Scott Benner 9/18/25 Scott Benner 9/18/25

#1631 Glucose Guardians

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Jacob brings his background as a nutritionist, love of food, and family connection to T1D into his story.

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

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

Jacob 0:15
My name is Jacob ritzert, and I'm a type one diabetic. Happy to be on the type one diabetic Juicebox podcast. Thanks for having

Scott Benner 0:25
me. I am here to tell you about juice cruise. 2026 we will be departing from Miami on June 21 2026 for a seven night trip going to the Caribbean. That's right. We're going to leave Miami and then stop at Coco k in the Bahamas. After that, it's on to St Kitts, St Thomas and a beautiful cruise through the Virgin Islands. The first juice Cruise was awesome. The second one's going to be bigger, better and bolder. This is your opportunity to relax while making lifelong friends who have type one diabetes, expand your community and your knowledge on juice cruise 2026 learn more right now at Juicebox podcast.com/juice, cruise. At that link, you'll also find photographs from the first cruise. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juicebox. That's t, w, i, i s, t.com/juicebox. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about Miss boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses. Learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

Jacob 2:39
My name is Jacob Richard, and I'm a type one diabetic. Happy to be on the type one diabetic Juicebox podcast.

Scott Benner 2:48
Awesome, man. Thank you for having me. Yeah, it's my pleasure, Jacob. How long have you had type one

Jacob 2:53
two years now, just over two years. How old are you 27 I'll be 28 tomorrow. So so. Oh, happy birthday. Coming early. Thank you. Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:02
happy birthday. That's awesome. Wow. 27 What was your life like before? Diabetes versus what is it like now? Oh,

Jacob 3:12
I mean, I felt completely invincible. For the most part, I've been able to kind of do whatever I wanted to do and be able to accomplish anything I can really put my mind to, for the most part, and then getting diagnosed has been a challenge. But you know, there's two ways to look at it in my mindset. One, you take the challenge and you run with it, and you accept that it's a challenge and the only way through it is to just embrace it, and the other one was just to kind of withdraw and let diabetes manage my life, rather than manage the diabetes. So I went with throughout one, and I took it as a challenge and something to really put my life studying towards. I studied nutrition, so I found that I already had a leg up on what the disease was, but it did catch me by surprise, to be honest. Yeah, I was

Scott Benner 4:05
gonna ask you, how did you find out that you had type one?

Jacob 4:08
Yeah, the main indicator was losing the 40 pounds, you know, going into DKA. So studying nutrition, I've always been conscious of what I eat. I've always worked out, been athletic my whole life, and around that 25 timeframe, when I was 25 I started to lose a lot of weight and a lot of muscle mass. And I know how to eat properly, and I know how to maintain muscle and I thought I contributed to just being like you hear it all the time. It gets harder to maintain muscle mass as you get older, and that was not the case. So I went from about 160 healthy pounds to 120 pounds when I ended up in the hospital. That was July 1 of 2023 How tall are you?

Scott Benner 4:57
Five? Eight. Wow. You know, it's funny. I have more con. Tax now, because I weigh like, 166 pounds this morning, and if you took 40 more pounds off of me, I'd be in real trouble, like, real significant trouble, you know, and I've got a couple inches, maybe an inch on you, like, height wise, so, but that's really something, man, like you're out on your own by then, you don't live at home.

Jacob 5:19
I was actually, I was living with my ex girlfriend at the time. So in Columbus, I studied at Ohio State, and then I stayed for three more years in Columbus, once I graduated,

Scott Benner 5:30
okay, Did she notice? Did she say something?

Jacob 5:34
That's a dynamic question. Yeah, she noticed. I think we both knew something was off, but me being the way that I am, the way that I eat, the way that I work out, the routine, I didn't really think it was something to consider, like, to be concerned with Exactly, yeah, I wasn't concerned with it. And then seeing my parents on the occasion, versus I was living with her at the time, so she saw me on a daily basis, and those changes happened. And she did bring it to my family's attention that, you know, I was, I was losing weight. I contributed the drinking a lot of water, going to the bathroom a lot. I work out. I drink water. I could use the restroom. That wasn't like anything out of my normal. It felt like, right? It was the strength, you know, I always have been in sports and activities, even recreational just outside of college, and I couldn't even shoot a basketball from the three point line to the bucket. I couldn't serve a volleyball over the net, and that was about a week prior to ending up in the hospital. And that was concerning 120

Scott Benner 6:38
pounds. You must look like a pre pubescent boy, right? You must have been that

Jacob 6:43
small. Yeah, I lost a lot of weight. Friends, family were coming up to all their friends and family, asking if I was sick, if I was okay, yeah, and that was the main indicator when my family was like, All right, maybe something's

Scott Benner 6:58
up. Okay. See, did you head to a doctor then? Or did you wait till you, like, almost passed out and died? Doctor, okay,

Jacob 7:05
so I 25 at the time, right? You get kicked off your parents insurance at 26 I thought it would be a good idea before my 26th birthday to test my blood and go through the whole routine checkup. And when I did my fasted blood test, it came back at around 390 Okay, so nothing terribly insane, but that diabetes, you know, right there, 390 and my PCP, God bless his soul, but he decided to prescribe me five units of Lantus. So that long acting insulin, and he said, See me in four days. Within that, within those four days

Scott Benner 7:50
I was in the hospital, he wanted to shoot five units of Atlantis a day. Yes, that was the entirety of it. And then we'll see you

Jacob 7:56
in four days. Yes, he this was right around that July 4 area. So, you know, July 1, or really, was June 30. He was like, Here you go. Here's some Lantus. And he was on vacation, and he was like, you should see me after vacation. And within that timeframe, I was in the hospital,

Scott Benner 8:13
he was trying to get you through I thought. I was like, he's trying to get you through the holiday. Exactly what he was trying to do, right? Did he tell you had type one diabetes when he gave you the Lantus.

Jacob 8:21
No, no, no, actually, that that was a whole ordeal. Even in the hospital, I had nurses saying I had diabetes. I had nurses coming in saying, We don't know yet. So I was just kind of confused the whole time. Yeah, just wanted the actual diagnosis, because it was trending that way. It seems that way we have my aunts on my dad's side is actually a type one diabetic, so I had a broad understanding of the disease through education and watching her go through it. So my father called her, and the morning of me going to the hospital, my blood sugar was actually 590 right around there, and I was in a waiting room for about six hours before they brought me back. Do you think you were in DKA? Yeah, I spent a couple nights in the ICU. Actually, I think it was about 30 to 36 hours in the ICU, and you know, they're waking you up every 30 minutes, pumping you with potassium. And my anion gap was, I don't know the exact number, but it was a DKA number.

Scott Benner 9:23
Yeah, like, yeah. Well, they're worried about your blood gasses and everything else at that point. And, yeah, well, okay, that's how that went. And so you said your aunt has type one,

Jacob 9:32
yes. So she's had type one, I believe, since she was about 15. She was one of the first Medtronic pump users that got insurance to cover it back in the day. Wow. How old is she now about she's a couple years younger than my father, so I would put her right around like 5354

Scott Benner 9:53
okay, but she's the first person in what her area to get a pump covered by insurance. Mm.

Jacob 10:00
Yes, that's the that's how the story goes. Right? They were fighting back and forth with the insurance, and eventually she got put onto a Medtronic pump. Don't think it's a trial at that point, but if insurance is covering it, but yeah, insurance was able to cover the Medtronic pump for her. I don't know what age it was that she got on to the Medtronic pump.

Scott Benner 10:19
Do you know how old she was when she was diagnosed?

Jacob 10:23
Yeah, like, around 15. I want to say,

Scott Benner 10:25
you know, nobody ever tells a story, Jacob, it's like I was the 15th person to do that. You always hear like I was the first person my family, the first family in this bubble. I'm like, Okay, I even my friend of mine, he used to tell people like we were the first family in our neighborhood to have a VCR. And I'm like, What did you go to everybody's house and check? How do you know that? Yeah, knocking on the doors. Yeah. Hey, we have a VCR. I got to check to make sure nobody else has one, because I've got some claims to make.

Jacob 10:49
Yeah, running around with the movie. Can you put this into your Oh, you can't. I can.

Scott Benner 10:54
You know, where we used to rent the movies out of the back of a pharmacy, really, a local pharmacy. They had a little room in the back. They had maybe 50 movies. They had one copy of each. And you went back there and and rented them. You had to leave 100 back then. Keep in mind, I'm talking about like 89 you had to leave $100 cash with them, in case you didn't return the tape. That's ridiculous. That's absurd to me. That's how much the tapes were valued at, and they couldn't replace them. Like, it wasn't as easy as just grabbing another one. They're like, look, we have one copy of Top Gun here. And it wasn't like, I know even this sounds crazy, like everybody didn't have credit cards, so you had to give them 100 cash they held it, and that was you were allowed to rent from them while they held your

Jacob 11:37
100. Yeah, it's, it's the complete reverse. Nowadays you can't even use cash in some places.

Scott Benner 11:43
I did have a situation the other day where I pulled money out of my pocket and the person looked at me like, What are you gonna do

Jacob 11:49
with that? Yeah, I live in Cleveland, just like West Side of Cleveland, and I have the standing room season pass to the Cleveland guardians game. Nice. And I have a quota for myself. I try to get to five a month. You get all the home games. You just stand. I like standing anyway. I sit for work. But it's cashless. Everything inside. So, you know, you have people handing you cash and, like, can you snag me a drink real quick? Like, Sure, man, I don't know. Cash works for me. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 12:16
just put it in my pocket. Yeah. But yeah, it's really interesting. So other autoimmune stuff for you, or for anybody else in the family,

Jacob 12:23
certainly. So my dad's side, again, both grandparents, type twos diabetes, right? Is pretty prevalent, and they just, they really don't want to change their eating habits, and they're at the age where they're going to do what they want to do. I can't get them on CGM. I've tried. That's what I like to do for a living, right? Yeah, and I grew up as an asthmatic, so I was on a nebulizer until probably, like five, six, I want to say, also terrible allergies. I was allergic to everything under the sun besides food, which is great. I'm a foodie. My mom's a chef, so food is a passion of mine, which drew me to my education with the nutrition, but out of my siblings, yeah, I was the one that had the autoimmune

Scott Benner 13:08
disorders, trees, nuts, grass, dust, everything. You're

Jacob 13:12
not nuts, not nuts, just trees, high grass. You know, doctors like, don't go outside if it's a lot of pollen out. August is actually the worst month for me, so I get it a little bit still, okay, but no climbing trees, no long grass, and I still did all of those things because I'm an outdoors kid, and what are you gonna do? I'll sneeze a couple 100 times for the day if I can get outside pet dander. Yes, yeah, pet dander, the whole thing Gotcha. Yeah, no cats. But I hear it's a seven year cycle. So I've gotten much better with animals, maybe because we got a dog when I was younger, and I just dealt with it. You know, I was getting allergy shots every other week in both arms. Yeah,

Scott Benner 13:52
I have to tell you, when I was young, I had the worst allergies, like seasonal, like outdoor, like the what you're describing, and we got lucky, like, our kids didn't, like, kind of get branded with all that, but mine went away, like, at some point, I don't know when, in my 20s, I just stopped sneezing. Like it used to be, like spring would come. I touched my eyes once, and it felt like somebody was rubbing my eyeballs with sandpaper for weeks, right? Like, but that just doesn't happen to me anymore, and I think it was Kohl's, my son's junior year of high school had to have been his junior year the summer of his junior year of high school. So going into his senior year, because he was out visiting with all these different baseball teams for college, and we went to this one day. Yeah, one, this one, he came in, I think he come in on Friday. You spend the night with the guys, you go to a practice on Saturday, and you hang out for the day. And then you, I forget, you went to, maybe you went to classes on Friday, and then you went to a game on Sunday, or something like that. Watch the game anyway, like everything was indoors until we got to the game. And then. The fourth, fifth inning, like, we're standing there, and he's like, I'm dying. His eyes were just watering, and he was sneezing and coughing. He could it was, it was to the point where, when we left, he said, I'm not going to be able to come here. Like, he's like, this is the time of year. I'll need to be outside. Like, you know, as we get back from the fall and everything, he's like, I can't, I can't come here. And he ended up turning them down just just because he had trouble breathing at their stadium. And now it's, I don't know, six years later, and he still has seasonal allergies, but they're not nearly as bad as they were at that point. It is really interesting, like, because I've heard some people say the seven year thing too. I have no idea if there's any like reality to that or not, the brand new twist. Insulin pump offers peace of mind with unmatched personalization and allows you to target a glucose level as low as 87 there are more reasons why you might be interested in checking out twist, but just in case that one got you twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. You can target glucose levels between 87 and 180 it's completely up to you. In addition to precision insulin delivery that's made possible by twist design. Twist also offers you the ability to edit your carb entries even after you've bolused. This gives the twist loop algorithm the best information to make its decisions with, and the twist loop algorithm lives on the pump, so you don't have to stay next to your phone for it to do its job. Twist is now available in select areas. So if you'd like to learn more or get on the wait list, go to twist.com/juicebox that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get on the twist, wait list and be notified as soon as it's available in your area. Links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, who is making life with diabetes easier with the mini med 780 G system. The mini med 780 G automated insulin delivery system anticipates, adjusts and corrects every five minutes. Real world results show people achieving up to 80% time and range with recommended settings, without increasing lows. But of course, Individual results may vary. The 780 G works around the clock, so you can focus on what matters. Have you heard about Medtronic, extended infusion set? It's the first and only infusion set labeled for up to a seven day wear. This feature is repeatedly asked for, and Medtronic has delivered. 97% of people using the 780 G reported that they could manage their diabetes without major disruptions of sleep. They felt more free to eat what they wanted, and they felt less stress with fewer alarms and alerts you can't beat that. Learn more about how you can spend less time and effort managing your diabetes by visiting Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

Jacob 17:55
Yeah, neither do I maybe just build up some type of immunity as you get older, but I was in the same spot as your son. I played almost my mom put me in almost every sport, and just to get us coordinated and get us interested in athletics, but soccer, indoor soccer, you know those little rubber pellets that they put on the Tur? Yeah, I was allergic to those for some reason. Yeah, I would just, I couldn't even play in soccer indoors, and then I wanted to do football, but football, you started up in August. It's the worst month for me when it comes to allergies, the heat in Ohio, asthma on top of it. So I wasn't able to play football either. And it's frustrating, and it kind of ties back into diabetes. There's certain things that you want to do, but you have limitations on the disease, yeah, that extend past maybe your own physical abilities, right? So you have to find that fair balance. You know, if you want to go out for a run, your body might tell you you can go another three, but your diabetes is saying you got to stop and chuck some juice.

Scott Benner 19:00
You know, this is not a story I have all the details on, but I can recall some soccer players, specifically goalies and some other people who spent a lot of time on artificial turf, like developing, like, certain kinds of cancer, and I think they ended up tracing it back to those rubber pellets. Maybe it was a blessing. In disgust, I was gonna say, you might have got away lucky. I'm gonna have to look into that later. Into that later. But also, I did just look it up. And it says the seven year cycle is not a strict pattern, but your seasonal allergies can change over time, improve, worsen, shift. You know, get easier. Your immune response in the environment can fluctuate. It says, so anyway, that's going on your family. You don't have anything else. You have thyroid or celiac or anything like that yourself. Contour, next.com/juicebox that's the link you'll use to find out more about the contour. Next Gen blood glucose meter. When you get there, there's a little bit at the top you can click right on blood glucose monitoring. I'll do it with you. Go to meters. Click on any of the meters, I'll click on the Next Gen, and you're going to get more information. It's easy to use and highly accurate. Smart light provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels, and of course, with Second Chance sampling technology, you can save money with fewer wasted test strips. As if all that wasn't enough, the contour next gen also has a compatible app for an easy way to share and see your blood glucose results. Contour, next.com/juicebox and if you scroll down at that link, you're going to see things like a Buy Now button. You could register your meter after you purchase it. Or what is this? Download a coupon, oh, receive a free contour next gen blood glucose meter. Do tell contour next.com/juicebox head over there. Now get the same accurate and reliable meter that we use.

Jacob 20:53
No, no, I had a little bit of, like, stomach issues. Growing up in college, I ate a lot of, honestly, a lot of yogurt and dairy. I was really into the whole you hit high school, you wanna I played baseball, but ultimately I dropped that come around junior year, and I got into weightlifting. So I would come home from the gym and I would eat. My mom had an entire shelf devoted to yogurts for me, those Dannon light and fit yogurts. I'd have four a day, and I was getting some type of stomach issues. I don't know if it was from the dairy or from wheat, because I would put cereal on top of that and all the fun stuff. But now, for a little bit there, I had a little bit of stomach issues, but nothing outside of that. Everything was fine and dandy. Moving into college, I could eat, drink, whatever I wanted. Did you play something in college? I did not. So going to Ohio State. Oh, not that. I'm not an elite athlete. I just enjoy the recreational activities. But I played softball in Columbus, right men's softball league, because baseball was always my passion, and then also sand volleyball

Scott Benner 22:03
was that tough to just stop, like high school stopped and and like organized sports just stopped.

Jacob 22:09
No, I think really the reason I got out of it, for the most part, was because I wanted that freedom and choice to do what I wanted to do. Yeah, I still extremely active, but if I wanted to not be in a formal workout setting where I could just build my own workouts, and I'm certified in personal training, I actually it just expired. So I was certified for about four years, and I really enjoyed learning how to build your own workouts and just the freedom to choose to go on a run if I wanted to, instead of be forced to take drills all day. What'd you get your undergrad in nutrition?

Scott Benner 22:49
Oh, okay. And I know you said it a couple times. I wasn't sure if that was the degree or not. Okay, so you're you're in the hospital, you're sitting in chairs for six seven hours. They finally get you back there, keeping the ICU for what you said, maybe like, 36 hours, two days, something like that. Now you're on your way back to your big apartment you live with your girlfriend in at that time. So

Jacob 23:09
actually it was another two days in the hospital. So they shifted me out of the ICU into the regular part of the hospital. I guess you would call it, yeah, and this is when they're still trying to figure out what is, what's going on. They're balancing out my electrolytes, balancing out the sugar, and it's dragging on. It's July 4, actually, when I got that official diagnosis and was able to get out of the hospital. So you can imagine it's almost out of a movie. I got out around 9pm on July 4, and there's fireworks going off, got a big smile across my face, because I'm finally free, yeah, and somebody who likes to move around, being stuck in a little hospital setting like that drove me insane, right? So I was doing anything I could to get out there, and then I actually moved back into my father's place. My parents are divorced. They divorced when I was six, and my father, I stayed at his apartment for about a year after the diagnosis, but my mom took care of me for the first few weeks coming out of the hospital, just because she had the ability to do so it was the summer, and she's the food service director at a school, so she was off for that summer. I

Scott Benner 24:19
have to ask you a question, just because I think it fills the context, then a little better. Yeah, you were on shaky ground with the girl already, or you just thought, like for health reasons, like, I need to go somewhere where somebody can look after me.

Jacob 24:34
So we lived together for two and a half years. At that time, she was my ex girlfriend and moved out of the apartment. Oh, and I was fortunate enough where I landed a position at a startup company in Columbus called prescribed fit, which was in the orthopedic space, helping patients with weight loss so that they could be under a certain BMI, so that they could have total. Hip or knee replacements I see, and I was making enough where I could cover both of our halves for the rent, which was great. So I decided I was going to keep the apartment and stay in Columbus during that time, actually about three weeks before, maybe about a month before, I got diagnosed, I lost that position there, and that's when I made the decision to move back towards

Scott Benner 25:25
Cleveland. Hey, I'm sorry. This is probably apropos of nothing, but she tells your parents you're losing weight, and then not long after that, like, did she break up with you while you were sick? Or did you break up with her while you you were sick? Is that the timing? This

Jacob 25:38
is where it's funny. I told myself I wasn't going to talk too much about my ex. Well, then don't hear me. This is it's great because it gives good context we thought after the diagnosis, maybe because your personality, your mood, everything changes when your blood sugars in the 567, 100. Who knows? You know, I've had multiple nights where I've drink. You know, during that time, I probably had five beers and a pizza, right? Yeah. So who knows where my sugar was at that time, and I was irritable all the time. I was stressed, though, with work so you can you

Scott Benner 26:11
guys weren't getting along great to begin with, and you were a bit of a because that was going on.

Jacob 26:17
Okay, how's it going? I think it was a little bit on both sides, though, right? Yeah. So we decided maybe that was the reason. And once I was treated and my diabetes was managed, that wasn't the reason. You go to

Scott Benner 26:30
the hospital, your blood sugar is nice and stable, and you're both like, no, no. This isn't why we don't like each

Jacob 26:35
other, yeah? I mean, she knew I was in the hospital and didn't reach out. So, oh, okay, you see my locations in the hospital for four days and you care, then you probably reach out.

Scott Benner 26:44
I guess you figured it out during that time. Yes, oh, my God, I'm sorry. We're laughing. I must have been painful at the time. Oh, the pain is subsided. Okay, all right. Well, okay, so you're at home with your dad, then for a while, where you're getting back on your feet and everything. Are you managing the diabetes on your own? I guess you're in a job hunt at the same

Jacob 27:03
time. Yeah. And so was fortunate enough, I was in the orthopedic space at that startup. A family friend, her daughter was graduating and going to college within that party, so to speak, for the graduation party, and this is I'm fresh out of the hospital, maybe a week out of the hospital, maybe two, and I'm still at that stage where you don't know how many snacks or what you need, so I'm walking around with this little cooler because I need to make sure I have all my snacks with me. Right? The girl who's graduating, mother, family friend, her, one of her friends, works within diabetes. So this is the connection that I made. And I turned in my resume to the HR, she advised me to gave me a little bit of research about the company, and I managed to get a position within, you know, a few weeks. Oh, that's awesome, yeah. And it was a lot all at once, just because newly diagnosed, so learning and navigating on how to manage diabetes, but also I have a tremendous amount of support from my company, because we're embedded in diabetic care. So within the home life, I had support, and then while I'm at work, I also had a lot of support and resources. So I do feel very fortunate, almost like it's a calling just to be within the diabetic space. Yeah, I was already in medical channel, yeah. So this is why not? Yeah, get a little closer to home, right?

Scott Benner 28:35
Exactly. So how do you manage? Is it MDI at first they I remember the first doctor tried to give you Lantus, but I don't think that got too far. So what too far. So what

Jacob 28:43
happened after that? Yeah, so after first doctor gave melantis, right? And then I ended up in DKA within four days, so not enough insulin, five, five units of Lantus, I got MDI. So out of the hospital. They want to make sure that you can survive without the technology, and I think that's pretty common for most areas of the country. So blood glucose meter, MDI, is monitoring that way. I actually had a family friend who had a libre so we slapped one of those on me without a prescription. I don't know if that's legal or not, but I'd rather have streamlined blood sugar readings directly to my phone and then still adhere to taking the blood glucose meter test strips and the lancet and all

Scott Benner 29:30
the fun stuff. Hey, your friend had diabetes. Why did they have a Libra?

Jacob 29:33
My mother's friend, he, I think, pancreatitis, or something along those lines, type two, okay, and he manages his diabetes, but he had spares and backups. Okay, okay, and he knew I was in the hospital, so actually, right, right when I was getting out of the hospital, we put one on instantly, just because I've done I was doing research with my laptop while I was in the hospital.

Scott Benner 29:56
You weren't busy writing poems or making dinner dates. So you were, you were. Get a lot of

Jacob 30:00
free time. Jacob, yeah, nowhere, nowhere to send those so you're doing

Scott Benner 30:05
your own research in the hospital. You know you want a CGM. Luckily, a friend of your mom's has one for you.

Jacob 30:10
Exactly. Okay, okay. And then MDI is lasted a certain amount of time. They they needed to ensure that I knew how to carb count, okay? And do the whole sliding scale. Studying nutrition as a background. I basically logged all of my macros through an app called My Fitness Pal. I think it's a pretty common app, yeah, pretty common app. You know, not everybody uses it, but is probably aware that it exists. So I was tracking everything prior. I knew how many carbs are in a serving of a lot of different complex carbs, or, you know, even simple carbs. So I was able to show my care team that I can count carbs and guesstimate carbs pretty accurate. So I got onto an Omnipod, and you're, you know, this podcast really helped push me towards an Omnipod, not push but I listened to a lot of the Omnipod podcasts and decided that's something that I wanted, as an athletic person myself, I think the tubeless was the way to go, and I was on an Omnipod and a Dexcom g6 system within about a month and a half.

Scott Benner 31:17
That's quick, and today you still using the same pump and CGM. Yes,

Jacob 31:21
yeah. Love my Omnipod. Love the Dexcom g6 I know the g7 exists, but, you know, I try to find balance in my thought process. It's not because I want to stick to the older technology, because I think I see my grandparents in this situation, they still use their blood glucose meters, and they're still doing MDI, even though they qualify for a CGM based on the criteria, right? I just can't get them to use that technology because they're so comfortable with the way that they've been managing their diabetes for 25 plus years. Yeah. So I'm staying on the g6 system until I feel comfortable with all of the Reddit threads and all of the potential problems and issues that I see and read on the g7

Scott Benner 32:01
Oh, you're waiting for the Internet to stop complaining before you move up, you might have to wait a while. There's going to be complaints everywhere, right? Yeah, I take your point though. It's working for you right now.

Jacob 32:10
It's, yeah, it's tried and true, right? So, awesome.

Scott Benner 32:14
Omnipod five or Omnipod Omnipod five, it's doing what you want it is. It is a big

Jacob 32:21
accomplishment for me. So my my aunt, as I mentioned, has type one, and she's her a 1c is absolutely fantastic. It's in the five somewhere, and it has been for I don't know how long, so I looked to her for a lot of advice, initially, off the diagnosis, and I wanted to be just like her. I wanted my a 1c just like her. So within a year, I managed to get my a 1c from an 11 and a half to five, five right on the dot. How'd you do that? A lot of lot of upset, not obsession, but fine critiques. To my day, it took a lot of mental capacity away from me to do other things, because I was so embedded in making sure my sugar levels were perfect. You know, a five, a, 1c, is it was a 97 average.

Scott Benner 33:07
Yeah, you gave away some other stuff in your life for a while to to spend some time learning about this. I

Jacob 33:13
did. I gave away a good portion of my life. Well, that year, yeah, and I wasn't in automated I was in manual mode 95% of the time. I think it said because I wanted to personally make all of these decisions, I didn't feel comfortable yet trusting a system to manage the diabetes. I thought I personally have a better capability of managing it on my own, based on certified and personal, I know how diet and exercise works, so I'm like, I'm going to make this perfect. I'm going to get it, and it's going to be perfect for my whole life. It came with a lot of lows being, you know, you're riding that line the whole time. You're avoiding spikes, but also have to make sure you're not dropping to a spot where you could have potential fatal outcomes, right? And that next visit with my Endo, after the five was there, she was like, hey, congrats, but you're having way too many lows, and I was having quite a bit of lows, yeah. What did that mean? Too many lows, just too many below 50 fives,

Scott Benner 34:16
frequently, like throughout the week, throughout the day, yeah, throughout

Jacob 34:19
weekday, or whatever. Some days, you know, some days are better than worse. Some weeks are great, some weeks are bad, probably daily. In an

Scott Benner 34:27
effort to keep your blood sugar under 100 you were being more aggressive, and it was ending in lows, even though you're and you were wearing a CGM at that point.

Jacob 34:35
Yeah. So on top of that intense exercising I was doing, you know, I'm going on longer runs, long bike rides, and it's just dropping your sugar, which is fair. You have to combat that with carbohydrates. And I was doing a decent job. And I think some of these lows were false lows. You know, the Dexcom system can show you at a 75 going down, and I got a banana in my system, and it. Still drop, and then it comes back up. So yeah, it's touching the 55 but you know, my sugars probably not actually 55 it's just playing catch up. But yeah, and she recommended I switched to automated mode at least half of the time. Yeah, since then, I've been in automated mode probably 95% of the time. So it kind of did a big flip, and I feel like diabetes isn't so much of a hassle anymore. And yeah, sure. My a, 1c, is not out of five. It's probably low. Six is, is an estimate, but it's given me a lot of my life back. I feel like good where I can focus on other things.

Scott Benner 35:37
You're also you're still being aggressive, I imagine. Yes, yeah, right. So you took a little bit of what you learned, and now you're letting the Omnipod five try to stop some of those lows. For

Jacob 35:45
you correct, yeah, and it's does a great job. Overall, I catch more highs than lows. So, you know, lows for me, because you're exercising right, lows are going to happen and you're gonna have to correct those you can't. I learned, actually, a pretty scary moment in my life about I can't stay out of the hospital. Scott on July, 4 or fifth. July, 5 of this year, I had a seizure in Boston because my blood sugar was so low. And that was a huge just my major slap in the face from diabetes, because I thought I could control this, and I'm gonna ride as close as possible to the 70 line as I can. But we were just on a walk on the Freedom Trail and felt shaky. I sat down, and I woke up in the back of an ambulance. So, oh, I'm sorry, yeah, that's it's scary, yeah. But I've never, I've never experienced anything like that. And you know, you hear people that have had it for a long time, probably not, probably, but may have had a seizure in their life. It's just nothing I expected to go through. I thought I have a pretty good control over this, and sometimes you just don't. That's just how it works. I guess.

Scott Benner 37:00
Do you think you were being more aggressive than your knowledge allowed

Jacob 37:03
for? Yes, 100%

Scott Benner 37:07
you had all the desire in the world. You had a little bit of knowledge, and you had an ethos like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do what my aunt's doing. And I

Jacob 37:15
was over ambitious. Yeah, I think the knowledge, the knowledge, sure, I felt knowledgeable. I had papers on diabetes and, you know, college, and I'm not saying I know everything about diabetes, but like I had, if there was one person I feel like and my family says this too, you know, I didn't come from a background of, I'm just going to eat a cheeseburger. I don't know what's in it. Kind of thing I know what's in food and how many carbs are in most things I know, diet and exercise. So I felt confident in my ability to navigate this. I didn't have the experience I was too new to be trying so hard to keep an A, 1c where it's perfect, yeah, and I thought I could do it, because I've been able to do most things throughout my life. When I put my mind to it, I'm a learner, and I was like, I'm gonna learn this. I'm gonna perfect it. It's not gonna be a major part of my life once I figure out this perfect system that works, okay? And there's no perfect system.

Scott Benner 38:14
All this stuff that you were trying to do, where did you like, gather the information from doctors like,

Jacob 38:21
not really trial and error. I mean, honestly, this podcast. So when I got my Dexcom system from my diabetic educator, she suggested your podcast, okay? And I took that to heart. I went through the I want to say it's divining or defining diabetes, all of the kind of the initial things that you need to know. You know, what's the Bolus, what's basal, right? And I listened to the, I would just walk at night for for two hours and just listen to a podcast or two. And I did that for the first month I was diagnosed at least. So I consume probably 50 to 100 of these of your podcasts, and I felt good about all of the information I was taking in, and I still do feel great about all the information I took in, but I was taking it, and then I was like, I'm gonna run with this, and I'm gonna perfect

Scott Benner 39:19
it, and not just going a little slowly and adding some here and then waiting to see what happens. You were just, you threw it all up at once, and you're like, and it was too much,

Jacob 39:28
yeah, okay, because most people you talk to within diabetes, it feels to me as they're trying to keep their sugar down, and I felt more like trying to keep it up. And I thought maybe this is the way that you should do it. And it wasn't like an over aggressive amount of basal that I was taking a day, or an over aggressive Bolus. It was a combination of complex carbs mixed with vegetables, a lot of vegetables, because it's digesting slower. So. So I was keeping a pretty level straight line when it came to my sugars, so not a huge amount of fluctuation. And I thought that that's just the way to do it. So I don't, I didn't consume sugar. I consume more sugar now as a diabetic than I did before I was a diabetic, which is frustrating at a certain extent. But yeah, I was like, I'm qualified to do this. Out of anybody like, this is what I enjoy. I enjoy food and exercise. And managing diabetes comes down to a lot of food and exercise.

Scott Benner 40:31
Do you have those kinds of lows any longer? No, not

Jacob 40:36
as often, especially being an automated mode, because the manual mode, it can push you down without you, just throughout the day, without you needing to be

Scott Benner 40:45
pushed down. I mean, anybody who's on any kind of aid system that you can see your insulin, like when you see the times that it's taking basal completely away, sometimes for, you know, half an hour or more. And you think, like if I was just in a manual situation, or if I was MDI, that basal is just working constantly, you can't stop it. There's a big difference. So would you say that there's something that you've learned or gained since then, or was it literally just adding Omnipod five that balance things for you?

Jacob 41:17
Well, I so I had the Omnipod five when I was in the

Scott Benner 41:20
manual. I mean, using it in automation, I've

Jacob 41:23
learned that you're not going to perfect this as much as I like you want to be at a perfect level at all times, and you can, you can get closer to that, I think, in manual mode, if you're attentive, sure enough. But the automated or the automation behind it, gives you peace of mind for one at night, I wasn't having lows anymore, because the automation just can allow for me to sleep through the night, but just letting it taking back some of my own control, and letting trusting the technology to do the work. And I wasn't comfortable with that at first. Okay, you are now, yeah, yeah, I'm a lot more comfortable with it. And my a 1c i think is still an appropriate a 1c but I'm not going to determine my life around having a perfect a 1c I'm not going to not go out and have a drink with my friends or eat a slice of pizza, because my sugar is going to spike a little bit, and a spike, to me is like touching 200 Yeah, because I'm so locked in on it. But prior to that, it was, I can't do this. I can't do that because I have a perfect blood sugar

Scott Benner 42:28
level. Gotcha, you mentioned in your note a little bit about some mental health stuff. Did it? Can you talk about what you were going through?

Jacob 42:35
Yeah, it's, I mean, it's a little debilitating, knowing like, I've wanted to do certain activities and things, and it's prevented me in a certain extent, to give it my full everything, because I was just, I enjoy snowboarding. Let's say I was in Colorado. And I don't know if it was the adrenaline, but every time we went up to the top of the mountain, my sugar was like, 222 30. And I'm like, I haven't even eaten. My friends are eating sandwiches on the ski lift. And I'm like, I haven't even touched a bite of food today, and I want to eat so badly, and now I'm like, in a bad mood. But

Scott Benner 43:13
could be the elevation, by the way, that's a good point. Yeah. People talk about it both ways. Some people like, when I get up higher, I get lower. When I go up higher, I get higher. I've heard people say it both ways. I've heard people talk about it about, like, pressure in the tubing on some pumps that maybe forces more insulin through almost like going on an airplane. I don't know. There's a lot of like, you know, personal stories that people tell, but there's a lot of confusion around elevation. So, or, like you said, or you're just about to throw yourself down a mountain, and maybe it's adrenaline

Jacob 43:45
Exactly. Yeah, it could be either one, but yeah, there's certain things that I would love to be able to do, and I'm learning how to do those things. I've done half marathons and before my seizure about a month and a half ago, when I would go out on a three mile walk, I would throw a they're called RX bars. They probably have 25 carbs. I throw one of those in my pocket and be like, All right, I'm probably good to go. And now I'm carrying around more things, juice, my blood glucose meter sometimes, yeah, just because that kind of scared the out of me, to be honest, if I didn't wake up, I don't think I would have even known,

Scott Benner 44:24
but so it's meant to be just, like, on one second and shut off the next second, yeah, just you're not there, and then you wake back up. And would you have like, a come to Jesus moment? Like, okay, well, I guess I don't leave without juice anymore

Jacob 44:39
or correct my sister, I'm blessed to have I was, we were in Boston for July 4 vacation, which is just funny. You should

Scott Benner 44:48
probably stay inside on the Fourth of July. I'm just saying, yeah, the

Jacob 44:51
joke of the family. And this is why it's crazy, because it's three years in a row. So you got type one diagnosis two years ago, last. Year, and this is part of the mental thing. I finally fell back to my strength, right? I put the 40 pounds back on through hard work, exercise and eating, and with the help of, you know, insulin, but we join my buddies in a wooden bat recreational league men's in Cleveland, I'm throwing pitches. I played baseball throughout my life. I could throw about 8085 I'm feeling good. He's like, Dude, you got to get out here. Coach. What really wants to come out and meet you. I go to my first game. I'm all dressed up in my got my pants, my cleats, and I'm playing left field. Naturally, we're getting rocked, and it's a close game, but the pitcher's given up way too many runs, and I get pointed at. I do my bullpen. 15 minute rain delay, sitting down in the dugout. Rain stops. I come in, my buddy's catching I'm about to throw my first warm up pitch. I throw that warm up pitch, and it's called a thrower's fracture. I shattered my arm in four places from throwing a baseball, really? First pitch? Yeah. Oh, surgery. July 5 last year,

Scott Benner 46:06
18 screws, two plates. I like you sitting in your house watching a movie on the Fourth of July from now on,

Jacob 46:11
yeah, that's why the joke of the family, I'm gonna be bubble wrapped in the closet. Did

Scott Benner 46:15
they give you any indication about how that happens, that that fracture?

Jacob 46:18
Yeah, yeah. I mean, no, there's no specific correlation, but my thought process, my sister, she's a physician assistant at the Cleveland Clinic, and you know, bless her, she's been through everything with me, and she's really helped. She actually was the one that put together the idea that I was probably in DKA. We believe maybe I put on the muscle, not quickly, but my body wasn't up to speed from being in DKA and, you know, kind of eating itself for a while, that that type of aggressive movement, my bone wasn't ready for. It hasn't been disproved. It hasn't been proved, but it's just my thought process. It could have been poor mechanics somehow, like, you know, a 15 minute rain delay after I threw my last pitch. And I probably threw way too many pitches that day. We don't know, but what we do know I was in the hospital again. How many pitches Did you throw? Do you think? Well, we did the warm up, my buddy and I threw in the backyard. So actually, I'm living with him now. He bought a house in Cleveland, and we were freshman year Ohio State roommates, right? So after I stayed with my father felt comfortable enough, moved in with him, and we were thrown in the backyard. And then get to the game, do our warm ups, and then we're in. I'm in left field. I probably got 10 balls hit to me. I'm doing the crow hop, throwing all the way in, and then I do my bullpen, and then sit for 15 minutes with a cold arm, and then I threw my first warm up, and it broke. So I would say, I don't know, 8090, yeah, a lot of balls, probably too many

Scott Benner 47:48
a guy who had previously been sitting around at his job and not playing baseball since high school,

Jacob 47:53
right? Yeah, since high school, but I played softball for multiple years, so I'm still throwing things. It's not like a It's not emotion. And my buddy and I, we were throwing in the backyard twice a week, you know, as quick as I can. So I'm like, Finally, like, I'm back, I'm about to play recreational sports, and then my arm shatters. And that was a whole nother ordeal. You know, when your your arms and pieces managing diabetes, trying to fill up an insulin vial when your arm can't even move. It's a lot of support for my family. How long was the recovery on that? I mean, the official recovery at least six months. Oh, wow. Were you in a cast? At points, I was in a sling for the first two weeks. They have to let the blood and the swelling go down, and then they cut you open bicep, and they screw you together, 18 screws, two plates, wow, 52 staples to seal

Scott Benner 48:52
it all up. How'd you manage your blood sugar during

Jacob 48:55
that? Yeah, that's that's a tricky one, because you can't do a lot. I like meal prepping. You know? It just makes it easier when you you're eating the same things. You know how it affects your blood sugar, you can't do a lot of that when you can't even work a knife or your lefty now, right? My favorite question is, was it your dominant arm? And yeah, I was throwing a fastball, so I'm eating left handed. It's is difficult because the timing is different. Your Pre-Bolus could be off because you can't get your meal ready in time, and now you're eating something else. Yeah, it was more there's a lot more highs and lows throughout that a lot more swings

Scott Benner 49:31
they have you on any kind of antibiotics or steroids or anything like that,

Jacob 49:36
pain medication. It was that I didn't know that level of pain existed. No kidding, yeah, so they had me on, like Percocet or whatever it was, for a couple months, and that was tough, especially, you know, with work, right? I'm not going into the office. Everything was from home. I could, kind of couldn't drive a car, because you're on medication. In, and I don't even know, like, how my arm would have worked at that time, but from a diabetic, yeah, it did. It did affect it quite a bit, because everything had to be reached with my left arm. So wherever my sights were, it was going to be my left arm. Oh, but I wasn't putting it on my right so don't put them on my left arm, because how do you reach or how do you put an omnipot or a Dexcom with one arm on the same arm? Pretty impossible. You and the roommate aren't that close? Oh, we were close enough I couldn't take a shower for three weeks. So God bless him. He he helped you what? He was wiping me down. Oh, my God, I had some boxers on. But, you know, no no showers. Brother was helping me out. Father was helping me out. Step father helping me out. So I am very fortunate and blessed to have a lot of support around me.

Scott Benner 50:46
Yeah, of course, are you able to play baseball again? Or is that a thing you're not gonna do ever

Jacob 50:50
again? Yeah, we'll see about that one. Scott, I probably got I've thrown a bit, but I'd probably maybe touch 60 miles an hour now, not nowhere near 80. It's

Scott Benner 51:00
not going to be like that. My son doesn't throw a baseball in a couple of years now,

Jacob 51:04
yeah, and it's that's a shape, yeah, got to get out

Scott Benner 51:09
there. Makes me a little sad that he just and he plays a lot of basketball now, that's where he gets his you know, that thing that get that activity out, like, use that energy up, stay in shape and stuff like that. He plays a ton of basketball.

Jacob 51:19
Yeah, I like basketball. That helped with some of my therapy on my arm, because you think about you need extension, so a lot of physical therapy when your arms locked in one spot. Yeah, throwing darts helped me quite a bit, just bouncing a lacrosse ball or a tennis ball on the ground. Through that,

Scott Benner 51:37
say that again, bouncing a lacrosse ball, how? Just

Jacob 51:42
on the ground. The ground, just any, anything that extends your arm. Yeah. Just made it work, because my arm was locked at a 45 degree angle, if you can kind of picture that. And then it took about two and a half months of therapy for them to get it all the way extended out.

Scott Benner 51:57
Geez. That's it, man, you've been through a fair amount in a short time.

Jacob 52:01
Yeah, yeah, certainly. And part of the reason I believe, and I'm sure there's some kind of research to support this, I know I've looked into it at one point that I got the type one, you know, it's a trigger. It's a stress trigger. So covid, I had about eight months prior diagnosis, are up since covid, and then girlfriend, ex girlfriend, you know that whole let's deal, yeah. Well, there's just a lot of mental, emotional and physical stress. All that happened pretty quickly. And

Scott Benner 52:31
you have a family, you know, a background with the autoimmune and type one, specifically, you have brothers and sisters I'm gathering from this,

Jacob 52:41
yep. So older brother about three years older than me, and he's fantastic. He's married, no kids, dog. They have a house. Kind of both work from home, almost picture perfect, right? I'm the middle child here, and then a younger sister. We're very close. She's about 16 months younger than me, and she's about to get married. We have her bachelor bachelorette party in a week from now, so I'm all excited for her. And she's a she's a PA so a physician assistant over at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio,

Scott Benner 53:15
do those two talk about ever getting like screened to see if they have type one markers,

Jacob 53:21
not screened with type one markers, but they do their routine blood

Scott Benner 53:25
work. Do I have an A, 1c that's moving that kind of stuff?

Jacob 53:29
I wouldn't say they keep a log of that, but they do their their annual checkups and

Scott Benner 53:34
such. Okay, yeah. I was just wondering, like, some people want to know, you know, like, is this a thing that maybe I have a predisposition for and some people don't want to know. So yeah, I was just wondering. I

Jacob 53:44
run into those people all the time. I've had friends and family go get their blood checked after I got diagnosed, and I have friends and family and they're like, I really should do that. I'm like, Yeah, you really should. And they're like, Nah, I'm too

Scott Benner 53:54
scared. They just don't want to, yeah. What made you want to come on the podcast? I

Jacob 53:59
have wanted to be on this podcast, I got back into listening to some of just the stories, you know, the personal stories, and I felt like I had a story that I might be able to share and resonate with some people out there. Yeah, I'm glad. So I just figured I'd go ahead and shoot you an email.

Scott Benner 54:17
I'm glad you felt that way. I'll tell you what, though, how close are you to the I was gonna say, I tell you what, like, this idea that you get to go to, like, five guardians games a month, like, Are you, like, walking distance to the stadium? Like, that's the thing that slows me down from going to games, more than anything, because Philly has that standing room stuff too, where, you know, it's not a ton of money to go, like, stand, and I would stand and watch the game for sure, but it's an hour in a car, and then you park, and they charge them so much money to park your car, you think that that was the ticket. And then, you know, then you get a fight with, I mean, listen, you're lucky. You're in Cleveland. I don't know how many people show up to a game here, but every night in Philly, there's 40,000 people at that baseball stadium, you know, like, it turns into, like, your day to go to a game. So I don't go as much. As I want to, but it sounds awesome that you get to go that much. Are you close by to the stadium? Not as close as I'd like to be, but we're about 15. Will you take a train in? Or you drive? Or what do you do?

Jacob 55:13
Yeah, I'll drive. I got my secret parking garage. I know it's $10 to park, and then you go to five a month, and it's $50 a month. That shakes out to be about a $20 adventure. If you don't buy anything inside the ballpark, I'll go to about two or three weekday games throughout the month, and my company were embedded in Cleveland, so if I decide to go to the game, they'll let me out about 30 minutes early. I can beat the traffic, go straight there, and it's mostly on the way home. So I take that as just a commute back home from

Scott Benner 55:45
work. I feel like I was there one time. Is the stadium right? Me? Is there? Like you go out one side of the stadium and go down like this long, kind of flat concrete thing, and then there's a waterway? Is that the Guardian stadium? Am I remembering that right or no, there's no water near the stadium. There's

Jacob 56:00
water. There's water near the state. We're right on Lake Erie. So I can say yes to you. I can't picture exactly like what road you're Yeah, Carnegie,

Scott Benner 56:10
I felt like I saw the stadium. And then we we made a turn, walk through some what felt like. I don't know

Jacob 56:20
dark alleys. I

Scott Benner 56:21
don't know what it felt like Exactly. Then there was water there, but I'm wondering if I was at an older stadium, like, was I at the like, are the Browns

Jacob 56:30
place? Browns are right on the water, so that that would more resonate with the browns.

Scott Benner 56:34
This might be what I'm thinking about. Then, okay, then maybe I've never, I've never seen the Guardian stadium. Then Gotcha.

Jacob 56:39
Well, with the name, my name is Jacob, right? It's still Jacob's field to me. Yeah, I'm blessed enough I'm going on Saturday to the pre season game against the Rams. Are you? I try to go to, I don't go to very many Browns games. It kind of hurts my soul.

Scott Benner 56:54
So No, Jacob, this is the fun time of the year to be a Browns fan, when everybody thinks something's going to

Jacob 56:59
go well, I totally agree, and that's why I'm going on Saturday. I I grew up going to pre season games right around my birthday, yeah, and it's something that I'm fortunate enough to do. So my my buddy and I will be going on Saturday.

Scott Benner 57:13
Now, the Browns PR is magical, the way that every year, everyone acts like, Oh, this is it. We got it all figured out. And then by like, game five, you're like, Oh no, no, this is the

Jacob 57:24
browns. It's ridiculous. Somehow, I was hanging out, you know, got a friend. We grew up together. She's great. She was like, we should just buy the ticket to the first game. And I'm like, All right, let's do it. I spend the money. And this is before the game time app had to disclose all their fees. And it was like, 200 something dollar ticket, which is already absurd to already absurd to me, yeah. And it ended up being like $300 which, mind you, I pay $50 a month for the Guardians. And that is the entire season of 25 baseball games I just watched and more in one ticket. And we got stomped on. I don't even think we we scored a touchdown. I actively try to meal prep or do something while the TV's on. And I'll walk back and forth, and I'll look at the TV and be like, and then I just walk back into the kitchen.

Scott Benner 58:09
I might be on the outside on this one, but I think football is a better television sport than it is

Jacob 58:13
an in person sport. I Yeah, but I, like my father there, I prefer to be at a baseball game, though. Yeah, the weather is better, yeah. And when you're a buck guy, I mean, I can rest my my case with football on you can go watch college football. Yeah, let's go watch some college football, right, right? And then my Sundays, I'll glance here and there. And I've had years where I've, oh, I still follow it, don't get me wrong, yeah, it's just it's so tough being a Browns fan sometimes. And you guys, you got a football team. I

Scott Benner 58:43
don't know what happened, man, we figured it out in the last handful of years. They've got a front office that seems to understand the game better than anything. I mean, every time we lose somebody, just somebody better just shows up. I still think it's crazy that AJ brown plays for the Eagles. I still don't know how they accomplish that, right? Doesn't make any sense at all. So Nick bold is your Savior. Exactly. That was weird, but nevertheless, like you're around your apartment, like, I mean, I'll disclose something here during baseball season, I would tell you that there's maybe 30 games a year where the game's not on TV while it's happening, like the television is on in our house with a baseball game constantly, like while the Phillies are playing. Do you do that with the Guardians? Is it? Are you aware of every game? Yeah,

Jacob 59:29
yeah, and especially as it gets closer down the line. But it's on. If I'm not at the game, I'm getting notifications on my watch. I have, I think, three different group chats with friends that are all tribe fans. So

Scott Benner 59:41
your phone lights up with somebody says, like, Oh, what is he doing? And you actually know what that means, because you're all, yeah, you're all watching the game Exactly. My son attacks like that when we're not together, too, where I'm just like, you say something that out of context, somebody would look at and go, I have no idea what this means. If you've got your head in that baseball game, you know.

Jacob 1:00:00
Yeah, but it's and baseball's our team specifically. You know, we have such a small budget, and we, we don't, we don't spend a lot, but our guys are mighty and true to Cleveland for the most part. So there's always that underdog feeling where we're like, we gotta, we gotta take out the Yankees, you know, we gotta take out Texas. Like, it's just such a great feeling when you win those type of games, sure, or the Dodgers, and we've come close, it's just, you know, we we lost two pitchers because of a gambling scheme. So, like, you can't really control that one. Oh, they got caught gambling. Yeah, they were throwing games. Bosse,

Scott Benner 1:00:38
Oh, that's awesome. That's not a thing you're supposed to do.

Jacob 1:00:42
Yeah? I mean, you're not supposed to throw balls into the dirt because you got money on it. Oopsie. That's crazy. First pitch ball. Okay, hey

Scott Benner 1:00:53
everybody. I know what the bet in top of the seventh inning. I know it's gonna happen. Yeah? Exactly. That sucks for you guys, especially when you're just trying to be a fan and watch it. You know, it's funny, like, I grew up hating the Yankees for having all that money and, you know, buying teams and buying players, and now the Phillies do it. I don't mind it at all. I have to be

Jacob 1:01:12
honest, enjoying the dark side. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:01:14
I'm like, No, this is fine. This is fine. This is how this should be. After watching a lifetime of like baseball, it's just coin flip. Are there going to be any good or not? You know, do they have a chance in any of these games? There's something nice about knowing, like, you you might show up and just, you know, like, something awesome could happen. And then it does, you know, like Kyle Schwarber is a great example of that. Like, man, just, you just sit and watch a game, and when he catches one, it doesn't even look like he moves, really, and the ball is just gone. It's so much fun. Like Bryce Harper was like, the beginning of all but that that seemed like when it feels like, when our our ownership, was like, I'm gonna spend a bunch of money now, and like, and it started there with Harper. So

Jacob 1:01:58
I remember my brother showing me videos of him hitting bombs inside of a football stadium when he was a kid. Yeah, and it's just like, yeah, he turned out to be the real thing. But, and this is what's great about these $50 all home games, standing room passes. I've always played baseball. I've been passionate about baseball, but it's becoming less and less popular with the younger generation, and it brings in the younger generation, right? You're a little bit older, they're going to buy tickets. They're going to sit down. We don't care. We're just there for the environment for the most part, and hopefully you catch a good game, yeah, and you're on your feet the whole time. So, right? That's the trade off. And my dad's like, we should go to a game together. I'll buy his tickets. And I'm like, it's kind of weird to think I'll be sitting and not standing, and most people are thinking the opposite. Yeah, well, Jake, go to a game with your dad. What are you doing? Oh, yeah, I will be okay. All right. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should have? I don't know. I'm sure if I listened through some of your more recent podcasts, and I've been trying to, like, I just heard Arden's name so many times as I was navigating my diabetes. So it's like, and at that time, I don't know how many episodes have come out, but she was in college a lot of the time, or going to college. I just don't know much about her. I've heard her name more than Cole.

Scott Benner 1:03:12
Yeah, go because, I mean, Cole has Hashimotos, but he doesn't have type one, okay, so it's not a ton to talk about with him. He's 25 and he has a good job. He's working away. He worked for Sony for a little while, doing the Statcast stuff. I know when people who watch baseball, they're like, Statcast, that's Google, right? I think Google is just the one that buys the ads on it. Like, I think they call it Google Statcast, because Google pays for it, but it's actually run by a subsidiary of Sony, and he did that for like, a year, which was pretty cool. Like he actually would sit at a desk and monitor like, three or four professional games at once to make sure all the measurements were happening correctly, like how fast the ball was moving, interesting trajectory, all that stuff. But in the end, he said that he's, like, this job is making me hate baseball. Like, I gotta get

Jacob 1:04:00
out of this. I've probably seen some of his work that, yeah, I'm sure

Scott Benner 1:04:03
you have. And then so he's now he does something else. Now he's coding, and

Jacob 1:04:07
I heard that he's got the Flipped screen. He's got all that going on.

Scott Benner 1:04:11
He's in there working. And, you know, I don't know if I think today he was learning something about snowflake and something about AI or, I don't know exactly. And Arden's in college. She's getting a degree in psychology and some other stuff. Awesome. Yeah, she's getting ready to start back up again in a couple days. Actually, she just had her tonsils out, and it completely changed her voice, really, yeah, it's ridiculous, coming back a little bit that that could happen, yeah, but we don't know how far back, so her tonsils were huge, and Arden had a really deep voice. And the first time she went to speak, she was like, hey, and we were like, oh my god, what happened, you know? And hopefully it's and now, like the couple days after the surgery, she was talking, I looked away from her, and she's like, what's wrong? I'm like, I cannot look at you like you don't like while you're talking, like you do not sound like anything like anything like yourself. And it's freaking me out. And they keep saying, like your your voice is going to come back. I'm like, I'm just not going to look directly at you while you're speaking till it comes back, because it's an absolutely like out of body experience to watch it happen. I'm sure. Yeah,

Jacob 1:05:20
very strange. That's great. Yeah, I just as a listener. I appreciate that update. Nice,

Scott Benner 1:05:25
nice. Well, listen, I hope you find a girl who shows up at the hospital if you're sick, even if you guys are arguing a little bit, that would be a nice thing for you guys. How do you guys meet girls?

Jacob 1:05:34
I go out. I'm I don't use the apps. I'm an organic guy. So I enjoy going out, shooting pool, throwing darts, having a drink here and there, and talking. You know, I'm in sales, so you gotta kind of have a personality and be personable with people. And I think that's awesome. Best way to go out and meet somebody good for you.

Scott Benner 1:05:51
Well, I hope you meet somebody nice that, like I said, even if they're mad at you, we'll show up at the hospital while you're in DKA,

Jacob 1:05:55
thank you. Yeah, hopefully she doesn't, maybe she'll listen. Maybe she won't. Well,

Scott Benner 1:05:59
if she listens. She you know, shame on you, like you know, you should have called him and something. If it was okay, you would have called her in the same situation. No, yes, I would have exactly we know what the problem here is, Jacob, don't you? Mom's gonna kill me. Your mom. Your mom knows too. She probably told you to get away from that girl long before you did. Am I right? You're right. I knew it okay. All right. Hold on one second. You thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode. We've been talking about Medtronic mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night, whether it's their meal detection technology for the Medtronic extended infusion set. It all comes together to simplify life with diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox the episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool if you want a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision or peace of mind, you want twist, twist.com/juicebox, I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter that my daughter carries, the contour next Gen blood glucose meter, learn more and get started today at contour next.com/juicebox and don't forget, you may be paying more through your insurance right now for the meter you have then you would pay for the contour next gen in cash. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now, and links at Juicebox podcast.com, to contour and all of the sponsors. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. You so

when I created the defining diabetes series, I pictured a dictionary in my mind to help you understand key terms that shape type one diabetes management. Along with Jenny Smith, who, of course, is an experienced diabetes educator, we break down concepts like basal, time and range, insulin on board and much more. This series must have 70 short episodes in it. We have to take the jargon out of the jargon so that you can focus on what really matters, living confidently and staying healthy. You can't do these things if you don't know what they mean. Go get your diabetes defined. Juicebox.com go up in the menu and click on series. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox podcast. Private Facebook group Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes. But everybody is welcome. Type one type two, gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com.

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Scott Benner 9/17/25 Scott Benner 9/17/25

#1630 Tilt-A-Whirl

With type 1 diabetes, ADHD, and a background in dance and psychology, Gabi, 28, opens up about family, teaching pilates, and finding her own way.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

All right, Rob, so a couple things happened during this one that are going to make me tell you this. This girl has ADHD. She has long pauses and gaps. Normally we would take them out. I want to leave them all in, because they help tell her story. They help people to understand how her thought process goes and where it might impact her diabetes and her other care. As a matter of fact, use this as the voice note to open up the show, so that the people listening know that normally we would tighten this up, but so that they can really understand Gabby, we're going to leave it all just as it was recorded. Bye Rob Oh, and by everybody else. I hope you enjoy the podcast. If this is your first time listening to the Juicebox podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcasts or Spotify, really, any audio app at all. Look for the Juicebox podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and look for bold beginnings, the diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin you

the show you're about to listen to is sponsored by the ever since 365 the ever since 365 has exceptional accuracy over one year and is the most accurate CGM in The low range that you can get ever since cgm.com/juicebox dot com slash Juicebox. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five. And at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you can get yourself a free, what I just say, a free Omnipod five starter kit, free. Get out of here. Go click on that link, omnipod.com/juicebox check it out. Terms and Conditions. Apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is brought to you by my favorite diabetes organization, touched by type one, please take a moment to learn more about them at touched by type one.org, on Facebook and Instagram. Touched by type one.org, check out their many programs, their annual conference awareness campaign, their D box program, dancing for diabetes. They have a dance program for local kids, a golf night and so much more touched by type one.org. You're looking to help or you want to see people helping people with type one. You want touched by type one.org.

Gabby 3:17
I am Gabby. I'm How old am I? I'm 28 I have was diagnosed when I was two, okay? And

Scott Benner 3:32
that's good. That's a good start. Gabby, also the editor, is gonna like, when you hear it back, you're gonna be like, I'm Gabby. I'm 28 and I was diagnosed when I was two, and you'll be like, Oh my God, I don't remember being that clear and concise. Amazing. Yeah, and don't worry, you'll get you'll get more comfortable. I wish life could do that. You would like an editor to walk around with you. I would love that so much. Okay, so now that we've said that, I'm going to tell Rob right here, don't edit the way Gabby said it. Leave that there, and now edit it again so people can hear what it could sound like if you edit it together. Rob, you know what I'm saying. Do that like let them hear her, and then let them hear what an edit would it sound like. Then we'll go into it. Here

Gabby 4:11
I am, Gabby, I'm 28 I was diagnosed when I was two.

Scott Benner 4:18
So you wish somebody could walk around with you and just take all the pauses out.

Gabby 4:22
Yes, all the time or a lot of my work is saying words that are supposed to make sense together in real time.

Scott Benner 4:30
Wait, what kind of work do you

Gabby 4:33
do? I teach Pilates and kids dance. Is

Scott Benner 4:37
there a job where your words don't have to make sense together? I guess there are some right

Gabby 4:43
sometimes not live, at

Scott Benner 4:45
least not Oh, I see what you mean. Like, so you have to feel smooth when people are listening to you right away, yeah, like it's happening. I feel like I'm a fairly smooth speaker. And yet sometimes I hear myself back and I'm like, oh my god, Scott. Like, get to it. Or like there was. Six different ways you could have said that. That would have been better. You know, sometimes you just get stuck with what comes out of

Gabby 5:05
your mouth as you do. How can you expect everything to go right?

Scott Benner 5:09
I don't know. There's times when it does. There's sometimes I get done. I'm like, that was good, actually. I think since I know Rob's listening closely to this one now, I actually think, like, there's not a lot of work in here for Rob. I bet you this one will be easy for him. But then there's others where I get done and I'm like, Oh, poor Rob, that's not going to go well at all, you know? And he's thinking that right now, because you said about pausing. He's like, Oh God, I hope Gabby doesn't pause between every word for the next hour. I know he's laughing right now listening to this, because he's like, I am absolutely thinking that nevertheless diagnosed when you were two years old, yeah, and you're 28 now, yep. Do you have any kids of your own? Nope, no. Are you anywhere near making a baby? No, good for you. That's why

Gabby 5:52
I giggled, because I was like, That's terrifying.

Scott Benner 5:54
Actually. Is having a baby something you've ever thought

Gabby 5:58
of? Yes, and then I just Just recently, definitely was like,

Scott Benner 6:01
Huh? I guess I am 28 what's terrifying about it

Gabby 6:07
that I'm a freelance like fitness and dancer and have no money?

Scott Benner 6:12
Listen that that should be your main thing. Yeah, that's definitely your biggest fear. It's very expensive to have kids. It's insane of life. Yeah, are you with somebody? I am.

Gabby 6:24
I've had a boyfriend partner for like, as of a couple weeks ago, like, five

Scott Benner 6:29
years. Has he ever mentioned, hey, Gabby, are we gonna get married or make a baby or anything like

Gabby 6:35
that? Yes, and baby, like, very much. Not at all.

Scott Benner 6:39
That's not a thing he's that interested in if that makes sense. Oh, does he have a good job?

Gabby 6:45
Yes, but not that he like, loves and wants to be at Forever, a long time.

Scott Benner 6:49
Oh, you can tell him, that's how everyone feels. Yeah, right. Well, I love what. I heard my son say, I don't love this. And I was like, wait, what you thought somebody loved their job. Stop it.

Gabby 7:00
I know. Well, I do, but then I burn myself out. So

Scott Benner 7:04
you love your job, but you also said it doesn't pay very much. I mean, in the grand scheme, it is to pay for a baby and stuff like that. Yeah. Is there pressure when you're a lady to think like, I have to be able to take care of this kid in case that guy flakes on me. I mean, that's always a possibility, right? Oh, did I just, like, add another concern to your life? I'm sorry.

Gabby 7:27
No, no, I was gonna say maybe from my childhood, but that's not actually true. Like, my parents divorced, but not for that reason.

Scott Benner 7:34
Yeah. I just wonder. Like, I mean, I think if you took 100 guys and 100 girls who didn't have a kid and said, Hey, if one day you have a child and you become divorced, who do you think will get the baby? I bet you. Most people would say, I think the mom would Yeah, and so

Gabby 7:49
laws and stuff or not laws. But most law orienting people would say that too. Did

Scott Benner 7:56
you say law orienting people? Yes, I did. Can we call the episode that? Do you think? No, there has to be something good. I hope you don't say one thing more ridiculous than law orienting people.

Gabby 8:07
I'm sure there'll be, like, 100 more ridiculous things. We'll

Scott Benner 8:11
get to it. Then, if I asked you what it was like to grow up with type one diabetes, what are the things that pop into your mind first? Um, a fear of lows, yeah, yeah, since you were little, yes, what do you did you get low a lot, and do you still?

Gabby 8:35
I have had a lot in, like the whole 26 years of, hypo seizures.

Scott Benner 8:42
Oh, you've, you've had multiple seizures, yeah, like, too many to count more than a dozen. Yes. How do you feel? Like, that happened like so, I mean, you were born, what? 9696 so do you have a sensor, a CGM, right now, yeah,

Gabby 9:02
I am currently wearing g6 and then I am truly changing my new ish tandemobi. You're changing it right now, while we're talking, yeah, it ran out of insulin.

Scott Benner 9:19
It did not run out,

Gabby 9:21
which is a thing that I'm like working on in life, to not have that ever. But it didn't at all, and it still has, like 1514, something left. However, my sight was on my thigh, and I am learning that after the second day, it's just like, Nope, we are done. So you're

Scott Benner 9:42
starting to see a high blood sugar from your thigh site, more than starting, oh, oh. So why'd you put you knew we were going to do this. Why did you put it off all morning? Let me, me act like your dad for a second. Why? Why didn't? Why didn't you do it earlier?

Gabby 9:55
Act like your dad. That's hilarious. Because I was taking my dad to his doctor.

Scott Benner 9:59
Oh, oh. Your dad needs help. He's not the one helping.

Gabby 10:02
No, not anymore. Sorry. I was in reverse a little bit.

Scott Benner 10:06
Your roles have been reversed. Yeah, seriously though, like you were out this morning doing something, yeah, and the

Gabby 10:14
horribly, purely opposite of any version of any morning

Scott Benner 10:19
person at all,

Gabby 10:22
and yet we're at the doctor at 1030

Scott Benner 10:26
Yeah, I have to tell you, I do notice that people I record with who want earlier times are sometimes more energetic people, even when I like I recorded this morning at nine, and not let me be clear, nine is not early, but that's the earliest you can get on my schedule, right? And I sat down, I was like, I don't even know if I'm awake yet to do this. And I popped on and the person was just full of life. And I was like, Oh my God, you morning people or something, yeah. And I don't, I get up early. Like, I don't. I'm not a, like, a late riser, generally speaking, no, you're not me. But I don't pop up, like, full of, like, exuberance, like I I'm happy to be awake and see the, you know, see the beginning of the day and everything, but I'm not out there looking to, like, run a marathon or record a podcast or something like that. Yeah. Anyway,

Gabby 11:13
I was gonna say you need your coffee, but not actually you need your ag one or something, right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 11:17
I don't drink coffee, so that's not helpful. Are you still doing 81 yes, yeah, but I don't drink coffee. And I do see people like, supercharge their lives with it, and I'm like, maybe one time I should I just don't. It doesn't smell good to me. It doesn't I can't imagine. It tastes good. I don't know. Anyway, it freaks me out that, you know, I don't drink coffee,

Gabby 11:37
such a weird thing. I mean, a lot of people know a lot of things about you,

Scott Benner 11:41
I know, but when you're faced with it one on one, it's strange. It's an abstract when you just sit down and record and say stuff you don't actually like, it's not like, I I walk outside, and the 1000s of people that just listen to it walk up to me and say, Guess what I learned today? Like, it's not until, like, you go online and you see people talking about it, and you're like, oh, okay, I guess somebody heard that. That makes sense. But even that's it still remains a little abstract, you know, like, but you and I are now talking, and you're just like, Oh, you don't drink coffee. And I'm like, How does she know that? Yeah, so Nevertheless, you didn't change your pump. You knew you should have earlier because you saw the site going bad. Happens mostly on your thighs.

Gabby 12:24
It just has happened, like the same thing, like

Scott Benner 12:30
a week or week and a half ago, okay,

Gabby 12:33
like, literally on the same thigh, a little bit higher or lower, in which I had a really horrible night. And I didn't even quite piece it together, like, it didn't necessarily have an exact like, all right, it's two days and we're done. Yeah, you

Scott Benner 12:49
didn't see cause and effect right away, but, but you're a dancer, you said, right? And you're doing Pilates. Do you have like, strong thighs, yeah, yeah. I think maybe it's like, yeah, but close to a big muscle, like there's reasoning behind that, like the using the top of your thighs or the sides, might be weird, but like, almost inner okay, because there's more,

Gabby 13:15
yeah, I don't know. I feel like it's less muscley, muscley, which maybe isn't even true. So

Scott Benner 13:20
Well, what other sites have you tried? Have you tried like the like your hips, top of your butt? What

Gabby 13:24
have I not tried? You've been 26 years

Scott Benner 13:27
at some point everywhere has been tried. Today's episode is brought to you by Omnipod. Did you know that the majority of Omnipod five users pay less than $30 per month at the pharmacy? That's less than $1 a day for tube free automated insulin delivery, and a third of Omnipod five users pay $0 per month. You heard that right? Zero. That's less than your daily coffee for all of the benefits of tubeless, waterproof, automated insulin delivery. My daughter has been wearing an Omnipod every day since she was four years old, and she's about to be 21 my family relies on Omnipod, and I think you'll love it, and you can try it for free right now by requesting your free Starter Kit today at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox Omnipod has been an advertiser for a decade, but even if they weren't, I would tell you proudly, my daughter wears an Omnipod. Omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Why don't you get yourself that free starter kit, full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 and just as the name says, it lasts for a full year, imagine, for a second, a CGM with just one sensor placement and one warm up period every year. Imagine a sensor that has exceptional accuracy over that year and is actually the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get. What if I. Told you that this sensor had no risk of falling off or being knocked off. That may seem too good to be true, but I'm not even done telling you about it yet. The Eversense 365 has essentially no compression lows. It features incredibly gentle adhesive for its transmitter. You can take the transmitter off when you don't want to wear your CGM and put it right back on without having to waste a sensor or go through another warm up period. The app works with iOS and Android, even Apple Watch. You can manage your diabetes instead of your CGM with the ever since 365 learn more and get started today at ever since cgm.com/juicebox one year one CGM,

Gabby 15:43
yeah, well, actually, when I was so, I started pumping, when I was like 10, with, like, you know, manuals, of course.

Scott Benner 15:51
And

Gabby 15:53
because back then I was, like, in a ballet class every night wearing nothing, basically,

Scott Benner 16:00
I put

Gabby 16:02
that pump with the site that I would only leave on, yeah, lesson learned, much, much, much, much, much later that site would sit like on either hip, and that was my rotation,

Scott Benner 16:18
hip, hip, yeah.

Gabby 16:21
So that then it then it could just have the teeny, tiny sight part without the pump. When I had, like, just ballet tights and leotard I see, and it was semi invisible. Yeah, you were trying to hide it. Yeah, a little bit. But also it just, like, was more comfortable with everything, with like that, like leotard. But then how we, you know, put our leg over our

Scott Benner 16:50
head. Were you disconnecting to dance? Yeah, from like,

Gabby 16:56
then from like 10 till like, pretty much like 20,

Scott Benner 17:01
okay, and then what happened at 20, I accepted the learning.

Gabby 17:09
I was in college dance, so I was still doing all the things, but then it was even more, all the time, and not like an evening class,

Scott Benner 17:22
and also new doctors as adulting started who were like, You can't do that. You have better expectations for yourself. I was told I could. Yeah, so somebody at some point when your kid was like, well, just disconnect for dancing, but then your blood sugar would get

Gabby 17:42
high. Oh, it wouldn't even No, I would still go low. Do we get low? Still? Yes, interesting, absolutely. I would be sitting, not sitting.

Scott Benner 17:50
I would be standing, sweating,

Gabby 17:53
shaking, because we're, like, working hard.

Scott Benner 17:57
But then, I mean, not

Gabby 18:00
every day or anything, obviously. But you know, just how low is? Those happen. I would be like, doing a ballet class combination, and it's like, okay, a combination takes like, a minute, and then you have the next one in the next minute, and there's like,

Scott Benner 18:17
pause, go, pause, go. So I would stand there thinking, like, I think I'm going low, and then you just go exert go, exert yourself going low, yeah. And then, but you still kept exerting yourself and going,

Gabby 18:34
yeah. So I'd be like, Okay, I don't know, so maybe I'll do this one, and then maybe, if I know I'm low, then

Scott Benner 18:43
I'll go, okay. Have you ever had a seizure at dance class? No, no. Where did they? Where did they normally happen

Gabby 18:53
in all of childhood? It was always in sleep.

Scott Benner 18:57
Okay, night. And my last one was even though I woke up right before it.

Gabby 19:08
But others besides last one, like more recent than childhood, have been

Scott Benner 19:18
just all different, different times. So when you were a child and having them while you were sleeping, did you you did not have a CGM at that point, or you, at some points, didn't, at some points,

Gabby 19:28
didn't until, like, so recently, really, like, life would have been so incredibly different.

Scott Benner 19:34
Wait, how long ago did you get it?

Gabby 19:37
Um, I think I started trying something around like 2018

Scott Benner 19:46
Okay, and that's, does that kind of line up with you becoming more mature and trying to take better care of yourself? Or did it line up with you getting insurance? Or what was

Gabby 19:56
the oh, it was just literally like, Doc. Were like, Here, try this. And I was like, Cool. You were up for it. It was not presented to me before.

Scott Benner 20:07
You look back and think of yourself as having good health care and like forward thinking doctors before or no

Gabby 20:15
forward thinking, I don't know, good yes, in general, there is one nurse practitioner who, like, I have not seen her in years, and to this day I have, like, passionate loathing for her.

Scott Benner 20:32
Why? What did she do to you?

Gabby 20:36
She just really wanted me on the newer Medtronic

Scott Benner 20:41
and you just didn't, and I quote, tried. What do you mean? You tried. You didn't really try.

Gabby 20:48
No, I mean, I use the pump for sure, like I use that pump for, I guess, four years or more, okay, but their

Scott Benner 20:59
sensors in like 2018 ish,

Gabby 21:07
were not what they I guess maybe, hopefully are. Now

Scott Benner 21:11
you have a 20. Did you say 2018 Yeah. So what I have in front of me is right. Don't know if it is or not, but I use the internet. It looks like Dexcom had the seven plus in 2009 seven plus, yeah. Then in 2012 the g4 platinum. Then, then 2015 the g5 then in 2018 the g6 in 2023 the g7 i It's so crazy to me that you're having all those seizures, and nobody is crazy. Yeah, somebody didn't say, like, Hey, have you tried one of these CGM things? Yeah, did they know you were having seizures? Or did you not tell them? No,

Gabby 21:49
no, they definitely knew. I mean, I definitely didn't tell them about a couple, but

Scott Benner 21:52
there were so many you felt like you could hold a couple back for yourself a little bit. What do you in hindsight? Why do you think you had so many seizures?

Gabby 22:04
They were always, like, incredibly fast crashing and just the like, worst combination of all of the million variables. But

Scott Benner 22:14
like, structurally, what do you think you went like, let's go back into the middle of a day. Did you eat before dance class? Like maybe you ate Bolus, then went to dance, took off the pump, the exercise, you know, combined with the active insulin, made you low at dance. Then, you know, you addressed it. Went home, ate again, right? Bolus again, and then maybe had, like, a latent low overnight from all the activity. Is that possibly how it went?

Gabby 22:44
Yes. I mean, that is the likelihood of, like, much earlier in college years, which is, like 2014, to 18 was, did

Scott Benner 22:55
you ever try to break that down while it was happening? Or were you just like, oh, this is, like, my lot in life, how did it feel to you?

Gabby 23:04
It felt like I was trying constantly and

Scott Benner 23:09
not set up for success and not like, completely, fully supported. Not supported Dr nursing, yeah, not supported with information and tools,

Gabby 23:21
yeah, and technology and technology. Okay, it's so I only know that in hindsight.

Scott Benner 23:26
Yeah, no, I understand. But during that time, listen, Gabby, if we all knew everything while it was happening, life would go much easier. But while it was happening, were you trying to make adjustments to what was going on, or were you so busy just staying alive that it felt like, like, you know what I mean? I feel like you were drinking from a fire hose and you couldn't keep up and you were just trying to keep your head above water. There's a lot of my whole life feels like all the time. Oh, sorry, there's like, so many metaphors in there. I confused myself. So that's it. Like it's happening so quickly. You're just trying to stay alive. You don't even have time to think about, like, how could I stop this from happening? Yeah?

Gabby 24:02
Like, I feel like I always was thinking about and was trying to and was like, adjusting and checking, like a million times a day, yeah, like, I had really terrible psychology time blood sugar, like a lot of humans, but none of the like, oh, I'll just pretend I don't have it.

Scott Benner 24:27
You're having bad outcomes during college and

Gabby 24:29
trying, yes, like, trying so hard,

Scott Benner 24:34
so defeating. At least some of the other people's stories are just like, I don't know. I didn't really pay that close attention. You're like, Well, that makes sense, yeah. So it's hard, a little heartbreaking. Then

Gabby 24:43
yes, absolutely, yeah. There's have been a lot of, like, not even, besides, just like tears, like anxiety attack, panic attacks,

Scott Benner 24:53
like mental health stuff. Dad, yeah, did you say, Dad? I said Bad. Bad. I was like, Okay. How do we kind of, like, loop your father into this too? So you have a lot of would you call yourself an anxious person,

Gabby 25:07
a little bit not like, terribly in general,

Scott Benner 25:11
okay, but this whole process, I would

Gabby 25:15
say I had a really terrible season

Scott Benner 25:18
of life with very, very, very bad,

Gabby 25:25
low anxiety, and just anxiety in general, about, like, everything in relation like, literally seeing an ambulance on the street. What time of your life was that season that was basically during college, college, or, like, one of the years that was somehow the worst, especially because of a couple times during those, like, I mean, it was only, I don't know, it was probably three in those Four years

Scott Benner 25:54
that that, oh my god, brain, brain, brain, three or four times in those years that

Gabby 26:07
that I had a seizure, like three times or something. Okay,

Scott Benner 26:10
when's the last time you had one and

Gabby 26:15
you're not helping my track, I'm sorry. Last time, it's fine. I know your go to what. I know how you go to last time was June 15.

Scott Benner 26:26
Okay, explain the ADHD to people what's happening right now

Gabby 26:33
that my brain has a sentence and then just completely loses it,

Scott Benner 26:37
and then while you're looking for it, I'm trying to get you to, like, refocus and that it's less than helpful. It's not helpful. When I do

Gabby 26:45
that, sometimes it is. But then you ask something different. That's because

Scott Benner 26:50
I get, I get bored waiting for your answer. This took so long I don't even care. I'm not doing how my brain does it too. I'm definitely I'm not doing that. I'm just trying to find ways to help you get to what it is, but I don't want to hinder you and make it worse either. Do you take anything for the ADHD? So I do, and I'm not confident that it's super helping. What are you taking? Vyvanse,

Gabby 27:19
no, I'm taking Concerta. Okay, at like, a medium dose, and I felt it very strongly at first, like an hour after I would take it, I would be like, Oh, okay, we have energy. And that means that I am not gonna be the inattentive version of ADHD and like stare at a wall for 30 minutes.

Scott Benner 27:54
So

Gabby 27:55
since I've just been on it for a while, I think my body just feels used to it like too much. It's not helping. I don't know if I want to, pretty much like ask for hire or something totally different, or

Scott Benner 28:14
what So explain to people, there's there's times during ADHD that you're inattentive and so you just can't focus on anything. So you stare. Is that the kind of the idea? Yes, okay. And there are times where the Met, when the medications helping you what you've got, like, crazy energy, and you're super focused, and kind of have like that. What do they call that? Like you have, you have a lot of cocaine, kind of conversations, you know what? I mean, a lot of big ideas. Can't stop talking that sort of stuff. Not quite okay.

Gabby 28:49
It almost feels like the medication when it's like energy, but in like, a good way for the start of the day too. It almost feels like if I have like 20 things floating around my head, it like pulls at least like 10 of them together so that they either can, like, be what we need them to be, or they can be, like, put on a shelf, so that the one thing that we need to be or do, or whatever can actually be done, is

Scott Benner 29:31
that a thing that a therapist has explained to you, a thing that you've experienced, but no, but you're you're making it up, but you're making it up, like, from your experience, though, Yeah, so this is how it feels to you. I would have trouble putting anything that concrete to any of my my actions. I'm guessing that this is a thing that you've lived with for so long that you really have, like, a very intimate understanding of how it

Gabby 29:54
works. Yes, and though so long, without any like diagnosis or. Anything until very recently. Really like, yeah, so I feel like I understand it in just like how I am. And it wasn't necessarily like, I mean, it did feel like there's something wrong with me prior, but not like one thing. It was just like, Oh, I'm stupid, oh, I'm like, failing at this. Oh, I'm forgetful, oh, I'm

Scott Benner 30:25
whatever, scattered. How long did you live without a diagnosis with it?

Gabby 30:32
The official one was, like, a year ago. Oh,

Scott Benner 30:34
so you felt like that your entire life,

Gabby 30:38
to some extent, yes. Oh, I'm sorry, but I think it also like hides in a lot of people too, and I mean a lot of women, obviously, because, you know, the stereotype is like the little boy with energy, which obviously, like, literally, was my brother. But I think it was truly, like hidden and masked and everything for me, because, like

Scott Benner 31:04
a lot of people, like structure, like school hood,

Gabby 31:12
has the structure that essentially like I need to function Like I functioned so well because of the structure,

Scott Benner 31:24
and

Gabby 31:28
now without having pretty much any structure, I was like, Oh, this is bad.

Scott Benner 31:33
So getting out of college, you're like, well, Where's, where's the schedule? Yeah, yeah. And then and that got

Gabby 31:40
you college was like, you have to make your schedule, but then at least, like, it's made

Scott Benner 31:44
once you have it, yeah, oh my gosh, that sounds exhausting,

Gabby 31:48
yeah. And I didn't realize, like,

Scott Benner 31:53
Why, I guess, for a while, and you just assumed you weren't smart, not that I wasn't smart, because you're probably doing well at school. You knew you were,

Gabby 32:06
yeah, exactly, like, right structure, like I wanted to do well. And, like, I was like, oh, try hard. And, yeah, but, but also Yes. Like, how I just said, like, Oh, I forgot this. I messed this up. I whatever. Yes, my brain would go, Oh, I'm so stupid. Blah, blah, blah.

Scott Benner 32:25
So lots of my human work is like undoing that sort of your parents have this too, like, How come nobody noticed this in you? Were they living with the same thing, or were they not that involved?

Gabby 32:38
Absolutely, they were living with the same thing. And also, don't know, meaning my mom, my dad, I don't know,

Scott Benner 32:44
maybe, but who knows? My mom, like 100%

Gabby 32:53
is exactly the same as me and my sister, and I don't know, probably still my brother, because if you're diagnosed as a kid, it doesn't go away, right, right? She just does what I do now,

Scott Benner 33:11
like

Gabby 33:13
my brother got her a tile when they were like brand new, so that she could find her phone and then find her keys. And he got her key chain that says, keys I have not lost yet.

Scott Benner 33:28
Because,

Gabby 33:32
again, she's like, the smart like, mostly has it together, mostly doing well and all the things like all the degrees, and all the kids and but we'll go back in the house three times to get stuff. Will be late to everything like me now, and just all the little things that now she she'll literally be like, Why and me and my sister are like, Mom, there is a reason, actually.

Scott Benner 34:06
So it's you, your sister, your brother, your mom, your dad, and you have type one. Does anybody else have type one or other autoimmune stuff? No, nobody. Nobody has celiac or thyroid or anything like that. Nope. Do any of them have anxiety? Yes, which ones your dad?

Gabby 34:31
My dad, I don't know. He was just saying how psychologists are nothing. Wait, what was he saying that he just doesn't like believe in psychologists. Oh, your work,

Scott Benner 34:42
even though you think he has anxiety, I think he worries sometimes more than other times. So who else has anxiety? My sister and my mom for sure. Okay,

Gabby 34:59
yeah. I just reminded my dad that I have my dance degree is also a minor in psychology. He was like, oh, yeah, I don't believe in that.

Scott Benner 35:07
Yeah, thanks, Dad. Do you believe in the dance at least? No, he does at least. So that's good, yeah. How do you manage to take care of your diabetes with ADHD like is, does that not make it more difficult? Exactly, sorry. I like, I feel like I'm just here asking. I feel like I'm I feel like I'm just here asking you questions that make you feel validated. That's not

Gabby 35:33
what. No, that's correct. That's accurate, because that is also why I think diabetes has been very challenging. I'm sorry I'm laughing because I am at my dad, since I just took him to his doctor and I just overheard him yelling on the phone to a telemarketer to go to hell.

Scott Benner 35:54
I don't need solar panels, really. No,

Gabby 35:56
I don't think he would know what those are. How old's your dad? He's very old for me, at least. What does that mean? How old is he? He's 82 your dad's 82

Scott Benner 36:07
Yeah, and you're 28 Yeah, hold on. A second, 30 840-858-6878, yeah, 81 your dad? Why Your dad was 54 when he had you? Yeah, I'm 54 now. Yeah, if I had a baby right now, I would jump out of a window. I'd be like, who is I can't take care of this thing. Yeah, me too, and I got energy. I'm up in the morning. You understand, my hair is still dark, but I would not be okay. This is not so dark. Are you the oldest? No, no, you're the

Gabby 36:39
youngest. Very much the youngest of many that I haven't mentioned yet. Wait a minute, not

Scott Benner 36:46
that many are you have a brother and a sister on your Oh, do your parents have, like, a first family that they have too? Basically, do any of those kids have autoimmune type one, etc? No, nothing. His son's a bitch. It's just you okay? Yeah, so your mom's the second wife,

Gabby 37:08
yes, but my dad was also the second

Scott Benner 37:10
husband. I was gonna say also your mom's second marriage. Gotcha? Is she younger than him? Yes, by like, 14 years. Have you ever heard the phrase, it's a man's world terrible. Like, how did you know what I mean? Like, how come your mom couldn't pull a guy that was 14 years younger than her? Yeah? Oh, not fair. Okay, so you're a late in life baby for them. Yeah, my dad had two other kids first too. I see okay? Because when you're like, I'm taking my dad to the doctor, I'm like, geez, what the hell is wrong with her father? He's in his 50s, and he can't, like, get the doctor by himself, but no, okay, all right, that all makes a little more sense.

Gabby 37:48
It's mostly yes company too, and he can talk to me and admire my service dog. And,

Scott Benner 37:55
you know. Okay, so you have a service How long have you had a service dog?

Gabby 37:59
Like, a year and a few months? Yeah,

Scott Benner 38:02
this is the part in the interview with people with ADHD where Scott gives up on structure and just goes with it. I don't know if you guys realize that happens or not. I try so hard and then eventually I'm just like, all right, I'm just gonna follow the stream of consciousness. So when did you get a service dog? I'm

Gabby 38:19
sorry, like, a year and a few months ago? What prompted you to do that? This the beauties and the seizures and the fear of that. How long

Scott Benner 38:35
you've been listening to podcast a while, but I don't remember. Exactly when I started it, but back

Gabby 38:47
then, while ago, I don't know 18 or something, 2018 I don't

Scott Benner 38:52
know it was hard for me to listen because, because I would listen and get mad at people,

Gabby 39:05
no, very much, depending what it was about, like, someone's like, okay, whatever. But if it was about things that just like, I don't know, hit or about low seizures, or parents talking about their kids, like, bad lows, or, I don't know, random too, probably I would have to, like, stop what I was doing. As you do things with podcasts, listening and, like, just sit down and sometimes just

Scott Benner 39:39
cry. So if it hit a trigger of yours, it made you really upset, yeah, but then I would like, you know, move through that. What's your trigger around parenting? I don't know that there's like, one thing that I can name. Did you feel like you weren't being helped as a child?

Gabby 40:01
No, because my parents definitely also worked, like, trying very hard, okay? And my mom was constantly, like, definitely, there's a source of an anxiety part, right? I mean, honestly, still is. So give

Scott Benner 40:15
it. Give me an example of something you heard on the podcast that stopped you in your tracks, made you cry, I don't

Gabby 40:21
know, because that would have been so long ago, because now I listen to it like, every day, all the time, like, while I'm walking my dog, and it doesn't make you upset anymore. No, okay, so you were hearing once in a while, I'll get like, goosebumps, but like, that's pretty much

Scott Benner 40:38
goosebumps, like, like you're touched, or, yeah, people tell the nicest stories about it's so kind of everyone to share their life, actually, yeah, but Okay, so when you first started listening, there were pain points that it would bring up for you. You worked through them. That's awesome. Has your management changed since 2018 like, I mean, what was your a 1c

Gabby 41:02
I mean, it is. I'm like, so far from where I want to be right now, but I'm so much better than then too. And you were,

Scott Benner 41:12
have you had fewer seizures in the last handful of years? Yes, I know.

Gabby 41:20
Why do you think you're still like, I actually think I don't know.

Scott Benner 41:23
Yeah, when's the last one? Just like, months ago? When interesting? June? Wow. Okay, two months ago.

Gabby 41:34
That one, I know why. Actually, like, 100%

Scott Benner 41:36
what happened? What happened

Gabby 41:40
in my sleep. Like, I mean, obviously I woke up, but like, I do not remember the

Scott Benner 41:46
sequencing i

Gabby 41:50
I must have been somewhat high from late snacks and such, and I gave myself through my tea slim before, where I could Bolus through the pump without looking at my phone.

Scott Benner 42:06
13 units

Gabby 42:10
for being what 200 Max 300 probably, probably need Max, five units or something. I don't know how, besides that, that is a fact that happened because of the pump history,

Scott Benner 42:26
so But I gave myself 13 units,

Gabby 42:31
I guess, by mistake, somehow, of that number being my max. Bolus at the time,

Scott Benner 42:37
while you were sleeping, woke up, had a high blood sugar Bolus gave yourself way too much insulin. Yeah, got super low, woke up right before it hit you. Yes, I woke up. And I

Gabby 42:51
don't know if I saw it on Dexcom or whatever, but I woke up. I turned to my partner and said,

Scott Benner 43:00
Can you go get me juice? And the

Gabby 43:06
next story is also how he's diabetic, but so he has a cup of juice from the night before on his side, like on his nightstand.

Scott Benner 43:16
Hand it over to me. I take the cup

Gabby 43:21
and place it on my nightstand, and then that was it. You didn't even drink the juice. No, I knew that I had to put it down somehow, but you were pretty low. You were pretty low by the needed it. And then I knew that I couldn't hold it.

Scott Benner 43:36
How many of these seizures are because you gave yourself too much insulin over the years?

Gabby 43:42
Not many, definitely not. Never like that. Okay,

Scott Benner 43:46
if I asked you to tell me your level of confidence with how much of these seizures are bad tools, not good direction, versus just you didn't know what you were doing and were just randomly putting in stuff. Can you put a finger on, I guess, what's your major issue? If someone said to you, hey, you've had a lot of seizures in your life, what's happening there? Like, what's the first thing you think of?

Gabby 44:14
I mean, the first thing, I think, is that that's a really great question for a doctor, that I would love answers to you

Scott Benner 44:18
just don't have any idea.

Gabby 44:22
Yeah. And we did testing when I was, like 17, I want to say, and there was nothing, but we did all the fun, really great scans and stuff,

Scott Benner 44:33
just to have a look. Okay, but you're using a mobi right now, so using control IQ, yeah, okay. And besides you giving yourself a ton of insulin two months ago and getting low since you've been on control IQ, have you had other seizures? One, I think one. Do you remember what that one was about?

Gabby 44:52
Yeah, it was also this past February.

Scott Benner 44:59
It. It was

Gabby 45:03
literally after I gave myself one unit

Scott Benner 45:06
like, what? And you just got low afterwards, huh? One going back to the last one

Gabby 45:12
type pump site at like, a different time.

Scott Benner 45:15
And, yeah, finish that thought, why would that impact it?

Gabby 45:24
It was that I got up early to go to my early day work, to teach children dance and pump, I guess, was about to run out of insulin or something. So pump got changed in my actual woke up early for that, and giggles that I'm bad at waking up early for that or for anything.

Scott Benner 45:56
Pump

Gabby 45:58
probably had one unit of insulin left, and I think I delivered it being like, oh, it's the last, like, you know, use the gold and maybe I'll actually eat something, yeah.

Scott Benner 46:11
And

Gabby 46:14
also, normally, like, drink a little coffee will go up a little bit, one unit. No big deal. All good. Like, I probably made one unit for a coffee.

Scott Benner 46:24
Gabby, yep, I'm gonna, when I'm done recording with you, I'm gonna leave a note for Rob at the beginning of this episode so that he knows. I don't want him to take out any of your pauses. I want people to like be able to listen to what is happening in your mind while you're trying to consider your diabetes. Like, I think that's really important. Because, I mean, if you ask me after 45 minutes, like, what do you need to be more successful? You need somebody without ADHD to help you? Like that, to me, seems like most of your issue you're having trouble considering even why things are happening. Like, when I said, what, you know, what's your main problem? Be like, like, I need a doctor to tell me that, but you're a bright person. You understand your diabetes. I just think you're having trouble thinking about it. And I think that's valuable for people to hear. So hopefully they'll find this conversation as interesting as I find it, but I find the most interesting parts of your conversation when you're quiet and you're thinking, it's telling that those pauses are telling, you know, so, I mean, in my opinion, like, if you were my kid, I'd be like, Look, we need to go back to the ADHD doctor, whoever that one is, and say this stuff you given me. It's not working. I want to try something else, because I'm having difficulty with my health, because I'm having trouble concentrating on my type one. I can't see patterns. I can't take my experiences and apply them later to help myself. I need a better way to control the ADHD that just seems to me like that would be step one. Do you agree with that at all? Yeah. I mean, hearing it back is, is like, more, but I definitely agree with it, yeah, yeah. It just it feels like if you're to have a real shot at this, you need to be able to concentrate. Yeah. When I see parents online talking about their young kids with ADHD, and they're like, I'm so worried about what's going to happen to them when they get older and they move out. Like you feel like the after of that before? Yeah, yeah. You're motivated. You're working hard for yourself. You care about your own health. You're smart or, you know, you're articulate, like you have all the pieces you need to take good care of yourself. It feels to me like, you know that thing at the fair that you sit in and it spins and you get pinned to the wall, and your feet the floor drops down, you're just, you're pinned to the wall. Yeah, it feels like if you put me in that and started asking me how to Bolus for pizza, I'd be like, can I just tell you when it's over? Please? You know what I mean? Like, I feel like you're always in a state of being shook up, like physically shaken to the point where you can't think while you're trying to do something that takes a lot of thought. Do I have it? Gabby, yeah, all right. Are you gonna cry? Are you laughing what you're doing right now? No,

Gabby 49:16
I'm crying because you like have it so much.

Scott Benner 49:19
Okay, well, don't cry. It's okay if you want to cry. I'm already tapped out. I interviewed a woman this morning, like she used up all my tears already, but I'll sit quietly with you while you while you process.

Gabby 49:29
Um, yeah, it's, it's just because it's like, nail on the head, yeah.

Scott Benner 49:34
It just seems to me like that's where you got to go. It's

Gabby 49:36
like, unrecognized nail on the head. No. I mean,

Scott Benner 49:39
it's obvious, once you talk to you, if somebody, you know, if anybody would take the minute to talk to you, any doctor would hear this. This is just not how doctors appointments go. The problem is, if you go to therapy, the therapist is going to want to lean into the therapy parts of it, I don't know that you need therapy. You need somebody to, like, make the tilt a whirl, stop. Mm. Yeah, because that's my life. Yeah. It sounds like to me, that's what the inside of your brain feels like. Like, there's a bunch of diabetes knowledge in there and stuff you need to do, and then somebody spins it up, and it all pins itself to the wall, and you can't focus enough to like, put it all back together and make sense of it, yeah, let alone like, be it like, correctly? That's the part I'm spinning, because I'm low and so that's the part I'm playing in this conversation right now. Right is I'm taking the things that you're sharing and I'm re contextualizing them and giving them back to you. Yeah, that's why it's like, That's insanely true. This is why I make a podcast that people listen to. It's not about me, it's about you, and you need in some I'm gonna guess Vyvanse, like, what's the other one they gave you? Hold on a second. They gave me Concerta. Concerta. Concerta.

Gabby 50:56
It's, it's other like, science. Name is wild metal.

Scott Benner 51:02
Just stimulant, same family as Ritalin and Adderall, works by increasing levels of dopamine and neuro something, something refereeing in the brain, which helps improve attention, focus and impulse control. Has it improved attention, focus or impulse control?

Gabby 51:19
I think it maybe did when it was new.

Scott Benner 51:21
It's an Do you have the extended release supposed to last? Yeah, common side effects, trouble sleeping, decreased appetite, weight loss, headache, stomach ache, increased heart rate or blood pressure. You have any of those? I

Gabby 51:37
probably have increased heart rate when it was new, and my body wasn't used to it, but it was for like an hour, not like, nothing crazy, okay, like it felt like I had an extra special espresso shot for like

Scott Benner 51:51
half an hour. Got like, a little jolt. Okay, so what else is there? Vyvanse, Adderall. Avecco effect, oh. Avecco e, v, e, k, e, o, non stimulant options, stratara and not

Gabby 52:08
Oh, that's stratera. Is the one that I tried first. Actually Did that work? Because they always try and do non stimulants first, and then when those don't work, they try stimulants. So that didn't work. It didn't work. It also had side effects that I was like, Nope, this is not happening anymore. What kind constipation? And when I called about it, the phone lady was like, Oh, that's okay. You can keep taking it. And I was like, I will not be taking this

Scott Benner 52:38
phone lady, I haven't a week. What are you talking about?

Gabby 52:42
That's not fun. Yeah, I was like, lady, I've been vegetarian for such a long time, usually I am so good, and this is not okay.

Scott Benner 52:50
All right. So you started with strat Terra, or whatever it is. Now you went to, have you ever tried Vyvanse or Adderall? Hmm, are you gonna, I

Gabby 53:07
mean, sounds like it.

Scott Benner 53:08
Listen, I'm not a person who says, run and take Vyvanse or Adderall. But like, yes. I mean, it seems like you know, for you, you're here in mine, yeah, keeping your story in mind, I think it's worth a shot. I would hold on a second person on Concerta is not being helped.

Says, Try switching to an amphetamine based stimulant like Vyvanse or Adderall. So wait, concert is not cool. Wait, is Concerta not stimulant? It's

Gabby 53:56
definitely a stimulant, but maybe it's not

Scott Benner 53:59
mean, but I thought it was. It contains methylphenidate hydrochloride, which is the same stimulant class as Ritalin. It works by boosting dopamine in the brain, which helps to focus attention and execute function. That particular stimulant isn't a good match, and oh, so if it's not working, it's possible that stimulant isn't a good match, and the doctor may switch to an amphetamine based stimulant like Vyvanse or Adderall, or stimulants in general, may not be the right fit, and a non stimulant medication might be tried. To be clear, Concerta is a stimulant. It's an extended it's just, I guess it's just a different molecule, yeah. I mean, God, I would try something different if I could. Is, is switching like I want to know if it isn't unusually hard, though it does take some careful steps with a doctor, so there might be some tapering you have to do, and then some adjustments to find the right dose back up. I would make 1000 sticky notes that say, get your ADHD under. Troll and put them everywhere along with the doctor's phone number. And to make sure you do, those are my best friend, because I'm worried that you're gonna leave here and just be like, it'll probably be all right, and then

Gabby 55:09
never think about it. No, not at all. All right. Gabby,

Scott Benner 55:13
I can't believe this went this way. Part of me wanted to call this episode Yo Gabba. Gabba, but, uh, that's not gonna work out. Definitely total world, but tilt world is accurate. Why did you want to come on the podcast? By the way? Funny? Because I hate those. No one likes them. They're ridiculous, okay,

Gabby 55:29
but I hate anything like it, like the tea cups, even the tea cups,

Scott Benner 55:36
hey, oh, it's gonna be okay. I thought that was, hold on, a second. I need a second. I'll explain why. I'll be back in 20 seconds. I'll explain when I get back. All right, a lot of these words might not make sense. By blue mbanja Panther chameleon did not eat his super worm this morning, and the super worm was about to make a great escape out of the feeder run cup. Oh no. I don't know if any of that made sense to you or not, did, but how did it escape? Well, previously, there was a silk worm in there that he didn't eat, and the silk worms now go into a cocoon. And so it grabbed the silk and climbed up. Oh my gosh, I'm leaving it in there to see if he eats the silkworm moth once it's, what do they call it when it comes out of the cocoon, once it emerges, emerges maybe, yeah, yeah. Anyway, he is the weirdest eater of the of the chameleons. He stares at his food for hours. Oh, wow. And then eventually he goes, okay. And then he eats it, huh? It's just, I have one that, like, make sure, oh, I have one that would just eat anything. Like, if you put a rock in there and it wiggled, they'd be like, cool, done. I'm eating that. Not him. He's just, like, he is so particular about when he eats. He doesn't like anybody seeing him eat. He's he's the closest I've come to like, wanting to pull my own hair out

Gabby 57:01
because that the one that's afraid of certain colors?

Scott Benner 57:05
No, that's like lack of color. Now you're making me tell people, I have three chameleons. I hope you're happy. Gabby, no, the the one who's the one who's afraid of my white socks. He's just staring at me right now because he had, like, a huge approach this morning that he loved. And I think, I think he's waiting for another one. I think he's like, Hey, let's do that one more time. Yeah, so, and he just took a great poop the other day, so he's probably super excited

Gabby 57:33
to eat anything like, so, lunch, right? What's that? He's like, Arden, like, lunch, right? Like, lunch, yeah? Like, it's time for lunch. Like, you're gonna make me lunch? Yeah? No, he's

Scott Benner 57:43
looking at me, like one of my kids, and he's just like, somebody has got to bring at least one more of those roaches over here. So, yeah, the roaches, by the way, people should know who are listening, are not the kind that, like you would. They could infest your house there. Very much. No, they don't

Gabby 58:00
see you every night in Philly.

Scott Benner 58:02
Oh, oh, you're in Philly, yeah. Oh, that's right. How about that? Go birds. How about the Phillies are on a run right now, huh? Yeah, exciting. Everything's going well. What have we not talked about that we should have?

Gabby 58:22
Oh, how bent the cannula is that I just took out of my thigh.

Scott Benner 58:25
Oh, so it's not your thigh that was the problem. Or maybe, oh, wow, you pinch up when you put it in. No, well, why not? Gabby, you've had diabetes for 26 years. Pinch. Why? There's nothing to pinch. Is that what you said? Yeah, I mean, maybe my thighs are too muscley. I don't know. Is this a humble brag about your thighs being strong? Is

Gabby 58:49
there stuff to pinch elsewhere? Apparently, what especially like now in life, there's, there's more to pinch.

Scott Benner 58:56
You're calling 28 Wait, you're calling 28 um,

Gabby 59:00
I don't know if it's pinchy I'm, they're not small at all. But,

Scott Benner 59:06
uh, Gabby, if you think 28 is the now part of life, you're going to be in trouble.

Gabby 59:12
As you said about Arden and like, Oh, if complications in 30 years means that she's 3032

Scott Benner 59:20
uh, yeah. But I'm saying, like, if you think, like, oh, like, you know how, how it gets when your body's run down when you're 28 like, you're gonna look back at 28 one day and be like, Oh, my God, I can't believe I said

Gabby 59:31
that. Well, I don't mean run down. I just mean that I'm thicker than before. You're thicker

Scott Benner 59:35
than before. Okay, yeah, I almost asked this a couple of times, but this is such a, what I would call, like a science based question. But there was part of me that wondered, do you have any reason to try a GLP medication?

Gabby 59:49
Yes, but also I don't really have any resistance,

Scott Benner 59:53
because I was wondering there's like, look, this is apropos of nothing, and nobody should listen to me. But there have been a few people on who have talked about, like, starting a GLP, seeing a reduction in inflammation and other things in their life getting better. And there's part of me that, like half wonders, like, if you had a chance to try it, if you would notice something different about your attention, or ADHD, or anything like that. Like, how much is ADHD actually related to, you know, I don't know, inflammation, yeah, maybe I'm not sure. I mean, I listen also, that could all be just crazy. But I just wondered, like, because so many people are seeing these secondary quality effects from glps by mistake, right? They start because their weight, and then they, like, pop up later and say, Oh, I had a real, like, turn around in this or this, or like, with me, with, like, my digestion. Or, like, you know, there's that lady on recently who said that a lot of her kids, like bipolar, like issues kind of dissipated with it, like, crazy stuff like that. So I don't know, but do you need to lose weight? Like, could you talk somebody into it for that, just to try it? I, kind of want to give good insurance. I could, could lose some and also, like,

Gabby 1:01:17
one unit of insulin me

Scott Benner 1:01:19
over. So that's your other concern. Is that, like,

Gabby 1:01:23
I also think that's like, why a doctor would be like, No, I don't want you to

Scott Benner 1:01:27
be more insulin sensitive, yeah. But, um, I mean,

Gabby 1:01:31
sometimes I feel like I'm resistant, but I'm also like, maybe I just need to push my basal up because I gained a pound. Like, what's your total daily

Scott Benner 1:01:39
insulin use? Do you know it's somewhere around 50, okay, that's not nothing, yeah. What's your basal then, like around, what a point nine ish, yeah, yeah, because you're eating, you said you're vegetarian, yes, yeah. So you only use in about 2025, units a day for food. Yeah, it's mostly, what, mostly like proteins and and, like, you don't probably get a ton of fat either, right? Or, do you, I

Gabby 1:02:12
don't know, I think I get a good amount because I still eat, like, dairy. So,

Scott Benner 1:02:15
okay, are you like, a vegetarian? Are you like, one of those people who's like, potato chips? Vegetarian? Yeah, I

Gabby 1:02:28
only hesitate because I'm now more like potato chips, but only because, like, as a child and teenager and such, I like, never had potato chips, so after, I don't know, adulting, I was like potato chips. Maybe

Scott Benner 1:02:42
I just, I laugh, because I know a couple of vegetarians who like when, when you say vegetarian to like a third party, well, they, they think, when you say vegetarian to most people, like, oh, you eat, like, beans and lentils and salads and carrots and, you know, roots and and then you meet a vegetarian, they're like, Oh no. I just, you know, cookies and, you know, like, but there's no meat in it. So, like, I just wanted to know where you fell on

Gabby 1:03:04
the on the cookie, but after you have, like, your lentil vegetable soup, okay,

Scott Benner 1:03:08
I just want to know where you fell on the spectrum. That's all.

Gabby 1:03:11
I don't know. I feel somewhere medium ish, now,

Scott Benner 1:03:14
yeah, well, I mean, listen, if you don't think you have a lot of insulin resistance, I don't know if a GLP would decrease your need for insulin, so I don't know there's a lot there.

Gabby 1:03:26
Oh, like you're saying it wouldn't

Scott Benner 1:03:27
have that effect that much. What I feel like I'm seeing when I'm talking to people, obviously, I'm not talking to everybody, but I feel like I'm seeing people who could end up with what they call a dual diagnosis at some point, right where they kind of have attributes to type one, they have type one, and then they have attributes of type two, usually in the form of, like, insulin resistance, PCOS, like stuff like that. Yeah. There's been, you know, one specific doctor on here in the last year who said, Look, you're going to start seeing a lot more of these dual diagnoses for people. Now, if you're a person who has type one, but doesn't have any attributes to type two, but you have weight to lose, then I wonder, like, would it just decrease your appetite? Would it, you know, like you'd obviously have to change your insulin for those reasons. But it might not be the magic pill that it is for some people, like when you inject them, and then your insulin needs suddenly go down by 20% and so there's a world where, if it could help you with weight, it would, I mean, your insulin needs would go down as your body mass decreased, and it would go down if you ate less, obviously, but you could that you could keep up with that adjustment. And if it didn't touch, like, if it didn't have, like, a magical 20% decrease for you, then that wouldn't be an initial concern. And then do you get to see if lowering the inflammation in your body changes anything about your ADHD? That's all, but I don't know. There's a lot in there. To, like, unpack, I would maybe worry

Gabby 1:05:03
good. You'd maybe what I

Scott Benner 1:05:05
think I'd go for the vivent or the other drug first to see where that gets you.

Gabby 1:05:10
Well, logically I or logistically, I will talk to that doctor before a primary doctor. So

Scott Benner 1:05:19
those two things are worth bringing up. Like, if you've got a reasonably thoughtful doctor, they might, you know, maybe do some research with you and see if there's value in that. And what I'm saying is, if you have good insurance, just based on body mass index, if you qualify for, you know, we go over your set bound or something like that, the doctor doesn't have to make the case for the rest of it. You can just tell them, like, let's just track that to see if we see improvement in my, you know, in my ability to focus and stuff like that. Yeah, who knows? Worth a shot. It's better than what's happening now.

Gabby 1:05:53
Yeah, right, absolutely. I also have a theory now that I might be hypothyroid,

Scott Benner 1:06:04
and that's not a

Gabby 1:06:05
thing. You have to theorize, only a theory, I know, but I do have to get tested. I'm like, I can't go get tested. Like, in the next

Scott Benner 1:06:12
hour, when did you have this theory? You said, since when? Yeah, when did you have the theory the first time? Oh, well, the theory, like, crystallized, I don't know, became confident

Gabby 1:06:31
when I had this really weird symptom that I was like, I know I shouldn't Google stuff and, like, get anxious about it or something, but like, I gotta Google this, because it was really weird. I had like orange, like dark, rusty orange discoloration on just one my left hand on, like my thumb, where I pick and destroy my cuticles, where the skin right there on that thumb, like on that day, was like, raw. I knew it was healing. So there it was, like orangey. And I was like, oh, no, did I? Did I like, make my finger bleed, like in my sleep. But it was not blood at all, for sure. And it was like, just through some other fingers in, like my left palm. And it wasn't like, all over, like a ton, but I was trying to, like, wash my hands so much

Scott Benner 1:07:33
and it

Gabby 1:07:36
it like was dissolving, but over the whole day, not at all from like one hand wash at all, okay? And when I Googled it, wait, what did Google tell you? It was like, you ate 12 million carrots, obviously. And I was like, I am a carrot vegetarian, but I have not eaten 12 million carrots yesterday, okay? And then it was like, hypothyroidism. And I was like,

Scott Benner 1:08:05
Okay, do you have any other hypothyroid, like, symptoms? Have you gained weight recently? Is your hair falling out? Are your nails brittle? Are you tired?

Gabby 1:08:13
Have been brittle for my whole life? I

Scott Benner 1:08:16
don't think my

Gabby 1:08:18
hair has, like, fallen out more. It's just been relatively thin for a while,

Scott Benner 1:08:25
but my fatigue

Gabby 1:08:29
and sort of brain fog, but especially fatigue more recently.

Scott Benner 1:08:35
Well, maybe this doesn't have as much to do with your jewel. Yeah, exactly.

Gabby 1:08:39
So I don't know what it is, but then I had that orange and was like, was like, maybe that's it. Well, my fatigue was, is still is, like, ridiculous. Well,

Scott Benner 1:08:50
Gabby, then, if you have ADHD, and then you layer the fog of hypothyroidism over top of it, then you need to, like, peel that onion apart and get these things taken care of, like, so just you got to go to the doctor, lay all this out and say, I need a blood test. I need you to do a thyroid panel. That's first, right? I have an autoimmune disease already. It's not crazy to think that I this could be too. Let's check, right? Yeah, and tell them. Like, if, if you see a TSH over, you know, 2.1 then I want to try to medicate these symptoms. We'll do that that's only going to take a couple of weeks on the thyroid medication to see if you're going to get value out of that. Then you can re assess your ADHD medication. Is that helping? Or do I need to switch to something else, right? Yeah. I mean, these could be quick fixes for you. Just got to get in there and get in there and get somebody

Gabby 1:09:43
moving on it. Yeah, I'm set to see a new primary in the beginning of September, so

Scott Benner 1:09:48
hopefully,

Gabby 1:09:50
I don't know the dude, but hopefully he'll be cool and be like, Yep, all right. Test. Here we go.

Scott Benner 1:09:55
Write it all out beforehand so that you don't walk in there and see. Like a scattered mess, right? You know what I mean? Just say to him, like,

Gabby 1:10:05
actually, I've been working with a naturopath doctor, and she basically has been doing that with me. I mean, lots of other stuff. And she does cranio sacral therapy, which is

Scott Benner 1:10:15
very cool, but

Gabby 1:10:19
one of our main things is organizing, like, literally, in document form, so that I can walk in to the primary doctor and be like, This is what I want and need, and this is what has been killing this and that and weird and yeah, you,

Scott Benner 1:10:37
of most people that I've spoken to like you would benefit from writing down your thoughts, loading them into chat GPT, and saying, Hey, can you turn this into a document that I can hand to a doctor? I'm afraid that I'll be all over the place if I try to speak this out, and then it'll give you something back that you can give right to the doctor. Yeah, yeah, because you don't want because I think you're lovely, and I've had a great time with you, but I'm making a podcast with you. Like, if you walked into a doctor's office and I was a doctor, I can see where in the first couple of minutes before I even got to know you. I don't mean this in a bad way, but, like, it can be exhausting dealing with somebody who's got your problems, yeah, and so like, the other person can just be like, like, I know it's turning into a good podcast, and I know that people will benefit from it. You know, I have a lot of reasons to keep having my conversation with you. If we were, like, sitting at a party and I started talking, I'd be like, oh, boy, I can't, I can't, I can't do this with Gabby. Like, it's a lot here. But before I let you go, did you say your boyfriend has diabetes? What kind? Oh, we don't know. Maybe you don't know. Well, I think Lata, I'm not an endo. So what can I say?

Gabby 1:11:50
He was diagnosed with type two, and that was a while ago, and I don't know that he's had antibodies run like again.

Scott Benner 1:12:01
So how old is he? 35 a man's world again. Why is this? How come he gets a shot at a 28 year old? Gabby, not fair. I mean, it's only like, what? Six years? Well, I mean, that's seven years, and that's a lot of time. Imagine when you were one he was, I guess, because I'm about to be my birthday, yeah. Imagine when you were one years old, he was eight. I know we talk about that all the time. Well, when you were 15, he was 23 What can I say? Creepy? You know what? I mean? I'm just kidding. You're older now. It's fine, but no, like,

Gabby 1:12:33
it's he also did slide into the DMS, quite literally. But like, also about diabetes. And was like, let's chat about that so, and then the slide worked.

Scott Benner 1:12:44
He got you that way. Yeah, you didn't have to go to a hinge or something like that. No, especially because it was during covid. Is that how people meet people now tinge right?

Gabby 1:12:55
Well, yeah, actually, he saw me on Tinder, and then I guess my Instagram was like, on there in that moment, and so I never actually saw him on Tinder, but

Scott Benner 1:13:09
saw his message on Instagram. I don't know how kids date like, it's crazy to me. It is, yeah, yeah. The whole thing sounds insane to me, like he just used to go out, like, find a pretty girl and talk to them, and if they didn't act like they were mortified by you tried talking to them more. That was pretty much it, yeah. All right, listen, what's

Gabby 1:13:30
that? That's how it was after the Instagram text. All

Scott Benner 1:13:34
right, Gabby, I need you to go take care of yourself. You have a list you know what to do? Yeah? Are you sure, Kevin, you know, if you want me to, I can ship over your file. Have Rob edit it now. He'll send it back to me. I can literally take the transcript from it, put it through chatgpt and tell it to put together, like walking orders for you, like things that you should do and things you should say to your doctor, and it'll spit it right back out.

Gabby 1:14:03
I mean, that would be interesting to at the least. Yeah, sure.

Scott Benner 1:14:07
How about if I do that? Oh, now I'm giving myself more work. I gotta make a note. Hold on a second interesting Gabby,

Gabby 1:14:16
just to see what it has to say.

Scott Benner 1:14:18
Chat. Doctors ask. All right, okay, well, Rob's gonna get away with one here, because I'm gonna tell him he doesn't need to edit out any of the gaps. And he's gonna be like, Oh, thank you, Scott. And then you have no idea, like, your episode. I'm gonna guess a lot, he would get back to me and say I had to make like, 600 edits on that. Oh, my God, trust me, and you weren't bad. I've talked to some people before that. I was like, oh, Rob's gonna like, quit. I send this one over nevertheless. Okay, all right, you were terrific. I will do that. I'll package it together with a blog post that'll accompany. Your episode when it comes up, but I will send it to you ahead of time earlier, so that you have it well before September. Okay, cool. All right. Thank you very much for doing this. And of course, let us all speak well that the Eagles and the Phillies win their respective championships this year as as should be, of course, right? That's all I know the Cubs fans are excited. They're having a good season at all, but screw you. It's our turn again. That's pretty much it. That's how I feel about that. I just won a World Series. That's all I want. I mean, how great was it to win the Super

Gabby 1:15:32
Bowl? Great. I mean, it was crazy. Yeah, it was about

Scott Benner 1:15:37
the best thing. And how great was it to watch Patrick my homes look sad. Yeah, yeah, awesome. Have you ever been to a game at the link?

Gabby 1:15:47
No, just a Phillies game, like last year.

Scott Benner 1:15:49
You should try an Eagles game. They're they're pretty awesome. I should go to an Eagles game. You should. I haven't been in a while. I'm gonna get Eagles tickets. I just decided. Look at you, Gabby. You're fixing my life. Thank you very much. I'll talk to you soon. Hold on for me, I need to tell you some stuff after we're done recording. Okay, okay, all right.

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Scott Benner 9/16/25 Scott Benner 9/16/25

#1629 Jump Kick

Brian’s adopted son Lucas, almost eight, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes just a year after joining their family.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Brian 0:15
My name is Brian. I'm a dad to an aspiring athlete who happens to have type one diabetes and He's seven years old.

Scott Benner 0:27
If this is your first time listening to the Juicebox podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcast or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and look for bold Beginnings The Diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. The episode you're about to enjoy was brought to you by Dexcom, the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. You can learn more and get started today at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox us med is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from us med for years. You can as well us med.com/juicebox or call 888-721-1514, use the link or the number. Get your free benefits. Check and get started today with us. Med, the episode you're about to listen to is sponsored by tandem Moby, the impressively small insulin pump. Tandem. Moby features tandems newest algorithm control iq plus technology. It's designed for greater discretion, more freedom and improved time and range. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox,

Brian 2:12
my name is Brian. I'm a dad to an aspiring athlete who happens to have type one diabetes, and He's seven years old.

Scott Benner 2:23
Are all of our sons and daughters aspiring athletes? Do you think?

Brian 2:27
I think so. I think so, especially after, after we get into they have high hopes and dreams. I

Scott Benner 2:36
guess you could say, Yeah, no kidding. Do you have other children? I

Brian 2:40
don't, I don't, he's, he's our only. He's actually adopted too, which, you know, we adopted him when he was, like, four months old. So for all intents and purposes, he's ours. So it's pretty, pretty interesting kind of his backstory and stuff like that. But Brian, I'm adopted as well. Oh, nice. Nice. What led to you adopting? So my wife and I, we had been kind of struggling with having children of our own for a while, and we decided to kind of go down the route of like in vitro and all those things, which wasn't very successful. It was funny. It was like Thanksgiving, I guess 2017 and because he was born on October 2017 and somebody, a friend of mine, is like, hey, he texts me. He's like, are you interested in taking care of a child? I'm like, what? So it happened to be his his girlfriend's daughter that had a child, and she couldn't keep the child for various reasons and things like that. So we ended up fostering him through state of Florida for geez, it took about two years going through court, court and things like that, until we finally were able to adopt him. So

Scott Benner 4:00
you fostered him as a newborn,

Brian 4:03
yeah, four months, yeah, yeah, it's

Scott Benner 4:06
interesting. So he never went into the system. It's because somebody knew somebody, and they were able to, like, settle up that way, exactly, exactly. So your buddy knew you had been trying to have kids. Yes, had you ever, like wondered out loud about adoption in front of your friend, or is this just happenstance?

Brian 4:24
You know, I think it was just happenstance. He kind of, he was in, he was actually in a church group of mine, and he kind of saw our struggles and things like that. And, you know, he just, he said, You guys were the first on my mind When this happened, and coincidentally, I think two months prior to Lucas, who's who's our son, prior to him being born, we actually miscarried. So it was kind of like everything all happened at once, and we're like, Okay, well, here's the emotions. We were actually in the Detroit airport eating lunch when he called me, and we're like, bawling our eyes out at. Dinner. And here it is, you know, like people are kind of looking at us a little bit strange and stuff like that. But yeah, it was, it was really interesting.

Scott Benner 5:07
Well, they didn't know how much you spent on in vitro. So, right, yeah,

Brian 5:11
right. I mean, jeez, yeah. How old is Lucas now? He's seven. He'll be eight in October. Awesome. So,

Scott Benner 5:19
well, that's awesome. So what do you know about his background? Like, I imagine a fair amount, is there type one diabetes or other autoimmune issues in his family?

Brian 5:28
So we do, we do stay in touch with his maternal grandmother, just kind of, she's kind of on the outside looking in, you know, sending pictures and stuff like that every once in a while. But what we did here is his grandfather's half brother actually had type one diabetes. So, I mean, could it be genetic, probably, but, you know, we're not, we're not sure, right? Yeah, so it's, it's really interesting,

Scott Benner 5:57
when was he diagnosed? How old?

Brian 6:00
So it was July, July of last year. So it was July 1, right before the Fourth of July. We had just come home from vacation. And, you know, typical, I mean, typical. Now I can say that I didn't know what the heck it was, you know, going into it, but, you know, he was extremely thirsty, he was tired all these things, and when we got home the next day, on Monday, my wife took him to a kid's Pool Party, and he collapsed at the pool. Thankfully, one of her really good dear friends of ours is a pediatric ER doc, and she kind of went into the, you know, emergency mode and said, hey, well, you know, what are some of his symptoms? And she's like, Yeah, you know he, he was thirsty. He wet the bed. He hasn't done that since he was, like, six months old, yeah. So she, she called up the hospital in Tampa and said, hey, you know the this family is going to come visit you guys, and I think he has diabetes. So that's, I don't know if we were ahead of the game, because, you know, I've listened to your podcast and we've had things on there about, you know, having bad medical experiences. But for the most part, it was really, really like, despite all the chaos and emotions and stuff like that, I mean, they took really, really good care of us, like, immediately, yeah,

Scott Benner 7:27
listen, if everybody had a pediatric ER doc with them when something happened, then they'd be doing, they'd be doing awesome. I know. I know, right? So when you got to the hospital, how far along was he in the process? Like, was he in DKA? Or, you know, where was, yeah,

Brian 7:44
yeah. So he was, he was in DKA, he read, I think his sugar rose, like, right around 807 8800, somewhere around there, he walked inside the hospital, and the doctors were like, I don't know how he did it, but I guess, you know, kids are resilient, but, you know, I guess that's a cliche thing to say, but, but when the docs kind of told me, you know, a couple hours later that, you know, we were within hours of him going into a coma, that's when kind of things kind of sunk in there, right? Yeah. So,

Scott Benner 8:15
so how does this all Brian intersect with, like, because your notes are interesting. Like, how does this all intersect with your journey and what's been happening to you? Can you kind of give me a little bit of that and we can blend them

Brian 8:26
together? Yeah, yeah. For sure, for sure. So, you know, I am a Army veteran. Served over in Germany, Bosnia. I did counterintelligence. It was fun times, but I like to tell people it was just like a Jason Bourne movie, except for less explosions and more paperwork involved. So, you know, it wasn't as exciting as the movies, but it was. It was kind of interesting, you know. But I was, you know, 1920 21 years of age, didn't really think much of it until, you know, later on life. It's opened a lot of doors and things like that as well, right? So one of the things, you know, per my notes, is, you know, we, I enjoy doing martial arts with Lucas, and I taught some of the classes with his class and all this stuff. And we were doing a warm up exercise. And part of the warm up exercise was doing these jump front kicks to bring the cardio up, right? I landed absolutely wrong way or the right way, depending on how you look at it, and I tore both my ACLs at the same time. Oh, so, yeah, yeah. How did that feel? Like I'm being serious, like, what's the level of pain there? It was kind of a shock, like I remember thinking, you know, time slowed down, obviously, but I felt like that can't be good. It was a strange feeling. Another instructor in the class, he said it sounded like two gunshots going off, and I just kind of like shuffled myself to the to the side of the wall. All, I tried to stand up. I couldn't stand and I remember calling my wife. I said, Hey, you got to come pick Lucas. And I up. She's like, why? What happened to your car? I'm like, well, it wasn't my car. It was my knees, and I don't know what's going on. So, yeah, it was a lot of pain. It was somewhat embarrassing too, because, you know, there was anywhere from seven year olds to teenagers in the room, and

Scott Benner 10:24
you suddenly, yeah, like the old man. The old man tried to jump up in there and look what happened to him.

Brian 10:29
Yeah, how were you at that point? Yeah, I was old enough to know better, but yeah, I'm 51 now. So yeah, 50 at the time. So doing, yeah, doing 20 year old moves at a 50 year old. Yeah, Brian,

Scott Benner 10:43
let me tell you something. There's a video making the rounds today on the online, and it's a light, like, like a lightweight plane crash landing on a golf course. I think it's an it's an Australia so, you know, from this one perspective, people are filming, and this plane comes in, and it's startling, you know, comes in at like, he doesn't quite get it down smoothly. It kind of, kind of plops down a little bit. And this guy, who, you know, I'm gonna guess, somewhere between 50 and 60 years old, up on this rise, uh, happened to be next to the person holding the camera. So the camera continues on to the plane, while this man is like, I'm gonna go help. He jumps over like a curb, goes across a little bit of grass, starts heading down an embankment. You know, he takes four or five steps going down the hill, and his momentum gets ahead of how quickly his old ass can keep up with the momentum, and his hat flies off. He goes over, tumbling down the hill. And I'm like, I don't know where the bigger tragedy was here today, because I think the people on the plane are okay. This man probably broke every bone in his body, like falling down this hill, you know? Like it was just horrible. But what struck me as I kind of like walked away from the video, is about what you just talked about, which is, in his mind, he could do that. You know what I mean? Like, it wasn't like, there wasn't some horribly steep hill, you know, it's probably a thing he's run down a million times in his life, but just not at his age. And the last time he did it, he probably doesn't remember anyway, I imagine you in that same situation, like, jump, kick, no problem. Oh, bang, what the hell. And but then that tumbles you into a medical

Brian 12:22
issue, right, right, right. So we went to the ER and of course, they're like, Okay, well, let's do X rays. Nothing's broken. They brace me up. And they said, Okay, see a orthopedic surgeon in the morning. I'm like, awesome. Okay, yeah. Like, thanks. So I had, I had some crutches. I've never had to walk on crutches in my life. So it was like, you know, usually you have like, one good leg and one bad leg, but when you have two bad ones, it's kind of like, yeah, what do you do, right? Yeah, yeah. I had no idea. So, yeah. So fast forward a couple of weeks. I did some PT to kind of reduce swelling, all those things. Saw the orthopedic doctor. He said, Okay, well, we have to do the surgery if you want any sort of mobility back. I'm like, yes. I'm like, go ahead, do them both. And he's like, Well, actually, we don't do them both at the same time. I'm like, okay, so what does that look like? So it was just a lot of PT, getting me at least some strength back up and things like that. And then in April, I had my first surgery. Fast forward the whole summer, so going through, and we'll get to that too. But you know, going through all the diabetes journey, and then in August, having to have the second surgery, it was a load of fun, I

Scott Benner 13:39
tell you, surgery, diabetes, second surgery. That's kind of how it went. Yep, exactly. She's exactly. And you're not, like, first of all, they ever explained you why? Because you hear this all the time. Like, even when you go to the dentist, you're like, hey, I have a cavity on this side and on that side, yeah, there's two different visits. I'm like, why? Like, oh, what? You get so numb you'll bite your tongue. I was like, what if I promise not to? Like, you know what I mean? Like, can't wait, but so, but I understand, like, there's, there's reasons behind it that I'm not jiving with, I don't understand with the surgery though, like, you're laid up one way or the other. Like, what's one non surgical still bum leg good for I have always disliked ordering diabetes supplies. I'm guessing you have as well. It hasn't been a problem for us for the last few years, though, because we began using us Med, you can too us med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, to get your free benefits, check us med has served over 1 million people living with diabetes since 1996 they carry everything you need, from CGM to insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies and more. I'm talking about all the good ones, all your favorites, libre three, Dexcom g7 and pumps like Omnipod five, Omnipod dash tandem and most recently, the eyelet pump from. To bionics, the stuff you're looking for, they have it at us. Med, 888-721-1514, or go to us. Med, comm slash juice box to get started now use my link to support the podcast that's usmed.com/juice, box. Or call 888-721-1514, this episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump and algorithm, the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus, which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control iq plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head now to my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, to check out your benefits and get started today.

Brian 16:24
I don't know, you know, looking back, I'm like, because it's interesting, the first surgery on the left knee is still the knee that bothers me the most. The right one was like, Okay, well, that was surgery. Went through it. It feels pretty good now, okay, but yeah, the left one's still giving me issues. You know, a year and a half later, I don't know the reasoning, but yeah,

Scott Benner 16:46
you do the surgery, then there's the recovery, then there's the gap of time, and then another surgery and a recovery. What keeping the diabetes at it for? For a second? How long are you laid up for? And what's the impact on you being laid up that long?

Brian 16:59
Yeah, so the first surgery, you know, I really didn't know what to expect. I never really had any surgeries in my life, except for maybe, like, ear tubes as a kid or something like that. So I didn't know. I mean, I thought I was gonna die in anesthesia. So I'm, like, telling my wife, hey, if I don't wake up, you know, do this and that it was a good, like, two weeks, and you go from, like, being laid up in bed to,

Scott Benner 17:29
I mean,

Brian 17:31
not being able to use the bathroom on your own. My wife had to, like, help me shower. Got this strange bag you put on the surgical leg so that you could kind of take a shower and feel somewhat human like but that was like four or five days after the surgery. So, I mean, you can imagine it was, it wasn't very pleasant. But that being said, probably after a week, the doctor really wanted me to at least start putting weight on it and start moving and things like that. So he was an athletic orthopedic surgeon. I mean, he had many, many years of experience. In fact, he said, out of his 28 years of experience, I'm like, one of less than five that have done both at the same time. So I'm like, Hey, does that make me an elite athlete or something? He's like, No.

Scott Benner 18:20
Makes you elite at falling, is what it makes you. Yeah, makes it makes you the guy tumbling down the hill at the at the golf course,

Brian 18:28
exactly, exactly. So it was, it was a lot of fun. And I'm using finger quotes. So I had a walker. I started using a walker for a little bit, which actually the Walker was better than the crutches. I felt like I could maneuver a little bit better on a walker. So if you can imagine, like grandma with the tennis balls, well, here's this 50 year old guy. I have two broken legs pretty much on a walker trying to get his coffee in the kitchen.

Scott Benner 18:54
So yeah, are you able to work during that a

Brian 18:58
little bit? So I work from home most days. But thankfully, I work for a really good company that's got a great culture, and they totally understood, like, this is a life changing type of thing you're going through. And I was able to take a good amount of time off and then kind of weave work in there as I could. Yeah, the first surgery, it was a good three weeks before I could kind of get my mind back to things and stuff, because, I mean, you're on narcotics and all sorts of fun stuff, right? So

Scott Benner 19:29
my daughter is on like, day 11 of her, like, tonsil surgery. She's 21 and I have to admit, in the beginning they were like, look, you're, you know, she's gonna be laid up for two weeks. And some people don't go back to work for two or three weeks afterwards. Even I was like, Listen, I'm like, kind of baby can't get back to work after having their tonsils taken out, but now I'm watching it happen to her. My God, it's hard on you. And, oh yeah, not just difficult and incredibly painful, but then, like you said, you're taking the meds to deal with the pain, and you're kind of half out of it to. Begin with. And I was like, Oh, this is why people can't do this and go to work at the same time. Kind of obvious in hindsight, but it was one of those things, like, they're like, we're just going to take our tonsils out. And I was like, okay, like, that doesn't sound like on its face. Is like, terrible. And even, like, going through surgery for an ACL like, as we're talking about, I'm thinking, like, maybe you can't do two of them because, like, maybe your body just can't, like, rebound from something like that. You can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox, the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes. The Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends, and the app will also provide you with a projected a 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juicebox, when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juicebox,

Brian 21:25
head over there. Now, yeah, yeah, that's probably what it is. Because, I mean, there's a very structured PT thing that they do. I mean, they start with the basics of like, raising your leg. And if you can't do that, then they do, like electro stem on it. And thankfully, I did have the ability to raise my leg, like, literally, the day after surgery. So, I mean, I didn't feel good by any means, but I was able to still use my muscles, which was good a lot of people those type of injuries, the muscles just totally shut off. And there's a lot more extensive stuff they have to do with PT. So

Scott Benner 22:05
before we started recording, you kind of alluded to this for a second. But did this put weight on you?

Brian 22:11
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, a lot. So I was always been fairly active. I mean, I was in military, ups and downs like any, anybody, right? But just the, you know, feeling sorry for myself and a lazy boy that, or actually was like one of those lift chairs that we got from Amazon. You know, you feel sorry for yourself. You start eating bad, all that stuff. So I put on a good, like, 50 pounds through that whole thing, up until probably last November, when my doctor is like, well, you know, your cholesterol is up and you're all that. I'm like, yeah, no, no, crap. I mean, I've been in a lazy boy this whole time. Yeah, he suggested the GLP meds to to help with that, because he's like, you know, you're otherwise healthy, your knees aren't going to do any good with all this extra weight. And, you know, I think some of that weight gain and stuff like that was, it was hard to recover from a lot of that stuff, because I gained so much

Scott Benner 23:13
weight, so there's a lack of mobility. You're not eating well, you're a little bummed out about, I mean, it's got to be a bummer. Just just not be able to walk around and be using a walker for months and months at a time, and then in the middle of it, your kid gets diabetes too, right?

Brian 23:26
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, you could understand, probably, the mental gymnastics that that places on people and right based off of people that you've talked to. And you add, you know, another medical complication in the mix, and it's, it becomes more

Scott Benner 23:41
than you can kind of overwhelm on your own. So Exactly, yeah, tell me your How tall are you?

Brian 23:47
So I'm 510 okay, I was pushing 250 injury, I was right around 200 and now I'm actually back down to like 180 which is, I haven't been 180 since probably the military. So it's, it's felt really, really good, yeah,

Scott Benner 24:03
I was gonna say 510, two, hundreds, even a little extra. So, yeah, yeah. So wow, you were, you were probably 70 pounds overweight. Then, yeah, yeah, easily, easily. And how long has this process been since you started the GLP till now?

Brian 24:17
So I think early November. So, yeah, not even a year. Yeah, not even a year. And I, I don't know what it is, I think it's sometimes. I think it's like, the the military kicks in and be like, Okay, well, they're giving me this medicine. I just, I gotta do it, and I gotta stick to the plan and go, go, go. And, I mean, between that I was doing PT twice a week, and then going to the gym all that stuff, it just started coming off like crazy, which is amazing, but, yeah, so

Scott Benner 24:49
it is odd how quickly can happen. I'm down just 70 pounds too. It took me two years, though. Yeah, yeah. So you have your first surgery, then the story we heard about your. Child being diagnosed, is there? Like, talk to me about the layering of the diabetes on top of your life. Like, what, what did you find to be the biggest adjustment for you personally, and how did your son handle

Brian 25:14
it? You know, it was, it was definitely, you know, at first it was a shock. Like, why is this happening to us right now, you know, like, can it, you know, if it's going to happen, why can't it happen a year from now? You know, but you know, it doesn't, you know, diabetes doesn't really have any say in when it, when it gets to somebody, right? So, so I think it's the shock, and I think a lot of it, too, is kind of a, it's almost like a grieving process, right? Like, you're like, Okay, I had all these aspirations for my son, and now he's got diabetes. What does that mean? And, you know, you go down rabbit holes of internet. I had no idea, really what type one diabetes was. And I'm like, you know, like everybody else, I was like, Hey, he's fit, you know, He's skinny. How? How did he get it? You know? Was it the Chick fil A milkshake he had the day before, you know? And, and obviously it wasn't right,

Scott Benner 26:08
but it was, but it doesn't stop your mind from racing through all that, right, right, right?

Brian 26:13
So, you know, we get through the first three days at the hospital, which, again, awesome. Care. In fact, he didn't want to leave because he was like, excited about picking his own meals on the on the screen, and then they had, like, an Xbox in the children's hospital. So he's like, Yeah, I just want to sit here and play NFL. I'm like, No, dude, you we got to go home now. Okay. Well, this is this bag of stuff you guys get to take home now. And now you have to give injections, and now you have to do these, you know, mental calculations and correction factors and all this stuff. And, you know, I'm a it nerd, right? Like, I'm like, Okay, well, this is an engineering problem. I can solve it. And, you know, I still, I mean, he's on, he's on a pump. Now he's on the Omnipod five, and I think I've got it tweaked about as good as I can at this point. But, you know, like yesterday, he was, you know, 90% in range. Today, he's 60% in range, you know, it's, it just depends, right? So, yeah, in the hospital, doing all this stuff, you know. And I'm walking into the hospital at this point, like, in a cane and, you know. And here I'm like, I, you know, I'm kind of a humorous person. I'm trying to joke. And I'm like, Well, you know, I'm in the hospital too, because I just tore both my ACLs. And of course, you know, you're talking to doctors that are not orthopedic people, and I don't think they appreciated, you know, my medical stuff going on at the same time, but I don't know. I was trying to make light of the situation, which was a very difficult situation. So no,

Scott Benner 27:52
I mean, it's got to be a lot, right? So do you and your wife kind of split the diabetes care, or does one? Does it kind of lend towards one of you more than the other?

Brian 28:02
Yeah, so it's interesting. Now it's, it's both of us. I mean, we have to, otherwise it's overwhelming. You know, we equate it to, like, if you know, when he was a newborn and he woke up in the middle of the night screaming, Well, right now, that's the sugar pixel going off, and now it's time to get up and give him some juice or something, because he's 45 going straight down, right? Yeah, you know. So there's that, and we kind of tag team the alerts, and we kind of have a general understanding, like, if it's a work week for me, she'll try to get up. But, you know, I can't help not getting up. Like, I'm not gonna, like, lay in bed and be like, Oh no, you go get him, right? So a lot of times it's both of us getting up interrupted sleep, checking the sugar, making sure it's good. For the weirdest period of time, I think it was earlier on in the year with the Dexcom. The Dexcom was like 100 points off, so he'd be low. But actually it was, like, 125 and we're like, okay, that's weird. You just got a 125 blood sugar high, yeah? Like, I'm like, he's perfect. But can you imagine, like, all right, I didn't if I didn't do a finger stick, like, Okay, now he's in the 300

Scott Benner 29:16
to drive it up. Yeah. Listen, I have Arden. We've been making adjustments to ardent insulin, as she's done with the surgery, and, you know, and things are getting different. And like last night, I said to her when she went to bed, I'm like, I think we're good now. I'm like, but you still might get low overnight, I'm not sure. And then, yeah, two o'clock, you know, the low alarm went off. And you know, she's still whacked on the pain meds. So I went in to help her, and and she's looking at me, and she's kind of going slowly because her throat hurts, so she's eating slowly. And there's part of me that's like, well, I'll stand here with her make sure she's okay. And then there's the other part of me wanted to go, like, Hey, you're all right, right. Like, can I I gotta go lay back down. So she just she looked at me, and even in the dark, she's like, are you all right? I said. I think I'm getting too old for this. I really do. And that's me and my 21 year old. You have a seven year old, right? You're not that much younger than me. You

Brian 30:08
know? Yeah, it's, it's definitely interesting. There's the mental gymnastics too, because, like, if he's low, we've discovered he gets like, really, really, like, angry, right? And, you know, who wouldn't I mean, people react differently to low and the high blood sugars, right? But I mean, it took us a while to realize that, though we're like, why is he flipping out? Like, what? What's going on? And, oh, well, he's 55 right now. Okay, so get some sugar in on all that stuff, and he's, he's back to his normal Lucas self, right? It took us a while and still, like my wife said to me the other day, she's like, Oh, I think, I think he hates me. I'm like, No, he doesn't hate you. He's having a you know, but, I mean, you're, you're a dad, you know how it is, right? It's just it stops and the downs, that is really a struggle, right?

Scott Benner 30:58
Also, the the low blood sugars and the balancing blood sugars are hard on you. We haven't happened an episode called altered minds that discusses how you know just your blood sugar being low changes your personality. Yeah, yeah. I try very hard not to judge anything that's happening during a low blood sugar, that's for sure. And you got to learn how to not take it with you when it's over too, which is not always as easy as it sounds. Yeah, when he comes out of the hospital, is it injections? Are you? MDI, are there CGM? So there are not. How did they start you through the process?

Brian 31:29
So, yeah. So they started us with the insulin pens, long term insulin, with the, you know, regular insulin, carb ratios, all that stuff. But he didn't come out of the hospital with a CGM, which that made it a little weird, but I kind of understand, like, I think their philosophy, or his original endocrinologist, you know, her philosophy, was essentially, you know, let's, let's get him the basics so they understand exactly how to do it. Should the technology not be there? And then, after about two, three weeks, then he was on the Dexcom g7 and even with that and injections, it made it a lot easier to manage. Oh, sure, yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, it took him about, or I think it was about three months. We got prescribed the the Omnipod, which is it's been, you know, he got on the Omnipod right as he was entering first grade. And that's, that's another story to the first grade nurse at the time, she actually had type one diabetes, which was awesome, right

Scott Benner 32:35
for you, not for her, but, yeah, yeah.

Brian 32:40
But you know, we love her dearly, like, if she listens to this podcast, like, Hey, we love you. You know all that stuff, but you know his low blood sugars weren't like yours. He doesn't need 30 carbs, you know? I mean, he would take maybe, and still, if he's 55 or 45 we can give him 10 carbs and he's back to where he needs to be, but he's little, she would get scared, and she'd give him a juice and, like, Ritz crackers and gummies and all this stuff, and all of a sudden he's back up to, like, 275 and it's like, Ah, come on, you know? But you know, I think her thing was like, Hey, I don't want him to, like, go into a seizure in the school so, plus school nurses, I have realized aren't, you know, personal care for my son, right? She's got other students to take care of as well. So, right? So, yeah, it's, it's interesting.

Scott Benner 33:32
Yeah, you start to get it, you know what I mean? Like you have these expectations every time something happens, and then you see how it really is, and you go, Okay, this is a good person trying their hardest. And exactly, yeah, exactly, she got other things to do too. But when on day one, you think, Oh, it's great. There's a nurse there, like, just for him, and it's going to be awesome. Yeah, exactly, everything's a learning curve. It really, just genuinely is as much as you want. You know, things to be one way doesn't always work that way, you know, like everything's not perfect,

Brian 34:03
not at all, not at all, yeah, so he's actually on his as of this year. He just started second grade. It's his third school in two years. And that was an interesting thing too, because last talking about things stacking up, you know, when it rains, it pours literally. So hurricane Milton, you know, I'm in Florida, Tampa area, you know, we had some home damage, and then we had to move. So that was one of those other fun moments as well. And it wasn't like our house got swept away by the water, but it was, you know, it came through the roof. We had mold issues, all this stuff. And I'm just like, Okay, well, it's time to move to a better place that doesn't get impacted as hurricanes do. I mean, we're in Florida, we're gonna get impacted, but it's we're way more inland right now than we were. So time

Scott Benner 34:57
to get out of there. Well, in your note. You talk about the resilience that you had to find in yourself, and I was wondering if you could kind of go into what led you to start thinking about that and how you made your way through it. Yeah, I think,

Brian 35:12
you know, you go back to, there's a quote I read from somebody the other day like, and it essentially goes like, hey, you know, you can choose to think your situation sucks, or you can choose to have your situation be awesome. And it's really a choice, right? And, you know, looking back, it's like, Okay, we have this diagnosis. You know, we could sit here and post all about, you know, the bad parts on on Instagram and and have everybody, you know, I guess, what do they call that? People? I don't know. It's a term, right? Or we could say, hey, you know, let's make the best of it. And it sucks. It's a crappy thing that can happen, especially to kids, but as a dad, you know, I have to be the one that kind of like leads the family, or lead by example, right? If I'm down on my on myself, which, I mean, I had plenty of reasons to be, but then that kind of trickles down to the rest of the family, right? So, guys, we always like to try to fix things, and, you know, I guess you just try to try to get through it and fix what you can and realize that, you know, you got to lean on your doctors. You got to lean on your community, you know, people around you, and stuff like that. So

Scott Benner 36:37
would you say that prior to your your jump kick, which, by the way, is that what you call it a front kick, what you call it

Brian 36:44
front jump so if you imagine the original Karate Kid, where he's doing the Crane Kick, and he, like, jumps up and down. So it's just like that, although I didn't do the arms and the air type of thing. So it's just, you know, well, thank God you had jumped

Scott Benner 36:57
up on your head. So prior to that, things just went right for you, right? Like you, you weren't having you and your wife didn't have medical issues until the you couldn't conceive. You didn't have any issues at all, even the the issue with the conception, the miscarriage, you get, the you know, the adoption, even that kind of turns out well, because there's Lucas, everything's great again. Like, so like, is that the idea that, like, you get to that, that injury, that it's not just, like, it's not a 10 day illness, right? It's not the flu or something like that. Like, this is a long haul. It brings you down. It makes you question yourself. And then in the middle of it, this thing happens, the Lucas, with the diabetes, and then you get the next surgery, and it's just, is it like a weight? Like, do you do you feel depressed? Is it like, you know, can you explain to me how you felt in that time?

Brian 37:47
Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously there's, there's depression involved and things like that. But you know, if you can't get out of that, or you start feeling sorry for yourself, then what kind of example are you setting for your kids too, right? So I think that was the key. And then also, like, with my wife, I was like, you know, we've gone through stuff like this before. I mean, not diabetes, but like, we've miscarried, we've lost children, you know, we've

Scott Benner 38:16
you've been through hard things in the past. You know how to do it, right? Yeah, right, right. Were you saying to me earlier that, like, there's an ability, because of the internet, to get like, like you can, I don't know, find a bunch of people in a similar situation, and get in like, some sort of a misery loop, or, like a victim bonding thing, or and let yourself go into that direction, and you willfully and meaningfully avoided it.

Brian 38:44
Yeah, yeah. In fact, my wife joined, like, a moms of type one diabetes group, and she was like, I just, I just can't keep looking at this stuff. She's like, I feel so bad for all these people, but you know, and rightfully so, right? I mean, I'm not discounting the role of motherhood by any means, or the ability to grieve for the disease or anything like that, but I think if you quit yourself in that situation, then you start to find reasons to also get into that loop as well. Yeah,

Scott Benner 39:18
it becomes, there's a word for it. I don't know what it is when people get in a group and they start kind of just like, describing what happened to themselves and reliving it over and over again, and the rehashing happens over and over without, like, without moving forward, without, without their it just it turns into a pity party for the lack of like, a better term. And you can get caught in it's almost like, Oh, what's that movie that my kids are always telling me, like, it's some movie where the characters end up in a nightclub, and the nightclub, like, slows down time and keeps you captured there, because you're happy forever and like, it's almost like the the the opposite of that, like, You're so sad, you just kind of it. It's like quicksand, like you can't get out of it then, right? And then the more people that come in, you feel like you have a community. But it's not really as much of a community as it is. You all just become like, I don't know, you all become like each other's anchors, and you're and you're you end up holding yourself in there. And then the opposite happens. So are you in my group, have you tried that one? I haven't yet. No, that one's not like that. If you're looking forward, still point your wife towards that one. There's, there's people in there trying to find answers, not trying to stay stuck. You know

Brian 40:33
what? I mean? Okay, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. And that's, I think that's what draw me to your podcast, too, is it was, you know, more educational, informative type of stuff, rather than, you know, pity party. I guess you could say,

Scott Benner 40:48
yeah, maybe whatever. I don't even mean to, like, I'm not trying to undervalue the sadness or the real burden of type one, or for yourself or for a loved one. But there's a moment I feel like this is what I heard you saying. Like, there's a moment where you got to just, like, pick yourself up and be like, All right, we got to get the moving here. Like, that's yes, it's enough, absolutely, yeah, right, absolutely, yeah. So you were able to do that for yourself. But why? Like, that's my last question around this. Is that, where did you draw your strength from? Like, there's the reason I asked Brian is it occurs to me, as I'm talking to so many people, that people have a much easier time doing stuff for other people than for themselves. Oh, yeah, so I'm looking for like, what your motivation was to say, Hey, I'm getting out of this nightclub, out of this tar pit, and I'm gonna get moving again.

Brian 41:37
Who are you doing it for? Definitely the family. Being in the the military, I have PTSD and all that fun stuff. And I think some of that, like tools that I use to get through that I think sometimes translates to, hey, you know, I've got this going on in my brain right now. I don't, I don't want them to kind of go through the same type of thing that I am right now. So I think it's, I don't know exactly, like, a two, yeah,

Scott Benner 42:07
you have experience or training with being in a terrible situation and realizing I can't stand here anymore, I gotta move exactly. Yeah, exactly, yep, when you train for the military, is that, like, quite literally, like live fire training, right? Like you did. You have to go through that.

Brian 42:23
Yeah, there was, there was some of that. I actually was, I did, essentially counter intelligence, anti terrorism stuff. And I guess the short story is, you know, we dealt with war crimes and seeing some of those things. And then after the military, I was actually working for a state police agency doing I was on a federal task force doing crimes against children, and I think, you know, PTSD definitely from the military, but also, you know, seeing the worst of human behavior on two sides of the spectrum. You know, the military and civilian life, I think really kind of makes it like, hey, I want something, something better for for my kids. I want them to not experience those things, some deep stuff, I guess so.

Scott Benner 43:15
No. I mean, you have a blend of interesting experiences, like you've gotten to see people willfully trying to hurt other people? Yep, yeah. And you know that there's often just a group of other people who are willfully trying to stop them. It's the only thing between, you know, between them and reaching their goals. And then you see it like on that state police level with kids, that's even, I mean, I mean, it's less shocking to hear that, you know, politically and you know, around money, people are trying to do what they're trying to do what they're trying to do, but when they're trying to hurt kids, then, I mean, all common sense, like anybody who's reasonable is, like, I don't this shouldn't be happening, right? Like, right. But it's not just happening once. It's happening constantly. I know, yeah, you're faced with it over and over again and and then, I guess then you start seeing your kids. I'm trying to put this all together, but I guess you start guess you start seeing your kid put into a situation where you think, like, wow, you know, could his life be less than what he deserves? I got to do everything I can, like, the world's already a bad enough place, or it can be like, we can't have this on top of the rest of that. Is that what you're trying to tell me,

Brian 44:18
yeah, yeah. I think, I think you nailed it there. I think it's, you know, you want the best for your for your kids, or most rational parents, too, right? Yeah. And when you see the worst of people, I think it makes it maybe easier to get to a place where you can make it better for somebody I don't

Scott Benner 44:38
know, you know. So, I mean, I would think for most rational people who don't have feelings like that, or don't involve themselves in hurting other people or taking advantage of, you know, large groups of citizens, you know, or anything in between, it just all sounds crazy. It's like the news comes on and you're like, you're hearing about a war here and a war there. And you're like, No, Can we all just stop? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Take the. 12 year old inside of you comes out, like, and you're just like, hey, I think if we all just stop hitting each other, this would be better. Oh, yeah, 100% right? And then, but then you realize, like, that's not going to happen, right, right? And now guys like you and women like you are out there trying to get in between that and the rest and trying to slow it down a little break your job is not even to stop it, right? It's just to slow it down a little bit. Yeah. And I think that's the feeding, right, right?

Brian 45:26
And, you know, innocence is lost in children so easily that you go through something like that, and then all of a sudden, you know, type one diabetes pops up. And you're like, Man, this kid's got to grow up super, super fast now. And thankfully, he's good at math, but my goodness, you know, I I can't imagine what a seven year old brain is doing right now, like thinking about all this

Scott Benner 45:49
stuff, no, it's until you really understand your entire like backstory and everything, that it didn't quite make sense to me, until I put it all together like that, like you've, you've seen what the world can be, and you think at some point that kid's gonna have to deal with this world? I need to put that off for as long as possible. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So you get up and get yourself moving, and pull yourself out of wherever you are and start figuring all this out, and put him in the best case scenario, like you even moved him out of the house and poured took him somewhere. Oh, oh yeah, yeah, you're on, like, a whole little reclamation thing, Brian, it's nice.

Brian 46:22
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Look at you. And then, and then there's little league. Oh my goodness, yeah.

Scott Benner 46:29
So go ahead, tell me, by the way, because those people, they exist in Little League too. And Brian, I don't know if you know this about my family, but my son played baseball from the time he was four until the day graduated from college, and Arden, had she not gotten hurt when she was about 14, was probably on her way to playing in college too. As a matter of fact, I've watched Arden. She was two games shy of reaching the Little League World Series in softball, so about nine years ago. So I have a ton of background in this. I can't wait to hear what you're experiencing.

Brian 47:00
Yeah, so it's so before diabetes, he was on a team in our in our old town, near Tampa, and he was doing well, extremely supportive people and all that. So we moved and I'm like, Hey, I gotta find the closest Little League to us. So I did, you know, and you know, met with a coach and all this stuff. And you know, from the beginning, I just didn't get the right, like, the right vibes, you know, just my my senses just went off, you know. And I said, Well, you know, he really loves baseball, so let's put him in there. And I said, you know, he does have type one diabetes, but you know that shouldn't limit him and all that. And then I just started seeing the, okay, well, he was last on the roster to go up for bat. He'd be sitting on the bench. Because, you know, well, we can only put, what is it, 10 players on the field at a time, and he was player number 11, and then, okay, well, he can go in a catcher, because I don't want his blood sugars to go bad. And I'm like, Okay, well, let me deal with that part of things, you know, if he goes low or if he goes high, you know, we can handle that, but we never really were able to kind of communicate with that individual about, like, hey, you know, let him just play. He's a kid. But then there was also, like, the they were taking it way too serious for like seven year olds and and it was just it was terrible. So hindsight,

Scott Benner 48:26
they were worried about the diabetes without any actual background, kind of helping, in quotes, the wrong way. And then on top of that, you realized you were the bunch of people who thought all their kids were like the next

Brian 48:40
coming of Derek Jeter, exactly. And I think, you know, I even said to this individual, I said, I don't think they really appreciated it when I did, but I said, Hey, none of these kids are going to be these kids are going to make the major so just let them

Scott Benner 48:57
have fun. They don't want to hear that. Oh, wait a second. I don't want to hear that for sure. Listen, I've said this a number of times. I'm happy to say it again, that if you would have gone to when my son was 12, and maybe even till when he was 14, and assessed his entire team and said, I want you to pick the kid on this team that's going to play college baseball for four years. In a million years, you would not have picked my son. There was always a kid that was bigger or appeared stronger or appeared faster or something, and you thought like, oh, it's going to be that one. It's going to be that one. It was and it was none of those, the primordial goo that has to come together to turn you into a college athlete. It also has something to do with like your your mental makeup, right? I watched a kid make it to a school as a pitcher, and couldn't have felt better for the kid, you know what I mean. And one day you hear like he's pitching, like you can watch it on ESPN. I was like, This is crazy, and I flipped it. TV on, and I was like, Oh, my God, good for him. Look at him there. And five minutes later, I watched a ball leave that stadium that he pitched, and it went so far that, I think it knocked him right out of the school and took him right home again. You know what I mean? Like he was in over his head. He took a spot that, like he wasn't going to be able to compete in, but thought he was lucky and everything. And instead of just saying, like, oh, I don't fit here. I should have gone somewhere where I fit better. He shot the moon. He threw a half. I mean, one half of an inning where they shelled him so hard they literally, like, kicked him off the team. Wow. Like, that was another person who, at four years old, started playing baseball and made it all the way to the thing, and then one day it was just like, Now, get out of here. And, wow. So that's the one kid that made it. My son made it. Played the whole four years, and then, by the way, covid happened in the middle of it, and just a horror for kids playing school sports and in college at that point. The bigger issue is that it's unless you're just a giant and you're and you're just gifted in a way that literally just feels like it's handed down to you. You You know what I mean? Like, like, God, decided you're going to be a baseball player. If you're not one of those people, and very few people are, then the things that have to come together for, and you still have to love it, you have to not get hurt and, like, all this stuff has to happen. It just, it's not something you can plan for, right? Right? If I had five seconds to talk to those people, those people you tried to speak to, who, by the way, probably just thought you were, you know, a loser for saying that not everybody, of course, they're all going to make it, yeah, you know, like, like, if I had five seconds to talk to them, I'd say, Listen, you know, I watch professional baseball. You know, every day there's 30 some teams on each one of those teams. There's five middle reliever pitchers that suck, which means that there's like, 150 guys in the league who suck, but they're still the best that's going Yeah, exactly. And you think your kid, there are these two people. I wish I don't know them. There's no way they're listening to this. But I've never met two shorter people in my entire life and the entire time through Little League. They were a little younger than my son, so you kind of got to watch them, like, through the rear view mirror a little bit. And they acted like that kid was just the second coming of anything. And I kept thinking, like, he's going to be very tiny. Like, you're tiny people, he's going to be tiny too. Like, this doesn't work. Like, go turn your television on, you know. Do you see a lot of five, four guys playing professional baseball anywhere, you know, but they still, like, they burdened that kid and tortured him, like, and everything that could have been fun about that experience was a horror for that child. So, yeah, you know, he could have just had a great time playing baseball while he was a kid, and instead, yeah, he got told that he had a job to do, and he failed at it. I'm like, Yeah, you guys are misunderstanding parenting, that's for

Brian 52:51
sure. But so, yeah, it's so now we're doing basketball tryouts are in a week from now, and that was a interesting story how that all came about, too. That actually happened at friends for life. Really, it was, yeah, it was the last day there's a organization that was working with Medtronic called diabetes, doing things. Oh,

Scott Benner 53:16
Rob, yeah, of course, yeah.

Brian 53:19
So it's Rob and Gary Forbes. And then there was a female WNBA player as well, and I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but Lauren Cox, Lauren, yes, yes.

Scott Benner 53:33
Well, that was right off of my memory. Hey, I'm taking a victory lap on there. Like I'm so bad with names, I'm so impressed with myself. Okay, so go ahead.

Brian 53:40
Yeah. So, so we went through Lucas. And I went through this like, hey, you know these professional athletes, they have type one diabetes phase, and he's got cards from, you know, all the famous people. Like, now, of course, none of the names are coming at the top of my head, but yeah. And so I signed him up for this basketball thing, and Gary, it's amazing, like, so Lucas goes right up to Gary, and he's like, Hey, Gary, you're my favorite basketball player of all time. And he's like, he's like, Oh, well, well, thanks. And I think Lucas was like, on his Instagram and stuff like that. And it was, it was really cool. But Gary actually came talk to me, and I kind of told him the baseball story and all that. He's like, get him that F out of that and put him into something that he enjoys. I'm like, okay,

Scott Benner 54:34
but did your son not enjoy baseball? Or did he not enjoy what came with it?

Brian 54:39
I think it was what came with it, right? Like he enjoyed being out there. He was proud to wear his hat. You know, he would wear the baseball hat to school every day, all this stuff. But I think it was the he had a hard time hitting the ball. Like we went from machine pitch to coach pitch, and, you know, he had the timing right on the machine. But then. The coach, who knows, you know, how they pitch, right? And I think it was just a lot of variables, plus then you add the type one on top of it as well, and, you know, he's up and down depending on, you know, the day. So I think there was a lot of that. If

Scott Benner 55:17
you're not very naturally inclined to baseball, it's a lot of work, and it doesn't pay you back right away. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And there's a couple of people who, when you really stop and look at it, at that age, the kids that are are excelling are just physically, usually larger or stronger, and then they can overwhelm the pitching, and that's why they end up being successful when they're younger. There's always some kid who grows to like their full size by the time they're 10, and they just are dominating the whole thing. And then you look up three years later and they can't play, yeah, because then everybody grew past them, and now they're dominating them. So if your son's a little smaller, or a little, you know, or hasn't just been doing it every second of his life, you know, it's, it's just difficult to do, man, like, there's nothing harder than hitting that little ball. Like, it really, it really, it really, is hard. So, so why not do something that lends itself to some, you know, a more immediate enjoyment and success, and, you know, I mean, lets him Have fun. Because that's really what it's about, is having fun.

Brian 56:19
Yeah, absolutely. And he's, he's very tall for his age, too. And, I mean, just the other day he was practicing, and he's drilling like normal free throws, like, like a mad man. I'm like, wow, this is really good. So hopefully he keeps up with it, right, but enjoys it. You know, the the arcades where they have the basketball hoops that you play those, I mean, Chuck E Cheese, or any one of those places, right? He'll be drilling those like all the time. So I think he's got a natural ability, at least as a seven year old. But you know, like I said earlier, an aspiring athlete is probably a good definition, not necessarily, I guess. You know, time will tell.

Scott Benner 56:58
That'd be fun. Every year I'd say to my son in the off season, I'm like, Look, you don't have to do this. Like, if you're not enjoying this, tell me if you're like, This isn't for me. It's for you. If you don't, if you want to keep doing it, keep doing it, if you don't say something, like, you know, it's a lot of work. You know, especially baseball, there's a lot of failure in baseball. And you know, you can make this simple, like, statement that, like, Oh, it's good for you. Like, it builds character and stuff like that doesn't not for everybody. Some people just feel like they're failing, right, right? Do you really need to make a seven year old feel like they're failing? Like, it's just, it's just supposed to be fun, you know what? I mean? Yeah, like, it, trust me, if your son grows into a collegiate basketball player, or if he grew into a professional baseball player, like, you're not going to know that right now. Like, it just anybody who thinks they know where these kids are going, like, they're going to be sadly mistaken, like, at some point, and they're going to realize how much time they gave away to something that, in the end, didn't, you know, maybe do much more for them than it could have done if they would have just taken it less, not seriously, but just, you know, not treated it like it was life or death, and just let people have a good time. So, yeah,

Brian 58:07
yeah, I think you hit, hit the nail on the head, I guess there, because I think it's, you know, you want them to have fun. And look, I mean, being a kid is hard enough, right? And then you throw diabetes on top of it, and then the pressure to perform. You know that some some parents put on their kids and look, I want them to do well, right? And I'll probably be yelling at him if he misses a shot or something. But, you know, at the end of the day, if he's not having fun, like, Let's do something else, right? So

Scott Benner 58:37
I could endlessly tell you story I watched the one boy be just chastised, like, screamed at in his car every day after practice, like, I mean, like you could see from a distance the screaming that was going on in the car from the Father. And, you know now this many years later, that kid is 26 years old, and you know what he does for a living. He's not a professional baseball player, I can tell you that much, right, all right. And I could tell you that on the last day my son played college baseball, he was a center fielder who has been who had been told by numerous professional scouts that he graded out defensively as a professional baseball player, who also pitched sometimes, and had a 93 mile an hour fastball. And you know what my son does for a living now, he's 25 he is not a professional baseball player. In case you're wondering, if I said to you right now, Hey, your seven year old will one day be 21 and have a 93 mile an hour fastball, you'd say, Oh, they're going to play professional baseball. It's not necessarily the case, and it's not because he wouldn't have wanted to, or he didn't know how to work at it. It's this idea of best way I've ever been able to explain it to anybody trying to play baseball and probably any sport, really, if you aspire to college. And you know is that it's like a pyramid. So if you can imagine the fattest part of the pyramid at the bottom, the most people fit around the edge of the pyramid. And so like, you know that year, my. Kid starts playing Little League. I The number, I think, is 4 million American boys started playing Little League baseball that same summer. Yeah, and they all fit around the bottom of that pyramid. And then you take a step up, and there's a little less pyramid, and you take another step up and there's a little less and a little less, and one day, there's so little room that you and your amazing talent and your 93 mile an hour fastball and your ability to play both ways is literally not as good as the people who are left over next to you, and then they all step up and there's nowhere for you to hold on to, and just slide down and you slide off. Yeah, and it doesn't make you not good. It just makes you trying to do something that only a few 1000 people in the world do like. So, you know, at some point you have to be a giant freak of nature who also has all those same skills. Yeah, that's when you realize, like you're you've got yourself involved in something, that there's no way that when your kid was seven or eight years old, you would have known how it was going to end. Right, right? I as I look at it in the rear view mirror of my life and all I saw with other people's children, like so many kids would have benefited if everyone would have just said, like, this is just fun. Like, let this just be fun. You know, instead, you go find those kids now, and their memories are not positive, generally speaking, of their time playing sports, and that's a shame, but anyway, I'm sorry. Ron, good, no, no,

Brian 1:01:24
no, that's That's exactly right. I think, you know, I've even watched it when I was growing up, I was on the swim team, and there was a swimmer on the team that could have made the he went to the Olympic trials, and he actually told us he purposely tanked his trial because his parents pressured him so much to be this athlete like his. I mean, it was, what, 17 years old at the time, right? And the pressure, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So has every record, you know, in the city, probably still to this day. But you know, when it came to the Olympic trials, he just blew it because you didn't want to do it anymore.

Scott Benner 1:02:02
Yeah, so just wanted to get away from it. Arden tells me, she's like, I She's like, I'm not happy I got hurt. But she's like, I am glad that. Like, she's like, I don't think I would have enjoyed playing softball in college. And I was like, right? She said, but she could have. And I think that becomes, like, one of those things, like, you get to the point where you're like, Oh, I guess if I could have done it, I would have done it. And, like, would I have done it because I wanted to do it or because it's the thing I do? Because I spent so many years being the person who does this, you know? Like, that's the one worry I always have about my son. Like, I don't know. Like, did he? Did he just think that that's who he was at that point. You know what I mean? Like, of course I'm doing this because I mean, there's arguments to be made. He got into a good college because of of it. He got a better education because of it. He didn't pay as much for that education. Before I do it, I will tell you that that money we saved on his education just got spent somewhere else learning how to play baseball, right? That's, that's a wash, really. Yeah, you know, you just always kind of wonder if it's, you know, if we don't get a little too caught up in the whole thing, and and then once you you see other people taking it that seriously, you feel like, well, if I don't take it this seriously too, then I'll be on the outside, and that'll be it, like, I'll be on the bench, or they won't ask me back on the team, or, you know, whatever people end up thinking. And I don't know, I just tell people always the same thing, like, there's so much travel sports now, if you're not starting and playing, you're the one keeping the financial part of it afloat. You're either the check or you're a player. And if you don't know which you are, you're the check. Yeah, the most important thing about your kids playing sports is that it's fun, it's close to your home, and it's not expensive, exactly, not really, exactly. That's what I would tell you, is the best thing to do. Yeah, y'all are gonna not listen to me or Brian. You all think your kid is, uh, is the next coming of something, and God bless you. Have a good time. But I've lived through it. I just hope they

Brian 1:03:56
get in a good college, because that's a lot of money, travel ball and all that stuff. So

Scott Benner 1:04:01
no idea, like, the, I mean, listen, some of it was fun, like, I'm not gonna lie to you, and some of it was a great experience. And just being together with my son and doing that stuff and with Arden and doing that stuff was awesome. But, like, it didn't need to be to the level it was. He was always gonna grow into the player he was. He didn't need to go to Atlanta and play one summer. He didn't need to go to Florida and play. He didn't need to go to tournaments. And, you know, like, you know, everybody's like, Oh, you got to play better teams so that you can get better. Never once made them any better. To do that. Like, it's, you know, you got to have a certain amount of skill, and you got to want to play. And that's what makes you better. Just, it's repetition. I mean, you people are listening now, like, well, you know, if you're hitting bad pitching, how do you know if you know if you can play I'm like, I mean, take your point. But there's not pitching that much better in Florida, and when it is that much better, right? Nobody can hit him anyway, right? Right? Because you're down there playing against some kid who is going to be playing minor league baseball in 18 months, and you know, you're 15, and he's throwing nine. 91 and you're just like, yeah, like, I'm not getting better doing this thing. We this, this one situation where Cole's team went to Florida and they were told, like, you know, like, look the team you're playing on the first day. Yeah, there's going to be some scouts out there looking at their pitcher. And man, I'm going to tell you right now, there were 25 scouts there. The backstop was lined with guys with, like, guns, like measuring, this kid's pitching. And my son was like, I've never seen anything like this, like at the time, I think he was like, 15, and this kid's like throwing, like, 92 miles an hour already, like we're talking before the game. And he goes, What am I supposed to do? And I just, I gave him what I thought was good advice. I gave him what I think ends up being good life advice. I said he throws way harder than you're accustomed to. You're probably not going to hit it. I was like, but don't change who you are. Like, get in there, use your swing and put it on the ball and just try to compete with him. And if he, you know, and I said, and look at the strike zone and swing at the strikes, that's pretty much it. And he went in there. He didn't change his approach. He didn't try to speed up. There were kids who tried to speed up. There were kids who tried to, like, do little things to touch the ball, you know. And instead, he took three swings, he fouled off a ball, he struck out. Eventually, he came over to me after the game, and he's like, Hey, I fouled one off. And I was like, Yeah, that was awesome, like, and that ended up being a win for him, like he touched it, you know what I mean? And instead of putting the pressure on him that what he needed to do was go hit a 92 mile an hour fastball, which is not a thing that he had ever seen before in his entire life. And like, and putting that pressure on him, I just said, like, Just be true to yourself. And like, this will come along. And, you know, three years later, my son had hit a 92 mile an hour fastball, like, it's nothing, but like, yeah, there you go. That wasn't the day to teach him to do it. And but I saw other guys pulling their kids aside, and they were like, what they thought was, if you hit that ball off that kid, then these scouts are going to care about you too. And, yeah, that is not how any of that works. No, yeah. So anyway, I could bum you all out about youth sports for longer, if you needed me to, but we're out of time right now. Oh, my goodness, Ryan, is there anything that we didn't talk about that we should

Brian 1:07:22
have? No, I think you know, if I were to say anything to the dads out there, you know, just hang in there, right? And find other like minded dads. I know there was a great group at friends for life that all got together over some drinks and stuff like that. Take care of your family. Unfortunately, we can't figure everything out, but, you know, do the best you can. So,

Scott Benner 1:07:46
yeah, hey, man, listen, just in the end, like, you know, maybe not much different than what I just said is, like, you know, be consistent. Be yourself. Go out there and try to help other people, and that's your kid or your wife or your other kids in your family, like, just put other people first and and make decisions that you think are going to help them. And I think remember that this is going to get easier as it goes, that you're going to get better and better at it, that, you know, child or your life is not going to be some terrible failure or, you know, horrible let down because this happened. There are plenty of people out there living perfectly lovely lives with type one diabetes. Yeah, I think to Brian's point earlier, like you can choose to sit and wallow in it, or you can choose to get going. And, you know, so it's that movie, son, again, we can get busy living or get busy dying, right? Like, I don't know what, I don't know a movie that's from, but you know, just choose motion, move forward, you know, as best you can, and it really does work out so absolutely. All right, man, thank you very much. No, thank you as a pleasure. Hold on one second for me. Okay, all right,

today's episode of The Juicebox podcast was sponsored by the new tandem Moby system and control iq plus technology. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox check it out. Arden has been getting her diabetes supplies from us med for three years. You can as well us, med.com/juicebox, or Paul, 888-721-1514, my thanks to us, med for sponsoring this episode and for being longtime sponsors of the Juicebox podcast. There are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us, med and all of the sponsors. Today's episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 and the Dexcom g7 warms up in just 30 minutes. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox, I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed or following in your audio app. I'll be back. Back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. I created the diabetes variables series because I know that in type one diabetes management, the little things aren't that little, and they really add up. In this series, we'll break down everyday factors like stress, sleep, exercise and those other variables that impact your day more than you might think Jenny Smith and I are going to get straight to the point with practical advice that you can trust. So check out the diabetes variable series in your podcast player or at Juicebox podcast.com if you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox podcast private Facebook group Juicebox podcast type one diabetes. But everybody is welcome type one type two, gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com.

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