Scott Benner 2/26/21 Scott Benner 2/26/21

#446 I Lost and Found Carrie

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 44

This is Carrie!

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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
Recently, I learned that some people who listened to the show refer to themselves as juice boxers, which was not something that I knew. But I did like the idea. Anyway, I'm gonna mention that again in a second. And then tell you about today's show.

I have to apologize to today's guests. Because, well, you know, sometimes you get an email, and it falls down your inbox. And like six months later, you're like, Oh, my God, I remember that. And I can't believe I lost track of it. And you don't know what to do or how to email back because it's awkward. Well, you can list this episode under that heading, because somehow this episode slipped down in the folder that I have it and I must have opened it which redated it and then it slid down. It doesn't matter. But whatever. Whatever the case, this should have come out a while ago. And so I apologize to today's guest. And of course, if things timeline wise don't seem to make sense. That could be why. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

I didn't mention it at the beginning. But did you notice that's the old opening to the show. Like that's how long ago I recorded this episode, the file, right to the files, you want a little back room, I have a template and the template has the music in it, then I record on other tracks. So this template was built so long ago. It's the old theme music. And I just left it in there to make the point that I screwed this up. Before I start with Carrie, I want to remind you about the T one D exchange. The T one D exchange is looking for type one adults and type one caregivers who are us residents to participate in a quick survey that can be completed in just a few minutes from your phone or your computer. After you're finished the questions which are simple. They're not in depth probing questions. I did it in about seven minutes. You will be contacted annually to update your information. But you know, it might just be you get contacted. You're like no, there's no update. That's it. At that time, they may ask you further questions. But this thing is completely anonymous. So your name is not attached to it at all. He is 1,000,000% HIPAA compliant, and it will never require you to see a doctor or go to a remote site. This is a way for you to help with Type One Diabetes data research without leaving your house or having to be in a study. Every time someone completes the process using my link, T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. You will be benefiting Type One Diabetes Research and the podcast. So thank you. Past participants like you have helped to bring increased coverage for test strips Medicare coverage for CGM and have provided changes in the ADA guidelines for pediatric a one c goals. That's one of those things that doesn't sound like a big deal. But it really is. The T one D exchange helped motivate the ADA to lower agency goals, that information goes out to doctors, then it reaches you, then you get different marching orders from your doctor, not just you, but the whole world to strive for lower a one sees better time and range, that kind of stuff. So it's incredibly easy and exciting to imagine what your participation might lead to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. There's links in your show notes. Please give it a chance, at least head over to the link and see what you think. It's a genuinely good use of your time. Go ahead and introduce yourself. You seem jacked up, we can get going.

Unknown Speaker 4:09
Okay,

Unknown Speaker 4:10
so

Carrie 4:12
I'm Carrie, and I'm 45 and I am a mom of two. I have a seven or no 16 and 13 year old and I was diagnosed with type one last year at 44.

Scott Benner 4:31
Get by surprise. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 4:33
you could say that. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:35
44 Have you been Have you been sick through your life? Or was this your first never

Carrie 4:40
nothing. I'm very very healthy. I've never had an issue in my life. I literally I literally just say I have type one at 44 because I'm a kid at heart. So

Scott Benner 4:55
well not that you can't get it at any age. People have gotten it in their 60s, even But my thing is, it's more like, and maybe you didn't have this feeling, but I've always segmented my life up, like, you know, if I can just make it to 18 I can just make it 25 you know what I mean? Like, and

Carrie 5:12
I've heard you say that.

Scott Benner 5:13
Yeah, but in your 40s you think if I'm getting sick in my 40s I'm getting cancer, right? Like, that's, that's exactly

Carrie 5:20
what I thought. Right? But, but I mean, I literally, so I guess last? Well, it wasn't last was last August. And I thought I was killing the over 40 metabolism game when I lost 20 pounds. So I was like, I mean, I got like, three different you know, once I had three different people say, Oh my gosh, you've lost so much weight and I wasn't trying, I was eating like a teenage boy. And, and still losing weight. And I was like,

Unknown Speaker 5:51
What are you talking about? This

Carrie 5:52
is great. I've worn pants that my that I wore before my son was born. And you know, still haven't lost the baby weight. And so I was like, I mean, of course the

Scott Benner 6:04
it's gonna just be me and Holly Berry and a couple of other like, really fit skinny 50 year olds in the world.

Unknown Speaker 6:10
Yes.

Carrie 6:11
I was like, This is great. I'm happy. I'm not going to the doctor. This is great.

Unknown Speaker 6:15
Are you married?

Carrie 6:16
I'm not sure I've been divorced for almost 10 years. Because if

Scott Benner 6:20
you were married, you'd be like, I'm gonna have to get rid of this guy and start over. Yeah, I didn't know I was gonna look this good in the last third.

Carrie 6:27
I know but like so and then of course I had the other normal symptoms the the weight of in the world, the weight loss, and then this severe thirsty, peeing constantly. I actually what, what else? Oh, I had, I was my fingertips and my toes were going numb. So when I went, I find that my mom traveled to the doctor with me to make sure that I went because I'm just not that like, overly hypochondriac. You know, I don't overreact. So I went, and they were like, I don't think you're diabetic. I was, well, I actually when I went, I said, I either have diabetes, a thyroid issue, or I have a tapeworm. And I don't know which one they're like, well, I'm sure it's not a tapeworm, and you don't fit the profile for a diabetic. And so we'll just test everything. And so they did. And come to find out when I went back the next week after my labs were in. My sugar was a 356. And my a one C was 16. Oh, how

Unknown Speaker 7:35
did you feel? I felt fine. No kidding. Yeah. And that's what is that's

Unknown Speaker 7:40
why I was like, I'm

Unknown Speaker 7:41
fine. I'm

Carrie 7:42
just, you know, whatever, I'm fine. I don't feel a high at all. And so then, so they, they were like here, here's a pen of basketball or just give your shot self a shot at the end of every day. And you know, just if you're going to eat pasta, just eat a little bit, make an aside. And I'm like, okay, so they showed me how to give myself a shot. And off I went two weeks later, I was Oh, and I lost my sight.

Scott Benner 8:10
Okay, hold on a second. Wait, we got to slow down, right. Like you need to take a breath. I'm thinking all right, we gotta we gotta do one of the things. Are you on a Mac or a PC?

Unknown Speaker 8:18
I'm on an HP

Scott Benner 8:19
and hp. Okay. I was just hoping to silence your reminder somehow, but I don't know how to do that. Oh, that's my phone. Is it? Can you put it on? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 8:29
Yeah, yeah, I got it.

Scott Benner 8:30
Okay. So let's slow down. Your your agency is 16. Yes. You and they tell you to just give yourself a shot of insulin at the end of the day.

Unknown Speaker 8:41
Yeah, like a long, long, long acting because

Scott Benner 8:43
they think you have type two diabetes. Right? Okay.

Carrie 8:47
That's my that's my general practitioner.

Scott Benner 8:49
Right. And if you have pasta, do what?

Carrie 8:52
Just use like, if you're going to eat it, just, you know, portion it much smaller than you would don't make it the meal. Make it the size. If you're going

Scott Benner 9:00
to drink hemlock. Just have a sip. I gotcha. Right.

Unknown Speaker 9:06
Just on the weekends, and then Off you go. Off I

Carrie 9:09
go. Two weeks later, it was a little bit after Christmas. And I so I ride the train to work. I work in DC. And can I say something? I know you

Scott Benner 9:21
live in DC, or my next or my next question would have been? Where do you live that they gave you this kind of advice at your doctor's off?

Carrie 9:33
I live near Annapolis, Maryland.

Scott Benner 9:36
Yeah, you're by the way your email addresses what made me think you live in that area. Oh, okay. Good.

Carrie 9:41
I'm saying Yeah, okay. All right. Well, so, so actually, I should take a step back my doctor did when she had me get my labs work my labs done. She also ordered me an MRI of my pancreas because she said that pancreatic cancer does show up. Sometimes. As diabetic symptoms

Scott Benner 10:01
Oh, do you think she thought you had cancer and she was just like, give yourself some insulin and then we'll really yeah, I see. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 10:09
so,

Carrie 10:10
yeah, so like, I'm like, holy crap, what am I gonna tell my kids? Like, I don't even know what to do. So then finally, my, my,

Scott Benner 10:19
what am I gonna tell my kids? Remember that bad stuff I told you about that it's not true. You're going to live with him. Forget all that stuff. Mommy said when she was whining 10 years ago, and I don't mean like whining like talking. I mean, like, you know, with a bottle of wine. And

Carrie 10:34
yeah, so I'm like, oh my gosh. So I totally was panicking, panicking until the results came back, which were fine. So that's good. But then, like I said, a few weeks after Christmas, I'm at work. And I'm like, I can't even I just had my eyes tested. And I'm like, how in the world is my eyesight, so bad, I couldn't see close up at all. And, um, and it was like a busy time of year for us an election year. And so was just very busy. So I couldn't read barcodes on different pieces of inventory or equipment that I was supposed to be able to do. And I was, like, useless pretty much. And so I just like kind of broke down and was like, I don't know what's going on. Well, then, I checked my sugar. And it was like, literally 600 Mm hmm. And so I'm like something, something else has to be done. Like, I can't live like this. This is this is frustrating. So I did make I made an appointment with an endocrinologist. And I saw her for the first time, last February. And ever since then, I've been on the straight narrow, totally good. And so I'm on. Well, I first started with multiple inject multiple, multiple daily injections, she switched me, she's like, oh, and I was taking the Metformin that the doctor prescribed when I was when she thought I was type two. So she's like, definitely stop taking that that does nothing for you. And she said, I can just tell by your numbers that you're type one. I mean, I did end up having the test with for the antibodies done, which confirmed type one. But I did the multiple injections from February till about May. And then I went on pump and CGM.

Scott Benner 12:25
How long was it from the time you saw the GP till February when you went to the end? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 12:30
December to February.

Scott Benner 12:32
I think it's possible that you're describing the absolutely haphazard diagnosis that a lot of type twos get

Unknown Speaker 12:41
I do to that yeah,

Scott Benner 12:42
that probably in hindsight makes you pretty sad to look back on not just for yourself, I would imagine it's just it's a strange thing. You know, here you have diabetes. I'm not really gonna tell you too much about it. Don't eat pasta. And but I mean, you know, if you do just don't have a ton, and in right, here's your insulin and a meter and check it once in a while. You'll be anyway Good luck. It was Yeah, that's really crazy.

Unknown Speaker 13:05
I mean, literally,

Carrie 13:06
they literally gave me a booklet that looked like it was from 1970 with Andre the Giant on the front. Stop it.

Scott Benner 13:15
That's oh my gosh, you know, I don't usually like the title of the episode is to come out this early but Andre the Giant is the title of your episode. Carrie, so you're gonna have to say something way better the next morning. Get away from that. Oh, no, I

Carrie 13:30
got it. I got a really, really game

Scott Benner 13:32
start winging one liners all over the place. No, but that's, that's so what did the pants What did Andre tell you?

Carrie 13:40
Andre told me to eat less carbs and no sugar. And, you know, you know, his his wife? I'm not even sure red hair. older lady. They were walking in a park and just you know, I don't know. I kind of just browse through it and throw it away. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 14:03
he's not the picture of hell.

Carrie 14:07
I mean, if it wasn't him, it was his definite doppelganger.

Scott Benner 14:11
I have a question. Was he in the unit hard in this or dress like a regular?

Unknown Speaker 14:17
whatever it's called. Well, at one

Scott Benner 14:18
point in his career, he has the one the one that went over the one shoulder you remember? And then when he really stopped caring what people thought of him, he just went right to the bikini pants.

Unknown Speaker 14:29
He really didn't care. Oh

Scott Benner 14:30
my gosh. I'm gonna get him here fighting Andre the Giant or Andre the Giant fighting Hulk Hogan and it's hilarious image.

Unknown Speaker 14:39
That was the Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 14:42
I got I listen. I wish you would throw that pamphlet out because I would have asked you to mail it to me.

Carrie 14:48
You know what? I can get another? You Really? Why not? You are handing them out.

Scott Benner 14:54
I guess it was just a year ago. Right?

Unknown Speaker 14:57
Yeah. All right. Give

Unknown Speaker 14:58
me another one. The

Unknown Speaker 14:58
next time you're getting it. So getting it.

Scott Benner 15:02
Okay, so Andre, the giant didn't help you that much. You document it out much. You found it. And oh, that did help you.

Carrie 15:07
She is amazing. I love her like BFFs and my clinical manager that helps me with my pump settings and everything. We're BFFs also, and they have been the reason why I'm doing so well.

Scott Benner 15:25
Well, that's wonderful. I have to tell you that I was scared that you were going to tell me that that was just the level of what was going on there. Because I just last week had to turn down speaking at the jdrf event in DC. He has my date, the date didn't work for me. I was already traveling that day. Oh,

Carrie 15:44
yeah. So next month, February 29. I'm going to the type one summit in Las Vegas. Oh, why does

Scott Benner 15:51
nobody invite me to that kind of stuff?

Carrie 15:54
I invited myself Oh,

Scott Benner 15:55
well. Yeah, but that's different. I don't want to pay. I just want to go talk. Oh, yeah, but yeah. Vegas, really the flight and hotel is probably like $85. Right. Right, exactly. But um, I did break my heart just to go on from that aside for a second, because they have a huge chapter. She was talking about maybe 1000 people have signed up already. And I just, I really, I love that part of the country a lot. I love it a little more of the spring than I do in the winter. But I was excited. And then they dropped the data on me and I'm traveling, I'm going to see my son play baseball in Florida. So I couldn't do it. And I was like, Oh, you have to invite me next year. And she goes, Well, it'll be the same time next year. I was like, well, you have to have it a week earlier next year. Invite me next year. So

Unknown Speaker 16:42
yeah, I did.

Carrie 16:44
I did the jdrf walk in DC this past year. And on my own non non team, just myself. I raised over $1,000 we could you Congratulations.

Scott Benner 16:57
We're just we're just a walk us through

Carrie 17:00
last year went last year. It went through by the monument down to the Lincoln Memorial.

Scott Benner 17:09
So that's a good jdrf walk.

Carrie 17:11
Yeah. And it was it was really good. It was really nice. Now I just got a call like last night and wanted to they wanted to know if I was coming again. And this year or this coming year, it'll be closer on the Mall. So a time of year is that usually it may it's at the end of May.

Unknown Speaker 17:29
Really? Yeah. Mm hmm.

Unknown Speaker 17:33
Aha pencil you in?

Scott Benner 17:35
I don't know. I think I'm speaking in Orlando. But listen, we should do a thing. have everybody walk into a room and we'll talk afterwards about using their insulin.

Unknown Speaker 17:45
I love it.

Scott Benner 17:46
I just want to see the monuments again. I haven't been down in a while. Oh, yeah. Anyway, all right. So pumps. Yeah, there's what do you got going?

Unknown Speaker 17:55
I got going. I'm on Medtronic, and the

Unknown Speaker 17:59
G six. CGM

Unknown Speaker 18:03
X. How did you uh,

Carrie 18:05
well, it just, this is the guardian. It came with the pump together. And I, I didn't really ask and I just was, like, she, my doctor was like, you know, here's the Medtronic. Wrap. And here's and so I didn't have any I didn't really

Scott Benner 18:25
I'm not. By the way. I'm not saying you shouldn't cut the Madonna pump. You don't usually see people with a Medtronic pump and a Dexcom. CGM. It's a it's an interesting.

Carrie 18:33
I have I have the guardian. You have the guardian. Guardian. Six. Yeah. The Guardian sex.

Scott Benner 18:37
Not that Jesus.

Unknown Speaker 18:38
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 18:39
How's it working for you?

Carrie 18:41
It's so awesome. It's like I literally,

Unknown Speaker 18:44
I

Carrie 18:45
I never go low. I mean, I if anything, I will go high. But it's because I'm still, I'm still kind of learning. I mean, I'm, I've been on the pump since I since May. And like auto mode since like a month after that. And my agency is 6.6.

Scott Benner 19:07
Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, boy. Good for you.

Carrie 19:10
Yeah. And that was in less than six months. So I thought that was a pretty a pretty good jump from 16.

Scott Benner 19:18
Yeah, no, pretty good. Please. Are you kidding? Yeah, she's

Carrie 19:22
back. Everything's my visions back. My I did have a bunch of hair loss. But that's also getting better. But I had a lot to lose. So it's okay. And I did develop hashimotos. So I do just take Synthroid once a day for that.

Unknown Speaker 19:43
When were you diagnosed with that?

Carrie 19:45
Um, that was in like, March of this year.

Scott Benner 19:50
So after the type one diagnosis, yep. Do you think you had it prior or No,

Carrie 19:54
definitely not because my thyroid was checked in December before that. When I was when I was diagnosis type two. Gotcha. And it was not it was on the normal scale.

Scott Benner 20:05
How's your energy with it? Like with with having hashimotos? Is your juice, okay? Do you sleep things like that, or how's it affecting.

Carrie 20:14
So I'm definitely more tired. And my energy level is not it is not where it used to be. But it's it's definitely getting better. Some days, I'm just exhausted some days I'm not. But I think that's just diabetes. And I used to be a runner, I'm still trying to figure out my pump and exercise. Because I go, I will go extremely low with any cardio, anything like that. So I mean, I know I can suspend delivery, but I hate doing that. And I just feel like I'm like, I'm not going to catch up if I don't. If I do do that.

Scott Benner 20:56
Well, do you have the option? I wouldn't say to suspend delivery completely. But you have an option to scale back the power of the insulin prior to the exercise.

Unknown Speaker 21:05
Yes,

Carrie 21:05
yes, you can do that. And I was just nervous. Yeah, I know. It took me a long time to actually just go running and see where I was with doing nothing. So I'm running with like, a phone in one hand and my pump in the other hand with constant eyes on my pump. But um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's definitely one of my goals is to get back into that, because I really do miss it.

Scott Benner 21:32
Well, yeah. So there's, I'm going to try to find it for you. There's an episode of the podcast that talks about exercise. It's one of the prototypes. Have you heard? Have you found the pro tips?

Unknown Speaker 21:43
Yeah, okay. Sure. Well, so

Scott Benner 21:45
this one is, I'm going to click on it, it doesn't start playing. So just be strange. Episode 256 is called diabetes pro tip exercise. It's me and Jenny Smith, and we're talking about how Yeah, you can stop yourself from getting low in that situation.

Carrie 22:00
So yeah, because I certainly don't want to end up looking like Andre the Giant.

Scott Benner 22:03
Well, you know, I would also think you don't want to be you know, on the Mall, laying on your face, hoping somebody comes by and doesn't think you're drunk. It helps you.

Unknown Speaker 22:12
And you know, I

Carrie 22:12
that's that was my route that I used to run on my lunch breaks every day, every day, I would run from the Capitol, to the around the monument and back and that was about three miles all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. And back was five, a little, maybe a little more, say almost six. And that I would do that during my lunch break every day.

Scott Benner 22:32
You see, I try to get I keep telling my wife like, why do we not go to Washington with a cherry blossoms are blooming? Like I want to do that?

Carrie 22:39
Because you want to sneeze all

Unknown Speaker 22:40
day? One time to see it. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 22:43
guess yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 22:44
don't know.

Carrie 22:45
I don't think I don't think I've actually done that.

Scott Benner 22:47
Or you just, you just made everyone realize that everything they want to go do somewhere else probably sucks. And you have to ask the person who lives there. Like, for instance, you know, I've never until very, very recently ever laid eyes on the Liberty Bell. I

Unknown Speaker 23:03
don't think I have either, but I've

Scott Benner 23:04
driven past year 1000 times in my life, you know, and so, I've I've quite literally been on the road, you know, you can look over and go there's the building where the Liberty Bell is I could park here and go and whatever. Right, you know,

Carrie 23:18
it's true. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 23:19
I

Carrie 23:19
I think the first time I went to the White House was in like 1998 when I started working at the Senate.

Scott Benner 23:26
What do you do? Can you say what you do?

Carrie 23:28
Yeah, I I work for the sergeant at arms, which is support for all of the Senate and committee offices in IT support services. And so we track all of your all of the office equipment, the computers all that stuff. TVs copiers all that stuff. I worked in the Senate for 19 years for a member and then he retired and now I'm finishing out my years there at the Sergeant at Arms where no election depends on my, my job.

Scott Benner 24:02
So a lot of pressure around election time.

Carrie 24:04
Yes, it's very busy for us. We're taking in all of the equipment we have to you know, wipe all the hard drives and and you know, recent re submitted to the new member and yeah, it's it's it's pretty intense. And so that's what I was going I was going through all of these symptoms when we were doing all of that during the election

Scott Benner 24:26
season. What was I just I just had a thought in my head do disappear, or can I find it? Huh? Hold on. Let's find out. This is totally where an ad is gonna go. So let me just I was just thinking, Oh, my gosh. All right. I'm going back over now My head

Unknown Speaker 24:44
is it hard action actions.

Unknown Speaker 24:49
Damn it.

Scott Benner 24:52
I'm so so disappointed in myself right now. Listen to the old add music didn't, didn't didn't. Anyway, I'm just reminding you again about the T one D exchange. That's it T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. One brief last time, the T one D exchange is looking for T one D adults, NT one D caregivers who are us residents to participate in their quick survey. That's it. I'll get you right back to the episode. T one d exchange.org. Ford slash juicebox. Just do it. That simple. Just type in your thing and you go do the thing. And then like 10 minutes later, you're like, I did a good thing. thing, thing, thing and smiles. Who doesn't want good things and smiles? Do you not want good things and smiles? Are you one of those people who doesn't want good things and smiles? I don't think you are. One the exchange.org forward slash juicebox make good things and smiles.

even know what happened. I just lost my thread for a second. Oh, it's gone. It'll come back to me. That's okay. So Oh, I found it. Oh, yes. 19 years ago, it used to It's been more than that now. But how do you? How do you initially get a job like that?

Carrie 26:17
So definitely back then it was you know, someone, I, my, my grandparents godson was working in this office as a legislative fellow, which is they're on loan from their specific department, like Department of Energy or Department of Health and Human Services. They are borrowed from the Senate, but they're still paid or to the Senate. But they're still paid by their agency. So they're just we just like use them for their expertise in a certain area. So he was he was working there. And they needed somebody to answer phones and, you know, constituent services. So I applied and they needed somebody right away. And so it was my first big girl job that turned into my career. And so what I did then was I answered phones, I had flags flown over the Capitol for constituents that request I did tours of the Capitol. Things like that. Just you know,

Unknown Speaker 27:19
a lot of

Scott Benner 27:21
phone calls was was the member you worked for local? You weren't child, were you? Did you have to travel in and out of DC? Or did you stay in work just there?

Carrie 27:30
I didn't until so I didn't do that in the full capacity of the 19 years I moved into, I became the correspondence manager. And I dealt with all of the incoming correspondence that we received from constituents or whatever.

Scott Benner 27:50
So like, the day I wrote a letter that said, Yeah, dear Congressman, I didn't vote for you. I'm not in your party. But I did come to your office a couple of times and talk to you about type one diabetes. I'd really love to go to the Obama og inauguration. Give me tickets, you would have gotten that note?

Carrie 28:07
I did. I gotcha. Okay. Yes. And

Unknown Speaker 28:12
so, yeah, I

Carrie 28:13
did that. And then, as he announced his retirement, I was in charge of archiving his 30 plus years of service center. So yeah, it was the best I will tell you, it was the best part of my, my job for the last like 22 months of closing his office. So at that capacity is when I ended up having to travel to Las Vegas, and close his Las Vegas office, and go through tons of awards and memorabilia, over 800 pieces, and catalog and, you know, send all of that stuff out to the repository where he's, you know, is keeping all of his archivable material,

Scott Benner 28:58
feel free not to answer this, but when you're doing that kind of work. Does it matter if your politics match with the person you're working for?

Carrie 29:08
I think, I think it would, if you were in the legislative portion of the office, I was in the administrative portion. That's what I'm saying. You know, I, I think that not everyone is going to align perfectly, but you know, I think it helps if you do have a little bit of, you know, common interest.

Unknown Speaker 29:32
You know what I mean? So

Scott Benner 29:34
it isn't, it's an office job, but at the same time, I mean, how often in most people's lives in their office job, do they hear their boss say something that could sway the you know, sway policy in the country and, and then you have time to think like, I mean, you can get mad at your boss or like, you know, we're gonna start doing this like this. Now, you think I think we should do that. But that's different than, you know, I'm gonna go you know, I'm gonna go vote for this amendment. And you're thinking Please, don't Oh my gosh, don't do that. Please don't like you know, and then you start feeling like, I would imagine that you start feeling like you're furthering a thing that you don't want to see further. But it would be interesting. That's all.

Unknown Speaker 30:13
Yeah. You know,

Carrie 30:14
I mean, just to give you kind of a reality check, I sat at the front desk and answered phones during the Clinton impeachment trial. So I was called, I have very thick skin these days, because of that, because I was called every name in the book, you know, and, and, you know, so you get that you and you get mostly complaints. And you know, not many people take the time to

Unknown Speaker 30:40
call in a compliment. It's like the internet.

Scott Benner 30:44
No one goes online to be like, you know, what's great, my toaster always works. Always perfect. I just want everyone to know, you know, no one ever says that, like, but how happy are you when your toast comes out? Nice and even right? Never thought to yourself, tell someone I gotta go. I mean, someone should know about this toaster, you know? No, I hear you. That's, that's definitely. And so when that when that person calls, they want to make sure that you know, they're happy, sad, mad, whatever it is, right. And so it they give you the full, the full throat of how they feel, not feeling not realizing like, Yo, I'm really just, I'm just answering the phone. Right. You know, like, I mean, they must feel like you would turn around, then go to your senator and say, Hey, listen, he just said, Yeah, you must want my input on this. And here's what the people are saying on the phone. Yeah. Not how that works.

Carrie 31:37
No. I mean, they're, they're interested in you know, definitely, like tallied, like, you know, against or for sure. But, of course, not the whole, you know,

Scott Benner 31:49
they want to know which way the winds blowing.

Unknown Speaker 31:51
Right. Yeah. Right.

Scott Benner 31:52
Right. That was Yeah, that's exactly what's going on in the impeachment now, like, when? Because we're, we're recording this as, right as, as the republicans are probably two thirds of the way through their initial folly. And, and and when this started, you heard Well, there's not going to be any witnesses. There's not going to be we're not going to bring documents into this. And then as I went to bed last night, there was a republican on television going, you know, I do think we need to hear from this Bolton character. And I thought, Oh, yeah. So he felt the wind change, and he did not want to be downwind of a stink. So he ran around the other way. And I was like, Oh, that's that's exactly what's going on here. Yeah, I

Carrie 32:34
think Jake Tapper is the one that called it not the elephant in the room, the white mustache in the room. He's like, I mean,

Scott Benner 32:41
he should have made a Lorax reference with that mustache. Maybe this taffer guy is not a comedian. But no, but it really is politics aside of it, it's it's interesting to see like, you know, I'm okay. As long as the majority of the people who are voting for me agree with what I'm doing in the minute that looks wrong. I'm gonna run to the other side of the boat before we capsize. And, yeah, very interesting. You must have seen a lot of crazy stuff.

Carrie 33:08
I have seen a lot for sure. centuries. I mean, yeah, I mean, there. I definitely have. I mean, I, I can't say it's all been good since I was there when the Capitol Police officers were shot. And, you know, that was very scary, of course, but, you know, a lot of good too. So, but, and I, I, you know, I've had my kids while I was there, I was married and divorced. While I was there. I feel like I've, you know, lived your life that really lived my life there. And I, when I retire, whenever that may be, I want to go back to school and I want to do radiology, diagnostics. monography. Okay.

Scott Benner 33:47
I thought you're gonna say, I was 100% Sure. You're gonna say I want to teach history. He took me by surprise on that one.

Unknown Speaker 33:53
No, I

Carrie 33:53
I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I think I've finally figured it out. And I think that that's a good way to make, you know, an income and be able to live anywhere I want. Let me

Scott Benner 34:07
ask you this, without asking any political leanings? Do you see it being more true that this is all just bs? And they're gonna do whatever they want? Like the people who feel like that about politics? Or do you see sort of the pageantry and the beauty of it and the, and the history of like, which side of it

Carrie 34:26
is like, you know, beauty in this? No beauty. It's, to me, it's, it's an awful thing. And I hope that though, I hope that

Unknown Speaker 34:39
the other side will

Carrie 34:42
come to their senses and have a fair trial.

Scott Benner 34:44
Okay. And then in an aside of the impeachment, like the entirety of it, like, like the political world in general, do you like how do I put this? Have you ever seen the American president? I don't think so. It's a movie where it's you know, it's They sort of speak romantically about politics. And and like, and when you talk about, like, you know, they when they people who talk about the framers, they hold these, like, ideas really close to their heart, like, is it less like that and more business? Or are there some people walking around? Or just like, golly, this is the way this is supposed to be? I want to do the right thing here, or is there not a ton of that?

Carrie 35:22
I don't think there is. Um, you know, I've been fortunate enough to see from an, you know, a senate office side, and then they also the outside. So it's definitely, it's definitely a different picture. You mean, you have I think there's politics and everything, no matter no matter what, or where you work.

Unknown Speaker 35:45
So

Carrie 35:47
I, I do feel that some people are some, some members are strictly with their party. Okay. And, and both sides. Yeah. I agree.

Scott Benner 36:03
Yeah. And, and, and so it would matter, they could see or hear something. And I think any reasonable person would be like, oh, gosh, well, we can't do that. And they'd be like, No, no, if we do that, I get to build airplanes. So we're totally doing

Carrie 36:15
fortunately, unfortunately. That's it. And that's what's so sad.

Scott Benner 36:19
Yeah, it's interesting. It really is that it's alright. Well, you answered my question. You answered my question the way I imagined you were gonna answer and I was just, I was really, there was just part of me that was hoping you were gonna be like, No, you know, it's not I see a lot of people down here who care deeply. You know, they're still talking about George Washington, and they want the right. You were like, you were like,

Carrie 36:39
those people were like, Who?

Scott Benner 36:40
Yeah, everybody's trying to get there. This is what you're telling me? Yeah. Gotcha.

Carrie 36:44
Oh, yeah. And, and, and to be very honest, the hill staffers mostly use the hill experience for resume builder, to go off and work in the private sector, because they can make so much more money. Half of them are lawyers, right, they can make way more money.

Scott Benner 36:59
So not a bunch of bright eyed college kids, thinking I could I could change the world. They're thinking I can get a resume.

Carrie 37:06
There's definitely that too. Right. I mean, there's definitely that too. Gotcha. But, um, but a lot of it is, you know, just

Scott Benner 37:15
a stepping stone you it's a ladder.

Unknown Speaker 37:17
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well,

Scott Benner 37:19
I don't know that it's ever been different than that. Or, you know,

Unknown Speaker 37:22
right. Yeah, I don't think

Scott Benner 37:25
I it weirds me out, when people are like, things have changed so much. I'm like, and they haven't. Nothing's changed. There's just more of us now. And you have social media, so you can see it happening faster. You're, you're more aware of things. But somebody, somebody's always been career building and stepping on somebody else's throat to get to something else. That's not a new, it's not a new path in life. But you know, it's funny, what's new is when you know, what's not new, but what's sad is when you do meet somebody who just wants to go do a good job, you know, be treated fairly, you know, maybe move up once or twice isn't looking to, you know, light the world on fire and be at the top and everything. Yeah, and that that person just gets treated like they get manipulated by the people who are trying to climb it. So

Carrie 38:10
I think that you've kind of described me, but I was fortunate enough not to be stepped on. I hung in there. And, you know, I, I was the longest serving staffer in my senate office. And yeah, and I, I think I did pretty good, even though I wasn't in the legislative part, because those are the ones that really come and go the administrative portion is, is, you know, there most of the time, they're there for the long haul.

Scott Benner 38:38
Well, I think it's really wonderful. I think it's something to be proud of. So thank you. Absolutely. Okay. All right. I gotta bring this back to diabetes somehow.

Unknown Speaker 38:47
Yeah.

Scott Benner 38:49
Okay. You're not gonna have any information? Maybe you will, if you don't just say I don't. But do you see the the other side of the fight about insulin pricing? I do have thoughts on it that you're willing to share?

Carrie 39:05
So I feel so Gosh, I feel so lucky that I have awesome insurance. And I feel terrible for those that are struggling. And I've seen where a couple different states have, you know, kept insulin prices to people

Scott Benner 39:27
or people in Medicare right. Or some orange state?

Carrie 39:29
Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. I want to say it was Michigan or something, but I can't be positive.

Scott Benner 39:36
I find that article funny because the headline makes you feel like no one's ever gonna pay more than $100 a month for insulin and then you read three more sentences. You go out. No, not everyone. Yeah,

Carrie 39:46
I mean, I literally get five vials of Nova log for $25. And so I feel spoiled, because that's just what it costs me. It doesn't cost me anything. penny more. And, um, and that, of course, I mean, I'm not on a ton of insulin. I mean, I know there's some people that are, you know, I think I have like 85 units for three days. Oh, okay. Yeah. So if that's not a lot,

Scott Benner 40:16
no Arden uses up every bit of 200 units every three days.

Carrie 40:21
That's crazy. And like, that's, I mean, it's not crazy. It's reality. But it's, there's people that use a lot more like that need cheaper prices, because they have to have so much. And it's a life saving.

Scott Benner 40:38
It's, you know, it's interesting, as you were saying that I just realized, Arden's had diabetes for a really long time now, and I don't know how much insulin isn't a vial of insulin. It's, it's never been a problem for me, because we had insurance too. I just write us a vial of insulin. When I'm done. I throw it away, and I get another vial of insulin. That's just how it goes, you know? Something, it made me feel bad, good job. Not that I, I was very compassionate to begin with. But I just

Carrie 41:07
like, I feel like oh, my gosh, I'm getting this for such a cheap price. Why are other people struggling? And so if? Well, I,

Scott Benner 41:14
because you're also probably paying, if I'm guessing you have a couple of kids, you're probably paying six or $7,000 a year out of your income to have private health care insurance, then you probably have a $2,000 deductible on top of that. So it's not cheap. It was the eight grand a year.

Carrie 41:34
Well, I mean, amongst other other stuff. Oh, yeah. But um, yeah, I just I really hope that because so many are affected by diabetes, I really hope that there can be some type of mandated cost.

Scott Benner 41:52
Yeah, I mean, listen, there's, um, you know, a very happy liberal who lives inside of me who would like to see things like that be free and conservative guy sitting next to him going, we can make things free, you know, that's not how this is gonna work. affordable, affordable, would be a hell of a step up.

Unknown Speaker 42:09
Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:10
or, or the other thing that I never missed, I never understand in any walk of life. Just identify the people who can afford it and give it to them and make the rest of us pay for it. And it isn't going to be fair, and you know, what everyone will have to get over the fact that it's not fair. And some people are gonna gain the system and get free and so on who don't deserve it, because they have the money to pay for it. And you know what, that's gonna have to be the cost of doing business. And let's just get it done. Let's let's not let anyone suffer rash, die. It because they can't afford it and then work forward from there to make it more reasonable for everybody if you can.

Carrie 42:51
Yeah, I firmly believe that I just want everybody to be okay.

Unknown Speaker 42:57
Right. You know,

Scott Benner 43:00
I like the way you think. Hold on. One second here, Harry. I'm actually going to be doing insulin with somebody who's not Arden. One second.

Unknown Speaker 43:09
So

Carrie 43:10
you're giving insulin right now? No, I'm

Scott Benner 43:12
agreeing with a person's idea. So you're gonna hear on the show, pretty soon. It'll probably it'll be probably months before people hear this. But my daughter's friend. Jani is type one. So the way they met was Jani used to read my blog. And she liked it. And she was, you know, the same age as my daughter. And so one day she was on Instagram and thought, like, I'm going to try to find Arden and she found her and she messaged her, that she wanted to connect on Instagram because Arden's private, and Arden mostly, you know, I think deletes we know that those kind of requests, but if someone has diabetes, you know, Arden's always like, yes. And has diabetes, like, you know them, you know, that's usually what she she asked me, I'm like, I don't recognize that kid. And she's like, all right, I was like, What are you gonna do? She's like, I don't know. And she walked away. And then it turns out that she, you know, said yes to the friend request. So Jani and Arden have never met each other in person. They are 100% best friends. Oh, Arden is the only other person besides her grandmother that Jani knows who has diabetes. And I don't believe that Arden knows a lot of people who have type one either. Any of them she knows are mostly probably from online. And so Johnny's blood sugars are to be to be polite. an unholy mess,

Unknown Speaker 44:42
a train wreck, just

Scott Benner 44:43
really bad. And so, uh, for years of their friendship, I wasn't aware of that. I, you know, I don't run around asking people what their budget is. Okay, listen, I do this a lot. But you know,

Unknown Speaker 44:57
I kind of do that.

Scott Benner 44:57
I'm not going that far. And so it Do you and so, you know, so one day Arden comes to me and she's like, I think Jani needs help. And I was like, why? And she's like her blood sugar's like all over the place that like, I don't think she's figuring it out. And so I said, All right, well, you know, if she wants to talk to me how to talk to me, and I sort of let it go, and then they sort of never came in asked, it was always like, you know, was implied like, oh, her mom would say something like, I'm going to put on a plane, she can come live with you for a week. And I'd be like, yeah, I'll send her over. Like, you know, what, we'll straighten it out. And nothing ever came of it. And then finally, one day, a couple of months ago, Arden said it to me again, and she really seemed concern, so I proactively reached out. And last Saturday, so on to three, like four days ago. I talked to Jani on the FaceTime for a little bit. And her agency, I think it's like 870 point seven. But more importantly, she's over 400 a couple of times a day for Oh, my god blocks of time, you know. And so my plan was I was going to have Jani on the podcast. And we were going to I was going to talk her through the stuff we were going to do. And I just did not have the heart to even wait until we could record. And so I just said like, we're gonna do it right now. And then you'll come on later, and we'll talk about what we did. And she's like, okay, I really I in my heart. I was wanted to do it as we were doing it, like, you know, like 20 minute interviews, like every couple of days for a couple of weeks, though, so you could listen to her go through it more in real time. But I just couldn't let her wait that long. And yeah, that's awful. Yeah. So she's doing terrific right now.

Carrie 46:36
That's awesome. And she's still living at home or whatever.

Scott Benner 46:39
She's 15. Yeah, but but her her last 24 hours. I don't think she's been under 70 or over 140. And we're working on getting her her Basal hammered out. But I would say that since I'm looking at the last 12 hours from midnight to now. So for like the last 11 or 12 hours, because she's in a different time zone, my brain figure out which way I should I should be adding or subtracting. But she's been right at like 90 and 100. So

Carrie 47:10
that's so awesome. She's gonna feel so much better

Scott Benner 47:12
told me already. She's like, I was doing my homework the other day, and I can focus and it's really cool. Wow, she's a really nice kid. And, you know, it was a pleasure to help her. But what it taught me is something that I already knew and just made me sadder about it like this kids four or five years with this, maybe longer. I'm thinking about it. And you know, she's just going along, doing her best doing what she's told, thinking she's doing okay, knowing it's not okay, but not thinking there's another way. And then I was just like, hey, let's turn this here. Turn that here. Let's Pre-Bolus a little more. Yeah, no, I think you're counting your cars a little light and boom, like that. That's,

Carrie 47:51
I mean, that's how I learned by listening to the podcast. I I never. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 47:57
I,

Carrie 47:57
I thought about Pre-Bolus thing. And then I was like, Oh, I'm just too scared. And then I did it. And I stayed in normal range. I didn't even get it. You know, I didn't even get an arrow up. And I'm like, holy crap, this is amazing. I think I'm perfect. And like, when I when I got the, like straight line, and on my diagram or my graph, like for the whole day, I was like, either I'm dead or perfect dead on. Because it was just a straight line with no rise. No, you know,

Scott Benner 48:28
it's exciting when you come to it.

Carrie 48:30
And it is. So it's, I feel like I've just won the Stanley Cup.

Scott Benner 48:35
But this hindsight make you feel like, by the way, it's funny, I was thinking of a hockey reference to use in my talk in Dallas next in two weeks.

Unknown Speaker 48:43
With any hockey reference,

Unknown Speaker 48:44
you could,

Unknown Speaker 48:45
I'm a huge hockey fan. Okay,

Scott Benner 48:47
hold on, we'll talk about two things. So first thing I was gonna say was that, as exciting as it is when you get it, I would think for people who have diabetes for longer, you're in a different situation. But for people who've had it longer, they start looking back and thinking like, Oh my gosh, like that was it. You know, a guy on the podcast said a couple things and now my blood sugar stable and going on for years. That's how

Unknown Speaker 49:11
I feel. I

Carrie 49:11
feel myself like, you know, I have I belong to a couple different Facebook groups for like, for my pump and for type one. And, you know, I feel like I am able to offer advice for what worked for me. Obviously, everybody's diabetes is different. But you know, if you have a suggestion, I know everybody that has diabetes is willing to hear it because at some point you'll try anything. And um, what's that? I

Scott Benner 49:36
was just gonna say Carrie like i i would say i don't find everyone's diabetes to be that different. Like there's there's a lot of differences among people, people people but I think at the core like the you don't mean like those couple of ideas are very similar for everybody about how to use the internet. Everything else is a

Carrie 49:55
well yeah, yeah. I mean, I just, I mean, some foods affect me differently, and I Like my coffee, my coffee, I have to put in like 25 carbs because, you know, I don't even have sugar in it. So but isn't that cool? You

Scott Benner 50:11
figured that out? You just looked at her like this shouldn't be, but it is so so what

Carrie 50:15
works? Yep, exactly. That's, that's where it's gotten me into trouble with like different foods though because I have a food thing. And it's like my pump says, Oh, well, I can just give carbs for that. And it doesn't erase the food that you ate. It just gives you insulin to to absorb that food. So, I mean, I feel like in 1.0 my one shoulder it says, Oh, yeah, go ahead meet six bagels. Yeah, yeah. And so that's where I have to learn to, you know, that's where you have to watch what you eat. Because

Scott Benner 50:51
it really is that you, you get so focused on whether or not you can cover something with cars. You don't think about whether or not you should be eating that thing.

Carrie 50:58
Right. Nailed it. That's exactly how I feel a lot of the times

Scott Benner 51:02
not thinking about yourself as having diabetes for a second and just think of yourself as a person. Would I eat six bagels? No, I don't think I would you know, but now you're eating Bolus for your like, watch. This is amazing.

Carrie 51:14
Yes. Look at this. I can stay average blood sugar. Too easy.

Scott Benner 51:19
Watch this again. Do it again. keep giving me the bagels. I'll

Carrie 51:22
work the whole thing out. Right. And yeah, I'm like, and some people like, Oh my gosh, can you eat that? I'm like, hell yeah. I can just watch this. I press these buttons, and I'm good to go. Then

Scott Benner 51:31
three days later, they're like, human carry was skinny. Yeah, apparently that insulin doesn't take the calories away just the car.

Carrie 51:41
That's what I'm fighting with. It's an internal struggle.

Scott Benner 51:45
But it's very, I think it's common. I also think it's common to not consider the sugar using to treat lows. And people are always like, Oh, I'm struggling with my weight. Insulin is making me heavy. I'm like, Is it the insulin? Or is your budget low? And you're drinking juice all the time? Because I'm

Carrie 52:02
very lucky that I don't. I don't go low a lot at all. I mean, it's only maybe if I overcorrected. A little bit, but um, or, you know, on calibration days, I, you know, I sometimes it's mostly the reading. I don't feel low a lot is I guess what I'm saying. It's not it's not a true reading.

Scott Benner 52:23
Yeah. Jenny, when Jenny talks about your pump, she's like the people it works for it works for people. It really doesn't. And right. That's interesting.

Carrie 52:33
Yeah. And I see a lot of that in the the Facebook groups. Yes. They people complain, complain, complain, I hate this pump. I hate this pump. And, you know, I think I think a lot of it has to do with maybe settings and things like that, because I had, like I said, I had a wonderful clinical manager, and she was so knowledgeable. And I could call her anytime and I'm thinking and I even said, I think I need to set my, my high alert, lower. Because I don't want to go that high. And I don't ever want to go that high. And she's like, okay, you know, like, that's fine. I, she's like, I was just giving you some wiggle room for the beginning. You know, when you started on like, nope, she's like, you are on this. And like, my, my endocrinologist. They're like, I wish all of my patients were like you, you're gonna you're go, you're

Scott Benner 53:29
all in? Yeah, you figured it out. And it's working. And so, like, why accept the higher blood sugar if that's not necessary, right. And it's interesting, too. I wish all my patients were like you. What does that mean, though? figured it out. You wish they all figured it out? Like, why don't you help them figure it out? You know,

Carrie 53:47
I, I think more so. My attitude towards it all. Like, I, I just, I don't realize that I'm doing anything different than anybody else. But I

Unknown Speaker 53:57
you know,

Scott Benner 53:58
doing it the way I asked you to do? What's that you're doing it the way it occurs to you to do it.

Carrie 54:03
Yeah. And, you know, I'm following their advice, and I'm doing what they're telling me to do. Not everybody is a is a, quote, good diabetic. And, you know, I think that if you put if you follow what your doctor your doctor says, and you know, what your clinical manager suggests, and it works for you, you should keep doing it. And I mean, she's like, you're doing so well with everything and you know, whatever. So I'm, I'm just like, I guess I was, you know, all gung ho and you know, whatever you want me to do,

Scott Benner 54:38
I'll do it. You think you can keep it going?

Carrie 54:41
But you know, I don't feel any burnout yet at all. Even though I went all in right at the beginning. even have my type one tattoo on my wrist instead of a medical alert bracelet. And, and I I'm just I I think it is what it is and you Deal with it. It's a daily, it's something you deal with every day and you just take it day by day. You know, I mean, if I think if you think about, you know, whatever comes next week, you kind of get overwhelmed. Yeah. Oh, like,

Unknown Speaker 55:15
Oh my gosh, what am I gonna?

Carrie 55:16
Do I have a wedding, the pump is gonna show or what I'm like, No, I'm 45 I did not give him

Scott Benner 55:23
any so interesting. You just brought up your age, because I was just gonna bring up your age. And, and I was gonna go back to what you said a second ago. So I have, you know, I've recorded like, 350 of these things, right. And the amount of times that an adult with Type One Diabetes has used the phrase, I'm not a good diabetic, or, you know, I'm a bad diabetic. And I always think, Wow, that's a phrase that would not resonate once with a parent of a child, right? They'd be insulted by that, that they write the possibility of it. But adults don't seem to be. They don't seem to think of it the same way. Think when adult says it, they're saying, I'm, there's a thing I know, I'm supposed to be doing. Right. And I don't do it. Bad dialogue like that. Like, like, like that feeling, right? It's not a it's not a I don't it's not a condemnation of somebody or themselves. It's just the idea of Look, I know, there's the thing I'm supposed to be doing, and I don't do it, etc. And what you're saying is, you know, there's the thing you're supposed to be doing, and you're doing it. And I wonder how much of that comes from being? Like, like, where you were diagnosed, right in your 40s mature been through divorce? work, right? working, you know, in a high pressure situation, like you're more of like, this is what needs to be done. Do this thing. person, right? I'm guessing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're You're a task person. You're like, Okay, give me a few. I

Unknown Speaker 56:49
will do it.

Scott Benner 56:50
And that's even shows when you said because, you know, once the senator retired, I, you know, basically catalogued his life. I bet you there were a lot of and you liked it, I bet you there were a lot of people that heard that and thought, Oh, well, that sounds like the most terrible thing I could possibly write. But you're a test person, you do a task, you do the task. That's excellent. That's insightful. It really isn't. I was afraid when you said, when you made the like the bad diabetic reference, I thought about that people are gonna just be like, Oh, no, but there's more to it than that. You really have to dig through it a little bit. You know, you can't just hear the word band and go oh,

Carrie 57:28
yeah, and I, I think, I think it's just about how you embrace it yourself.

Scott Benner 57:36
Oh, attitudes got to be a huge part of it. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Like, you've got to go with like, I can get this done. Even when it's not going right. You have to be you have to keep up that idea of I can get this done. You know, I can spoil this for you. Because again, this will come out much later, but I asked Jani, my daughter's friend. And I hope to get her on the recording saying this when when I record with her later this week. How hard was it only having one friend Really? Who had type one diabetes and them having a completely different experience with their blood sugars? Like how did that make you feel? And I really was wondering, like, is she gonna say, like, I was a little jealous or like, what? And she said, it just made me feel like, you know, I want that. And but not like, she shouldn't have it, and I should like it. And it was like, Oh, this is nice. She's younger, they're friends. Like, she doesn't have that feeling of like, you know, you know, I, you know, adversarial right away. And, and I hear people sometimes say like, I don't think people should share their, like their successful graphs online. I 100% disagree with that. I think that I think you should be able to like, imagine you're a person struggling with something and it becomes the norm. And you might say to yourself, Well, this is just diabetes. I can't do anything about this. But how great is it to be able to look up and go, that can't be right, because look at that person's blood sugar looks way better than mine. And so, instead of being mad at them wonder, what is that person doing that? I don't know about? Right? And I want to know, best steal from them. You know what I mean? Like, don't try to reinvent the wheel, go find out what works and do it is how I feel about it. Yeah,

Carrie 59:12
like one time. My son and I were sitting there watching, I don't know, probably a hockey game. And he said, Are my pump beat to calibrate? And he he goes, Oh my gosh, Mom, I'm so proud of you. And I said what I said why? And? And he's like, you don't ever complain. You You made me forget that you even have diabetes. And I was like, Yes score, because why would I want to put that burden on my kids? Hey, that

Scott Benner 59:43
didn't happen on his birthday or a holiday did it? It wasn't he was not fishing for it.

Unknown Speaker 59:49
No, he comes

Carrie 59:50
up with some of those one liners pretty often.

Scott Benner 59:53
That's lovely. No, and Yeah, me too because and I talked about it here a lot too. Like you have to You can't just, you can't get enveloped in drama. And there's plenty of opportunities every eight minutes to be dramatic about diabetes, there really just is, you know, Arden had a muffin at school this morning. And she Bolus really hard for it. And while you and I were talking, she hit like 81. And she started going down. And she's not going to get a message about that. I'm just sitting here talking to you. And I have, I can see her blood sugar off in the corner of my eye because I don't want to get lost in this and and not see it. I don't I don't stare at it the rest of the day. I actually only have it visible to me constantly when I'm recording. Alright, because I kind of get lost in conversations a little bit. So I just texted her while you are talking a long time ago. It's like, hey, there's like four candies in your bag, just eat them. And she did that. But, you know, I could have been like, Oh, she's gonna get low. She's at school, like, you know, like, it could have been a lot. A lot of times you get to decide how you react to things, you know? So you brought something up now that reminded me of that. I said, I was going to talk about two things. And I talked about one thing, and then we talked for 15 minutes. So the thing I was trying the thing I was considering, for my talks, I'm giving two talks this month in Dallas and in Atlanta. And

Unknown Speaker 1:01:13
when is Dallas?

Scott Benner 1:01:15
like two weeks like February 16, maybe a Sunday?

Unknown Speaker 1:01:19
I'm not shut out of here. I think so. Are you gonna be there too?

Scott Benner 1:01:22
Are you really gonna be in Dallas, then for hockey? Oh, to see the other Oh,

Carrie 1:01:27
my son is playing your son plays hockey? Yes,

Scott Benner 1:01:30
he does know I will be in I will be there if you want to come so funny. Lovely to meet you. But it sounds like you're busy. But but so anyway. So this will mean a lot to you is that I was trying to decide how popular professional hockey was there. Because if I, if I don't feel like it's very popular, I won't use an example that I use, I'll find a different one. And so I, I think a lot about is a very famous story that at this point. Now I think every person who's tried to encourage people has brought up at some point, but I've been aware of this story for forever. Wayne Gretzky, a young Wayne Gretzky in his backyard learning to play hockey, you know, back when his father would take boards and make a frame in the backyard, right on the grass, fill the frame with water and let it freeze. So he actually had a surface to practice on in his backyard, which I guess is one of the one of the things you can do when you live in Canada, right? And so he said that the kid was having trouble keeping up with the game, right? Gretzky wasn't really he was chasing, which is a very hockey term chasing. And it's a term that I use about diabetes. And the first time I thought about it about diabetes, I didn't connect it in my head to hockey, I just thought, oh, we're chasing these blood sugars all the time. And then I remembered what Wayne Gretzky's Dad told him to help him Stop chasing, he said, and you probably are aware this, he said, you know, you got to skate to where the puck is going not to where it is. Yep, yeah. Right. And so, once you gave Wayne the vision to see where the play was headed, or where the puck was headed, he, he moved himself to where the puck was going. And so now he's in real time with the play, not always behind it. And that's how I talk about bolusing about, you know, I'll tell people, there's a million different ways to say it, but lately I've been saying, you know, it's like a time travel movie, nothing you're doing right now is affecting right now. It's for later, and so anything that's happening to you now was set in motion in the past, so when you're using insulin now, it's really for later Yep. Right. That kind of an idea. And, and then I would usually say something about Wayne Gretzky, but it's very possible that I was thinking like, maybe the people in Atlanta I'll be like, hockey. What? I might do something else.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:50
In Atlanta. Yeah. You think so? Probably not,

Scott Benner 1:03:53
but the stars are still in Dallas, right? Oh, yes. Okay. But is the are the Thrashers in Atlanta? Maybe my gosh,

Carrie 1:04:00
I don't think they still are.

Scott Benner 1:04:03
Now keep up with hockey. Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:06
I'm just a caps fan. You know,

Scott Benner 1:04:08
and, and your son plays your older son.

Carrie 1:04:11
Yes, he's 16.

Scott Benner 1:04:12
What's the goal here? Did you want to play in college? Are you being assaulted? Do you need to call

Carrie 1:04:19
Mike? Oh, shoot my dog. Oh my gosh, Brody. He probably Oh, he's workers outside. 100%

Scott Benner 1:04:26
sounded like he said what when you said Brody.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:32
Oh, Mike, I

Scott Benner 1:04:32
was waiting for you to go, buddy. I'm recording the podcast. Can you be quiet? Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:38
Hey, keep it down in there.

Scott Benner 1:04:40
We're so close to being done. Don't worry about it. It's fine. I was just gonna ask you if your son's trying to play in college, but I don't

Carrie 1:04:48
know. I don't think so. Because he's just I mean, he just he's played since he was like four years old. And and he plays for his high school team now and he plays for a club. And he's just enjoying it. You know, while he while he's still in school,

Scott Benner 1:05:06
well, you're a bomb to fly to Dallas. So you can play hockey because there's got to be an ice rink in Washington somewhere.

Carrie 1:05:11
There's plenty. But yeah, this is a tournament and unfortunately, he plays travel. So, yeah, we've been up and down the East Coast for sure. If

Scott Benner 1:05:24
I would, if I had one thing I could say to every person who's in charge of travel organizations for any sport, it would be stop making people fly all over the country to play youth sports. Not enough.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:35
Ah, yeah. Thank you. I

Unknown Speaker 1:05:36
agree. Not necessary. Yes.

Scott Benner 1:05:39
I probably said it here before, but my son's always chosen, where he plays baseball with very basic rules. Is it affordable? Will he play? Is it close to our house? Those are pretty much the rules we would followed for a very long time.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:55
Absolutely. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:05:57
Yeah. I mean, and listen, and if you were one of those people who was you know, gonna get drafted by the capitals? You wouldn't, you wouldn't have to go show them they'd find you. It'd be okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:05
Right. Right. Exactly. There's,

Scott Benner 1:06:07
there's no six, seven kids skating around in Washington right now playing it a semi pro level that the NHL is not aware of,

Carrie 1:06:14
I can guarantee you there's all of the moms and dads that think that their kids are going pro or not in this area. And I can tell you that right now.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:23
Do you make little people in your area?

Unknown Speaker 1:06:27
Oh, God,

Carrie 1:06:29
we have, you know, we have a ton of different a ton of different leagues and teams throughout the area, but they're just not at the caliber of the Northeast.

Scott Benner 1:06:44
It's a random thing to be a professional athlete. I am Yeah, by the way, being a hockey mom is like extra,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:52
extra, so

Scott Benner 1:06:53
you have to wear like actual, like outdoor clothing to hockey practice and stuff like that right to stay warm inside?

Carrie 1:06:59
Well, I mean, no, it's um, it's Jesus. It is. You know, they have a warming room and then but inside the rig, it's pretty chilly. So you, you know, hats, gloves, hand heater, hand warmers, seat warmers, things like that. But the new nice new rinks have all like have those heaters hanging from the ceiling. So you can? Well that's where your money's

Scott Benner 1:07:25
going, by the way there. There you go. Yeah, you're down to go to Dallas and buying heaters with the money. cheap. Yeah, I have to say there was a time as I'm being a bit of a hypocrite my son's done a couple of travel things. But we really did limit I think he only traveled twice, maybe far away. But what once was in Atlanta in the summer. And the second game of a doubleheader, I had resolved myself to the fact that he was probably going to die from the heat from the heat. And I was standing next to a telephone pole, like sucking in my gut shipping, shimmying around the pole as the sun moved around the Earth trying to stay in the little bit of shade that this telephone pole was making, because I thought at least one of us should live through this. It was so incredibly hot. It's I can't even imagine it was terrible, really, really terrible. When the game was over. We went you know, we had rented a car. And in the back of the car was a cooler full of, you know what it started out as ice at the beginning of the day, but it was just at the end. And it was freezing cold water still in the cooler. And my son walks over. And he used to be a modest, more modest person at that age, he came over to the back of the car just started taking off with clothing in the driveway. He didn't care. Like you know, he's like, I have to take this off. I have to like it was like a bad movie, like gonna die gonna die. And he says, and he says, Can I take this water and I was like, sure. And I thought I thought for sure he's gonna reach his hands into it to try to cool his body off and he grabbed it, lifted it over his head and dumped head. And when as the water cascaded down his filthy, sweaty body and splashed all over me. But one thing that I remember was that the water splashing on me it was hot. This freezing cold water went over his body and it warmed it up as it went, Oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:09:04
you are kidding. And I

Scott Benner 1:09:06
actually said I was a Hey, let's um, let's get you back to the hotel. I think people who live around here are accustomed to a different heat. So

Unknown Speaker 1:09:18
yeah, and not only that, but it's humid. It's terrible

Scott Benner 1:09:20
was one of the worst days of my life. It was really bad. Anyway, you were terrific. I realized as we were talking, I don't know if we talked about anything that you wanted to talk about. But

Carrie 1:09:30
no, we're good. Like, I got plenty.

Scott Benner 1:09:34
Excellent. I'm so glad. Or sometimes I'm just like, ah, she was chatty. And there was nice things to talk about. You have interesting life and stuff. And I thought let's just find out about that.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:43
You're good at what you do. You're very kind.

Scott Benner 1:09:46
Well, thank you so much. I'm gonna say

Unknown Speaker 1:09:49
thank you.

Scott Benner 1:09:50
Thank you. Well, first off, I'm very sorry Carrie for losing your episode, but at least they found it felt really excited when I found it, then I felt bad about it. And then excited again. So you know, I just kind of bounced back and forth. Anyway, here's some new music. It's better, right? Hey, and I want to remind you to go to the T one D exchange at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Fill out that survey, go do a good thing. That helps everyone living with Type One Diabetes. And hey, something else I mentioned at the beginning juice boxers, right. So it turns out, it's more of a thing than I knew it was. And we're approaching 3 million downloads of the podcast, which I'm super excited about. And I didn't want to do a giveaway, which I mentioned in an episode or so ago. Because I don't know, giveaway seems so 1991. So I made a juice boxer shirt, and I put it on sale on the merchants page. For as absolutely cheap as I can make it, the price will go up when we get to 3 million. That's my point is, that sounded weird, as I was saying, like, hey, when we get to $3 million, the price is gonna go up, what I should have said is until we hit 3 million downloads, the price is going to be $5 off as absolutely cheap as I can make it. So it's a really cool little black t shirt says juice box or in a circle. And then bold in the middle. Somebody said it kind of reminded them of Iron Man's thing, but you'll have to go check it out. Is it Juicebox podcast.com. And then up at the top, there's links and you just want to click on merge. You'll see it right at the top of the merge page. I got myself one. That's how much I liked it. I didn't know you guys called yourself, juice boxers. But I think that's cool. And I appreciate that you're so excited about the show. And I really appreciate how much you share it with everyone else because that's where the growth comes from. I certainly don't have a budget for marketing. And that we went from 1 million to 2 million so quickly. And then from 2 million to 3 million even more quickly than that is crazy. I mentioned it recently. I think we hit 4 million inside of this calendar year still. So things are just really exploding. It's because you guys are so kind. I'm sorry even have to charge you for the shirt, but it's just covering my cost and shipping. So I hope you like it. And if you don't like it, don't buy one. I mean for God's sakes don't buy a shirt you don't want not that I have to tell you that But anyway, I bought one. I paid full price by the way. It's really the only option. I would have given it to myself for free, but I just don't have that ability. So I paid for. This is really into the weeds found the T shirt thing. Anyway, thanks so much for supporting the podcast for listening. One more time. I'm really sorry Carrie, I lost your episode for so long. We'll be back next week with more episodes of the Juicebox Podcast.

#445 Supporting Caregivers

The Psychology of Type 1

Erica is a licensed marriage and family therapist who herself has had Type 1 diabetes for over 30 years and who specializes in working with people with diabetes and their families and caregivers—from those newly diagnosed to those experiencing it for decades. Today, Erika and Scott discuss supporting caregivers.. http://erikaforsyth.com

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends, you're listening to Episode 445 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Hey, guess who's back on the show everyone? It's Erica forsyte. You might remember Erika from back in November on episode 407, where she and I spoke about burnout, emotions surrounding diagnosis and dealing with diabetes distress and constructive ways to prevent it from impairing function. Today, Erica is back. And we're gonna focus a little more on supporting the people who are supporting people with type one diabetes. I just loved her the first time she was on, and we decided there were some more topics that we could dig into. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, please go to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box to find out more about the Omni pod and to see if you can get a free no obligation demo sent directly to you. Spoiler alert, you can just go to the site, Miami pod.com Ford slash juicebox. Get that demo out to you today. The show is also sponsored by the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. You can get started with that Dexcom G six@dexcom.com. forward slash juicebox. There's links in the show notes of your podcast player links at Juicebox Podcast COMM And you can just type the words into our browser. If you can remember them. My on the pot, you could do it. Here's Erica, I really enjoyed when you're on the first time and I thought oh, this would be great. And then you had you know, we were like, well, maybe we can do these other ideas. Oh, this is terrific. And then you kind of like disappeared but it felt very anti your personality sounds like something happened to that person. And then so you had surgery. Do you mind people knowing this?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 2:38
Oh, no. Well, I it's a another long strike. By the way. I'm using a different headset is our sound okay? You sound good?

Scott Benner 2:48
Yeah, you sound fine to me. Can you hear me?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 2:50
Okay? Okay. Yeah, I can't. Yes, well, it's, you know, life still happens even when you have diabetes, as you know. And so I've had some knee chronic knee issues, multiple surgeries, and I re injured it. I think shortly after we had our last podcast, and so had to deal with I haven't had surgery yet, but it is coming.

Scott Benner 3:17
I hope it goes well for you.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:20
A full full knee replacement is in my future that just got to figure out the right timing with

Unknown Speaker 3:27
my life.

Scott Benner 3:30
Wow, that's a I've seen some people go through it from a distance recently. And, you know, I think the it's just the way you would expect as far as I know, like the you know, the earlier in life you do it, probably the easier it's gonna go. The beginning is not quite as much fun as the end is. And then when it's over, they're like, Huh, I can't believe how well this works. So

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:50
yes, yes, that is that is the hope for the you know, the end game.

Scott Benner 3:55
I like how you said, even though you have diabetes, other stuff goes wrong, it really does feel sometimes when you're like something else happened to like, don't we like isn't there a limit to how much you get? And there's not

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 4:06
you know, it's, it's so true. But yesterday, I was talking with my husband and kind of talking and preparing it for this Ark next conversation and I got a paper cut. It's like, come on, you know, sometimes there's just there's you there's there's the diabetes, and then there's still other issues that could happen to your body physically, emotionally, and then you can get a paper cut and it could like set you over the edge. I mean, thankfully it did it for me yesterday, but I know it has in the past. Yeah. And that's totally normal.

Scott Benner 4:36
I just it's there's that, you know, just when other things happen. You're just like, I feel like everyone should get a certain amount of stuff and I've got my Yes, you know,

Unknown Speaker 4:46
I've got my fair share.

Scott Benner 4:47
If you hit us it's almost like looking at the waiter when they come around with water and you're like, No, no, you just you just got us. Thanks. We're good.

Unknown Speaker 4:55
We're full.

Scott Benner 4:56
Can you keep your problems over there, please. We have our own

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 5:01
My name is Erica forsyte. I am a type one diabetic, we'll be almost 31 years living with diabetes this summer, I was 12 when I was diagnosed. And I also have a younger brother with type one, but nobody else in my family has been diagnosed with it. I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and I work as a school counselor, but also have a private practice specializing in supporting people of all ages and their caregivers. living with diabetes from diagnosis. Onward, as we know, it doesn't just end or start or end at the point of diagnosis.

Scott Benner 5:52
Let me ask you a question about because this comes up a lot recently, and I don't know the answer. People find therapy online now more than ever, I guess. Yes, it is the the therapist you find need to be in the same state that you live in for insurance reasons.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 6:08
Yes, you know, and I have had some people reach out from other states as a result of our first podcast, and I'm so grateful for that. I am, I'm in California, and I'm licensed in California, and I'm insured in California. And but now that we're all doing telehealth, it would feel like that would be a really easy and convenient way to meet people people's needs nationwide. But I have I am trying to figure out if there's a way that I can be insured nationwide and or licensed that I don't think that exists quite yet. But that sure would be lovely. Or will California

Scott Benner 6:44
still a pretty big place. So if you're hearing it is today, and you want to reach out to her and you live in California for the moment, how do they get ahold of you?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 6:53
I have a website. Thank you for asking. It's Erica forsyth.com erkfrsyth.com.

Scott Benner 7:05
Thank you. Listen, I don't think it's any, it won't come to any surprise to people that heard you the first time, I felt like we had a really nice, easy back and forth. You know, as the person who gets to make the judgments on the on the people who come onto the show, I just felt really, you know, we vibe well together. And you really felt like you had a very kind of calm grasp of what you were talking about. And you had a couple of other topics you wanted to hit up. So you're back to do more. Can we start with supporting caregivers who have people?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 7:36
Yes, I was thinking that we could do that first. Because as I you know, meet with different clients, families, you know, caregivers are often reaching out to me for either support for themselves, but usually, you know how to support their children living with it, but often I find that, you know, caregivers need their own individual support, as well. And I think there's the larger group of, you know, being a caregiver of someone with type one. But then I think there's even smaller subgroups within that category of parents who have who have children are diagnosed in infancy, or in elementary age years. And then there's the parents who have children who are diagnosed in their teen years, which we can talk about, because that's a whole kind of beast in and of itself. And then kind of the aging out right, from Teen to early adulthood. So yes, I mean, I think we definitely could start with you know, how to think about living as a caregiver. With with this diagnosis,

Scott Benner 8:43
I've been corresponding with somebody who's obviously information, I'll keep private for like a year now. And they're the parent of a teen. And things were, you know, the, the team wasn't taking it all that seriously, at least not as seriously as the parent was taking it. And that parent told me that eventually, they had to seek out like therapy for themselves. And then it came to a head and, and this person, just one time one, I just eventually just couldn't take it anymore and said to the kid, like, you know, diabetes is gonna kill me before it kills you. And I wonder how, how common that feeling is because it felt like I could understand what she was saying in the email. So what is the difference between being dying having your child diagnosed at a younger age versus other ages?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 9:39
Well, I think the the first kind of the answer would be well, in terms of how much control and authority you have over your child and just developmentally, where your child is, are they able to, are they completely dependent on you, as you know, as obviously an infant your younger child that they are unable to eat? They're manage their diabetes care from you know, whether you're doing finger pricks or CGM management, wearing a pump or not. If your child is younger, I would say, you know, this is rough guesstimate around maybe eight, or younger, or maybe even seven or eight or younger than you are probably managing it as the primary caregiver completely. From whether that includes, you know, reordering the supplies and changing out the sights, as well as the day to day, you know, management. And then as you're getting into maybe early as Elementary, or older, I guess, like nine, I would say to 12, eight or nine to 12, maybe they're taking on more or showing some levels of interest and wanting to be independent in some areas, whether it's checking their own blood sugar, or having a discussion with you around carbs. And then obviously, into, you know, preteen and teen where just naturally they are wanting to be more autonomous, more independent. And if you take remove diabetes, from the equation, they're, you know, just teenage years, they're wanting to make their own choices, feel that sense of independence. And then there's that pushback, right with teenage years of if they are showing signs of wanting to rebel, then that often translates into I don't want to take care of my diabetes, or I want to fit in, you know, in preteen teenage years, children are wanting to fit in with their peers be like their peers do with their peers can do. And as we know, you can do that to a certain extent, with diabetes. But oftentimes, it might look like ignoring like, I'm going to have this baggage check chips or this candy bar at the movies with my friends. I don't want to have to either leave to inject or take my blood sugar or pull out my pump, it's going to make all these lights or look at my CGM. So I'm just going to ignore that because I want to fit in. So this is kind of just as a summary, I'd say of what it might look like, as the child with diabetes, but then also, how do you how do you manage that, as the caregiver is challenging on different levels? And

Scott Benner 12:16
how does it impact you to as the as a person, just, you know, I say all the time, and nobody. It's interesting, isn't it? Like, if you look at the world as a whole, the likelihood of you being born living and dying without having some sort of a medical issue is almost completely uncommon like it, you know, and that happens to very few people. But no one makes a baby and thinks, hey, I bet you when you know, let's do this baby thing, and I bet you when it's three, its pancreas will stop working. And then we'll just take care of that or when it's 12, or I bet you when it's 20, its thyroid won't work anymore, or you like you, you have no preparation for that whatsoever. And we see it as uncommon and burdensome, when maybe we really should think of it is expected to some level, you know, some something happening should be expected, but it's not how you feel. So is that different? When a child's younger? Do you get that feeling of like you didn't get what you were promised?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:16
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I, I from I mean, I think from just speaking from also my parents perspective, having two children, you know, diagnosed when they were older, but then from from clients that I work with, there's that I think that immediate sense of loss, right? Because maybe when it's if you're a slightly older, say eight or 10, you have some of those like prime years of, of, quote, enjoyment, right without having to think about this extra layer of management. And so I would say, yeah, that's definitely, gosh, we're out of the gates that my child's one or two, and he's barely talking or walking, and now we have to deal with this extra layer. And so I'd say probably even a stronger, maybe shock, grief loss. And, you know, all the all of the emotions of grief. Yeah,

Scott Benner 14:12
on top of that, I expect that the you start prognosticating that there's going to be some sort of a loss for the child in the future. You know, the funny thing is, too, if you understand how to manage your diabetes reasonably, I don't think there's that much of a loss. You know, you mean like you're a person who has diabetes, there's things you have to do, it's obviously sucks. And it's but if you could take a long look at it, and I guess I'm in a unique perspective, where I've spoken to so many people at every age, you know, right into their 60s. That what I would tell you is that overall that yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's a coin flip or not like if you're just the kind of person who does well with you know, stuff that comes up or you're not but most people deal okay with it when they don't do well. It's because It generally ends up being because they've been given very bad tools or bad support, or something like that. But the people who, you know, learned how to use their insulin or figured out how to eat that worked for their lifestyle, had somebody helping them along the way, those people generally live full lives, you know, like, we don't, we're not in that part of diabetes anymore, where people just die when they're 40. Because they have type one in less, you know, something significantly lacking in their in their care, or, you know, I mean, let's just say like they're some people just hit the genetic, you know, dumpster fire lottery, and then that obviously can happen. So if I'm a parent, I come into you and I say, hey, I've got my little one year old, two year old 567 year old has diabetes, they're completely dependent on me. And I can't take it. Like, how do you how do you help a parent in that situation?

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Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 19:57
Well, first of all, I think it's if we were pulled back A little bit like when you diabetes diagnosed, this inserts itself into, you know, quote, pre existing conditions. And I know we think about that like as a medical term, but you as a family unit or if you're a single parent, single caregiver, you there are already issues going on in your life, right. There might be marital stressors, there might be job or financial stressors, it might you might be diagnosed in the middle of a pandemic, there might be other concerns with if you have other children, the sibling dynamics, you might have either really successful solid, healthy family communication patterns or or not. And so, upon diagnosis, all of those things that have been with you either individually as a person in your own health journey, as well as your family, are still there, right upon a diagnosis. And so sometimes we would like to think that, that Oh, my gosh, my child is diagnosed. And now all of my other, you know, challenges or concerns are gonna fall to the wayside, but they don't, and they creep back in, immediately upon diagnosis, maybe all of the focus is on there, and you're surviving out of adrenalin and shock. And you're pouring all of your resources and time and energy into that into your child. But slowly, all of those other, you know, quote, pre existing conditions or challenges that you have been dealing with kind of reemerge. And I think that, you know, as a caregiver, your child does look to you, and how to respond to this diagnosis. And, and it's okay, if you're struggling, right, because your child may take it all in stride, I mean, it particularly mean a one or two year old, the child doesn't really know essentially, what's happening, and that's going to that child is that's going to be normal as the child grows up, right. For an older child, they might not think it's anything different. They might have seen other friends with CGM on their arms, or you know that the stigma around all of that is definitely thankfully going down. And the hardest part might be coming to terms with your own feelings about it as a caregiver, about, you know, thinking, gosh, what does this mean for my child is my child going to not be able to do all of the things that I had envisioned? for them? I think I shared you know, thankfully, things have changed dramatically in 30 years. But when I was diagnosed, the doctors told my parents like, she might not be able to play sports, and I ended up playing collegiate volleyball, she might not be able to have children. And so there, I think there was a time when there was that sense of loss and despair for your child that you were grieving for them. And for yourself as the parent, thankfully, the messaging and the data has shifted. I have had two healthy children. And I was able to do those things. And because of now all of the new, you know, the new science and the new products on the market, you can even live a healthier life than I did 30 years ago, as a child, and preteen and teen. So anyway, go back to your question, parent comes in there one or two year old has been diagnosed, I would first allow them the space to grieve like what, what are they they probably are having that sense of loss, I had expectations of having a healthy child that might not live in it and Wiggins as we know, you can be healthy with type one. But without living with a chronic illness, they might have to deal with and have questions about what are some myths that they've heard? Right? Is my child going to be blind? Are they going to lose a limb are they not going to be able to do X, Y, or Z. So dispelling some myths might be something that we would do. And so just give first, initially, just giving them some space to grieve.

Scott Benner 24:07
I see, I see online when people just want to see an athlete, a professional athlete who has type one diabetes, because that seems like the gold standard of moving around, and they're doing it so good. That's a great feeling. I if that person could do it, then somebody else could do it. It does seem to be a lot of fact finding and, you know, backing up your fears with stuff that makes that alleviates them or tries to support problems you're having. But what happens if you're if you're the adult, and you're a person who just doesn't have any more bandwidth, or their coping skills, aren't, you know, gonna gonna lend to this situation? Do you just pick something in your life and, and eliminate it like do you or do you just go okay, I used to, I don't know, I used to sew purses in my spare time, but I don't do that anymore. You know, like Do you like what happens when the cap when you're full all the way to the cap? And then something like this comes in? I mean, what what do people do to find that space? They need to wrap their heads around this because it takes a long time to figure out diabetes?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 25:15
It does. Yeah, I think that that's an excellent point two, is that it it acknowledging that I might not understand how to how to manage my child's diabetes initially. And so you're dealing with your own personal grief, if that's, you know, the case about what it means for your child to have diabetes. And then you're probably feeling isolated. Because as as we know, it's, you know, it's, it's very rare. And I think that's part of the reason why, you know, type one, community is so tight knit, and probably most chronic illness communities are very tight knit, because you don't really understand it unless you're either living with the type one or you're caregiving for someone. And so I think, acknowledging that, I'm feeling isolated, I'm feeling distressed, I'm feeling anxious about what this means. Obviously, reaching out for support, whether it's one on one, therapy, listening to, you know, your podcast, finding support groups in your community. And if they aren't, they're asking your your child's doctor for that you creating your own, I think being in a support group, as a caregiver is really important. If you are struggling, and feeling like Gosh, I have no more bandwidth, I've reached my limit in terms of providing care for my child. That is signaling that you are in distress. Yep. Whether it's your own personal distress, including dealing with the diabetes distress. And it's exhausting. And so I think reaching out and finding the support, one on one, listening to other podcasts, and finding support groups for you, not just for your child is really, really important.

Scott Benner 27:16
Yeah, it gets you to that spot where I don't know what psychologically it does for you to accept something. But it stops so much inner turmoil. That just I'm not saying giving yourself over to it, maybe is the wrong way to say it. But just the idea of Nikki's, you'll see people forever, like, well, there must be a cure for this. And they'll they'll, they'll just drive themselves crazy looking for it as if there was a cure for type one diabetes. And the 1.8 million people living with it are unaware of it. But the newly diagnosed person, it's like, no, obviously it exists. It's just that feeling of like putting off the inevitable, which is accepting that this is happening. But there's such a calm that comes after the acceptance.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 27:56
Yes, yes. And and I think it's hard to know what comes first. Like, if you are feeling confident and competent in managing your child's diabetes, then maybe the acceptance comes after that. Or maybe the acceptance comes, okay, this is this is what we have in our life, we are not going to let this stop us from doing the achieving the goals we want for our family and for our child. We are going to accept this and we're going to put our head down and we're going to figure this out together. And then that calmness and acceptance that may then lead to the finding finding what you need to get your diabetes, your child's diabetes management, and you know, getting into stride with it, I guess. Yeah. And I don't know if one has to come before the other. But I think I totally agree that the acceptance piece is pivotal. And it you might be you might accept it right in it as the get go. You might just be someone who could handle kind of this this trauma. I know we talked about that in our other our first episode. That kind of the Trump traumatic experience that a diagnosis brings, but and then you might accept it and you might be working well with your child and your child's care team. And then you there might be another transition like such as puberty or the child's sick. And you might hit a bump in the road and you might experience some Distress and that's okay. It's not like okay, we're, we've accepted it, we're good, we're managing it. We know how to deal with this, and we're good to go. So to be gracious to yourself and your child that there will there will be a will and you'll ebb and flow in terms of your acceptance in you know, in your relationship with diabetes.

Scott Benner 29:49
It's fascinating as your kids get older. It's like you're an employer and you have to hire the right person for a job. And you know, like you said in the beginning the kids are It's all on you, right? So the kids aren't involved and they hit those years, but they're like, well, I might want to help a little bit, then you look at them, you're like, why would I hire a 12 year old to take care of my son, you know, like, I know you are you but but you're not the right person to be making these decisions, then people have that fight where they don't want to hand it off, I have to admit that I don't, you know, I'm happy to give over pardons, you know, management to her slowly. But I was never in a position where I thought, I'm happy to trade her five, five, a one C for an eight a one c while she's figuring this out for the next two years. So that that wasn't a trade I was willing to make. But it's just tough because you look down and you're like, well, this isn't the person who should be in charge of this, the kids 14 doesn't know anything, he can barely remember which ways up he just wants to play PlayStation, like that kind of stuff, which then translates into when they're teens. And it's even worse, because now they actually they think they know something they don't even doubt themselves anymore, which is fascinating, you know. And then there you are in that situation, where some people run into where their kids don't doubt themselves don't understand how to manage their blood sugar's quite as well. And now they're creating what could potentially be dangerous situations, either for themselves short term or long term, and you as the parent are set back and going, I can't let this happen. It's such a stressful, a stressful thing to see a thing that you can fix that's impacting your child, the thing you probably love most in the whole world. And then you can't impact it because they're the blockade to you impacting it. It's a weird dynamic, where they are both the person the the, the focus of your love and concern, and the end the problem. At the same time, like the reason you can't get to that love and concern. I don't I didn't mean problem, but they're almost like the roadblock and the destination, if that makes sense.

Unknown Speaker 31:51
Mm hmm.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 31:51
Okay. Yes. And I think there's a reason why I often I'd say the majority of families that I work with are the kind of the newly diagnosed families within, you know, one month two, you know, six to 12 months. And, and then parents and with teens, because those are probably the more challenging seasons. And, yes, I mean, I think it's going to happen, right teens are going to want to rebel to a certain extent or fine, as we said that autonomy or independence, and yet, you know, we research has shown that positive, there are positive results from parents continue to be involved somehow in your child's diabetes management during the adolescent years. Yeah, and one of my mentors used to say, like, gosh, wouldn't it be great if you could just saran wrap the diabetes, part of their lives as teams with within their relationship with their parents, just to protect that, like, let them go do whatever else they've had to do as a teenager, but can we just somehow protect that aspect of their lives, because it does happen where teens either want to deny it, or don't want to manage it, or want to manage it themselves. And then there's consistent, you know, 300 words, and they think they're doing a good job, or they don't want to show the numbers. And I lived that for a period of time, myself. And the ultimate, I mean, I feel like if you are a parent with a teenager at this point, and you're experiencing this friction, and this conflict of a teenager saying, I don't want you to deal with this, I'm going to do this by myself. I mean, I think I know you, you have set up a different relationship with your daughter. And I think it would be wonderful. I know you just had a gallon I just listened to who was was a teenager. And now I think she's 18 who took it on herself and is managing just great and has been very independent and wanting to maintain those healthy habits. I would say sitting down with your with your teen and say okay, in this this category of your life, your diabetes, we are still going to whether I mean it's also different right with the with the CGM where you could look at on your app to see what your child's numbers are. If they aren't if they refuse to wear CGM, and that happens, then it's finding out okay, we are going to look at your meter once a week or once you know, at the end of the day, but you get to have control and agency in your life in these categories. And finding out what it what does that mean for them daily, they're going to want to have sleepovers. They're gonna want to do after school sports. I mean, a lot of this stuff isn't relevant at the moment given the pandemic but that obviously, hopefully that'll normal like normalcy will return there. I want to go to birthday parties or parties and general parties and finding out how can we protect this aspect of their life and come to some sort of agreements, but also giving them the opportunity to feel like they have control and agency in their life in other aspects that you both agree on that, you know, there's a compromise there,

Scott Benner 35:21
I think you have to understand that in every interpersonal relationship, there is a line that you cannot push the other person over. Because if you do, there's just no coming back from it for some reason where it's difficult to get back from it. So. So I'm constantly thinking with my children, like I'm balancing, doing what's right for them with teaching them how to manage for themselves without pushing them away, which I guess would be a nice old fashioned way of saying what I just said, because once they're away, that's the whatever they leave with that day. And you don't want them to leave in an adversarial thing. Like, I want my kids to walk out the door with a bag over their shoulder thinking, I can't believe I'm moving out, like, that's what I'm looking for. Right? Not like, hey, go to hell, I'm out of here. And so you know, and so when that happens when you when you split that day, however it happens, you've taken them about as far as you get to take them. And then and so if they're gone too soon, then they're a bird falling out of a nest that can't fly yet. And, and that doesn't stop them from leaving, you know. So I just think that there's a way to move slowly towards that stuff. And you have to be able to look up on some law, see that your kids like rubbing up against something. And without letting them feel like they're in control, you know what I mean? Like there's a power struggle to with parenting, to kind of let go of all of it, you know, without letting them feel like they're pushing you around, you have to almost quietly back off in your mind, like, I have something else to say, This is not the time to say it. I'll wait for another opportunity. I just, um, I believe in that. And hopefully, it's going to help me my son's 20. And it looks like he has hashimotos out of nowhere, all of a sudden in the last couple

Unknown Speaker 37:05
months.

Scott Benner 37:06
And it's impacting him. And we're trying to get all of his levels together and help him out. And one of the things we've done is we've gotten his his vitamin D level up, and his iron level up. And so the other night, I said, Hey, did you remember your vitamins, which has been great about so far, and he's just frustrated, because some of the side effects of this haven't gone away yet. And he's like, they don't they don't help anything. And I was like, no, it took us two and a half months to get your vitamin D and your iron off. They help. And he got he broke the little bit. And what I was gonna say next was Yo man, you know, if you do one setup today, that doesn't give you a six pack. And six months from now, when you have a six pack. It's because you did the sit ups every day on the way to it. And now that you have it, if you want to keep it, you need to keep doing it. This is what I was gonna say to him. And instead I just went Yeah, that's cool. We'll talk about it later. And because I just was like, This is it, if I push him here, I'm going to lose him on this topic. And I and I can't afford to lose him on this topic. So yes, yeah,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 38:05
yes. So knowing, knowing your the kind of the boundaries of when to push, and how far. And I and I think you also touched on, you know, as a teen, it's you there's instant gratification that they want and need. And it's so challenging to think about the long term complications implications of poor management. And so every day, it's, you know, yeah, I want this candy bar with my friends, and I don't feel like bolusing or injecting for it. And you're not, they're not sitting there thinking, Well, you know, if I keep doing this every day, for the next two years, I might have complications. And and I think just as you clearly exemplified, sometimes reminding them of that isn't necessarily, it's not the right way

Scott Benner 38:55
to go. No. Yeah. And we, when they're little with, you know, to bring it back to diabetes, when they're little and you mess up a Bolus, their blood sugar goes up. Well, you work really hard to get it down, you hug them you do all the things you do, you know, when they're eight, nine, or you know, when they get into that 1213. And you do it again now, like, oh, they're sitting on the bench, they can't play because they're dizzy. All these things hit you as failure as the parent, like, you're like, Oh, I messed this up, I'm gonna kill them. I'm the reason they're not going to enjoy soccer, you know, like, whatever it ends up being. And then all of a sudden, when they're older. It's interesting, because it, they're, it's the first time that they can turn it back on you. It's like when they realize you're not perfect. You don't mean which happens in every parental relationship. The One day, the guy wakes up and goes, Oh, this guy doesn't know everything, does he? You know, and then God forbid you're wrong, or you get into your late 40s. And you have like a moment where you can't think of a word. They're just It's like watching a lion go after a gazelle with a broken leg. I see my kids look at me like like, Oh, he's not perfect. Now's our chance. Yeah, right. Right. But all of a sudden, you're trying to do the right thing. And maybe, and for a lot of people, you don't know what the right thing is, you don't know what the tools are, you don't know how to manage your insulin, right, you're just trying your best. And over and over again, it's, it's not going well, and your kids start to think she doesn't understand this diabetes at all. And I don't understand it. So we're screwed. And that's and then that can you can get to that spot. And that's why I'm just such a huge proponent of understanding how insulin works. Because it gives you It gives you a chance in all these things. And again, it gives you a chance to have some free time where blood sugar's aren't always bouncing around and you might actually be able to think about paying your electric bill or going for a walk or doing one of the things that's gonna keep you sane or balanced.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 40:47
Yes, yes. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Not not responding. You're not responding to the roller coaster. You just know, okay, where we are as stable as possible. I'm doing the best I can. And now I can go take care of myself.

Unknown Speaker 40:58
100% Yes. Have you

Scott Benner 41:00
ever seen the movie? 1917?

Unknown Speaker 41:02
No, no. Okay. So

Scott Benner 41:03
in a nutshell, it kind of doesn't matter. I think it's like World War One. And, and there's like, there's like a, you know, it's a road movie. But in a war guys got to get from one place on foot to another place. It's just adrenaline the whole time. And sometimes that's what being a parent of somebody who has a chronic illness feels like to me, like, somebody just came into my life, one day, I was just there doing my thing. And they were like, hey, you're on a foot race now to the end. And you have to run constantly. Because if you stop, something's going to kill you. Like, you just have to keep going. And there is going every time the scene changes, something different is going to be there that feels like it's trying to get you and you have to run around it jump over or kill it and keep going. And that just is how diabetes feels to me like I remember having the conscious thought that my job is to get my daughter to the longest healthiest life possible. And I never thought about having kids that way prior to the day she had diabetes. Hmm. You know, and,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 42:04
and that is an exhausting narrative to live with, particularly if you are not feeling like you're you have a sense of, you know, competency around it, or competence, you know, and how to manage it. Yes, right.

Scott Benner 42:18
Right. And so at some point, I worked out the things I worked out, which then lessen that feeling. And it's, it's become less and less and less over time, to where I still feel like that's my goal. But I no longer feel like I'm running through 1917, Germany for my life anymore. And, and, and I really do, I really do believe that partly, that's community that did that. For me. I think it's part it's a big part, just understanding how insulin works, because then you start getting what you expect. And there's not that like, theoretical stress, like you almost like put insulin and then start wondering if you did it wrong. And then, and when that happens three times a day, you're 24 hours a day believing you've messed something up, and you're always living in that anger, you know, and then if you're married, one of the parents likely has a firmer grasp on diabetes and the other which can help, which makes you resent the other person for not helping you. And, you know, oh, it's just there's so much going on. But you're what you're saying is, is that if you're a parent of a child with type one, at any age, you really need a place to go no matter where it is, to feel normal to hear some other people who are doing, okay, who may be a little ahead of you on the journey, a place where you can rant and rave and scream if you need to, and then kind of come back out and reset, and give yourself What did you call it? Grace?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 43:42
Yeah, Grace and grace and space to, you know, do what you need to do. And if you are the primary caregiver, and I know that that works for a lot of families. Because there's not that confusion that I think you shared recently on a podcast that, you know, you went to the store, and you just assumed that that someone else would be watching or managing or helping blood sugars. But I think there that assumption is also exhausting. And so I think if you're the primary caregiver, and you are feeling all of those things that we've talked about the burnout, the isolation, the guilt, or shame around, I don't know what I'm doing or if I made a mistake, to realize that you're not alone. And to get reach out if you if you don't have if you don't know anybody in your circle. I think that's to reach out to your to your child's doctor to say, Are there other parents, you know, with children around my age, my children, my children's age, that we can connect with because they know they have the data. Because the isolation piece I think is big, and then you isolation can make you feel like Not only that, you're alone, or that if then that, then your thoughts can like I'm doing it wrong, and I'm a bad parent. And that just kind of can, you can dig a hole really quickly with them when you're feeling alone. And that could happen to your

Scott Benner 45:12
kids too. And that one of the Yes, it's funny when people come on the show, and they've heard the show. And it's not everybody, but it's, I used to think it was really heavily like, towards the people were like, Oh, my God, I learned how to use insulin that's been so valuable for me, because I see that as the most valuable piece of the podcast, yes, but it's not true. What I hear most from people is, I never knew another person with diabetes, this show gives me a sense of community, all those things, you just said, it ends up being so much more important to the person who lives with the diabetes, then you might understand like, like, when a parent looks for community, they might look for support, advice, you know, that kind of stuff, pat on the back kind of stuff. But when a person with type one looks for community, the community they want is similar but not the same. It's what they need is to just not feel isolated, just like you said, and it's such a bigger piece then apparent not feeling isolated. I don't know why I think that I don't think I have that thought completely fleshed out yet. But community means different things, depending on what side of the syringe you're on, I guess.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 46:26
And I think that, yeah, the community piece, yes, for the, the person with the diabetes to know they're not alone. They're not this, you know, strange person and to hear tips and tricks, but then again, in the caregiving piece, to also feel either encouraged or acknowledged and to decrease that isolation. But also just a place. I mean, there, if you can't find a caregiver group, specifically for type one, there are just general caregiver support groups out there that might bring together a variety of people cannot caregiving for their spouse with cancer, or whatever the chronic illness might be, just to have that sense of community to know you're not alone in a lot of those similar emotions and triggers that you might be feeling as the caregiver. So my

Scott Benner 47:15
last question I have, yeah, one last question on this is, that's, that's all great for people who are willing to do that. Yeah. You know, like, when I talk about how people eat on the show, I always say, like, Look, it's probably easier to have diabetes and eat very low carb, but most people aren't going to do that. So let's teach them how to use their insulin so they can live the life that they want to live. And similarly, I think therapy is a great idea. But a lot of people don't do it. A lot of people drink instead, or walk out back and cut down the tree with a chainsaw and cut it up a little tiny pieces, then kick it around, or what what do people do who aren't going to seek out community that aren't going to go for therapy? Or I mean, I have to be honest, that little breathing thing on the apple on the iPhone is like deep breathing really is relaxing. But what what can people do so they don't slip off and, and become a caricature of a of a sad person?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 48:10
Yes, well, I think, oftentimes, you might not even realize it as a caregiver that you are experiencing burnout. Oftentimes, I hear someone who might come in to my office, and they'll say, Well, you know, what, my spouse noticed that I was talking about how tired I was, or how I wasn't, I wasn't doing the things I used to do that I really enjoyed, or I am feeling helpless. And I'm talking about that. Or maybe Yeah, maybe I'm drinking more coffee or drinking more wine or I'm not. I'm withdrawing from my friends and family, and I didn't And oftentimes, you might not even realize that that has happened. And so it sometimes takes someone on the outside to kind of reflect back in the caring, loving way. Maybe it's time for you to get help. But if you aren't, if you aren't at the point of being able to reach out because that does happen. Yes, obviously deep breathing, to do the things try and reflect back on. Okay, what was one thing that I used to do that I enjoyed before my child was diagnosed, whether that was I used to go on walks every morning, or I used to do the certain activity. So I think reflecting if you're at that point where you feel like your hands are in the air, you are exhausted, and you don't even have the energy or desire to to go to a support group or to meet with a therapist, to think back. Hey, what did I used to do, pre diagnosis that I enjoyed, and slowly maybe integrating that asking for a break for an afternoon or once a day or yet once a day or once a week from being the primary caregiver and doing that thing, whether it's exercise or deep breathing or meditation Or meeting up with a friend?

Scott Benner 50:03
Can I share two things?

Unknown Speaker 50:04
That's where I would start? Yeah, please.

Scott Benner 50:06
So one of these is embarrassing. I'm gonna start with one. That's not embarrassing. How's that sound? So during the pandemic, I've taught myself to make barbecue, to make pizza from like the dough to the scratch to How To Cook it like a real like Neapolitan. Because I just have this time, I don't know what to do it. And then at Christmas, Kelly gave me a drone. It's this little thing. It's a very small one. It's not, it's not very expensive at all. But I found that, first of all, I was scared of it. Like my I was scared to use it. It's something I've talked about for years, like I want to try to fly a drone one day, that's all I said. But it turns out that my spatial awareness is what I was scared of, I was afraid that what would happen when I was pointing one way, and the drone was going another way that I wouldn't have the coordination to deal with that. And so I practice in an open field, you know, and what I've learned over the last couple of weeks is that once the drones up in the air, and it's moving, it's the only thing I'm able to think about where the drone will crash on the ground. And there's an I never been a person to stop thinking about other things. And so just one thing that was not life or death to anyone, right, has really changed. And I will find myself running outside in the middle of the afternoon when I have an hour just to put that thing in the air for five minutes. Just because I come away with some sort of a relaxed feeling when it's over.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 51:35
Well, and it's something that you are completely in control of that.

Scott Benner 51:42
Well, well Also, it also gave me this idea, like if it cuz it can go up in the air. And your first thing is like, what if I What if it crashes, and you actually have to let go of that to do it. It's almost like not being afraid of insulin anymore. Like, you know, like, Oh, I Bolus and it goes up. And I know I should use more. But I'm afraid until you just go hell, I'm going to use the amount of needs, until you say to yourself, if this thing falls out of the sky. That's the price of doing business if I want to fly a drone, and so once you let go of it, it's completely free. Now my other thing, and I don't know how many people will take me up on this. But when I'm completely alone, which I used to find myself a lot, and I don't much anymore, I guess we most of us don't feel it anymore. When I have a problem, I talk it out in my head. But there are times that I feel I don't realize it and I'm thinking of something in my head. And then all of a sudden I'm alone in my house and I'm talking about it out loud. And I've come to realize that it's nothing different than sitting down in front of a microphone to make a podcast where there's no guest. And I just I find it easier to talk through things if I can hear it almost like at the end of when I after I wrote my book, it was supposed to be turned in on a certain day. And I remember sending the publisher, a note and saying just get like, Can I have it for one extra day? Before I give it to you. And the last thing I did was read it out loud to myself. Because for some reason. hearing it in my head and hearing it out loud were two different things. And I don't know if that's valuable or not, or if I'm crazy, but those two things helped me like focusing on something it's not my life for a little while giving yourself over to that and sometimes I talk to myself when I'm but not to myself. Um, I don't know how to put it. I'm not talking

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 53:27
about your verbally processing out loud.

Scott Benner 53:29
Yes, I'm not going Hey, Scott, and Scott's not answering in a slightly different voice. Not happening like that. It's almost like I'm explaining something to someone who's not there.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 53:39
Yes, and hearing yourself, say it out loud. Probably achieves a lot of things. But it could be common you're releasing or getting an out of your brain and out saying I made a similar exercise would be you know, writing it down journaling to get whatever that is out onto paper, then you can see it. And maybe for some like sounds like for yourself, it's helpful to for you to say it out loud. And then to hear it.

Scott Benner 54:06
Yeah. Do you know how often this happens to me in the middle of it? I think, gosh, I was wrong about that. Like you can actually you just think something you held like so dear. And then you're like, I'm not right about that. Dammit. And I don't know, it just that's what works for me. But I just want people to do something for themselves. Because your kid getting diabetes can't just be the start of your life or death run across World War One. And then when you get to the end, somebody pat you on the gas and goes, Wow, good job, and then you drop over dead because you just use the last 60 years doing it. I just you know, it can't be like that.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 54:40
And yes, and I would add you know, and I'm so grateful that you shared what those two things that worked for you. I think oftentimes caregivers might feel like if they take a break from caregiving, something's going to happen to their child. And that this this fear of like responsibility and guilts around, what if what if I leave the house for 30 minutes? Is my child going to have a seizure or he's going to go really high and the chances are probably not. But even so that I think they're going to be okay for that short amount of time. And it doesn't have to be a long break. I think finding those windows of time like for you, you had an hour to run out and do the drone, it could be 10 minutes to say, you know what, I'm gonna go do my 10 minute walk around the block. But finding those moments to take care of yourself to step away from the diabetes is really, really crucial. Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:35
I want to say that take it from me, I was the person who used to think I didn't like sleeps not as important for me, I thought after Arden got diabetes, it all of this will catch up to you at some point, if you don't take care of it, it won't, we're not going to escape through like, don't be the person who's like smoking, that doesn't give me lung cancer, it gives everybody lung cancer eventually. So you're like, you know, you're not the special one who doesn't need to sleep eight hours or, you know, can can operate a nine pots of coffee for the rest of their life. It just doesn't work that way. You have to find the balance, you know, do you agree?

Unknown Speaker 56:10
Absolutely. Yes, you might feel sorry, go ahead.

Scott Benner 56:15
I know, I'm sorry. You finished now. So I was gonna say,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 56:18
oh, say I agree. Because it but the initial stages, there is that fear of I can't I can't leave my child. And and maybe that feels like in in the first couple months? That might feel true and is true. But to realize that yeah, that is not sustainable. And to involve other people as needed.

Scott Benner 56:40
No, no, yeah. In the beginning of the Apocalypse, we're all running and screaming. But it's Yeah, point you got to find a building to hide into and let the zombies walk around outside while you chill out. That's all. It's very simple. Now, here's the bigger problem, you came on to talk about two things in the hour that we booked. And now 15 minutes later, we're on to the second. So what do we do?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 57:00
You know, we we while we were I tried to integrate a little bit, you know, we were also talking about just, you know, teenage years. And I feel like we integrated that a little bit into our conversation. But if we want to dive deeper, perhaps we can do that another time. Or if there are questions that come up from your audience, specifically and other topics, we could do that too.

Scott Benner 57:22
Well, I am all for having you back on. So if you're up for it, I'm up for it. It's just you. You're like my, you're like my emotional Jenny. Like to me.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 57:37
Well, thank you, I that's a nice compliment. Yeah, I enjoy being here and chatting with you. And hopefully, you know, helping those who are out there listening, and I'd love to be back. Seriously, I want to

Scott Benner 57:48
wish you a ton of success with your knee surgery. I know you don't know when you're doing it yet. But if you ever want to do a podcast on painkillers, you let me know. Okay. Because I wouldn't be like,

Unknown Speaker 58:00
oh, that would be interesting.

Unknown Speaker 58:03
What should a family do? They should shut up?

Unknown Speaker 58:08
No,

Scott Benner 58:08
not even under drugs? Would you say that? Give me your web address again.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 58:15
Erica foresight.com.

Scott Benner 58:18
And for now you need to be in California if you want to talk with Erica. But yes, through this pandemic, I've just spoken to too many people who are struggling in ways that a lot of us can imagine. And that for each one of them speaking to somebody has been what's helped them so far. You know, there's just no shaman. I mean, you wouldn't you wouldn't break your arm and go I'm not gonna go to a doctor this will probably heal on its own. You know, like if you if you have a problem that you can't deal with on your own, go to a person who can help you deal with it, because it's just, it just when it goes wrong for somebody like psycho when psychological issues go wrong for somebody, they go, they can go really you can just get lost. And like a spiral. Yeah, what I there's a couple of people I'm thinking of that I've spoken to I don't even know how they got back again. It's it's a triumph to get back again. And the truth is they all did it with support of one or multiple people that helped them along.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 59:21
Yes, yeah. I mean, that's and that's really the goal of therapy for you know, from my perspective is restoring that hope, you know, and and, and healing and growth that can occur in an individual and family system, otherwise I wouldn't be doing what I do.

Scott Benner 59:38
Yeah. Well, I appreciate that you that you're doing this one day, you know, a year from now, I'll actually talk to you about your diabetes like you're just like, like you don't know anything about this other stuff. I just said it the Jenny the other day. I said one day we should like interview you like you're a person and not like Jenny a CD and she's like, I am a person and I was like yeah, what can I do that one day and she's like, okay, so um,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:00:00
Yeah, happy happy to do that too. Because Yeah, I'm also i'm also live in Buckhead, and I understand very much all the challenges. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:00:10
Before I let you go, yes. Is it important for someone? Or not important? What's the How do I want to ask this? Is it? Is it extra value that value added for my therapist to have type one? If I'm in there talking about type one? Or do you think that a therapist that doesn't have it can do it justice? Well,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:00:29
you know, I think and there they are, there's trainings, you know, the a DA and APA did trainings for therapists who are specializing and working with, with families with type one. So I think they can provide certainly, you know, expert advice and professional and psychological support. I know that particularly with, with teens, it brings I can validate what they are going through, and they can they understand that I really get it. And so I think that's an extra value add for me just personally working with particularly the teenage population, which was different from maybe someone to say, like, gosh, I really, you know, I don't get what you're going through, but I know it's hard. Yeah. But I think, yes, I certainly there are therapists out there who are excellent, who are trained well, who can provide the support you need who do not have type one, but it can it can help with certain populations. And for people who

Scott Benner 1:01:27
do try therapy, and like my son, they're like, why don't you take the vitamin D every day or every other day? or whatever? Like, how much time do you give it before it builds up some efficacy for you? Like, you can't just go into one session and be like, that's it, I should feel differently, right? And how long until you know, if this therapist that you chose isn't right for you, like, What's that, that soaking in period? Like in the beginning?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:01:52
That's a great question. And I often tell my clients, you know, it, it has to be a great fit for both parties. And usually, I often suggest or encourage them to give it a go at least two times, two sessions, and to see how, because when Usually, the first session has maybe a lot of nerves and just kind of general overview of what their B looks like and feels like. So it's a by two or two, if not, by three sessions, you aren't feeling like your therapist is either meeting our needs are understanding your goals, then it's okay to to move on. And in terms of experiencing efficacy, or some change, or hope that there's going to be change, I often suggest 10, roughly, you know, 10 sessions three months to not only work on building the rapport and trust and identify and then identifying the goals, where do we want to go? What's our hope? And then at the kind of approximate three to four month mark, to take a pause and evaluate, Okay, are we are we going in the right direction? Are you feeling like your needs are being met? These are questions I'd be asking my client. And then by then by the three to 10, six, six month mark, I would hope that my client is is experiencing some change. Oftentimes, you might hear a therapist say it might feel worse before it gets better. Which that that often happens if you're doing a lot of trauma work. And if you're processing maybe the grief around the diagnosis that you have never done, that could feel maybe painful at first. But then the hope is that you would transition slowly into receiving and experiencing healing around that and moving into maybe more acceptance and hope. So that's kind of a general guideline. timeframe. But you know, every every client is different. But I'd say on average, that's, that's what happened. I appreciate that. I

Scott Benner 1:03:51
just wouldn't want somebody to just do it and then leave and go on. Not

Unknown Speaker 1:03:55
all I don't

Scott Benner 1:03:55
feel perfect. Like this didn't work. And I can imagine everything you said and all the different possibilities being true for somebody. So I want just like a general guideline for them to think yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:04:05
Yeah, it does. It does take time to undo, you know, your thinking or your and move to healing. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:14
right. Now listen, it's all just our parents fault. I'm just kidding.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:19
Sometimes, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:04:21
Well, I really appreciate you doing this again. And I will talk to you soon.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:26
Okay.

Scott Benner 1:04:30
First things first, let's thank Dexcom and that g six continuous glucose monitor and remind you to go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Are you looking for a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, or perhaps a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash Hello 30 days. That's one 12th of the Year by omnipod.com Ford slash juicebox. Go find out what you can get. Head over there. It's like One of those crane machines and somebody already dropped the quarter and all you got to do is move the joystick around and see what you get my Omnipod comm forward slash juicebox. Don't forget T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. And of course, thank you so much to Erica for coming on the show. There are links in the show notes, all the sponsors, and a link to Erica, if you're in California, and you'd like to check her out. Thanks so much for listening for the great reviews you've been leaving on your podcast players. And of course, for sharing the show with other people. I really appreciate it when you do that. And when you hit subscribe in your podcast app, I think I just decided how to celebrate 3 million downloads to let me take a look here just real quickly, I won't keep you much longer. You're fine. This one was only an hour, you can do it again. When are we going to hit 3 million. Rough math is about a month from now, about a month from now the show is going to hit 3 million lifetime downloads, which is very, very, very cool and extremely exciting. And I think I know what I'm going to do to celebrate it. I think I'm going to make I don't want to say yet, but I'm going to do something and we'll see if you like it. I always do giveaways and I have to be honest. And only one person gets something and that doesn't seem very celebratory. So I'm going to try to find a way where everybody can have the same thing. We'll see. I'm trying to figure it out. Give me a second. Okay. I'll be back soon. 3 million. It's a big deal. By the way. It's a podcast about type one diabetes, 3 million downloads. Are you kidding me? Gonna have 4 million probably. And I think we definitely hit 4 million this year. Easy. It's just It's crazy. I never imagined first month 2015 January 1000, like 200 downloads or something like that. In a month. I don't even I can't even tell you how many downloads I get in a month now trade secret, but it's a lot. And I wonder if I can find? Hmm, hold on a second. Can I find out exactly how many downloads the podcast had in the first month? I can. I just have to change this to January. If you're still with me, I love you guys. Thanks so much. It's actually March. I started this show in January. But I didn't start it on a service where I could track downloads. I was I did not know what I was doing. Let's just be fair and say that. So maybe March 24 is the first trackable download. So why don't we do April? Even though the show started in January, I just didn't know what I was doing in January. Yeah, I can do this. Hold on a second. I know you're like I already Hold on a second Scott. What the hell but give me a second. Make it how many days are April's that 31 or 30? June to December Maple moon and just I don't even know that Brian. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, what are you gonna do? April 1 to may 1.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:24
Monthly totals.

Scott Benner 1:08:27
Wow, this is crazy. There were days when the show only got 100 downloads a day. Some of these that had like 43 That's so weird. Look at this April. You care about this? April 1 20 1533 downloads. The second nine the third four on the fourth that had 18 all right now just imagine I go forward a day every time I say number 610 34 what even made me keep doing this 109 130 340-617-1627 90 102 152 43

I'm like halfway through April not 2626 Wow. 5724 that's how the whole month goes just like that for for a perspective. Here for perspective, since I started talking about how many downloads there were in April until now. The show has been downloaded 203 times while we were just talking about it. That's crazy, isn't it? It still freaks me out.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:01
Anyway,

Scott Benner 1:10:01
I feeling very celebratory about it. And I've learned I want I want se me there. I was like count Dracula's like I want to tell you about the thing I want to celebrate somehow. So I think I have an idea. People online helped me with what they want me to put it together, I should be able to announce it very, very soon. It's not that exciting, but I think you'll like it. And that's it. All right. We excited? Good. I want to do the thing. I turned into Dracula from a 50s movie there for a second. Anyway, wasn't Erica great. While we're still chatting. I love her. She's coming back again. I'm gonna make her come back. I can't actually make her. That's not how the world works. But I asked her and she said yes already. So she's coming back. Oh, one last thing. I was supposed to put this the front of the show. I'll do that next time. Each episode has transcripts now at Juicebox podcast.com. So many people ask me for transcripts, and it was a ton of work and not fun. But they're there. They're there. hate it when I say that. But they're on Juicebox podcast.com. Now so you go to this specific episode, link for the episode you're listening to you scroll down a little bit. Christ let me look. I didn't mean to curse. Hold on. Juicebox Podcast calm scroll down. Like here's the last episode, falling forward. Number 444. I click on it. The episode page comes up. Scroll down, tells you a little bit about the episode shows you some places you can listen on different apps, you can actually listen right there, there's a player. Then it says click for episode transcript. This is above the sponsor. So if you get to the sponsors Dexcom touch by type one on the pod T one D exchange de vocht. glucagon and the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. You've scrolled down too far, scroll back up to where it says click for episode transcript. When you click on that, it opens up words everywhere. There's a tiny disclaimer at the top. And I'll tell you why. Because the transcripts of the transcripts are being done with artificial intelligence. They're not perfect. So just as this text is the output of an AI based transcribing from an audio recording, although the transcript is largely accurate, in some cases, it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcript errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes medical advice, blah, blah, blah. And then it's a transcript. Scott Benner Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 440. For me, talkie talkie all of a sudden Jeff comes up. My name is Jeff. I'm 34 years old. I've been typing. Every episode has this. There's a couple that have it that don't have it still. If you find one that doesn't please email me and let me know. But otherwise, to all the people out there that asked for transcripts. They're there. Go get them. I hope they make your life better. I sincerely do. That's definitely a no no. I'm going bye

#444 Falling Forward

Growing up with Type 1 Diabetes

Jeff was diagnosed as a child, today as an adult he describes his life with type 1 diabetes.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode 444 of the Juicebox Podcast. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. g evoke hypo Penn, Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box. Today's episode is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, you can find out more about ardens meter at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. And don't forget about touched by type one. Learn more about that touched by type one.org on Instagram, or Facebook.

Face shows with Jeff. He's a type one who was diagnosed at a younger age, and then had a number of life issues pop up. A lot of them actually, he does a great job of taking us through them and sharing his emotions.

Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. As you're listening around the podcast, don't forget to check out the defining diabetes episodes. And those diabetes pro tip episodes. You can find them both right here in your podcast player, or a diabetes pro tip.com. And of course everything's available at Juicebox. Podcast calm.

Jeff Flaxman 2:07
My name is Jeff flaxman. I'm 34 years old have been type one diabetic since I was 12. If I was better at math, I'd tell you the year but I gotta think back through but I was in sixth grade when it happened around Easter and, and managing it since pretty much by myself. Wow.

Scott Benner 2:24
Yeah. And we'll dig into that in a second. But I have to let you know that every time I see your name pop up on my calendar, the Beatle song tax man runs through my head. So I'm glad. I'm glad you said your letter that makes sense to you that every

Jeff Flaxman 2:36
one last name.

Scott Benner 2:37
I just hear the very like, I'm the tax man. Every time I say it, I'm like, Ah, that's gonna fill my head up now for the next 20 minutes. So I'm glad to get this one out of the way so that I can move. Yeah, we

Jeff Flaxman 2:49
can cross that off your list then

Scott Benner 2:50
and move to a different Beatle song. Anyway, so let's see, you have quite a story, Jeff.

Jeff Flaxman 2:57
Yeah, I've had some ups and downs.

Scott Benner 2:59
Yeah. Where are you now just so that as we get 20 minutes into this people aren't, you know, starting a GoFundMe for you or something like that things? Oh, no, no, no,

Jeff Flaxman 3:08
things are fantastic. Now I'm married my wife, we've been together since 2011. So nine years, I've got a five year old daughter's two year old son, both of which are not diagnosed as of this time with type one, but it's always in the back of my mind. Working successfully, I think I teach Middle School in the middle of a pandemic. So it's a lot of fun. Okay, all right, good.

Scott Benner 3:29
Well, I just wanted to do I, you know, I'm not I don't, I don't want by the time we're done the third part of your story. I don't want everybody to be like, oh my this poor guy. So you're good. So but you still have quite a tail. Alright, so let's start again, you were diagnosed in just a sixth grade. Sixth grade, it

Jeff Flaxman 3:46
was April of God 1234. Sometime in the late

Scott Benner 3:52
90s. Sometime in the late 90s. Excellent. You're in sixth grade. I'm going to do by my thinking on that and say that most people are five and kindergarten. And then six plus five is 11. So I'm going to put you around 11 years old. Okay. All right. seem fair.

Jeff Flaxman 4:08
No, I was 12. Because after my birthday in sixth 12 perfect.

Scott Benner 4:12
All right. Okay, everybody. So Jeff's going along living his life. Happy birthday. They sing the song, they eat the cake, and he gets the diabetes. Do you remember much about the but not what you wish for? Would you blow out the candles? I imagine?

Jeff Flaxman 4:24
No, no, not a bit. No, it was a near Easter. And I remember distinctly is my brother always reminds me of it because my diagnosis fell just before his 15th birthday. So he lets me know I ruined his 15th birthday party by being in the hospital. He couldn't have his friends over couldn't have his party because of me. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:43
It's nice to have a brother, isn't it? Yeah, I

Jeff Flaxman 4:45
mean, he's a great guy. I do. I love him very much, but that's just our relationship. The diagnosis came on. I had started wrestling at that time, which is a pretty demanding physical sport. And after the season ended, I just kind of crashed like before. I couldn't do much constantly tired and just had one of those, like a week long what I thought was the flu what my mom thought was the flu at that time. So it's just you know, you stay in the couch, you feel awful, miserable, can't get up, can't do anything. But I had to go to the bathroom a lot, because you know, the diabetes. And then at one point, it just got, I guess I was probably close to DK, I don't remember. And I just remember what I was saying. That's it. We're going to the hospital. Let's go. But that's

Scott Benner 5:28
scary for parents. They're really you know, now you have kids, you can really imagine if your kid was just lethargic and lying around, you know, how long before you just were like, Oh, geez, this is this is something

Jeff Flaxman 5:41
terrifying? I don't know. I mean, when my youngest was like three months old, he hit one of those fevers above the doctor level. So we had to take him to the ER two in the morning. And that was a horrifying six hours. I couldn't imagine what this would be for my parents. Yeah.

Scott Benner 5:56
Yeah. The first time your kid gets a high fever, you start imagining their heads soft boiling inside of their skulls. And you're Oh,

Jeff Flaxman 6:02
yeah, I mean, worst case scenario instantly.

Scott Benner 6:05
goes, Yeah, it's interesting how you're, you know, you jumped to the worst conclusion. Well, luckily, your mom jumped to that conclusion that got you to the hospital.

Jeff Flaxman 6:12
Yeah, we got there. And it was I remember that I mean, a wave of doctors swarming around me, and probably within the first minute of being there. I heard him say diabetes. Hmm. And maybe 10 minutes after that I was in an ambulance going to a major hospital, where I met, which I hadn't mentioned is the Chicagoland area. So Lutheran generals were I was folding diagnosed. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 6:33
Okay. Do you remember much about the early days of having type one for you, and what that meant, as far as how you managed and you know

Jeff Flaxman 6:43
why, because I was older at 12, I have a very distinct memory of all of it, it was that time, there was NPH. And our insulin is what I was on, take the long acting in the morning. And then I had like a sliding scale. Throughout the day, depending on what I tested that of what I would do before each meal. Not each meal, I think it was just breakfast and dinner, maybe each meal, one of the two. And you'd take that amount. And that week in the hospital, I didn't really get it at first what it meant. Until I had an older I'm guessing he was an endocrinologist came in and just had one of those sit down, come to Jesus conversations with me and 12. And I distinctly recall, he's like, well, this disease basically cuts your lifespan in half. If you take care of yourself, you can make it a little longer if you don't pay attention right now. You'll be dead before 40

Unknown Speaker 7:36
knows Oh, okay.

Scott Benner 7:39
So he wasn't dressed like a clown or anything like that. He wasn't Oh,

Unknown Speaker 7:43
no, it wasn't a patch

Scott Benner 7:44
that wasn't there that day. He wasn't going for as well. So interesting. He he went for I'll shock you into it, which I've heard from a lot of people is not a valuable management tool from doctors. But how did it work on you, maybe it works perfectly on you. Ah,

Jeff Flaxman 8:00
it worked really well, that honeymoon period, the first few months of having it, I was awesome. at it. Like numbers, were always good constantly testing, writing it down in this little Journal of what we need to have there. And I remember at that time, we didn't go to an endocrinologist, my family doctor took over managing my diabetes care. And they did a great job. Well, you do all the people, they're pretty close. But looking back on it, I want to ask my parents, what the heck are you thinking? Why didn't we go to a real endocrinologist for this stuff for how serious it was? But 12? I didn't know the difference. Sure. But that first one, he came back in the low fives that I had during that honeymoon period to where they're like, Oh, he's so good at this. This is great. Forget testing twice a day, you can probably test three times every two days, and you'll be good. And so that was it. So back then, that was the level of knowledge. And also I guess you're not in an endos office. Right? So yeah, yeah. So I think there's a little delay there for it. But I didn't really have serious lows or serious hires. I mean, it would roller coaster constantly. And now that I have a CGM and I'm using that I I can't imagine what was going on in the in between times, there has to be 36 hours without a check.

Scott Benner 9:16
So you were basically honeymooning, which we all kind of now understand is just a time where your pancreas is just working for a while off and on, like sputtering to its to its end until that organ became useless, right. And the By the way, for the people listening who know that the pancreas still does some things after it doesn't make insulin anymore. I know we all know just

Unknown Speaker 9:38
I know that. I only look at it through the diabetes.

Scott Benner 9:40
Yeah, useless for diabetes, let's call it that. useless for insulin. So but I'm just fascinated by that. The idea that they didn't understand that this was going to, you know, get worse at some point, you know, and your pancreas was not going to be helping anymore, and so they tell you the exact wrong thing. Which is you don't even have to Look that off and just maybe a couple of times every three days when really what you should have been doing is looking more frequently. Right when this happened, and on top of it, it was

Jeff Flaxman 10:08
there. I was being taught to like I was a type two at that time.

Unknown Speaker 10:12
Yeah.

Jeff Flaxman 10:12
You probably say new most being a family practice.

Scott Benner 10:15
Late 90s. Doesn't seem like that long ago to me

Jeff Flaxman 10:20
that long either. But I'm 34 now 12.

Scott Benner 10:24
Just like it is not long ago. I'm halfway to old.

Jeff Flaxman 10:28
Sunday. It's not really

Scott Benner 10:29
No, no, there's once in a while I get up in the morning and my heel and my ankle hurt. And I think, how did that happen?

Jeff Flaxman 10:37
Do I can't place this this bruise. I don't know where it came from.

Scott Benner 10:41
I wasn't running yesterday or anything like that. Like, you know, I didn't jump off of something. I didn't kick anything. It's just doesn't seem right. But no, I mean, I hear you. I'm just saying that. I guess even for me, as somebody who talks to people a lot about this, if you tell me late 90s. There's going to be somebody who diagnoses you in a hospital doesn't insist that you go to an endocrinologist, send you to a GP who doesn't appear to understand diabetes really at all. I just that feels like it would be an older problem. But I'm assuming that stuff still happening. And we just don't think of it that way.

Jeff Flaxman 11:18
I mean, it probably does in some places where it's still there. Yeah. It's medical care is not exactly consistent across the 50 states.

Scott Benner 11:25
No kidding. Okay, so there you go here, do you? Do you then slip into this idea of we'll just look every once in a while. And then what happens then? Yeah,

Jeff Flaxman 11:33
I mean, that's what it became, like, Oh, I guess that's okay. So at that point, I'm probably four or five months in, I start, I'm still testing those times a day. But I stopped writing them down because I'm a kid. I'm 12. And I'm not taking the time to do that. Yeah. So I just stopped. And I mean, the the weird thing, we'll get to it, but my parents being divorced, we're not on the same page with that. And they took a very hands off approach and like, well, he's got it. The doctor says his numbers are good. So he can handle it. And I did. And they didn't know anybody else with Type One Diabetes. So there's nothing to compare it to. Right. Right. They had no idea. They heard what they heard from the general practitioner, and he said, things are doing well. He's taking care of himself, we're not concerned.

Scott Benner 12:17
And so that's that.

Jeff Flaxman 12:19
They just my mom, dad, like, well, he seems to have it under control. They had an idea of what was going on. But meal times, I would do the sliding scale correction, I would give all my injections since the day I was diagnosed, they never did those for me. Just

Scott Benner 12:34
that's how it worked. Were they checking in a one See,

Unknown Speaker 12:38
um,

Jeff Flaxman 12:39
the general practitioner did. But I couldn't tell you what the numbers were after that first one, I just know The first one was really low. And then it might have been every six months they check and they won't see after that.

Scott Benner 12:49
But you don't recall anyone saying to you, Hey, this is getting out of hand, or

Jeff Flaxman 12:53
I don't think they ever did. I mean, there were times I might have gotten to low eights type area. throughout those young junior high and early high school years. We'll get to it the story gets more complex, and then a one c testing stops, eventually we'll get to that. Yeah.

Scott Benner 13:08
Well, I just think that I'm trying to I don't know, obviously, but the ADA sets standards for a one C, and doctors who know and doctors who don't know are probably following that they probably just look at that test and go, you know, like, you don't I mean, like you and I now think of a one c? You know, as one of the one of the measurements we use to try to figure out if we're doing a reasonable job, man is

Jeff Flaxman 13:34
a decent benchmark nowadays.

Scott Benner 13:36
Right? Right. But but the I guess my point is, is that it's making me think about like, your story is making me think about Arden being diagnosed with hypothyroidism where there's this range that it says is normal. And I don't know if people understand where normal range comes from for like, you know, your thyroid test, for instance, but it's just a most people tested, fall between here and here. And that makes this the range. So if your number falls in that range, many doctors will just look and say, Oh, you know, the range is, I don't know, five to 10 urinate, you're good. That's it, just you know that that's how it works when when they don't have a real drill down understanding of what they're looking at. They're just really looking at a number from a test and a number on a chart and you fall into that number and I'm wondering how much of that didn't happen to you and doesn't still happen to people where maybe back then the ADA had a once he said it eight or I don't know where

Jeff Flaxman 14:35
I couldn't tell you what it was seen eights in there like sometimes he would say well, you seem to be going a little higher and maybe you should check your blood two hours after you ate a meal.

Scott Benner 14:47
That was it. Like Like a let's see looks a little higher. Let's test a little more frequently.

Jeff Flaxman 14:52
The you want it to be about 150 to 180 after a meal and my 13 year old stupid kid brain there's like yeah, oh Okay, I'll do that every third day. Maybe

Scott Benner 15:03
we'll make that a Thursday thing. And no, I hear so okay, just you know, in perspective like that's it now I don't even know where the you know the quote unquote like the recommended a one C, is it seven now or something like that I'm not even sure.

Jeff Flaxman 15:21
I couldn't tell you I'd imagine seven me my endocrinologist now who I have a good relationship with. I'm in the low sixes running there, and he seems pleased with what's going on. And I'm happy Of course, I'd like to do better, but I'll take a low six.

Scott Benner 15:34
Okay. Yeah, I'm googling right now. I have 2018 here.

This is the actually diabetes.org. So this is the ADA.

Oh, they're just giving you the if you're able to see has been between 5.7 and 6.5. This is probably for type two people. You're pre diabetic. If you have a one save Six, five or higher. You are diabetic health line has from 2018. For years, the American Diabetes Association has recommended that all people with IBS aim for target a one c below 7%. Even more stringent. They're not recommending below. So in 2018, they started recommending below 6.5. But for a while it was seven. I wonder what it was prior is maybe the internet doesn't go back quite far enough on this one for me.

Jeff Flaxman 16:34
Somewhere, but I mean, yeah. Or to a point where there is serious concern.

Scott Benner 16:38
Right? Right. Right. Now here you Okay, so you're chugging along. This is basically how you're living your life with with diabetes.

Jeff Flaxman 16:46
Yeah, I mean, I was carb counting didn't exist then. Or at least not where I was trained. So I was on an exchange diet. So starch, protein, fat, and I was very, and still to this day, very regimented in what I would eat, where I would have the exact same breakfast every day for like two years straight and never change it.

Scott Benner 17:03
Did you ever, like hate that? Or was it just the thing you did? I

Jeff Flaxman 17:09
think I did it first. But it got to a point where it just became so ingrained in me. Even now I'll make my lunch for school, it would be the exact same lunch every single day. I mean, breakfast today was the same as it was the past 20 days, English muffin with peanut butter and coffee and that's just what I go.

Scott Benner 17:30
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I so would love to rerun your life in an alternate reality and see if that's how you if you just love eating like that or if it it's just from the diabetes because I do know people like that I've worked with people who every day they eat the same exact thing and I'm just like it's fine. acid

Jeff Flaxman 20:00
is what I love it. It's just that's, that's normal to me. Yeah, that's what I did my childhood. And the only places it changes is dinnertime because those are more robust meals in our family and even as a child, it was gotcha. Then I would always have highs or lows after dinner because the meal was never consistent, but it never fit.

Scott Benner 20:17
Right, right. So what would you consider to be the first I'm looking for the right word. I don't want to say tragedy, but maybe tragedy is the right way. What, what, what?

Unknown Speaker 20:28
What was let's start going down that rabbit hole.

Scott Benner 20:30
Yeah, what was the first major hiccup I guess, in your life.

Jeff Flaxman 20:35
So we'll backtrack a little bit there. So sixth grade, I get diagnosed, we go all the way back to second grade in school. So four years earlier, my parents split up separated with and it's in the mid 90s. That wasn't that uncommon at that time. Lots of kids had it. And I think in no disrespect at all, but the best way to describe my mother was a sometimes functional alcoholic, I think is the best way to say it. Okay.

Scott Benner 21:02
So meaning that sometimes she was blackout drunk.

Jeff Flaxman 21:06
Yes. Sometimes she was out of it. And in second grade I, I was well aware of what was going on at that time. I know my dad would kind of hint and asks, How is mom today? And we'd say, Oh, it's a good day. It's a rough day. type thing.

Unknown Speaker 21:17
I tell you, Jeff, there were other girls, but this is the one I fell in love with. Sorry, buddy. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 21:24
mean, I

Jeff Flaxman 21:25
never got that into it. My dad was trying the whole custody battle for it. But again, it's the mid to early 90s. Dads don't win custody battles very often. Right? It just it wasn't gonna happen. He was probably a more qualified parent looking back at it.

Scott Benner 21:40
Can I? Can I ask you real quick? How involved? Were you in the drinking? Like, did she did you? Were you pouring drinks or

Jeff Flaxman 21:48
bringing mommy I was never She. She always tried to mask it and hide. Okay. My brother and I brothers older. We always knew like we were well aware. And there were times as I got older, it got pretty confrontational where I would find her bottle of wine and just dump it in the sink and be a fight. And I'm an 11 year old kid doing this. Yeah. Like I'm not dealing with this today.

Scott Benner 22:10
And that really is how I felt like if I get rid of this wine today, it'll be easier.

Jeff Flaxman 22:13
Yeah, today, it'll be easier. Yeah. It was kind of a constant. But by no means Was she a bad mother. I mean, we still had food on our plate. Every dinner we were still taking care of and well, we weren't rich by any means. But you weren't poor.

Scott Benner 22:25
But she was struggling with alcoholism. Like very mightily

Jeff Flaxman 22:29
other substances to she she likes to she smokes quite a bit.

Unknown Speaker 22:32
She saw. That

Scott Benner 22:34
was the least of her. I just have to ask you. Yeah, maybe I don't maybe you made it clear. Just you're just talking about weed, right? Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. Okay. All right. So

Jeff Flaxman 22:43
then I, it was explained to me. Oh, shoot this layer. That's fine, though. It was African violence we had growing in our backyard sometimes. Oh,

Scott Benner 22:51
is that how it was? Told you?

Jeff Flaxman 22:53
Yeah, that's what it was. It's like, Yeah, okay. I'm sure that's what it is.

Scott Benner 22:56
I have one on my windowsill in my kitchen. I hope my kids don't want they believe that I was running a small train. Don't let them listen to this. They might get confused about that. God, if my kids end up listening to this, I'm dead and they just miss me. Okay, sorry.

Jeff Flaxman 23:15
I'm pretty scarred to this. Now, but that's fine. No, Jeff. I

Unknown Speaker 23:18
didn't mean I didn't mean not thinking okay. All right.

Jeff Flaxman 23:22
No, so the divorce was probably the early one. And that that was rough to deal with. But I had gotten used to it. Like I just grew to accept. That's what it is every other weekend and Wednesdays are with my dad. Other days. I'm with my mom. We live in the same town. It's constant. Like those two, it's those the type of divorce where you didn't want to be in the same room as the two.

Scott Benner 23:43
Yeah, my parents had

Unknown Speaker 23:45
co parenting

Scott Benner 23:46
as you'd say today, right? No, my parents had one of those. And I felt like it. It was really difficult on me for a large number of years. And oh, yeah, it didn't, it just it doesn't just go away. Whenever, you know, everybody settles into their new life. It wasn't it definitely wasn't like that. I think I've told people before here, like I used to wake up in the middle of the night and stare out a window on the second floor. And every time a car would drive by, and the lights would appear before the car would appear. I would let myself believe That was my dad coming home. So I could feel better for a couple of seconds before, before the car would drive past the house. And back to like, you know, harder than that would lead me downstairs to dig into the back of a coat closet, the plot of family portrait that my mom hidden, I would just stare at it for a little while till I felt better and go to bed. And I was only like maybe 13 then. So that was you know, I don't think people understand what they mean when they say we're gonna get divorced. It'll be better for the kids. Actually, what would be better for the kids if you stop yelling at each other and

Unknown Speaker 24:49
just figured it

Scott Benner 24:54
would be better together? Yeah, get me out of here and then do your thing. Whatever you're gonna do, you've been in it this long. But anyway,

Jeff Flaxman 25:04
if the divorce was the constant that happened, we knew it was there. My dad had a constant battle to try and win custody. And it's just, it wasn't in the cards for whatever reason. Maybe a mom had a better lawyer, I don't really know, I was too young to understand that she kind of kept us out of it. It just never happened.

Scott Benner 25:22
And, and you were about how old while this is going on just because I'm trying to move. So

Jeff Flaxman 25:28
second grade. I think you're eight or nine, somewhere in that range.

Scott Benner 25:34
It's all up and so your dad kind of gives up on the custody thing at some point in that eight, nine year range? Well, no, he never gave Oh, no. No kid with a constant constant

Jeff Flaxman 25:44
fight. Like eventually, it got to the point where he'd get a whole week, a month on top of all that, or half the summer he got more and more visitation and stuff and we keep fighting for it, but never never got the overall win. Wow. He

Scott Benner 25:56
really was trying. That's great. Yeah, yeah. Good for him. Well, that's, that's lovely, actually. Okay, so we're gonna go forward. Yeah. We're gonna call divorce. Tragedy one, I think we're gonna call diabetes tragedy, too. Yeah. Third,

Jeff Flaxman 26:12
when we move forward to eighth grade, I'm pretty well managed by now. Things are going well. My dad started the online dating world. And you know, AOL, if you remember that you go to your message board. So he was a single parent message board and found a bunch of girls started talking to them instant messaging before there was he online dating eHarmony. He found some girlfriend that way. He just he was, she had four boys of her own. And then they were end of eighth grade year, they bought a house, they were gonna move in together. Me and my brother are four step brothers, all of us. We're going to be together.

Scott Benner 26:50
For a while. We're going to move in, like full time. We're not just just, yeah. So just the time that he had you for Okay.

Jeff Flaxman 26:58
Yes. Well, it makes it messy. My brother who was 17 could have moved into full time. He could have gone to court and said I'm done with you, Mom, I believe in. But he didn't

Scott Benner 27:08
stand behind for you. Did you ever think you guys were talking about it?

Jeff Flaxman 27:12
We did. And eventually we'll see. He made the choice to leave.

Scott Benner 27:15
Yeah. I it's hard not to everything. Oh, yeah. And

Jeff Flaxman 27:21
may, April, May of that eighth grade year before graduation? My dad gets diagnosed with lung cancer.

Unknown Speaker 27:28
Yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 27:31
Well, I guess let's just hit the Was it a shock to him? Or, you know, was he a smoker and was like, Oh, I got

Jeff Flaxman 27:38
heavy heavy smoker, work construction. So you've got both of those working against them. Right? how all of us were caught off guard by No kidding.

Scott Benner 27:46
How old was he around that? 4747. Okay, so a young man ends up with lung cancer double, or do you remember?

Jeff Flaxman 27:54
It was one but it was stage three at the time? I think four.

Scott Benner 27:59
So how does he talk to you about that?

Jeff Flaxman 28:02
Um, just kind of sat us down and told us he's like, Look, this is it. I'm gonna do the chemo. We're gonna move through it. And we're optimistic.

Scott Benner 28:11
Yeah. How much understanding Did you have that? It might not? end? Well for him?

Jeff Flaxman 28:17
I'm about a month and a half in,

Unknown Speaker 28:20
we figured it out.

Unknown Speaker 28:22
Could you just see him declining?

Jeff Flaxman 28:24
Oh, it was it was quick. Yeah. got diagnosed. And then three months later, and the summer he passed. Okay.

Scott Benner 28:32
Ah, all right. So how does that one mean, I guess I'm it's hard. I'm running through it in my head. I guess the biggest impact to you besides your dad being gone, which was obviously the largest impact is that you're now with your mom full time and there's nowhere to go right? Or does the orders. Did your dad ever get married to the woman that he was what he

Jeff Flaxman 28:51
did? He got married to my stepmom and she stayed.

Scott Benner 28:55
Okay. So did you continue to see her?

Jeff Flaxman 28:59
Well, the court said we couldn't, but I just did it anyways.

Scott Benner 29:05
Were you like living close enough to each other that you could make your way?

Jeff Flaxman 29:09
It wasn't the same district so it would be from school. So I went to high school. Some days I tell my mom, I'm staying at my stuff. I'm staying and I'd stay there. And then the next day I take the bus back home my mom's house and go back and forth. It was freshman year.

Scott Benner 29:26
Did your mom fight you on that? Or do you think it was like he gave her the night off?

Unknown Speaker 29:30
She loose functioning she

Jeff Flaxman 29:32
had lost a lot more control the disease by them first. Okay. All right. She been further and further. How is

Scott Benner 29:39
all this impacting your, your type one care? Like I'm trying to imagine you fitting that into all of that chaos?

Jeff Flaxman 29:47
It was rough. Like I mean, I still because I was so regimented. I still followed I eat this at this time I do this testing. I stopped testing as much I had One kind of scary low spell, I remember that my brother woke me up out of. And then here drink this orange juice, you moron, you'll be fine. That mean, besides that one low it was, I'm not gonna say it was well managed, but to my knowledge at the time it was well,

Scott Benner 30:17
so you're up to your expectations. So what

Unknown Speaker 30:20
was that go into? What

Scott Benner 30:21
was that really the focus that? Don't get dizzy don't pass out. And you're doing well?

Jeff Flaxman 30:27
Yeah, I mean, I can tell when it was really, really high blood sugar because the urination and everything which now I realize, Oh, that's just because ketones was spilling over and my my liver is slowly killing myself right now.

Scott Benner 30:38
Hmm. So you didn't correct those situations though, right? You just knew your blood sugar. No, the idea

Jeff Flaxman 30:42
of a corrective Bolus just didn't cross my mind. And I say Bolus, but that doesn't. It wasn't a Bolus didn't cross my mind. Like if I was high. I'm like, Alright, so I take a little more in the sliding scale. I'll check again in the morning. And I waited up. That was

Scott Benner 30:57
it. So it's, it's next time I'll be a little more aggressive because I can because I'm peeing a lot right now. And I know I'm high.

Jeff Flaxman 31:03
Yeah. So I know, I need to take more at the next meal. I'll bump up that sliding scale. And I think, gosh, by that time, I wasn't mph. And our I don't know if you know they had that like 7030 blend, or is like the mix. And I was taking that one at that time through a pen, which was much more convenient.

Scott Benner 31:19
Wow. It's so interesting that your experience with diabetes mirrors my friend Mike's So specifically, I'm I'm always going to be sorry that I didn't get him on here to talk about it. But he passed away last year. Oh, I'm

Unknown Speaker 31:32
terribly sorry. No, no,

Scott Benner 31:34
I thank you. But he he is experienced, it's just so like it. It makes me feel like this was just the time with diabetes. And this is just how it was done. And and I know

Jeff Flaxman 31:46
there was better because I know pump technology was starting to come out. I mean, this is my dad passed in 2000. So the early stages. I mean, they've been there for a while, but they're starting to become more and more mainstream at that time.

Scott Benner 31:59
Okay, but but nobody was talking. Yeah,

Jeff Flaxman 32:02
it just wasn't even brought up that idea. Wasn't there? Like I'd heard about it in the magazine. Like that's stupid. I don't want to be a robot.

Scott Benner 32:09
Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. All right, Jeff. Yeah, let me wrap my head around this for a second throwing a morning. Cheese. Sometimes I do these more midday and I'm a little more awake. I'm not not awake right now. But it's, um, you know, this is the part in the show where, you know, like a secondary character comes in and has like a happy moment so that we all don't look for a window to jump out and

Unknown Speaker 32:37
we'll get there. Yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 32:41
I'm sorry about your father, your father passes away from lung cancer. Sounds quick. Not that this matters. But Mike's dad passed away from cancer around the same time very quickly. He says, I'm just now realizing that I met my wife in probably around 94. ish. And she was still in college. And I remember being I was visiting her. She went to college about an hour and a half away. And I think everyone knows what I mean. When I say I was visiting Kelly at college. I was visiting Kellyanne Conway,

Jeff Flaxman 33:15
you guys are playing straight like it

Scott Benner 33:17
get what right? Yeah, we were just go fish a lot of times, and then right to charades. Then I would go home. And Mike called and said, Excuse me. My dad has cancer. He thought he had a hernia. So he went to the doctor. And I remember Mike going and he did have a hernia. I was like, okay, yes, but he also had non Hodgkins lymphoma. And he went from like this big robust guy, to just, I mean, he shrunk to a shrunk away and died. And in two months, you know. And yeah, it was it was really something. And Mike's mom passed away a number of years later from cancer as well. But anyway, I remember driving feverish Lee home through like a state and a half to get to Mike to talk to him. And it had to have been just a couple years before you were experiencing this. But at a younger age, Mike and I were We were in our early 20s. At that point, anyway. Okay, so you're trying your best to stay with your stepmother as much as you can. Your mom? Yeah, I mean, it's lining.

Jeff Flaxman 34:26
It's a rough mix, because at that time, my brother was a senior in high school, and he just moved out of my mom's house, he never went back.

Scott Benner 34:33
Okay. And for all the reasons for all imagining,

Jeff Flaxman 34:36
yeah, so he and I talked a lot. And we communicate. We both did the same sports in school on the same teams. But he just said, I'm not going back there. And I had to,

Scott Benner 34:47
yeah, was there ever any conversation of like, I wish you could come with me.

Jeff Flaxman 34:52
Or if we didn't, we kept our emotions to yourself. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 34:58
We're not to this point. matters. But where does the senior in high school go to live when he leaves his house?

Unknown Speaker 35:05
When he left my stepmom,

Scott Benner 35:06
he Oh, he actually went there and she Yeah,

Jeff Flaxman 35:08
okay, you just stay there. We all had rooms there. He just stayed and never left and my mom was too far down that alcohol pipe. She couldn't fight it.

Scott Benner 35:17
Gotcha. I understand. What's it like living at home with your mom by yourself?

Unknown Speaker 35:25
Um,

Jeff Flaxman 35:26
it was hectic. But that's the best way to say it. It was rough. I, we had gotten to a point we understood each other pretty well, we still would joke and have fun. And I just knew like, well, you're drinking so I'm gonna play video games or hang out with my friends or do my own thing. I'll wake up when I need to catch the bus by myself. I I had it figured out by them.

Scott Benner 35:47
And I'll get older one day, and I'll leave like my brother did.

Unknown Speaker 35:49
Right. And like, and

Jeff Flaxman 35:50
eventually I'll just get older. And that'll be the end of it.

Scott Benner 35:52
I see. Was she working?

Unknown Speaker 35:56
Yes.

Scott Benner 35:58
Trying to imagine how you're getting your medical

Jeff Flaxman 36:00
blueprint company. She worked in ran blueprints that have prints art supply store?

Scott Benner 36:05
I say okay, so enough that she could pay for your insulin and that sort of stuff.

Jeff Flaxman 36:09
Yeah. Well, my father's Carpenter union, like insurance kept and then the all that pension stuff. So money was there for my brother. Okay,

Scott Benner 36:19
okay. Were you in charge of going, like, making doctor's appointments and getting your medications and things like that?

Jeff Flaxman 36:26
No, that again, that's the functional part. She still kept all that together.

Scott Benner 36:30
Okay. She's trying. I mean, I guess for people who don't under like, don't see alcoholism, as a, as a disease would probably be like, what, you know, how could you do this, but she's in her lucid moments, doing her best to take care of what she thinks of as your most pressing needs. Correct. Gotcha. Wow, that's really kind of pretty beautiful, you know, in a strange, strange way.

Jeff Flaxman 36:54
Yeah. in a weird way, but it is. Not. I

Scott Benner 36:56
mean, you know what I mean? Like, it's just, I mean, imagine, imagine having a couple of minutes of looseness, you know, in a day, and when that happens, your your responsibility kicks in, you say, you know, I have to get Jeff, insulin and stuff like that. That's really, um, it's a it's a, it's an interesting look into, into what it feels like to have a kid I guess, you know, even when you're strung because you, you know, it's, it really is interesting, right? If your mom had some sort of adult debilitating cancer that wasn't going to kill her, for example, and she only had a couple hours a day where she could function. No one listening would think, oh, how could she do that? They'd be like, Wow, what a hero. You know,

Jeff Flaxman 37:42
when they relate to the alcohol, that's the stigma connected to the disease. Right?

Scott Benner 37:45
Right. Yeah. Something. Okay. All right, Jeff. Let's not, let's not how much longer Does your mom last?

Jeff Flaxman 37:53
Well, about a year. Okay. She gets into a pedestrian accident crossing the road gets hit by a guy.

Scott Benner 38:02
Well, I wasn't expecting that, Jeff. Yeah, it was rough. Wow. I'm sorry. Ah, I you know, I just felt like we were building to you know, something else. Oh, my God.

Unknown Speaker 38:15
No, it was quick.

Scott Benner 38:16
Were you with you weren't with her. Were you know, No,

Jeff Flaxman 38:19
I wasn't home. She went out and Oh,

Scott Benner 38:23
my God. Now you're by yourself. How old?

Jeff Flaxman 38:26
Um, shoot me thinking that sophomore? I would have been

Unknown Speaker 38:32
15

Scott Benner 38:33
Are you okay? By the way while we're talking?

Jeff Flaxman 38:36
It's coming and going.

Unknown Speaker 38:37
I'll be right. Okay.

Scott Benner 38:39
I just listened for everybody else. This was Jeff's idea. Okay, he reached out to me. I'm not torturing him. He wanted to be on the boat. I did this to myself. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, Oh, my God. Oh, that's terrible. Okay, so, who handles a funeral when there's a 15 year old at home and a senior in high school? Who's not living at home? Like, is that follows family plan? Yeah, family came in. When that happens. Is there any noise from your sister? Like, I'm gonna take care of you now from her sister about like, who like was there a will like who you left to?

Jeff Flaxman 39:17
Well, that was the elephant in the room. That was the weird thing. I was at the hospital because the police came brought me there. And they asked who can we call? So I knew we had family friends that were close. And I said call them

Scott Benner 39:31
yeah. You really didn't even feel like you had anybody left right.

Jeff Flaxman 39:37
Yeah, that form I stepped out there with the two but brain just didn't go to step on that time. It went to my family friends. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 39:44
Okay. Were you in a home were you renting? No, it was

Jeff Flaxman 39:51
a home my parents owned Okay, we're not own the bank owned it but we were there making payments.

Scott Benner 39:57
What happens to that house is it just get absorbed by the bank?

Jeff Flaxman 40:02
Um, no, my aunt put together everything and sold it.

Unknown Speaker 40:07
She was and that

Scott Benner 40:09
money goes to I'm assuming debt and then to you and your brother

Jeff Flaxman 40:12
debt first so most of it debt and the rest was split between my brother.

Unknown Speaker 40:17
Okay? Wow

Jeff Flaxman 40:21
I'm my brother's in college so he can't afford a house or anything and he's going through what a college freshman goes through so he's got his own hobbies you call him out in school? All right. Well not bad but you know the college experience.

Scott Benner 40:35
Yeah, no, I understand. Yeah, there's he's, he's focused on other things. And where do you go to live? That family

Jeff Flaxman 40:43
I went home with that night I just they took me on. Wow, that's

Scott Benner 40:49
that do you bounce around from there? Because, you know, I

Jeff Flaxman 40:53
actually stay with them. I don't keep traveling back and forth to my mom's at that time.

Scott Benner 40:57
Okay. It was was your mom's death the end of your relationship with your stepmother?

Jeff Flaxman 41:05
No, no, I was with her. She comes into the store again, I'm

Scott Benner 41:07
a little bit worried. Okay. Geez, you really should write all this down, by the way, cuz this isn't

Unknown Speaker 41:13
nice. I've tried

Scott Benner 41:15
at least a season and a half of the Friday Night Lights TV show for one of the characters so you could kind of there I can see it. Yeah, no kidding. We just put a football game around this and some sad music. And I think we'd be okay,

Jeff Flaxman 41:27
Texas, playing in the Qatar summer. And I

Unknown Speaker 41:29
really feel like this would work. Like goodness.

Jeff Flaxman 41:34
A new family takes me in Yeah. They try to understand diabetes, they transition me to a new doctor. The benefit at this time because I'm technically an orphan, I guess you'd say free healthcare from the state that that's

Scott Benner 41:48
finally something good happens.

Jeff Flaxman 41:50
program. Everything's covered. I'd pay a dime for anything ever.

Scott Benner 41:54
Does that lead you to? When do you get to a more modern way of management? When do you start counting carbs? And oh, God,

Jeff Flaxman 42:03
not till after college?

Scott Benner 42:04
No kidding. Okay. All right. It's like

Jeff Flaxman 42:05
2000 to 2008 2009 when I started counting carbs, and we're only in 2001 right now.

Scott Benner 42:12
So these next few years, are you living with this family who bring who brought you in and finishing high school?

Jeff Flaxman 42:17
I lived with them for a year. And then they had a family strife, a divorce there. And I just said, You know what, I don't need this again. And we agreed I just moved in with my stepmom for the rest of high school there. She took me

Scott Benner 42:28
was that was that traumatic to watch the family that took you in? start experiencing the things where your life started to unwind years earlier?

Unknown Speaker 42:37
Not really.

Unknown Speaker 42:39
No, you weren't?

Unknown Speaker 42:40
I think I'd

Unknown Speaker 42:41
become numb to it by that.

Scott Benner 42:42
Okay. And so I have to ask you at this point, are you doing anything to help yourself that? I shouldn't have said Help yourself. But are you? are you managing your pain anyway? Are you doing drugs? Are you drinking? Like, are you how are you handling everything that's happening to you?

Jeff Flaxman 43:00
None of it I I started working a part time job at a local restaurant and just I focused myself on work on school on sports, and that was my escape.

Scott Benner 43:12
And that's just sort of your personality to this day.

Jeff Flaxman 43:15
I mean, I drink now so but I'm also 34. But I know I never went in. I guess the call that the amazing part. I just never saw that as an option. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 43:26
Well, that's excellent. I doesn't occur to me. My life's not been great. A lot of different junctures. And I don't I've never I've never been into numbing myself ever. And I don't know. I'm not I'm not morally opposed to it. If you know what I mean. And I just did yeah. And I just don't, and I never have like even I'll tell you right now I'm I turned 49 the other day. If I've had the equivalent of a case of beer in the last 30 years, I would say that's probably an over exaggeration. Oh, good. No, yeah. I just it just does not occur to me to do and I don't

Jeff Flaxman 44:04
at that time, that my age of 1516 1718 up through high school. I never touched the stuff. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 44:11
I'm friends were you just it was just friends and work and just young friends.

Jeff Flaxman 44:18
Sports, some video games here and there.

Scott Benner 44:20
And take care your diabetes.

Jeff Flaxman 44:22
Oh, wasn't perfect in school, but maintained right?

Scott Benner 44:26
GPA? Hmm, is this how do you how do you decide that you want to be a teacher? When does that pop into your head?

Jeff Flaxman 44:33
Um, throughout late high school, I had some good teachers there and I'm like, wow, these guys get it. They talked to me like I'm an adult and I think I could do this. Wow. Okay.

Scott Benner 44:43
And is it a conscious feeling of like, there are gonna be other kids like me one day and they're gonna need somebody like these people.

Jeff Flaxman 44:50
Well, that's a lot of it's like, I can reach an audience of kids. Most teachers can't, because they don't have the shared experience. Right.

Scott Benner 44:57
Are you still in the Chicago area Yeah,

Jeff Flaxman 45:00
we're in the northwest suburbs there. So about a, I don't know, 4050 miles out of the city. Okay. All right.

Scott Benner 45:08
So you go to college for you get into college

Jeff Flaxman 45:13
at Eastern Illinois. So down here you buy champagne. And start as a history major, because I loved history. But early on, I realized the heck am I going to do with a history degree? I mean, that's not really a applicable job skill. And I'm sorry, to anyone who's listening. But I don't know what you do with a history degree besides become a professor or a teacher. So that's the world I went.

Scott Benner 45:35
Yeah. Yeah, I guess poetry maybe would be along there to

Jeff Flaxman 45:39
possibly it's in there.

Scott Benner 45:41
Although Wouldn't it be nice to just pick something like that and just sort of lose yourself studying,

Jeff Flaxman 45:46
get through historic documents understand the past and make a living wage doing it? It would have been great, but it just wasn't feasible, not how it works. Yeah.

Scott Benner 45:54
Do you meet your wife in college?

Jeff Flaxman 45:57
I do. We meet early on in high school in college freshman year. And hit it off pretty well dated the whole time through and kind of ever since. So we've been together since 2004. How slowly

Scott Benner 46:08
do disseminate your life story to someone when you meet them like this?

Jeff Flaxman 46:12
Ah, just sprinkle it in. It's like a little bit of salt on a meal there. You don't want to dump it all at once because it ruins it. They get sprinkled in here and there. Yeah,

Scott Benner 46:18
just your six eight months in and you're just like, Oh, you know, like that time my dad got cancer and then you just roll right past. She's like, wait, what do you say?

Jeff Flaxman 46:26
You just drop a little bit and I told her that the big parts of it their parents deceased and all that but kept the details out of it for

Scott Benner 46:33
No kidding. I would make sure she was pretty locked down before I started telling Rob

Jeff Flaxman 46:37
didn't want to scare him away too fast. I'm lucky she decided to stay with me anyways, so I got

the keep that one say without all this. You're saying? Oh yeah, I mean, just my personality and kind of a don't budge. I'm stubborn. And you know what? standard guy thing and she's the same? Yeah. No, I

Scott Benner 46:53
I always wonder when Kelly's gonna grow tired of all this and just be like, Alright, that's enough, buddy. Yeah,

Jeff Flaxman 47:01
this was fun while it lasted.

Scott Benner 47:03
We've had this conversation one too many times. But no, no, that's okay. So you guys meet in college? And does she I'm not looking for where she works. But she have a similar path that she

Jeff Flaxman 47:16
does. Yeah, she's a teacher. Also, she taught for a while. She stays at home with the kids now for a second was born. She taught the elementary grades. So kindergarten and second.

Scott Benner 47:25
Teachers seem to fit together really well.

Jeff Flaxman 47:27
We do. One bonus of this. This COVID time here. My daughter started kindergarten and thank god my wife was a kindergarten teacher.

Scott Benner 47:36
Yes. So she's just so your your poor daughter is getting some one on one attention. Hmm.

Jeff Flaxman 47:41
Yeah, she's, uh, that poor girls gonna be impacted too much by she,

Scott Benner 47:45
she won't know anything. She's just like, I don't know, my mom just pulled out a bunch of papers. And we started going.

Jeff Flaxman 47:51
And we empty the crawlspace and built a little classroom in our dining room the other day. That's really nice.

Scott Benner 47:56
Okay, so you're out of college. Now?

Jeff Flaxman 48:00
Well, in college is where it gets messy to wait, hold

Scott Benner 48:02
on, I'm sorry, something else is gonna happen.

Unknown Speaker 48:05
Not bad, but

Jeff Flaxman 48:06
the insurance and stuff. This is where when I was less than 18 years old, the state covered everything.

Unknown Speaker 48:13
Okay. But

Jeff Flaxman 48:14
as I turn 18, the state does not cover my medicine.

Scott Benner 48:18
And you're in college.

Jeff Flaxman 48:19
And I'm in college and insulin prices aren't what they are now. But they were still expensive. Sure. Well, how do I get the whole like school insurance? Can I get on yours? And like, Well, you could but there's not enough kids that are part of it. Your insulin would not be any cheaper here than it is retail at the store.

Unknown Speaker 48:36
What do you ended up doing?

Unknown Speaker 48:38
I paid for it.

Unknown Speaker 48:40
You were working while you were in school.

Jeff Flaxman 48:43
I was a resident assistant for two years there. And then I stayed summers on campus to work there that whole time and just worked my way through. I mean, I got a lot of grants because of my situation having no parental income. So school was relatively covered by grants and all that was able to skate by

Scott Benner 49:02
by so I'm going to take a detour for a second and ask you sort of a bigger question. Sure. I sometimes look back on my life. I was adopted like it, you know, in the in the first days of my life, my parents divorced when I was young. I became sort of my de facto father for my two younger brothers. I watched my mom struggle I got jobs in places where I didn't fit like I used to work in a sheetmetal shop and I'm not a sheetmetal worker, but I went and I did it you know for five years. Making people listening now would be shocked by this but i think i think i got that job at for 25 an hour. And by the time I left it five years later, I believe I was making 575 an hour so it was a real you know real moneymaker for me.

Jeff Flaxman 49:51
It's a good percentage growth though. If you look at it that way.

Scott Benner 49:53
If you look at it that way, I was really on my way to something. Probably by the time I was 60. I would have been making somewhere in the seven Are $8 range? Nice? Yeah. Oh no, for sure. Really hard work, tough extreme conditions. I didn't belong there not meaning like I was too good for it or anything like that just I didn't have the skill set. I didn't grow up around people who worked with their hands. That I was wrong, I was out, I was a fish out of water. I left that I'm still on the hook to, you know, I used to tease my brothers, I was like, my kids are gonna be great, because I've made every conceivable mistake with you guys. So now I can I can look back and see what's going on. Anyway, there's a trial by fire nature to my life. And there certainly is to yours like you, your life actually makes my life seem like I was part of the Brady Bunch. So how valuable do you think that is? Now as an adult with kids? The struggle?

Jeff Flaxman 50:51
It's tough. Because I, I want to raise them the way I know. But my experience there is they're not shared by other people. So what I think of it, this is what you have to do. These are the essentials. Apparently, I guess I'm asking a lot of my kids at times like, well, this is just what you have to do. There is no choice type thing.

Scott Benner 51:09
So it's skewed. Obviously skewed your understanding of like family life and your that's probably something that you have to work through everyday. But what about you, you personally like? Are you a tough person? Like, could I just pick you up and take you to another country and drop you alone? Where you didn't speak the language? You think you just be okay.

Unknown Speaker 51:28
I'd probably survive. Yeah,

Scott Benner 51:29
yeah. No kidding.

Jeff Flaxman 51:31
I find a way to get through it. I mean, that's that that hardened exterior, I guess, right? Just, I can pretty much take about anything you're gonna throw it.

Scott Benner 51:40
I usually tell people privately, like when the zombies come, you come find me because we're getting through it. You know, like, I'm not going down like that. And I have that sort of like, when things go wrong. I don't think like, I don't have a woe is me feeling ever. I'm always like, okay,

Unknown Speaker 51:59
that's gone.

Scott Benner 52:00
Yeah. How do I attack this? Where do I like where, you know, where's my in here? What can I make work? What am I gonna have to do to get this right for me again. And I know, that's not probably a completely healthy way to live. But I do think it came from how I grew up, I'm imagining you have it a similar,

Jeff Flaxman 52:18
it's that I think about survival mode is what I go into, I

Scott Benner 52:21
look at these are the things that absolutely have to do have to get done. And they will get done. And I'm able to kind of ignore the rest. Do you have any abandonment issues? Like do you feel like your family's about to be taken from you constantly?

Jeff Flaxman 52:33
No, I don't think so at all, I've been very blessed with the people that took me in when they did,

Scott Benner 52:38
yeah, so you have that coverage in your, in your mind, I just I I used to at the very beginning of my marriage, I was very over, aware that like, I never wanted there to be a problem. Because to me, it felt like a problem was gonna just start me down this road that I watched my family go down and didn't end up being the case, obviously, and I don't feel like that anymore. But in the beginning, I just didn't want anybody to fight ever. I was like, if someone fights, you know what's gonna happen, you're gonna move out, this is gonna happen, we're all gonna be broke, my kids are gonna end up raising each other, like you have that like that horrible feeling of like, you know, like, this is gonna repeat itself. I don't feel like that anymore. But I did when I was younger. So I wasn't sure I had that when I was younger. But now I

Jeff Flaxman 53:25
guess I can see through that. And when my wife and I do have an argument, I'm like, Look, this. This is not worth the time. We're spending on it right now. There is so much bigger things and I guess I'm able to move past it.

Scott Benner 53:37
I feel the same. I actually feel like I'm sure everyone does. But if I could just live a couple 100 years, I think I'd be really great. By the time I was like 170 like I really just

Jeff Flaxman 53:46
get figured out there. I

Scott Benner 53:48
really think I'm getting this figured out. Yeah, I just feel like I started in a whole you know, it took a while. Just a

Jeff Flaxman 53:55
few feet behind everyone else. Yeah. Well,

Scott Benner 53:58
that's pretty generous, but I yeah, okay. So when do you guys get married?

Jeff Flaxman 54:04
Oh, we get married in 2011. So that's she graduated college and Oh, wait, I graduated in oh nine because I took a victory lap there. I did. So well. The first four I needed one more year.

Scott Benner 54:19
I didn't leave enough of my money here with your people. Let me

Jeff Flaxman 54:23
Yeah, exactly. Hang on. We got married in 2011. And that's when I was actually able to start looking at diabetes and saying, you know this, it's not going anywhere. I've got the job thing figured out. I've got I'm engaged. I'm going to be married. I guess I should probably figure out this diabetes thing though.

Scott Benner 54:40
Okay. And so in

Jeff Flaxman 54:42
college I and this is going to be awful to anyone in college to hear but I probably tested my blood sugar maybe 6070 times throughout those five years, maybe because test strips were expensive and I knew I needed the insulin I could You'd probably make it without the test strips.

Scott Benner 55:03
Okay, so you just sort of eyeballed it. Like, based on the past, you're like, Oh, I should give myself about this much insulin here and my blood. Yes, probably it

Jeff Flaxman 55:11
was still on the 7030 mix for most of that time there. So

Unknown Speaker 55:16
I'm like, Well, I

Jeff Flaxman 55:17
think we go here it goes, they're on. There were a few more of the dangerous lows and highs a few times there, throughout all that, because that that 7030 mix at a time, it would be like stack on yourself so much of the long acting, and then it would all just dump at one time.

Scott Benner 55:32
How much of your diabetes was your girlfriend in college, like aware of?

Unknown Speaker 55:37
Ah, God,

Jeff Flaxman 55:38
even to this day? I haven't done a good job of teaching her What's going on? Like I was talking to her last night about this. She knew I had the this coming up. Yeah. Like you realize, I really don't know what you do with diabetes that much at all.

Scott Benner 55:52
It's interesting. Now I don't get so

Jeff Flaxman 55:53
programmed to self care.

Scott Benner 55:57
Yeah, I don't find it to be uncommon for many people that I talk to honestly, it's, it is it is either just one or the other. I've nobody's No one's ever said anything in the middle. They're always just like, Ah, it's on me. She doesn't really know he doesn't really know. Or it's or it's, oh, no, we're in this together. And it seems to be more wrapped around the timing of when the person was diagnosed. So what probably what care must have been like for them, then versus now when you can share it with somebody and, and think I'm just so used to dealing with it myself. I

Jeff Flaxman 56:28
just continue to like, I'll tell her how the doctor's appointments go. And when, hey, there's a low coming on here. The sensors telling me so I'm a you're in charge of the kids for the next 20 minutes while I battle? This monster here,

Scott Benner 56:40
huh? Yeah. And I mean, where would you even begin for to understand it, you know,

Jeff Flaxman 56:45
I have no idea. But I know how to do a better job. And that's kind of my goal.

Scott Benner 56:49
Okay. So so when you when you move into what we would call more like modern care? How long did it take you to figure it out?

Unknown Speaker 57:00
Well, I

Jeff Flaxman 57:00
started a pump in 2011, in probably eight years, seven, eight years. So 2018 about is when I really started buckling down and figuring things out here. So were you just sort of using the pump as a way to not have to inject.

Unknown Speaker 57:15
That's basically

Jeff Flaxman 57:16
what it was from about 2011 all the way until 2017 2018. It was I I had the education but at that time, I'm a hot shot like 25 year old I don't need to pay attention to what you're telling me. I've had this disease since I'm 12. What do you know? Yeah, Mr. Doctor guy.

Scott Benner 57:32
Yeah, that's um, another common

Jeff Flaxman 57:38
man, which was tremendous myself. I was stupid. Do that. No. But listen to the professionals. Yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 57:43
not saying no, I'm just saying it's a it's a pretty common feeling after you've been living with it for a while to just feel like, I don't want your help.

Jeff Flaxman 57:52
Yeah, but I was on the Medtronic pump system, and I still am today, which kind of makes me feel like a pariah being talked to by you and you Dexcom people there.

Scott Benner 58:02
You know, Jeff, it's funny. I hear people say sometimes, like, I'll see you online. Like I saw somebody that they say, Oh, you should try his podcast, especially if you have an omni pod and Dexcom. And I'm like, Is it really any different if you have a tandem and a Libra like it? It's not I don't have an allegiance to it. I know, people probably laugh to hear that. It's what my daughter uses. I know it to be really what you know, it's just what I know. And yeah,

Jeff Flaxman 58:25
and I, I don't really take any offense to it, your stuff is helpful. I mean, hearing a lot of that stuff that resonated with me, and I was able to implement a lot of the steps there myself.

Scott Benner 58:35
Thank you, Jeff. And I do have like, you know, I have in the past and I remain I I don't, I don't appreciate what I feel like I saw Medtronic doing around trying to close insurance coverage around just their pumps. And I thought that was pretty shaky, and I didn't like it. So I set it out loud. One time. You know what I mean? I

Unknown Speaker 58:58
I get it. Yeah.

Jeff Flaxman 59:01
I'm on that for so 2011. Yeah, sometime I eventually, like adapted and like 2013 2014 around there. I got there first. CGM, which I think was the enlight sensor is the one Medtronic had then but I didn't wear it. I didn't like it.

Scott Benner 59:21
Was the was the sensor wire? Like? I've heard people describe it as a harpoon was it is was it really bad?

Jeff Flaxman 59:28
I don't think so. No, I mean, I, I'm kind of weird. If my pain tolerance there were I wouldn't even use the inserter I would just kind of find the spot and just stab myself with it and

Scott Benner 59:37
just push it through with a hammer if you have to.

Jeff Flaxman 59:40
Yeah, like sometimes it hurt a little bit. But I was able to do it just got through. But what made it really difficult is I coached wrestling and my teaching job where I was at, okay, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with the sport at all, but wrestling with this thing hanging off your body there didn't play well together at all. So I tried By the sensor and then it would just get ripped out halfway through a practice.

Scott Benner 1:00:04
Yeah, I don't see how grappling. Does that make a big scene about it like,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:07
Oh my gosh, I'm dying.

Scott Benner 1:00:10
Yeah, I don't see how grappling and then that sensor would be would work together that well,

Jeff Flaxman 1:00:16
it didn't it didn't go well at all. But I would wear it maybe one week every two months because at that time the sensor only last. I think three or four days is all that one would last before you'd have to change it again.

Scott Benner 1:00:28
Hey, why do wrestlers ears get big and weird?

Jeff Flaxman 1:00:32
Ah, that's it's called cauliflower ear. So when they wrestle too much they don't wear protective covering over their ears in practice. And really the simplest term is the cartilage in the ear breaks and then re calcifies harder.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:45
Gotcha. So that's

Jeff Flaxman 1:00:46
what's happening the whole time. So it breaks re calcifies. And it breaks again, Re calcifies until it turns into this closed thing that is gross looking.

Scott Benner 1:00:55
Then my second wrestling question is how do I get ringworm from the mat? Why is that a thing? These are the all I know myself.

Jeff Flaxman 1:01:04
Because those mats are stored in usually a hot place. Like when they're rolled up. It's a environment with a little bit of sweat that's on it and the close quarters, it's able to live inside that, uh, I don't even know what the material is called, but it's able to live there.

Scott Benner 1:01:20
And then you get your face rubbed into it a couple of times. Yeah.

Jeff Flaxman 1:01:23
back of your head face. I mean, there's any number of things that could be gotcha. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:01:27
by the way, that's all I know about wrestling. That was the entirety of it right there.

Jeff Flaxman 1:01:32
Well, you know, you're not alone in that. That's those are all pretty common things. Yes. I asked

Scott Benner 1:01:36
the The only thing I could say from here is Jimmy Superfly, snuka. And then I'm kind of I'm kind of done with wrestling. And then you're out what I know. I do remember us all getting together to watch those like big wrestling pay per view events when I was we were kids. But I do also remember thinking I don't want to be doing this.

Jeff Flaxman 1:01:59
I don't know sports talk with me. It was good. I was I was good at it. And I just I enjoy that it teaches that independence. Maybe it matches myself there like you're the only one out there against another person. And as close as you can get to a fistfight. I can tell you, it's gonna come out some

Scott Benner 1:02:14
of the toughest people I know wrestle. So it's not it's it's brutal. It's killer. Yeah, it's not it's not surprising to me that you did it, actually.

Jeff Flaxman 1:02:23
But I coached that for a while. But then my second child was born and I couldn't manage the schedule to coach and do that. So in 2018 that was when I'm like, I'm not doing this anymore. I don't have an excuse to not wear the sensor. It's time I do this. Right.

Scott Benner 1:02:39
And one of the things I'm sorry to say I'm sorry, how old

Jeff Flaxman 1:02:44
I'm 32 years old by then like, you know, I've had this for 20 years. Let's Let's kick this in the tail. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 1:02:49
And what happened after you made the decision to pay more attention and and do this in a more so I started

Jeff Flaxman 1:02:56
like that seeing that sensor data was so eye opening at that time was like, holy cow. This is what's been going on between my testing times like I ate breakfast the normal breakfast there, and I'm feeling fine. I tested for lunch numbers are good, but I didn't realize that. Like I just had some beeps going off here on mine that my breakfast shot up a little faster than avoided because of the coffee and come down. I didn't know the roller coaster I was on.

Scott Benner 1:03:22
Yeah. What's the first step when you realize what's happening?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:27
Ah,

Jeff Flaxman 1:03:28
and first it's that frustration like what the heck did I do wrong? Like what where did I mess up? I followed this and then it I mean, you know it you hear it all the time it comes down to change the basil rates there, push them up here, slow them down there, carve a little extra there. And I think my whole life I grew up with that fear of insulin scary. That I mean, that stuff can kill you. So I was always hesitant to give myself too much.

Scott Benner 1:03:54
Yeah, why we said it earlier. Right. Don't get low. Don't pass out don't get dizzy. Yeah,

Jeff Flaxman 1:03:57
I mean, that was my fear. Like low is terrifying. High is gonna kill me in the long run. But lows, those are terrifying. I don't want those.

Scott Benner 1:04:04
What's that sentence mean to you? Like, it's gonna kill me in the long run? Did you ever think it meant you know, when you were 40? Or did you just think it meant is just something you didn't? I don't

Jeff Flaxman 1:04:14
think I never placed a timestamp on it. I want it to be but I knew by probably Gosh, by my late 20s, early 30s I knew the higher my blood sugar was the longer the more long term damage. I was opening myself up.

Scott Benner 1:04:28
Yeah, I just think that cognitively people don't Delve too deeply into what that means when they make the trade from that when they feel like they're trading now for later. Yeah, you know, it's some people's later will be you know, I don't know I'll die when I'm 72 instead of when I'm 75 but not not, you know, people don't think of it as you know. I'm gonna need laser surgery in my eyes when I'm 30 like, yeah, that's not that's not how your brain wraps around it. I guess. It's self present still, like my eyes.

Jeff Flaxman 1:04:58
I'm still further The heck I put myself through there in high school and college, barely testing. Who knows what those numbers were. I mean, I didn't have an A one c check from the time I was 16 until I was like 22. It just didn't happen because it wasn't in the cards. I didn't have insurance. I couldn't really go to a doctor, I was able to my family doctor would renew prescriptions without seeing me because I knew I couldn't afford.

Scott Benner 1:05:21
Yeah, they were trying to help you quote unquote,

Jeff Flaxman 1:05:24
yes, yeah. And it was it kept me alive. Sure.

Scott Benner 1:05:27
No, hey, listen. I mean, I, I always think of that. That movie where the climber gets his arm pinned under the Boulder, and after a couple of days, cuts it off with a pen knife. And I think of like, the enemy. Like, yeah, you just make the best decision in that moment. You can to just live for one more second, you know, like, you're just like, and that's how I think of sometimes how I think of a lot of your stories of diabetes. And back in the day of people just like trying to get through today, this hour this day. Yeah, I'm gonna

Jeff Flaxman 1:05:57
I'm gonna tackle today and tomorrow. I'll worry about tomorrow.

Scott Benner 1:05:59
Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a, a real luxury of the technology that we can all sit around now and look at this data and think about, you know, look at it at a more micro level and then start to consider macro out over the years based on you know, I can I can keep this a one c like this forever. If I want to now, like I know how to do Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a luxury for certain.

Jeff Flaxman 1:06:23
I mean, by 2018, two kids, I'm managing things a lot better. The lows are really ever happening, the highs, before I could see a 240 and say, 220, I'll deal with it. But now, once it gets above 150 on the sensor, I'm like, What are you doing? Stop it. And then I started attacking and correcting. That's excellent.

Scott Benner 1:06:43
I'm happy for you. What are your What are your agencies like now? I'm

Jeff Flaxman 1:06:48
low 70s for a while. And then probably a year ago, now I jumped to the 670 G, and I've been on their auto or auto mode. They're the semi closed loop system since then, that bring you down more? We'd like to say that.

Scott Benner 1:07:04
Can we say that with any Honestly?

Jeff Flaxman 1:07:07
I can't it has at this point. There is that frustration? I'm sure you're well aware of it, the whole FDA or whoever it is that doesn't let them set a lower target in there. Like when I go through it, and I noticed my blood sugar's at 140, which isn't bad. But I see the arrows up, I know what's coming. And I try to get myself a Bolus in that mode to autocorrect. And it's like, No, no, you're not above 150 you can't pull us right now. We'll take care of it in the algorithm there.

Scott Benner 1:07:36
Do you have to get out of the loop somehow to do that, then,

Jeff Flaxman 1:07:39
I mean, I could exit the loop and then go back into it to fix it there. I mean, that's the correct way to do it. But most of the time, I will go to Bolus which I know is a no no. And I should slap myself on the wrist for that. Well yeah, like I'm gonna take care of it myself because you're not doing it fast enough.

Scott Benner 1:07:57
Right. I think you're just adapting the I mean, you said it to the FDA set limits on on where they could have targets and you know, I think the one you're using is basically the first one out the door so there's

Jeff Flaxman 1:08:08
Yeah, it's only gonna get better for all their companies from here and I'll for sure

Scott Benner 1:08:13
yeah, good for you know, I think do what you need to do. I would I have thought you're gonna say you injected a little insight i didn't know i i don't know why just pretending carbs went in didn't occur to me. I just think after talking to you for an hour I was like he probably just stick some insulin in his leg real quick with the knee.

Jeff Flaxman 1:08:30
Oh, I I have a box of needles here but I haven't touched a needle system in a long time. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:08:37
we have the same needles from ardens diagnosis still like we use probably three a year maybe you don't I mean

Jeff Flaxman 1:08:44
that's just so foreign to me. Yes. He was diagnosed so young and

Scott Benner 1:08:49
pump that whole time I mean good for her. Yeah, it's very cool. It really is. It just it makes me happy to think that she and just all the other people who are coming online you know today in the in the recent past have access and at least the hope you know, I know everybody can't afford it and some people don't have insurance obviously that that's helpful and that is sickening. But just that that exists and that people are talking about it differently. I just interviewed an 18 year old girl yesterday who was struggling and she said she came in one day and her endo just said look i don't i I'm not getting through to you. I think you should listen to this podcast. And and hurry one season the is is is incredible. Now it went down like two points. But the point is is that like that the doctor didn't just for the rest of her life. Just let her agency sit in the eights and go I don't know like you and I don't jive together so I guess this is your life. The doctor for that

Jeff Flaxman 1:09:47
doctor that was good for her to have that doctor.

Scott Benner 1:09:49
I thought so too. Yeah, we're just really interesting. The way it goes. All right, Jeff, listen. Did we miss anything? Did your Did you have five cats run away? You know, I

Unknown Speaker 1:10:01
mean?

Jeff Flaxman 1:10:03
I think that's the ups and downs. There's probably some more in there. But then the diabetes, we don't need to go deep into the rabbit hole here. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 1:10:11
no, I didn't. It's tough. At one point about halfway through I, I heard your voice break. And I was like, Oh, I

Jeff Flaxman 1:10:16
was breaking up a little bit there. But I,

Scott Benner 1:10:19
I got through it too for you. It's is it cathartic to talk about? Or just is it not something you think about much anymore?

Jeff Flaxman 1:10:27
I don't think about it. And I usually call it my fatal flaw there. But I like to keep emotions buried down deep where they belong. Gotcha. Jeff,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:35
Catholic Jeff, by any chance?

Jeff Flaxman 1:10:37
No, my wife is. So I've got a little scene next to my okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:41
She could teach you how to

Jeff Flaxman 1:10:44
teach me and I go through the motions and nod my head I understand.

Scott Benner 1:10:49
That's really accent and you said, you mentioned your two younger kids. The no signs of diabetes. Where do you stand on looking? Do you do trialnet? Or do you just wait and see? Ah, no, I'm

Jeff Flaxman 1:11:01
waiting for the symptoms. Yeah, I like the covers there. I haven't bothered look through the whole DNA genome there to see if it's in there. Because if it is, it's going to hit them anyways. And if it's not, I think I'm Cognizant enough to be aware of when it's happening.

Scott Benner 1:11:15
I think that is a valid stance on this. I think they're, I think everyone's stance on that is valid, but I don't have a way to argue with either the people who are like, I'm just gonna let life unfold and I'll take care of it as I can. Yeah, and if my

Jeff Flaxman 1:11:28
daughter and son they never have to deal with that they can eat all the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups they want good for them.

Scott Benner 1:11:33
Would that be your go to if you didn't have diabetes all the time? Would it be the Almond Joy?

Jeff Flaxman 1:11:37
That coconut is amazing.

Scott Benner 1:11:40
Almond Joy has nuts mounds don't Is that right? I think that's the message you're not old enough to remember those. Those commercials.

Jeff Flaxman 1:11:48
I've got a vague memory of those commercials, but not much.

Scott Benner 1:11:51
I think all the Charlie Brown specials used to be the advertiser was I think mounds and Almond Joy. And you have no idea like like What a crazy like, you know, even you were too young for that. But the idea that like once a year, you know, the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown would come on like the day before that before Halloween. And

Jeff Flaxman 1:12:12
I remember little that as a kid, but it was more for a nostalgia. It wasn't like a huge viewing event that

Scott Benner 1:12:17
oh my god, no matter where you were, like the entire world just ran home to watch Charlie Brown. It was you know, you it was gonna happen and then it was going to be going again. And you couldn't you couldn't find it or rewatch I remember when it came out on DVD, or VHS. Maybe VHS, VHS. And the idea that I could just watch the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown at my leisure was mind numbing,

Jeff Flaxman 1:12:41
though Yeah, that's, I see it with kids now to like in this world of Netflix and Hulu and Disney plus, like, my children don't know what a commercial is on TV. Yeah. If they can't go from one Mickey Mouse Club house directly into the second one, they think something's wrong in the world, something's happened. Well, you

Scott Benner 1:12:57
know what the funny thing is that once I had access to it on VHS, I never watched it. And it stopped becoming appointment television at Halloween, because the feeling was there that I could just watch it whenever I want. And so actually having more access to it stopped me from ever watching it again.

Jeff Flaxman 1:13:16
Well, isn't that a strange phenomenon? It really is.

Scott Benner 1:13:18
I think I think that happens to I think the access that you ever do that you ever decide you're going to watch something and spend a half an hour scrolling and then never watch anything. Oh, yeah, that

Jeff Flaxman 1:13:31
happens quite a bit. Like, Ah, man, I need to watch something here. Let's see what's on and then you just, you go into that. It's like getting on a deep Google on something where you're 12 Wikipedia pages in and then you find nothing. By the end of it. You're like, Well, okay, it's

Scott Benner 1:13:43
bedtime. Now I tried. So my point is, which is better?

Unknown Speaker 1:13:46
Now, I have no idea

Jeff Flaxman 1:13:48
why we're not gonna fix that. We're better so because you watched it. It was on you knew it was there. And that was it. I'll

Scott Benner 1:13:53
tell you what, those commercials work. I've never had a mouse or an almond joy in my life. But I could sing that damn song If I had to. So

Jeff Flaxman 1:13:59
yeah, those those advertisers know what they're doing.

Scott Benner 1:14:02
They certainly do. Jeff, I can't thank you enough for opening this wound and sharing it with everybody your

Jeff Flaxman 1:14:09
email, able to help some other parents out there or even people that have it that I mean, life can throw a lot at you. But it's I don't know, I say that it's not an excuse to give up.

Scott Benner 1:14:21
Is that like, I never do this on this podcast ever. But if I said to you, like, leave people with a message is what is the message? Like, how did you get through all this?

Jeff Flaxman 1:14:34
I, I just saw it as there was no other choice. I mean, I had to get through it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:14:41
All right. So nothing we can pass on to people. I think, by the way, too. It's a fallacy. The idea that Jeff knows something that if you just knew your life or your kid's life would go better. I think that your reaction to all these things that happen is, is classically who you are and you know it worked out for you because That's your personality. And maybe that's a little dumb luck even, you know,

Jeff Flaxman 1:15:03
I think there's a heavy amount of dumb luck in my life, I've kind of always tend to fall forward on things. I mean, sometimes yes, sometimes No, but I've always found the best in that situation.

Scott Benner 1:15:13
Yeah, I might have to name this episode falling forward. Because there's, I don't know what else I would call it to be perfectly honest. I really appreciate you doing this. I genuinely do.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:25
Oh, no, I enjoyed

Jeff Flaxman 1:15:26
it. I mean, it's a little rough at times there. But I again, I hope that I'm able to help. Even in teaching, I see it as like, I noticed a kid with diabetes come into class, I instantly try to connect with them and say, Hey, what's your numbers out there?

Scott Benner 1:15:39
Yeah, he used your full name when you introduced yourself, if not that, I don't know how they would. But if one of your students ended up hearing this, you're fine with that. Right?

Jeff Flaxman 1:15:50
Yeah, that's fine. If they hear it, they hear it. Yeah. How much? I don't think there's anything incriminating. I

Scott Benner 1:15:56
mean, we'll find out how I didn't mean that. I meant it's personal. But I meant, like, how much of yourself? Do you share with your students? Is that not how that works?

Jeff Flaxman 1:16:04
Um, well, when I was an English teacher, I taught some novels we would read in there and there was death or something like family tragedy, I would connect with him there on that moment to get it across and open up to them a little bit.

Scott Benner 1:16:15
I say, I say that's a, it's a listen, I have to ask you before we go, I think, where do you stand on? I mean, we're recording this in August 2020. Yeah. Where do you stand on going back and being in a classroom for kids? As far as team like, what's your thought?

Jeff Flaxman 1:16:36
Well, I in my school, I teach it, I'm on the committee's to figure out how to do that. And we've all come to the agreement that it's a lose lose situation, whatever choice a school makes, someone's going to end up losing their correct choice right now.

Scott Benner 1:16:52
Can we please everyone? Can kids be taught effectively over video?

Jeff Flaxman 1:16:58
Yeah, older kids, definitely, I have my concerns on how an elementary first, second, third grade will do it. And it's not so much the kids can't learn. My concern is I don't know how many teachers have the skill set to make a successful video to interact with him that way and have that technology knowledge behind them to manage all of it is

Scott Benner 1:17:20
is are you finding that some teachers just don't have the desire to be, like, put on video like this is they find it embarrassing? Oh,

Jeff Flaxman 1:17:28
definitely some that like, I'm not recording myself, they're not comfortable doing that. I mean, I teach. Now I teach like a stem in technology class, and I have no issues making videos and YouTubes. And I do some video editing in the background and making things so I don't have a problem with it. But I know there are some that either don't have the skill set, or just not comfortable putting their face on YouTube for a lesson. Because at some point, those kids are going to edit that video down and make them look ridiculous. And I hope it's hilarious what they do to me, I can't wait to see it.

Scott Benner 1:17:58
That's the right attitude. I'll tell you, I was talking to somebody the other day about the internet. And I said, The funny thing about the internet is if you don't pay attention to it, it doesn't exist. It's just yeah, it's not really there a way to look at it. It just it you don't know there could be, you know, right now, countless people in the world who just hate my guts. And if they never tell me and I don't go looking for it doesn't matter to me. And yeah,

Jeff Flaxman 1:18:24
that you don't see it or hear it. It's not real.

Scott Benner 1:18:26
But I don't know what other way to say if it's not impacting me, it doesn't exist. And so, you know, I don't that concern about what other people think you mentioned in the beginning, like, I don't care what people think. I have that very same feeling. I'm very structured in the idea that if I say something here that's valuable to some people, and some people hate me. I'm just happy that it's valuable to somebody. And yeah,

Jeff Flaxman 1:18:51
because if they don't like it or hate it, then they're not gonna use it anyways. So Fine, let's move on just sort of meaningless. I

Scott Benner 1:18:57
can't help everybody. Anyway, I now I want to see the videos that the kids making you too. So

Jeff Flaxman 1:19:04
if you search my name on YouTube, my channels there you can see some of the ridiculous stuff I put out last spring form. It's there. No kidding.

Scott Benner 1:19:11
All right. Well, good luck with all this man. I really, I hope it works out. You know, as best as it possibly can. And that, you know, everything gets back to normal, hopefully, you know, as soon as possible. Gosh,

Jeff Flaxman 1:19:22
I hope at some point we're able to function in a society that resembled something of 2019 Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:19:27
I mean, I just don't. I mean, I think obviously a vaccine is going to be the thing that makes people more comfortable because I saw those pictures from Georgia The other day, they went back to school.

Jeff Flaxman 1:19:36
Yeah, that Oh, that terrifies me.

Scott Benner 1:19:38
I mean, high school we've elected we're starting remote. There will be no in person instruction. At this time. My daughter chose to stay home even though she could have chose to go on it. there's part of me that thinks that they're all gonna go back. One kid's gonna get sick. Teachers gonna get sick. custodians, give me a sec. They're gonna panic and send everybody home anyway.

Jeff Flaxman 1:19:55
And yeah, that's exactly what would have happened and that's why our district just said it's not worth it. I mean, While you're planning, you'd have been sending your daughter into a minimum security prison.

Scott Benner 1:20:05
My son's college basically came out and said that once we saw all the precautions we had to put into place, it would have been financially a burden for us. And just ridiculous. They were talking about tenting urinals in public restrooms, like putting 10

Jeff Flaxman 1:20:19
Yeah, I mean, there was that we had rotating bathroom schedules and when you were allowed to go and when you weren't, yeah, it just the diabetic kids would have to pee every 20 minutes would have been up poops Creek, they wouldn't have chance.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:30
Little Jeff, what would he have done?

Unknown Speaker 1:20:32
I don't know. It'd been rough. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:20:35
my God, Jeff, this was really terrific. Thank you. I'm gonna let you go. But I really appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:39
No problem. You

Scott Benner 1:20:39
have a good rest of your day take care of you as well. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. Gvoke glucagon. Find out more about chivo Kibo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox you spell that GVOKEGLUcagon.com/juicebox. I'd also like to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and remind you to go to ContourNextone.com/juicebox. And of course touched by type one is at touchedbytype1.org on Facebook, and Instagram. February 2021 is shaping up to be the most successful month of this podcast and I can't thank you enough for sharing the show with others, whether that be a link, or by word of mouth. The show is growing because you are sharing it. Don't forget to subscribe and your podcast app if you haven't. And please accept my heartfelt thanks for being a listener. And we'll be back soon with another episode that you're going to love.