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Scott Benner 0:00
Let's all go to the lobby and have ourselves a snack. Hello friends welcome to episode 1184 of the Juicebox Podcast and if you know that song, you're old

Hey, I'll be talking with Britney today. This is Brittany second time on the show she's 29 years old was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was 12. She's had a one season the sevens and eights when she was younger. And she's back today to talk about a number of things, not the least of which is having a baby. And we talk a lot about the movies, which is why sang that old song from the 50s about going to the lobby to get a snack. Let's all go to the lobby you don't know. Whatever, young people. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan are becoming bold with insulin. Here's a couple of things for you to do very quickly. cozier.com use the offer code juice box a 40% go to T one D exchange.org/juice. box fill out the survey completely you're helping people with type one diabetes through type one diabetes research must be a US resident have type one or be the caregiver of someone with type one. Drink ag one.com/juice box start with ag one with my link. You're gonna get some extra stuff. You'll find out about it on that link. One last thing or a.com/juice box online production and so much more get a free 14 day trial ora.com/juice box au are a Today's episode is sponsored by touched by type one that's touched by type one.org great organization helping people with type one diabetes, they just want you to know about them, and to follow them on Facebook and Instagram touched by type one.org. You know what else? This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever since CGM. And sure all CGM systems use Transcutaneous sensors that are inserted into the skin and lasts seven to 14 days. But the Eversense sensor is inserted completely under the skin lasting six months ever since cgm.com/juicebox. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's bringing people together to redefine what it means to live with diabetes. Later in this episode, I'll be speaking with Jalen, he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 14. He's 29. Now he's going to tell you a little bit about his story. And then later at the end of this episode, you can hear my entire conversation with Jalen to hear more stories with Medtronic champions. Go to Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or searched the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Brittany 2:48
I'm Brittany, and I'm back a year later. Last time I was on the show I was home, I think I was over 20 weeks pregnant. So now I'm kind of ironic. I'm almost nine months, nine months out from being nine months and last time I was

Scott Benner 3:07
on the show. We're hitting a little bit of a thing here. Okay.

Brittany 3:11
So I'm back to kind of just talk about everything I learned in my pregnancy and birth. And now being a mom with type one.

Scott Benner 3:19
Excellent. Do you know the episode we run initially?

Brittany 3:25
The number I don't remember the number. Let's see if we don't because I was very excited when I saw it.

Scott Benner 3:35
Things go by Alright, here's what I can do. I will search the word pregnant. See if that gets me anything. Miriam pregnant in Slovenia. That's not you know, we insurance our pregnancy stories. diabetes, pro tip pregnancy. In vitro? Jevin. In vitro? Nope. Okay, now we go to your first name.

Brittany 3:59
Your first name is not one that was accidentally pregnant before my wedding.

Scott Benner 4:05
Interesting. I probably ended up calling it something ridiculous. Now. I can't search it. Do you remember what it was called?

Brittany 4:11
No, I don't. But now I have long brains. That's my excuse. I'm gonna second it was something short and sweet. Well,

Scott Benner 4:18
I've now just I've searched your first name Brittany. correct spelling on my website. Episode 102. Not you. This is Brittany digs. She was abducted. Do you know this when she was abducted, put in the trunk of her car and escaped using the light from on top. And we brought that up and we return? Yes. Yes. And then here's one Brittany smokes a lot of weed and has a bunch of autoimmune diseases. That's not you? Absolutely. Do you smoke a lot? A lot to say if you don't want to. No, I don't. Okay, Tommy's mom, daughter Brittany has a rash in Penn. Facebook last scription was

Brittany 4:55
like Britney is type one diabetic in six months pregnant. I do know that serious

Scott Benner 4:59
Wait, hold on a second. Let's go back. Yeah. I didn't call you like preggers or something like that, right? I'm spelling pregnant correctly, Ani? Yes. Imagine if I wasn't spelling pregnant correctly. Alright. You don't live in Slovenia? No, you're not calling. Are you Miriam? You're not Miriam. She's having a baby. Nope, that Samantha title was so short. How many of you all been pregnant on this podcast? Geez. You're not Canadian? Nope. Is that there's one called for love of attendant that has pregnancy in it.

Brittany 5:35
I'm impressed you somebody's pregnant. I feel like those are important stories. Oh, my

Scott Benner 5:39
God. Yeah. Well, you know why? We're never going to figure out what Episode You're on. So we're gonna let that go now. But anyway, Brittany has been on the podcast before there's today's counting 1041 other episodes, just go listen to them all, eventually, you'll hear it. Think the pregnancy stories are really interesting and important. For two reasons. One of them doesn't get covered as well. That's not my fault, though. For the first reason is, a lot of you're gonna get pregnant. And it's adds its own set of challenges. And they are a little repeatable from story to story, so you can really learn from them. The other, I think the other reason is because pregnancy is really just a variable, but a lot of them and they switch frequently. So if you can handle pregnancy, you could you could diabetes, anything you know, so I think that even if you're a man or never going to be pregnant, or anything like that, I still think those conversations are really important. That's why I love having them appreciate you being on. So let's do a little bit of catch up. The baby came out. Was it a little boy baby, a little boy, girl, baby

Brittany 6:50
was a boy. Oh, and you named Scott time you were asking? Yeah. And I named him probably the opposite of Scott.

Scott Benner 6:55
There's an opposite of Scott, which talks to calm talks. It's it's super

Brittany 7:00
unique and very different. And I like seeing people's reaction. Or you go gaga is name is Ace, AC. Oh, my God.

Scott Benner 7:11
Ace is the kid's name. Now, is this a? Is this? Is this a? It's not a kiss thing? Is it?

Brittany 7:19
No, no. It's funny, like everyone's different guests. And ties. Right, right. Well, my husband is a pilot. So people do go by that by default. But that's not even really where the thought train was. Oh,

Scott Benner 7:34
okay. When you got pregnant, did he do the thing from Star Wars, where they had to blow up the death star at the end? It wouldn't have been sexy, but it would have been hilarious. I

Brittany 7:43
hate Star Wars and he loves Star Wars. So he'll probably appreciate that. Yeah, no, no, we wanted a unique name. We didn't know we were having a boy or girl. And I don't know, we just liked it. It's just as simple as that. But I guess I kind of like the has ties to like, I guess I can say this. Our last name is heart. And so ace of hearts. It's kind of a tie to playing cards. And I was just at my nanny who's passed. So there's a little sentiment there. But other than that, I just want him to have a unique name that no kid would have. Because I am a teacher. And that's hard to find.

Scott Benner 8:19
Yeah. If you have another kid, you're gonna call them like club or something like that.

Brittany 8:24
So we've gotten all the questions about like, how are you didn't follow up this? And I'm still like processing like type one diabetes pregnancy, so I'm just able to answer that right now.

Scott Benner 8:34
Can I vote? I think the next kids Joker, Joker. I've gotten that from my students. 100% It's got to be Joker and Ace. Are you kidding me? That would be amazing. They could probably have like a whatever the next tick tock is going to be in 15 years they'll probably be very, very famous for, by the way tick tock fame last six months, everybody so you'll be very, very famous for like five seconds. But yeah, yeah. Okay, so ace comes out. Do people sing the hardware store song to you sometimes?

Brittany 9:02
I don't get that a lot. I have a spin Shura? I've heard that. But yeah, no, I haven't had the Ace Hardware song yet. But when we told him he's in school, but maybe that will be relevant.

Scott Benner 9:15
Yeah, I'm going to start calling your kid that helpful hardware man. And then we'll see where that goes from there. This episode is sponsored by Medtronic. diabetes, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. And now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion. Jalen.

Brittany 9:31
I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer heading into high school was that particularly difficult? Unimaginable. You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went I was going to a brand new school. I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was. My hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling over an hour to the nearest endocrinologist for children. So, you know, I decided that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown. Did

Scott Benner 10:04
you try to explain to people? Or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Brittany 10:09
I honestly, I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just kept it to myself didn't really talk about it.

Scott Benner 10:24
Did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in,

Brittany 10:28
I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that motivates me started embracing more, you know, how I'm able to type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 10:49
To hear Jay Lynn's entire conversation stay till the very end, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box to hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community. Well, I love that you pick something different. Obviously, my kid's name is Art. And so yeah, I'm done with that. You can appreciate that. Yeah. Arden is when we chose Arden as a name. We went to the there's a website that the US government has that tells you how many people have your first name. And really, it's broken down by gender as well. So when we were choosing to wow, how old was art in 2004. She was born. So it's like 2003. And my wife and I are like, you know, going through baby names and everything. When we landed on a couple of them, we started looking more deeply into them Arden at that time, only something over 9000 Not 10,000 over 9000 Americans were named Arden. And an overwhelming majority of them were men. And they were older. So and we were like, yeah, we'll call our daughter back. And yeah, to do that for us.

Brittany 11:57
I don't know if they'll be disappointed. Maybe it's more popular than I assume, but I don't know any. So

Scott Benner 12:02
maybe, hey, do you have an ability to be a little closer to your microphone by any chance?

Brittany 12:07
Yeah, I think so. Well, it's my phone is up better.

Scott Benner 12:10
Are you gonna you're on your phone? Yeah. Are you on your speakerphone? No,

Brittany 12:19
I have with air pods in and I just have the zoom app open. Oh,

Scott Benner 12:23
okay. So you're talking through the air pods? Yes, yeah. Okay. Is your hair blocking it or anything like that?

Brittany 12:30
No, actually, I had been on today. Okay. All

Scott Benner 12:33
right. That's fine. Don't worry. You know, we'll do we'll just make the editor fix it. Fix this Rob. Done. The poor guy. I'm not paying him that much money. He's probably like to get us all. Tell her to get a different headset and lead me out of this. Okay, so aces out. We've already I'll tell you right now I'm I had to push the feeling out of my head that it never occurred to me that the blowing up of the Deathstar was oddly sexual. But Tao that hit me like a ton of bricks. And so, really, did you ever think that? No, I

Brittany 13:07
don't like Star Wars, and I watched like 10 movies in my life. So

Scott Benner 13:10
wait a second. You don't watch movies ever? No, I don't do not like, strongly

Brittany 13:16
encouraged. I don't like sitting for over an hour and a half staring at the screen.

Scott Benner 13:23
Fair enough. But I mean, there have been some really good movies. They don't capture you.

Brittany 13:29
They don't capture me. What do you do with that reader?

Scott Benner 13:32
Are you not sitting while you're reading? I am sitting while I'm reading. This is hypocritical of you, but okay, so

Brittany 13:39
read for an hour and a half. Okay, fair enough. 2030 minutes, max. Yeah. Before Bed?

Scott Benner 13:46
That kind of stuff. Yeah. Okay. No, girls don't do that. Do that. Girls do that. I gotta add that to my list of questions that I asked people like, dude, because men will like make up an encampment. Yeah. All right. I'm actually writing this down. Do women sit too long? And do stuff in the bathroom? That's not the bathroom. Okay. There's my description of that. Okay, so But back to this. Well, what's the best movie you've ever seen? The

Brittany 14:22
best movie I've ever seen. It's interesting. You're not gonna answer that. And I'm big Harry Potter person. Did you like my default answer?

Scott Benner 14:29
Did you like the movie?

Brittany 14:30
I did like the movies, but probably because I could relate to the book. Wait,

Scott Benner 14:34
have you seen them all? I've seen them all. Isn't there like 677 Look at me. So you've seen 10 movies. Seven of them are Harry Potter movie or the other three like those bad remakes with the the British guy at the British guy.

Brittany 14:51
I feel it. Some family sit around and like it's part of their family traditions. culture I like to watch movies. My family never did that. My mom still this day does not watch TV. Does she have one? She has one. Is it embarrassingly old? No, because my dad watches it. But like to watch the news, like, we just weren't TV movie people. And I know a lot of people think that's weird about me, but I'd kind of like to use

Scott Benner 15:21
a few of my most endearing memories are in movie theaters.

Brittany 15:26
Really? Yeah. Like,

Scott Benner 15:27
it's kind of creepy to me. No, I wasn't. No, it's not a Peewee Herman thing. This is a sweet thing. Hold on. I'm going to explain it to you now. Please do what did you imagine I was doing in the theater.

Brittany 15:41
I just don't feel like it would be an endearing place to make a memory.

Scott Benner 15:44
So one night, Kelly had to work late. The kids were really young. Like Arden was like, three ish, maybe that which makes call maybe five. And Kelly had to work late than her train got. Oh, wow. Yeah, the reason the train got slowed down might not be in a good part of the conversation. So I'll skip over that. Let's just say some people like to step in front of trains when they're tired of being alive. So Kelly was stuck on the railroad tracks for a number of hours coming down from the city. And I was incredibly scared that I was going to fall asleep and not be there to pick her up because we grew up like when we were Jesus the whole time. My wife took the train. We were too broke to pay for the parking at the train station. So I would get up early every morning and drive her to the train station. And then come get her in the afternoon. So there was a movie theater, not far from the train station. So I put the kids in their pajamas. And I took them to a movie and I watched we watched spirit stallion of the Cimarron. Which you're not gonna know it's a an animated movie about a horse. In the Old West I have

Brittany 16:54
seen isn't a toy Disney related to DreamWorks. I think I have seen like those types of movies.

Scott Benner 17:00
Okay. Okay, so so my kids and I sit there. We're all in our pajamas. How many times have you thought it's time to change my CGM? I just changed it. And then you look and realize, Oh my God, it's been 14 days already a week, week and a half. Feels like I just did this. Well, you'll never feel like that with the Eversense CGM. Because ever since is the only long term CGM was six months of real time glucose readings giving you more convenience, confidence and flexibility. So if you're one of those people who has that thought that I just did this then I why I'm gonna have to do this again right now. If you don't like that feeling, give ever sense a try. Because we've ever since you'll replace the sensor just once every six months via a simple in office visit. Ever since cgm.com/juice box to learn more and get started today. Would you like to take a break, take a shower you can with ever since without wasting a sensor, don't want anybody to know for your big day. Take it off. No one asked to know have your sensor has been failing before 10 or 14 days. That won't happen with ever since. Have you ever had a sensor get torn off while you're pulling off your shirt? That won't happen with ever since. So no sensor to get knocked off. It's as discreet as you want it to be. It's incredibly accurate. And you only have to change it once every six months. Ever since cgm.com/juice. Box. And we made like we brought a blanket. And like we did this whole thing and we just cuddled up and watch this movie. My son must have had an amazing time because he then was like love that movie and like merchandise from it for years afterwards. And then we picked my wife up after she had this very kind of like harrowing experience. And I watched her look in the car and see the kids in their pajamas. And I was like, Hey, we just got back from a movie. And she was like, she was delighted that we did that. And it was a nice and that's why I remember all that. Yeah, I remember a man suicide very fondly is what I'm saying to you

Brittany 19:03
know, make the best of situation. Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:06
I leave that part out when I remembered if I'm being 100% on. Yeah, yeah, I went to get Thank you. I appreciate you. But oh my god. Romeo is bleeding. Do you know that movie? No. Gary Oldman. Me and my friend Mike are seeing it in this theater. It's a sparsely like, there's not a lot of people in the theater. And this group of young kids come in. They're a bit rough and tumble you can hear as they're coming through the place. But the movies like an hour and 15 minutes into the film. So obviously their movie ended they were sneaking into another movie. big group of kids. They come in they're going row. Romeo, where art thou like they're doing that coming in the theater? They settle in two rows behind us, and two of them. One of the women and one of the men begin to copulate. You know that word Yeah. So she's seated and he's facing. And it becomes obvious after a moment that they're trying to blow up the Death Star. And I'm like, These people seem dangerous. But Mike was going to say something. And I remember putting my hand on his. And I'm just like, do do not say anything like that. I'm like, they're willing to walk into a movie theater screaming, and then have intercourse. I don't think we're up for this fight. Anyway, that's a movie theater memory I'll have for the rest of my life. Yeah, you

Brittany 20:39
have some really positive funny ones.

Scott Benner 20:42
I've been to a lot of movies, though. Yeah, I have not. Yeah. When I was younger and angry. I remember schooling a bunch of people on how to be quiet in the movie theater. And after I did it, every adult in the room applauded and thanked me out loud. Well, no, I'm

Brittany 20:57
definitely not going to be going. Because now I have a baby. And that's something that we have not figured out how we can do.

Scott Benner 21:02
How old's the baby now? What do we say nine months?

Brittany 21:05
He's nine months on Sunday. Oh, well, you're not

Scott Benner 21:09
gonna make any effort to take that kid to a movie. You won't even take your own kid to a movie. Are you willing to take yourself to a movie? Right?

Brittany 21:14
I mean, my husband mobile, he feels very strongly and other side like his family's type of family that will randomly like send a movie quote in the family group message and everyone's guessing and I'm just silent.

Scott Benner 21:24
Have you never seen a movie on Christmas Day? No, the best time to go. But what's ironic

Brittany 21:30
is I actually worked at a movie theater in high schools. Okay, for maybe this is like a deep, dark memory for me. Because I absolutely hated it. And I always smelled like popcorn. And they asked me to work on Christmas Day. And I was like, 16 was like, Absolutely not. And not having any work etiquette. I just called them one day and was like, I'm not coming back.

Scott Benner 21:57
I was like, what? You're not concerned that there's an entire day where Jewish people have nothing to do and this is the only thing for them to do and you didn't want to help them? I

Brittany 22:04
guess not. I was 16, self centered.

Scott Benner 22:08
16 and self centered. That should be the name of all of our autobiographies.

Brittany 22:14
Gonna say it sounds like a movie title. It does,

Scott Benner 22:16
right. Okay, fine. So you're gonna ruin this kid's life and take it to movies, whatever, that's fine for you. But don't you get like your, your husband's gonna get to pick all the movies. So what's gonna happen? Here's what's gonna happen. 18 years from now, some girl is going to try Well, I guess if he's gay, it'll work out. But some girl is going to try to get that boy to sit down and watch a romantic comedy with her. And he's not going to do it. Because he hadn't gone through the beatings of you dragging him to Michelle Pfeiffer films or whatever. Do you know what I mean?

Brittany 22:48
And I already haven't steal the love of books for him. Like he has a ridiculous amount of books for a nine month old. And the other day his daycare teacher told me, you know, we did storytime today. And they're all babies. So, you know, she's just sitting there trying to read him the story with the three other babies and she's like, he actually sat there and listened and intended to it. While the other babies were just looking around or crawling away from me. Like I've never seen that before. And I was like, Oh, he's

Scott Benner 23:16
been indoctrinated. You've got it. You're done. Well, you've created a little baby readings. I don't know. I don't know. I was gonna say zombie, but maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's a cult. Maybe it's a cult. Yeah. Yeah.

Brittany 23:27
So he's officially on the dark side of my, my reading.

Scott Benner 23:33
Okay. All right. I'm okay. With all this. It's fine with me. Can I suggest a couple of movies for you to try? Yeah, you could suggest them at the end. I'm gonna make a list. I want to make a list of movies while we're talking. That I think you should try. Do you have anything that you enjoy more than something else? Like a genre?

Brittany 23:50
I like movies that make me cry. Oh,

Scott Benner 23:53
I love to cry. Because I'm a big SAP. You want to cry? Alright, I'm gonna think about that while we're gone. Alright, so aces. Dad puts that baby in there you come on the podcast, Kid cooks comes out what you learned what you figured out?

Brittany 24:08
So I think, you know, your whole premise of the podcast was being bold with insulin. And I talked a lot on my last episode about how I never really knew how to do that. And I think mostly comes from the fact that I was afraid of insulin for a lot of time that I had diabetes as a teen and didn't really know how to use it properly. I guess. Like I think a lot about how when I was diagnosed, I feel like I was told this is insulin. Count your carbs. Use this ratio. Take your insulin, don't go low.

Scott Benner 24:43
Don't go low. And don't

Brittany 24:44
go low. You know low is so scary to avoid at all costs. If you're low, like make sure you eat 15 carbs and make sure your blood sugar comes up and if it doesn't, in time, eat another 15 carbs and I don't think I followed that script and didn't really get me anywhere. And I became afraid I have using insulin and then I really have to deconstruct that idea. In order to get the agency in the numbers, the 70 to 140 range is what's recommended for pregnancy. And that was probably the biggest barrier that I had to break through. And I didn't slowly I did it step by step.

Scott Benner 25:17
I want to hear about it. Yeah, tell me first when you were, how old were you diagnosed? 12. Okay, so through those years, Where were your a one sees that? Like, what was average for you always, always in sevens or eights? Sevens or eights?

Brittany 25:33
Yeah, but I think I talked last time to how I was much very much a person that was like 300 or 50. So I just kind of balanced out in the middle and I got a one sees that looked okay. On paper. Yeah.

Scott Benner 25:45
That's pretty common for for them. For sure. Yeah. So is the pregnancy, what makes you like figure it out? Or were you on your road to that before then?

Brittany 25:55
Definitely the pregnancy. So I had a an endocrinology appointment, you know, you're getting married, and I started a family. Yes, and yes. And then she told me, the numbers told me the expectations. And just that was pretty much it. And I was so overwhelmed. I have recently got control IQ, which helped me immensely. But I still was like, I was like, 6.7 with control IQ. Okay, I still had to learn how to how to use strategies and skills and just knowing my body and trusting insulin to get it under six.

Scott Benner 26:31
Let me ask you quickly, was it strategies and skills? Or was it the amount of insulin or was it both that you were lacking?

Brittany 26:37
Was bull, okay? When that happened, I was like, Okay, let me just try each month to get my average blood sugar because I use Dexcom clarity. So I think when I started, this was like, 165 was my average. And I knew a weakness of mine was Pre-Bolus thing. I had known that since forever. But that was being afraid of insulin, I was so afraid of insulin that I wouldn't want to give insulin prior. And fear that like somehow it would make me start crashing, or I wouldn't eat what I thought I was going to eat or something would happen. So I had to work around that. But you know, I started just Pre-Bolus and even five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes until I got off to like a nice 15 minute Pre-Bolus would slowly start to see myself come down and then eat. And that alone I think brought me to like a 130 Yeah, average. I mean, it was life changing.

Scott Benner 27:34
People. I tell people all the time, I think Pre-Bolus thing brings Ray once he down a point. And it just, you know, it cuts out a lot of spikes. And a lot of those times where your blood sugar hangs high. And it stops lows later, which stop you from eating more food and going back up again.

Brittany 27:53
Right. It completely stopped the roller coaster that I was often. Yeah,

Scott Benner 27:57
okay. That's amazing. Well, I know the onus right, you do it because you're pregnant and the doctors probably sitting there telling you I mean, you just had this baby. You're 29. Right. So you live for like 16 years with diabetes within a onesie in the sevens. Is that about right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So this is a complete change for you. You have to do it because sleep change. Yeah. Because you have to do it because you want to make the baby. But that's really it. Right? Yeah.

Brittany 28:22
And I genuinely didn't believe that I could do it. Really, like I had been so stuck. And my because it was 16 years like or 15 years of living like that. And I I just thought I knew, and I don't know, I knew I was afraid and I thought I knew what I didn't. So I was going into it very overwhelmed. So I would I did that for a month and then the next month, I focused on accurately treating lows. That was another big weakness for me. Once again, being afraid of insulin, overtreating.

Scott Benner 29:00
So you were treating lows over treating lows, then not putting any insulin in for what you've just done with the food.

Brittany 29:06
Right. Okay. Because I was terrified of being well, I've never had a seizure, but that was always a big fear of mine. And honestly, like the way I was educated in the hospital, my family was really afraid of me going well as a kid. So when I would be low, like it was like, you know, urgent, like drink this whole glass of chocolate milk is something that I see now it's completely unnecessary. But at the time, that was what we thought we needed to do to keep me safe. Wow.

Scott Benner 29:34
And you broke this up into pieces because, well, I have to tell you, you're talking about crying earlier. You just said I genuinely thought I couldn't do it. That almost made me cry. I got I got like, momentarily. I wasn't like choking back tears. But I had that like, I don't want to like paint myself as as unstable. But I got that welled up feeling like oh, that's so sad. You know, not just because yeah for a number For reasons not just because you were trying to have a baby but just in general it was I found it sad. But so is that why you broke it down into steps? Because it felt undoable and you thought I'm gonna have to do this and in segments,

Brittany 30:12
yes, I could not I knew like the areas needed to work on like over, not overtraining lows Pre-Bolus thing. I started pairing protein a lot with meals to help stay stable. Trying to think of Oh, movement, like using like walking if I'm like, above a certain number. And I knew if I try to do all those things at once, it would be too much for me. So I just did one one thing at a time until I was in all those habits at the same time.

Scott Benner 30:44
Oh, nice. I have my first movie for you that I think will make you cry. Okay, it's not a particularly good movie. It's a manipulative movie. Like it's trying to make you cry. But, okay. I saw it under protest with my wife in a movie theater. Like it was one of them. I must have looked like a four year old being drugged. They're like, oh, I want to see let's do a movie. There's other good movies out why? Watch it? Again, I'm going to tell you it's not a good movie. But life as a house. Kevin Costner Now Kevin Kline, Kevin Kline. Oh, God all look, hold on a second. Okay, I'm

Brittany 31:23
ready down.

Scott Benner 31:24
Alright. It's not a good movie. Don't watch it. No one listened to it and be like, I'm about to see a good movie. It's Kevin Kline, who by the way, I think as a kid with type one diabetes. I probably shouldn't say this. I should probably shouldn't say that. In case it's not true. But I feel like he's been involved with JDRF before. Hold on a second. Look at this Kevin Kline rabbit hole. We found ourselves down very quickly.

Brittany 31:45
You don't even have to tell me it's not gonna be good movie because I don't watch Kevin

Scott Benner 31:48
Kline expectations are low. Hold on a second. Kevin Kline and Phoebe cage. Do you know who Phoebe Cates is? No, that's upsetting. Wait, wait, hold on a second. That means you've never seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Brittany 32:03
No. I disappoint a lot of people when I get to this top boy that she's

Scott Benner 32:09
60 Oh my god. Phoebe Cates, if you're listening is 60 now. And when I was a young person, she was the hot girl in a bikini in a movie back when they used to put a lot. Listen for you young people. You don't know this. But movies had boobs all the time. Like that was a thing. Like if you if you went to a movie and some girl didn't take her top off and you were just like, what happened to this movie? Where's the boobs? Like? It was like that. Phoebe Cates is married to Kevin Kline, Kevin Kline, a terrific actor, Phoebe Cates a lovely woman. They have a 29 year old child named Owen. He has type one diabetes. No way. I know things. Dammit. Alright, so yeah, you really pulled that out? I really did as amazing. That's why you people listen to this podcast for the depth of good information I have in my head and completely useless information that I have in my head. So Fast Times at Ridgemont High? No. No.

Brittany 33:07
I'm telling you, I disappoint people because I don't I cannot relate. Like if I'm in a public situation and people start talking about movies. I just want to leave. I just want to melt them to the ground. If someone

Scott Benner 33:20
says Spicoli to you, it means nothing. No. All right. Jesus, whatever. Okay, it's fine. I'm gonna give you my here's my second crying idea. But it's a big ask. And people are gonna think I'm out of my mind. Except for the people who know what I'm talking about. You have to go watch all the Marvel superhero movies.

Brittany 33:42
I've been forced to watch the movies you have. These are the ones that have like the extension at the end after the credits. Yes.

Scott Benner 33:48
I can't believe that's how you know about the Marvel movies. You're like they put stuff at the end of the credits that even makes me sit there for that. That's it right. My husband won't leave the theater. Yeah. And he won't take you to a decent dinner and and he's, he's too bloated with popcorn even give you a good time afterwards. And you're just sitting there all annoyed? Is this all right? Yeah, okay. And you're in New England, so it's cold as hell. So you're pissed all the time. So. Okay, so here's why. I think it's an end game. So did you see endgame? I mean, spoiler alert. For the for people who haven't seen these movies, but like, When? When? When iron man dies? Have you seen that? I don't know. Probably. And they have a funeral at the end. At a cabin.

Brittany 34:32
I think I have seen this one.

Scott Benner 34:34
Oh my god, this is so. All right. Here's why I'm saying this. I think people have seen them already. Probably know why. I don't know that I've ever cried more in a movie, which felt ridiculous to me when it was happening because we were in fact, watching superhero movies. Okay, which would don't have a ton of heart to them. Usually. And these are movies that have been out for like, I don't know, at that point. It felt like a decade like we were getting to the end of it. Maybe that had something to do with it. But anyway, Robert Downey Jr. who will refer to as RDJ. Going forward is Iron Man. He has a daughter in the movies, he dies in this battle to save the universe. And at his funeral, his best friend sits down next to his daughter, ask, like how she's doing. And she says, she's like, once a cheeseburger, and he says, I'll make you as many cheeseburgers as you want. Your dad loved cheeseburgers, and made everybody cry. Because in the very

Brittany 35:35
cold and it felt like sun being in the reading. That is like a colon itself. I

Scott Benner 35:43
just heard you defend the reading thing. That was a fantastic response to what I just said Good for you. Because in the first Iron Man movie, it Tony's taking, this is so ridiculous, taken hostage, and he escapes finally, and when he comes back to have a press conference, because he's a famous like billionaire. He stops and gets cheeseburgers on the way and before he gives his press conference, he basically just sits on the foreign eats these cheeseburgers. And they shout that back like 10 years later with this little girl just lost her father, and the line from the actor who had some Oh my god. He's in one of my favorite movies that he wrote it actually. Oh, my God, I can't remember his name. No. You I see what you just tried to do there. I just couldn't remember like off top my head. I have it now. Jon Favreau. You do not know who Jon Favreau is? That one sounds really familiar to me. All right. Okay. Anyway, if you ask me, Mike, if people right now are like, Oh my god, what is Scott's favorite Jon Favreau movie? I'm not embarrassed. I'm just gonna answer it, Chef, which is another movie you don't know. It's about this guy in a food truck. And I like it because it's like a redemption film about him trying to get back to his family. But he doesn't know that's what he's doing. Anyway, this is not the point. Sounds like a movie. I was like, okay, Chef, are you going to cry? I don't think you're going to cry. But try Chef. Chef. Also, where I first learned about Gary Clark Jr. is moose music. Do you know who that is? No, you're just trapped in New England. Yeah, I gotta get you out of there. That's okay. So do you know who know a con is? No, a con? Yeah. No. Okay. He's

Brittany 37:21
a singer. And he wrote this song northern attitude about growing up in New England. And it literally just describes what we were talking about my last episode about the kids that bullied me when I was first diagnosed. Yeah. And you asked if it was seasonal bullying, because they were just in a bad mood, because you've been freezing for six months. So you can you can listen to that song and all that stuff. Alright,

Scott Benner 37:41
no icon. And what's the movie? Or what's the song called?

Brittany 37:45
Northern attitude?

Scott Benner 37:47
I said, I'll listen to it. I'm on Sabre helping each other. Yeah. Yeah, you're like, Yeah, I'm never watching those movies. Just so you know, I

Brittany 37:56
might watch these movies. I can't promise every single one. But chef sounds interesting to me.

Scott Benner 38:02
Okay. All right. That's fine. So much like we're trying to get you towards a normal life. In segments, you break up your diabetes into segments, and you teach yourself to Pre-Bolus. First, how long did it take you to get over that fear. And to put it into practice,

Brittany 38:18
I would say, a month in, like, I think I spent the whole month of January doing that last year. And I started to feel better because I, I was so into, it allowed me to be more in tune with my body and actually see the effects of insulin. And I started to trust like, Okay, I know what this is going to do. And then when I started doing things, like not overtraining, my lows, like actually just having, I don't know, a couple Starburst, or a couple of sips of juice, and seeing my blood sugar gradually, and come up. I was like, Oh,

Scott Benner 38:51
this can work. Once you get used to it. It's pretty intuitive. Right? Yeah.

Brittany 38:55
I mean, my whole pregnancy, like, I am just amazed at how intuitive I was. And like driven to do this. I mean, that was, I had the driving force behind me, but just I did such like, I don't know, change in the way I approach my diabetes. And it helped me so much like have the pregnancy and like birth experience that I wanted. Because when I was first told expectations for my pregnancy with endocrinologist, he was telling me like, you'll have to have an induction at 38 weeks, and you'll probably be an insulin drop. And I know this is the way we do things. And I was like, I'm not even pregnant yet. I don't even know. You know what that means for me, but I don't like being told, you know, because you have diabetes, this is what's going to be the plan. So I basically found out you know, they were telling me that because that's their standard care for people that have diabetes and they're pregnant. But I felt like if the high blood sugar risks aren't there and the baby looks great, and I'm still healthy, why do I need to follow them? This intervention basically did for

Scott Benner 40:02
you. That's amazing. Where did you learn about it? Well, I learned about what the idea to Pre-Bolus did a doctor tell you about it? Did you hear about it online to hear about on the podcast? How did you? Oh, from juicebox? Oh, well, yeah. And then you still wouldn't end the baby after me. That's fine. Yeah.

Brittany 40:18
So you changed my life. And you get, and I get a follow

Scott Benner 40:21
up public. I get a follow up interview, and maybe I'll get you to watch a couple movies. My favorite movie that will not make you cry. But is is my I think it's my desert island film, like the one I could probably watch over and over again, is Pulp Fiction. But my I tried to show it to my kids, and they're like, I don't understand why you like this movie. I'm like, Okay, thanks a lot. I do have a great story about Pulp Fiction, and then we're gonna get on to the rest of what you did. Okay, it won the Palme d'Or award at the con Film Festival. I don't know if any of that means anything to. So with Pulp Fiction, actually. Okay, so it gets this big release coming out as a as a winner of you know, at a film festival, which drags in all the old people who don't even care, they're not going to look like the internet wasn't a thing as much back then. So all they know is this one, one, the best film at the con. So my wife and I before we're married, before we're married, as we're married, right around the time we got married. We go to see Pulp Fiction, because I'm excited to see this Quentin Tarantino movie because I've seen Reservoir Dogs and some of his, like, his initial movies, I'm super excited for it. And it's an incredibly violent film like and just, you know, different and it's a Quentin Tarantino movie there. They all kind of have that feeling to them. But imagine I'm in a packed movie theater with 60 and 70 year old off the Cockers Do you know that word? Very old people. And as the movie becomes offensive, they start to realize this isn't some feel good film festival winner, and they start leaving in droves. And they are complaining as they're walking out of the theater. And I was delighted every time something horrible happened in the movie, and it made another group of them. And I'm going to tell you how I was gonna, I'm just gonna come out and tell you that when Ving Rames is sexually assaulted in the film. That was it for most of them that really did clear the place out. And then it was like my wife and I were in this like theater by ourselves. Like it was fantastic. And then when we walked out, the movie company was there to do exits. Like what did you think of the film, and I filled out the card. And I handed it to the girl and she was like the only one who liked it. And I was like, I think the wrong crowd showed up.

Brittany 42:42
Anyway, because that's not what I've heard about that movie.

Scott Benner 42:45
No, no, it's if you like, if you like a movie like that. It's fantastic. But I'm just I have again, a lovely remembrance of it. In the in another movie theater memory. Also, I met my wife at a movie theater. No way. Cuz she worked there. And my brother, so I knew people worked with ready already. My father was a volunteer fireman, the local movie theater caught fire. The guy showed up, put it out so quickly, they saved the building. They saved everything. The theater was only closed for a couple of days because of how well the firemen showed up. From then on. If you brought your fire the badge that you had for being a volunteer fireman, you saw the movie there for free, or your family members, anybody. So I never paid to see a movie growing up ever.

Brittany 43:33
This sounds like a big script. It's actually true.

Scott Benner 43:35
And so I became friendly with some of the guys who worked there. And some of the women who work there, like kids my age. And because you're there a lot. And I'm still very good friends with a number of them actually, like actually, some of my best long term friends are people I met who worked at that movie theater. I have a friend who got married in a movie theater, like they walked down the aisle, like and then got married in front of the screen. So I've been to a wedding in a movie theater. Right? Point being, I spent a lot of time there. And one day when my little brother needed to move a job, I was able to get him a job at the movie theater. And then you'd go down and hang out with them talk to him once a while and stuff like that. And then one day, this girl shows up who's like a manager. But obviously like college age, and that was my that's my wife. Now she had gone to an island vacation with friends with her girlfriends. And she came back very tan with her hair braided. And when I saw her I thought and this is a quote from inside of my head. I would like to have sex with that girl.

Brittany 44:36
How old were you?

Scott Benner 44:37
I don't know, in my early 20s Maybe by then. I don't know. 2122 I'm not sure like in my early 20s True Romance story. Yeah, True Romance. By the way, a movie Quentin Tarantino wrote, really? Yeah, I've heard of that one. I could do this all day. Christian Slater. Roseanne arc All right. So good, not the point. So I met my I met my wife in a movie theater.

Brittany 45:06
Yes, I really started like movies with the wrong person you did you screwed

Scott Benner 45:10
up here, because I'm going to tell you one more thing at the end about me in movies. But that's later. For now, let's talk about how that young boy that saw the girl with the braids in the movie theater eventually had a baby, whether that had type one diabetes, and then he made a podcast. And now you were able to have a baby? Isn't it amazing? Now? I wouldn't go through and around and around. If you ask me what the podcast does for people, I can be very high minded about it and talk about digging into little crevices of diabetes and teaching people things. They're never going to hear other words, like I think it's amazing for the people who take that information out of it. But for most people, what I'm going to tell you is, I think I just taught them about timing. And the idea to Pre-Bolus, the overwhelming amount of notes that I get from people that just say, I learned to Pre-Bolus from the podcast, and it changed my life is it would be hard for me to put into words. How many people say that to me. So it doesn't surprise me. It's fantastic. But you kept digging because of the pregnancy thing. So you see, you figured out the Pre-Bolus. First, I was

Brittany 46:19
probably around like 6.3 ANC from Pre-Bolus. And, and then I had to keep digging, and then that definitely allowed me to be so much more confident with everything that pregnancy brings up because eventually I was doing like 45 minute Pre-Bolus is wow. Yeah, you have to wonder third trimester because I was so resistant. And I I don't want to think about what I would I think I would have just been in a panic state. If I hadn't, like had that knowledge and confidence from prior.

Scott Benner 46:50
Right? Well, I don't even know how you'd make the decision. Like, if you're afraid of insulin to that level, and you don't Pre-Bolus to begin with. And the truth is that even when you're sitting at a stable blood, I'm not wrong, right? Like you could be 110 You need to Pre-Bolus 45 minutes before you eat, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't know how you would make that leap.

Brittany 47:09
Right. And I think it would have led to like, I actually didn't end up getting induced. I was never an insulin drip. I really went kind of opposite of what they had suggested at first, because I was so confident in my management, and he was perfectly healthy and everything went really well. So

Scott Benner 47:30
congratulations. That's really wonderful. And I

Brittany 47:33
actually, yeah, it is wonderful. And I have to credit my so I had a doula. You know what that is?

Scott Benner 47:40
I do? Of course, you gave birth in a blow up bathtub in your house?

Brittany 47:46
No, that is the perception of doulas. No, I'm not one of those types of people. But I did want my birth to be like as calming, I think because of my diabetes. And I knew like, you know, all I was told about was the risk factors. And I didn't want to be thinking about that, while giving birth, I wanted my birth to be positive. So she actually has type one herself. And she was there to help me like advocate when I really couldn't focus on it on how to handle my blood sugars. And

Scott Benner 48:22
it was amazing. And how'd you find her?

Brittany 48:25
So I joined a type one diabetes and pregnancy support group was actually on Zoom. It was even located near me, the support group like leader was living in Virginia. But she had her come on as a guest speaker, and she lives like 25 minutes away from me. Wow.

Scott Benner 48:42
That's so serendipitous, isn't it? Yeah, speaking of movies. I just I'm going to tell you something before we move on, because you have a decision to make more finished. At the end. I'm going to tell you one lovely story about seeing a movie. And I'm going to tell you one horrible story about me being horrible in a movie theater. And you get to choose the horrible stories. You can either choose the Jurassic Park story, or the Roy Rogers story. But I can't give you both of them. Because if you hear both of them, you'll think I'm a terrible person.

Brittany 49:18
I actually have a story about a movie theater and my diabetes. Go say go for it.

Scott Benner 49:24
I want it right now. Speaking

Brittany 49:26
of, you know before, having my day was really in a good place. In college, I faced a lot of like, I would say negative side effects and having uncontrolled blood sugars. And one of them was having UTIs frequently, and I met this boy who's now my husband, and he loves movies. I hate movies. He asked me the movie I said yes. And I have a UTI. So we're sitting in the movie, and I think I had to go pee five or six Times in like an hour and 40 minute period. If you didn't never said a single word about how I had to go to the bathroom. You

Scott Benner 50:07
weren't like scratching to where you

Brittany 50:11
but I was in such terrible pain and had to go the bathroom. Oh,

Scott Benner 50:15
that sucks constantly. Yeah. And he asked you out again, you're

Brittany 50:19
gonna get and he says he barely noticed, which I do feel like that's his personality. So

Scott Benner 50:24
he barely noticed that you would move to Pete five times. And yeah, Brittany, I know what you look like you're a handsome lady, he was probably willing to overlook a few things. So like, he's scratching and going to the bathroom, but I'm just gonna say, whatever. Anyway, if I did that, no one would call me back. They'd be like, I don't know, you got to repeat five times. I just didn't call him.

What movie was it? So

Brittany 50:56
I don't know that. I remember the premise. It was about like this. I actually picked it though. These boys had to work on this farm. Some like immigration. I don't know. It was a movie that I that I would choose. And he just was along for the ride.

Scott Benner 51:15
Brittany, let's dig into this for one more second, your first date with a person who was now your husband? You do not know the movie. It was? No, it wasn't

Brittany 51:23
my first day it was probably the third or fourth, third or fourth date. And I have Mom Brain. I swear after I gave birth. I don't remember. Oh, yeah, it's bad. Anything like I and I was such a person that remember every single detail of my life writing everything down, never forgetting anything. That's not who I am anymore.

Scott Benner 51:42
Yeah. You get strong in other ways. But that's not one of them. Yeah,

Brittany 51:45
but those things just leave my mind. Like, doesn't matter anymore.

Scott Benner 51:50
Arden's in her midterms right now in college. And she's been, I'm gonna say for about eight days in a row now just on like a white knuckle roller coaster ride of no sleep and a ton of work. I'm not over exaggerating. So last night, a couple times in the afternoon, I sent her a text on my Arden, something's weird. Your CGM is getting wonky. Like it's got to be at the end. Thinking that's gonna make her change it but she's too busy and focused on what she's doing. So about eight o'clock at night. I'm like Arden, please. I had to get up this morning at 4am to take coal to the airport. I am not like, I'm not up for being up late tonight. Like, you know, like, and she's like, well, you can sleep and I'm like, No, I'm like, if you're not getting any, like, glucose readings, that means your algorithm is not working. And I'm not just gonna go nappy time and wake up and find out my kids dead. So I'm like, I won't be going to sleep. So if you could just Dad, don't tell me what to do. I'm like, Oh, come on, please. I don't think she changes the CGM until midnight. And I'm up with her. I'm texting her. I'm like, I'm up. She's like, go to bed. I'm like, Nah, I'm like, You do not understand what it is to have a child. I'm up with you. I've got your back. Keep doing what you're doing. But I'm staying up with you until there's readings from this thing. So she flips it on all good. And then, you know, oh my god, I'm going to sleep. But like a few hours later, she's low, probably because the algorithm wasn't cutting back or Basal that she needed to cut back while she was you know, working for the hours before. Yeah. So now I'm like, up waking her up getting her to, like, have some stuff. You know, treating this blood sugar and everything. And I'm, it's like 415 in the morning. And I think I've been up for 24 hours. And I'm too old for that, Brittany, but I didn't have any trouble doing it. But if you ask me a question, like, who's Jon Favreau? I'm like, I know this guy can picture in my head. He makes that movie chef. I love that movie. They turned it into a TV show on Netflix, which is a cooking show, which I absolutely adore. He does the cooking show with this guy named Roy Choi. And I think that's I know what the and I can't think of John fibres name. And I think that's from having children. So like socially

Brittany 53:58
Tiller diabetes, so yeah, that's interesting that you so she's in college and you

Scott Benner 54:04
are texting her like that. How's that interesting?

Brittany 54:07
Cuz I never had that experience. And I always think, like it did my parents. Good. Because it is so stressful. Oh,

Scott Benner 54:14
I'm gonna die sooner than other people Bernie probably but that's okay. It's part of the bargain when you make a move. Thank you always do that for her. I mean, there's gonna have to be a time where she's paying for this stuff on her own. And she goes, You can't follow me anymore. That's has to happen eventually. But I still hold like, yeah,

Brittany 54:30
yeah, it's okay with you following her. Yeah, she's fine.

Scott Benner 54:33
Listen, in any other situation. I don't know a way to put this in any other situation. I'd be like, hey, that CGM doesn't look right to me. I'd get rid of it. Right. And she doing? It's the She's so busy. She can't fathom stopping. Yeah. So I say to her, Arden, you are going to spend five minutes changing your Dexcom at some point tonight. If you do it now. It will make later easier. And she knows that then it wasn't easy. No, she didn't do it. She waited hours and hours and hours to do it. Like she didn't have CGM readings for like three hours last night while she was doing her homework. Like it just it was done. Right. Actually, I think it just expired at that point. And because of that, her algorithms running her her baseline Basal rate, but it's not cutting back if it needs to. It's not doing any of those isn't Thursday it does, right. So I think that's what led to a low, like literally at like four o'clock in the morning. But she's so stressed out in that moment with school. That yeah, I get it. Yeah, she cannot fathom stopping for five minutes. And I think in her mind, she's like, I'm gonna get all this done, then I'll change my CGM. But then she changes it goes right to sleep. And this is the I would say that this exact scenario is the only sticking point we have with diabetes while she's away. It's this one scenario, this exact one here, change it before you go to sleep. Well know that she wants you to stop and do it. So it doesn't cause her a problem. Yeah, but if she's not busy, then she's happy to do it. At the right time. That's the only problem we have. Yeah. But anyway, I stayed up. And I watched the rest of a bad TV show that I'm enjoying. And then that was it. Well, it's amazing. When you were in college, how valuable would it have been? If somebody was just kind of had your back a little bit? I

Brittany 56:22
think it would have been really valuable to me in the long run, but I think I would have felt, I don't know, annoyed? Or baby for lack of a better word.

Scott Benner 56:33
Isn't it funny as 30 year old person, you're like, I would pay somebody to do that for me. And when you're 19, you would have been like, why did these people will leave me alone. Right.

Brittany 56:42
And my husband, my husband was absolutely amazing. And my pregnancy with his support my diabetes. Let him

Scott Benner 56:49
tell you more about that. Tell me about what he did. He

Brittany 56:51
did everything that you just did for art. And I mean, just like staying up with me, encouraging me really knowing my diabetes, so well that he could give me like his insight into I think you need maybe, I don't know, just a small correction here. Or, you know, I'm rising above 160. I think it's gonna come and stabilize in five minutes. Let's just wait this out. Like, having that insight for me. Amazing. I mean, it took so much of the weight off for me and didn't make me feel so alone. Gives you a

Scott Benner 57:20
partner. Yeah. Listen, I, I will tell you that I think Arden was irritated twice last night by me. Because around this idea, but here's when she stopped being annoyed. And when she was when she stopped being annoyed, and then eventually changed it. I said to her, she said just go to sleep. And I said, that's not how being a dad works. I'm fine. I've got your back. And then she was okay after that. And, you know, like, I think I just kind of broke through a little bit to her. Yeah, and I also know, she's under a lot of stress and working hard. And up late. She was in her fashion class yesterday afternoon. And the school sends around this person, like, I guess it's like a guidance position. But I'm using like high school terms. And they go from class to class. And they're like success supervisors or something like that. So the the woman walks into the room, kind of surveys the room before the class starts, sees the project, my daughter's about to hand in, looks at her looks around, blah, blah, blah. She goes, I see the star in this classroom. She says to everybody, and my end artists, like I sat up and I thought, Oh, I wonder who the star in this classroom is. And she goes, it's you. And she points to Arden. And she goes, me? And she goes, yeah, she goes, How can you tell? And she goes, that presentation you're about to make is, it's like you went above and beyond on it. I can tell just looking at it this physical thing Arden had on her desk. And she goes, yeah, and you're the only one that looks like you haven't slept. Or just like great. I looked like get that's how this lady knows I'm gonna be successful. And I and she's telling me this over FaceTime yesterday afternoon. And she's like, I don't exactly I don't love that compliment. And I said, I once got a compliment from somebody when I was writing a book that is so insulting to me. And the people writing the book. I'll never say it out loud. And Britney, I'd be happy to tell you when we're done recording, but anybody who enjoyed my book would be insulted by it. Yeah. And I was like, this is a compliment, but it isn't. Anyway, she's fine. Like the answer is I don't I don't interact with her. Almost at all. I think that's the first time I've talked to her about diabetes. And since her period started, and I texted her, Hey, you're you need to like like, basically like do a Temp Basal decrease here like you, your your algorithms too strong for this part of your period for probably the next three days. And she's like, Oh, okay, that was the end of it. I don't think I've talked to her for two weeks before this moment. You know, I know people some people listen to this now like, he's a pirate. And they're always talking like I barely ever talked to her about it. So, yeah,

Brittany 1:00:03
I definitely don't think that but I just, I mean, when when I was diagnosed and stuff my parents, I was at an age, I think I didn't talk about this, but an age I wanted to be independent. And to me, Independence meant, like, I could do this alone. And no one showed up to help me. And I really prided myself on that for so many years. And then there's that feeling to where it's like, I didn't want to feel like I was messing up my diabetes, I wanted to feel like I had a handle on it. So any advice that I was given? Like, it took me a while for to be okay with my husband having input. I can not be defensive over

Scott Benner 1:00:38
it. Oh, you're saying being given advice made you feel like you were failing? Definitely. So even if someone said something to you, that was accurate, and you were like, oh, hell that is right. You resist it, so that you wouldn't have to feel like you've been screwing up. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting.

Brittany 1:00:55
It's funny, because my husband, now I don't want to help anymore, because I'm not pregnant, leave me alone. But also, like, I'm enjoying just being over 140 Without thinking, Oh, my God, am I hurting my baby? So I think the other day I was drinking this ice coffee. And he looked at like my graph, and he's like, you know, that's gonna really spike you.

Scott Benner 1:01:18
Did you say, Yeah, you know what's gonna spike you when I kick you out of this house? You're still sending me money for 18 years?

Brittany 1:01:25
I'm like, I am not pregnant anymore. We live.

Scott Benner 1:01:28
Do you know how hard that must be for him? Yeah, it's, it's

Brittany 1:01:32
hard for him. But he definitely we both had this transition. Like, after the baby was out, like, okay, we can breathe, like high blood sugars don't need to be in this range, though. This thinking about the possible consequences of that.

Scott Benner 1:01:44
I think that any decent relationship where people love each other, and they're married, there's this feeling of like, you, I don't want you to die. Like I want you to be healthy for a really long time. And when you see a spouse doing something that's not good for their health, it's very upsetting. For me at least, like I've had that feeling. My wife doesn't have diabetes, and I've had that feeling like, why why are we doing this today? Or why are you eating that? Or, like, you know, like, that kind of thing? Like, I need you here. Don't die? Like, you know, exactly. And it's a weird feeling. And I don't think it's conscious. I don't think it comes out in those words through my brain. I think that's the feeling I have like, oh, I can't Kelly can't hurt herself. I love her. Like, that's how it feels. And then, of course, if I say something she do whatever you just did, like, you know, get away from you, idiot. And I'm like, okay, because you need isn't it weird? You need the autonomy to hurt yourself to feel like you're in charge. Right? That doesn't make any sense. You know that right for me?

Brittany 1:02:40
Yeah, no, I know. And I've been so reflected on that, since but I am enjoying like this, this little. I mean, I have some of these habits that I built from pregnancy. And I actually took a little more insulin for that coffee when you said that comment. And then I ended up going low. So I got

Scott Benner 1:03:00
you got well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. For sure. You're rolling?

Brittany 1:03:05
Yeah. Enjoying that flexibility of like, you know, I don't have to be so stressed because there's a number over 140 When I was pregnant was like, I need to do something about this. And I was constantly constantly having to think

Scott Benner 1:03:20
about it. Yeah. And futzing with insulin and all that stuff.

Brittany 1:03:24
And but yeah, thinking about every single variable that could exist. Listen,

Scott Benner 1:03:28
I don't think I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. Honestly, you know, I take like, all the kind of like psychological impacts that you're talking about. I take them very seriously. You know, there's been times in the past week where Arden's like CGM is beat and I thought, Oh, she should do something here. But I see that it's going to be okay. Like, I see what she did. And I know it's gonna be okay, but I can make it be okay faster. But I don't bother her about that. Because she's doing a terrific job. So, you know, like, and she needs to grow and learn and not feel and I also don't want her to hate me and resent me. So like, you know, you picking I hate to say something that I think my mom would have said, but like you pick and choose your battles, like you've been some things just look at you. That's not worth it right there.

Brittany 1:04:12
Yeah. I mean, I'm a seventh grade Special Ed teacher. So that's like, My motto is pick and choose my battles. And I definitely do that with diabetes. But when I was pregnant, I seriously didn't feel like I had that choice. Sure.

Scott Benner 1:04:23
No, it's a different it's a different war. That point. Yeah. So yeah. But when your husband mentioned the coffee, does it not make you think he doesn't mention things all the time? This must really seem important to him? Yeah. But it doesn't matter in the moment.

Brittany 1:04:39
It doesn't matter. Maybe. Maybe once I've had my year of postpartum, I can accept it but for right now, I am enjoying my baby. And all the hard work I put into getting him here in a healthy way.

Scott Benner 1:04:56
This makes me think of this. I bought this car the other day. Want to give Kelly on our anniversary, which by the way is not for like 10 months. But it's it's, it's too good. It's a it's a art of Wednesday Adams folding her arms. And it says, the only person that gets to torture you is me. That's gonna be our anniversary card next year. I delight. I have it on my desk. I delightfully bought it. She goes, What's that isn't he can't see it's our anniversary cards, because our anniversary is not till August. And I was like, yeah, she's, you're never going to remember to give that to me. And I went, Oh, challenge accepted. So I'm literally gonna put it somewhere and write anniversary card on it and just hang it in front of me for the next year, because I am just remember to give it to her. But it made me think it made me think of that when like, your husband's like, Hey, you're hurting yourself. And you were like, go to hell.

Brittany 1:05:55
And you know what, because my agency was always so much higher. And now it's still like under seven? Sure. So in my mind, I'm like, I'm not gonna start over this one spike here. Yeah. Oh, pronounce that with my mental health?

Scott Benner 1:06:10
Yeah, well, I'm not making I'm not I'm not suggesting you do that at all. Yeah. But what I would suggest is that my conversations with people reveal that when you start pushing the line, you will eventually keep pushing it. And one day, you'll have you'll, you'll say that to yourself, and you go, look, it's only one ad. I'm not gonna like my mental health is more important. And then one day, you'll be like, it's just 200. My mental health is more important. And like, I think that that's a concern, like something to watch out for is all I'm saying, based on conversations.

Brittany 1:06:46
I feel like that describes my entire management prior to being pregnant. And now I know what's possible. And I know I've done it before, and I have new standards for myself. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah. I hope to follow them. But I do I do get what you mean, because I was definitely Oh, it's only 200 person for like, a decade.

Scott Benner 1:07:08
I didn't know that. Until I made the podcast. Until I started hearing people saying it. Like just the way you just said it. Like, it's okay. I only killed one person, like that feeling like really like and then next thing, you know, like, I only shot 10 People like it's fine. Like it just you see people like make those, like leaps. They don't think it's bad in the beginning. I don't think my analogy was great there. But I'm I'm not a professional. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but you just see people keep pushing those lines. And yeah, they

Brittany 1:07:37
don't know what to argue that. It comes from, at least my case, like, the information I had and was taught through my endocrinologist. And through getting diagnose, it was never going to equip me to be confident and having like a 70 to 140 range.

Scott Benner 1:07:58
So you started in a hole? Yeah, for sure. It's

Brittany 1:08:01
only 200 was like, you know, when you're dealing with roller coaster numbers, and you don't, you've never been taught the skills outside of like, oh, just count your carbs and take this insulin for it. You know, we'll see you in three months. Like, I don't know, I could never have achieved what I did. Yeah, from learning outside of that.

Scott Benner 1:08:18
That's why I set the in my head, the ranges are set at I don't know, it's pretty colloquial, but 160 to me as I go with something up 180 is high. And 200 is a disaster. And that's how I think of those numbers. Not to say that if her blood sugar's 200, for a while, it's an actual disaster. I just talked to myself that way, so that I react appropriately. Does that make sense? That's a

Brittany 1:08:46
really good point. Yeah. But when when you were educated originally on type one, were you taught that way? Or you came up with that yourself?

Scott Benner 1:08:54
Oh, I came up with that myself. I think my education was to treat a low at 110. I was told 110 to 200 was her range. And that I don't think I was told to correct till 250. Now she was again, yeah, but then that becomes your norm. Right. Yeah. It's stuck in your head. And then these are the numbers are working

Brittany 1:09:17
in my head. Yeah. I mean, I actually had an experience when I was pregnant. I went to Hawaii and got food poisoning. Came back. I was so sick, want to check on the baby. Went to the ER. And I had a low and sitting there waiting. And I didn't have a meter on me. But I had my Dexcom and it was saying I was like 70 but I felt lower than that. So I asked for a meter to check. And I was like 52 So I thought they were going to give you an IV The EMTs. So they are sprinting around the entire er and bring me the biggest glass of orange juice and tell me to drink the whole thing. Unlike if I drink that I would easily spike over 250. And it just is so frustrating because it comes from the same people telling me like, you know, you have to be under 140 To have a successful and healthy pregnancy, right? And having to always be able to advocate for like, no, that's not what I'm going to do. Mixed

Scott Benner 1:10:19
messages are the problem. Yes, I'm writing that down, because I'm going to use it in a different episode. Mixed messages from healthcare are like a huge problem. Like, don't go over 140 You'll kill that baby here drink this orange juice. Yeah.

Brittany 1:10:32
And then I saw the doctor after and I was rechecked. I was 130 for like, I don't know, five, six. And she told me, you know, you're really low earlier, you should keep eating.

Scott Benner 1:10:44
She doesn't know what she's talking about. Right? But

Brittany 1:10:47
I walked out of that visit that day. And it was like, I need to stick to my gut and intuition about decisions I want to make for my birth. Good for you. Because I can't follow this. Like, it's not I know, it's not right for me, and I know what I'm capable of. And it's not this, you know,

Scott Benner 1:11:05
in fairness to that doctor, the people she normally sees probably are not well managed. And so if they're 50, she's probably seen people have sugar and then crashed down again, because they've got way too much insulin going. Right? That's a good point, too. Yeah. For you, you were sick. So and stomach thing, which can mean for a lot of people leads to lower blood sugars. And you knew where you were, like you weren't, you knew you weren't far off, you knew you weren't crashing low, you knew you were just pumping this back up again. But her perspective was probably like, you know, people don't come to the ER with diabetes, because they're super healthy all the time. And you know, so those are the people she sees, and then that's her experience. And that's her perspective. And I know like the induction

Brittany 1:11:50
recommendation, the insulin drip recommendation like that is all coming from situations, scenarios and people that do need those recommendations to have a healthy baby

Scott Benner 1:12:01
be born. Yeah, you're, that story is going to end up in a grand rounds. Episode, I'm making this series called Grand Rounds for doctors. So my idea about it is, is that it'll help doctors understand what they should be doing. And it'll help patients understand what they should be expecting from their doctors. Like, that's my goal with it. And I think your ER story is like, it fits right into one of those episodes coming up. So I mean, I'll keep your name out of it, but I'll give him probably retail that,

Brittany 1:12:27
yeah, no, it's, I mean, there's so many times in my life with diabetes have had that experience, ya

Scott Benner 1:12:34
know, it's just it's such a valid thing to say that they don't mean to give you bad information. But that's bad information for you. Because then if you go through the say, you just listen to her. And the rest of your pregnancy if you get to 70 or 50, or whatever you're treating and banging yourself up to 250 and and spending probably the day trying to get your blood sugar back down again, without making yourself low. Then it that does actually that one thing that doctor says do you and that er impacts your pregnancy and your baby adversely. Yes.

Brittany 1:13:06
And I think I, I had a lot of frustration with feeling like, the decade or so that I was managing on this roller coaster. Like I was going off advice that was given to me at some point. Yep. And then to have to re think of that and figure out what what actually works. And I actually did end up firing my endocrinologist that told me all those suggestions and wasn't budging based on my specific individual, agency and numbers

Scott Benner 1:13:37
for you. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's such a spaghetti of bad information, that you can't really deconstruct it anymore. It's just, it's just too many. Too many things have been said too many times over too many years that are incorrect or slightly wrong that are intersecting with other ideas. It's just it's a twist of, it's just like fishing line. Like sometimes you just gotta cut it, cut it and throw it away. Because you're never going to deconstruct it and figure out what's right. So you might as well just start over again. Yeah, with some basic ideas. Like I need to understand how insulin is timed. I need to understand how these foods are going to impact me. I need to not over treat my lows. I think that stuff that's it sounds so simple to say. And I know people struggle with it. But these are all core ideas of how you stay stable.

Brittany 1:14:27
It sounds so simple now, but it definitely was not to me over a year ago.

Scott Benner 1:14:31
No, I imagine here two years ago. Yeah. Okay, Brittany, is there anything we haven't talked about that we should have? I don't think so. Okay, you want the nice movie theater story or the bad movie theater story first?

Brittany 1:14:43
The bad one.

Scott Benner 1:14:44
Okay. Do you want the Jurassic Park one or the Roy Rogers one?

Brittany 1:14:48
Jurassic Park Thankfully, no,

Scott Benner 1:14:50
that is damn it. They both make me sound terrible. This one this one if I tell this one correctly, and I mean completely, I'm going to sound like an asshole. I want you Keep in mind I was young. But honestly not that young. Jurassic Park comes out. It is like the biggest movie in the world. It you have no idea like they made dinosaurs look real. It was a, you know, for younger people you're like I don't understand like, it's like, it's like when I tell you how amazing it is to have a cell phone, but you're 19 you don't get that Jurassic Park was a big deal. Those dinosaurs looked real, right? So me and my friends were all seen Jurassic Park. We're super excited. And the movie opens up. And there's an opening scene. And we're all just like blown away by it. We start talking during the interlude. Do people know what that is? They play some music, run some credit, stuff like that. Well, there's this woman ahead of me, in front of us in the row in front of us. And no one in front of her. So oh my god, I really shouldn't even tell the story. God dammit. Okay, so the interlude comes, and we start talking to each other to like, just marvel, like Jesus Christ. He's in dinosaurs look real. Like we were like, stunned by it, you know? And she turns around, and shushes us and says, I'm trying to listen to the music. And I want to just say, she's 100%, right? I'm not allowed person in the theater as an adult. As a matter of fact, I'm very quiet. Even back then we were very respectful and movie theaters. But she like, she was really nasty. And she had every right to be but she was, and I think we took our socks off and dangled them behind her head so she could smell. It was not fair or right and disgusting. And I'm sorry. This was she acknowledged. No, we didn't notice that she noticed. So then we moved in front of her and sat in front of her then very slightly bounced, while we watched the movie, but only like a quarter of an inch. Like Like, if for anybody who's sitting down, just tighten your butt cheeks and loosen your butt cheeks and tighten your butt cheeks and loosen your budget. Just keep doing it.

Brittany 1:17:04
I thought you were gonna say she took off herself.

Scott Benner 1:17:09
That then we'd be friends to this day, that would have been amazing. So we we're not through the whole movie just for a minute. Somebody sat in front of her a couple people. I may have been one of them. And we did this very just gentle bounce up and down so that you couldn't possibly sit behind us and not notice that our bodies were moving up and down just slightly because we thought it would be distracting and we were fucking with her. Yeah, yeah, totally torching. Just subtly torturing her. Yes. And then we got up and move back and she didn't talk again. And we didn't talk again. And it was kind of over. mutual agreement. Now that I've said that. I think I'm so glad you didn't ask about the Roy Rogers one. Which Gaya I'm pretty sure this was the better one to tell if I'm gonna make myself sound like a bad person that would have. Yeah, it was pretty pretty incident. Innocent. Okay, now my nice story. So my wife obviously grew up in theaters. I saw a ton of movies growing up not till later. By the way, I didn't start seeing movies till I was a little older. But then I saw a lot of them. I think the first movie I ever saw was Greece in a theater. That was 76. I was like five years old, then I didn't see a movie again until meatballs with Bill Murray. I think meatballs was my second. No, no. Yeah, meatballs and jaws, like right in there were like my second and third movies. Anyway, I don't know the timeline for this. But then after that, I saw a lot of movies, and a ton of great memories for last time very, very much. So my wife and I would go to the theater together when we were dating. I loved I love something. There's something about being in a quiet space with strangers having the same experience that I very much enjoy. And I even like being with you. Like if you and I were dating Britney, I would love that like solemn kind of quiet together. But apart experience, I enjoy that. And I would tell my wife, I really love coming to the movies with you. And just I would say that like right before the movie started, like, I love being here with you. And then that was it. And we've watched the movie. But when we had kids, we started doing that to our kids like this, the movie was getting ready to start. Like we'd lean over to call and say we love you and we love being here with you. Like and we would like that just happened all the time. And then Arden was born. And we just we did it for years and years and years over hundreds and I I'm realizing now I'm not even gonna be able to retire because of the money I spent going to movies because because, by the way, one of the most shocking things about moving away from home was having to pay for a movie. Like I'll never forget being there with my wife for the first time. We were like this is very expensive, because she worked there and didn't pay for it. And I had the firemen pass. And so like we didn't pay for movies for a decade and all sudden we were like they really wants to pay for the popcorn to like, they should probably just give it to us. I've had I've had popcorn delivered to me in a theater by somebody who knew me now they wanted me to pay for it, you know? So anyway, so so my kids are older, you know through the years, we see a A lot of movies always right before the movie starts. I love you. I love being here with you. I love going to the movies with you something like that. So, Cole's getting ready to move to Atlanta to take his job. And Arden's getting ready to go away to college for the first time. And we go see a movie together the four of us. And now my son's, like 22, and my daughter's like 18. And my wife's there, and we've lived together for so long. And we even sit so the kids are in between us. So we can like be near like it's all like very douchey like, but anyway, it's like and so we're sitting there, and it's a pretty empty theater. And I stand up in front of them to take my sweatshirt off, and I turn around, I see the three of them standing there. And I get choked up. And I think is this the last time we're going to see a movie together? And it might be I have no idea, right? So I'm taking my shirt off my sweatshirt off, and I'm folding it up. And I see I think Arden bumps Kelly and goes, I think he's crying. So, so I'm like, all emotional. And I said, Oh my god, like, I love coming to the movies with you guys. And I started crying. I'm gonna cry now. It's terrible.

Brittany 1:21:15
Like, I'm gonna cry. I'm like, maybe gonna be so inspired something come up first.

Scott Benner 1:21:19
So now I'm standing in the theater. I'm not like welling up in the theater. I'm getting crying.

Brittany 1:21:27
bawling your eyes. And I think my son is looking

Scott Benner 1:21:29
at me half like, Oh, this guy really loves me. This is nice. And half like, I think there's something wrong on my phone. And so I'm like, I'm like stopping and I'm realizing, I don't even think they consciously remember being told that over and over again. Right? They're older now. And so I told them the story. I think they do. I don't know, Britney, you hope that because you have a little kid. You're hoping the things that you you're hoping that kid's gonna read when he gets older. And the truth is, he's gonna hate books. Because he's gonna be like, Oh, my mom used to try to get me to read. Oh, she's old. And I'm

Brittany 1:22:03
sitting there like,

Scott Benner 1:22:04
I love reading with you. And you're gonna be like I love one day you were in daycare. You're telling me the story? Yeah. Oh my god. I swear to God, I'm crying right now. Hold on a second. I believe in it. So anyway, I'm here to Yeah, I sat down but you're a tough nut to crack here. Brittany, I don't think anybody's getting you to cry if you want to go watch a movie. But I but I sat down next to them. And I was overwhelmed for a few minutes. Because I just kept thinking this might never happen again. And oh my god is avatar to gonna be the last movie we see together.

Brittany 1:22:42
Please tell me you've been to the movies together.

Scott Benner 1:22:44
All four of us. Not in the last not since call left. No, wait, that's a lie. When we went to Atlanta to visit call. The four of us went to see a movie together. And it was very real. Trisha needs to keep going. He was very relieving to me. I was like, Oh, it happened again.

Brittany 1:23:05
To be emotional trauma. I

Scott Benner 1:23:07
was like, oh my god, like I'm so happy we went there. By the way. In Atlanta, they have an awesome movie theater, and something station to hell. It's called. It's a great movie there. But um, since then, no. Although like Cole will call us and say like, Hey, I just saw Oppenheimer was really good. You guys gotta go make sure you go see it. And so like, so like, we went together, we took art and then her friends like we take like, you know, fill ins for call. Oh my god, you're never gonna see Oppenheimer. No, probably not. I think that's a long movie with a lot of talking. I don't think someone like you would like, I don't think you're looking for now.

Brittany 1:23:45
I'll slowly build into it. All

Scott Benner 1:23:48
right. That's all well, anything you want to tell me? Is there a book I should read?

Brittany 1:23:51
The great alone by Kristen Hanna.

Scott Benner 1:23:54
The great alone. I don't read books, actually. Now

Brittany 1:23:59
that's a long book. I'm remarkably bright creatures. I just got my husband to read that book. And he does not read.

Scott Benner 1:24:05
What's it about? Felt like you're not gonna know.

Brittany 1:24:10
Actually, maybe you will. So it's about this woman who works. She's a lonely old woman and she works in the aquarium and she befriends an octopus.

Scott Benner 1:24:20
million percent not really that. And now I realized it's unfair of me to ask you to watch these movies. Exactly. Oh, I wrote a book in 2013. And I was on a press release about you. And it's called Life is short. Laundry is eternal. It's about being a stay at home dad says stories that will make you cry and feel good about being a parent. Oh, I need to read. I think it's out of print. You might have to get on a Kindle. So as not to have to overpay for a paper copy, although there are some of my basement but please, I'm not digging them out. You can't have them. So nobody asked me was on the press tour for the book. It was doing like a lot of audio stuff. And it was actually One of the things that helped me the press tour for the book is one of the reasons the podcast exists because have you ever heard me tell the story of I was on the Katie Couric show? And she told me I was good at talking to people. Yes, yeah. So that's part of how you get to the podcast. I'm giving these interviews. And then at the end of the might hear back from the publisher. And one day, the publisher calls me and says, Hey, we just heard your last interview, it was terrific. Bah, bah, they were very thrilled because apparently people who write are not very extroverted often. And so they're terrible interviews, usually. Whereas I'm, like, probably more of a performer and not really a writer, right? So they're thrilled with my interviews and everything the publisher is. And she said, we just have an ask. And I was like, yeah, what's the Ask Us? Can you stop telling people you don't read? And I was like, why? And she goes, it does not sound good that your wrote a book, but you don't read because readers won't want to read what you wrote. And it trust you. They don't trust you. And I was like, Oh, really? I'm like, I think it sounds endearing. Like, I can't even read a book. But I can write one. Like, yeah, and she goes, No, that makes you sound like at all and I was like, alright, I'll stop saying that. But anyway, Brittany, yours. Your episode is gonna probably be on the I'm gonna open up a pay service for the podcast where? Oh my God, listen.

Brittany 1:26:20
Can you hear that? Freezing?

Scott Benner 1:26:24
Jesus is going to be this little thing where all the the management stuff is going to live without ads on it. Like Pro Tip series, Bill beginnings and all that stuff. Cool. And also, it'll get episodes where people curse and the cursing will be at it. So I just realized, like, I'm setting that up. Still, it's only going to be like a few. I think it's like, $5 a month or something like that. But your episodes definitely gonna be in because we curse like crazy.

Brittany 1:26:50
Yeah, yeah. It's like I wasn't very filtered, but

Scott Benner 1:26:54
that's okay. Do you want to say like a big curse word now just to say one.

Brittany 1:26:57
Oh, no, I felt the pressure. Did

Scott Benner 1:26:59
you feel why? You pressured? You would feel pressure. What do you know your favorite curse word?

Brittany 1:27:07
I think I say what?

Scott Benner 1:27:09
I say what? You say what the lot?

Brittany 1:27:12
Yeah, that's not really the word or phrase. I

Scott Benner 1:27:16
use a couple of words. I know people are gonna find very upsetting. But I use, I use them. I use them in such a delightful way. I find them to be delightful, but I don't think people do so. I'm not gonna say something right now, because I think about it more before I share that. All right, well, I guess I gotta go bunk, hunker down in my basement and get ready to shoot some invaders because it sounds like the world's gonna need some help for you. I don't even have a gun. How the hell am I gonna do it? Be thrown this monitor at them yelling I'm a podcaster. Leave me alone. Conscientious Objector? That's the work. Is that even a phrase people know? Probably not. You're so young. It's crazy. Like when I say conscientious objector to you? You don't think of somebody in the Vietnam War? Who was there to report back but not fight? No, I

Brittany 1:28:10
don't. Okay,

Scott Benner 1:28:12
I'm old. Nevermind.

Brittany 1:28:13
I don't feel young. So

Scott Benner 1:28:14
I'll take that. Here. Listen, you are 23 years younger than I am. That makes you feel Yeah, yeah. There you go. That's my gift for you today. Your gift for me is this episode that I get to put ads on and feed my family. What do you think people are ever going to be like, pay me to be on the podcast? That wouldn't happen. By the way. Don't ask me. No, but

Brittany 1:28:36
some people you've had, like, I felt like maybe they would say that.

Scott Benner 1:28:41
Oh, you think some people were so interesting?

Brittany 1:28:43
No, I just was I would be. I mean, don't you have never done that? I'm never just surprised that a few of your guests that they

Scott Benner 1:28:51
have an add on. Okay. Oh, like more professional people? Yeah, yeah. No, actually, I'm using Jenny's an example. Jenny just loves reaching people with with her message. Like she doesn't. I mean, in fairness,

Brittany 1:29:04
I'm sure she does. Yeah, she's the one that wrote the type one diabetes and pregnancy book

Scott Benner 1:29:09
with ginger. Her and ginger wrote that together. Yeah. Did you?

Brittany 1:29:12
Did you read that? That book was amazing. It's awesome. Right? Constantly recommend that book?

Scott Benner 1:29:16
Yeah, yeah, it's an awesome book. I can't believe it didn't come up before this is because I was busy talking about movies a lot. Anyway, all right. I'm gonna let you go because you have a baby to take care of. And yeah, and and you have Mom Brain to get rid of. It'll go away for a little while, by the way, hopefully, yeah, it'll come back. When you get older. If my wife's any indication. It doesn't get better. Except take your vitamins. All right.

A huge thanks to touched by type one for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check them out on their website touched by type one.org On Facebook and Instagram. I want to thank the ever since CGM for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about its implantable sensor, smart transmitter and terrific mobile application at ever since cgm.com/juicebox. Get the only implantable sensor for long term wear. Get ever since. Jalen is an incredible example of what so many experience living with diabetes, you show up for yourself and others every day, never letting diabetes define you. And that is what the Medtronic champion community is all about. Each of us is strong, and together, we're even stronger. To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community or to share your own story visit Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box and look out online for the hashtag Medtronic champion. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy my full conversation with Jalen coming up in just a moment. A diabetes diagnosis comes with a lot of new terms, and you're not going to understand most of them. That's why we made defining diabetes. Go to juicebox podcast.com up into the menu and click on defining diabetes to find the series that will tell you what all of those words mean. Short, fun and informative. That's the finding diabetes. Thanks for hanging out until the end. Now you're going to hear my entire conversation with Jalen don't forget Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform. My

Brittany 1:31:37
name is Jalen Mayfield. I am 29 years old. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I am originally from Waynesboro, Mississippi. So I've kind of traveled all over. I've just landed here in the Midwest and haven't left since.

Scott Benner 1:31:52
How old? were you when you were diagnosed with type one diabetes? I

Brittany 1:31:56
was 14 years old when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes

Scott Benner 1:31:59
15 years ago. Wow. Yes. Okay. 14 years old. What are you like? Do you remember what grade you were in?

Brittany 1:32:04
I actually do because we we have like an eighth grade promotion. So I had just had a great promotion. So I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer, heading into high school

Scott Benner 1:32:13
was that particularly difficult going into high school with this new thing?

Brittany 1:32:17
I was unimaginable. You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went, I was going to a brand new school with, you know, our community, we brought three different schools together. So I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was,

Scott Benner 1:32:37
did you even know? Or were you just learning at the same time? I

Brittany 1:32:40
honestly was learning at the same time, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling almost over an hour to the nearest you know, pediatrician, like endocrinologist for children. So you know, outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown. Was

Scott Benner 1:32:58
there any expectation of diabetes? Is somebody else in your family have type one?

Brittany 1:33:02
No, I was the first one to have type one of my family.

Scott Benner 1:33:04
And do you have children? Now?

Brittany 1:33:06
I do not know.

Scott Benner 1:33:07
Do you think you will one day,

Brittany 1:33:09
still thinking about it? But right now, I've just been traveling books at all my career myself. So

Scott Benner 1:33:14
what do you do? What's your career? Yeah, so

Brittany 1:33:17
I am a marketing leasing specialist for a student housing company. So we oversee about 90 properties throughout the US. So I've been working for them for about eight years now. And you get to travel a lot in that job. Yes, I experienced a lot of travel. It's fun, but also difficult, especially with all your type one diabetes supplies, and all your electronics. So it's a bit of a hassle sometimes.

Scott Benner 1:33:39
What do you find that you absolutely need with you while you're traveling? diabetes wise,

Brittany 1:33:44
I have learned my biggest thing I need is some type of glucose. I have experienced lows, whether that's on a flight traveling, walking through the airport, and I used to always experience just being nervous to ask for some type of snack or anything. So I just felt I felt like I needed to always have something on me and that has made it my travel a lot easier.

Scott Benner 1:34:05
So growing up in the small town. What was your initial challenge during diagnosis? And what other challenges did you find along the way?

Brittany 1:34:15
Yeah, I think the initial one I felt isolated. I had no one to talk to that it was experiencing what I was going through. You know, they were people would say, Oh, I know this is like hard for you. But I was like you really don't like I I just felt lonely. I didn't know you know, people were watching everything I did. He was like, You can't eat this. You can't eat that. I felt like all of my childhood had been you know, I don't even remember what it was like for life before diabetes at this point because I felt like that's the only thing I could focus on was trying to do a live with type one diabetes

Scott Benner 1:34:49
when you found yourself misunderstood. Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Brittany 1:34:57
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it, it was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just, you know, kept it to myself didn't really talk about it was I absolutely had to,

Scott Benner 1:35:15
did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in.

Brittany 1:35:19
I think I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, and moving to an even bigger town, that's what I finally found out was people were I was like, Okay, there's a lot of other people that have type one diabetes. And you know, there's a community out there, which I had never experienced before,

Scott Benner 1:35:40
is college where you met somebody with diabetes for the first time, or just where you met more people with different ways of thinking. So

Brittany 1:35:47
I met my first person with diabetes, actually, my freshman year of high school, there was only one other person. And he had had it since he was a kid like young once this was like, maybe born, or like, right after that timeframe. So that was the only other person I knew until I got to college. And I started meeting other people, I was a member of the band, and I was an RA. So I was like, Okay, there's, you know, there's a small handful of people also at my university, but then, once I moved to, I moved to St. Louis. And a lot of my friends I met were like med students, and they were young professionals. And that's where I started really getting involved with one of my really close friends to this day. He was also type one diabetic. And I was like, that's who introduced me to all these different types of communities and technologies, and which is really what helped jumpstart my learning more in depth with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:36:38
Do you think I mean, there was that one person in high school, but you were young? Do you really think you were ready to build a relationship and around diabetes? Or did you even know the reason why that would be important at the time?

Brittany 1:36:49
I didn't, uh, you know, I honestly didn't think about it. I just was like, Oh, there's another person in my class that's kind of going through the same thing as I am. But they've also had it a lot longer than I have. So they kind of got it down. They don't really talk about it. And I was like, Well, I don't really have much to, like, connect with him. So sorry, connect with him. Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:37:08
no. So now once your world expands as far as different people, different backgrounds, different places in college, you see the need to connect in real life, but there's still only a few people. But there's still value in that. Right?

Brittany 1:37:21
Correct.

Scott Benner 1:37:22
What do you think that value was at the time?

Brittany 1:37:24
I think it was just what making me feel like I was just a normal person. I just wanted that. And I just, I needed to know that. Like, you know, there was other people out there with type one diabetes experiencing the same type of, you know, thoughts that I was having.

Scott Benner 1:37:39
When were you first introduced to the Medtronic champions community? Yeah.

Brittany 1:37:44
So about two years ago, I was, you know, becoming more I was looking around and I noticed stumbled upon the Medtronic community. And I was like, this is something I really, really, I kind of need, you know, I said, I, all throughout these years, I was, you know, afraid to show my pump. You couldn't, I would wear long sleeves, like, didn't want people to see my CGM, because I didn't want people to ask me questions. And you know, I just felt so uncomfortable. And then I noticed seeing these people really, in the Medtronic community, just, they embraced it, you could see and they weren't afraid to show it. And that was something I was really looking forward to.

Scott Benner 1:38:20
How is it knowing that your diabetes technology is such an important part of your health and your care? And having to hide it? What did it feel like to have to hide that diabetes technology? And how did it feel to be able to kind of let it go,

Brittany 1:38:32
I would refuse to go anywhere, like, I would run to the bathroom, I just didn't want to do it in public, because I felt like people were watching me. And that was just one of the hardest things I was trying to overcome. You know, I was fresh out of college, going into the young, professional world. So you know, going out on work events and things like that. I just, I just didn't think I just didn't think to have it out. Because I was so afraid. But then, once I did start, you know, embracing again and showing it that's when the curiosity came and it was actually genuine questions and people wanting to know more about the equipment that I'm on and how does this work? And what does this mean? And things like that, which made it kind of inspired me because I was like, Okay, people actually do want to understand what I'm experiencing with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:39:18
What did you experience when, when the internet came into play? And now suddenly as easy as a hashtag, and you can meet all these other people who are living with diabetes as well. Can you tell me how that is? Either different or valuable, I guess, compared to meeting a few people in real life? Absolutely.

Brittany 1:39:35
I think if you look back from what I was first diagnosed to now, you I would have never thought of like, you know, searching anything for someone with, you know, type one diabetes, and now it's like, it's all I see. You know, you can easily search Medtronic champions. And you see people that pop up and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that that kind of just motivates me and which is how I've kind of came out of my shell Oh, and started embracing more and posting more on my social media with about, you know how I'm able to type one diabetes. And I think that's something that I hope can inspire everyone else. What

Scott Benner 1:40:09
was it like having more personal intimate relationships in college with type one?

Brittany 1:40:13
I think it was kind of hard to explain, you know, just, for example, like, no one really knows and understands, like what alo is. And I think that was a very hard thing for me to explain, like I, you know, it can happen in any moment. And I'm sweating. I'm just really like, not all there. And I'm trying to explain, like, Hey, this is what's going on, I need your help. And I think that was something that was hard for me to, you know, I did talk to people about it. So when this happened, they were like, oh, you know, what's going on with your mate? I'm actually a type one diabetic. This is what's going on?

Scott Benner 1:40:48
I need your help. What about? Once you've had an experience like that in front of someone? Was it always bonding? Or did it ever have people kind of step back and be maybe more leery of your relationship? After

Brittany 1:41:04
I would tell someone I had type one diabetes after some type of Evander ad, and they were kind of more upset with me that I didn't tell them up front. Because they were like, you know, I care about you, as a person I would have loved to knowing this about you. It's not anything you should have to hide from me. And that was a lot of the realization that I was going through with a lot of people.

Scott Benner 1:41:21
Okay, let me ask you this. So now we talked about what it was like to be low, and to have that more kind of emergent situation. But what about when your blood sugar has been high or stubborn? And you're not thinking correctly, but it's not as obvious maybe to you or to them? Yeah.

Brittany 1:41:36
So I also I go through my same experiences when I have high blood sugars. You know, I can tell like, from my co workers, for example, I didn't really talk to you know, when I go out backtrack, when I visit multiple sites for work, I usually don't announce it. And so sometimes, I'm working throughout the day, I might have smacked forgot to take some insulin, and my blood sugar's running high, and I'm a little bit more irritable, I'm all over the place. And I'm like, let me stop. Hey, guys, I need to like take some insulin. I'm sorry, I'm not I didn't tell you guys. I'm a diabetic. So you may be wondering why I'm kind of just a little bit snippy, you know, so I like to make sure I do that now going forward, because that's something I noticed. And it was kind of hindering me in my career, because I was, you know, getting irritable, because I'm working nonstop. And I'm forgetting to take a step back and focus on my diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:42:27
right? Hey, with the advent of new technologies, like Medtronic, CGM, and other diabetes technology, can you tell me how that's improved your life and those interactions with people? Yeah,

Brittany 1:42:38
I can. I feel confident knowing that it's working in the background, as someone and I've always at least said it, I have been someone that's really bad with counting my carbs. So sometimes I kind of undershoot it because I'm scared. But it allows me to just know that, hey, it's gonna it's got my back if I forget something, and I think that allows me to have a quick, have a quick lunch. And then I'm able to get back into the workday because it's such a fast paced industry that I work in. So sometimes it is easy to forget. And so I love that I have that system that's keeping track of everything for me.

Scott Benner 1:43:11
Let me ask you one last question. When you have interactions online with other people who have type one diabetes, what social media do you find the most valuable for you personally? Like? What platforms do you see the most people and have the most good interactions on?

Brittany 1:43:27
Yeah, I've honestly, I've had tremendous interactions on Instagram. That's where I've kind of seen a lot of other diabetics reach out to me and ask me questions. I have commented, like, Hey, you're experiencing this too. But I've recently also been seeing tic TOCs. And, you know, finding on that side of it, I didn't, you know, see the videos in different videos. And I'm like, I would love to do stuff like that, but I just never had the courage. So I'm seeing people make, like, just the fun engagement videos now, which I love, you know, really bringing that awareness to diabetes. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:43:57
Isn't it interesting? Maybe you don't know this, but there's some sort of an age cut off somewhere where there is an entire world of people with type one diabetes existing on Facebook, that don't go into Tik Tok or Instagram and vice versa. Yeah. And I do think it's pretty broken down by, you know, when that platform was most popular for those people by age, but your younger people, I'm acting like, I'm 100 years old, but younger people seem to enjoy video more.

Brittany 1:44:24
Yes, I think it's just because it's something you see. And so he's like, and I think that one thing and obviously, it's a big stereotype around diabetes is you don't like you have diabetes, and that's something I always face. And so when I see other people that are just, you know, normal, everyday people, and I'm like, they have type one diabetes, just like me, they're literally living their life having fun. That's just something you want to see it because you don't get to see people living their everyday lives with diabetes. I think that's something I've really enjoyed. What

Scott Benner 1:44:54
are your health goals? When you go to the endocrinologist and you make a plan for the next few months? What do you hoping to achieve and where do you struggle? And where do you see your successes,

Brittany 1:45:04
I'll be honest, I was not someone who is, you know, involved with my diabetes, I wasn't really focused on my health. And that was something that, you know, you go into an endocrinologist and you get these results back. And it's not what you want to hear. It gets, it makes you nervous, it makes you scared. And so I have personally for myself, you know, I was like, This is my, this is my chance to change. I know, there's people that are living just like me, everyday lives, and they can keep their agencies and their blood sugar's under control. How can I do this? So I go in with it, you know, I would like to see it down a certain number of points each time I would love for my doctor to be like, Hey, I see you're entering your carbs. I see. You're, you know, you're not having lows. You're not running high too often. That's my goal. And I've been seeing that. And that's what motivates me, every time I go to the endocrinologist where I don't dread going. It's like a an exciting visit for me.

Scott Benner 1:45:52
So you'd like to set a goal for yourself. And then for someone to acknowledge it to give you kind of that energy to keep going for the next goal.

Brittany 1:46:00
Yeah, I feel as a type one diabetic for me, and it's just a lot to balance. It's a hard our journey. And so I want someone when I go in, I want to be able to know like, Hey, I see what you're doing. Let's work together to do this. Let's you don't want to be put down like you know, you're doing horrible. You're doing it just, it's not going to motivate you because it's you're you're already fighting a tough battle. So just having that motivation and acknowledging the goods and also how we can improve. That's what really has been the game changer for me in the past two years. Jaylen, I

Scott Benner 1:46:37
appreciate you spending this time with me. This was terrific. Thank you very much.

Brittany 1:46:40
Absolutely. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:46:42
If you enjoy Jalen story, check out Medtronic. diabetes.com/juicebox Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way. recording.com