. Apparently it's

Danielle 52:21
really hard. It's just really hard to be a good parent. I mean, my kids are only four and three, but I already feel like, am I messing them up in some ways, or probably.

Scott Benner 52:29
I mean, after talking to you for 50 minutes, I think you are, for sure, but you're funny. Let me ask you a question, because I find this always to be interesting. Around therapy and people are struggling with things, you are crystal clear about all the things you're doing that you don't want to be doing. It's not like you don't know what they are. What do you mean? Well, like, I don't want to use the gluten free as an example. Like, why am I giving her a bunch of food she shouldn't have just so that she won't feel like, you understand the whole problem intellectually, yeah, why are you doing it? I

Danielle 53:00
don't know. So do you think that I should just pack like, strawberries for herself? I think you

Scott Benner 53:04
should just listen to yourself talk and then do the things you say you should do. Okay, all right. Do you know me? Like, who are you arguing with? Exactly? Hmm,

Danielle 53:13
I don't know. Maybe I don't see maybe I don't need so much therapy. Maybe I just needed a podcast episode with you. You

Scott Benner 53:19
might just need the therapist to tell you to shut the up. My

Speaker 1 53:23
husband could do that for me. Well,

Scott Benner 53:25
you're not gonna listen to him because he's an idiot. And I mean, like, right? Like, you're probably mad at him for loving you,

Speaker 1 53:31
aren't you? Oh, my God, no, he's actually past the best.

Scott Benner 53:35
I said that to my wife one day. I was like, Are you mad at me because I like you?

Danielle 53:41
No, I don't know. You know you're right. You're right. Maybe I just need, I am very confident in some ways, with, like, what is the right path, but I do second guess something. So I'm kind of a walking contradiction, actually. But I hear you,

Scott Benner 53:55
I just, I'm fascinated by therapy and by people's, like, the way people think, if you listen to any of my episodes with Erica, you know, like, I'm constantly trying to figure out why people think the way they do, why I do, et cetera. But like, there are some people who go to therapy to get answers because they don't know what to do, then they need a person to lay it out for them, which is fair enough, but you're going and you're telling the therapist, here's all the things I'm doing wrong, here's why they're wrong, and here's the right way to do it.

Danielle 54:22
Well, is it wrong? Is it wrong what I'm doing, I don't know. It's not the healthiest option. In some ways. It's not

Scott Benner 54:29
if you feel like giving that kid strawberries and cucumbers and dip is something that she enjoys, and you're only making her a brownie that's gluten free,

Danielle 54:38
because she will ask for it. Sometimes she will ask for a snack that looks like all right. But

Scott Benner 54:43
listen, I can only go on what you said if you're making that stuff for her, because you think other people are going to be looking at her weirder. You don't want her to feel left out, but she doesn't feel left out, then it feels like you're making the problem.

Speaker 1 54:56
Yeah, right, you're right.

Scott Benner 54:58
No, trust me, you're high. Been applauding. So he's in his car right now, and he's like, tell her, Scott.

Danielle 55:05
He's, oh, my God, he's gonna be so mad because he's gonna say, I told you this, Danielle, and you're listening to Scott. Well,

Scott Benner 55:11
listen, it'll make him feel better. My wife's not listening to a word I'm saying, so don't worry about it. Gotta swap. I don't know that doesn't work that way. If we swapped, if we all got divorced and remarried each other, you wouldn't listen to me, and you'd be like, you know, I should have stayed with that other guy. He was so smart. This Scott guy is an idiot. Oh,

Danielle 55:28
my God. Well, you know, that's like another issue that I have that I don't know how much time we have, but, like, one of the things is, I'm very big on making diabetes, like a part of her life, but not her entire identity. And I feel like you spoke with that, like, with Arden a lot. So like, we will go to, like, there's a diabetes family camp in New Jersey that we really like, that we met up with some families that we've become close to over the year, over the year and a half. And like, we're going to Florida, but we're also going to, like, we're actually driving down the coast, so we're going to go to South Carolina and Savannah, and, you know, make it a whole big trip. So it's not only diabetes, and even, like, the Elf on the Shelf, people will say, like, oh, you can get a Dexcom and an Omnipod. And I'm like, I don't want my Elf on the Shelf to have diabetes. I know that sounds silly, but I'm I think the biggest thing is I just want, like, balance across the board, right? Like, I want her to realize that diabetes is serious, and it's part of her, and it's something we have to manage and take care of, but, and we are having trips that also revolve and, like, around meeting people from the community, but that diabetes is not everything, right? It's not like the only part. So okay? And I think that even with the food of like, I just want balance, and sometimes maybe I swing too intensely to some way, so I think I just need to, like, check myself. And I think that's what therapy helps me with, validating. Yeah,

Scott Benner 56:46
listen, if it was 1976 and I wasn't being recorded so that people would then later yell at me on the Internet, what I would tell you is, I think you have to calm the down, but I don't think we're allowed to say that anymore to people. Yeah, I don't not understand why you're revved up. Like, I mean, I think you started revved up, and then all these things have happened. And like, you know, you you outlined it really well. Like, you're, you're waiting for other things to go wrong, because a lot of things have gone wrong. You're trying to, you know, set up a healthy situation for your kid, physically and mentally, which is a lot of work. You're worried about your other kid, you know, that kind of thing. I'm sure you're worried about your relationship too, and your own health is, you know, something that you're dealing with. I mean, weed. Should you try that maybe, like, I mean, I don't know. Like, you really just you're in the middle of this storm, and, you know, you got to find a way to be Zen while it's happening. And I don't know. I mean, I don't know what the hell that is like, but

Danielle 57:40
I don't know. The last time I smoked weed, I was in college and I had a panic attack. So probably not that.

Scott Benner 57:45
Look at you. Even ruining weed.

Danielle 57:50
My hyper vigilance ruined weed. I'm really fun at a party,

Scott Benner 57:55
I don't know, just running around cleaning up empty cups while everybody else is at the Oh, my God, are you please tell me, yeah. Swiffering,

Speaker 1 58:05
no, yeah. Kind of, oh yeah. Kind of, shut up.

Danielle 58:09
No. I really love to read. So that's like, been something I like, I don't know, I was a big traveler when I was younger, so, like, I'm trying to implement some of those things. I don't know. I came out of the womb stressed, and I've just been stressed for 35 years, but I am trying to do things that are like healthy. You

Scott Benner 58:26
have any idea how many times I watch everybody freak out online and I stop myself from going, you guys should all just go have sex and calm down a little bit. My God, like nature gave you a way to relax, and none of you were doing it anymore. Just go calm down.

Speaker 1 58:41
Okay, I'll tell my husband, you don't

Scott Benner 58:45
even need him. I mean, if that's you, know what I mean. So I don't, I mean, I don't, honestly understand. Like, why am I not a person? Why are some people not like that, and some people are and like, it's easy to, like, joke and be, like, calm down. Like, I know it's not that easy. You would just do it, you know. But I don't have any advice, because I don't feel that way. Like I have the hyper vigilance that you have on certain things. I'm a, you know, I'm the kind of guy who, like, digs in and gets doctors to help and, you know, I would go to Seattle to get a t3 crypt if I needed to. You know what I mean? Like, I'm that person, but, yeah, but it doesn't stick to me when it's over.

Danielle 59:23
Yeah, well, it's just true anxiety that I've had or, you know, so that part, that part's hard, but I do want to say you had somebody on a Swiss doctor once who said that somebody with a six, a 1c it could take up to 116 years to develop complications. And we recently her last a 1c test was a six, and I felt like, maybe I should just calm the hell down, because we're doing pretty good. I would like to be maybe a little bit better, but like, like, that's good, right? I mean,

Scott Benner 59:51
it's only a year and a half in, and you just picked up all those extra gluten free foods. Like, I think that sounds like you're doing. Well,

Danielle 59:57
yeah. So I mean, she has like, 75 Percent time and range, we're okay. So I

Scott Benner 1:00:02
would say that the way I think about that has, like, you know, morphed and changed over the years. I think in the beginning, when I was figuring it out, and she was young, and she didn't have much to do with her care, you know, like, you know, pushing the buttons and making the decisions, I knew how to do it. Like, I could just do it. If you put me in charge of Arden right now, I could put her a 1c, at a five, three, probably no problem, right? And it would probably would take me, like, I could probably get it done in two weeks. I could get her averages down in like, two weeks to that, and then I could keep them there. I know how to do it, but that's not how this works. They get older, and they take on some responsibility, and then they've got to learn, and then they've got to get burned out, and then they've got to ignore it, and then they've got to miss a meal, or miss a Bolus, or forget to do a thing. Then they have to be their own person with diabetes at some point. Yeah, so then my expectation has to continue to absorb the new realities that come in and you keep changing your expectations right now, the way I think about it is, Arden's a one season the mid sixes. She's in college, and she takes care of it herself. If you go back and listen to any number of 1000 interviews with people in their 30s or 40s that talked about having diabetes at college, they're all telling you, oh my God. My a 1c was the 10s. I didn't Bolus some days I just took my basal like, blah, blah, blah, like a six and a half a 1c while she feels in control and is learning how to take care of herself better and getting her education and all that other stuff is awesome. Like, do I wish her a 1c was 5.5 Of course I do. And will it be? I bet you, it will be one day, not today, when she's 20, exactly this six and this six, I don't even know what it is right now, but 63646566, who cares? It's a major accomplishment for a person her age, living with diabetes. Yes, I agree. So it'll be this now, and it'll be less later, and probably when she will get pregnant one day, and and it'll be five, and, you know, and then maybe she'll have a baby, and, you know, she'll get tired, and it'll go up to seven, and then it'll come back down again. And these are all awesome outcomes for people, and you have to remember that, like, not that your health should be worse, because other people's might be, but there are plenty of people walking around with type one diabetes, with double digit a one CS, and they're not not trying either, by the way. So six sounds good to me. I think you're doing great, you know. But seriously, you just gotta calm down. Okay, I don't know how to get you to do that, but, like, I mean, I think I've laid out a number of different ways, like, just do them all on the same day and see if you don't, like, just relax.

Speaker 1 1:02:45
Okay, sounds good. I don't know what you're gonna do.

Scott Benner 1:02:47
Your husband's laughing. He's like, she is not gonna do any of that stuff. Yeah, I don't know. One day do you think you have anxiety? Yes, yes, definitely, yes. And you do anything for it.

Danielle 1:02:59
I have never been medicated for it. It's kind of been deemed that, I don't think that that's necessarily the thing that I need. They prescribed like Xanax for when I'm if I ever feel panicky. But that's not the answer either. I took Xanax. I studied abroad in Australia, and I took Xanax one night, and I felt also so, like weird and fidgety. So I don't like I said, I try to not put things in that I don't necessarily need. Yeah, maybe somebody's listening like, No, you do need an anti anxiety medication. But like, when I'm exercising, I've been going for walks every night, like I said, I love to read. I feel good, I feel better. So I'm not always this intense. I've

Scott Benner 1:03:38
seen some people talk about the glps helping with their anxiety. Interesting, because it takes their inflammation down, right? Changes the, you know, you lose fat, so the hormones change. Like, a lot of like, I'd be so interested to see what happens to you if you do that, especially before you go on something like Celexa or something like that. Like, you know what I mean? Like, exactly, I don't know. Like, people are gonna be like, he thinks glps fix everything. I don't think that. I think that I've interviewed a bunch of people who have said some pretty interesting stuff. The one that sticks to me the most is little girl who has bipolar and other stuff going on, and her mom comes on and talks about how they made all these adjustments that really helped with their bipolar issues, but there were still some resonance of it left in different areas, and then they put the kid on a GLP for weight loss. Kid starts losing weight, and a lot of the other bipolar symptoms go away

Danielle 1:04:32
too. I listened to that episode that was intense, right? What if it is

Scott Benner 1:04:36
helping with it, like, what if it is lowering inflammation? And what if anxiety is inflammation? You know, a lot of people walking around on the planet, and so do I who don't have type one diabetes, and I don't hear those people talking about anxiety as much. Maybe there's some hand in hand between anxiety and autoimmune and definitely, you know, you have PCOS, which is, I mean. Inflammation related. Is it autoimmune? Like, you know what I mean? Like, if you had anxiety too, and I don't know, I genuinely have no freaking idea, but you're 40 pounds overweight, you're saying you could lose 40 pounds if you got on this Med, dropped 20 pounds, started feeling better, felt your anxiety lessening, you'd be like, Oh, really, no, you're right, yeah, because, I mean, you're exercising, you're eating well, and you're not getting the results that you want. Like, even that could make me anxious. It could double on top of itself, because, like, I'm doing the things they told me to do, and it's not helping, or it's not helping quickly enough, or whatever. Like, even that could make you feel upset. So I don't know. Can't believe the weed didn't work, though. Tell me what happened when you smoke the weed.

Danielle 1:05:42
So there's like, a summer that I smoked a lot of weed with my friends, and I was totally fine, and I was definitely relaxed. Then we would, like, lay in the pool all day and just, I don't know, probably eat dominoes and smoke weed. But then one time, I was hanging out with my friend and this weird guy, and I felt he was sketchy, like he just gave me bad vibes, and I thought he laced the weed, and I started panicking. And I was like, walking around the Dunkin Donuts parking lot with my friend. I think I was, like, 20 years old at this point. I called my mom, flipping out. I was like, I think I smoked lace weed. Can you come get me? And then I, like, thought I was hallucinating. I took a bath. This is like, a lot to share. No, it's not. I took a bath and I told my mom, like, I think I'm seeing fire. And she's like, you're fine. You're just high. Go to sleep. And I went to sleep, and I never smoked weed again.

Scott Benner 1:06:34
You can buy it in a store now, you know, yeah, actually, uh, yeah,

Danielle 1:06:37
I did, um, then my husband and I went to Colorado, probably, I don't know, maybe I was like 26 and when we like edibles or gummies, and I just slept, that was fine. So maybe I need something like that, but then I don't want to sleep through the sugar pixel, even though sometimes I do, and my husband's like the real MVP. I don't know, Scott, I'm a walking contradiction.

Scott Benner 1:06:57
Yeah, no, no, you definitely are. I wish I could call this episode runs on Dunkin that's awesome. I love the idea of you in like, in what I'm imagining your terry cloth shorts, wandering around in a Dunkin Donuts parking lot being like, I see fire. I'm gonna call my mom and tell her I smoked weed. My

Danielle 1:07:17
friend's like, don't call your mom. Like, no, I'm calling my mom. This is this guy's creepy, and he lays the weed. He's going to try to hook up with us. We're going home.

Scott Benner 1:07:28
The creepy guy because he gave me something. Oh, that's awesome. Your mom was probably at home drunk off her.

Speaker 1 1:07:34
No, she's super straightly. She was just like, Danielle, you're an idiot. You smoke too much weed. Come on. I'm gonna

Scott Benner 1:07:40
guess your mom smoked a bunch of weed too, if that's how she answered it. She answered you don't you think? No, you've never, have you ever answered?

Danielle 1:07:47
Yes, I have actually all of her friends who are, like, big drinkers and big pot smokers in that she in the 70s and she never drank. She was always like, just my mom is, like, carefree in a lot of ways, also anxious, though she would be the only person not drinking, not smoking, and then they the other drunk people would drive. And I was like, Mom, why wouldn't you drive the car if you were sober? She's like, I don't know. We didn't think about it.

Scott Benner 1:08:10
Yeah, it's interesting how, like, little any of that was consumed. Wait, so your mom has anxiety, but she's chill. Where do you get this from? Is your dad? Is your dad up tight?

Danielle 1:08:21
So no, they're both. They're like, weird, I can't explain it. So they're they have, like, anxious energy. That's the only way I could explain it. They're like, buzzing people. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:08:32
I hate that. They feel like they're vibrating when you're in a room with them, yeah? That's probably what made you anxious, yeah? So

Danielle 1:08:37
maybe that's why me and my sister a little messed up. But they're, like, the purest hearts, great people and, like, not super anxious in your face where, like, I'll spiral if I see, like, a beauty mark has changed its shape. My parents, like, Oh, you're fine. Get over it. Like, don't worry. Or, you know, like, nothing is panicky to them like that. But I do feel like they're just, like, high energy. I remember once I went to my husband's house for like, a Sunday dinner, and I was, like, talking so fast, probably, like I am right now, and they were all so chill, and I'm like, What is this energy? Like, what? What is this? Because I'm like, I think I also kind of vibrate in a room. Oh, sorry. Maybe I won't come up to your

Scott Benner 1:09:16
table. I'll be sorry. It's upsetting to me when, like, you're in a room with somebody, you're like, oh my god, are they like, gonna like face through the wall, like The Flash, chill out for five seconds. I mean, I'm a vigilant person, like, I pay attention to things. Like, I, you know, I see what's going on around me. I just don't have like that like thing, yeah? Like, we're

Danielle 1:09:36
like, true bumblebees, like, zizzing throughout, yeah? Like, just a lot, no, can you tell that from my voice? I

Scott Benner 1:09:42
mean, I could tell from the conversation, it's not your voice, it's not your voice the things you're saying. Do

Speaker 1 1:09:51
you want to come to one of our family parties?

Scott Benner 1:09:53
Oh, sure, yeah. I'll come out to the I'll fight over that damn bridge for that. Yeah, right. I. But no, you should definitely say hello in Florida, that would be awesome. I hope everybody does all right, but no, I mean, listen, what are you gonna do? You know what? I mean, like, you, you're talking to a therapist, you're you have some things in line. You're gonna try give it a shot and see what happens. But, you know, try those things before you like, you don't want to devolve into, like, drinking or something like that. Like, because, you know that could happen, happens?

Danielle 1:10:23
No, I know. Well, my husband's sober, so I don't really drink a lot. Good at a solidarity. Yeah, I had a solidarity. I used to love a glass of

Scott Benner 1:10:30
wine. He ruined that for you, too. What other What other things did he ruin for you? Go ahead, make a list.

Danielle 1:10:35
No, no, he really, he's he is the best. Like, when I think of having a daughter with type one and everything he does, and how Zen his energy is, and even keeled, he really is the best father and best partner.

Scott Benner 1:10:47
What I mean? Does he have another option? What is he going to do match your energy? How the hell that'd be exhausting?

Danielle 1:10:53
Don't you think? Well, no, he's just, you know, I feel like a lot of people that I've spoken to feel that they have to carry the burden of type one themselves. Yeah, do a lot of like, you know, and I feel like he really, he knows when it's a site change day. He's It was much better with MDI, and she prefers the way that he puts on the pump. You wonder why? Because I'm buzzing, and he's not, but he's just, I don't know, he's really present. I could think of some people's husbands who would not be the way that he is. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:11:22
yeah, no, that's, that's, it's wonderful and lucky too. I'm imagining your daughter, like that big eye look across the room at your husband, like, Hey, she's coming at me with a pod. Why don't you step in? That's happened?

Speaker 1 1:11:31
She's like, Is Daddy gonna do my pump change? So yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:36
we were helping Arden with something the other day, and I was like, Look, I can't do it right now. Do you want mom to help you? And she's like, I'll wait. And I was like, okay, yeah.

Danielle 1:11:43
Actually, the dynamic between you and Arden actually does remind me of what my daughter and my husband's will be one day. Because, yeah, I could see that. And I feel like I take on a lot of, like, the emotional part of type one, or like, the school stuff with her 504, and her nurse I do all, like, the prescription refills and doctor's appointments. So he's doing, like, a lot of the he's just, he'll go in with like his, like, light on his head and do the pump change in the middle of the night so she doesn't have to feel it. And he's like, Well, you know, he's really good at cleaning this site and getting all the things to, like, massage her so there's no scar tissue. And if I were to do that, there would be, like, adhesive remover all over and just like a mess, I'm just a mess. You

Scott Benner 1:12:21
were, listen, I'm sure you're not a mess. And I appreciate you coming on and having, like, such a good, you know, vibe. And thank you being so open, and not, you know, letting me joke around with you and everything. So of course, yeah, we'll just call this one Bumblebee, like we're done really, all right, could it be Long Island B? We'll figure

Danielle 1:12:40
it out. I don't really love the like, I think Long Island doesn't have a great reputation.

Scott Benner 1:12:46
Well, I mean, you should not have said the fourth word you said with my mother, yeah. Like, I mean, you were right into it. Like, I was like, Oh God, I gotta get on the expressway

Speaker 1 1:12:54
now. So wait, how do you how do you say?

Scott Benner 1:12:56
Mother, no, it's the way you drew it out. Mother, I can hear it. I mean, everybody can hear it, all right? There's nobody that can't hear it. Listen people west of the Mississippi. Just think you sound like a Jewish person from from New York. I'm not Jewish. I know you. Know you, by the way, you could be. I know you're not like. You're definitely you. I mean, you're Italian, right? Yes, yeah. I mean, so obvious,

Speaker 1 1:13:23
like a Dunkin Bumblebee or something, just no Long Island

Scott Benner 1:13:27
workshop it back at the back, at the offices, the offices, basically, what's gonna happen is Rob's gonna type something in the notes. And that's what I'm gonna that's what I'm gonna call the episode. Sounds good, but no, no, you're exactly who you know. I'm just telling you that for people who aren't from the northeast, like they just hear that accent and they think, Jewish, yeah, yeah, which is interesting, because it doesn't matter. I know you're not, but like, yeah, I wouldn't matter if you were. I feel weird talking about this. Like, I would give a if you were Jewish or not. I don't care.

Danielle 1:14:01
No, of course, it's just like the I don't care about the Jewish part. It's the Long Island stamp that is, like, a little embarrassing.

Scott Benner 1:14:07
Yeah. I mean, I knew you weren't Jewish when you said you were gonna drive down the coast. Oh, self respecting Jew was driving from New York to Florida.

Speaker 1 1:14:17
Yeah, I know. I don't know how that's gonna go. Wish us

Scott Benner 1:14:19
luck. Oh, my God. They're like, please, I take a flight a midday. I want to be there by one so I can have lunch, not doing that. Yeah, we'll see All right, everybody? Mazel Tov, I'll see you guys later.

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Tammy, a 51-year-old probation officer from Manitoba with T1D, opens up about outdated care, online toxicity, and how the podcast finally taught her what 30 years of doctors didn’t.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Tammy 0:15
Hello. My name is Tammy. My dad had type one diabetes. They wouldn't discharge me from Children's Hospital until my mom could give me insulin. If

Scott Benner 0:25
this is your first time listening to the Juicebox podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcasts or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com. Up in the menu and look for bold Beginnings The Diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Please don't forget 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. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by us med. US med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, US med is where my daughter gets her diabetes supplies from, and you could too use the link or number to get your free benefits check and get started today with us Med, a huge thanks to my longest sponsor, Omnipod. Check out the Omnipod five now with my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you may be eligible for a free starter kit, a free Omnipod five starter kit at my link, go check it out. Omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox today's episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 you can experience the ever since 365 CGM system for as low as $199 for a full year visit, ever since cgm.com/juicebox, for more details and eligibility.

Tammy 2:28
Hello. My name is Tammy, and I'm from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Scott Benner 2:33
Oh, no kidding, I didn't know. Did you know The National Food of Canada is poutine? Yes, I did. Oh, I didn't know that, but I did learn it in a Buzzfeed last

Tammy 2:43
night. Did you know that Winnipeg is the Slurpee capital of the world?

Scott Benner 2:46
Slurpee like frozen slushy drinks? Yeah, yes. Is the irony that you don't need a machine to make it. They just are made outside

Tammy 2:54
our backyard. Yeah? Just go outside or some flavoring on the snow. Yeah, yeah. You

Scott Benner 3:00
just go outside with a bucket and yeah, and a little maple syrup and water and star, and you shake it, and there you go. Yeah. How old were you? You're diagnosed with type one diabetes. I was four, yeah, 26 years ago, four years old in Manitoba, yes. Oh, hell. What did they give you there? Did they just rub a seal on you? What did they do?

Tammy 3:21
No, they did not. We were at the Shrine Circus. I've heard this story 7000 times, and we lived in a small town, and we came into Winnipeg to go to the Shrine Circus. I was rushed to Children's Hospital. It's a whole story there. But to make a long story short, my dad had type one diabetes, oh, and he was diagnosed at 25 and I guess what happened was, after, you know, we learned what needed to be, they wouldn't discharge me from Children's Hospital until my mom could give me insulin. Okay? And like my mom, like she just couldn't do that. So finally, I guess she told herself, you know, like, I have to do this. You know, my daughter's coming home, and that's it, right? So finally she did, but I think it was one of the hardest things for my mom to have to give me an injection,

Scott Benner 4:13
a real struggle for Yeah, did she have a needle phobia, or did she feel weirdly about actually, like, the way she probably saw it, like, hurting you, or like,

Tammy 4:21
Yeah, I think Yeah. I think she just couldn't believe that she had to do this to her daughter, like it was just awful. But when I was diagnosed, everyone laughs at this. What happened here? I guess my mom was devastated. My dad was devastated, and I was just grinning, you know, because I was going to be just like my dad now, oh no, no, I'm just like, Oh God no, Kenny,

Scott Benner 4:48
I don't think we should laugh through this I saw recently. Here's an example recently where the internet did not let me down. This lovely person posted a picture of a note that their child. Child had written in school, and it was a really heartfelt letter from a little kid about how alone they felt because other people in their family had diabetes and they didn't I read that? Did you see that note?

Tammy 5:17
Nearly in tears. Oh, my God,

Scott Benner 5:20
I'm reading this. I'm like, I gotta get out of this game. Like, I'm like, I can't take this anymore. What a sad thing you would never consider the kid without diabetes. Is like, why are you people leaving me out of this yet? You know,

Tammy 5:35
dare you. Yeah.

Scott Benner 5:36
Oh, I was, I was heartbroken. I read that. My God. So the thing you felt is not crazy, like, oh my god, I'm like, my dad now. Oh, no, kidding. Did it always feel like that? Did that stick with you? Or did you realize how ridiculous that was? At some point you were like,

Tammy 5:54
the last thing I'd like to have in common with my dad, you

Scott Benner 5:58
know what? Why did I pick his love of cars, exactly. Oh, what do you remember about your management as a child? I think I, you

Tammy 6:07
know what? I was always a rule follower and structure routine was my life like I couldn't change things like by a minute, I was very structured. Did what I was supposed to do. I see people writing about how they remember their A, one CS when they were 11. Like I don't remember a single a, 1c I do remember my endo at the time. I think she gave me a hard time one day, and I left there in tears. I don't know why I was there on my own, because usually my mom attended with me, and my mom got on the phone called bendo,

Scott Benner 6:46
I'm gonna stab you if you make my daughter cry again.

Tammy 6:53
No, and I guess it whatever it was, you know, I guess I was so upset. I don't know if that she scared me or what it was, but the next time I walked in, she was like, Good morning, Tammy, let's talk about your diabetes today. It was so funny, but I think at one time I remember, I'm so embarrassed to say it now, like I was writing sugars in because I had my black book. You know, you had to keep all your sugars written in a book, because there was no technology the way it is today. And I was like, oh gosh, I have an endo appointment. Oh, shoot. You know, I haven't written anything down in two and a half months. There I start doing this, and I can only imagine what she thought when I opened this, you know, when she opened this book and there this, this is all written in the same like, hello, Tammy, your a 1c just might show what you really are. But you know, I really I don't remember a lot about that, but I'm probably better. I don't where's your health at today? I'm doing well. What does that mean? I'm 51 years old. No complications. Awesome. I consider that pretty darn good. Doesn't mean I don't worry. Do you

Scott Benner 8:04
have any other autoimmune issues? No, I do not nothing. How about in the family, besides your father, of course. No, oh, just the two of you of type one. Yeah? Awesome. Lucky it, yeah? Well, I mean, listen, it's better than having a bunch of other stuff, obviously. But yeah, I'm sorry if that triggered people who have other

Tammy 8:21
things. I was just gonna say, Oh, hold on. I mean, my God, there's nothing wrong with having other immune issues.

Scott Benner 8:28
Can I take a sidebar for a second? Yeah, I don't know how old I was. I was in my 20s, and Howard Stern had been on the radio for a while, okay, and I had been listening since I was a junior in high school, maybe whenever he came to Philadelphia, I started listening. And, I mean, I think I listened every day. I mean, he used to put on five hour shows. Like, by the way, can I take a sidebar from my sidebar for a second? I love all these people running around, like, like, Oh, my podcast is so influential. Like, I You're all lucky. I consider doing this. And like, you know, like, I sit down and speak long for him. And nobody's ever done this before. Howard Stern has been doing it forever, okay, like, he's got the first podcast, like, and there's other guys too. There's Phil Hendry, and there's other people who've been doing talk radio for a really long time that have done it really well. Like, you know what? You don't even have to agree with this politics. And I'm not gonna say where I am one way or the other. But you know who was amazing? Rush Limbaugh sat down and spoke into a microphone for hours with nobody else there. That's hard to do. You know who does that now? Bill Burr, the comedian, has a podcast. I think he does it weekly. He just talks and it's entertaining, and he goes at it for hours. My point is, is your podcast is not a new idea. These people were doing it in the 60s and the 70s, and there were probably people doing it before that. Well, maybe not back then, it was just deep voice guys doing soap commercials, right? Like, hey. Like, so anyway, my point is is that, like, podcasters are not a new thing, and it's just a way of talking long form. Going back to my first turn off, you need. Need this conversation. You need Tammy to come on here and tell her story and her story like it's not fun, like diabetes sucks. And I have a unique perspective, because I get to intersect with people who listen and are really helped by the podcast. And I'm going to tell you, what they tell me is that they listen to an episode, they hear a few things that are valuable for them as far as management goes, but the rest of it is somehow comforting or uplifting or something or the other, and they only listen because it's entertaining. I'm having a conversation with somebody recently who asked me, like, do you think this is kind of like a business conversation? Like, do you think the ADA should be doing this. I was asked Yeah, and I said no, because no one will care about it and as it, because it'll be bland and in bullet points and written by six different doctors and then edited by four more doctors, and it'll be perfect. No one's gonna care enough to read through it like so, believe it or not, this dumb conversation that Abby and I are having at the end of it, she's gonna say something about her life or diabetes. She maybe already did. Maybe it's the story about the little boy who felt left out. Who knows what you're gonna take from it, but you won't listen to it if it's dry and boring. That's the thing I'm doing, like it or not like I am telling you stories and letting people tell their stories. And you're here because you're entertained by it. Is everyone entertained by it? They're not. That's fine. Those people won't get the thing, but I can only deliver it one way. That's all I had. Tommy, I'm sorry, what do I want to know? I don't know. No, no, I know. Don't worry. I know what I want to know. Okay, your dad's got type one. He's managing it one way. Are you managing it the same way? No, no, and not at all. And, and is that just because generationally, you came a generation after.

Tammy 12:03
I think maybe that's part of the reason. Okay,

Scott Benner 12:06
do you ever have a moment where you want to go back to your father and say, Hey, man, like, Look at this. They gave me this thing, or I did, or there's new idea out there. Did you ever have conversations like that with him? This episode is brought to you by Omnipod. Would you ever buy a car without test driving it first? That's a big risk to take on a pretty large investment. You wouldn't do that, right? So why would you do it when it comes to choosing an insulin pump, most pumps come with a four year lock in period through the DME channel, and you don't even get to try it first, but not Omnipod five. Omnipod five is available exclusively through the pharmacy, which means it doesn't come with a typical four year DME lock in period. Plus you can get started with a free 30 day trial to be sure it's the right choice for you or your family, my daughter has been wearing an Omnipod every day for 17 years. Are you ready to give Omnipod five a try? Request your free Starter Kit today at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox find my link in the show notes of this podcast player, or at Juicebox podcast.com. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 get 365 days of comfortable wear without having to change a sensor. When you think of a continuous glucose monitor, you think of a CGM that lasts 10 or 14 days, but the Eversense 365 it lives up to its name, lasting 365 days. That's one year without having to change your CGM with the Eversense 365 you can count on comfort and consistency. 365 days a year because the Eversense silicone based adhesive is designed for your skin to be gentle and to allow you to take the transmitter on and off, to enjoy your shower, a trip to the pool or an activity where you don't want your CGM on your body. If you're looking for comfort, accuracy and a one year wear, you are looking for Eversense 365 go to ever since cgm.com/juicebox, to learn more,

Tammy 14:28
I did a lot. Yes, my dad passed away in 2021, so yes, I every time I got something new or learned something new, I did tell him, but you know, he was still, my dad was still of the opinion that watermelon was very high in sugar. So you should really watch how much you eat, because you could, you know, you could be a diabetic. You know, he said to my niece once, my sister was, we're all sitting at the table. And so that's what exactly she was eating watermelon. And he said, Oh, that's a lot. Don't forget, watermelon has sugar. You don't want to eat too much. And my sister was like, Dad, that's not how you get, you know, type one like, you know, he came from it the old school. When he was 25 years old, the doctor told him not to eat sugar. So he stopped putting sugar in his coffee, stopped putting sugar in his whatever. Drank a liter of orange juice a day, and all of a sudden, it's to all his teeth fell out.

Scott Benner 15:25
Wait, you're telling me that he stopped using sugar in his coffee, but didn't see that there was sugar in orange juice, because it's fruit.

Tammy 15:31
Well, he just the doctor said, you know, don't use sugar. Oh, okay. Oh, he took that burger, you know, he didn't use he didn't put it over his cereal, didn't whatever. But, you know, and, and that's how it was,

Scott Benner 15:44
he didn't understand from the jump what he was talking about,

Tammy 15:48
right? But again, he was a real rule follower as well. Rule follower as well. You know, he was very, you know, took his insulin, was supposed to do whatever. It's not that he didn't do that stuff, right? It's just, you know, finally, he used the pen rather than a needle. And I was like, oh, there is a God, thank you. That was his big upgrade. Yeah, that was the big revolution. He's

Scott Benner 16:13
like, I'm gonna, am I yelling, by the way, I'm sorry, but, like, that was his that was, maybe she moved the microphone farther for me, that was his big upgrade. He went to

Tammy 16:21
pen. Things have evolved. Yeah, he was used to leave a bottle of r, right, you know, in his trunk. Like, he didn't think, oh, it's going to be 180 degrees in there. Yeah, it was just, it was very different. And some days were harder than others, you know, yeah, with that, you know, he took the same amount insulin. It didn't matter if he had, you know,

Scott Benner 16:42
just didn't matter. I'm gonna take three of these supposed to have a starch.

Tammy 16:47
Still called it starch, you know. Like,

Scott Benner 16:49
can you hear him saying this in your head right now? Oh, yeah. 100% Yeah. Oh, so what's he got to have a starch? What else? What's he gonna

Tammy 16:56
do? A starch, a fruit. But he can't have fruit after six or something like it was the, you know, Canadian Food Guide, you know, 1978 right? That's just how it was, yeah,

Scott Benner 17:10
yeah, I hear you. But how long did he live with type one? He passed away at 79 Well, god damn it worked. Everybody. Get out there. Have a starch, a fruit, and don't eat after six or whatever. He just dead And damn, for God's sake, don't put, don't put sugar in your coffee. You'll live forever. 7179 Jesus, that's not a bad run, is it?

Tammy 17:28
Well, 75 he was on dialysis.

Scott Benner 17:31
That part wasn't great. Okay, so he made it to 75 without having, without

Tammy 17:36
complications, any. Yeah, no complications, nothing. I'll

Scott Benner 17:40
tell you. I think that cold helps you, it keeps you picked up somehow. You know exactly? Yeah, you can't even like, your cells can't even change. They're just like, they're too busy shivering,

Tammy 17:50
right? That's why we can't have more than one autoimmune

Scott Benner 17:54
Yeah, you can't get in once the Shivering starts. How's it get

Tammy 17:57
through layers of clothing? Yeah? Well, that's exactly right, right?

Scott Benner 18:01
Tammy, you understand how medicine works, yeah? Like, by the way, don't listen to me. I'm just the father of a kid with type one diabetes. I don't even have it. Like, you shouldn't listen to me at all. I don't know. What do I know? I've been mismanaging it forever. Terrible. Yeah, my daughter in the other room with, like, a low six, a, 1c, while she's in college right now, you know, healthy as a horse, it's me. I'm the bad guy. I don't know. I can't I'm sorry. It's so infrequent. Honestly, I don't even think I should mention it for every one note that I get, there's literally 1000 other ones that come where people are just like, Thank you for sharing this. I'm doing great. Like, you know, I'm doing great because of this information. I hear that so frequently I have to remind myself how wonderful it is sometimes. Like, imagine something so wonderful being said to you so often that you have to remind yourself it's wonderful. Like, that's the really lovely position that I'm in. Then to have somebody come along and go, No, that's not true. Actually, you're a piece of, okay, sorry, and like, and back in the day, like, maybe you'd be like, Oh, God, that sucks. But I think it just caught me last night, like I was so tired that I let it in for a second. If that means something or not, I know I'm now being transparent about that, and I'm sure that I'm a bad person for that. Now too, I will say this. I want to say something I don't think, even though the internet would say differently, I don't think that's most people. I really don't I just think that's enough people that you see online that it feels pervasive. But I really don't think that's true. I don't think that most people are not seeing other people's perspectives. I don't think that most people are being mean to other people, like, like, I hope not in your day to day life. Do you see any of that outside of the internet? Like, do you see people just being to each

Tammy 19:50
other? No, I don't think so. No, I think the internet is just, you don't have to identify yourself. You can say whatever you want. There's no consequence, really, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's half the problem. Yeah.

Scott Benner 20:02
And let's be clear again, you're a probation officer, so you're saying, No, I think the world's a pretty decent place. And I talk to people all day long who have been in prison or jail.

Speaker 1 20:11
Oh, yeah, really bad things. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 20:15
Can I ask you? Do you ever get involved with somebody who's done something terrible and you find yourself thinking, I like this person every day, yeah? And that's something, yeah. Like, some people are habitual. I understand that. But for those who aren't, what do you think it is? Do you think it's just a bad moment sometimes? Like, how do people get in those situations? Tammy,

Tammy 20:37
I think the upbringing, you know, we're, we're not born bad or, Okay, I better. I don't want to be a trigger here. I don't, I don't believe you're born bad. You've seen something, you've grown up a certain way. You know, sociologic, you know, your your environment, right? Yeah, whatever it may be, psychological, there are reasons people do what they do. You know? It's just like they say racism. It's learned behavior. You're not born racist.

Scott Benner 21:17
If somebody says something to you and it sticks to you, and then it doubles, and before you know it, it's your identity too.

Tammy 21:25
Yeah, addiction, if some you know if, if all you've seen is addiction your whole life, why wouldn't you drink or use illegal drugs? You know, if all you've seen is violence when you're angry, well, why wouldn't you? You know, and it's very easy to say, you know, they shouldn't have no they shouldn't have perfect, but if you don't know any better or any different, I shouldn't say better different. You know, it's really not hard to believe,

Scott Benner 21:52
right, in a perfect situation, you would think, why did they not know not to do this? Or why did they not stop themselves, etc, so on, but just absolutely, like, they didn't have enough or the right kind of input to stop them in that situation, or to even have them avoid it at all. But it doesn't necessarily make them a bad person, right?

Tammy 22:13
No, I always, I say to anyone that says, you know, because you know, you see a lot of things on the internet, people are saying why? You know about jail, and they should be doing this and this and that and all these punishments. And everyone's got something to say, but you know, you really don't know where the person comes from. And I'm not saying it's right what someone does, yeah, but it's not so cut and dry, right? Is that, you know, yeah, they chose to do this, or they chose to do that. There's a few more factors

Scott Benner 22:44
involved. I'll tell you that, aside from being periodically yelled at on the internet, making this podcast has been such a wonderful experience, because hearing from people who you could just offhandedly disregard, and then listening to them talk about their lives. And, I mean, I just got done interviewing a young guy, like, who was in jail for like, a year and a half, yeah. And you know, as you're talking to him, you're like, I see that moment, but I see how you got to it, and it's still your fault, like you did the thing. But yes, yes, but all the building blocks that somebody laid on top of him were leading him to do that thing, and he was going to at some point. And, you know, listen, there's during wars, they do tests on prisoners and stuff like that. Like you can make people do things. You can condition people to act a certain way. And if you don't think that parenting is that, then you're not paying attention what parenting is. And parenting done wrong is conditioning somebody to do something wrong, and they will like they'll have the right intersection of opportunity and situation, and then the wrong thing is going to come out to and to your point, a thing that would not have happened if you would have picked that baby up on day one and put it somewhere where it would have got better direction. So you think it's a lot about nurture. You've probably heard me talk about us Med and how simple it is to reorder with us med using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works? And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording was like, us, med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your orders ready? You want us to send it? Push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait. I think it lets you put it off, like, a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it. Us, med.com/juicebox, or call 888, 7211514, get your free benefits. Check now and get started with us. Med, Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new islet pump. Check them out now at us. Med, Comm, slash, Juicebox, or by calling 888-721-1514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us, med and all the sponsors.

Tammy 25:30
Well, we we teach in one of our groups socialization, and the first thing we say is, who did you learn from? Teachers, parents, grandparents, siblings. Well, for the first let's say, 15 years of your life, if not more, those are the important people, right? So you've learned a lot in that time. And you know, those are your formative years. They say males brains don't develop fully until they're 25 I mean, there's a lot of learning going on, right? And you're with, if you're with people who are doing things that we would consider wrong and possibly illegal, chances are they're not always going to be doing the right thing, right? At 26 years old, right?

Scott Benner 26:16
I'm taken back to one of my after dark episodes, yes, where a girl talks about her dad passing away from a fentanyl overdose, and she says it in such a matter of fact way, it's normalized. It struck me. It has how normal it was to her, yeah, yeah, really, like, heartbreaking, you know, she's a lovely girl. Like she just, she really is, you know, she sticks with me right there, like, that moment, like the way she was, just like, I don't know, she said it, like, you know, my dad walked through the room and took off his slippers, like it was so just like, almost a throwaway line. And I know that's not, I know she's not. I don't it's not a throw away to her, their father passed away. Like, I'm not saying that, of course, but like, in the manner it happened, it just wasn't shocking enough. The number of times somebody says something that, I think, like, why are you not shocked by this? The reason is probably what you outlined. They don't know to be shocked by it. They know to be comfort, almost comforted by it, because it's normal. You know, how much is alcohol involved in people's sliding ending up talking to you one day,

Tammy 27:23
usually, whether you know addiction or drugs or alcohol in excess, it's quite often

Scott Benner 27:30
not a lot of pieces of paper you pick up that don't say it on there somewhere, right? Yeah,

Tammy 27:34
right, yeah. Well, it's coping mechanism, right, right, yeah. So what do we do? Self medicate. Oh gosh, don't you tell me we have an hour this could take. This is like my old career.

Scott Benner 27:48
No, Tommy's like, condoms. Condoms are the answer. Everybody gets up. Don't get me started on that one. Yeah, we just need for no one to have babies for a while so we can calm down.

Tammy 28:00
All right? I don't know. I think I don't know. I think we just need to look know a lot more than we do. I think, you know in school, because I kind of specialize more so in domestic violence. Or I think they say in the States, intimate partner violence. Is that? What they're calling it now? Well, IPv, but we consider domestic violence all violence, so that includes family violence as well, from like sisters or brothers or whatever it may be. But you know, you learn all these things in school when you're growing up, whatever calculus and this and that,

Scott Benner 28:38
and nobody teaches you how to talk to people or no

Tammy 28:41
one shows you sort of healthy relationships. Communication skills. You know, these kinds of skills aren't taught. Yeah? Life Skills, yeah, communication. I mean, if you don't have communication, every aspect of your life is going to be problematic, right? Yep. So how do we kind of miss that as we're being raised, if you're not hearing that at home? Like, when do you learn that when you get fired because you told off your boss for the first time, you know? Like, I don't, you know. I just think, yeah, there needs to be a lot of learning done, teaching and,

Scott Benner 29:20
yeah, getting away from life skills was, I mean, is a real weird thing to me. You know, balancing your checkbook and making dinner and sewing a button on and, like, stuff that, like, comes up day after day that I see people go, I don't know how to do this. You know, I'm stunned at, like, some of the things they don't know how to do. And I'm stunned by the way that I know how to do some things that somehow didn't get passed to my kids. Sometimes, you look at them and they're like, I'm like, Oh God, they, they don't know how to do that. That's crazy. But where did I learn it? Did I learn it from? Sometimes, from just hard times, and you had, you had to, like, I guess so. But I look back like, I can work. I'm not a. Master woodworker, but I can work with wood. I can work with metal. I can cook, I can sew. Like, these are things I was literally taught in middle school, the way to get by I was taught. I was taught at the end of middle school, the beginning of high school, like, how to balance my my bank account. Like to make sure that, you know, the amount of money I thought was in there was actually in there. Not big finance stuff, but like, why not teach people how money works? And why are people having to come to like, Jenny and I just got done making a nutrition episode, like, a series like, to explain to people that, like, just because it goes in your mouth and comes out your ass doesn't mean it was food. I say it like that, but they don't really know. Like, some of them, like, they they think Doritos are, are corn and cheese. They're not Tammy, really, no, but that's not a thing everyone knows. And who's going to tell you that? Like if, if you go to the grocery store when you're six and your parents are throwing 19 cases of soda in the cart and a bunch of stuff in boxes and bags, well then to you, that's food. And if you don't die after you eat it, then that's food. And if you if you're sick, or you gain a crazy amount of weight or something like that, you just think, well, that's what life is like. That's how it works.

Tammy 31:12
But they were taught, that's what you know, that's what they saw, right? And to them, it's better than someone else who doesn't even have that, because then there's the other person who's saying, oh my gosh, I wish I had that. I

Scott Benner 31:23
can't afford it.

Tammy 31:24
Yeah, go on and on and on, right?

Scott Benner 31:28
Like, so you can, you can not excuse it, but you can justify it the whole way. Like, you know, and listen, there are big ideas. Like, there's a lot of people in the world. It's, you know, probably the industrialized farming and things like that probably were necessary. I don't know I wasn't there, but it's got us here, like we are where we are now. But along the way, everyone stopped thinking about food like food. If you don't see the connection between this and diabetes, I'm being too obtuse, and I don't mean to be everything's tools, whether it's not ending up with Tammy at a parole board or not. Oration, what's that? Probation? Excuse me.

Tammy 32:05
Excuse me. Parole is federal probation, prevention.

Scott Benner 32:09
I'm sorry. It was 2p words, Tommy, I'm doing my I know everybody mixes it up. Tommy's like, this is the bane of my existence. People say in probation when they mean parole. Okay, gotta be people. I gotta correct on this a day, but like, but whether it's you ending up with Tammy because you're on parole, or it's you're on a face, you not let me be funny for five seconds, or you're on a Facebook group arguing with somebody that they have privilege because they're not as sad as you are. Or you don't know how to Pre-Bolus for your meal because the doctor these are all just different tools. Let me be clear. I understand that what the person wrote is upsetting to people who don't have the thing they have. I get that, but it's in the way we respond that is important. And I understand that if your a 1c is 13 because no one told you that fat makes your blood sugar go up, or Pre-Bolus your meals, or the extent of what they told you is don't put sugar in your coffee. Yeah, that's not your fault. You need those tools like so like, go get those tools. That's not what happens. We end up in a gas station sticking a gun in somebody's face. We end up in a Facebook group telling somebody off, where we end up with an A 1c that's 13. I know I don't have diabetes, but you end up with an A 1c that's 13, and you're dying faster than you should, and we're fighting there, instead of going back and getting the tools and then restarting the journey. Is that the human condition like do some people make it and some people don't, and that's just what it is. Or can we throw a rope to those people and pull them up here where somebody knows something more like that's my contention, is that those people can just be fast forwarded to where they need to be, and then let them continue to live their lives from there with good tools and good ideas, whether they're about how to talk to people or how to Bolus for your food. You know, Tammy thing, don't stab somebody in a bar. Probably,

Tammy 34:09
by the way, come talk to me first. We'll go over some emotion regulation.

Scott Benner 34:14
So is that what happens is that once they get to you, you're going to try to teach them how to get back into the world. So this doesn't happen again. Some

Tammy 34:22
people, I can do that with. Other people I work with the highest risk individuals, so it's a different unit. So a lot of people I work with, maybe we just have to make sure they have the necessities of life. Okay, you know, we we are do as much as we can, but I'm not able to go through an entire program, you know, one to one with them on emotion regulation, or whatever it may be. I see, you know, they're just getting by. You know,

Scott Benner 34:52
are some people redeemable, but not like, are there some people you feel like you just

Tammy 34:56
can't get to? Don't know if it's that you can't or it's. Just they won't let you we don't have, no, maybe we don't have the tools. Okay? You know, a probation officer can't fix everything. Sure. You know, you may need psychiatry, you may need psychology, you may need, you know, there's a lot of things that are needed, so I don't know that. You know it can't you know, some people over what if it's they have a, you know, cognitive levels, or, you know, they have a cognitive disability, or whatever it may be,

Scott Benner 35:28
right? Yeah, there's just a lot of different reasons why it may or may not.

Tammy 35:32
I don't know if it's just such a cut and dry, easy question to just say yes or no,

Scott Benner 35:36
yeah, right. There's, there's people who could be helped, but this situation is not going to line up for them, and there's and there are people who are going to resist, then maybe there's a way around that resistance, but there's not enough time or resources to do it, and so you try to give them enough life skills to hopefully keep them from falling back into that situation again, right,

Tammy 35:54
from hurting anyone else, or, you know, being a safety concern, safety risk to, You know, society

Scott Benner 36:01
of people that hurt other people. What percentage of them mean to hurt them, and what percentage of them is it just an outcome that wasn't like, premeditated?

Tammy 36:10
I really, I don't know. Yeah, what about well, that's fair question, though. What's that like if I'm seeing these people like I'm seeing people my caseload once a week, every you know, every week I see and you know, I can't just focus on the offense or what you know. How do you you have to be able to have, you know, meaningful conversations and whatever. So you kind of put the offense aside. Okay, you know, deal with the person. John Doe talking with Tammy, and we're discussing, you know, how they spent their spare time, yeah, that kind of a thing. We're not, like, I can't focus on who they hurt. How old were they? How old was the victim? You know, like, I can't, you know, you wouldn't be able to do the job you do, yeah, if that's what you concentrated on, how many people they heard, what's their criminal history? You know,

Scott Benner 37:03
it's it doesn't matter. You have to do what you have to do,

Tammy 37:06
right? This is my client, and it doesn't matter what they've done, whether I you know how I feel about it, we have to just, you know, I supervise their probation order, and I get to know them quite well.

Scott Benner 37:20
How long have you been doing this? I think it's been about

Tammy 37:23
12 years. I was with the just Justice Department for, I think 15 years. How long do you

Scott Benner 37:29
think you can do this for before you just one day wake up and go, You know what? I'm going to go hide in the woods. I gotta get out of here. Oh,

Tammy 37:34
I'll do it forever, really, if they'll keep me

Scott Benner 37:38
Tammy like unless I get fired, which I'm not saying can't happen. Very rewarding. Why are you so, like, attracted to it?

Tammy 37:47
I think somewhat is a bit of an adrenaline rush. Like, I like the somewhat chaos, organized chaos of it. No, it's not rewarding at all, really. You know, one client, maybe two in 15 years, said, you know, called me after they completed, you know, after their order expired, and said, You know, I just want to thank you. Yeah, you know, no, we don't. This is not a rewarding. It's you don't enter this because you want to be rewarded. Not at

Scott Benner 38:18
all. I think I should hire you to manage the Facebook group. Yeah,

Tammy 38:22
I'm not good in management. He's

Scott Benner 38:25
like, I'd just be yelling at everybody too. Yeah, 10 minutes in it, I'd be like, I'd be the only one working,

Tammy 38:31
and exactly within 15 minutes, don't say the right thing. Okay, thank you for coming out. Yeah,

Scott Benner 38:39
it would be so easy to manage a group by just, like, like, just banning everybody that caused you a problem. But I don't do that like. I really do try to, like, manage it almost the way you're talking about, like, get people

Tammy 38:51
to do it. And you do, you find ways to, you know, to have these conversations. And you know, you don't focus on what's irritating you or, you know, right? You're truly feeling you,

Scott Benner 39:05
you know, often I want to be like, you know, I have an opinion about this too. You don't see me arguing with you. I'm just telling you, please be kind to people. Be nice. Don't put them in a position where they feel like, you know, the thing they think is not welcome here, because it is. I love it. When people come in and they're like, that's not what this place is for. This place is for. I'm always like, I'll tell you what the place is for. It's not up to you. If you want a place that's for something, you go make your own place and then run it any way you want. You know, I think the other side of it is, is that sticking up for what's like, common sense and right that intersects well with most people, like most people say, like, if you don't like me personally, I understand that. But if you don't like the way that I moderate that board, then I do believe it's you're having the problem, because I am trying incredibly hard to be midline and not on anybody's side. Mm. You get to say what you want to say, and they get to say what they want to say, and we say it nicely to each other. And if you know, like but it does sometimes feel like you're talking to a five year old, which is crazy. It feels like you're running up to somebody and going, No, then going, this is what we do, right? You know, when she hands her that you take it from her nicely and say thank you, or, you know, blah blah. I don't know. I don't understand. Like, I guess it's, I know I'm all over the place, but I'm also willing to think I'm wrong. And I think sometimes that's maybe more important than being right, yeah, just being able to say, like, I might not be right about this, but like, this is how I feel this. If this jives well with you, hang out here. I think you'll like it here. And if you don't, you know, if you if you think that you should be able to be to somebody, I made a list, where the hell is it at? Did I lose it? I made a list of, oh, God, I can't even tell you what I call it. I made a list of terms I've seen online I think are ridiculous. I don't know how to explain exactly that when you start telling somebody that they're gatekeeping, or you're gaslighting them, or this is a microaggression, or, you know, I'm seeing a lot of toxic competitiveness here, I just think you're out of your mind when I hear you're saying stuff like that, whether it's actually, I mean, I don't, I don't, not believe it's Not happening. I just want to say that like I do believe that most of these things happen. I think the way you talk about it is ridiculous when you start. I think we name things so we can be mad about them, or throw them in somebody's face or or whatever. You know what I mean. So anyway, your privilege is showing to use another word triggered me. I don't know we said it earlier. Just like, I don't agree with you, it's okay, you know, like, and move on. Your job is is really cool, though. Like, I know I'm all over the place. This is not my

Tammy 41:54
fault. It is, it is. It's really interesting. I always say we could have a reality show, or when I retire, I'm going to write a book. Because, like, no one would believe some of the things that go on.

Scott Benner 42:05
Yeah. What would the book be called? Where do you hear this? Oh, gosh, no. I Yeah, no,

Tammy 42:09
something like that. Like, if you only knew, like, something I don't know, I I'd have to get my office to, we'd all have to, you know, brainstorm and come up with it. But you know, I was thinking when you were saying about how the Doritos thing, and people didn't know this and that I I've kind of changed my thinking on something. When I'm reading your posts or your website and different posts, and people are saying how, you know, they're upset because of, maybe I don't know the nurse in school, the EA, whatever it may have been, didn't this and that and the next, and initially, when I first, you know, when I was reading your posts, I was like, I giggled. I thought, Well, gosh, if you only knew what it was like when I was in school. Yeah, you know, there was no such thing as the nurse. The EA, my mom dropped me off, crossed your fingers and hoped all went well till 330 when I, you know, walked off the bus. We're

Scott Benner 43:05
Canadian, where most of us are. Most of us are on our insulin because there's no nurse at the school.

Tammy 43:12
Okay? Triggering, No, I'm joking,

Scott Benner 43:15
but Tammy, that's the thing I've learned from the podcast. Is that school systems that don't have, like, when you think, like, in 2025 How is somebody diagnosed and put on, like, like, regular and mph. How does that happen? It happens because they want you to give a shot before you leave. That's gonna cover lunch and get you home. And so in a lot of not a lot, but there are some Canadian provinces they give out that insulin for that exact reason. Still, that's actually true. I know I'm not just joking about Canva. I did say Provence, weird to say,

Tammy 43:47
Do I correct that or no? People can say what they want, even if it's wrong. You

Scott Benner 43:54
just sound like you're from Detroit, by the way. Oh, really.

Tammy 43:56
Oh, I don't know. I don't know what people from Detroit sounds like, no, but like, in 1980 there was no such thing as, you know, someone helping you, and that kind of thing. I always say, like, so what's the big deal? You know, whatever. And I guess one day I did comment, and it was, it wasn't rude, it was just, I now I'm saying that I sound just like everybody else. Go ahead, but it was just more that I didn't under, like I didn't understand why everyone was so panicked about it. And the person actually kind of said to me, Well, just because we used to use a washboard to wash our clothes doesn't mean today we don't use a washer and dryer. You can't improve this, right? Should we go back to it? Like, I was like, Oh my gosh. I felt so bad. You know, here I'm

Scott Benner 44:44
to you, right? Yes,

Tammy 44:47
it did. So now I yeah, I understand why people, you know, and if you have an EA, if you have a nurse, if you have a whole team, you know, all the power to you. And you're so lucky. You know, I have changed. My thinking in that way, and I'm glad because, no, we don't want to go back to using a washboard, right?

Scott Benner 45:05
But you were able to have that moment because you were open to having it, and because the person did not start with you by going, Oh, your privilege is showing Tammy, right? Yeah, yeah, or something, because they just said, look, there's your experience. Hey, here's ours. And you thought, Oh, that makes sense. And then, and it changed, you right? Am I right? Like you, you would not

Tammy 45:28
know why? Yeah, I felt it was a good learning experience, exactly, you know. And now I'm, you know, I yeah, I'm able to understand,

Scott Benner 45:38
yeah, had they said you were engaging in a micro aggression or gaslighting them about their experience.

So that person, did you the favor of just responding back the way? I mean, how is this all coming together so perfectly, even though this has been such a show of, yeah, it really did come together nicely, didn't it? How about that? We should stop right here. Because I'm like, That's so perfect. I'm like, I can't believe you told that story. I was like, awesome redemption.

Tammy 46:13
I was really resentful after I, you know, I listened to the podcast and I learned again, I'm embarrassed to say, but I didn't know about pre bolusing. I grew up thinking Huma log work 15 minutes after you took it, and it was the fastest, you know, it was so fast and, you know, protein, if I was high after I had butter popcorn for the movie, it was because popcorn hits me hard, yeah, you know, I really, I didn't know those things. And, I mean, it wasn't a one year after diagnosis. I'm talking 30 years, yeah, yeah. And I was, like, I was angry. How did I not know this? Like, you know I was Yeah, I was really angry. And I still, I think I have some resentment towards the whole medical system because

Scott Benner 47:02
of it, yeah, who were you angry at? Please. I don't know if it's

Tammy 47:05
I, if I blamed my city, my province, overall medical system. I don't know. But I just thought, you know what? I go to these appointments, or I go to these. You know, my my family was one of the four families that started at the time it was called the juvenile diabetes foundation. Then it was JDRF, and now it's type one breakthrough, type one Earth. I don't even know the name. I don't

Scott Benner 47:29
know why they I bet you they don't know why either. We were

Tammy 47:33
very in a very involved family in diabetes. And I thought, well, how on earth could I be this age and not know that, yeah, like, all these years I didn't understand, you know, how could that be? Is everyone like this, blah, blah, blah. And, yeah, I've, I've learned a lot good. I'm glad that's awesome. Yeah, I'm really thankful that I happened, you know, upon come across this or hear about it from someone and, yeah, I'm making big changes. Good for you, or I have made big changes.

Scott Benner 48:06
Yeah, it's awesome. So I'm not a terrible person. You're saying terrible person. I mean this, this review. I thought I was I thought I was Puff Daddy, but the way she was writing, I was like, Jesus, my goodness, I just told you how my weight loss went. How dare you? Yeah, no, not. I'm not kicking a girl in an elevator and drag her through a hotel like by the way, has anyone seen this Puff Daddy stuff? My god, he's going to jail. Am I wrong? And I think it's puff Diddy. Sean Sean Combs. P Diddy, not daddy, though. P Diddy, hey, was Puff Daddy. He's P Diddy, no, he's been, did he's been daddy's been Sean Puffy.

Tammy 48:43
Thing is, is too much for me, that whole story. It's

Scott Benner 48:47
when you change your name 17 times, something's going on exactly. Oh, my one time Snoop Dogg had to call himself Snoop Lion that was a, that was a contract thing that I understand. Okay, you don't know he did that. You accept it. I

Tammy 49:02
don't know he just

Scott Benner 49:04
came out one day. He's like, I'm Snoop Lion now I'm like, That ain't gonna work. But okay, he was making a legal distinction. They owned his name, or something like I was trying to get back. This is neither here nor there. What I'm saying is, is that what I feel like I'm hearing is I made a thing that made your life better? Is that correct? Oh, 100% I can't wait for someone to write a review that says that I'm arrogant for saying that.

Tammy 49:27
No, but it really I that was interesting to me, and I did, and I came back to hear more. And now I go through certain, you know, I scroll and see which ones. Oh, which 1am I having problem with, or this and that? Yeah, I put forth, you know, an effort, more so probably, than I ever did. I

Scott Benner 49:45
am so genuinely happy for you, and I am Thank you. Just congratulations. It's wonderful. Yeah, it's awesome. I don't know I just, I can anymore, I but I'm not going to let a few people like, I want to call them crazy. Crazy, by the way. I hope they know if they're listening, I want to call you crazy, but I know that's the wrong thing to do, but in 1978 I definitely would have called you crazy, right? I'm so vexed from growing up in a time where I would have just said to somebody like a dick, and having lived through this experience of making this podcast and knowing the thing that you just said about those people that end up at your desk. No one gets there by mistake, and it's not really your fault. You know, when you're out there writing a review about me that makes me sound like a felonious people herder, and then you hear Tammy story, like, please understand the position that puts me in. Like, I don't know what to say. Do you know what I mean? Like, all I can do is what I do. It intersected you in a certain way, which is awesome. I'm super happy for you. It intersected that person in a different way. But like, just like, I don't expect you to run around telling the whole world how awesome I am. I don't expect someone else to run around going like, I didn't intersect well with this. But they don't see it that way. They don't see it as like, he's got a way of speaking and a perspective, and he's sharing it, and I don't like it that being the thing it's you're wrong. And I guess that, like, somewhere between that comment, somebody made this post that I had to deal with this morning. And, you know, the fact that I'm a real person too, like, I just That's why this episode went this way. I can't be more transparent than that, like I am a person trying to help other people, and you hurt my feelings, like, and I don't mean that in like, a boo hoo, like, snowflake way. I mean like, you actually, like, it hit a nerve, yeah, you found a way to take a person who dedicates most of their life to helping other people, and you said to them, Hey, you're shitty for doing that. And I was like, Oh, okay. Like, if you want me to fire back, like, let me tell you something, Tammy, I'm a pretty bright guy. I could do other things. I could take how my brain works and go apply it to something else and be just as happy and just as successful somewhere else. I'm sorry if that's me showing my privilege about how my thoughts work. There's a moment where, like, if you wanted to hear what the little kid inside of me thinks when I see that, I think, Geez, just say thank you and get the away from me. I don't have to do this. Don't listen to it or say thanks and move on. But like, and it's not that I don't want constructive criticism. I take constructive criticism constantly. I can't believe I'm saying this, because I know I'm not supposed to say this. But like, I take her point that if you have an eating disorder that this was hard for you. It's not lost on me, and I won't forget what you said. But like, there was a nicer way to say it to me, I guess is the point. But

Tammy 52:36
if you said that to that person, they would think you said you would call them crazy. Well, they would call you crazy unless you acknowledge or believe that what you said was wrong. It's always going to be the other person. That's why we kind of, like in my job, will just we're not going to tell you you did something wrong, wrong. We're not going to keep doing that, because until you believe it or feel it. It's just a weight, like it's just nonsense.

Scott Benner 53:06
Yeah, yeah. Just sound like noise to them. No, I know like and again, even like and as frustrating as that must be, because it sounds like you're living through it every year for 15 minutes. Here's the crazy part. Is like the person who made that comment in another thread that led me to write that thing. I've already responded to them like a human being, and they've responded back to me like a human said, Hey, so I'm really sorry I like, I'll try not to use that phrase again. That was it, like they were just very I said to them, like, That phrase is, Listen, I have to blow it up for the sake of this conversation. Okay, like, so we can make the points and everything. What happened was, is it in another conversation, someone responded the way I described an hour ago, and I responded back and said, Hey, listen, like, you know you have some reasonable thoughts here. Like, I'm not saying otherwise, but you can't start this with like, you know your privilege is showing because nobody's gonna understand this way I started talking to you, and that person, while you and I are recording have already responded back to me and said, Hey, I'm really sorry. Like, I'm sorry, like, you know. And then I said, thank you. And they put a little heart on it, and we're all good. And if that person's listening to this right now, I'm not mad at you, like, and I don't think poorly of you at all. I genuinely mean that. Like, it's a lovely experience where at the end everybody gets to see it, and hopefully more than just that, person walks away thinking, yeah, that's not a cool thing to say to people, because they don't mean it that way. It's just become lexicon at this point. Your privilege is showing back in the day, but is biting commentary now. It's just the thing people say. It's almost like woke. Woke is almost a word that has no meaning anymore. It's been co opted by every person who's trying to like it almost means, like, I think you're wrong at this point, but at one point it actually had a meaning, like, we used it up and bastardized it so much that now it can mean anything. And when you're trying to oversee seven. 70,000 people talking to each other, you have to see that the only way through that is everybody counts. Everybody has an opinion. And if their opinion is weird or skewed or you think wrong, there is a way to talk to them about it where you can get to where I got with this person, which is, hey, you know, please hear the reasons why they say, I understand. I say, thank you. And it's over. It's just basic communication, like it's all it is. And anyway, I've lost the thread about how to bring it back to diabetes. But you know, just God,

Tammy 55:36
I do so I am coming back. I do think fault. I do believe you know it's their fault. I was thinking about that as you said that it's not someone's fault. Well, it is their fault, still, everyone's actions, they're responsible for your actions, right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:51
no, I agree with you. Like, that's a weird line right between like, that's nature nurture. Like, is it your fault that you're doing this? Or, Yes, like, you're an adult, you're doing it. You're standing in the gas station pointing the gun at the guy. This is your fault.

Tammy 56:06
Like, right? Like, no, it's not mine. Yeah,

Scott Benner 56:09
exactly. And I'm totally not taking that away, like, at all. You know what I mean, like, but it isn't unreasonable to take a step back, see the path that got them there, and try to help them into not this, not being their situation, another the next time. Right, right? Yeah, that's all. And they're nice people like you out there trying to do that. And apparently, me, I'm trying to

Tammy 56:30
clients would agree with you, but Well, no, I'm glad you think so. Well,

Scott Benner 56:34
I do think so, like, from a perspective of society, I think so, like, I'm not a criminal, so I don't have the problems they have, right? I know that's my privilege showing does everyone say I'm doing it with satire? Does everyone get it or not? I don't know. I believe that most people are listening going like, Yes, God, we get it, man, shut up like you figured, like, we agree with you. And the people who don't agree maybe aren't going to see it because they're steeped in it, like you said, like at the moment, like, that's until they What did you how did you say it, until they understand it's just going to wash over them and be nonsense, right,

Tammy 57:07
right? Until someone thinks they're wrong. You, it doesn't matter what you say,

Scott Benner 57:13
till they're willing to imagine they're wrong and listen to somebody else. Yeah, yeah. But you think they actually have to get to it. They actually have to go, oh god. I was like, You did in that post. You're like, oh God, about the nurse thing, I was wrong. Yeah,

Tammy 57:27
yeah, you have to, I mean, and it could take years and it or it could never

Scott Benner 57:31
happen, you know, to stay open minded. Is that the message? Well, I think

Tammy 57:35
that's really important. Yeah, I guess you can't be responsible for someone else's action. You know, you can only how you respond. Someone would say, if you write a bad comment, if someone writes a bad comment, and you respond, well, really, you're the one, because, yes, it's getting to you, so you're the one that needs to work on how to respond, right? Yeah, you know, I don't mean, I'm not saying you I'm just saying, in general, that's you know you can only you know you can work on yourself, and as long as you're being the best person you can be, I guess. What more can we ask for? Right?

Scott Benner 58:10
It's a grace cascade. Like, I'm serious, like you have to keep giving grace to people as you intersect with them, so even if someone starts off terribly. Yeah, you never know Hulk, yeah, yeah. So we don't know how they got there, right, but if you respond back gracefully and genuinely and kindly, then you'll probably get the outcome that I got right with this person.

Tammy 58:35
Yeah, maybe right. I'm not all the time, but yeah, someone might, yeah, see, oh well, they were kind to me. You know, maybe they haven't been no one's been that way to them before,

Scott Benner 58:45
exactly. Also, that's just online, like, I'm not, like, Listen, if the guy's pointing the gun at you, the gas station, responding with Grace is probably not going to get you anywhere. That won't be your first response. You don't reach out and go, Hey, man, I know your parents didn't give you the tools to get through life, and therefore, I'm not feeling bad about this right now. Like, I'm talking about online, talking about your goddamn diabetes with people,

Tammy 59:07
let's just talk about type one and call it a date. Yeah,

Scott Benner 59:10
right. Or, or maybe me even, like, you know, if I'm asking for it in return, like, if you're getting ready to say something terrible to me, like, what if you just reached out and said, Hey, I was listening to this thing, and it made me feel a certain way, because I have an eating disorder, and, you know, a lot of people with type one diabetes have an eating disorder, so don't say that. And I would respond back and tell you that, you know, a lot of people don't have an eating disorder, and they find this really valuable. And what are we going to do? Should we all just stop talking like that's going to be my perspective. You can agree with it or disagree with it, but at least I would at least I would know your perspective, and you would know my perspective. But instead, it turns into, like, just some kind of, like, kind of vicious, like, you know, attack that I can't really respond to. And back to my original point, who do they think they're telling like, what do you think you just fixed it? Like, oh no, everybody listening? You don't. Understand how this works, like you want me to be cynical for a second. Every person who thinks you're a snowflake for writing that is going to come listen to me now like you only make me stronger when you do those things. Right? There's a ton of examples in a ton of examples in pop culture where that

Tammy 1:00:17
happens, right, right, right. Any any publicity is good. But you know

Scott Benner 1:00:23
that line, or whatever, Tommy, exactly, all the sayings from the 70s work, fine. Yeah, people who think they're out there, I know this is even a thing anymore, really, but people you think you're out there canceling somebody you're not, no, you're literally making them stronger. For every person who dis who agrees with you, there's somebody who disagrees with you, and you just drove them over to that thing. There's the way that the world works, and you got to figure it out, or you're just yelling and screaming about something. It's never you're never going to fix it the way you're going about it. That, to me, is a little political, and I don't want to be political, so I'll

Tammy 1:00:58
stop if it has to do with diabetes, though, I think we all have to just really all come together and agree type one isn't the same as it used to be, and through all this technology and everything's evolved and it's changed, but also that means we've learned so Much more we didn't know about all this autoimmune, you know, like, I never knew what gluten intolerance, Hashimotos, like, I didn't know what any of that stuff, yeah, you know. And now we know so much more. So there's going to be so many more ideas and opinions. And 30 years from now, there's going to be a whole different set, you know, and they're gonna know more. And hopefully they won't have to, actually, hopefully

Scott Benner 1:01:46
we'll be done. No, well, yeah, obviously, but if

Tammy 1:01:49
not, yeah, like, I just think it comes with everything in life, like things evolve, we

Scott Benner 1:01:54
evolve, we learn more stuff. Hopefully, 30 years from now, I'll still be alive, and I'll get to see somebody talking about diabetes, and I'll be like, Wow, my podcast sounds like regular and mph to them. And good, exactly, right? Yeah, good, good, good, that we got to that, yeah, yeah. It's very Yeah. I'm going to tell you right now, like, beyond, like, an article once in a while that's like, you know, there's, you know, people have type one diabetes, have a higher instance of other autoimmune issues, like, some of them are thyroid, like, beyond that kind of, like, surface level stuff. And nobody in this space talking about thyroid like I am, you know. And again, you have no idea how many notes I get from people are like, Hey, I manage my thyroid better. Here's a list of things that are going better for me now because of this podcast. And, like, awesome, like, so I'm all right, that's enough. We're done. I can't do this anymore. Tommy. I mean, you wasn't you? I'm done with the Internet. I'm gonna go do something in real life now I you know, good luck all you guys.

I'd like to thank the ever since 365 for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and remind you that if you want the only sensor that gets inserted once a year and not every 14 days, you want the ever since CGM, ever since cgm.com/juicebox one year, one CGM, a huge thanks to us med for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Don't forget us med.com/juicebox This is where we get our diabetes supplies from. You can as well, use the link or call 888-721-1514, use the link or call the number get your free benefits check so that you can start getting your diabetes supplies the way we do from us Med, a huge thanks to my longest sponsor, Omnipod. Check out the Omnipod five now with my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you may be eligible for a free starter kit, a free Omnipod five starter kit at my link, go check it out. Omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox Okay. Well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me. Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review? Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribed in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me, or Instagram. Tiktok. Oh gosh, here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page you don't want to miss. Please do not know about the private group. You have to join the private group. As of this recording, it has 51,000 members in it. They're active, talking about diabetes, whatever you need to know. There's a conversation happening in there right now, and I'm there. All the time. Tag me. I'll say hi. My diabetes Pro Tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward, practical insights that truly make a difference, this series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin dosing adjustments or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal experience. And we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The Diabetes Pro Tip series runs between Episode 1001 1025 in your podcast player, where you can listen to it at Juicebox podcast.com by going up into the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com, you.

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#1585 After Dark: Coma

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A mother recounts her son’s near-fatal DKA, coma, recovery, and life with type 1 diabetes, blending hope, resilience, and humor. - Book Link

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back friends to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Rosana 0:14
My name is Rosanna. My youngest is 14 and has type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 0:19
If your loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're seeking a clear, practical perspective, check out the bold beginning series on the Juicebox podcast. It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal insight into type one our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers straightforward answers to your most pressing questions, you'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one. You can start your journey informed and empowered with the Juicebox podcast, the bold beginning series and all of the collections in the Juicebox podcast are available in your audio app and at Juicebox podcast.com in the menu. 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. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is brought to you by my favorite diabetes organization touched by type one, please take a moment to learn more about them. At touched by type one.org, on Facebook and Instagram. Touched by type one.org. Check out their many programs, their annual conference awareness campaign, their D box program, dancing for diabetes. They have a dance program for local kids, a golf night and so much more touched by type one.org. You're looking to help, or you want to see people helping people with type one. You want touched by type one.org. I'm having an on body vibe alert. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 the only one year where CGM that's one insertion and one CGM a year, one CGM one year, not every 10 or 14 days ever since cgm.com/juicebox This episode is sponsored by the tandem mobi system, which is powered by tandems, newest algorithm control iq plus technology, tandem Moby has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox

Rosana 2:37
My name is Rosanna. I'm a 53 year old, mother of four. My youngest is 14 and has type one diabetes. And I have six grandchildren. Oh,

Scott Benner 2:49
Rosanna, an eclectic Little Mix going on over there. Oh, boy, yeah, I do. Were you 12 when you had your first one or no? How old were you when you had your first kid? 22 okay, that's all fair. Well,

Rosana 3:02
they are third, 3129 20 and 14. Second marriage. No same marriage.

Scott Benner 3:09
Wow. What happened?

Rosana 3:11
We thought we were done after the first two. They were girls. We kind of built a business. And then, surprise, I was pregnant at a boy. The last one was kind of so the boy was always like, when he was three or four, was always like, I wish I had a sibling. Why do my sisters have each other and I don't have anyone? So we tried, had a miscarriage, gave up, and then at 39 got pregnant with

Scott Benner 3:34
leaf. You tried to get pregnant because your kid asked you to,

Rosana 3:38
yeah. I mean, I had always wanted like, six kids, but it didn't look like it was going to work out that way. So,

Scott Benner 3:45
oh, you're either brave or stupid. I can't wait to find out which one while we're talking both, for sure, you and I are the same age of a 14 year old. Yes. Oh, that makes me nervous.

Rosana 3:59
Yes. I feel very old some days, oh,

Scott Benner 4:01
I can't imagine, like, Wait till that 14 year old is, like, 18 and you're almost 60. Oh, good luck. It's gonna be awesome. Which one of those four has type one you said the youngest? Oh, look at you. Yep, yep. Couldn't just stop, huh? Is there other autoimmune in your family, none. It was a complete surprise, no thyroid or celiac, even with the grandmother. I

Rosana 4:27
mean, I have a cousin who has celiac. That's it, though, huh? Yeah, my mom has passed away. I think in her past, there may have been a thyroid issue, but it was never discussed.

Scott Benner 4:38
Was she super thin or opposite? No, she was opposite, opposite. Did it hit her like out of nowhere? Was she heavier her whole life? She was heavier most of her life, and she passed away about a year ago, of a year and a half ago, she had CLL, chronic lympho. FONA leukemia, oh my gosh. How was she in her 80s?

Rosana 5:04
She was 72

Scott Benner 5:08
Oh, it's too young, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. She was, Are you her oldest? Yes, yeah. Look at me doing the math. You figuring things out. Are we going to use the name of your child who has type one leaf, l, e, i, f, okay. Like leaf Garrett, yes. Like Leif Erickson, the Viking. Does anyone remember the leaf Garrett posters on girls rooms, bedroom walls when we were in school? Yeah? I remember, yeah. The boys had Heather Locklear or the girl from the or the girl from the fall guys angels, or the Charlie's Angels, ones and boys had leaf, and girls had leaf. Garrett everybody's bedroom you walked into.

Rosana 5:55
Yeah, I didn't have posters.

Scott Benner 5:58
Where are we getting $1 from you little getting great. Oh my gosh. How old was he when he was diagnosed? Just turned 14 a week after his 14th birthday. Oh, this is very recent. It is about eight months. Oh my gosh. I haven't done a very recent one in a while. Are you okay?

Rosana 6:16
I am getting there. It was a wild ride. We were in the hospital for two months. No,

Scott Benner 6:21
wait, hold on. All right, let's go back to the beginning. What is the first thing you noticed that made you concerned for his health?

Rosana 6:28
Well, nothing. I guess that's the problem. My husband and I, my ex husband and I are divorced. We've been divorced about eight years, and he's the only minor child. He goes back and forth weekly. Every week he's one week. He's with me one week he's with his dad. The day before he was going to his dad's for the week, he had mentioned being thirsty, and I was like, well, you need to drink more water, like, because he'd always been healthy. He was on a competitive soccer team, right? We only saw the doctor when he needed a sports physical, so it didn't connect that anything was wrong?

Scott Benner 7:01
Oh, this one's so dumb. It doesn't know to drink when it's thirsty. Great, well, and he was

Rosana 7:05
drinking too much soda, I'm sure, like drink some water. So he went to his dad's. I went on a work trip. I came home and he was gonna go ahead and stay the next weekend with his dad's, because he was gonna have a slumber party for his birthday. But Saturday afternoon, his dad called me and said, Hey, he's really sick. He's asking for you, will you come and get him? So I went and picked him up, and he was gaunt and white, like he had obviously lost weight. And so I took him. It was like Saturday afternoon. I took him straight to the urgent care near our house, and they ran strep, flu, a, flu B, COVID, mono,

Scott Benner 7:45
and they did a UA, really, yes,

Rosana 7:49
and they said, and by this time, it's after five, and they're like, Well, it all, you know, all these things came up negative. We still think it's strep. They did a long strep test, and they said, We won't know for a couple of days, but we're gonna send you home with an antibiotic. She did mention that the UA showed high sugars and high proteins, but then she said, Well, that's probably because he hasn't been eating. And we found out he'd lost 20 pounds, yeah, and he was only 110

Scott Benner 8:14
I was gonna say 14. How much? How big he was, 90 at that point, 90 pounds. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Now that did that set off an alarm for you?

Rosana 8:25
Well, yeah, at that point, I'm like, Okay, this like,

Scott Benner 8:28
yeah, stop running the urgent care playbook here, and let's think a little closer, right? So well, but

Rosana 8:33
I'm like, okay, they know what they're doing, right? So I go home, I get the antibiotic, and go home, and Sunday, he spends all day, lying on the couch watching the TV, peeing, which, you know, I didn't know anything about type one diabetes, yeah, didn't know what the symptoms were. So he's like all now I look and I see all the symptoms during that day, Sunday night, went to sleep, he peed the bed, which he's not done since he was little, and I couldn't pick him up, and he was non responsive to me. Oh my gosh. So I called his dad, who met me at the apartment, and we rushed him to the Children's Hospital. They immediately took him back and almost immediately told us he was in DKA. His sugars were 649 his ketones were over 80, and his Ph, his blood pH, was 6.70 God, which. I didn't know what any of those numbers meant at the time, but they told us they were not conducive with

Scott Benner 9:35
life. Yeah, that's not a good thing to hear.

Rosana 9:38
So he slipped into a coma, and he was in a coma for about four days. And you know how you watch, like, Grey's Anatomy or shows, and they just like, wake up out of a coma, and they're like, wide awake.

Scott Benner 9:50
Well, they need to, yeah, they need to move this scene along. So they got to talk again. Not like that. Is that what you're telling

Rosana 9:56
me? Yes. Not like that. You know, one day he's like. Responding by squeezing your hand, but he's not awake, and then it's just like he's slowly, like it's, he's fighting through a boggy water or something to come back to consciousness. So it took him a few days.

Scott Benner 10:12
Oh, my God. So go ahead, keep going. I'm sorry. No, don't be. Are you okay? Talking about it? I mean, it's very recent.

Rosana 10:19
Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to get through it, because that was not the

Scott Benner 10:22
end. I almost cried. So, like, I'm like, You must be really upset, like, and I'll tell you, what got me was, is that, you know, I remember being told when we got Arden there, Hey, she's like, 24 hours away from being in a coma. And also thinking about all the stories I've heard of people who have been diagnosed like this and not made it, you know, so

Rosana 10:42
well. And the doctors, like the second night, one of the doctors, and they were all so good and so attentive and doing everything they could, and they just they didn't know what else to do, and they were running all kinds of tests because they couldn't figure out why he wasn't coming back. And I wasn't sure why they were running all the tests. To me that was like, okay, he's in DKA, and this is what happens. But I guess it doesn't always follow that. Usually when they get the sugars down, they rebound pretty

Scott Benner 11:09
quickly, okay? And he didn't, Jeez, what are they telling you? Two days into it, what are they saying?

Rosana 11:16
You know, it was kind of a wait and see. And they kept running tests and trying to figure out, you know, different things. And one night, I'm laying there because I slept in the room, the whole basically, I lived in the hospital for two months, and I'm quietly crying on the bed, you know, the guest bed, and one of the doctors, the female doctor, came over and kind of crouched in front of me and put her head down for a few minutes, and then she looked at me, and she was crying. She's like, I'm so sorry. You're going through this. I'm so sorry. And it's like, you could tell they were really emotional and upset about it.

Scott Benner 11:48
Yeah, lost as well. They weren't exactly sure what was happening, yeah. And so he woke up about

Rosana 11:54
four days later, and they started, you know, the rehab and swallow tests. And because he'd had every thing connected to him imaginable, dialysis, EEG, yeah, the EEG is on the head, intubated pic lines, you name it. So they started, you know, dealing with all of that. He had a swallow test. He had an MRI, which showed a little bit of brain bleed, and then he was awake for about six or seven days as they're trying to get everything back in order. And then one night, something happened, and he started thrashing. They thought he had a stroke. They weren't sure why they were giving him drugs, like one night, they were giving him fentanyl. And I was like, What are you like? Because I deal with fentanyl every day, like, this is not good. And they were like, No, this is medical. That's okay.

Scott Benner 12:49
Can I ask you? I mean, are you on your own at that because you said because the way you described your life, right up until you said you were divorced, I never would have expected you to be divorced, like four kids married that long. I was like, they're gonna be stuck with each other forever. When that got introduced, I was like, oh, gosh, and now you're in there. Like, do you and your ex reconcile enough to be together during this? Like, I mean, maybe you have that agreement already.

Rosana 13:14
He was there the entire time along with his girlfriend, awesome. So that's a total other trauma that we won't discuss.

Scott Benner 13:24
I mean, listen, you don't have to dig deep into it, but four kids a marriage this long, he did something wrong,

Rosana 13:30
right? Yeah. I mean, the easy, the easy answer is, midlife crisis.

Scott Benner 13:34
Gotcha. I mean, like, you smell it a mile away. So it's just you your ex and his girlfriend hanging out in your son's hospital room, who's in a coma, and the three older kids were in there, off and on. Okay? Is there a conversation that's had out loud, like, do you say we don't know if he's gonna live through this or not, or how do you manage that unknown? Time? This episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump and algorithm, the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus, which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control iq plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head. Now to my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox to check out your benefits and. Get started today. Today's episode is sponsored by a long term CGM that's going to help you to stay on top of your glucose readings the ever since 365 I'm talking, of course, about the world's first and only CGM that lasts for one year, one year, one CGM. Are you tired of those other CGM the ones that give you all those problems that you didn't expect, knocking them off, false alerts not lasting as long as they're supposed to. If you're tired of those constant frustrations, use my link ever since cgm.com/juicebox to learn more about the ever since 365 some of you may be able to experience the ever since 365 for as low as $199 for a full year. At my link, you'll find those details and can learn about eligibility ever since cgm.com/juicebox check it out. There was a lot of

Rosana 15:57
just kind of discussion on what ifs you know, because it wasn't just that, like when he woke up, it wasn't just is he going to live? It's also they had no idea what kind of neurological deficits he would have. So and then after he went into he had a stroke, which later they determined is something else, but he

Scott Benner 16:15
went back into a coma. So the thrashing led back to the coma. Yeah,

Rosana 16:19
something he had, his blood pressure went too high. Oh, god. Okay, so by this time, he'd been on constant dialysis for two weeks, and that was as long as they could do it for. And so they sent us to another city. They life flighted him, and we drove to another city to have a different kind of dialysis. And once we got there, his doctor there took all of his records home to try to figure out what was going on, and came back and said that she believed he had had press, which is pulmonary rehabilitative encephalopathy, with the syndrome,

Scott Benner 16:57
okay? And this is as a result of the dka, or in addition,

Rosana 17:01
they think so, yes, and then his blood pressure skyrocketing, and he had a hemorrhage in his occipital lobe. We were there for about three weeks. He got out of the PICU, went to a regular ward. We had our diabetes education, he was in therapy, and then we were moved to an inpatient rehab at Bethany in town. Stayed there for three weeks, and just once he woke up from that, he just progressed really quickly, much, much quicker than they thought he would. They really thought there would be more neurological issues.

Scott Benner 17:36
That's what the swallow test is for, right? It's looking for early neurological issues,

Rosana 17:40
yes, and to see if he can swallow anything without aspirating, because he'd had a he'd been intubated and had a feeding tube most of the time.

Scott Benner 17:49
So even though he comes out of this, I mean, and that's obviously good news, you're still unsure of his path to that

Rosana 17:55
right? And in the end, it ended up being they were worried about his peripheral vision, and he has foot drop okay. After we came home, we were still in therapy for those things. He still has about a 20% foot drop, but he's walking and even running. I mean, he's just, he kind of, if he's not thinking about it, he kind of walks on the balls of his feet.

Scott Benner 18:17
So for people who don't know is that where you take a step and your foot kind of doesn't come along with you, no? Or what is

Rosana 18:23
that? I think, if it's more severe, yes, it's just he doesn't walk with a heel toe strike. Okay, his feet are always more pointed than they should be. And

Scott Benner 18:33
is this going to be forever, or is it a thing they can help him with?

Rosana 18:36
Well, rehab finally got to a point where they said that they didn't think it was going to help. Rehab was going to help anymore. So now we're looking at possible neuromuscular doctors or Botox

Scott Benner 18:47
therapy. Okay, with some hindsight, let me take you out of this moment for a second before you die. Yeah? Like she's just gonna explode and start crying, if only that was the end of it. No, no, I know. I want to give you a pause because and I'm a little embarrassed, but as I logged on here, I thought, people listen. You might not listen much like, but for people who listen, they know like, I'm kind of proud that I don't prep for the episodes. Like, I find my way through the conversation with people, and I think that's what makes it interesting. Except when I logged on today, I did think like, how this lady got a hold of a VIP link, and like, I'm like, I'll figure it out. And then, as you're talking, I thought, oh God, you put the post up in the Facebook group, like, right? And then people said you should be on the podcast. You're that person, right?

Rosana 19:33
I don't know about you. Asked you, you asked for some after dark people to sign up, and I sent to send you emails, and I sent you an email.

Scott Benner 19:41
Oh, no, kidding. Okay, yeah, anyway, like, one way or the other, until you really start telling your story, I'm not sitting here thinking, Oh, this is the person who's gonna tell me that their kid was in DK and in the hospital for two months. So like, I'm Yeah, being my dumb self, like in the beginning, trying to loosen you up to get ready for the podcast, and as you're talking, I was like. Oh, geez, that's okay, no. And now I'm hearing you struggling, and I just thought, like, let's break for a second. So with some hindsight, how long were his symptoms active before you ended up in the hospital?

Rosana 20:16
As far as actual symptoms, other than the thirst, I don't really remember anything. Looking back now, I remember throughout the school year, he would call me and say his stomach hurt after lunch, and in my mind, it was because he was bored and didn't want to be at school.

Scott Benner 20:30
He thought he was trying to get out of school. I mean, he's the fourth kid like this time. I've heard it all. He's also like, he's like, I could push this lady around. She's old and she don't got the she ain't got the energy for this anymore, you know. But now I wonder, what was that distance though, that stomach pain to the diagnosis? How long had that happened? You know, it had been months, months, okay, and then the thirst,

Rosana 20:52
the thirst was the first thing that I could look back and say, hey, you know, that's pre and that was only a week and a half

Scott Benner 20:58
before, okay, okay, please don't but I imagine you are, but please don't beat yourself up over it. But are you beating yourself up over this?

Rosana 21:05
No, at first I was beating myself up over believing urgent care and taking him home for 36 hours, but after, like, reading all of the posts and listening to blog, you know your podcast, I mean,

Scott Benner 21:19
it really is just kind of, what happens, yeah, I mean, because it does seem like, from a from an outsider's perspective, who's not been dealing with all this stuff for their whole life, it seems insane that urgent care could miss. Oh, yeah, what you're describing happened 36 hours later. You know what I mean? Like, it does seem insane, but at the same time, like, I don't know, like, they probably, so once I got

Rosana 21:42
to the hospital and we were settled in, you know, I looked at the paperwork that urgent care sent me home with, and it said, Well, I didn't have it with me. That was the deal. I didn't have my paperwork with me. So I called urgent care, and the receptionist was new, and I said, Hey, I don't have my paperwork from Saturday. Can you email it to he said, Well, I don't know when he figured it out, and he sent it to me. And this paperwork, as opposed to the paperwork I got sent home with that, I remember reading that paperwork said blood sugars, high, proteins, high, no numbers. It just said high. Well, the paperwork he emailed me had numbers, okay, and was in bright red. So I'm like, why didn't somebody see this?

Scott Benner 22:28
I mean, even high, like a blood sugar, that's high on a I mean, let's guess it's over 400 maybe over 500 right?

Rosana 22:34
The numbers that they sent me said 500 plus, because that's as high as their thing that, you know, test for and proteins were 80 plus. You just

Scott Benner 22:43
have to want, you do have to wonder, I don't want to, like, get into, like, the blame game, but like, you do have to wonder, like, I mean, they don't see any 500 plus blood sugars from people just because they're sick. I can't be right, especially a little 14 year

Rosana 22:56
old kid, and it was an NP, but I think that it was near closing time.

Scott Benner 23:01
Oh, you can eat Buffalo Wild Wings up the street. Maybe we needed to get going.

Rosana 23:04
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Does Buffalo Wild

Scott Benner 23:08
Wings do all you can eat? I don't know. Oh, my God. So, okay, so you're not alone. Listen, just real quick, the girlfriend's not like way younger than you. Is she? I think she might be about eight to 10 years younger than me. Geez, I'm

Rosana 23:22
sorry. It all sucks. Not as much of an age gap as the girlfriend he had before that. So, oh,

Scott Benner 23:27
okay, least he brought the one he found at the gym, not the one he found at the club. Is that what you're saying? I'm so sorry. They both work for him. So, oh geez, it's a good collection system. Are you still in business with him? No, oh yeah, you made him buy you out, I imagine, yeah, good for you. Okay. Wow, you've had quite a decade. Are you okay to move forward now, like I stopped you so you could collect yourself and say some stupid so you could relax. You want to keep telling the story now? Please do Yeah, sure.

Rosana 23:56
So we've been home since December 6, and he's doing really well. His diabetes is like, probably the least has been up to this point, the least of his problems. I mean, as we're healing from all the other stuff, even now it's still he's within range about 95% of the time. Awesome, yeah, and he just got a tandem Moby Monday. Do you like it? He is, and he's been doing really well, keeping everything in in range.

Scott Benner 24:21
Awesome. That's great. Tandem diabetes.com/juicebox.

Rosana 24:26
We tried to get the Omnipod, and our insurance was like, Yeah, you're gonna have to pay out of pocket to eat. You reach your out of pocket Max every year, okay? And we're like, yeah, we're not gonna do that.

Scott Benner 24:36
Okay? Omnipod.com/juicebox, use the links support the show. Let's move on. Though, if diabetes is the least of his issues, what are his issues?

Rosana 24:46
I mean, he'd still like to play competitive soccer again, so getting his foot issue is probably the biggest thing right now.

Scott Benner 24:54
But that's physically like is he struggling psychologically by being waylaid like this? You

Rosana 25:00
know, he asked a lot of questions. At first, we have a scrapbook because he wanted to know. He wanted to see it all. He also firmly believes that he's a miracle, being alive. Being alive, okay, yes. And there was a whole thing centered around Ezekiel 37 which is a scripture about dry bones coming alive, which is his favorite song. He

Scott Benner 25:23
doesn't feel like this was all purposeless and no,

Rosana 25:26
and he's kind of a typical youngest child where, you know, he's enjoying the attention.

Scott Benner 25:32
It's like, Finally, someone's paying attention. I had to get this foot drop and diabetes and be in a coma, but they really are looking at leaf now, yeah, well, I'm sure he would have taken it a different way. Yes. So neurologically, all okay,

Rosana 25:45
seems to me, he missed a whole quarter of school, and then when he went back, it was for half days, because he was going to therapy in the morning. So they dropped his math, which was his favorite subject, they dropped him from algebra down to pre algebra, which he'd already taken. That was one thing they were worried about. Was his math, whatever part of your brain does math

Scott Benner 26:06
really? Oh, that was a that was a health decision, not a school decision. Well, it was a school

Rosana 26:11
decision, but we're just kind of waiting and seeing how that comes back.

Scott Benner 26:14
Is he having difficulty with mathematics?

Rosana 26:17
He doesn't think so. So we're going to wait and see how next school year goes.

Scott Benner 26:21
Do you notice anything different about him, like intellectually, or how quick he is, the sense of humor, stuff like that? I

Rosana 26:29
think his peripheral vision is still has a deficit, and that kind of makes a difference, kind of in how he does things. Yeah,

Scott Benner 26:37
other than that, not really.

Rosana 26:41
He still has a really close knit group of friends. He still plays video games. He's just not playing soccer right now.

Scott Benner 26:47
Did the doctors give you any indication of why they thought this became so severe? No, they still don't know. And do they have a feeling for how long he was without as much insulin as he needed before. No, no,

Rosana 27:03
we went back to the hospital here in town and took a basket for the nurses, and they were all very happy to see him. And several of the nurses said that he was one of the worst cases that they had had. And they were very, very happy to see

Scott Benner 27:17
him, happy to see him meeting. They're a little stunned he's alive and doing okay,

Rosana 27:21
yeah, walking around and smiling and joking. Does that

Scott Benner 27:25
make you feel like, does that make you feel lucky, or does it make you mad? I don't know how you I'm wondering.

Rosana 27:33
Makes me feel blessed. I think it's just that he's he is still alive. Yeah,

Scott Benner 27:39
it's so random, right? Like, it feels like, like a car accident, almost like in its right. How did the other three kids? I know some of them are much older, but like, how did they, how did they handle, like, going through all this? Did everybody do it differently?

Rosana 27:51
They were all pretty emotional about it. My 20 year old son, Joel, he got a tattoo

Scott Benner 27:57
for his brother, oh, I was gonna say, depicting the event. Where, like, it says Ezekiel 37 that makes more sense than my idea. Yeah,

Rosana 28:06
so and his older sister spent a lot of time with us. Came, came to the city and stayed with me some nights. And the second sister has four children, and was pregnant.

Scott Benner 28:15
Oh gosh, she didn't. She didn't have any space for any of that, huh? Probably

Rosana 28:19
no. So she, she came with when she could, but that is

Scott Benner 28:23
interesting, right? Did I met? Am I remembering right, that she's is she 33

Rosana 28:27
she's 2929 you're 22nd

Scott Benner 28:30
one, you're 29 okay, you're but the old, the oldest 133's right? She's 31 I was gonna give myself credit for remembering that number randomly. But okay, but your 29 year old has four kids. You know, was was pregnant with the fourth. During this happening, she's pregnant with the fifth. The fifth, yeah, are you guys? Like, where are you building an army for the Lord, what's going on over

Rosana 28:51
there? Kinda, I guess her husband is second of seven. Oh, no kidding, yeah. And he was homeschooled, and she was homeschooled. And I'm

Scott Benner 29:00
not talking to you from Utah, right? No,

Rosana 29:03
okay, we're not the denim jumper kind of homeschoolers. I don't

Scott Benner 29:07
know what that means, but I'm sure those people are offended, and everybody else is laughing. Wow, that's that really is life altering, isn't it like that's, I mean, do you feel like life's the same thing as it

Rosana 29:19
used to be? No, but that wasn't the end of the trauma. So

Scott Benner 29:23
wait, all right, I'll write my question down and then keep going. Where's there's give me the rest.

Rosana 29:29
So about a month after we came home, I had just bought a house, in fact, just closed on it on that day, and later that evening, my daughter, who was 39 Weeks Pregnant, she was planning to have a home birth with the midwife, and she had a placental abruption. I

Scott Benner 29:44
don't think I can handle your life anymore.

Rosana 29:49
And they live about 30 miles south of town, so about 45 minutes from the hospital, and they called me. I was just leaving work. It was rush hour traffic, and I said, I'll meet. You there. I'll get the other kids. And so I met them at the hospital. They pulled up right behind me, like he said. He literally put the cruise control on 100 put the blinkers on, and drove on the shoulder. I don't know how he made it without stopping or without getting stopped, but he did. I took the kids and parked and cleaned up the van because it was not good. Kids were pretty traumatized.

Scott Benner 30:25
Were they in the car for the for the 100 mile? Are you just here to say speeding is okay? Is that what you're saying?

Rosana 30:33
No, I was, I was pretty traumatized about that, that she had passed out on the way. He

Scott Benner 30:37
was,

Rosana 30:38
he was pretty shaken. She's, you are

Scott Benner 30:41
gonna make me cry. Rosanna, Jesus, oh, God, this guy who's not 30, probably, maybe all of like, 30 years old, maybe is in a car with his pregnant wife and his four kids, and she loses consciousness. Yes, dear, jeez. Oh, okay, all right, so he what happens? Is she okay? She

Rosana 31:03
had an emergency C section. She's okay. They had to, I think they had to give her turnover. If they had to give her blood transfusion, I think they did, but she was okay. They, you know, kicked her out. 48 hours later,

Scott Benner 31:15
really, they're like, Okay, get out. Typical

Rosana 31:19
baby was born with a hard knot in his umbilical cord. Oh, and they did not know how long he had been without oxygen. How long ago is this now? January? Mid January, and how was the baby? He spent a month in the NICU, the first 72 hours on a cooling pad, which very few hospitals have, but luckily enough, Children's Hospital here had one. They still were, like, we don't know what kind of neurological deficits he's gonna have. Like, basically, I go to the hospital room and it looks almost identical to my sons. It's two floors lower and it's a smaller bed. He's got all the things hooked up to him, EEGs, and he's tiny. He's got a bunch of dark hair, you know, just all over his head. For a while, he had a feeding tube, and they didn't think that he would be able to swallow or eat on his own, but that went away. They didn't think he'd ever be able to breastfeed. He did. He is at home now, progressing. He's still, I think they say neurologically behind, not rolling over yet. He's about four months old. How

Scott Benner 32:26
long does it take to get a real assessment? How old does he have to be before they can start figuring out what has or hasn't happened?

Rosana 32:33
I don't know when with Leif, they told us that brain, any kind of brain bleed or brain tears to take up to a year to heal, and so they told us to wait a year before we really start

Scott Benner 32:46
trying to assess what happened, right? I hope this wasn't too upsetting to your husband. Ex husband's girlfriend, sorry she wasn't there too, right? No,

Rosana 32:55
not this time. Okay,

Scott Benner 32:58
I don't know how you don't know, by the way, not to be there.

Rosana 33:04
Yeah,

Scott Benner 33:06
it was a whole thing. I can't imagine. It wasn't just wait in the waiting room. Like, what are you doing anyway? No, no, oh, my goodness. Well, has any other horrible things happened to any people you love?

Rosana 33:20
No, please. No, no. You're

Scott Benner 33:21
like, I mean, you know, it's funny now, like, I go back to the beginning of our conversation where I just thought you were telling me that your son was diagnosed with type one diabetes eight months ago, and I said, you're okay, but now I'm going to ask you much differently, because I think it's possible the answer is, no, Scott, I'm not but are you okay? I

Rosana 33:37
most days I'm getting there. I probably should see a therapist, but I'm out of money and I have no time, so let's

Scott Benner 33:44
forget everybody else for a second and just think about you for a second. What's the journey you've been on? Like forget the nuts and bolts of it. How have you felt, and how have you gotten through how you felt and what has it led to?

Rosana 33:57
Definitely traumatized. My personality is such that I'm always anxious and always looking for how the next shoe is going to drop, basically what's going to go wrong. Obviously, this is something I'd never imagined. So no matter how much you worry, it always ends up being something you didn't worry about. A lot of, you know, kind of depression, maybe, of just trying to handle little being alone. And his dad stepped up and has really helped, and he still goes, you know, week on, week off, to his dad's house, which gives both of us a break, basically, right? But yeah, just handling it alone, and yeah, financially.

Scott Benner 34:37
How much do? What can you tell me? What was the bill.

Rosana 34:41
Obviously, they have their bill. The insurance has what they're going to pay. And then we had our out of pocket Max, which I have pretty good insurance through my work. So our out of pocket Max was 8700

Scott Benner 34:53
still a lot of money, huh? Yeah. Do you remember the pre insurance bill? The bill the hospital?

Rosana 35:00
It was very close to 2 million. Wow, yeah,

Scott Benner 35:03
jeez. And the insurance company, like, what do they do? They pay half of it.

Rosana 35:08
Oh, I think it was less than half. Yeah, I want to say it was like, 750,000

Scott Benner 35:12
Okay, and then you get to pay, uh, can you imagine? What do they need your eight grand for? Like, if seven you don't even, like, if 750,000 was a good number for them, what do they need? Your eight grand? Eight grand for? What are they doing with that? Buying a cooling pad? I don't think so. There's only one hospital has one. Oh, my God. Okay, so you've you feel like you've been depressed. Definitely struggled with that for a few months. And I've struggled, not clinically, like I've never seen a therapist, and I always kind of have when I start feeling that way, I have steps, I guess, to get myself out of it. If that makes sense. Is it wrapped around your anxiety that something else is going to happen?

Rosana 35:56
Oh, yeah, but I think this definitely, like proved to me that things are going to happen, whether I worry or not

Scott Benner 36:03
prior to your son's illness coming on, had there been a lot of health issues at all to deal with over the previous years?

Rosana 36:12
Nope, none of my kids have been sick or unhealthy. In fact, Leif was really the only he had broken his collarbone before he'd actually broken it twice. They had to break him to get they had to break his collarbone to get him out of me. He was a very big child.

Scott Benner 36:28
Sorry. I mean, honestly, did you say just leave him in it's all right. Like, I was like, I changed my mind he could live in there. I didn't know all this was gonna happen. But point being, is that you've made your fair share of babies your you know, your daughter's making them probably. I mean, it sounds like everybody's pretty fertile, so there's a lot of kids going on and, like, and no one's been sick. And then all of a sudden, you're 53 and your son is, like, being life flighted and is in a coma, yeah. And then before you can look up your daughter's almost losing her life and a baby in a

Rosana 37:03
pregnancy, Yep, yeah. And it feels like, so I live in Oklahoma, in the middle of tornado alley, and it does. It feels like it's just, you know, kind of a normal day, and all of a sudden tornadoes come through, lift your house, drop it back down, and you're just supposed to get up the next morning and go back to

Scott Benner 37:24
work, yeah, and that's what you've been doing, yep. But you think maybe you should talk to somebody I don't know, Rosanna, you probably should let me just listen. There are days you wake up and you like, is it dread, or do you feel like, Oh no, here it comes. And then you something bad is going to happen today, and then you have to you have to talk yourself out of it. No, you

Rosana 37:46
know, the anxiety has pretty much, I mean, I think for now, I've kind of looked at being 53 and looking at the rest of my life as being alone and having to get up every day and go to work and take care of everything by myself.

Scott Benner 38:00
You feel lonely, yeah, yeah. Well, you should start your own business and then start dating the men that work for you. I think that sounds like it works. I hear that works. Do you try to date? Do you try to go meet people I haven't dated in four years? I did before that. In fact, in 2019 I went on 10 first dates. Oh, and then what happened COVID. I

Rosana 38:27
actually got married, and COVID hit. And, well, I got married during COVID, I think because I thought the end of the world was coming or something, I'm not sure. And I needed major surgery, and he was there and being helpful, and then he lost his job, and turned out that he was a ranching alcoholic and decided to start stealing things from me and pawning them.

Scott Benner 38:49
Rosanna, listen, I need you to. I need you just to. I don't know what I need you to do. Hold on a second. You know, it's not often people come on here with so many problems that I'm like, have you tried drinking?

Rosana 39:04
No, not no to look at me. I'm like, very

Scott Benner 39:07
feel together, calm. So you took a shot with some guy and then he wasn't all he purported to be. How long were you with him before you married him? Over six months. Yeah, that's not long enough. Was he your age?

Rosana 39:22
Yes, yeah. And I only knew my first husband six months before. And then, how

Scott Benner 39:28
long were you married to him for? Though, 23 years. So you thought, Oh, this is how it works. Yeah, yeah, it's not how it works. I'm sorry to ask you, like this way, do you feel lonely, like, intellectually, or do you feel lonely, physically, probably both. I mean, the kids just bang, they use the apps, and then they have sex. You could cover half of this that way, if you wanted to right, swipe, swipe, swipe. You show up somewhere. Yeah, I think you do. You're not

Rosana 39:56
up for that. You know, after all this, I'm feeling very. Bold and frumpy, like, I'm in my Nana years, you know, 53

Scott Benner 40:04
I don't think that's true. I don't think you're Nana yet. Like, I mean, just because that kid got out there and started working early doesn't mean that you're like a grandmom. I

Rosana 40:14
mean, I feel like a lot of the guys my age are looking for younger women, and they can get them really, how do they do that? I mean, there's a lot of single women,

Scott Benner 40:23
so they're out there fishing for girls with daddy issues, and you're like, could you go older? Could you get like, could you go to 60? I mean, possibly, you know what? I mean, like, a surprise 60 year old guy. Yeah, right. They got meds now, like, if need be. I mean, listen, you're in a it's a difficult situation. I don't say otherwise. You know what? I mean, like I'm sitting here joking with you, but I don't think I could date like that seems ridiculous.

Rosana 40:49
No, it's not fun. Yeah, I'm not a looker. I'm not someone you would like twice. You have to get to know me before you decide to like me.

Scott Benner 40:59
I'm sure that's not true, but so you're worried that you're not visually, uh, appealing enough to, like do the quick dating thing. Yeah, so you worry guys are going to reach cheat just for

Rosana 41:10
sex. I don't even think they're interested

Scott Benner 41:13
in that. You never been a guy, so,

Rosana 41:17
I mean, after the last two I think they're mostly interested in somebody to take care of them.

Scott Benner 41:21
Oh, you, you end up finding guys who are, like, near to wells and need help.

Rosana 41:26
Yeah? I mean, they need somebody to cook and clean and yeah, pay for, yeah, pay for the second. With the second one, that was pay for things. But yeah,

Scott Benner 41:33
I can't imagine. Was he your age? Yeah, he's looking for you to pay the bills.

Rosana 41:38
Yeah. I mean, he's, he's since married again and living with his parents.

Scott Benner 41:43
Was that his third marriage? Yeah. See, he married you left you married another woman. Is in his 50s, married a third time, living with his parents, yeah. Oh, goodness, is it that bad out there? Yeah, that's upsetting. I mean, he should be embarrassed.

Rosana 42:03
And maybe it's just where I live, I don't know. Well, I

Scott Benner 42:06
was gonna say, Can you move? Well, not now that I have, you know, children and grandchildren. Yeah, you don't want to leave the kids. No, they're all here. Well, you should be depressed. I guess it's, I guess I don't want to argue with you about it, but I think you should talk to somebody about it, though, someday I'm gonna chuck it all and move to London. Really is that? Chuck it all? You're all on your own. Go yourselves. I'm out of here. Send pictures if you want, but don't feel pressured. Is that a dream of yours to live there? Oh

Rosana 42:39
yeah, I got to go for the first time last year, and it was everything I thought it would be.

Scott Benner 42:43
Why don't you and leaf go? Well, it's expensive, is it? I don't know. I've never been there. I think it's fancy that you've got to go at all.

Rosana 42:50
I'm a huge history like, I've read history since I was a kid, and I know I'm an anglophile. I know so much about one you know English history,

Scott Benner 43:00
right? And you just and that'd be a good place for you to eat. What can you guys go explore for a while, or

Rosana 43:06
go live there? Or, I'm hoping some someday when I've recovered from this.

Scott Benner 43:10
What do you think that looks like being recovered from this? I kind

Rosana 43:15
of have a five year plan of just trying to get out of debt and get physically back to where I can, you know, go and do fun stuff, and by then, leaf will graduate high school and

Scott Benner 43:25
I'll have some more freedom, okay, getting out of debt. Is that from the medical

Rosana 43:30
stuff? Oh, I wish I could say it was, but it's not. Is

Scott Benner 43:33
it from your crack Asia? From your crack addiction?

Rosana 43:37
No, it's from going to London last year. Oh, and also, I've written three books and self published and paid for my dream that turns out I'm not very good at marketing. Well,

Scott Benner 43:49
you should have come and found me rose, and I would have told you that that's not going to work. I had a publisher, and it's impossible to move, yeah? Impossible to move books like it just, it's really hard. Yeah, yeah. Also, I'm looking at you here, and you're not giving yourself enough credit for how you look. So I decided to, like, find you on the thing. You're fine. Don't worry about it that I wouldn't. I wouldn't worry about that one time if I was you. How much does it cost to self publish a book? Well, the

Rosana 44:16
last time around, I figured out that I could put it on Amazon and I wouldn't have to pay up front. But the first few times I sent it to a publishing I sent it to someplace where you could pay for copies and then sell them on your own. Okay, so, and then, you know, writing it, I you have a lot of copies of your book. Is that what you're telling me? Yeah, no, I have a couple boxes. Yeah. I also paid for an editor and I paid for an illustrator, because one of the books I wrote was a children's

Scott Benner 44:42
book. Well, let me ask you a question, do you think it's a good book? Yeah, yeah. You just can't, like, there's no way to get people to notice it,

Rosana 44:49
right? Yeah. I mean, you kind of have to be really into social media and have a lot of followers.

Scott Benner 44:54
Yeah, listen, I have a lot of followers, and it's still hard to make people notice stuff. So, yeah, yeah. Yes, you're at the whim of the platforms. Generally speaking,

Rosana 45:02
that's okay. Lesson learned. I went after my dream. I'm proud of myself for doing that. Now I just have to pay for it.

Scott Benner 45:07
I would give that book as gifts at every gift giving occasion for the rest of my life. Anytime somebody has a baby, I'd be like, hey, congratulations, Mazel Tov, here's a book. It's signed, I would tell

Rosana 45:19
them. The funny thing is, it's at the Children's Book is at my local library. I took it there, and it gets checked out all the time. People, like, always checked out. Yeah, yeah. And the library, in fact, said they have two copies now, so they'll check it out. They just

Scott Benner 45:33
won't buy it. Yeah? I mean, it's a tough road. I'll share a story with you that you're gonna say, well, would have been nice, Scott, if you shared this with me before I self published my book, while I was writing my book, which is now over. I mean, a long time ago, 2013 right? I had a daily relationship with my publisher. We talked all the time, and I'd pick around and, like, ask questions. And I one time said, like, Are people always bothering you with their book ideas? And she laughed, and she's like, constantly, like, Do you know what the worst ones are? And I was like, what's that? She goes, the people who think they have a good idea for a children's book. And I was like, Oh, yeah. She goes, everybody, everybody thinks they have a children's book. And I was like, Okay. And she goes, and don't get me wrong, she's like, some of them do, and she's like, but a lot of them don't,

Rosana 46:23
oh, I've read some. I'm like, and that's what kind of made me, pushed me into going ahead and publishing mine, because I was like, if they can get theirs out in the store, surely

Scott Benner 46:32
you could. Yes. Can you do something like, I mean, honestly, could you go to a local bookstore and tell them you'd like to, like, look, I want to put an author event here one evening, and I can bring in a certain amount of people and like, could you do that? Could you invite 2030 people to come? I've done

Rosana 46:50
book signing signings here in town, sold a few books. My biggest problem is I am very much an introvert, and I feel very awkward saying here, please find my book,

Scott Benner 47:02
so you're gonna find this next little thing interesting. Then after I got my book written, and I was out, you know, pushing it, which is the only way to talk about what you're doing, you're just out there, like, just trying to make anybody aware of it, I finished an interview one day, and the publisher called me, and they were like, that was so good. And I said, thank you. I was like, Why do you seem like, surprised that I did a good job with the interview? And she goes, I think it's just because authors are terrible at talking. Usually, that's why we write. Yeah, that's exactly what she said. She said, You're clearly not really an like, I'm not a writer. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not a book author, and she's like, but on this part of it, you're way better at this part of it, she's like, significantly better. They just go out there and they sit and they wait for questions. Nobody asks them a question, and they sit there. Have you ever heard me tell that story about the book fair I went to one time? I think I did. You were talking? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was stunned. I looked around the room and I was like, do all these people think someone's just gonna walk up to them and magically buy this book? Like I was out in front of the table handful of books. I was like, Hey, check this out. I sold all those books. I was out of there by like, lunch. That's what you I mean, if you're not doing that either, there's no way I'm just always so awkward I don't know you're doing a good job of this. Why do

Rosana 48:22
you think you're leading? You're telling you're asking me questions,

Scott Benner 48:27
and I really am the secret to this whole thing. But that's not the point. The point is that is that people should I never do this, but if you send me the link to your book, I'll put it in the show notes of the podcast.

Rosana 48:36
It doesn't have anything to do with diabetes, although maybe I need to write a book. I don't know.

Scott Benner 48:41
I don't care. Okay, I don't I don't know what it's about. I don't care what it's about. I don't even care if it's good. What do you think of that? But if you send me a link to where people can buy it, I will put it in the show notes of the podcast player. Because, by the way, let me just say this out loud. No one else try that like, don't I am NOT DO I already turned down 10 emails a day from people like, I just want to come on and talk to come on and talk to people about my app idea or my business idea. Oh, shut up. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. So uh, but for you, Rosanna, because of everything you've been through, that's why poor pitiful, because of the luck you and your family have, we're gonna see if some people might not buy this book. What is the Book about? The children's book. Yeah,

Rosana 49:23
here's the other thing. I'm terrible at describing it, so it is and I wrote it when my oldest daughter was a child, was a baby. Okay?

Scott Benner 49:32
It's about the life of a rock, like a pet rock.

Rosana 49:36
It's called stone story, and it's about a rock that's in a creek, and he gets kicked out of the creek. And over the years, he gets kicked and damaged and thrown through a window, and then at some point, thrown in the trash. And then somebody digs them out of the trash and cleans them up and puts him in a special place in the wall of that's being built. And he's a shiny jewel. Yeah, nice.

Scott Benner 50:00
And what does that mean to you? Is that something you feel like happened to you?

Rosana 50:04
Yeah? I mean, I think it's a kind of a parable, I guess, or an allegory, whatever you call that, but of how people sometimes feel,

Scott Benner 50:11
you know, yeah, well, I think everybody has a good opportunity to be a part of that, of that wall like, you know, just what do you need? You need somebody around you that cares a little bit, a little bit of a little bit of self confidence. Maybe that's where you're, you know, where you could start for yourself, like along the road here, like, you know, people have been through some hard things. You've supported them and done a great job of being somebody's mom a number of times, right? You know, you tried to be a good wife, and just because the person on the other side of that doesn't receive it that way. Doesn't mean you didn't do well at it. You know, even the second guy who took advantage like you were, you were earnest with him, I imagine, oh yeah, yeah, right, I'd get out there and do it again. I'm not kidding. Persona like, what's the alternative for punishment? No, but what's the alternative? Now that you know this is how it could go. Anything better than this is going to be a win. So your bar is super low. So that's awesome. And the other seriously, Hey, you can't get let down, really, if somebody has sold your belongings. I mean, you know what? I mean, like, it's not good. He didn't sell him, he didn't sell him for meth. Did he?

Rosana 51:17
Life does not sound that bad in my head.

Scott Benner 51:21
Well, I'm trying to be fun. But my point here is that, like, you know, I'd say, get out there and try again now, you know, maybe put up a little more of a wall. Let's not marry anybody six months in. But, you know, thought the world was ending. I hear what you're saying in the moment, it felt like, I mean, I felt like it was ending to me too. I'm

Rosana 51:39
not. I rationally knew that. I think it was just, you know, emotionally, because I was also staring down I needed a full hysterectomy surgery, and I had no one to help me.

Scott Benner 51:49
Oh, you, Oh, you, you maybe did a little of, like, if I'm married, this will be easier,

Rosana 51:54
you know, and yeah, and then the whole COVID thing, and I got laid off, and then I was working from home, and it was just he was there, and he was helpful, and he was nice.

Scott Benner 52:06
Well, listen, put that right on your profile. Hysterectomy. Can't get pregnant. You know what I

Rosana 52:09
mean? Well, I'm 53 I don't think I could have anyway at this point, but

Scott Benner 52:13
we're going to be telling them you're 43 in the profile. So you gotta jazz this up a little bit. You know what I mean? Same thing you got to do with the book when you're selling it. Yeah, did you say it was about a rock or a stone? A stone? Yeah, that's good. Don't say rock stones better. Is it shiny the stone? Well, not to begin with, no, but at the end, it's

Rosana 52:31
shiny. It's been through everything it is, yeah, like a tumbler of life,

Scott Benner 52:36
exactly. Do you not see this as your path, too? Why can't you actually be that Shiny Stone. It could be just waiting for somebody to find me. What would have to happen for you to end up in that wall nice and shiny, I guess somebody coming along that actually saw me, for me, yeah, and not for what I could do for them. That'd be a damn good start, wouldn't it? Well, yep, let me say this, Rosanna, you're not going to meet those people in your apartment. They're not. They're not. I mean, look, unless they're at work. Oh yeah, you said, I think before we started recording, you said you work with, how did you put it? Tell me what you said, again, criminals and lawyers. She's like, I work with criminals and lawyers, and often, would you say the lawyers are worse than the criminal? The lawyers are worse than the criminals? Okay, yeah, okay, so yeah, for you specifically, let's not date at work. I think that's, that's an obvious one, especially like, yeah, I probably want to avoid cops to older cops, right? Yeah, yeah, no disrespect to older cops, but you all know what I mean. A little jaded by now, you know I'm saying, yeah, yeah, right. So what do we do? Like, do you I mean, I don't even know how to do this. Like, I'm sitting here thinking, like, if I had to go meet somebody right now, I swear I don't know what to do. But can I say this last summer, my wife went away for business, my kids were they didn't live here, you know? No, I was by myself, is what I'm saying. And I wanted to see that first mission, Impossible movie of the two parter that ends the series. The second part is out. Now. I want to see the first part. Nobody went with me. I went to a theater. I went out one night, made the podcast. I did my business was supposed to do, you know, and I went out to a movie, and I'm sitting there watching a movie. I am by myself. There's probably 10 people in there, not many at all. Movie ends. Lady in front of me turns around, looks. She goes, boy, I really love that. I said I did too. And we started chatting a little bit. She's a lovely woman, probably a little younger than me. She kept chatting with me as we walked out, she stopped me in the parking lot to talk again. And I thought, hmm, I could get this lady, and she was being very friendly, and she was lovely. And of course, me, being married in the that I wasn't there looking for a date, slowed down the whole thing. I said to her, it was really nice to meet her, and I left, and she went on her way. But we could have kept talking like if I would have said to her, if I wasn't, let me just be clear, if I wasn't married, I could have said to her. We should go. You sit down somewhere and get a drink and talk. She we would have gone. Now I don't know how that would have ended, maybe with her selling my belongings. I don't know exactly. I gotta tell you like I didn't expect that. And there it was. So maybe you just gotta keep putting yourself out there till something, something fires off. You know?

Rosana 55:19
Yeah. I mean, this woman obviously had more confidence than I do. I don't

Scott Benner 55:23
know about that. I think we were just caught up in the we enjoyed the movie, and we started talking to each other. Yeah, if she's listening, really pretty Indian lady in her 40s. I wasn't married, I definitely would have asked you out. We were having a good time so and all it was is that we had like, a mutual like interest. At the moment, it was enough to start talking about that. Don't go picking other people have self published their books, because then we're going to find more introverted people, and you guys are just going

Rosana 55:50
to sit still and not talk well. And everything I like is an introverted thing. I mean,

Scott Benner 55:54
well, there's a good point. What are some of the things you enjoy doing? I

Rosana 55:57
love history of museums and antique stores. And I do genealogy, I go to cemeteries.

Scott Benner 56:05
Well, these seem like things other people like to do. Why don't you? Like, that's awesome. Like, I mean, can't you find somebody else who enjoys like, I mean, let's start cheaper. Like, going to cemeteries, do that, and then, and then find somebody that wants to travel and go see other stuff and like, I mean, people love history. There's got to be other it's got to be men who enjoy that too, yeah. And they don't have to be like, it could be friendly at first, because you said you want people to get to know you, right? Yeah. Rosanna, this is done deal. I think this is easy. Let's get this accomplished. Don't do it through Facebook. I feel like I just sat through a therapy session, though. Do you feel good? Good enough to send me a co pay?

Rosana 56:47
Oh, but I'll send you a link to my book.

Scott Benner 56:49
Awesome. Not even offer me a free book. Fine. That's fine. Well, I'm glad that this felt good. Do you feel better now?

Rosana 56:55
Yeah, yeah. I'm obviously going to sit back and be worried about all the stuff I said. But

Scott Benner 57:00
really, do not worry about anything. I don't know anyone in my personal life. Well, that's upsetting to me. I wish everybody listened. No, I tried, I tried. Believe me, you get it out there. Thank you. Yeah, awesome, awesome. That is that. I appreciate that very much. Oh, I didn't even ask you, but does the podcast, is it been valuable for you with your son's

Rosana 57:22
diabetes? Oh, yeah. Like, right away, I found the Facebook page, and then, think her name is Nico. She had I asked a question. She posted a series bold beginnings. I think it was Yep. So I listened to all of those. And then I've been listening to defining,

Scott Benner 57:38
defining diabetes, going through different terms. You can understand what they mean.

Rosana 57:42
And then also, I listen to like, the new ones as they come out.

Scott Benner 57:45
Awesome. Well, I appreciate that very much. I do. And you've probably just made it so that Rob will drop the bull beginnings trailer right after you stop talking.

Rosana 57:53
It was a very good one. Yeah,

Scott Benner 57:55
I appreciate that. See, it's a series, as a lot of people seem to find, that it's helpful getting

Rosana 57:59
going. I mean, I reading Facebook posts on the group, I think we had a special understanding of diabetes because we actually went through diabetes education three times. How so, once at the hospital in the city, and then once at the rehab. And then when we came back, our endocrinologist made us go through education, like a five part education series. Okay, wow, so we got the same thing three times.

Scott Benner 58:28
And Was that helpful, or did you still was the bold beginning still additive for you?

Rosana 58:33
The bold beginnings was definitely helped fill in, like this is what we can really do, you

Scott Benner 58:38
know? Okay, took you from maybe more basic ideas to something a little deeper. Yeah, yeah, awesome. I'm glad, and I'm glad he's doing well, that's awesome. I hope he gets back to playing soccer. That would be I mean, I hate soccer, but I if he likes it, I'm okay with it. By the way, hates a strong word. I just don't understand it. It seems like track and field without purpose. It's a lot of running, a lot of running, not a lot of scoring, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Nevertheless, those of you love it, I'm not saying you shouldn't love it. Continue on, and please stop sending emails saying, Stop talking badly about soccer, because that happens a lot. I just don't like soccer. It's no shade. It was really nice of you to share this. I know that was a really difficult thing to talk about. And then you talked about some personal stuff, which was, was really kind of you. I'm sure you're not nearly the only person living through, you know, being still young and viable, but feeling older and, you know, I mean, listen, we didn't really say it out loud, but what you're thinking, and that didn't say, is that, like people my age, the good ones are probably taken it's a lot of picking through the others to find the ones that are left, right, right, yeah, well, but if you don't pick, you won't find and I guarantee they're good people out there. Yeah, that's, that's the hope, yeah. And if not, you can always use male escorts. There's nothing wrong with that. Did they exist? And I. I, you know, I don't know. Hey, have you actually, like, lived through a heart like a tornado?

Rosana 1:00:05
I mean, not one that's actually hit me, but gone overhead and I curved it? I mean, I've been here most of my life, so they're always close frightening on a scale of one to 10. I don't get frightened by those kinds of things. Interesting, but definitely, I mean, sounded like a train coming,

Scott Benner 1:00:26
yeah, just cruising down the coming at you from, like, just a direction, yeah? So that doesn't scare you, but you do worry about things that could happen to my kids that don't exist. You always like that. Or was that after you had babies, after I had babies, for sure. Yeah, that's a, it's a God's little joke there. Yeah, yeah, I got you. All right.

Rosana 1:00:47
Well, I mean, yeah, even the ones that are grown up and out of the house,

Scott Benner 1:00:51
oh, good news. You don't stop worrying about them. Never. Jesus. All right. Well, this is good not spend the rest of my life doing that. I guess, Rosanna, you were really nice to do this. I know this was difficult for you, so I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Yep, hold on one second for

me. The podcast episode that you just enjoyed was sponsored by ever since CGM, they make the ever since 365 that thing lasts a whole year. One insertion every year. Come on. You probably feel like I'm messing with you, but I'm not. Ever since cgm.com/juicebox the podcast you just enjoyed, was sponsored by tandem diabetes care. Learn more about tandems, newest automated insulin delivery system, tandem Moby, with control iq plus technology at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox. There are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com. Touched by type one, sponsored this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Check them out at touched by type one.org on Instagram and Facebook. Give them a follow. Go check out what they're doing. They are helping people with type one diabetes in ways you just can't imagine.

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