Scott Benner 2/19/25 Scott Benner 2/19/25

#1438 Pretzel

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Julia, a 26-year-old with T1D, Hydrocephalus, ADHD, Autism, and OCD, discusses life, insulin management, job struggles, and her alert dog.

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

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

Speaker 1 0:15
Hi, I'm Julia. I'm 26 years old, and I have been type one diabetic since November of 2004

Scott Benner 0:26
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. When you place your first order for ag one with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink, ag one.com/juice box. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy Earth com, all you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com Are you an adult living with type one or the caregiver of someone who is and a US resident? If you are, I'd love it if you would go to T 1d exchange.org/juicebox and take the survey. When you complete that survey, your answers are used to move type one diabetes research of all kinds. So if you'd like to help with type one research, but don't have time to go to a doctor or an investigation, T 1d exchange.org/juice, box. This episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next.com/juice, box. The episode you're listening to is sponsored by us. Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, you can get your diabetes testing supplies the same way we do from us. Med, Hi,

Julia 2:00
I'm Julia. I'm 26 years old, and I have been type one diabetic since November of 2004 2004

Scott Benner 2:13
1424, that's 20 years so you're you were six when you were diagnosed? Yes, wow. Gosh. That feel like a long time? Or how does it feel? I

Speaker 1 2:23
don't remember, yeah, I don't remember life before I was diagnosed. Yeah,

Scott Benner 2:29
you don't have a before and after. No, do you think that's a good thing? Or do you does that make you sad? Sometimes,

Speaker 1 2:36
I guess it's a good thing. Like, I didn't feel like I had to, like, stop eating something. And I mean, pretty much now with the insulin pumps, like I eat every anything in moderation,

Scott Benner 2:47
so you don't feel restricted, I guess is the question,

Speaker 1 2:51
no, like, I know, like before I was on insulin pump, like, you know, but like the technology, like the Dexcom, like I did restrict my eating a little more, but like, you know now that I know my blood sugar, like 24/7 I'm almost a little bit like, bad about eating things sometimes, like, I'll eat things that maybe I wouldn't have eaten, like, for the sensors and stuff like, explain, tell me how I have ice cream, like every day, dessert Time at dinner after dinner. Are you telling

Scott Benner 3:22
me that because you can see your blood sugars now and you're able to manage it well, that you eat more ice cream than you would have back when you were worried, like, oh, I don't know how this is gonna go. Probably, Oh, so you're saying, okay, okay, cool, yeah, all right. Well, that's interesting. And do you think that's been detrimental to you, or do you think that's been something that's opened your life up. I

Speaker 1 3:41
mean, my a, 1c is pretty good. It's like, think it was like 6.3 before, like, last time I go to my endocrinologist next week. So

Scott Benner 3:52
do you look at your variability, like, how up and down your blood sugars are? Do you look at your time and range, stuff like that?

Speaker 1 3:58
Yeah, yeah. I've actually found that gluco app shows a better time and range for some reason than the clarity app. Is

Scott Benner 4:06
it set at a different range? Like, is the clarity app could be? Yeah,

Speaker 1 4:11
it could be because, you know, I only have it for my doctor's sake. Because, like, I guess in order to download my data, they need the gluco app and the clarity app. And, like, never even touched any of the settings. I just I do what they say. So

Scott Benner 4:26
I was gonna say the the range, like, what's the range that you think of as your goal, and what range is on those apps?

Speaker 1 4:33
Well, I'd have to go to the apps to look at them. I don't remember off the top of my head.

Scott Benner 4:37
Well, where do you like to keep your blood sugar? Where are you most comfortable with

Speaker 1 4:42
it, like 70 and like, or no, like, some 70 is too low. Like, oh, here, here, I'll tell you this. Go ahead so, and this is something I was planning to bring up later in the conversation, but I have a diabetic alert dog, right? Okay, and her alert and. Numbers. Like, we had to train her to alert at a certain number. And she alerts at what, at 90 and 190 she'll, like, start alerting, like, a half hour, even before I'm there, like, so she's like, even ahead of the Dexcom,

Scott Benner 5:13
she can feel like, sense your rises and falls. You think,

Speaker 1 5:18
yes, yeah, I'm, like, not necessarily always aware of hyper or hypoglycemia. So like, you know, people say, Oh, why do you need a Dexcom? Or why do you need a diabetic alert dog if you have a Dexcom and, like, I say, well, sometimes she's more accurate. Like, there'll be days when my Dexcom, like, is, like, failing, and it's like 100 points off in range, right? You know, yeah,

Scott Benner 5:48
now I hear you. Let's Let's go. How long have you had the dog for? Like, what made you think, like, I really should get a diabetes alert dog? So

Speaker 1 5:55
actually, it was, I read the book, and I believe you had her on the podcast, Allen coach by Stephanie Shaheen, yeah, sure. And I found that one day at my local library, and I was like, Oh, this sounds amazing. What is this all about? So I checked it out from the library, and then, like, it took a while to convince my parents. At that point I was like, 17 or 18, I had enrolled in community college just because, like, you know, I didn't really want to go live in a dorm and not have,

Scott Benner 6:26
like, felt better to it felt better to live at home and commute. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell me when you went to them about the dog, I imagine they can be expensive. So, yeah, what was their response? Well, they

Speaker 1 6:41
were like, let's think about it for a while. A couple years later, I met somebody through one of the local JD JDRF chapters who had one of these Diabetic Alert dogs, and my mom and I went to go meet her, just like to see what it was all about and like, what the dog was like, and if it was like, a sure thing. When we came home from that meeting, my mom's like, okay, yes, you can do that. Oh,

Scott Benner 7:08
wow, cool. They were able to help you get it all set up and pay for it and stuff like that. I did a GoFundMe, did you really, yeah, oh, that's crazy. And that worked. How much did it? How much did the dog

Speaker 1 7:18
cost? Am I allowed to, like, mention this specific organization, or no. I mean, if you want to Sure, okay, as I said, it was the same organization that Stephanie Shaheen, daughter el went through, and that's cares Inc, out of Concordia, Kansas, back when I got the dog in October of 2021 they charged $5,000 I think when Elle got her dog, they charged 25 or $3,500 and now I think they charge 7500 which is still a lot cheaper than, you know, diabetic alert dogs of America, which charges like 30,000 Yeah,

Scott Benner 7:57
so that's a lot. Hey, for $30,000 you could probably pay a guy to walk around behind you and just, like, just, yeah, yeah, you know, like, look at your CGM constantly, yeah. That seems like a lot of money for a dog, right? Well, that's nice. So your parents were able to help you. And then, how old were you when you got them? Or her, I'm sorry, which? What was the dog? A boy,

Speaker 1 8:15
girl, I should have started with that. Her name is pretzel. Ah, how old? How old were? You got pretzel? I was 23 okay,

Scott Benner 8:24
all right, few years

Speaker 1 8:26
I got her, like, right? I'd say the pandemic was still going on. But, like, it was October 2021, so, so it was, wasn't like lockdown time. It was just like, you know, people being cautious and like, now, you know, as an immunocompromised person, I try to be cautious about COVID myself, like I don't want to make this political and all that, which I don't think it should be political. But, you know,

Scott Benner 8:51
just try not to get sick, if you can. Right? I actually had COVID in

Speaker 1 8:55
January of 2023, and basically all I had was, like a post nasal drip, and, like, I tested negative within like, three days.

Scott Benner 9:06
Well, I was I got, when I got COVID, I was sick for a while, and it hit me pretty hard. I was vaccinated and everything, and I just got, like, it hit me hard. So, yeah, no, nobody wants to be sick. Do you have other issues, like, other medical issues. Oh yeah, I do. You're like, Oh yeah, definitely. Hold on.

Speaker 1 9:24
This is this thing I sometimes I post anonymously in that, in the in the Juicebox group, I mentioned these other disabilities and, like, you know, like, if I say this, they're gonna know, like, oh yeah, that's that person with these conditions. So it's interesting. I was born with a neurological condition called hydrocephalus, sure, which is water on on the brain. It's a build up of cerebral spinal fluid, and I had my first of several brain surgeries at three days old. Wow. Then when I was six, is when I got to that. Diagnosed with type one, but we believe I caught that. Well, I don't want to say caught it, but inherited it from my grandfather, who was type two, and my aunt, who's type one, she would actually be considered like adult diagnosis, because I think she was 29 when she got it. In the last couple years, they've, like, they've changed the terminology about type one, just being about children and stuff. I have an anxiety disorder, which I guess a lot of people have, but, you know, mine's kind of bad and and then, more recently, I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism.

Scott Benner 10:39
Okay. Oh, wow. So and do you have any long term impacts from the hydrocephaly? There's a lot that can come with it, right? You've probably heard me talk about us Med and how simple it is to reorder with us med using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works. And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording was like, US med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your order's ready. You want us to send it, push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait. I think it lets you put it off, like, a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it. Us, med.com/juice, box. Or call 888-721-1514, get your free benefits checked now and get started with us. Med, Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new eyelet pump. Check them out now at us, med.com/juice, box. Or by calling 888721151, 887211514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us, med and to all the sponsors. The contour, next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash, then you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour, next.com/juicebox, you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger and Meyer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips and meter, then you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now. I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juice box. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through the Juicebox Podcast link will help to support the show.

Speaker 1 13:20
Yes, I actually have a head tick. So the cat my camera's not on, but if my camera was on, you would see my tick that I do, like uncontrollably. Is it pretty constant? Yeah, but I don't. The thing is, I don't know when I'm doing it. So I recently found out that Billy Eilish has Tourette's and she has a tick. So,

Scott Benner 13:46
I mean, I don't know, obviously a ton about hydrocephaly, but I know that it could kind of impact, like motor development, trying to remember what I know, like maybe vision and hearing stuff like that, or cognitive stuff. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 13:59
Like, I have strabismus, which is lazy eye, and that they said was from the hydrocephalus. Okay, I don't remember if it was your group or another group. I did remember talking to another parent of a person who had type one and hydrocephalus, because I was wondering if they were connected somehow. And I think, like, two parents commented saying, Oh, my kid has both.

Scott Benner 14:24
I see, yeah, you don't meet a lot of people that have it.

Unknown Speaker 14:29
No, they're the mix. Yeah.

Scott Benner 14:30
And what about how does the autism diagnosis come as an adult or as a child?

Speaker 1 14:35
Yeah, that actually came this past spring, spring 2024 How do you get

Scott Benner 14:42
to that, like, what's going on in your life, where you end up being in a situation where somebody's trying to diagnose you, like, what was happening that made you think, like, I need help or intervention or whatever.

Speaker 1 14:52
And this is where I said I didn't want to go into all my problems, because I post anonymously on the diabetes group. Blah.

Scott Benner 15:00
You don't have to say anything. You don't want to. Don't worry. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 15:03
yeah. But, like, you know, like, quite frankly, I haven't been employable. And like, you know, I was wondering, is it me, is it my other disabilities? Is it just the fact that I'm saying I always I was, was on the on job applications, saying yes, because I didn't want to lie, but then I switched to prefer not to answer. And I'm like, well, is that just as bad? So

Scott Benner 15:28
you were applying for jobs and just not getting them, and you thought, like, Is this because I'm saying I have diabetes? Is it because I'm saying like, or are they seeing something about me that I don't realize? Is that the idea, yes, okay,

Speaker 1 15:42
I haven't done unemployment yet. I'm a little hesitant too, because, like, I don't, and this is gonna go into, like, sort of semi political thing, but I don't like how they limit the amount of money in your bank account. That just seems a little weird to me. I know there's other Hold on.

Scott Benner 15:59
I don't know what you mean. Who limits money in your bank account? I forget if it's

Speaker 1 16:02
SSI or SSDI, but one of them, you have to only have, like, 2000 or $3,000 in your bank account at a time. So

Scott Benner 16:11
you're receiving some sort of public assistance, and if you make too much money, they'll take it from you. Yes,

Speaker 1 16:16
and that's why I haven't joined SSI yet, but I've been at a job since July. Again, what kind

Scott Benner 16:23
of job do you feel like you would enjoy? Well, honestly,

Speaker 1 16:26
I go on your group and I say, what kind of jobs are hiring for people with who want to help people with diabetes but do not have a college degree? Because, like, that's the other thing. On an academic level, I couldn't get a college degree because, in addition to all my other disabilities, I have something called this calcula, which is basically math dyslexia. And I went to a state school or no, so sorry. First I went to community college, and they were like, well, we can't let you graduate with an Associates unless you pass the math classes. But I was going to tutoring like four days a week and still failing. So they were like, well, Here, try this state school and you might have better luck. So I got the neuropsych eval done with the state school, because it was a state school and rather large, the Disability Services place was not very good. They forgot my name multiple times, and they also lost my paperwork multiple times. And then when I got into the talking with them about math, they were like, well, there's a chance we can let you skip math, but there's a chance not. And at that point, vocational rehab was, like, Julia, you're, you're 2425 I don't exactly remember when, how well I was, but, like, you don't have much job experience. If I were you, like, I just kind of drop out and see what, what you can get for work. Because, like, with all my things, I was not, um, you

Scott Benner 18:02
weren't having a lot of success at school. And, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 18:06
And I was too overwhelmed to work part time at the same time, right?

Scott Benner 18:10
Yeah, I understand. And yeah, can I ask, like, when you, when you get looked at for the somebody's going to try to make a diagnosis for you, and they come back with an autism diagnosis? Do you know what it is that they saw that led to that diagnosis, and did do you agree with it? I didn't

Speaker 1 18:26
even consider it until, like, my therapist brought it up to me this past winter. I think I was in special ed K 12. I was around autistic people, but I didn't consider myself like them, and yes, I know that Autism is a spectrum. I also should clarify that I was mostly around autistic boys and like I don't want to say anything that's inaccurate, because I was only recently diagnosed, and I'm still trying to learn more about autism, but my understanding is that boys and girls present differently, and it's much harder to both diagnose both autism and ADHD in girls and women I see than boys and men. Well,

Scott Benner 19:13
it's a lot, because now you've got to, like, learn all about this, like, this new world that you're you're being told you fit into but you're not even certain if you do,

Speaker 1 19:22
yeah, thankfully, I have discovered some people commented on one of my posts one time and said, Well, there's an ADHD and T 1d group, and there's an autism with T 1d group. So I I joined those, and they're much smaller in stature them like your group, and I barely see any posts from them on my feed. But you know, it's also good to know that they're out

Scott Benner 19:47
there. Yeah, no, of course. Like, hopefully, if you really needed something and you posted, people would say it, you know, yeah, yeah, that would be nice. What makes you want to come on the podcast? Because

Speaker 1 19:58
anything i. Discovered, like, with the experiences I've gone through, like, I want to advocate for people like myself with diabetes and with other conditions. Like, I'm not saying, like, I'm going to say things accurately. Like, that's why I don't want to talk about autism too much, because, like, again, I'm still learning about autism. But like, I want to be a voice. I want to be like a, like, not like a guiding light, but like a,

Scott Benner 20:25
I understand what you like. Yeah, you would, you would like it if you were able to share your story, in case people like you have a similar story. Is that, right? Yeah, yeah. Eventually,

Speaker 1 20:34
I'm hoping to maybe get hired by a diabetes company of some sort, I don't know doing what, but like, I'd love to work for a company that, like, highlights people with diabetes, or works with people with diabetes or even people with disabilities. Like, before, I wanted to have a career in that. But like, you know now I'm seeing like, there's so much like miscommunication and like misrepresentation about people with disabilities that, like, I think it's important. So

Scott Benner 21:03
do you see yourself like working in the building or being like a social media, like influencer for them, or what is it you're imagining? Maybe

Speaker 1 21:12
part of both, because I'm really good at social media, as a lot of people my age are, but you know, it'd be, it'd be nice to like, work with, like a, like a, like an organization, and like, be employed by them, yeah, not just like a sponsored influence or

Scott Benner 21:28
something. Do you have any idea what you'd be, what you think you'd be good at? I'm

Speaker 1 21:32
very good at writing so like writing up posts for social media, or writing up blogs like,

Scott Benner 21:39
yeah, and have you reached out to companies or to organizations? I've,

Speaker 1 21:44
I've done it a little bit, but most of them are saying, Oh, well, just look at our the jobs we're hiring. And most of them are, like, not where I'm living, or like, they need to do in the office, like, 40 hours a week, and like, you couldn't do that, right? Is that right? Yeah, I'm just trying to work 20 hours right now. Like, I need to, like, get my like together, so to speak.

Scott Benner 22:09
Sorry. What devices do you wear? You have a Dexcom. I heard you say, what else?

Speaker 1 22:13
Yes, so I have a Dexcom, and I think I'm allowed to say that I'm in the Omnipod five, limited market release, which I guess by the time this airs will hopefully be out in full market

Scott Benner 22:29
I would imagine, yeah, I would imagine it would be so. So tell me a little bit like you're in the limited market release for what, for iPhone app, or for something else for

Speaker 1 22:37
the iPhone, yes, oh, wow, which means it's not compatible with the Dexcom g7 yet, because they like for the iPhone app. Okay, I guess they're rolling that out soon, because, like, you know, I get so sick of those two hour warm ups, like, I have a good diabetes week, and then I'll do the two hour warm up. And during that two hours, not knowing what my blood sugar is like, screw it up in those two hours. Tell me

Scott Benner 23:02
what happens in the in that gap. I

Speaker 1 23:04
know what it is, like, every other hours of the week, but like, those two hours, I don't know what it is. And, like, I don't know if it's anxiety and anxiety thing or, like, does your

Scott Benner 23:14
blood sugar start to go up? Do you start eating because you're afraid you're low and and how come you? Yeah, I

Speaker 1 23:19
think a little bit of all that. Yeah, do you test? I don't test as much as I should. I know I I sound like one of those people that's like, Oh, I like, that's newly diagnosed, and they just want to use a Dexcom. And like, you know, I did the stone ages way, so to speak. I know it wasn't as stone ages as putting the needle in the spoiling water and reusing it. But like, you know, I did the multiple daily injections for years, and I did the testing multiple times a day for years. Like, as I've commented on post in the group A lot of times, I didn't get the Dexcom until I was out of high school. I think I was like 19 or 20, I went to the nurse every day, three times a day, four times a day, sometimes I was in the nurse's office more than I was in class. Now I'm just going on a tangent. No,

Scott Benner 24:10
no, I hear you. So you know, so, so you know that that two hour warm up period causes you grief, but you don't test and can you tell me why?

Unknown Speaker 24:18
Oh, you sound like my doctor. I don't know.

Scott Benner 24:21
I'm just asking, listen, you can do whatever you want. I'm just asking, like, when you know that that's a pain point for you, how come you don't prioritize the testing in there? If

Speaker 1 24:30
I felt really, really sick, like, if I was peeing a lot like, or like, nauseous, or whatever I would, I'm making myself sound like, sound like a very bad diabetic, and this is gonna need severe editing. No, you're

Scott Benner 24:44
not. No, you're listen, I think you're sharing what's happening to you, which I think probably happens to more people than you would expect. And I'm wondering if you can add insight into what stops you from just testing a couple of times. And maybe people could say, like, I mean, you say. You wanted to come on and see if and share your story like, you know, tell me, like, What stops you? Is it just, are you can I give you some examples? Are you irritated that you have to do it? Do you forget? Do you find yourself feeling combative about it, like I shouldn't have to do this? Or do, you know, even,

Speaker 1 25:18
like, I would say a bit like all the above kind of and then not to mention the fact that, you know, I had to keep track of where my meter was all the time. And now that I don't really use it, I don't keep track of it as much. And I think you could

Scott Benner 25:37
do it, Julia, I think you could, like, plan ahead and have your meter around every 10 days, don't you?

Speaker 1 25:42
I'm not liking what I'm saying here, and like I'm putting my foot in my mouth, and I

Scott Benner 25:48
think you're being honest. I just feel like you're being honest. If you're uncomfortable, you should stop, but I feel like you're being honest, yeah,

Speaker 1 25:54
yeah, no, I'm I'm Scott. What I'm doing is word vomit. Essentially, I

Scott Benner 26:00
feel like you're okay. Well, I if you're comfortable, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. You shouldn't worry about how you're what you're doing. You're just saying what you're thinking. Yeah, nothing wrong with that. Okay, well, if you like, we'll move past it. Yes, absolutely. So, okay, so you have the dog. Can I ask you, what are the like value ads, like, what are the things that you've noticed having the dog have been helpful with? And are there some things that it's been a problem for? Like, what are the goods and the bads

Speaker 1 26:29
it's been good because, like, you know, she makes me aware, because she'll start alerting to me, like, like, an hour, sometimes even before my Dexcom is going to go off and like so she'll know, like, I'm in a normal range, and she knows I'm heading either direction. I don't know which direction always, because, you know, sometimes there's that steady arrow, and she'll be alerting when there's a steady arrow and like, something's happening. So you gotta watch it. And

Scott Benner 26:58
then you look and you have, like, a 125, blood sugar, but it's not, doesn't seem to be moving in either direction at the moment. Yeah, and

Speaker 1 27:06
then, like, 30 to 60 minutes later, that alarm is going off. Isn't that incredible? It is

Scott Benner 27:13
pretty incredible. Well, listen, so then my question is, is when she alerts you, do you just wait to see what happens next? Or do you test or do something to, like, intervene.

Speaker 1 27:22
So what I do is, like, technically, I'm only supposed to, like the service dog company only, only recommended doing this. Like, if I'm if she's alerting to the numbers we set. Like, I said, 90 and 190 but since she gets so enthusiastic about like, alerting to me and like, doesn't like, basically as a panic attack, I'd say, I'll give her a treat before it's the required number to kind

Scott Benner 27:48
of calm her down. Yeah? And does that stop her from alerting? Though,

Speaker 1 27:51
not always. Oh, the other thing she does when she alerts, she pants, so like, she'll start panting all of a sudden. At first, we just thought, is this dog extremely thirsty? Is this dog like very hot, like we couldn't understand the panting. And then I talked to some people from the who had diabetic alert dogs from the same organization. They said, No, their dog does the same thing. Do you find

Scott Benner 28:14
it valuable having the dog? Or do you or is it like, more problems than value?

Speaker 1 28:21
Oh, 100% valuable. Like, I know, like, she's only four now, but like, I can't imagine living life without her. And like, you know, it's who's to say what the technology is like in 510, years. But like, I almost kind of not want to live without a diabetic alert dog now that I've had one,

Scott Benner 28:41
right? Oh, that's good. Well, that's good. So it's been a real positive experience for

Speaker 1 28:45
you. Yeah, excellent. Did I mention her name is pretzel. Pretzel.

Scott Benner 28:48
I know pretzel. I don't know if she's a girl or a boy, but I'm imagining she's a girl, because I think I hear you calling her she, yes, she is. She your only dog. Had you had a dog prior to that ever?

Speaker 1 28:59
Oh, no. And this, this is where we can talk about, like my, my life, life a little bit. So I live on a farm in rural Massachusetts, and we have 300 sheep. My parents are sheep farmers, wow. And we have one Border Collie and three Great Pyrenees, guard dogs, okay? And so pretzel has many dog friends, and she also has a lot of cat friends, because we have several cats too, indoor, outdoor cats. She so she loves other animals. Good,

Scott Benner 29:34
good. Again. You have other you have other pets and working animals too, yeah, but this

Speaker 1 29:39
is the coolest thing, and I can't believe we only just are just getting to this now, our quote, unquote, new Border Collie, which we got this past December, started alerting to my blood sugars too. With no training, she is far from like the professionally trained, like perfect in person service dog. Like, you can't you? We've taken her out in person a couple times, and she's like, you know, crazy, because she's like, I think she's just like, a year and a half now or so, how

Scott Benner 30:08
do you think she learned? My mother and I go back and forth.

Speaker 1 30:11
Her being seeing pretzel get treats, and wanting to notice that when she paused me, she gets a treat. But she's also alerted before pretzel has apparently, Border Collies are the smartest breed, or one of the smartest breeds, and we think she just has a

Scott Benner 30:31
knack for it. She just figured it out. That's pretty awesome. That's nice. Weird

Speaker 1 30:34
thing is, we've had like, four or five other border collies in my lifetime, and none of them knew how to do it,

Scott Benner 30:41
maybe seeing presel Do it somehow. Yeah, help them figure help that one figure it out. Hey, how come you don't work on the

Speaker 1 30:48
farm? Or do you I help out somewhat on the farm?

Scott Benner 30:52
Okay, but it's not a job. No, okay, no. Do you have brothers and sisters? No, I'm an only child. Okay, how about other like you said that you had a relative with type two and a relative with type one. Do you have any other autoimmune issues for yourself, personally or with your mom or your dad? Not that I know of. Okay, all right, when you post in the group and you're looking for answers, do you generally find that you get some Yes. You find it valuable. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 31:21
I mean that I've noticed recently, and this is nothing against you, Scott, but I've noticed recently that Facebook has changed the way things are. And if you don't put a post with your image, sorry, image with your post,

Scott Benner 31:36
you'll it ignores it a little bit. Yes, yeah, you won't

Speaker 1 31:39
be a scene. So I try to put some sort of image in my post and make it seem you

Scott Benner 31:46
ask a question, you feel like you get a good response and a conversation with people. Yes, good, yeah, that's excellent. How did you find the podcast?

Speaker 1 31:54
I actually found the Facebook group before I found the podcast, I had recently joined Facebook. Like, I was actually a late to Facebook person. I joined it like, I think when I was like, 18 or 19, like, a year or so before the pandemic, yeah, I was searching diabetes one day, and your group popped up, okay,

Scott Benner 32:19
and then you got in there, popped around, figured out it was from a podcast. And now you're Yeah, here, okay, well, that's amazing. Yeah, now I'm on the podcast too. Well, you certainly are. That's excellent. Very cool. You're using Omnipod five, right? So, yes, do you find that using, you know, like an algorithm based system, like this, has it been valuable for you? Has it made things easier, like, what's your experience with

Speaker 1 32:42
it? I think this is just how my body works. I don't think the Omnipod five keeps me in range as much as some other pumps have in the past. Specifically, like the Medtronic one, like I personally, unfortunately had a bad experience with tandem only because their their setup is little hard for people with dexterity issues like myself, that's a message to tandem to change up their system in the future for people with dexterity issues,

Scott Benner 33:12
what about the tandem pump? Did you find difficult putting

Speaker 1 33:16
the insulin in that tiny hole and then attaching that tube to the other part of the system. Okay, it was a couple years ago, so I kind of forgot, that's

Scott Benner 33:26
forgot. And then Medtronic, you said, What do you know, what system you were using with Medtronic,

Speaker 1 33:32
I was on it up to like one or two systems before they started requiring you use their own system. So

Scott Benner 33:40
they're on CGM, yes, okay, yeah, okay, yeah. And so that was just a, just a regular old in some pump it had as you set up the basal raids, it didn't, it wasn't making adjustments or anything for you. Yeah,

Speaker 1 33:51
yeah. I want to say my last Medtronic was a 630 G, but I don't remember. I

Scott Benner 33:57
see, and then you went from Medtronic to tandem, then from tandem to Omnipod.

Speaker 1 34:03
Yes, I see because I was, quite frankly, just fed up with the tubing. Like, that's another thing. Like, I'm clumsy, so I used to rip out my tubing at least once a week. And going back to my point about, like, where I mentioned, like, the type of body I have, like, I noticed that for whatever reason, my pods do not always last three days, and they'll start leaking on like day two or 2.5 okay, so I have to have my prescription written for every two days, okay? And still, I don't think it keeps me in as range as like the other ones, but I'm now trying fiasp and hoping that will faster insulin. Yeah, okay. And I know this is it's gonna sound like a sin to come on here and say this, but like, I also am bad at Pre Bolus thing, but I don't think

Scott Benner 34:56
that sounds like a sin at all. So let me ask you, like with the omnipot. Are you, I don't know. Are you thin and you have trouble finding, like, like, kind of flat spots for it? Is it like, wobbling around? Do you feel like the cannula is pulling out? Like, what do you think's happening? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 35:09
Like, I'm like, 110 pounds, about and only four foot 11. So, like, they said that, like, tiny people have these issues. You would think, with all the kids on on the Omnipod, they fix these problems. But do you

Scott Benner 35:25
have do you try, like, one of the like tapes, or over patches or anything to help it from moving? Have you ever tried that? I

Speaker 1 35:31
use skin tack a lot. I felt that the tapes that worked too much like I couldn't get it off when it was time, okay, and it didn't necessarily help with the leaking. Okay. Have you ever tried your belly? Yes, but I can only put it on one side of my belly because of my surgical scars from the hydrocephalus. Oh, no kidding. And also I noticed, and I think I read someone saying this the other day on the group, that the belly is kind of a painful insertion spot,

Scott Benner 36:05
people who are very thin. Yeah, yeah. My daughter wears it there she but she pinches up. So let me ask you, how do you eat? Do you have any special way of eating? I

Speaker 1 36:17
would love to say I'm keto, and I eat low carb, and I have a perfect time and range, but that's not the truth.

Scott Benner 36:24
Why would you love to say that? Because I feel

Speaker 1 36:28
like that's kind of like, the right thing to say, like, and I know like, we shouldn't be talking about, like, there's no really right or wrong with diabetes, because, like, regardless, we're going to have this for life. So I guess, I guess that's why I say that, since I'm gonna have this for life, why don't I just eat what I want, right,

Scott Benner 36:47
right? Make sure I understand. You feel like people are listening, and you should say, I eat very low carb, and my blood sugar is super stable and, like all that stuff. But that's not how you eat. And so, yeah, but you earlier, you said that you're in the range your doctor's happy with your a 1c seems very reasonable, like, so, yeah, how did you learn how to Bolus for the foods that you do eat? Trial

Speaker 1 37:10
and error? I'm a very picky eater, so, like, that's another reason, like, why I was going to tell you I'm not very good at Pre Bolus, because sometimes I'll have a meal, and I'm not sure how much I'm gonna finish of it. Okay,

Scott Benner 37:23
okay, well, it happens to me all the time. I mean, it happens to everybody, which is why, what you'll see people do sometimes, or something I've talked about on the podcast in the past, is I always just assume there's an amount of carbs you probably always eat, right? Like, so even if you sit down with 50 carbs, or you sit down with 40, or you sit down with 80, whatever you have on your plate. Yeah, you can say to yourself, you know what? I don't know how much of this I'm gonna eat, but I don't think I've ever sat down and not eaten 15 carbs. So I'm gonna Pre Bolus the first 15, and then as I see the rest of this food's happening, I'll put in the rest of the insulin, which is kind of how the reason I think of it that way is it's how I used to do it when Arden was younger. Yeah. So does that? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. But anyway, what happens you eat your blood sugar shoots up. You got to bring it back down, or it comes back down on its own,

Speaker 1 38:13
yeah? And then that's the other thing that I'll say about. You know how I talk about knowing what my blood sugar is 24/7 Yeah, like when I start to see those double down or double up, I start to, like, either rage Bolus or rage eat, okay? And I don't do that all the time, but it's become a little bit of a pattern, and it's worse on some days than others, okay,

Scott Benner 38:39
yeah. Well, what happens, like, if you see the shooting up blood sugar, for example, is that, like, you're like, Oh, I didn't put in any insulin, or I didn't put in enough insulin. Yeah,

Speaker 1 38:49
I didn't put in enough. And then I don't always correct if there's a double up, depending on how long ago I corrected, like, right now I'm going double up, and I corrected at this moment. 33 Yeah,

Scott Benner 39:04
is that food or do you think you're experiencing adrenaline? It's food

Speaker 1 39:08
and also probably a little bit of adrenaline, because, you know, I was nervous to come on here and talk

Scott Benner 39:13
to you. Yeah, you said before we started recording that you were nervous. Do you still feel nervous? Now,

Speaker 1 39:18
I thought I talked a little bit too much about disabilities, my like, gripes about being disabled, so I was not very happy with that part of the conversation. But I'm also glad that I did talk about disabilities, in a sense. So let me

Scott Benner 39:35
ask you a question, would you, if you like, when, when this gets edited? Like, we could take your name out of it? Would that make you comfortable? Like in the beginning, you said, Hi, my name is Julia. But what instead, if it was like, Hi, my name's and there was a blank space where you said your name and then it went on. Would that be better for you? No, I didn't say

Speaker 1 39:51
my last name, so I think it's okay. Okay,

Scott Benner 39:56
whatever you want. You just let me know. Okay,

Speaker 1 39:59
yeah. I just as long as it's not going to prevent me from getting a job. I guess, you know, my parents are always saying, Be careful what you post online, because it sticks with you forever, and your potential employers could be watching. That's, I think that's a myth.

Scott Benner 40:13
But, well, I listen if, if someone hears you. I mean, I've only been talking to you for 45 minutes, but I would think that if someone hears you talking in here, they'd be interested in you working for them. So yeah, I'd hope so too. Yeah, I think you're doing yourself solid here. I think you're representing yourself very well. I

Speaker 1 40:30
was actually planning on talking about a little bit less about the disability. It flowed well into the conversation. I'd say

Scott Benner 40:37
I'm happy that you're happy with it, yeah. So okay, so your blood sugar might shoot up if you don't Bolus right away. Sometimes you put insulin on, sometimes you don't, but what about when it's falling very quickly? Like, does that? I mean, it must be scary, I imagine. So what do you do that makes me

Speaker 1 40:53
want to eat, like, a lot, and like, fast, and like, you know, back, like, I keep saying back, like, back in the day, like, I'm like, I'm an old person, but it was really only, like, seven or eight years ago when I graduated high school. Like, you know, they had all these rules, but, oh well, you have to prick your finger. You have to go the nurse three times a day and prick your finger, and we will not let you eat greet alone until you're 70 or below. And like, now I'm treating it like way earlier than that. So yeah, I often, like, scroll through the group and I see all these people talking about how, like, their school, like the kids, can, like, manage their diabetes on their own. They sometimes will text their parents their blood sugar without even having to go the nurse. Like, I kind of wish I had that freedom, although I do think the whole having to have a cell phone out in school thing is a little bit complicated, but with diabetes, I don't think it should be locked away either.

Scott Benner 41:55
Yeah, I understand you. Mean, hey, do you have help with your blood sugar management? Do your parents help

Speaker 1 42:00
you? Not so much anymore. If anything, pretzels might help. She She keeps me in line, I'd

Scott Benner 42:08
say. But like when you got Omnipod five, for example. Like, do your parents help you set up the settings? Or did something you did with your health care provider, or you did it

Speaker 1 42:16
yourself? No, I did it my myself. Excellent. Good for you. Yeah, I shouldn't say this either, but I've set up the last few pumps without training, and I think you're doing all right. Supposed to have training.

Scott Benner 42:29
Yeah, Julie, I love how everything you say you're like, I don't think I should be saying this, but here it is. And you know,

Speaker 1 42:35
I don't really think of myself as a person that really says controversial things. I don't, but, yeah, I guess for some reason, Scott, you're really bringing it out in me today. I don't, I don't know what it is. Maybe, maybe I just feel like you're a diabetes whisper and I can tell you all my secrets. I'm on my

Scott Benner 42:55
Oh, well, I'm happy you're comfortable. I would tell you that I don't think that having set up your own system without your doctor is controversial. I'm sure a lot of people have done that. Yeah, you know, you've had diabetes a long time, right? You know, you know what your basal looks like. You understand how to Bolus. You know what your carb ratio is. That's, you know, pretty much, pretty much it, right? Insulin sensitivity, yeah, yeah. Do you find that stuff changing throughout the month for you, or is it pretty stable?

Speaker 1 43:19
Are you talking about, like, on a hormonal level, since I'm a woman, I have Yeah, yeah, and your settings, yeah, okay, I am on birth control. I actually just take it for regulate my periods, because, like, you know, like, when I was like, 18 or 19, I was like, having really heavy periods, and I was like, sick of it, and I went to a new doctor, and I got on the birth control, the pill that, like, I pretty much got my period, period, maybe, like, once a year.

Scott Benner 43:49
Okay, well, yeah. I mean, I don't know about how that's being accomplished, but that sounds nicer. The

Speaker 1 43:55
other thing I kind of wonder is, on the days, if I was, like, supposed to get my period. Had I not been on the birth control? Are there, like, are there certain days that my blood sugar may be worse, and I wasn't very good at tracking my cycle, so I don't really know how to tell that

Scott Benner 44:13
is the variability? Pretty, like, you're not seeing like, significantly different blood sugar. No, like, insulin needs week to week, or something like that. No, no, no, so it makes it easier for you to manage things. Yeah, excellent. I will

Speaker 1 44:27
say that. I don't know if it's because of the leaking pod issue, but my carb ratios are four to seven right now. And like for me, four to seven seems like, like, extremely like, almost like a like, I don't want to go much lower than four to seven. Maybe some people are at lower, but I like, you know, so depending

Scott Benner 44:51
on the time of the day, your blood sugar, your your carb ratio is one unit covers four up to one unit covers seven. Is that? Right? Yes, that's what I mean. So you feel like, you feel like you have a little insulin resistance. Yeah,

Speaker 1 45:04
and I'm, I'm hoping that the fiasco is going to help with that. It's interesting. I've been on the Omnipod limited market release trial for, I think, just like, over a month now, maybe a month and a half. I am thought I was going to be 100% better about, like, bull sing on time, like, Bolus thing as soon as I eat. Like, just because I'm not carrying around one device or two devices, I hear you and like, now I'm like, I've only been slightly better at that, because it's like, you know, I'm like, I'm always looking for my PD. I'm like, where's my PDM, did I lose it? Oh my gosh. What happened to

Scott Benner 45:40
it? Now it's just on your phone and and it's talk about it a little bit. It's it tell me why it's difficult to Pre Bolus consistently, maybe the organizational

Speaker 1 45:49
skills, maybe the picky eating, right? Or maybe just the fact that I am still getting used to it being on my phone. That's the other thing. I have to be careful, because, like, you know, I can see why the kids who have their cell phones locked up in school, like these cell phones can be quite addicting.

Scott Benner 46:07
So you get into that phone and you start doing other stuff. Is that? What happens? Julia, yes,

Speaker 1 46:12
yeah. What are you? My father's on me about that all the time. What grabs

Scott Benner 46:17
your attention in your phone?

Speaker 1 46:18
A lot of people say, like scrolling and like, like, Instagram, yeah, different things. Basically, you don't want to say, Julia, no, maybe not. It's okay.

Scott Benner 46:29
You don't have to, yeah. But basically, the phone, you open up the phone and you you get a little, you get a little side tracked, yeah?

Speaker 1 46:35
And like, you know, I don't think it would have helped me in high school. Like, guess I would have loved to have my phone on me in high school, because, like, you know, high school is boring and stuff like that. I do think there's reasons. And like, you know, gotcha now I have to have my phone on me. 24/7 whereas before, as long as I had my PDM and I didn't, didn't leave my phone for too long. I was okay. Like, I don't want it to, like, say, signal loss for like, hours on it. And

Scott Benner 47:08
right, right, I hear you. I got you. I think most people open their phone and get distracted by something else. Like, there's a lot of lot of shiny stuff in there, and a lot of those algorithms are written to keep your attention and, you know, it's, it works, you know? So, yeah,

Speaker 1 47:24
I hear, um, yeah, you know, another thing I always talk about is, I live in rural Massachusetts, and like, we're, like, we get hit quite a bit, a bit with like snow and like rain and all that the winter. Like, I'm like, Well, what happens in a in a power outage? Like, am I not going to be able to Bolus? Like, what's going to happen? Like, thankfully we haven't, like, we haven't had that happen.

Scott Benner 47:47
Oh, you worry about, you worry about, what if power goes out for too long? What? How do I charge my phone or my devices or something? Yeah, because,

Speaker 1 47:54
not just on the reliance on technology for just like me being a young person, but now on the medical standpoint, like it's a medical device.

Scott Benner 48:06
Okay, well, listen, I would tell you here's the easy answer, in my opinion, go out to the car, plug it into the car, let the car run and and charge it there. Yeah, it's a good idea, right? I've done that before. We've had power outages since Arden's had diabetes, some kind of extensive stuff. And we did the that's exactly what we did. We were like, All right, well, I guess we're just gonna have to go charge it up in the car. And we did, you know, so that worked out really well. I thought,

Speaker 1 48:34
yeah, I also, I buy kind of over by those power bank things. I have a lot of those,

Scott Benner 48:42
yeah? So you have a little, you have a little anxiety about that, is that, right? Well,

Speaker 1 48:46
yes, Scott, we discussed this earlier, an anxiety disorder, but

Scott Benner 48:50
I'm letting people hear about it. So do you, does the disorder have a name? Technically,

Speaker 1 48:55
I think it's OCD. Ah, yeah, because that's what they that's what they said with autism diagnosis that it's like an anxiety disorder related to OCD,

Scott Benner 49:05
okay? And they think that's, that's what they think is part of the autism diagnosis. Yes, okay, yeah. And not hydro the hydrocephaly can't do that.

Speaker 1 49:16
I mean, that's what I would like to know too, but I haven't really been able to find out much information on it.

Scott Benner 49:24
I mean, I looked online for you just now. I don't, you know. I don't know how true or not true it is, obviously, but it says that obsessive compulsive disorder can potentially develop in individuals with hydrocephalus or other neurological conditions. So

Speaker 1 49:37
maybe, wow, yeah, yeah. Well, this is something I'm gonna have to talk to my neurosurgeon about, and maybe I'll have to have talked to him by the time this episode comes out, and I could write you a little note and say, This is what my neurosurgeon said.

Scott Benner 49:51
Yeah, it's just, it says, potentially, I don't know that it, I mean, doesn't mean it did or anything, or not. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not discounting the other thing. But do you have rituals? Just like counting rituals or anything like that. No,

Speaker 1 50:02
it's more the obsessive thoughts like, again, it could also be somehow related to my tic, but I went to a neurologist, and they were like, No, we don't know what to do, so you have to go somewhere else. That wasn't very helpful.

Scott Benner 50:18
We don't know what to do. Go somewhere else. It's definitely not helpful. No, oh, they

Speaker 1 50:22
were like, we can't help you, but we'd like you to have come in for another appointment.

Scott Benner 50:28
We'll take 40 more dollars, but we're pretty sure we can't help

Speaker 1 50:31
that's the other thing that's amazing about Massachusetts. I'm lucky enough to be on mass health so, like, I get my insulin and then all my prescriptions and everything for like, free. Oh, that's awesome. I'm still a proponent of insulin for all. Because how can you not be a proponent of insulin for all of like, yeah, no, I've been lucky enough to. I don't have to pay for it. Good. Well,

Scott Benner 50:55
I'm glad, I'm glad it's working out for you. So give me just one example of, like, obsessive thoughts, like, what something gets stuck in your head, like, what? What's an example of something you've been through before? Well,

Speaker 1 51:06
you know, I sent you that email last week, and you were like, Julia, please don't overthink this with all those questions about the podcast and preparing for it. And I'm like,

Scott Benner 51:16
Yeah, because I don't know you prior to like, I hope people understand, like, until you tell me I have an autism diagnosis when we're speaking, I don't know that. You know, like, I didn't know about hydrocephalus, I didn't know about that, like, so I get to learn. I get to know you while we're recording, just like everybody else does. Yeah, I see your point, though. Yeah, you were you asked a lot of questions. I'm like, you don't need to overthink this. Just show up and we'll talk

Speaker 1 51:38
and it'll all work. I'm not calling you out, Scott, I know

Scott Benner 51:42
Julie, I know. Yeah. Don't worry. You and I are getting along very well. Don't you worry. I understand you. I

Speaker 1 51:47
was just using that as the example I could think of, yeah.

Scott Benner 51:52
So, so what happens is, you start thinking about it, and then you feel like you have to do something about it,

Speaker 1 51:58
yeah? Like, kind of like, when I'm trying to figure out, like, what I'm doing with my life. Like, I email those support people, like the vocational rehab or, like, different support services. And like, I mean, I guess it's kind of hard not having a job right now. And, like, Sure, not knowing when my next job is, like, or, quite frankly, what I want to do with my life. Yeah,

Scott Benner 52:19
I was gonna say, what's the biggest concern there? Is it that you don't have a direction, or that you don't have money because your parents are helping you, I would imagine, right? Yeah,

Speaker 1 52:28
kind of, I don't have a direction, and then also kind of that I don't have a degree. Technically, I'm like, I did like, 50 credits towards a degree, but like, like, no math and no science.

Scott Benner 52:40
Does that concern you? Well,

Speaker 1 52:43
I often say to myself, like, if I'm going to have a hard time getting hired because I'm disabled, how much of a harder time am I going to have getting hired if I'm disabled and don't have a degree? Okay? And you know, Scott, I feel like I'm using you as a therapy session, which I was hoping not to but, you know, doesn't matter. We had a second meeting, you would know that this is right on character for me. Yeah.

Scott Benner 53:09
Okay, so do you have anything that we haven't talked about that we should have, or anything you feel like we've missed?

Speaker 1 53:14
Let's see be kind to people with disabilities. Obviously, this is how I'm gonna leave people like be kind to people with disabilities. Know that everybody's going through something that you don't know what they're going through. I highly recommend that if you can get a diabetic alert dog and like, don't be afraid to fundraise. Because, like, I fundraised and like, made the money. And like, it's it's not necessarily taking charity.

Scott Benner 53:40
Did you feel bad at first when you started doing it? But, or no,

Speaker 1 53:44
no, because, like, my community where I live is very generous,

Scott Benner 53:48
excellent. That's wonderful. I'm glad you found people that are very supportive, that we're willing to help you. It's lovely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad that the podcast group is is helpful for you too. I I'm glad it's there for you, and you're finding value with it. Yes,

Speaker 1 54:03
and maybe by the time the stairs, I'll listen to every episode.

Scott Benner 54:06
Good luck. There's a lot of them. I don't know. I was talking to somebody the other day, and they were telling me all the stuff they know about the podcast, and I thought, I don't even know if I know all that. That's really something. So it's like,

Speaker 1 54:17
somebody who, like, re watches, like, the same show, like, over and over again. It's like, I don't know their favorite TV show. And like, knows everything about it. And like, the TV stars don't know anything about it, yeah, no, I find

Scott Benner 54:29
it. It's lovely that people like it so much that they would listen and listen again. It gets a little weird when people think, like, they think they know what I'm thinking, You know what I mean, or they make some big assumptions and stuff like that. I'm like, oh gosh, that's not like, that's not even right, but how do I explain that to you? And if I do, you're just gonna think I'm, you know. You're just gonna think I don't understand, or I'm making it up or something. So you just get, sometimes you get in these weird little loops with people where they It's very strange, like they seem very well intended, but they feel like they know things. And I'm like, oh gosh, you just. You're misunderstanding this, but there's not much I can do about that. So anyway, I really appreciate you doing this with me. Thank you so very much. Yeah, it

Speaker 1 55:07
was, it was so much fun. Oh, Scott, would it be possible if I sent you a picture of pretzel, and I don't know if you can put like,

Scott Benner 55:16
Yeah, send me a good picture. I can put it with the episode. Yeah, okay. That'd be great. That's awesome. Make it a right, a landscape, you know what I mean? Like a little wider than fall, and get it. Get a nice high res picture, send it to me. I'll put it like when I put the when I put the episode up on the website. I'll use the picture, yeah,

Speaker 1 55:33
yeah. And I'll make sure to get one with her service dog best, so everybody knows she's a service dog. Nice. And

Scott Benner 55:39
it's okay if I call the episode pretzel, that'd be perfect. Okay, maybe I'll call it a bowl of pretzels. Who knows? We'll figure it out. Oh, that'd be funny. All right, hold on one second for me. Okay, stay with me.

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Scott Benner 2/18/25 Scott Benner 2/18/25

#1437 Hey Jessie

Jessica, juggling four kids and Hashimoto’s, explores Charlie’s T1D journey through device changes, school nurse hurdles, and gradual care handoff.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends, we're all back together for the next episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Welcome.

Jesse 0:14
My name is Jesse. I am a mother of a type one diabetic. She was four years old. It was the day after Halloween, and she is nine, and she's doing great. Please

Scott Benner 0:26
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. I know this is going to sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free virtual type one diabetes clinical care, education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama or Missouri, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you. Blue circle, health.org, you know why they had to buy an ad. No one believes it's free. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 the one year where CGM, that's one insertion a year. That's it. And here's a little bonus for you. How about there's no limit on how many friends and family you can share your data with with the ever since now, app no limits. Ever since, friends touched by type one's walk is coming up quickly on March 8 at the Saturday at Lake Eola Park in Orlando, Florida. Go now to touched by type one to sign up and register. It's completely free. You're gonna have a wonderful time. Touched by type one.org Go to the Programs tab, click on Steps to a cure. Hello.

Jesse 2:10
My name is Jesse, and I am a mother of a type one diabetic

Scott Benner 2:15
Well, I have children who grew up with Nickelodeon and things like that. So I'm gonna say, hey Jesse, and then we're gonna move on. You know that TV show? I

Jesse 2:24
think you emailed me that one time, the first time I reached out to you, when my daughter was first diagnosed, you were like, I'm gonna respond to you, even though I get so many emails, I'm gonna respond to you because of your name. And it just hit me a certain way today. It made

Scott Benner 2:39
me think of that silly TV show on the Disney Channel? Yeah, I wonder what happened to that girl. Let's not go down that rabbit hole just now. Okay, tell me a little bit about your family.

Jesse 2:47
I have four children. My type one diabetic is number two, a four. I've got book end boy, so I got boy, girl, girl, boy. We have a ginormous 135 pound German Shepherd dog who hopefully will not bark while I'm doing this podcast. I'm

Scott Benner 3:05
sure he'll be fine. How old was your daughter when she was diagnosed? She was

Jesse 3:10
four years old. It was the day after Halloween. Oh, and how old is she now? She is nine, and she's doing great.

Scott Benner 3:19
Five years ago on All Saints Day, her

Jesse 3:22
divers three falls on the same day that my dad died. Oh, you

Scott Benner 3:28
know, yeah, I only knew it was All Saints Day because it's my father's birthday, and he was not a saint, so it stuck in my head. Oh, that's crazy. Your father died on the day my father was born.

Jesse 3:39
Yes, he did two years after Charlie was diagnosed. Oh, not long ago. Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Feels like quite a while now.

Scott Benner 3:49
You know, I'm gonna take a weird turn and ask your question. It's only a couple years ago, but it feels like a long time ago.

Jesse 3:56
Yeah, it does. At first it felt like time was moving really slow when he died, but a lot of life happens in a short amount of time, and that's something that I'm realizing as I get older, that each year just seems to fly by, which makes the makes time. I don't know. I don't know time has been very confusing for me, because I feel like Charlie's been diagnosed. Well, it has been. It's been most of her life. You know, she doesn't even remember not being diabetic at this point. Yeah, but that's how it feels. I feel like my my dad has been gone for so long. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:31
Do you think that's a little because your life is so busy, like, do you think if your life wasn't so fast, you'd have maybe more time to think about that?

Jesse 4:38
Yes, definitely, for sure. And I'm also a stuffer, so I just try to stuff all those feelings down and not deal with them. And life is incredibly busy with four kids. First you

Scott Benner 4:51
said, stuff her. And I thought, is that like a furry? What is she saying? Does she go to a convention? Dress to something? No, no, you don't let your feelings out. Correct? What are we? Irish, English, Catholic. What are we? I'm

Jesse 5:03
a Christian, but I just, I have a hard time dealing. I don't want to deal with the emotions of my dad's death, so I just step them down instead. You know, my husband also lost his dad a year before my dad died, he has watched, you know his memorial video countless times. You know, we can't even count. We watch it all, especially every year. We watch it on his death anniversary. I made my dad's video Memorial video, and I still have only watched it the one time.

Scott Benner 5:36
Two different theories about how to handle this. You'd think your husband's trying to keep his father's memory alive. Or, do you think he's actually, that's what he's doing? Yes, it's interesting that you don't want to talk about this, and it's the first thing I wanted to talk about. I'm sorry.

Jesse 5:51
I apologize. It's all

Scott Benner 5:53
good. You want me to pivot, or you're okay, let's, let's pivot away from my dad. Okay, yeah. I'm not gonna oddly,

Jesse 6:00
oddly, he earlier, at one point in his life, he was a type two diabetic. So that's interesting. That's a little notation, and at that point, I didn't understand truly what that that even meant. At

Scott Benner 6:13
one point in his life, did he decide to quit? Or what do you mean at one point? No, he was able to reverse type two diabetes. Did he diet and exercise his way out of the diagnosis he did. Yeah, wow, good for him. So did he ever use insulin?

Jesse 6:26
No, he never used insulin. Okay, all right.

Scott Benner 6:29
Well, I, I'm gonna tell you this last bit so that everyone can figure out that I wasn't just being morbid. But today's August 15, which I don't usually times them these, but my father in law passed away on August 3, which was my wife and I's wedding anniversary, and the day that we left on the first family vacation we took in six years, we were on an airplane when my father in law passed away, and it was terrible, and we couldn't turn back, or, you know, right, cancel a trip. We had other people with us, you know, etc. And you know, my wife's family was lovely about, you know, preparing everything. And, you know, without us there, and, you know, to help. And then we got home and had 24 hours to get ready to go to his funeral, which got scheduled by the church on my mother's birthday, who just passed away recently, and then you get on and you're like, said that. I was like, oh, maybe we're supposed to talk about this. But, yeah, we're not. We're moving on. But I don't want to talk about it. Except Jesse ain't up for this crap because of reasons that she doesn't want to talk about on a podcast, although I am going to ask you one question, and then I'm gonna leave you alone on it. Do you go to therapy? I

Jesse 7:42
do not go to therapy. But it probably would be good to unpack that. But I'm a little bit afraid of I don't really want to unpack it all. There's a lot.

Scott Benner 7:53
Jesse's like, if it ain't broke, too bad don't fix it. Yep, just leave it alone.

Jesse 7:59
Feel like I'm coping. Okay,

Scott Benner 8:01
I haven't shot anybody, Scott, I've never car jacked anyone. I don't know what you want from me. I'm doing great. Yeah, we're doing fine. You don't randomly yell at people for no reason or anything like that. Just my kids. Oh, well, they deserve it for being born now, ruining your life. So tell me a little bit about your daughter's diagnosis. How did it come on? How did you realize what was going on when you think of a CGM and all the good that it brings in your life, it's the first thing you think about. I love that I have to change it all the time. I love the warm up period every time I have to change it. I love that when I bump into a door frame, sometimes it gets ripped off. I love that the adhesive kind of gets mushy sometimes when I sweat and falls off. No, these are not the things that you love about a CGM. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Eversense 365 the only CGM that you only have to put on once a year, and the only CGM that won't give you any of those problems. The Eversense 365 is the only one year CGM designed to minimize the vice frustration. It has exceptional accuracy for one year with almost no false alarms from compression lows while you're sleeping. You can manage your diabetes instead of your CGM with the ever since 365 learn more and get started today at Eversense cgm.com/juicebox, one year one CGM so

Jesse 9:24
my I have, I'm one of five, and my brother, who's closest in age to me, he is a type one diabetic, and he was diagnosed at nine years old. And so I had known the signs and symptoms of type one diabetes. I was not unaware of them. I just remember that Charlie had just started preschool, and it was right around Halloween, and she was also in this running club, and she started drinking so much water. She was normally not a big water drinker, but she was chugging water. I'm talking refilling. Her water bottle, you know, 667, times a day, and she was going to the bathroom a lot. Charlie also was like, complaining that her legs were always hurting, and she was getting tired when she didn't need to be tired. You know, she barely did anything. And she, you know, at four years old, you have a ton of energy. Yeah, yeah. She started showing those signs. I remember it was a Sunday because I took her to this running club, and she drank so much water at this running club, and she was complaining and she did not want to run, which normally, which was abnormal for her. And took her to school the next day, and I noticed that she had, her teacher had told me that she had drank a lot of water, and then when she got home, she had refilled her water bottle a ton of times, and then she took a nap, which was also abnormal for her, yeah, and she ended up wetting the bed. And Charlie had, you know, she had potty trained herself before she was two years old. I didn't have to do anything. She just one day, took off her diaper, put it in the trash and said, I pee, pee in the potty. Now, boom, that was it.

Scott Benner 11:06
And you were like, I'm the best parent ever.

Jesse 11:09
No, I was like, wow, she is brilliant.

Scott Benner 11:13
Finally, we get a smart one, that other one, we're gonna ignore him. Now, she really just made a proclamation, yeah,

Jesse 11:19
she took her diaper off, she threw it right in the trash can, and said, I pee, pee in the potty. Now, Mama, and that was it. I didn't have to do anything. It was the easiest potty training ever, because she did it herself, and she never wet the bed ever. She just went straight into panties. Never wet the bed. So when she wet the bed during a nap in the afternoon, it was confusing. You know, it was, it was not right that. So, like I said, this started on, like a Sunday, and Halloween was on Thursday, and I remember, on Thursday we maybe went, went to the bathroom, and then I put her in her unicorn, riding a unicorn. She was a ballerina that wrote a unicorn. So I put her in this this costume, and I inflated it right after she went to the bathroom, and we went three houses up the street, and she said, I gotta go pee pee. And so I knocked on the neighbor's door. She said, Trick or treat. And then I said, Can we use your bathroom? And she went to the bathroom, and then she was complaining, I'm so thirsty. So they gave her a water bottle, and she chugged a water bottle, and we went just a few more houses. Didn't even make it to the end of our block before she said, I'm done. I'm tired. I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah. So I walked her back down. She sat in the middle of our cul de sac with her dad, who was passing out candy at like, a you know, we had a fire pit, yeah? And she sat there. She drank hot chocolate and quite a few pieces of candy, and did not look well at that point. I remember it hit me right then and there, and I shot a text message to my brother, and I said, Hey, this is what I've been noticing since Sunday. You know, all the water drinking, the wedding, the excessive bathroom, and this is what just happened right now. Tell me that my daughter that I'm crazy and my daughter's not type one diabetic. And he said, I'm gonna tell you I think your daughter's type one diabetic. And I was, oh my gosh. It was so hard,

Scott Benner 13:15
not enough Kit Kats in the world to fix that. I was like, no,

Jesse 13:18
no, no, she's not. So I tell my husband about it, and I told him, Okay, listen, I'm going to we didn't have a meter at our house or anything like that, so I wouldn't have tested or been able to test her blood sugar. I said, okay, in the morning, I'm going to take her to the doctor. And he said, Okay, you do what you think is best. And then in the morning, we were sitting together, and she seemed okay, so I said, Okay, I'm not gonna take her to the doctor. And my husband said, okay, you know what's best. You do what you think. And then 15 minutes later, I picked up the phone and I called our pediatrician, and I said, Hey, I'm gonna bring my daughter in. I think she's type one diabetic.

Scott Benner 13:55
Also, a lot of people are telling me I know best. But Can I be honest with you, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I think my husband doesn't mean that. I think he's just trying to stay

Jesse 14:06
out of it. Yeah, mine was just like, hey, look, you're the mom. You make the decision. And sure enough, you know, 15 minutes later, my decision was, I'm going to take her to the doctor. I just can't sit on this. So took her in, tested her blood sugar, and I remember the meter said, hi. She walked back in and she said, Oh, that's weird. It says hi. It must be broken, yeah, that's what the nurse said. I

Scott Benner 14:32
thought it was saying hello to me. I thought it was saying hello to me, Jesse. I remember as clear as the bell saying to my wife, oh, my God, this is so nice. It says hello to you before it gives you the number. It's not adorable.

Jesse 14:45
Yeah, I'm like the doctor. Heard her say that, though the pediatrician was walking by our room, and he heard her say that, and he walked in, shut the door behind him, and he said, That's not what that means. Yeah, also,

Scott Benner 14:58
we're letting her. No, but that's not for this conversation, right?

Jesse 15:02
So they they were super kind, and they just said, Hey, your daughter's type one diabetic, we're gonna need you to drive straight over to the Children's Hospital, and we're gonna call ahead and let them know you're coming. And I did not say a word, Scott, I didn't say a word. I broke down in tears. I scooped my daughter up. I didn't even get a checkout sheet. I scooped her up and ran out of that doctor's office, put her in the car. First person I called as I'm driving home was my brother, and I'm crying my eyes out, and I told him what they just told me, and he's like, Hey, you gotta pull over. You're gonna get in a car accident. You are hysterical, and I'm panicking, thinking, No, she's gonna die. Like, if I don't get her to the hospital, she's gonna die. And he's like, she's not gonna die, but I need you to, you know, he's like, did you call your Did you call your husband? I'm like, No, I called you.

Scott Benner 16:04
He told me I know best.

Jesse 16:08
So I ended up. He's like, Okay, I want you to pull over. I want you to call him. I want you to tell him what's going on so he can, you know, take work the rest of the day off and drive you there, because you're nuts and

Scott Benner 16:22
so that get some real feedback from your brother. He's like, you know, the stuffing thing, that's not your only thing, so stop for a second.

Jesse 16:28
Yeah? He's like, Listen, lady, you're gonna have a bigger problem if you don't pull your car over. So yeah, that is the story of Charlie's diagnosis. She was, you know, I noticed symptoms on Sunday and Friday she was diagnosed. So it was really, really quick. She, she must have been maybe, you know, looking back and looking at her a 1c when she was diagnosed, she, she maybe had type one for a couple of weeks. Okay, yeah,

Scott Benner 16:53
hindsight, you can figure it out a little easier. Obviously, start seeing more signs that you didn't see at first. Yeah,

Jesse 16:59
yeah. She had like, a cold prior to that as well. It's pretty

Scott Benner 17:03
well done on your part. I don't, I don't like, it's not nearly the worst one I've ever heard.

Jesse 17:07
Yeah. I mean, when we, when I did get her to the hospital, and they did, you know, they have meters that don't say hello to you. So her blood sugar was 568,

Scott Benner 17:15
okay, how long did they keep you or did they not? Two

Jesse 17:20
days, two days, two days, and we had to attend some classes. Could go home, and they gave us a bag of stuff and, like, two insulin pens, and said, best of luck to you the night I was the first night that I was in the hospital with her, because we had, you know, we had another kid at that time. So my husband went home, and I stayed with her. So I remember just I, I came across your Facebook page. Okay, I just started typing in Facebook in the search. I just started typing in things. And then I was in a, you know, different diabetes things, Georgia, diabetes groups, things like that, one person had mentioned on their Juicebox Podcast, and so boom, I found it right away. My brother was super sweet. He overnighted a Dexcom, okay, transmitter and a and a g6 to us so that when we were released, we had one, because I had asked the endocrinologist for one, and he said, now he wouldn't give me one. How come did he say? Why he did not? He just said they want us to get familiar with accurate readings. And I thought, This guy is absolutely nuts. And that was the beginning. Start of me, I don't trust these doctors to make decisions anymore. As soon as he told me, No, my brother overnighted us one. And then I just went, I realized, hey, I can log on to their website and request a Dexcom and that's what I did. And then they contacted me. Dexcom contacted me. I gave them my insurance information, and then I was able to they needed a prescription, obviously, and I switched who I wanted the endocrinologist to be.

Scott Benner 19:04
That was that nice and easy, and that was it. Can I have a Dexcom? Please? No. I'm gonna start advocating for people to say, douche bag. Says, What after that? Yeah, yeah, I

Jesse 19:13
know. And that's when I realized that this is what this is. This is the ball game that they want to play. They they just, I don't know why they would say no, but I realized I've got to take this into my own hands. Why would they not want us to be able to have a Dexcom that gives us so much information and just peace of mind? As a parent with a with a child, you know?

Scott Benner 19:33
I mean, I guess you can go round and round on this point, and I have and I could do it again, but I get both sides of the argument, like, hey, just, you know, do it with the meter at first, so you can figure it out, you know? But I don't know what it is you figure out, because I look back on my own life, and I couldn't figure out anything with just a meter. It wasn't until I got a CGM that I was like, Oh, I see patterns and cause and effect and oh my gosh. Like, I. Make changes. Like, you know, like, that kind of thing. So, like, is it just an old thing? People say, Yeah, you know what I mean. Like, like, is it leftover from When insulin pumps came? And people, I

Jesse 20:12
really, really do feel like it depends on what dark so, like, for example, that endocrinologist that told me No. Was an older endocrinologist. He he's not, you know, up with the technology and probably didn't trust it, right? That's why He said No, and that's what I found, even when I switched endocrinology offices altogether, the first endocrinologist that I saw at this new office, I asked him for a pump right away, and he said, No. He said, I want her to be diagnosed for at least a year. I want you to get familiar with giving injections for a year. And I thought, Why? Why would you put her through that for a year? If there's

Scott Benner 20:54
two ideas I have, if one is, I'm an old guy and I don't know how to use this newfangled thing, and if you're using it, you're going to ask me about it, then what am I going to say? Yeah, you know, I'll get exposed or really, maybe they really do feel like, well, what are you going to do if a pump, you know, if you can't, if your pump breaks, or whatever? And I mean, my answer to that, and I understand that, I don't disagree that you should understand how to manually take care of your diabetes. I'm not minimizing that at all, but a year, where'd you come up with a year? What if I get it figured out in six weeks?

Jesse 21:25
I switched. I was like, All right, I'm done with this guy. So, um, switched to a different endo in that office, and she was much younger, and she and I said, we want to get on an insulin pump. And this was, you know, we had been, she had been Charlie, had been diagnosed. I mean, maybe three, three months at that point, and her a 1c was already 6.0 so she was like, I feel like you've got the hang of this, and I feel like we could get you on an insulin

Scott Benner 21:53
pump, right? I mean, that's, I think that's the bigger point. Is like, stop lumping me in with everyone else. Like, maybe I will figure it out quicker. You know, just because maybe your average is a year or and by the way, it's not even some people will never figure it out. They just eventually go, Oh, you're not figuring it out. I'll give you a pump and see if this helps,

Jesse 22:10
right? And I, and I remember just being like, I'm giving this little girl 14 plus injections a day because I wanted her in such a tight range, right? Yeah. So I was like, I'm I'm trying to dial this in here, and I'm having to give her all these injections. Why not just give her a pump where I can do these small increments to get her where she needs to be?

Scott Benner 22:33
No, I mean, I agree. I would want if, knowing what I know now, I would leave with a with a pump and a CGM, yes right away. Yeah, even knowing that if I put myself in that position, I wouldn't completely understand what I was doing, I would still rather start there. That's my opinion. So, yeah, you know, it's funny why you're talking about this. I have this note that somebody sent me recently, rattling around in my head. It was very well intended and kind. And the person said, you know, there was somebody on a recent episode, they really gave it hard to their doctor's office. And I think this person works in medicine, and people are trying, and I'm like, well, you're trying, and that's why it strikes you that way. You don't know that the people they're dealing with are trying. But at the same time, I It's so funny. If you ask me, Do you think your podcast beats up on the medical community, I'd say absolutely not. Like, I just think where people are telling their stories, and if that's what their story is, then you know what I mean? Like, that's not beating up on something, it's reporting what happened to them. So, right, right? It's not my fault that so many people have that story. You know,

Jesse 23:32
correct? Yeah. And I feel like that's the norm. A lot of people have the same story, and it's unfortunate. I do agree

Scott Benner 23:41
that people don't jump on podcasts to say positive stuff all the time. Like, you know, I mean, like, you don't jump up on Facebook to say, Oh, well, everything's going

Jesse 23:48
yeah, I will say, I love our endocrinologist. Now she's, she's phenomenal, yeah. And my biggest thing with her is she, she trusts me to manage, and takes everything I say to heart. And so we work more as a team. Yeah? Instead of feeling like we're working against each

Scott Benner 24:05
other, gotta be like that. It's really the only way it works well, so and type one

Jesse 24:10
is so personal, you know? Yeah, so the way that I manage my daughter's type one diabetes is not going to be the same as another child. It looks differently. I

Scott Benner 24:21
remember when I put the Pro Tip series out originally, and I got this note from somebody that says, like, you know, everybody doesn't do what you do. And I was like, Oh, I didn't think everybody did. Yeah, that's not why I put it up. Yeah. I thought, Oh, gosh. Like, do you think I'm saying to you, this is the exact way to do this? I was like, This is what I'm doing. Here's my outcomes. Take some of it, all of it, or none of it. I don't care. See what works for you. Yeah, yeah. I hope some of it helps you. And if it does great, and if it doesn't like I mean, I'm not coming to your house like, you know what I mean,

Jesse 24:54
right? I mean, we should all be learning from each other. I mean, I just spoke with one of my friends this morning, whose son is. Is type one, and you know, she Oh, wait, no, that was yesterday when I tried to hop on your podcast yesterday. Oh, we're definitely

Scott Benner 25:06
going to talk about that. Jesse, at some point,

Jesse 25:10
I was late to it, because I was actually trying to help my my girlfriend out. Her son had ketones, and I was just trying to walk her through some steps, you know? Yeah, so I was dealing with diabetes, and then I thought that I missed my appointment. You

Scott Benner 25:25
want to do this now? I had a 9am recording yesterday, and then I had an 11am recording so in between, I ate two eggs in a wrap, and I was getting up to my computer. Like, I was excited. I was, like, a couple of minutes early for my 11am like, Look at me. Go and I open up my email to look at that before I jump on and there is a person, like, frantically emailing me. It felt like like I've been on this call for 25 minutes. I don't know what's wrong or where you are, and I'm looking at the name, and it's not the name of the person who I'm recording with at 11 o'clock. I don't understand what's happening. And you know, I opened up the application to talk to the person 11, because I got to be honest with you, I was just going to respond back to your email and say, I don't know what you're talking about, but, and I jump on and then there's two people coming into the Zoom, and I'm like, the hell's happening, and I let you both in. And because a handful of times in my life, I'll set up a recording with someone, and by the way, no one do this to me because I really don't like it. You'll say, like, oh, I want to come on and talk about this. And then you'll surprise me with a third person. And you're like, I brought my mom on. I thought she'd be interesting. And I'm like, that doesn't sound as good. I know I got to split up the conversation between two people. Like, I would have preferred to know about this before I was going to do it, but people will spring it on me sometimes. But the person I recorded with yesterday at 11, Sam, like, I know her. Like, I know her, know her, like she works for touch by type one, or volunteers for touch by type one, and I've known her for like, a decade. I'm like, she would not do that to me, but I thought, well, maybe she did so like, I'm like, okay, hey, Jessica, what's up and and I'm like, trying to figure out. I'm like, Sam, do you know Jessica? And she goes, No, I have no idea who this is. And I was like, oh. I'm like, wait a minute, Jessica, who the hell are you? And then we looked and realized you were 24 hours early for your recording. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jesse 27:19
And I thought I would, and I thought I was late, so I actually did well. I crowded myself.

Scott Benner 27:24
And then this morning, by the way, you were like, two minutes late, and I thought, Oh, she's getting back at me.

Jesse 27:31
I told you, life is so crazy. There's too many people schedules to manage. And then at the same time, I'm trying to manage, you know, diabetes, just like, Yeah, I'm trying to manage diabetes. I'm helping other people with their diabetes, and

Scott Benner 27:43
trying to get that German Shepherd not to kill you. I think sounds like it's huge. Oh, he's

Jesse 27:47
the he is a sweet boy, but yeah, if you were coming to my door, you'd think, I'm glad there's a door between

Scott Benner 27:53
that. So in your notes to me about coming on, I love you. Have two topics in here. I love both of them. I want to go through both of them, yeah, trying to strike a balance between keeping your daughter's care good, giving her some autonomy, but not overwhelming her. I think this is after you learn about how insulin works and how all these gadgets work, and what the hell the smokey effect is. And once you've got all that down, I feel like this ends up being the long time goal. I almost said burden, but I don't mean burden, like burn, but like, responsibility of a person raising a small child with type one, like, I want her to be healthy now. I want them to understand this. I don't want to overwhelm them. Can you talk about that with me,

Jesse 28:41
yeah. So actually, that's been my goal with her from the beginning of her diagnosis. It was, you know, I want to, I want her to understand everything, right? But as a child, there's only so much you can take on, and I don't want her to to bear the weight of type one diabetes herself. I want her to understand, like I'm always going to be there. But ultimately, I am raising, I'm raising a person who's going to be an adult with type one diabetes, right? So when she becomes a certain age, she's going to have to fly the nest, right? And so she's going to have to understand, okay, what do I do here? My mom is not doing it for me. I don't. I don't ever want her to, so I'm trying to give her bits and pieces as we go. And my biggest thing is what is too much for her, because everyone always tells me, your daughter is so responsible. She manages her type one diabetes so well. And I'm like, okay, that's me, but

Scott Benner 29:49
she's nine. But okay,

Jesse 29:52
she's nine, but I am so I've been giving her bits and pieces last. Her was her very first year at school managing her diabetes without the nurse. I was done with the nurse. Love them. And I'm not coming on to hate on our nurse, but there's only so much that they can do, because there's protocols in place to protect their jobs. That's

Scott Benner 30:18
how I'm gonna stop you that love them sounded very southern and reminiscent of, Oh, bless your

Jesse 30:24
heart. I am in the South.

Scott Benner 30:27
Just I heard a lot in those two words, but go ahead, I

Jesse 30:29
do. I did love my nurse, but we got in fights probably three times, three maybe three to four times a week, three

Scott Benner 30:38
times a week. I thought you're gonna say three times. I have something stuck in my head because it came up online the other day, and it's your it's your secondary thing. But you kind of like you. You're blending the two ideas together. So I don't feel weird blending them together. I am fascinated when a nurse reaches out to a healthcare team without your Okay, and starts talking to the doctor about your kids medical stuff.

Jesse 31:04
Oh, I've heard of that happening. Yeah,

Scott Benner 31:07
yeah. I happened to me once. I happened to my daughter once. I did not react well to it. Like, for all my like, become, don't do stuff, you know. Like, I called the nurse's office and I was like, did you call my daughter's endocrinologist? And she goes, Yeah. And she started talking. I went, do not ever fucking do that again. And she goes, what? And I was like, What the fuck do you think you're doing? I was like, You're calling my kids doctor. Who are you? You're not me, you're not my wife, you're not my kid, you're a stranger. You're a lady who has a job at the high school. You don't have anything to do with my daughter. I I said, Jesse, I want to be clear. I think I said at her about four times in a 32nd call. And when I was done talking and she started talking, I said, I don't give a shit what you're gonna say. I'm done now. Don't do that again. And I hung up the phone, like, so it put me I was like, What in God's name, do you think you're doing? Like, really, I handle it very poorly. I want to be clear about that. First, there

Jesse 32:03
was somebody on one of your podcasts recently who shared, I feel like that you interviewed that had a similar situation. Yeah, it happens a lot. You know, I specifically put in our medical management plan certain things so that that couldn't happen because I was tired of the nurse telling me, oh, you can't make these changes in her pump, like changing her car ratio, right, or changing her basal rate for a certain time of day, like when she was at school, the nurse would tell me, oh, you can't do that because your your DM, MP, says that you can only change it by this much, and you're trying to change it by over that amount. And I was like, I can do what I want. I was always telling her that I can do whatever I want. This is my daughter,

Scott Benner 32:46
right? I don't usually say stuff like this, Jesse, but America and all, you know what I mean, like, I'm free here. Like, if I'm not hurting that kid, there's literally nothing anybody can say about how you're doing what you're doing with your child, right? We certainly were, by the way. I later, as I calmed down and went back and spoke to her, I don't even she, was trying to find out something that it wasn't even about. I was like, I'm like, I don't understand why you think this is okay. But it wasn't even anything like that. Like, you're trying to move her insulin to carb ratio to one to 15 or something, and the orders say it's one to 20, like that, like that kind of thing. It wasn't even that. Are you telling me that the school nurse for your daughter had so many opinions about how to manage her insulin and did not want or are you just telling me she didn't think you had the autonomy to make changes after it was written down both,

Jesse 33:37
both so she didn't want me to make any changes without updating, having an updated diabetic management plan. So if I wanted to change her car ratio or her basal rate for a certain time of day, because I was like, All right, so this, you know, whatever day this is, it's just not working anymore, right? She needs more insulin. That's it. Is what it is for snack time she she can't be a one to 10 anymore. She's got to go down to one to six, whatever it may be, yeah? She would say, well, we're, you can't do that unless you have the doctor fill out and sign a new diabetic medical management plan. I'm like, I'm going to do whatever I want.

Scott Benner 34:16
Yeah, also, you're, you got a little kid growing, changing all the time. Like, you know, these things are going to change, if you understand, insulin, these things are going to change frequently, if not daily. Sometimes I gotta call the doctor every time, right? Or did you just hit her with leave like, mind your business.

Jesse 34:35
No, I told her. I tried to come at it from like, a knowledgeable perspective and explain that to her, and she's like, well, I could lose my job. So I ended up going to our endo and just telling them, this is what I need you to specify on here. And she just checked a box on there that said, I think she added in an extra box because it wasn't there. She added in an extra box that said that the parent guard. In can make whatever changes she wants to. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:02
that's the magic sentence in a 504 plan. Everyone should know that and have it in theirs. Here are all the rules, here are all the numbers, but here's the sentence for you, so the nurse doesn't feel like she's gonna get in trouble, which, you know, I can obviously understand, yeah, from the nurse position, but, but it's also in the middle of the day when you have three other kids and you're married and you're trying to, like, you know, do whatever else you're doing, and, you know, you don't need somebody stopping you every five seconds saying you can't do that, because that's all you hear. Right? What she should have said was, I understand that this is a good idea, or you think it's a good idea, but if I do that, I'm going against these written orders. We need to change these written orders so that I have more autonomy to listen to you. And then, yeah, all done. You know,

Jesse 35:44
I would get so angry. I was up at the school multiple times a week because my daughter would always come home and be like, I got in trouble because I gave myself insulin. Because I would text my daughter and say, you know, let's say you're like, she was like, 220 and I'm like, You're high. You need insulin. So I text her, and I tell her to dose, and she gives herself insulin, and then she goes to the clinic at some point, and the nurse sees that there's insulin on board and that it was dosed, you know, from her pump. And then she yells at my daughter for doing that. And I'm like,

Scott Benner 36:15
really yells at her, like, raises her voice, or just chastises her. What are we talking about? The way

Jesse 36:20
that my daughter explained it to me was that she would, she would yell at her. She would say, you cannot do that in an elevated voice. And you know, my daughter would say, my mom told me to and she said, Well, you have to listen to me at school. And then my daughter would get home, and I'd say, You don't listen to that lady. You listen to

Scott Benner 36:37
me. Hello, random lady who works at my school,

Jesse 36:42
but we have, can you

Scott Benner 36:44
imagine, in any scenario, I send my kids somewhere, my nine year old somewhere, and a person feels comfortable telling them, don't listen to your parents.

Jesse 36:53
Yeah, I know I had a big, big issue with it, so that's why last year, we actually got a new nurse after that, and she was super kind. We ended up loving her, but that's beside the point. But last year, I said, going into her school year, this was her third grade school year, I said to her Endo, hey, we're going to be done with the nurse situation, and we're just going to manage ourselves. And she said, Okay, you said, if you think that she's ready, then I think that she's ready. And I said, Okay, great. So we changed everything on her management plan to be all like char, that Charlie could do it all herself. She rocked third grade doing that. She just wore an Apple Watch and kept her phone in her backpack. And every time I would text her, she would just do what I said so she could dose when her blood sugar was high, if she was low, she was just staying in her classroom and drinking juice or having some fruit snacks at her desk,

Scott Benner 37:51
just what everyone else does who has diabetes. Yeah, yeah, but

Jesse 37:55
they wouldn't even let her treat in the classroom before, even though her plan said it, her nurse was just like, I'm still not comfortable with it when she was in second grade. And I'm like, I guess you don't understand. Like, we've been doing this for so long that she knows, yeah, when I tell her, Hey, your blood sugar is low, drink six, six sips of a juice box, that chick is going to drink six sips of a juice box. I guess she just had a hard time. And I and I get it. We're at a new school this year, actually, and her nurses are freaking out because my daughter has so much independence. They said they've never had a type one with so much independence. So her blood sugar was low yesterday after recess, because I just figured out yesterday she has snack and then goes straight out to recess. Okay, so a new school year, right? Yeah, yeah. I'm like, oh, okay, all right, so now we know that, so we're not going to be dosing accordingly, you know, we're going to change our dosing strategy to accommodate for activity outside, right? Whereas my daughter was like, oh, okay, I'm going to eat this protein bar and I'm going to dose for it, and then I'm going to go outside and 52 double arrows down was about 15 minutes later. So they called me freaking out yesterday. The nurse and I had already talked to Charlie, and she had, you know, told me, I'm I already drank half a juice box. I'm good. I'm I'm chilling inside now. But they called me and they're like, Hey, we're kind of freaking out here. We saw that her blood sugar was dropping. We just need to know, is she okay? We're gonna go see her. And I'm like, she's fine. She's already treated. And then about 10 minutes later, they text me. They're like, we're sitting with her. She looks great. I'm like,

Scott Benner 39:27
well, see now that. I think that's nice. I think that's great. Yeah, I

Jesse 39:31
had no problem with it, of course, but it was just a completely different situation this year. They're like, Hey, she has too much independence. We're not comfortable. We just want to put eyes on her. I'm like, she's okay. She'd tell me if she wasn't okay,

Scott Benner 39:44
go stare at her. That's fine, waste your time, yeah, but no. I mean, I like that 52 double hours down. I like the nurse going and looking for the kid. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah,

Jesse 39:51
no problem. But I said, Hey, would it make you all feel better if I just shot you a text message and said, I've talked to her. She's treated you know? Yeah, I'm sure it would Yes, please, please keep us in the loop. You're gonna

Scott Benner 40:03
end up building a nice relationship with them and and that's gonna be good, yeah, for sure. So tell me something about it's weird for me sometimes when I like, I know you listen to the podcast, right? So when I hear you say something and I go, Oh, I really like that idea. I don't know if it's a thought you heard from me and you're putting into practice, or if it's something you came up with, you're on your own. And as the podcast grows, I should start asking that more often, people are gonna think I'm asking to, like, get credit, but I don't. I don't mean for that. So this idea of, like, the the slow matriculation of knowledge and responsibility that I'm I'm a lot about that. I, by the way, I just think that's a good parenting skill, not necessarily a diabetes thing. Over the years, I've taken a lot of crap from older type ones. You know, when Arden was much, much younger, they'd be like, Oh, well, you do everything and she doesn't understand it. And I'm like, no, no, she understands what we're doing. I'm just not like piling it on her. Also, I just interviewed a 36 year old lady last week who sounds like she's imploding from the inside of her brain, because, you know, when she was eight years old, her parents were like, it's your disease. Take care of it and abandon her, basically. And now, as an adult, she's still struggling. And just told me a horrible story about she didn't pay attention to her blood sugar all through college. And like, you know, but, and I'm like, so, you know, it's like everything else. I think they went through something one way. They hear someone else doing it differently, and they go, Wait, do you see that's not gonna work? And it worked exceedingly well for me. But is that where you got the idea, or is it just common sense to you?

Jesse 41:36
No, I'd say it really came from seeing what happened to my brother. My brother was diagnosed at nine years he was nine years old. It was on his ninth birthday that he was diagnosed. My parents didn't teach him anything. My mom, okay. My mom, as far as diabetes goes, Bill this one's gonna die. My mom, there was so much responsibility put on him at nine years old, that it carried such a weight on him, and it has, it has really, really caused a lot of problems for him. It's a heavy weight for a kid to carry, and I can't imagine put, you know, having my daughter who, who is type one, having her carry that burden herself, and so seeing the damage that it did to my brother with all my mom did was really, she would pick up his prescription, she would drive him to his endocrinology appointments. But my brother didn't have a CGM back then. He had, you know, a little a book, and he would just have to record his blood sugars. He'd test on a meter and write it down, right? And he he did get a pump. He went through a few pumps, because he was a boy, so he broke a lot of pumps. I remember my mom really giving that responsibility to him. I really vividly remember him giving his own injections, yeah, and that was with like a syringe, not a pen, like the glass ones, yeah. And I'm like, Oh my goodness. So I saw the mental toll that it took on my brother, and with that, I've been like, okay, all right, how do I give her little chunks here and there to help her, you know, have autonomy over her type one diabetes, to understand how insulin works, to understand how her body is working, and be able to manage it as she gets older, but also not overload Her so then she's like, stuck and needs therapy, right? Great,

Scott Benner 43:23
perfect. And you're doing that, and what are you finding to be the the key to this? I feel

Jesse 43:29
like we have, like, a goal ever, or at least me, I have a goal every year of like, okay, I'm going to give her a little bit more independence here, right? So this year, last year, for example, it was we're going to ditch the nurse at school, okay? And we're going to manage together. I will tell you what to do, but you have the freedom to hey, if it pops up on your watch and says low blood glucose, you know what to do, right? You know to treat it. And just shoot me a text and say, I treated my blood sugar, and she did that this year, it's okay. I want you to start calculating your carbs or making educated guesses. You know, if you don't have the you know, if you're eating something and it doesn't have a package with carbs on it, okay, let's make an educated guess. You've been diabetic for long enough now that you should be able to look at a plate of food and be like that. Looks about 40 carbs. That looks about 25 carbs, because, you know, and I've been trying to teach her, I taught her what a Rolodex was recently, okay? I said, That's what your brain is becoming. So you need to allow your brain to become a Rolodex, right? So, just, you're adding to it all the time. So, you know, a large apple is going to be about 25 to 27 carbs. Okay, great. You know that? Plug that in? It stays in the Rolodex of your brain. You know how to dose for a banana? Because you eat bananas all these things, right? So I'm like this year, her goal is being able to look at a plate of food and be able to make an educated guess about how many carbs are on that plate. Dose for it, see how it goes. So.

Scott Benner 44:59
Nice. Do you guys practice over the summertime? Yes, all

Jesse 45:03
the time. And actually, I just switched her. She's, she's going to a hybrid school now, so she's only in school two days a week, and she's homeschooling three days a week. So that gives us even more time to to work on that. That's awesome. Good for you. You know I want Oh, and another thing, actually, she added this one on this year. Was changing her Dexcom herself. Okay? She wanted to be able to change that herself and put one on and she has put her last two Dexcom on herself. Because normally I do that for her, and she's on the T slim, so I fill her cartridges and all that. And for the last three years, she's been watching me do it, and, you know, we try to create fun videos. And like, you know, she's in that she's that age range who they love, like Tik Tok and all that stuff. Yeah, she doesn't have a tick tock, but she will make videos on her phone of herself doing stuff, oh my God, and save them for herself.

Scott Benner 45:58
Jesse, anybody who thinks that's crazy, if you look at Arden's iCloud folder from like her lifetime, it is just them making videos from the time they were little with their friends. Oh

Jesse 46:08
yeah, I did the same thing as a kid. I just wasn't doing them about type one diabetes. But you had a cell phone when you were a kid. I had a cell phone at 11 years old. How old are you? What year is it? 24 I'm 34 Oh,

Scott Benner 46:22
look at you. You're so much younger than me. It's amazing. I just did, yeah, no. I mean, seriously, I was like, you have it's the four kids thing that threw me off.

Jesse 46:30
It's the four kids. Yeah, no, I've got four kids, and I'm 34 and I definitely don't feel 34 I'll tell you that

Scott Benner 46:37
you feel older. Yes, how old were you when you had your first 24 can do basic math? You're like, I could do math before I got pregnant four times. Yeah,

Jesse 46:47
I was 23 I was 23 when he was born. I had just turned 23 and then two weeks later he was born. Wow. How old were you got married 21 Yeah. He's Yeah, yeah. I was a baby. So now I look at 21 year olds, and I'm like, You guys probably should,

Scott Benner 47:04
don't use that. Yeah, how did your husband trick you into that? Do you remember? He

Jesse 47:08
says that I tricked him? Oh, that's also

Scott Benner 47:09
possible.

Jesse 47:11
He Yeah, he says I tricked him that I I acted like I was gonna be No, I'm just kidding. I'm just joking. I'm not gonna go there. No, he does say that I tricked him into marrying me, but that's it. That's got to be a joke, because the same age, he's the one who pre Yeah, he's one year old. We have the same birthday, he's one year older. Oh,

Scott Benner 47:31
wow, look, even a person your own age, that's crazy, yeah,

Jesse 47:35
but he's the one who proposed to me, so I'm not the one who asked

Scott Benner 47:38
him. He's the one who proposed to you after, after you said, I'm leaving. And he was like, Wait, where's this girl going? No, he actually,

Jesse 47:45
you know, funny story is, we only dated for four months before he proposed. How

Scott Benner 47:50
long were you engaged? Five months. Oh, wow. Super quick. You were married in under a year of knowing each other at 22 and 21 yes, yes. And you're still married.

Jesse 48:03
We're still married. Yeah, we're about to celebrate 13 years. Interesting for you look at that, yeah, and we have four kids,

Scott Benner 48:10
yeah? Well, I mean, now no one's going anywhere, nobody can afford to live, yeah? I mean, really, yeah, that's ridiculous. Even if you wanted to, you'd be like, I don't know how to accomplish this.

Jesse 48:20
I know. And, yeah, you know, it's been a it's been crazy, because he didn't know anything about type one diabetes at all. And then our, our daughter was diagnosed, and he does, you know, we've had some hard times, and you know where we have, you know, I felt like I carry more of the burden. I say burden, but it is a burden. I'm not gonna lie, it's a burden. Um, type one diabetes is not like a cake walk, sure, but now I feel like we have a good system going. Now that you know, you've been married for a long time, right? I think

Scott Benner 48:51
my 28th anniversary was the other day, was it?

Jesse 48:56
Yeah. So, you know, like you got to communicate to make this thing work. And so I remember at one point just being like, Hey, listen, I'm do I feel like I'm doing all of this and I need help, because I can't carry the weight of it myself, and I need help. So, yeah, we share duties of, you know, like changing her her sites or and stuff like that. And he's got a calendar in his phone now, of to make sure that we change it, you know, just like a reminder that pops up every 48 hours to change it, yeah, and all that. So we share it very well now, but I would say since so I stay home with the kids, and you know, he's got a full time job, so during the day, when he's working, it's me, like I'm managing her type one all day long, she's gonna come to me first before she would ever go to him, Okay?

Scott Benner 49:42
And do you find that he's learning about it in a meaningful way? Or I had

Jesse 49:48
him at the beginning, I was like, hey, I need you to listen to this podcast. I need you to understand, you know, because I was trying to implement all these new things, yeah, and that I learned from your podcast. And I'm like, it's gonna wake make. Way more sense if you just listen to this podcast and you you hear what they're talking about, you know, like the Pro Tip series. I had him go through the Pro Tip series, yeah? And even just defining diabetes, you know, because I'm like, you know, we need to be on the same page so we can manage this

Scott Benner 50:14
together. I can't be saying words you don't understand. Yeah, I've even left

Jesse 50:18
him and gone out of town, and he's got it. Oh, I

Scott Benner 50:21
look at this. He's trainable. This is lovely. He's great. Tell me, how did he react when you said, I need you to listen to a podcast. He

Jesse 50:29
just said, Okay, can you put it on my phone? That was it? Jesse, I'm

Scott Benner 50:33
gonna say something. That's gonna sound weird here, but hopefully it won't. You were on video for five minutes when we first started. So I now know what you look like, you're pretty you could probably get boys to do what you want. I would have trouble. I tell my wife to do something, she looks at me. She goes, I don't think I'm doing that. She doesn't look at me and go, Oh, I don't want him to leave. So I guess I'm gonna accomplish something. You're working at an unfair advantage, is what I'm saying. Oh, please. Because in my mind, you say, Go listen to a podcast. And he walks out in the garage and, like, just screams into a towel. It's like, oh my god, I can't believe I have to do this.

Jesse 51:08
You know, he cares about her. And so he was like, All right, I got to learn. He's always looking to learn and grow, too. So he's like, all right, if this is what you think will help. And sure enough, it does. And you know, what's been very difficult is getting my brother to listen to the podcast.

Scott Benner 51:22
That's tougher. The he's had diabetes a long time, 27 years. No, okay, I can do basic math. You said he was 36 right? He's 36 Yeah, diagnosed when he was nine. Yeah, okay, yeah, that's excellent. I remembered all that, which I'm super impressed by. Oh yeah.

Jesse 51:39
Okay, so I did do the math, right? Yeah, keep in mind, I'm homeschooling my daughter three days a week, so that selected me,

Scott Benner 51:44
Mommy, what was the revolution? I don't know. Go ask the computer.

Jesse 51:50
I know. I'm like, Hey, you have, you know, I just recently told her. I'm like, hey, you've got a calculator on your insulin pump. You don't have to add it up in your head. Just push, okay. This package says 25 cards. Press the plus button. This package says 30 carbs. Press the plus button. Boom, you got it.

Scott Benner 52:06
It does it for you. I'm going to tell you something in about a month when Apple releases the new Siri. It's basically going to be AI. You're going to just be able to ask it like math, and it's finally going to, you know how everyone wishes Siri worked, but it doesn't, yeah. Oh, I hate Siri. It's gonna work like that now. Oh, good, yeah. So good, right now, if you ask it to add something up, it takes you to a website, and you're like, What in hell are you doing?

Jesse 52:30
I cannot stand Syria. I don't know. I have a huge problem with it. It never listens to me when I need it to listen to me, and it doesn't ever, you know, it's always like when I tell us something, like, You're not listening,

Scott Benner 52:41
it's going to be completely different very soon. So good. So T slim, you said control IQ,

Jesse 52:46
Yep, yeah, control IQ, I love it. Love, love, love it.

Scott Benner 52:49
And how did you figure out? Like, I mean, obviously started with some sort of injection, so you didn't stay with it very long. Did you go right to T slim, Was that your first

Jesse 52:57
pump? No, I we did the Omnipod. She has a pretty severe allergy to adhesive, okay, having that pot, I mean, she was, it was not working for her. And then on top of that, we have a pool in our backyard, and she was losing pods every single day. They just wouldn't stay on. We had, you know, I tried everything to keep those things on, and they would just fall off. And I said, All right, forget it. We I think we had them for four to five weeks. And then I was

Scott Benner 53:27
gonna say, Isn't it funny people's skin types? Yes, because we just got back from, like I said, we were on a vacation. It was a beach vacation. Arden does not wear over patches on her OmniPods, and she didn't have one thing, and she was literally just in the ocean constantly. Not one pod fell off, not one CGM fell off, like it just her skin just works well with the adhesive. And some people just don't,

Jesse 53:53
you know? Yeah, I do. Where, where do y'all are up north, right?

Scott Benner 53:57
I live in New Jersey, but we were, we were vacationing in the Caribbean. So, oh, okay,

Jesse 54:02
all right, so nevermind my I was gonna say, Well, maybe it's the humidity, because I live in a pretty humid environment, but, but, yeah, we're super it wasn't working for her, and I was, I was tired of it, so we switched over to the T slim, and have not gone back. She's about to be or she's about to get a new pump. Okay?

Scott Benner 54:21
She's been had it almost four years. I'm thrilled it's working for Yeah, yeah. Where are you at in your mind about the handoff of information? Like you bother yourself with an idea of, like, at this age, I'll be less involved, and at this age I won't be involved. Are you just watching it and just letting it be what it is.

Jesse 54:41
You know, I feel like I listened to a podcast that you talked about about this. This was before Arden was leaving for college. I remember listening to this one. I kind of took that to heart. My goal is by the time she's ready to leave for college is for her to be in a good place, to be able to manage what. Without me, and that's when I can be less hands on, but as long as she's, you know, and I've told her this too, as long as you're under the, you know, like our roof, and as long as you need me, I'll be there for you, and I can help you, but you need to start owning this as your own, because, unfortunately, it's not going away. I'm a realist, you know, and I'm straightforward with my kids, so, you know, with her, I'm telling her, Listen, I wish there was a cure for type one diabetes. There isn't do I think there will be. Who knows, at this point, you need to have it in your brain like, this isn't going away. This is my life, and I need to learn how to manage it. So let's take little bits, year by year to get you to a point where you don't need me and you can make decisions. Is that going to be 16 years old for her? I don't know. Is it going to be 18? I hope so, but I do think that I will always have to at least help her in the night time, you know, like calling her and stuff. I still

Scott Benner 56:01
pay attention at night at college, like I don't have to be as involved, and Arden's very good at it. But there's, I mean, there's stuff that happens. People get sick, you know, Arden sick right now, just tonsillitis, and it's terrible. And she's been sitting on the same chair in our living room for three days, and she slept there the last two nights. She can't even pull her ass up to go upstairs, to go to bed. Uh huh. If she wasn't home right now, if she was at college, she'd still be taking care of her diabetes. And last night, I mean, she's been her insulin needs have been, you know, very commiserate with fevers and, you know, and being ill and everything, she clearly has some sort of a virus happening. I texted her last night, like, 1130 I was like, Hey, I think you should test right here. Like, I think this is a time where I feel like you need a pretty big Bolus. It's getting late at night. Let's make sure that this number is super accurate before we before you make this this next Bolus, can you test? And she goes, I don't have my stuff with me. And I went, Okay, I'll get it, because she's literally having trouble standing up and moving around everything. So I said, you know, where's your bag? She carries this little bag in her purse. Has her meter and Chivo hypo pen in it, stuff like that. Let me get my text out so I can tell you what she said, Oh, where is your green bag? I don't know. Man, what I got from that was, dude, I'm sick, like, you know, and just because you have diabetes doesn't mean you don't get sick and have that feeling of, like, I don't want to do this. Yeah, right, she's gonna be okay. There will be a day where you're not involved in Charlie's life, by the way, I can't, oh,

Jesse 57:33
yeah. I mean, my brother, you know, he takes care of himself when he's sick and and stuff like that. But I think it's always helpful to have extra eyes, you know. And you know, like he has his wife who follows Him. But you

Scott Benner 57:46
also alluded to the fact that he maybe could be helping himself more than he is, right? No,

Jesse 57:51
he has great management, but he has been diabetic for so long that he's like, I know all there is to know. I know my body. Like, I don't need to know anymore. He's like, I got this. He's like, that, that Russian guy who was shooting at the Olympics. He's like, walking out there with nothing.

Scott Benner 58:09
Is he really having those outcomes?

Jesse 58:11
It's been an interesting last two years of diabetes for my brother, because he was diagnosed also with type two as well. So he's now on a GLP, and it has taken over a year to find the right one that works for him and dosage and stuff like that. So, you know, he did a whole year of like, titrating a certain GLP that wasn't doing anything. And then he finally, you know, I did convince him to, hey, maybe you need a different endocrinologist who will listen to you. And so he switched endocrinologists, and that endocrinologist put him on a different GLP, and now he's doing great. His insulin needs have dropped dramatically. Blood sugar is now chilling around closer to 75 to 120 he has hardly any highs.

Scott Benner 59:01
That's awesome. Oh, I'm glad, yeah. Hey, listen, uh, not that this means anything, but Turkish, oh yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah. And this will be six months later. So you're referring to the guy in the whatever they using, like, air, air, like handguns, right? He just rolls up, like everyone else has, like, protective wear, protective wear on all this stuff. He just kind of rolls up and pulls his gun out, like Dirty Harry, and he's like, get me a medal.

Jesse 59:28
That was the best thing ever. There's been a lot, there's been a lot of good stuff from the Olympics. You

Scott Benner 59:33
know, who I feel badly for? The female Australia break dancer. I actually, I'm starting to feel bad for her, actually, yeah,

Jesse 59:40
no, she's my favorite. They knew what they were doing. They're like, we're gonna send this 40 something year old professor to be a break dancer for our country.

Scott Benner 59:50
I think they dropped it from the Olympics already, by the way. Oh yeah, they did. Yeah, yeah. They were like, we're not doing this again. Sorry.

Jesse 59:56
That's a bummer, because it made for really good TV. I mean. And I was like, wow, I can watch dance offs, you know,

Scott Benner 1:00:04
I love she went home and did it again. Like, out on the street, they did a video of her and put it online. I was like, oh my god, stop doing this.

Jesse 1:00:13
Like, maybe she's my favorite. Maybe

Scott Benner 1:00:15
you're making sense. Maybe they're all in on the joke, you know what I mean? Because, yeah, little weird hand motions and body stylings. I'm like, You shouldn't be doing this. This is this looks like me doing this. Like, what do you I

Jesse 1:00:27
know I'm definitely gonna take that some of her moves to my son's middle school dance when I chaperone it and see, see if I can embarrass him a little bit. I

Scott Benner 1:00:35
like when she lays down to spin, she almost stops moving break the about that is she looks like she's gonna break her hip. Very ridiculous. Anyway. Is there anything we haven't talked about that we should have not

Jesse 1:00:49
that I can think of. What was the other subject I told you about?

Scott Benner 1:00:53
You blended advocating for yourself and not letting school nurses tell you what to do, and you about passing. So you kind of blended them together when you started talking,

Jesse 1:01:02
yeah. I was Yeah, yeah. I think I think we covered it. Let me

Scott Benner 1:01:06
just ask you a couple other questions then real quick, because we know your brother has type one, but do you have any other autoimmune things? Or does your husband or people on either side of your families,

Jesse 1:01:15
I have Hashimotos so and then I did tell you, I was one of five. So four out of five of us have hypothyroidism, okay? And both my parents hypothyroidism, wow, yeah, those are, I know. I was just talking to my oldest brother the other day, and he was like, I am the only one without hypothyroidism. This is, you know, I'm just watching it, you know.

Scott Benner 1:01:39
He's like, it's coming. I think, you know, I told him, but he's,

Jesse 1:01:42
you know, he's eight years older than me, and I'm like, Man, I bet you have it. And you just don't know.

Scott Benner 1:01:47
I was gonna say, why would he not take a look he has? But I did

Jesse 1:01:51
tell him. I said, you need to, you know? He said he's just been asking his getting blood work done at his primary care physician's office. And I said they're just testing your TSH levels. You need to go in and they're

Scott Benner 1:02:04
going to say, like, up to an eight is okay, or something like that, correct, yeah. And so

Jesse 1:02:08
I did. I was explaining that to him the other day about, you know, you need to check your your T for your t3 and then you need to see how, like, where your TSH levels are, because, you know, you could be there. They're within range. You know, the normal range is such a broad range, yeah, and I can have my TSH be within range and not feel optimally, right? So does he have symptoms? That could be the problem for you as well. And then, if they're not checking your T for your free T for, they're not tech checking those things, yeah, you're not getting the full picture. Yeah, you want

Scott Benner 1:02:43
a full panel for I have a family friend I'm trying to help now, and she's younger, so she's, you know, running into doctors who aren't helping her, and she's not real good at, you know, arguing back yet, kind of walking her through it. But, you know, she's five six hypothyroid symptoms, and they're changing her life, like, significantly, you know, her TSH, comes back at like, over five, and the doctor's like, that's normal. And I was like, That's not normal, right? And she said, Oh, she retested it and it came back at 2.5 and I'm like, Yeah, that's still not normal, right? And then they tested it again, it was 4.4 and I was like, Yeah, you need, like, thyroid medication, right? And the doctor is like, No, you don't. This is all very normal. Like, it, I don't know what world you think this is normal. Like, I know.

Jesse 1:03:29
I keep telling, I told my brother, Hey, you gotta this other one. I was like, Hey, you gotta go see an endocrinologist. If you're I'm not hating on the medical community at all. He doesn't specialize in that. You know, your primary care physician does not specialize in this, so you need to go see somebody who can look at a thyroid panel. Know what labs to pull right and then be thoughtful, actually, yeah, know what they're talking about, because they're focused on

Scott Benner 1:03:54
we need these doctors to be more specific about these tests, because we need them to do more like I'm telling you, I'm going to be right about this in the next handful of years, as GLP medications become available for type ones and they become available in vials, we're going to need doctors to tell you, Hey, listen, you know, back in the day when this all started, you know, the lowest dose of this you could get was 2.5 milligrams, but that's too much for you. Like, you know, like, we need you to do a milligram. And I don't want you to do it every seven days. I want you to do it every, I don't know, five days, 10 days, whatever ends up optimally working for you. But if you look at how little doctors are valuable in dosing your insulin, then you're going to realize how invaluable most of them are going to be with your thyroid medication and then with this, I mean, this GLP thing, like Arden has insane benefits from it, but the lowest dose is too much for her, right? So we're literally in the middle of figuring all of that out. We and I have a doc. I think I know what to do, but we're waiting a few days for her doctor's appointment where we're going to go sit down with her doctor and discuss all this. We're. Because she needs it, but not that much. She lost too much weight, and she had too, too hard of a time eating. And so where most people just go, oh, well, I, you know, it didn't work. I because I can't eat. I'm like, no, no, it nine out of the 10 things we wanted out of this worked great. One of the things didn't work, like, let's right, change the dose, yeah, you know. And luckily, we have a doctor who will be like, yeah, that's sensible. Let's figure that out, right?

Jesse 1:05:27
Yeah, it's hard to find, you know, I feel like you have to find the right doctor who's willing to work with you. Like I said earlier, our endo works with us, you know, and not, you know, we're on the same team, instead of, you know, fighting against us. And I've had endos who were like, you know, I know more than you. And there's been times where I'm like, No, I'm no more than you when it comes to this.

Scott Benner 1:05:47
So why does it matter? Like, let's just work together and figure it out.

Jesse 1:05:50
Yeah, yeah. I just remember arguing with my you know, we're arguing about technology and stuff, and I'm like, No, that's not how this insulin pump work. Also,

Scott Benner 1:05:57
forget doctors. Good luck finding people that can think through complex things in any walk of life, not just not just your doctor, you know what? I mean, we have a greater expectation for them, but they're just people. It's not right. I mean, so anyway, right?

Jesse 1:06:10
And you know, I feel like they don't get the pump draining that they need. You know, they pass that off to their diabetes educators in their office if they have them. But I feel like my endocrinologist should be, endocrinologist should be knowledgeable about the pump that is being, you know, my daughter's using, and my new one is, it

Scott Benner 1:06:27
doesn't seem crazy to ask for that, right, right? Yeah, could you know how she's great? Would you mind taking 15 minutes and teaching yourself this? Yeah,

Jesse 1:06:37
we're actually our next pump is going to be the Moby. I'm super excited. Oh yeah, we tried to get the Moby our our endo told us, like, six months ago, she's like, Oh, okay, they're tandems rolling out this new thing this summer, where, if you have the x2 and you want to upgrade to the Moby, they will do that for you at no charge. And then, you know, the following year, they'll, you get charged for it or whatever. Oh, some upgrade program, something like that. Well, I called and I submitted the forms for it, and then they called me back, and they're like, oh, you can't do that. You have to be 12 months from your you have to have at least 12 months left of your warranty to upgrade. Okay? And you have 11 months. So sorry, you're denied. I'm like,

Scott Benner 1:07:24
Are you serious? Those are all making sense. That's fine, yeah.

Jesse 1:07:27
Like, okay, that was, uh, took you three weeks to get process the paperwork, so let's backdate it.

Scott Benner 1:07:33
Well, let's just take four more weeks and give it to

Jesse 1:07:35
me. Yeah, I know. So yeah, you'll

Scott Benner 1:07:39
end up with it eventually. Yeah, she's

Jesse 1:07:41
gonna get it in the new year. So we're, I'm super excited. It's the same system as the x2

Scott Benner 1:07:47
Yeah, it's the same algorithm. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, that's exciting. Again, I'm I anytime people get things that work good for them, I think that's, I think having those choices is a minimum of what we should be asking for. So, right, right. Absolutely fantastic. All right. Well, Jesse, you were great. I appreciate you doing this with me. Thank you very much. Thank you. It was so it was so fun. Did you have a good time?

Jesse 1:08:09
Yeah, yeah. I loved it. And I feel like I could talk diabetes forever. And I feel like the first, I don't know if you remember this the first time I ever talked to you. You talked to me on the phone shortly after my daughter was diagnosed. I don't know if there's no way you remember this, but I remember this, and she had just been diagnosed, and I had reached out to you, and you were super kind, and you were like, can I just call you? It'll make more sense if I call you and you talk to me on the phone. And that's when I first realized too, because her her Endo, at the time, had said, Oh, she I want you to treat her blood sugar if it's 100 or below, yeah. And when I talk to you, you're like, 100 is fine. And I was like, Oh, it is fine.

Scott Benner 1:08:53
Yeah, yeah.

Jesse 1:08:55
I don't know. I just remember it. And you were super, you're super kind. Well, first

Scott Benner 1:08:59
of all, I'm fantastic. And I think everyone knows that you didn't have to bring it up, but I don't remember. I apologize for not remembering, but I think what I hear you say is that if everybody could just talk to me for a half an hour when they were diagnosed, they'd be okay.

Jesse 1:09:11
Yep, yep. You put me on the right track, and it was great. And I'm super thankful for your podcast because, and I tell everybody I know that's been diagnosed, like you've got to just listen to this, like I could talk your ear off, but just listen to this will be easier. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:09:25
no, I appreciate that very much. And it's funny. I was trying to be funny, but at the same time, I do think that I have it down to a brisk 40 minutes that I can, like, put you on the right path. Yeah, I

Jesse 1:09:37
honestly, I think you and I talked on the phone for 20 minutes, if that, and I was like, I feel way better about this

Scott Benner 1:09:46
situation. Good, good. I'm glad. All right, that's excellent. Well, thanks so much for doing this with me. Yeah, thank you. Okay, cool. Hold on one second for me,

I'd like to thank the ever. Sense 365 for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and remind you that if you want the only sensor that gets inserted once a year and not every 14 days, you want the ever since CGM, ever since cgm.com/juice, box, one year, one CGM, guys, you want to go for a walk with touch by type one in Orlando, you can do it and you can have a great time. Meet a lot of wonderful people touched by type one.org, go to the programs tab, click on Steps to a cure, and get yourself registered right now for the beautiful walk that's coming up on March 8 in Orlando. Touched by type one.org, earlier you heard me talking about blue circle health, the free virtual type one diabetes care, education and support program for adults. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but I swear it's real. Thanks to funding from a big T 1d philanthropy group, blue circle health doesn't bill your insurance or charge you a cent. In other words, it's free. They can help you with things like carb counting, insurance navigation, diabetes technology, insulin adjustments, peer support, Prescription Assistance and much more. So, if you're tired of waiting nine months to get in with your endo or your educator, you can get an appointment with their team within one to two weeks. This program is showing what T 1d care can and should look like. Blue circle health is currently available in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. If you live in one of those states, go to bluecircle health.org to sign up today. The link is in the show notes, and please help me to spread the word blue circle health. Had to buy an ad because people don't believe that it's free, but it is. They're trying to give you free care if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. It's ready to go right now. And like I said, they're adding states so quickly in 2025 that you want to follow them on social media at Blue circle health, and you can also keep checking blue circle health.org to see when your free care is available to you. 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 if you're living with type one diabetes, the after dark collection from the Juicebox Podcast is the only place to hear the stories that no one else talks about from drugs to depression, self harm, trauma, addiction and so much more. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and click on after dark there, you'll see a full list of all of the after dark episodes. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com, so.

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Scott Benner 2/17/25 Scott Benner 2/17/25

#1436 Life Coach: Doesn't Remember to Bolus

12 year old Kyler tries to figure out why he doesn't remember to bolus.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

Kyler is 12 years old. He has type one diabetes. His mom brought him on the podcast because he has trouble remembering to Bolus for his food sometimes. And so Kyler and I have a conversation, and we come up with a plan, and this is 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. I know this is gonna sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free virtual type one diabetes clinical care, education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama or Missouri, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you. Blue circle health.org, you know why they had to buy an ad no one believes it's free. 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/juice, box. Today's podcast is sponsored by the insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing since she was four years old. Omnipod. Omnipod.com/juice box. You too can have the same insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing every day for 16 years. Hey,

Kyler 2:00
my name is Kyler Davis. I'm 12 years old, playing baseball.

Scott Benner 2:05
Kyler, how old were you when you got type one, five years old, five. So seven years ago? 910, yeah. Okay, so you were five. Do you have any brothers or sisters? Yeah, I have a eight year old brother. Does he have diabetes? He does not. No, does anybody else in your family?

Speaker 1 2:23
No, I'm the first one in the family to get the type one. Gotcha,

Scott Benner 2:27
that's not exciting, huh? No, no. How to make you feel like, when do you remember that time? Or do you not remember it really?

Speaker 1 2:36
I mean, I like vacantly remember it. What are your recollections it was kind of scary. Mean, I didn't really know what was happening to five years old.

Scott Benner 2:50
What about now? How is it different now?

Speaker 1 2:53
Oh, I'm just really used to it now, because I've had it for seven years.

Scott Benner 2:57
So you don't think about it the same way. You're not scared by it. No, no no. Does it make you feel different at all, or not in a way that bothers you? It doesn't really bother me. Okay, you have any problems with kids, anybody? Give you crap about it.

Speaker 1 3:11
I mean, my friends like we joke about it, but I don't really care.

Scott Benner 3:15
Is it joking in a way that you feel like you're in on, or do you feel like they're making in on? Yeah, not like they're making fun of you and you have to have to go along with it, or something like that. Okay, yeah, awesome. You have a good group of friends. Yeah, I have a great group of friends. Awesome. Awesome. How long you've been playing baseball since I was probably four or five? No kidding. What position do you play? Second base and outfield. Second base in outfield? Are you lefty? Righty, righty, right handed. Do you love it? Oh, yeah, I love baseball. Yeah, you gotta love baseball. It's a lot of work, yeah, a lot of hours out in the sun and the heat and batting cages in the winter time and all that stuff. Tell me about it. Yeah, my son played all through college. Wow, yeah, it's cool. It's over now. He's like, 24 but gosh, my son started playing baseball. He hadn't quite turned four years old yet, and he was in this little T ball League, and he played that for a year, and then he played little league well now. Then he played at the YMCA for another year, and then he went to, like, our town's little league when he was six, yeah. And he played there from 678-910-1112, then Little League ended at 12, and then they played a ton of travel ball, and played for his middle school, and has played for his high school. And then he went on and played in college, and I've spent a lot of time on a baseball field, so yeah, you definitely have to love it. Do you think you think you love it enough to keep playing? Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't know how to ask this. Are you a big kid? Not really. No, no, you're pretty average size. Do you think Asia, Yeah, mom or dad, tall? Do you have any hope of being tall?

Unknown Speaker 4:51
No, my parents are really short.

Scott Benner 4:55
It's their fault, then Kyler, not yours. So yeah, you're gonna try to keep playing for your school. Yeah,

Speaker 1 5:00
yeah, my middle school doesn't have a team right now. Oh, we have fields, but they're for the high school. So

Scott Benner 5:06
what are you going to do for

Speaker 1 5:08
baseball? I'm playing on a travel ball team right now. That's awesome.

Scott Benner 5:12
You guys like play in the spring and the fall? Yeah, that's great. That's good. That's good baseball, all right. Well, that's that's awesome. How do you find your blood sugars during games? I

Speaker 1 5:23
usually just check it when I'm like, the dugout, batting or on bench.

Scott Benner 5:28
Yeah. Do you have problems with lows while you're playing or highs? Or do you usually do you have, like, a system where you stay pretty level

Speaker 1 5:35
when I go low, my mom usually just brings me a snack in the dugout.

Scott Benner 5:40
Yeah. Have you ever felt low, like, while you're out on the field?

Unknown Speaker 5:43
No, not really,

Scott Benner 5:44
actually. Okay, that's good. What's the gear you use for your diabetes? You have a CGM or a pump or anything like that, yeah,

Speaker 1 5:50
pump and a CGM. What do you use? Omnipod five and the Dexcom six?

Scott Benner 5:57
So it's algorithm. It's taking care of, like, some of your decisions for you, yeah, yeah. What did you have before that? Before Omnipod five? I think I started with it, yeah, I started with it. Omnipod five was your first pump. So what have you had, like, two years, maybe, yeah, okay, all right. How did you like that over injections? Oh,

Speaker 1 6:16
it's so much better. Okay, how come guys, you don't have to stab yourself every day. Pretty much, staying

Scott Benner 6:23
away from the stabby part is the good part. I hear you so your mom reached out. Why? Like? Why? Because she she sent me a note pretty quickly. I think I said I was looking for people to be on episodes about, like, I don't understand, like, something they don't understand. And I think she said, Did she tell you what she told me? No, I have no idea what she said. Is she right there? Yeah, ask her. What did what did she say to me? What'd you say?

Unknown Speaker 6:51
Oh, she understands why I dose when I eat. She

Scott Benner 6:53
doesn't understand why you dose, why you eat. Okay, all right, okay, so, all right. So, Kylie, do you think that's a fair statement. Do you not give yourself insulin every time you eat? Yeah, okay, that's pretty honest. Do you have any idea why you don't? It's hard to keep track of every day you eat. Number times a day, what happens you like, you get hungry, and then, like, walk me through it a little

Speaker 1 7:19
bit. I get hungry, I'll grab the snack then, like, I just eat it without dosing. Yeah? Because

Scott Benner 7:27
you're not thinking about it. Or do you? Yeah? Do you ever ignore it on purpose? No, you've never once grabbed food and thought, I know I should be giving myself insulin, but screw it. I'm not doing that maybe once, but not that that's not a frequent thought that's in your head. No. So what do you think happens? Do you think it's just you're just busy living and it just doesn't occur to you? Yeah. What happens then, if you don't give yourself insulin? Like, who figures out that you didn't do it? How does that work itself out? My dad. But how like? How is he like? He doesn't just magically, I mean, is he does he look across the room at you and be like, Kyler is eating. I see he's eating. He's definitely not giving himself insulin. Kyler give yourself insulin. Or is it a thing where your blood sugar goes up and then people are aware of it?

Speaker 1 8:16
My blood sugar goes up, okay? And

Scott Benner 8:19
then how high does it go up before somebody notices? Do you know, probably 250 How do you feel when your blood sugar is that high? Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omnipod. And before I tell you about Omnipod, the device, I'd like to tell you about Omnipod, the company. I approached Omnipod in 2015 and ask them to buy an ad on a podcast that I hadn't even begun to make yet because the podcast didn't have any listeners, all I could promise them was that I was going to try to help people living with type one diabetes, and that was enough for Omnipod. They bought their first ad, and I used that money to support myself while I was growing the Juicebox Podcast. You might even say that Omnipod is the firm foundation of the Juicebox Podcast, and it's actually the firm foundation of how my daughter manages her type one diabetes every day. Omnipod.com/juicebox whether you want the Omnipod five or the Omnipod dash. Using my link, let's Omnipod know what a good decision they made in 2015 and continue to make to this day. Omnipod is easy to use, easy to fill, easy to wear. And I know that because my daughter has been wearing one every day since she was four years old, and she will be 20 this year, there is not enough time in an ad for me to tell you everything that I know about Omnipod, but please take a look omnipod.com/juicebox I think Omnipod could be a good friend to you, just like it has been to my daughter and my family. You can manage diabetes, confident. 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/juice box. When you use my link, you're supporting the podcast. Dexcom.com/juice box. Head over there. Now I get hot. Hot, like, sweaty, yeah, okay. And then what happens? Like, your parents come up to you and they're like, Hey, you didn't like, do they give you crap about it? Or are they pretty cool? How do they handle it? Yeah, they give me crap. Has it ever occurred to you to be like, I should just probably give myself insulin, and then none of this would happen. Yeah, tell me why that doesn't happen?

Unknown Speaker 11:23
Probably because,

Scott Benner 11:25
take your time. I'm being serious. Take your time and think about it, because you very well might not know, but I'm looking for your opinion, like, how come you can't make that change? I'm like, tired of doing it. Ah, okay. It's been too much, too long. Yeah. Okay, so I know you're just, I don't mean to say you're only 12, but 12 is pretty young. And, you know, diabetes is a, certainly a big responsibility, and you've already been living with it for seven years, you've come to the conclusion, I imagine, this is going to be for the rest of your life. Do you feel like that? Yes. Okay. And are you aware of why it's important to not manage your meals the way you are right now? Like how much of the health part of diabetes Do you understand?

Unknown Speaker 12:14
Probably 75 80%

Scott Benner 12:17
if I said to you, Kyler, we don't want your blood sugars to be 250 every time you eat. Do you know why we don't want that?

Speaker 1 12:24
Yeah, because then it will jack up my immune system.

Scott Benner 12:29
Well, there's more to it. So your blood sugar bouncing around like that, going high and then coming back down. Does it get low after you you fix the high blood sugar? Sometimes, sometimes, yeah, yeah, right. Then you got to eat food. You don't want to bring it back up again, like that. Bouncing is just generally speaking, not good for your body. And higher blood sugars are, you know, like, I know you can go to a 250 blood sugar, and it's not, you know, it's not like something horrible. You don't have to run to the hospital, right? But that, over and over again is slowly doing, you know, damage to your health. And so while you're sitting there, probably thinking, like, I don't what the big deal is, the thing beeped, I gave myself insulin, like it's over now, like your parents are thinking about, like, long term. They're thinking about stuff you can't even, like, imagine yet. Like, do you know how old your parents are? They're probably really old. Do you know how old they are? Yeah, they're like, 50 and 60. Oh, my God, they're almost dead. It's crazy. What they do have? What do you like, the last of 17 kids? Or something? Kyler, what happened there would your parents start having kids later in life? I'm just joking. Oh, they're not that old. Oh, okay,

Unknown Speaker 13:43
my mom made me tell you that I'm joking.

Scott Benner 13:45
How old are they? You know, 43

Unknown Speaker 13:48
and my mom's 39 it's

Scott Benner 13:51
still pretty old they, I mean, they probably, like, get up off the couch and they're, like, creaky, right? And they don't move too fast, yeah, no, no, it's almost over. I barely ever seen my mom get off the couch, yo. She just lives there. Yeah, yeah. She's not out walking, going for a run, anything like that.

Speaker 1 14:07
I've never seen her do that. Once in my life. Does

Scott Benner 14:10
she sit at all your games? Oh, yeah, she sits down. Kyler, you're awesome. Okay, so your parents are thinking long term, right? They've been alive 40 years. They have perspective on life you don't have yet. You won't have it for a long time, right? Like it's hard for a young person to worry about the future, to consider the future, even, because in your world, life's only been 12 years old, 12 years long so far. So they are really thoughtfully trying to set you up to be healthy for a very long time. They also probably want you to have good habits so that when you're older, and maybe, you know, maybe you're on like a, I don't know, maybe your travel team goes away to Florida to play, or something like that for a week, or maybe you end up at college or something that you know how to take care of your health. Yeah. And like I would imagine, I've got a daughter who's 20 years old, who's had diabetes since she was two. And, I mean, that's still my goal is, is to help her understand the things that she's going to need to know to be healthy forever. Now, day to day, that's hard to keep in mind while people are, you know, it feels like they're bugging you about stuff. I think your bigger concern probably is trying to figure out how to not feel like you're sick of it like I think the goal you should have is try to is, how do you like fold diabetes into your day to day life, so that it doesn't feel like a chore while you're doing the things that are are important for you. You know what I mean? Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, good, yeah, good. What are you gonna say?

Speaker 1 15:50
It's just like, you just gotta fit it in, yeah? Like you have all these things going on and then just gonna squeeze it in, like it's priority number one, but

Scott Benner 16:00
the trick is to not feel like it's extra like. So I think, you know, if I told you you were gonna go cross the street today, like you wouldn't think like looking left, right, left was like a burden, you'd say that's an obvious thing I need to do so that I can get across the street safely, like you wouldn't just I couldn't take you to the curb and just say, hey, Kyler, shut your eyes and run for it like you wouldn't do that. You'd be like, No, I don't want to get hit by a car. I'm not interested in that. But I think that the idea of not bolusing for your meals very consistently, it does to your parents, feel like you're shutting your eyes and running across the street, that makes sense? Yeah, yeah. So now, how do you like now it's not the answer. We don't want you to feel bad about it. We don't want you to feel overwhelmed about it. Like, that's not the goal, like nobody's trying to make you feel bad. How do you make the decision that Bolus thing for food is brushing your teeth is looking both ways, like, how do we turn it into a thing that just happens without you having to feel like it's a burden or an extra thing you're doing? Do you think that's possible? Yeah, how would you go about it? Do you think like if you had to set a plan up for you to feel better about that? I mean, what would that look like to you?

Speaker 1 17:22
Like, set and be certain times to eat and then no Bolus right before them. So

Scott Benner 17:30
if you had set meal times, you think it would help you to, like, make sure your your insulin was in. Well, I've seen people put notes on the refrigerator that just say Pre Bolus, like stuff like that, like little reminders. Because, Kyler, listen, you don't know me, you know what I mean. But I'm, like, childish in my mind still and like, I understand, I understand that you get busy. You're thinking about things you know you're not interested in, like this just sucks. Like I've I've interviewed adults from, you know, 20, 3040, 5060, years old. They all have type one diabetes, and that they almost all agree that Pre Bolus in their meals sucks, that having to remember to give yourself insulin before you eat is not fun, like but they'll also all tell you that it's a really important part of living healthy with diabetes. Now, if I was going to try to talk you into it, what I would say is this, the couple of minutes that it takes to give yourself insulin before you eat saves you so much trouble on the back end, right? It saves a 250 blood sugar. It saves that conversation with your dad. It saves you getting low later, from the from the mistimed insulin that caused the correction. It saves you from having to eat crap you don't want, drinking a juice box you don't want, like. It saves you from all of those things. It just to me, seems worth it to trade that couple of minutes of thought before the meal for all the crap that comes when you don't do it. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, maybe it's important to think about it like that. Like, it's, you're not giving something up. You're actually you're getting a lot back instead. Yeah, 100% Yeah, right. Like, your time and, like, you know? I mean, how many times have you been hanging out with friends or something and like your mom, like has to walk in the room with a juice box or candy? And like you don't, you probably feel like a baby when that happens, right? Yeah, yeah, you're not looking for that. So, like, by taking control of your meals and putting yourself in charge, you're not just avoiding those problems, those potential problems, but you're also giving yourself control, like you're in charge of this going well, instead of just acting like diabetes just happens to me, and you know it's not up to me, like you can make decisions, like you can take control your of your life and make decisions. Questions that give you the ability to write the story about how the rest of your day goes. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. What do you like to do for fun, besides baseball, play video games? Which ones Call of Duty? You got the new one with the new zombies? They put the zombies back the way they're supposed to be. I heard Yeah. You like the zombie ones, the the maps are. Now,

Speaker 1 20:24
I'm not a huge fan of the zombies. Do you like scary movies?

Scott Benner 20:28
Yeah? Do Yeah, I don't like scary movies at all. They scare me, I think is probably why. But so you like scary movies, but don't like the zombie maps? No, because the zombies aren't shooting back,

Speaker 1 20:42
no. It's just, I don't really like the, like the setting and the the way it's laid out. I got

Scott Benner 20:47
you, you prefer the more traditional maps, yeah, yeah. Do you get online with friends and talk to them while you're uh while you're playing? Yeah? Do you like use the headphones to gang up on people and, like, make plans and stuff like that? Uh huh, yeah. It's pretty great. Do you do the um, the achievement stuff to like, level up the weapons and the gear and stuff, or do you guys not do that?

Unknown Speaker 21:08
We do it sometimes.

Scott Benner 21:09
Yeah. Which gun do you prefer to use? Probably the Mk, don't tell me your game gamer handle, but do you like it? Yeah, yeah. All right. You don't want people hunting down Call of Duty. Do No, no, no. Okay, so it's not lost on me Kyler, that this is not a conversation that most 12 year olds have to have. You know what? I mean? No, probably not. Yeah. It sucks a little bit, but I will tell you this, I've talked to a lot of people who have type one diabetes who grew up with it, and they will tell you later in life that having type one although they don't want it, and they would obviously get rid of it if they could, but it does teach them to be more mature or thoughtful that oftentimes people with type One diabetes are not so easily shaken by life events, because they know what it is to like live through a tough thing. Do you know what I mean? Like, do you have any of those feelings like, do you see any of the value in diabetes?

Unknown Speaker 22:10
Yeah, it gets me out of class.

Scott Benner 22:14
How does it get you out of class? When

Speaker 1 22:16
my blood goes low, I get called down. I get to miss math class.

Scott Benner 22:20
Yeah. Get shot. Do you not like math? Oh no. What subjects do you like reading? Do you enjoy fiction? Non fiction? What kind of reading Do you like non fiction? So like sci fi, not really

Unknown Speaker 22:34
like history, history?

Scott Benner 22:36
Oh no kidding, like historical stories or actual like, just this is what happened in the past. Like, this is like both kind of, what are some of your favorite historical events World War Two? What about it? What do you like about about learning about it? I like learning about the Nazis and what they were doing.

Unknown Speaker 23:02
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the trust.

Scott Benner 23:05
I believe you. So what about that? Like, is it hard for you to believe that, that a group of people would were being that horrible? Yeah, weird, isn't it? So you're trying to get a feeling for like, what, like, how, how that could happen? Yeah. Do you find yourself to be a kind person in your regular life? Yeah? Yeah. Do you have trouble with people who aren't kind?

Speaker 1 23:33
Yeah, I deal with them how so kind of talk some sense into them. You

Scott Benner 23:40
find yourself kind of trying to be a voice of reason for people when they're they're being maybe unkind.

Unknown Speaker 23:47
Yeah, I take charge.

Scott Benner 23:49
Does that work? Do you have you had luck talking people into, uh, into maybe acting better? Yeah, I have no kidding. Can you share one of those experiences with me? I mean,

Speaker 1 24:00
they're like, I'm in Boy Scouts, and they're these, ton of their kids, they're always yelling at each other, and one of the scout leaders told me I had to take charge, like, so I just stepped in. They all kind of like, shut down. Yeah.

Scott Benner 24:17
What did you offer to them? What advice did you give them in that moment?

Speaker 1 24:21
I was like, You're not going to get anywhere with just yelling at each other.

Scott Benner 24:25
Did they do it a different way, or did they just kind of shut off and stop? They kind of just shut off and stop. Yeah, you think they weren't maybe accustomed to being redirected like that? No, yeah. Are you what happens when somebody redirects you? Do you you respond usually, or do you shut off?

Speaker 1 24:43
I do it. I I'm a great listener. Yeah,

Scott Benner 24:48
always been since you were little. Yeah, you like following rules. Like, does it make you? Does it make you uncomfortable to break rules? No, I always follow the rules. You do, except. Are the Pre Bolus in your meals? Yeah, pretty much you change your pumps when you're supposed to. Or do you let them go to the last second and then you're like, Oh, I guess I'll do it. Now, I

Unknown Speaker 25:09
changed my pumps when I'm supposed to.

Scott Benner 25:12
What's your high alarm set out like, when does your CGM beep at you? 250 probably. 250 okay. Do you know what your a 1c is, 7.1 Okay, are you mostly managing it on your own, or your parents still helping? My

Speaker 1 25:26
dad usually helps a lot. Yeah, like I said, my mom just sits on the couch all day,

Scott Benner 25:31
the old couch, lady, like, 60s, five years old, yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand your dad is the one who's a little more involved with your blood sugar. Yeah. Do you know why that is like, Have you guys ever discussed why your dad's the one who helps more than your mom? No, not really. No. Do you like it that way? Or do you wish they were both more involved? I was they were both involved. Do you think your dad understands it better than your mom does? Or do you think, yeah, he does, yeah, how did he learn about it? Did he ever tell you? No,

Speaker 1 26:04
he never. He just, like, after like, a year, he was, like, an expert, yeah,

Scott Benner 26:09
he figured it out. Interesting. Okay, so if you were to go to your mom, like we were in Cub Scout or in Boy Scouts, and tell her that you wanted her to be more involved, like, what would you share with her? Like, why? Why that's important to you? I mean,

Speaker 1 26:24
she's, like, involved pretty much, but I feel like my dad is just, like, a little more involved. So I'd probably say just like, can you get involved, like, a little bit more? Yeah,

Scott Benner 26:35
is she in the room right now? Yeah. Is this uncomfortable?

Speaker 1 26:39
Yeah, yeah, she's yelling at me for saying these things. Is she

Scott Benner 26:43
eyeball on you right now? Yes, giving you the look, that's okay, we're tell her, we're getting to it. Do we gonna figure out? Like, we're gonna figure out how to make a trade off here? So if you'd like her to do something, and she'd like you to do something, right? Yeah, she wants you to, like, Well, I mean, you're here for. Why? Because the Bolus thing, right? She wants you to, like, be more cognizant about bolusing for your meals, and remember to do that stuff. And you'd like her to do something too. So maybe when you guys, like, maybe when you get off here, you guys could have that conversation and just talk about that, like, simple thing, like, look, I think I could be more aware of my Bolus thing for my meals. I wish you could be a little more involved. Like, so let's try to think Kyler, like, how could she be more involved that would help you Bolus at your meals to remind me better, yeah, that's a lot to remember, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's overwhelming. Sometimes I imagine, oh, yeah, yeah. So, see, we found this perfect balance. I think this is our answer, if I'm being honest. Like, I think that, like, this is our answer, which is, I think your mom wants you to Pre Bolus, because it would be healthier for you, but also because it would be less turmoil in your house, right? And she also wants to think that you're learning well enough to help yourself as you get older, like I understand all of her desires, I think, and I think that it's possible that after seven years in such a long time of having type one diabetes, that maybe it's easy to forget that you're just 12 and that, yes, you should be involved With your diabetes, and you should understand what's going on, because you need to know for the future, but at the same time, 12 years old, and you could use a hand, right? Yeah, that's pretty much what we're talking about here. So, and it's fun to tease your mom about being old, you know, or whatever. I had fun with that too, or, you know, like the sofa or whatever, you know, but I'm sure she's pretty involved in your life, and you're just looking for this very specific thing from her. So is it fair to say that if for the next month, it became your mom's job to remind you 15 minutes before meals? Yeah, that it was 15 minutes before meals that maybe you could build up a little bit of a memory for that yourself. You think that's reasonable?

Unknown Speaker 29:07
Oh, yeah, yeah, I think that'd be great. And then

Scott Benner 29:10
what about while you're at school? Maybe a text message, yeah, right. This is how I used to do it with my daughter, like I had an alarm set on my phone while she was at school for whenever she had meals, or even, like, gym class or anything that needed, like an adjustment with with insulin, and my alarm would go off, and I'd stop, and I'd send her a text and I'd say, hey, you know, like, it's time to Pre Bolus for lunch. And you know, we would talk about it back and forth, and text for a second, and she'd get her Bolus in for lunch, and that would stop her from getting high at lunch, which was awesome. Or sometimes it would go off, and I would get like, a note, like, hey, like, her gym class is in a half an hour. And I'd say, Arden, let's set like, a Temp Basal decrease so that you don't get low at gym, like that kind of stuff. I

Speaker 1 29:58
have a nurse at my school that I go to for. My lunch, you do? So, yeah,

Scott Benner 30:02
okay, and is that an actual pre bullish, or does she bullish? You and you just go right to the food.

Speaker 1 30:07
It's a Bolus, or it's a Pre Bolus. I go 10 minutes early. Okay,

Scott Benner 30:12
good, good, good. So you, what do you? So what do you really need your mom? You need your mom in the morning and at dinner time, right? Yeah, yeah. And then if you're gonna have a snack, like now, listen, if, if we put her in charge, and you stand up at seven o'clock at night to go to the snack drawer, right, get a pretzel or something like that, and she says, You don't forget to bullish. You can't be mad at her because you asked her to remind you. Yes. All right, so you got to be fair to her too while you're doing it, 100% all right. Does it sound like a plan? Yep. Awesome. You think it'll work? Yeah, good. I'm excited. So now, if you're excited and I'm excited and she's excited, then together, I think we got a plan we do. Do you think I could talk to her for a minute here at the end and go over the plan with her so she knows? Yep, all right. Kyler, will you send me an email in a month and tell me how it's going? Uh, yeah, 100% I'll send you that email. I really appreciate it, man. Good luck at baseball. Have fun. Keep keep having fun while you're playing. It's a great sport. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Hand the phone to your mama. Good to talk. All right, see you. Yep. Hello. Hey. How are you? Hi, good. How are you? I'm good. So we came up with a plan. Okay, all right, I know you didn't expect to be on but do you want to introduce yourself real quick, or now that you're the old couch lady, would you prefer not to?

Speaker 2 31:31
Just to clarify, my name is Mary. I'm Tyler's mom, and I I'm actually a teacher, so I do not sit on the couch all day.

Scott Benner 31:41
You're not 65 and on the sofa constantly.

Speaker 3 31:43
No, no, I'm teaching. I

Scott Benner 31:47
think he was being sarcastic at points. He was very funny.

Speaker 2 31:49
Yes, he is a little sarcastic. I apologize for that. Don't apologize. It

Scott Benner 31:54
was awesome. So what we talked about was, and I know you were hearing one side of it, but it sounds like so just between you and I and everyone listening, and Kyler, if he ever listens to this too, what I'm hearing is, is that he needs help, yes, and he wishes it would come from you. Yeah, that's what I'm getting. So he doesn't think you're not involved, but he thinks his dad's more involved with diabetes. And what I heard was, and listen, I could be 100% wrong, but I've spoken to a lot of people, what I heard was, he's just 12 years old, and this is a lot, and yeah, he should remember to Bolus his meals, but he's not, and he needs somebody to help him. So I said, Well, your mom wants you to make this, you know, this change to make these and I explained to him why, like, all the health reasons why, and that you're worried about him later when he goes away to college or gets a job or something like that. You know that it's about health and his safety and happiness and all that stuff. Like, I stuck up for all the old couch ladies out there and but at the same time, like, he also has a deeper voice, and he's got a little bravado about him, and I could see how you could read him as older than he is, maybe, and then you give him the diabetes, and he's had it for so long, and it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to Pre Bolus, but Mary, I've talked to a lot of people with type one, and they all describe that remembering to Bolus for their meals is really difficult that you just get caught up living and you don't think about it. So what we said was, is that he could commit to doing it, if you could commit to reminding him, I think he's looking for you 15 minutes before a meal, to tell him, Hey, we're getting ready to have breakfast. We're getting ready to have dinner. It's time to Bolus to be a little involved in that for a month, like so like, for the next 30 days, if you guys do it together, to see if it builds a little more of a of a rhythm between the two of you and helps them. And then he said he'd send me an email in a month and tell me how it was going awesome. I love that, all right. I would say too that during school times like, you know, I it sounds like he goes to the school nurse, so you probably don't need it there. But I did tell him, I'm like, Look, if you stand up at seven o'clock at night and go, like, you know, to the pretzel drawer to get a pretzel or something like that, if your mom yells across the room at you from the sofa, like you got a Bolus for that, I was like, you can't be mad at her because you asked her to remind you. Yeah, that's the that's the key. No, I know. Don't worry. I got kids anyway. Listen, if this works, Mary, no, I'm gonna sell this. I'm gonna put it in a bottle and sell it. All right, all right. And if it doesn't work, I'm not gonna be super surprised. But if it does work, like, maybe he just needed someone who wasn't you to, like, propose an idea, because then he can accept it. Because I'm nobody to him, right? Like, I'm just a voice, and at the same time, like I tried to give him, he's a very, uh, like, thoughtful kid he talked about. Boy Scouts a little bit and being told to, like, step in and help people. And, you know, it sounds like he's, like, you know, got a real, like, emotional side to him, but comes off kind of like, you know, like, maybe he's got a big personality at the same time. Uh huh. I just think Mary's Not My Kid. But it sounds to me like you should just remember that he's 12. Yeah, you know, yep, that's pretty much this. Of course it is. No I understand, but that's what I got out of this.

Speaker 2 35:29
All right. Well, we appreciate it. We will definitely give it a try and let you know. Thank you.

Scott Benner 35:35
Do you think this was an I don't understand, or a Scott life coach? I think it was definitely a life coach. I do too. I'm gonna make sure I put it into this category. Yeah, I like it. I think I might have a thing going here with this. Yeah.

Speaker 2 35:48
I agree, yeah. All right, it was very helpful

Scott Benner 35:54
around Mary. Are you being serious? No, you should be a life coach as well. Well, I don't have time for that, but I this podcast thing ever goes, I was gonna say tits up. Is that a saying? Everyone knows? I think so. Yeah, if that ever happens, I'll pivot to this. There you go. There you go. I really appreciate you doing this. I appreciate you bringing them on. It was very, very nice of you to set up. I'd like to ask you, like, in a month, would you reach out and tell me how it went? Because I could add in your email to the end of the episode. Yeah, absolutely awesome. What do you teach? I teach fifth grade math. Oh my gosh, God bless you. Yeah. Is that why he told me he doesn't like math?

Speaker 2 36:37
He really doesn't like math, which is very hard for me, I was gonna

Scott Benner 36:40
say, is he just digging at you, or does he not like math? No, he

Speaker 2 36:44
really does not like math. He never has, so it's been that's hard on me. Hey,

Scott Benner 36:49
at least he reads. That's awesome. Yes, he does enjoy your reading. So there's that that's good, by the way, the reading thing might Evan flow a little bit and come back. But my son was a big reader when he was younger, and got back to it in his 20s. Yeah,

Speaker 2 37:02
he's not. He doesn't do it outside of school, but at school he does enjoy it. So I'll take

Scott Benner 37:07
it hopefully eventually it will do you think he'll keep playing baseball. Hopefully

Speaker 2 37:11
we'll see his team's going to Cooperstown this summer. So that's pretty exciting. Yeah,

Scott Benner 37:16
they'll have a great time. They have those little replica fields to play on. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, so yeah. Then next year, the fields get bigger. Oh, great. They go to the 5070, field. So now instead of 46 what is it? 4660 right? So it's 60 feet the first base, 46 feet to home plate, yeah. And then it goes to 5070, so 50 from the pitcher's mound to home, 70 feet to first. But the 5070 fields are usually on full size outfields, so 5070 is the first time you figure out if they can play baseball or not. Oh gosh. Well, we'll see if he's still rolling and doing well there, then you're stuck. He's gonna end up playing high school. So okay, yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens. Get your sunscreen and your floppy hat ready. Mary, yeah. All right, thank you so much for that. All right, thank you. Have a great day.

Unknown Speaker 38:06
Thanks. Bye.

Scott Benner 38:15
A huge thanks to Omnipod, not just my longest sponsor, but my first one, omnipod.com/juice box. If you love the podcast and you love tubulin pumps, this link is for you. Omnipod.com/juice box. Dexcom sponsored this episode of the juice box podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g7 at my link. Dexcom.com/juicebox, earlier you heard me talking about blue circle health, the free virtual type one diabetes care, education and support program for adults. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but I swear it's real. Thanks to funding from a big T 1d philanthropy group, blue circle health doesn't bill your insurance or charge you a cent. In other words, it's free. They can help you with things like carb counting, insurance navigation, diabetes technology, insulin adjustments, peer support, Prescription Assistance and much more. So if you're tired of waiting nine months to get in with your endo or your educator, you can get an appointment with their team within one to two weeks. This program is showing what T 1d care can and should look like. Blue circle health is currently available in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. If you live in one of those states, go to blue circle health.org to sign up today. The link is in the show notes, and please help me to spread the word blue circle health had to buy an ad because people don't believe that it's free, but it is. They're trying to give you free care if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. It's ready to go right now. And like I said, they're adding states so quickly in 2025 that you want to follow them on social media. Blue circle health and you can also keep two. Attacking blue circle health.org to see when your free care is available to you. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed, you're following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. 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, you.

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