#1604 Weird Antics

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

Brady’s been living with type 1 diabetes for 12 years, diagnosed at age 5 and now 17.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

---

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.

Brady 0:17
Hello, everyone listening. My name is Brady. I'm a type one diabetic since the age of five, I'm now 17, almost 18, going to college soon, and getting out of the house for the first time. It is can be a little nervous, especially when you've had your parents support you for so long.

Scott Benner 0:38
Check out my algorithm pumping series to help you make sense of automated insulin delivery systems like Omnipod, five loop, Medtronic, 780, G twist tandem control, IQ and much more. Each episode will dive into the setup features and real world usage tips that can transform your daily type one diabetes management. We cut through the jargon, share personal experiences and show you how these algorithms can simplify and streamline your care. If you're curious about automated insulin pumping, go find the algorithm pumping series in the Juicebox podcast. Easiest way Juicebox podcast.com, and go up into the menu, click on series and it'll be right there. Nothing you here on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about Miss boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses. Learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour. Next.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juicebox. That's t, w, i, i s t.com/juicebox.

Brady 2:42
Hello, everyone listening. My name is Brady. I'm a type one diabetic. Since the age of five, I'm now 17, almost 18, going to college soon and get out of the house for the first time. It is can be a little nervous, especially when you've had your parents support you for so long,

Scott Benner 3:01
you thinking about that as you're heading off to college,

Brady 3:04
definitely. So I'm sure if there was any other people in my position, not just diabetes alone, but any college kids, any kids with a medical disability,

Scott Benner 3:15
just listen, any kids that have to cook for themselves, even that might have been a little nervous, right? So you're five, when you're diagnosed, you have any brothers or sisters,

Brady 3:24
or actually, we have a big family. I haven't seen one of them in a bit, two brothers, two sisters, two brothers, two sisters. You're almost 18. Are you the youngest? No, I'm one of the oldest ones. You're one of the oldest. Oh, no kidding, my littlest brother, he's only seven,

Scott Benner 3:40
seven. So from seven to what's the oldest 19 now, no kidding, Okay, any other autoimmune issues in the family? My

Brady 3:50
mom has arthritis for the last few years. I guess that's the only noteworthy issue.

Scott Benner 3:57
Nobody has hypothyroidism, celiac, other type ones, nothing like that. Okay,

Brady 4:02
I was the only one

Scott Benner 4:07
randomized trial. Do you remember anything about being diagnosed at five? I would imagine, maybe

Brady 4:11
not surprisingly, yes. So funny story. We were going to Orlando because I'm Florida based as our my uncle was coming down to visit, so we were driving up to Orlando. It's a three hour drive from where we live, and I was using the bathroom frequently. Obviously, we had no clue at the time that that meant my sugar was high, so just munching on some pretzel goldfish. And my mom was like, Okay, maybe you shouldn't eat these pretzel goldfish. And I was drinking a lot of water, and then she's like, why are you drinking so much water that she took away the water for me. And then we were at the resort for the weekend. I don't remember too much about the resort itself, but then afterwards, we went to a doctor's office. They didn't do anything. We went to another one. They didn't do anything. We went like about five of them, and we finally met this. Guy, and he's like, oh, let's, let's see what your blood glucose level is, or blood sugar. And I guess I was like, around 900 when, when he tested me, huh? So

Scott Benner 5:12
your mom had to take you to a number of different doctors to get somebody to find an answer to your problem.

Brady 5:17
Yeah, okay, at least three. At least three, at least three, and

Scott Benner 5:21
then this one checks your blood sugar 900 they put you in the hospital.

Brady 5:25
Yeah, according to my mom, because she's told me the story, the doctor said to her it would be faster for her to drive me to the hospital rather than calling like an ambulance. So she drove into the hospital and they hooked me up to everything. I was in there for about a week. No

Scott Benner 5:39
kidding. Do you remember any of that? Or is it all just kind of a blur? I

Brady 5:43
remember some parts of it like I remember being given this, like JDRF bear called Rufus, and I still have in my closet. I don't know if you've heard of that name before. I've heard of Rufus the bear. Yeah, in fact, because we were doing like a kindergarten day or whatever, like spirit days of high school. I brought him with me to school in my one to one recreation of the kindergarten outfit.

Scott Benner 6:09
Wait a bit, tell me this again. Start over. What was that?

Brady 6:12
So we had a school spirit week about a month ago, and for one of the days, it was like, dress up as your kindergarten self, really. And so I brought Rufus the bear with me, and his fur is all bad, and he's like this old bear, but I brought him to school with me. Anyways, as a 17 year old 12th grader,

Scott Benner 6:33
what were some of the other ridiculous outfits? Did everybody do this? It sounds like a great idea. Actually, a

Brady 6:38
lot of people our school had a lot of spirit, especially our seniors that were there, yeah, and people had wacky outfits. They had dyed hair, they had people would pull on shave their beards that they had just to look like their kindergartner selves.

Scott Benner 6:54
Colors that don't match right like because you remember, when you're a kid, you put all these colors together and you're just like, I love blue and green, and you're like, that doesn't look right at all. It doesn't matter. Doesn't look great. I just saw a little kid walking around the other day. He had, like, bright blue sneakers on yellow shorts and a red top. He looked ridiculous. And he looked so happy. He was, like, running around as like, this little like, four year old with his grandfather. Did he have his little propeller hat on as well? No, but he was close. He really was. So at what point your mom and dad help you with your diabetes as you're younger? I imagine?

Brady 7:26
Um, yes, so when I was diagnosed there, we didn't have any access to CGM or pumps at the time, so we had to do syringes for the first two years. And so my mom would always have to do syringes, and I kept her up at night. You know, I was but a small child, so I was carefree, yeah, you didn't know what was happening, right? Yeah. But, like, I heard her talking about something, like, how she was, like, always afraid of, like, drawing ever too much insulin from the vial with the syringe and putting too much into me. Then I switched to pens a couple years later, and then I still have those, actually, for a

Scott Benner 8:02
backup. Your mom worried a lot that she was going to give you too much insulin. Yeah,

Brady 8:06
from what I've heard, especially when I was first diagnosed and needing to deal with syringes.

Scott Benner 8:11
And is that a thing that stuck with her? Did she get past that, or does she not really involved in your care at all anymore?

Brady 8:16
Oh, no, she's still heavily involved. In fact, she was messaging me this morning because my sugar was like 170 after I just had a bagel, like I dose for it, but I was still going a little up.

Scott Benner 8:30
How do you find that that relationship? Do you enjoy her helping you?

Brady 8:35
Yes, most definitely. I don't know where I would be without her help, but at the same time, I'm sure in the next couple of years, I would like to become fully independent and without her having to breathe down my neck. What do you mean?

Scott Benner 8:53
You don't know where you'd be without her help. What do you think she's covering for you that you wouldn't do? I mean, obviously, when you're five, you need help, but as you're getting older and older, did you take on more and more responsibility?

Brady 9:04
Yes, okay, I'm a heavy sleeper. The alarms and texts that she would send would help wake me up even now.

Scott Benner 9:10
So she's kind of on top of it when you can't be Yeah, yeah. How have your a one sees, your outcomes been over the

Brady 9:18
years, hovering in the the the sixes and sevens. Wow,

Scott Benner 9:21
that's awesome. You say that's your mom's work a

Brady 9:25
lot, but I will. I can give myself credit, like I Bolus and stuff. Yeah,

Scott Benner 9:31
you do what you need to do, right? Yeah. So what happens is, like, take me through it for a second. You're 12 years old. It's lunch time. Your mom's texting you at school. Or how does that all work? I

Brady 9:42
kind of did my own thing at school. I would I do what I need to do in elementary school, I'd have to go to the nurse's office so the nurse would watch over me. But by the time I got to 12, middle school age, I was doing it on my own at school. Okay? She would only message me if I were to, like, go high while I was in class. Like, how? Is like 202 20.

Scott Benner 10:01
Okay, so you would manage your food, and did you get low? Did you have lows that you had to manage on your own, or did the nurse help with those even after you

Brady 10:09
Yeah, I would, I would go low sometimes, like 60. I would drink a juice, because I have, like, juices and snacks in my actual classrooms. Yeah, and it's been like that for a very long time after Elementary School, really, I stopped heavily relying on the nurse. So after elementary school is about what age? Um, well, what is this? Fifth grade? So, 11, okay,

Scott Benner 10:30
and so you you'd taken care of lows on your own. You're bolusing for your meals. Your mom's only getting involved if she's seeing high blood sugars,

Brady 10:38
yeah, yeah. And then if I were to, like, consistently stay low for like, more than 10 minutes. That's when she'll say, like, you're low. She ping

Scott Benner 10:46
you then try to figure out what's going on. Yeah. I mean, the way you guys had that set up that worked well for you. Okay, it didn't feel overwhelming. You didn't feel like she was too in your business or not enough. Was there ever a time where you were like, I wish she'd help me more than this? No, not at all. No. Okay, so you guys found a nice balance. Now, was your dad involved in this

Brady 11:05
at all? Yes, and no, my mom was, uh, or still is a stay at home mom, while my dad goes to work each day. And so he, I do have sharing on my Dexcom. So he'll sometimes say, like, oh, you should do that. But other than that, he's, he's

Scott Benner 11:21
less involved. Yeah, do you think because he knows your mom has it, or is it not his? Is it not his wheelhouse? Like, or what do you think?

Brady 11:30
I think it's a little bit of both. He's always been working, like, his whole life, so I'm perfectly like, I've accepted that, like, someone needs to work, someone can't be

Scott Benner 11:42
so he puts his effort where it fits. You put and your mom puts hers where it fits. Yeah, yeah. And you more than fill in the gaps. It sounds like you you have a lot going on here, really, like, as far as your interaction with your own diabetes, you seem very involved in it. So would you just call it like, a good blend of the three of you doing

Brady 12:01
what works, I would say, so Okay, yeah, anything about it? You would change? Definitely my ability to Pre-Bolus.

Scott Benner 12:11
Do you forget or do you not like doing it?

Brady 12:14
When I eat food, it, it'll register that I need to dose. So I'll dose like as I'm eating the food or right after, because a lot of the time I'll, like eat on a whim. At school, I know when I'll eat, so I'll dose for that. But at work, like, I don't know when I'm going to break, they'll just send me on break, so I get my food and I dose. Okay, okay. What about at home? Do you Pre-Bolus better when you're not at school? Same thing at home, like, I'll eat whenever it is really the one thing that I do truly need to work on, and that's why I probably experienced that like momentary high after eating before coming down again.

Scott Benner 12:53
So I hear that, you know, you should be doing it, but you're also not like. You don't seem like you're, you know, beating yourself up about it, or feeling like it's an imperative. So can we dig into that just a tiny bit? I'm endlessly fascinated by the pre bolusing thing, because I get exactly why it would be bothersome and hard to remember and all that other stuff. But is it not a thing that you can turn into a habit, or is it not important enough to do it like what stops it from happening? The brand new twist. Insulin pump offers peace of mind with unmatched personalization and allows you to target a glucose level as low as 87 there are more reasons why you might be interested in checking out twist, but just in case, that one got you twist.com/juicebox, that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. You can target glucose levels between 87 and 180 it's completely up to you. In addition to precision insulin delivery that's made possible by twist design, twist also offers you the ability to edit your carb entries even after you've bolused. This gives the twist loop algorithm the best information to make its decisions with, and the twist loop algorithm lives on the pump, so you don't have to stay next to your phone for it to do its job. Twist is now available in select areas, so if you'd like to learn more or get on the wait list, go to twist.com/juicebox that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get on the twist wait list and be notified as soon as it's available in your area. Links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com. The contour, next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour next.com/juicebox, you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, right? Aid, Kroger and Meijer, you could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips in meter than you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now. I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juicebox and if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips doing so through the Juicebox podcast link will help to support the show.

Brady 15:45
That's what I've been trying to figure out for so long. I think it's just I'm still, like, scatterbrained, like, I'm always doing stuff, like, even now, before I was on the call, I was building a Lego set. Like, it doesn't like, go into my mind until, like, it's like, I, like, I Yeah, until it's too late. Well, do you have ADHD? Most likely, yes, you think you might. It's not it's not diagnosed. It's not diagnosed. Do you have anything else going on? No, no. Okay, so ADHD, meaning, well, how Wait? How are you in school? Like, how are you, like, grades wise? So I'm actually just, I've graduated with a 5.0 GPA. I excel well, at school, like, I'm an excellent test taker, but when you shove like, a bunch of assignments in my face, I'll try to do all of them, and then, like, I'll forget to turn like, one or two in. And I think that's most prevalent in my math class. Okay,

Scott Benner 16:42
you have a better than perfect GPA.

Brady 16:44
So at least what around what our school system does is like a weighted GPA. So like, I've taken college classes throughout my entire, like high school career, right? So now graduating because of that, like weighted college classes compared to, just like your normal gen ed classes. It allows me to go higher than a four. In fact, our valedictorian had a six point

Scott Benner 17:05
something. GPA, geez, what are you planning on studying in college?

Brady 17:09
I guess this goes back to my scatter brain thing, like I have no clue what I'm doing, so I picked the most broad category, which seems to be business. So I'm going in as a business major. What I'm doing with that? I couldn't tell you. Are you strong in math? I was until about algebra two.

Scott Benner 17:26
That's pretty far into it, though. So what does that mean? You're good at you can do algebra, geometry, trig,

Brady 17:32
die. Suck At trig. Then no, no. Trick was introduced to me in about pre calculus, and that was the math class that I probably should have wiped for my schedule, but I continue to take it because

Scott Benner 17:46
I'm stubborn. What is failure at trig look like? What's your final grade? It was a D, no kidding, yeah, you passed it, but with no firm understanding of it whatsoever. No Right? Because did your brain just not work that way?

Brady 18:01
I think it's all like the signs and the cosines, tangents. I like numbers and trigonometry isn't really numbers, it's words. And like, well, I'm good with words, but not in math.

Scott Benner 18:14
So your English grades are high. They are Yeah, and you write, well, I do write. Well, that's a good that's a skill, man. Not everybody has.

Brady 18:23
I could write anything. Give me a prompt right now, and I could type you up an essay in an hour.

Scott Benner 18:29
No kidding, all right, would you share where you're going to college? Have you been accepted somewhere?

Brady 18:34
I was accepted to a lot of places, but due to like, financial struggles into getting into those places I've resulted to going to Florida, Gulf Coast University. Okay? And when do you start? I think it was August, 19, and I move in August, 14 or 15th. Oh,

Scott Benner 18:52
and so let's get to it now. Are you excited? Are you nervous? Is this broken up in different sections? Is there like part of you that's going to school and party that's thinking about diabetes, like, how, how is this whole thing like coming to shape in your

Brady 19:03
mind? Obviously, my whole school journey has been about going to college thus far. So it's always been there, and I've always been thinking about it. And now that it's like, here, it's like, yeah, I am. I'm excited, and I've been given the resources to do well in college, I think I said it at the start, there's always that nervousness and anxiety that follows you when you first leave the nest for the first time. Sure. Do

Scott Benner 19:30
you have any friends going to the same school? No, no.

Brady 19:33
Well, close friends, no, but many people I know are going to the school? Yes.

Scott Benner 19:38
Okay. Do you think you'll have trouble with the social aspects of it, beating people, forming relationships, or is that not a thing you're

Brady 19:45
worried about? No, I've, I've always been fairly social. Okay, so I don't think I'll struggle with talking to new people. Gotcha,

Scott Benner 19:53
how far is it from your house? Like, is it a drive, a plane?

Brady 19:57
It's about 30 to 40. Minute drive, depending on traffic, not far. And will you commute, or will you stay there? I will be dormant there for at least the first year.

Scott Benner 20:07
Okay, is that a thing you want to do? Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, who is making life with diabetes easier with the mini med 780 G system. The MiniMed 780 G, automated insulin delivery system anticipates, adjusts and corrects every five minutes. Real world results show people achieving up to 80% time and range with recommended settings, without increasing lows. But of course, Individual results may vary. The 780 G works around the clock, so you can focus on what matters. Have you heard about Medtronic extended infusion set? It's the first and only infusion set labeled for up to a seven day wear. This feature is repeatedly asked for, and Medtronic has delivered. 97% of people using the 780 G reported that they could manage their diabetes without major disruptions of sleep, they felt more free to eat what they wanted, and they felt less stress with fewer alarms and alerts you can't beat that. Learn more about how you can spend less time and effort managing your diabetes by visiting Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

Brady 21:17
I do want to do it because I've been told countless times that going to live in college is why? Is one of the big reasons you go to college like you don't want to miss out on the college experience, the

Scott Benner 21:30
experience. So how old are you? Did you say, Brady, you're almost 18, right? I'm almost 18. Yes, your mom knows you're doing this, right? Yes, yeah. Are you going to be partaking in alcohol and or drugs at college. Do you do that now? Oh,

Brady 21:43
oh, no, I don't even drink soda.

Scott Benner 21:47
You're not a drinker. No, it's not a thing you think you're interested in getting.

Brady 21:52
Not at all. I have stayed away from alcohol drugs. They disgust me if, if you get into it, it's unfortunate, but I can understand why you continue to do it. If you're already doing it.

Scott Benner 22:10
Are your family drinkers? Like, is there a beer at a football game? Wine at dinner or anything like that?

Brady 22:16
Yeah, sometimes, but not overly excessive. It's like, there, it's

Scott Benner 22:19
present, but you've never seen it as a problem. No, okay, it's never been a problem. All right. Now, Brady, yes, some really hot girl comes up to you at a party and her belly shown a little bit, and she's like, Hey, try this drink. Do you go, no, no, no, I'm disgusted. Or do you go, Oh, I've been waiting for a hot girl to talk to me and take a little drink. What do you do? I

Brady 22:41
wouldn't drink the drink, but I would be like, kind about it. If someone approached me, I'd still respect them and talk to them, but I just, I guess, humbly decline.

Scott Benner 22:51
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you don't think there's a thing I pick girls, because to me, that's where I would I'd give up. I'd be like, sure, I might not. I'd be honest with you, but like, that's the thing that would get me in that direction, like, there's no like, you couldn't peer pressure me into it. I wouldn't care about that. It doesn't sound like you have any feelings that that you can I don't think I could peer pressure you into something,

Brady 23:10
right? You could try. I think it would be very difficult. Don't think it

Scott Benner 23:15
would work out. And All right, so you don't think you will drink. I mean, you don't think everyone's Am I wrong? Everyone smokes weed, right? Not me. No, not you. But I mean, like in high school, like in high school,

Brady 23:29
it's definitely there. The people that I associate myself with aren't doing it. Aren't doing it, okay, and those are the close friends I mentioned earlier. But people, yeah, I know they're doing stuff. Do

Scott Benner 23:41
you have a problem with it? Like, on a like, Do you have a judgment about it, or you just it's not for you?

Brady 23:47
When I was younger, I guess I I found it disgusting. But like, I've grown older, I've worked for two years now, I've, I've seen enough of the world to acknowledge that. Like, if, if they're getting by doing weed and still doing well in school, because, you know, many people that I do talk to are still getting a 5.0 GPA while still screwing around at parties. Like, if that works for you, that works for

Scott Benner 24:14
you, how do you get rid of your attention? Like, what do you do to relax?

Brady 24:18
Build Lego, I guess, play, games. Just watch YouTube. You like more solitary stuff, yeah, but I play games with friends, like, I'm never playing a game by myself. I'm always with like, a person or two on a PlayStation party or something like that. Okay, have you built the r2, d2, Lego? No, but I do want to get that. I have built a giant star wars, Venator. I don't know if you've seen that, no. Which is that it's this Venator from the prequel trilogy, and it sent me back a good $600 Oh

Scott Benner 24:52
my gosh. What'd you do with it once you got it built? That's always my problem with it. Once it's done, what do

Brady 24:57
you do with it? So I'm. My whole room is just covered and displayed in Lego so I really just display it and I dust it from time to time. My brother will play with, like, the smaller cars that I have. Yeah, I like building cars in the Star Wars things.

Scott Benner 25:12
Yeah. I mean, that's that's gonna keep a hot girl from offering your drink, for sure. Don't let them see that. Okay, but she's good. Well, maybe not. Maybe one girl will be like, All right, this is awesome. What do you like about building Legos?

Brady 25:24
I've just always liked building things. I guess it's just satisfying to see a whole product come together.

Scott Benner 25:32
We do, like, in the house, like, usually around Christmas time, my wife will build, like, buy a set and like, put it in the kitchen, because then people will, like, stop and, like, put a couple of steps together and then leave it alone. Or sometimes people, like, I'll sit down and, like, obsess on it and work on it all day, or something like that. But then we get done with them and we're just like, what are we like, what are we going to do with this? We end up breaking it apart and putting it back

Brady 25:55
in the box. See, that's that's just sad. Yeah, like it, although

Scott Benner 25:58
we do have, Arden did just ask me to hang the Spider Man portrait where he seems to be coming out of the portrait. Oh, yeah, yeah. That one. My son and daughter did that one Christmas, and she asked me if I'd hang it up for so actually, that's the thing I'm gonna do this weekend.

Brady 26:12
I have my eyes set on the Milky Way galaxy. One another, art, one.

Scott Benner 26:18
My sister in law just told me she built the radio, and she said that it's an old timey radio, and you actually build the entire inside of it. She said she was so sad because the inside was so intricate. And then you close it up inside, like, you know, it's in there all the like, you know, yeah, all the, you know, the guts of it, but at the same time, like, you never see it again. But there was also, they put a little Bluetooth receiver in it so you can actually use the Lego radio, like a Bluetooth

Brady 26:45
speaker. I did not know that. Actually, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I didn't know what that was. That was on

Scott Benner 26:54
her 40s. She was like, this thing's so cool. And I was like, all right. I had no idea she liked doing that stuff. My son loves it, but, like, I think he's hit an age where he's just like, he's like, I don't know, I can't be doing this anymore. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, it's although,

Brady 27:06
yeah, my whole family thought that I'd be grow out of it, but I'm still building. You're

Scott Benner 27:09
still into it. Oh, listen, I think it's awesome. The LEGO Store. Do you have a Lego store near you? Disney, springs, Orlando. Oh, okay, yeah, you you have access, though, because it's weird when you get into a room. There's so many different like, you know, like, there's like Harry Potter towns, and the little Polaroid camera that Land Rover truck is incredible looking. The the discovery. Do you know which one? I mean,

Brady 27:32
yeah, there was two of them made. There was like a brick built one, and then there was a Technic one, and they both released around the same time frame.

Scott Benner 27:39
It's interesting stuff. I actually happen to know a person who works with a company. Oh, that's and, like she, she has one of the craziest, interesting jobs, where she just shows up at places and and puts together, like, large displays. So I've

Brady 27:53
talked to a bunch of Lego employees when I go to the Lego store in Disney Springs, and I've gotten some wild inside information, such as getting 50% off if you work there for over three months,

Scott Benner 28:05
is that not where you're going to get a job then? Or is it not close enough? I

Brady 28:09
mean, it would be like a three hour drive to go to work. That's

Scott Benner 28:12
not gonna be worth it. Yeah, imagine you drive six hours a day to get 50% off on your latest Yeah. He says that gonna work out. That'd

Brady 28:20
be a hell of commute time.

Scott Benner 28:22
And what you said you game with friends? What do you do?

Brady 28:24
A decent amount of stuff. I'm a completionist on games, so I liked 100% games, a lot of Minecraft, but also, like just single player games that we play together, like we've been enjoying the Resident Evil series. We've played a lot of indie made games, which are just kind of things that, like small creators have made, yeah, things like that. Okay,

Scott Benner 28:48
Minecraft. Have you ever had it crash on you and not save

Brady 28:52
in the old days? Yes, when there was no auto saving? Yeah,

Scott Benner 28:57
my son had a situation where, like, something happened with his Playstation, and he just, it just erased this, this whole thing.

Brady 29:03
Oh, so that has happened once. Don't play Playstation when it's storming, because if, if lightning hits and you lose your power, Minecraft is one of those games you just where it's gone, it will just delete the save data entirely.

Scott Benner 29:18
Yeah, he was like, it was an existential crisis. I take your point about the completion part, like, he liked the working on it part. Like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, the thinking. I think it's a mind exercise thing, because my son's not like a person who's like, lost in his room playing games, right? He plays two games. But I think there's something about the thinking and the planning that he really likes about Minecraft, and you can see it work in his real life and in his, like, professional life and everything. Like, I was looking at code he was writing the other day, and I just, I mean, he was explaining it to me, and my brain was like, I don't know what I'm looking at. Like, I don't understand how he's keeping this all straight in his

Brady 29:57
head. I wish I could get in. The code. Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 30:01
really something, man. Like, he's sitting in front of three monitors. He has a monitor going, like, portrait, so that the code, like, can, like, stream down this, you know, yeah, I've seen those things before, like, a 33 inch monitor and a portrait in portrait mode, just full of code. And he's explaining to me how this part, you know, feeds this part, and how this and, like, you know, they're going to verify it, and they're doing all this stuff, and he's working for this company, and, you know, and all I could think was, like, how are you keeping this straight in your head? But then I really thought about it, I was like, you know, it's the same way as, like, when he was 12 years old, and he'd be like, you know, here's my minecraft board, and he's, you know, he asked us to stop and, like, show it to us sometimes. And, I mean, it goes on seemingly forever, and he knows where everything is, yeah. It all comes together, yeah. So I think there's something incredibly valuable about it, honestly. So I mean, if your brain works that way, how was the movie? Did you like the movie?

Brady 30:53
Heavily biased in favor of it, of course, but I can acknowledge that it was an objectively horrible movie.

Scott Benner 31:00
I don't know. I was just wondering, like I was dying to know what somebody who likes Minecraft

Brady 31:05
thought of the movie. The movie was amazing to me. I loved the memes associated with the I went to see it twice, once and then once again in 3d Yeah. Was a little different. Not worth not going to see it, though.

Scott Benner 31:19
Not worth seeing it a second time. Okay, so you'll head off to college. You're gonna, you know, start on a business track. What we're really talking about here is, like, it's gonna be your first time away from home. Yeah, it's gonna be your first time making sure you're eating. You're about to learn, Brady, that the quality of food at college is, yeah, I'm really excited. It's going to affect your blood sugar. So you're gonna have to learn how to be more aggressive with your blood sugar. You might have more lows. You know, you have to make a decision about, are you going to tell roommates about diabetes? How much you're going to tell them? You're going to ask them to understand glucagon? Like, have you, like, thought through all that? Like, where are you on that? Yeah,

Brady 31:54
I've, I've thought of that. Fortunately, I do have a kitchen not far from me. I'm Dorman on the second floor, and the building's kitchen is also happens to be on the second floor. So I've been learning how to make things like eggs and stuff. And then for the glucagon thing, I actually recently got like a nasal spray, which works similarly to a glucagon the vaccine, yeah, that, yeah. And then with the insulin thing, I've been in talks with my doctor about an even more rapid acting insulin. Let me see what it's called Metformin. Wait, you're taking Metformin? No, not yet, but we've been talking about doing that. It's just,

Scott Benner 32:35
do you have insulin resistance? I think so. How much insulin are you using a day between

Brady 32:42
like 75 to 90 units. Do you have any weight issues? No, no, I'm you're lean. Weight, healthy, okay, I'm six foot, almost six

Scott Benner 32:55
foot one. Have they talked about trying a GLP medication for you? GLP medication, yeah, like a low dose GLP might help with your insulin if you have All right, ready, ready? If you have insulin resistance. So if you have so we know you have type one diabetes, but if you didn't have type one diabetes, would you have insulin resistance? Still? Would you be pre diabetic type two for example, if that's the case, the GLP meds that are made for, you know, initially were made for type twos, like ozempic, like, you know, you probably hear people joking about it all the time, right? Manjaro, those things, yeah, some people with type one who also have insulin resistance use a significantly less amount of insulin when they're also using a GLP. Now here's the thing, they're going to quell your appetite, which is not exactly a thing you're looking for. Probably. I see a lot of people, my daughter being one of them, who micro doses it so doesn't take the full dose, but takes enough to keep the resistance down without it impacting your hunger too greatly. If they're talking about giving you Metformin. Metformin is gonna try to do the same thing. It just might not be as successful as a GLP would be. So it's worth talking to a doctor about, and I have episodes about it. You could listen to with doctors who talk about the glps. I can even tell you the episode numbers, but I mean, it's not a bad idea to look into a way to get your resistance down, because if you're using, I mean, if you're already using 90 units a day, and then you're gonna head off to school and the food's gonna be crap, and then you're probably gonna need more insulin again. The truth is, is that the more you use, the more reasonable it is to consider that you might end up with a low later from having all that insulin on board.

Brady 34:42
Yeah, that's, that's what happens. There's actually, like, a few things that insulin does with me at least, such as when I do go high, like, let's just say, 300 They'll stay at 300 for like three four hours before the insulin that I gave myself when I was still 250 actually starts kicking and goes down. Yeah, and I don't think it's supposed to be that long for insulin to start acting. So

Scott Benner 35:15
listen, you said that you just recently listened. You were telling me before we started you listen to the small sip series. Your mom, yeah, forced it on you. I imagine. Is that about what happened? Did she say, Hey, listen to these. Yeah, it's okay. Did you find them like insightful or valuable at all? Or did you

Brady 35:33
I did find them insightful and valuable, your tug of war thing, I feel like I focused on that a lot. It makes sense completely. I can see why. I think you said there was like a woman that you explained

Scott Benner 35:45
to, yeah, young girl, young mom over the phone. We were just talking on the phone, and we talked about it in the end, Brady, what you're going to learn is, as you move forward, is that this whole game is timing an amount that you know. It's all about putting the insulin in the right place, at the right time, at the at the right amount. So you'll learn that as you go. You'll figure it out with smaller meals, and then adapt what you learn to bigger and bigger ideas. But I mean going right from where you are now to school, it might be a mess. You know what I mean? I think you're very smart to take this time right now and really dig into understanding how the insulin works for you, especially because once you're gone, you're going to be gone like you and your mom can talk and text and everything, and that's going to be great, but it's a big enough shift going off to college. We want to try to limit the amount of time you have to put into diabetes, because there's, you know, you're going to be trying to make friends, you're going to be trying to go to class and learning how to, like, get your stuff done and feed yourself and wash yourself. Like, you know you said earlier, like, oh, there'll be a kitchen nearby. But I don't know if you've ever heard the mike tyson quote, everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face.

Brady 36:53
Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 36:55
yeah, yeah. He said it like this, everybody has a plan until they get he has different voice than me, but he's right. You know, like, you go into something thinking, like, I know what I'm gonna do, and then the first time somebody pops you in the nose, you sometimes you lose track of what you're gonna do. You see that happen with college aged kids a lot like, oh, there's a kitchen. I'll cook for myself. And six months later, you're just eating Ho Hos between your fingers. And, like, that's it. This is food. I'm good. You don't want to get into that position where you're overwhelmed. Because the things you're going to give away first are are important, more important to you, maybe, than other people. You're going to give away having good meals. You're going to give away pre bolusing. Like, you know, I mean, like when you're trying to make space in your brain, you're going to prioritize things, and if you don't prioritize food and diabetes at the top, then that's going to tumble on you, and then you're going to get it's going to come back around the backside and kick you in the twice. I'd like to see you be able to, like, really understand what you're doing before you go now, how long has your mom been telling you, hey, you need to know how to do this because you're going away for college and you resisted and or was your mom trying to hold on to some control, and maybe she didn't transition you quickly enough. What do you think is happening?

Brady 38:09
It's a good question. I think an aspect of it was, when I was younger, all of the doctors I had were like, saying, like, yeah, it's okay to hover around 200 and I think that mentality stuck with me in a sense, yeah, and like, it doesn't scare me that I'm 200 when it really should, well,

Scott Benner 38:28
you should, at least want you make you want it to be lower. Yeah, I don't need you to be scared. But like, you should recognize it as like, this is not optimal. We should adjust this. Yeah, for sure. So what I was getting at earlier is, I mean, sometimes parents say stuff like, you know, I want them to do it. But it's also it's hard to give away, like, connection and control when you're a parent, too. I can see how raising a high school kid, you could say in 10th grade, like, oh, they should know by now, but there's time 11th grade, there's time, there's time, you know. Like, well, now it's getting so close, he doesn't really know what he's doing yet. No time left. Yeah, there's no time left. I'll just stay involved and, like, you know, like, I'll help. And not to say your mom did that, or not, like, I'm just saying, like, it's a possibility, and there's also a possibility that you're in the same boat where you're, like, I don't really want to do this all by myself. So, like, we can put it off a little longer, but now you're,

Brady 39:17
I mean, it's June, right? Like, yeah, it's June 3. Yeah,

Scott Benner 39:22
it's here. You know what I mean? This is what Mike Tyson was talking about. So like, you know, you're gonna get a plan that hopefully resists the punch in the nose as much as possible. I think if the small sip series made sense to you, you should go dig into the pro tips and listen through that one. It's

Brady 39:39
your little advert at the end of each of the episodes. It's like, if you think you can, I'm trying made sense to you, Brady,

Scott Benner 39:46
I'm trying to help you. Like, it'll dig in a little more, and it'll give you a chance to and then you just kind of go out in the world and try it, man. You just gotta get an idea and give it a shot. See what happens. Take your data in. This is, you know, I Bolus here. This happen next time. I'll do it a little sooner, a little later, maybe a little more, a little less, and then just keep having those experiences. And I'm telling you, if you continue to have those experiences, watch your results and adjust. One day, it'll just work. And I'm not even kidding, one day you'll just over, you know, overwhelmingly, make good decisions in situations, and you'll have outcomes that you're generally looking for. And when they don't go the way that you want, you'll also know the steps to take to adjust them and get back on track without getting low. Yeah, what you're looking for, you know what I mean? I get it, yeah. And listen, you're young, and you don't feel young. That's the great thing about being young is that this is the oldest you've ever been. This is the smartest you've ever been. And you feel it, man. You're like, I'm doing great, but you'll keep learning. You'll look back on this time at some point and think, like, Wow, I can't believe I thought I was ready to go to college, but it'll work out.

Brady 40:54
That's my like, hope and mentality. I feel like I have been experimenting over the last year, trying to see what works. And obviously I haven't found it yet.

Scott Benner 41:07
You will, though. I you just need to eventually, it's just tools, man. It's tools and experience. You need to know what to do. You need to know why you're doing it, and then you need to do it enough times that it makes sense to you. That's it. It's really not

Brady 41:19
one of those tools. Actually, I mentioned earlier that I'm like, a heavy sleeper. I got this thing called the sugar pixel that has woken me up successfully.

Scott Benner 41:30
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you a secret about my daughter, heavy sleeper, to say the least. And it was the biggest concern we had when she left for college, because my daughter didn't go 3040, minutes away. She went 13 hours by car away. Dane, you know, you left you there the first night. I was like, Well, I guess she'll probably be dead in a week. Yeah, she just told us one day she goes, No, I just wake up. And she goes, I don't know now that I know it's on me, I just wake up.

Brady 41:54
That's another aspect, I think, in the back of my mind. For years now I've always known, like, I have this support system. And while I don't consciously want to, like, think that like, I don't know I like, subconsciously know that, like, there is a support system, yeah, because my brain is like,

Scott Benner 42:16
the comfort makes you soft. The comfort that your mom will handle it makes you a little soft, makes you go, Okay, well, I'll let her do it. Then you don't have it's not a conscious thought. You're not like, Oh, screw her. She can do it. I'm not getting up. I take your point, and that goes away. And you're like, Well, I guess I'm either gonna, like, you know, have a seizure in my bed, or I'm gonna do this myself.

Brady 42:33
So back in ninth grade, and this was years ago, I had a I was in robotics. We went to an international competition in Texas for a full week. During that week, I managed my own diabetes much better than on my own when I didn't have like that comfortable betting, yeah, set for me in case something did happen.

Scott Benner 42:57
It makes sense to me. It makes sense to me that that the responsibility like you rose to the challenge the situation required more of you, and you gave it more

Brady 43:04
a sort of like adrenaline or, I guess, pure survival instinct.

Scott Benner 43:09
I would guess you just, you just, you're like, Oh, well, this is it. I gotta take care of it myself. Or I'm, I'm screwed. First of all, you already have decent tools, that small sip series, man, like, I'm not gonna lie to you, like, that's not just a thrown together thing that's curated, like those are small ideas that are really big ideas pulled out of years of podcasts by hundreds of listeners.

Brady 43:29
I got a sense of that, especially when you had, I guess the doctor speak with you, or like the nurse, I forget her name, but yeah, I could tell that it was like so many things put together a

Scott Benner 43:41
lot of conversations that got distilled down into ideas. Then we got to watch people in the community use those ideas for years, watched what worked, what, you know, what didn't work for people, and then, you know, go back to them again and say, like that. That list started by me asking people just like, tell me a phrase from the podcast that's been, like, transformative for you, and we pulled together that entire list. And, like, I don't know if I said it in there or not, but like, if something's on that list, it's not like one person said, you said, blah, blah, blah. It really helped me. 50, 100 200 people said that was really valuable for me. You know, we pulled together the ideas that large amounts of people agreed were really valuable, but you want to dig into them a little more and find out what about them is. So it's going to be trial by fire. You're going to go to school and you're going to, you know, you're going to do it, but if I was you, I'd keep doing what you're doing, like I talked to your mom right now about cutting her out right now and almost acting like you're away at school just to see how it goes because you don't want to figure out, you know what I mean, like, you don't want to get in there. Yeah, you don't want to figure out when it's too late. What will you tell roommates? Like, have you met your roommates yet?

Brady 44:51
I actually have my own private room and bathroom, no fancy so what I'll be doing, most likely, is when I get there. During, like, the move in day I'll leave my leave my door open, and then, you know, talk to people who are, like, nearby me, and then I kind of guess go from there. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:10
you've thought about it, I imagine. But it's a tough thing to meet a brand new person and be like, Hey, would you like to learn how to squirt this in my nose in case I have a seizure? Yeah, because they're gonna go, No, man, I don't want to know that, especially guys might be tougher than you might find like a sweet girl who might help you. You know they mean,

Brady 45:27
I actually so this year, I was the only boy in an old girl class. There was like six girls, and the teacher was also a female, and that was funny, and they all knew me from previous years, and they all knew I was a diabetic and stuff. And, like, there was a kind of support system there. Yeah.

Scott Benner 45:48
Now you, you'll, you'll definitely, uh, you'll find people Hey. Episode 1378 is called heading to college with type one low blood glucose incidence. It's a three part series on going to college, and it's me and this person who her name's Andrea, right? And she's worked at colleges, helping kids with accommodations. She's also a type one. She's also worked in the past that, you know, organizations that solely help kids with type one at college. So look for those episodes. She can talk you through some of it. It's really good. And I'm going to email you the GLP list. In case you want to listen to it. I'll email you the pro tip list too, so you can, can take a look if you're interested. But I You can do it like I've been talking to you, yeah, you know, 45 minutes now, like you're easily smart enough and you're invested. It's just a matter of, like, making a decision that, like, you're going to prioritize it and then try to be ahead of it. And I'll tell you right now, man, like, I don't know a way to say it, that it'll be like, flashy, like a T shirt slogan and stick in your head. But life is about preparation for tomorrow. Like, if you're focused on prepping for tomorrow, today goes well. But if you run over there going like, oh my god, I'm here at school, there's people. I'm overwhelmed. I'm taking classes like, Wait, do you see all the things that hit you in the first 24 hours that you didn't think of? Yeah, I can see that. Just getting food for yourself, trying to meet people, wait till the first time is you're woken up by a bunch of drunk, high kids running around and you're irritated by them. That's going to be a problem in my daughter's first number of months at school, she called me one night and she's like, my roommates came home and they're all drunk and they're vomiting everywhere, and I'm trying to take care of them. And then she said something like, it made me realize she felt responsible for their safety. That's actually insane, yeah, and not a thing that she left school thinking was gonna happen to her. She didn't realize she was going to be the person in that scenario who would feel like guilt that they weren't able to handle themselves and that it was like, she's like, well, if they can't take care of themselves, and I'm here and I can now, it's on me. That's stressful. So those are the things you're not gonna be able to plan for. Maybe they won't happen to you. Exactly that something else might happen. You know, you have no idea. You might start dating a girl and she might break your heart, you know, like that, that's true, yeah? Like, any of this, I've dated before, you haven't actually, no, why not? Well, I don't know. I just haven't really felt the need to, yeah, I guess. Like, I've had the same friends since, like, middle school, and we've always done everything together. And, like, even in high school,

Brady 48:19
I met new people that girls and boys, I just

Scott Benner 48:25
haven't had the interest. Brady, I'm worried about your generation. You're not out there like trying to find a girlfriend currently. No, no, you think girls are really pretty though, and

Brady 48:34
you're Oh, yes, okay. I do think there's pretty people and and

Scott Benner 48:40
there's girls out there, you're interested in that way. You just don't make the move. It's

Brady 48:44
less being interested in more, in the sense of, like, I don't want that on my plate as

Scott Benner 48:51
well. I don't understand. I'm old. You understand much older than you. But at your age, I thought of almost

Brady 48:59
nothing else. Yeah, yeah. I think of my studies, friends that I have, the family that I have diabetes, work, and then, like, Lego and games,

Scott Benner 49:10
yeah, no, no. I thought about pretty girls. That was it. And then the rest of it, if it fit, was fine, but also we had nothing to do. Like, you know, I mean, if, I'm putting myself at your age 18, that makes it. Hold on, how old was? What year was it? When I was 18, it's just gonna freak you out. It was 89 you're fine. Yeah, I think was 89 I was 18. And you know, to say that, you know, there was nothing to do, is a there just wasn't a lot to do.

Brady 49:40
Yeah, I guess that makes sense, especially with, like, the Gen Z and then I guess the supposed Gen Alpha generation.

Scott Benner 49:48
I don't track any of that. I don't know what Gen I am. I don't know what Gen you are. I couldn't possibly care less. I'm saying there were no computers, no cell phones there, you know, stuff that came on television at eight o'clock at night. That was it like you didn't have. I mean, listen, I. With you now, I'm hip Brady. Like, I watch Youtube every day. Like, I find something that I'm interested in and listen to 10 minutes of something or a half an hour of something every day. I while I'm making the podcast, if I'm not recording, I am listening to somebody talk about something completely different on another screen. Like, and I'm sure you are too, right? Like, we've all, like, changed, like, as far as that goes, Yeah, people watch television while they're doing something else.

Brady 50:26
I am the same way. I'll watch, I'll pull up a YouTube video while, while

Scott Benner 50:30
something's on TV, which is, by the way, stupid Brady, but, but, like, that's how the world works, although I will say, lately I got that mob land on paramount, plus mob land. I sit and watch that very closely, as Tom Hardy is murdering people. Very good show.

Brady 50:44
I've been a very big Walking Dead enthusiast myself.

Scott Benner 50:48
Walking Dead is awesome. The first season is nearly perfect. It is, yeah, yeah. But now kids, like, don't even do that, like, they'll put it on in the background and do something else at the same time.

Brady 50:59
You see, when I'm, like, engaged in the show. I'll watch the show. Good.

Scott Benner 51:02
That's I'm happy for. This is how it should go. But my point is, is that back in my life, there was nothing to do, like, so you got up in the morning, you ate, and then you weren't like, Oh, I wonder what of these 9 million things I could do that will be exciting. There was nothing to do. So I was just like, let us identify attractive girls and keep asking them out until one of them says, yes,

Brady 51:23
yeah, and you can only play Monopoly so many times until

Scott Benner 51:28
True enough is that you're exactly right. There's nothing to do. There was MTV. Like, you could sit and watch music videos over and over again, but that was pretty much that most of us didn't have a car. Like, do you have a car? Can you drive around if you need

Brady 51:42
to? I actually got a car like, six months ago.

Scott Benner 51:46
See, you have, you have access to being mobile. If you need to reach people, your friends, you can reach them in an instant. I was just telling somebody the other day, we we'd walk for 45 minutes to get to somebody's house to find out they're not

Brady 51:58
there. I would do that when I was when I was younger, maybe not finding them that they're not there, but I would walk, like, a good hour to places.

Scott Benner 52:06
It's funny because, like, when you think of, like, the direction of your life, like, what's your goal? Like, to get a job or to make money, or, like, what do you think about when you think about the next 10 years? For

Brady 52:16
the longest time, I've said college, but I can't even say that anymore, can I? Well, I've done the math. I need to make about $110,000 a year to fully sustain myself, coming into, like, the 2030s

Scott Benner 52:30
and that includes $600 Legos once in a while.

Brady 52:34
Yeah, that includes the Lego that includes the medical bills of diabetes and dental and general. And how

Scott Benner 52:42
reasonable is that to make $110,000 with the degree you're looking at? Do you even know

Brady 52:47
it's reasonable if you could actually get a job that utilizes your degree? Because I've also seen that less and less people are actually going with a job that their degree is used in. Yeah,

Scott Benner 52:59
that happens a lot, man. So I A lot of times you'll see that people will, you know, start in one direction end in another, or that the thing you learn, just, you know, makes you available to get a job, and then you grow in that job or move to another one. You're freaking me out, though. Like my first job out of high school, I worked there part time. In high school, I made $4.50 an hour. Wow, yes, they very generously moved me up to $5 an hour when I started full time. So in a week, working 40 hours a week, I made $200 that times 52 would be $10,400 and then there were taxes taken out of that, in insurance. So I worked all year for about like, seven grand, maybe, is that right? That's hard to wrap your head around,

Brady 53:46
right? Yeah, I I've been working for a couple years now as a cashier at like, a family owned grocery store, yeah? Or, I guess, like specialty market. I first made 12 when I started, and then they bought me the 1350 after my first year. And then, because it's be about another month to go into my second year, but I'll be going to college, which means I won't be seeing much in my raise. Anyways,

Scott Benner 54:10
I haven't never done that math before. Like, I know I didn't make any money, but I didn't realize it was like $10,000

Brady 54:17
a year, Jesus, God with my school, I'm actually making about that much as well, personally. So you're making 1000s.

Scott Benner 54:24
Okay, so I'm not trying to make you feel good, but it sounds like you're going to the school you're going to for some somewhat for financial reasons. Were there other schools you were accepted to you would have preferred to go to that you couldn't afford to go

Brady 54:35
to? I would say so. So there's this private college called it was called Rollins College, and it was a beautiful campus, small class sizes, like 2030, across every class, and it was in Orlando where I wanted to go. So of course, I could work at that Lego store and get the 50% off. I hear what you're saying, but, but that that ended up being like 40,000 a year. Okay? Yeah. And because I'm only 17, I couldn't take out, like, loans or anything. My mom has been helping with my college process, and my dad finances, at least. And she looked at the loans with the help of my dad, like, picking out the loans, yeah, and with interest, those loans would end up being like, $400,000

Scott Benner 55:21
Yeah, after the end, what's the cost of where you ended up going?

Brady 55:24
FGCU, and that's about five grands a year that I'm gonna have to pay for, yeah?

Scott Benner 55:31
So 20,000 instead of 400,000 Yeah, yeah. Well, that makes a lot more sense,

Brady 55:37
because it's a public college, and with my high school education, I was able to get a scholarship, which covers full tuition. Good for you. My mom and dad are paying. They said they would pay for my dorm. That's nice. And my grandparents are setting me up with money for food, which means it leaves me to about 5000 a year that I have to pay for that's lovely,

Scott Benner 56:06
that everybody's going to help you like that, and you're not going to come out in crazy debt that you can never get on top of. That's a big deal, man. Well, listen, can I give you a piece of advice? Don't get a credit card. Okay, I is it too? Have you already gotten one? No, I don't have a credit card. Okay?

Brady 56:23
I've been told different things about credit cards, like you want one to build a credit score, but don't use it frequently, okay? And then at the same time you don't want one, because then you'll fall into the trap if you want to get a credit card

Scott Benner 56:37
with a $500 limit and buy something that you were going to buy anyway, and then pay it off at the end of the month before you pay month before you pay interest on it. That's fine with me, but, yeah, you can't get caught in that trap where you're like, oh, I need a sofa and I can't afford it, so I'll do that. Yeah? Or, trust me, it's never anything fun Brady, it's never a rocket ride. It's never c3 po Lego. It's always a sofa.

Brady 57:01
I was, I was hoping for, for that. C, 3p. O,

Scott Benner 57:04
yeah, it's not that. It's always going to be a sofa. It's going to be a sofa. It's going to be, I need shoes. It's going to be, I can't afford to eat this week. And then, you know, you're going to look up in five years and realize you have the credit card company $40,000 and that's a 27% interest and you're never

Brady 57:19
going to pay that off. My grandma came down. My grandma and grandpa came down from Massachusetts for my graduation. They offered to get socks for me, and I took them on their offer, damn, right? You

Scott Benner 57:29
did I take some free socks right now, if anybody wanted to send them over, I finally found socks I like, and they're not expensive. I'd be happy to take some freebies from you right now. You know what a t shirt cost? About $30 yeah, see what I'm saying. It's all ridiculous, my friend, it's all ridiculous. The chocolate chips I make chocolate chip cookies with, they took four ounces out of the bag, and they put the price up $1 saying That's right. Everywhere along the world there's going to be that, there's going to be going on. So we need you go to school, learn something awesome, figure out how to take care of yourself. Meet a girl, it smells nice. That's interesting. Yeah, you want to make the smell. You want to make sure they smell nice to you. It's very important. And vice versa. You don't think this is important the olfactory

Brady 58:13
I think I smell reasonable. I don't smell bad, although I don't like I don't take the measures to actively, like, smell nice, like I'm not using cologne. That's

Scott Benner 58:24
fine. I don't mean like that. I mean like, a natural way people. You just want to make sure you jive with them, I guess, as I'm saying, Oh yeah, I don't want you to run around sniffing people.

Brady 58:33
No, that'd be weird, damn, right. It would be

Scott Benner 58:37
Hi, I'm Brady. Okay. I'm just gonna go, yeah. So I am super interested in this. I just had a an interview recently with a guy in his 20s, and the same thing. I'm like, you dating? He goes, nah. I'm like, What are you guys doing? What about another person would add value to your life? Like you said, like, I have friends and I don't, like, I haven't really thought about that, but, like, what is it that you think another, like a mate,

Brady 59:02
would bring to you? Well, obviously, the love and compassion, I think hearing couples say, like, Yeah, I'll do I'll do this for you. Like, having a support, in a sense, I think just the support of like, having someone by your side, okay, is what a partner? Yeah, pretty, pretty much. If that's a definition of a partner,

Scott Benner 59:24
would you want to be that for somebody else too? Or does that not occur to you?

Brady 59:28
I don't think that in the traditional sense of a partner, I don't think I'd be ready for that when I haven't fully figured out my own self yet.

Scott Benner 59:37
Okay, so you think that you might not be a good partner for somebody else, but you'd need to get to another point where you would have the space to do that for

Brady 59:45
somebody else. Yes, interesting. Okay, what about

Scott Benner 59:50
the Fred, did you mind me asking, like, What about like, the sex part? Are you not like, interested in that part? If I see boobs, they're boobs pretty. I agree with you. They're wonderful. That part, you. Like, you look at girls and you think, like, oh, I would like to, like, be more intimate with people, but I'm not ready to be like a partner to somebody. I think that seems fair, by the way. Yeah, you think girls probably feel the same way, right? I would think so hopefully, hopefully Britney, like, this is my only chance. If they don't feel that way, what am I gonna do? Like, you know, my daughter has a lot of friends, and I think probably people are people, and they they feel the same way, like, you know, like I, I'm not looking to be responsible for another person, but I would like to have some fun and have some connection, you know, with somebody who I get along with. Yeah, I think that'll happen, don't

Brady 1:00:33
you? I think so too. And what's crazy is that I've been like a best friend to a girl since like, sixth grade and all throughout high school, other girls have said, Oh, you should, you should date her. And I'm like, No, but we're just, we're just friends, like we we enjoy you think she would be no, I don't think so. No, no, not at all. You think she doesn't like you that way? No, we make for amazing friends. Like, just, just weird antics, weird antics, doing high jumping or fixing a truck.

Scott Benner 1:01:07
Well, you have all those interests together. Is she attractive to you?

Brady 1:01:12
I think anyone can look attractive as just having the control to act on that or not act on it.

Scott Benner 1:01:18
So if you like her, then she's attractive, I guess. Yeah. I mean, listen, I don't really have a type. Like, I think that how I feel about you, like, emotionally is, is what makes you attractive. Physically, if you're just meeting somebody in public and you don't know them, then you kind of, you know, you use the basic checklist. But like, once you know somebody, I think, I think people are attractive and like, tons of different ways. And is

Brady 1:01:41
she going to college? Um, yes, she's. She's actually going to an all girls school in Georgia.

Scott Benner 1:01:49
Oh my gosh, you're not gonna be able to get to her there. They're gonna have a fence up. Yeah,

Brady 1:01:53
she's already said she's gonna come down to Florida, like during breaks and stuff, to say hi to her family and, of course, friends back at home, because I'll be staying

Scott Benner 1:02:01
local. I don't know, man, maybe she likes you. You never asked. You're not interested to know. No, no, nothing has ever happened and brushed a hand like by, nothing like that. I mean, she's offering to come see you right at college. Yeah, are you offering to go see her?

Brady 1:02:18
I mean, I said I would, yeah, and then, and then she directly said, Well, I don't know how that's gonna work, because they don't let boys in my school. Yeah. And then, like, there'd be no real place to, like, stay unless I went to, like, an actual hotel. Like, if she came down here, she obviously would have her parents to

Scott Benner 1:02:37
go to. Okay, all right. All right. Is there anything that we have not talked about that we should have Brady.

Brady 1:02:43
There is one thing go ahead that has just always been a thing with me, and that's on a pump, whatever pump, the insulin that delivers from the pump isn't effective for like, the first five hours,

Scott Benner 1:03:00
new sites don't seem as effective as established sites, right? Yeah. I think there's something to do with the the kind of, like trauma at the at the injection site. So, like, there's, yeah, like the boom, the needle go. What pump you wearing? Currently, the Omnipod, five. Okay. So then the needle goes in pop. Pop leaves the cannula behind. Now there's inflammation. Body's probably sending white blood cells there, because there's seems like there's a foreign body inside of you. Usually what people do is just kind of Bolus, a little heavier at pump changes.

Brady 1:03:35
That's what I try to do as well. I usually sell like a temp basal for like 35 40% for the first five hours afterward.

Scott Benner 1:03:42
I like that. I like whatever works for you there. I've seen people do a little like, a Bolus from the old pod. Like, if the old pod's working well, like, they'll, they'll, like, pump in some insulin from that one to cover for what's gonna happen with the new site, not maybe being as effective right away. Does that make sense? Should do that? Yeah, that's another idea that you could use. I like your temp basal idea. I would even, yeah, be more aggressive if you need to be with a temp. I've seen people put on a new pump and just Bolus right away, just to, you know, get some insulin moving through that site, any number of those tricks or collection of those should, should be valuable for you. You're gonna see that with any pump, though, it's just, it's your body, like, I mean, somebody just poked a hole in you, you know, that's true, yeah. So it's a it, there's, like, a small trauma that's gone on, and your body's, like, you know, dealing with it, it's settling down, and then it works better. I mean, that's not very technical, but that is what's happening. So, yeah, you were doing it. Try, try bolusing, like, like that, temp basal for five hours. Like, however much that is, because it's not that much, probably right. Like, what's your

Brady 1:04:51
basal rate? And throughout the day, I receive about 50 units of basal at like, two units an hour. You got

Scott Benner 1:04:57
two units going an hour. Wow. How much did you. Say you weighed you're six something, right? Six

Brady 1:05:02
foot. I'm like, I'm like, six foot one. I'm like, about 200 200 Yeah. So my current basal sets at 2.1 for the majority of the day, and then falls to two at night.

Scott Benner 1:05:19
And what's your insulin to carb ratio, one unit covers,

Brady 1:05:21
I think it's like, five carbs. And has it always been like that? It's slowly gone, yeah, slowly going up. And that's why

Scott Benner 1:05:35
is there any weight for you to lose? Like, do you think you're 10 pounds overweight? I

Brady 1:05:38
don't think. I'm not really overweight. I could maybe lose, like, I could use, I could lose a few pounds, right, if I really tried. Are you strong? Yeah? My Yes,

Scott Benner 1:05:50
yeah. Okay, so you're muscular and you're not carrying a bunch of fat.

Brady 1:05:55
Yes, my arms are developed. I have, like, giant legs. My thighs. It actually, if my thighs are so big to the fact that when I'm like walking around, it causes, like the scafing to happen, I think that's what the term is called. Do you lift? I started to this for the second semester of the school year, and I was doing like, 250 deadlift, 100 bench, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:06:23
no, you're you're okay, okay, he man. I mean, I understand why a doctor talked to you about Metformin, I'd be interested. Like, I'm gonna send you this list. You can listen to some episodes and try to see if you think a GLP works for you. But, yeah, trying a Metformin is not a bad idea at all. It might take your stomach a little time to get accustomed to it, but if you can cut down some of your insulin resistance, and, you know, find a way for your basal to be lower, your you know, your insulin to carb ratio to be lower, it's definitely going to help you when you hit that more challenging food at school, it's going to help you in general.

Brady 1:06:54
That's what I was hoping for, because, like, as I've grown like, I come from a family of a very like, large people, terms of, like, height, I guess muscle distribution, even just generally, yeah, and I've I'm eating more as I grow older, but the same, I'm also having to do higher carb ratios. So it's been like a, what, like a, like a curve, where it's just exponentially going up, in a sense, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:07:23
well, this list I'm going to send you here, besides the pro tips, so you know, talk about how to use insulin. There's another list here for the GLP medications, and there's a ton of people who've tried them, like, with varying degrees of success. There's a story here of a 15 year old girl who's like, barely uses any insulin anymore because of a GLP, down to some people who just have, like, you know, like, a 20% decrease. Now, there's other people with type one diabetes take a GLP, it won't touch them, who won't do anything for them, but they probably don't have any insulin resistance. Does that make sense? Yeah, or wait to lose, you know, maybe some of this will help you here, and you can try to, you know, go back to that doctor with the Metformin. And, I mean, I do it quickly because I'd like to see whatever you're doing. I'd like to see it be a pattern before you leave for school, because you don't want to have, you don't have to start a new thing. Like, I don't want you away at school when suddenly your insulin needs change by 30% you know what I mean, yeah, like, or, you know, or you have to remember to take a pill every day. Or, you know, like I said, a Metformin could mess with your stomach a little bit like, so you don't want to be, you know, if you're going to be poopy, Brady, you'd like to do that at home in June, not at school in September. Like, I ain't no way to meet a girl. I want you out there doing your, you know, at your best, while you're enjoying your your school,

Brady 1:08:43
you know what I mean? All right, Brady,

Scott Benner 1:08:45
this was awesome. I appreciate you doing this. So your your mom make you do this.

Brady 1:08:50
She suggested it, and I was the one that said yes or no. And I said, Yes, yeah, of course. But why did she just suggest it? Do you think I think just to talk to a person like yourself who has information and knowledge about diabetes and I guess life as a whole? Yeah, did you find this interesting or valuable? It was, it's been this was valuable. Yes, it's certainly interesting to talk to like someone such as yourself. Oh, cool. I had a great knowledge and expertise. I

Scott Benner 1:09:17
appreciate it, man. I had a great time talking to you. It was awesome. I uh, you making me want to make a Lego that's for sure. I've never played Minecraft. I don't think I have the head for it. I think I'd be like, I dig one trench, and I'd be like, What the hell? And I'd be done. I don't have big picture. I don't think I could hold all that in my head at the same time without, like, there being a win at the end.

Brady 1:09:37
I mean, my family doesn't play Minecraft because they just get dizzy from playing it, like they can't handle the screens.

Scott Benner 1:09:43
Yeah, I don't think I'd be good with it. I will sit down sometimes watch my son play it because, like, I'm trying to figure out, like, what is he thinking about? Like, what's he doing, you know what? I mean, yeah, but

Brady 1:09:55
that's it. Are you athletic? Do you get out and move around? I did cross country in middle school. Mm. Hmm. And I still like running. I like biking a lot, okay? And I like volleyball, but our school didn't have a volleyball team, so

Scott Benner 1:10:07
try to stay active in college, though. Keep moving, okay? Because it'll be it'll be valuable for

Brady 1:10:11
you. I also play a VR game called Beat saber. I don't know if you've heard anyone talk about that before.

Scott Benner 1:10:17
I have not, but it sounds like you're dancing with a lightsaber in your head.

Brady 1:10:21
That's kind of exactly what it is, and that gets you moving very when you get to, like, advanced difficulties, I guess is what you could say it as you're moving around to the point where, like, your arms feel like jello when you're done and you're sweating a bucket,

Scott Benner 1:10:37
Oh, geez. All right, hey, whatever keeps you moving. All right? I think you're on your way, Brady, I think you're gonna do great. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. You got a lot of stuff figured out. The things you don't have figured out, you're thinking about. You got good motivation to go find some ladies. I think that's good too. Of all the things you said today, I felt good about that, because I'm very worried for your entire generation. You just don't feel like you guys are dating very much. I don't know it's weird,

Brady 1:11:04
it I'm sure I think it's the online trends. Yeah, no, I

Scott Benner 1:11:09
agree. It's you. Your life is fulfilling inside of a screen. You know what? I mean? Like, like I said, you certainly have more going on than I had going on when I was a kid. You know, more opportunities for things. They're just, they're solitary things. You know, we want you to be able to, like, be around some real people

Brady 1:11:25
even now, I'm not, we're not talking on, like a radio. I'm talking on my computer, and you're talking on

Scott Benner 1:11:31
I'm talking on a computer too. Don't worry. I'm sitting in front of two different computers with two different screens and a bunch of audio equipment. And, yeah, it's not lost to me. I'm actually a couple weeks from now, I'm gonna go myself and 100 listeners are going on a cruise together. I'm excited to meet people in person, and then I'm going to a diabetes conference a couple weeks after that, where I'll probably meet 1000s of people who have diabetes, actually, in Orlando.

Brady 1:11:54
So does the does the merch store fund that the merch store fund? What

Scott Benner 1:12:00
the the the cruise, no, no, no. People pay their way. And we just, we just put it together to see if we could get people interested in just wanting to meet each other. And overall, that's what it is to a bunch of people who are just like, hey, I'm gonna go on vacation and meet a lot of other people living with diabetes. I don't get to see other people living with diabetes. So it's just a nice opportunity for people to get together. But anyway, like, I'm gonna take a lot from meeting people in person. Anyway, can't touch boobs on the screen, is what I'm saying. Brady, so get out there. Okay, that's always that's true. Don't forget to always ask permission. Okay, yep, okay, all right, hold on a second.

You I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter that my daughter carries, the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next.com/juicebox and don't forget, you may be paying more through your insurance right now for the meter you have, then you would pay for the contour next gen in cash. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now, and links at Juicebox podcast.com to contour and all of the sponsors. The episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool. If you want a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision for peace of mind. You want twist twist.com/juicebox, thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode, we've been talking about Medtronic mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night, whether it's their meal detection technology or the Medtronic extended infusion set, it all comes together to simplify life with Diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox,

hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. You

Hey kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know what else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the Juicebox podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community. Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook, of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in. We make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. The episode you just heard was professional. Ly edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com. You.

Please support the sponsors

---

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate

#1602 Lesbian Energy

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

After divorcing a woman pre-pandemic, Hannah and her now-husband went from coworkers to roommates to soulmates—raising daughter Jude with T1D, balancing autoimmune histories, anxiety, and love.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

---

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.

Hannah 0:14
Hi, I'm Hannah, and I am the mom of a four year old with type one diabetes. She was diagnosed a couple months before her third birthday.

Scott Benner 0:26
I am here to tell you about juice cruise, 2026 we will be departing from Miami on June 21 2026 for a seven night trip, going to the Caribbean. That's right, we're going to leave Miami and then stop at Coco k in the Bahamas. After that, it's on to St Kitts, St Thomas and a beautiful cruise through the Virgin Islands. The first juice Cruise was awesome. The second one's going to be bigger, better and bolder. This is your opportunity to relax while making lifelong friends who have type one diabetes, expand your community and your knowledge on juice cruise 2026 learn more right now at Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise. At that link, you'll also find photographs from the first cruise. 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. Today's episode is sponsored by the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology, if you are looking for the only system with auto Bolus, multiple wear options and full control from your personal iPhone. You're looking for tandems, newest pump and algorithm. Use my link to support the podcast tandem diabetes.com/juicebox check it out. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox,

Hannah 2:04
Hi, I'm Hannah, and I am the mom of a four year old with type one diabetes. She was diagnosed a couple months before her third birthday. Do you have any other kids? I do. My son. He just turned two last month. Oh,

Scott Benner 2:18
I thought you're gonna say older for some reason. No,

Hannah 2:21
nope. It was a nice, nice shock to be with my daughter in the hospital with my 10 month old. Like, I'm sorry, what now diabetes?

Scott Benner 2:31
You were holding a 10 month old while the doctor was talking to you about diabetes for your three year old. You're like, oh, this is good. Yep. We've made a lot of good decisions. Things are really coming

Hannah 2:40
together. Yeah. I mean, like, I kind of knew that that was what was coming. But I was also like, this isn't real. How did you know I have a medical background? And I also had noticed some concerning things, like, over, like, the year before that, but I was, I would just chalk it up to like, Oh, she's just not feeling well right now. Or, I don't know, maybe just something wonky with toddlers. This is my first kid, so I what do I

Scott Benner 3:06
know this probably happens? What kind of things do you recall? So she

Hannah 3:10
would just, like, randomly throw up, like, just literally out of nowhere. She'd be like, jumping around and then just puke. Or, like, one time my husband was taking her to the aquarium, and she was riding in the back seat, and then all of a sudden, just, like, vomited, like, so so much. And he took her home thinking she was sick, but she didn't have a fever or anything, and she was just like, I feel fine, and I know now, like when she threw up those times, like she had recently eaten a ton of fruit, so she probably just had like crazy high blood sugar, and her body was just trying to get it out. Oh,

Scott Benner 3:43
it's interesting. Oh, she waited a little longer. She could have chummed at the aquarium. They would have loved that.

Hannah 3:48
I know. Yeah, she would wake up from naps, like, inconsolable, until she had like, an ice pop or some fruit or something. And I think she was having, like, a really bad low, but we didn't know then, didn't even know to check Hannah. That's heartbreaking. Yeah, it was not easy, not easy for her, that's for sure.

Scott Benner 4:09
No, of course not. But he was just talking about it. Is kind of soul crushing a little bit. Am I going to be all emotional today? Okay, let's find out, I guess, because we'll see you're talking about it. I'm like, Oh no, this is horrible. I don't want to cry today. I have to record twice today. I can't be crying. Oh my gosh. So other autoimmune stuff in your family, or no,

Hannah 4:31
yes, like rampant on both sides of our family. So I have vitiligo. One of my sisters has Hashimotos. My mom has thyroid issues. Another sister has pots. My father in law has myasthenia gravis, and my sister in law has MS, Myos, my what? Myasthenia gravis? Okay, what is? It's a neurodegenerative autoimmune disease basically causes like muscle weakness.

Scott Benner 5:00
Okay, you didn't just want to see if I could spell it. I don't think I came anywhere close to it, but I'm gonna find out right now. It'll probably pop up. The user is asking about this, but there seems like there might be a typo. You think. So see when it comes up, what? How does that affect him?

Hannah 5:16
So he has to take prednisone, like, constantly. He gets, like, really weak. Can't, like, lift anything, so Jeez, he first realized it because, like, his eyelids started drooping. And so we went in to have that checked out. Like, Oh, am I having a stroke or something? And then found out that it was that,

Scott Benner 5:35
oh my gosh. And you and your then boyfriend were just awesomely attracted to each other. Like, I think we could make a baby to tell you. Type one

Hannah 5:43
if we try. Yeah, yep, that's Yeah, exactly, exactly how it

Scott Benner 5:48
happened. Where's your vitiligo at? Is it like visible, or is it like widespread or in smaller places?

Hannah 5:54
Yeah. So I started getting spots of it when I was maybe five or six, and it's definitely, like, slowed down as I have aged, but it's all over, and it mine is the type that's mirrored. So if it's on one side of my body, it's in the same place on the other side. So lots of like, like, elbows, hips, I

Scott Benner 6:15
didn't realize that did that. So some people have mirrored vitiligo, and some people don't, yes, yeah. Can I say something ridiculous? That's sure, at least it's symmetrical, right? That's probably helpful. No,

Hannah 6:27
I mean, it doesn't really, doesn't really have any impact for me. Impact either way. I've just, you know, I've had it forever, 30 some years, so not a thing you think about. Yeah, I don't think about it at all, and when people notice it, I'm, like, surprised that they even notice,

Scott Benner 6:44
because you've you've forgotten about it, yeah, pretty much. Is it on your face at all?

Hannah 6:48
It is, yeah, but very minimal,

Scott Benner 6:50
okay. And when you were choosing this boy, did you know like, I have an autoimmune issue, so do all my sisters and my mom, and now he has somebody who says we shouldn't do that, is that even I know this isn't a thing you thought about, but I just want not at all, right, like, it's not a thing you would have ever considered. Yeah, no,

Hannah 7:09
honestly, like, when we got together, like I I knew his sister had, MS, his dad had not been diagnosed with Myasthenia, gratis yet, but it was just, like, not something I considered at all. Yeah, I didn't really fully understand, like, the genetic components of autoimmune diseases at that point. But I mean, like, when we were in the ER, and the doctor was telling us, you know, hey, she has type one diabetes, he had asked the same question, like, do you have other things in your family? He even said, I see you have vitiligo. What else is going on? Like, medical history wise? And then he was like, Yeah, unfortunately, like, this tracks, and she pulled the type one stick. So

Scott Benner 7:52
exactly I listen. Would it over rule love when I was in my 20s, I know it wouldn't have like, if you said, you said, You know what I mean? Like, if you're busy running around, having a good time, and you're like, I love this person, and you know, you're like, we're gonna get married and have children, it's gonna be wonderful. And somebody said you have a higher chance of having here's a list of things you'd be like, it's okay. Love will conquer all 2030, years later, I don't know. Like, yeah, maybe I would have just been like, all right, Kelly, we've had a good time. I think the mix of us isn't going to go well, do you know what I mean?

Hannah 8:29
Yeah, what's super interesting is that I've, like, I've always known that I wanted kids, but my husband didn't really want them previously, and then, like, realized later on, maybe I do want kids.

Scott Benner 8:43
You told him he wanted kids. He understood that he wanted

Hannah 8:48
kids. Um, kind of he it was more like, I knew that I didn't want kids with the people I was with before.

Scott Benner 8:55
Oh, okay, well, that's Yeah, yeah. Like being serious, that makes a lot of sense. Like, why would you have that feeling if the people you're with were like, it was uncomfortable somehow, yeah, did you explain it to him in your underwear, or did you talk to him about it at dinner? How did you trick him exactly?

Hannah 9:12
We met, we worked together, and we had both recently been divorced, and it was like, right before covid times.

Scott Benner 9:20
Honestly, this is all very fresh. This is very new relationship,

Hannah 9:23
kind of, yeah, but we had been friends for a bit because we worked together, but we had both recently been divorced, and he needed a new place to live, and I had an extra room, so I was like, Hey, you can like be we can be roommates. And, you know, because we were good friends, and then the world shut down, and we realized that it was a different relationship than we initially thought.

Scott Benner 9:43
You didn't have that feeling like you weren't honestly, when you told him to move in, you weren't like, this could work into something. You weren't thinking that. No, not at all. He didn't think that. No, but what about him? He's a boy. He thought he was going to try to have sex with

Hannah 9:56
you at some point. Well, no, actually,

Scott Benner 9:59
so. What kind of a self respecting boy wouldn't have that thought? No, go

Hannah 10:02
ahead. I guess maybe I don't know, but I'm queer, and I had been divorced from a woman, so I don't think it even crossed his mind.

Scott Benner 10:11
This is a completely safe place for me. She is gonna fight me off with a stick I got you. Well, then what happened here is he just so masculine and overcame everything. No, he has like,

Hannah 10:21
very lesbian energy. I tell everybody that he's a very like gentle soul, just like a really kind person. Oh, that's

Scott Benner 10:32
lovely. Yeah, it's nice. Does he brag to people that he turned you?

Hannah 10:37
Oh, no, not at all. No, not really. He makes jokes about it to me sometimes, but not, not anybody else. It's

Scott Benner 10:46
a real it's a hell of a flex, though, don't you think?

Hannah 10:49
I mean, I guess I don't know why

Scott Benner 10:52
you're not thinking about it the way I'm thinking about I know he's telling all of his friends. He's like, here's what happened. She saw my penis, and she was like, I guess I'm not gay anymore.

Hannah 11:02
Yeah. I mean, maybe

Scott Benner 11:05
was that, yeah, for the penis.

Hannah 11:09
I don't really, I don't, I don't know. So, all right, we got to get past

Scott Benner 11:13
this. But I want to understand before, like, did you like, I don't understand all the words. So did you consider yourself bi while you were with the girl you were married

Hannah 11:23
to. Yeah, okay, yeah, I prefer the word queer. But I mean, okay, Pan, whatever it all, it's all the

Scott Benner 11:29
same. Can you tell me why you prefer that word over the other when

Hannah 11:33
I hear the word like bisexual, I think like man or woman, and queer is more like all encompassing of all genders, and I, like me personally, I'm attracted to personalities.

Scott Benner 11:45
Okay, all right, yeah, it really doesn't matter to you what the gender is, right?

Hannah 11:49
Yeah, or the gender identity doesn't got you. Does not bother me. Whatever it is. I think it's

Scott Benner 11:55
interesting when you know they're words that I would imagine, that most people would hear and go, do they not all mean the same thing, right? For you, no. So, like, let's understand what they mean. Okay, so this boy somehow tricks you and then ruins your life by making you pregnant twice. Tell me a little bit about like, even though there's illness in your family, right? Like, people are taking medications, there's still pills, right? Like, you know, injecting things and so on and so forth. Like, what was the shift like, especially coming out of like, it all, it just occurs to me that, like, you get together covid, a lot of big shifts in your life, right? You end up married. You're like, Yeah, I'm gonna have a baby. He didn't think he was gonna have one. You thought you are, here's the baby. This all starts happening inside of a couple of years, like, what's the shift like for you? Like, psychologically, I guess.

Hannah 12:44
I mean, it was definitely tough on us, tougher on my husband. I think because I grew up knowing someone who had type one, while I didn't, obviously didn't understand, like, all of the intricacies of it, I at least knew, like, okay, she's going to be okay. Like, this guy is perfectly fine, healthy now has his own kid, like, he has a very successful job, like, she's gonna be okay. And because I had the medical background too, I'm like, I can figure this out. Like, we can figure out how to dose her correctly, like, we'll get it together. But my husband really doesn't have much experience with medical stuff, so it was definitely more of a shock to

Scott Benner 13:33
him. He was shocked more so you described him as having lesbian energy. So is he very emotional person. You can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes. The Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends, and the app will also provide you with a projected a 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juicebox when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast dexcom.com/juicebox head over there. Now 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 hyperglyce. Semia. 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. Yeah, yeah. Do you think it hit him on that level? Or do you think definitely, yeah, and the nuts and bolts of, like, how do we manage this was off putting too, okay, yeah.

Hannah 15:56
I mean, honestly, he's like, he's very like, private when it comes to, like, being outwardly emotional, like, it really only happens, like, in the confines of our home, but like, for me, like, we go to a breakthrough, T 1d, walk, and I'm, like, crying when we get in the parking lot. Because I'm just like all these people, we all understand, and

Scott Benner 16:18
he's not going to cry in the parking lot. No later, no,

Hannah 16:22
get home and just be like, I'm so sad for her, but yeah, so

Scott Benner 16:26
does the care fall to you? Mainly, then after the diagnosis? No,

Hannah 16:30
actually, my husband is a stay at home dad, much like you were. Oh yeah. So he had to get with it, like, right away. And honestly, like he was, he was amazing with it. Like, from the beginning, like, kept it together with her. And like, was able to get her to calm down enough to, you know, get her shot before she ate. And it was tough for him, but he, he held it together. Like, so Well, yeah, I like the data part. So, like, I'm on tandem source, a lot was on clarity before we were on the pump, just to, like, figure stuff out. And I'm, like, constantly tinkering with settings and everything. But like, he is the one who handles like, 90% of the care, like he does overnights, if there's lows, he obviously is all day managing it. So,

Scott Benner 17:18
yeah, okay, hey, do I have lesbian energy?

Hannah 17:21
Is that why you like me? Maybe a little

Scott Benner 17:23
bit. I mean, I just figured like I was also a stay at home dad. For a long time, there was an awesome I know I've said this before, but there was an awesome thread on Yahoo arguing if I was gay or not after I wrote my book. It was fantastic.

Hannah 17:38
Well, I thought my husband was gay when I first met him. So, you know, there's some similarities. I write

Scott Benner 17:42
this book about being a stay at home dad, right? I get some media around it, which is not easy to accomplish, and I end up on Katie Couric show, and then they repurposed the show as a post, and it got on Yahoo, and it made it through the front page of Yahoo, back when that really meant something. And like, the book boomed from that, yeah. So we couldn't figure out why my like book that was selling fine was all of a sudden selling so well. And then so we started Googling and trying to figure it out. And then one day, we found this Yahoo, like, like post, and my wife sitting on the sofa, and she goes, Hey, there's a lot of comments on this post. And she she dug into it. She goes, Oh, I see what's happening here. And I said, what's going on? She goes, half of these people think you're like, emotional and then connected and a good dad, and the other half definitely think you're closeted and that I should know that I'm married to a gay guy. And so while they're arguing, some of the people are going and buying the book. So I was like, awesome. Yeah, it was great. It's the first time I learned about that. Like, I didn't really that's not a thing I understood until I saw it happen there, and then people will be like, Oh, are you, like, sad that, like, people are talking about you, like this. I was like, No, I hope they keep doing it. I was like, I don't hear them, and I do want the book to sell. So anyway, I just wanted to try to figure out what lesbian energy means. What is it? But is it? But we'll figure it out as we go. Yeah. So is the kid, the kid, sorry, your daughter, right? Yeah, yeah, the kid, that kid you made that's not, that's fine. I didn't. That's not how I met it. But, uh, pumping CGM like, how do you manage it today? Yeah,

Hannah 19:22
yeah. So back in August, it's June now, right? Yeah, that is when she started on a pump. So it was MDI before that, but she's been on the g7 since about a week after diagnosis, and she's on the Mobi. Oh, okay. How do you like that. Oh, I love it. Her last day 1c, was just on Monday, 6.2 Hey, congratulations. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. I was very excited.

Scott Benner 19:49
Speaking of daughters, mine's texting me. I am

Hannah 19:52
recording what's up.

Scott Benner 19:56
People tell me they miss when Arden used to like text during from. School about her Bolus, I don't know how to tell you. She doesn't text me about her boluses anymore. Yeah, I'm sure. Okay, so you like the Moby is the first pump she's ever had?

Hannah 20:10
Yes? Yeah, we were debating between the Moby and the Omnipod five because at that time, it was not approved for her age. But I, after I did, like, a ton of research, I was like, You know what, I really want to try this. And we, luckily have an absolutely wonderful, excellent endocrinologist. And she was like, let's go. Do you want to be experimental? Like, I will fight for you. Let's get it and let's try it. She had, didn't have anybody else that was on that pump, but she was like, we'll figure it out. And the diabetes educator that we have, she is also type one herself, and she had been on an Omnipod, but she was like, You know what, I'm gonna test out the Moby before you come in, just so I can, like, have something to, yeah, contribute in terms of, like, self management. And so she tried it out for like, three weeks before we went in for our appointment to learn how to use the pump and put up, you know, all the settings and everything. And it was just great, good. It was a great experience. Yeah, listen

Scott Benner 21:10
for the people listening, no matter what side of this you fall on, it's omnipod.com/juicebox or tandem diabetes.com/juicebox. Just, I don't care which one you get, just use my link. Yeah, that's the world we live in now, kids, you got to click on those links. Or Scott, he's not making this podcast awesome. So I'm glad you found something you like so quickly. That's it's fantastic. Did you do the software update recently? Yep. What did that change? If anything? So

Hannah 21:35
it has really helped with trickier foods, like like pizza or, like, she loves ramen, which is just the death of me. But like, the other day, we were able to do a much longer, extended Bolus. We could do one for five hours to get on top of something, get on top of something. And she, she had had, like, a little mini personal pizza, and she didn't get above 124

Scott Benner 22:01
Well, that's awesome. Isn't

Hannah 22:03
that good? Amazing?

Scott Benner 22:03
I think all the aid systems should maybe rethink the fact that there's a need for extended boluses, or, you know, that kind of stuff, split boluses, whatever you want to call them. Those are valuable tools that we for some reason. Some people were just like, oh, I guess we don't need this anymore because it's automated. I'm like, Ah, automated. I'm like, I don't think you're like, you're thinking this through, but yeah, I assume they'll all get to that position again. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Okay, so how does she handle having diabetes? She's so little,

Hannah 22:33
definitely in the first few months there was some resistance, but honestly, she's been a real trooper through the whole thing. Very occasionally we'll get times where, like she doesn't want to wait for a snack or something, and so she's just like, why can't I be normal? I don't want diabetes. And then two seconds later, she's like, I love having diabetes. So it's, it's very interesting. But I mean, she she handles site changes really well. Her Dexcom changes she handles well. The worst part, honestly, is taking stuff off of her. She hates having things removed, yeah, but she she does great. She the first thing she tells everybody is like, Hi, my name is Jude, and I have type one diabetes. And she'll then explain what happened to her pancreas and how she needs insulin because her body doesn't make it. No kidding, yes, it's really great. Actually, do

Scott Benner 23:26
people respond and go, Hey Jude? Because that's what I would do. I'd be like, Yes, I do, yeah, of course. Right? Everyone says, Hey, Jude. Door, no. Oh yeah. Did you name her after the Beatles song?

Hannah 23:36
Yes, yeah. Our son is named after a Beatles song as well. His name's let it be No, his name is Maxwell. Oh, that's awesome.

Scott Benner 23:47
How old are you? I'm 36 who seeded the Beatles into you my

Hannah 23:52
aunt and my mom. No kidding. That's

Scott Benner 23:56
awesome. I forced the Beatles on my kids at an appropriate time so that they would appreciate it. Yeah, I think I've talked my kids into believing but I've told them before. I'm, like, really think about it. Like, right now today, a Beatles song comes on the radio. Everybody can sing it, right? Billy Joel almost falls under this like, like, yeah, totally right, this space too. And I said, like, pick up popular song from this year. And I think the first time we started talking about it like this, like, Meek Mill was huge One summer, I said, Cole, if 50 years from now you are singing a meek mill song, dig me up and tell me, because I want to know. I was like, because I don't think that's going to happen, yeah. And I was like, There's something like, I don't know what it is, if it's like when it happened, or how different it was, or how widespread it was, or it was because nobody had access to anything else at the time, you know, like it was just but it doesn't explain why a 34 year old would name both of her kids after a Beatles song so many years after those songs were written, like there's Scott. To be something special about them that I don't know if you can quantify it or not. Yeah, yeah, the husband agreed with all this. Or was he like, I have a slayer song I want to name

Hannah 25:10
America. No, he's a big Beatles fan too. So it was perfect. It

Scott Benner 25:14
really is. So you guys just sat around listen to music during covid and fell in love, huh?

Hannah 25:18
Yeah. I mean, mostly watching Marvel movies. But, yeah,

Scott Benner 25:21
really, do you watch them in chronological order? Or we have a long argument around, like, where do you watch and do you include the the old Hulk movies when you watch straight through? So,

Hannah 25:34
yeah, so the old, the oldest Hulk movie, that is, like, technically, part of it isn't streaming on anything, or wasn't at that time when we were watching them. So we did not watch that one, but we we didn't do it in like timeline order, but we did it in release order. So starting with the first Iron Man movie, and then went all the way through till the end of the Infinity saga. Do

Scott Benner 25:59
you feel like the newer stuff after end game is terrible. Or do you think that it just, it's up and down, it's hit or miss. So may I say, I hope this is something people care about. But I have a similar feeling about the Marvel movies that I I do about the Beatles stuff. Like, I think it just captured a moment. Yeah, right. Like, there was something going like, they finally figured out superhero movies and like, and I mean that, like, I'm much older than you, but trust me, if I went to the theater to see Superman, the first one that guy was in underwear, okay, yeah, it wasn't good, okay. Like, Christopher Reeves was, like, fine and all, but like, it just wasn't that great. Yeah, we loved it. We thought it was awesome. But, you know, oh my God, he's flying like he looks like he's flying. I the same feeling when I saw Star Wars in the theater. I was like, Oh my God, those are spaceships in space. Yeah? And like, right now, you don't have those thoughts anymore, because the stuff is, is so awesome. But anyway, like, there was something that had to happen. Because those Marvel movies, they were like, they're coming. And even if one came out, and you were like, is that a Thor movie in an RV, like, this is not awesome, yeah, you didn't care, because you felt like, you felt like, well, I know the next big one's coming, and this kind of keeps us attached to it on its way. Like, it like, you know, the the first Ant Man movie had that feeling right? Like, all that stuff, yeah. But then they get to end game, and what happened? Did it just feel like it stopped? My son's like, they should just pick new characters, put new actors with them, and do it again. I don't know if that would

Hannah 27:39
work. Yeah. I kind of feel like it's a Lightning in a Bottle situation, like I don't know if they're going to be able to get back to that. It's just

Scott Benner 27:48
over, right? Yeah, yeah. And you have to wait for the next thing to organically happen, yeah, to catch that again, I agree. All right. Listen, I run around here all the time, and I think if you enjoyed that time. You're thanking Jon Favreau for it, yes, definitely, really, is it right? Like he's the one who's like, Hey, I'm gonna take that drug addict and make an Iron Man movie, because that's how it was back then. Like, Robert Downey was like, persona non grata. Nobody was touching Robert Downey, yeah. Listen, there is an awesome news report of him showing up by, think, naked in his neighbor's house, so nobody's touching. Robert Downey Favreau picks, I know today, in 2025 you say Iron Man, everybody's like, I know exactly what that means. But back when they made that Iron Man movie, that was a side character, nobody gave a about, oh yeah, that's how he got them to give him the IP to make the movie because they were, like, you wanted to move what I find, try it. Who cares? Yeah, but he's perfect. The whole thing's perfect. That Iron Man movies awesome, right? Yeah. We have a lot of arguments around here. If it's Iron Man one, then Iron Man three and Iron Man two, or vice versa. Arden has some pretty, like, strongly held beliefs about what order those movies are valuable in. It's so funny that Arden loves all that Marvel stuff, because, and it does really put a like a thumbtack in your idea of like lightning in a bottle, because it just hit her at the right time. Yeah? Because, if you take her to other movies that are more modern, like that, like, she doesn't give a about them, yeah, really interesting. Did you almost name your kids after Marvel characters, or was it always

Hannah 29:24
going to be Beatles? No, it was always going to be Beatles. I've always wanted a daughter named Jude, like since I was a teenager.

Scott Benner 29:30
That's awesome. On our initial list that we made for Cole's names, that you know, the first list where you just say every ridiculous name out. Oh, my God, Anakin was on that list.

Hannah 29:44
That's funny. I'm a huge Star Wars fan too, but I don't think I would name my kid, Anakin.

Scott Benner 29:48
No, I know. But back then, I was like, oh, that's different. You know, it got, I want to be clear, it got struck off in one of the very first like, yeah, mark down. I don't know if everybody does this. So we made an exhaust. Of lists of names, and then we'd, like, whip it out almost every night after work. And like, we'd sit in the living room and we we'd read them out loud and somebody and you could just veto it. You could just go, No, I'm done with that one. Like, I wanted to name a girl Madison. And Kelly was like, I am not okay with that. I was like, lost that one pretty quickly. Yeah, I think if I wasn't there, Kelly would have named Arden Serafina, really? Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. So anyway, neither here nor there, but there is a name that was on Kelly's initial girls list, and then Arden shared her baby name list with us one time, and that same name was on it. I can't remember. I can't believe, I can't think of what it is right now, but I thought that was interesting too, because it's not a name that we talked about around the that we talked about around the house at all, all right. Oh, I'm so sorry. So you made a baby and it came out, and now it has diabetes, and she's doing great, and your husband's doing great, but that's not what you wanted to come on the podcast about, like, your note is so specific, it took me by surprise,

Hannah 30:56
yeah, so I, as much as I have tried, I cannot understand why some people are more prone to DKA than others. Okay, so like, you know, like my daughter has had ketones, moderate ketones one time, and it was when she had flu B, like, a month ago. But other than that, like she is, even when she was getting diagnosed, it was like trace like, and her sugar was, like, 797, and they were like, yeah, no, she's not in DKA. She's She's doing good. Like, they literally, like, gave her insulin and sent us home and told us to come back in the morning.

Scott Benner 31:33
Why is this something you think about? I think

Hannah 31:36
because I see so many posts about people's kids like getting sick and going into DKA, or, like so many diagnosis stories of DKA, which I know is just mainly people not noticing that the symptoms are diabetes, you know, like they're just thinking their kid is sick, you know. Like, I see things on Reddit where people are like, Oh yeah, I want to try low carb. And somebody else will comment and be like, I tried doing low carb, and I ended up in DKA three times. And so it's just like, makes no sense to me. Like, I feel like some people just like, end up there a lot. And so how to, like, my kid doesn't.

Scott Benner 32:14
Why does one person have like, a low carb diet and do great on it, but another person has low carb diet, obviously, it reduces their insulin needs, and then they end up in DK because they're not taking enough insulin.

Hannah 32:25
Yeah, it's like, I get, I understand, like, why people go into DKA, but it just seems like some people are so much more prone to it. I looked at your

Scott Benner 32:36
note this morning, but this is crazy. I never prepare for the podcast. Oh, wow. But this

Hannah 32:41
maybe it's because I messaged you yesterday, like, should I be doing something? Yeah, you were a little panicked.

Scott Benner 32:45
I might have put it in my head. I was like, Oh, maybe I should look like, what did she write in that thing? Because you're like, what should I be doing? And I'm like, doing what it was

Hannah 32:51
is, I was listening to the episode that came out this week, and the lady had sent you, like, a list of things that she wanted to cover. And I was like, Oh, I did not I, what should I be doing here?

Scott Benner 33:04
I think I know which one you're talking about. She was, like, over prepared. Like, I think I commented in the middle of it, like, yeah, I was like, I'm like, I know people think I must be doing a great job of leading this, but I'm just following her, like, exhaustive outline that she put together. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just good at doing it, and you not knowing I'm doing it, but I'm going to tell the truth here and tell you we're just going to look at something very quickly. Because I asked your question this morning into our overlords. I said, Why are some type ones more prone to DKA, or are they not? And like, because I wondered, like, maybe you're just seeing ghosts. You know what I mean? Like, maybe, maybe that's not true. And if you ask chat GPT or other AIS really specific questions, like, Hey, how come there's more people with DKA than blah, blah, blah, it'll follow the it could follow the thread of the of the question and want to give you an answer that responds instead of thinking through both sides. What it said was some people at type one are more prone to DKA, but their reasons are multi factor, so it makes a listing here biological and physiological differences. First listing is insulin deficiency severity. People who produce little to no residual insulin, as measured by C peptide levels, are at higher risk. So that's just saying. Like some people are further along and aren't making any insulin. Some people probably are still making tiny amounts of their own endogenous insulin. Those newly diagnosed or with long standing type one diabetes have less beta cell function and are more vulnerable hormonal counter regulation. Some individuals experience stronger counter regulation responses, high glucagon, cortisol, growth hormone, with accelerated ketone production during insulin deprivation, body compensation and metabolism. Leaner individuals may enter ketosis more rapidly due to lower glycogen reserves. And people with high insulin sensitive. Activity can still develop decay If insulin deliberately is disrupted, as their fat metabolism kicks in quickly. Jenny and I did a hump as a pro tip about this or defining maybe, but the difference between ketones that you have from eating low carb and ketones that you have from not having enough insulin are different, right, right? So, if you have a higher ketone level because you're super low carb and you're burning fat and etc, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be in the hospital. But the ones you brought up about people are like, I tried to eat low carb and I ended up in DKA. That's not just them saying they had ketones. They they're, you know, if we're taking them at their word they had DK, right? Maybe they had such low insulin needs because they were so low carb and they just weren't using enough insulin. I don't know. This goes on. It says insulin delivery issues, of course, like, you know you could have a pump malfunction. Like obvious. There's obvious reasons why somebody could be in DKA, an illness or infection. Infections ramp up insulin requirements. Without proactive insulin increase, EPA can develop, but that's really just still talking about you're not using enough insulin for your needs,

Hannah 36:10
right? Yeah, yeah. Like, we had one situation where, like, my daughter woke up and she had been at 180 all night and we hadn't. Our alarm is set at 200 overnight, so, like, we never, never got an alarm. Nobody woke up. And in the morning I went to get her out of bed, and her site was ripped out. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I wonder when that happened, considering you've been so high all night. And she goes, Oh, do you remember last night when I jumped off the couch and I said something hurt? And I was like, yeah. She was like, It ripped off. Then I just put it back on.

Scott Benner 36:41
Hey, I stuck it back on. It was fine, okay.

Hannah 36:44
I was like, okay, so you have literally been without insulin for 12 hours. How do you feel? She's like, I feel fine. Like, no, no, stomach ache like, nothing like that. No, I'm hungry. Can I have breakfast?

Scott Benner 36:57
That's so lucky. The one time that Arden had a cannula come out, literally one time. And the whole time, we found I should, knock on wood or something, but, but she woke up in the morning and she was like, she was, you know, green, and not feeling good at all. And we realized that the cannula had been out for a while. But her blood sugar, I forget what exactly happened. It didn't rise right away. And then once it rose, it was overnight, and we didn't get a signal. Who knows what happens? Then you wake up. Oh my God, what's going on? This is interesting. People don't like AI, some of you and some of you do. I think you're both overreacting. On either side of it. This goes into other things. It's like, hey, there's, there's psychosocial and environmental factors. Some people don't have access to care. They don't have access to CGM or good healthcare support. People can get burned out and like and talk about things. Really like, it's complete. You know, teens and young adults are at higher risk to decay hormone surges, risky behavior, sometimes lower parental oversight. Really like, this is more thoughtful of a response than you would, uh,

Hannah 38:02
than I would have expected. Yeah, same.

Scott Benner 38:05
You know, all things being equal, and you're getting your insulin, why would somebody have ketones before another person? I think there's probably a ton of different reasons. Yeah, are you just worried that it's going to happen to your daughter and you don't

Hannah 38:19
know what to look for? No. I mean, I'm I know what to look for. I think I'm just, like, trying to make sense of how different it can be for every person. Because it's like in, you know, intellectually I understand, like, everybody's diabetes is different. Yeah, I think it's more of like a thought exercise for me.

Scott Benner 38:38
Yeah, I was gonna say, Are we more talking about like, you're a young mom with young kids who have a recent diagnosis, and you're trying to game out the entirety of the next 20 years, so you understand

Hannah 38:52
maybe, maybe, because I'm like, you know, I'm a very like, forward thinking person, I always kind of want To be prepared for what could be coming. I already am thinking about, like, hormones related to menstruation and, like, Okay, what's gonna happen if she eventually, like, grows up and wants to have a kid on her own? Like, how's she gonna handle it during pregnancy? Like, I am always kind of thinking about what to expect in the future. Like, I would just want to be prepared.

Scott Benner 39:19
Yeah, you're right. You're worrying about the entirety of everything. Yeah. Were you like that before you had kids? Yes, yep, awesome. Did you find that to be a lot of fun?

Hannah 39:32
Fun is a word for it. Do you have anxiety? Oh, definitely,

Scott Benner 39:36
yeah, I do. Yeah. I was gonna say because that's anxiety, worrying about stuff that you don't can't control them as an area, yes,

Hannah 39:44
yeah, my therapist loves it because

Scott Benner 39:46
you're buying them a boat. Is that probably so you're anxious before the kids, did you get a layer of mom with that mom guilt thing? Did that come to or no? Yeah. Um, you already jacked up so much you can't tell the difference already there. Did the diabetes add to it? Or do you really not have any ceiling left?

Hannah 40:13
Yeah, no. I mean, I've had health anxiety about myself forever. Okay, so you know that's, this is just run in the middle.

Scott Benner 40:21
It's just a day in my head. Scott, okay, yeah, you had health anxiety about your self. What were you worried about?

Hannah 40:29
Well, it's definitely just from stemming from anxiety. Like, if I was anxious about something, I'd be like, hey, my heart's beating really fast. I must be having a heart attack.

Scott Benner 40:40
You found yourself in the emergency room telling that to anybody?

Hannah 40:43
No, I never have, because I'm like, anxiety is like, in my family, so, like, I've seen my he would kill me to say this, but whatever, he won't listen to this. I have seen my dad deal with anxiety, like, my whole life, and so I know, okay, this is just that, like, I feel like I'm dying. Yeah, and I might be thinking to myself that I'm dying, but I know that I'm not, and if I just lay down for like, an hour, I'm gonna feel better. How did it hit your dad? He had really bad anxiety when it came to, like, flying. So anytime we would travel, he would just get, like, really, like, tightly wound, have a little bit of a short fuse, so it was easy to see he also had a stressful job, which didn't help.

Scott Benner 41:27
Oh, really, did your mom have any of the anxiety?

Hannah 41:31
No, not really. I learned, like, later as an adult that she frequently was, like, very overwhelmed about, like, just noise and like, commotion happening around her. I didn't recognize that so much as a kid. How did you find out about it? Well, so I come from a big family. I'm one of four kids. My oldest sister has six, and then my other one has two. I have two. My brother doesn't have kids yet, but everybody was in the house at the same time for somebody's birthday. And I am very sensitive to sounds, and get overwhelmed and overstimulated, like, pretty easily. And I was sitting on the couch with my mom, and I was, like, deep breathing, and she's like, are you okay? And I'm, like, real overwhelmed right now I'm trying to calm down. And she said, yeah, that's my entire life. I was like, what?

Scott Benner 42:25
Thanks for sharing. Yeah, maybe you could have shared sooner, yeah. So you and your mom are just in the corner, just doing the 54321, yeah. It's nothing specific, right? There's not necessarily anything wrong happening. It's just, there's a lot of happening, happening.

Hannah 42:43
Yeah, exactly, too many sounds at once.

Scott Benner 42:46
Yeah, I don't have, I don't know. I'm so sorry to not be able to commiserate with you on that. Yeah, it's okay. Yeah, I know people like that, but I don't. I just feel lucky. Honestly, that's the truth. Like when people talk about that, I just feel so lucky that I actually don't know what you're talking about. Because, yeah, it sounds horrifying. Hey, Jude,

Hannah 43:11
more and more like bang, bang. Maxwell, silver hammer. That's

Scott Benner 43:17
what it sounds like in the room when everybody laughs. Oh, my God, did you almost, uh, name the kid after the raccoon? No,

Hannah 43:26
um, Rocky was on the list for him. Had to be. It means there's limited options. Yeah, it was, yeah, our list for him was, it was Maxwell, Rocky and Rigby and my husband right right away was like, We are not naming him Rigby. So it was between Rocky and Maxwell

Scott Benner 43:42
Rigby stuff. How you're pulling that off exactly. Yeah. What's your favorite Beatles song that nobody knows is a

Hannah 43:51
Beatles song? I love something. Okay,

Scott Benner 43:57
yeah, okay, yeah, okay. That makes sense to me. I like the one about being up on the hill. What is the mood? What's that song? Why can't I think of it, pool on the hill? Oh yeah. I think I like that one a lot. Yeah. Nevertheless, do you do you prefer the more artistic Beatles later, or the be Boppy ones from the beginning?

Hannah 44:17
I really enjoy a mix like I even like the experimental stuff, like Norwegian would. Most people are like, What the heck with that? But I enjoy that all of it's pretty good.

Scott Benner 44:30
Okay? It's hard to find a bad Beatles song, honestly, yeah, every once in a while, like, one will come on and I'll be like, I didn't know. How did I not know this was a Beatles song? But there's so few of them for the mass amount of like, their catalog is so big, totally. You know, I think my my least favorite time is when Paul McCartney got into the 80s by himself, like, and still, some of those songs are really good. But it gets a little like,

Hannah 44:57
I gotta say the worst Christmas song. Oh, ever is a Paul McCartney song? What is it? Oh, gosh. What is it called? I can, like, hear it in my head, but it's like, there's, it's like, since ish or simply having a wonderful Christmas time. Oh,

Scott Benner 45:15
it's the worst. I would have to say. That's my thought too. Is that when McCartney gets into more electronic instruments like I don't find that very musical. Yeah, that part hurts me a little bit. Did you watch the documentary of the making of the last album that the Lord of the Rings boy made?

Hannah 45:32
Which one was that? Oh my gosh, I think I know what you're talking about. Was it on Disney? Yeah, yes, I did. Yeah. It was really good. It was, I agree. I found

Scott Benner 45:43
it so sad to think of like, like, to watch them all in that room and realize, like, like, this is the end of the Beatles right here, right yeah, it's happening right now. They are falling apart. And it's just, I don't know. I found it very strange and then, because it just leads to the, I mean, I don't know if they would have kept going. Maybe the next album would have been garb. Have been garbage. Like, I have no idea, you know,

Hannah 46:04
yeah, but I find it best not to question just

Scott Benner 46:08
it's okay that it went this way. Yes, yeah. I don't imagine that 50 years from now, people are going to be like, you know, I was watching that documentary about dochi. I really found it sad about how it was all falling apart at

Hannah 46:23
the end. Yeah, no, people, no, I don't think that's gonna happen. That anxiety, yes, theme song to my life.

Scott Benner 46:35
Isn't that even interesting? Like her pathway to like you getting her music is tick tock.

Hannah 46:41
Yeah, yeah, crazy. It is weird, yeah. But also, she, she grew up and went to high school, like, 30 minutes for me. So, oh,

Scott Benner 46:49
really, did you know about her before the rest of us? I

Hannah 46:53
did not, not before the rest of us. But I, because she's from Tampa, like, you know, her name is, like, out there, yeah, so, yeah, maybe, maybe just before she got, like, you know, Grammy famous, but yeah,

Scott Benner 47:07
Tampa is a wild place now. Yeah, it's interesting. Where are you from? Are you from there

Hannah 47:14
originally? I am from here originally. Yeah, my husband is from New Jersey, and so he's like, we gotta get out of here. We gotta go back up there. Do you call it

Scott Benner 47:26
temper when you say it? No, no, but that's colloquial, right? Like temper.

Hannah 47:32
I've never heard anybody say like that, honestly.

Scott Benner 47:35
I mean, the person I heard it was a real hillbilly, so that might be why, yeah, so your husband wants to retreat. He wants to come back north.

Hannah 47:43
Yes. And I would love to also do that. I have never liked Florida. What's wrong with Florida? First of all, it's hot all the time, all the time. There's maybe three weeks of like, semi decent weather. It's terrible. It's so humid, not to get political, but like, we are very, very left

Scott Benner 48:06
leaning, so politics don't fit with where you're at.

Hannah 48:09
Yeah, it's it's not. We don't really jive with the politics

Scott Benner 48:13
in Florida. You're up in Tampa. But let me ask you a question, why are the Florida Keys and not a more popular vacation destination? Isn't it really like being in the Bahamas, but still being in

Hannah 48:24
Florida, I've actually never been there, so I don't know. I just,

Scott Benner 48:28
I keep wondering, because sometimes I hear it's not a very safe place. Yeah, that is my understanding as well. That sucks. Because, man, what a what a gem. Like, we have our own Caribbean islands. Like, we just don't, like, yeah, you know, I'm saying I don't know if it's really an island. Is it a peninsula, or is it a series of small islands, okay, disconnected by an actual road, right? Yeah, crazy. Of course, it's crazy. We were like, Hey, there's a bunch of islands out there. We'll build a road to it. Who thought of that? What crack head is, like, I could build a road on the ocean? Yeah, I don't know they did it, though. No, it's amazing. Like, I there's another one somewhere up north, and it goes over, like, such a long body of water. And all I can think when I'm driving over, it's like, everybody's like, what if we fall in? We're gonna die. And I'm like, what if we fall in? Who did this? How did they get that pillar into the ground? This is amazing,

Hannah 49:20
I know. And there's a road that goes underground. I think it's in it's either England or France, or maybe it goes from England to France, I don't remember, but, yeah, it goes underneath the ocean. Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 49:31
awesome. It's crazy. I just think it's amazing. And then, you know, you see that done, and then you like, look up, and you're like, we can't figure out healthcare. Like, you can't figure out healthcare. There's a road in the ocean. Give that guy the problem, he'll figure it out in five seconds, or her, whoever ends up being this is crazy. All right, have you ever found anything that's made your anxiety better?

Hannah 49:53
Yes, running and yoga really measurably different. Yes, yep. One I don't I definitely like feel my anxiety heightened. I have less patience, just, you know, tough having too little cancer. So I always, I really need to make sure for myself that I do those things, running in yoga

Scott Benner 50:18
and a measurable benefit to your life. Yeah, why do you not do it then? All the time?

Hannah 50:24
Well, it's hard to find the time sometimes, but I do try to get up early, before work, before anybody else is awake, and try to get it done. Sometimes it doesn't. Doesn't happen that way, but, but I

Scott Benner 50:37
try every day my life is thwarted by somebody else. I came home last night and I walked in and my son and my wife are like, in the I think they're in the living room, like, watching videos together and laughing. They're just they look delighted. They're just laughing. They look up at me, and I was like, they're like, what's up? And I'm like, I don't want to complain. And my wife's like, yeah, don't, don't complain. I was like, I didn't even stop myself. I should just kept going. But it's like, it was like, how it was like, how could it be that without people, my life would be sad and lonely, and with people, my life is very frustrating,

Hannah 51:13
because that is the human condition.

Scott Benner 51:15
Why is there no middle ground on this? Like, why can't you all just chill out and be cool. Yep. She's like, Who do you mean? I'm like, at the moment, I'm just talking about the girl at the counter at Walgreens, but I was like, but all of you, I love you guys, but you're killing me. And I'm sure they feel the same way about me. Like, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying like, otherwise, but like, yeah, it's just like, What a weird mix of like, whatever this is, like, every problem I have is from another person. Mine are

Hannah 51:47
mostly from myself, but, you know, also other people.

Scott Benner 51:51
Hannah's like, I don't actually have time to get to the problems other people are giving to me because I am keeping so many of them on myself. You know, life in the way, you can't do the things that help your anxiety. I don't know how to like ask this question, does the boy have anxiety too?

Hannah 52:05
Worse than me,

Scott Benner 52:07
that how you found each other?

Hannah 52:08
I mean, maybe partially, it was definitely something we bonded over.

Scott Benner 52:12
I imagine two tuning fork shaking, but when you hold them together, they stop

Hannah 52:16
eventually. Yeah. I mean, I think we, we are able to really balance each other out a lot of times. Like, typically, we're not both anxious at the same time, okay? Or, like, if we are, usually the person who's more anxious, like, gets to have that moment the other one pulls it together and is the support person.

Scott Benner 52:40
Oh, that's interesting. So you can hold it together, vice versa, like, for the other person, yeah. I think the whole thing's just inflammation connected.

Hannah 52:50
I mean, I would not disagree with that.

Scott Benner 52:54
Do wonder if, like, I wonder if they're gonna figure that out ever, like, yeah, you know, there's that story about when, when they first they were, they is, maybe I'm completely wrong about this, but it's a story I've heard right, like so that, when they first came up with steroids, just like, you know, you know, like a Z pack, or not a Z pack, but like a story pack you would get, right? Yeah, when they first came up with those, they thought they had fixed mankind. They were like, these things are magic. You don't feel sick anymore. You have more energy. You have more clarity. Blah, blah, blah, yeah, they didn't realize you couldn't take them forever, and when you came off them, there'd be this horrible rebound that would go the other way and everything. But for like, a half a minute, they were like, Oh, we did it. Like, this is it? We fixed we fixed humans. And there are problems, meaning that all those years ago, people were still thinking about the same exact thing they're thinking about today. We're talking about it differently. Like, oh, there's inflammation. And, like, you know, have you heard that? I heard somebody went on a GLP and their inflammation went down, and this got better for them, and blah, blah, blah, like that really does seem like it's such the crux of the problem for so many different people like you. Probably your kid probably ends up with type one diabetes, somewhat related to inflammation. Yeah, you know that kind of like, hand in hand, that autoimmune inflammation have together, celiac, Hashimotos, arthritis, lupus, like these things are, like, you know, they they chronically attack your body. There's an immune activation, blah, blah, blah. Like, I clearly don't understand the whole thing. But like, I talked to so many people, I genuinely think, let me start over Hannah, that if I started another podcast and didn't talk to people who had type one diabetes, I would not hear people bring up anxiety as much. Yeah, that's my guess. So, yeah, I just, I don't know, it sucks. And then people start talking about, like, your gut health, like, have you ever tried to attack it that

Hannah 54:40
way. I mean, I guess probably I am currently, like, working through some like, it's very important to me to have a healthy relationship with food and bodies for my kids, because that's something I didn't grow up with. Okay, yeah. In the past, I have, like, kind of been down those, like, quote, unquote wellness rabbit holes, and, like, tried to be a vegan and be vegetarian or whatever it is, try whatever new thing I see. I honestly gotta say, nothing has really, like, helped.

Scott Benner 55:18
It's frustrating. It really is. What was I gonna say? There was that documentary actually that I always give Rob crap about other stuff, but let me give like Rob the editor, he set me up with this documentary one time, and it was about gut health, right? And so at some point in the documentary, they tell a story about how they did like fecal transplants with people. So all right, and this might get hippy dippy for some people, but you know, so this woman, she wanted to try to take a fecal transplant from another person. They put it in capsules. You take it, you're seeding your gut with like, somebody else. Anyway, it's a thing for real,

Hannah 55:55
trust me, yeah, no, no, I know there's some decent science behind that, actually.

Scott Benner 55:59
So then she does it from like, I forget what it was her boyfriend or her brother, one of the other, yeah, I don't remember which. The first person she does it with is an anxious person, and she's not anxious, and she takes the fecal transplant and develops anxiety, really, yeah. So then she switches to the second person, the brother or the boyfriend, or whatever, likes to another person, and then all of a sudden, the anxiety goes away, but she has another issue that the brother has. And I'm like, and I know I'm forgetting the details at this point now, but trust me, that's the gist of it, exactly. Yeah. And then I'm going to tell you that four weeks ago, Arden, who has, like, already has giant tonsils. Like Arden's tonsils look like chicken hearts in the back of her huge right? And she gets tonsillitis a lot. That's terrible, yeah? So she made a decision on her own a few weeks ago. She's gonna have her tonsils removed in August, and this is not going to be fun. They like light saber. Them off. They have to crust over and scab. They're, yeah, they can't really tie them off or anything. Like, you have to drink, like, soft liquids for two weeks. Like, it's not, it ain't good, okay, yeah, but she's been through it so much that she's gonna do it. It's her decision. She wants to do it. We're, you know, supporting her. We're taking care of it, yeah, because she's been sick so many times, but a month ago, when she got tonsillitis out of nowhere, the doctor gave her, the doctor, I think, she went to urgent care, and they gave her amoxicillin. Okay, in 48 hours, her acne was completely gone. Really, she hadn't been on amoxicillin in a very, very long time. So this is like, like, a data point, right? So I just looked at her one day, I'm like, your acne is completely gone. And she goes, Yeah. I feel like I remember this happening one other time when I took amoxicillin, and I'm like, really? And I was like, okay, all right, remember that now three days into the tonsillitis, she's not better, so the doctor's like, Okay, well, I guess amoxicillin is not going to cover it. They gave her a broader spectrum antibiotic, which, by the way, also didn't stop the tonsillitis. She ended up, she ended up, a week later in the emergency room, getting IV antibiotics. It was really terrible. Okay, yeah, which is why she's getting her tonsils removed. But this is neither here nor there. So just yesterday, we went to a dermatologist, and I said, like, look, here's all the things art has tried. Like, she's got type one, she probably has PCOS, she probably has this, yeah, right, right. She probably has this. That all these things, blah, blah. Here's the things we've done. Here's everything we've done. And we've noticed a change. And I even told her, I said, at one point she, you know, when she started using a GLP, I said, Art and basically, micro doses a GLP for insulin resistance, yeah. And it also helps her with, like, the PCOS symptoms. But I've also seen her acne get better, but not perfect, just better. And I said, So I'm willing to believe that that's inflammation being reduced, and so her acne gets a little better. I'm like, but trust me, I looked the woman because I think she thought I was crazy for a second, and I said, Look, my kids had type one diabetes since she was two. My son's got Hashimotos. My wife has the hypothyroidism. Like I said, Scotty is paying attention, okay? Like I'm really looking hard. I'm not making this up. I'm telling you that amoxicillin, boom, shut off her acne just did, and I said, and now she's been off it for a while, and it's starting to come back again. And I'm like, and I looked at her, and I went, That's gut health, right? Like, it's maybe a little inflammation, because, yes, it can help with inflammation, but, like, it's gut health, isn't it? And I watched her really, really think I saw that I was taking her outside of, like, the zone that she usually works inside of. She goes, I'd have a hard time arguing with that. And I was like, Okay. And I said, so is there anything topical you can give her that has an antibiotic based and she goes. Oh, you know what? Yeah, there is. I was like, Cool. I'm like, Can she get that please? And like, you know, because, like, the rest of it, like, she's done everything, like, it dries you out, it goes away for a little bit, it comes back worse, like, that kind of stuff. Like, right? Nothing's ever really worked for she's like, Yeah, I mean, that makes total sense to me. And she's like, of course, you can't take amoxicillin forever. I'm like, No, I'm not saying that. I'm like, but this is a data point. Like, we changed Arden's gut drastically, quickly and her acne. I'm not, I'm not kidding you, Hannah, it's just gone, right? Yeah. And I was like, that's the answer, right there. And then I thought, but how do you like fix that. Do you know what I mean, like, because her body obviously goes in a direction. So, like, We're trying, like, like, some, like, high quality probiotics to hopefully, like, pre seed things in a more positive way. But I don't know how long it'll stay like that, or not, or Yeah, is your anxiety in your in your stomach? You know what? I mean?

Hannah 1:01:01
Yeah. I mean, that's a good question. I don't personally have a ton of, like, GI issues. My husband definitely does, and he always has, and I have wondered that about him. If his is related to his gut health.

Scott Benner 1:01:19
You're like, what do you do? Like, how do you like, because we ran into this by mistake. Obviously, the tonsillitis brings on the amoxicillin. I'm not, by the way, I'm not telling everybody, go take amoxicillin. I'm saying, I'm saying that this was a very specific pathway that we got to this idea, and I don't know if it's going to work out. But, like, that's the other thing too. Is like, when we left there yesterday, I could see it on Arden's face. She's like, this isn't gonna work. Like you like, it's just like you said that earlier. You try things, you try things, you try things, they don't work. Eventually just give up and you go, I guess this is it like, this is what happens,

Hannah 1:01:50
yeah, yeah, yeah. It is interesting, because you think, you know, like, everybody's body is a little bit different, and you know, you have your predispositions to certain things. And, yeah, it's hard, it's hard to know what, what was is gonna work, or, if anything will,

Scott Benner 1:02:06
they're gonna figure it out five seconds after I die. I know, yeah, probably I know I'm gonna drop that. They're gonna be, oh, it was a switch. It was under your toe. We found it. Never mind. Oh my gosh. They're actually waiting for you to die. Yeah, they're waiting for me to die so that they can like, but there are people who believe that, you know that one day you'll have a box attached to you, and you'll just turn all the dials and move everything to where it's supposed to be, and things will just work.

Hannah 1:02:30
I mean, maybe you never know. Well, wouldn't

Scott Benner 1:02:33
that be crazy? Like, isn't that what a GLP is, though, for some people, yeah, right, definitely. We just use these medications in such a crude way, still, because we don't really, I mean, I don't think we have the technology, the understanding to, like, just give person. I guess what I'm saying is that there are a lot of people on GLP medications, and they're on standard doses because we've figured out, like, these are safe, and they seem to work in a lot of people. Yeah, those amounts are not they're not right for everybody, it's a lot like insulin, honestly, yeah, you know, you got, you know, except insulin, because you're getting the feedback so quickly, you can figure out what your settings should be if you're kind of paying attention to it. So, right? Hannah, have I bored you to death? Are you done? No, you're done with me now. No, not at all. I have to record again in a little bit, I'm gonna have to say goodbye, okay, because I'm doing a follow up with the mom whose daughter, her teenager, went on GLP for weight, and then their insulin needs almost completely went away. Oh, wow. So I'm doing a follow up with her, because her kids story like I keep in touch with her through text messages. But if I'm not mistaken, I'm gonna get on the phone or I'm gonna get on the call today recording and learn that this kid is now using like a unit of basal a day. Oh, wow, down from 70 units of insulin total every day.

Hannah 1:03:58
Holy. That crazy. That is nuts.

Scott Benner 1:04:02
That's one of the things. Like, it's obviously a very specific thing to this person. Like, I'm not telling you, like, if you go on, GLP, you're not gonna need any insulin. I'm genuinely not saying that. But like, it's happening to this one person, and she has type one, she has markers for type one, like, all that. Like, it's that that's not like in dispute, but she had had diabetes for years, and was up to like 70 units a day. Was gaining weight, like all this stuff. As a teenager, the mom had struggled with PCOS in the past. They thought maybe that was happening to the kid. The mom had success with GLP, so they gave the GLP to the kid, and then her insulin is just kept falling. Yeah, like, and I've seen her graphs, they're insane. Yeah. Anyway, I'm going to talk to her and try to get a little more about that out of her, see where that's going. You were awesome, though, I really do appreciate this. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for talking to me. Did I let you down? I feel sometimes I let people down. No, no, no. Well, I'm sorry you started saying something. I feel like we didn't get through it completely. Like, do you have five more minutes? Sure. Wait, wait, tell me more about your relationship with food. Oh,

Hannah 1:05:12
just I, like, grew up in a very like diet culture type of family, and so it has taken me a really long time to work through all of that. Like, I remember going on a diet the first time when I was, like, eight years old. So, you know, I've had a lot of, I mean, therapy related to it, but also, just like, even outside of therapy, like my own personal like, work that I've tried to do, to really, like, mend my relationship with with food, because it's important to me that, like, my kids learn what it's like, that like, food is just food. Like, we don't have to, like, think like, oh, I ate ice cream. So I need to go exercise for an hour to like, negate that. Like, I want them to be able to just like, enjoy things like, Sure, understanding like, nutrition is important, but also, like, we don't need to be beating ourselves up about, you know, maybe not eating the most, like, balanced meal when

Scott Benner 1:06:14
you were younger. This come from your parents. Yeah, was one of them overweight, and they were always working on it, or something like that.

Hannah 1:06:22
See, that's the thing is, like, my my parents are not like, huge people by any means. Like, they've definitely, like fluctuated, but I've seen it happen like with them, like, basically, like, Yo Yo dieting, okay? Like, my mom has really always been, like, like, very normal, like, thin person and like my dad, I kind of have his build, like, stockier, but definitely not like, like, he was never, like, obese or

Scott Benner 1:06:51
anything, yeah. I hear you every girl's dream to be built like their dad, right? Yeah,

Hannah 1:06:58
yeah. I would never say that he was, like, an obese person, yeah, but like, you know, I always remember like, being chastised basically, about, like, not eating enough vegetables, or like, but mostly it was them, like they, you know, they did, like, Atkins diet back in the day, Weight Watchers, Like they've done all of the things, and, like, it was very, like, they were very open about it. And so it kind of made me really self conscious about eating in general. And like, one of my sisters definitely has, like, a very unhealthy relationship with food and, yeah, like,

Scott Benner 1:07:44
just been a lot. It's a lot, yeah, and then you got to get through it. And it's, I talk to people all the time that have different eating disorders, and it just sounds like a, I mean, it sounds like

Hannah 1:07:54
a horror, yeah. And especially with the type one I'm like, I'm very conscious of the fact that eating disorders are higher in this population, and I want to be very cautious of that,

Scott Benner 1:08:06
of that, okay, like, the people come up to you and say, like, you need to lose weight. Where was that? Just directly to you? Yeah?

Hannah 1:08:13
Like, totally right in my face. Like, hey, I'm worried about, I'm worried about you. You should, you need to be thinner, or people aren't gonna like you really, yeah, or people aren't gonna like you yeah because of the way you look, I like

Scott Benner 1:08:30
you. That's enough, yeah? But, oh, wow, all right, Mom, thanks. That's awesome. Yeah?

Hannah 1:08:37
Well, my mom didn't say that to me those that was my

Scott Benner 1:08:40
dad. Oh, yeah. Oh, geez. Good times, good

Hannah 1:08:45
times. And

Scott Benner 1:08:46
understand how you can be a parent, be in charge of the food, in charge of the activity, and have lived a life long enough to know that sometimes things, just for reasons you can't even figure out, go a certain way, and then just turn to somebody and go, Yeah, you more carrots. Yeah, you think that's it, that you think that'll handle it, do you? Yeah? And

Hannah 1:09:06
honestly, like, I know from having a conversation with him, like he would not even remember that he said that to me, yeah? Like he wouldn't even remember the conversation, because it's not in his mind. Like, that's not what he was telling me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:09:19
there's no malice in what he was saying, as far as he knew, right? Yeah, just the way it it hits you and it sticks to you. Yeah? That sucks. So you're working on not having that happen for your kids. Yes, awesome. Oh, that's good, good for you. I mean, that's a that's life is just breaking circles. So, yeah, you break the chain. You know what I mean. All right, what did we say? We were calling this one lesbian energy. I'll just tell Rob at the end, if he hears something he likes better, he can tell me, but yeah, sure, it's a pretty good episode. All right, thank you kind of hold on a second for me. Thank you very much. Sure. Yeah, you.

Dexcom sponsored this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g7 at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox head now to tandem diabetes.com/juice box and check out today's sponsor tandem diabetes care. I think you're going to find exactly what you're looking for at that link, including a way to sign up and get started with the tandem Moby system. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. You

when I created the defining diabetes series, I pictured a dictionary in my mind to help you understand key terms that shape type one diabetes management. Along with Jenny Smith, who, of course, is an experienced diabetes educator, we break down concepts like basal, time and range, insulin on board and much more. This series must have 70 short episodes in it. We have to take the jargon out of the jargon so that you can focus on what really matters, living confidently and staying healthy. You can't do these things if you don't know what they mean. Go get your diabetes defined. Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on series, Hey, what's up? Everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better, and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong wayrecording.com, you got a podcast? You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.

Please support the sponsors

---

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate

#1601 Kitchen Triple Threat

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

Valerie, 44, horticulturist and “triple threat” cook, juggles life with four kids, including a 10-year-old recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

---

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox podcast.

Valerie 0:14
My name is Valerie, and I am a mother to a type one diabetic.

Scott Benner 0:24
I am here to tell you about juice cruise 2026 we will be departing from Miami on June 21 2026 for a seven night trip going to the Caribbean. That's right. We're going to leave Miami and then stop at Coco k in the Bahamas. After that, it's on to St Kitts, St Thomas and a beautiful cruise through the Virgin Islands. The first juice Cruise was awesome. The second one's going to be bigger, better and bolder. This is your opportunity to relax while making lifelong friends who have type one diabetes, expand your community and your knowledge on juice cruise, 2026 learn more right now at Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise. At that link, you'll also find photographs from the first cruise. 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 the twist AI D system powered by tidepool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juicebox. That's t, w, i, i s t.com/juice. Box, you today's episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is the meter that my daughter has on her person right now. It is incredibly accurate, and waiting for you at contour next.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about missed boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses. Learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

Valerie 2:44
My name is Valerie, and I am a mother to a type one diabetic, and that's that's who I am. I call myself a triple threat in the kitchen because I have a horticulture degree and I have a background in nutrition, and I cook by default.

Scott Benner 3:05
Wait, what does horticulture have to do with a triple threat in the

Valerie 3:09
kitchen? Because you grow food,

Scott Benner 3:13
look at me. I'm like, Duh. You're like, I have a garden, idiot.

Valerie 3:16
That stuff that comes out of the ground, you can eat it. Friends, I thought you were

Scott Benner 3:21
talking about flowers for some reason.

Valerie 3:23
Yeah. Well, flowers are edible broccoli. Broccoli is a flower bud. Please don't

Scott Benner 3:26
start me on broccoli. I don't like it. There's a reason when I reach for food that I think people start eating when they want to be healthy. I say broccoli all the time because, right, I just, I don't understand. Nevertheless, you have just one child.

Valerie 3:40
I have four children. Wow, yeah, okay. The oldest is in college. She is applying for grad school. And the middle children are identical twins. They are going into the sixth grade, the major leagues, as I like to call it. And then there's Thomas, my youngest, and he was, he's going into fourth grade, and we were diagnosed a year ago. How old are you? How old am I? I am 44 Wait,

Scott Benner 4:11
all right, hold on a second. All these kids were the same boy. No, that's a good question. Yeah, definitely not. You could have three men in this but definitely two, right,

Valerie 4:21
right, for sure. So I didn't meet my husband now until the oldest was 10. Okay? So I had really accepted that it was just going to be her and I, and then here comes this stud just strolling along, and I just can see the rest of my life. So I go for

Scott Benner 4:41
it. It's like, you know what I need? I need to pay for somebody else's kid. It's gonna be awesome. Okay, so how old were you when you had your first? I was 21 okay? And then 10 years later,

Valerie 4:53
10 years later, I got pregnant with two babies at the same time on purpose. Yes, it was. Yes, it was intentional. Yeah, we had been married for about, Gosh, was it three months. And I joke with my husband now, because, like, every maybe three months, I'll wake up and I'll look over to him and I'm, I'll say, hey, let's get married by a farm and have a bunch of kids. And he's like, What are you fucking crazy? And I'm like, You got it, buddy? Because that's literally what we did. We did it like all in one year. And it was like, we went from one child who was 10, so she was very independent, yeah, and then it was just like, you know, we had goats and pigs and chickens and rabbits, and we, we really didn't know what we were doing with all of it. So it I'm sure, from afar, it looked chaotic. Oh my gosh, but in our mind, we were like, we're living the American

Scott Benner 5:51
dream. I sincerely apologize to my wife. Two weeks ago, there was a bunch of stuff going on in the house. One of the kids has something sad happening. One of the kids is sick. My wife's, like, gotta go somewhere for work. She doesn't want to go, like, just like, everything is upside down right. Like, as much could be possibly wrong is possibly wrong. And it's, I don't know. It's hitting you psychologically and physically in every other way. You know how it goes right, right? Oh, yeah. And I turned to her, and I was like, I'm so sorry. And she goes for what? And I said, asking you out, I apologize. I like, I feel like this is my fault.

Valerie 6:29
Yeah, I should probably tell my husband, and I'm more often as well. I did charm and Ben to all this, yeah.

Scott Benner 6:37
And I thought she was gonna be like, you're an idiot. She's like, I hear it, and I was like, no, no, no, I this is my fault. I should have left you alone. Is, you know, you looked pretty. I don't know. I should have just said, walked away, sure I didn't know all this was gonna I actually said I didn't know all this was gonna happen, right? Or I definitely would have left you alone, and I'm so sorry. And then we went and, you know, did something very important, like cleaned up something or, you know,

Valerie 7:02
right, dishes, put something away. Okay,

Scott Benner 7:05
so other autoimmune in your family, besides your son's type one,

Valerie 7:09
I have psoriasis, and then there's touches of thyroid on both sides of the family, lots of allergies, especially on my husband's side, like severe allergies like his his sister is only not allergic to oatmeal, so her throat is literally constantly, you know, inflamed.

Scott Benner 7:33
Wait, wait, his sister can only eat oatmeal and nothing else. Well, it's

Valerie 7:37
not that she can only eat that, it's that everything else that's not oatmeal is causing some type of an allergic reaction. So she's building, yeah, so it's, can you hear the diabetes alarm? It just No. Well, okay, because I it was super loud on my phone, and so I was like, Oh my gosh,

Scott Benner 7:57
that's gonna keep happening. I'm sorry. So she eats other things, but everything right inflames her throat

Valerie 8:03
Exactly. So she's having, like, oh gosh, acid reflux and all this other stuff happen now, and it's, gosh, yeah, I know

Scott Benner 8:11
I hate oatmeal. Does she like it at least? I mean, not anymore.

Valerie 8:15
I don't even know if she eats oatmeal, you know, it's just like, that's the only thing that didn't cause an allergic reaction on her, on her

Scott Benner 8:23
test, I like her resistance. She's like, I'm not. Oh, my God. Well, that's great saying your husband has what bad, like seasonal allergies, things like

Valerie 8:30
that. Seasonal allergies. Recently, I see it was about five years ago he had an allergic reaction to a bee sting. He experienced anaphylaxis. But, yeah, I know. And we, we thought maybe it was just a fluke. We'll just be more careful, because he had the whole bee suit on and everything, and he, you know, of course, got stung, like, right in the jugular. You guys keep bees. Well, not anymore, because we, we almost died. We had a few, a few more incidents after the first one, and we were like, You know what? This probably is just not a good idea. And so we sold them. And then the lady that we sold them to contacted me just after the pandemic, and she was like, two people now that she knows of have experienced anaphylaxis from the bees that we were keeping, and so they had, like, these beekeepers come out and study them, and they're like this pure strand of St Clair County honeybees, and they're great, you know, honey producers, but, but they'll kill you. Pack a punch. Valerie, how much of your

Scott Benner 9:41
life did you get off a tick tock? Do you also, do you also live in a converted school bus? What else is happening?

Valerie 9:47
No, no, that's next. That's next year. We're we're working up to that.

Scott Benner 9:51
We've got goats and bees. And I was like, Oh, she's going to convert a school bus into a living situation.

Valerie 9:58
We got out of the goat game. We are all. All done with goats. We are about to be all done with pot belly pigs. Those were an adventure. They're about 10 years old, and they're a couple of thugs. I'm just done. I'm done with the pot bellies. So the

Scott Benner 10:15
kid gets the diabetes. Sorry, trying to get back on track. How does it present,

Valerie 10:22
Thomas was going to the bathroom a lot and drinking a lot of water, and the teacher said something, I think, on a Tuesday, and she said, he's going to the bathroom twice as much as the other kids. I just wanted to let you know I was picking him up from school. I was in the playground, and I looked over at the other mom, and I said, Oh my God, what if it's type one diabetes? That was like my very first thought, jeez, Val, where'd that come from? Well, my sister, her youngest, was diagnosed when he was in fifth or sixth grade, and so I remembered what she had told me. You know, he was so thirsty, he was going to the bathroom a lot. He was having accidents. And so, yeah, I think I just had my my antennas were so your nephew has type one as well. Yes, I forgot to tell you about that. Okay, he does. What else? You forget to tell me? Anybody else? Oh, gosh, it'll it'll surface. It'll surface through the hour, trust me.

Scott Benner 11:20
Okay, okay, all right. Oh, so, okay. So you had enough background, yeah, so you said that the other person out there, and they were like, stop it, dummy, that's not what it is, right,

Valerie 11:28
right? And I was like, Well, of course it could be a bladder infection. I was like, I think don't girls get bladder infections more than boys? And I was like, Oh, well, I'll just call the doctor. We'll get them in. The nurse that answered the phone said, you know, they didn't have an opening until next week, and so I got off the phone thinking, Oh, I just being paranoid. She doesn't even think it's diabetes, so I'm just gonna I did all the steps. I made the appointment. It's for next week. Saturday, I woke up and I just knew something wasn't right. He was having accidents all throughout the night and the thirst. I mean, when you talk about that, and I hear other people saying that, it's like, just unbelievable. It really is. I mean, you just, you cannot imagine how much water they're drinking. It's

Scott Benner 12:20
like zombies with brains.

Valerie 12:22
Oh my gosh. So that Saturday, he had a basketball game, and I just started crying. And my husband was like, Well, do you not want him to do the game? And I was like, No, I want him to go to the game. And I, I think at that point I did for sure. No, like, I didn't need anybody to tell me anymore. So now it was more like, once somebody tells you that he has it, you can undo it now. And so I was kind of like, that's what was holding me back. I didn't want it to be confirmed just

Scott Benner 12:51
yet. Okay? And now the girl that one of the pot belly bigs is crying at the basketball game, and your husband's like, Oh, awesome.

Valerie 12:59
Right, right.

Scott Benner 13:01
Great. I bought the pigs. I mean, leave me alone.

Valerie 13:06
So the have you heard a pig cry? It's awful. I mean, it's like,

Scott Benner 13:10
can I tell you something very bad. Sound, yes. Would you be insulted if this episode was, have you heard a pig cry? Oh, nice.

Valerie 13:19
That's awesome. He's gonna love that.

Scott Benner 13:21
I'll tell you what. I haven't heard a pig cry, but I have very more recently heard a fox. Oh, wow. It's also very loud.

Valerie 13:29
I've been hearing people post stuff like that, like they thought it was a coyote or something, and I wonder if it was a fox.

Scott Benner 13:37
Wow. This segment's brought to you by Dr Seuss,

Valerie 13:40
that's funny. That is very funny. My God, that

Scott Benner 13:44
sounded like a dirty Dr Seuss book to me just

Valerie 13:48
now, that's another good time. Oh,

Scott Benner 13:50
dirty Dr Seuss, yes. Oh, that's even better. Valerie, you're producing good job. Keep going. All right. So do we go to basketball? We do?

Valerie 14:00
Yeah, we did. So the compromise was, Tom's dad is a type one diabetic. So he said, I'll just have my dad bring the kit. We'll test him.

Scott Benner 14:09
Valerie, you're pissing me off. Your husband's father has type one diabetes. The brand new twist insulin pump offers peace of mind with unmatched personalization and allows you to target a glucose level as low as 87 there are more reasons why you might be interested in checking out twist, but just in case, that one got you twist.com/juicebox, that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. You can target glucose levels between 87 and 180 it's completely up to you. In addition to precision insulin delivery that's made possible by twist design, twist also offers you the ability to edit your carb entries even after you've bolused. This gives the twist loop algorithm the best information to make its decisions with, and the twist loop algorithm lives on the pipe. Pump, so you don't have to stay next to your phone for it to do its job. Twist is now available in select areas. So if you'd like to learn more or get on the wait list, go to twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get on the twist wait list and be notified as soon as it's available in your area. Links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, who is making life with diabetes easier with the mini med 780 G system. The mini med 780 G automated insulin delivery system anticipates, adjusts and corrects every five minutes. Real world results show people achieving up to 80% time and range with recommended settings, without increasing lows. But of course, Individual results may vary. The 780 G works around the clock, so you can focus on what matters. Have you heard about Medtronic extended infusion set? It's the first and only infusion set labeled for up to a seven day wear. This feature is repeatedly asked for, and Medtronic has delivered. 97% of people using the 780 G reported that they could manage their diabetes without major disruptions of sleep. They felt more free to eat what they wanted, and they felt less stress with fewer alarms and alerts you can't beat that learn more about how you can spend less time and effort managing your diabetes by visiting Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

Valerie 16:29
There you go. There you go. We got what? We got 40 more minutes.

Scott Benner 16:34
Does the fire department guy have it too? And the guy like, how many people in this story are gonna have right? Okay,

Valerie 16:40
right. All right. Go ahead. She Oh, my dad has type one diabetes. There you go. That's it. Valerie, your father has type one. No, actually, it's type two. Okay, type two. Both grandfathers

Scott Benner 16:53
have diabetes. One, type two, one, type one.

Valerie 16:55
No, well, I mean, he's the third stage of type two is type one, right? So that's why are you saying type one,

Scott Benner 17:01
okay, Tom's dad uses insulin, but has type two diabetes. No, no. Tom's grandfather.

Valerie 17:07
Tom's dad just checks his blood sugar every once while he's type two, he's well in control, okay, fit as a fiddle. My dad is type two, but is insulin dependent at this

point. Okay, got it all right. I'm sorry, and I'm

I'm like, constantly, like, on him, and he's like, you know, I'm just been sitting around, and someone was, oh, you might want to, you know, up your insulin if you've been sitting for more than three hours. And he's like, what? I'm like, Just a thought. I'm just gonna throw it out there. Awesome. Yeah, I think that's everybody. Okay, okay, so sorry. Okay, back to the basketball game. Back to the basketball game. So we have the kit there, and it's after the game. And he was very lethargic throughout the game, so I was quick to test him, and it it just registered as high. And so I I just looked at my husband, I said, Okay, are are we calling 911? Are we taking him to the hospital? Like, those are the options now. And we decided to take him across the river to the Children's Hospital. And I got a ride home. And then Tom called us, you know, right when he got to the emergency room, because then we're Googling and stuff, and they're like, if it tests high, then it's above 500 so then I'm calling our primary care physician, I'm calling the ER and letting them know that we're on our way. Because I'm just like, I'm just full of guilt already, like I could have done more, and why didn't I do more? Why didn't I listen to myself?

Scott Benner 18:43
Wait, wait, how long is it between the basketball game and standing on the playground telling the mom

Valerie 18:47
four it was four days. Oh, okay, yeah, so I guess Yeah, that wasn't that bad. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, five days.

Scott Benner 18:54
That's not bad. Sounds like it didn't take you that long to get it together. True, true. Was he Okay? Was he in? DK,

Valerie 19:00
no, he was not. He was actually ended up being 950 when we checked him into the

Scott Benner 19:06
hospital. It's very high. How long did they keep him over the river?

Valerie 19:08
We stayed four days. It ended up being four days. But three of the days were training. So those were the only reason why they said that they were keeping us was we had to complete our training, okay, and then we would get discharged

Scott Benner 19:24
on the way home. Did you have to go through the woods? No, because I really want you to say over the river and through the woods. At some point that didn't happen. No,

Valerie 19:35
a boy was trying on a boat. I did not have a coat. A

Scott Benner 19:40
couple more sentences we can make our own poem. Is what

Valerie 19:44
I'm saying. We're close. We're close. How old was he at

Scott Benner 19:46
that point? Again, I'm sorry, the contour next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than your. Paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour, next.com/juicebox, you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger and Meijer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips in meter, then you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now. I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juicebox and if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through the Juicebox podcast link will help to support the show.

Valerie 21:00
Thomas was nine, and what was his reaction? He didn't really ask a whole lot of questions. And I don't think, I don't think we really talked about what was happening until the last day we were at the hospital. Now, Thomas is on the autism spectrum, okay, so he's, I mean, you would never know by talking to him or anything now, but when he was three years old, it was very obvious his speech was very delayed and he was just a wild thing, is the best way that I could describe it. I honestly think the pandemic was the best thing that ever happened to us, because we reset our schedule, and it just so happened to align with wherever he was developmentally, and so we just completely focused on his speech and understanding the behaviors. And yeah, I mean, he caught up so quick. He literally wasn't talking until he was like five more than seven words.

Scott Benner 22:01
How did having more time help? What did you do during that time? We would

Valerie 22:05
get a lot of behaviors during like transitional time. So like, going from the house, going to the car, leaving the grocery, going back to the car, and there would be, like a fit, and we weren't going anywhere. So that was all removed. It was very beneficial, which is crazy, because a lot of the behavioral plans implement, you know, how to work through those situations, because it's not realistic to take all that away and to just stay home, right? But then we slowly got back out there, and that was, that was the he kind of re emerged differently. Oh my gosh. Like a completely different person. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't get him in to private school before the pandemic, so we pulled the other two boys out of private school, signed everybody up for just regular public school, and then the public school was like, he doesn't even need an IEP. And I'm just like, I don't understand what's happened. Like he has an autism diagnosis and he doesn't even have an IEP, like, we have no goals here. Like he's they were just like, He's average. There's nothing this. He's good. We'll keep, you know, 504 open, just in case. But he's doing great. Okay, so,

Scott Benner 23:18
yeah, then you think something about who he is colored the first three days in the hospital, like, where you guys didn't really

Valerie 23:25
talk about he was watching just a lot of TV, and he was able to eat, you know, hamburgers and french fries and jerky. He was eating his favorite foods. So when we actually, I think we talked about it, like, maybe six months after it all happened, and he was like, remember that vacation that we took? And I was like, what vacation? He was like, the one where I got all the Legos and I got to eat the hamburgers and the French fries. I was like, are you talking about being in the hospital? And that's, that's how he remembers that had a good time.

Scott Benner 23:57
I was sick over the weekend, and besides being horribly disfigured by the fever and the shaking, oh gosh, I did enjoy sitting on the couch for a couple of days. I actually found myself thinking, I should try this once or twice when I'm not sick, right? It's interesting, at his age, that he thought of it that way. Is like a little break from life, and he got some toys, anything

Valerie 24:17
that he said he wanted. It was like, there within 15 minutes. So I'm sure that that was, that was a nice treat. I mean, it was, like an early Christmas. Pretty much, we just continuously were buying stuff and looking on Amazon. It was like, What do you want now? Oh, what can we get you? Oh, okay, that looks fun, because it was just my husband and I were really struggling. I wasn't eating or sleeping. I was just, I was beside myself. I stayed by his bedside the whole time. I didn't leave leave aside. I was just, I just remember this terror and just so much fear and the fact that no matter how bad I wanted it to go away, it just was never. Things were never going to change. I really struggled with that. For that would that was a hard one. It was a really hard one for me. How

Scott Benner 25:06
do you handle that? Do you speak with somebody, or is it family? Or what do you do?

Valerie 25:10
I journaled. I started a diabetes log or a book, and I just started, like, pouring all the information onto these pages. And then was, you know, talking about how I was feeling. I was literally grafting, you know, his insulin, the time of day, the activity, writing it all down, like when the insulin was peaking, what we were doing before, during and after. And it gave me so much peace of mind. I guess I was having such a hard time with processing how everything overlapped and affected each other, I just kept thinking I was going to get upside down or something, or drop off a little bit of information and Miss dose. And

Scott Benner 25:58
I always worried about everything you were doing and how the double checks. When you said you were graphing, yeah, I thought you said grafting, and I and then my mind jumped at the horticulture, and I was like, she was hybridizing plants,

Valerie 26:10
yes, yes, I was fusing, yes, fusing it together. I waited a little

Scott Benner 26:19
longer, got more context clues, and then I figured out what I was doing. Did it help? Did it help? The journaling helped you?

Valerie 26:24
It did help? It helped a lot. And then I, like, had this idea that I was going to try to, you know, publish the journal to help somebody. And then as I sat with it, I was just like, I don't know, it's so personal. It's, it's hard to know what to do with it. Yeah, I know it, but if I could just help one person, I would feel. I mean, that would be enough, right? I hear,

Scott Benner 26:46
did you end up doing anything with it? Is that what you're talking about? You were thinking about getting on Facebook?

Valerie 26:51
Yeah, it's sitting right here in front of me. I haven't opened it up, and in a really long time, it's, it's a lot. I mean, I three meals a day. I wrote down every food, every carb, every activity. I mean, it's a little crazy. I think that's what maybe that's what's holding me back from letting the world see this is because I went so extreme with it. Oh, you think you look nutty. I definitely not gonna look normal. It's a little concerning. Just because I did it that way doesn't make it the right way. It was just I knew that I couldn't control Thomas as a little boy, because it's not healthy. But if I obsessed about this notebook and how I wanted it done, then that that was a better choice, right? So

Scott Benner 27:42
I'm a little not confused, but I want to clarify, did the act of writing it down just make you psychologically feel better, or did it, did it actually functionally give you ideas about how to manage or both?

Valerie 27:54
It was very functional. So I'm a I'm a visual learner, and so when I would see it, it was, you know, permanent. And I, I did get peace of mind with, like, okay, I can let that go. I don't have to keep saying, has it been 15 minutes? I just open up the page. Oh, look, it was an hour ago. Okay, we're

Scott Benner 28:12
good. Yeah, it's interesting, because people's minds work differently. Sure, I had to rejigger the ad calendar the other day for the podcast. I mean, I'm sitting in front of like a color coded, you know, graph of like, days and episodes and, you know, advertisers and stuff like that. I found myself thinking, I'm like, I wonder how, like a person who doesn't think like me would do this, because there must be, like, a functionally correct way to handle this, but I just stared at it until I went, I'm gonna move this over here and that there, and put that there. I'm gonna do this and that, and that'll all work. And I was like, and done, right? And then I looked at it and I went, that it won't work. And then I did it again, and I was like, and now it's done. But I felt dumb while I was doing it, it, you know, like, just because I thought, like, I don't know what I thought, like the people, somebody's brain is better suited for this than mine. Yeah, it sounds stupid. I have a certain number of names and a certain number of times and a certain number of places they have to go, and you would, but I don't have any. I think it's why I'm bad at algebra. I didn't know the steps and, like, I didn't know if there were steps or if I should learn steps. It just sounds like you just didn't know what was happening, right? Like, so you just, like, I'll just keep putting it down in front of me exactly. And then when stuff happens, I'll refer back to the list I wrote, and I'll go, Oh, I did this. And then that happened, right? Yeah, right. And that happens a few times, and you think, Okay, I got a rule now, right? Yeah. And then

Valerie 29:41
just follow it, yeah. And then it was just like, I wonder, what else I don't know. I'll just write down everything.

Scott Benner 29:49
Oh, I see. And then did you find new ideas through that?

Valerie 29:52
Yes, and no, I can't remember. When I came across your podcast, somebody had forward it to the. They sent me a link or something, I can honestly say that your podcast changed everything for me. I was feeling so I don't know, alone, like, just completely alone, like there was just this. This was how it was going to be. Nobody was going to understand every time it was, like, every conversation that I had with somebody, it was the same it was the same conversation. It would take 45 minutes to explain. There would be like, 15 minute questions, and then that was our conversation. And it was exhausting to a point where I just didn't even want to really bring it up anymore, or I didn't want to talk to people about it. And then when I started listening to the episodes, I could relate to everything I mean, every single interview I can find something in the interview where it's like, wow, that I get that. Oh, I'm glad that's awesome. I like completely. I just found it so healing. It really made me feel better, like they're doing it, I can do it, it's going to be okay.

Scott Benner 31:11
Oh, that's, that's awesome. I'm glad that worked for that way. And I feel bad about making funny about the pigs, really, yeah. I mean, honestly, why would you buy a pig? What are you thinking when you do that?

Valerie 31:21
They were so dang cute. I mean, this little pig fit into dune. Do you know the American girl like stuff?

Scott Benner 31:28
No, I don't know anything about American girl. Stop it. No, I've been to that store. Go

Valerie 31:33
ahead. My daughter had an American girl sleeping bag, and this little pig would just like, go right inside of it and sleep. It was the tiniest little thing, and it was the run. It was like some Charlotte Webb story when we went and it was at an auction, they're like, it's the run, and it had a few bites on it from its brothers and sisters. And I just was like, oh, we gotta take this little pig and gonna be so much fun. We named him Timothy.

Scott Benner 31:58
And how much drywall did Timothy eat Exactly?

Valerie 32:01
Oh, he did not stay in the house. We knew. We knew after a month you've got to be outside this and yeah, it would, he would rip the binding off of a book, like, just like he was ripping a piece of paper into two pieces. It just was nothing.

Scott Benner 32:17
Maybe the bite marks were from the people who owned him. They were just like, bite that pig, see if it'll stop by eating the

Valerie 32:22
book. You're like, does he taste good? Let's try. Yeah. Let's eat the pig.

Scott Benner 32:28
Seriously, all right. Well, how long ago is this now? His diagnosis? Couple

Valerie 32:33
of years. It's just been a year, just a year a little over. Do you feel differently

Scott Benner 32:37
today? I do. And how do you manage? Like, is it like mdivi pump? What do you do? We

Valerie 32:44
have the Omnipod five, and we're on the g6 we were on the g7 and then that wasn't compatible with the iPhone, so we had to downgrade, okay,

Scott Benner 32:56
and then you'll wait for the next thing to happen. You'll keep moving, and you running in automation. Yeah? Awesome. Yep, yep. How's it working for you?

Valerie 33:07
We love it. We absolutely love it. For a little while, we were 80% in range, and then every once in a while, it'll go back to 50. But I still, I still do my timers, and I'm pretty religious about watching the trends and checking the numbers, and so we catch when we need to up our insulin. So Pre-Bolus

Scott Benner 33:28
your meals. Oh yeah, oh yeah, okay.

Valerie 33:33
And, I mean, thanks to the podcast. I know you know, not all foods were created equally, and you'll find that, you know, you can Pre-Bolus more so on certain things, and just, yeah, roll with it, right? That's

Scott Benner 33:47
what I've been trying to do. Yeah, I haven't died yet so, and she seems good, so, right, yeah, I mean, the roll with it thing, and I don't, I don't know if you can't put it better than just, you know, stay flexible, and it's just not static, you know? And you can't, yeah, you can't bend it to your will. Sometimes, sometimes you just have to,

Valerie 34:07
gotta go with it, you know, there's no perfect number. I've held on to that that was in my training. And, yeah, there is no perfect number.

Scott Benner 34:15
Okay, all right, so would you call yourself better in your mind, or is there still?

Valerie 34:22
Yeah, I do feel better about things. I still worry about Thomas being on his own a little bit. He's starting to wanna put in his carbs and dose himself. And when we left the hospital, they said, you know, when you can drive a car, you can give yourself insulin. And so we've held on to that rule. I didn't realize that at school that they were letting him put in his numbers. Hence,

Scott Benner 34:51
you got me for a second. Here, I cut you off. I apologize. No, the hospital told you that he can't give himself insulin till he's 1816,

Valerie 34:59
until. I can drive a car. Do you think that's right? I'm wondering now, because

Scott Benner 35:03
that sounds sorry. I know we're not all using that word again, but just the word popped the bite. I was like, that don't sound right, right? Is it possible you misunderstood them? No. Do you live on the side of a mountain?

Valerie 35:19
No, sure. On the side of a river,

Scott Benner 35:21
okay, does the river anywhere near like a city or people or anything like

Valerie 35:25
that, right outside of St Louis? Okay? Yeah, our Children's Hospital was

Scott Benner 35:28
an encampment or something like that somewhere. No, no, no. I in my life have never heard anyone say that really, yes, not once, ever has anyone said that to me. Oh, wow. Arden was giving herself insulin when she was in third grade. Wow, yeah. Like, I would be like, hey, that's 30 carbs. And she'd be like, right on, and then roll it up on the pump and do it okay.

Valerie 35:51
So back to what I was saying. Cool. So he was eating a Blow Pop, and it was 17 carbs, and he entered it as 71 Yeah, and nobody double checked him.

Scott Benner 36:04
We don't want that, that's for sure, right? Yeah, I'm not saying, like, why? Just give it to him now, let him get going. But I'm like, I don't know that you can't work towards it sooner than that. He doesn't have any developmental reasons why he couldn't handle it, right? I mean, autism, but I mean, you said you also told me I wouldn't notice. Yeah, he doesn't have an IEP, right? You said about his autism specifically, if I didn't tell you at autism, you wouldn't notice exactly so does it impede his ability to understand

Valerie 36:28
numbers or, I mean, he processes information differently. My husband's probably better at explaining this. My husband is a BCBA. We have our own practice, so he's a board certified behavior analyst, and he specializes with autistic clients. So there's a little bit of irony

Scott Benner 36:52
there. I'm an analyst, I'm not board certified. I just have a podcast.

Valerie 36:57
I mean, I've said it a million times. I don't know why the best type one diabetes training is a podcast, and it's you that I'm referring to. I don't I don't understand it. I don't know why, but there it is. Because I've had, like, the school nurse and stuff when I'm, like, referring to the podcast or something, and they're like, you can't just, you know, ask somebody to listen to a podcast, and I'm like, the hell I can't I'm telling you this. This is the information. It's all right here. Just let me send you the link. It'll be great. School

Scott Benner 37:26
nurse. Not interested. Not interested. A lot of school nurses do listen, though, I have a nice contingent of school nurses in the Facebook group. They believe it for everyone and who don't have kids with type one and come and listen to podcasts. So the truth is, is that, you know, if they wanted to, they would, and you know, they don't want

Valerie 37:41
to, right? I think it says something more about me also, is that when, you know, when I was so emotional when we first got diagnosed, I think that the school got to know me as that person. And that's not, that's not who I am. That was the situation that I was in, right? And that was awful, little nutty. Wow, gosh, it was, it was really rough. I mean, I was just like, I could just start crying, and I would just try to just talk right through it like it wasn't happening. Because I'm not really a crier. So that was how I would deal with it, like, oh, I don't know, it's like water coming from my eyes, and I'll just keep talking. I don't know,

Scott Benner 38:20
consider yourself stable before this happened. I just want to check,

Valerie 38:23
I mean, I'm flighty. Is that a

Scott Benner 38:27
thing your dad told you, wait, what the hell? I

Valerie 38:29
guess I've heard people joke like that. I have ADHD because I'm high energy and I thrive on, you know, solving problems and creative thinking and stuff like that. But

Scott Benner 38:43
well, when do you think your son would be able to handle this? Like, I think that's maybe a more appropriate question. Or what, forget the age. Like, what do you think he would need to be able to accomplish for this to work out for him?

Valerie 38:55
I think he's just waiting for me to say, you can do it, because that's just the type of person he is. So if I say, you know, we're he does like rules, and he likes things done a certain way. And for that reason, diabetes is probably going to be a slam dunk for him, because that's his personality, following the rules. So I think he is just waiting for us to be like, you can do this, Thomas, here's the plan. Let's

Scott Benner 39:20
start. Is there any reason you don't do it together? It together?

Valerie 39:23
I guess, just because we haven't sat down and talked about starting? Maybe

Scott Benner 39:28
what that would look like, because I think maybe, like, start slow, start volleys at the house.

Valerie 39:33
Yeah. I mean, it's summertime, so this would be the best time to and don't start before

Scott Benner 39:37
you think he's ready, but like, like, you know, listen, I don't know him. I'm I'm judging him based on what you're talking about, but he's definitely old enough to understand numbers, yeah, yeah, and push buttons and understand why being right is important about, you know, carb counts and stuff like that. And if you see an and you could also, you said earlier, he entered a 71 instead of a 17. Or somebody did, you could set the pump up so it won't give them that many carbs. Like, you can, you know, like, like, put in a safety of, like, Look, if you know, a Bolus is over this many carbs, you know, it won't take exactly, and that way that should, you know, be, I mean, valuable there, but yeah, I like the like, are you home during the day? Or no,

Valerie 40:19
I've pretty much dedicated the past year to type one diabetes. So we, you know, we pretty much let our farm slide a lot. And I just was like, This is what I'm going to focus on. I'm going to master this. And

Scott Benner 40:36
how are you doing? What does anyone say?

Valerie 40:38
I don't even know. What Is anyone C is? It's so crazy that I am sure that they're checking it every time. They never really say at our appointments.

Scott Benner 40:47
Well, you now making me think that might be the oddest thing anyone's ever said to me. You said in concurring sentences I've made my life about diabetes. I don't say 1c I know, I

Valerie 40:57
know I'm a contradiction. So humiliated.

Scott Benner 41:03
So wait. How about in his like Dexcom clarity app, can you not see what his GMI is? Can I? Yeah, you

Valerie 41:09
can. Should I put you on speakerphone and look, is it possible you're smoking

Scott Benner 41:13
crack during the day and not paying attention to diabetes? What are you doing? Yeah, you can these timers, his phone, not in yours. Oh, yeah. Oh, wait, you have a, you have a follow. Of the follow, yeah, hell. I don't even remember.

Valerie 41:27
I mean, it's, there's the new, what is that new app, the glue co I don't

Scott Benner 41:33
know. Yeah, if I told you the number of apps that have come and gone since I've been around all this that I don't pay attention,

Valerie 41:40
that makes my heart hurt to hear you say that, because that's the it is very annoying, all of the passwords, all of the accounts, I

Scott Benner 41:47
just mean the third party companies are like, this is gonna help with that, and this is gonna I'm like, Okay, we'll see, right? Let's find out real quick, though. Like Dexcom follow

Valerie 41:59
GM, I

Scott Benner 42:02
check my Google foo here to see your glucose management indicator and Dexcom g7 Nope. Dexcom g6 Do you think people at home were like, g6 like, yelling as I was typing, yeah, yeah. Allows user to share the glucose data when we know that. I don't know if your follow. Oh, why am I looking mine? Sorry, if only I knew were to get one of those damn Dexcom follow upset. I definitely don't think you can see it and follow. That makes me feel a lot better. Yeah, awesome. I mean, how often you think I'm looking at this thing?

Valerie 42:37
So I have, like, all these questions ready every appointment. And I think I focus on my questions too much. I do. Sorry. I paused because my diabetes alarm was beeping high.

Scott Benner 42:54
What's the alarm set up for? High i is above 150 Okay, and he's, yeah, he's at school. Now, what happens that you just wait for the algorithm that takes take care of it. I

Valerie 43:05
mean, if he's at home, I'll give him a blood correction, if it's after an hour from the Bolus. And then if he's at school, the nurse, it's not in his plan. And I've, I've talked to her about giving them a correction, but it's they're having a hard time with taking him off exercise mode. So like most of the day at school, he's on exercise mode. And I'm like, Was he really at recess for four hours? And why are they that's not true. Is he getting low? There was a period of time where they were forgetting to put him on exercise mode, and he would go low, especially because, you know, they have lunch and then they go straight to recess. The temperatures, you know, getting warmer. Well, now they can get him on exercise mode, but they can't get him remember to get him off. So it's like, if I push for them to turn it off, are they gonna forget to turn it on. Like, it's just, like, where, what's wrong? What's going on here? Like, why?

Scott Benner 44:06
Valerie, listen to me. You okay?

Valerie 44:09
I mean, most days, yeah, I can't tell if you're okay

Scott Benner 44:12
or not, really. Oh, 45 minutes, I can't figure it out. Oh,

Valerie 44:17
that scares me. That's not good, Scott, that's really bad.

Scott Benner 44:21
There's like, I stopped myself from asking you, were bipolar 10 minutes ago, because I don't think you are. But like, oh god, that's really bad. You feel like somebody put you in a box and shook you up. Yeah, yeah. I don't think you need to feel that way, so I'm trying to figure out how to get you through it. But you really knocked me over when you said you don't have any idea. What does anyone say? Is like, Yeah, I'm confused by that, in a way that I'm having trouble putting into words,

Valerie 44:47
yeah. I don't really even have a good, good answer for that.

Scott Benner 44:50
I spending your day doing

Valerie 44:52
I think I feel good about seeing that we're 80% in range, and so if we're 80% in range. Range, then the A, 1c, is where it should be at, right? No, I guess that. No, what's the range? The range is 70 to 160

Scott Benner 45:08
Okay, that's awesome. And being that 80% of time is fantastic. Like, I don't know how often you're low or high or anything, or if high means 400 and low means 30, then this isn't great, just being right. Get in range 80% of the time, right? I'm trying to resolve the idea that you told me that your whole life is diabetes and that you don't work and you're at home because you're taking care of it, but you don't have that information like so what are your goals? Are you just shooting time in range that what you're worried about? No,

Valerie 45:38
I spend a lot of time cooking. I'm preparing all of the meals. I'm out in the garden, you know, planting and getting things ready. I make my own sourdough. We do our own yogurt. I just started brewing kombucha for gut health.

Scott Benner 46:01
Valerie, when I asked you how much of your life is from tick tock, how come you didn't say most of it when I tick tock, is it really like you're doing a lot of social media, things like making sourdough? Like, not that you can't make sourdough and not be on social media, but if you knew what social I guess if you're not on these things, you don't realize this,

Valerie 46:18
but I don't know. So I'm like a, what do they call caricature?

Scott Benner 46:22
It feels like you're a caricature of a person on Tiktok, but I don't think you are, though, no, I'm not on Tiktok. Yeah, you're not. Like, where did you get the idea to do sourdough from? I think it was,

Valerie 46:33
that was about 10 years ago I started doing sourdough. And so

Scott Benner 46:38
Val, is it possible that Tiktok is a caricature of somebody living your life.

Valerie 46:42
Oh, thank God, am I an algorithm? Oh, geez,

Scott Benner 46:45
maybe they're watching you and you're what's feeding the algorithm. They're like, what's Val doing now, kombucha, we can make a video about that. You know,

Valerie 46:53
that's really funny that you said that because I live next to one of the largest you pick farms in the country, or at least it was 15 years ago, every time I was doing so I would, like start hosting, like a DIY stuff. And then months later, this farm, this big, like Walmart of a farm, would start doing the same type of thing. And I was like, Am I really that close to being successful? Like,

Scott Benner 47:23
Valerie, your chat. GPT, am I missing? Am

Valerie 47:27
I Am I really a day late and $1 short? Is it that close for me,

Scott Benner 47:33
your ideas are being stolen. Two of you, first of all, we're gonna have to make a hat for you out of tin foil. Right now, they're watching you, and they're taking all your ideas.

Valerie 47:41
They are not. Tell me that's not true. God, yeah,

Scott Benner 47:48
sorry. I'll start.

Valerie 47:49
I'll post to my friends, like, oh, let's have a seed exchange. And then all of a sudden, like, it's happening all around me. And I'm like, How did, how did that happen?

Scott Benner 47:58
I tell you a story. Yeah, one summer night, it was so hot we were dying, like, we didn't have air conditioning. I don't know about you people who grew up rich, but back then, you had to be rich to have air conditioning. Like, so we didn't have air conditioning. It was like, ungodly hot outside, and my buddy and I went to the toy store and bought a baby pool and filled it up outside, drug A television outside, with a extension cord, and we just laid in a baby pool trying to, like, not die and watching TV. We were watching Seinfeld first run because I'm old. There's this bit on Seinfeld, and I promise you, I don't remember the bit anymore. It was so reminiscent of, like, a running joke I had like that I would do like, I don't know, like, I don't want to say that I was out there doing bits when I was 20. But like, you know, like, sometimes you got stuff that works. You use it a lot. I always thought it was very unique and different. Made people laugh and everything, and it's happening right on screen in front of me. And I turned to my friend, I was like, Are you selling my fcking ideas to people, and he laughed, and he goes, that was oddly similar to what you said. I was like similar. And he goes, no word for word. We couldn't go back and check, of course, because it was before time shifting or nothing was re you would never see that episode of our game, but it just flew by in front of us. And now I want to point out that I did not think he was selling my ideas to people, but I do think maybe the internet is chasing you around. Oh my god. You said, I make my own yogurt. You said, beekeeping. You said, kombucha. You said, Pop belly pig. You said, so many sourdough you did. Yeah, your husband is does what for

Valerie 49:38
a living. Is this gonna help? Is this gonna help your views and your likes. I mean, I'm sorry,

Scott Benner 49:42
all the right words is, apparently everything people care about

Valerie 49:46
now we have to say puppies and pizza and we're done. It's all stick a fork in it. We did it exactly. We have arrived. Oh

Scott Benner 49:55
my gosh. I want to get back to this. I hear you're busy, like, obviously you're doing a lot. Of stuff, right? Yeah, yeah. And you're jamming that diabetes stuff into any little bit of free time you have, and right? And so it feels like the day is overwhelmed with diabetes.

Valerie 50:09
It's timers, yeah, the time. And I've tried to, I've tried to take a step back, and I've tried, I mean, it was really hard to stop doing the logging after 100 days. And I told myself, you're going to do it for 100 days, and then you're going to stop, because this is it's this isn't the way. This is it's okay for right now and for this amount of time, but then you will be done. Because what I have noticed is like with with the sourdough and with the yogurt, is I jump in and I go deep. I like, want to know, like, everything there is about it. I don't want to do it, like, six times a day, and then I'll burn myself out. And it's like, oh, I need something else. Let's start, you know, crocheting. What are we going to make? Or soaping? Oh, that's another thing. There you go. Can't believe you just said that. I'm a soaper.

Scott Benner 50:59
You did not know to keep that to yourself when it was started coming out of your

Valerie 51:05
mouth. I am also a hooker, but only at night. It's rug hooking.

Scott Benner 51:10
Yeah, wait, you're doing hook rugs. Oh, my dad

Valerie 51:14
used to do this. Oh, yeah. Those are fun. Those are a lot of fun. Is there any chance you're autistic? Oh, gosh. I mean, how could I not be and I and I always have told, you know, all the kids that you know, if Thomas is diabetic, then we're a diabetic family. If one of us is autistic, then we're an autistic family. It's just who we are. And you guys come from me, and so how could I not have that somewhere in my body? Because that's, you know you're the byproduct.

Scott Benner 51:41
Well, I want you to be calmer, like, and not feel like you're like, running towards timers all the time for sure, right, right? And your time is difficult to know. Like, I'm not telling you a 1c is everything, but I just it would have been a launching in place for the conversation. Like, if you understand that, you know, he can't be low all the time and then high all the time, and then say, like, you know, oh, is a 1c is good, because it averages out. Like, if you understand that, that's true, and you're pre bolusing meals, and he's, how often do you think he's low? Like, how many times do you find yourself stopping a low blood sugar? What do you call low?

Valerie 52:16
I call double arrows down and like the 150 range that I just call that a low that it's happening, it will be low within 15 minutes. That usually happens about twice a week. You see

Scott Benner 52:30
double arrows, twice a week. Yeah, is that during activity, or after a meal, or after a meal, and then activity like, do you see a pattern how that happens

Valerie 52:40
so, and I think that it is maybe part of the autism. Maybe I have downplayed that a little bit, Thomas will spontaneously, like, do like these spurts of jumping. And so, yeah, that can trigger, that can trigger a quick low, quick low. If he gets, like, really excited, he could start like jumping. It's less noticeable, though, because I, I mean, he's coping so well with the autism, so he's masking it a little bit better. Or, you know, if we just didn't get the timing right on exercise and the last meal, I do like to do the sports with no insulin on board, but it doesn't always work out like that, because, you know, with school in session, everything's around dinner time, right? So it's like, you Yeah, yes, I have cucumbers and string cheese to hold them over before. And sometimes I'm like, You know what? We'll just, we'll roll with it, and I'll just keep, keep carbon you up to keep you afloat.

Scott Benner 53:41
You don't see the double hours after certain meals or a certain size boluses.

Valerie 53:47
Not anymore, okay. Well, it does feel kind of random

Scott Benner 53:51
activity with insulin on board gets you a low. Oh, yeah. And so if you see 150 double hours down, you give them something. How low does the CGM ever say, before you

Valerie 54:01
stop it, I'll usually catch it in the 90s. Okay,

Scott Benner 54:05
that's awesome. Good for you. Yeah, yeah. So he doesn't get the or does he get feelings of being low? Then,

Valerie 54:10
yeah, we've had two scary lows in a year. What were the numbers, 43 and then almost to 40,

Scott Benner 54:19
okay? And how did he feel? Then, did he? Did he verbalize it?

Valerie 54:23
Yeah, he his eyes got really red. He said he was tired. And then the other time, he got very nauseous

Scott Benner 54:33
and but you haven't seen that recently. Actually, last month, we had a really scary low. You know, where it came from? Could you put your finger on it, yeah,

Valerie 54:41
he was sick for a week. Was sick for a week, and he went so he wasn't eating very much at all, and his blood sugar was like, just beautiful. I was like, Oh, I like, Thomas sick. This is amazing. He's just a straight arrow buddy. And then he started. To get his appetite back. And it was about on day five. And so I was like, Okay, well, you want to eat this donut? Well, you only eat half of it. And I was like, Okay, it's cool. Don't worry, because it's still gonna, it's still gonna hit. We'll just give you something when it's when the insulin starts pulling harder than the carbs, right? That's how I'm always looking at it as like a tug of war. Yeah, you know, you just don't want the insulin to pull harder than the carbs. So he, all of a sudden, just started to feel nauseous, and we were like, oh, no, let's just start sipping some juice. And then we tested his blood, and it was like, 60s. And then it's his CGM started reading double arrows down, and I was like, Oh my gosh. And he got all the way down to the 40s, and then we couldn't get him to go above 60 for like, almost an hour. And then I couldn't get him above 90 for almost three hours,

Scott Benner 56:00
because you Bolus for a whole donut, he had a half a donut, yes? And he hadn't had much food recently, right? Sick, use a little lower to begin with.

Valerie 56:08
It just like, it just blew my mind. Like, I was just, like, I can't believe that was so hard to correct when juice is, like, you know, usually the magic, oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, it's gonna, just the littlest bit will send you to the moon.

Scott Benner 56:22
Yeah, the illness can make you really insulin sensitive sometimes,

Valerie 56:26
oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, I was, I felt sick. I was even to the point where I was thinking about, like, putting, like, honey on his gums and stuff, because he was just so low and not going up. And I kept thinking, what if he slips further down and we're already so low? And then we tried to call the on call doctor, and their system was down. Of course. It was just, it was rough, right? It was, it was Yeah. And then when we did get the doctor on the phone, she was like, You should have given him his emergency medicine, the nasal

Scott Benner 57:04
glucagon. Yes. Well, did you feel like that was necessary? It sounds like you managed

Valerie 57:08
it. I'm very hesitant to give it to him while he's conscious, but then when I say that if he goes unconscious, that's even scarier, and that's what you're trying to prevent, right? When Thomas throws up, the vomit usually comes out of his nose, and it's just so painful for him, he gets very upset, as anyone would, right? Yeah, to give him medicine in his nose and to know that that's how he feels with like the burning sensation in his nose, I just know he's gonna be so unhappy, and I know it's gonna happen. I haven't talked to him about this is what this medicine is. This is how it's gonna feel. And I don't even know if I should

Scott Benner 57:53
you're afraid he wouldn't use it if he needed it. I

Valerie 57:56
mean, we would make sure that it happened regardless. But yeah, if it were up to him, would he, would he pass on it? Yeah, yeah. That's

Scott Benner 58:03
a tough one. And I don't know that he needs to know that it, it might burn in his nose afterwards. You know what? I mean, like, right? I don't know it's tough. They're going to be people listening to this and say, you have to tell them. And there's going to be people are like, Oh, God, don't like so, I mean, that's a personal decision. I think, you know, right? You're going to know him better than anybody

Valerie 58:22
else. Yeah, he's, I mean, he's the sweetest. He really is just the sweetest boy every all of his teachers are. You know, he's just an amazing kid. And he's,

Scott Benner 58:33
how did the other sisters, brothers handle the diabetes stuff?

Valerie 58:37
Well, right or wrong? I like, shut down the kitchen, because we were pretty much free range, like anybody could come into the kitchen and get anything they wanted. I had snacks all prepped. And then once we were diagnosed, it was more like, Hi, how can I help you? Can I get you something to eat? And you know, I was turning people away. We weren't allowed to just eat anywhere we wanted in the house. I didn't realize at the time that Thomas was feeling guilty because he felt like he had done that to the whole family, like changed food for everyone. We have just started talking about that, and we've we're seeing a psychiatrist here in town just to make sure that we're talking about our feelings a little bit more because it's with food. I mean, gosh, it. There's not a single thing in your life that it doesn't touch, right? Yeah. So I just want to make sure that we're staying checked in, and that we're having the conversations, and that we continue, continue to talk about what's bothering us and what we can do better. You

Scott Benner 59:42
said you're in the kitchen all the time. Are you the security? Are you standing there making sure nobody has food or, like, what do you how do you managing it?

Valerie 59:48
I mean, I was, I was then, like, the first three months that we got diagnosed, and then I started labeling everything and saying, you know, okay, just let me know what you want, and I can get it for you. Or the timer with the pre bullet saying, so it's like, he goes in there and he wants it. I'm like, Okay, let's set a timer for 15 minutes. And he, like, looks at me, like, Well, I'm not going to be hungry in 15 minutes. And I'm like, Yeah, you will, don't worry, buddy. I'll just set it real quick. Just go play a game or whatever. That's been really hard,

Scott Benner 1:00:16
the weight, it's hard for everybody, not just him, like, Yeah,

Valerie 1:00:20
what a liberty to just be able to throw food in your mouth and not

Scott Benner 1:00:23
think about it, right? And what happens if you do that? He gets high, yeah,

Valerie 1:00:28
oh, yeah, for sure. And just two days ago, he was sitting on the couch and he was eating some pretzels, and I was like, Oh, I didn't realize you were, you were having a snack. I could have given you some insulin. Do you need? You know, do you need me to take a look at your numbers, and I was trying to be, like, casual about it and not guilt him. I didn't really understand if he forgot or if he just didn't want to care in the moment. But that has been happening more often, yeah, where he's just eating something and not saying anything, and I'm I'm trying to handle it the best I can and just

Scott Benner 1:01:01
listen. Only been at it for a year, first of all, and it sounds like you have a handle on a lot of it, and you're getting a handle on the rest of it, like it's not going to be see. Listen, I teased you a little bit earlier. It's a year. Yeah, you know what I mean, you're doing great, and you're going to do more, and you're going to learn more, and you're going to build on top of your grade, and it's going to get better and better, and you'll be less flustered, you'll be less focused on, like, constantly looking at it. You'll probably get to a point where you realize you can't, like, safeguard the kitchen, and that everybody gets to eat and stuff like that. Like you'll get it's just a process, right? It'd be easy for anybody to listen to, like, one section of anybody's, you know, interview, forget you and go, oh, like, they can't do that. Like, you know, I'm not telling you that there's not an argument for the other side. Like, I don't think you should have shut your kitchen down because eating disorders come weirdly from stuff like that too. You don't want that, right, for sure, but I see what you're doing. You're like, I gotta figure something out before we just, like, for like, like, something's gotta slow down a little bit so I can get a handle on this, like, firmly. So just keep doing that, keep learning, having experiences, adapt and expand your understanding, and keep going. You know what? I mean, like, I think you're getting there. It sounds to me like you're doing well, honestly, like, after, yeah, you know,

Valerie 1:02:23
I feel better. I have to keep reminding myself, too, though, that this isn't really happening to me. This is happening to Thomas. You

Scott Benner 1:02:30
have said a couple of things that I know that a like an adult living with diabetes would, like, cringe at, right? Yeah. It felt like you were looping yourself in with his experience. Yeah, yeah, and, but it must feel like that to you, right? I want to carry it. Oh, you're still stuck on that. Yeah, that has to go. I know. I know. Strap it to one of the pigs and let it go. Never abandon your animals. I'm sorry. I was just, gosh, those pigs, I don't know what you're doing there. You've made a couple of hinky decisions. The pigs is one of them. Although the soap thing sounds nice,

Valerie 1:03:08
oh, the soap is amazing. Which I started doing that because of my psoriasis. So that's been, you know, 20 years, 20 years making soap because it, you know, the fragrance isn't regulated as a lot of things aren't in a country that's quote, unquote free. So yeah, I was trying to eliminate those byproducts that were drying my skin out. But is

Scott Benner 1:03:31
it possible your psoriasis is autoimmune?

Valerie 1:03:34
Yes, yeah, psoriasis is autoimmune, right?

Scott Benner 1:03:37
So you have that going too. Gotcha. Yeah? Listen, here's what I think. I think you got to find out. What does anyone say is that's first he's got blood work done, right?

Valerie 1:03:48
Yeah. And I'm sure that they've said it, and I've been like, Oh, that's good. And then I just disregard the number, because there was nothing to worry about. So if I'm sure that that's what happened, I wonder if my husband knows. I mean,

Scott Benner 1:04:01
somebody said you it's good, and you were in, oh, they said, it's good. That's fine. I don't want you to do that, if that's what's happening. Like, I want you to know, yeah, I don't want you to obsess about it, but I want you to have that information, because I don't know how else you're supposed to begin to gage how things are going. You know, timing, like I said, timing range is great, but I can't see the rest of the range. I don't know what the other 20%

Valerie 1:04:21
look like. So okay, so maybe I don't understand what a 1c is.

Scott Benner 1:04:25
Is he going to the doctor, like quarterly and having a blood draw? Yes, and they're checking his a 1c Yes. Okay, that's the first step of every appointment. Okay? And then that number comes back and someone says to you, the number, or they say to you, it looks good. How do they handle it?

Valerie 1:04:42
Yeah, I don't. They're not really, like, focused on it

Scott Benner 1:04:46
at all. Okay? And you've never asked.

Valerie 1:04:49
I've never had to ask, yeah, because I think that they are just saying it, and I'm maybe I'm distracted when they're going over it. I

Scott Benner 1:04:57
hear you find out next time, like, next time something. See what's the A 1c i got my 80% time and range here, but I want to just make sure that, you know, correlating to what we're seeing. And you know, like, like as an example, right? Like, if your blood sugar went all day long, say it went from 50 to 450 to 400 it just did that. Like mountain peaks all day long. Oh, gosh, if that happened, your a 1c wouldn't look that bad, because it would do an average. It would show you an average between 50 and 40, which would put you somewhere in the middle. And you'd be like, Oh my one sees not bad. It's seven or something like that, right? That's not the right way to come by a lower a 1c but you're looking for stability, which I think your time and range is showing is pretty damn steady. You know what I mean, 80% between 70 and 160 is awesome. But are we jumping up and down in there? Are we having big excursions and leaving 150 or 160 and going to 400 or 300 and staying there for an hour and coming back down? If so, then this is not what you're shooting for. You're looking for more rolling, you know, gentle rolling hills on that graph. Like I said, again, anyone sees not everything. But I'm not asking so much because of the number. I'm just asking because it's a weird thing that nobody's made. It's so strange to me that somebody hasn't told you the value in knowing what it is. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. And you've been to how many appointments now since he's been 230, 230,

Valerie 1:06:22
gosh, like five or six, yeah, because there were special appointments when we got our pump.

Scott Benner 1:06:27
But I mean, like, the actual, like, quarterly appointment where you go in and they, they pretend to look at all your stuff and ask you how you're doing, and take the blood,

Valerie 1:06:35
yeah, like four. And I think our next one is, like, in a couple of weeks. So this is, this is going to be at the top of my list.

Scott Benner 1:06:42
I'm super interested, okay?

Valerie 1:06:44
And then I bet. And so they have a log of all of it. Obviously, find

Scott Benner 1:06:48
it if you put, I'm not asking to do that now, but you would have access to that, right? Yeah, once you take a look and see, like it's just good for you to know where you're at. And you know for goal setting, too. If you, you know, some people don't like to think about the number, but like, I'm doing this, and this is the outcome I'm getting, you know. So if I want a different outcome, I can maybe change how we're using the insulin and how activity is being done, how eating is happening, like, a number of different things that can, you know, help you manage that idea. So I don't know. I just think you just have all that information. So

Valerie 1:07:22
I'm trying to apply the information that you did give me. So let me just double check that I understand if we are having, like, the the lows and then the high, and then the lows and the high, and our a, 1c, is like, at seven. Well, the graph with the number says that things could be better. But if the graph is showing, oh, you know, you're these rolling hills, and you're getting stuck every once in a while at 200 but then you come right back down with a good a, 1c, it's like a double check system, because

Scott Benner 1:07:53
it's like, yeah, you want to stay in range, and you want that range to be tighter. Like some some people will be like, Oh, I'm in range 100% of the time. And you look in their range is like 50 to 400

Valerie 1:08:01
and, oh, my god, yeah, I did listen to that episode, I remember. But if you're

Scott Benner 1:08:05
at 70 to 150 or 160 I mean, that's a pretty tight that's a pretty tight range, that's awesome. Yeah, you don't even mean all this a 1c is doing is measuring time and range. It's glucose on your red blood cells. I just think that's a thing you should understand, because then it'll lead you understanding other things Gotcha. And not only that, I just honestly, Valerie, like you stunned me, because I just No one's ever said that before. No, I swear to God, are you being serious? I've been stunned three times in the last three months. One of them was somebody telling me about their porn addiction. And the other one is, you telling me about this a 1c thing people have said, Oh, I don't know what my 1c is right now, no one's not been able to after a year of getting a 1c tell me about what their a 1c is that's interesting to me, like, and I don't know if that's incredibly healthy or disconnected. I can't figure out.

Valerie 1:08:54
I mean, I'm I'm asking myself the same question. I'm like, wow, I thought I was ninja level. And now I'm questioning, I'm questioning my process.

Scott Benner 1:09:02
I don't know, like I would, I mean, don't question yourself too much, because it really is a process. Just roll through and keep, keep adding to yourself. Like, I'm not saying, like, feel badly about any of

Valerie 1:09:11
this. No, I'm not. And, yeah, I get what you're saying. You talk to a lot of people. And yeah, people know the number, and I didn't. And, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:09:19
have you ever heard this sound effect that went off in my head when you said that? I was like, I was like, because you literally, you were like, Mom is on this I spend my whole day with this thing. I was like, What's your 1c he was like, I don't know. I don't

Valerie 1:09:35
know, whatever. What's your a 1c? What's a two? Yeah, you got a problem with my a 1c

Scott Benner 1:09:42
I definitely don't have a problem with it. I mean, I don't. I never get an A 1c done, and I can tell you my last day 1c

Valerie 1:09:52
Wow, I wonder, yeah. I mean, I know it's not above seven. I know that it's coming back to me now. I think that they did. Say, I want to say that it was like six, because it was the first one that's, this is what it is, okay. So the first appointment, they were like, well, this isn't going to be very accurate, because you guys just got diagnosed, right? And so then the second one was a little bit closer, but still not really accurate, I guess. And maybe that's why I've just been writing it off ever since

Scott Benner 1:10:22
they keep telling you it's not accurate. So why pay attention to it?

Valerie 1:10:26
I don't think that they told me that. I think that I just was kind of under the impression that, oh, we're still kind of that there's not enough data to really give us a solid number yet, but now that we're at a year, that's that's a lot of a one CS now we've got four. That's a good average. You're

Scott Benner 1:10:43
not going to average all four of them together. I would just look at the most recent one and take that as what's going on. Don't average all four of them together. If you because, like, one of them's during, like, diagnosis, right, right? You don't want to average them together. That's meaningless to average for a one CS together in this scenario. Like, if you want to look back over 10 years and go, Hey, like, on average over the last 10 years, my 1c has been six and a half and go, like, Oh, that's pretty great. Over the last four a one CS, one of them being a diagnosis one, there's no reason to like, in my opinion, to combine those four numbers and try to come up with and try to read anything into it. I would look at whatever the most recent one is the next time you get it and say, this is a good example of how we've been doing over the last three months. That's all you know. What have we done? And how is it? What are the outcomes? And this is about it interesting. Yeah, you got to keep going. Like, for only being at this for a year, you were doing awesome, yeah, right. Like, just awesome. But you're also probably not doing what you think you're doing, either. But that just happens to everybody. Like, everybody gets that, like, if you're lucky, you get to a point where you feel like, this is rolling. I'm doing this. You know what I mean, like, and I think you're, you're there now, which is, it's like, it's awesome, but you don't know everything. And, yeah, there is an exception. You're gonna keep learning along the way. You know what I mean? Like, I swear to you, a year from now, you'll be like, Oh my god. A year ago, I was on a podcast, and I thought I knew what I was talking about. That's insane. Yeah. And you'll feel like that, you know, over and over again. As this goes on, I find at least, like, I look back all the time and I'm like, Oh, that was weird. I thought that. But that's life in general, isn't it? Sure, yeah, absolutely. Have you ever considered jettisoning a few hobbies? Maybe you're not really busy.

Valerie 1:12:27
Mean, I so the way I justify everything is, like the focal point is like farm and like crafting and so I mean that just making money? No. I mean, I'm a hobbyist, so I try to cover my costs of the hobby, sure. So sometimes I'll, like, rope a few friends, and I'm like, hey, you know, I did the price breakdown. Let's do this this weekend, or whatever. And so, yeah, usually, you know, pays off or or not, but, and I think before, before diabetes, I I was thinking that I was gonna, like, open up a shop, or I managed a farmer's market for about 10 years, and so, yeah, a lot of my craft came from that. So, like, if we didn't have an enough soap, then I would start soaping and fill that void in the market. And the same thing with the bees and stuff. So there's just been ways that I've tried to apply my degree and be able to stay home. And, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:13:33
I mean, it sounds like you're doing it actually, I just don't know. Like, if you're like, you said I'm so busy. And I was like, Maybe you should just stop doing a couple of things. You wouldn't

Valerie 1:13:41
be as busy. Yeah, I have, I have thought about, yeah, dropping a few things off. I mean, hitting the easy button. It's exhausting more often than not. Yeah, it is really exhausting. And there's, you know, now that I am getting older, it's, it's not as easy physically on my body. And so I'm starting to, like, understand, like, Hmm, like, how, how long am I going to be able to manage five acres? Like, how long is that realistic? And I'm like, Well, I got all these kids cracking the whip on these kids

Scott Benner 1:14:14
tie yourself to the pig and just hold your arms out while it runs around the

Valerie 1:14:18
field. Boys are so different than girls, I tell you what? Yeah. I mean, I had just Ava for ever, and, you know, she potty trained herself for Pete sake. And then I have these three wild things, and they're just the opposite. I used to have to remind my sixth grader to tie his shoes.

Scott Benner 1:14:38
It's Where the Wild Things Are, that's for sure. Sounds like they're at your house. Yes, well, I appreciate you doing this with me greatly. I really do being so transparent and and just sharing how you feel and what's happening to you is such a big deal for people. Thank you. Yeah, I don't want you to walk away feeling like, Oh no. I can't believe I didn't know that thing. Like I thought it was like, No, I thought it was AWESOME. That you said that, because it made me wonder, how many people are going to hear that and go, I don't know my kids. They won't say either. Like, I'm interested now. Like, so take a poll. Let's find out. I don't I won't put you in charge of it. You have no time, but I'll do it all right. Hold on one second for me. And thanks again. I really appreciate

Valerie 1:15:15
it. Yeah, thank you. You foreign

Scott Benner 1:15:23
thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode. We've been talking about Medtronic mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night. Whether it's their meal detection technology or the Medtronic extended infusion set. It all comes together to simplify life with diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

the episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool if you want a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision or peace of mind. You want twist, twist.com/juicebox, I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter, the my daughter carries the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour, next.com/juicebox and don't forget, you may be paying more through your insurance right now for the meter you have then you would pay for the contour next gen in cash. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now and links at Juicebox podcast.com to contour and all of the sponsors. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. You foreign if you or a 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@juiceboxpodcast.com in the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com,

Please support the sponsors

---

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate