#858 Run Jenna, Run

Jenna has type 1 diabetes and some good stories!

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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 858 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's show I'm gonna be speaking with Jenna she was diagnosed with type one diabetes as an adult, and has run in a number of marathons with type one. We're going to be talking about that and much more on this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice. I just forgot the words that's crazy. Medical or otherwise. Wow. While you're listening today, what how do I do this? 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. Wow, I have said that so many times. I don't think I'm thinking about it while I'm doing it. See when the exchange.org forward slash juice box if you're from the US and have type one or are the caregiver of a type one, please take the survey AT T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Thank you. I'm just going to leave all that in so you can enjoy my confusion

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one visit touched by type one online at touched by type one.org. And also find them on Instagram and Facebook. There are beautiful organization doing wonderful things for people with type one diabetes, and they would love for you to check them out. Touched by type one.org. The podcast is also sponsored today by us med get your diabetes supplies the same way my daughter does from us med us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 Just get your free benefits check. And you're on your way with us med actually us med called here tonight. It was a personal call. They were looking for Arden because they were like hey, hello, this is us men. And I said hello us. How are you? And they're like fine. And then they said would Arden like the Dexcom g7. And I said you know it? And they said all right. And now that's done. Us med.com forward slash juicebox links to all the sponsors are in the shownotes of the audio app you're listening in or at juicebox podcast.com.

Jenna 2:48
Hi, I'm Jenna. And I've had type one diabetes for three years. How old are you? I'm 35. So I was diagnosed when I was 32. Are you married? No,

Scott Benner 3:00
no. Had you when you were 32? No, I asked the question awkwardly. But were you with anybody when you were diagnosed? I guess is what I was trying to

Jenna 3:09
get at. I am now but I was not back then not then

Scott Benner 3:13
am now got it. Okay. Very expected or unexpected.

Jenna 3:20
It was completely unexpected. So I've no family history kind of came out of nowhere. I do work in health care. So I actually did end up recognizing my own symptoms, but I was pretty sick. And it took a little while for me to get there. So I guess I could talk about that a little bit. If you want me to

Scott Benner 3:35
look at your producing Yeah, no, no, I was gonna ask, what did you notice? And why did it take you time to, I guess come to grips with it.

Jenna 3:46
So I'm a really big runner. And I had run 12 marathons in my life up to that point, and I was training really hard to try to qualify for Boston. I live in Oklahoma, it's extremely hot in the summer here. So I've been doing a lot of running in the heat. So I was drinking a ton of water, you know, all the usual symptoms going to the bathroom all the time, losing weight, and I was thinking man, this marathon training is really killing me and it's working really well for weight loss this time. But, you know, eventually I started thinking to myself, this just isn't right. So I checked my blood sugar at work and it was too high for the glucometer to read. And I was in denial. So I said to my friend, I think our glucometer is broken. Can you check your blood sugar and she was drinking a coke and hers was like 102 So I knew at that point,

Scott Benner 4:27
I think your blood sugar is broken. We gotta get a third person over here to try.

Jenna 4:32
I know that's how I felt that's what I was hoping for. You know, denial.

Scott Benner 4:35
Can I ask you about those 60 seconds when you say to your friend, hey, check your blood sugar. This glucometer is not working. Are you? Are you honestly thinking that's the case? Or are you thinking oh wow, this is my last chance to prove I don't have diabetes.

Jenna 4:51
That's exactly what it was because I had been thinking for days that I should check my blood sugar at work. But it was like everyday it was like one more day if I don't if I can put this aside from One more day not think about it. So I had that was a Tuesday, I worked that weekend before. So Saturday, Sunday, Monday, everyday told myself, you're gonna check your blood sugar today. And then finally, and finally on Tuesday decided, You know what, I have to just do this. So yeah, if I lost about 20 pounds, so I knew that you know, something was pretty wrong.

Scott Benner 5:18
What would you do professionally? If somebody did what you did? What would you say to them?

Jenna 5:24
Oh, I mean, I guess I'll say now that I can. So I'm a PA. Like I said, I work in healthcare. And I understand denial is a powerful tool. And I guess I can I'm more empathetic towards patients in that regard now, because, you know, I would think to somebody to one of my co workers, how did you not notice this? You know, but really, I think I had I just didn't want to come to terms with it.

Scott Benner 5:44
Yeah, no, I understand it. I'm glad it gave you some perspective that you can use with other people. So you're a physician's assistant. Yes, I am. That's a cool job. You work in a hospital system or in a just like a physician's office.

Jenna 6:00
I work in a hospital system. So I do a little bit of both. I do hospital side and clinic, which is nice. Nice.

Unknown Speaker 6:06
How long have you been doing that?

Jenna 6:07
10 years now?

Scott Benner 6:09
Wow. You say Oklahoma earlier? Yes. It's really hot there. How come you people can't drive in the snow?

Jenna 6:16
Oh, I have no idea. I used to actually live in Philadelphia and I couldn't drive in the snow there. But you didn't really have to because, you know, they plow the streets and salt. But here, they just don't do anything to the road. So like a half inch of ice shuts us down.

Scott Benner 6:30
I gave a talk in Oklahoma once. And it got about half the turnout as tickets sold. Because there was what I would generally call a dusting of snow on the ground. Three hours before the thing began. And it was cleaned by the time it happened and people were just we don't go out in this and like in white. Just couldn't understand.

Jenna 6:50
Oh, it shuts down our states. That's for sure.

Scott Benner 6:53
Very interesting. Okay. So how did you make it from Philadelphia to Oklahoma?

Jenna 6:57
So because you're Oh, I wish no. So I'm originally from the Philadelphia area. But my dad got transferred to Oklahoma when I was in like second grade that I went to PA school back in Philly. And then I

Scott Benner 7:09
moved back here. So I'm just kind of been back and forth. So military bounced around.

Jenna 7:14
No, my dad actually is not military. But I get asked that a lot.

Scott Benner 7:17
Yeah. Oh, just a job change. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. upside to Oklahoma over Philadelphia, and vice versa.

Jenna 7:25
I'd say the people in Oklahoma are the friendliest ever. So definitely. That's that wins for Oklahoma. Philadelphia is nice, because it's close, you know, to a lot of places. So you get a weekend off work in our long weekend, you can do a lot of traveling and Oklahoma pretty much up to fly anywhere. So take the worst downside of Oklahoma

Scott Benner 7:44
take the first three days to get out of Oklahoma. Right. Exactly. And all of a sudden, I gotta go back to work. So okay, so you're so this happens at the hospital or at work where you test your blood sugar. You and your friend I imagine look at each other your coworker like oh, wow, you have diabetes. And then what do you do?

Jenna 8:04
So the I broke down. So you know, I was really upset. I also didn't realize how much different management was from what I thought like, I didn't know CGM existed or anything. So I was just like, I was supposed to run this marathon. 11 days later, they had been working super hard for and I was like, There's no way this is going to happen. I was just I started crying at work, basically. So the physician I work with actually called it endocrine department and got me an appointment the next day. So I'm extremely lucky to have had that connection.

Scott Benner 8:33
Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. So the the running was the first feeling of loss. You had it immediately.

Jenna 8:42
Yeah, I guess, you know, managing type one diabetes, like I said, is a lot different than I thought it was. I just immediately was like, thinking of this life, you know, surrounded by finger sticks. And just, you know, I didn't know about the modern technology at that point in time, which is crazy to think about now.

Scott Benner 9:02
Yeah, no, I mean, did you have much connection to diabetes in your practice?

Jenna 9:07
We see a ton of type two, but they're

Scott Benner 9:09
not really wearing CGM. CIAT at this point with any great frequency.

Jenna 9:13
You know, it's interesting that either hadn't been or I wasn't just wasn't as aware of them. Because now I, we raise a very common among my type two patients at this point.

Scott Benner 9:23
That's interesting. It's and it hasn't been that long. So maybe you have a little both maybe maybe it's coming on and at the same time, you weren't really looking for it. That's what I think interesting. Okay. Why do people run the game for any reason whatsoever? I don't understand at all like so. Is it uh, are you other voices in your head? You're trying to keep quiet? Is it about setting a goal and getting to it like what makes you want to just go out there and pound away like that?

Jenna 9:52
I guess I am a pretty goal oriented person, but there's actually a really strong running community in Oklahoma City. So I need a little group to run Before work Tuesday through Friday, so it's kind of nice little social hour before work. And I mean a group to do long runs on Sundays. So it is a pretty social sport.

Scott Benner 10:11
Yeah, you're not answering my question agenda. Are these a group text these people? Or are they people who like to run? What is it? Man, I

Jenna 10:19
guess we just like to run Oh, we want to

Scott Benner 10:21
say I have to just, this person is never going to hear this. So it's fine. I'm tangentially related, not related. I have I've seen a person more than once or twice in my life, let's just say, who runs to the point where their body appears to be a skeleton wrapped in small muscles. And they don't seem like happy people to me.

Jenna 10:46
Oh, well, I don't run that much. I don't think you'd even look at me and probably peg me as a runner. I just look like an average person. Okay.

Scott Benner 10:53
And not to lump everybody into one category, which is what I just did, and not what I mean. But But this specific person I'm thinking of like, in my mind, when I look at them, I think something's wrong. And this is the way they're dealing with it. It doesn't look any different than overeating to me. Is that makes sense?

Jenna 11:12
Yeah, I know the kind of people you're talking about. But I wouldn't put myself in that category. I just, I just like to run I track and cross country as a kid and I just kept going,

Scott Benner 11:22
you get that? Like, what do they call that runner's high?

Jenna 11:26
You know, maybe sometimes I don't, I don't think on a daily basis or anything

Scott Benner 11:31
kidding. It's so so goal oriented. So we're getting through this. My son just explained this to me the other day, he said, I don't care what I'm doing. I just want to set a goal achieve the goal and reset a goal. It's very, you know, is that sort of it then?

Jenna 11:45
I think so. Yeah, I have that goal to qualify for Boston. And I will tell you, I ran that, that marathon 11 days later, and I did. Did you realize, wait a minute. I did.

Scott Benner 11:53
Yeah. You just like, did you know what you were doing it all with your diabetes.

Jenna 11:58
I did a ton of reading and that 11 day period. So they started me, you know, on to Jao and homologue. So I just started doing a bunch of reading cut back my to Jaya the night before. So I was taking nighttime. And I got through that marathon pretty well. Actually, I had a I use a Dexcom now but I believe re sample that the Office gave me to use for it. And so I just scanned it every half mile and carried a bunch of carbs and made it to the end. So did you

Scott Benner 12:25
cheat and fly to Boston as you will run there?

Jenna 12:29
I flew. So I could have run quicker.

Scott Benner 12:35
To quick, it would have been a quick jump from Philly about 45 minutes into Boston. But

Jenna 12:38
that's true. What do you I chose to go from Oklahoma?

Scott Benner 12:41
Do you go in like days prior set yourself up in a hotel? How does that work?

Jenna 12:48
For Boston, I went two days early. So yeah, a lot of times, we'll go two days early. So you can go to the expo and pick up your packet and everything and then you know, then run the marathon and I usually I'll stay a day and check out the town if I go to an out of town marathon don't fly back.

Scott Benner 13:02
Interesting. Okay. And you have and you have energy the next day.

Jenna 13:06
Not Not very much. Sometimes my friend and I ran Chicago a few years ago made all these plans and sightseeing that did not happen at all.

Scott Benner 13:16
I had an extended catch with call the other day and I was like that tomorrow we're gonna need to take a break. So I'm saying get on a plane. Like if I got on a plane and flew from Oklahoma to Boston, and spent a couple of days I might need those days to recoup from maybe this says more about me than it does. So how do you going back to that first runt? Well, let me ask this how many marathons had you run prior to your diabetes? Do

Jenna 13:44
you think I ran 12 prior Wow. Okay, and then

Scott Benner 13:51
I'm assuming there's you know, a way you get ready whether you have diabetes or not, but how does it differ from before diet type one and after type one?

Jenna 14:00
Oh, it's a lot different for now. I think the hardest thing for me with type one has been managing my running schedule because you know, I used to carb load the days before I don't really do that because I find that just makes my blood sugar high and that's more stressful for me so typically most runs I run fasting so I find that I drop much less if I do that so marathon day I don't I changed my plan that day, which they usually say don't change what you do on marathon day but but diabetes I think it works better to do that. And then I can only fuel during the race depending on what my blood sugar's doing like before I diabetes every four miles I'd take like carbs in but now if my blood sugar is high, then I don't I just lie to try to run it down and put it off the more miles

Scott Benner 14:42
I see. So when you Okay, so you're running down do you wear Dexcom? Are you slowly right?

Jenna 14:47
Now I have a Dexcom now,

Scott Benner 14:49
are you looking at it on a watch when you're running? Or how do you do that?

Jenna 14:55
You I have an Apple Watch so I look at my Apple watch. I often just run with my phone One of my hand like, normal days during the week, just because you know, the Apple Watch, you got to tap on the screen sometimes to get the number to come up correctly. So sometimes it's just easier to hold my phone, I have it like a little widget on my phone. So what one of those two ways I love that widget by the way, me too. It makes life so much easier

Scott Benner 15:17
on mine as well. And Arden has it on hers for Dexcom. And I just looked at it now because it's that easy. I'm just imagining you running along like tapping on that watch and then running into a pole or something. I know right? Clunk. At least my blood sugar is good. I like you're

Jenna 15:36
waiting for help. My face might not be.

Scott Benner 15:39
So what kind of supplies do you run with now? Is it like? I mean, you said like carbs. But what does that mean?

Jenna 15:46
So I used to use those like little goos. I don't know if you're familiar with them. Like, run it like runners and triathletes use them a lot, but only. So they're just like basically like a honey consistency. But they have 23 carbs in them in spike my blood sugar like crazy. So during the week, normally I just use fruit snacks, because there's about four carbs per fruit snack. So if I see I'm trending down, I'll just pop a fruit snack or two. Because if you use the use any of the pie when you're done and some type a I like to have tight control, so I don't want to end my runs with high blood sugars.

Scott Benner 16:18
What's that mean? What's your range that you're shooting for?

Jenna 16:22
I pretty much try to keep my blood sugar between 7140 As much as I can.

Scott Benner 16:27
I like that. Do you listen to this podcast? Right?

Jenna 16:29
I do. Yes.

Scott Benner 16:31
That's when did you find it?

Jenna 16:33
I found it probably about three weeks after I was diagnosed. I was just, I was trying to learn as much as I could. And I started like doing Google searches and everything on your podcast. And I've listened to probably almost every episode now.

Scott Benner 16:47
I was just saying I jump around. But I don't care how you get it done. And I was just saying the other day I have to find like a digital award to give people like when they've listened to every episode, they should get something. I don't know how to handle I don't know what you would do with that. Maybe an NF T? Is that what we should do? Should we do an NF T for for people have listened to every episode. Can you imagine if I got involved in that? i Oh my gosh, I'm not doing that. But not even close. Don't even word. But I do when people say like I've listened to pretty much the whole show. I'm like, Wow, it's amazing. So thank you. So when you found it. So I think I want to go back a little bit because I find your age of diagnosis. Interesting. You're also

Jenna 17:30
did I didn't even know you could get diagnosed as an adult until I did now I realize it's a lot more common than I thought.

Scott Benner 17:36
But it's that it's that mid 30s thing, where you're sort of like I did it. Like nothing real bad's gonna happen unless like I get the cancer at the end. Like right, like it's not how you feel a little.

Jenna 17:49
Oh, I know. I mean, I feel fortunate that I got diagnosed in a time with all this technology. But it's so hard, you know,

Unknown Speaker 17:57
yeah, out of nowhere, right? Just out of nowhere.

Scott Benner 17:59
General someone is calling my cell phone incessantly. So we're gonna have to do something about that. Hold on a second. Sure. In the hell is happening here. Am I going to call them?

Let's see what it was. It here's my fear is that I think it's a doctor's office, and I'm going to need to do it right. But instead I'm going to guess that it's just a yeah, it's just a call. Daniel from the mortgage benefits of Polasek. listeners. Isn't Daniel calling from the mortgage benefits department? Sorry, we missed you today. Calls to oh my god, leave me alone. Daniel. I'll need your problems. Daniel. Is that That's alright. Anyway, like my phone never rings ever. Nobody bothers me. And then when Jenny and I are doing like a like a thing. I get the Walgreens call like your prescriptions ready to pick up a Walgreens and I complain I hate it so much. And yet I don't go to the trouble of unsubscribing from the phone call for some reason. I'm sorry. So let me refocus mid 30s. Well, actually 32 Right. Yes. Okay. So it still seems to me that that's a time in your life when you kind of think like, like the the juvenile stuff didn't get to me. I mean, did you have other health issues at all?

Jenna 19:31
I've never had any other health issues. Okay. So it was really out of nowhere.

Scott Benner 19:37
And we kind of we kind of substantiated that you were you were on your own you're not you weren't in a relationship at the time. So my guess is you're not living with your parents. You're living on your own. What's that like trying to find a support system?

Jenna 19:51
I will say it is a little bit difficult just because nobody else has any idea how to manage my diabetes even still, but I feel like at first is trying to lie down I was pretty good about trying to learn everything kind of alongside my parents spend their summers, they live in Oklahoma, but they spend their summers out of state. So they actually weren't here when I was diagnosed. But I don't want to give just my dad to credit my mom to both my family is really close. So both of my parents did do a lot of reading, but still, you know, when I was trying to figure out, I took it to myself to start adjusting all my insulin right away. But you know, trying to figure all that out, I still felt like I was kind of, you know, on my own instead of being like a child that, you know, had parents support system or significant other at the time. So

Scott Benner 20:32
did you apply that feeling you have inside about setting goals to diabetes, then?

Jenna 20:38
Yeah, I think so. Because, you know, right away, I did not like to see those high numbers. So right away, I was trying to figure out what I needed to do to get that down and try to get you know, get tight control.

Scott Benner 20:48
What's it feel like, psychologically when your blood sugar goes up? I don't know why. Oh, I wish I should. I should just ask everyone this. I don't know why I don't but like, I imagine a panic.

Jenna 21:02
Oh my gosh, in your like, for me, my mouth gets so dry. It's like an unquenchable thirst. My, like, when I was especially when I was first diagnosed, my vision was a little bit blurry. Like my head was in a cloud all the time. And I was so tired, which I think is probably from the high blood sugar's I had so much fatigue, but then also, you know, I was like, peeing five times a night so I was getting no sleep at all, you know, is terrible.

Scott Benner 21:25
Because I can't sleep blood sugar's I have to be canceling. and by gosh, and by yourself and then, but then there's, did you have that concern about Lowe's back then, too? Or did you not even know enough about it to think about it?

Jenna 21:39
I really didn't. At first, I did have one episode of a bad blow a few months after I was diagnosed. So that really scared me on track. Be careful and make sure that I'm not trying to force too tight of control that I'll get myself low. So I guess I can talk about that if you want me to.

Scott Benner 21:59
are you stopping yourself from talking? Are you worried? No, no. Yeah, well, like I guess if you want it, I could tell you I mean, listen to me if you don't tell me about it, we're done. You know what I mean? Like I got a I got a plan over here. Like, oh, no, shut up about that. I gotta go to my next thought. I don't know my next thought. So how soon into the diagnosis was the scary lab

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Jenna 24:55
November so I was diagnosed in June. So ya know just like bye months, I was five months into it. So I was it was really fortunate for me that I had been set up with Dexcom at that time and I went, it was in November. So I got to my parents house for dinner like the week before this happened. And I said to my dad, oh, there's this like Dexcom follow up. Do want me to set your phone up. You can follow my blood sugar's it'll alert you I go low. So we did. We got him all set up on that. And then it was a Friday night and I had gone to watch, like a thunder game with some of my friends. I came home and I hadn't eaten dinner yet. So I Bolus for a frozen pizza. And I don't know if I over Bolus if I fell asleep. I actually don't know what happened. But my parents had repeatedly called me and I apparently answered the phone, but don't really remember talking to them. So anyways, they end up having to call EMS to come administer, like IV sugar D 50, I assume is what they gave me. Yeah. So that was obviously extremely scary for them and extremely scary for me. So, you know, I learned my lesson there. But living by yourself, as you know, can be a little bit scary, too. I

Scott Benner 25:59
guess one of the things I think about most of them talking to adults, like the idea that they could be living on their own. Yeah. And you know, if I mean, you know, you don't like to think about it, but if your dad's not following you, which you didn't sound like somebody came down and like handed you a decree and said, Hey, you have a Dexcom now make sure someone's following you. You just thought like, oh, this will be a good idea. And then this happens. And it's just a normal thing, right? You tried to go out, you came home, you were hungry, but you were tired and, and your blood sugar was low. And that's it. It's just, and your dad doesn't call and I hate to say it, but who knows, right?

Jenna 26:35
I know, I'm so fortunate because apparently his phone was in the other room. But my mom picked it up and was like your phone's making a sound I've never heard before. And my dad was like, oh, that's just blood sugar. So I also so fortunate that I was on the Dexcom at that time, because, yeah.

Scott Benner 26:51
For people who don't think you're running with your phone in front of your face, and your dad's phones in a different room, we got to get him on Wordle or something. So he, he feels he feels a deep connection to his cell phone and he won't leave it alone.

Jenna 27:04
I know now my mom follows me too after that event. So she and she's really good about it. Every now and then I'll drop in the mornings when I run. I feel bad because they get alerted, you know, very early in the morning and ever. I've never had any other like major issues with Lowe's except for that one time. So I don't know if I still don't know since I was on MDI at the time. If I could have over bolused I, you know, I'll never really know the answer to that. Right.

Scott Benner 27:25
You might have just looked at the carbs and been like, Oh, this is good. And then turn on the oven and like it takes by the way frozen pizza. Nothing says I live by myself and I'm in my 30s like frozen pizza doesn't Oh,

Jenna 27:35
I know. Good story, right.

Scott Benner 27:39
Alright, so we'll build a phone addiction for your parents. I just speaking about my phone picked mine up a second ago like Pavlov's dog you saw when we were like cell phones. I was like, Let me hold my phone. There's the screen. I see the light. Your dad's is off in the other room. He's like, I don't need that thing. I love that. Thankfully, my mom heard it. Yeah. And your mom's got that? Like, I don't know your dad's name. But it's like that bell your phone still? And I know. He's like, That's the girl. Can you believe she got tired? But can you imagine the first five minutes of that conversation before they realized you were in trouble? They were probably like, I thought we were rid of her.

Jenna 28:19
I know sometimes I feel every now and then, you know, I have a nightmare. I dip down a little bit. And I'm like, I know what number they have their phones up for. I'm like, please don't like make their phone beat. Because it's like, you know, having a newborn child in their adult kid that you know, doesn't even live with them anymore.

Scott Benner 28:34
So you tell me about that a little is that? Is that a concern? Like really? Like you don't want to bother somebody?

Jenna 28:41
No, I my parents are great. So they really don't, you know, they don't care. And it doesn't have actually loop now. So I hardly have Lowe's at night anymore. It's just more while I was getting started with things. And so I really I don't I mean, they don't mind if I bother them. I just you know, I just kind of feel bad if that happens.

Scott Benner 28:58
No, no, I understand. I just I wondered if it was in your head or not. This person you're with now? Is that a is that a person who could make it with you later? Yeah, hopefully we'll see. But hopefully, like you can follow through or hopefully your relationship.

Jenna 29:17
No, we've been dating for seven months, but he's a great guy. So.

Scott Benner 29:22
Okay, how was it introducing the diabetes to a new person.

Jenna 29:27
So he's been really good with it too. I'm very fortunate he I eat lower carb. A lot of the time I wouldn't call myself low carb, but he's completely on board with it like me cook at night, you know, trying to stay away from like the pastas, Rice's potatoes, I mean, I'll do that every now and then. But I tried to make a habit of it every night and he's been great. He's good with the lows. He's Yeah,

Scott Benner 29:48
I'm lucky how much understanding seven months is early. So how much understanding Do you find yourself giving it to him slowly because it could be overwhelming, right? Like, like if I met a person if I'm trying to put myself in your situation shouldn't but we're a few days in. And I'm starting to think I wish he knew this and this, but if I tell him this, it might scare him away. Does those thoughts go through your head?

Jenna 30:07
Yeah, I was a little bit worried about that our second date was sushi. And so sushi is notoriously difficult for me. So I was trying to like, you know, look at my Apple Watch, not try to look like I'm seeing what time it is. And when I can get out of here, you know, that type of thing. So you know, but now he's, you know, now he understands. And he's an engineer. I feel like he's like, the kind of guy that researches things. So I think he's done a lot of reading on the side about it.

Scott Benner 30:32
Yeah, they love that stuff. To people on mine, so get you engineers and runners.

Jenna 30:39
Oh, he's not a runner. But no, I

Scott Benner 30:41
mean, the mixed the mix you hang with is interesting, too. That's true. What is it about your, the way you think that lends yourself to those kinds of people? Do you think?

Jenna 30:52
Well, I come from a family of engineers. Obviously, I broke that track when I went into health care. But my dad, my two brothers are engineers.

Scott Benner 31:00
Oh, I see your so do you find that they're sort of linear thinkers, and, and they like, order and instruction and numbers and things like that?

Jenna 31:14
Yeah, I think so. But I I think I'm also like that.

Scott Benner 31:18
So you make it work in healthcare, or is it something else to fight against?

Jenna 31:22
No, I think I think it works. Well. You know, health care is also a goal oriented field and dealing with numbers and things in a different way, but still doing it.

Scott Benner 31:30
What's your one? Say? Can I guess? Sure. All right. I'm gonna guess even listen to podcasts. Three years you run, you're a little low carb, you're looping and you don't like a blood sugar over 140 Or a one C is 5.4.

Jenna 31:45
is actually 5.1. A few weeks ago, when I saw my endo will get

Scott Benner 31:49
you fancy pants. All right. Well, that's a lot of running.

Jenna 31:53
I do do a lot of running, which I think helps tremendously because I take like a week off running, I have to ramp my Basal up.

Scott Benner 32:00
I was gonna ask what your Basal is normally,

Jenna 32:03
it's point seven during the day and point five at night.

Scott Benner 32:05
Do you know I'm gonna ask you how much you weigh. Now, is that okay? Sure. All right, how much? Like 141 40 And your point seven. Okay. And one unit moves you? How far?

Jenna 32:17
About 40?

Scott Benner 32:19
Okay, insulin sensitivity about one to 40.7. That's the running without the running. What's your Basal go to like, 1.1 in there. So I

Jenna 32:29
just put overrides when I don't run. So I'll do like 110% or something like that.

Scott Benner 32:33
So like, maybe 1.4 More when you're not running?

Jenna 32:37
Oh, so I do 110. So use me. Increase it. 10%. So I'm sorry. Yeah, probably.

Scott Benner 32:46
I apologize. I was like around point eight then. Yeah, probably. You caught me. You're like, Oh, God, the podcast. I like the guy can't do simple math.

Jenna 32:54
No, I was like, I don't use that much.

Scott Benner 32:57
Oh, that's interesting. It would have bothered you to think for people to think that you have we're at 1.70 No,

Jenna 33:03
I was just thinking that that'd be back to that pizza incident again.

Scott Benner 33:07
Oh, seven. Oh, 1.7. We're back to my dad's phone making a funny noise. And we know that funny noise was

Jenna 33:19
awesome. Me. You know, in fact, I was at the grocery store the other day and heard that noise. And I was like, I know it's not my phone. And I'm like, I'm getting you know, PTSD. Here. Somebody is low in this grocery store.

Scott Benner 33:28
Did it? Are you the kind of person did you say it out loud? You're low or did you let it go?

Jenna 33:33
No, I didn't say anything. But I was I was looking around to see where it was coming from

Scott Benner 33:38
looking for who's looking for the candy aisle.

hustling for the gummy bears? Which by the way, May I May I just say something about gummy bears for a second. I want to make sure I get the name right here. Let's see. I'm in because this frickin spam call won't stop coming. What is the name of this company?

Unknown Speaker 34:02
They're so good. Oh, here it is.

Scott Benner 34:09
Albany's gummy bears a LBA en ese.

Jenna 34:14
Oh, I've never had them. I should write them down though. You all want

Scott Benner 34:17
to be a sponsor, let me know. Or even just send me a bag of Baris like I'm there. We started using them. We started eating them because my my son's girlfriend was like you guys should try these. I don't know where that came from. She just had a favorite gummy bear. And I was like, How could gummy bears be different? Like what am I talking about here? Right? Because you know, when you think of gummy bears, think of the other brand, right? The Haribo or whatever I mean, maybe people think of different ones. Anyway, eat this thing and it's a life changing experience as far as gummy bears go. This is amazing. So we started keeping them in a little dish and we started to learn that just a couple of them could really move Arden's blood sugar a little bit when we need it to if she's 7080 kind of thing. And just wanted to bump it back a little bit, but the Problem is Jenna and I'm being honest with you. They're a little too good. So sometimes you eat them when your blood sugar is not low. You know

Jenna 35:08
what I mean? I know. Yeah. Sometimes,

Scott Benner 35:11
or sometimes your dad eats them, you know? So, but anyway, there's my gummy bear referral of the week. They're not they're not a sponsor, but if they were, I would be. I'd be so thrilled. I would do an ad for gummy bears no trouble whatsoever. I like talking about them with a lot of love. What other podcasts Do you listen to?

Jenna 35:37
Actually don't listen to a lot of other podcasts. I do audiobooks. I'm actually not a big podcaster.

Unknown Speaker 35:42
I just got the audible the other day.

Jenna 35:45
Oh, I love Audible. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:47
I didn't need it for school. And then it was over. We still had it. I thought I'm going to try an audiobook. So I downloaded one and I've been listening and I enjoy it.

Jenna 35:56
Yeah. I'm a big fan. But I like to listen to I listen to your podcasts or audiobooks like to and from work and you know, I'm making dinner doing you know, it's easy to multitask and listen to content. That's why your podcast has been so helpful for me.

Unknown Speaker 36:10
Did I get you to looping?

Jenna 36:13
You know, I would say yes. So I considered it. And then I figured if that's what you were doing, that's probably the tightest management or the best way to go. So I started in January, I guess a year and a half ago. So I'm hoping for a year and a half. Because I thought building it seemed you know, I was nervous about it. It just seemed like a daunting task, I guess. And it turned out it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. So

Scott Benner 36:36
I just rebuilt Lou, and I was even surprised that they've made it so easy now like he just kind of click a link.

Jenna 36:42
And I know I'm like I could be wiring money to China. I don't know what I'm doing here. But I just follow the steps and it shows up on my phone.

Scott Benner 36:49
I love that that's party you're in your head. You're like someone is probably stealing money from me. But I really need this algorithm click.

Jenna 36:56
No, I'm just like, I don't even know what I'm doing on this computer. But this the loop docs really make it pretty easy

Scott Benner 37:01
to do. Hey, do you really got me with I might be wiring money this

Jenna 37:06
lovely that I asked her credit card number. So I knew that wasn't really the case. But I joke with everybody because people are like you built the app. I mean, I'm not like the most computer savvy. I'm just like average. But really, it's not that hard to do.

Scott Benner 37:18
Like I said, I just did it like a week ago. And I was like, wow, this is so much easier now. And it was just it was I mean, with a good internet connection and reasonably fast computer. It doesn't even take very long. Like yeah, that's

Jenna 37:30
why I thought I set aside like a whole entire day if I was gonna make a 10 hour thing and it's absolutely not. It was pretty easy.

Scott Benner 37:36
Yeah, I have to admit I did that. So Jenna, can we talk about that for a second? Because here's the thing. You and I are recording in June, and no one's gonna hear this till Christmas. But I need you to keep your mouth shut when we get off of this recording. Is that okay? Okay. Okay, because timing. You'll understand that a second. All right. And keep your mouth shut was a little harsh. I didn't mean it like that. I know. I gotcha dummy up. Okay. So dummy up. What is that from? An old TV show? What am I thinking of?

Jenna 38:09
It might be a media reference. I

Scott Benner 38:11
don't know. It's Archie Bunker. It's what you there's that's the show you've never seen. You've got your right. Yeah. What was that all in the family? That's what if he told people to shut up? He told them to dummy up. How do I even remember that? That show came out when I was born? It was literally out for seven months before I was born. And I know that man, you people who have streaming services, you have no idea how lucky you are. I was 15 years old watching a 15 year old TV show like it was first run you guys are out watching episode 67 of season six of something that's amazing right now. Anyway, Arden used on the pod five for a while. And we used it for two reasons. I wanted to understand it that was first and foremost. And I wanted to see if it was something I thought Arden could stick with because I wanted it to be I wanted her to have a retail option. I didn't want there to be a Riley link in between the pod and and the algorithm etc. And we figured it out and I understand it now I understand how it works. It's very real. It's reminiscent to the other retail stuff that's available. Okay, but it for for me. What I guess what it eventually taught me was that Omnipod five control IQ they're not competitors with loop. Like to to hold those two things up against each other is a mistake. On the part five is not trying to be loop control. IQs not trying to be loop. Nothing's trying to be a loop honestly, the Medtronic version is not trying to be it. And so where I found it lacking for us was in Target blood sugar and the ability to address a rising blood sugar more aggressively, those were really the two, the two. And when you call them problems, there's the two sticking points that I had. Now I'm watching people online use it, and they're loving it, it's going exactly the way I expected. Not everybody's gonna listen to this podcast the way you did, right. And those people deserve to have blood sugars that are reasonable to. And so the if these people are seeing rises that are coming back in a couple of hours, and not getting low, this is a significant improvement for them. And so I think, I think it's going to catch on huge, and I think people are really gonna love it. It's only been out for a couple of months now that I'm talking about this. But for us, it was, I don't know, we just wanted to go back to loop. So

Jenna 40:49
yeah, we've got some good features too, like being able to set the overrides, like being able to set a time I do that a lot at night, I'll set an override for I usually run at five till 430 in the morning with a really high target. So essentially, it shuts off my Basal. So I have to actually wake up and do it. It's nice that it just does it on its own. You can program it to do it on its own. Yeah.

Scott Benner 41:08
Yeah, no, I mean, there's little Listen, it's do it yourself. It's there's a lot of little options that are great that, you know, didn't have to go through FDA approval and doesn't have to be printed in a manual. And you don't have to train people on and there's a lot of reasons why retail systems don't do some of that stuff. And they're all very legitimate reasons. Like I'm not telling you differently. I am seeing people online, who are setting their range 70 to 180. And coming in range. 100%. And, you know, for someone who more recently had a 320 blood sugar that then was a 46 hours later, it's an amazing improvement from it's going to be amazing improvement for most people using insulin.

Jenna 41:44
I think so too.

Scott Benner 41:45
Yeah, it's, I'm super excited about all of them. I can't wait to learn more about them. And, you know, I figured out ways to manipulate a little bit. But it was it was almost too smart. Like if you manipulate it in one way would manipulate you back and you'd be like, Oh, no, and you're like, Ah, okay, well, I'm one of those things. I mean, it's like if I made like a really good, what I would consider like a good aggressive Bolus on like a heavy carb meal, something that held Arden in the 80s or 90s. For hours after this meal. It was like for hours, I was like I am killing this except the algorithm was like yo, our targets 110. And so for every minute, it was 90, it was trying to get her to 110 taken basil away. And then when my grave Bolus left, there was a black hole where no basil existed, and then she'd head back up again. Now it would see that but it wouldn't, it wouldn't address it to 110. And then it was addressing it not aggressively enough to stop at 170. Okay, so even if I created a 90, I couldn't avoid the 170 later, I was either having it on one side or the other. If I would have made like, you know, if I would have made a less aggressive Bolus and held her at like 120 after a meal, then I think then the algorithm would have stayed in the game a little bit. But I was just like, I don't know, like, it's I'm so accustomed to doing it the way we do it. But anyway, I wanted to have the experience. I had it. It's amazing. And, and I know how to talk about it now. But we did switch back. So

Jenna 43:15
yeah, I'll be looking forward to that episode. I agree. It's gonna be a game changer for a lot of people. Because I know loop is a lot for a lot of people, you know, to try to even think about doing

Scott Benner 43:25
Yeah, oh, are you kidding? Like, I was in a panic when I you know, artists, like I'm gonna, you know, when are we going to switch back? We had been talking about letting it go for a while and everything. And the other thing too, I should mention here is that we still aren't as having trouble with our hormones. Like we're still speaking with Dr. Spock, and your hormones balanced everything like her insulin needs might be heavier than most people's. Like you don't I mean, so. Who knows if, if we don't figure out this kind of imbalance that she has, and maybe we can put it back on again and give it another try, which I would absolutely do. The system was terrific. It was easy to use and you know, kind of carefree actually. So, anyway. Oh, anyway, what she said was like, when are we going to do this? She got up one morning, she's like, Hey, my paws gonna expire today. Today be a good time, but I have to leave at one o'clock to go to a graduation party. It was like 11 o'clock. And I sent Kenny a message Kenny from Fox, the fox the loose bow loop. Oh, Fox in the loop help. Oh my God, John. Kenny from the fox in the loop hop loop while loop. Holy shit. This is it. I'm gonna start over Kenny from the fox in the loop house episodes. What was happening just anyway, he helped me He's very nice. He sent me a little information that I needed. And I just pushed on in like 90 minutes. We were running again. It was great. Yeah, it was not difficult. And I would tell you probably Probably it was a new pod. Plus, we were switching from one algorithms idea to another probably took about six hours for the new algorithm to kind of find its, you know, its rhythm a little bit. But anyway, there's no losing here. Things are so much better. And an options on the pod five control IQ by tronics do thing I think isn't quite out yet. And you know, if you want to go do it yourself loop, so I'm sorry, I talked so much there. But

Jenna 45:28
oh, no, you're good to see. That's what I mean, when I first got diagnosed three years ago, I didn't even you know, most of these algorithms weren't even out yet. I guess loop was, but you know, the, really the diabetes market has changed significantly in the last few years. So fortunate for that.

Scott Benner 45:41
No kidding. I mean, look at you, you're wandering around with your five, one a one c three years after diagnosis. That's amazing. Thanks. You deserve it. So I'm sure a lot of hard work in there to figuring things out. Like you said, you did a ton of reading in the beginning just to go running. And now you probably have a process you use with your algorithm to run, how do you do that?

Jenna 46:05
I do. So what I do is I basically have a target glucose of 500, which essentially shuts it off. I guess you can also turn the pot off at this just as easier for me to do so I turned to my basil off about 30 minutes before I go run in the morning. And then I turn it back, turn the basil back on about the 10 minutes before I'm done running. Because otherwise, you know, like you always say, you know what you're doing now is for later. So if I don't turn it back on before my run, then I end up going high after I'm done. But that seems to work pretty well. For me. It's different for me if I run after work, running fasting really works so much easier. But if I exercise later in the day, I have to cut my basil out significantly earlier. 30 minutes doesn't work. I think in the morning, I might be more insulin resistant.

Scott Benner 46:50
So two questions. So running without any active insulin is easier. Absolutely. Yes. And do you when you cut your basil off for how long? Are you cutting it off? For like, how long are those runs?

Jenna 47:02
So usually before work I like on work days, I'm usually run about five miles. So less than an hour, okay. 45 minutes or so

Scott Benner 47:11
I was asking because of I mean, if you're running for a long, long time, then having no Basil is not a good answer. Because you could go into DKA easily.

Jenna 47:19
Right? So I use a small amount of basil during long runs. And I also Bolus really tiny bit like a quarter of what I normally would for the amount of carbs I'm consuming. So I do use insulin during those.

Scott Benner 47:31
Yeah, not that listen. Not that I didn't think you were but it just felt important to say here that people out there yes, you could have a what looks like great blood sugar. But if you don't have insulin, you could still go into decay. So you could get a 95 blood sugar be running for three hours without your Bazelon and still have a medical emergency. So you do need Jenna's like I didn't say that. No one said that. Stop it. Now I just wanted to be clear. Okay, well, what if I not asked you? Oh, I started leading into so first of all, it sounds like you'd like this boy, John, which is nice. And but you're thinking of kids like for yourself? Maybe not with him, but your kids or something you want to do?

Jenna 48:14
Yes. Okay, boy. 35. But hopefully,

Scott Benner 48:18
I you starting to feel like this is it?

Jenna 48:22
What do you mean by that?

Scott Benner 48:24
timewise? Yeah, no,

Jenna 48:26
I mean, I don't know. I think I still have some time. But my friend is an OBGYN. I was joking with her. I'm like, they're gonna love me when I'm like, in my late 30s with type one diabetes, saying I want to have a baby. No, but I've tight control. So I think that should be okay.

Scott Benner 48:39
How many children? Do you imagine yourself with?

Jenna 48:43
One or two?

Scott Benner 48:45
There are a lot of trouble.

Jenna 48:49
I know my brother has two little ones. So they're also a lot of fun. Yeah, the little ones are great. They're the ants that being an EN is the fun part. You know, it's not

Scott Benner 48:56
until the it's not until they can think on their own. And they cost a lot that it becomes really troublesome. That's true. That's true. So having their own theories about life, and you're like, oh, no, like, I'm tired. I'm old. Like, you don't know this yet. But 15 years from now, you're gonna be like, I don't want to hear your thoughts on this subject. of my own, although it's great because they bring in, you know, they bring in another generation of ideas. And it is I'm joking, halfway, like, the part I mean is it's great to hear their thoughts. And it's great to even try to learn more about the world through their eyes. But there's moments when they're making decisions, and you're like, I think I'm right here. Like, I don't think they should be doing this, you know, and so you when they were little, you just sort of like turn them like Look over here. And then when they're older, you're like, well, here's my opinion. I hope you consider it and it takes that parenting thing and it turns into something different. That's true. You have to keep adjusting with it. It's a lot like everything else in life. You're not done. If you really want to be involved. You're never done being flexible. That's true. And then the money's terrible. So you have kids hope they're going to be nice blue collar people who go out and get a nice job that doesn't cost the college education because they're really expensive. It's too

Jenna 50:17
high. No.

Scott Benner 50:19
Are you paying me?

Jenna 50:21
So I have a tiny bit left on my student loans from PA school. I was fortunate enough my parents pay for undergrad. But I'm almost done. So next year, I can be debt free.

Scott Benner 50:32
How are you planning on paying? What are you gonna do? Oh, well, they

Jenna 50:36
they were nice. They gifted us our undergrad education. So I so once I finished my student loans for PA school that I won't have any more. I won't owe anybody anything.

Unknown Speaker 50:46
No big plan, though. Jenna. To celebrate paying them off. To help your parents out. Like, kick back. Maybe. Oh, I

Jenna 50:54
see. Okay. Yeah, no. Oh, I give them medical advice all the time. So there you go.

Scott Benner 50:59
Searching for your time. Jenna, that's pretty crappy, but okay.

Jenna 51:05
They call me if they're questions. Hi, mom.

Scott Benner 51:06
Hold on a second. I'm just gonna set the timer. Go ahead. What's your toe doing?

Unknown Speaker 51:15
I know, right? How tough is that? Does everyone do that with you?

Jenna 51:20
I will say get it pretty regularly. But I have to you know, most I do adult cardiology. So my friends call me with, you know, their kids rashes and this and that. I'm like, I gotta remind you guys, I do adult cardiology. I don't know that much about kids. I don't want to give you advice on your kids rash. But now Now my friend's parents are starting to hit the cardiac world. I didn't

Unknown Speaker 51:44
know exactly Mom, tell Jenna, where it hurt.

Jenna 51:48
Chest pain? Can you get him in tomorrow? So I do hear some of that. But that's alright. I try to help when I can.

Unknown Speaker 51:53
Have you ever caught a problem?

Jenna 51:57
You know, I guess I will say I had my mom's friend take her husband to the ER recently. And that ended up being something that needed to go to the ER so glad for that.

Scott Benner 52:10
Just talk to a friend of mine, got a bug bite and swell up. He showed a picture to his daughter who's a nurse like just texted her. She showed it to a doctor who then said your dad needs to go to the ER right now. And went to find out he had been bit by a brown recluse spider in a part of the country in a part of the country where they shouldn't be, which is great news for all of us. And he was like days away from losing his hand. Oh, that's crazy, I think. And I know the guy who's headstrong? I think if his daughter wasn't a nurse, I don't know what would happen to you know, my

Jenna 52:49
story is not as good as that. But I actually did catch one thing on Facebook, which I forgot about. So a girl I went to college with just like peripherally know and was Facebook friends with posted a picture of a quote spider bite, but it was clear cut bullseye rash for Lyme disease. And I did tell her I like sent her a message on Facebook. And I was like, I think you need to go see a doctor that looks like Lyme disease. And sure enough, you know, they ended up treating her and she was fine. But no doubt that's what her rash was. So not as bad as a brown recluse. Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:15
I just had a thing where I wish I knew last week I was in the lawn for a while fixing something. And then next day, I had this little lump between my thumb and my forefinger on the top of my hand, I was like it was hard. And I was like Something bit me and then started to itch really badly. And then another bump popped up like on a different finger, and then a third bump, and then a fourth bump. And then they were all itchy. And then the itching became systemic. And Jenna aged in places we're not going to talk about we don't know that well, where I definitely wasn't bit by anything or didn't touch anything with these bumps. Because once you get a bump on your hand, you know, you reach with the other hand. And so I've been very, very careful about all that. And maybe and I kept being like, oh, Something bit me. There's no way I'm not going to overpower this I'm gonna reasonably healthy person. Well, five or six days later, I started getting tired in the afternoons out of nowhere. And I was like, what is happening? So between the itching and I could tell it was systemic because I was having like a histamine response, like, like there were there were places on my body that if I didn't touch them, they were fine. But if I just brushed by them, they became incredibly itchy. And then if I itch them, there was like swelling no matter where it happened. And my wife's like, will you go to urgent care as like one more day? And I'm like using Flonase and like taking I don't know, I don't know. Stuff medicine, I thought was gonna help. Who knows. But I just woke up one day and one of the lumps from the right hand was on the left hand and I'm like, I'm done. And so I went in and they hit me with a steroid pack and boom that fixed everything. Really

Jenna 54:53
cool. Sounds like me one more day my diabetes diagnosis I was just like put this off till tomorrow, right.

Scott Benner 54:58
I kind of told him Because of that, because I think people feel badly. But it's it's in everyone's head like there was no reason for me to not go three days sooner when my wife's like, what are you doing? Like? What's the point of this? You know, at this at this juncture, I'm like, it'll get better, it'll get better. And like, it wasn't getting better. It was getting worse.

Jenna 55:18
So yeah, clear it cleared up with steroids. That's good.

Scott Benner 55:21
Well, Jenna, can I tell you another part of the story? Sure, the pharmacist mistyped the directions on the steroids. So I took a lot of steroids in the first three days that I wasn't supposed to take, apparently, and really kick the crap out of it. But about two and a half days in, I took a hot shower, and I got a hot shower. And I was like, my chest is tight, and my neck is tight. And I was like, what is happening, and I cooled down, and I was okay. And then that made me think about the medication the next morning, and as I was putting them out on the table, getting ready to take three of these tablets in the morning, which I was supposed to be taking. I supposed to be taking two in the morning and two at night. She had me taking three in the morning and three at night. And and so by the way, a local pharmacy it's it's not it's not anybody who's a sponsor, nobody were and. And so as I'm shaking them out on the table, I think I don't have enough to get through this script. And that's the only thing that stopped me didn't thought like, I'm taking too many of these. Then I went back and we straighten it all out. And it you know, it wasn't terrible, but I think it did. It did explain the tightness in my because I like, like, tightness across my neck and my shoulders. I think want my heart just started beating really quickly. And but I'll tell you what, it really kicked the hell out of those lumps. No problem. They weren't even a rash. It was just bumps. They were weird bumps. And it couldn't even Sam are very strange. Anyway, Jenna, what have we not talked about that we should have so far.

Jenna 56:54
I guess there's only one more thing that I kind of wanted to talk about. And I so I always feel like low carb is polarizing amongst the diabetes community. But I do think in regards to exercise, it works really well. Because I always see people posting like, you know, we can't get through recess can't get through gym class. And I think it's kind of the mentality that I've, you know, taken on, like, if I want to go, you know, not even just running, you know, if I want to go do go for a walk at night, go do other, like, you know, exercise, like if I, for example, if I run after work, and I'll eat low carb lunch, which I think is extremely helpful because I don't have a whole bunch of insulin on board. And I can usually get through a run versus if I eat like, you know, pizza for lunch or something that's gonna take some corrections or like extended Bolus or something like that. But I always feel like you know, I can't put myself in team low carb because I don't eat low carb all the time. And I eat pizza, sushi burgers, I'll go out and do that kind of stuff. But if I know I'm planning to exercise later in the day, I think it's really helpful to do like, I do like charcuterie boards or meat, roll up type thing, salad, those kinds of things. I do think it can be helpful in certain situations.

Scott Benner 57:59
So I think I agree with you. And I think that the, the mistake we're all making is he's talking about like, it's like, you just you just made a great point where like, you can say, well, it's easier to like exercise if you're on a low carb lifestyle if you're using insulin. But what you're really saying is, is that I don't use as much insulin because I'm not battling as many carbs and because that I don't have as much active insulin when I'm outside trying to run. So exactly. You could you could probably, I mean, not that this is a apples to apples, but you could probably accomplish the same thing with more carbs if with carb, heavier food, if it was just fewer of them. If you were just using less. And I'm not saying it would it's not easier with a low carb lifestyle. I mean, obviously is. And I also think that the arguments you see online are seasonal. out true. Yeah. Right. So and I don't mean like winter, spring, summer, fall, I mean, eventually, something I've been in this space a long time, eventually something happens that gins people up. And then people come out of the woodwork and scream and yell for a while and then somebody comes out and tells me Don't tell me how to eat and then they fight and then it's over. And then it lingers. And then it's gone. Like I have on my Facebook page, I have like keywords set up, so I know. So we know where troubles about the pop up. Okay. So, so we can kind of keep keep track a little bit. And you'd be amazed that you can go three, four weeks and the word low carb will come up 800 times a day and then all of a sudden it stops for months.

Jenna 59:44
Oh, that's interesting. And it's it makes sense. I do agree with you. I go through periods of time where you see a ton you know popping up on like my Facebook feed for the group or something like that. And then you don't hear about it for a while.

Scott Benner 59:54
Yeah, and I understand I've said this before, and I steadfastly I stick to this. I think It's just people who have found something that works for them. And they're trying desperately to share it with other people. They feel like they've found a secret, you're struggling for no reason they want to tell you now, I've also seen people listen to this podcast who would do the same thing and said, Look, I eat whatever I want. And my one season the fives. And it's because I learned this thing on this podcast, but how to use insulin. The mistake we end up making is thinking that these things are mutually exclusive. Like you either have to eat a bunch of carbs and really know how to use insulin, or you need to eat no carbs and use a low amount of insulin like why can't they all just be skills in a toolbox?

Jenna 1:00:35
That's I agree, I completely agree. So I just feel like low carb is a tool I use when I know I want to do something later in the day. Like, and also, thanks to your podcasts. I think I'm pretty good at using insulin most the time. I mean, I had a terrible Miss last week and eating far. But in general, I can Bolus for like the same pizza place I get pizza from I do a pretty decent job. Like you know coming to exercise later in the day. I know that is not the right lunch to go for you

Unknown Speaker 1:00:59
know, they make pizza in Oklahoma. There's a lot of pizza in Oklahoma isn't any good job. To be honest.

Jenna 1:01:06
There are some good pizza places. I feel like Oklahoma is like lately. Everything is pizza burgers or tacos. Everything that pops up around here.

Scott Benner 1:01:15
Austin just bleeding all over the south. I see what

Jenna 1:01:17
you're talking about. Probably true. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:01:18
You know, other things. I'm trying to find the girl's name as an example. So some girl with type one is on American Ninja something last night? Yes.

Jenna 1:01:31
All right. I didn't watch it. But I saw about that, you might

Scott Benner 1:01:34
think that we landed on the moon again. If you're, if you're in the diabetes space, you would think we just found a way to like, I don't know, get water to Mars or something like that. Like it's gonna be super easy. We're all gonna leave the planet. It's going to be terrific. If this girl like competed did well and she had diabetes or CGM was out on her arm. And I've, I'm looking at 100 notes. You have to have this person on the podcast. And I'm like, Oh, I mean, one day, maybe, you know, but I what I ended up telling them what she's gonna get inundated by every diabetes like media outlet. And I'm like, I don't want to be a part of that. Like, because they're all just going to ask her the same silly questions and who cares? It's going to be boring. Right? What's their name? Here? If she's hearing this now, six months later, hey, six months later, congratulations, Katie. Bucha is a bone.

Jenna 1:02:27
Bone, I think is what I saw this morning.

Scott Benner 1:02:29
All right. Well, Katie, great job. Very cool. If you want to come on now, that'd be amazing. But I don't I don't want to hear her. Like, I got diabetes. And it was really more of a blessing that like because she doesn't you know what I mean? Like, I like people to have distance between their story and telling it. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And so anyway, but that's not the point. The point is this happen. And now if you look at the diabetes space, today, tomorrow, the next day, it's all going to be about this girl. Which cool, I'm good with. But it's sort of just like the thing with the low carb like, you, you like the fire and then people are focused on it. And then then they give up a little bit, and then it goes away. And then I you know, I I one time misspoken a celiac episode, and you know, people online for days, we're like, Scott, you said the wrong thing. And I'm like, Okay, well, I'm like, we'll fix it, you know, and, and it becomes the most important thing in the world again, because the celiac example these people, they know something I didn't know. And it was very simple like apparently something like called like quiet celiac or something like that, where you're still you're getting the damage, but you don't have any of the symptoms. And I was talking to this guy who was really stressing out about his kids celiac diagnosis. And I said, it he was talking about he was very fixed on a cupcake talking about a cupcake at a birthday party. And I finally said, like, I made birthday parties just kick go to exactly, you know, and he's like, not many Oh, my God, just let her have a cupcake. And boy, people who understand silent celiac were like, no, like, okay, like, Tell me about it. We'll go back on and we did I had somebody on we had a nice conversation about it, like, whole thing. It's, you know, how people learn, but it's not like, but that episode still gets downloaded all the time, but I don't hear about it anymore. Okay, you know what I mean? It's just the interest rate. It's interesting how things ebb and flow on social media. That is true. But it because I've seen I and I also believe that the low carb wars that I've seen online are not as aggressive as aggressive as I've seen them five years ago. Oh, that's good. Yeah. So hopefully people just live and let live and

Jenna 1:04:45
yeah, we're all in this together. You know,

Scott Benner 1:04:48
share your thing and and let people pick I love the podcast for that reason. I think there's a ton of different information in here. You can take his whatever bit of it you want and use it and make your own thing You know what I mean?

Jenna 1:05:01
Oh, yeah, I've learned so much from it or Pro Tip series, definitely recommend that.

Scott Benner 1:05:06
You want to say something really nice to me and you're just you're embarrassed.

Jenna 1:05:10
No, it just helped me a lot. It's I feel like when I was first diagnosed, I was like, kind of distraught. And I couldn't even absorb what my endo was telling me. So, you know, she's great. And she, I'm fortunate because she, I mean, she loves my Loei. When see, it's not like a lot of the things I read about online with these endos who aren't as supportive, but I just was like, not mentally able to absorb it. I was supposed to do so well with this insulin. So I feel like I learned a ton from the podcasts. I can, you know, listen to it, you know, once I was kind of ready to start trying to learn to manipulate things, and you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:05:42
nice. That's excellent. How long did it take you to run the Boston Marathon?

Jenna 1:05:47
So that was not a good marathon for me. I was poorly trained. So that one took me three, I think 359 or 358, something like that. But the one I my fastest marathon ever is still the one that was 11 days after I got diagnosed diabetes. I did that. 323 I think is what it was.

Scott Benner 1:06:07
Wow. That's it. You know, if you wouldn't have told me I wouldn't have known one way or the other what the number meant or didn't mean you could have just been like 350 I would have been like That's amazing.

Jenna 1:06:17
Oh, it's I mean, it's not a bad marathon time just wasn't was not my best marathon. I was. I had some issues my shoe cracked like it was crazy. Like the heel of my shoe. The foam like really? Like cracked. Yeah, it was like literally my right heel was like flapping around. So that was obviously a distraction.

Scott Benner 1:06:36
Curse by any chance Jenner when

Unknown Speaker 1:06:37
that happened? Oh, I'm

Jenna 1:06:39
sure I did. I was mad. I noticed that a mile 16 is not a long ways to go still.

Scott Benner 1:06:45
I'm stalking you on Facebook now. And you went to my nephew's college is out right now. Oh, did I really? Don't say it out loud. But yeah, you did. Yeah. That's nice. That's really nice. Do you have other marathons in your future?

Jenna 1:07:01
Yeah, honestly, I have nothing scheduled right now. But Philadelphia is the week before Thanksgiving. So I may try to get through that one. That's the first one I ever did back in 2013. So I thought maybe I'll return to it.

Scott Benner 1:07:13
Yeah, that's nice. You go to Chickies. And Pete's while you're here, too.

Jenna 1:07:15
I could. Yeah. I love the Philadelphia marathons. It's pretty cool. The first half goes downtown, the second half like Alamanni on comeback, but it's pretty nice. Well on the water. You do? It's like it's yeah, basically it's on Kelly drive. I think if I remember correctly, that like shut it down. Yeah. Oh, that would be

Scott Benner 1:07:33
nice. Hey, where do your parents flock to when it gets hot in Oklahoma?

Jenna 1:07:37
So they have a beach house in the like very southern tip of Delaware. Like Ocean City, Maryland. Fenwick Island. Okay. Yeah. Right. By Rojava.

Scott Benner 1:07:46
Yeah. So they're running from the heat, right? Or they want to know,

Jenna 1:07:50
lucky them. I'm jealous. I was like, 104 here last weekend. And there. There was time. It was like in the 60s there. So

Scott Benner 1:07:58
is that manageable for like, how does that change your diabetes? Does that impact like your basil and stuff? Where do you see the do you see the algorithm doing more work in the heat?

Jenna 1:08:06
Yeah, it does, actually. So I have I'm, like, need more insulin and when it's hot, and I drop when it's cold, but I don't know if that's the same for everybody. I do find that with Arden.

Scott Benner 1:08:17
So, Jenny, it's funny when I bring this up with Jenny, there's a finding diabetes or variables episode, excuse me about temperature. And Jenny thinks about it. Like, interestingly, like she's like, if you go out in the cold, you shiver, and that burns energy. And I'm like, Really, and and there's some people as they like, you get in the shower and the heat up and my blood sugar drops and people some people say I get in the shower and I heat up my blood sugar goes up. So obviously it's not very scientific. But I did see I do see people having to readjust their Basal during the summertime. Now does that become? Is it about hydration? Like do you get dehydrated and your insulin doesn't work as well? Or?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:59
I don't know. I don't know. I don't

Jenna 1:09:01
know either. It's I joke that like at Christmas, I could just go stand outside in the cold after eat all this junk and my blood sugar would go down, you know, but mine spikes every day if I take a hot shower, which I just consider using as my Pre-Bolus for breakfast because you know my loop will ramp up my basil a little bit. So

Scott Benner 1:09:18
that's interesting. So you jump in the shower your blood sugar goes up the loop gets aggressive and then you're ahead of breakfast a little bit.

Jenna 1:09:25
Yeah, that's so actually breakfast right after that.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:28
How well does the loop do with that?

Scott Benner 1:09:29
That that shower spike, where does it take? Where does it hold you?

Jenna 1:09:33
I mean, it doesn't usually spike me like too high but like, probably 20 points, which I mean loop will react to that. But if I open the loop, that spike comes down on its own. I mean, I don't have time to mess with that every morning. I'm opening the loop, so it's fine. You know, I just basically Pre-Bolus My breakfast or my coffee. But yeah, I do notice that every single day so I think I'm really sensitive to temperature.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:56
What's your blood sugar target and loop

Jenna 1:09:59
100 Oh no on loop. Sorry. It's a like, I think 86 to 98 or something like that.

Scott Benner 1:10:04
has one of those weird like ones to look at you? Like? Yeah,

Jenna 1:10:10
yeah. 8696 actually what is now? I think it was 98. I changed it a few weeks ago.

Scott Benner 1:10:14
Yeah, Origins is right in that range to use an auto Bolus or the other branch. No, I

Unknown Speaker 1:10:21
use auto Bolus Ivens or

Scott Benner 1:10:23
Pete's?

Jenna 1:10:26
Oh, no, I don't know the answer to that. Whenever you APs. Wait, no, not free APs.

Scott Benner 1:10:33
As frequently is free pap s, but I'm even thinking of, there are so many different names of different things.

Jenna 1:10:39
I know. I know. That's why I was so nervous. I had to rebuild in February. And I was like, literally dreading it. And it was so easy. So I don't want to discourage anybody from trying. Whoop, because it really is not that hard. It's just the idea behind it sounds stressful.

Scott Benner 1:10:53
Yeah, no, it's this is very interesting. All right, Jenna, you were great. I can't tell. Did you have a good time?

Jenna 1:11:01
I did hope I wasn't. So hopefully I talked enough for you. Oh, are you kidding?

Unknown Speaker 1:11:04
You're quiet.

Scott Benner 1:11:05
Okay. No, you were terrific. I just thought I'm, like, there were times where I felt like you wanted to say stuff you didn't say. And then I was like, am I running a rover? I couldn't figure it out. But you're in your 30s you can fight for yourself. So?

Jenna 1:11:18
Oh, no, I don't think so. I I think I got out everything I wanted to say.

Scott Benner 1:11:21
Excellent. That's cool. So you're happy with this?

Jenna 1:11:26
I'm very happy. Yeah. Excellent. Thanks for having me on.

Scott Benner 1:11:28
No, are you kidding? It was terrific. I

appreciate you want to do it. I'm flabbergasted that anybody wants to run anywhere. So like I'm looking at, like, there's still a picture up like on a different monitor. I'm still like looking at your stuff. And it's just a photo of people crossing the finish line. I was like, Oh my God, what? What happened to those people to do what to do? And then I think the same thing me like, why don't I want to do this?

Jenna 1:11:52
Oh, you know, you gotta like it. Because running is a time consuming sport, especially marathon training. But it's probably that type A personality and makes first i It was a bucket list item in 2013 when I ran Philly. And then I was like, Well, if I could finish, I could probably get faster than I was going to probably qualify for Boston. And so that's, you know, went down that rabbit hole. So here we are, I've done five marathons with type one diabetes, so

Scott Benner 1:12:16
I do anything else anymore. Do you do anything else falls similarly into that category. Aside from running.

Jenna 1:12:22
I go to like spin class sometimes, but not that often. Because honestly, I run with this group. So it's social. So I don't like to miss out. So I got to show up every morning. You know, my friends are there we run from a Starbucks, we run and get coffee. So maybe I am crazy that I'm sitting there at Starbucks, you know, like, 545 in the morning when I could be in bed. But you know, it's fun.

Scott Benner 1:12:43
No, I listen, I'm mostly joking. I think it's amazing that you have a thing that you like, I love that you're setting goals. And I think everyone should do that. I think physical activity is incredibly important. I think people are happier when they're active. I think that insulin works better when you're active. There are a number of reasons, aside of diabetes, that you'd want to be active like this, and there are a number of reasons with diabetes that you would want to so I think it's great. I just listen, it's just one. It's just one person that sticks in my head that, you know, it's probably hurting more than it is about running. But

Jenna 1:13:16
yeah, I know that I know the type you're talking about. Yeah, definitely don't fall in that category.

Scott Benner 1:13:21
I'm gonna stop for the recording and I'm gonna tell you one more thing. Okay. Okay, thanks so much. Sure. Yep.

A huge thanks to Jennifer for coming on the show today. And I'd also like to thank you, us Med and remind you to go to us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 to get your diabetes supplies the way we do from us med. And don't forget to check out touched by type one.org touched by type one just invited me to come back and speak at their next event. And I said yes, you should check out their website and see when it is touched by type one.org. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast and don't forget to check out the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes

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#857 Four Time Olympian

Kris Freeman has type 1 diabetes and is a four time Olympic cross country skier. This is his third appearance on the podcast.

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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 857 of the Juicebox Podcast

Chris Freeman is back on the podcast today Chris has type one diabetes. He's a multi sport athlete and a four time Olympic cross country skier. 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.

Hey, if you're a US resident who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver of someone with type one, can you please take the T one D exchange survey for me? It will take you fewer than 10 minutes completely HIPAA compliant, absolutely anonymous, simple questions about diabetes, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. These answers that you'll give help diabetes research. They significantly help you can be a part of that right from your sofa, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo pen. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash Juicebox Podcast is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter contour next.com forward slash juicebox best meter I've ever used or held. I'm holding up my hand to whatever you it is you swear to like you know when they put your hand on the Bible and the courtroom you're like I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, not the truth. So yeah, Contour Next One. I love a contour meter contour next.com forward slash juicebox. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're using right now. And links at juicebox podcast.com to G vo Capo pen, contour, and all of the sponsors. I am

Kris Freeman 2:23
Chris Freeman at diabetes for over half my life now I'm 42 years old. But I've had a pretty good run with it. I've skied in four Olympics, cross country skiing, I've done some Ironman triathlons, I've got a awesome family. So diabetes has not kept me from doing what I want to do. It's just made it

Scott Benner 2:48
interesting. Interesting. So funny word. You are saying those words and at an interesting time, because last week, I put out an episode where I talk to a therapist about that phrase that people say diabetes doesn't stop me. And we talked about how it's kind of a, like a two pronged thing. There are some people I've witnessed, say it and what they mean is, I'm on top of it, my blood sugars are great, you know, blah, blah, blah, I'm living a healthy life. diabetes doesn't stop me. And some people say, from the perspective of like, well, things aren't going great. But, you know, I still went out, I still did this thing I do the things I do. And even though my agency is blah, blah, blah, I don't let diabetes stop me. That's interesting. You know,

Kris Freeman 3:37
I've definitely noticed that too, you know, with all my travels to various diabetes events and stuff, I hear that as well. And you get some people that, you know, it doesn't stop me I went to this event I passed out. And I ended up in the ER, but it doesn't stop me. And I'm not, you know, I'm not I'm not going to judge anyone for not being able to manage their disease because it is a difficult disease to manage. But to me, it sounds like it did stop you.

Scott Benner 4:04
Yeah, no, it's just it's and we talked all through the different perspectives and why someone why it's still a great feeling to have, like, I'm not I'm choosing the most generous side of it by thinking that people are saying, even though this thing is difficult, and I am not doing what I wouldn't want to be doing with it. I haven't given up like I I'm kind of leaning into that idea, but you're just you're just an interesting person because you're incredibly athletic. And you're, you know, a healthy eater, I think probably to say the least, you're a photo of you with a Amit wearing it on the partner Dexcom. If I google your name, and diabetes and look at photos, the picture on my website from 2014 still comes up first. Because I think it was so impactful for people to see somebody as lean as you are wearing those devices and how I think success with them. Well, I

Kris Freeman 5:01
should maybe send you an updated photo.

Scott Benner 5:04
Things gotten away, Chris.

Kris Freeman 5:06
No, no, no, I'm actually, I'm actually still really fit. But we got to get the the Omni pod five up on on. Yeah,

Scott Benner 5:14
that's a good I bought the old one, I imagine that's still there, probably the original pot on you back then. But you know, it's just, you've always you've been on the podcast twice, you're on the 26th episode of the podcast, and you'll this one will probably be in the late eight hundreds. And you're on again a couple of years later. But I've always just enjoyed talking about diabetes with you because you have a very sort of no bullshit view of it. And I've always appreciated that.

Kris Freeman 5:45
I very much do have a No BS view of it. I mean, you you either manage it to the best of your ability, and it impacts your life to a minimum, or you ignore it to your detriment. Yeah.

Scott Benner 6:00
And you've never been afraid to say it. And I always I've always thought that you're, you're helping people when you do that. So I'm my first question that's been on my mind, since I knew we were going to talk is how do you how do you go from, like being in for Olympics, and that being your world and your life and what you train for and what you think about to not doing it anymore, like is the transition difficult.

Kris Freeman 6:27
Um, the transition was difficult, for sure, and I managed it by jumping pretty much right into another sport. So I was able to get some sponsors to go into triathlon. And with the goal of going to the World Championships, which I did. So I didn't train as much as I did for cross country skiing. But I had a coach, I had a training plan. And that really helped me with the transition out of full time skiing. Because it was familiar to just suddenly not do anything. I don't know how I could have handled that. But I'm also a little different in that I've had teammates from the US Ski Team that retire and they say, Oh, my God, it's so nice not to have a training plan anymore. I don't wake up and worry about training. And I don't really relate to that. If I hadn't gotten older, I would still be doing it. Yeah. I love to doing it. And I love training. I love ski racing. But you know, your body does doesn't respond to training at 42 and your maximal ability start to decline. And you can't We can't compete at the Olympic level anymore. Right. So

Scott Benner 7:42
yeah, I mean, it meant more to me, because I watched lasts. Well, last summer, we were at what ended up being my son's last collegiate baseball game. But as the game starts that day, you don't think that's the last game, right? They could have gone on it looked like they were going to. And I experienced something the game ended. And my first thought was, I didn't know that last at bat would be his last at bat. Or I would have I don't know what I thought next. But I felt like I would have enjoyed it differently or looked at it. I don't know exactly. But to me, it was just part of the game. And they were going to play again two days later. And then it hit me I was like, Oh my gosh, like this is it. And I looked around for him. And I couldn't I couldn't see him anywhere. He wasn't in the dugout, he wasn't on the field. He wasn't you know, surrounding the field. And I finally found him in the parking lot, like sitting on a curb. And just he was staring out into space. And I'm always gonna wonder what he was thinking about that, you know, after having done this thing, not not at the Olympic level, but since he was four years old, and I don't know, I just thought I thought of you about that.

Kris Freeman 8:59
I did some staring into space for sure. Yeah. I also, I also in 2018 was my last official pro ski race. And I you know, I told my coach I told my wife that yeah, I don't think I'm ever ski race again because you know, I only want to do this at the highest level I can achieve I don't want to go in and kind of half acid. But then of course it snowed in New England super early the next year and I had skiing at Thanksgiving and I went out and ski and I'm like oh this is fun.

Scott Benner 9:35
I remember this

Kris Freeman 9:37
and then I was skiing a lot and I nationals was in Vermont that year and I called up my old coach and said I think I'm gonna show up and so I showed up in 2019 and I just off of you know residual fitness I got third at Nationals. Well, maybe I will race with diminished abilities as I go on because I still really love it.

Scott Benner 10:00
You know, well, you know, to your point, my son just left a few weeks ago, he moved to Atlanta to take a job. And we're packing up his car. And I saw a baseball glove in his car. And I thought, what the hell's he gonna do with that? And now like, I don't know, like, I don't know if he'll ever touch it, or if he just brought it because he felt like, I'd never go anywhere without this thing. You know, like, but it was a it was an interesting thing. I actually we, as we were packing him up, he forgot something in the basement. And he and I went down together to get it and his, his, his bag was there, the bag he takes to his games, it has all this crap in it, you know. And he saw it, unzip. And he bent down and repacked it the way I'd seen him pack it like a million times and he sipped it up and just kind of picked it up and then sat it back down again. Like he was leaving it there, but taking care of it one more time before he left you know, and I was hard not to cry Chris but then watching him live those next months and reorder his life and and find other things that was that was interesting and and kind of heartwarming, actually. It was hard to watch him go through it but it felt good to watch him succeed and and get that I've seen you do a number of things over the last couple of years and I always have I mean, you're not my son but I always have warm feelings like that about oh, look Chris's, I don't know why he's running over this big thing and down a slide or whatever the hell he's doing. But like That looks fun. And, and it's nice to know that you're that you're still doing stuff. How do you make a living, though? Like that fascinates me. Like I imagined as a as an Olympic athlete. Their sponsorship. But how do you do it? Like what are you doing right now?

Kris Freeman 11:52
I don't make as good a living, not being an Olympic athlete. I did have some sponsors for triathlons and for adventure racing. But I'm also looking for more sponsors, for sure. I think keep it going. It it's it's really it's fun for me to do these to do these other events. Like when I was when I was competing, only in skiing. I wanted to do these bizarre races like I think I sent you a paper I wrote about the infernal pentathlon. Yep. And, you know, I look at that, and I couldn't really do it while I was training full time, because I could get hurt, I couldn't really prepare for it. But I really wanted to do it and that for your listeners, I mean, it's this insane race with a long history on Mount Washington, which is the largest peak in the on the East Coast. And it starts with a six mile fat bike, a six mile cross country ski a five mile traverse snowshoe and then you skin slash hike skinning is when you put skins on the basis of your skis and you hike up a steep hill, or four miles to the top of the head wall on Mount Washington and you ski back down to the parking lot. Wow. And when I first saw that event, you know, of course, one of my first thoughts is oh god, how am I going to manage this with blood sugar? What are what are the things? And that those thoughts motivate me because, well, I can figure this out. And it's never also like, I can figure out how to finish it. It's like, No, I can finish it, I can figure out how to dose myself for this race. And when the thing and those that's just my competitive nature, and it's it used to be about proving to myself that I was still okay, even though I had diabetes, and now I can appreciate it more. It's just the challenge.

Scott Benner 13:54
Well, how do you do something like that? Like, you know, I mean, just why don't we like go back just to cross country skiing for a second, then we'll get back to the thing that sounded insane that you just said about walking up a mountain whiskies on this game back. But just to get up in the morning and go train. Is it a similarity? You keep your meals the same? You keep your nutrition the same? Or is it adjusting to what's happening with your body day to day? I mean, how would you characterize because being able to train is the most important thing, right? Like if you show up and your blood sugars are too high, you're not going to obviously have the success that you need. And if they're too low, you can't do this thing. So and you have to train so how do you make sure that you're where you want to be?

Kris Freeman 14:37
Um, well, I'm, I've where the Dexcom GS six, so I have a very constant idea of where my blood sugars are at. And I never let them get very far out of range, using the I've only been using the deck the Omnipod. Five now for about a month. Besides that, I only had a very short dalliance with a automated system, I used some of the, you know, the off market software, but I'm not particularly adept at software and so I got off of it. But when I'm training twice a day, it's not a it's not a spontaneous thing. It's not Oh, I'm gonna train now it's there's a, there's a prep from a few hours beforehand to make sure that the sugars are right, and I'm eating the right thing that I don't have too much insulin on board that's going to drive me low. You know, I eat a snack right before I go out, I carry nutrition when I'm out there. And then for the second session, I do it all over again. So

Scott Benner 15:40
it's about eating at a time where, excuse me, prior to the training, there's no activates, you want the active insulin from the previous meal to be done before you head outside.

Kris Freeman 15:53
Either that or I want to have very little active insulin. And so you know, if, if I, you know, I can't, I can't live my life completely revolved around training anymore with a four year old and other obligations anymore. So if I want to train in the morning, I would get up and eat a very breakfast very high on protein, take a small Bolus so that there isn't Bolus driving me down when I go out 30 minutes later, and carry some carb with me while I'm going. That kind of finishes the meal as I'm out there and offsets the insulin on board.

Scott Benner 16:30
Oh, that's interesting. And when you What do you carry with you that like, while you're training? Is it like dense things? Like, like, I don't know, like nutrition bars? Or what do you do?

Kris Freeman 16:42
Well, pretty much the only time I eat simple carbs is when I'm working out, like, you know. So, you know, Google packet gels, sport beans, anything, anything that's just basically straight up sugar. Yeah. Because at that point, if the sugar is dropping, you don't want it to be a slow rise, right? I eat the complex carbs, when I'm going to be sitting around for a while or recovering from my workout. Or when I'm out there. It's it's simple, refined sugars. And generally it's you know, it's, it doesn't really matter the brand, it's some type of power bar, Clif Bar type thing.

Scott Benner 17:22
Because of your unique situation, that the way you explain it is so clear. And then when you try to apply that back into a regular person's life, where you hear like, I went to my soccer practice, or my kids soccer practice, and they always get low there, they always go Hi, this thing, or I realized that they're trying to make they want diabetes to fit into their schedule, and you're fitting diabetes into the schedule. Like I don't know if that makes sense, or not, like you're taking it into account as you're setting up your day. And I think other people can sometimes want it just to work, like, and I understand why, like, don't get me wrong, like, it's it's a lot to plan for, and you have kids running around, and where you're an adult who's leaving work and thinks like, maybe I could catch a workout here, you know, like, like, real quickly, you don't plan for it. But then even when that happens, that's when simple sugars come into play, and you kind of buoy yourself if you're getting low in those situations.

Kris Freeman 18:21
Yeah, I repeat many times people that the spontaneity is not something that is friendly with diabetes. I can be spontaneous, but it will often mean Eating More Sugar than I wanted to. or not being able to do something later in the day because of what it will impact my diabetes to do something spontaneously active. Yeah. So it's my days are very planned. And then, you know, I even plan playing with my son, you know, if we're okay, we're gonna, we have a half a mile trail down to our playground at the local elementary school, you know, I will plan for that, because I'm gonna have to chase them all through the woods and make sure he doesn't fall off the jungle gym and then carry it back up the hill. And then I'm going to want to go train again. So what I eat, when I eat and how much insulin I have on board is all very planned. And I found that you know, using the automated system, frequently during the day, I'm going back to manual, as opposed to automated because it it can't predict what I'm going to do two hours from now. And if I'm slightly high, I don't want to have it kicking in extra insulin that I'm unaware of that is going to then drive me low or poor surprise me when I'm working out.

Scott Benner 19:52
That's an interesting point is that you can't tell any automated system. I'm going for that walk with my kid two hours from now. So it's it's an thinking the moment and with its eye on keeping stability, not knowing it's coming. Have you tried the activity mode? On it? Yeah, yeah. It's not fast enough for when you make the decision to go or?

Kris Freeman 20:13
Well, I mean, my activity is pretty active.

Scott Benner 20:16
I think that's the other thing. We're not talking about Christmas. And I think you're active in a way that most of us aren't. So, I mean, like intensity. I guess it should be my

Kris Freeman 20:25
I mean, the activity mode. Yeah, that would work for going down to the playground for my son that doesn't that doesn't work for swimming 3000 meters and then going for a 12 mile run.

Scott Benner 20:35
Right? Right. That's two different things. But it is I'll tell you, it's nice to be able to.

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it's nice to be able to do that to let the the algorithm do what it's going to do and then if you get to a point where you're like I don't I think I've zigzag too quick for this thing I'll just go back to what I normally do and then go back for it you're probably sleeping much better on an algorithm

Kris Freeman 24:04
right away I mean I I would just like you I keep the numbers really tight and those the alarms just once or twice every night I'd wake I would wake up correct go back to sleep and I would say so and I've probably only been woken by an alarm four times in the last month

Scott Benner 24:26
wow that's great. That's such a big deal and people just you know it's it's that slow loss that you have when you when diabetes comes into your world and then at first you're like oh it's okay I you know I'm losing like an hour sleep I'll be alright or and you think you are but man six months a year into it. You don't realize how you've declined from not sleeping regularly. It's just it's difficult and it's not good for your health on top of everything else. So yeah, I would say number one thing you get out of an algorithm any of them honestly sleeping overnight, such a great such Great part of it, and the good.

Kris Freeman 25:03
I was just gonna say, Yeah, I've been very, that my hope was that it would really aid with my sleeping when I switched to it. And it has. And the other was that it would be a pretty seamless transition transition to go back between automated and manual. And it's very simple. Yeah. Um, so I've been pretty happy with that as well.

Scott Benner 25:18
It's excellent. Very cool. Are you so you're going to have to hold off on G seven Dexcom. Until Ali pod five works with it?

Kris Freeman 25:28
Um, I guess so. That appears to be the case, I'd like to get on the seventh as soon as possible. And, you know, whenever Omni pod has sent me a little evaluations of their new system as keep this thing up to date with the latest tech. I mean, come on. Sevens have been development for years. And

Scott Benner 25:52
they're working. I think it's, I mean, I can't say I'm not allowed. I don't I should say that. I don't know anything. But it's my you know, it's my anticipation that it it all. It'll happen as absolutely fast as it can. But yeah,

Kris Freeman 26:07
I also want an iOS system. I do not want to buy an Android phone. But I might have to

Scott Benner 26:11
Yeah, no, I agree. It's funny to how I'm in every walk of life. That's an issue. I was looking at some technology the other day, I think it was like a somebody who was flying a drone. And their phone was the screen to the drone. I was like, That's really interesting. And like, show that to me, and they're showing to me. And they said, I switched from this drone to this drone, because it didn't have one of the I forget which one it was one of the other phones didn't work with it. And I thought, Man, that's interesting. That's, that's a issue, like across the board, I guess. Like not, I always just think of it as the things that impact my life. But there's something I have no knowledge of, and they have the same problem. The guys over there, like I wish it would just work with this phone. And I'm like, I don't know, like, it just, it's got to stop at some point being a problem. Like I mean, I don't know, I guess I don't understand the technology behind it or why it is an issue. But I agree with you. iOS would be amazing for for Omnipod 500%. So what I don't you I'm going to ask you the same question. I asked a lot of people in this I think I know your answer already. But I want to ask anyway. Do you think at all about getting your son tested? Like through trial net? Do you ever think about that? Have you done it?

Kris Freeman 27:30
I have not done it? I do think about it.

Scott Benner 27:34
You guys ever talked about it seriously?

Kris Freeman 27:38
Well, I will talk we were thinking more waiting till he was about six years old. For now take a look at

Scott Benner 27:46
it. And then how would you see that? Would you see it as like if you know, great, there's no auto antibodies terrific? Or if there are, we'll know what to look for, like, what's the feeling inside when you try to decide to do that?

Kris Freeman 28:01
Well, I mean, if there's if there's signs that he's gonna get diabetes, I mean, I would want to know, so that I could do everything I could to prevent it. What? What is, the feeling would be anxiety. You know, I've obviously learned to manage this disease quite well, but I would never wish it on anyone, let alone my son. So

Scott Benner 28:27
yeah, that well, that's, that's the thing right there. Right. Like, just because you're you found your way with it doesn't mean a no problem. And I've just heard people talk about it. And some people like I don't want to know if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. I don't want to worry about it the whole time. I say, well, don't you worry about it anyway.

Kris Freeman 28:48
Yeah, I'm with you. I'm already worried about it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 28:51
Yeah. How would you not think about that, right. So I, I'm in the camp of I'd like to know, and especially with the TCL drug that just got approved from the FDA and the work they're doing with putting off diagnosis for people, just seems like knowing would be a would be the way to go. But I was just interested in how you felt about it. Also,

Kris Freeman 29:10
for my own transition, I was diagnosed so early on, you probably know the story already, but to recount it, I was training with the US Ski Team in Park City, and they gave fasting glucose tests to see how we were handling recovery. You know, so all my teammates are between 70 and 90, and mine comes back at 240. Which, actually, they didn't even tell me but that the first time it was like now if that was an error in the test. Like two months later, I was 270. And I got diagnosed, but at the time of my diagnosis, my agency was only 17.

Scott Benner 29:50
Well, all that activity was probably helping you right? Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Kris Freeman 29:56
But because I was diagnosed so early, it also really helped with transition because I still was in the honeymoon phase for a long time before I was fully dependent,

Scott Benner 30:06
yeah. And you looking back, you appreciate that that honeymoon took a while or because you hear some people talking about both ways, like people with little kids are like, I would just like it to be consistent. You know, I don't want diabetes to come full force right away, but at least it would be consistent then. But for you, I'm wondering,

Kris Freeman 30:24
um, for me, it was it was kind of it helped for sure. You know that. It took some of the some of the pressure off of managing because it helped. The downside was that I was constantly adjust, adjust adjusting doses. from month to month from year to year. What worked here before didn't work anymore. But overall, it helped to still have some of my own insulin production.

Scott Benner 30:53
How old were you at that point?

Kris Freeman 30:56
I was diagnosed just for my 20th

Scott Benner 30:59
birthday. So was that your first Olympics your training for or where were you in your career?

Kris Freeman 31:05
So I had competed in three World Junior Championships. At that point, I was heavily recruited by college, and I decided to go to University of Vermont. I went there for a year on a sports scholarship. And then the US Ski Team offered a residency program leading up to the 20 to the 2002 Olympics in Park City. And I decided to do that. And it was within four months of moving there that I got diagnosed. Wow. So I was initially kicking myself because my scholarship would have been guaranteed. And the US Ski Team, if you don't ski fast, you're gone. There's, there's no, there's no empathy there. So I was certainly feeling the pressure. Yeah.

Scott Benner 32:02
What's the first time you put a pump on? How old were you then?

Kris Freeman 32:06
I used in jet. So I was diagnosed in 2000. And I you I switched to Omni pod in 2008.

Scott Benner 32:13
Okay, so you did MDI for seven or eight years,

Kris Freeman 32:16
then? Yeah, that was all but I was doing it in a way most people don't. I was taking probably at least a dozen shots a day.

Scott Benner 32:26
You were might you were acting like a pump with it with a syringe.

Kris Freeman 32:30
Yes, constant, constant corrective boluses. I was. I was using rapid acting insulin, but I was also using Lantis. On occasion, I will use Atlantis and NPH at night, because I didn't want to have that much Lantis going through the day. It became as the honeymoon phase ended, it became more and more complicated.

Scott Benner 32:54
Yeah. So a science experiment there for a while. I have to just I have to comment that you like you're aging. So well. You look exactly like when I met you. I've embarrassed that at how I look versus how you look at right now. Like I just seriously, I if you were 12 feet away from me, I think that guy's 25.

Kris Freeman 33:19
Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

Scott Benner 33:21
It seems like you're doing really well. I mean, it's a lot, right. Like it's a lot of activity, which guests helps with that. But still it's it's hard on your body? I would imagine skiing can't be easy on you. And then the diabetes on top of that. Are you seeing any ill effects of the diabetes at this point your life or?

Kris Freeman 33:38
I have I have no written up the I know that a doctor has not told me that I got any long term issues developing from diabetes at this point. Also, I've also, aside from you know, the 7.2 that I had a diagnosis I have never recorded and a one C above seven. Yeah, in 20 years. So. So I don't know, how many diabetics are out there that have done that. And I'd really like to know, where are the numbers that are going to contribute to long term problems? Yeah. is below a seven. Enough is below six. Where's the target? And then of course, there's going to be individualism in that.

Scott Benner 34:36
Yeah. No, I think that's a question that runs in everyone's mind. Like, because I get asked it a lot. Like, where's Okay, where how high is too high or how it lows? You know, that's the other question people are like, well, how low should I go? You know, people want to know, like, if I have a low blood sugar, am I okay? If it's, you know, 65 for a couple of minutes if it's this like it's it's always that, that desire to just be Have a goal in mind, you know, I think is this important and studies come out and they go back and forth, and they vary with their answers. And then technology gets better. And, you know, we start talking about time and range the last two years, which isn't something anybody really spoke about before, then. It's a, I mean, it's to me, it sounds like you're doing fantastic.

Kris Freeman 35:23
I remember, I remember hearing about the time and range thing probably 15 years ago. So it doesn't matter what your agency is, it's the time in range. And the doctor just kept ranting on this isn't just common sense.

Scott Benner 35:40
Right? If my if my a one C six and a half, wouldn't I mostly be in range?

Kris Freeman 35:46
If my blood sugar is always 50, or 250? Wouldn't that not be good?

Scott Benner 35:51
Yeah, well, that well, yeah, but you'd be surprised how many people you know trick there a one C test, basically, by being very low, and then alternating with being high and low. And then this test, of course, comes back just showing you a you know, immediate number, and you're like, Oh, my one C six. And, but but more, I guess that it is important to be talking about because more and more I do hear people say my A onesies lower, but I'm not coming upon it. Honestly, I know that. And you know, so maybe they education did work for that. But it's just it's an interesting idea that the way they used to talk about it versus now and that I mean, you've been through some management. You know, you weren't super old when you got it or it wasn't such a long time ago, but you had a little mph in there, but you were never mph and regular. You never were in that. In that mindset, I would think you're doing great. You know,

Kris Freeman 36:43
I never had to use regular. My first two insulins I was prescribed was humulin Hema login mph. And then as soon as Lantus came out, I ditched the MPH

Scott Benner 36:56
is Lance is all you used for those eight years.

Kris Freeman 37:00
Like I said earlier, I used mph at night a little bit too. In in conjunction with the Lantis. Yeah, because I didn't want if a big enough dose of Lantis to keep me in range during night would drive me low during the day when I was working out. Right.

Scott Benner 37:16
But you never made it to like the modern ones like Joseba, or those you weren't injecting at that point.

Kris Freeman 37:22
By the time recibo was a thing I was using the Omnipod get Gotcha.

Scott Benner 37:29
Does your I'm always interested in a married situation, how much interaction does your spouse have with your diabetes? Like from none to a lot? Where do you think

Kris Freeman 37:43
she's very good about thinking and thinking about it and understanding when I have to do things because of it. She's always there to flick my syringe before I fill up my pod, you know, if I want to wear it on my back, she'll put it there. She's really good about that. But at the same time, I do my best to not have it impact my family. And the way to do that is to be in range as much as I can. Yeah.

Scott Benner 38:13
Do you have give what you would consider a fuelling style? Like, is there a way you eat? You know, some people are low carb, like, you know, vegetarian? Like, is there a way you eat? Or do you just eat what you want, but know how to

Kris Freeman 38:28
tailor my diet to my activity level. Okay, so on a day when I'm not training, which is rare, Ollie, higher protein, lower carb and lower calorie, I'll try to match my calories to what I'm burning. And then on a day, and then if I'm training a lot in successive days, I will gradually increase the amount of carbohydrate to replace it. Because as the glycogen stores get burned off, the you become that much more sensitive to the insulin in the system. And I can I'm burning that much more carbon. Yeah,

Scott Benner 39:06
you're making me think of watching my son to when he got home from when he got home from college. He, you know, in between his years, he was always training. And even at the end, you know, there's a couple of months there where he just kept going, like, I think out of like, just habit, like he just kept training because it's what he did. But on days when he was going to work out on a baseball field and lift at the same time, there's times I'd look over at him and he'd have a bowl with like pasta, and you know, like there was protein on the side. And he's chicken and I'm like, How could you eat all that and it's like, I don't even want all this, I just I need this or I start losing weight or you know, it was interesting to watch that happen because I don't think most people actually if we all thought about it a little more like that it might be valuable for some of us, but it was interesting to watch him do that. The diabetes is

Kris Freeman 39:58
really instant feedback. Back on whether I'm fueling enough or not, you know, if a suddenly my regular Basal insulin dose is driving me low, I'm probably a little bit carbohydrate deprived and vice versa. I'm driving up, then I'm probably eating too many carbs for my activity level. Yeah. But as far as do I follow a diet, I don't follow a paleo thing or a super low carb diet. But I avoid processed foods like the play. Yeah. But there's the last thing I want to eat. It's it really is getting foods in their natural form. The body just breaks them down. It's more predictable. And it I don't like use the word using the word healthier, but I believe it is healthier. Yeah.

Scott Benner 40:49
Well, you're not a person I've ever looked at and thought to ask what your favorite pop tart flavor was. So that's

Kris Freeman 40:56
all Yeah, I think it's been it's been at least one year since I've had a pop tart. Yeah.

Scott Benner 41:00
I I wonder sometimes when people talk about processed foods, if everyone even imagines the scope of what that means, you know, like, because you'll hear people say, like Whole Foods or, you know, natural, I wanted something that's natural. But processed can mean anything from pasta to bread to a potato chip, like anything that is, you know, I think the simple way people say it is like, if it comes in a box or a bag, I don't eat it. Is one of the you

Kris Freeman 41:29
can totally find organic, non GMO processed food. Yes. It's not hard at all.

Scott Benner 41:34
Yeah, right. It's still, it's still it's that the process that goes into creating that, that thing I know, some people would like, would balk at you even calling some of it food. But to create that food, your body then has to go through more of a process to break it back down again. And, you know, and there's a lot of stuff in there, you just don't know what it is. I am a fan of just I need to know what I'm eating. At the very least, you know,

Kris Freeman 41:59
and that's the it's the, there tends to be a lot of simple sugars and processed food with the fibers stripped out of it. Which makes you know, the blood sugar spike more quickly. It's just it's not a natural food. It's it's more erratic. Yeah. And it very much shows up when I when I'm trying to balance things with insulin.

Scott Benner 42:23
Can you tell? I mean, when's the last time maybe you haven't had a tough time, but I was gonna say, could you tell on your performance if you haven't eaten as clean as you want to?

Kris Freeman 42:36
Um, well, I can't tell you the last time I didn't eat clean before an event. So I can't say on a on a training day. Maybe. But I also if I was doing a heart interval session, once again, I would eat clean beforehand. It's very rare that I don't. And it's generally because there's nothing else available.

Scott Benner 42:57
Do you think that that's just how you're hardwired that like right now that this conversation isn't making you think like, wow, I have not had a cheesesteak in a really long time. Like or something like that, like, you just did you grow up that way? Was it in your family? You know what I mean?

Kris Freeman 43:14
Um, diabetes definitely changed my relationship to food. And it is. And I don't know that this is like, relatable for anybody, but I very much view food as fuel. And, you know, obviously, there's certain foods that I enjoy eating, but I enjoy being able to do the things I want to do in my day more than eating that food. And if eating that food is going to impact the rest of my day in a negative way, or impact my blood sugar's in a negative way. It's just not worth it to me. Yeah. I don't, you know, you I hear people say, a lot of term use and diabetes is I'd get to eat this many carbohydrates today. And I just, I, I guess I try to steer away from viewing food as a reward, and more as a means to an end.

Scott Benner 44:14
But the reason I asked this because I, I agree with you, and I can tell you that from in my personal I mean, you and I are not, you know, there's there's an argument to be made that if we were standing next to each other, we wouldn't be able to. Some people might not think we're in the same species. But my point is, is that I agree with you about eating and on days when I eat like that. Everything's just better. I don't know another way to put it like, you know, the other day I went out and I bought some steak, and I made it up and I sliced it up and I put it back in the fridge and you know, got up and it was late in the day. I took a couple of eggs, I threw in a couple pieces of steak, and I threw it together and I had it for breakfast. I had a great day. You know, put a I had something with a salad. I threw a little more of my steak and I did that, like you skipped throwing croutons on something like I don't put a bunch of dressing on, I have a great day, the next day comes along. I don't know why my brain doesn't say keep going. Like, I don't know why I'm not stuck in it like because I agree with it. I definitely feel better when I do it. And then, you know, by Wednesday, I don't know what happens. Like, I'm just wondering like,

Kris Freeman 45:19
because we're biologically programmed to want to eat a lot of sugar fat.

Scott Benner 45:26
It's a you're you

Kris Freeman 45:27
don't have diabetes. So you don't have an immediate consequence for when you get into it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:31
I don't have a thought right away. It's like, well, I can't do that. So that that is really it is that something is going to happen to me that I'm not going to appreciate, you know, somewhere between I don't know how my energy in the bathroom, basically, like in that range. And but it's not, it's not something you're right. It's not something I have to deal with in the moment while I'm eating the food. Yeah, maybe that is the difference. That's interesting. I appreciate you talking about that with me.

Kris Freeman 45:58
You know, I also I wanted to back up to what you were saying about the soccer game. And you know, kids, parents trying to figure out how to dose their kids at the soccer game. And once again, it's that I really believe that diabetes treatment starts with your diet. If you eat a good diet of non processed food, with appropriate amount of calories, that is the where you start. And then you then you go into the various treatments, the various insulins, the various monitoring systems. If you are living on if you're giving your kid Froot Loops before your your soccer game, you are not going to manage his blood sugars during that game, it's just not gonna happen.

Scott Benner 46:41
Yeah, you're gonna need a ton of insulin, either you're going to either you're going to combat that cereal with a ton of insulin, that is probably going to come back to bite you in the ass when they're running around. Or you're going to ignore the cereal, not hit it with enough insulin, have some big high blood sugar that got the kid lackadaisically wobbling all over the soccer. And then you're gonna have hours of a high blood sugar later, and probably the activity from the soccer won't even be enough to get through this arrow.

Kris Freeman 47:07
It's so you know, with all of my activities and stuff. From the scientific method, I tried to get the I'm blanking on the word, the residual insulin, what's the what's the proper word for residual

Scott Benner 47:24
residual insulin,

Kris Freeman 47:25
insulin on board? I tried to I tried to get the insulin on board down to the Basal, right. And that way, when I when I'm working out and something doesn't work, I know why. And I can go back and I can make a minor adjustment. And try again, if you're a parent trying to only correct with insulin once the game is started, it's too late, right? It's two or three hours before the game that's important.

Scott Benner 47:52
Everything you do with insulin now is for later. Yes, yes. Yeah, you're never making a decision right now that's going to impact right now unless you're saving a falling blood sugar. And that's not what I'm talking about. But I like when my

Kris Freeman 48:05
race is, you know, it is my last meal is three hours at the latest before that race. And anything I eat between then and the start of the race is only for correcting purposes.

Scott Benner 48:16
Yeah. Well, I think it's good for people to hear how it works. And listen, it's not going to be the same for everybody. They're not everybody's not going to make the same decisions. But it's always been my Well, Chris, for the last number of years in the podcast, like I've what I've said is I'm not in charge of how you eat. But I want you to understand how insulin works. If you're going to eat Froot Loops, I want you to know how to Bolus for Froot Loops. If you're not, I want you to know how to do that. I think your settings are incredibly important. You need to understand the impact that insulin has on on the carbs, you have to get those carbs and that insulin in a tug of war while you're eating so that neither of them can kind of win, you know, but in the end, my goal is for people just to live well. And it just but it's interesting to talk to you because you are doing it in such a specific way. And you're having such specific outcomes, it shows like, like, I'll tell you when if someone comes to me and says I can't figure out this time of day, the first thing I'll say is why don't you like eat something that's a little less, you know, maybe not as heavy with the glycemic load. And you know, and give yourself a chance here to understand how this insulin works. And then if you want to add you know what I mean? Like, don't make it a college level course on the first day is kind of how I think about it. So I think a package got delivered to my house. And now both of my dogs are making sure that we all know about it. So kind of going back to my question about like, did you grow up in, you know, a setting that would set you up for thinking of food and activity this way? Not so much. It just kind of worked out that way for you. But now your son's gonna grow up in a life where like his father and your wife, if I'm not mistaken, right are really active people. So do you In your mind, I know he's only little. But do you hope that he goes the route of a sport or plays in college something? Or do you have different feelings about that now that you've lived through it?

Kris Freeman 50:16
I'm gonna provide him with as much opportunity to do sport as he can. But I, it's gonna be difficult for me because of my competitiveness, but I'm gonna try to stand back as much as I can, and let him decide what he wants to do. If he wants to be an athlete, he'll be an athlete, and I'll certainly give him every opportunity to pick the sport he wants to do.

Scott Benner 50:37
So, even if it's one you don't like, what sport Don't you like? Do you have one that you just don't enjoy?

Kris Freeman 50:42
Ah, well, not really. I mean, I like playing billiards, but I don't want him to be a professional billiard player. Yes. All right.

Scott Benner 50:57
I'll take a stand right now. We didn't let our kids play soccer. But it was, it was my wife grew up on a soccer field, watching her sister's play. And I think she just didn't have the heart to keep doing it anymore. But okay, so I want to go back all the way to the beginning. You talked about I know, you sent me your article, which I'm going to put up in conjunction with the podcast episode. But you go to this thing where you describing what I mean? Sounds like walking up a mountain and skis and skiing back down and kind of take me through that. That process like, like from a diabetes perspective, how did that day go?

Kris Freeman 51:36
Well, the race starts unfortunately, really early. It starts at like, eight in the morning. So I was up at 430. Make sure that I had my breakfast in by five. And I had to, you know, I've thought long and hard about how I was going to dose for that race. At that point, I was still using, I think you would refer to it as the Omni pod three. I skipped the dash. I went straight from the three to the five.

Scott Benner 52:06
Just you went, you didn't go down. You were using arrows, pods. That's what that's what the originals were called. So you went from arrows, you didn't use a dash. Okay, so you were using that one?

Kris Freeman 52:16
Yeah, when the dash came out, I looked at the benefits. And there's nothing here that I really want. So I just kept going with

Scott Benner 52:22
what I had you were okay with that old PDM.

Kris Freeman 52:25
Yeah, well, well, I also knew that it was, I mean, I've dropped that thing riding my bike at 25 miles an hour and still works so. So I woke up three and a half hours in advance and I wore two pods. And I had each of them giving me point six units per hour, instead of my usual Basal rate of one unit per hour, and that so 1.2 and that was to offset race nerves, just little little disturbances in the morning as you try to set up your transition zones and stuff. I'll no matter how good I am at relaxing, I still get hit with a little bit of adrenaline that will raise my blood sugar's really go through the process in the morning. So then I had that set to drop down to only a quarter unit. So point two, five units from each pod for the start of the race. And I had that running for an hour. Okay. Then, oh, excuse me, I had that running for an hour and a half. Then I had it dropped to a rate of point three combined. After that hour and a half. And I left there for about an hour before I tore one off.

Scott Benner 53:51
Okay,

Kris Freeman 53:52
that's part of the reason I wear two pods is because it's very easy to make a correction by tearing one off.

Scott Benner 53:58
So this is I'm dying to know, like the process here. Like what so what's the benefit of the two pods?

Kris Freeman 54:04
The benefit of the two pods is one if one fails, which does happen still have I can instantly just changed the pa i can i can get the controller and change the dosage as I need to. So it's kind of a failsafe and a longer race. The other is that if I'm running equal boluses I mean, equal Basal rates as I'm going along, and I am trending low without having to take the time to pull my PDM out change the dose I can just pull the pot off. Interesting. Okay. Wait half my dose

Scott Benner 54:40
that well, that's that's really a Chris, you've been at this a long time. You are your own science experiment, aren't you? And so you got

Kris Freeman 54:50
I have to tell I just have to say that Omni pod I believe absolutely hates that. I wear two at a time because they that goes against every legal.

Scott Benner 54:59
I would imagine that So it's not an FDA approved situation. But you're in a unique situation, right? Doing something that No, nobody's going to do really like I mean, anybody else, you know, if their pod, their site goes bad or their pod stops working, they can change it and go along their way. But you know, those people aren't climbing up a mountain on skis, or how far was a? What races? Did you compete in in the Olympics? How far were your cross country races?

Kris Freeman 55:25
So the longest race I did was 50k. About 30 miles and depending on snow conditions, that would take between an hour 50 And two hours and 20 minutes. Wow. Whereas this race we were just describing took me so I'll go back through the events again. So I did a six mile fat bike through the snow on cross country ski trails, so it's pretty slow. But that takes that took me about 25 minutes. Then I switched to a 10k cross country ski. That took me another 25 minutes. The snow shoe was just God awful. I was through like two feet of snow and I kept postholing. Do you know what postholing is? No, I stay out of the snow. Falling is if there's like a little bit of a crust on the snow from when it melted and refroze you kind of run along for a couple of strides on your snowshoes and then all of a sudden breakthrough up to your groin. And you try to keep going. Well, I was the first one through and I was just postholing for five miles. So it was God awful. That took me over an hour. And then it's the last event is called it's actually called US Ski mountaineering and got this super lightweight carbon equipment. And you've got skins on the base of the skis. And the skins are like a fabric that allows you to glide a little bit, but also kick on the ski, so you can just run on them. And I wore those as I ran up Mount Washington, to basically the top of the head wall. And then at that point, you ski down the head wall and back out to the parking lot. Just so it was three and a half hours in total.

Scott Benner 57:11
Does everyone finish? No, no. I mean, I'm imagining there's a dropout. A significant like, what do you think? How many people do you think started? How many people finished? You know?

Kris Freeman 57:23
I don't know, I think there was about 80 individuals. And then there's a team event as well. I don't know what the dropout rate is? I didn't I didn't really look there. But for sure, when you got five events. And you know I did in three and a half hours, a lot of people are taking over six.

Scott Benner 57:45
So what would have to happen, Chris, for you to give up in something like that?

Kris Freeman 57:52
I'd have to, I'd have to have an extreme blood low blood sugar without a means to correct it. Or I'd have to be extremely high without a means to correct it. Or I'd have to hurt myself. Yeah.

Scott Benner 58:07
So obviously, if you hurt your leg, you'd stop. But what if you had to hurt myself badly? I was gonna say what if he just fell and broke your elbow? You'd keep going? Right?

Kris Freeman 58:19
You Yeah. And I think that might be that might be genetic. I mean, my, my father is 75 years old. And four years ago, he was doing a ski race. And he fell. And he broke his pole. And he hurt his arm. And he got another poll, but he couldn't really use it. You know, someone handed them another poll. And I saw him at the finish of the race because I did the race too. And I saw him skiing around with one pole and thing down as he broke his pole. And I get over there. He's a Can you help me? I think I think I might pass out. What's wrong? He's like, I think I broke my shoulder.

Scott Benner 59:04
He was, uh, let me see if I'm remembering this right that he do some sort of farming when he was younger.

Kris Freeman 59:09
Yeah, he was a pig farmer in Iowa. Okay. So, you know, I drove him to I drove him to urgent care. And sure enough, he had broken his shoulder. And I said, I said to him, dad, you know, you broke your your broken shoulder at a point on the course where it was only one mile back to the lodge. Yet you skied five miles out of the way to finish the race before you got there with a broken shoulder. Why did you do this? I didn't think it was that that.

Scott Benner 59:38
You have any siblings? I have an older brother and an older brother is the athletic.

Kris Freeman 59:44
We he was at the 2006 Olympics with me in cross country skiing. No kidding. Okay. Yeah, he was he's the loser of the family only went to one Olympics. Just one

Scott Benner 59:54
Olympics. Reminds me this week, I keep seeing the The Kelsey brothers as the lead up to the Super Bowl comes up the one guy is the Senator for the Eagles, the other guys the tight end for the, for the the chiefs, and they're trying to talk about which one of them's more successful. They've both been like, you know, a handful of Pro Bowls and both won a Super Bowl. And I was like, I don't know how you can't really denigrate one of those resumes, you know what I mean? So, yeah, just one just one Olympics. So,

Kris Freeman 1:00:24
basically, my point is, is you know, the, the way I interpret pain, it might be different than others on my father has incredible pain tolerance, so does my brother. So, you know, when I was a kid, my we would wrestle with my dad and he would make us say mercy, but he couldn't make my brother Say mercy. And he even said to me, once, my dad said to me, I can't make him say mercy, because I'm pretty sure to do it, I would have to break his arm. I'm not gonna do

Scott Benner 1:00:53
that, to give up, but I'm not willing to go that far. Well, it's a hell of a good trait. I mean, it's obviously serving you well. And it's laudable. Hey, other other autoimmune issues in your family at all, have celiac. Hashimoto hypothyroidism. Yeah. with you or with somebody else.

Kris Freeman 1:01:13
I'm borderline. I'm kind of that. I monitor it very, very closely. And if if I crossed a certain threshold, you know, I start probably having to take small doses of levothyroxine. But my father has been hypo 30 years.

Scott Benner 1:01:34
Okay. And his his Hashimotos Do you know is that autoimmune? Yes. Yeah. All right. I can't thank you enough for coming back on and doing this with me again, you're one of my favorite people to talk to about diabetes. And, and I just I really appreciate your perspective.

Kris Freeman 1:01:52
Oh, thank you. It's always fun to talk to you too. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:01:59
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon. Find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. You spell that g VOKEGLUCA g o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. I also want to thank Chris Freeman, remind you to find him on Instagram, and Facebook. I'll tell you a little more about that in a second. After I thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter contour next.com forward slash juice box when you support the sponsors with my links. You're supporting the production of the show

on Instagram, Chris is Chris Freebird, KRISFRE bi or D. And on Facebook. Chris is always accepting new friends on his personal page. Chris thought Freeman dot 5836. But you'll see him there's a picture of him skiing in this like black suit with a number one on his chest and might be a seven with another set but the number seven on the chest. Sorry. Check him out. He's great. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

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#856 Best of Juicebox: Texting Diabetes

Episode 482 Too Much Insulin? was first published on Feb 23, 2015. Text messages to manage Arden's type 1 diabetes, who knew that would be so effective?! While at school or anytime that Arden is out of the house, the simple process has led to lower a A1c, better grades, an increase in self-confidence and much more. 

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

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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, welcome to episode 856 of the Juicebox Podcast

Hey everybody, we are back with another episode of the Best of the Juicebox Podcast today, we're gonna go way back way back February 23 2015 Episode number four. It's called texting diabetes. I know right? Like how do you text like hello diabetes? Are you there? No, not quite like that you'll see. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise please Always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes, or care for someone with type one, and are from the United States, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Join the registry complete the survey. This helps diabetes research it significantly helps T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox take you fewer than 10 minutes. Help people with type one help yourself maybe definitely helped me.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by cozy Earth. Cozy Earth has been featured on Oprah's Favorite Things list like five times. Their products come with a 10 year warranty and cozy Earth bedding is temperature regulated and is available in either viscose bamboo which is what I have or linen. Cozy Earth loungewear offers optimal comfort while maintaining a flattering and elegant fit. You can imagine me in pajamas looking elegant, and don't miss their new waffle collection towels. And somebody online just told me they bought them last night and we're very happy with them. Now here's the best part when you go to cozy earth.com and shop sitewide no matter what you buy. All you have to do at the end while you're checking out is apply the code juicebox one word juicebox to save 35% on your entire purchase 35% What did I just say? 35%. It's an amazing amount of money. Head over Now get yourself some sheets or some socks or some jammers. I don't care what you're up to.

Unknown Speaker 2:37
Just don't forget to save the 35%

Scott Benner 2:39
you know. Welcome to the Juicebox Podcast episode four. I'm Scott Benner. This podcast is if you're just finding it a conversation about being the parent of a child with type one diabetes. Episode Four is going to take a an upbeat turn because Episode Three got kind of somber at parts, even though I thought the information was good. And I don't want to I don't want to have to bummers in a row. So although I don't think Episode Three was a bummer. I actually think it's a it's an uplifting story. It's just sometimes the topics are heavy, you know. Anyway, episode four, we're going to talk about the way that my daughter Arden and I manage her type one when she's not in my vicinity, when she's not with me. This is just a this ends up being such a great but you know, thing that happens by mistake by you know, by happenstance that ends up just informing so much of how we handle type one today. It has to do everything with an academic upswing for my daughter, it has everything to do with how an A one C that wasn't too bad to begin with is now fantastic. It has a lot to do with her confidence. It has a lot to do with the fact that she can now you know, change insulin pumps on her own. This this one moment really is a big moment. So I'm gonna take you back to Arden in second grade. She's in fifth grade now. She's going to be 11 this summer. But I'll take you back to second grade. She's upstairs in a two story house. We live in a two story house. And I need to know what her her CGM says. And to be honest, I just didn't want to walk upstairs. So I texted her, just said CGM question mark. And she sent the number back. And that was it. I was hooked. I was like, Wait a minute. Is this fantastic? But beyond it just being fantastic that I didn't have to get up and walk upstairs all the time or go find her if she was somewhere. I started realizing. Like right there. I was just sitting on the sofa thinking what's the difference between upstairs and at a friend's house? What's the difference between upstairs and in the backyard? Oh my god. What's the difference between upstairs I was at school, and there really is only one difference. It's my sense of being in control. And can you hear basil snoring? I hope you can't. A puppy he snores like crazy. It's my sense of being in control, right? It's the largely false feeling that I have that if something were gonna go wrong, I could somehow be Superman and stop it. So you can't really stop something from going long. You can plan well, you can, you know, give the right amounts of insulin, you can understand all that stuff, that stuff helps keep problems from happening. But if something unforeseen was just gonna go bonkers, that it's gonna go bonkers whether I'm upstairs or downstairs, or she's out back, or she's at her friend's house, or she's at school. We just need to be sure that there's an adult there, if that ever happens, that understands and can react, and it doesn't need to be me. And that was really a huge leap. For me, I just, I let go of that feeling that false feeling that I was somehow a guardian completely in control. And that nothing bad could ever happen if I was around. This text message ends up being the text message that launches 1000 chips, because it allows me to recognize that, you know, I falsely have an idea of control. And it gives me the bright idea that we could utilize this texting in other places, you know, when Arden's out of the house. And we do to so much success, in fact, that it starts just becoming everything, you know, it's everything. It's it's how we do school lows, highs, meals activity, it's how she goes to her friend's house and plays in the snow yesterday. It's how she's on a school trip today. Without me. It's that one little moment of letting go, that builds and builds and builds to where we are here today. So let me let me tell you some other good stuff that came from that. So first of all, in second grade, we were beginning to become concerned about artists academics, because she was falling behind in areas where we did not expect you know, as people who feel like we're reasonably, you know, we're not over or under estimating learning, we know who she is, as a person as best we can. I'm telling you Arden's grades and her grasp of concepts was not where I expected them to be for her. And, you know, you start getting worried that it's just you know, Arden is going to be a person who struggles at school. But in the end, what ended up happening was, she was leaving class to go to the nurse. And a lot of times, because of the timing of the nurses visits, it was coinciding with learning something new. So her teacher would begin to teach, she'd get out half of a thought it would leave the room come back five minutes later, and because Arden coming and going seems so natural to the teacher. And even though she's a fantastic teacher, it just seems so normal for her to come and go that it got away from her that Oh, Arden walked out during the during the explanation of this. But that didn't stop anybody from moving on the day just kept moving. So Arden would miss the direction, the instruction and then be expected to do the work. And she was struggling. We got lucky. The teacher that Arden had in second grade was really a fantastic teacher and she moved with her whole class and there's a word for it educators, it's popping and educators were heads right now I don't know it, but she moved with her whole class to the next grade. So in third grade, I didn't have to start over new explaining diabetes to someone this you know, day one was, was fantastic. But we made a big change. And here's the change we made. So we go into the 505 go into the 504 meeting after second grade in the summertime, sitting in front of a teacher and two nurses and you know, an assistant principal and I think there's a counselor there and it's me now I've been banging on these people's heads for years. Arden has to go to the nurse she's gotta go at this time. And this time she's got a test here here we can look at the CGM but there we have to test I need her to Pre-Bolus for a meal. So she's got to come down early. You know, I made them give her the aid when she was in kindergarten like there was so much that went on about Arden needs to go to the nurse she needs to go the nurses is very important. And I go and I sit down and had 504 Meeting look, everybody square in the face, thank them for the year, how great it's going. And then I say now next year, I don't want Arden Dakota, the nurse at all. I want her to stay in the class. So a couple of lucky things happen where that made that possible. First of all, her 504 plan covers her having a cell phone. The second thing that helped with the idea of Arden not having to go to the nurse's office was our outgoing governor that year, signed a bill that said that children with diabetes could test anywhere in a public school didn't have to be a nurse's office. It could be in the hallway, it could be in the bathroom. It could be anywhere you want to be so armed with the idea that a Arden was now allowed to test anywhere she wanted to, and be, I saw the light about me not needing to be so involved or anyone needing to be so involved that I thought, Okay, well, we can do this right, we could just do this texting thing while she's in class. So in that 504 meeting, after second grade, I dropped the bomb. Next year, I don't want to leave the room, she's going to test give herself insulin, you know, drink juice or eat food, if she needs it. She's not going to go to the nurse, if we can help it, and I don't want or need the teacher to be involved. It'll be between Arden and I no different than if she was upstairs in the bedroom. Now, you know, if something happens, then the teacher would spring into action. And of course, I was a little nervous about that. But because this teacher was a second year teacher that took away a little bit of that uncomfortable feeling, which is one of the lucky things. And the people in the room. You know, we had built a very good relationship slowly, brick by brick over years, people trusted me. And I think they saw a person who was like no look at she has to be in the nurse's office all the time, who flipped and said, No, she doesn't and thought, well, if this guy is saying she doesn't have to be the nurse's office, you know, maybe we don't have to. But still, you could see the the anxiety like they those nurses were going to be out of the loop. The school was going to be out of the loop. And I and in the end, what I said to them was, Look, she's my kid, if I do something wrong, if I give her too much insulin, or not enough insulin, let's be honest, it's not on you. You weren't involved. There's nothing legally that you did. So this is kind of lightening things for you. And I think that was what pushed him over the edge or like this guy's right, you know, he could, he can mess up as much as he wants. It's not on us. I think that's what they were happy about mostly. So the third grade year of school art and never goes to the nurse one time, never once. And her academics pick up.

G's really, like a like a rocket, they they go back right to where you think they're going to it took a little time she had to catch up. But, you know, now in fifth grade, I don't think of Arden as having any academic instabilities, you know, it's amazing. And that's just I'm telling you, just from not going to the nurse, third grade, no nurse, now we're going to transition to fourth grade. And in our district, that means Middle School. And I know that's probably early for middle school for most of you. And it's an overcrowding issue here. But nevertheless, she's going to have to transfer into another building, same district, different building. Different building means new nurse, different building means new, you know, new principals, new counselors, new people who don't know me, and people who have no reason to trust me or understand what we're doing. So what I did was I brought a nurse from the elementary school and Ardens, teacher to the 504 meeting for the middle school, and I just let them explain it. The nurse didn't have a lot to say she was I didn't see Arden once last year. And that's it. There were no emergencies, nothing we had to run and go find her for it. She said I think she fell on the playground, I had to give her a band aid once. But we never spoke about her diabetes, the teacher spoke to the fact that Arden was falling behind academically and took a little bit of the blame. In the meeting. She said, I really feel like I should have seen it. But it was just such a normal part of the day, he just escaped me that she was leaving all the time. Hey, everyone, it's Scott, I'm just going to take a quick second out from the show to tell you that I'm very interested in talking to you, the parents of children with type one. If you are interested in being on the Juicebox Podcast, please go to Ardens de.com or juicebox podcast.com. Scroll to the bottom, click on contact. Send me off a quick note. I would love to talk to you on the show about type one about parenting about technology, about diabetes, about your frustration, great ideas. You have questions, anything at all, anything, you know, parenting or diabetes related, though, go ahead, send a note. We'll get you on the show. Now back to the podcast. It really is a matter of perspective on it's on saying that she was leaving all the time, isn't it but because you know, as a person who is thinking about diabetes in that way, like oh, I need my kid to go to the nurse's office, she only goes four times a day. That's not too bad. But if you get up, walk to the nurse handle what happens in the nurse's office takes a few minutes come back. It could be 10 minutes, a short trip could be 10 minutes, and you do that four or five times a day you've lost 45 minutes or an hour. Now if I told you I was going to send your kid to school today, and randomly take an hour of their day away from them, you'd say no, you can't do that. When you say oh, you're gonna do it because they have to go the nurse for their diabetes. Oh, that doesn't sound too bad. 15 minutes we'll be fine. It's not fine need to be in school. It was a bit of a hurdle at fourth grade at the middle school. The nurse felt so uncomfortable not being involved, but I could see in her face this the same thing I was going through, you know back before For the texting, she didn't want to be out of control. She didn't like the idea of there being a child in that school that she wanted to keep safe and healthy, that she wasn't going to have input into. And what I said to her was, look, it's okay. Arden's my daughter, she's had diabetes, and she's two, I know exactly what to do, we are going to talk all the time. And if there's a failing in the system, then she'll come to you. If she can't get a hold of me, or I can't get a hold of her, then she'll come to you. I said, but no, this if our text me from class and says, Hey, my blood sugar's 60. And it's falling. I'm not sending her to you, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call an ambulance at home. So she's gonna drink a juice box, she and I are gonna stay in contact over those next couple of minutes by text message. And when I'm comfortable that she's stable again, she and I are going to stop talking. And that's going to be we're going to keep going about our business. Nothing special. So couldn't be more, genuinely couldn't be more happy or proud to tell you that in fourth grade. Arden never went to the nurse for a diabetes related situation. She was down there if you know her insulin pump, I think twice kind of errored, and I went in and switched and we switch them in the nurse's office because there was privacy there. But Arden's never had to go to the nurse for anything diabetes related now in third grade, in fourth grade. And now this year, halfway through fifth grade, never once been to the nurse, it's so glaring, that the nurse sometimes sends me a note to say if our never just wants to come down and hang out or say hello, you know, we really don't feel like we know her. And I very privately think I'm glad I don't want her to know you. i She doesn't need to know you. She doesn't need a nurse. She's She's good. Today Arden is on a school trip. This is the first school trip I haven't gone on. And the very simple reason why I didn't have to go today. Now. Last year, I wouldn't have gone either because of the texting. But there was still an issue of insulin pumps. What if there's a real like kind of catastrophic incident with her insulin pump and it needs a new pump. I wanted to be there to change it. Up until a few months ago, Arden could do all the steps, but she'd never done all the steps start to finish. It ends up being another, you know, happenstance, he kind of thing that gets Arden to putting her insulin pump on her on the pod on by herself. So just like the text messages is born out of me not wanting to get off the sofa one day. My wife and I, Kelly and I were away for a business thing for her. Well, it was an overnight event. It wasn't very far from home, we were about an hour and hour and a half from home. But just far enough that you needed to spend the night Arden and her brother went to her aunt's house. And I think we were like on the last day of an insulin pump. And I kept saying to Kelly on the way out the door like maybe we ought to just switch this thing early. Because I have a feeling it's going to just it's going to you know, it's not going to make it till tomorrow, it's going to need to be swapped. But our blood sugars were okay. They were just starting to get stubborn. You know what I mean? And by the time we had dinner at this event, args blood sugar was great. And then all of a sudden, it just started heading up and she's texting me, hey, my blood sugar is going up and we're poor and insulin. And it's not going down. And so I guess about 45 minutes or an hour later, I texted her and I said look at it that pumps gotta get changed, you know, it's the site decides done and it can you do it, I'll walk you through it, I'll text you through it, or I'll call you if you want me to. And and I said you know what, that's a good idea. I'll call you and I'll walk you through it. Go ahead. I told her Go ahead, fill the pump with insulin and prime it and then send me a text message. And I'll call you and we'll go through the rest of it. About three minutes goes by but in my mind, you know I said to my wife like it's been a long time I told him to prime that pump and I haven't heard back from her you know something's wrong. She's lost her nerve. You know something I'm gonna have to drive home you know, I explained to my I'll explain to your sister over the phone. I'll you know something. But I had every bad scenario going off in my head. Next text message I get back from Arden is a response to me because I'm not texting her. Hey, what's going on? And she goes, Oh, I'm done. And I thought she meant that she filled the pod and primed it. I said, Okay, I'll call you and let's we'll talk about the rest. She texts back because you don't have to call. I said I'm done. I put the pump on. It's all done. I'm finished. And I was like, Oh my God. That's fantastic.

But it's the situation that made it happen. Right. Like she was in a room with a person she knew. Didn't know as much about her insulin pump as she did. She was with her aunt, her aunt knows a little bit about it, but certainly not as much as Arden does. I wasn't there. There was no one to bail her out. This was on her. And bang. She takes care of it just like that. And I really do think diabetes. You know, in the diabetes world and outside of it. Children just get so much out of being challenged. It really does bring the best out in them and this certainly was one of those times. Now that Arden can change your pod without me being there. It's a game changer for For us, and it's why I'm not on some school trip today. You know, Arden is at a science center or a Space Center about an hour and 45 minutes from our home. And isn't it great? I'm just I'm thinking now I'm not really sure where she is. I'm not 100% sure if she's at the Space Center or the science center, it doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter where Arden is. She's on a class trip. You know, her blood sugar today's never been over 170 hasn't been lower than 115. She was 115. When they got on the bus at the end of the day to come home. She's probably on a bus driving home right now the last time she and I texted, she's like, Hey, everybody is gonna have a snack and have a snack. She Bolus for it. And she's on a bus right now laughing with her friends. I don't even know where she is. It gives me so much joy to tell you that I don't know where she is. Because she's fine. And nothing went wrong with her on the path today. She didn't need the extra pump. She took her the insulin she talked about, you know, but it's right to take the stuff. But had something gone, you know, funky, she would have just found a place and changed the pod and gone about her business. I know she would I know she would have done it. And it all starts in that second after I text her back in second grade from my living room to the bedroom upstairs. What's your CGM say, it all starts in that moment afterwards, when I start realizing I just need to not be that involved. You know, she can do more than I expect. But I don't want to throw it on or all at once. And that has been a really huge benefit of the texting at school, which is different situations come up every day, you know, everyday is not always the same with diabetes. And so their experiences, you know, a little bit of a high before a meal a little bit of a low after a meal a low before gym a high before gym? How do you handle all these things? Well, you have to, they have to happen. First of all, you can't stop every bad thing from happening or every undesirable thing from happening. Because if you stop those things from happening, you never have the experience of them happening. And you know, as well as it, you can't always stop, you know, undesirable moments with diabetes and always stop, you can't hardly ever stop them. So the only real benefit in these moments is learning from them. That's what's been happening with the text messaging. And it's been happening, you know, slowly over time Arden gets to see a situation arise, she gets to hear in the tone of my text messages that I'm not upset. I'm not frantic, I know what to do. Sometimes we choose what to do, and it doesn't work out really well. And she doesn't, you know, we have to make another adjustment. But that that's not a big deal either. And these experiences continue to help Arden grow as a person who lives with type one diabetes, to the point where she's not thrown by things when they happen. And that's probably the biggest that's probably the biggest impediment is not to see a low number and start running around with your hair on fire or not to you know, not to set a correction into into motion and the correction doesn't really affect the high blood sugar. You can't be you know, throwing your hands up constantly and going, oh my god, I can't believe this is horrible, blah, blah. You can't be like that all the time. It's just got to be what it is. I got a high I put some in some oil, it's not working. What are we going to do next? We're going to adjust the basil, are we going to? Are we going to inject some insulin? Are we going to try a new pump? You know, are we just going to Bolus again, you know, maybe this is just a carb counting mistake on our part. Maybe we should just Bolus again or she's low. not to panic when she's low. You know, everyone's got their own level of comfort and I completely respect that. But I see online sometimes people are like, Oh my God, my kids blood sugar was 70. And it was an arrow down or CGM. They almost died like oh geez, you know, most die. 7070 is a great blood sugar. I mean, the down parts not fantastic. But really think about what that means and arrow down to 70 means you're falling about two points per minute, which means that five minutes from now you're going to be 60 which still is not a panic situation for most people drink a juice. It'll stop at 60 The arrow kind of curls back around again before you know it you're fine.

Unknown Speaker 24:14
Reed trying to block his teammate Chris butcher. Here's the checker I thought I

Scott Benner 24:18
would take a second to let you know that the next episode of The Juicebox Podcast will be an interview with 21 year old NASCAR driver Ryan reed Ryan just won in Daytona in the XFINITY series. And we're going to be talking to him about his type one diabetes diagnosis, racing with type one and find out what it feels like to win a NASCAR race.

Unknown Speaker 24:39
Day total What a finish.

Scott Benner 24:42
If my daughter was a panacur because she saw a low number, then that would keep us from transferring the responsibility to her. She can't be someone who panics. And I'm not someone who panics. My wife's not someone who panics and we're teaching her that but slowly through Experience is not by saying to her art and you can't panic if your blood sugar gets low, that's not teaching anybody. You can't teach people how to be. They have to just grow into who they're going to be. And so this simple, silly idea of just texting has facilitated all of this. It has been maybe one of the best decisions I've ever made by mistake or not on purpose and in my entire life. The handoff of Arden's care happens constantly. It's exponentially growing. It's not as slow as it used to be. It used to be one little thing every couple of months. Now I can see her gaining confidence constantly. You know, whether it's today's trip, or yesterday at a friend's house playing in the snow. You know, yesterday is a great example. My son was playing in his final freshman basketball game yesterday, I really did want to go see him play. So Arden comes home from school, I say to her look, we're letting the dogs out. As soon as the dogs are done outside, we're gonna get everything together, and we're gonna go see Coldplay. So he just pack your bag up, you know, bring some snacks if you're hungry, whatever you want to do, but we're gonna go and so she's running around packing and I'm running around with the dogs. And her phone. She gets a text on her phone from a friend of hers. Can she come over and play in the snow? Now I really have to go or I'm going to be late like I need to go. So I said to her, you can go that's fine. But you know, we got to do it right now. Like there's no time to make big plans. I can't call my mother. You know, I said what's your CGM say it's on the low side. I think she was like it was after school. She hadn't had a snack yet. I think she's like 85. And I said, okay, just you know, let's get going. But you have to have a snack before you go outside. So we drove up the street. I dropped her off at her friend's house with a study 85 on her CGM. And I said to her before you go outside and play, have 15 carbs of something. Head out, put your CGM in your pocket, make sure it's zipped up so that you know it can't get wet. Pay attention to the alarms text me if you have a problem. That's it with that I dropped her off. And then I drove about a half an hour from where she was to watch my son play basketball. And not a problem. Not a problem in the whole world. Nothing went wrong or blood sugar didn't get high didn't get low. But if it had CGM would have beeped. And she would have done something about it. And you know, if she had to go inside and talk to the mother that was there, even though that mother's not, you know, some diabetes guru, she would have been fine. Absolutely fine. I was never, never nervous or never uncomfortable yesterday, even though it was a last minute thing, even though it was not a perfect situation where I was leaving her even though she was going to be doing something strenuous. I never in that hour, I watched my son play basketball. I did text with her once or twice, but I was never uncomfortable. And she wasn't uncomfortable. And that is a just a gift. Because I have spent a lot of my life feeling uncomfortable in situations like that, as I'm probably sure that you have also. But it turns out that while we've been texting back and forth, and she's been slowly, you know, her her care, her responsibility, the onus of that has been slowly shifting to her. My anxiety has been slowly shifting away at the same time. And it's always unplanned moments, moments that are not within anyone's control, and certainly not how I plan these moments are the ones that teach me to just mellow out a little bit. And a great example is that Arne and I have alarm set up throughout the day, you know, talk at this time, you know, before snack or before lunch, these are the to our texting times because the day gets, you know, out of hand I sometimes forget. And she sometimes forget. So these alarms keep us in sync with each other. But I do have a couple of alarms that I think of as being maybe not completely necessary. And so if my alarm sounds and it's one of those unnecessary times, and Arden never texts me say she never texts me. I'll throw one text Hey, what's your CGM say?

Unknown Speaker 29:15
But if she doesn't get back to me, I just imagine that she's in her classroom,

Scott Benner 29:21
you know, taking a test or you know, in their group study talking with people. My mind doesn't jump to like Arden's not texting me back because she's dead. But the first couple times it did. The first time she didn't text me back. I was like, I have to call the school. She's not answering me. This is a problem. Obviously she's died or laying on the floor behind a water fountain having a seizure. You know, every bad thought runs through your head. And the best thing I was able to do for myself the biggest gift I've ever given myself in my life is that when those things ran through my head, I told myself just to shut up, just stop. She's in a building with an adult. They're aware that she has type one diabetes, she's got a monitor on for God's sakes, the beeps like crazy, if she's getting too low, the odds of something happening to her, it is dire are so much less than the odds that she's just not hearing her text message. Or the alarm went off, and she didn't hear it. That's what common sense tells me is probably happening. So it was anxiety ridden for me the first couple times, the first couple times she didn't answer, but every time she does an answer in one of those very non critical times, takes away more and more of my anxiety to the point yesterday were when I went to that basketball game, I realized, you know, I am as I am just about as, okay with this as I could possibly be. And I don't mean, we're not paying attention to the details, I don't mean that, you know, we're just gonna throw our hands up in the air and be like, Hey, we're wild and free, and nobody's paying attention anymore, we're still paying attention to it. But in those gaps of time, there's one of my there's an alarm right now that's Arden's pre bus alarm. But of course, today, she's out on a school trip. So I've already spoken to her that one doesn't kind of count today. My point is, very simply, diabetes doesn't get easier. The concept, the very real concept that too much insulin could kill a person, that doesn't stop being true. But when you live through the situations over and over and over and over again, and build a database for yourself of, of experiences that you can draw on, you can learn to let go of your anxiety, and you can raise a child who doesn't have that anxiety. And without that anxiety, they make much better decisions about their care. Now, you know, very soon, and by very soon, I mean, in the next few weeks, Dexcom is going to release that new, a new receiver that's going to have the share built right into it. So Ardens Dexcom receiver, you know, by the end of March 2015, is going to send a little Bluetooth signal to her phone, there's going to be an app on her phone that's going to send her blood sugar to the cloud. And I by then I'm going to be able to look at it on my cell phone, or an iPad, or, you know, the Apple Watch will come out the month later if I don't have one of them. But I mean, these are the possibilities. And I keep thinking, I keep thinking, Okay, I do want that, I want that. But I only want that for the alarm. Like I want that. I don't want to look at it all the time. And I don't want to micromanage her type one diabetes, because me constantly telling her, Hey, your blood sugar is going up, or your blood sugar is going down, do something about it, is just going to do the opposite of what I want to know, in my mind, it's going to do the opposite of what I want, what I want is for her to go and no one's here to change my pot, I'll do it myself, hey, my blood sugar is going up, I'll take care of it myself. I'll be proactive, I want proactive. That's what I'm hoping for. Now, having said that, if there's this little gadget that'll throw me an alarm that says, Hey, your kid's blood sugar is 50. And it's going down. I'll take that I think that's great. I mean, I guess in the same way, if there was a magic, you know, a magic siren that would go off. If my son was about to be hit by a car five minutes from now, I would like that too. But there's no value in me walking around behind my son for the rest of his life going, don't get hit by a car, don't buy a car, don't get hit by a car that he's not going to grow up to be or he's not going to grow up to be a rational person. If I'm up his ass like that. Trust me, I get as well as anybody what the, you know, what the concerns are? I know how dangerous insulin can be. And I know how sometimes things just happen that you don't plan for you don't expect and have no way of seeing coming. But you know, my experience is telling me that those those moments aren't that frequent. And we have the technology I mean, make no mistake using an Omnipod insulin pump. And moreover, probably the Dexcom you know, continuous glucose monitor these items make everything that I'm saying a reality without a CGM. I, I'm not nearly as good at this. I'm not making all these boastful statements about I just sent it to my friend to her friends asked to play in the snow. If she didn't have a glucose monitor. I'm not sending my kids at somebody's house to go play in the snow. I would go and hang out and be there or I would be nearby or it would be a much more regimented schedule of when we were going to talk. It wouldn't all be like loosey goosey like it is now that I completely completely want to be clear about and honest about but we do we're lucky enough to have the glucose monitor and so I'm lucky enough to be able to make these decisions. Okay, hey, episode four. Right? I got four episodes going. You know, I hope you're enjoying it. I mean, I guess if you're listening still you must be enjoying it. I did see that. in its category on iTunes Juicebox Podcast is rising in its category, which is very exciting. It would help the podcast immensely if you could go to iTunes and give it a review either, you know, five stars or actually write a review. iTunes takes that very seriously and it helps the podcast quite a little bit. So if you can do that, that would be fantastic. The Juicebox Podcast is online at juicebox podcast.com on social media at Juicebox Podcast, my type one diabetes parenting blog Ardens. De is at Ardens de.com and on social media at Ardens. De you know, come find us. Check us out Facebook and Twitter is a great way to find out when new episodes go up. But you know, subscribing at iTunes or Soundcloud or Stitcher is another great way to to find out when episodes arrive. New episodes are on Tuesdays. And what else I know what else music for the Juicebox Podcast composed and performed by Sydney Mueller, Sydney. I continue to be in all of your town. Thank you very much. This is Juicebox Podcast. I'm Scott Benner. Thank you very much for listening.

Well, I bet you wish Scott in 2015 had this microphone, because he would have sounded way better. Anyway, thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. And don't forget to head to cozy earth.com and use that offer code juicebox to save 35% on bedding loungewear sheets, my sheets are super comfortable. Check them out cozy earth.com. And don't forget to use that offer code juice box to save 35%. If you're looking for support around diabetes, look no farther than the Juicebox Podcast, private Facebook group, answer a couple of quick questions to get in proved unless you're a real person. Because it's a private group. We want you to feel comfortable there. So just a couple of questions, you know, just kind of shows the algorithm you're real. And once you're in there, 35,000 members strong support, advice, conversation, camaraderie, Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. And it's not it's for everybody. That's diabetes, you know? So head on over. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Did you hear me earlier? I was like there are new episodes on Tuesdays buys. On Tuesdays, there'll be a new episode of the podcast. That was a long time ago. I got more content for you now. Don't you worry. What a terrible microphone to and so like their recordings noisy and but I have really upgraded for you folks, don't you think? Ah. You're welcome. I was just kidding. Why would you thank me for that, like make a podcast you can understand. I didn't know what I was doing back then. I mean, that was 2015 and February. I had been at it for like four weeks. I mean, you gotta admit contents rock solid, but I mean, it sounds like I'm on a rail car going through the Midwest hoping that a hobo doesn't steal my can of beans or something. It's very noisy. Anyway fixed all that. And I'm not sure what purpose this serves. Probably not. Quite me giddy at the end of the day. Alright guys. I don't know. I'll be back. There'll be more. Please listen. Thanks for subscribing, downloading telling people about the podcast. That's all very important and very much appreciated. Anyway, seriously, I'll be back soon. I'll talk to you later.

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