#615 Parenting Type 1 with OCD

Jaime's child has type 1 diabetes and Jaime struggles with OCD, control and trauma.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 615 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On this episode, I'll be speaking with Jaime. She is the mother of a child with type one diabetes. Today we're going to talk about raising a child with type one when you have your own issues. We're also going to talk a little about Janie's child being on the Omni pod five trial and some conversations that she and I had privately some time ago. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. If you're looking for a fast and easy way to help people with type one diabetes, you have type one diabetes, and you're from the United States or you are the caregiver of a child with type one who also lives in the United States. All you have to do is go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Take the quick survey support people with type one diabetes while you're supporting the podcast, P one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Find out more and get started today. At contour next one.com. Forward slash Juicebox. Podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one, learn everything you need to know about them at touched by type one.org or on their Facebook and Instagram pages. Know this before we start no pressure. I am having an incredibly bad day. So it is up to you to cheer

Jaime 2:03
me. Okay, I think I will

Scott Benner 2:06
be great. Go ahead whenever you're ready.

Jaime 2:10
Okay. My name is Jamie and I live about an hour north of Boston. And I have two sons and my oldest was diagnosed. Type one July 19 2019.

Scott Benner 2:26
Just two years ago. Oh, almost to the day. Yeah. almost to the day. Wow. So you are feeling it today? I would imagine right. Having just gone past the anniversary of it.

Jaime 2:37
You know, I've been feeling it for a few months coming up? I think. So yes. I've been feeling pretty deeply how was

Scott Benner 2:45
the arrival of the second anniversary compared to the first

Jaime 2:51
it was much harder. So part of the reason I think, I don't know, part of the reason I think I'm even talking to you today is to talk about like the PTSD that I went through, you know, after the diagnosis and what that looked like for me. And I think that the first year, I was sort of in survival mode and sort of I'm going to be this perfect, you know, caretaker, and he's going to have perfect numbers. And this is going to be okay. And then it was like the second year that I was like, this sucks. This is forever.

Scott Benner 3:28
We're still doing this thing.

Jaime 3:31
Yeah, exactly. Oh, this is still going on. So I think that you know, that's that is, you know, in the, you know, during the first year, it was like I had you like you were like a bright light that helped me and then also he was or he still is actually part of the the Omnipod horizons slash Omnipod five trials. So I thought, Okay, this is gonna make things so much better. And it did, both things helped so much, but like, it's still here.

Scott Benner 4:02
So, you're telling me that six months after Christmas, I'm sick of the tree? Like you just can't keep the joy? There's nothing, nothing you want for that long now? Well, exactly. What is your expectation? Do you feel like you're going to have this like feeling forever? Or do you believe it's going to go away?

Jaime 4:24
Um, I feel like I have to do I feel like when my son was first diagnosed at the age of two, so you have to remember like it was it fell on completely on myself and my husband he there you know, he, it was just us. And I feel like I never realized the impact that it would have. For me when he was first diagnosed. It was this is something he's going to have to deal with for the rest of his life. This happened to him. This is heartbreaking. And over the past year, I've realized that diabetes has entered every crevice Have my soul, you know what I mean? It is not just a disease, for my son, it is a disease for his brother, for myself for my husband, for his, for his grandparents, my parents, and I feel like, I feel like what I need to do is what I'm hoping is that I can come to terms with that and accept that and learn to maybe hold on more firmly to hope and less to control. If that makes sense.

Scott Benner 5:25
It does. So you're saying that you are at the moment in your mind trying to manipulate and manipulatable things that may or may not happen in the future? How do you get back home share with people a little bit some of the ways that you make yourself crazy trying to accomplish an on accomplishable task?

Jaime 5:45
Oh my gosh, like I am your typical control girl, like I was going to have you know, get met very chill wedding have a huge house in the hills. And you know, like my kids are going to be healthy, they are going to be good at sports because my husband was like a sports star growing up and you know, we were just gonna have this happy little life tied up in a bow and it feels like you know, with the diagnosis that shattered everything to my Kohler and it not only you know, worried me for my son, it worried me for his brother was a huge part of it, you know, knowing that his chances of being diagnosed increased and just like how it would affect his brother and you can't control those things. i For the longest time tried to control my youngest son from being diagnosed with diabetes. I mean, I did it all I did the vitamin D the kg the, the fish oil, you know what I mean? And it was like, I was not gonna let this happen. I tested his blood sugar 50 times a day. I had like, I was just living like a living on a thread by thread for so long. And it wasn't until I came to terms with the fact that I cannot control what happens and and said I need to just embrace hope.

Scott Benner 7:04
Well, at least a rough go. At least your other child has amazing vitamin levels.

Jaime 7:09
She actually was really funny because Max's endo had said to me the other day, she's like, you know, what are you doing for vitamin D? And I'm like, Oh, they get like 20,000 Whatever. IUD IDs or whatever, not IUDs they, you know, they get this much. And she's like, well, that could actually be dangerous. I think you need to back that off. And overdose.

Scott Benner 7:35
Yeah, you can get too much vitamin D it has it has poor effects, but how much we're using a day.

Jaime 7:41
I think 20,000 a day I was giving them weight and like these droppers. She was like, I want you to cut that back to like three times a week and see I even have a hard time doing that. Even with her telling me. You know, Jamie?

Scott Benner 7:55
Jamie, this is interesting. Does it feel like a ritual that you need to do?

Jaime 7:59
Oh, 100% this is what I didn't need to do to keep things back. Gotta keep the control.

Scott Benner 8:04
Do you have any obsessive compulsive things happening prior to diabetes? The count your steps? Click your teeth. anything odd?

Jaime 8:13
Yeah, so actually, I have been, you know, clinically diagnosed OCD way before diabetes. And I am, that has been like an added component to like the post traumatic stress of the diagnosis. I'm sorry that so? Absolutely. Yeah.

Scott Benner 8:31
So listen, I'm not a doctor. I think we've covered that a couple of times on here. Yes. But I I personally try to take 5000 I use a vitamin D every day. And if I miss, I don't think anything of it. I can tell you that. In the course of trying to raise my sons the doctor was giving that like kind of super pill. I think they're 20 or 50,000, maybe once a week. And that ended up being too much for him. So he had to go to every other week. It does raise I want to say, Oh, wow, here's me guessing phosphates or something. So anyway, when your body has too much vitamin D, it starts producing something else thinking something's wrong. So the right there's a bad side to have. You can't have too much. Yes. What do so boy this fell on you. And this is and so you kind of leaned on all of your what do we call it? But yeah, you're I don't have that. Right. And you were like, I will use my obsessive nature to help my daughter.

Jaime 9:37
I was the hero. I was gonna do it all

Scott Benner 9:42
and so two years into it. Let's start like with the what most people listening to her like I can't believe this is gonna be the easy stuff but I think in your case, it might be the How about just the the blood sugar stuff. How's that going?

Jaime 9:55
Amazing. He has. He has a one C is five point He's for now. And you know, we're slowly starting to teach him that, you know, there's certain things that we just I know, like, a big thing for you is, you know, you don't restrict Arden's diet at all. There's certain things for max that I cannot figure out some, like, you just don't get to eat these things. And he's a very, like, agreeable child. So he's just like, okay, like, he'll be like, I can't haven't been in it, because it's too hard for my mommy to dose for. So, I mean, we definitely, there are things that we definitely restrict in ways we try to do more low carb, you probably eats, you know, between 75 and 80 carbs a day. So not like crazy low carb. But I think as he gets older, we may swing that way. I don't know. But I'm with the Omnipod horizon or five, whatever you want to call it. His numbers overnight are magical. Like,

Scott Benner 10:54
yeah, they're gonna want you to call it beyond the pod five, I'm pretty sure. And yeah, I think they wish they wouldn't have like, been like, we're gonna call it horizon. And then later, they're like, what if we did this?

Jaime 11:05
Well, it's funny because all the supplies we get from his endo say, toddler horizon trial, so I'm like, I don't know, whatever it is, but yes, I think you're right. I think officially now it's Omni pod five.

Scott Benner 11:16
I think if I'm being 100% Honest, I believe it's Omni pod five with horizon or something? I know. Yeah. I'm sure we'll find out when it's launched. Right. But anyway, so how long? Okay, wait a minute. See? The image, Jamie, you have too much stuff to talk about my job. I just saw a fork in the road come up in my brain. I was like, ask this. And then a voice yelled, no, no, ask about this. Oh, gosh, somebody go a little farther into what you're doing for yourself? Because I mean, I don't know anybody personally, who has kind of obsessive thoughts, but I've heard people discuss it before. And it's obviously can be stifling to say the least. Yeah. And then you add this to it. So do you have them for yourself? And for your kids?

Jaime 12:07
Um, so it's interesting. I I started having, you know, obsessive compulsions in my 20s.

Scott Benner 12:17
Jimmy, Jimmy, give me a second. This will make sense in a second. Hold on one second.

Jaime 12:23
Oh, sure. Um, so I started having obsessive thoughts and compulsions in my 20s. And obviously, I didn't have kids at that time, but they were more focused on repeated behaviors, like checking to make sure the door was locked or tapping the wall a few times, before I left, I would have to try back and make sure I checked the garage door, those sorts of things. And they centered more around myself. And then once I had kids, they were lucky enough to be the receiver of some of the hosts. And it only manifested I mean, let me rephrase that it. It went a little out of control after the diagnosis, because the whole premise behind OCD is you're going to control your world with these thoughts and compulsions, right. So it's really like a control disorder. So you know, imagine someone that seriously struggles with needing to be in control of everything all the time, and then being told your child has this crazy disease where it's manageable, but not really, and you can never really be that much in control. And who knows, your other son could get it, too. That's, you know, it was a lot.

Scott Benner 13:48
Right? Well, so back in your 20s, did you address it at all?

Jaime 13:53
I, you know, I was, it was for me, I was living like that. So I went to different therapists and stuff and I was on medication. And they said, if it's not impacting your life more than like, an hour a day, like then you can be considered sort of in remission. So like, I flirted with treatment and things like that, but it wasn't like as big of an issue. It was like the diagnosis. Max's diagnosis was the catalyst that sort of blew the whole thing up when, you know, I didn't seek treatment for a while after he was diagnosed. I sort of lived in my obsessions and compulsions, until it got to the point where it was like, I couldn't live a normal life anymore. And it was, you know, it was to the point where my husband was like, I really think like, you know, like, you need to seek some sort of help. So,

Scott Benner 14:42
okay, and I guess before, how did it impact like, so I understand how it impacted you. How did it impact a marriage?

Jaime 14:53
Um, it it was hard because it wasn't, it wasn't just dealing with the This new discovery of a chronic illness. It was that plus trying to deal with my, you know, I don't want to call them crazy, because I want to do this so that other people that have the same feelings don't think they're crazy, because it's not, but it was these over exaggerated fears. And my husband could not bring me down. You know what I mean? It was like, I would get angry. I be, you know, I would step away from our children for a few hours, and I come home and I would be like, has gray been drinking a lot of water? Like in my husband be like, No. And I'm like, Well, how many? How many glasses of water has he had? He said, I don't know, Jamie, I didn't count his glasses of water. It'd be like, why wouldn't you have counted as glasses of water? And then it would turn to like anger. You know what I mean? So it was not just dealing with the stress of Max's diagnosis. It was dealing with this intense fear of the possibility of gray being diagnosed as well.

Scott Benner 15:57
Gotcha. Is there anything that impacts it for the positive?

Jaime 16:03
Um, is there any can sorry, can you put it?

Scott Benner 16:07
Yeah. Aside of medication, I guess, is there anything extra positively that stops? The thoughts are makes them easier?

Jaime 16:14
So yeah, so I'm in therapy. So that has helped a lot. And I'm actually just started EMDR. I did it once. And it wasn't with a therapist, I don't think that really knew what he was doing. And I started it with a new therapist. And it's been super helpful so

Scott Benner 16:34
far. So can you say more about what that is?

Jaime 16:37
Yeah, so EMDR is eye movement desensitization. Eye Movement, decent sight, desensitization, something I don't remember what the R stands for. But I don't know if maybe you can google it really quick. But

Scott Benner 16:55
you're not the third person to bring it up on the show is why I'm

Jaime 16:59
Oh, really? That's interesting. Yeah, it's, it's been very helpful for me. Um, and basically, it's, you know, you address these targets that you've had in your life that have been significant traumas. And obviously, my biggest one was Max's diagnosis. You address them, and then you go through these behaviors. And it helps to kind of reprocess your brain so that when you think of them, it's not the, you know, the same anxiety and doom and gloom as you retrain your brain to think of them in a less dramatic way.

Scott Benner 17:37
Yes, I've emdr.com. And there's a description here for a lay people. And I think that's me for certain EMDR eye movement, desensitization, desensitization and reprocessing. Glad you

Jaime 17:51
stumbled on that, too. Yeah,

Scott Benner 17:52
there's a lot of letters in the middle of that. Yeah. Right. And reprocessing is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the results of disturbing life experiences. Okay, cool. Yeah. Listen, I've got a couple of things. I'd like to forget what help

Jaime 18:12
we'll see you don't forget, it's just that, you know, if you have something traumatic, that's happened, that's, you know, really like interrupting your life, it helps you to be able to think about it without having sort of the whole trauma come back to you and having to relive it every single time. Okay.

Scott Benner 18:30
Okay. Excellent. I understand. Alright, so that's helping. Yes, yes. Okay. Very much. You don't have as many conversations with your husband that sound like

Jaime 18:40
Yeah, yeah, I haven't finger I haven't done a finger stick on gray and probably two months, so

Scott Benner 18:45
Well, I bet he's grateful. How old is he? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 18:48
He's three. Yeah. Okay,

Scott Benner 18:51
because that was probably impactful on him in ways that you didn't mean for it to be.

Jaime 18:55
Yeah. 100%. And I feel like very guilty looking back. But when you're in it, you know that saying, like, you do the best you can or you, you do the best you can and then when you know better you do better. Yeah, I I kind of feel like when I was in it, I really thought that I was doing the best I could you know what I mean? I don't think door. Well, and Max kind of had like a very dramatic diagnosis as well. So I think a part of the trauma centered around the day that he was diagnosed and people weren't believing me that something was wrong.

Scott Benner 19:31
So are you able to tell me about that without it making you upset?

Jaime 19:35
Yeah. It's not even like that. It's not like a big long story. I just I noticed that he had been drinking a lot of water and he was paying a lot. And I kind of like stash that in the back of my head, but didn't think too much of it. And then I just woke up one morning and my husband had already left for work and he started crying and I went into his room and he had like pee through his diaper, and he was like, very sad. And I was like something is wrong. So I called my husband and I was like, Mark, I really think he has diabetes. And because I, you know, I Googled it, Dr. Google, and and my husband was like, no, he's fine. It's the middle of July, he's drink a lot of water. Like, this is just you doing your obsessively crazy thoughts. You know,

Scott Benner 20:24
me, I have to tell you what you said that I thought if I was your husband only having spoken to you for 20 minutes right now, I'd be like, there goes Jamie again, and I gotta, I gotta get back to work, you know, like, so? Yeah. Okay, so I can see how this could be like, you're the boy that cried wolf all the sudden.

Jaime 20:43
Exactly. I nobody would believe me. And so I continue to watch him down, bottle after bottle of water. And I had to take my younger son in for some sort of an appointment somewhere else. And in that appointment, he was like, we had only been on the car, like 10 minutes. And he was like, Mama, I need some water. And that's when I was like, I told the receptionist like, I'm sorry, we have an emergency after go. I was like becoming unhinged. And so I called my mom and I was like, Mom, something's wrong. And she was like, Well, why don't you just call the pediatricians office? Tell them what's going on, you know, go talk to the nurse and see. So I called the nurse. She's like, you know, I'm sure nothing is wrong. And I was like, you know, it would make me it was a Friday. And I was like, you know, I'm thinking for yourself and my husband, like if we have to go through the whole weekend, like this was not good. So I was like, Would you mind if I just brought him in, like, just to be safe? And she said, Sure. So I made an appointment. I called my husband at work. And I was like, Mark, I was like, You need to come home right now. Like, he has diabetes like this is happening, like, you know, and so my husband, you know, begrudgingly came home in the hallway to the doctor's office. He was like, you know, this is fine. They he doesn't have diabetes, like, what do you want to do this weekend? Now? I have the rest of the day off. Friday. Yeah, right. And so we got to the pediatricians office, and the doctor came in, and he was like, you know, deaf, his weight and stuff. And he's like, Have you been sick? And I was like, no, he's totally normal, just like drinking lot peeing a lot. And he was like, okay, and he's like, yeah, so he doesn't have diabetes, you know, it's summer. It's hot. And, and he's like, so you guys are you're good to go. And I said, Well, isn't there a way to test because keep in mind, like, I knew nothing about diabetes. You know, I Googled for the signs. And they said, is there some way to test and he said, Well, he's not potty trained. And so we can't test his urine. So we would have to attach a bag to him under his diaper. And then when he goes to the bathroom, you would have to come in and give us the urine, and we'd have to test it, but that's really not necessary. And I said, Um, okay, well, is there any way to test his blood? Because I had a friend that the nurse and she said, You can test this blood sugar? Yeah, you know, you can test the sugar sync button. So he goes, you want to you want to pick his finger for this, like, I'm telling him, he doesn't have diabetes, and my husband's looking at me, like, I'm gonna freakin kill you. Because every I do this everywhere we go, you know,

Scott Benner 23:11
girls liked me in high school.

Jaime 23:15
We actually went to high school together. And so that, and I said, Yeah, I want to stick his finger like we're here. You know. So he, you know, the medical assistant comes in and sticks his finger in. And I knew because I heard her say, okay, so his blood sugar is and you know, now I know it was counting down. And she went, Oh, um, oh, okay. Let me so it's, you know, 786, she said, and I said, What does that mean? Is that bad? And she was like, well, it's probably nothing, but we might have you go to the hospital to just verify, and I'm like, quiet.

Scott Benner 23:53
Nobody ever wants to tell you anything. I'll let someone else say this to you. I gotta go.

Jaime 23:59
Yeah. And that's what she did. So then we're sitting in there waiting. And like, Mark, like, This is bad. So I did a quick Google search, like, what should your on my phone, like, what should your normal blood sugar be? And I saw that she'd be like, 100, like, nonfasting or something around that, like, Mark, I saw a number it was 786. Like, like, you know, like, he has diabetes. And my husband was still like, no, it's something else. Whatever. So the doctor comes back and he says, Well, he says, It looks like we were wrong. I was like, it looks like you are wrong.

Scott Benner 24:26
I would have been like, who's a mother?

Jaime 24:32
I did. I actually said it. I said, No, it looks like you're wrong. I was like, you know, I was like, in full like mama bear mode. And he says, you know, we're going to call an ambulance. He needs to go to the ER immediately. I said, You're not calling an ambulance. I said, I'm driving my son to because I I wanted to keep my family together like the four of us were there and I knew that I couldn't be away from my husband and I knew they wouldn't let us both go and we had gray and I said, I said you're not calling an ambulance. The hospital was like a mile from the pediatricians office. So I could probably get there faster. So, you know, we brought him to the ER and, and the ER doctor, my husband was still in the ER was like, you know, what else could this be in the finally that your doctor just looked at me he was like, this isn't any this can't be anything else. I said this is the he has your son has type one diabetes. And he said I'll never I'll never forget he said in your lies from here are changed forever.

Scott Benner 25:25
Oh, thanks. Great. Yeah. Excellent. I think those words get said to everybody for some reason. Yeah, I have a question. In the doctor's office, when your son has diabetes, and you're all of that, like, obsessive thought thinking was confirmed as being necessary. Was that was that bad for you?

Jaime 25:48
Scott, you are very intelligent man. You hit the nail on the head. That's exactly. So once my, my obsessive thoughts were confirmed, it was like it took off from there. It was like I have to, I have to be hyper. So I have what's called hyper vigilance. So I'm a whole bucket of fun. But I have this hyper vigilance of like, if I don't take care of my children, if I don't watch out for this, nobody else is going to

Scott Benner 26:16
write and you know, that's like, well, here's the interesting thing. Wow. Okay, I'm gonna feed into this for you. I think you're right. I just don't think it should make you

Jaime 26:28
tortured. Right? Because I can't control it.

Scott Benner 26:31
Yeah, there's a difference between understanding the reality of the statement and, and doing things that are not valuable in the pursuit of supporting the statement, I guess, is what I mean. So listen, when my son climbed on a school bus when he was five years old, for the first time, we went back into the house, Kelly took the day off to see him off for school the first time, we went back into the house and Kelly's like, he's going and I just started crying. Well, first of all, I'd been with him for five years, every minute of his life. That's the one thing. The second thing was this. I started doing like backwards math. I'm like, who gets a job driving a school bus? Like, it's like, it's only in the morning, in the afternoon? How much could that even pay? And, like, so who's doing that? My wife's like, retired people, or people who need part time work that I'm like, I don't know. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, why would they do that? Who are these teachers? You know what I mean? I was like, these are just people who want the summer off. And

Jaime 27:38
and, and while firing,

Scott Benner 27:40
right? I was just like, you've got to be kidding me. I said, I have just taken the thing I care most about in the world that I can't replace. And I've handed it off to strangers, literal strangers, and one of them's driving a tank with my son in it right now. Like, what are we doing? But, but the point, the point has to be, and I know this is this is a tough pill to swallow, especially if you're in your situation. Every once in a while, a school bus crashes into something and some kids die. And it's a horrible tragedy. But that cannot stop children from going to school. Right? And it can't make you sit at home thinking constantly. What if, you know my, the craziest example I've ever come up with on the show is that every once in a while frozen urine falls out of an airplane and like breaks somebody's roof of their house or something like you can't live your whole life wondering, a frozen urine is gonna fall on your head. It's exactly it because it's probably not going to. And if it does, you take the necessary steps and and if it gets out to the end of your control, that is what's gonna happen. You know, you know, and and, and it'll be incredibly sad. If something terrible happens. And it will be it will probably change you forever. But you can't allow yourself to ruin all the time that exists in your life worrying about what if frozen, urine falls on my head. And you know, like, just if it hits you be like, I be damned. That's just happened. I can't believe that happened. But at least you would not have wasted every minute leading up to that which is but you're so now the problem is, is that you're aware of that intellectually? Is

Jaime 29:37
that right? Absolutely aware? Absolutely. Yep. Got it.

Scott Benner 29:41
But it's hard to deal with. Okay. All right.

Jaime 29:44
It's very hard. Getting there.

Scott Benner 29:46
Well, good for you. That's it's very brave of you to tackle because it would be easy. I imagined, you just devolve into it and just rave at people like I can't believe you're not worried about the ant I saw in the backyard and what it could mean for earth sciences and Exactly right,

Jaime 30:02
right. And it could be anything. You know what I mean? It's just but my mind has chosen to place it on his diabetes, because it's the easiest thing. Obviously, it's the scariest. But really, it could be anything you know. And I don't know if you remember this, but I remember when you were helping me one day, I texted you like, frantic and I was like, I just decreased blood sugar. And it was, it was exactly 100 When he woke up this morning, and it supposed to be under 100? Does he have diabetes? Like Tell me? Does he have diabetes? And you're like, What are you talking about?

Scott Benner 30:30
Well, let's get into the rest of it. Now, let's I appreciate you going over all this. But let's move into the other stuff. Because I think we have some kind of fun stuff to talk about. It's gonna be a weird episode. And so let's just tell everybody, what do you think's gonna happen right now, if you were listening, Jamie, what would you expect to happen right now on the show?

Jaime 30:52
Um, talk about Omnipod horizon right after

Scott Benner 30:55
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Why don't you remind everyone, and by everyone, I mean me how we met because I meet a lot of people and I want to make sure that what I'm thinking of is what I'm thinking of.

Jaime 35:11
Yeah. Um, so I was in a super dark place I could not control. Like, he had a decent a one C, just because like he was going low a lot. But I mean, he was up and down, up and down, up and down. And I was like, a crazy person trying to manage his blood sugar. Like, I mean, think of your worst nightmare. And that was me. And it was taking every every sense of my energy, my power, I was like, you know, it wasn't a life. And I had listened to one of your podcasts before. And I don't know, it was like, in the beginning, when I was first diagnosed, and there's so much and I kind of like, Yeah, I'll go back to that. You know what I mean? Like, I thought you were funny. Like, I was like, Yeah, I could listen to that. But there's just so much other things I need to do. And I was driving home one day from work, and I was just sobbing, you know, like, I don't know, if you've ever done this, but like, sometimes on the interstate, I'm just so like, turn off the radio, and I just cry. And I was sobbing, and I was like, What am I gonna do? And something in my head said to reach out to Scott Benner. Now, I know you're gonna think I'm crazy. But that is what something in my head said. It said, reach out to Scott Benner, he will help you. Now, I only listen to one of your podcasts. I follow juicebox on Facebook and stuff. But like I'm like, so then I started arguing with myself, and I'm like, he's not gonna help you. You are nobody. And like, you've listened to like, four of his podcasts, you know, like, and so, but they kept nagging at me. So I sent you a message on Facebook. And I said, Hey, I'm having a really hard time. And I think I have PTSD. Do you have any episodes? And you wrote me back? And you said, check out this episode. And it was like, okay, you know what brain I, I reached out to him and nothing happened. That's it. And then like, maybe two hours later, after I dismissed it, you messaged me back and you said, Don't worry, it gets easier. And that was probably your biggest mistake. Because then I unleashed. It's so hard. My son is two or no at the time he was yeah, no, he was still two, I think I was like, He's two and, and I don't know what I'm doing. And I just want the best life for him. And so of course, you being Scott, you were like, send me a graph. So I sent you a graph and you're immediately you're like, your Basal weak, you're not doing a long enough. Pre-Bolus. And, and then you said, you know, do you want me to follow him for a couple of weeks, I can help you. And I was just like, oh, the sky is opened. And I was like, yes, yes. I would like that.

Scott Benner 37:49
Don't make me sound too philanthropic. Because you also told me you're using Omnipod. Five and a trial, right?

Jaime 37:55
Yeah.

Scott Benner 37:57
So I was like, Oh, I would love to see how this works.

Jaime 38:00
Yeah, yeah, actually, you're right. Because you had said like, your Basal is too weak. And I had said something like, Well, I can't control Basal, because he's in the Omnipod trial. Right. And you said, Okay, well, let's give this a go. I can help you. And I can also learn about the trial. Right? I think that is Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not

Scott Benner 38:17
Not that I wouldn't have done otherwise. Like, there's such an interesting thing for people listening, because please do not send me 1000 messages today. But, but so when, when messages come, there's a randomness to whether I can answer or not. So I'm a real person, right? Like, I'm not writing here. And I have children in the home and all that stuff. And I have a wife who sometimes says, Are you helping these people instead of me? Like, you know, like, stuff like that? So if I see the message, and it coincides with my ability to answer, then then I can answer I sometimes see messages that I don't answer for weeks, or you know, more. Right, Yours must have just randomly come at a time that I was able to answer because because you could see what could happen. Like once somebody has the feeling of like, oh, I have a connection now. Then then the tap opens. And now I'm like, ooh, like when you send that message back on like, oh, geez, I shouldn't have answered. Like daily. I made a mistake unread. But But no, but but it's not that you don't want to it's it there becomes a time and then suddenly, I can't I don't want to give somebody like I like half assed attention. Right, like so if I'm gonna talk to you, I'm really gonna talk to you and if I'm not if I can't, and I don't, I can't. So I was happy to do it. But I mean, honestly, the only part five part was really was intriguing to me. So

Jaime 39:47
yeah, so it worked for both of us, which was me It was chaotic relationship.

Scott Benner 39:51
I remember standing out front of my house at one point with headphones on like talking to you for a while like trying to get something straightened out. So so we made some small adjustments. I don't remember what they were anymore. And and I think just probably reinforced ideas about when to use insulin and stuff like that. Is that how you remember it?

Jaime 40:11
You gave me the power to give insulin when he needed it like you gave me, you let me know like you don't have to wait two hours. Like if your son is 150 double arrows up like you can give it you can Bolus him like that's okay. And I knew that that was okay from listening to the podcast, but like having you there watching his numbers like for the first few days, you literally would text me and say, let I remember you said like, let me know when you give it food. And I was like, this is a person. You're like, this is how my mind works. And you're like, let me know when you input food. And so you know, you just kind of like I copied what you did, basically, for the first two days, you know, like you gave it to you basically walked me through it. And then I just copied what you did. And it's worked ever since.

Scott Benner 41:01
Yeah, I'm glad it's the, the tools are really important. The steps are super important understanding why it's important, but the timing of it is hard to teach. And so what I've found is that if people watch it happen, they can mimic it later. And then eventually a percent. But yes, and then eventually it becomes like now you you're not doing things without understanding why anymore

Jaime 41:24
100% It's good. You know, what else is it gave me like it was it? You showed me how to do it so that it was less of a I have to think about this all the time. Like I just know what to do. And I do it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's no, it's no longer like, what am I going to do? Do I give it Do I not like, you know, so.

Scott Benner 41:40
So even on an algorithm people should understand, and I've never seen on the pod five work in person. I've never used it not so far. I think I will soon, but I haven't so far other than this interaction with you. But it's still Pre-Bolus thing is still a thing. When you're on

Jaime 41:59
100% Yeah, it doesn't work for food. It's, you know, it's not, you know, you're still using, you know, Novolog Humalog. You know, it's still, so it takes a while and it doesn't know when you're eating. Honestly, what I've told people in the diabetes community is, it is a lifesaver for sleeping at night. Like I mean, the only complaint I have about it at night is that the lowest they're letting us set it for the toddlers is 110. And I would really love my son to coast at 7580 at night. But I'm not complaining because you know, there were nights where we were up four or five times a night. We never have to get up at night anymore. I mean, he coast 110 the entire night.

Scott Benner 42:38
Yeah, that's amazing. And I'm assuming and I'm hoping that. So listen, I don't know about like, let's make sure we're not doing anything wrong here. Are you allowed to talk about this?

Jaime 42:49
I am allowed to talk about it. I'm not allowed to show pictures for some reason I specifically asked and they said just don't show any pictures. Really like the device?

Scott Benner 42:56
You said to them? I'm gonna go on a podcast and talk about this. No, no, no. Okay,

Jaime 43:00
first I get to trial. I said my allowed, like, what are the rules surrounding discussing it? And they said, you can tell people he's on it, you can tell them about it, but do not show any pictures? And I said, Okay, all right.

Scott Benner 43:10
Well, then if that's the direction you got, let's keep talking. So. So I have some questions about it. That I really don't know the answers to. Does it learn?

Unknown Speaker 43:23
It does?

Scott Benner 43:24
Yeah. How does that work? Yep.

Jaime 43:26
So, um, it? Once you Okay, where do I want to start with this. So when you first put like it on, it's, you know, it's just the, the, the dash. And when you first put it on, it starts to you have to input what you think the Basal rate shock for your child should be or yourself if you're diabetic. And then it makes adjustments based on the history of, you know, like, Okay, you're going low this time of day, we're going to back off on insulin a little bit. You're going high, we're going to up your Basal this. So every hour is a different Basal that it gives you based on its memory and the history of what your numbers have looked like,

Scott Benner 44:12
Wow. That's pretty amazing. And that works out. Yes.

Jaime 44:16
It works out at night during the day. I don't during the day. I mean, I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this. I don't I don't know that I see too much difference because food because there's so many factors. There's excitement, there's food, there's exercise, you know, it can't know about can't learn, right?

Scott Benner 44:33
It also can't know Right? Like if you're going to get super excited out of nowhere. It doesn't know that's right to happen exact time for that which is which is also illustrating why the Pre-Bolus thing still important. You have to you're basically telling it look, I'm gonna eat in 20 minutes. So you know, or whatever your Pre-Bolus is. And so if you could tell it, hey, look, I'm gonna get super excited in 20 minutes, my blood sugar's gonna jump up, then right? It might be able to help but that's always gonna be A limitation of these things is just the unpredictability of your life. So what do you do in that situation? If if like adrenaline hits or something you just Bolus?

Jaime 45:09
Yeah, you have to Bolus you have to Bolus or you know if adrenaline hits. And it's normally a time when he's higher, you have to in the system gives you much you have to juice or, you know, give a glucose tab.

Scott Benner 45:21
So you could you can still see lows sometimes during the day when you're being aggressive with other blood sugars.

Jaime 45:27
100%.

Unknown Speaker 45:28
Okay. All right. Yes.

Scott Benner 45:32
What's the what's the stability, the time and range like?

Jaime 45:38
So, I mean, I, so our timing ranges around like 90%. But you have to keep in mind that like, even before the development, our timing range was like, 80%. You know what I mean? What is your I think? What is our range of time right now?

Scott Benner 45:56
Yeah, what's the range? You're looking at? Like, what's the low and the high of the range? Oh,

Jaime 46:00
this is how they set it is 180. Okay, so if I say so 70 to 180. And we in the other thing, too, is we may let him set up if he's 68. coasting. I'm not giving him glucose. Counting that is low, you know?

Scott Benner 46:15
Yeah. And something like a 68. That kind of rises back up again. Does it? Does the the algorithm I assume in that situation takes away Basal together to come back out?

Jaime 46:25
It does. It's always trying to get it to 110?

Scott Benner 46:28
Does it make all of its decisions with Basal there's no Bolus thing? Like auto balls?

Jaime 46:34
No. So So if if the if it senses that you're going hot, you know, if your blood sugar is rising? If your blood sugar is rising, then it will give extra Basal.

Scott Benner 46:49
Is there a cap on how much Basal can give? Like, if, if, let me give you an example. So your son's Basal is point five an hour? Can it go to one an hour? Can it go to 1.5? Or does it only go a percentage of the point five.

Jaime 47:03
And you have to set the cap. So the endo sets the camp in this in the trial and

Scott Benner 47:08
the trial way too, I set the cap. I know, right? It's not gonna be

Jaime 47:12
well, and I already told my 30 till the end, no, I said, you know, adults are not gonna want that maybe toddlers will want this at 110. But like, if I was a diabetic, I would not be happy with 110 being like, the goal, you know what I mean? You gotta you gotta lower it.

Scott Benner 47:26
So my expectation is, and this is based on nothing that anyone has said to me, that you have to when you're trying to get something through the FDA, you have to pick a target that you'd know, for certain you can accomplish, or you're not going to get your product to market. So the hope is, and by the way, any opportunity I have behind the scenes to talk to people is that they should continue testing with lower targets and get those to us. Because Because I I believe what you're saying, you know, I'm I'm, I'm gonna end up saying this 1000 times this year, the year of the algorithm, this is gonna end up being. But the truth is, is that if I can't set a lower target, I might not want this thing, but exactly for countless, and I do mean countless hundreds of 1000s, if not over a million people living in the United States with diabetes, who are not listening to this podcast, who are not having great success, slapping an omni pod five on them, getting the settings right, teaching them to Pre-Bolus changes their life in an immeasurable way, you know, for the much better not just for the little bit better. And so there's a difference between people who want 7580 overnight and stable, and people who are just going to be like, do you know my a one see a 6.3? Do you know how amazing that is? To me, like, like, they'll live their whole life in a much better way because of that. So So you have to continue to see this stuff as progression. Like, it's not like the best version of this thing that's ever going to exist isn't arriving soon. It's the first version of it that's arriving soon. And you have to you have to be patient with that. And and, and that's I'm not saying that because they're their sponsor. I'm saying that because I think my daughter might end up using it. And that's how I'm gonna have to see it. So

Jaime 49:15
yeah, I mean, I totally agree. And like I said, like, I I wouldn't give it up. Like, you'd have to pry it out of my like, cold dead hands. Yeah. Because it has changed my life overnight.

Scott Benner 49:28
Wow. That's really cool. So what's the learning curve on it? Like if you didn't meet me, you? But you were in a tough situation, because you said tell people a little bit about that. You were in the trial, where you weren't supposed to be touching things. But you couldn't stop yourself. By the way, Jamie. I'm remembering our conversations more and more. I remember by the time we were done. It's funny. I didn't know about the OCD. But I thought if Jamie's husband goes in my wife goes, I'll call Jamie like, you were cool. You had like a nice vibe about you, you know what I mean? So and we could probably definitely make a baby with diabetes if we needed to. So but but no, I just I remember really enjoying talking to you. And and at the time, I recall saying like, Well, I think this needs to be more and you're like, I'm not allowed to touch this stuff. So tell people about what it's like being in a trial first.

Jaime 50:22
So you have very little control, like your that, you know, I mean, and for good reason, you know, they're trying to, you know, test out these devices or whatever you're in the trial for, and they need you to do what they tell you to do. But for me, I wanted, I don't want to say I want it better, but I wanted to, I wanted more in, you know, normal, normal blood glucose numbers for my son. And so they're telling me, You can't do this. And I'm saying, Well, yes, I am going to do this. And my husband was super worried, you know, again, gritting his teeth, like you're going to get us kicked out of this trial. And I'm like, Mark, I said, I don't honestly like if I have to choose between Scott Benner in the trial, I'm choosing Scott Benner. I said, I not, I have to, I have to learn what I need to do to get my son in the best place where he can be health wise. And as much as I love like this horizon, this will be available to us within a couple years, you know, we can get it that. And so there were a couple of like, knock down drag out fights that we had when they endos office, which I'm not going to name obviously, about, about going about what listing and changing the Basal rates because you can, you can go in and change it, and then the system thinks, Okay, we need more, you know, what I mean? And tightening carb ratios. And, and it was hard there, there was a lot of like, push and pull for a while. Since I think basically what happened is our endo just kind of gave up on us and said, Okay, well, yeah, they're like, alright, well, your last cause.

Scott Benner 52:04
They're just gonna do it. So that's interesting for people to know you're in a trial, but there's not some like, kingdom of Omnipod up on the hill, where you go, they run the trials through doctors offices. So the, the trial coordinator gives specific instructions to the offices and the offices need to follow them. And by the way, the offices are probably being compensated for being part of the trial. So they have a large reason why they want to do the right thing. But you stayed on the product, and started making adjustments?

Jaime 52:34
Yes, I did. And I think that they, I think a big draw for them with my family was they knew that my husband and I were very invested in our son's health. And they knew that we were like, on the ball, like, we were going to show up to the appointments, we were going to make sure we did the you know what I mean? Like, we were we were invested. And so, you know, I think that, that, you know, patients like that are are not always the case. So I think that that's what saved us.

Scott Benner 53:01
Well, well. So what happened, what happens after you make the adjustments? And I know if I'm remembering, right, like it was Basal, and where we did the insulin, a carb change to, or No.

Jaime 53:15
Um, so after I made the adjustments, we changed the Basal and we changed the insulin to carb. And they called me like, the next day, and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on? Like we hopped on today, and we saw and like he had had, like, a minor low, and they're like, this is why you can't do that. Like, he can't have these lows, you know, and, and I said, you know, we're figuring things out, like, give me a couple days, you know, and, you know, it's not going to be perfect right away. And, and they're like, No, we'd really rather you just stick to, to how we told you to do it. And I was like, Well, yeah, I'm really not gonna do that. But thank you for the suggestion.

Scott Benner 53:53
It's hard. I'm not a deity. I can't just look at it and go, like, make this that make this that okay, it's perfect. Like, you have to see it happen a little bit. And then you have to go, Okay, let's move this again. And, and like lengthen or shorten your Pre-Bolus 's, and things like that. Just kind of watch it happen a little bit before you can. I mean, there have been times where I've gotten it the first time. And people are like, you're amazing. I'm like, huh, hold on. That was lucky.

Unknown Speaker 54:18
Though, give me too much credit for that.

Jaime 54:20
Yeah, I mean, we, there were a couple of times you're like okay, yeah, we we messed that up. Like, I think we need to change this when he has peanut butter toast next time. Or know what I mean? Like you were figuring it out.

Scott Benner 54:30
Right. Well, so it so it comes together. i It wasn't too long, right? Maybe we spoke for a week or two.

Jaime 54:38
Yeah, we I think we talked for two weeks and you followed him one more week after that just to make sure I was doing like a good job. Okay. Okay. Like we didn't talk like I made the decisions and like every once in a while you text me and be like, What are you doing? And I be like, I'm right on top of that.

Scott Benner 54:58
Well, I really I Like I said, I found it easy to talk to you, which I guess no, I'm saying, nobody else does just me.

Jaime 55:07
I'm really good at hiding it.

Scott Benner 55:11
Well, that's interesting. Do you? Do you have to do that? Like, is there? Do you find that there's a part of your personality? You kind of have to keep yourself?

Jaime 55:18
Yeah, of course, like, I'm a functioning, you know, member of society, I have a job. And, you know, I have a family. And so, like, there's certain people that like, I feel like safe to like, unleash it on. And I think that that is what happened that day was like, we started to like, talk more. And that's when I unleashed it on you about gray being like, Oh, my God. And then you kind of were like, listen, I think he's fine. I think you're crazy. You were like, go have a glass of wine. Yeah. And I was like, Alright, he's not gonna support my OCD. I'm gonna have to go to

Scott Benner 55:51
Yeah, I don't usually recommend drinking to people. But you didn't come off a little like, like, totally well.

Jaime 56:00
Yeah, I mean, you said it in jest, obviously. But you basically were like, your son is fine. You know, like, move on with your day. I got stuff to do. Which is actually the best way the best way you could have dealt with it. You know, I do get a lot of into it.

Scott Benner 56:14
Yeah, I get a lot of messages thanking me for being matter of fact. Yeah, I don't know, I'm not about you. Listen, you have to understand, I'm not doing that on purpose. Like, it's just, it's just the way I guess whatever happened in your life that kind of pushed you in your direction. I mean, something obviously happened to mine, I always just felt like, there's a lot of things that could go wrong. I don't have time to dwell on any of them. Because we need to keep moving. I don't want to I don't want the ground to collapse under my feet. Like I want to keep moving forward. And, and I just, I grew up like that, like a lot of stuff went wrong in my life when I was growing up. And I read your book. Yeah. Right. And then thank you very much. And then that's so meaningful. I don't know why that feels meaningful. Like, people have listened to way more words come out of my mouth on this podcast, and I would ever be able to write down somewhere. But I think it's because I spent six months sitting at a desk. It makes it feel nice. And I also, when I started writing that book, I had no idea if I could actually do it or not. So

Jaime 57:16
Oh, yeah. I mean, your book was amazing. Like, I literally read it in like two nights. I couldn't put it down. Oh, if

Scott Benner 57:21
anyone's listening who's a publisher? I think my publisher went out of business, if you know how to get the rights to my book, so we can keep printing it. Scott

Jaime 57:29
actually did buy it from like, a used book site. Yeah, I was happy. I found it.

Scott Benner 57:33
Yeah. Email me if you know how to fix that. Because apparently, all I have to do is request the the manuscript be made given to me. That'll happen. And then But then I'd have to publish it. I don't know. Help me if you're out there. Anyway, it's a good book. I really appreciate it. You know, I I missed 53 days of my senior year of my high school, right? Yes, I

Jaime 57:57
read. I read it. The Old Republic, a very interesting life,

Scott Benner 58:01
and the only published author of that's ever come out of my eyes. Go to school kids. It's really important. Okay, now. Okay, so we're going over everything. It sounds like it's going really well right now, like, so. Are you still in the trial? Or is the trial over?

Jaime 58:20
It just keeps getting extended? I think that they're going to I'm hoping that they just extend it till it's released.

Scott Benner 58:28
More and more data to be over. Yeah. So they just need data. Yeah, you're using it for free basically, right?

Jaime 58:35
Yeah. Well, you know, everything is free except for the insulin. We stuffed it by your own insulin but all the pods all the what did they call the the transmitters, the sensors? Everything is free? Yeah.

Scott Benner 58:48
Oh, you get the Dexcom and the Omni pod for free for being in the trial.

Unknown Speaker 58:52
You do? Well, look at Yeah,

Jaime 58:55
except for well, except for the fact that we have like amazing insurance through my husband's work. It was free anyway. Like, we didn't pay anything. We had no deductible.

Scott Benner 59:04
No big win free. Yeah. You should have said, I'll keep using my insurance. Send me a couple G's.

Jaime 59:10
I know, right? But I've been what I don't know if I can say this and edit it out. If I can't. I've been giving supplies to people that can't afford them. Because I'm like, I'm not because they expire. So I'm like, you know, we have our little stock but I'm not letting these go to waste. You know,

Scott Benner 59:24
well, you're allowed to say whatever you want. I don't think the police are gonna come for you. But yeah, excuse me, I just made myself cough for some reason.

Jaime 59:33
I don't sell it. I just give it because it's like and I do the same with insulin, we get so much insulin and it's like, you know, it's sinful, how much you know, insulin we have that we would throw away and people are dying because they donate

Scott Benner 59:45
it, you know, to people. Yeah, that's very nice. I don't think that that is uncommon in the diabetes community. So I don't either if you end up in diabetes, if you end up in diabetes jail over this, I guess you have not really said your last name. So it doesn't matter. You to bail me out. Oh, yeah, I'll come and get you. But if you start talking about your problems I'm going to leave. Deal. You make so much more sense to me now that we've had this conversation.

Jaime 1:00:13
I'm sure you do.

Scott Benner 1:00:15
Well, your husband's with you and all he hasn't left.

Jaime 1:00:19
No, he's a trooper. My family. My mom and dad and my family call him his name is Mark, they call him St. Mark.

Scott Benner 1:00:26
Yeah, you probably just throw a lot of sex at him when he looks upset.

Jaime 1:00:30
Well, probably more than I probably should do more. It's funny that that's how the type one diabetes, I have a lot of stress.

Scott Benner 1:00:37
The only thing I can think of in that situation, I'm like, what would make me go? She's high strung, but the kids look like her. And I like her. So we're gonna stick? No, no, not that. Not that you should bail on somebody for having trouble, obviously. But yeah, I'm just teasing.

Jaime 1:00:56
No, I know. I understand. So day to

Scott Benner 1:00:59
day, do you find yourself still worrying about your other child?

Jaime 1:01:04
It creeps in, but it's nowhere near what it used to be cool. Certainly. That's really great. I mean, how could it not? I would love if there you have a listener that says I never worry about that, you know, like, I want to talk to them. Like how?

Scott Benner 1:01:17
Yeah, I mean, I worry about it. So I don't think I, you know, if my children have any kind of problems, like it impacts me in like a turtle. I would say a couple of weeks, a couple of weeks ago, my son was going through a thing. And I started losing weight.

Jaime 1:01:35
Because that's what I do to stop eating.

Scott Benner 1:01:37
I was worried I stopped eating, like, like, stuff like that. So I don't get listen, if you can, if you can get through life without that happening to you, like good for you, but I'm adulation. Yeah, I'm too attached to these people. Like, I really want them to be okay, you know, in a way, and, you know, there's, I won't bring it up like a name. Because I'm not gonna pack it with details. But there's someone that, you know, in the diabetes community who's who's having a real medical issue now, right? Like, a really like, life threatening medical issue, it has nothing to do with diabetes, the person you know about, and you see their life online. And it's a dire situation. And it just, I mean, beyond the compassion that you can feel for that person. And you have those thoughts, like, How could that happen? And, you know, like, like, all this stuff, to me, the end of it is, in my mind is, well, it could happen, I guess, like, it's, it's incredibly unlikely. But it could, but it could, and, and I need to live like it's not going to, but not be unprepared for if something goes wrong, because things are going to go wrong. And you know, when you're living with autoimmune diseases, I think your odds of things going wrong and start going up. And isn't it? You know what I mean? Like, is everyone going to have like a crazy autoimmune disease that peep, you hear people on here talking about like, no, but it's gonna happen to one of you like the one of you right now is listening, who's not having another problem is going to wake up with celiac or a thyroid problem or something like that one day, and you need to have the wherewithal to be like, Okay, well, let's learn about this, and figure this out, and then incorporate it and keep moving because there are no other options in my opinion, right. You know, sorry. But that's a if you've never struggled. The first struggle is tough. And if you pretend that's going to be the last struggle than the next one is going to be tough as well. Yeah. Is that make sense? Like, yes. You got to be like, prepared, vigilant, but not so much so that you're ruining your life. Right? You

Jaime 1:03:51
have to enjoy the life that you're living right now. And even after the next bad thing comes, you know, yeah, otherwise, what's the point? But you

Scott Benner 1:03:57
can't be so Pollyanna that if something does happen, that it just runs you over. Like there's a middle ground in there somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm okay with it. And that's the wrong statement. I think I'm, what am I I think I'm able to be impacted by it. And then get up again, because I grew up in a way where things went wrong. Like, I used to worry about my kids like they they're growing up better than I did, like, there's times where you're like, Should I throw something in front of them so that like they have to climb over it, you know? But, but you know what, it turns out for most people, something's going to happen. So you'll get your speed bump, somewhere. Everybody gets something. Yeah, yeah, we were just talking about this on another episode recently. It's uh, it might not be health, it could be finances. It might not be finances. It might be bad family, like, you know,

Jaime 1:04:55
relationships. Yeah, writing a person, but I'm not gonna lie. I have thrown up that Hail Mary. to God like, please if there's gonna if somebody else in my family is gonna get it, please let it be me and not my second son, you know what I mean? Like, you know, you'll make those deals with like the universe like just give it to me.

Scott Benner 1:05:11
And and you're like I've done everything I can I'm gonna just say this out loud in

Jaime 1:05:17
after his like six vial of vitamin D oil, I'm like, Okay.

Scott Benner 1:05:22
Well, you also, you also open yourself up to things that aren't valuable when you start really reaching and being worried like, how do you know the difference between like when Dr. BENITO comes on it has I mean, I don't know if you've listed that thyroid episode, but it's it's a masterclass on thyroid. Again, right. And she's amazing. And she'll say things like, you could try this or, you know, if you're I forget like something about milk thistle if you're having a problem or something like that. And how do you know the difference between someone who knows what they're talking about saying something and a friend of yours on Facebook? who's like, if you take the strawberry essential oil and mix it with? You know what I mean? Your hair will grow better. Like, like, I like that. How do you know where the line is? And by the way, if you're getting some benefit from essential oils, if your life was better, because them I ain't judging you. I'm just saying, if if the mint and the strawberry made my hair grow, then we'd all have really great hair. Because, right, that would be a thing that would be unimpeachable. In the world. You just be like, Oh my God. Yeah. So like, how do you find the middle? Like, how do you stop yourself from going like, I'm gonna eat cinnamon today to keep my blood sugar? Like that kind of stuff?

Jaime 1:06:34
Yeah, I mean, I don't. I don't know the answer to that. You just have to do what feels right.

Scott Benner 1:06:40
And he's like, listen, when I hear stuff like that I sent him.

Jaime 1:06:44
No, actually, like, I feel really bad. Because like somebody on a website once posted, like, has anyone ever tried like living your life without insulin? And just like remaining on diet and herbs? And I just, like wrote a comment with like, an eye roll. I was having a particularly bad day. And I was like, Are you freaking kidding me? And then like, like, the next day, I felt bad, because then I was like, Why would you lie when I have just said, like, no, that doesn't work. You know what I mean? Like, those type of people really irritate me. Well, on certain days, they irritate you. Right? Other days, I could probably be a little more compassionate. I wonder

Scott Benner 1:07:16
if you were more centered? I think that's a nice way to say it. Do you think you would intersect with those people differently? Oh, 100%.

Jaime 1:07:25
Yeah, cuz there are days that I am really centered in on like, you know, like, you know, insulin is a hormone and, you know, herbs don't, you know, replace hormones, you know, but like that day, I was just like, really, really, really? Okay.

Scott Benner 1:07:40
I think that it's pretty obvious. When you're online, and you see people interacting. It's, it's people who aren't common side or centered, or I don't know what the word is exactly. Like, like, peaceful, maybe you can see it in their interactions.

Jaime 1:07:59
Yeah, it's more about them than anyone else.

Scott Benner 1:08:02
There's a lot of different ways. Like just there's a, there's, um, they're irritated, you can tell they're irritated, or they have a burning desire to make sure that the thing they know, becomes the thing, you know, or something like that. And I've seen people because, because the Facebook page for the for the podcast is is really uncommon online. Yeah. People are very nice. Yeah. And so I've seen people start off, great, say something kind of crappy to somebody wants, and, like, I don't block people and stuff like that, like, I listened. I thought, like four or five people in my life, but I'll send, like, I'll just answer like, I don't send messages like I answer in front of everybody. I'm like, yo, what are you doing? Like, right? Like, why would you say that? Like she's asking for help? You know, like, you're gonna come through with your snarky idea here. Like, do you think this is the time for that? You know, and then you'll get like, a thoughtful response. 1012 hours later, like, Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't know why I did that. And I just think you just got to treat each other like adults. But my greater point is, if you're that person, you, you might not see it while you're doing it, you know, and know, and how do you know unless you go back later, and Facebook doesn't. Social media in general doesn't allow for back scrolling. Like, it's just it's constantly rolling on, you know, so you don't even get to learn but you know, and then there's the other side of it. Like some people are just way too touchy. You say something that's completely reasonable. And they're like, I can't believe you said that. It hurts my sensibility about whatever and you're like, Oh, my God, like come on. Like like so there's got to be a balance in there of like kindness and, and thick skin at the same time. You're talking about difficult things like somebody might have an idea that's the best I can always see is that sometimes there's a there's an adult type one who's had a rough go and apparent they'll say something and they'll be like, I can't believe you're doing that to them or why just stick their finger that many times like, don't be people who hear you say how much you tested your son who doesn't have diabetes, and they'll be mortified by it.

Jaime 1:10:11
But, but I'm mortified by it. No, no, I

Scott Benner 1:10:14
understand. Yeah. Well, Jamie, you're terrific. Seriously.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:20
I am scratching you owe me about you.

Scott Benner 1:10:22
Thank you. I am scratching you off. If my wife dies and her husband dies list, but

Jaime 1:10:28
come on. Out the diabetic children we could make

Scott Benner 1:10:33
I know right now, I'm probably incredibly older than you so don't even worry about. Yeah, you'd be like, Ah, sorry, old man. I like the place on the blood sugar thing. But

Unknown Speaker 1:10:45
boy here, yeah. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:10:47
I'm being funny. I assume if we met in person you'd like, huh? No, thank you.

Jaime 1:10:54
No way. Like I told my husband, I'm like, the next time Scott talks, we're going I don't care where it is, like, I need to give that man a hug. And I am not a huggy person. But like I've told you before, you have changed my family life. And it's huge. And I don't think you realize it, I don't think you realize, like the impact that you have. I know you. You have Yes, you have an impact on the diabetes community, like Sure. But like individually, like you have to recognize how many people's lives that you've changed. It's huge. Like what you're doing is amazing.

Scott Benner 1:11:23
I thank you very much for saying that. That is I do. So the understand academically I do understand. But I get your I take your point. And I believe you're right. It's it's yeah, it would probably be I think it would be overwhelming if I actually, it would be that like that.

Jaime 1:11:42
It would even could comprehend the amount you know that you've helped people. It would be

Scott Benner 1:11:47
um, I don't know what I would do. Like I'd probably I'd probably get in the car and on the highway and cry like you just said, which when you said I was like I've never done that before. I one time I've ever cried the car. I've had accidents where I haven't cried.

Jaime 1:12:00
Like, yeah, you know, that thing everyone does. You're like,

Scott Benner 1:12:04
it happened to me when I dropped my son off at college. Oh, yeah. But it wasn't even bawling. Like the water just ran out of my eyes. I wasn't like, you know, the part of the like, the, like that part. Yeah, nothing. I was completely stoic. And, and water just ran out of my eyes for 45 minutes.

Jaime 1:12:22
Well, if you need me to teach you about the gross, ugly cry, I'll teach you.

Scott Benner 1:12:27
I think I got there pretty close in the beginning of diabetes, but I'm doing better. And but don't worry if I need it. I'll be able to whip it out again. I

Unknown Speaker 1:12:36
think I Yeah. And you know who to call? Yeah. 100%.

Scott Benner 1:12:40
Is there anything that we didn't talk about that we should have?

Jaime 1:12:44
Um, I don't think so. I think when I came in, I wanted to make sure that if there's other, I haven't heard an episode that you've done about a mom or a dad that had the PTSD and like going through it, and I, so I wanted to like, I wanted that. And then like I knew the trial was probably going to be a point of interest. So you're good. Yeah, I think we're good. Scott.

Scott Benner 1:13:04
This was terrific. I really appreciate it. I know that when we get on at first I'm like, I'm not 100% sure what we're going to talk about, is that the fleeting

Unknown Speaker 1:13:12
I have no way I

Jaime 1:13:13
knew you were gonna do that, because I've heard you do it to people before. So you understand. I was like,

Scott Benner 1:13:18
yeah, yeah, you understand that? Once we start talking? I have a complete recollection of our interaction. Yeah. But yeah. If you just said to me, Hey, it's Jamie. I'd be like, Jamie, I think that's the, because that's how it goes through my it's funny that you said at one point I texted like, it's kind of like the way I talked about using the and some while we're texting is kind of cold. But I also don't want there to be confusion. Also, when you start talking to people, they start explaining, and I don't really need that, like, I don't need all

Jaime 1:13:45
right, like you can't have you can't have 8 million best friends. Yeah, right.

Scott Benner 1:13:48
Like, I just need to know the nuts and bolts of what's going on here. I actually helped a lady with a three year old this week. And in Kendall, I hope she's doing well. And. And at the end, I said to her, I was like I said, we were done. And I was like, Hey, you were very good at this. Thank you. And she said, Yeah, I've heard you talk about on the podcast, I did not want to overwhelm with details that you didn't need. Because there's a moment when we start right ask a lot of yes or no questions. And when and if we're texting or even on the phone, I'll ask the question. And if the answer comes back, bigger than yes or no, I'm like, No, shut up. Like, don't tell me your theories. Right now. I just I'm compiling data, like after I compile my data, then we'll chat you know.

Jaime 1:14:35
Yeah, and I got that sense for one part of my personality is I'm very good at reading people. And I got that sense from you. And I'm like, You know what, like, I'm going to do whatever this man needs me to do that he

Unknown Speaker 1:14:43
will help me so

Scott Benner 1:14:45
we're super kind afterwards like I've never I've never received so many kind notes and gestures. Like as I have from you like you tried to send me I had to stop you from saying things right?

Jaime 1:14:56
Yes, you did. You did it. My husband was on board to like You changed our lives and like, I don't take that's not a small thing for me. You know what I mean? Like, no, yeah, absolutely. And I tried, like, I'm not a big poster on social media, but I go into juice box and I post his graphs every so often. I don't want to be like a bragger. But I want people to understand like, this is life changing. You need to listen to this.

Scott Benner 1:15:16
I'm glad but I mean, you were physically going to send me like supplies like, yes. And I

Jaime 1:15:22
and then you were, and then you were like, You're crazy.

Scott Benner 1:15:25
Can I be honest with you? Yeah. So many people do that. That at this point, like sometimes I look around my house and I'm like, I don't I don't want I don't need this. Like, I don't know what except for

Jaime 1:15:37
you know, what his I looked up restaurants like, I'm like a huge creeper. And like, I went to your Facebook page and like, Okay, this is the town he lives in. I'm going to try to find like a restaurant gift certificate, because so he can take his family out to dinner. You know, because of how much time you spent with me that time you could have spent with your family. You know what I mean? And like, go out to dinner on me. And you were like, No, like really? Like, please do not.

Scott Benner 1:15:59
Because it's hard to get makes me i I swung through a pendant. I don't like Panera Bread, but somebody in my family wanted it and I rolled through the drive thru. And I said to my wife, I'm like, I have a gift card for this. And she goes, she goes what? I said, I have a digital gift card for this. And she said, You don't come here. And I was like, I was helping a lady on the phone one day. And we got done. And she's like, let me buy your lunch. I was like, please don't. The next thing I know I get this $25 gift card to Panera Bread, like through my email. And I was like, I Please don't I so I've had it for like a year. And then when I used it, I was like, You don't understand, like, it'll start making me feel bad. Like, like you said, Yeah, I'll get I'll have the $25 gift card and I won't use it and I'll start feeling badly about like sudden cash. You know? No, I'm just kidding. Like, Mike, Mike now heard his voice and knows I'm talking about him. Mike sends me barbecue supplies. That's that stuff I really like. But, but, but. But if he sends like a like a flavor, and I don't like it, then I feel I feel bad then. And I can't. I don't want you guys to send me stuff for the same reason I didn't want a dog. It's not because I don't want a dog. And it's not because I don't want to be responsible for a dog. It's because it everyday I don't live up to my responsibility. I feel bad about it. Right? Like, I don't know what's wrong with me. Maybe I need some eye movement therapy or, you know, a time machine to go back and find some people who would have been nicer to me or whatever. But, but I can't deal. I can't take too much of that. Like I but what

Jaime 1:17:33
I told you before was you need to understand and look at me lecturing you that people want to reciprocate. And it's not a friendship, but it's a it's a relationship. You know what I mean? And people want to feel like they're, they're showing their appreciation. So

Scott Benner 1:17:49
what I did, because you're not the only person who Badger's me is that there's one person in particular that was very helpful explaining that to me privately. And there's probably me No, just kidding. It actually wasn't. I know who it was. And she made the point to me that, that it's something people need to do, and that it's yeah, it's kind for you to let them do it.

Jaime 1:18:15
Yeah, I never gonna say you need to be more gracious about it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:18:19
Well, I feel like I am being gracious by telling you don't worry about it. But what I didn't realize was that then you are left with an incomplete feeling.

Jaime 1:18:26
Yes. And it's not so much about you as it is about your listeners.

Scott Benner 1:18:29
So I didn't know. So that's a weird leap to make in your head. Because the the extension of that is you're going to send me something or you're going to give me money. And, and it took me a long time to figure out that that meant, like closure for you. Like you felt like a loop was closed. And so I started a buy me a coffee site, so Oh, good. Yeah. And that's been really,

Jaime 1:18:56
why has that not been like advertised? What am I gonna do? I'll buy you a coffee every day.

Scott Benner 1:19:01
It's a hard thing to do like to say, hey, here's my buy me a coffee link. Why don't you send me some money? It's a very weird thing to say,

Jaime 1:19:08
why don't you text me or email me the link and I'm going to post it on juice box. Hey, everyone, we love Scott.

Scott Benner 1:19:14
So like, two weeks ago for my birthday. Someone made a post like that and said, Hey, let's everybody buy Scott a cup of coffee for his birthday. Oh, I missed and by the time it was over. Like we started having, like, I started seeing the money, like move up and I was like, What am I gonna do about now? Now I feel bad. Like, right and it's, it's moving up. And I said to people, like they're like, somebody asked what I was gonna do with it. And I said, You know what, I? I have a really crappy chair that I make the podcast and like I yeah, maybe I should buy a great chair. So I am sitting now in a really nice, super comfortable or supportive, very expensive chair that was completely paid for by people who had that feeling. And yeah, I am very comfortable with that like, and maybe because they're smaller amounts. Like, do you mean like people put in five bucks 10 bucks a couple, I have to be honest with you, I sometimes it would dig in front of me. And it would be like somebody bought you 10 cups of coffee or, you know, became a member of the site, and they're gonna send money every month. And I'm like, I really just, I never expected anyone would do that. I just thought I'd set it off. And then I'd make it like available and like here, you know, if you feel this, like I thought I would tell a couple people. And then somebody posted it on their own, and it just exploded. So I'm so

Jaime 1:20:27
glad that you finally like accepted that because that was my one bone I had with you is like really? Like, I need to show my appreciation. Like that's the way American society works.

Scott Benner 1:20:39
I mean, you're irritating at the end. I remember. I know. But in a really lovely way.

Jaime 1:20:46
I'm gonna go send you a million cups of coffee. So they're,

Scott Benner 1:20:49
well they're five bucks apiece, so be careful what you promised. And anyway, now that we've gone all through this thing. Yeah, now I feel like I'll be a douche. If I don't just say it. It's a I think it's it's so funny that I really don't know. Let me look real quick. Oh, that's hilarious. Of course. It's that it's buy me a coffee.com forward slash juice box. And I have started putting the link in the show notes. I figured people could just find it without asking me and that way I wouldn't have to feel badly every time somebody asks

Jaime 1:21:22
buy me a coffee.com forward slash juice box guy.

Scott Benner 1:21:25
That's it. So anyway, it's not the point of all this. The point of all this is that you have obsessive thoughts and Omnipod five looks like it's gonna work great for people. So yeah, so thank you very much for doing this.

Jaime 1:21:38
Yeah, absolutely. I had an amazing time

Scott Benner 1:21:50
just in case you thought I was kidding back there a second ago. I did not get that link right. It's actually buy me a coffee.com Ford slash Juicebox Podcast. I knew I didn't know it when I said I didn't know it. I want to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast get over there. Now at contour next one.com forward slash juicebox. Get yourself an accurate meter. It's simple to do and it's a it's a damn fine thing you can do for yourself there be healthy like Don't you want to make good decisions with your insulin and carbs? Step one is to know what your blood sugar actually is.

If you're enjoying the Juicebox Podcast, please share it with a friend or someone else who you think might enjoy it. Like for example, your endocrinologist, nurse practitioner, lady across the street person you see in traffic. Anybody really honestly, I'm just looking for you to share the show. But more specifically with people who have type one, type two use insulin, doctors, pharmacists, you know those types of people. Those people, those types. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

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