#637 Running From Cows
Anna from episode ten has returned!
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 637 of the Juicebox Podcast.
On April 7 2015, episode 10 of the Juicebox Podcast went up. And it was a conversation with a woman named Anna. Anna was the mom of a small child with type one diabetes. And today, some seven years later, she is back on the podcast to check in. 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. Also, I want to tell you that on the day this was recorded about a block from my home, someone was grinding a stump. And it made an horrible noise. And it came in on my microphone at times. It's not throughout the whole episode. But there'll be moments when you hear me talk and there'll be this hum behind me. It's not overwhelming. And it's only when my microphone is open. So whenever Anna's talking, or I just realized, now you can make fun of me in your head for talking so much. But whenever I'm not talking, you won't hear it at all. And it's not distracting. It's just something I'm aware of. And I'm apologizing for it now, because I wish I could have done something about it. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox.
Anna 1:55
Well, I'm Anna, and I'm mom of Teddy, who we spoke about maybe seven or eight years ago, I should have I should have checked that. But he was diagnosed with diabetes in 2012. So I've always felt like he was a little bit behind what Arden was experiencing. And obviously following you was just amazing, because I could see how well you were doing. And that gave me so much encouragement with situation when Teddy was diagnosed. So yeah, it's really good to catch up, you know, when he's, he's 13 or so.
Scott Benner 2:39
Okay, so I'm looking now. And this is really astonishing. I haven't really done this a lot. You're maybe like the second or third recording. I've done like catching up with people who were on the show at one point. But you were on episode 10
Anna 2:57
Oh, wow. That I'm like how many you've done? No,
Scott Benner 3:01
there. There are 540 of them up right now. Wow. And I mean, yours might end up being like 600 like or something like that, by the way, they all go up. I remember. So let's see how funny it is that they all blend together a little bit for me now. I remember the management of making your episode because I was so new at it that I didn't like I didn't know what I was doing yet. So just setting them up putting them online took forever. I'm I'm I think this is gonna be a lot of fun. So I'm really happy that that you reached out what made you reach out?
Anna 3:44
Um, well, I I started listening to your podcasts again, having had a break. And really just because I didn't have the right time to sit down and listen. And, and I started listening again because well through lockdown, obviously more time and through COVID. So, and I thought, oh god, you're still saying stuff that is totally interesting. And I can learn from and I was just really gobsmacked at how you could still be saying things that were so different to what anyone around me says in you know, in when we talk about diabetes in this country, so it sort of really fueled me to think gorgey you did you know you you really made a difference to our lives at the beginning. And it's just great. You're carrying on doing it for so many other people now.
Scott Benner 4:48
Thank you. You. Your episode went up April 7 2015. And we are recording today on the seventh of September 2020 I have to maybe maybe I have to echo your gobs Makary because I don't know that I thought the podcast was still gonna be going now, either. And I figured some things out since then. So I'm glad it was there for you when you went back to it. So let's remind people a tiny bit and then we'll we'll jump forward. Teddy was how old when he was diagnosed? Three. And how old is he now? 13. Hold on a second. Well, he was like, seven when we spoke the first time.
Anna 5:35
Yes, six or seven. I'm looking now. Yeah. Yeah, I think it still felt really new. And we were still on the the injections at that point. And I think because we I knew from listening to you that I wanted only posts. And you just couldn't get it here then. Like he just couldn't. And so I Yeah, it was it was before he had a pump.
Scott Benner 6:06
How long has he had a pod now? It's hard, isn't
Anna 6:16
it? It's almost six years, I think. Yeah. Probably quite soon after I spoke to you last time. Yeah. Yeah, cuz? Um, yeah. Six years. Like I could be wrong. He may be already had one when I spoke to you.
Scott Benner 6:32
Not sure. If it's really funny. How is he using the CGM?
Anna 6:38
Yeah, he's got Dexcom. And so he's on the GS six. And both those things when you're back from you, and both those things were here in the UK later than available for you guys. And I had to find a hospital that I knew would be able to get funding for us to have those things. So we moved moved hospitals. And yeah.
Scott Benner 7:06
It's amazing. I'm very happy that you're back. What was it? Did it? What's my question? Was being on a podcast back then that basically, I mean, it wasn't being listened to the way it is now. Like, for instance, one day in the future, I'm going to put this episode up. And in the first three hours that it's live on the internet. It'll get downloaded more than your previous episode was downloaded probably in a year. Yeah, it was there anything that came from being on the podcast? Did anyone say I knew that was you? Would you just make you feel good to tell your story to other people? Like what was the outcome of doing it the first time
Anna 7:48
I think it made me feel something I already felt that actually, what I was thinking about Taiwan was so completely not shared by anyone in the community in this country. And I felt like I was part of a special gang. Like across the sea. So it felt special. And it fell I just, I just I just felt how do we not know these things? How does the hospitals not push these things? And why is this stuff not available? Why is the why is this dialogue not here about having aiming for normal blood sugar levels? And so yeah, I made me feel like I was part of another game.
Scott Benner 8:44
Because you would seen those things right? Like you were having those thoughts, but there was just nowhere to anchor them to
Anna 8:52
know and at the point when I spoke to you, I was feeling quite dying. Because the way I was dealing with it was by finger pricking, like sometimes 20 plus times every 24 hours. And I knew that was the only way that I could see what was happening. And, and I knew it wasn't good. Wasn't great for Teddy, but in one way, it was great for Teddy because it meant we had good management. And I was being told off for using too. Too many test strips and I was getting told off all the time by the doctors and I just stuck to it. And I said I even said it some point we're going to have a device that does all this. For us we won't need to finger prick because I'd heard about Dexcom probably through you and the consultant said that will never happen. And it just it seemed crazy to me that
Scott Benner 9:55
boundless hope from you. When you say that They were giving you trouble. Were they giving you trouble for poking him so much or for using the test strips up?
Anna 10:07
Well, firstly, it was a shame for his fingers. They kept saying and I said, Well, actually, he doesn't really mind. He doesn't I mean, he didn't he didn't like the injections one bit, but fingerprints, you know, once your fingers have been roughed up like that I don't, you know, he didn't mind he really didn't mind. And it was far better for him than having to have hypu treatment or, you know, correction injections and all the rest. So, but also financially, because we get funded by the NHS, they, they kept telling me it was costing too much money. So I was going through them too quickly.
Scott Benner 10:42
But were you having better outcomes than they were accustomed to seeing?
Anna 10:48
Definitely, yeah, we I mean, we were always told, we actually left, you wouldn't be surprised. But we left that hospital when that doctor told me that it would never happen that that something would replace fingerprick. And but we he was having better outcomes than anyone else in that any other child in that hospital. And the case is the same today in the hospital, we're in that he's always we're always praised about how we're sort of top in terms of management. And I, you know, that just makes me feel a bit sort of disappointed in the system, because you think, well, we should all be doing this. And so anyway,
Scott Benner 11:32
it's kind of confounding, isn't it that you're having a an outcome that's so much different than everyone else's? And instead of them saying to you, Hey, what are you doing? Maybe we should be doing this? They're like, You have to stop doing this. You know, like, Why? Why fight against? I don't know, it's such an interesting thing that they would just fight against that idea instead of embracing it, or at least trying to figure out why it's working.
Anna 12:02
Yeah, I think they've moved on. I think they have moved on a bit. No, they have. And so obviously, different consultants, some are going to be more forward thinking some are going to embrace the technology more, but there's a whole load of sort of old school ones that really just don't like change, and they like to do, you know, they still think you should eat meals at the same time a day, you should only test if you're testing once every two hours. And they still seem to think that that works. And which is something I've always had to say it just doesn't doesn't work.
Scott Benner 12:36
At least not as well as what you're doing. You know, so, no, did you find the blog? Were you reading while you were reading my blog?
Anna 12:47
Was that before the podcast then? Maybe? Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Scott Benner 12:51
it would have to be because I mean, honestly, if you were on an April, that means I recorded you soon before that March. And the podcast only began in January. So I mean, I'd be surprised if you heard one of the first episodes in England. And yeah, and then reached out. That's a it's so funny. I can't remember the details of it, really. But I remember I
Anna 13:16
was I was definitely reading the blog. Okay.
Scott Benner 13:19
You know, back when you were on, it was easy to like, name the episodes because I was just like, this one will be called Teddy's mom and I have to be more. I have to be more agile now. Because I'm starting to the other day, I thought to name something. And I typed it into the search bar for the episodes. And I already used that title for something. And I was like, Oh, you have to get a little more thoughtful about this. So
Anna 13:48
how is the creative things in it? Yeah, well, you just have to tip it thing
Scott Benner 13:52
I get yelled at, you know, speaking of getting told off like I People tell me all the time, your titles don't tell me what the episodes are about. And I always think I don't know what the episodes are about. I recorded them and they seem like we talked about, you know, 20 different things. I can't just pick one of them and tell you you know, the the show's about this today, you know, it might end up being about a bunch of things. So I don't know, I think I'm doing okay, but every once in a while I get somebody comes after me for it. Well, how is Teddy doing? Like, what's his life like now compared to back then?
Anna 14:26
Oh, he's great. He's just he's, we were just we just walking the dog before this there because he goes back to school tomorrow after the summer holidays. And we're just sort of chatting about the plan for school what he's going to do with this with this type one and how he's going to manage it and he's just so mature and positive and totally understands what he's doing. And I don't know I think it's made him He's so well organized. It's unbelievable. And so yeah, I feel that, you know, diabetes for him now type one is a good, positive thing in his life because he, you know, he owns it and he's easy. He doesn't, it doesn't get in the way.
Scott Benner 15:22
What do you think, led him to be that way? I mean, he correct me if I'm wrong. Are you married?
Anna 15:30
No, no, we're not married. But we've been together for 25 years, I think. But no, we are not married. But I mean, me and Tom live together, and we've got three kids,
Scott Benner 15:42
okay to get so, so. Okay, so you're you guys are together. And there are two, Teddy is were in the three kids. So they're older metal? He's the middle. Okay. Any other autoimmune stuff pop up with it. Other kids? No, nothing. Gotcha. So I'm saying like, what do you think? Like, how does he do you think he was always kind of a mature kid? Or do you think the diabetes has helped him with that?
Anna 16:11
I think the diabetes has helped him and because I tell he's never rebelled against it. He's never pushed against it. He's always understood it and accepted it and wanted, what we want for him to be dispatched and understood why that means to good management, and so on, I think is the diabetes. I mean, who knows there's certain things that are in his genes and certain things that are, you know, but he's I think it's made him extra special anyway,
Scott Benner 16:48
huh? Yeah. And I didn't mean that I like the diabetes turns you into a better person. I just mean, like the, the work that you have to do and the concern and consideration that they may be kind of hone you a little bit make you a little more mature. At a lower lesser age, maybe I don't know, like because Arden's the same way. She's super, she's super like, I don't know, even had like a talk about it, I guess, like, you could leave Arden alone, Arden will be okay. You know what I mean? Like, she takes care of things, she's thoughtful about her safety and, and that sort of stuff, things like that, that I don't even know that my son is at an older age. I think she's just accustomed to thinking about herself. And, and understanding impacts of things that are kind of outside of her control.
Anna 17:43
Yeah, I think also making quite thoughtful about other people's. So suppose one of the things that really troubles them is he is quite self conscious, too. He's, and he knows that we totally respect that as well. So we I've never wanted to push pushes diabetes, you know, out there to be visible. And that he's I don't know, he's just very sensitive, but in a very good way. So he's quite sensitive about other people and how they might feel about certain things. So I'm sure that's the diabetes. I mean, you have to put up with quite a few disappointments in life, don't you when you're dying? Yeah, although you can do anything. There are times when you just, you know, it's like, no, you can't have another bit of cake. And no, you can't trampoline for another hour at the moment. And you sort of, you have to just accept that. And I think that's really good life skill, because there's so many things in life that, you know, you could let sort of flatten you. But if you're resilient in that way and think cool, it doesn't actually matter, then it's such a good skill for life.
Scott Benner 19:01
Yeah. Well, I think to in a, in a more digital age, there's an idea that everything you want is going to be there for you immediately. You know, it's hard not to oh, we were in a movie theater. Two days ago, and during the movie, a person in front of me pulled out their phone to read an article about the movie. And I just did fried my brain. I thought just watch the movie. And then you'll see what's gonna happen. Like, why are you reading about it? Like, like, are you so? Are you so accustomed to having the answer immediately that you can't sit in this movie to get the answer? You know, it was just a very, very odd thing. And I take your point like about him, just sometimes needing to be accepting and moving on. I think that's a hell of a life skill. We all need, honestly that everything can always go our way and definitely won't. Well, that's interesting. It really is. Um, yeah. How long has he been? Like you said he's heading back to school after summer break. But had he been in school prior to that? Or how's school been going there?
Anna 20:20
Yeah, I can't I can't really remember how much time they've been at school. It's been so weird, hasn't it, but they did go back after Christmas, and we're there all the way through to July. And I've got one child whose homeschool the eldest is at home. So that confuses things a little bit as well. But Teddy likes being at school. I think he likes his friends. Yeah. And but we've had a really fantastic summer just chilling out. And it's always a bit sad to go back to school.
Scott Benner 20:56
Do you still live in the same house from when we spoke the first time?
Anna 20:59
Yeah, we do. And it's absolutely gorgeous. And we've got Yeah, we just have so many nice things we can do. And, and I listen to your podcasts, and you talk about eating out a lot. And it's quite a job for us to eat out. It's quite a journey and can't get takeaways to live foods. So I think that probably means to be a better diet in one way because we just we can't just go out and have something to eat very easily.
Scott Benner 21:35
Yeah, I remember you sending me a photo of like your property and thinking and Powell kind of just lovely it was and feels like it's in the woods and a little remove things. It's really nice. And it's interesting that it brings up that idea that you can't go you know, at a moment's notice. You can't run to a restaurant or to a store you have to be prepared to cook and have things in the home and I guess that's interesting. It you say it leads to to better eating.
Anna 22:04
I think we live quite a slow life compared to a lot of people probably because of the location but um, yeah, I think I think we do live quite a small life. So anything that's happens outside the house is like a special occasion. And, and thankfully, the kids seem to really enjoy that they're not really desperate to go off into like, you know, mentioning trampoline park. It's it's maybe once a year, that the most that we do something like that. We have a meal like maybe once every six weeks. How does them so?
Scott Benner 22:42
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to step on you. No, no, that's how does Teddy get to school?
Anna 22:48
He gets a taxi.
Scott Benner 22:50
Oh, every day. That's lovely. So that seems like I know, Regal to me.
Anna 22:57
I know well the thing is he there is a school boss that takes them but we live up this bumpy track with potholes and it's really twisty and very narrow. There's no way a boss could get down here and the bus can't stop on the road the roads really bendy. So they they pay they provide a taxi. It's totally amazing. So when my my daughter starts high school which will be next year that will be two of them in the taxi and I wouldn't have to do any car journeys, running kids to and from school and I've been doing that for I don't know 10 years I've been running kids to and from school in the car.
Scott Benner 23:39
You won't miss that. That's a no I have to tell you that one of the best things that happened during COVID was me not having to get up super early in the morning because of school for arguing helping her get things together and you know taking her to school I just I got so accustomed not to sleeping long but just not getting up you know so early and I really liked it if that's all I know
Anna 24:03
because there is so much to do. You know and I just think like I hate the school routine. I hate it and I can't really say how much I hate it because I have to tell the kids it's a really positive thing to go to school but all the stuff they need and you know, choose the right and I mean I don't know but mine have to wear uniforms I don't know if if you have to wear a uniform it your skills.
Scott Benner 24:30
Doesn't know she doesn't have to but she also might not meet the Queen. So I guess it could happen for Teddy what what did you take away from the podcast? About management? Like Like you said, You were you were expecting that there were things that existed you felt it kind of inside but you couldn't find anybody else talking about it. You found me speaking about it. Did you just get to a place where diabetes sort of fell into the background and it just went the way you expected?
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Quickly before we get back to Anna, I'd like to remind you that if you're a US citizen who has type one diabetes, or you're a US citizen who is the caregiver of someone with type one, the T one D exchange is very interested in your answers to a simple survey. You can find that survey AT T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. By completing the survey, you are helping someone with type one diabetes, you're also supporting the Juicebox Podcast, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. That link as well as links to the sponsors are all available right there in your podcast app right there. There's notes in there, you go into the little you'll see it and they're right there, you can you can click right on them or you can find those same links at juicebox podcast.com. If you're looking for the diabetes Pro Tip series, they are also available at Juicebox Podcast comm they're available at diabetes pro tip.com. And they're available again right there in your podcast player just search for Juicebox Podcast, diabetes pro tip. The first episode of the Pro Tip series begins at episode 210. But for that list, check out diabetes pro tip comm or join the private Facebook group and look up there the top what do they call it at the top of the Facebook group. They just changed it. Facebook changes the name sometimes in the featured section. And there's lists of all of the you know, you want me to look polling, you go into the featured section on the private Facebook group, private Facebook group is called Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. There are lists of the Pro Tip series of the defining diabetes series, the diabetes variable series, the Quickstart episodes, how we eat series, you know, there's one of those, there's a list of popular leave requested episodes, there are special episodes that you can find mental wellness series, Scott and Jenny's where listeners send in questions that Jenny and I answered, we're actually going to be doing more of them in 2022. But there's a ton of them already there. There are significant amounts of information about how to bowls for fat and protein. So much to choose from Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, it's a private Facebook group with over 22,000 members in it. If you go right up there at the top, in the featured section, you can find all that and much more
Anna 28:29
I think the first thing I got from it, which changed my life was that it is completely right to want your child to have the same blood sugar as you do. And, and I always felt that in my gut, that to be healthy, you should have the same blood sugar as a normal person generally as much as you can. Because that's how our bodies had been made. And nobody was saying that to me at all. And so I felt like I was sort of inventing that. And it was so nice to have that validated that you know it's it's it's a true and right goal to have normal blood sugar. And and then you gave me some of the tools to achieve that. And some of that was the technology. Some of that was a you know, micro Bolus thing. I think one of your podcasts that you did with the sugar surfer. I can't remember his name Dr. Pond ponder. Yeah, oh my goodness, that changed things hugely. And these were all things I wanted to do, but I wasn't being told I should and I'm quite good at following rules. So I was quite cautious about breaking the rules that were being imposed upon us. But it was all stuff I really wanted to do. And so you know, being aggressive with highs and Catching the lose and, and boosting regularly and boosting way in advance by especially for breakfast that, you know, nailed the breakfast and, and but more just the belief that you can do it you can you can achieve good control
Scott Benner 30:23
that that ends up being what but I guess sounds like the most important part to you is just having a foundation an idea to work for, instead of like this is going to be a mess, and nothing is going to be right now and your kids sick and you can't have decent blood sugar. So, you know, just accept that and then let your life be what it's going to be in you feeling like, I don't want that for him. And I don't even feel like that should maybe that's not even really true. How do I find out and then you you learn? Okay, I can aim for more. And then here's ways to aim for more. And then after that you're just you're on your way, I guess how long do you think it took to pull things together? To where you were comfortable in it? It felt easier?
Anna 31:19
I think since Teddy was I'd say for the last five years. And it's been felt like it's easy. And it's almost like you just get in the zone, don't you? And people say is it not hard work? And you just say what? It's literally what you do. I've got a Apple Watch. I look at my watch. All the time. We react straight away. We do all the text messaging, you know, which I learned from you. And at that point had you didn't have a phone when you were talking about texting Arden I was like oh my god, he's got to have a phone. Because I thought he was too young to have a phone. But yeah, just just all your tricks. And it just became second nature. And I don't know, it's I go to the consultant and he's like, do you never have a break? You know what? To sit down in the evening with a glass of wine. It must be such hard work. And he goes on like that. And I'm like, it's totally second nature. The hard work and I think that's what you've always said is if you if you miss the highs or you miss the lows, that's where the hard work starts. And you know, I still feel that some people they people just don't get it. It's, you know, it's normal, isn't it for, for us and for you. It's not extra work at all.
Scott Benner 32:50
I share your feelings completely I would. I would a million times over prefer to just pay attention for a couple of seconds to avoid a problem than to spend the hours of turmoil chasing blood sugar's around and being fearful that happens when things get out of whack. Like that part. I couldn't. I couldn't have lived through that. Okay, like eventually that would that would have gotten to me but the the other stuff now like just doing something beforehand. It's um I don't want to say it's easy because I don't want to, I don't want to insult anybody. But it's second nature is a great way to put it like we just we walked into that movie theater the other day. And Arden got, you know, food she doesn't normally have all at once. And her blood sugar would never went over like 145. And that and she was drinking one of those giant like Slurpee things. There's ice. And I never even remember a play. It was no it this one was pretending to be Coca Cola. So
Anna 33:56
oh, it was brown. And he has these blue, blue and blue ones, which makes your mouth all blue.
Scott Benner 34:03
Yeah. Well, I I didn't get a drink. Because of course, anyone who has a family knows after you pay for everybody else's stuff. You're like, well, I guess I won't have something so that this doesn't
Anna 34:16
that's what I always say you get the smallest portion.
Scott Benner 34:21
There's popcorn left at the end. I'll eat the pieces from the bottom, please. And so I tried her drink a couple of times because I was thirsty during the movie. And boy, it's a lot of sugar. Just you know, I was like, Oh, geez. But she drank that whole thing and had popcorn that shared with my wife that we didn't measure and she ate a candy. And I don't know how much of it she ate and I just I just did the things that I do. And it was fine. And I don't really know a better way to explain it than that other than I just I know what to do. And I just do it like I mean if you've ever played a Sport, where if there's something in the world you're just incredibly good at, you just don't think about it just happens. And I don't want to say it's like riding a bike, because that seems like an old timey statement that people will laugh at me for. But I just knew what to do. And I didn't really have to think about it. And I think that most people, eventually and I do think the podcast is helpful for that. I think you can get to that. So it sounds like you're there.
Anna 35:27
Yeah, the problem I've got the moment is that my eyesight is getting a bit worse, which I've been denying for as long as I can. I didn't want to get glasses, but I can't read his reading on my watch. Which is just really awful. So I had to go to an optician and actually get in and get glasses, so that I can read his BG on this tiny, tiny little watch face. I've got
Scott Benner 35:56
well, you acted like an adult. You know what I did? When that happened to me. I stopped wearing the watch. Just put the watch down. I was like, This thing just reminds me that I'm old. And that's not what this is supposed to be for. My wife thinks that like, my wife uses it now. I almost gave it away on the podcast. I was like I was did a thing like when Scott's Apple Watch because he can't say it. And my wife was like, I'll use it. I was like, okay, but no, I've, you know, arm's length has a different meaning to me now. You know, I used to think of keeping something at arm's length. It's keeping a person away from me. And now I think of it as where I hold my phone so that I can read it. And I've got the glasses too. It was tough. Makes me you know, it always makes me think about it always makes me think that one day Arden might have that problem. But she'll be by herself taking care of her stuff. It always makes me sad. Well, she won't be able to see Yeah, I get worried about that. Because I interview older people who have diabetes. And some of the some of the issues with dexterity come up eventually buttons and applying devices and things like that become harder as you get older. And it makes me think about that stuff. But no,
Anna 37:15
there won't be any, there won't be any devices, then we'll work. That's what I keep telling Teddy, there will not be any devices. It'll all be. It'll all be automatic and invisible. And this is the harvest fit nice. So they wouldn't have to deal with any of that.
Scott Benner 37:31
I like your ideas. That's a good I hope that happens. For sure. I mean, the way the way technology is able to leap forward. I guess it really just takes the will of, of a company to keep leaping with it. You know, you just need people to want to keep improving and innovating and making things available. So I don't know, like I listen, it doesn't make me cry in a corner or anything like that. I just think about it sometimes, like she's gonna get older, you know, and still have to do this stuff and I'm gonna be dead. I mean, it's not possible for me. Oh, my goodness. How much longer can I go? Let's be honest. I've chosen a profession where I sit still for hours and hours a week. I should have picked something where I'm moving around, don't you think? Start doing this podcast on the move. That'll sound great. Walking in the background and trees rustling
Anna 38:26
could be like a mindfulness podcast in mindfulness Titebond. So some of you could have like birds tweeting, yeah, Twix, tweets snapping on your feet.
Scott Benner 38:37
I'll just hum it. Muhammad. Just everybody just said to yourself. Yeah, I think I can get away with putting that up three times a week. Oh, okay. Oh, gosh. Well, what are your hopes like moving forward? Like are you thinking about algorithms for him? Or do you think you'll stick with Oh,
Anna 39:01
that's interesting. You asked because I've been listening to you talking about the loop system. And we're gonna wait till we we get the the only port five visit we're gonna wait however long it will take for that to come out. And that's exciting. I yeah, I think it's by the time Teddy's left home, there'll be definitely a better way of doing it already. And you know, the night times won't be such a warrior or anything like that by the time he's been idle. And yeah, I think we're doing the hardest bit and that's the way it should be so but I mean, you don't want to hope too much but I just feel really positive about it and not you know, even if it didn't really change now he's he's buki and and he can, you know, he can manage it through. I don't know if I have not mentioned but he was diagnosed with celiac, and four years ago, so that's actually had more of an impact on him than his tight wall and it's made type one seem, seem sort of far more manageable because the celiac was, was a real surprise, and like a real life changing event. And it's still something that he, he can't help but wish he didn't have it. Because, you know, there's food to feed that he wants to eat, and he can't. And that's like a harder one in a way to come to terms with when you think about his future because I think about him being no drinking beers got gluten in it. And, you know, you think about them being students and they're going to the pub, or they're going pizza or the and that's when I think that's, that's the thing that's gonna be it's harder to feel positive about but at the same time, you know, he's he's growing older with it. And there's plenty of alternatives. And there's more and more alternatives all the time. So again, it's just something that will be part of Him and He will be fine.
Scott Benner 41:14
Yeah. What's his day one see right now.
Anna 41:19
I need to look at my bit of paper, and his last Awan see was 35. In March,
Scott Benner 41:34
me think about how that goes. I'm looking at my
Anna 41:36
GI bill numbers, because I still think in old numbers, and
Scott Benner 41:43
I'm just looking for my chart, so I can figure it out.
Anna 41:47
Yeah, I think he's he's been about 40 for at least five years now. If not more,
Scott Benner 42:00
I'm looking it up. 5.8 in America, okay. Okay. That's excellent. So good. It's really, really, really wonderful. And not too hard to achieve for you.
Anna 42:18
Know, I mean, we have these, we have a bit of a laugh, because that'd be nice pizza tonight. But that's pizza in frozen pizzas. That's a night where I never get much sleep. But that's a bit of a laugh, because I do get sleep on other nights. That's fine. And so yeah, there's certain things that definitely through the BGS Tullio, and it's normally food based late in the evening eating things that are high carb, high fat. And the rest of it just seems easy. And yeah,
Scott Benner 42:57
have you heard the episode about bolusing for fat?
Anna 43:01
It did. Yeah, I listened to that. And the problem that I've got at the moment, and I don't know how long this has been going on for is I sleep through all the alarms, and I've changed them. And I double check the volume, I've got another alarm clock that I put on to go off every two hours just in case I've set through all the the alarms on the Dexcom. And so I'm still a bit scared of going to maths before I go to sleep with insulin because I'm like, Oh my God, I don't know if I'm going to wake up. And I don't know how to solve that. Because you can't make that I'm on the highest volume possible. And I know that fire men apparently have to change their alarms regularly. Or they'd sleep through like the the alarms when there's a fire. Yeah. So and that is what I do. And it has no effect whatsoever not helping
Scott Benner 43:59
you. I've never sorry, it's not helping you at all changing the alarms.
Anna 44:04
No. And I've never slept through anything awful and really, really good thing that we've discovered because of this is he's actually woken up on a zoom a couple of times when he's been low, proper low. And, and again, I only knew our numbers but like say 2.3 or something. And I don't know how much that is in your your numbers.
Scott Benner 44:29
What do you want? So pretty low.
Anna 44:34
Yeah. Yeah. So he's woken up and got up and had dextrose and going back to bed. And I've seen the graph in the morning and being like, Oh my God, and His thought is okay, I did it. Wow. But um, yeah, I I don't know. I think after all those years of not sleeping. I just, I need to sleep now and then Yeah, I don't quite know what to do
Scott Benner 45:03
about it. And I'm gonna tell you about the time your eyes stop working. It's about the time you can't just power through the night anymore. Either those those things happen to me at the same time,
Anna 45:12
always at my age. Are you getting older? Oh, no.
Scott Benner 45:18
Well, I think the thing that's going to fix that, in my opinion, since you brought it up is on the pod five. I think an algorithm that has good settings is going to really surprise you overnight. It's probably gonna be pretty cool. So that that should be a lot of comfort for you. I mean, I know he's still young. But do you think he thinks about going away? University?
Anna 45:40
Yeah, definitely doesn't want to stay here just being in this field that we live in for the rest of his life. I know. I think they all want to go off to the city at some point. And yeah, he's, he's probably wants to go to uni or college or something. Who doesn't? He doesn't know what Yeah, but
Scott Benner 46:03
your oldest is thinking about it, too.
Anna 46:07
Yeah, he's. Yeah, it still seems really he's only 15 the oldest. So it's only the beginning of thinking about it.
Scott Benner 46:18
I liked it. You're like, they don't want to, there's no way they're gonna want to stay here with us. You guys will just be
Anna 46:23
until good. Yeah, no, I suppose I'm talking. Because that was the way I fell. As I was brought up in a little village, and I was so desperate to get out. And I basically choose a spot on the map, which was the furthest away from where my village was, I was in Scotland and I choose a point on the map in the south of England. And because I was just so ready to get out of this tiny little community. And I'm like, Oh, God, my kids desperate to get out of here. And and none of them are actually seeing that at the moment. So I'm hoping we've not walked them into thinking it's a great idea to live in a field for the rest of your life.
Scott Benner 47:06
Here with you guys. For everything right. How did you end up back in? Uh, how did you end up back in a small place if you want to get away from it so badly?
Anna 47:16
Well, life, places circle, isn't it? Do you not think? I mean, I think that more and more it is do you just go round and end up where you were at the beginning?
Scott Benner 47:28
So did you go to a city and then get away at first?
Anna 47:32
Oh, yeah. And I spent years in different cities. I did loads of higher education in different places. And I worked in London and and yeah, I only came back to the countryside when I was in my mid 20s, probably 40, actually. And so yeah, I'd been away for 2020 odd years away from a rural situation. And I did all the city stuff and I think it's maybe when you have kids that he just started to sort of pining for maybe what you had in your childhood.
Scott Benner 48:09
Did this boy drag you into the woods? Or was it your idea?
Anna 48:13
No, it was me. No, he's he's from London. He's from the city born and bred and then I we went to live in London together I worked in galleries in London art galleries, and I'd get on to you know, the Underground trains work and I I come back from work because he's crazy. All these people are like robots on these Underground's on the escalators and crammed into the trains and then there's all the cars and and crazy way of living and looking at your window and all you can see is houses and that sort of rant and rave about it and and and then we basically left and he didn't think you'd like the countryside and and I I've been proved right that actually this is the way this is the way we live well. Not everyone would like it, but we love it and and you just you just want to go yeah,
Scott Benner 49:12
you just went into the city like a like a monster from a movie stole one of their boys and ran back into the woods with it. It's very nice that you guys found what works for you so well. It's uh, yeah. Lovely. Yeah. So, I guess I want to understand how much of management is you and how much of management is Teddy in the course of a normal day?
Anna 49:42
Okay, well, go is totally Teddy.
Scott Benner 49:49
No more texting when you're done with that.
Anna 49:52
He has a rule that I must not ever text him when he's at school. because it's just really embarrassing having your mom text you. So I've tried to respect that. And I think there's only once actually ever that I've, I've texted him when I was watching, and I could see that he was low. And, and in a way, I think he felt he needed to prove to me that he could do it really well, so that I wouldn't bother him. And that's what he's done. So he is totally in charge at school. And he, he does a pretty good job at school schools fit weird because I feel like there's a lot of emotion at school, because you've got all your friends there. And then you've got a teacher, you're sitting in class being quiet, and then you come out a class an hour later, and there's all loads of noise and excitement in the corridor, and then you sit down in a quiet classroom. And I think that really affects your blood sugar. And so it's quite a challenging job being at school, and it's not to do with the food at all. It's to do with just the environment you're in.
Scott Benner 51:07
Where does he? Well, first of all, is, is he Pre-Bolus In his meals, even at school.
Anna 51:15
Yeah, although he is they don't really eat. Him and his friends walk around the playground. Looking really cool. And it's like not, it's just it's not really cool to have proper food. So you might have like, a bag of crisps or something. And, but certainly not like a sandwich or anything that's in a wrapper or so yeah, he he tends to have a good breakfast. I make him porridge every morning. And then he eats like bird food all day like nothing really. And, and then he'll totally pick out when he gets home from school.
Scott Benner 52:05
Gotcha. The porridge. He's good, good apologising for without a big spike.
Anna 52:11
Yeah, we've got it down to a tee is this week, I actually way it's the only food I ever weigh for him. I don't weigh anything else. But I just we got to get the breakfast bang on if he's going to school. So way out, he has banana in it. And it's totally perfect. He doesn't need he's on for years. So it's the the Pre-Bolus is short, 510 minutes max, whereas it used to be sometimes even half an hour. And so if we sort of forget, or we're running late, it's not a big deal. And I just always feel the porridge just keeps him going pretty well through the morning. So and, yeah,
Scott Benner 52:57
that's excellent. And he just takes care of the whole thing. And now you're more overnights Eve unless he wakes up and you don't like like I am? I'm sorry. No, then. Good.
Anna 53:08
Yeah, that no, the minute he steps in the door. He behaves like he doesn't have diabetes anymore. So it's me. You then yeah, it is like such a drag to Bolus yourself and you can't be bothered to do this. And you know, it's also incredibly tiring and picking up the PTM. So yeah, I take over and I don't care. I like it. And so yeah, I don't and I just feel while he's at home, give them a bit of a break and let him you know, not have that hassle. Yeah. And if he's up in his bedroom, and I can't be bothered going all the way upstairs then it's obviously it's text messaging, and he does it all but no, I mean, through COVID I pretty much did everything. And
Scott Benner 54:06
when you said you like it, you mean you like giving him a break?
Anna 54:11
Yeah. I just it makes I just feel like he deserves it. You know, to get through a school day, it's it's a lot of work. And he's really good at school. He's such a good student. And any case say Oh god, it's all that extra work with my diabetes. No one else has got that. And I just think it's too nice for him to come home and just shed it you know, to take the uniform off and forget that he's got Bolus and that's what I'm there for. I mean, I don't work much I part time and since Teddy was diagnosed with type one, I think my hours are just year after year they've reduced and I thought actually I'd be able to work more and more. But I realized that when I work a lot I'm not Thinking about his blood sugar, and then I'm not in tune with his body, and then I'm getting it wrong. And then you're stressed and you're tired and just life gets difficult, doesn't it? So I've whittled my hours right down. So I'm just, I'm a mom, you know, and I am not always distracted by having to work. And so I just feel good knowing that I'm looking after him and giving him a break.
Scott Benner 55:26
Nice. That's excellent. Just, um, just does your does Tom work out of the house? Or does he go somewhere for work?
Anna 55:35
Yeah, well, he's, he works always within like a three mile radius of where we live. We live in a cottage on like the country estate. So it's like a private landowner who owns houses and villages, and Tom's in charge of all the cottages on the estate. So it's like 100, or two cottages. So he's he sort of manages all the repairs and designs, sort of new builds, and all that sort of stuff. But since COVID, he did a lot more work in the office from home. And so he's probably at home more than he's not at home. Interesting. And, yeah,
Scott Benner 56:12
that whole shift has been, like, Kelly just has been in our dining room forever. And then she, you know, said she was going back to work a month or so ago. And she went one day, and when a second day, and then she came back, and she said that they said to stop coming in. So I was like, Okay, let's just back in the dining room again. And I don't know when she's gonna go back now. Now they're saying maybe the end of September, they're not even sure. But the not commuting part was really nice. I know that she was losing a lot of time just driving back and forth to her office. And yeah,
Anna 56:50
it's really nice is that? I mean, I, it's quite nice having the house to yourself sometimes. And I'm not quite sure that's ever going to happen again. For me. Just to have like, a day on my own here would be heaven, but it is really nice having everyone at home.
Scott Benner 57:07
Yeah, no, I love everybody being here. I was sad. When when Cole went back to school, I, I was happy for him. Because being here was not what was supposed to happen. It was obvious. And you know, last night on social media, I saw Instagram Stories from his baseball team. And you know, I can see him at practice. And he's smiling and you know, with his friends and everything, and that's all fantastic. And but I did really get used to him being here. And I did I do miss that he's not here. I sent him a text the other day. And I said hi, just said hello to him. And he said, Hi, he goes, You know, he's like, what's up? And I said, just nice weather today made me think that if you were here, we don't be on a field somewhere, like hitting a baseball together. And I miss you. And I just want to say hi. Oh, you know, and he was like, Oh, hey, and then you know, he was gone. So that was pretty much the extent of it. But But having said that Arden's back at school now, and there was a there was definitely a moment where I thought, Oh, if Kelly would just leave, I could be by myself again for five minutes.
Anna 58:21
I just I do I fantasize about I don't know what I do. But it's just
Scott Benner 58:26
I just do everything. I just like the quiet Yeah. more quiet. Yeah, yeah, stillness that happens in the house. Although, and I don't know if you experienced this or not. But I can wake up in the morning, and you can feel when everybody's not there. And yeah, the house feels different with or without people in it. And it bums me out a little bit too. So I don't know what's gonna come of all this? Oh, does
Anna 58:53
that make me feel a bit lonely thing? Um,
Scott Benner 58:57
I don't know if it's lonely. I just really like being around my family. And I don't know it's lonely or not. I just, I like being able to, like even if you don't, you know, in a normal day, sometimes you don't even talk to people very much. But they're there. You hear them moving around, or they walk past you and you say hello. Like, you know. I don't know, I guess is that lonely? I just I always think
Anna 59:19
I'm glad you still. I'm glad you still say hello to them when they walk past you. Yeah, that must mean you get on because, yeah,
Scott Benner 59:28
yeah, you're staring at the floor.
Anna 59:33
Like, elbowing them as they will.
Scott Benner 59:35
Yeah, even like, when my kids leave the house, they always tell us they're leaving. And yeah, then there's something about that. That makes me feel like I'm aware of their greater movement, like and I don't know why that's important to me, but I like knowing I don't even know what it is. I like knowing I like knowing where they are not even where they are because I don't ask them where they're going. Just um Leaving, I'll be back. And I'm like, okay, great. And then I just, I don't know, I don't even know how to put it that feels like a connection point for some reason. Yeah, I don't know. And I could be out of my mind, it doesn't matter. Maybe I've been in this house,
Anna 1:00:14
you might know, you might emerge like a butterfly at some point and spread your wings and have a whole new.
Scott Benner 1:00:24
Well, Arden told me last night she's leaving for school soon. She's like, she says, Is it strange that a year from now I won't be here. And I'm like, so I said to her, I go, you think you can get into a college? She goes, I think I can try to tease her a little bit, you know? And, and then I thought about it. I was like, Oh, she isn't going to be here. And then you're right, I am going to need to do something. So there's some some, I guess, kind of spots around the country that we haven't visited yet. That we're thinking of maybe taking some road trips and driving to see things and but trust me, the big issue is going to be getting my wife away from work because she's a she is beyond a dedicated employee. She's a very type a worker. So when there's something to do, she does it. And there's always something to do. So we'll see if I can pry her away or not. Sounds like I should get her into the country. And she'd relax in two seconds.
Anna 1:01:26
Oh, yeah. You go camping.
Scott Benner 1:01:30
Anything, right, just just to get away a little bit. I also think your situation is great, because if you guys get on each other's nerves, and one of these naps, you can bury the body somewhere, no one will ever know.
Anna 1:01:43
No, you're right. There's loads of places you could bury a body, or you can stop off and disappear for half an hour. And nobody can find you
Scott Benner 1:01:54
just wander off. And
Anna 1:01:57
yeah, we've got a herd of them of cattle. They're wild cattle. With huge horns. I'm sorry, can
Scott Benner 1:02:10
you get near them?
Anna 1:02:13
Well, they put their heads over our fence. That there we were living in an area that they're calling like a rewilding zone. So they basically letting the whole place go completely wild. And they've got wild ponies and they we've got these 13 and white Park cattle with these enormous horns. We they just put a bull in with them. And it sort of changed the field. It feels a bit like Jurassic Park now because you hear like the undergrowth crunching and because they're quite enormous, and then you go for an innocent walk. And you always have to be incredibly vigilant that they're not very near because they could charge it yeah, maybe leave got these massive horns. So yeah, it feels like we're now living in Yeah, Jurassic Park.
Scott Benner 1:03:10
The white Park cattle is a medium size animal with mature bulls and working conditions weighing approximately 2100 pounds and cows up to 1400 pounds. Wow. So you don't know how big that is? That is because you Yeah, there's 13
Anna 1:03:26
of them and they literally stand with their heads looking over the fence. We've got two dogs so the dogs sit barking at them and I jog I go jogging along our track and I have to look all the time because the one thing that farmers said to me was don't ever turn your back on a cow so I go jogging and I might completely terrified that they're going to be there but I still do I get a bit of a kick out of the danger it feels it feels like my dicing with death first thing in the morning
Scott Benner 1:04:13
100 pounds by the way 2100 pounds by the way is 150 Stone if that means more to you okay, yeah, but a lot
Anna 1:04:22
Yeah, and they move quickly
Scott Benner 1:04:26
it's possible your episode is going to be called running from cows
this is as as as talking to me today been fun for you or did you are you let down at this point like we're an hour into it like I wasted my time or how are you feeling about this?
Anna 1:04:48
Oh, not at all. No is it's so nice to speak to you again because I feel like I feel like I've sort of known you for so long and I always want Arden to be thing Well, and, you know, Teddy knows that Arden was always the one who I was sort of looking at how she was getting on. And, and I yeah, I think I honestly don't know anyone else who's got anywhere close to what you're doing. And I do I have friends who've had kids diagnosed in this country, and I've recommended you, and I just wish I just wish everyone was doing, doing the management the way you speak about, and I wish, you know, the world would be a better place.
Scott Benner 1:05:45
Thank you. Do you? Do you think that some of those people don't do it the way that you do? Are there some people? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Is that how does that make you feel?
Anna 1:06:00
I don't like to say anything, because it's not my place. But I it makes me cross and it makes me cross that a child can have like quite a bad start in life if you know that. They've not been managed well. And, and I do think I'll give you an example. I've a friend of ours that we've known for a long time was diagnosed only two years ago, a spike 14. And the the nurse in the diabetes team told them after six months, he said you don't need to check him in the night anymore. Because he's stabilized. So they told me this, and I didn't say anything, but I just thought how can anyone ever seen that? And he had a really, really bad seizure in the night. And they had to phone an ambulance. And it was utterly terrifying. And, you know, I just, it's just amazing, really amazes me that the experts, the medical experts still have such a dated way of looking at type one diabetes.
Scott Benner 1:07:20
No, it's interesting, too. Because as much as you know, like, I get the idea that once you say something, you feel like okay, I said it once, like, I can't come back and push. Right. Like it's, it's even though you feel like it would be valuable. There's a hard thing to want to do with getting between a person and their child's health and, and yeah, in for yourself into it. I just looked well, um, I just looked while while you were talking. And there are hundreds of 1000s of downloads in the UK since you've been on the podcast. So, yeah, it's the it's the fourth largest country for me eight for me, it goes US, Canada, Australia, then UK. Number four, for me. It's pretty, it's pretty amazing. Actually, with dragging this around the map and seeing that people listen in India and South Africa and Brazil, it's very strange. You know, there's a fair amount of downloads in Mexico. And there's even one guy listening in Greenland. So, and I've actually met him online. One day, I went on Facebook, and I was like, He's the person in Greenland who's listening here. And this guy's like, that's me. That's like, oh. And it really is there's, there's literally not enough downloads for it to be more than one person. And, oh, that was so incredibly interesting. I mean, thinking back to when you were on. I was just trying this, you know, I just like as a wondering if this will work. And the month you the month your episode was up? I wouldn't think that. I mean, I wouldn't think that the podcast had. I mean, maybe I can look actually because it might be interesting. I feel it's so bad. I have to go back into an old. It's so long ago, I have to go back into an old system that tracks things, because the system has changed so much since then.
Anna 1:09:23
I know. And the picture changed. I remember when that changed.
Scott Benner 1:09:27
Yeah, Arden Martin was like stop using pictures of me looking like a baby and I was like, Oh, okay. Oh, do you think of her as a little kid though, right. You know, I told her a lot of people think of you this way and she's like, I don't care. And I was like, Alright. Embarrassing. Yeah. She does well with it. But I mean, there are limits to how much she'll accept I think. April or this is crazy. April two 2015 the month your show was on the entire the entire show, not just the 10 episodes that were up at the entire show got 1536 downloads that month, like that. Month Hold on a second. Yeah. And if I'm not mistaken, I had an episode go up this. Do and that episode. It's only been up for a handful of hours. That episode has 1238 downloads. Wow, already. That's the episode and I won't share with you how many 1000s of downloads the whole show has today already. But it's a lot. Wow,
Anna 1:10:43
it made you feel really good.
Scott Benner 1:10:45
It makes me yes. I mean, that should be my first answer. It makes me feel like I accomplished something and that it's working and that people enjoy it. And it's helpful to them. And that's why it's growing. And that's why people listen to it. So that part is really amazing. I am still a little like stunned by it at times. Yeah, you know that, that a month's worth of downloads in the first year is now a couple of I mean, it's honestly, it's like an hour's worth of downloads now. And it's weird. You know what, the more than anything, it gives you a feeling of responsibility. Yeah, that you realize how many people are listening and you very badly do not want to lead them wrong. And and it's also strange a little to know that some people are counting on you for their entertainment. Because the show has become like it's I don't think it's I mean, it's a diabetes podcast. But it's it's a regular podcast, too. You know, like it's, I think, yeah, some people just like listening to I love listening to audio, like before you and I got on. Yeah, I was listening to something that I enjoy listening to. And then I took my headphones off and sat down here and I'm talking to you now and when I get up, I'm gonna put them back on and keep listening to what I was listening to. So yeah, I It's interesting to know that somebody's sitting thinking, like, I wonder when this episode is gonna come out, and that they're waiting for it. It's nice. It really is. It's a very fulfilling feel like
Anna 1:12:16
I've only got a couple more minutes because I've got to go and pick up my daughter from school.
Scott Benner 1:12:20
No, well then let's say goodbye. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you were hoping to?
Anna 1:12:26
No, I think we well, we just we just chatted, it was lovely. It was it was a nice catch on. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:12:32
I just really, I thought it was so interesting. When you reached out I was like, Oh my gosh, she was on the 10th episode I would love. And I remember and I remember you. Because I mean, try to imagine 10 episodes into making a podcast in New Jersey. Yeah, no, I heard from a lady who's like, I live in the country in England and I want to be on your podcast. I was like, wait, what? Like, wow, you know, like it was a little mind blowing, you know? And, yeah, tomorrow an episode goes up with a woman who lives in Canada, but is of Iranian descent. And her son was diagnosed while they were at a wedding in Iran. And like I edited one last night with somebody from New Zealand and a little girl from Russia was on recently and really, you were the first one. So you'll always be the first one at a you'll always be Oh, well. I really appreciate you doing this. And thank you so much for taking the time to come back on again. Thank you
a huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Kibo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox you spell that? G VOKEGL You see ag o n.com forward slash juicebox. And everything else you need to know is either at Juicebox Podcast comm diabetes pro tip comm or right there in the shownotes of your podcast player.
I'd like to take a moment to thank Anna for coming back on the show, but also for coming on in the first place. I breezed over it a little bit in the episode. But Anna came on the podcast like I said in April of 2015. I think the show was going up once a week and it started in January January of 2015. The podcast started. I was putting up one episode a week. And I didn't really know what I wanted the podcast to be yet. I think Anna's was one of the very first conversations that I had just a talk with a person and It must have had a real impact on me because the very next episode is Episode 11, which now we all know to be bold with insulin and a fan favorite. But, you know, the experience I had talking to her put me in that headspace when I went back to record episode 11. So I'll always be very grateful that she came on the podcast back when, honestly, very few people were going to hear her story. But today, a magnitude of many, many more heard what she had to say. So I appreciate her helping me build this thing for you. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.
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#636 Defining Thyroid: Goiter
Scott and Jenny Smith define thyroid terms.
In this Defining Thyroid episode, Scott and Jenny explain Goiter and talk supplements and nutirition.
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 636 of the Juicebox Podcast.
Today I bring you the sixth installment of the defining thyroid series today Jenny Smith and I are going to talk about goiter, and supplementing, and some other stuff. So far in the defining thyroid series, we've tackled hypothyroidism, and Hashimotos thyroiditis, that's an episode 616. In Episode 619, we define pituitary and thyroid glands. In Episode 624, we defined P S H testing, and in Episode 628, we define T four and T three. In episode 632. We talked about auto immune, and today we're gonna be talking about goiter, supplementing and some other stuff. It's kind of a, I don't want to call today a free for all but today is sort of a building conversation. You'll well you'll see in a minute. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin.
If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, and are a US resident, please go to T one D exchange.org. Ford slash juicebox. And take the survey. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash, the Omni pod promise and the upcoming Omni pod five. Learn more about that Omni pod dash and see if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. Today's episode is short. So at the end, I'll explain how you may be eligible for that free 30 days of the AMI pod dash. Alright, Jenny, we're gonna we're gonna do a quick All right, I'm already laughing ready? Goyder?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:25
I know it's such a funny word. Funny Little word. Really goitre. Like, couldn't. There are many medical terms that I think are hilarious. But definitely goiter is one of them. It is. It's funny.
Scott Benner 2:37
I don't know. I'm just I always wonder still. Why, you know, we didn't find out what Hashimotos first name was before they named it?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:46
Well, I think the thing about goiter, too, is the fact that like there's a visible part of Goyder, right? It's not just like the name. That's right. That's funny. Like there's a visible piece that on your body, you're like, ooh, that doesn't look normal. shouldn't really be there.
Scott Benner 3:01
Well, and some people can get them. I mean, they can look like real like lumps in your neck, right?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:07
Yes, yes, my mom. In fact, when I've seen pictures of my mom, I mean, they're the really old like fading types of pictures before she was diagnosed or within the process. She had a very visible I was on both sides of her neck, she had a very visible she had kind of like the protruding sort of like eyes. There were a lot of things that were very like, that's diagnostic there for her. But, but yes, goiter is essentially an alert and enlargement of the thyroid gland. If that all that we just said did, like, bring that up. That's what it is enlargement of the thyroid gland.
Scott Benner 3:46
goiter also called enlarged thyroid probably by a doctor who laughed every time he said goiter. You know, when it's um, gosh. Do you remember I'm really gonna date myself. There used to be this. People used to shop on TV. I don't know if that's the thing that everyone knows. But there were like infomercials or longer commercials that some guy would come on with a deep voice and tell you about the the heartbreak of psoriasis, you know, or something? Yes. And it's the word terror, which has nothing to do with anything we're talking about here but sticks in my head since I'm a child, because you know, the heartbreak of surprises you and he runs through these lists of other things you might see. And then he goes terror. And it's like stuck in my head. I don't know why I can't get rid of it. I don't even know what it means. That's really funny. So, goiter says abnormal enlargement of the butterfly shaped gland, below the Adam's apple, which is called the thyroid. Of course, a goiter commonly develops as a result of iodine deficiency or inflammation of the thyroid gland. Not all goiters cause symptoms symptoms that do occur might include swelling cough. Rarely, symptoms may include throat tightness or trouble breathing A small goiter that doesn't cause symptoms may not need treatment. In some cases, medication or surgery is needed. Doesn't have. So it's so funny because I'm actually learning something here today. So it shows me we're on the right track, Jenny. Yes. So goiter. I mean, not that I'm just repeating myself. But goiter is an enlarged thyroid. It's not a thing. It's not like a new thing that appears in your neck. It's, it's the enlarged,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:34
it's the thyroid and large and really reason. I mean, the reason is because your thyroid gets kind of signaled too much by the pituitary gland to bring out more thyroid hormone, right, I mean, that's the gist of it. And so that over stimulation can cause the thyroid to get larger. And to some people get large enough that you could visibly see that see the change,
Scott Benner 6:03
and the reason in the United States that you would kind of pretty much think thyroid hormone problem or nodules, when you see a goiter. But I guess Believe it or not, is because we have iodized salt in the United States.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:21
Yes, we do. As long as you truly get iodized salt,
Scott Benner 6:26
right. Yeah. Can you get it non right.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:28
But I mean, if you look, and it's interesting, since we started doing all of these about thyroid specifically, I've started paying attention to salt at the grocery store. I like the grocery store anyway, so. But I was noticing like at Costco specifically, there are big things of sea salt, specifically state on the label. This is not a valuable source of iodine in the diet. So does Himalayan sea salt. I mean, there are many salts that have now become this as the preferred to use that no longer have enough of it in it.
Scott Benner 7:10
Yep. And it's so so in a past episode, I think in the goitre episode, I talked about No, not in the greater episode in the autoimmune episode. This is the goiter episode I talked about. I talked about a new rheumatologist that that ardency she spent 10 minutes talking about iodine and how it's interesting, not in our diet anymore. You know, and and then she went into talking about, I think this kind of fits, she went into talking about even when you eat well, in a factory farming society, you're not eating as well as you think you are. And she used an example of she chose a very popular grocery store chain and said, they, some of their fruits, they they flash freeze, and they don't deliver them to you for months afterwards. And she's like, they have ways of delivering foods where they show up to you with not nearly as much nutritional quality and quality believe that they have because you're like, Ooh, I'm eating a piece of fruit or I'm eating a vegetable. She said but the they've been decimated for nutrition all the time. And she started talking about having to supplement things that you just even if you have a certain diet, you might not know you need to supplement and that that's what made me think of this, which is you know, we all use salt and things. So if you used iodized salt and you have a goiter, it's likely not because of iodine, it's likely because of thyroid, but in other places in the world or if you've gotten all Fifi and you're using sea salt which I say jokingly because I realized this we're talking I switched to pink salt like years ago years ago right? I absolutely don't use much of the other people might have still use the salt shaker but I I have a little salt
Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:04
pig you like that you like the pink salt.
Scott Benner 9:08
I like to take a little pinch and just like you know let it go over top of things and and now I'm realized that I better just shake this the shaker a little bit myself once in a while. Okay, glitters did not look pleasant in the photographs.
Unknown Speaker 9:22
No, they don't. Yeah.
Scott Benner 9:25
And your mother had one. My mother
Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:27
had one. Yes, a noticeable one again from pictures and whatnot from that time and then once her thyroid was well managed, and she actually had thyroid burnout and everything because she was hyperthyroid and now she actually takes the typical levothyroxine because she has hypothyroid because of everything wise
Scott Benner 9:51
I have to say when I when I just Googled for pictures of goiter when they come back with like no not drawings but like but actual therapy. Following photographs, a lot of them do look like they don't live in the United States. That's interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. And while they can get massive in some Yeah. Oh, that's horrible. Okay. All right. Fun times here on the podcast.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:14
Yes, exactly. From time.
Scott Benner 10:17
There's nothing else to add to this one, right?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:19
I don't think so. No, there's certainly things that I could add, but I don't think that they're as 13. I'll
Scott Benner 10:25
just read this last piece that I had here in larger the thyroid gland, when your thyroid is bombarded by signals from the pituitary in an effort to trigger the thyroid into making more hormones. The excessive stimulation may cause the thyroid gland to enlarge to the point where you have a bulge in your neck. So this seems like that means in the case of an actual thyroid issue, but not an iodine deficiency, correct? Exactly. All right. Well, let's never speak of this again. Seriously,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:57
unless somebody comments, just like I want to learn more about guider, and
Scott Benner 11:01
we'd be happy to talk about it. But my goodness, that is that is very unpleasant, we'd
Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:05
have to find a greater ologists, I think.
Scott Benner 11:09
I'll tell you what, if my life gets down to that, Jenny, I'm not, I can't do this anymore. That's fine. I'm trying to outline the fact that I think that if I don't get Arden straightened out, and everybody else doesn't just stay healthy for five minutes, I'm gonna like light my underwear on fire and start running around the streets much longer.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:36
Everybody just needs to well, and what it actually goes along with something that I It sounds like you really found a quite good physician, because a lot of what she was telling you about the quality of food, I mean, it's the big reason that I take or spend the extra to buy non farm raised fish, okay, because the difference between farm raised salmon and actual wild salmon, there's a major difference. If you look at farm raised salmon, and you look at the package, you will see color added that color is added because they haven't been being fed the wide diet that they would eat in the wild to actually get the quality or megas that your body the benefit of eating salmon or tuna is for the omegas which in your daughter's case, the doctor was like, hey, you need more omegas right? Well, don't buy farm raised fish then because that's not going to help her anymore.
Scott Benner 12:38
I want to say too, she spent a lot of time showing us how to read labels on supplements, vitamins, and she said there are overwhelmingly more useless vitamins on the market, then, you know, she's like, and they're very good at marketing it to make it sound like they're good, but she's like there's nothing in them. It's just a it's just a waste of your money.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:59
So my original naturopath when I saw her years ago, um, she actually did the same thing. What supplements are you using? How are you using them, and she actually recommended very minimal list of quality, just multivitamins, and at that time I had needed to start taking like a prenatal vitamin, right in terms of preparation for getting pregnant. And she was like these are the ones and don't pick outside of those this list. These are quality they come actually the nutrients come from real food sources, not from synthetic something something she's like otherwise you paying for a bottle of what's actually getting peed out into the toilet.
Scott Benner 13:39
He also told me that the real popular vitamins that people know are good get knocked off online, so you have to be careful about even buying them from Amazon. And what else did she say? Oh yeah, anything that you can absorb to the lining of your mouth is preferable over swallowing it. So she gave Arden vitamin D drops instead of like sardines, one of those people that takes 50,000 I use a vitamin D a week, like once a week. And she's like No, she's like, just do these drops instead.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:07
Again, it goes back to the gut and absorption and they know very well that the gut and absorption and people who have type one is lacking. My my naturopath did the same thing. My vitamin D was 18 Yeah, the doctor had given me a supplement, huge dose like pills, supplements. And he was like, I don't know I started seeing a naturopath. She said you need to drop you need to put it under your tongue every single day, get things retested in eight weeks and come back and they were up already.
Scott Benner 14:38
You know, it's funny I'll add here before we end this one and move on to the next that if you would have found me before Arden had type one diabetes and before I knew anything about all this stuff, and had this conversation with me, I would have said oh I met a hippie lady today that was talking about vitamins and how they're not all the same and you know, you got to take vitamin D under Your tongue and I think she was high on the weed is what I would have thought, you know, they mean like, oh well, lovely cookie woman, you know, but now I know you're not cookie, and I'm not either. Thank you. So there's way more to this than, than most people would think, Oh, just just getting your supplements, right? It's not coming from your food. I mean, everybody, look when this is over today, take five minutes, close your eyes, be honest with yourself and think about what you've eaten this week. And tell me if there's food in any of it. Or if you're just keeping yourself alive and not nurturing yourself. You know, so I, I was on a road trip yesterday. I got up very early in the morning, I did not feel like eating, I drove a couple of 100 miles. I saw my son, I drove a couple of 100 miles back, I drank two bottles of water in the morning. I peed in a sketchy rest stop. I went to get my son. We went to lunch, where we went to a English pub, and I had fish and chips. So I had cod, probably not deep fried, but I stay away from the oil. So I picked all the breading off of it. And then I had fries and a little bit of ketchup. And then I got in a car and drove home and ate a peppermint patty, because that's what I could find it a rest stop. And then I got home and that is what I'd eaten that day. You know, and if you asked me, How do I eat? I'd probably say I'm fine. Because the day before I didn't eat well, but I didn't. I didn't on Sunday. And you really do have to start asking yourself, Am I I'm fueling myself and I'm not hungry, and I'm staying alive. But am I bringing in the nutrition that my body actually needs to maintain itself and to rebuild itself from problems? You know, and I think for most of us, I really I hate to say it, I'm not coming down on people. I think most of us, I don't think we do really?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:53
Right? Well, and I think if you ask many people who have enough resources and whatnot to actually have enough food in their life, it's quantity of food seems enough. So they would say yes, I'm well fed. Well, what's the quality? Not the quantity of what you're eating? Because quite honestly, here in our United States, we have enough quantity,
Scott Benner 17:19
right? It's almost hard to go hungry at this point. Yeah.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:23
So you know, and I mean, there are certainly people who do struggle for enough. But even them unfortunately, what they can have then access to doesn't have a quality piece to it. It's what they can have is what they can have, because this is what's affordable. And unfortunately, there's not much quality there.
Scott Benner 17:47
Yeah, no, I mean, if you are a person who's listening to this in the hopes of fine tuning your health, there's nothing in a Dorito that's going to help with that, I guess is the message. Even though I will say this of all the longtime foods from my childhood, the junk foods, Doritos has done the best job of keeping the experience of a Dorito the same as it was 20 years ago. Here's a short list of people who have not Fruity Pebbles, Apple Jacks, just using. There are some junk foods that people have just messed up over the years. For funny, Fruity Pebbles is my biggest disappointment. Jenny's like I don't know what a fruity Pebble is that? I'm not eating it.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:26
I don't Well, the funny thing is I do but we didn't have we didn't have those. I think I've had 30 pebbles, maybe once in my life. And it was just because my parents just didn't buy that kind of stuff. If we did have cereal, it was way way up camping. And it was like honey nut cheerios, right. I mean, that was like, and I mean, it still has sugar added to it. Obviously it's still you know what it is? But yeah, I think we just we didn't get that kind of stuff. I was actually talking to somebody the other day and I were talking about like kids and what they eat and whatever and it was like my children have never been enough Donald's
Unknown Speaker 19:05
like we can pass and Donald's and there is no Mama Mama Mama.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:11
They don't really I mean, my nine year old now obviously knows what it is but he would have no desire to stop there. Because we just don't that's not a regular thing for us to do.
Scott Benner 19:23
Yeah, in my house. It was soccer because Kelly did not did not want our children to play soccer we gave them no context for when they were growing up. I know I've told this story before but it I don't think to me that's interesting. We bears it bears repeating because you can you can impact how your children go up and what they think to do and what they think to don't do you know, food being the example but when my son was like two or three years old, we were stopped at a traffic light and there was a men's league and they were playing soccer. I'm talking about like hundreds of people spread out over five soccer fields. My son says, Mommy, what are they doing? And Kelly looks out the window and looks back and goes I have No idea and the light turned green. And we drove away. Because Kelly's sisters played soccer growing up, and Kelly hated going to soccer games. Ah, she's like I didn't, she didn't want to have a kid who played soccer. So we just didn't tell him what it was. And he just didn't, he never asked about it. And that that was it. And I, I'm dialing that back to your, you can, you can move your children in the right direction with a lot of different things. Even taking a supplement every day, you know, like just a multivitamin. You can make that part of their life to the point where they get older, they just, they just do it. You know, because not every older kid just you know, if you you realize when you're 20 years old, you need a a multivitamin or something. It's not going to be easy to get everyone to integrate that into their life. You know, most people are gonna have a hard time adding things as adults. So,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:52
right. I mean, even my five year old can go to the refrigerator and pick something like he'll often want and want to do it himself. An apple cut up with peanut butter. That's like his favorite thing ever. He can he make his own egg salad. I think it's pretty awesome. It's not pretty. And it certainly is kind of messy on the counter. But you know what? He can make his own eggs
Scott Benner 21:16
to do it. Well, that's, that's the, that's the takeaway from this one is you can make decisions about how you eat and how you get. There you go. Alright, Jen, do we have time for one more? Yeah, absolutely. If you're tired of injecting your insulin with a pen, or a syringe, or you have a pump with all kinds of crazy tubing attached to it, that you really don't like, this next bit is for you.
The Omni pod tubeless insulin pump does not have any tubing. That's why they call it tubeless. I know you're thinking that's not possible. But it is Omni pod doesn't have tubing. Other insulin pumps have a controller with a cartridge, connected the tubing that kind of you know, goes all over the place to an infusion set. And then that's how you get your insulin through that long tube. But with Ali pod, there is no tubing, no tubing to get caught on door handles. And nothing to disconnect when you're bathing or swimming. Because the Omni pod is, you know, it's happy in the water. You can go in the bathtub, in the shower in the local lake. You can go wherever you want wearing your Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. That's pretty important because then you don't lose your insulin during those times. How many of you have disconnected for a shower only to forget to reconnect to your tubed insulin pump? When do you find out an hour or two later when your blood sugar's sky high? Because you haven't had any insulin for a while. Why? Because you had to disconnect for a shower. That shouldn't be the way and with Omni pod it isn't. Now if this all sounds magical or different to you, and you're not sure what to do, I understand that, but you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash. Now go to Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox to find out. If you're eligible, Omni pod, we'll send you a free 30 day supply. You can check it out and see what you think. And even if you decide to stick with what you're doing after the trial, you still got our free 30 days. How often you get a free month of anything. So the Omni pod dash is tubeless it's waterproof, you can shower with it, or you know swimming the pool. Right the pool the pool. Are you thinking about summer I just made me think about summer. It's not here yet kids slipped through this cold a little longer anyway. swim in the pool. Don't get your tubing caught anything, don't have any tubing to be sneaking through your clothing. It's all pretty great. And no multiple daily injections. With the Omni pod, you just pull out the PDM that's the personal diabetes manager's little handheld device kind of looks like a cell phone. And you you just say I'm gonna have 12 carbs, he talks a little thing 12 carbs and says I think you should have this much insulin, you know, based on your settings and you go okay, push a button and boom, boom, here comes the insulin. No injections. I love it. Now you might be thinking, Alright, Scott, I want it on the pod but I've been hearing about this Omni pod five, and I'm just gonna wait for that. Hmm, I would say in a normal circumstance, I understand. But with the Omni pod promise, you don't have to do that. Here's what the Omni pod promise says. You get the Omni pod dash today. And you start using it and you love it. And then I don't know, a month from now two months from now whenever Omni pod five is available for you and covered by your insurance. You just move up to the Omni pod five. That's the Omni pod promise. The Omni pod promise says you can go to new technology that Omni pod has, when it's available to you and covered by your insurance. That's it, you want to change, you can change. That's a pretty good promise on the pod.com forward slash juice box, you might as well go poke around on the website and figure it out a little bit. See if you're up for it. Check to see if you know you're eligible for that free trial and get started today. Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player and at Juicebox Podcast comm to Omnipod and all of the sponsors
if you're wondering what signs and symptoms to look for in hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Graves' disease, and Hashimotos, I'm going to list them all for you right now. If you already know what they are. Well then thanks so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. But if you're waiting for the signs and symptoms they're gonna happen like right now. symptoms of hypothyroidism Farey the Mayo Clinic list of possible symptoms such as fatigue, increased sensitivity to cold constipation, dry skin, weight gain, puffy face, hoarseness, muscle weakness, elevated blood cholesterol level, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, pain stiffness or swelling in your joints heavier than normal or irregular menstrual periods. thinning hair slow heart rate depression impaired memory enlarged thyroid gland, which could be known as a goiter. If you're looking for this in infants, you might also look for a large protruding tongue difficulty breathing, hoarse, crying, an umbilical hernia, or yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes. As the disease progresses in infants, you may also notice constipation, poor muscle tone and excessive sleepiness. In teens, you may notice poor growth resulting in short stature, delayed development of permanent teeth, delayed puberty were poor mental development. Let's move on to hyperthyroidism. Still on the Mayo Clinic's website, they say of course, that hyperthyroidism can mimic other health problems. We've been talking about this through all these episodes, you know that unintentional weight loss even when your appetite and food intake stay the same? We're increase, rapid heartbeat, irregular heartbeat, pounding of your heart, increased appetite, nervousness, anxiety, and irritability. Tremors, usually a fine trembling in your hands or fingers, sweating changes in menstrual patterns, increase sensitivity he changes in bowel patterns, especially more frequent bowel movements, and enlarged thyroid gland of course called a goiter, which may appear a swelling at the base of your neck, fatigue, muscle weakness, difficulty sleeping, skin thinning, fine embrittle hair. For Graves disease, you're looking for dry eyes, red or swollen eyes, excessive tearing or discomfort in one or both eyes, light sensitivity, blurred or double vision, inflammation or reduced eyes movement, protruding eyeballs just quickly Hashimotos disease which as we know is an autoimmune version of hypothyroidism. Hashimotos disease progresses slowly over the years you may not notice signs or symptoms of the disease eventually the decline in thyroid hormone production can result in a the following. There going to be a lot of duplicates here from hypothyroidism, fatigue and sluggishness, increased sensitivity to cold increase sleepiness, dry skin, constipation, muscle weakness, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, joint pain and stiffness, irregular or excessive menstrual bleeding, depression, problems with memory or concentration, swelling of the thyroid, the goiter of puffy face, brittle nails, hair loss, enlargement of the tongue. I'd like to just finish by saying that if you have any of these, please see a doctor get a simple blood test and get yourself some answers. Don't forget a TSH over two is enough reason to be concerned. Treat your symptoms, not the lab values. Thanks again for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.
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#635 DKA on a Speedboat
Ezra was diagnosed in Costa Rica. His mother tells the story.
You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.
+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 635 of the Juicebox Podcast
Sara is with us today she is the mother of a child with type one diabetes and her child was diagnosed while on a family trip to Costa Rica. If you thought episode 478 DK a on a plane was crazy. Wait until you hear this because Sarah story is crazy on steroids. While you're listening, please remember 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. After today's show, please consider going to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. To fill out the survey, you have to be a US resident who has type one or a US resident who is the parent or caregiver of a type one. This survey will only take you a few minutes, it can happen right there on your phone. And if you're interested, it may give you the option to be in trials in the future. T one D exchange.org forward slash juicebox.
This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod. If you are looking for a tubeless insulin pump, you're looking for the Omni pod dash. I'll be telling you more about it later in the show. But right now you could go over to Omni pod.com forward slash juice box to learn more about the Omni pod dash. See if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial of the dash. And if you'd like to learn more about the Omni pod five, you can go to Omni pod.com forward slash juice box five. Alright, everybody, buckle up. Sarah is gonna tell a story. And multiple times during this story, you're gonna think yourself. Oh, why did she just say? speedboat? No. Okay.
Sarah 2:23
Hello, my name is Sarah and we live in the Midwest. And my son Ezra who is 11 years old is a type one diabetic.
Scott Benner 2:35
already so many things don't make sense. You're in the Midwest, but your son's name is Ezra.
Unknown Speaker 2:40
He was born on the West Coast. Just say that just
Scott Benner 2:43
don't try to confuse me.
Sarah 2:45
We're temporary residents of the Midwest originating from a hippie town on the West Coast.
Scott Benner 2:51
Now I get it came out of the gate trying to confuse me. It's not necessary. How old was Ezra when he was diagnosed? As I
Sarah 3:02
was nine years old, and is 11 now and he's 11 My memory
Scott Benner 3:06
is rock solid this morning. I was amazing. I know for many people like Scott, you've only been recording for a minute, but it's a lot for me. So okay, so he's nine years old had two years any in your family at all? How about you? Yeah, roadwork anything like that.
Sarah 3:22
Everything's, I'm all good. But my dad was a type one diabetic who passed away at 46. So I was 14 when he died.
Scott Benner 3:31
These are the, um, I don't I don't think I've ever said this out loud. But that was one of the hardest, like, backgrounds to listen to is when a parent of a child, you know, in modern times has type one. And then they say, Oh, my, my mom or my dad had it, but it didn't go well. And, and that's how it's because that must scare the hell out of you. Right.
Sarah 3:54
Yeah, it absolutely does. I think. I think that it's, it's like kind of always looming, I'd say.
Scott Benner 4:05
And, you know, I mean, you've like fundamentally and intellectually, you know, that care now and care when your father had diabetes is completely different. But it's, I would imagine it's just hard to shake that. Yeah, my brain.
Sarah 4:18
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he died. So he was diagnosed, diagnosed in his early 30s. So that was a little bit unique, too. So he only had he was only type one for maybe like 15 years. And I don't you know, I was a kid. So I don't really remember what his management was like. I don't remember. I mean, I remember him having low blood sugar, and we'd be out and about doing things and all of a sudden, we'd need to like, run to the McDonald's drive thru so he could get like those little packets of honey or everything would be fine. And then he'd have low blood sugar and he'd just be really his mood would change. But aside from that, I you know, I don't really remember Number A lot of the day to day management of it, and he, you know, I yeah, I just I don't know, I wish I knew more my parents were divorced and I. So my mom doesn't have a really good kind of history on it. And I was living with him alone when he died. It but again, you know, I was a kid. So it's just not really there.
Scott Benner 5:26
Well, so say your parents divorced before he was diagnosed or after
Sarah 5:31
they divorced after. So he was diagnosed around the time I was born, which was in 77. And then they divorced in 82. So he, I mean, a lot of the period of his diabetes, my parents weren't together for you and only child. I have a sister who's a little bit younger than I am younger.
Scott Benner 5:51
And so when your parents divorced, you live with your father.
Sarah 5:55
When my parents divorced, we both lived with my mom. And then, you know, as I got a little bit older, and I was in my teen years, she and I were having a lot of problems. And so I went and lived with him.
Scott Benner 6:06
Gotcha. Yeah, I, you need a moderator when your teenage daughter becomes a teenager? Yeah, there's gotta be another voice going, Whoa, whoa, ladies, what are we doing? A timeout timeout. You know, this might not make sense to younger parents or people who don't have kids. But there's, I don't know how to think of it if it's if it's currency or what it is. But as a as a man in a in a standard relationship where there's a wife, and some children, and some of those children or women or men doesn't matter. Every time you see your wife have an issue with your kids, and you think you need to interject, you realize you're about to spend some of your capital. You don't get it back, you know? Like, like, it's like you started with $100. And every time you open your mouth, and you're like, Hey, listen, I think I think she's making sense here. Like your, your wife looks at you and just pulls out a ledger and goes minus five. And
Sarah 7:10
we're taking another five points off right there.
Scott Benner 7:13
And then there's notes underneath where it says didn't take my side conversation about bah. And you're like, listen, I think, you know, and then you'll come in, in a situation where like, Hey, listen, Arden is obviously wrong here. I will step in. And you would think that maybe there'd be like a bell that goes off. And I would like regain some of the capital. That doesn't work that way. I only go backwards. I've never gone up. So I take your point about you and your mom. I mean, I don't know. I'm assuming Kelly and Arden would have killed each other years ago if I wasn't here. And I bet you that they don't think that at all, by the way. No. You're never gonna get credit for that. Oh, no, no, I think they just think I'm a moron. You know, whatever. I'm the glue. But they'll think that they think I'm sure they're the glue for me in ways to not saying anyway. Okay, so you and your mom almost call each other's eyes out. You end up with your dad. More or less? Yeah. Are you and your mom just very similar?
Sarah 8:17
Um, you know, no, we're very different. And I think that was the the rub was. We just like didn't see eye to eye on stuff. Right?
Scott Benner 8:25
Okay, so But now you're with him? I know this is about your son. We'll get to at some point. But, uh, you get with your father. How old are you now?
Sarah 8:37
I was 14. So I lived with him for like the last six months of his life.
Scott Benner 8:43
Oh, holy. Really? Oh, I didn't mean to curse. That's terrible. Let me make a note about where I curse so I can go back later. I've learned that if I make a note, it's easier for me in the editing side. Only took me seven years to figure that out. That's how badly I can't read my own writing. I was like, it seems like a problem, but I'll try it. Oh, I'm sorry. I know. That's probably a long time ago. But that's terrible.
Sarah 9:10
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was terrible because i He was definitely getting worse while I was living with him, I think is I mean, just looking back now knowing what I know about diabetes. I think his blood sugar was just like really hard to manage for him. And he didn't tell me anything about it. And my mom hadn't told me anything about it. So you know, I was just living with this person who was who had I think a lot of I mean, I think his blood sugar was just either high or low. There was definitely one time I remember when he got really low and I had to call I had to call 911 Because he was near unconsciousness. But again, like they came and they you know got a sugars backup and then Was it like we never talked about it? Or he never said, you know, like, if I have low blood sugar, I need you to do this, this and this. There was no glucagon there is just, you know, he didn't know everything. Yeah, no idea. Yeah.
Scott Benner 10:13
Would that have been the early 90s? About that time?
Sarah 10:17
Yes, that would have been like 9192.
Scott Benner 10:21
Would be nice if you would acknowledge how amazing it was that I just did that. But you don't have
Sarah 10:26
Yeah, very good math.
Scott Benner 10:29
It's not the math that you should be impressed with. It's that I remembered how old you are and what year it was. And they see y'all don't know me well enough. I'm just telling you is a major accomplishment. Just now when I yanked out of my head. That was the early 90s. Let's say your dad had diabetes at a time. That is just, you know, before everything, he was probably using regular and mph, when he started, I'm guessing he did you know if he even switched to a faster acting, or would you even have no way of knowing that?
Sarah 11:00
No. And knowing that, no, I remember him taking his blood sugar, like doing finger pokes. And then I definitely remember him injecting himself, you know, into his thigh or into stomach. But I have no idea what kind of insulin he was using or how often he was injecting or anything like that.
Scott Benner 11:16
Okay. All right. Well, then, we fast forward till two years ago. How long has it been since your father's passed?
Sarah 11:27
Let's see. He passed on July 6, and this would have been I'm 30 years ago.
Scott Benner 11:34
Wow. Okay. Yeah. I'm gonna get off this right now. But you were alone with him when he died.
Sarah 11:41
I was not at his house. I was actually on a road trip with my mom. And he. He thought he had the flu. And he'd called into work and let his business partner know that he wasn't feeling well. And and then he didn't show up for work the next day, and his business partner thought something was wrong and and found him.
Scott Benner 12:04
And that road trip was called Rumble in the Jungle part three or something you did you guys. Was there a boxing poster that went along with it? disagreeing in a car park. Right. Okay, I have one last question. Did your father's passing bring you and your mom closer?
Sarah 12:27
Um, let's see. You know, it forced us to live together again, which I think ultimately made us kind of have to get along a little bit better. But you know, my dad, my dad's passing was really sudden, he was in really good shape. He had just done like a, I don't know, 300 mile bike race. It was just really? Oh, it wasn't. It was huge surprise. I remember him dropping me off at our house and waving goodbye. And he he looked fine. He looked really healthy. So it was definitely it was hard. It was you know, that was a really hard time.
Scott Benner 13:13
But I mean, he's probably in decay half the time. He's probably ripped. Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I know. That's a weird way to think about it. But if he's blood sugar's were high a lot. He probably didn't have any body fat. He probably looked lean and healthy. And yeah, people didn't understand at the time wouldn't see it like that. Okay. Well, so I appreciate you giving me that context. Because for me, I mean, understanding a little bit about what we're going to talk about here, I would think a lot of that colors, how you feel when as far as diagnosed. So I guess let's jump to that. Then. Were there any signs? Did you ever think yourself? Wow, somebody might get diabetes? One day my dad had it. Was there anything like that in your head prior?
Sarah 13:53
Yeah, I mean, I remember him saying that it skips generations. So like, in the back of my head, it was always kind of like this could happen. But the interesting thing is that it's something I've reflected on quite a bit since as has been diagnosed is, you know, you go to those Well Child checkups, and they asked for your family history, almost like every time you go to those and not one time, did any of his pediatrician say to me, Hey, you know, you have diabetes in your family and like, these would be the signs that you would be need to be aware of if your kid developed diabetes, because I didn't know what they were, you know, in my head, I had an idea of what diabetes looked like. And I didn't know what to look for. Like, my kid would be really thirsty and peeing a lot and lose weight. And, you know, these would be the other signs and symptoms. So it was like I knew it, but I wasn't. I didn't know what to look for, I guess.
Scott Benner 14:51
Yeah. Do you think you seem like a reasonable person? Sarah, I'm gonna ask you a question. Not that other people. By the way, if you've been on the podcast previously, I didn't ask you this question. It's not because you didn't seem reasonable. But it just popped into my head. Do you think we expect too much out of other people? Like because of their?
Sarah 15:13
I do think that we sometimes expect too much out of other people. Absolutely. Okay. And I, oh, yeah, no, no, I'm sorry. Good. And I think because because of our experience as rolling into decay so quickly, it just was, like, really rapid. I feel like it's one of those things, that's pretty easy. Like, you know, we have all the markers like, now, when you take your kid to the, to the pediatrician, or whatever they give him like a depression screening, that could be done for diabetes, just as easily, right? You could say to a parent, like, Hey, here's the three main symptoms of your child developing diabetes that you should look for, and it would be like a two minute conversation.
Scott Benner 15:56
So I don't know how that ends up happening. If the diabetes, you know, American diabetes Association has to make that a priority with the Pediatric Society. I don't know how like, because you're right. I mean, anybody who's got kids in the last least 10 years knows that at every well checkup the doctors like So how have you been? Like you just suddenly, like, they get real friendly with the kid? You're like, what are we doing now? Like, you can't beat my child? Like, where's this going? Like, what are your interests? Like, oh, man, what's up? Just hit him in the name look in his ear, you know, but then you realize pretty quickly, they're trying to find out if the kids depressed? I don't imagine that. You know, that wasn't something they always did, like. So you're saying at the end of that? And is there been any, you know, odd thirst issues? Have you lost weight recently, mood changes, like stuff like that? I wonder if the thing that gets me about it is like, I think it's important, you think it's important. But how many kids are there in the planet versus how many of them get diabetes? And if we're going to screen for that, like, what else are we going to screen for? Like, does your well visit become a nine hour? You know, three part interview at some point like, well, you don't I mean, like, where do they stop? I guess, when when they're adding things? I'm not against it. I'm just trying to think of it in a bigger way.
Sarah 17:21
Yeah, no, I can totally appreciate that. And I think, you know, even if you just had that conversation with families that have diabetes in their family history, you could, you know, reduce the number of conversations you're having, right? Like, we know that there's some genetic component to it. So even that right would catch a bunch of families, but not like all the families.
Scott Benner 17:46
Yeah. Wonder if there's not like us. 23andme or one of those services? I've heard of them. Yeah. So I did it. My wife made me do it. If I'm being honest, it wasn't even I did it. Like it was a Christmas present for me, like worst Christmas present ever. Like I opened up a box and like, what is it? She's like, it's a tube you're gonna spit into him like, oh, great, Merry Christmas. Because I'm adopted, and she wanted anyway, not the point. The point is, is that since I've used it, I opted into answering other questions. And every once in a while, I get an email from them. And it just asks like 10 or 11 questions and it it screens you for like this certain thing. And I'm like, as I was listening to you and thinking about the problem, I'm just like, that might be a good fix for this. Like, what if your kid attrition just send out a link once a while you just click through some stuff real quick. And yeah, like they get back to you. I'm a genius is what I just figured out. Yeah. You just figured it out. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. I'm being underpaid, sir.
So what are the first signs for Azur then?
Sarah 18:49
Let's see. So he was drinking more water. Although we had when he started to get sick, we were in Costa Rica. And the intention was that we were going to be there for many months and travel around. So he was drinking more water and was definitely paying a little bit more. And it made perfect sense to me because we were essentially in a jungle and it was really, really hot. And you know, yeah, everybody drinks more water when they're hot.
Scott Benner 19:23
Trust me, if you were in Antarctica, you'd think oh, he's wearing these these incredibly tight, heavy clothes. You would have found another way to like, like,
Sarah 19:31
justify it.
Scott Benner 19:33
What everybody's brain does, but because you imagine if our brains immediately jumped to oh my gosh, I saw a thing that's slightly different than yesterday. I probably have an incurable disease. Like we'd be pretty crippled as a society if ever Yeah, mind jump to that right away. So you see the thirst. I have to ask first. You were in Costa Rica.
Sarah 19:58
We were in Costa Rica. Yeah. So we have I'd always wanted to live abroad with my kids. And we just have this like window that opened up. And I thought if we don't go and do this right now, we're never going to have one of these windows again. And so we left the states at the beginning of April, with the intention that we would be there until through August and we were going to move every four weeks, so we would live in like several of the microclimates down there. So we got there in the beginning of April, and as Ezra was diagnosed April 23. So we've been there a little over three weeks. And and yeah, and he, when we got to Costa Rica, he had no symptoms, like everything was perfectly fine. He didn't start drinking more water until, I don't know, maybe a week or 10 days before he was diagnosed.
Scott Benner 20:50
That's 2019 Correct? Yes. What's it like being diagnosed in a different place than where you're used to living? The GM? Assuming healthcare seems different? There's probably language barriers. Unless
Sarah 21:03
you Yeah, yes. Yeah. So I don't speak Spanish. So that definitely makes communicating with medical professionals very challenging. It was, you know, initially, he was so so sick, that I was just, you know, the information was more just about is he going to survive, and the diabetes was a shock, but it was not the biggest shock in all of what was going on at that time. So definitely, like took a while for the, you know, like, okay, he's gonna live with a chronic illness to kind of sink in. Initially, when we got to the clinic in the closest little town that we were living by, he was, he had cerebral edema. He had his Ph was 6.8. He was unconscious, he was in kidney failure. He was really, really, really sick.
Scott Benner 22:03
Wow, how quickly did that come on?
Sarah 22:07
It came on. Let's see honest. On Sunday, I thought he was like developing maybe a little bit of a stomach flu. And then he was unconscious by like, middle of the night Monday.
Scott Benner 22:22
My gosh. Looking back prior to that, was he losing weight or anything?
Sarah 22:28
He was, yeah, you know, I have pictures that I look back on now and can see it like he doesn't, you know, he looks like he's lost weight. He looks he looks sick. Looking now that I can you know, now that I know what was happening, essentially, I think that he because we were in this really new environment. And but he'd gotten a bunch of mosquito bites. And so I think his body was just, it just developed really quickly. It was you know, by the time we got to the children's hospital there, he was in septic shock. And he was just real sick.
Scott Benner 23:01
It makes you feel any better a number of weeks before we realize the Arden had type one. I saw her running around in a hotel room we were in, in a diaper. And all I said to Kelly was are we raising her to be like a heroin chic model? Like there you go.
Sarah 23:21
That does make you feel a little bit better. Yeah, cuz I cute. I think like how on earth did I not notice that he had lost so much weight, but again, like I had no context for it. So it was like, Well, I guess as we're traveling and yeah, he's drinking all this water.
Scott Benner 23:34
How many children do you have? Two children? Is he the oldest, the youngest?
Sarah 23:39
He is the youngest. His sister was with us and she's 10 years older than him. So there's a big age gap between the two of them.
Scott Benner 23:46
Okay. Are they? Like, I don't know the word we do it backwards. What the hell? So what I want like I'm trying to find out if if one of them's like a step. brother or sister but Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Should I said natural brothers.
Sarah 24:03
I'm like, like a half sibling.
Scott Benner 24:06
Paternal. What but if I wanted to just Alright, hold on, sir. Let's do some basic language. If I wanted to just ask you. Are they related? By blood through both of you your husband? What would I have said? Why can't I take that? Paternal? I don't know. You don't know. Either. You I don't know. Yeah, your picture. So it makes me feel better, but you don't know. And by the way, you the emails of people are like the word you meant like, hi, thank you. I appreciate it. When you guys tell me how wrong I am. Thank you. Okay, so they are so are they both yours? Or is the older sibling your husband's? They're both mine. Both yours. Gotcha. Look at you. hooking a guy with a kid. Easy problem for Sarah.
Hey, listen joke if you want, that's a heavy lift, right? I'm not making this up. If you ever met men, they have a hard time taking care of the kids they made. You start tasking them with paying for someone else's kid, trust me to have you left. I know what I'm talking about. Stop it. Let's not pretend. Okay, so were you married prior?
Sarah 25:27
No, gotcha. You
Scott Benner 25:28
just did that to make your mom mad. Yeah, it
Sarah 25:31
was another thing that I can really do to make her mad.
Scott Benner 25:37
I have no idea if I'm right or wrong, but it's just hilarious. So it doesn't really matter. Okay, so does she have any markers? Have you checked her? Since all this has happened?
Sarah 25:48
Yeah, she has no markers. Okay,
Scott Benner 25:51
good. How long did you think he might die? During that situation? How many days until you felt more comfortable with his outcome?
Sarah 26:04
Oh, it was a lot of this. Like, initially, when we got there to the Children's Hospital, they said, they said he wouldn't make it. They said, actually, what they said was, when I got in there, they said, If you the, you know, Doctor, the ER doc was like, if you're a person of faith, you need to start praying. And then they said that, you know, they, it was just like a matter of waiting to see if SPH came up. And then once it was clear that his he was a little bit more stable. They said he would probably live but he was gonna have extensive brand damage. Oh, which was very, very scary. And then it was probably three and a half weeks, maybe three weeks. He was in ICU for four weeks. So about that about three weeks, it became relatively clear that he was going to Well, definitely that he was going to live and that he was probably not going to have extensive brain damage. Like at that point, he was able to squeeze her hand and he was semi conscious some of the time. And responsive. You know, like I could tell His personality was still in there. And so, but it was a while. I mean, it was definitely there were weeks of every day going to the hospital and just not knowing what was going to happen that day.
Scott Benner 27:33
You have to know that this is one of the moments where I think maybe I should know more about what we're going to talk about before we start as I laughed for the first 25 minutes, and then you tell me that I'm like, Ah, there's a striking tone shift isn't there? Sorry, how much? How many times during those three weeks? Did you think I really wish we didn't come to Costa Rica.
Sarah 27:58
Um, I mean, oddly, I felt like he was in really good hands there. And so it was hard to be there because mostly because of the language barrier. And, you know, we didn't have like our community or people but he, I felt like he was in good hands. I had a lot of faith in the doctor that was kind of had taken his case over I think the doctor, his name was Dr. Pres. And he really took us under his wing and I think felt pretty challenged by as just like he kept saying as was medical presentation is challenging. But I think he like was really enjoyed treating Ezra and so this the medical system down there are so different and just the way that people relate to one another is so different. It was it was like very comforting sometimes to be in that country because people are so warm and supportive and loving, that I would go to the hospital and there would just always be people around and people like very caring people. So I tried not to think about why are we here and why are we not in the states and they'd be so much better if we were in the States because I just couldn't really I couldn't get we couldn't get back to the States at that point. So it just felt like my energy was better served just to be really present to Ezra and like, helping him heal and survive.
Scott Benner 29:31
Well, I want to you know, I'd like to say that just in case I came off wrong. What I meant was is that like the exactly everything you said like not that it was like a place where they're like oh, medicine What's that? Like but you know, that just that you didn't have people with you the language barrier like being far from home like that kind of stuff, but it sounds like you handled that part really well. They knew he had type one immediately right like this length of time was because of how severe is the Kay was
here you are listening to the Juicebox Podcast settled in having a good time listening to Sarah story about Ezra, and you're thinking to yourself, I am going to get an insulin pump, I definitely am going to get an answer. I don't know what kind of insulin pump to get, but I'm going to get getting on the pot Omni pod.com forward slash juice box, that's where you go to learn more about the Omni pod dash. That's it, that's all you really have to do. The rest of what I say after this is just filler. It's because the company is paid for this time and they deserve my full, unadulterated attention. I'm going to give you details about the Omni pod dash tubeless we mentioned it, I'll say it one more time, because it's a big deal. completely self contained. This little Omni pod is you just it is slap it on, right? It's gotta be a little more careful. And that put your, you put it on the body. And itself inserts actually completely self contained me in the insulins inside of it already. So no tubing that goes back to a cartridge, no having to clip the cartridge onto your belt or stuff in your bra. I'm not editing that out wherever else you got to stick. Getting my full effort tonight on tickets, or wherever else you would have to stick those cartridges for those other tube insulin pumps. You don't have to do that with the Omni pod. Because it's tubeless the Omni pod comes off every 72 hours, you just put a new one on, right? Gone. Brand new one super simple to do. Takes I mean, we just did one two nights ago. I mean, if it took a minute and a half, I'd be surprised. I mean, we're very good at at this point, like changing on the pod, like a racecar tire like ran ran ran. It's like kind of done. But I'm a skilled professional you understand. In time you'll get it. Again, we're getting away from the point. The only pod is delicious, because you can swim with it. You can bathe with it, you can play the sports with it. You if you're an adult, you can make the puppy with it. There's no need to disconnect from your insulin. And that's important. Right? You know, we talked about this all the time on the podcast, really well defined, nicely balanced Basal insulin, you don't want to just disconnect for 45 minutes to take a bath or hour and a half to go swimming. You want to get your insulin with the Omni pod, you can what else have I told you? small handheld controller does not need to be near the pod constantly. Just like when you're like giving yourself instantly like hey, I'm gonna have 33 carbs and push button. It's like a Scott based on the stuff you put in doesn't really say any of this. But like you know, based on your settings, it'll say Oh 33 carbs is this much insulin, you just agree to it and you're on your way. The minute you push the button actually and agree to the insulin, you could take the PDF, that's the personal diabetes manager, the little handheld device, it's going to look like a like a little Android phone for the the Omni pod dash anyway, not the point like as soon as you send the signal to the pod, you could take the PDM and shoot it to the moon if you want it to use still get your Bolus. It's lovely really. My daughter has been using an omni pod every day since she was four years old. And she will be 18 this summer. I am I'm being completely honest, when I tell you that the Omni pod has been a friend to her. And I believe it may be to you as well. Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. If you heard about the Omni pod five, and you'd like to take a look on the pod.com forward slash juicebox five.
Sarah 34:07
Immediately when we got to the little clinic by the town we were living in. Like within probably five minutes, they said to me do you know he's a diabetic? And I was like No, he's not a diabetic and they're like, Yes, he is a diabetic. And that is when it all kind of sunk in that like okay, this is this is what's going on, right? He's having like a he's diabetic and this is something related to diabetes and then you know, I didn't understand at all like what was happening right? Like I thought okay, if you're diabetic, you take insulin and then the insulin, you know, fixes your blood sugar and then you're fine. But as soon as you initially was at the little clinic firehouse and then they had to transfer him to the hospital closest, and then from there, they transferred him to the Children's Hospital. In the capital, and it took us about, like, a full day to get from the little clinic to the Children's Hospital. And I talked to several doctors, you know, in the meantime, between hospitals and they all kept kind of just like, you know, re explaining it to me like, using DK, this isn't something that you can just like,
Scott Benner 35:21
pop, you know, real quick.
Sarah 35:22
Yeah, like this is gonna take a long time. It's very slow. It's, you know, he's very, very sick.
Scott Benner 35:27
How much of the the needing to travel Do you think impacted the situation early on?
Sarah 35:36
In terms of like having to
Scott Benner 35:37
get to the hospital like you? Oh,
Sarah 35:42
yeah, I mean, I don't know. That's a really good question. I haven't thought a lot about that. I don't I don't know. I mean, I obviously the sooner we could have gotten him. You know, kindergarten whose medical attention the better, but I don't know.
Scott Benner 36:04
Okay. I'm just wondering, what made the trip take so long?
Sarah 36:09
Oh, my goodness. So well, when we, when he was unconscious, we, you know, there's no like 911. So or maybe there is I don't know, I didn't know how to access it if there is. So we had to find somebody in the town we were living in to give us a ride up to the clinic, which was amazing. It was it ended up that there was like a guy working on a house right behind our house. And he spoke fluent English. And he had a motorcycle. And he went got a woman who had a minivan. And she was like there within three minutes. And he carried Ezra out into the van. And we got up to the clinic. And she scooped us out of my arms and ran him into the clinic and explained to them what was going on. And then we had to take a like a little ambulance from that clinic to the to the coast essentially. And then we had to get in a speedboat and go across a bay. And the water was really choppy that day. And so as is on like a stretcher, we're in an actual speedboat. And I'm holding on to the boat, and I'm watching as just like fly up every time we hit a bump, and like come back down into the stretcher. And then we got off the boat and got into the hospital there. And then they kind of reassessed and determined he needed to go to the Children's Hospital. And that was another couple hours to get there. So it was just a lot of traveling.
Scott Benner 37:43
I have to tell you, I thought at some point there'd be a donkey in the story. I didn't realize that's amazing. No, yeah, you might win weirdest diagnosis story, just I've said before, I don't have a trophy. But if I had one, I think you you could I could send it to you. So that's insane. That is absolutely insane. Your daughter's with you the entire time to
Sarah 38:06
know. So she came with us to the clinic. And they only allow one person in the ambulance. So she went back to our house. And then when we got to the hospital between the clinic and the Children's Hospital, they said to me, we have to take them to the Children's Hospital, but you can't come with us. We can't fit you in the ambulance. Because they I think they wanted to bring like an extra doctor. And so they said to me, you can walk down the street and there's a bus station down the street and in the at that bus station, you can get a bus and you can take the bus to the Capitol. And I was like, You gotta be kidding me. I'm not gonna not leaving my kids here. Like, I don't even know where the Children's Hospital is. And they were like, well, you don't have a choice. So this is what you have to do so. So when walk down the street, got on the bus, took the bus to the capital, I didn't know where to get off in the capital, because I didn't know where the Children's Hospital was. So it was like, some by some miracle, I actually ended up getting off at a stop, like within a mile of the Children's Hospital and got a cab and took it to the emergency room. And then when I walked into the emergency room, everyone kind of stopped and turned and looked at me. And you know, there I was, I think as was the only green girl in that hospital. So they all knew who I was. And at that point, I don't think they thought it was going to survive. So everything just like stopped. It was at that point it kind of really sunk in how sick he was because I could tell they were waiting for me. And you know, I just assumed the news wasn't good.
Scott Benner 39:47
Wow, that's crazy. I'm so sorry. That's a hell of a story. The number of weeks later when he was filming, how long did it take you? I'm assuming you you didn't pick up and start your trip over you got home after that?
Sarah 40:02
Yeah. So he was in the hospital there for nine weeks. And then he was stable enough to fly home. So we hopped on a plane and transferred him from the hospital there to the hospital here. And he was in the hospital here for about a week and a half and then discharged. And and yeah, and that was the end of our trip.
Scott Benner 40:23
I'm sorry, I just looked at your notes that you put in when you send in your I don't know what to call it. I don't even know how to explain to people how I get people on the show. But anyway, this entire time I've I felt I didn't realize are you not married? at all right now?
Sarah 40:38
I'm not married? No. So I was down there with my kids.
Scott Benner 40:40
Just just your kids. Yes. Holy hell. Just by yourself. Are you okay? Like?
Sarah 40:50
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, the whole. Obviously, this is was really, really hard. But he, I really thought we were going to lose them. And then I really thought he would survive, but he wouldn't be like the kid that I'd known. And he is thriving. And I feel so fortunate that he's alive and well. I'm okay. I mean, you know, he's a really, I mean, he's a really strong personality. He's really strong spirit. He always has been. So I'm not because of that. I think, you know, of course, he would survive something like this. He's a fighter. But yeah, we're doing good.
Scott Benner 41:40
Change your perspective on life at all? 1,000%. Yeah, like paint in your garage now and don't wear shoes and stuff like that.
Sarah 41:50
Don't sweat the small stuff? Yeah, just Life is short. You nothing's guaranteed. I, you know, the connection, I think there was like, maybe 15,000 people praying for him. I'm prior to him getting sick. I wouldn't say that I was a religious person. And then when he got sick, and you know, Costa Rica is a Catholic country. So there was a chapel in the hospital. And just a lot of the the most of the doctors and nurses down there would always tell me like, we're praying for him. We're praying for him. And it was just amazing, as people back home, heard that he was sick, just the outpouring of like, love and support. And I have a friend who has a connection to most of the Catholic communities on the west coast and a lot of the tribal Catholic communities and she had 1000s and 1000s of people praying for us, we and this just like, I would just hear about this. And people would send me messages how they had heard about Ezra and they had, they were praying for him. We were working with a woman in Australia who I don't know exactly how to describe, but kind of like a psychic, I guess. And that was really helpful. Just, it was just a solace. She would talk about how she thought as I was doing. And I know that all sounds kind of like hokey. But it really, I think, showed me the power of energy and connection and love in the universe and how transforming that can be. And not
Scott Benner 43:36
a way, not the way you thought prior to this.
Sarah 43:40
No, you know, I definitely thought you know, I in a long time. You know, I've been doing yoga and mindfulness for a very long time. And I'm a therapist. And so I definitely had kind of belief in the power of these things and the power of human connection, particularly, but I think this just really brought it to a whole new level for me that you know, we really have the capacity to impact one another through just the kind of positive energy that we send one another.
Scott Benner 44:19
I guess to just being in a different culture, like opens you up to their ideas, and then it works out. You think okay, well, cool. That worked.
Sarah 44:28
Yeah, totally. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, I mean, everyone's like, very positive down there. So I would, I would go to the hospital and they'd say, Oh, you know, like, his kidneys aren't working. And then they say, but don't worry, don't worry. We're gonna get it. We'll get this fixed. Don't worry. It's okay. So it's like, okay, well, I guess I'll try not to worry about that. We'll see what happens. Okay.
Scott Benner 44:53
Thanks. What's his recollection of this nine weeks?
Sarah 44:58
Does he He doesn't remember a lot of it she remember so after four weeks in ICU, he spent five weeks in the, like the endocrinology unit down there. Because when he was in ICU, he developed a really large, essentially a bed sore on his back. And it required, like a wound back and like surgeries every few days. So that really kept us in the country longer. I think if that would have been the case, things would have progressed a lot quicker, but he remembers that period a lot. And he not fondly. You know, yeah. Yeah. It wasn't fun for him.
Scott Benner 45:49
Nine years old. Wow. Okay. How are things now? Like? His? I mean, your home? Right. Your home? Yeah. So you've been you've been here for quite some time. But how does he manage? Actually, what did they give you there? And what do you have now?
Sarah 46:05
Sure. So there they gave us. Let's see, we had long acting and short acting. All injections? No. And I think just like, we were just doing finger pokes. So it was pretty basic. And then when we got home, we kept doing that. I think he got to CGM right away. We got the Dexcom. Pretty quick after we got back to the States. And then now he's on the T slim and the Dexcom. And and that's been great for us.
Scott Benner 46:37
So using their algorithm.
Sarah 46:39
Yes, yeah. Control. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Benner 46:42
And you're from California. Right. Like you have a California accent? I don't know. I'm from Washington State, Washington State. It's the same thing like that side. I guess. I know. West Coast. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? By by the way, what I mean by like, California accent is like, you know, you enunciate all your words, and yeah. pronounce things correctly, you know, stuff like that. Sound like I imagine we're all supposed to sound I don't know. But okay, so West Coast, and you're in the middle of country right now, for reasons we haven't talked about. It's not important. And he's using pumping now. And do you think that has his story up until now impacted him? Or is he just a regular 11 year old kid with diabetes is probably like, not that interested in it? And, you know, like, you don't mean like that. Is there? Yeah. I I'm trying to, I think what I'm asking is, does the did the experience bring a depth of understanding to him or just to you?
Sarah 47:51
Gosh, that's a good question. I mean, I certainly have tried. My hope is that it is that way for him? Because it was such a, you know, big experience for him. But I think so. I mean, he's, you know, I think he has he's not naive, right to what life can send your way. And I, I do think that kind of shows. He has never really been, he's always been a kid. That's been a little bit. I mean, she's just a pretty wild spirit. He always has been. So I would say that he. I don't know that he's burden necessarily, but just that he's seen something that most kids is hmm, I mean, honestly, most people haven't. Right.
Scott Benner 48:49
Yeah. I wonder because I find, as my kids get older, that some of the things that happened to us that I thought were so impactful, impacted me or Kelly, but not them specifically. Like it's just different. So yeah, when they're kids, you know, like, they don't see things the same way. Or they don't have the same experiences. So things don't like impact them the same. Like, you know, I grew up like incredibly broke. And so when something goes good for us, I'm like, really impressed by it. I'm like, I can't believe we did this, you know? Yeah, my kids are like, this is our baseline expectation for you people you understand that? Right? Like, it's like, well, you know, had you had you lived in a situation where in the absolute worst part of the summer, you hung a sheet between the kitchen and the living room to keep the cold air in the one room we could afford to air condition, you'd see how exciting this is, but Right, they don't have that context. And so, you know, I used to sleep on the floor in the room that we could afford to put a window air conditioner in in the summertime. And my kids are just like, they don't have that experience. You know, it's one simple little example. So I was just wondering if he did? Do you guys ever talk about it? Or is it kind of in the past?
Sarah 50:05
No, you know, I really tried to talk about it with him. Just to keep filling it in for him, I think, you know, I think it's important that we talk about it because I want it to be. I want him to remember it, and not like the scary parts necessarily, but just like that this experience happened, and that it was, obviously like a really big deal for all of us. Typically, when we talk about it, we talk about it with his sister. And we'll just like tell stories, you know, it's not the nitty gritty of like, the medical stuff so much, there were just like, 1000 just wacky things that happened in that, you know, time that we were down there. Hilarious things. And I know, that probably sounds really strange, given the severity of what was going on. But, I mean, it was surreal, honestly, what was happening? So, you know, we definitely talked about it. And but I, you know, I agree with you that, like, this is all he knows. So like, this is just his life. And I've really tried to just make it as normal for us as possible, you know, like, not be overly anxious about his diabetes and not make too big of a deal out of it. Because I just want him to feel like he gets to be a normal kid.
Scott Benner 51:24
What was his understanding of your father's life prior to diabetes?
Sarah 51:30
There wasn't really, I mean, I think now we talked about it a lot like he, I, you know, aside from my dad being in as for being a diabetic and having that in common, my dad was, I think my dad and Ezra would have had a lot of other things in common. And so we talk a lot about, like, how great it would be if my dad were here, because my dad could, you know, be with us, and they could talk about diabetes, and my dad would understand it, that they could go fishing together, which is something they both love to do, and they could go sailing together and all these other things. We don't,
Scott Benner 52:03
I didn't mean to cut you off. You don't, you can keep
Sarah 52:07
I you know, really steer clear from like, you know, he died in middle age from diabetic complications, because I mean, the like, you know, as is probably going to live a long, happy life, because his diabetic management is going to be a lot better than my dad's in the technologies a lot better than it was in the 80s. So
Scott Benner 52:28
right. Now, I'm just like, wondering, like, not that you would say it this way, but I mean, I don't know how a kid wouldn't hear. Oh, I got the thing that killed my grandfather, apparently. Yay. Yeah. Give me like, Sue. I think that's, it sounds like what you're doing is introducing that idea. Not at all or very slowly. I mean, at some point, you're going to tell him I would imagine but I mean, I agree with i It sounds like you're doing it the right way, in my opinion. But I just was tricked trying to figure out like, like, because people could get dramatic. You don't? Yeah, don't seem like that. But I could see somebody Scarlett O'Hara, you know, forearm on the forehead. Oh, my God as her this is what killed my dad. Like, you don't mean like, I can see people. You don't seem like that. But some people are. And you know, yeah, they kind of lean into that, that sort of stuff. But yeah, I don't see why. He's too young, in my opinion to put that on him. Because the idea that this is a different world now management wise, and your outcome is very likely not going to be anything like that. I don't know if he could hear that after you told him the first part. So make sense to me. What do you do for a living?
Sarah 53:42
I'm a therapist. See, you
Scott Benner 53:44
know how to talk to people. Are you working right now? Sir? Am I being manipulated?
Sarah 53:50
This is actually a session I'm gonna send you a bill.
Scott Benner 53:53
Is this the Kelly send you what's going on? Am I crazy? Tell me now imagine that'd be a bot by the way. That'd be genius. Kelly did that she doesn't care that a lot of effort do you uh, does your you know I ask everybody who's a therapist this but does your profession help you in your personal life or not? Really?
Sarah 54:22
Definitely. It helps me Yeah, I think you know, just in this situation with him like, acknowledging my own like anxiety and worry and fear and being really trying to be really mindful at least of not projecting that onto him and not doing like you said like the Scarlett O'Hara it's We're doomed. Yeah. I think that's been really helpful.
Scott Benner 54:46
Are you smiling right now like I am imagining younger people going, Scarlett who what the. The irony is there's I've never seen that movie. I just know the cultural reference There's the internet for you. You don't actually have to know things to use them correctly. I don't know what to call this episode. Because I want to work as his name into it so badly. But all I have is the name of that band. And that doesn't make any sense. So
Sarah 55:24
yeah, I look forward to hearing what you decide to college.
Scott Benner 55:27
Yeah, well, it's gonna have something to do with a speedboat, I'm pretty sure because for anyone who's like, Listen, I'm gonna say something right now I'm not embarrassed by I love survivor, the TV show. I have seen a great many of the episodes. And there was this one, see if nobody's watched this show, at the end of the time on the island that they're on. They have some sort of a, I don't know, it's not important, but they leave with this kind of like a bucket full of votes, right. But then the votes are counted back on the mainland later in a live show. And so they used to try to do these weird transitions where it would look like Jeff Probst would be walking out of the island and right onto the stage, you know, in California where they would tell you who won one year, he jumped on a jet ski and rode away. And I laughed for like, it was so ridiculous that I laughed the entire time it was happening. And yet, that's what I thought you were telling me that your son was on a speedboat. Like, because all I could think was, well, that's unexpected. And
Sarah 56:31
yeah, it was when when the ambulance was driving to the coast. And it was like clear, we were gonna, you know, go down to the dock. I was, like, totally racking my brain. I'm like, what is happening right now? Yeah. Are we getting on the ferry? And then, all of a sudden, I realized like, oh, no, we're gonna get on that little speedboat. And sure enough, we got on the Speedboat.
Scott Benner 56:56
Your son's like, I can't believe I'm laughing but he's on death's door, obviously. Right. I would be the only thing stopping you from going? What is happening? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You don't fit me and I thought, I swear to God, I thought you're gonna say you wrote on the roof of the ambulance at one point, I was like,
Sarah 57:23
if they would have offered me that option, I probably would have taken it and absolutely done that rather than be sent down the street to find a bus to a city where I had no idea where the hospital was in
Scott Benner 57:36
a place. You don't speak the language. Exactly. Yeah, I would have joked about it at the time. But you went right into how everybody was staring at you when you walk into the hospital. So Well, now's not the time in this story to say this, but that really is frightening. You are incredibly, like either you're high or you're really healthy. But it's super early. Well, it's not super early, where you're at. He could be a little loaded right now, I guess. But I just don't like how did you? I guess I really do want to know, like, what did you do for yourself? Like, once you were home and settled and he was okay. Like, did you address this for yourself? Or did you do Yeah,
Sarah 58:19
yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I would say over the last couple years, it's like, kind of the, the, I don't know, settling in and kind of dealing with the trauma has been a big priority for me. I, you know, I have a really robust yoga practice. And I do a lot of kind of just sitting in meditation or mindfulness. I am a runner I am, I have a fantastic therapist, I have close friends that, you know, I really can talk to and lean on when I need support. I have family in the area. My sister's an just an amazing support system. My daughter's incredible. So, you know, I think it's been I mean, I do think one of the challenges has been COVID Because that was like we'd gotten back to the states in July and it kind of felt like life was just settling in back to a little bit of like a new normal for us and then COVID head and that's been I wouldn't say it's been particularly challenging. Like, with as you know, we kind of got things sorted out. So he was able to, like continue to go to school and I tried to keep things as normal and for him as possible, particularly since he was just, you know, newly diagnosed and had been through so much. But just working as a therapist over the last year and a half has been pretty intense because it's been such such struggle for so many people living through the pandemic.
Scott Benner 1:00:03
I don't usually get the episodes. But today's September 2 2021. My son went back to college five days ago, and this is Arden's first day of high school, and where she's in the building, so, Arden This is Arden's first day as a senior. But she's, uh, wow, she's only been to high school for a year and a couple of months. But she should be the beginning of her fourth here. My son, yes, same situation. My son is a senior in college, who's only been at school for three semesters, I think, Wow. You know, so, and I'll tell you this morning, she left and Kelly was still asleep. And I sat in the living room, I am not a like, I, I have to examine myself a little better. I don't enjoy my home, like I don't like I'm not a person who just sits in like, it's like, oh, I have a living room. Like I sit in the living room. If I'm doing something in the living room. I don't I don't know how to put what I'm saying exactly. Other than I'm usually doing something. And so I just sat down. And I was like, I'm gonna sit here for a few minutes. And the dogs were looking at me like, are you going to feed me? And I was like, huh, just yet? I need a second. Like, and I think was like, I can't believe they're finally back at school. And it's been so freaking long. You know? Like, it's, I mean, what is it? March to March and April? May? June, July? It's, it's, it's a year and a half? Yeah. So. And then I didn't have anything crazy happening in the middle of it like you did? You know, so? Geez. Like, goodness, I have other questions. You have a couple more minutes? Yeah, I do. Excellent. How are things going management wise? Like? Do you listen to this podcast? Like, how are you here? Yeah,
Sarah 1:01:51
so I found your podcast, Ezra, we were when we were in Costa Rica, he went to the surgery, like it felt like a lot. He went every few days for probably four weeks. So and I would just have to sit there and wait for him. And like, the worst part of waiting down there was feeling like I couldn't do anything. You know, I just had to wait. So I started listening to your podcast. And I started at the very beginning. And, you know, I don't know how many years ago that was that you started but it was, it was awesome. It was like a connection to the diabetes community. And it also felt like, okay, at some point, like, our lives are going to be normal enough, again, where I'm going to be thinking about packing low snacks, and, you know, managing his blood sugar numbers, and what kind of pump we're going to use and all those kinds of things. So that's when I found it. And then yeah, I mean, you know, right now, I Well, over the last, I would say, since we kind of got back and got on the pump, my I keep wanting more information from the doctors that we work with, about how to do better how to get as a one C lower, or, you know, just like all the nuances kind of managing diabetes. And I just often get told when we go to the endocrinologist, like you're doing a good job, he's in range enough to say once he looks pretty good. What I've really appreciated about your podcast is I feel like you dig in and really provide more kind of information about like, what it means to live with diabetes, and how, you know, even Pre-Bolus thing like all the kind of details that go into doing that correctly. So it's been really informative. It's been awesome. I thank you. I really appreciate what you do. Oh, no,
Scott Benner 1:03:45
that's my pleasure. I just I couldn't like you're, you're so focused on the story, which was terrific, by the way. I just was like, I don't even know how you ended up here. I just looked. And South American generals, not you could imagine, because I'm assuming the language barrier is, you know, would stop my podcast from being too big in South America. It's, you know, and I'm looking like through Honduras, Guatemala, like, there's nobody list like, you know, there's no one really listening in there. There's downloads, but they're not of any great consequence. And then all of a sudden, you just kind of keep banging down, then you get to Costa Rica, and I'm like, Oh, well, there's all Sarah's downloads.
I mean, it's you and somebody else, but I don't think too many people is what I'm saying. But that's really, that's really interesting. And I'm glad you just you just jumped on. Were you a podcast person prior to this?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:44
A little bit. Yeah. Yeah, I
Scott Benner 1:04:46
think the search there.
Sarah 1:04:48
Yeah. I mean, I kind of knew like, what I was anticipating what was gonna happen was we were gonna get you I mean, even this is true in the States, you know, like you go, maybe your kid SDK and you go in and you're in ICU. For a couple of days or whatever, and then you go home and they're like, here's a book, and a phone number to call good luck. And I, you know, kind of knew that was gonna happen, or I thought that might happen. So I was really just like looking for more information. And I think what I also appreciated about your podcast is it's very just like, Well, I mean, the scope of it's pretty amazing, but just it's really easy to listen to you like you. Present. It's just it's, I don't know, I'm amazing.
Scott Benner 1:05:33
I hear what you're trying to say. It's hard to get out. Yeah, it's weird to say. But yeah, I'm like, I'm terrific. I mean, there's no way around it. So sorry. You were struggling. I just I felt bad. Thank you for feeling about it. Yeah, you're fine. Um, yeah. Listen, the information is one thing, but it's delivered by it by like, God damn, delightful person. Yes. I mean, you heard me come up with what I fixed that healthcare problem in the first five minutes of the show. No one, no one's gonna listen to me, but doesn't matter. Oh, no, I appreciate that. I do. I mean, it's so I hope you understand that, from my perspective, it's crazy to think that that was your story. And at some point, I intersected with it. You know what I mean? Like, that's a real, like, it blows my mind a little bit, honestly, you know, joking aside, yeah, that I made a thing in this room. And you were going through all that in Costa Rica. And it found you and sounds like it was valuable for you. Like, that's just crazy to me. So, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It sounds obvious, like, Oh, you made a podcast because you thought people would hear it. And the internet, you know, it works everywhere, basically. And but it's not that obvious that you don't start something like this and think one day, this person is going to decide to take a trip with their children, and all this is going to happen. And at one point, you'll be sitting in a hospital like listening to me ramble on about diabetes. It's just very, it's cool. Like, I don't know, another way to put it doesn't need a big word. It's just pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Excellent. Have we not talked about anything that you hope to speak about?
Sarah 1:07:15
I think we hit on most of it. Yeah. Yeah. I think I yeah, he's doing really well. Now. We had a lot of surgeries once he got back to the States. And for the most part, those
Scott Benner 1:07:29
WhatsApp for the bed sores.
Sarah 1:07:31
That sores and when he was in Costa Rica, he had a colostomy put in so that was no fun and very happy with that got taken down. But most I mean, since Yeah, like he's all I think we have most of the surgeries behind us. And he's doing really well right now.
Scott Benner 1:07:53
You at some point? Had to wake your your son woke up, and you had to say to him, Hey, buddy, you have diabetes, and you're crapping in the bag now, and like don't worry, though, we're still in Costa Rica.
Sarah 1:08:07
It's cool. Oh, my God. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:08:13
Mommy. All right, we're gonna jump from microclimate to microclimate. It's gonna be amazing. It'd be an experience of a lifetime to go home and tell all your friends about all the love of instead, this bag here smells really bad. And it's so bad. Don't worry. We'll take it off when we get home. Maybe? Yeah, well. You were the worst travel agent in the world, sir.
Sarah 1:08:48
Yes, sir, always tells me he's never going back. Like that's fair. Go back.
Scott Benner 1:08:53
I wouldn't even want to go to a warm weather climate. It probably gets a little hinky when the temperature goes above 85. He's like, Oh my gosh. I'm sorry. He doesn't have any other health all on a second. Goddamnit. Prior to diabetes, he didn't have any other health issues. No, no. Super healthy kid. And he doesn't now.
Sarah 1:09:20
No, no other health issues. Just the diabetes. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:09:23
gotcha. I didn't know. It was like you took Tiny Tim to Costa Rica. I wasn't sure what was. But um, and does your daughter have a hippie name? Like your son or no? You don't? Really? So yeah, just Yes.
How far up in Washington like, like Seattle.
Sarah 1:09:49
Let's see. I was raised in Seattle, but we were living in North Central Washington and a pretty rural area of Washington State. So that's part of the reason that we came back When we came back to the States, we came to the Midwest was my family's here. And we needed to be really close to the hospital and kind of the medical team for him. So it's been great to be here because we've gotten great medical care for him.
Scott Benner 1:10:16
Have you ever reconnected with the health care workers in Costa Rica told them how he's doing? Or is that would that be hard? Yeah.
Sarah 1:10:23
Yeah. No, every year around the anniversary of his diagnosis, I exchanged emails with his, the PICU doctor that treated him Dr. Perez. And just, you know, send him a picture and tell him like few highlights of the year as did ski team last year, or, you know, just letting him know kind of how great he's doing and how much I appreciate everything that they did for us down there. You guys
Scott Benner 1:10:48
are probably on their Chamber of Commerce website. They're like, Look, if you come here and get really super sick, we'll save your life. You could save you travel insurance. You don't need travel insurance. We got your back. I can see the headline now. Oh, my God, Sarah is the worst. Travel. Yeah, it might be the name of the I don't know. I love the speedboat thing. Well, it's hard to get away from me. Yeah. I wouldn't give anything to see that speedboat moment, because I'm assuming it's both hilarious and frightening at the same time from a third party perspective. Yeah. Like if I was hovering over top of it. I think I'd be like, Oh my god, this is horrifying. But look at that kid bouncing around on the Speedboat. And that woman looks very confused.
Sarah 1:11:32
Yeah. Yeah, I would say that was the majority of the experience once he got sick was like, just like, shock. And there. I mean, yeah. Like, here I am on the speedboat and my kids flying up and down. And the thing is, is like, you know, for the folks on the speedboat with us, like this is perfectly normal. So they're, no one's like making any big deal of the fact that he's, you know, in the air two feet every time we go over a giant wave. It's just, and I'm looking around, like, don't we need to worry about this? And no, we don't
Scott Benner 1:12:09
have your fancy American lady who's not going on a speedboat to get to a hospital. That's all I got. This was like a real life episode of The Amazing Race. Has anyone the viewers, has anyone I just for a minute thought I was talking to everybody. Have you ever seen that reality show?
Sarah 1:12:28
I hadn't that I know of it.
Scott Benner 1:12:31
Yeah. I mean, it's just, it occurs to me now. That's exactly what was happening. They were like, okay, the day starting Sara, you need to get to the hospital before your son dies. Good luck figuring it out. You don't speak any English. Here's a rudimentary map, like, you know, and then at the end, you get there. And there's this, this guy with a weird accent who says, You're the first person to arrive, then I guess you get to stay in the show another day. You get to live. It's not a perfect game show if I'm being honest. But but the entire situation feels like that. Like, go faster. Go faster, go faster. I don't know where I am. I don't know which way to go. I don't speak the language. Like, that's a crazy. That's just a crazy, crazy story. I am so glad you came on. Thank you so much for reaching out. By the way, other people listening have crazy stories. These are the things I'm interested in, like, like, what are you doing? Get on the show? There is done the right thing here today, you understand? What did make you one? I'm gonna let you go in a second. But what made you want to do this?
Sarah 1:13:35
You know, partially to just raise awareness about DKA I think. I mean, I know in the States, it's not as lethal as it is other places. But I had no idea what I was looking at. Right? I like, and maybe that's how I I'm assuming that's how it is for most parents. But if there's just like one person listening today, and they maybe have a diabetic kid, and they talk to their neighbor, or you know, I don't know, like somebody hears it, and they say, Hey, my kid's been, you know, drinking a lot of water go into the bathroom a lot. And this story helps them avoid what we had to go through that is time well spent. And yeah, I mean, that's kind of I think, why I wanted to come on is I just feel like I feel like we need to be more aware of decay, it's really
Scott Benner 1:14:35
understand. Yeah, yeah. No, I do. Well, listen, I do have an episode already called decay on a plane like do I just call this one day on a speedboat? Yes, I think you found it to turn into a series like eventually, yeah. DK on a public bus. DK on a motorcycle, you know? I mean, other people have to have good stories like this, like, you know, literally. Has anyone ever been in DK in a police chase? In a car, that'd be amazing. Give me a whole series. Imagine like 20 years into this podcast people are just like making stuff up now they're like, like I once was on DK in the space ride, because we're gonna be right baby soon so. Oh my god, Sarah, you're delightful. Did you know that about yourself? Thank you. I don't know why your mom didn't like you. I'll let her know that you tell her I said I think she's misguided. Although I bet you she could tell me some stories about a 14 year old you that would curl my hair. Oh my gosh. First, let's thank Sarah for coming on the show and telling that great story. And let me ask you, anybody listening if you are somebody you love is suffered DK on a strange mode of transportation. Please send me a note. I'd love to have you on the show. I think we might have a series going here. We got DK on a plane. DK on a speedboat. I mean, anybody got a something different a boat ferry rocketship. Anybody had DKA on horseback, let me know. Oh, I'm running out of music. I'm going to do the rest of this African music
I'd also like to thank Omni pod for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast to learn more about Omni pod five, go to juice box. But that's not right. To learn more about Omni pod five, go to Omni pod.com forward slash juice box five. And to learn more about the Omni pod dash to find out if you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the dash, and so much more. On the pod.com Ford slash juicebox. There are links in the show notes of the podcast player that you're listening in right now. And there are links at juicebox podcast.com. But you can always type you type it with your fingers and put those links right in your browser. I want to thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. DK a on horseback, anyone? Anyone at all? Find my email address. Hit me up
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