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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome back to another episode of The juicebox podcast.
Christy has a 13 year old with type one diabetes who was diagnosed at 10. We're going to talk a little bit about the difference between the Australian and United States Medical Systems, the value of community and finding others to deal with the same things that you are and much more, 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. 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 juicebox at checkout. That's juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com if you are the caregiver of someone with type one diabetes or have type one yourself, please go to T 1d exchange.org/juicebox and complete the survey. This should take you about 10 minutes and will really help type one diabetes research. You can help right from your house at T 1d exchange.org/juice, box. 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.
This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries, gvoke hypopen. Find out more at gvoke glucagon.com, forward slash, juice box. Did you know that despite the increase in CGM use, only a third of people living with diabetes meet the recommended guidelines for healthy glycemic levels. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes. Learn more about hyperglycemia at Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper.
Christy 2:00
My name is Christy. I am from Australia. I have a 13 year old type one diabetic daughter. I have a 21 year old son, and I have four step kids and six grandchildren. Now,
Scott Benner 2:17
I want everybody to know that hopefully Christy's connection thing is, because she's from Australia, and she's so far away. So Christy, every once in a while when you stop talking, it gets electric, which is, I don't believe anything you can do about it. So we're going to try to make it through. I also want to tell you that while I've only probably recorded with a handful of Australian women, you all sound exactly the same to me, and I'm sorry for that. Like, generally speaking, I can't tell the difference between you and anyone else I've ever spoken and as a matter of fact, when you came on originally, I thought, Have I already recorded with her
Christy 2:59
slang? That was he slang.
Scott Benner 3:01
It gotta be casual, casual chit chat. Yeah, interesting, I don't know. And tone, even tonally, you sound like I'm like, Oh, this is the same person. But obviously you're not the same person. I am gonna say this. I think I'm detecting that your microphone is picking up. S's strangely, okay. Can we test that to see if I'm right? Can you say something like
Christy 3:26
Sally snakes or something like that? That's what
Scott Benner 3:28
it is. Holy crap. How was it? How's it doing that? Can you move the mic farther from your mouth? I can give it a go. Do the Sally sells. She sells down at the seashore. Again.
Christy 3:40
Sally sells seashells down the seashore. Yeah,
Scott Benner 3:43
you're not allowed to use any words that begin or end with s okay.
Christy 3:49
That cuts out the Aussie slang.
Scott Benner 3:52
Yeah, right. People are gonna need to understand if they want to hear some from somebody from Australia. Be clear to them, your internet runs through two threads that go under the ocean, right? Like it's very Yeah, you're lucky to be talking to the outside world, honestly, at 11pm at night. Plus, yeah, you have to be up very late. I'm bitching to my wife last night. I'm going to bed. I'm like, why am I recording so early tomorrow? I said my scheduler is out of their mind. And my wife goes, Do you not make the schedule? And I was like, yeah, there must be a reason for this, but tell me one more time. It sounds like you made two babies and rented four. So go, go over them again. For me, we've got
Christy 4:29
a Yours, Mine and Ours situation. So I, I had my son, and I met my husband. He had two biological children, and he had two step children. And then together we had our Emily,
Scott Benner 4:43
so you had you had one coming in, he had four coming in,
Christy 4:48
yeah, ours and hers, because there was two that were actually my husband's stepchildren.
Scott Benner 4:58
Yeah, yeah, huge. I'm going to ask you a question that has nothing to do with anything Sure. How does a man leave a relationship with the children that are step that are stepchildren?
Christy 5:13
So he raised the boys, so he met his first partner when they the kids were two and five, and they were together for 13 years, and then had two girls together. And then when they separated, he just never, he just always continued to look after them. Wow.
Scott Benner 5:33
So he seems like he might be an exceptional person. Is that correct? He
Christy 5:36
is. He is very exceptional, yes. And then he took on me and my son.
Scott Benner 5:41
It's like, come on, I can do more, yeah, but
Christy 5:45
he had no biological boys, but he had three biological girls. So he just, he just collected the boys, yeah?
Scott Benner 5:55
Well, listen, you gotta do what you gotta do. So you and he have a baby together. That baby has type one. That's correct, okay? And she's 13. Did you say yes, just turned 13. I can't believe I remember that. I'm so impressed with myself right now. So you and he have a 13 year old together who has type one. Does anybody else have autoimmune any of those other kids? No,
Christy 6:18
no. There's nothing in the family, no type one diabetes, no autoimmune No, celiac, no, nothing.
Scott Benner 6:26
How about on your side of the family? Nope, nothing interesting. How old was she when she was diagnosed?
Christy 6:32
She was 10 years old. It's been three years. She didn't go into DKA. She I took her to the doctors because I thought she had a bladder
Scott Benner 6:40
infection close enough, yeah, whatever gets you to the doctor, right? It doesn't matter. That's right. Did they figure it out, though, once you came in talking about bladder infection. This episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's addressing hyperglycemia head on. Learn more at Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper and now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion Maddie. Hi.
Speaker 1 7:06
My name is Maddie Fisher. I was 12 years old when I was diagnosed. It was really, really hard through my adolescent stage. I hated diabetes. Sometimes I would cry and just say, like, Why me? And I think, you know, just from hearing from people in the community that a lot of people have that very similar story, what did you find that helped? I was able to see all the latest technology that other type one diabetics, especially in the Medtronic champion community, were using, and I stumbled across the N pen. And this girl was using the N pen. I just messaged her. Tell me all about this. I called Medtronic, and the lady that I was talking to, she's like, Yeah, I
Scott Benner 7:46
totally understand. It feels like meeting more people helped you.
Speaker 1 7:50
Yeah, I definitely did. You know, I used to hide everything, and now I wear it with pride.
Scott Benner 7:55
What have you learned since you've been wearing your technology openly?
Speaker 1 7:59
There's great support. And then you know you have Medtronic who just elevates that support.
Scott Benner 8:05
Prolonged hyperglycemia can lead to serious health problems and long term complications. Learn more about hyperglycemia at Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper if you take insulin or sofanylurias, you are at risk for your blood sugar going too low, you need a safety net when it matters most, be ready with G vo hypo pen. My daughter carries G voc hypo pen everywhere she goes, because it's a ready to use rescue pen for treating very low blood sugar in people with diabetes ages two and above that. I trust low blood sugar. Emergencies can happen unexpectedly and they demand quick action. Luckily, jivo kypopen can be administered in two simple steps, even by yourself in certain situations. Show those around you where you store GEVO kypo pen and how to use it. They need to know how to use jivo kypopen before an emergency situation happens. Learn more about why gevok hypopin is in Arden's diabetes toolkit at gvoke, glucagon.com/juicebox, gvoke shouldn't be used if you have a tumor in the gland on the top of your kidneys called a pheochromocytoma, or if you have a tumor in your pancreas called an insulinoma, visit gvoke, glucagon.com/risk, for safety information, yeah.
Christy 9:27
He tested a sugars, he did a ketone test, I believe. And then he said to me, I think you might need to go to the hospital, because I'd like to get a have a blood tested and see what's going on. And then he said, I'm suspecting possibly type one,
Scott Benner 9:43
and that was the end of that. Oh, well done for him. Yes, that's fine. Yeah, what I'm going to ask you, because of the list you sent, seems very specific, like you really have something you want to talk about. So let me start with, why did you want to come on the podcast? I just feel there's a lot of information. Question
Christy 10:00
out there for Australians that there's, you've got a lot of Australian listeners, and there's a lot of information that we've got here in Australia that can also be brought to the attention
Scott Benner 10:13
of of those,
Christy 10:14
those people. So we've got a lot of support groups in Australia. We're also missing a lot of the technology in Australia, a lot of the technology that you have over there, we haven't seen here at all yet. So I think there's very there's a lot of differences between the Australian Medical System and the American What
Scott Benner 10:38
do you have that you think people don't know about
Christy 10:43
the support network in Australia, we have a foundation called the type one foundation, which is just a Support Foundation for families. They send out these new awesome packs for the type one diabetic, the ones they've just been diagnosed, say that they're not in this alone, and the parents making them feel like they're not in this alone. There's a lot of other Facebook websites, Facebook pages, sorry, that are out there that Australia, that we don't sort of get told about. You have to go searching for it.
Scott Benner 11:21
How did you go about finding them? Just touch it into
Christy 11:24
a search bar, if I'm honest. Yeah, when you're sitting in the hospital for five days and you're Google, which you shouldn't Google, and then you find all this really horrible stuff, and you don't know where you're going, you don't know what's happening that first five days that we were in there, I just remember feeling absolutely lost,
Scott Benner 11:47
overwhelmed and alone. I
Christy 11:53
think was a big thing. I didn't know anybody else that had type one. I've never even really heard of it before. And then slowly but surely, I started finding these groups, and now the type one foundation make packs that go to the hospitals, that give you a little bit of information on just to connect I see with them, and it gives you a sense of community. Start chatting with people that other families that are going through what you're going through.
Scott Benner 12:23
Yeah, see, I think it's interesting because you said there's this information out there that people can't get a hold of. And then I was like, How'd you find it? You're like, I Googled it. And so I thought, I bet you people could get hold of it. And so I think what so I think the real like thing for you is you're saying, like, there's this great help out there, and it really helped me. So that's what I'm Yeah, so that's what I wanted to ask you about. So how did you feel helped by it? What did it do for you? Oh,
Christy 12:52
it just connected me. It really connected me to other families, people that were going through and could understand what it meant to be up all night, what it meant to have to inject your child with this drug that too much or too little of could cause dramas that nobody else seems to understand. Everybody seems to go, oh, but you've got a handle on it, haven't you, these communities that are out there that where you ask silly questions like, how many carbs are in this or what happens when we go and play basketball? What do you feel helps you, or
Scott Benner 13:34
just a sense of connectedness? And
Christy 13:37
I think your Facebook group does the same thing. People can get on there and and chat and converse and see that they're not alone. Is the big it's a really big thing for me.
Scott Benner 13:52
I love what you said about feeling supported by by finding information and by finding people too. Why was that so important? What Where were you at when you look? Because, let me tell you why I my mind doesn't work that way, like when I needed support. I created some for myself. And also, being fair, it was 2007 and the Internet wasn't quite what it is today, obviously. So the idea that you could go to a thing and type in anything and get a lot of information back, I mean, the Internet was still pretty new to us in 2007 No, no kidding. So I was like, I'll create my own support. I started doing it through email for people. And then I found a program called iWeb. Like it just it came pre installed on my computer, and I read it, and it said that I could put my thoughts on the internet. And I was like, Ooh, and I made a blog like that. That's how that happened in the beginning. Like, seriously, I didn't know anything about anything, but my point is. That it's my inclination to to create the support. But that's not how most people think about it. Most people think about like, how do I find it? And so what? What do you feel like? Let's see what my question is here. I know what it did for you. Why did you but why did you need it like, what was the driving force behind it?
Christy 15:26
I think because even I didn't understand
Speaker 2 15:28
what was going on, and we're in a small town
Christy 15:34
with it not being around, and I was incredibly scared. I was scared for my daughter. I was scared for me. I was scared for our relationship. I was scared for my other children. Christy,
Scott Benner 15:48
can we say that you were frightened? Sorry,
Christy 15:53
yeah, I was frightened by what was going to be my life, what it was going to look like, what it was going to look like for my daughter,
Scott Benner 16:05
I was the unknown. The unknown had you absolutely
Christy 16:09
the unknown, yeah, and you've thrown all this information comes at you on how to keep her alive and how to do this, and how to do that, and how to bowl us. And all these words come into your vocabulary, and you're bombarded
with information.
But once I got the information, and once I sorted through it,
Scott Benner 16:35
I filed through it, made my made my way through it. Yes, right? Yeah, considered it, absorbed it, and Reno absorbed. Absorbed has an S in it. I shouldn't have done that. Sorry. That's right. I'm not gonna say it once you got through it. Yeah, I found at the
Christy 16:57
other end of all of that, I was sitting alone with my thoughts, and I didn't know what it looked like for my daughter, so I reached out to a young girl, as she was a young adult, and she started talking to me about type one, about her condition, and she was a vibrant, busy, working, healthy young woman who then put me in touch with the type one foundation, and I met all these other vibrant, beautiful, successful families dealing with type one diabetes,
Scott Benner 17:45
yeah, so then in everyday life, you see people who are at the moment, I would imagine, confounding your expectations of what this means absolutely, yeah, okay, all right, that makes a lot of say
Christy 17:59
that You don't see. You just told this diagnosis. You just told your child has type one. You've got to inject insulin, you've got to count carbs, you have to keep them alive. And I wasn't sure what keeping her alive looked like as an adult. I didn't know if she could still do things
everybody else could do okay as an adult? Yeah,
I was just scared. I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what type one diabetes meant as an adult or future.
Scott Benner 18:33
Do you recall what any of your unfounded concerns were in the beginning, like, what popped into your head that was going to happen to her, I think just managing it, I thought it
Christy 18:48
was going to restrict her in everything she ever did for the rest of her life. I thought it was going to make her sick. I don't know why. I just thought she had a chronic illness and she was going to be sick for the rest of her life, and unwell she was going to be unwell for the rest of her life, sickly,
Scott Benner 19:06
always not feeling well, always under the weather, like somebody turned her down a little bit. Everything
Christy 19:12
was dangerous. Everything was dangerous for her to exercise was going to be dangerous for her to eat was going to be dangerous for her to live her life, to work, to drive a car, to have a child, have a baby for her, to meet somebody. I thought everything was just going to be dangerous for her for the rest of her life.
Scott Benner 19:34
How long did you feel that way before you got better information, till you met that girl? It was a long time. It
Christy 19:42
still happens. It still doesn't go away.
Scott Benner 19:45
It was probably a
Christy 19:47
couple of months after I sent her back to school and she started, we started to get back into basketball, and we went down to the beach one day, and. Because all she wanted to do was be a normal kid. And I think the first time I actually laughed about diabetes was we're at the beach. My husband has taken her to that water's edge. She's in the water. He's watching diligently. I've gone and sat down near the flags in Australia, you've always got to sit between the flags. It's a very popular beach. She come running out of the water and said, Mom, I need your coke. I need to get high. And I've just instantly grabbed the Coca Cola and threw it into her and said, Have some of this while she's swimming. And then it wasn't until she reached the water again I sat and I realized what she just yelled out and screamed as she was running up the beach, Mom, I need coke. I need to get hot. And I didn't realize until that very moment, exactly that was the first time that I laughed about diabetes because I thought it sounded so funny to something else, not to me. It was Coca Cola I was giving her. I just threw in some Coca Cola so that her sugar level would come up as she was swimming. But in that point in time, I had no idea what she was, how it was perceived to anybody else.
Scott Benner 21:17
Listen, Chrissy, it's a lot easier to kill a great white shark with your hands, if you're yakked up on some blow, you know what I mean, like, you could really kind of get in there and fight. No idea,
Christy 21:30
no idea what it looked like. But that was the first time I think I actually laughed about diabetes, because before then there was no laughing, there was just crying and tears, and I was alone. And then that was the same weekend I met the young lady who stopped to talk to us about her devices because we were still on pens. Okay, we didn't know even what technology was really out there. So, yeah, we were just doing pens. I was just injecting my daughter. I was giving her needles every day. Was
Scott Benner 22:03
that part of it frustrating and upsetting as well? Absolutely,
Christy 22:07
it was sad because she had a needle phobia, mainly because when we're in the hospital, she was just screaming because she was getting her blood tested. But the second day, she said, I want to reject myself. I want to do this by myself. And she started doing it by herself. But in the middle of the night, the finger pricks the having to leave whatever she was doing and stopping whatever she was doing to have a needle really started upsetting her. Yeah, and that's really tough. It's really tough. And you feel like, what am I doing? And it was, and that's when you feel alone. That's when I felt really alone. I just felt like we were the only person on the planet dealing with this, yeah, until I found a community of people.
Scott Benner 22:56
There's, I mean, JDRF Australia says there's 130,000 Australians with type one. That is a small number. Well, compared to the I mean, how many people are trapped on Australia? Huh? I'm actually typing live in Australia. Don't worry. I'm just saying that because of your internet. Well, listen, 26 million people as of 2022 so that really is the, I mean, that's my point, right? Like, hold on a second, 130,000 is what percent of 26 million? It's point 5% it's, it's based on the My point is, you're not going to meet a ton of people with type one diabetes in Australia. I don't diabetes
Unknown Speaker 23:42
in Australia. I don't think,
Christy 23:44
no, but it's kind of like when you buy a new car and it's a purple car, and you think you've got a purple car, and all of a sudden you start seeing purple cars everywhere. Once we had type one I think I said, I live in a really small town, and just even recently, I've met five other people in our small town that have got type one diabetes. There just seems to be, you know, more and more people you talk to, oh, my dad's got it, or my my niece has got it, my granddaughter's got it. It seems so much more prevalent now that you're in the environment of type one diabetes. So
Scott Benner 24:26
if people spoke about a little more and were maybe more open about it, you think you might see more people too? Yeah, absolutely not that you need to, by the way, but like it just, you know, if it was a thing people were talking about all the time. Maybe you would find more people. It's interesting. Yeah,
Christy 24:43
that's where these groups, and these your Facebook groups, and even the Facebook group the juicebox podcast comes into it. You can ask these questions, or you just read. You don't even have to ask. You don't have to participate. You can just flick through. Comments and see something that might sound similar to what you're going through or exactly spot on, and you realize that you're not you're not alone in this, this journey and that, I always read somewhere people always say, hey, you know what? You so sorry that you've joined the club, but it's one of the best clubs to be in because everybody's so supportive. And in Australia, they really are. They really are. It's It's amazing the amount of people I've met. Now that I call my friends
Scott Benner 25:33
interesting, it's fantastic. I know people I'll never meet. I think although I have to say, I have to say, I've been having this conversation with a person. I shouldn't say this on here yet, because it really might not work out, but I guess if it doesn't work out, I'll say that again too. But I think we're going to do a cruise for listeners to the podcast. That'd be so cool. I actually think that's going to happen. Yeah, and so we'll get to meet people, which will be fantastic, and help them all meet others to get what you're talking about. You know what I mean? So, yeah,
Christy 26:10
well, the Taiwan Foundation, well, in a couple of weeks, we're actually going to dream world for the day. So they hire a function room and dream at dream world. Then they gather the tandem, OmniPod, Medtronic, Dexcom libre, it's all set up so all these different reps are all set up in the room as well. All these children all come together, all these families all come together. We communicate, we chat, we talk, we introduce ourselves. It's a massive community and a massive help to everybody, to just meet these people. And you meet babies with type one diabetes. You meet this mum, she's got type one diabetes, and her children don't. Or you get to just chat and meet people, and it's incredible. We've started. Emily and I actually volunteer a lot of our time. So we go down early. We help set up. We're on the meet and greet tables.
Scott Benner 27:14
We are
Christy 27:16
part of the merchandise stand. Emily decides she wants to meet all the other little kids and introduce herself to the other little kids and be like a big sister. Hey, look at my pod or look at my Dexcom. That's
Scott Benner 27:29
excellent. No, it's amazing. Good for you. Hey, you were talking in your note about lack of technology updates. I think you mean in Australia, is that correct? Absolutely. Yeah, yes.
Christy 27:40
We don't even have the g7 at the moment. So New Zealand's got g7 and Europe's got g7 Australia is still behind with the g7 we don't have the mobile app for tandem, so Emily's running a tandem Dexcom setup. There's no mobile app for that. We don't have OmniPod five. We've only got OmniPod dash,
Scott Benner 28:08
and we've
Christy 28:10
got Medtronic 780, I believe. Wait, what
Scott Benner 28:15
is going on? You have, I think, three or four times more people living there than in New Zealand. How does that happen?
Christy 28:23
I have no idea. Our Therapeutic Goods Administration, I think it's called the TGA. Have just they're just slow in approving it, in improving the Dexcom g7
Scott Benner 28:35
there are 26,000 people in New Zealand with type one diabetes. What the hell you guys are getting shut down by bad government or something? Something's going on here? Yeah, yeah.
Christy 28:45
It just takes forever. Everything takes forever in Australia to get approved through the TGA. So we see all these amazing technology on your website and listen to it in your podcast and go, isn't that awesome? This is great. We just don't see it yet. And every time you sort of hit up OmniPod, hey, when's OmniPod five coming out? They're like, Oh, we don't know yet. It's still going to go through the TGA. When is tandem going to get their remote policy, their mobile app? Oh, we don't know yet. Nobody's got an answer. We only know that the g7 is possibly by the end of the year,
Scott Benner 29:23
yes, or we've been told, you know, it's funny, they really don't know either, like, it's not, it's not like, they're like, just tell them we don't know. Like, I really think they the process is, I hate to say it like this, I think the process is just what it is, and it's not written down anywhere, timelines, that kind of thing. And then, you know, people can give you any, any excuse they want to give you with the time for why it's taking so long, right? Like, for a while, they love to say, Oh, it's covid. Covid has got to slow, you know? And then that ended, and then they say something different, yeah, yeah, covid fault. You can't have a. CGM,
Unknown Speaker 30:00
yeah, and
Christy 30:02
but I do Australia, we do have we don't pay for the Dexcom, so it's free for all type one diabetics. Okay, oh, well, we don't have to pay for a CGM. It's all covered through our Medicare.
Scott Benner 30:16
Is that part of the reason you think I wouldn't? Think so. I
Christy 30:19
don't know. I can't comment on that, because I don't really know whether or not that's part of the reason. But you know, in comparison, I guess we're lucky that it is funded. It's only just recently be funded, been funded for all type one diabetics. So at least we've got, you know, free CGMS. Our pumps are through private health insurance. So you have to have a private health insurance to apply for a pump, except for OmniPod. OmniPod is the standalone OmniPod you can get just as a subscription.
Scott Benner 30:54
Okay, so OmniPod doesn't cost, or it does, it does, yes,
Christy 31:00
it does, but it's but you can get it directly into any contract. You just get it directly from OmniPod, omnipodically private health. I see you get OmniPod and it,
Scott Benner 31:10
it costs about 200 to $400 a month. There's like American dollars,
Christy 31:16
Australian dollars, tripling it or double, I think, for American at the moment.
Scott Benner 31:22
Okay, so if you said 200 for you, it's 400 for me. Yeah, okay. Well, everything costs so much money. I can't believe I'm I feel old Christy saying this, but the prices of things have really gone up recently. So like, Yeah, I'm not stunned anymore. Like $20 now feels like $5 to me. Yeah, yeah. And I used to think of $20 as I still think of it as a lot of money, but I still treat my kids like that. I'm like, this 20, and they're like, 20, yeah.
Christy 31:56
They quite often ask me, Can I just have $20 mom? I'm just gonna go to the shops. I'm like, No, that's too much. You haven't earned $20 What
Scott Benner 32:03
are you gonna do with all that? They're like, I'm gonna get a bottle of water, I think, and I'll lollipop like, oh, wait a minute. I didn't realize. Yeah, upsetting. Well, I mean, we're not gonna speed that up. Obviously, that seems like a problem between you guys in the government, and, yeah,
Christy 32:22
that's right, yeah, just something that we are lacking, that's for sure, especially when we're listening to your podcast and talking about all these amazing technologies. And I'm like, right? I want that. What are we doing with that? Where is that? Where is this? And
Scott Benner 32:37
we just, we're just still waiting. Just continue. I appreciate you talking about it nicely with me instead of the note I got the other day from somebody that said, I have to check my privilege because I have something they don't have. And I was like, Oh my God. Like, I thought this part was over, but okay, I'm like, I feel grateful for things I have. I've said that before. Do you want me to say it before? Every sentence I speak like, like, you know what I mean? Like, you know, I feel
Christy 33:04
incredibly grateful because our insulin doesn't cost half as much as what you guys are paying for insulin if you don't have health care. There is things that I have read on there and go, Wow. Like, people really struggle over there, whereas we don't necessarily have to struggle and fight for insulin. We don't have to struggle and fight for a CGM. We're very fortunate in that way.
Scott Benner 33:27
I also think that people make a mistake when they talk about insurance in America sometimes, like, the people who have it, they'll say, like, I've said it before, like, what does insulin cost me? I think it costs me $20 every time we order. And that doesn't matter how many Arden's like, it doesn't matter like, if Arden's script called for five vials of insulin, it would cost me $20 if it called for 10 vials of insulin, it would cost $20 like, that's kind of the thing. The part you don't stop and talk about is that, you know, round numbers. Through my wife's employment, I think we pay $9,000 a year to insure my family. And then after that, the first $3,000 that gets spent for every individual person comes out of our pocket. And then it covers 80% after that, so nine three. And then if everybody gets sick, 369, 1212, 621, yeah. So I paid $21,000 plus $20 for the insulin this year. And, yeah, you know. And people are like, oh, like, it's free for you. I'm like, Ah, okay,
Christy 34:37
let's just add it up. And it's the same here to get onto a pump. We've got a lot of programs through JDRF, I think they do Medtronic pumps, but it's all income based. We do have one private health insurance company, which is what we use, and they just in. Sure my daughter so I'm not insured. I don't have health insurance. My husband doesn't have health insurance. We use just our Medicare system here in Australia, okay?
Scott Benner 35:07
And we're fortunate
Christy 35:11
enough that that particular insurance we've got for our daughter covers her for the pump, so she's eligible for a pump.
Scott Benner 35:19
Well, that's the other thing. When the year starts over, you know, we have these deductibles, these yearly deductibles. So the calendar rolls over to the next year, and then the first order you get of something you're paying cash for, like, so, and I'm not kidding, like, you know, if a three year supply of pumps or a three month supply of pumps is the first thing that rolls up, you get a bill for like, $1,800 and you're like, Uh, okay. And then, you know, like, you pay that. And you think, all right, I did that. And then Dexcom comes up, and you still have $1,200 left on your your co pay, your deductibles, stuff like, what, I don't even know what the hell it's called. It's not important. They send a bill and I gotta pay it, and then the next thing you know, you're not out of January yet, and you're out $3,000 in cash. And you're like, and then the rest of the year you're covered, and you're like, okay, so that, I always joke with people, like, people are always like that you go to the pharmacy or something like, oh my god, that's so much money. Do you want to buy it? I always go, No, I don't want to buy it, but yes, I'm gonna buy it. And, you know, and they're like, and I was like, but don't worry, I used up my whole deductible today. That's the good I always say, that's the great thing about type one diabetes. You get that out of pocket out of the way very quickly. At least it doesn't nag you all year long. We've
Christy 36:38
got this other awesome thing. At the moment, in Australia, there's a it's called strip supplier. Stripes, yeah, strip supply now all I do is punch it in the computer and they send me exactly what I need. I don't even have to go in and really work it out. It's a monthly subscription. They just send me everything I need and I get it. And because who has time to go to the pharmacy and work all that out. I
Scott Benner 37:01
gotta be honest, I used us med now for a while, and so I just, I really do like, I don't know about punching it into the computer, but I get a text. I get a text or and if I don't, how do I have it set up? I get an email. If I don't reply to the email, they'll call the house. And it's great, because you just literally can't ignore it. And, you know, like, you're like, you're like, Oh, I gotta even sometimes I've heard the phone call and thought, you know, my phone announces, I don't know if people still have home phones or not. I do. I'm old, and it's like, you know, call from us Med, and I'm like, I gotta go answer that email. And you go to the email and you click on it, and I swear to you, like, three clicks later, this stuff's at your front door, and I'm like, This is how it ought to be. This is good stuff.
Christy 37:47
I was first trying to organize what I wanted. And we've got a certain supply that you're allowed to have, and you never know sort of how much you used. How many dexcoms do I have left? How many reservoirs have I got left? How many all the different things? And now with this, I just order it, and it just comes to me each month, and it comes a month in advance, so I'm never behind. I'm never I'm right on top of all my supplies. I've got enough. I don't have to worry about, oh, no, oh, we've left it to the last minute. We need to go and get, you know, Dexcom. We need to go and get some insulin. We need to go and get the cartridges, because I don't have any or, yeah, it always just comes down.
Scott Benner 38:36
You're never really paying attention, organized, yeah, you're never really paying attention till you're like, I have two of these left. Damn. Hold on a second. Although a different kind of counting happened yesterday. Arden's finishing up her sophomore year of college right now. Like it's today. She she told me, today is the last day she's gonna do any work, and then she has a presentation, and then she's done. And I was like, okay, and she goes podcast when she first went, Oh, isn't that crazy? How time, trust me, there are people listening who are like, I read the blog when that kid was like, seven, you know, she said to me, one more pod. And I went, What are you talking about? Are you out of pods? And she goes, No, no, no, no, I have plenty of pods. I went, okay. She goes, one more pod that I'm gonna do, and then you're taking care of this all summer,
Christy 39:28
my daughter quite often sits here and says, Mom, can you just enter it in, please? I don't want to think about it. And I went, yep, okay, pass it over and I'll enter it in. But because with the tandem, because she's still on like it's all tubing. She just sits next to me, and she just doesn't ever look she's like, whatever, yeah, put that in, okay, now compared to two years ago, now we're much more relaxed. We're much more calm.
Scott Benner 39:56
We do a lot more now, except for me, go. To the doctor. I did get the firm feeling though, that my my summer is going to be spent changing CGMS and insulin pumps. She's like, I'm I'm taking a break from everything. Is the vibe I got from her. I was like, okay, yeah, holiday mode for sure, from everything. Oh, I'm gonna get the phone handed to me across the table when food comes out, something like that. Like, Oh, are we eating? Here you go. Yeah, yeah, turns it right back over that
Christy 40:25
we can still do that for them. I mean, they've got this for the rest of their life, so Yeah,
Scott Benner 40:29
honestly, I'm happy to take a little bit away from them, right? No, I agree with you, and I'm happy to do it. And it also won't. It won't last that long, by the way. She's not. I mean, it won't be a month from now and she's still like, Uh oh, my pump needs to be changed. Like, it's not going to go like that, you know. So, um, my job this summer is just to she's a couple little bad diabetes habits that I'm trying to, like, get her away from. I want her to put a new CGM on a little before she takes the old g7 off, like, just to soak it a little bit soaking. Yeah, I can't get her to do that. Yeah, I always forget to do that. And in college, she rides her pump out to the last second or the last unit. And I'm always, and I'm always like, Arden, please. Like, let's not like, you know, she's like, it's fine, it's fine. But she's had a couple of times where she's gone to bed and said, It's fine, and then not it didn't make it, yep, yep. We've had that. And then I'm waking her up and I'm like, you have to get up right now and put a new pump on. And she's like, exhausted. Now I want to say, in fairness to her, somehow Arden ended up going to college for something that I kind of thought was going to be like, not as taxing, and it ended up being worse, somehow, like, she's got a friend becoming a nurse at college. She has a friend becoming a teacher at college. She has a friend in college learning comp sci. And Arden's doing, you know, fashion design, yeah, and her friends are like, you're way busier than we are. Like, like, because, because, when she, when she gets a an assignment that it the assignment isn't like, Hey, sit in this class. I'll explain this code to you. Then you can go home and code a little bit, or what you know, or go read terms for nursing or something like that. Like they get her into a room and they go, Hey, you're gonna make a pattern for this dress. And they literally hang a dress in front of her. And then you have to visually deconstruct the dress. You can't take it apart. You have to make a pattern for it, and then make, then make and remake the dress. Except no one teaches you how to do it. You just have to do it. It's really interesting. Like, like, Arden went to school for fashion design. She'd never really sewn very much, even, okay, and so, like, she goes to these labs, like, like, we'll get like, a call from her, like, the other night, she said it was, like, five o'clock. She calls and she facetimes. I don't, I don't know if people call anybody anymore, so she's FaceTiming all this, and she's, she's eating, and we're like, what are you up to? She goes, I'm gonna finish eating. I'm gonna go pick up Addison. Was a friend of hers. And she's like, and then we gotta go to number nine, and then we gotta make a pair of pants. And I'm like, okay, and then, you know, at two o'clock in the morning last night, like, literally, I saw her. Blood Sugar was super stable. It been very stable for a long time. And I woke up and I was like, I wonder where Arden is, and I open my phone, and she's still in that lab, like at two in the morning. They're they're doing this stuff. And so she's done all these overnights with diabetes, I have to tell you, she may never know it. And Arden uses Iaps right now, but it wouldn't matter if it was, if it was control IQ or OmniPod five or 780, G, whatever she's wearing. These algorithms, they're changing people's lives. I don't even think they know it. You know like you go find a bunch of collegiate type ones pulling all nighters and riding around a six, one, A, 1c, right now, and ask them if they weren't low all the time, or, you know what I mean, like, and Arden's just like not having those problems because of this stuff. Really great.
Christy 44:28
We had OmniPod dash. So Emily decided she didn't want tubes, and she wanted to try the OmniPod Dash. And we tried that, and it was great. The Remote bolusing was great. The no tubes were great. Being a girl, she could wear whatever she wanted to wear, and it was really wonderful. Yeah, and
Scott Benner 44:47
then hormones kicked in. So
Christy 44:51
every night when the hormones would kick in, we were up bolusing and correcting and bolus. Seeing and breathing constantly, and then she would drop at other certain times of the month, she would drop,
Scott Benner 45:07
and because it wasn't catching it,
Christy 45:10
we felt there was a lot of work. We were up late at night. We were It wasn't until two o'clock when it all was stable. And we, you know, we would put a heap of insulin in and just wait for the low, but with tendon, with the T slim that she's got, it does those corrections. And you can, quite often go right, I can go to bed, yeah, like, it's better catch. I'm not putting in too much insulin where she's going to crash incredibly fast. I can just make little corrections, and sometimes I don't even have to do that. Now, the pump just kind of does it itself. And she's sitting in an A 1c of five point H was her last one.
Scott Benner 45:53
That's fantastic. And if OmniPod five was available in Australia, you probably would have gotten it absolutely, absolutely. That's been my point to a couple of the companies when I've talked to them recently, like they have to begin to understand that the algorithm is going to become the most important part of their device. I can make the argument about OmniPod, the tubeless nature of it is really significant to people, and might push some people you know to not say the algorithms like top on their list, but that's what you're that's what you're selling now, yeah, that's what
Christy 46:30
we went for. It was just, it's the algorithm in that T slim. And even Emily started to fight because Mom, I'm going low. It's already cut the insulin out, so I don't have to worry about it too much, or if she's going high the diabetes educators just said, well, we'll do the corrections. We'll just change your correction factor a little bit. And that has made an incredible difference to her being able to manage it in school, to the point where sometimes she's not even really thinking of it because the algorithm, algorithm is doing it for her, yeah, whereas OmniPod just wasn't keeping up. Well, you're
Scott Benner 47:07
using the dash. It's just manual. It's just the dash. It's just running the the basal program that you put in there. The you know, it's not making corrections, it's not cutting basal. And listen the algorithms, they don't catch every low and but, and they don't catch every bad low. I don't want to say that, because that they certainly don't, but nine times out of 10 the low you're having is not nearly as emergent and scary, because the algorithm has been taken away, taken away, taken away insulin the whole time.
Christy 47:41
Yeah, at least you can sit down, she can have a bit of sugar, and she's pumped back up with enough without having a crashing blow. It lets her know beforehand. The Dexcom does. So she just finds it's less management, management with the algorithm, yeah, than it is with OmniPod. She loved OmniPod. She loved the freedom of OmniPod. So we still get OmniPod every now and then she wants to wear a pretty
dress, or she wants to
do something where she didn't want the tube, she will put on an OmniPod for the time being. But she actually asked to go back to the tea slim for the algorithm for me, like at night time when we were on OmniPod, I go to work, they go, you look really tired. And I'm like, No, this is just my face. Now, I had a good night's sleep. I was fine, but this is just what I look like.
Scott Benner 48:37
No, I'm doing great. What are you talking about? It's the best I felt
Unknown Speaker 48:41
in the week, right?
Christy 48:42
What are you talking about? You look tired. It's just the way you look now, the bags are just permanently under the eyes, just just the way you look now.
Scott Benner 48:54
Now, yeah, I, yeah. I say again for, for pump companies listening, you're not selling the 770 G, you're not selling the OmniPod, you're not selling the T, you're selling your algorithm that that's your product. Yeah, so concentrate on it. I had this thought the other day, and this is going to be frustrating to you, because you're you get things later. You think of yourself as the Canada of the other side of the map. And so because they don't get their stuff very timely either. But, yeah, it's, it's pretty much neck and neck, honestly. But what I, what I was thinking the other day as I was was I doing? I think it was outside, pressure washing my house. It's like getting, you know, that molt where you live there. I don't know what you know, but like, in over the winter, we get, like, green stuff stuck to our siding, and you kind of like, go out and pressure wash it off, right? So I'm out there getting soaked, having green stuff bounce back in my face, assuming I'm going to turn into Spider Man eventually, from whatever's going in my mouth. And I'm thinking about my podcast and things I talk about and everything. And I started thinking about AI a lot, and. And I wondered, are we going to see a slowdown in the current algorithms advancements, because are they already ahead doing something else that we don't know they're working on? And if they're not, should they be you know what I mean? Like, Yep, yeah. Like, when am I going to be able to tell the pump what I'm eating, for example. Like, when am I going to be able to say, hey, pump, this is a cheeseburger. It it's just going to be a communication, yeah? Like, is that? Is that going to happen? Like, you know, and wouldn't that be, for some people, more accurate than them, half assed guess, and how many carbs are in something, or forgetting that it's greasy, or like that kind of thing, like, like, I wonder if that's not something somebody's thinking about, and I think they should be.
Christy 50:52
It kind of reminds me of Siri, I suppose. Hey, Siri, how many carbs are in this? That's constantly our question. Siri, how many carbs are in this? And she might tell us, and then we sort of go, Well, we're going to have a bit more than that. Actually, she's talking to me now.
Scott Benner 51:06
Do you think that Siri has friends and in her downtime, she's like, Yo this Kristen and her family, they eat like, seem like. It's all they do. That's all they talk about with me. It's just food.
Unknown Speaker 51:18
Facebook,
Christy 51:19
how it listens to you. It listens to you. It just comes up with recipes and things like that, because it's all listening to me.
Scott Benner 51:26
I suppose these only talk about whatever.
Christy 51:31
I'm never asking for directions. What do I need here? What do I need there?
Scott Benner 51:36
She's never once asked me about anything fun or going on vacation or anything like that.
Christy 51:41
No, I just want to know the food. Let me know the food I actually have got on my fridge. I did up a all Emily's favorite foods. How many carbs are in the foods? So it's on the fridge, and I don't have to ask her anymore. Hey,
Scott Benner 51:57
I need to sneak in my my I have standard Australian questions, have you ever sat on a toilet and there's been a spider or a snake in it? No frogs, though, frogs. Okay, fair enough. Green Tree frogs. Not a snake, not
Christy 52:11
a spider, but, oh, spiders are everywhere. We name them in our house. No, but frogs. Green Tree frogs.
Scott Benner 52:18
Green Tree Frogs are common. Yes, in the toilet. Common, do you ever get to the point where you're just like, I'm not taking this out, or I'm just flushing it down the toilet, taking what do you take it out? Or what do you do with it once you say it? Frog, yeah, the frog, well, you
Christy 52:34
just got a flush. I mean, if you've already sat on it there and and go and get anything out. We just, you can flush it, or you just, I've got two toilets. I can just go to the other. This is sometimes in the outback, yeah, being camping, and the whole shed has been full of frogs, therefore you I just don't even use that particular toilet. Okay, it's way out. We find a tree,
Scott Benner 53:03
it's safer to find a tree. If I found a tree, I'd be able to get farther away from these frogs than if I went to the toilet. I gotcha, hey, they're more frightening
Christy 53:11
the frogs in the toilet. If I'm honest, I'd rather sit on a spider.
Scott Benner 53:16
I don't know how do I even make that adjustment in my mind, but okay, and snakes everywhere, crawling across the street. I walk outside. They're on my patio. They're like birds in America. Yes or No, no, no, where. Where are they at no so they're
Christy 53:33
out in the bush. They're hiding underneath your rocks and things like that. You do have to be careful. You can be walking through a paddock, and all of a sudden there's a nice brown state there. I have not encountered one. I've only ever encountered a few black stakes, which are pretty quiet, and they tend to move away from you before you
Scott Benner 53:52
are anywhere near them. The brown one can hurt you.
Christy 53:55
The brown one's nasty. He's mean, yeah, yeah. He's more aggressive. The black ones, not so much
Scott Benner 54:01
just aggressive or poison both. Both are very poisonous, even the black everything
Christy 54:08
we've got, I'm more afraid of a crocodile in Australia than I am of a snake or a spine or anything like that. Those factors jump up out of the water and get you.
Scott Benner 54:18
Here's my question. In the last five years, how many stories have you heard about people being drug under by a crocodile and taken? Oh, over under 10. Under 10,
Christy 54:32
sometimes this little dog, like people, are walking their dogs so the dog gets taken.
But I just, I don't like
the thought of the crocodile like he's in the land, he's in the sea, and he's just got his little beady eyes looking at you from the top of the water. And I don't know if anybody's ever been to Australia zoo, or any you watch Steve Irwin's videos, they launch up out of the water. I. I've seen them launch, so I'm just not even going to go near water's edge in North, in North Queensland.
Speaker 3 55:09
Gotcha, yeah. Oh, listen, they're dinosaurs. They're dinosaurs living with you. They are. Yeah, no, no. It's very upsetting. I don't huge, oh, what? 1012, feet? I don't
Scott Benner 55:23
know. Oh, feet. Oh, God, you live in one of those places. Hold on a second. Let me just figure it out. How many meters is 12 feet? Let's see if I was anywhere close to being correct. Uh, three and a half meters. Yeah, they can be bigger than that. Bigger than that, okay, yeah. And why don't you leave? Tell me that, like, pack up those. I mean, you got enough kids. They could pull they could pull the car if you don't have one. There's so many of them. I
Christy 55:50
live in the bush. We live in a in a small country town in Queensland. We are further away from the crocodiles. But recently we went on a holiday up to North Queensland, which is 11 hours drive from where we live, up to North Queensland, and, yeah, my husband and my daughter walking along the beach, and I just waited back. I went, No, thank you. Yeah,
Scott Benner 56:14
I'll be here for whichever one of you lives, and then we'll go home together. Yeah,
Christy 56:19
we even got in a boat, did the crocodile tour, and I was freaking out sitting in the middle, and Emily's like, this is great. This is great. And then all of a sudden, like, a pump starts alarming, and I'm like, Just be quiet.
Scott Benner 56:33
I can hear that. I will throw you in the water,
Christy 56:38
because I don't want it to come anywhere near us.
Scott Benner 56:42
Do you think you'd which parent do you think you'd be? Have you seen the video online? I'm gonna make my point. Have you seen the video online where the guy's walking out of his home? He's got, like, one of those doorbell cameras, so you're getting to see it, by the way. Do people not know that all a doorbell camera is gonna do is catch you falling it's not gonna catch anybody breaking into your house. But so the guy's coming out. I mean, he's a guy. He's in his 30s, you know what? I mean, prime of his life. He's holding his son, the kids, three, maybe three, I'm gonna guess. He takes a step down his first step, and a raccoon just grabs his pant leg and starts going crazy. Now listen, that would scare me. I'm not gonna say otherwise. He takes a couple of aggressive steps forward, then he throws the kid on the ground. I mean, he really throws the kid. I think the kid's Okay, so it's okay to laugh about. He was like, just dispensed of that child when his life was in danger. He did not think about that kid anymore. He was just like, self preserving. Oh, my God. He was like, this thing's in my way.
Christy 57:53
I'm not taking it. I take them first.
Scott Benner 57:58
Then he calls for his wife, like a, I don't want to say like a little boy, but he did called for his wife like she was his mom, and and then, um, and then the, I don't know, the raccoon, takes off, whatever, but it's the way he throws the kid that makes me wonder. Like, we all think we're gonna be that person who's gonna just, like, save the child, step up, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I think if that crocodile came, you'd be like, listen to me, kid,
Christy 58:25
I would have been out of Yeah, I think I would have just turned the boat around if anybody fell in. Too bad.
Scott Benner 58:32
I gotta go. Hold on tight. You go out and we're not coming back for it.
Christy 58:35
He was huge, just sitting there looking at me, you know,
Scott Benner 58:40
oh my god. Anyway, if you haven't seen the video of the man in the raccoon throwing his kid, please find it and just enjoy yourself and think, Well, the kid's fine, don't worry about it. But I mean, man, he just, he just tossed that kid aside like a bag of just like
Christy 58:59
he's yours. You take him
Scott Benner 59:00
for the rest of your life. You're, you're, you're a woman Christy, you're married. You know, for the rest of your life, the guy says anything, you pause, and you go, Hey, remember the time you threw our kid? Right? I mean, do you ever win another argument if you're that guy? I don't think so.
Christy 59:19
No, you've already given up the child.
Scott Benner 59:22
You can't act dominant sexually anymore, like you can't do anything you because you'll be thinking, like, oh, screaming
Christy 59:28
for his wife,
Unknown Speaker 59:29
exactly,
Unknown Speaker 59:32
where's the man.
Scott Benner 59:33
He's like, You know what I want to try tonight? You're like, what bitch boy, what do you want to do tonight? Remember when you threw our kid and cried. Oh my god, fantastic, by the way, we, um, we did a disservice to this podcast episode. You guys love to curse, and I didn't curse much in this one at all. I'm sorry for that.
Christy 59:53
I know I I've actually been holding it in too. I'm too scared to say the s or something like
Scott Benner 59:59
that. Yeah, if you would have went to other words, we could have avoided the s, yeah, I
Christy 1:00:04
Yeah. I work with children, so I can hold it in when I
Scott Benner 1:00:11
need to. It was done very well, because I imagine it's the first word that comes to mind whenever you're starting a sentence. Yes, yeah. Why is that? By the way, I'm not making this up. Am I like, cursing is like a, like, a national pastime? Yeah, it's very
Christy 1:00:25
casual. It's very over in Australia. I quite often say to my husband, really, like, really, is that what you just said? You go, yes, well, it is, but, you know, yeah, no, it's quite often used. A lot of Aussies tend to use it.
Scott Benner 1:00:44
Yeah, it's very liberal. I swear to God, I
Christy 1:00:48
cry. Son just turned 21 and he feels like he can swear in front of me now
Scott Benner 1:00:52
21 oh god, you you made it far. I curse like I love cursing. I would fit so well, except for the snake, the snakes and the spiders and whatever else you got. I would never come to Australia. I just want to say this right now, you'd have to put me in an acrylic box with air holes if I'm coming there. But
Christy 1:01:10
it's not that scary. It's quite surprising how everybody thinks it's so scary. It's really not. I know we've got great white sharks in the ocean and we've got crocodiles and we've got snakes and we've got spiders, but we all we survive.
Scott Benner 1:01:25
I mean, I know that, but somebody doesn't, and I don't need it being me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I want to be clear. I also probably wouldn't go to West Texas, Arizona. I mean, I can make a long list of places I'm not going for you. I got invited to speak in Montana. I'm already looking for snake boots. Like, good guy, did they? I don't even know if they have snakes, but like, I, you know, and a bear, like, I'm gonna need a bear gun. There's gotta be a gun you can kill a bear with, right? Like, I need a bear gun and Snake boots. That
Christy 1:01:53
would frighten me, too. The bears would frighten me. After watching that movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, the bears would definitely scare me. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:02:01
The Revenant. Yes, that's one. I thought you were gonna say cocaine bear. I was gonna say Christy. I don't think that was real.
Christy 1:02:12
No, no, not that one. No, no, definitely The Revenant. When the bear attacks him, because I don't really watch horror movies or anything like that, that bear was horrible.
Scott Benner 1:02:22
Yeah. Well, the bear doesn't care if you're alive or not when it's eating you.
Christy 1:02:26
No, yeah, just rips you apart with those big claws, right?
Scott Benner 1:02:30
Some animals have the common courtesy to break your neck or something before they like the crocodile, will break your neck
Christy 1:02:36
and, oh no, the crocodile takes you down to the bottom of the river alive and death rolls you, yeah,
Scott Benner 1:02:44
but that'll break your neck, is what I'm saying. The bear was eating him, the Be it the bear was eating him for hours. Wasn't
Christy 1:02:53
bears, you can, you can have those look like
Scott Benner 1:02:55
if you're being eaten by a bear, you gotta yell, don't start with my foot. I I mean, if we're doing this, come up top,
Christy 1:03:08
get it over and done with, Oh, my goodness,
Scott Benner 1:03:09
I didn't know this would turn into a bear attack. Uh, podcast, but here we are. Okay. What about diabetes? Haven't we talked about that we should
Christy 1:03:17
have? Oh, the fear that it puts around the rest of you health issues.
Scott Benner 1:03:21
So, okay, you
Christy 1:03:23
want to go to the doctor these days for myself, I get terrified after having diabetes come thrown out of nowhere at me. I actually have a lot of anxiety going to the doctor personally,
Scott Benner 1:03:37
health concerns. Yes, you so now you're, you're pretty sure, or at least incredibly worried, that something's going to go wrong with you absolutely.
Christy 1:03:47
I I'm always thinking that I the worst. If I go to the doctor, I'm going to get out of the blue it's going to be something that's going to be the worst. I'll go for a sinus thing, and I'll think I've got, you know, some sort of tumor or something, because I think the diabetes come so far left field. We had no idea what diabetes was. There's no autoimmune no one in the family has it. Yeah, there's nothing like that. And we've taken Emily to the doctor for
a urinary tract infection and ended up
coming home with type one diabetes, right? And it's just terrified me now to go to the doctor thinking that something else is going to be thrown at me from left field.
Scott Benner 1:04:33
I think that, you know, we have a lot of things thrown at us, and I don't know
Christy 1:04:40
they say the universe only gives you what you can handle. Yeah, I get scared for myself because I need to we I need to be around to look after my daughter.
Scott Benner 1:04:50
So the anxiety of me not being well
Christy 1:04:56
is really starting to play. A major role in my life. I've had to go and see a psychologist just for that.
Scott Benner 1:05:05
Do you curse during the psychology visits? Sometimes, yeah, I would too, that's why I asked. But so let me ask a question here, prior to the type one diagnosis, were you generally healthy people, you'd end up at the doctors very often.
Christy 1:05:22
No, not very often. I started to worry about my health. I was a bit overweight, and so I was worried about my health, and I had high blood pressure, but nothing overly concerning. You know, we if you went to the doctor for anything, you just go and get it checked out. Just going to go and get this checked out. Now, I don't necessarily want to go and get something checked out, because I think that I'm going to come out with something worse than what I went in with. Christy. Let
Scott Benner 1:05:49
me help you a little bit. That's backwards. Okay, you can't think like that. And isn't it interesting, being overweight and having high blood pressure is serious, and yet it's exp you think of it as reasonably expected. So when someone says it to you go, Okay, well, what's the thing I do for that then? And but the diabetes was so, like you said, out of left field, that now it feels like anything could happen. Now it feels like it could just spring up out of the water at you and snatch you up. Yeah, something
Christy 1:06:21
like, oh, it won't happen to me. I always think the complete opposite now that could happen to us, because this happened to us. So you know that could
Scott Benner 1:06:34
happen. You completely transitioned from one mindset to the other very quickly. Yeah, isn't that interesting?
Christy 1:06:40
Yeah, it really does worry me. Now, for any little thing, I get really worked up. Going to the doctors really works me up. Now,
Scott Benner 1:06:49
I find a lot of comfort in this thought. I hope it helps you. Whatever's going to happen is probably going to happen. So I've
Christy 1:07:00
got, like, things everywhere, all over my house that say, you know, things happen for a reason, and it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen,
Scott Benner 1:07:07
but I don't want it to and it can't listen. I want to be clear. I don't think they happen for a reason, but I think they're gonna happen like, I think there's just the natural progression of things like, and I've had, listen, no lie. I'm 52 if I sit here and try to be thoughtful about this, I had to have a surgery on my toe, my toe because I couldn't walk. My knee had to be cleaned out. My shoulder had to be repaired. I had to have my appendix out. I've had, I have a couple of crowns in my mouth, like my teeth are, you know, needed to be replaced. I mean, I carried weight that I couldn't figure out. Like there's no reason, rhyme or reason behind of it. I'm working through my gut health issues right now with somebody, which I haven't talked about on the podcast yet, because I'm not done with the process, but, and every time I go to do something like, I'm like, oh my god, I'm hurt again, or this is happening, and it feels so like this is not what you were promised, but you realize then nobody really promised you this, and I'm still moving like, This is amazing. Like, yeah, I lost six months fixing up my knee, and I limped for three months after I got my toe fixed and like that kind of stuff. And and my shoulder surgery was maybe one of the more painful things I've ever physically been through in my life, right? But the alternative is, what, you know, what I mean, like, I, if my knee didn't work and my shoulder didn't work, a bear would have eaten me 20 years ago, if it was 100 years ago. So, yeah, I'm just, you know, I'm all about find it, face it, get past it, and if it kills you, whatever that was gonna happen anyway. I
Christy 1:08:51
had to really struggle with that,
Speaker 2 1:08:54
and with seeing somebody has helped with that. That's good, same mindset,
Christy 1:09:01
you know, I've just got to deal with it, and we're going to take it one step at a time. And if this happens, then we'll do this or but, and my husband is amazing with he's so it's not casual. Casual is not the right word. He
Scott Benner 1:09:21
is very calm.
Christy 1:09:22
If things happen, we're just going to roll with it, especially medically.
Scott Benner 1:09:27
I don't know your husband, he's clearly got the most boy attitude I've ever heard in my life. He's like, hey, those kids aren't mine. I'll take them. Don't worry about it. Like, you know, like, practical, yeah,
Christy 1:09:37
yeah. Just,
Speaker 2 1:09:38
he's just so real about things. I
Christy 1:09:42
think he's got a very realistic view on everything. Me, I've got that emotional view being female. We just do that. I think look into things too much. But yeah, he's always supported me. He's like, You need to go to the doctor and get that. Checked,
Scott Benner 1:10:00
lovely. So, yeah, good boy, listen there.
Christy 1:10:03
I just, you know, and it doesn't help. When the doctor goes, we just need to see where the bleeding is coming from. Great. Yeah, is there a cancer in your family? And I go, what? Why did you
Scott Benner 1:10:16
and then, where? And then, and then, where was the bleeding coming from, by the way, yeah. So I just have, I
Christy 1:10:24
had the weight loss surgery as well. So, yeah, I had that done in 2020, and so there was no, no bleeding from there, but I was losing iron. I wasn't absorbing iron, yeah. So he said, You must be bleeding from somewhere. Is there cancer? Is there this?
Scott Benner 1:10:42
And he couldn't just say we took out a bit of your stomach, and maybe you're just not absorbing iron as well anymore. Yeah,
Christy 1:10:47
that's right, it just turned out to just be the surgery. There wasn't anything else I went for every test under the sun, and there wasn't everything,
anything else, but it was the whole
process, and I was terrified. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:11:01
of course, I had that happen to me too. By the way, my iron was low and they're like, you have cancer? I'm like, oh, okay, I don't think I do, but I guess we could check Yeah. How did the weight loss surgery work for you? Did it do what you hoped for to do? Yeah,
Christy 1:11:13
lost 60 kilos, and I've kept it off now for for a long time, I can eat anything. I've been very fortunate. I followed all the instructions given to me by the surgeon, and I've managed to keep it all off. And I can, I can eat my actual the rest of my bloods are all great. I'm just not absorbing enough iron.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:39
Holy hell, you. You lost 132
Scott Benner 1:11:41
pounds. Is that what? That's what it is, yeah, like a whole person. I'll be damned, that's crazy. How tall are you? Yeah, I
Christy 1:11:51
can get up off the floor easier. Now.
Scott Benner 1:11:54
What are you doing on the floor? Oh,
Christy 1:11:57
I work with children. Oh, okay, yeah, constantly,
Scott Benner 1:12:00
like, down there level, wow, wow. That's crazy good for you. Now, do you? Can I ask you? Do you look now at everybody using GLP medications and think, god damn it, I probably could have just done that, if only they were available a couple of years sooner,
Christy 1:12:18
sometimes that I actually have a needle phobia myself. If people are injecting ozempic or something like that, I think I'd rather the weight loss surgery.
Scott Benner 1:12:29
No kidding, that's interesting.
Christy 1:12:33
Very big needle phobia. So I had to get over that pretty quick. Well, for Emily, I can Yeah, you're
Scott Benner 1:12:39
a bit of a pleasant paradox. Christy, which I would, by the way, call your episode pleasant paradox, if I wasn't already going to call it. Sally sells seashells. Yeah, that's what I'm calling it, actually. So I have to have a way to explain this to people. The which is still happening, by the way, I just haven't brought it up yet. I also noticed, the less I talk about it, the fewer S's you use, which isn't that crazy conscious of it now? Well, now that I realize how how that works, I think I'm just gonna start when I'm talking to people, I'm gonna say things like, you should send me $5 and see if it starts happening. If, like, just $5 bills just started showing up. I'm like, Oh, I was wasting my time telling them about other stuff. All right, cool. Well, listen, I really appreciate you doing this with me. It's got to be after midnight there. You have to go to sleep and take care of 43 children tomorrow. So yeah, let me, let me, let you go and say thank you. I really do appreciate you taking the time coming and sticking up for people in Australia, saying, Don't forget about us, when you're making your stuff, get it over here. It would be nice if they fought a little harder for you at some of these companies, huh? Yeah,
Christy 1:13:47
absolutely. Just be on par with some of the technology would be amazing. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:13:54
just because you have a frog in your toilet doesn't mean you don't deserve good health care. Dolls. That should be a t shirt. You should make a t shirt that says, just because I have a frog in my toilet doesn't mean I don't want your blah, blah, blah, then send it off to the company. You make somebody laugh so hard they put some effort into it for you, probably, yeah. All right. Christy, thank you so much. Can you hold on one second for me? Yeah? Thank you. Thank you.
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, gevok, glucagon. Find out more about gvoke hypopen at gvoke glucagon.com, forward slash, juicebox. You spell that, G, V, O, k, e, g, l, U, C, A, G, o, n.com, forward slash juicebox. Today's episode was sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, and Earlier you heard from Maddie, who shared with us what finding Medtronic meant for her. Learn more about hyperglycemia at Medtronic. Chronic diabetes.com/hyper, 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 or a loved one was just diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're looking for some fresh perspective. The bold beginning series from the juicebox podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698 in your podcast player, or you can go to juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongwayrecording.com you.
