#340 Clashes with Pink

Sixteen year old D'Arcy. has type 1

D'Arcy. is a singer/songwriter who has type 1 diabetes. 

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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 0:04
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Episode 340 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by touched by type one, and the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. You can find out right now if you're eligible for an absolutely free meter at Contour Next one.com. And of course to see the great works being done by touched by type one, all you have to do is go to touched by type one.org. You all are in for a treat today. Because Darcy is on the show. Darcy is 16 years old. She's had Type One Diabetes for a year, and she's more mature than 15 Have you all put together? Her story's crazy. She's really confident. And I really, really, really, and I know that they say the best way to communicate is just to say really a bunch of times. But I quite enjoyed this conversation with her. I hope you will, too. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan for becoming bold with insulin.

I wanted to remind you just briefly of a couple of links that I have set up to help you guys. One of them is diabetes pro tip.com. That's where all of the diabetes pro tip episodes that have Jenny and I have them are collected in one place so that it's easy for you to share and revisit. And juicebox docs.com juicebox d oc s.com. What this is, is a growing list of doctors recommended by listeners of the podcast. So endocrinologist, nurse practitioners, people who really get what you're trying to do, and will work with you not fight against you.

D'Arcy 2:08
Hi, I'm Darcy. I'm 16 I'm a junior in high school and I was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes a little under a year ago.

Scott Benner 2:17
Darcy I love that you're here. Okay. All right. Now let's tell me Do you know why I'm so excited that you're on the show? Don't say it if you know why. But do you know why? No. Oh, okay. Excellent. It's even better. All right. Darcy, you are my You are my ambassador in the world. I have found out and I am super excited to find out about how you got to that point. You don't even realize it perhaps but we're gonna get to it. So let's start slow. I guess you're 16 and you were diagnosed like a year ago?

Unknown Speaker 2:49
A little under a year ago.

Scott Benner 2:50
How was that? Did that suck?

D'Arcy 2:52
Um, yeah. It kind of sucked.

Scott Benner 2:57
Were you in school? Or was it the summertime when

Unknown Speaker 3:00
I was in school, but it was the week of Thanksgiving. So I managed to spend my entire Thanksgiving week in the hospital.

Scott Benner 3:09
Did anybody come up to you and say Darcy, you should think of the things you're so thankful for.

D'Arcy 3:16
No, good for you. You don't have any

Scott Benner 3:19
morons in your life. That's excellent.

Unknown Speaker 3:21
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 3:24
So were you a sophomore than Yes, as a sophomore? Well Arden's a sophomore right now. So and now you're a junior. Yes. Look at you. You're almost done. The High School thing. I don't like to think about it. But yeah, it goes by so quickly. How'd you do on your PSAT last year? Pretty well? did pretty well. Yeah. Good. Good. Is your mom making you take a class? Or are you just working on your own?

Unknown Speaker 3:50
She offered the class. And I think I think I'm going to take her up on that offer.

Scott Benner 3:57
What kind of Do you know what you want to do in college?

Unknown Speaker 4:00
Um, I don't know. But I've thought about becoming a dietitian, and getting a certificate and diabetes nurse education. However, I'm still kind of on the fence of whether or not I want to kind of completely delve into that realm of diabetes.

Scott Benner 4:25
So I know some people who have diabetes will also help people with diabetes. And they're very great at their job, like really wonderful, but sometimes in the in the background, they'll say, Wow, my whole day is Yeah, is diabetes. Like I don't get any break from it. So it's something to consider. And at the same time, if you're really passionate about helping people, you're going to have an insight that a lot of people wouldn't have. Right, let's go and by the way to Darcy, and I'm not your dad, you know that you probably have a father. But you shouldn't really know what you want to do for the rest of your life when you're 16. That's up. A weird idea. Yeah, it's not 1920 get out. I mean, you're right, you're right. I think I like Bill, and we're gonna buy a we're gonna get a house and I'm gonna make six babies, and then we'll probably die in our 40s. Like, it's not like that, right? Yeah, you don't really need to know, right today. Arden once said, um, she's like, She's like, you know, if it was a long time ago, I'd probably be married already. I was like, it was a long time ago, you'd probably have a baby already. And she's like, Oh, my God, really? And I was like, see? Is it better being alive now? And she's like, absolutely. So yeah. So I just think, you know, it's of course, unasked for advice. But I even my son's a sophomore in college right now. And I think he's just about to commit to a major. And, you know, we send them off to school. We're like, Look, there's things you're good at, and there's things you're not and go figure out what all those things are. And, you know, just don't wait too long and then pick a path but you don't need to. It's It's weird to think that you're gonna Yeah, exactly. Now, did I see before we turned off the off the camera, that you're a redhead? Is that natural? Yes. Okay. Yes, it is. Is ginger offensive term?

Unknown Speaker 6:10
I don't think so. I know a couple of gingers who get offended by the term. But I've never had a problem with it.

Scott Benner 6:18
Gotcha. I just don't know. Because I see people use it within their friend group. And it seems to be very friendly. And the red and the red head in the scenario always seems to take it well. But then I sometimes hear people say it, I think is this something people don't like? So I'm just I'm trying to find out for myself so that I don't misuse it and you're young. So you understand how the world works better than I do. So I just needed to get that.

D'Arcy 6:39
Yeah, definitely.

Scott Benner 6:40
There's nothing better. It's just like, well, Darcy's here, she can help me with some of my personal stuff. Okay, so when you're diagnosed do they give you? I mean, what kind of gear? What do you go home for leftovers? Do you have like injections or pens or pumps? or What did they give you?

Unknown Speaker 6:56
They gave me a box of syringes. A vial of humor log and a vial of lantis. They wanted me to use those vials before I started moving into the pens. But I definitely didn't do that. As soon as I started leaving the house and bolusing outside of my house, I was I was using the pens, because I thought that using the vials and syringes might look a little strange. So you were you were

Scott Benner 7:23
that's interesting to know. So you were a little put off by what we'll call the sketchy nature of those little plastic syringes. Right? visually, you were just like, I don't look, I don't want to do this. Right. Interesting. Interesting. I, I can't say I disagree. They are very, um, they feel like 1970s television while you're looking at them. And yes, and you've got to carry the vial with you. And then you've got to keep the vial safe. And so all that kind of came into play I got Yeah. So you went right to your pen?

D'Arcy 7:51
Yes. And what are you using right now? I use the Omni pod right now.

Scott Benner 7:56
Very nice. When did you make that switch?

Unknown Speaker 7:59
I made the switch. About five months after my diagnosis. I went to a pump training class made the decision to choose the Omni pod. And probably a month later, I was all ready to go. I was using the PDM to Bolus and it's really amazing how much easier managing your diabetes is with a pump.

Scott Benner 8:25
Yeah, no kidding. And and you found the transition from the pen to the pump not difficult.

Unknown Speaker 8:32
It was a little strange to get used to. But I think that by the time I was ready to transition to the pump I was so I was so ready to not give myself the shots four times a day five times a day. And I was ready to just deal with inserting a canula once every three days and then be done with it.

Scott Benner 8:54
Were you honeymooning in those first five months? Do you

D'Arcy 8:57
know? Yes, no. Are you still? Yes, I am. Yep. Very nice.

Scott Benner 9:03
And is it chiseling away or is it holding on?

Unknown Speaker 9:08
It's it's holding on. I've, I've haven't really experienced any symptoms of you know, leaving the honeymoon phase, I take about nine units of insulin of basal insulin a day. So I'm also trying to kind of prolong that honeymoon stage by keeping my numbers in range and staying

D'Arcy 9:32
within the Dexcom parameters. Gotcha. Where do you have them set up?

Unknown Speaker 9:36
I have them set at 70 and 130. Where did

D'Arcy 9:39
you get that idea from? I got your I got that idea from the Juicebox Podcast. Okay, we'll get you I like how you branded your answer you didn't have to.

Scott Benner 9:52
So is your honeymoon situation that that you just aren't using as much insulin as you feel like you would be or is it that some days, you just don't need any at all. What's the breakdown? How does that work?

Unknown Speaker 10:05
I, I've talked to a couple of my friends that are also type one, and I've asked them how much basal insulin they take. And they say that they take about 34 units of basal insulin a day, which I knew would probably kill me.

Unknown Speaker 10:23
Think if you're using nine, it would Yeah, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 10:27
I definitely there are definitely days where I need to use less insulin, or there are days where my blood sugar will just kind of stay, you know, really close to 70. But there are also days where my blood sugar will stay really close to 130. And so I'm trying to just, you know, predict as much as I can predict how my blood sugar is going to react that specific day. And I'll kind of base how much bazel and set up insulin, I'm going to take that day off of how my blood sugar's have been reacting, you

Scott Benner 10:58
haven't had any situations where like you make a bolus that you expect, and then suddenly, you're incredibly low or something like that.

Unknown Speaker 11:05
I have not had that happen yet. And I hope that it doesn't happen. But if it does, I will be ready for it. Good show. Why are you so

Scott Benner 11:16
smart? So let's figure that out for a second, right? You're 16 people are always like, Arden should come on the podcast. If Arden came on the podcast, she would sit here and be like, I don't want to talk about this. And So wouldn't it? Maybe that's just because it's my bad guess. But what, how did you pick this all up so quickly? Like that? Here are my guesses. Your parents are terrible people and you knew you were on your own? Is that one of the possibilities? Maybe but we're not sure we'll find out in a second. Your parents are really great people. And they've instilled a feeling of confidence in you as you grew up, and you're like, I can do this. Or you're like a weirdo type A, and you don't want anything to go wrong. Like I can't figure out which I'm dying to know which one it is. I'm assuming it very well could be none of what I've just said. But why is it that you? Like like you, you're managing this by yourself? Is that right?

Unknown Speaker 12:07
For the most part, yes. During the waking hours, I am pretty much independent. But my parents are amazing people. They that you didn't trust nothing like they're No, they're not de drinkers. No. So I, I was pretty much as soon as I was diagnosed, I didn't think of managing my diabetes in any other way than just facing it head on. And, you know, thinking to myself, well, this is something I'm going to have to deal with. And I'm not gonna, you know, let it take over my life. But I also want to make sure that I can live a long, happy, healthy life. Um, so

Scott Benner 12:52
so I'm sorry, but that was an immediate thought to you like i, this is got a lot to do with my my long term health success. You knew that right? You knew that right away. Right? Did someone tell you that? Did you Google it? Did you just didn't seem like common sense.

Unknown Speaker 13:11
It just kind of seemed like common sense to me. I mean, I didn't know what damage had already been done. My a one fee was 18 when I was diagnosed. So I wanted to kind of I wanted to keep my body in check at least as much as I could to kind of compensate for any damage that could have been done before my diagnosis.

Scott Benner 13:33
Prior to the diabetes. Were you like, was that a focus of yours? Or were you just kind of rolling along like a regular kitten?

Unknown Speaker 13:40
Oh, yeah, I didn't really give my health much thought until I was diagnosed just because I had never had to give my health much thought my body just kind of worked. Yeah. And then whenever it didn't, it became one of my top priorities.

Scott Benner 13:57
Yeah, I guess a computer user would say that before diabetes, you were like an apple computer. And now you're more like a Windows? Absolutely. I've just offended everyone who uses windows. That's really, that's really amazing that it hit you that quickly now? No. Did you have any depression anxiety? Like, did you like did you have any real like turmoil around the diagnosis at all, I

hope you can take time to go to touched by type one.org and look into their programs. They have annual conferences and awareness campaign, they do this great bowling event. There's of course, their dance program. They're huge dancing for diabetes show and the D box that they send out to newly diagnosed people. So head over to touch by type one.org find out about their story, maybe even consider supporting them. It's a great organization touched by type one.org And then of course, you need a blood glucose meter that is equal to your wonderfulness. Imagine you walking around just delightful. But you got a blood glucose meter that's only so so huh? Doesn't that's not okay. Go look in that bag of yours reach into your pocket. How long have you had that old tired meter using right now? Is it even anywhere near cutting edge? Is it giving you the best results that you possibly could get? I'll tell you right now if it's not the Contour Next One, I doubt that it's as good as it could be. And you can find out simple right Contour Next one.com you can hit the button right at the top of the page to see if you're eligible for a free meter. If you're not, you know what I'm saying? meters are not that expensive. Ask your endo say look, I'm walking around with this old busted down meter forever. I don't even know how accurate is I want to be I want to be doing the best I can do for myself. Why don't you get me one of those Contour Next One blood glucose meters and your doctor will be like, I like you, you know what you want. strong and confident I of course will do this. And that'll be that. That's how I imagined it going. I don't exactly know how it's gonna go. Your doctor might be like, leave me alone. But I mean, if that's the case, get a new doctor. Anyway, the Contour Next One blood glucose meter has an amazing app that goes along with it. You can use it if you want to, if you don't want to, you're not forced to. But it's amazing. Bluetooth enabled, you check your blood sugar shows write up on your app, you can keep good track of more than just your blood sugar, you really have to go check out the meter. And that to find out if it's something that you would really benefit from, but I think it I think it is that's available for Apple and Android. So again, go to Contour Next one.com learn all about it. There's this beautiful color coding system for your testing. I love the screen, I love the size, it feels good in my hand, right? It's not too small, not too big. I don't drop it. And the test trip is remarkable. The accuracy is nuts. But you can actually go in and hit a blood drop and miss it a little bit and go back again and not waste this trip. Right second chance. There is very interesting information at Contour Next one.com about the accuracy of the meter. But as I read it, I recognize that I am not smart enough to make sense of it and translate it here for you. So you really should go check it out for yourself. All right Contour Next one.com touched by type one.org. The links are in your show notes right there in your podcast player there at Juicebox podcast.com. You can just type them in yourself. But when you use my links, the advertisers know you came from here and that I appreciate extra monthly. Are you ready for Darcy Darcy isn't even going to tell you why she's on the show for like another 25 minutes. I just love this conversation. it unfolded gently. Any good story unfolds gently.

Unknown Speaker 17:57
My opinion

Scott Benner 18:06
you have any real like turmoil around the diagnosis at all.

Unknown Speaker 18:10
I did it. I didn't take it very well. The first couple of days I was in the hospital. I had many just kind of meltdowns where I would lock myself in our in the in the hospital rooms bathroom with my huge IV tower that I named Cletus and I would just sit on the floor and cry. But it didn't take me very long to adapt to the new lifestyle. Because I had a really good friend who was also type one who ended up visiting me in the hospital. And he he would just be like okay, Darcy, you're gonna you know, you're gonna sit down at this restaurant, you're going to check your blood sugar, you're going to give yourself that injection and it's going to be totally normal, because that's just something you have to do and it's not your fault. And having that probably made the whole situation a lot better. I would say

Scott Benner 19:12
a good friend. So you So you knew somebody with type one before you were diagnosed? Yes. Do you live in a hotbed of Type One Diabetes is like every other kid type one in your town? Or is it just a random thing that you knew somebody?

Unknown Speaker 19:24
Pretty much honestly there. I think there are 12 type one diabetics in my school last year. And my school is really tiny.

Scott Benner 19:33
Or you guys like real close to like an electric line or like I don't know, that does it? But like something like, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, when you drive past those big electrical lines, there's a house next to it. You think? I don't think I would want to live right underneath of that giant tower of electricity. Yeah,

D'Arcy 19:46
right. Absolutely.

Scott Benner 19:48
I live in a reasonably small town too. And there are a number of kids in art in school prior to her being diagnosed. And that number is sort of trailed off of Little bit now, but there's still a couple that come every once in a while it does make you think like, you know, I mean, I'm not I don't know, but, but it's interesting the water. Yeah, exactly. It's simple water. Maybe he, maybe he dosed you with diabetes so he'd have, just do that to somebody. But that's very nice. Your age somebody you knew before a real friend, not like a not like a boyfriend prospect.

Unknown Speaker 20:27
Um, friendship kind of trailed into something else. But he's in college now. So that kind of trickled off. Yeah.

Scott Benner 20:37
Oh, well, that's nice and good. At the same time. Let me tell you the same thing. I told my son when he left for college, better not to go with a girlfriend. Just you know, for you as well. You don't need to be like, limiting your happiness to like when whenever this guy comes home every once a night. Yeah, it's not you.

D'Arcy 20:54
I agree. Absolutely.

Scott Benner 20:55
But so you found a real like, your bond, like your friendship bond really became deeper around the diabetes.

Unknown Speaker 21:01
Yeah. And I think the fact that we had already we already knew each other so it wasn't like, he was like, Oh, you have diabetes? Cool. Me too. Let's be friends. We had other we had other things in common before my diagnosis.

Scott Benner 21:15
Any chance this kid used your diagnosis with Type One Diabetes to hit on you? Yes or no? Because guy I really hope not guys are ruthless. He might have been Finally I can get with this Darcy girl. And like, I've got like an in she's probably sitting on the bathroom floor in a hospital goes. By the way. Did you never once when you're on the floor think there's a worst disease on this floor than the one I've just got got on my.

D'Arcy 21:40
Well, the floor I was on was specifically for kids who had been diagnosed with diabetes, if they clean that floor better.

Start a long pause. I don't know.

Unknown Speaker 21:54
I don't know that you

Scott Benner 21:56
were so much stronger. Of course, you were so distraught, you didn't consider that perhaps you shouldn't be sitting on the bathroom floor in a hostel. Next, next time you're in the hospital, please stay off the floor. I don't care what news they give you just you know, up on your feet. Okay, I went, I went to visit my mom in the hospital the other day. She's fine, by the way, don't worry about and I came home afterwards. And it was a long day. And I sat on the sofa and went to put my foot on the coffee table. And I stopped myself from that I was like, I don't know what is on the bottom of my shoe. And so I just got you down there and that like paper gown, like with a hole stuck in your arm crying on the floor. And then this kids like who have always wanted to go out with a ginger. And like, you know, maybe, maybe this is it. Anyway. It sounds like you're doing better now. But I think it's also important that, that you just had your feelings when it happened. Like your parents didn't try to like pull you out of that bathroom. They just kind of let you be.

Unknown Speaker 22:54
Yeah, yeah, they were. They were always they understood that I was going to be upset. But there was one point in time where my dad came in and he was like, You know what, it doesn't matter what we have to do. We're all willing to make the lifestyle changes to accommodate for you and your needs. Don't ever think that like this is something that you're going to have to deal with on your own. So they were they were really supportive. But there are definitely a couple of times where I just wanted to be alone because

Scott Benner 23:26
yeah, it's good. I think both sides of that sound really amazing if that sounds like a good guy. Do you have other brothers and sisters?

D'Arcy 23:33
Yes, I have an older brother.

Scott Benner 23:34
Okay. And is he still in the house? Where is he off of college? He's in college. Do you think it's possible that whatever's in the water causing everyone's Type One Diabetes is also making everybody in your town really nice. It's possible maybe it's a nice thing that's just a side effect of it anyway, I you know there's one conspiracy theorist listening to the show right now it's like I knew they could give you type one you really can't people just it's not how it works. But but so I like this now you out out of the hospital. You're bucking the system immediately right? Oh, homeless. Yep. What is art insane to me.

Unknown Speaker 24:11
Okay

Scott Benner 24:13
sorry, where she had a tiny low and I just asked her how long did you eat that candy and she responded with a very helpful when you told me since you told me I was looking for more of a time frame but you know I'm sure it's fine. Her blood sugar 74 I think she's gonna be okay. Is it gonna go up again? Darcy I wish you could see this you could help me because you're so good. able to tell me I'm gonna have her have two more of these little candy things. Anyway. So you're you're out of the hospital. I like immediately your attitude right? Like this is not this is what they told me to do. But this is what I want to do and and you went right to it. I think that's a really interesting look into your probably your personality. And probably an interesting look into why you're doing so well immediately because you are really kind of Following your nose on this right doing what you think yeah. Yeah, that's excellent. So when do you find the podcast? How do you How does a 16 a 15 or 16 year old person living like what part of the country and don't like tell me the town but like, in the Midwest, it was so you sound Midwestern. And so did you know that sounds like something?

Unknown Speaker 25:21
I've heard that it sounds like something but I don't believe it.

Scott Benner 25:27
It sounds American is what it sounds like. It sounds like, like an average accent. So. So you're in the Midwest somewhere. You're You're out. You're doing your thing you get on the pods really quickly. When do you find the podcast? Like how do you find it?

Unknown Speaker 25:41
We'll say that my mom is just a really good planner. And she's already you know, getting ready for me to go off to college. And she finds your, the, the interview you did with Maddie. And then she like hey, Darcy, I found this podcast. And in towards the beginning, I was kind of reluctant like, Oh, yeah, I definitely want to sit and listen to but like, listen to a podcast about diabetes for an hour and a half. But then I actually listen to it because my mom knows what she's talking about you trust your mom. Yeah. trust my mom. And I listened to your pro tips episode about the CGM. And I was like, Whoa, this makes a lot of sense. Because at that point in time, I had my dexcom alert set at 80 and 200. And I found myself going over 200 at least once every other day. And then I tightened them to 170 down to 151 4130. And it it's really made a difference. I don't I very, very rarely go over 200. Now, homecoming was this weekend, so that there was there's a bit of a slip up there. But we, we Yeah, we've just been able to manage everything 10 times better. It's it's so much easier now that we have not only you and Jenny, but you there are other people that you've interviewed that kind of give their two cents on how they manage their diabetes, and getting all of these different perspectives on how all of these people manage their diabetes has, has made it honestly, more fun to think about, oh, if I eat this food, how is this going to affect my blood sugar? If I eat this? How fast is my blood sugar gonna spike? How far in advance Do I need to Bolus before I eat this food?

Scott Benner 27:50
Darcy, I don't think I can use the Juicebox Podcast makes diabetes fun as a tagline. Because I think a lot of people and I wouldn't want to do it. But I'm really encouraged that you said it would not be a T shirt that no one would buy. Anyway. That's a really, that's really amazing. Like, I'm thrilled for you. It's very cool to think that I did something I had an idea for. And it actually kind of came to fruition halfway across the country for you. It's very cool. But I also can't imagine what it's like to be 16 years old, and have your mom come to you and say I found a podcast, you should listen to that alone. Before you figure out it's diabetes must have been horrifying. Like oh my god, my mom is gonna try to pick a podcast for me to listen to what could I possibly know about podcasts? And then it's about diabetes. I would have like, I would have run away if I was you. I would have like I didn't let my mom pick anything about my entertainment when I was 16. Why do you think it's entertaining? Is it because I'm terrific? or What is it? exactly do you? Well, I

Unknown Speaker 28:58
I definitely think that you are terrific. But I've always kind of at least once I got my Dexcom in my Omni pod and I had a better handle of what my numbers looked like, you know, and a 24 hour span. I I realized that I wanted to I wanted to not only take care of myself, but I wanted to understand why I was taking care of myself how I could take care of myself. And that was something that I was having a little bit harder time getting a handle on. But then I start listening to your pro tips about bumping nudge and Pre-Bolus saying and you know being bold with insulin, and it just made it a lot easier to grasp and understand this is this is what is going to happen if you do this and this is why it's going to happen. So you have a better you have a better shot at accurately predicting what is going to occur when you eat or when you exercise or when you have adrenaline running through you.

Scott Benner 30:06
It's definitely my finding. So it's very cool that you found it the same way. Have you been proselytizing to your other myriad of diabetes friends and your diabetes written town? Or do Is it weird to go to another 16 year old and go? Yo, do you want to hear about a podcast about diabetes? I think you would enjoy. I, I'm interested, like, would you tell somebody else? Or is it sort of like your own thing?

Unknown Speaker 30:29
It's, it's kind of right now, at least it's my own thing. But I recently did an interview with one of my, one of the other diabetics in my school, and I mentioned it, and my dad actually right into him on the golf course, and mentioned it. So I think he's now listening to it. And he said that his he's lowered his Dexcom alerts. And he's, you know, trying to do a better job of managing his numbers and all that kind of good stuff.

Scott Benner 31:05
Thank you, Father, for me, tell me they're telling there's no referral program. So might be sending him a check or anything like that, but I really do appreciate it. And no, I really was asking not because I'm expecting you to get off of this and run around town like Reno right now, like yelling, like, you know, bring out your type on diabetes. So I can tell you about a podcast. But but because I was interested in if it felt really private still, like if it was your thing, like or something that you just wouldn't want to tell someone about? I had a conversation yesterday with someone who told me that there's things about their diabetes, they don't share with anybody. And it surprised me to a certain degree. Like I really thought like, well, that's strange. Like even with the people that are closest with their stuff about diabetes, they just don't share with other people. And I understood while this person was telling me that I just for me, personally, it seems strange. And then I realized to them, it seems strange at how sort of open Arden is about it. And I'm always interested to know, like, where people fall in that category, because I think you're going to have a, a more successful psychological, like health. If you're not hiding things, like whatever, right? You don't I mean, like, if you were running around dyeing your hair black, because you don't want people to know you were a redhead. I think that would have, like, seriously, I think that would hurt your soul a little bit. And and if so, Oh, okay. I didn't know what I didn't really request you were in. But now I say. But you know what I mean, like that, like, I don't think it's, it's not healthy to hide who you are. And at the same time, I get it, if that's how you feel. So yeah, it was just interesting.

Unknown Speaker 32:43
I understand that to a certain degree. I mean, whenever I was first diagnosed, I was incredibly embarrassed to have my alarms go off in school. so embarrassed that it would get to the point where I would plug my headphones into my phone. So I wouldn't even hear my alarms go off. Because I didn't want people to think that I had maybe forgot to turn my ringer off or that I had forgot to put my phone on Do Not Disturb. I just didn't like the fact that my phone was constantly going off in class, because at that point, I was still kind of getting a handle on it. I was still on MDI, right whenever I first got my dexcom, so I had a lot less control over how much insulin was going into my body and at what point in time is going into my body. So getting the strange looks from from people who just don't know. They don't understand they don't understand how diabetes works and how sometimes you can't control what's going on with your blood. sugar's if you have an off day, or if you've eaten something that you didn't bolus correctly for, and you bought them out. And your your alarms go off. That was something that I was really, I was, I was embarrassed. And I didn't want people to think that I was, you know, and consider it because my phone was going off in class.

Scott Benner 34:05
But now it's kind of getting to the point where I'm like, well, yep, this is something I deal with. And you know what I kind of I have to live with this. You can deal with the alarms going off in class once a week. It's not the worst thing. You make me think about. I think last year going into Arden's like freshman year, we have a meeting with the teachers usually, where we just sort of explained to them like look, you know, Arden doesn't manage her diabetes the way a lot of other kids who may have known who have diabetes do and you know, we give them kind of a quick overview. And one of the teachers says, I have a strict no cell phone policy. Everybody comes into the room puts their cell phone into like a shoe tray on the door. And I see Arden can't do that she's gonna keep her phone. And she was What will I tell the other kids and I didn't miss a beat I said tell them that they want to get an incurable disease. They can keep their phone with them too. And yeah, like and if they don't like if they don't want to go to that part just to have their phone in their pocket. Then tell them to shut Shut up. And not saying it. Like, seriously when someone comes to you and says, This is not fair, literally just look at them and say, shut up and sit down. Like like, what? Yeah, what are you gonna tell them? Like? Where did How is the world turned into a place where everybody gets an explanation for everything all the time, like, this is the role except for her if you don't like it, I don't know what to tell you. And and, and, and meanwhile, that was never going to happen. Because everyone Arden has been in the school forever. Everyone knows she has diabetes, like no one's gonna begrudge her having her phone so that she can see what her blood sugar is. It was just as a concern that the teacher had that ended up not being an issue at all. And I don't know, I just think you should, you should always value your health over what anybody thinks. Absolutely. And you came to that on your own to you really are like a perfect kid. So, and we're gonna prove that as we continue to talk here, even with something I don't even think you yet understand why I'm so excited that you're on the podcast, though. Plus, by not talking about it up front. I'm teasing people out in the world, listen to the entire hour, right? You see what I'm doing my guess. Right? Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. People, do you think someone right now is like, oh, and just shut it off. Like, I'm not going to be manipulated like that I'm not. You just you don't want to, like, you know, you know, you don't want to just sell out in the first couple seconds. Plus, you have an interesting story, you have a really great perspective. And I'll tell you one thing that I really love about your perspective, and that I want to talk about now that I've already considered talking about before, the reason why I'm very excited that you're coming on is that you are of a generation that is sort of unlike any other in history, right? And I'll tell you, I'll tell you why. And I'm hoping your generation doesn't fall apart and let us all down when I'm really old. Because

Unknown Speaker 36:45
hopefully not

Scott Benner 36:46
well, trust me. You probably will. But I hope you don't. Because if you if you look at the baby boomers, right, the baby boomers are in charge right now. I don't know if you know what that means. Like, it's that Yeah, after the war, right? Like, you know,

D'Arcy 36:56
right? We're like, oh, you're still

Scott Benner 36:58
alive sex and then babies. And then boom, you understand how it goes? You met that guy? And so, right. Okay, so that happened, right? And, and now there is this, like, you know, generation of people who were all born around that time who came up the children of, you know, people who had lived through a World War. And right, they kind of came out a little differently, right, they came out a little more relaxed, the hippie, you know, the hippies were sort of in the 60s, part of those baby boomers. And, and, as an onlooker, you know, somebody who was born a number of generations behind them, I thought, these are the people who are going to change the world. Right, right. They're their hippies. They saw Hendrix at Woodstock. They're going to be the ones except now look what's going on in the world. They completely reverted back to being old fogies and just completely stopped. They forgot what they learned when they were growing up. Right. So I don't want that to happen to your generation. But your generation has something I think that no other one has had before you are treated. Like your thoughts are important at a young age. And I know that sounds crazy to you. But when I was 13, no one cared what I thought. Did you know what I mean? Like the teachers didn't care? Yeah, you know, nobody would have said to me, but Scott seems upset that he can't keep his cell phone when Arden gets sick, like no one would have had that thought, you know, right. And so you guys are better educated, you're more emotionally supported. Your your, your have a better feeling about your self worth. You're more free to be yourself, right? Like, we're not busy telling people anymore. If you're gay, don't tell anybody if like nobody says things like that anymore. And right. And so you guys are probably the most fully formed young people that the planet has ever seen. Yeah, right. Do you agree with that?

Unknown Speaker 38:49
I agree with that. I think that

Unknown Speaker 38:52
especially with having diabetes, I, whatever parts of me weren't as mature, were able to, we were able to mature a lot faster, just because now I have my own life in my hands. As does everyone else, but I think my, my life is a lot, a lot more shaky. But I also think that that's also it's also kind of sad that I mean, my mom talks about all of the things that she did when she was a kid and she talks about how, you know, in middle school, she would go out in the summers and she would ride her bike around town and she would hang out with all of her friends. And and like after, of course, after she did her paper routes because she was she was really she was a hard worker. Anyway. But, and I and I think that now a lot of teenagers are kind of expected to grow up a A lot faster. And maybe that's just my opinion. But that's just something I've noticed, at least among my friend group.

Scott Benner 40:08
I agree. And at the same time, by the way, we're doing well, I'm doing Arden's lunch while I was talking to I apologize, but I heard everything you said, at this podcast at this point, like I can literally do, and think about something completely different at the same time. Arden is buying lunch for the very first time in her life today. I that's weird. Laos has never bought lunch at school. So we did a, we did a 30. But we did a six, let me suddenly think 3612 eight, we did a five unit Pre-Bolus right now and then she's going to actually tell me what she got. And then I'm going to try to help her figure out how many carbs are there? Because she doesn't know what I don't know, either. Anyway, that'll be in a second. I agree with you. And I don't agree with you all at the same time. So yeah, I know, your mom had this, like laissez faire life, right? Where she was just like, I'm young, no one expects anything from me. And so if I have a paper route, and then go play with dolls for all day, or go to my friend's house and pet her dog for six hours, because we don't have a cell phone, and I don't know what else to do. Like, like, then hold on a second.

And, you know, if I'm just gonna have a little more, so that was the life right? Like, like, it was easy, you just your expectation was, don't draw on the walls, don't cause me any problems. Listen to me, when I talk to you, you know, like, Don't make me chase around the town. At the end of the night, when it gets dark like that, I get that like, but you didn't learn anything about the world, either. You just were out there, like, you know, figuring out how not to like, let the creepy guy up the street, see you on your bike. And you know, and stuff like that, like I get that there were lessons in there. But I also think that when you look back when you're 30, you don't really remember all of that in the same way that you think you do. Like, do you mean like memories are really interesting, they don't, you'll have a few that are really strong, you'll have a couple that are really enduring. That means something to you. And then the rest of those hours are just gone. You know, you don't you don't it's not like you're drawing on them every five seconds. You guys are doing stuff like you're learning things. And, you know, you're probably in a math. Right? What do you take? Right? And I don't even know if you're a good student or not. But what math class you Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 42:30
I'm in an honors algebra two class.

Scott Benner 42:34
Exactly. There are people listening right now who are like, I took that in college, you know, seriously, or I never took that till I was a senior or, you know, we're there are people listening right now that are laughing go, Scott, I never took algebra to once in my life, let alone anonymous class. So you guys are you're advanced in that way. There's no real way to know what that's going to provide for you 20 years from now, because we haven't really seen a number of generations do this yet. All right. I was sitting at lunch with someone this week, who hadn't seen in a while. And they said to me, you know, how's coal? And I was like, Oh, he's good. You know, blah, blah. He's a college and you know, that kind of stuff. And he goes, so what's he majoring in? And I said, Oh, he's quantitative economics major. And the guy looked at me like, what does that mean? And I had to say to him, I don't really know. I don't know. But he's really good at math. And he likes it. And so I don't think that if I would have raised coal 40 years ago, he'd be a quantitative economics major right now, I don't think that would even be something that might, you know, exist at a school. So I'm, I like, both sides of it. I also think that you're going to make better decisions moving forward, because you're a more fully formed person. Like I think someone like you is less likely to do something incredibly stupid like with recreational drugs when you're 19. Because you actually think about things. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, everything's not I mean, how you more from the girl crying on the dirty bathroom floor to who you are now. is astonishing. Like it really is. Thank you. You're very welcome. But, I mean, it's, it's an amazing thing. Like, I'm not hearing anything in you. That's like, Oh, she's pretending to be together. Or, you know, break right now. She's just looking at her heroin needle waiting to get off the podcast. Like, like, like, like, you really see him. Okay. You know what I mean? And so that is that's for me. You live in the Midwest, and you're not doing math. I don't know that. They tell me a miracle. Tell me in the news. That's a miracle. So I only know what I see on the news. Anyway. It accurate. You know what I really I have to stop joking around like this because sometimes people get upset. I don't think everybody in the Midwest is doing math. Please. I'm sorry. Just trying to joke around with a 16 year old I'm trying to keep up with a with a with a person who's got an advanced idea of the world. Do you know how many 62nd videos this girl's Washington her life, she knows more about the world than you ever will. Right? Isn't your life just like scrolling through Instagram watching everyone else live? 45 seconds at a time?

Unknown Speaker 45:12
Oh,

D'Arcy 45:14
that's a good chunk of it.

Scott Benner 45:20
Yes, a large chunk of my life actually. I've seen everybody who's ever jumped off a roof of their building into the swimming pool and hit their head. I know everybody who's ever danced awkwardly in front of someone. Every Russian traffic ham accident in the world? Is everyone in Russia have a traffic jam on their dashboard? What are they expecting that one? Maybe I don't want to know what they're expecting to have happen. But anyway, they're, they really think something bad's gonna go down and they want everything on video. But yeah, you're you're you see more, you know more, there's no real way to keep anything from you. But that's that's an interesting part about about parenting young people now is that you can say to yourself, I'm going to make sure they don't find out about this, you're not making sure anybody doesn't find out about anything.

Unknown Speaker 46:07
Right. And sometimes that's a good thing. And sometimes it's a horrible thing. Because I mean, there are definitely aspects of Twitter that I never want to be a part of. But it's so easy to come across, like all of these people who are either really hateful or just stupid. And so you're either you're either able to base your own opinions off of the information that you're obtaining from the media, or your, you know, being informed of things that either aren't even real or aren't 100% valid.

Scott Benner 46:43
Yeah, I mean, to your point, like somebody, I saw some posts the other day where a guy was just like, just remember, when you're judging yourself against somebody's Instagram picture, that was the 13th time they took it, they until they could get themselves looking just that right. You know, and don't judge yourself against what somebody throws up on Instagram. Or, you know, can I ask you how frequently as a 16 year old in your delightful, you seem like a really nice kid. So how often do you see something on your phone that you think Oh, I wish I hadn't saw that.

Unknown Speaker 47:14
Um, I'm pretty good at guarding myself from the things that I don't want to see. Um, but there there are definitely times where I'll see something about something that's going on in the world that I might not agree with. And I'll be like, Oh, I really wish that I didn't see that. Because now I'm upset about it.

Scott Benner 47:35
Yeah, it because it makes you feel like he can help right? Makes you feel right. I was thinking more about like, some sexy thing where you were like, Oh, I wanted to do that with another person. not see it on my phone. But I'm assuming that happens, too, right? Like, we don't know that your mom knows that you have a phone? It's okay, she understands. But I really didn't think about the fact that your mom's gonna listen to this when I when I asked you. Yeah, I apologize now. Okay, so the reason you're on the podcast, is because you did something that I really appreciated for a bigger reason than just you and me. So I really I say it here a lot. I don't know how much people believe me or not. But I have a goal, right? I don't know if it's pie in the sky. It's something I'm never really gonna attain, obtain. But I would like very much that when I die, I would like somebody who has diabetes, who I've never met before, to show up at my funeral and say, that guy helped me live a healthier life. Like that's like I want that to spread, right. And I don't think it's something that I can spread by myself, I'm doing a pretty good job. But I think it's going to take people telling people, and more importantly, it's going to take people going back to their health care providers, and being honest with them about what they're doing. And so I am really interested in your last appointment, where you went in and got your a one CD, would you share it with me?

Unknown Speaker 49:00
Yeah, um, so I went in for my quarterly appointment to my endocrinologist office. You know, they weighed me, and then they did the a one c test. And my mom and I are patiently waiting in the room thinking, Oh, is my agency going to go up? Is it gonna go down, it's going to stay the same, what's happening? And so my endocrinologist walks in, and he goes, Well, good news, my, your agency is 5.6. And so my mom or you know, throwing air high fives at each other, because I thought that it was going to go up, but it had stayed the same. So he then starts giving us what my mom and I like to call the low lecture, saying, you know, an A one sees a 5.6 is really good, just as long as we're not experiencing that many lows and we want to make sure that we're staying above 70 and that we're not, you know, dropping into any dangerous, you know, dangerous water where you know, glucagon might come into the picture or something like that. And I was like, Well, I don't think I'm really having that many lows. And he goes, Okay, how often do you think you're having lows? And I was like, oh, maybe I mean, maybe once every other day if that, but I mean, at that point, they were, like, maybe dropping as low as like 65. But that's, I would catch it by the time I would, I would drop that low. And I'd get back up to 7580. And then he looks down at my dexcom clarity. graph. And, and he he's like, Wait, you're only above 200, once last week? And I was like, Well, yeah, I mean, I, I typically, I don't I don't jump over 200. Very often, I wasn't really fazed by by it. And I didn't understand that he was shocked by it. I just kind of like, yeah, that's something that's, that's going on. And then he looks down again. And he notices that I hadn't been low, either, that I'd stayed right in between 70 and 130, pretty much consistently that week. And whether that was just a really good week, or that's what my numbers run consistently. I'm not 100% sure of, but he was just amazed by it. And he started to ask me how I did it. And I was like, well, I listen to this podcast

Unknown Speaker 51:25
that my mom found. And

Unknown Speaker 51:28
I started going into how I had learned about Pre-Bolus saying and temporary basals and adjusting my bazel rates and how fats affect your blood sugar, how it can prolong a high blood sugar and how adrenaline can affect your blood sugar because I had no idea that adrenaline adrenaline could affect your blood sugar. I didn't know that an extended bolus could help with you know, like bringing down a high after eating half a half a pizza by yourself. Like I, I didn't know about that kind of stuff until I listen to the podcast.

Unknown Speaker 52:10
And he starts going through my my Omni pod

Unknown Speaker 52:14
my Omni pod bazel Records and I have four or five different bazel options. And I have some kind of crazy complicated, different like, timed out schedule of when I'm getting point two units of insulin than when I switch to point three than point three, five, then point two, five. And he's like, well, I never really thought about making something this complicated. And I was like, well, this is just what works for me. And he's like, Yeah, no, absolutely. If this works for you go for it. Then he goes, what kind of marks Do you get in school? And I said, Well, I'm not too good at math. And of course, my mom backs me up because she's she's, she's, she's really encouraging me doctor. She goes, she goes, Well, she's in an accelerated math course. And he goes, What do you want to do when you're when you get older? And I said, Well, I I'd really like to be a musician. Because that's, that's what I do. I'm, I'm a musician. That's how I spend a lot of my time I write music and record music. And I have an EP that I just released. And I also said, I've also kind of looked at becoming a diabetes nurse educator, but that's not really something I'm 100% set on. And he goes, Well, what about pediatric endocrinology? I was like what, huh? You actually you actually think that I could do that. And then I remembered, if you want to become a pediatric endocrinologist, you have to take organic chemistry.

Unknown Speaker 53:57
So I won't be doing that,

Unknown Speaker 53:58
which is not a class that I have any desire to take. So I I pretty much shut that one down real quick. And he's like, well, you're a junior, right? Yeah, I'm a junior. So I've got what a year and a half to change your mind. And, and hearing that was was just really interesting and kind of shocking, because I never thought that someone would you know, who was whose, whose job was to, you know, learn more about how to manage diabetes, because he spends most of his time in the research, the research labs because, you know, learning all of these things and researching all of these ways to make diabetes easier to live with. And he is now complimenting me on how I take care of myself, and I've only had diabetes for 11 months. So that in and of itself was Kind of eye opening because I didn't realize how good I was at taking care of myself until he had said that.

Scott Benner 55:10
That's really cool. And it's also a good indication of how, what he must see with other people too. Right? Right that you were he was just like, Wait, do obviously I have to tell you about what happens when you get low. And, you know, your blood sugar bounces all over the place, and you get this false a one C and I have to tell you, it's good, even though it's not but and then he looks like oh my gosh, this is amazing. Well, you know, first of all, congratulations. It's very cool to feel you, you know, to have that feeling. I would imagine I remember the first time I felt that way in an endocrinologist office for art and and I was like, well, I did it. It took me took me years. But you know, like it was, it was an amazing feeling like I actually persevered and got to this your perseverance lasted a little less. But you know, you still have in you're going to see what I think is that there could be people listening right now they're like, Oh, yeah, but sure she's gonna need more insulin six months from now, and she'll say, but what they don't know is your tools will work at any level. Like you're, you're going to be able to put the same ideas in the practice. When you know, other things happen. Like you're 16 you know, you get your period, right? You're controlling it during that time to you're not like you're not like falling apart for like a week and then pulling it back together. Hold on one second. Arden says I got fries. I didn't see your last text. Hmm. All right. What do I ask her here? Darcy? Is it a lot of fries? A lot of fries? Question mark. Poor art. And she's just like, she does not know how to buy food from like school, she has tried so hard not to do this her whole life. And then today, we just left the house too late to get her lunch. And she's like, I'll just buy something and it's like, you're gonna buy like a real meal. And she's like, I'll take care of it that and I was like, Okay, I didn't realize that that meant, you know, like a large. Trying to like, think of a fry size that she's aware of from like, another place. Just to go right away. Are you gonna be okay, talking for a little bit?

D'Arcy 57:16
No, yeah, we're good. Why are you off? By

Scott Benner 57:18
the way today? Isn't it Tuesday?

Unknown Speaker 57:21
Yeah, it is Tuesday. Um, I have anatomy right now. And we're doing our endocrine unit.

Unknown Speaker 57:30
And so

Unknown Speaker 57:33
I managed to weasel my way out of that class with an excused absence. Because I was

Unknown Speaker 57:43
doing it properly.

D'Arcy 57:44
I was doing this and I was probably set on, I was probably set on all of the information that I was going to be taught that day for See, I

Scott Benner 57:52
feel like I'm a really big part of your life. I got you out of anatomy class. I it's it's a big part. I've never gotten anybody out of school before. But I'm very proud of myself. Just now that first time for everything's really good. So you know, your amazing experience at the doctor's office, which I love how like, impactful it was for you. But I also love that you just were like, Yo, I found a podcast. He didn't like lie to him or say, oh, what I've been eating, leave it out. Admit it, you know? Yeah. What did he say? Did he like gloss over that? Or? Was there any, like pushback that it was a podcast? I always try to imagine you guys in your, your doctor's offices telling somebody? Oh, yeah, I heard that on a podcast. Because it sounds ridiculous. It might not to you because you're young. Like but like, I guess it would sound more reasonable to if you're like, Oh, I saw it on YouTube. Like that might sound more like youthful than podcast even. But, but for most people, for most part, I just always I'm trying to imagine what that must be like for someone who says it in there. Like Did you swallow the words a little bit? Or were you just like, right out with it?

Unknown Speaker 59:01
Well, um, I was pretty straightforward. Because at that point, I felt like he was just kind of like, how did you do this? Not like he had never seen it before. But I think he just sees it so rarely that he was kind of surprised. I was like, well, I found this podcast and he was like, Okay, that was it. What a horrible. I mean, he did. He didn't, he didn't really, he didn't say anything like, Oh, you shouldn't be getting information from a podcast, but it was. I think he might have said something about it. If my numbers had been, you know, all out of whack.

Scott Benner 59:39
You're a Wednesday was 13. You're like how this

D'Arcy 59:45
guy's podcast told me the podcast. Oh. I feel like

Scott Benner 59:53
he said eat okra. It'll be fine. You don't need your insulin.

D'Arcy 59:57
Gentlemen, I'm telling you cinnamon. Exactly.

Scott Benner 1:00:00
So, first of all, I don't tell anybody to do anything Darcy, these are my own experiences and nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should ever be considered advice. But the point is, is that it, it's cool that you that you said something to them. And it's cool that you have the tools I mean, really seriously. This You are like a shining example, example of my assertion that if you get good information and get good, good tools early on, that there is no necessity for you to go through the horrible parts that you hear people going through

D'Arcy 1:00:32
when the right absolutely excellent.

Scott Benner 1:00:35
And you were open to hearing it right away. And so it got to you now, it's interesting, because I'm joking around taking credit, which, you know, I am kidding, you're doing all the work, you know, like you seriously, like you heard something, and you're putting it into practice. I'm not, I'm not there, making sure you do it, it's you. But you seem like you're the type of person who would want to be healthy. Then you've got this friend that comes in that kind of has your back early on, which is helpful, then your mom goes out and helps you. And you have a trust in your mom. So you listen to her when she helps you.

D'Arcy 1:01:09
Yes, all the time.

Scott Benner 1:01:12
I know that's not true. You're just saying this, but that's fine. Let her think that she listens to you all the time mom, she's really a probably the best daughter ever. And, but But seriously, like you've had all these little like, like, like helping hand moments along the way, even in this kind of short period of time that have all directed you to a good place. But you know, it's it's incredibly it's incredibly encouraging to hear you talk about it at the same time. You have to understand other people listening have to understand that there are plenty of people who didn't get that, like they didn't have a friend show up at the hospital and be like, it's okay. And right. They might have had a mom who was like, you should sprinkle cinnamon on that. I saw it on my website about my essential oils, like you don't even know Yeah, the wrong way for them. By the way, anybody who listens that uses essential oils, please don't be mad at me. I just it seems silly to me. But that's fine. And so, but I'm just saying like you, you got good information along good fence posts, like you know, every time you came across something somebody was there to kind of get your dad comes in and says, Hey, listen, we'll do whatever we have to do to make this right for you. And that's right. That's important to know that people have your back. Yeah, yeah, really cool. really is.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:26
Yeah, I'm really grateful for all of the help that everyone around me has given. It really means it means a lot more than they than they know it does.

D'Arcy 1:02:33
No,

Scott Benner 1:02:34
no, I trust me. They'll figure it out along the way, or you'll find a way to tell them if if that if that becomes an issue where they're like, I don't think she really appreciates us enough. Which I'm not thinking it's gonna happen. But did your I never did ask you Is there any diabetes in your family?

Unknown Speaker 1:02:52
Um, funny story. I didn't know that there is any any diabetes in my family until my diagnosis. I have a great uncle who died when my dad was like, seven, who apparently had type one, but I had no clue. And you know, it never really. You know, we never really thought about it, because we never knew like no one in my family really knew him.

Scott Benner 1:03:18
Yeah. So it was just it was an older man when your father was was very young. Right? Yeah. But he had type one. How about that? Mm hmm. So it's it's there. Did he have red hair too?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:30
I don't think he did. I think it was blonde.

Scott Benner 1:03:32
I don't I just it means nothing. I just this is like, yeah, it's like my conspiracy theory episode. Just like it's in the water.

D'Arcy 1:03:39
Well, I don't know where the red hair came from.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:42
Are you the only redhead?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:44
I have a couple cousins who are who have red hair. But I don't know if anyone in my family beyond that has red hair.

Scott Benner 1:03:51
What's the biggest impediment of having red hair is that you can't wear green? Which it What is it? Like what is like the one thing that you're like off? My hair wasn't right. I could

Unknown Speaker 1:03:59
I actually wear green all the time. I didn't know. I'm sorry. I look like a kind of it's kind of a Christmas. I don't know. I like Christmas

Unknown Speaker 1:04:07
theme.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:08
It's a Christmas themed Christmas in July. No, um,

Scott Benner 1:04:14
is there a downside? Or do you not think of it?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:17
I don't wear hot pink.

Scott Benner 1:04:19
Just too flashy.

D'Arcy 1:04:21
Too classy.

Scott Benner 1:04:22
So in a world where your hair was darker, you might have on a hot pink once or twice here. And this is right. And you're being held back by this?

D'Arcy 1:04:30
Right? Absolutely think this deserves its own movement.

Yeah, it

Scott Benner 1:04:34
really does. I think you could start up a nice thing on social media and get all other redheads behind you. And great really become a force in the world.

D'Arcy 1:04:42
So do you have I'll get right on that. Just to go back to school?

Uh, yeah, eventually.

Scott Benner 1:04:50
See, I painted you to be a good kid. And now you're acting like yeah, if I get there.

D'Arcy 1:04:55
It's fine.

Scott Benner 1:04:56
Your your mom shared this story about your your endo appointment on the private sort of Facebook page that I have for the podcasts where listeners get together and talk about, you know, it's all about management stuff and right, they talk to each other about that. Are you in there too?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:16
I'm not?

Scott Benner 1:05:18
Is that not something? And I don't know, I don't mean to say that you should be. I mean to say like, is that not how you need to talk about diabetes? Like or do you not need to talk about at all just the podcast provide you enough like community around or to the people, you know, privately? Or where do you get your community from it?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:35
I, um, I follow a couple of type one accounts on Instagram. And they give pretty good insight of how they deal with their things. It's not really, there's, it's, there's not as much discussion that goes on. But it's easy to look at, this is a certain person, this is what they did, this is what happened, this is what they're going to do in the future to fix it.

Scott Benner 1:06:01
You can kind of infer from what you see there.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:03
Right. And I've actually, I'm hoping to, to start acting as kind of an advocate for that. And not in the sense of social media, but I am at the endocrinologist appointment, he mentioned something called the patient advocate program, which is a newer program that's being started up, where families or individuals who are either recently diagnosed or just having a harder time managing their their diabetes can get in contact with the advocates.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:37
And hopefully,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:40
kind of learn how to manage their diabetes better, or learn different, you know, tricks as to how Pre-Bolus thing works, how to, you know, extend the Bolus how to how to catch a low how to correct a high. So that's something I'm really excited to be a part of, and that's through your your doctor's office, your hospital. Yes, it's true, it's through the hospital.

Scott Benner 1:07:06
That's nice. That's excellent. And so you can have your own private little podcast with people who you're on the phone, which is amazing. By the way, you're going to find that that helps you to because the podcast helps me. Like when I explain things. There are times when I say something, most of the time you're hearing me say something it's like tried and true and stuff I've been doing forever. But every once in a while, like I'll find a different way to say it. And as I'm saying it out loud, I think, Oh, that's good. And you're like, I've never heard that before in my life. And so you get to the idea I'm having right then and there in that moment. And that's very, that's a cool part about helping other people is that you can you'll learn stuff about your own diabetes as well. So I learned stuff for Arden all the time talking to other people. Which is, which is very cool. Cool. Yeah, it's actually where you actually excited to do this. Your mom said you weren't. I thought you were probably she was lying.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:59
Um, she actually, she walked into my room The day after my endocrinologist appointment was which was also two days after I had met, like my huge like, celebrity idol. So I was just really, I was really on a high from all of that. And then she walks in and she goes, Scott Benner just gave you an open invitation to be on the show. And I was like, What? Like, you can be on the Juicebox Podcast, and I was like, wait a minute, I'm gonna be on the Juicebox Podcast. And she was like, yeah. And I was just kind of like, Huh, this is. This is crazy, like,

Scott Benner 1:08:40
best week of my life. Kidding. I'm glad for you. I'm really glad that that's the case. who wish who's the famous person you met? That was your

D'Arcy 1:08:48
His name's Noah Khan. All right, hold on. He's a musician from Stratford, Vermont. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 1:08:54
All right, hold on a second. Noah Khan, like KHNKHN

I see him and what kind of music does he play? Um,

Unknown Speaker 1:09:07
that's a great question. I don't know if I could actually give you an exact genre without other musicians that listen to this podcast, yelling at me for being wrong.

D'Arcy 1:09:18
I'll check it but

and so and the other thing you just said was that you just released an EP. I did release an EP or when I find this out. I did not know this about you. You can find

Unknown Speaker 1:09:27
you can find it anywhere. You can find it on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, Pandora,

Scott Benner 1:09:35
amazon music. Are you the singer, the songwriter and musician? Do you have a band? Is it just you?

Unknown Speaker 1:09:41
I right now, it's just me. I'm singer songwriter. My dad took me up to New York this winter. And I recorded the EP and a couple months later I released it

Scott Benner 1:09:59
well, so if I'm on Apple Music which I am I, I asked Darcy What?

D'Arcy 1:10:05
A fake the word fake.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:09
I've hit return.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:12
Why something happened? I've hit return again. Why does my computer not like me?

Scott Benner 1:10:18
Do you think it's for the same reason that people who leave nasty messages about me? Online don't like me? I know why Oh, cuz I'm not searching under music. I was like, somebody told me recently, a friend of mine who's does a lot of good work in the diabetes world, said I had someone come up to me and say, Have you ever heard of Scott from the Juicebox Podcast? And she's like, yeah, Scott's a good friend of mine. And she's like, I love that podcast. I don't like him that much, though. And

Unknown Speaker 1:10:45
so my friend said, she said, I'm glad you like it.

Scott Benner 1:10:51
And, and she says, Let me let me just say to you, I bet that I bet you do. Like Scott, you just don't know it. And I said to my wife later, I'm like, I think that's half of the people who know me. I think half the people like me and half the people think they don't like me. There's my narcissism coming. I think you all like me, even the ones that don't think you do. Why can I not search on Apple Music? Hold on. I'm getting upset. Alright, hold on a second. I see.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:20
I look at you.

D'Arcy 1:11:22
Yeah, it's me. It's amazing. Okay, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:25
people have reviewed this and they are much better than they've reviewed my podcast. This girl is so talented. Oh my god. Everyone should buy this album. Alright, so can I can you give me permission to play something on the podcast? Go for it. Which one should I play?

D'Arcy 1:11:45
You should play poison. Okay.

Scott Benner 1:11:48
Unplugged or the original. The original. Okay. So I I am gonna put it at the end of the podcast. So when people are done, they can listen. Not the whole thing. They gotta go by. They want

D'Arcy 1:12:01
the whole thing. They gotta go by it. Yeah, go stream it. Yeah, exactly. We'll give him a little a little taste.

Scott Benner 1:12:06
So thank you. No, that's was such a nice surprise. I had no idea. Right now there's cynical people going Hey, no, this is this is all set up. But it's not about Darcy knows. I don't plan anything. Right. Darcy?

D'Arcy 1:12:21
Right. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:12:23
All right. Listen, you're terrific. I think, you know, thank you. I'm glad your parents aren't de drinkers. That's a nice thing, too. And I I don't know why I thought that like when when when a kid says to me, I've taken control of my life really early. I think either Wow, really together kid or Wow, really don't trust their parents. Just like there's no way these people are gonna be able to help me. I've got to get on this right away. And I obviously that's neither of those things. You have a lovely family. And, and I think you're off to a really great start with diabetes, which is Thank you. No, no, no, it's really something that is unexpected and exciting. Like I can't wait to hear like I there's part of me that wants to say to you like, in like a year, like do this again, come back on again and tell me how it's going. Like maybe

Unknown Speaker 1:13:12
I would love to or something like that.

Scott Benner 1:13:14
Alright, listen, go back to school. You're a darling. Okay. Thank you so much for doing this. I can't thank Darcy enough for coming on the show or her mom for reaching out and saying, Would my daughter be allowed to come on the podcast. She was terrific. Thanks again to the and I also want to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and touched by type one, you can go to touched by type one.org or Contour Next one.com To find out more about the advertisers, the people who brought you today's episode of the Juicebox Podcast. And now here's a few seconds of Darcy's EP. You can find it of course on Apple podcasts and everywhere that she mentioned

Unknown Speaker 1:14:41
just

Unknown Speaker 1:14:48
surviving

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#339 Badlands

Dakota has complications

The path to understanding can be treacherous.

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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, everyone, welcome to Episode 339 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by Omni pod, and Dexcom Omni pod, of course, is the insulin pump, excuse me, the tubeless insulin pump that Arden has been wearing since she was four years old. And we love it. And Dexcom, the greatest continuous glucose monitor known to mankind, you can find out more my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box, and dexcom.com forward slash juice box. I'll tell you more about the sponsors in just a few minutes. But first I want to tell you about Dakota today's guest. Dakota is an adult with Type One Diabetes, who is experiencing a number of complications. But he's starting to get things together. And he's here today to share what he wished that he would have known when he was a younger person for type one diabetes. It's a great episode full of hope, and honesty, just like I like.

While I've got your attention, I hope you check out diabetes pro tip calm. It's my website where I've collected all the diabetes pro tip episodes from the Juicebox Podcast right in one place. You can of course still listen to them in your podcast player. But for those of you who are trying to share them more easily, or just want to find them quickly. Diabetes pro tip.com has also added juice box docs.com. It's juicebox D oc s.com. On that page, you'll find a growing collection of amazing doctors all submitted by listeners like you. If you think you have a great diabetes physician practitioner of any kind, someone who's really helped you who really gets it gets what we talked about here on the podcast doesn't hassle you, and you'd like to share that doctor with someone else. Go to juice box docs.com right there, you can send me an email, you'll be able to see all the information I'm looking for, because you'll see what other people have given. And you can add your fantastic doctor to an ever growing list of diabetes professionals who are forward thinking, thoughtful and conscious of what technology can do. My name is Dakota, I'm 30 years old. I have been diabetic for 25 years.

Five years old. That's a long time ago.

It was pretty much I don't know a life without diabetes. Yeah, were you. That's interesting. So it's five years old. 25 years ago, I have to orient myself with time all the time. And that messes me up. But it was at 9094. Four. Okay. Do you have siblings at that point? I had an older brother who was 15. And he was a half the half brother. That was the only other sibling other than my parents. And younger back then the technology was not what it is today, I would imagine. What's your first sort of recollection of living with diabetes? How old were you? I would say the year later, about six years old. I for some reason, this memory stands out going up the stairs and I couldn't make it past the landing. And by the time we waited the two and a half minutes for the glucometer to actually test the blood sugar. It popped up reading 23. That was my first experience with a hypo. That's crazy. So tell people a little more because that's something that I think a lot of people listening to that don't understand. So do you remember the process can you walk through what it was like to check your blood sugar 25 years ago, the meters aren't as compact as they are today. You know if you have a if you have an actual glucometer or if you have a CGM, they were about the size of your of your phone. They weighed about as much as a brick. And the test trip was the size of a ketone strip. And the amount of blood that it took was you pretty much had to poke every finger just to get enough blood

bleed into a puddle to

Dakota 4:15
exactly 60 seconds into it you actually had to wipe the blood off the strip before inserting it into the machine

Unknown Speaker 4:24
so probably dinosaur age

Scott Benner 4:26
that's interesting. So you the the blood goes on the strip but the strip's not in the machine at that point, correct the blood out to saturate that little pad on the strip that's like a ketone trip or you have to kind of wait and wait. So this is all happening to her while you're six and a unable to propel yourself up the stairs. So something's clearly wrong and apparent goes it's like well, we'll get the meter and then they drag this thing out and hack open a vein. Fill up this test strip, they're putting them the thing you said you felt faint probably because of the blood loss. Not even Because of the blood sugar being low,

Unknown Speaker 5:01
I think for the blood bought Yeah,

Scott Benner 5:04
that's really something else, man, that's a it's a good look into, Oh, you know what your life could be like, for people who are, you know, will say something like, my Dexcom lost its connection for five minutes and I very upset.

It's a different world, what do you use now for technology.

Unknown Speaker 5:22
So I was always on the side of I didn't want to support the industry at all figure I give them enough money, I'm not gonna support all this new technology, old school has always worked out, it doesn't work. And I have now on the desktop g six as well as the Omni pod. And that was all pre listening to the show.

Scott Benner 5:41
That's cool. That's so interesting.

And I like to dig into that for just a second to kind of figure that out. So at some point, as an adult, you have like a real adverse feeling like, you know, I've already lose enough money to this disease. I'm not spending any more I'm not giving anybody anymore. It did it feel like an adversarial relationship at that point, like there was you. And then these people that they that they told you, the hospital, your doctor that was supposed to be helping you but you didn't feel like you were being helped by them. It totally felt that way, you know, it's the insulin already cost enough. And then when they change the product that you're on, or they want you to try a new medicine that's actually more expensive, you know, when you're able to get a good deal on syringes, and then you look at the price of a pump, you're still buying the insulin put into the pub, and they just seem like extra expenditures that aren't necessarily needed at that moment.

Unknown Speaker 6:37
And was this a?

Scott Benner 6:40
Was this a financial decision to like, were you were you hurting for the money? Or any you need to put in other places? Or was this solely like, I'm gonna take a stand against this, this feeling you're having? At the time, it was a little bit of both? I definitely thought like, you know, what, if I keep doing this, they're gonna miss me, which obviously is not the case. Like,

I'm keeping my money, you'll come crawling.

Dakota 7:03
Exactly. And then the financial aspect, you know, that was a big part of it, you know, early 20s, trying to figure out what life is. And now you have to find a job that offers you good insurance. So you can even get the products in the first place. And then they tell you, it's going to be a couple hundred dollars a month. It's a big chunk of your your income course. No, I don't think we talked about it enough. We always speak about it and kind of sort of simple terms. Like I have insurance. I don't have insurance. You just think of people as in two camps, like the poor people with no insurance. Oh, that's a shame for them. And the people do have insurance. Oh, that must not cost them anything. It's not true. You could have insurance and it still cost you a fair amount of money every month. And you know, and it's worse if you don't have insurance. You haven't tried to pay cash for things. When did you lose your fight with the man? How old were you?

Unknown Speaker 7:50
Um, it was actually

Scott Benner 7:54
2017 I finally gave in and I didn't know which was which at the time I am done enough research. And I actually ordered the Omni pod first thinking it was the CGM. So I was on a pump for the CGM, by mistake thinking you were gonna be able to see jam first. Exactly. That's interesting. So when you didn't collapse the the medical device system in America and you're what what was it that made you feel like I'm giving up this fight like because I mean, I'm serious. I'm not joking with you. Like it's, it's obviously meant something to you. But at some point, you just were like, Alright, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm going to try to get these devices. What led you to, I mean, letting go of something that that you felt so strongly about for 20 some years? It actually I decided to finally jump on board when I lost my eyesight due to the diabetes. Okay, so you felt like? Well, let's, let's, I guess we should dig into that a little bit. So you are legally blind? I am legally blind. Yes. What does that mean? As far as is there? I mean, you had you were sighted for such a long time. Like Can you put into perspective for someone what it feels like? Like what? You know what that situation is like, what can you do? What do you struggle with? What What do you see in front of you?

One way you can tell that a company stands behind what it does is when it offers you a free trial with zero obligation to continue understand, I mean, they're willing to put the product in your hand before they've got your john Hancock anywhere.

Unknown Speaker 9:38
You've made

Scott Benner 9:39
zero promises. They've got all the risk. They're showing you right up front. This is who we are, like us or don't like being on a first date and just telling people all the creepy stuff you like and you think I'm gonna find the one guy who thinks this is right.

That's what the parties

are very honest first date. No What am I talking about? If you go to Miami pod.com forward slash juicebox Omni pod will send you a free, no obligation demo pod right here home. This allows you to try the pod on to see what it would be like to be an omni pod person, right? A Potter. That's what today's Potter. After your demo pod arrives, your free, no obligation demo bond. You can live with it like it's your new friend, take it in the bath with you go out for a run, lay in the sun.

Have some fun.

I can't think of anything else that simply rhymes to that word that you could do with an insulin pump on Oh, you could probably make a pun. And maybe be talking to somebody and say something funny to them while you're wearing your new Omni pod demo. And you'll think to yourself, you know, earlier today, when I made that pun, I didn't even notice I was running on Wi Fi. This is the insulin pump for me. A pump that's giving me my basal insulin and allows me to bolus do extended bolus is Temp Basal increases and decreases all that great stuff. And I don't know I'm wearing it. Even when I'm putting my omnipod.com forward slash juice box. Get that free, no obligation demo today and use that link so that on the pod knows she came from the Juicebox Podcast.

Are you impressed that I did all that and then didn't make fun?

Unknown Speaker 11:30
I just couldn't think of one. All right.

Scott Benner 11:34
Next car, the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor is in fact, the greatest thing in the world. If you're using insulin, if you're a giraffe, the greatest thing in the world is tall trees with food on it. But if you're using insulin, the dexcom g six, the bee's knees. Now, where did the saying bee's knees come from? I don't know. But what I do know is that the dexcom g six shows you the speed and direction that your blood sugar's moving. And if you're the loved one, have a person with Type One Diabetes, it allows you to see their speed and direction remotely. remotely means anywhere. Apple or Android, through the internet, the web understanding even through cellular, cellular like I don't need Wi Fi exactly for this. That's right, Scott, your kid could be in his 10 volt. Have a blood sugar that starts falling. You could be in Madison, Wisconsin and see it happen. Huh? How about that? Then you text them you're like, Hey, I don't know why you're in Turkey. But your blood sugar is getting low. Why don't you have a juice dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Do it today. It can't possibly be understated. But I think it is an amazing idea. So we're talking about my omnipod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Get yourself the greatest insulin pump. Get yourself the most magnificent CGM. Let them know that you came from the Juicebox Podcast.

What do you struggle with? What What do you see in front of you?

Everything is essentially looking through a fog. There's I have no depth perception. My right eye has no vision. my left eye the vision is 2199 which now is technically one point out of being legally blind. But it's still essentially trying to look like a stack of Ziploc bags, everything you do. And my gosh, that's a kind of horrifying honestly. If you got to this, is this a Is this a side effect of your type one? Absolutely. It was a I suffered a diabetic hemorrhage in my right eye, even in 2017 but essentially filled my eye with blood. And too much later in August of 2017. The left eye followed suit did the same exact thing. Prior to this hemorrhage. Were you aware that your eyesight was in the midst of failing or did you not know right up until it happened? I had a prescription for glasses because I knew it was starting to diminish a little bit. And I could tell there's something else a little bit more serious happening. So I scheduled the appointment. That was on Wednesday. The doctor called me before the appointment said we need to push it till Monday. And the bleed happened on Sunday. Okay, when you and I were setting the call up I asked you to shut your camera off to save bandwidth and you I from what I could. I felt like I was seeing from this and were you using your phone as a magnifier to see the screen on your computer. What was that you were doing? I use my phone for everything. Yeah, even trying to type the reply to you before we started the call. It's have to get a picture of the keyboard. I've actually never used this laptop before, just to type the message back to I say, alright. How much has that? How does that I guess slow your day down? What does it mean? How does it change your life? I guess should be my question. What were you doing prior the things you were doing prior that you can't do any more? were you living the same life? How are you handling What's going on? Well, my past, I grew up racing, motorcycles, anything in the desert, it was an engine, that was my passion. And that is the biggest thing I've given up because I can no longer drive, even tried to pick up my daughter from daycare or going to help out my fiance's, I can't drive anymore. So it definitely takes a toll on you in the long run, you start to get this feeling like maybe you're not putting enough into the relationship because you know, the other partner is doing all the driving, as you'll always try to overcompensate in different aspects of a relationship. And that all comes from not being able to assist with tasks outside the home. Yeah, I can see that I it's a, you know, obviously not an apples to apples comparison. But I've been a stay at home dad for like 20 years. And in the beginning, you know, you do feel like I'm doing all these things, but it's not the money. And because it's not the money, it doesn't feel as important a little bit, you know what I mean? And, and you do, I found myself over doing other things trying to be like, Look, I'm valuable, you know, I mean, like, I'm, it's I'm trying my hardest, I'm in this 5050. And it's a weird feeling. It went away from me, I hope it I hope it doesn't stick with you. Because obviously your situation is it's not like you're just you know, you've made a decision not to be helpful. You know? Wow. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that, about the motocross racing. So I have very little knowledge of this other than I have this incredibly clear memory of when I was a kid and my parents took me, they had a friend who rode they called it enduro bike racing, I guess. And it was, it felt like it was in the woods and my memory. And you just kind of went and stood on this, you know, some part on this course in the woods, and every few minutes, these amazing like, motorcycles would just come flying by and jumping over hills and mud flying everywhere. And I think back on it now. And I'm like that could not have been safe for me to be standing there watching that. Because you're so close to the course, you know, absolutely not, especially in endurocross. They're jumping over rocks, you know, there are definitely mud pits that they have to try to plow through. There's logs in the path that they're trying to jump over, it could take one foot and you have a bite coming at your forehead. Oh god, I'm telling you, I look back on my life. Now I see a couple of times where I feel like the state could have come in and taken me you know, because decisions my parents were making. That was one of them. There was another one where you went to West Virginia. And there was this like, we were on like the top of like an overlook. And my parents put me right on the edge of it to take a photo and I look at that photo. And I think like what is wrong with you, like would not have looked just as good if I was, say 10 feet from the edge of it. Like Did I really have to be at the precipice of death? To get this photograph off the boy, I'll have to see if I can find it and put it up on the website that coincide with us. But it's all the experience. It's I guess when you're younger, you're just like, oh, stand there. We'll take a picture. I don't know. I'm making excuses for them. It was dumb.

Unknown Speaker 18:15
But you're fearless. But what

Scott Benner 18:18
I remember about being at that is it was exhilarating. And that the the smell of sort of that two stroke, like exhaust was in the air. You don't I mean, I can still hear the bikes. The smell of the race field is too short, you had to mix with oil. So you're burning oil as well as race fuel. And it's a it's a very, very nostalgic. Oh, yeah, I can't, I'm telling you. I did it one time. And I feel like I'm standing there telling you about it. So I can't imagine how for a person who was enjoying actually participating in it. I mean, it's got to be an incredible loss for you among other things, but But still, yeah, I actually stopped when I was sick with the my parents recognize the signs of the diabetes. They took me in and sure enough, I was diagnosed. And about an hour later, they diagnosed me with a heart condition also my racing career stopped on the same day. No kidding.

I'm sorry to hear that.

So it's one of those where I've always been involved with the industry My dad was really big in the racing scene in Southern California as well. So it's always been a part of my family all my friends race so it's we never quite lost that touch. It's just by the time I jumped back into it was against financial is so expensive that but either be a bystander or do it just for fun. Yeah, yeah. So do you do you still try to go to races to as a spectator. I still now go to now I go to Supercross. It's definitely lost its edge from what I'm used to it. I started going to has very little so it's a very family oriented event. Now I go to different sorts of offroad races. I'm out here in Arizona now so I'll catch the NASCAR races that come through. Now I try to go on behalf of my organization to raise awareness. So you do that you do like set up a table? Or do you just how do you how do you raise awareness at an event like that? You're working on the process of actually getting into these events, just because it is very corporate structured. You know, typically, they want their vendors to pay to be there to sell a product, as a nonprofit, they try to get it to where, you know, discounted, or if there's an opening. Yeah. Apparently, the only events I have scheduled are with a local chapter, the jdrf for their walks and things like that. So nice. What do you do when you interact with people? What do you talk about with them? More anything they want? if they have any questions about diabetes, any of the complications, signs? Honestly, sharing my story has helped more people than I can count. You know, I used to think, Okay, well, my blood sugar is in the low 200. That's fine. And Fast Forward 20 years, it wasn't fine. Now, there's neuropathy going on, there's the obviously the vision. There's a lot of other things that diabetes can affect. My is just when loss, vision loss, a lot of the internal stuff as well. So just sharing what the doctors have told me, I'm in timeout at the hospital. And I've even crashed cars, because I've had a hypo while driving. So again, there's a lot that can come with it that most people might not realize. No, I think you're 100%. Right. I think that a lot of our though, a lot of how we we sort of build our world around diabetes comes from the things we hear initially. And if what you heard initially was, hey, listen, just try to keep his blood sugar between 90 and 200. And didn't realize that that was supposed to be you know, for this month, and the next month, then you'll come back and we'll shoot for better and better. Except, it doesn't work that way. For a lot of people. A lot of people start thinking, well, that's my range. You don't I mean, I tried to stay there. Exactly. I know, from listening to your past episodes, even as artists growing up, you know, it's not just even within that range. It's everything's adjusting rules on a weekly basis. And you know, when there's only one endocrinologist near you, where you can go and start backtracking. During all this, my parents are also going through a divorce. So now it's separated parents while you're trying to figure out what this disease is, as if they're not on the same page or not on the same page. So it's you're trying to figure out everything all at once. And especially for a young child, it's very overwhelming. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, I, I can't even imagine being your situation. I don't want to lose track of this. So let me ask you, you said you were diagnosed with a heart condition. What was that? Um, I had a bicuspid heart valve. So my aortic valve is fused with a second valve. So that having three leaflets my heart only had two leaflets. How

is that impacted you and your life?

Unknown Speaker 22:59
I got very out of breath. as a as a youngster.

Unknown Speaker 23:05
It was over overworking itself.

Scott Benner 23:09
And then in the year 2000, I underwent open heart surgery had the aortic valve replaced. Geez, my gosh, that's a 17 year old Have you? what's the what's my question here? What's the is there maintenance to that surgery? Like you go see someone like yearly? Or how does that? How do you keep track of that surgery? I go see my cardiologist every two years. He does an EKG, perfect. 20 years. That's about as quick as the appointment goes. No kidding. That's excellent to hear. Okay, so Dakota, since you're trying to raise awareness, and you're being so honest, I want to give context to, you know, a little more context to where you got to with your vision, if that's okay with you. So, let's just start with the the easiest measurable for people to kind of understand, do you know what your a one C was? Through the years? Were you keeping track of it? Or did you were you going to an endocrinologist kind of talk to me about how you how you manage that side of diabetes, most of my life by agency was above 12. Okay, I don't know if you recall with the the glucometers how they used to come with a vial of testing solution to calibrate your machine. When I would be on my way to the appointment. I knew I hadn't tested and I would sit there in the back with piles of the solution because the longer it sat, the higher the reading. And I would sit there and I'd fake the numbers the entire way down to the doctor's office. Meanwhile, having to go through push the two buttons try to change the date and the time make it look like I've been testing on a regular basis. I would get down there they would see the readings. They check the agency they say something's not adding up here. That's right. I decided I needed to start throwing in some highs. So I fudged the numbers forever. Mainly because I knew the endocrinologist was a yell at me when I went down there, there was no compassion. It was always scolding. Was your mom? were you living with your mom? In this moment? I was actually living with my dad. My mom had moved out of state. Okay, so you're with your father? Is he aware you're doing this? And no, no, you just kind of in the backseat of the car. Just Yes, chugging along, making up numbers.

Unknown Speaker 25:29
For all he knows, I'm back there playing a game boy.

Scott Benner 25:31
Wow, that's really something and how old? Were you? When you started doing that, that you? Do you recall? I want to say I was around 11 or 12. So just going into middle school? Well, and you How many years did you do something like that for I would say, on and off for a couple years. And eventually just got to a point where I had that mentality of, I know how my body feels, I don't need to test. So leading up to the vision loss, I would say I had gone almost three years without testing my glucose. And you know, Now, obviously, I'm not telling you, I'm sort of telling everybody that your body tries to adapt to the higher blood sugars. So that, yeah, they start feeling normal to you whether, and I always, you know, ordinal kind of pull that out every once in a while, like, you know, she's so accustomed to not testing very often. That, um, that you know, when you have to test a couple of times a day, and actually, it's funny last night was one of those nights, and you mentioned staying fluid earlier Arden's out of she's in a period right now of the month where she needs less insulin, and I didn't see it, I didn't notice it happen right away. So there were these kind of like an evening of lows that I thought like, this is just a thing. And then the next night came up, and it started happening. Oh, geez, I have to dial over in some back. So you know, bazel, insulin back, everything kind of dialed back for the spot. But we ended up testing a number of times. And now she uses the Contour. Next One meter, which needs you know, it's a great meter, it needs like no blood. And still, we tested I don't know, three or four times yesterday. And by the fourth time I sent her a text, like, hey, just check your blood sugar real quick. I want to make sure this is the number because we're about to make a decision, you know? And she was like, ah, I feel fine. And I reminded her I was like, I know you feel fine. But that that's not an end. I said, if I didn't if I feel fine, was the right way to manage your blood sugar, then this meter company and Dexcom that these companies would exist because you just ask people, how do you feel? Yeah, I feel great. But when I would say I was feeling fine, because I finally realized something was wrong. I was 350. And I said, I feel fine.

And you probably did you actually feel fine.

I felt perfectly normal. And I was at work at the time, I was actually up on a scissor lift. And I looked at my manager. I'm like, I have to come down now or I'm going to faint. And I went in the cinema. Actually, I tested my budget in the breakroom. So I lied. It wasn't three years, it's probably about a year and a half prior. And it came back at 180. And I am sitting there sweating and shaking. Because I feel so low. Yeah. We touch it. The only sense of having a like a stable point or like a point of like, basis is to get back up to that point. So would you consider and I, you know, I have no real world experience with it. But it was it sort of like the idea of like when you hear a drug addict say they need a fix. So they feel better. Like were you trying to get your blood sugar higher to feel better? Not necessarily higher than it was just back up to that. I would say 300 Mark, where I didn't feel essentially like, like you were alone. I was going like, like, yeah, like I was going numb or going low. Yeah, yeah. When your tongue starts to tingle, and your fingers start to tingle in your hand, you're shaking, you're sweating. Because you feel so low. And you're actually on the higher side of the scale. Yeah. It's pretty big wake up call. It's fascinating. I mean, honestly, a 180 your, your blood sugar's doubled of what you know, somebody who doesn't have type one is and that's so. So to cut, it's probably a good time to stop for a second because people who listen to podcasts have heard me say, you know, if you're cutting your blood sugar being higher as you're bringing it down, you know, you could end up feeling low when you're not really low. It doesn't make the it doesn't make the feelings not real. You know, you still feel that way. And you got kind of sometimes people talk to me about having to sort of titrate down slowly, you know, when once they've kind of figured out the whole thing here with the podcast. They're like, Alright, I can bring my blood sugar down. Some people bring it down pretty quickly. And it stays stable. And you know, I've heard back from people are like, Oh, I felt low for a couple of days. When a woman told me once she felt a little shaky for a week at like 120 but we never speak about it in the number range that you just spoke about it in like feeling low at 180 is a is a sincere indication of just how long your blood sugar had been in the three hundreds or Exactly, yeah. Well, for most of my most of my life I was in is what I've seen around all the forums and everything is I was in to end burnout for most of my life. Where I knew I had the disease. I didn't know how to take care of it. Be nobody around me understood it. This is back before we had social media in these large networks to be part of. And you know, it was I would in high school, I would be at school and drink a coke every day, I would take a huge dose of 20 to 25 units of insulin and go about my day. At night, I would take my my long lasting. And that was it for the day. So you, you would do a basal insulin at night. And one big bolus at your at your lunchtime meal and just do nothing else. Right. Wow. What was the intention there? Like? What did you feel like you were accomplishing when you did that? I just knew I had to take insulin. I didn't quite understand why. Okay, but I just knew I had to do this. Because what my parents and doctors had told me. So to me, okay, well, I did it twice today. I'm good. Okay, I put a lot in it will last. And that is how that in that simplistic ways how you thought about it? Like I'll use a lot. And this will be it'll just stay in me and you felt like you were filling up a gas tank? Almost? Exactly. I'll fill up the tank. And when it when it hits again, I'll all fill up again. Wow. Well, I am in the situation where I want to offer some sort of like, I don't know, I don't know what to say like it feels so sad to hear someone say that they had such little direction and, and understanding for such a long period of time. And yet, you know, you don't need my No, you don't need my words, they don't help you. And they and I guess what you really want to do that is you want somebody else to hear this, who doesn't get to the part where you are.

Unknown Speaker 32:11
Exactly. And that's, that's the whole point why I got through all the hoops and started, you know, my organization is I don't want anybody else to have to reach the point that I'm at whether you're a fan of Motorsports or not or racing are not reach out to somebody and don't just sit there on your own. I had a young lady reach out to me from Florida, at the same thing where she had reached burnout, her parents couldn't afford her for helping her anymore. And just kind of talking her through it. He was able to go out of getting a job that insurance. That way she could get the medications that she needed. It's more just having that ear to listen to what you need to say. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 32:51
Can I ask you do you find?

Scott Benner 32:53
Do you find when you're looking online, and there are people who are kind of holding themselves up is, you know, like, look at me, I'm doing it as an example. I'm trying to be a part of a community Do you ever feel like coming from? I don't know how to ask you this exactly. But But you let me start with this. Would you consider yourself coming from a, like a financially depressed background? Like you? was money an issue? Most of the time? For myself, I guess, for my family, not so much. There's more just the complete?

Unknown Speaker 33:28
being unaware of what was going on.

Scott Benner 33:30
Okay. Okay.

So then my numbers were fine. They knew the ANC was off, but the numbers on the reading and the printout were fine. So until I was honest with them, they weren't going to know the whole truth of where, you know, necessarily to help. And then once you're, you know, 1617 years old, you're now a young adult, you're wanting to be out do your own things while you're getting good grades, they really don't question what you're doing. I see. I see. And so, interestingly enough, I guess they so they decided to trust you. And with what you were showing them with your meter over the test that was coming from the doctor. Right? And was it not so much of a trust issue is that they just were like, oh, that doesn't make sense. His meter says this, so that must be wrong, or I, I'm trying to figure out how you disregard the test at the doctor's office? Well, every time they get, give me a new glucometer is maybe there's something wrong with the meter. Then the next time it's like, Okay, I need to put some more highs in the meter. And then suddenly, they start to kind of balance themselves out like, okay, I can see all the numbers, you know, shows this agency. But you also have to figure those numbers are only when you test it, you could be Hi, brew, or in between each one of those testings and then come back down to a certain number right before doesn't mean that you've been perfect all day. You could have been at a high elevated number most of the day. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 34:56
yeah. variabilities

Scott Benner 34:58
is hard for them to figure out. I guess. They're just looking at meter readings. Exactly. And that's why now being on the Dexcom I panic in that two hour warm up window now. That's funny. Is that funny really to go? You went from like, 350. No problem, though I don't like not only my blood sugar. And now I have my highest at 150. And now it'll be about me for the 150. And I'll go and kind of tell it I know, influence in the system. Let's give it a minute to kick in. Five minutes later, it beeps at me again. I don't think I've ever told a piece of electronics set up so many times as when you are in a high higher than your limit on your CGM. Yeah. And you're like, I know, I know. I'm doing it. I'm working on it. Stop. I I know we talked about I've talked with Dexcom about whether or not they could add a snooze to that. to like, you know, could I get alerted that my blood sugar's over 150? And me say, Okay, I hear you. Please don't tell me this again, for like, a half an hour. Like, like, I've given myself insulin. I know how long it's gonna take for me to get back under my number. So, you know,

Unknown Speaker 36:04
let the bolus take effect.

Scott Benner 36:06
Yeah, right. Yeah, I Well, we've mentioned it. So maybe they'll maybe they'll do that sometime. It's a great idea, honestly. So let me wrap my head around all this for a second because I am in a weird position where I'm listening to you. And I'm trying to feel like what are the people hearing you thinking right now, because, you know, if you're newer diagnosed, you know, in the last five or six or eight years, even the story you're telling, is, it sounds insane. You know, I mean, but I know that your story is not nearly as insane, as some people might believe it is that your story is actually much more common. Just people like you don't really step up that often and tell this story. So I really appreciate you doing this, first of all, because there are he and I try to make the point all the time, you know, well over a million and I forget what the number is 1,000,008 or something people living with Type One Diabetes. And you know, just because the couple hundred people you see on Instagram are the few hundred people you talk to on Facebook are all really trying hard and doing a great job. And you know, so, you know, somebody like me says, I can't believe how badly today went like Arden's blood sugar went to 170. And I couldn't get it down for like three hours. You know, like, that's not most people's experience with Type One Diabetes. a much, much larger group of people have an experience that is much closer to yours and mine. Well, and it's funny, that's actually why I eventually reached out to you is observing on social media that the diabetics that are out there, yes, sir. They all have their blogs and are doing a great job of sharing their journey. And even the people that you interview. It's kind of, you know, painting this perfect picture of, you know, diabetes isn't bad, as long as you take care of it. As I, my hope is, what the real dangers and damages are from it, it will make them want to paint that picture in their own minds. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was just contacted by someone the other day who asked me like, you know, is there an episode you would show to a young kid and like an early teen situation? Somebody who's just not at all interested in in their type one care? And I thought, I don't know. Like, you don't want to say to me, scaring people doesn't seem like the right idea. You know, and I also don't know that, you know, a cheerleader helps for a person who's in that situation, like, you know what I mean? Like, when you're feeling down and depressed about something or just like it's, you know, not possible. You're, you know, you're explaining a situation where you didn't know what to do and nobody around you really know and doctors would kind of yell at you. So, you know, would somebody coming up to you and you were 15 going Hey, Dakota, you can do it? It's easy, buddy. Here's how like, would you have just been like away from me, you know, or would you have been excited to hear from them? What do you think would have benefited you in that situation is I did not know how to answer that question right away about how do you help somebody that age who's going through I I honestly I would have put the head up on my sweater walked away. Like Don't talk to me. In ager. I I know everything but I don't know anything. Leave me alone. Let me do my thing. I took my objection. I'm fine. Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. Actually. That's what I thought when I talked to my I eventually led them to an episode with a 15 year old boy who listened to the podcast and learn the podcast and takes care of himself really well. And I my only thought was like maybe show them this is that there are other tools that may be the ones people told them about. And they're not all that difficult to to use and maybe that would help but there is just part of me who believes that you know people are different, you know, and you had a different you know, a different reaction to that information then another person would have been and that you know, if you stop if you if you kind of stop and take a long look at everybody around you just you know pick 20 people that You know, and see how different they all are and the directions their lives went and how some of them take things super seriously. And some of them don't, or if some people are very detail oriented, and some people are sort of like, it'll all work out, like all that is just human nature, you know, different kinds of the way people think. But then you add this diabetes to it. Some of those personalities don't fit well with managing insulin. Right, right. And, and so that's what you're really talking about, like, how do you get to that personality? And you know, before they get into your situation, because, I mean, you can tell me, but I'd imagine you do almost anything to get into a time machine and make a different decision. Oh, absolutely. Like knowing what I know, today, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't even hesitate.

Unknown Speaker 40:48
As long as my family still comes into the picture in the future,

Scott Benner 40:52
I would absolutely go back. And kind of like you were saying was, you know, how do you reach these different people? I couldn't imagine somebody with severe anxiety, being diagnosed with diabetes. Because it's such a double edged sword, our breasts will cause your glucose to rise. And your glucose rises. What do you do? You stress? And if you give yourself insulin to come down, it's not coming down you stress for it's, it's such a unique double edged sword in that sense that how do you manage this? Without making it worse? Yeah. Yeah, how do you, you know, there's people in my life who are more, you know, prone to anxiety than not. And I'm sort of really relaxed. And you find sometimes saying to people, like, just you know, don't worry about it, or relax. And it's such an insulting thing for them to hear. Because they're not worrying about it on purpose. They're not, they don't want to be anxious about it. You know, it's just, it's how they react to that scenario. I do the same exact thing. I'm a fairly calm, very calm demeanor, especially with everything going on. And I see it as there's no point in freaking out about it. But when I see other people close to me, that do have anxiety in my work, what is your issue, like, take a step back, look what I'm going through, if I'm calm, you should be calm. I know, it's a really unfair way of trying to calm somebody down. And rather than being understanding, which is I know what I should be doing. A that's a good point, though, is that even the person like you who understands the scenario, when they're presented with that, that's how you feel you're like, Oh, just relax. So now put yourself in the shoes of a parent of you when you're 15. Knowing that anything they may say to you is going to pull your hoodie over your head and send you out the door. And now, you know what I mean? Now, these people are trying to put together the exact perfect seven words to get you to take your health more seriously. And even maybe you are taking it seriously, but you just didn't have the the right tools or the knowledge to deal with because I mean, you do you feel like you have those tools today.

Unknown Speaker 42:59
Absolutely.

Scott Benner 43:00
What's your agency right now?

Unknown Speaker 43:02
My last check was 6.2. My last draw was on Friday. And because of the holiday weekend, I have not gotten the results from that one. That's

Scott Benner 43:11
amazing. Congratulations is really something.

And the last time I had it checked prior to that it was still at 11. Wow, when did you make this decision? Like when did you have it? So let's I guess let's let's go to that, like you said 2017, you decided you're going to grab a CGM and you ended up with a pump by mistake and then you add CGM, right, in 2017. And everything first started. So through this vision loss, it was 10 times worse than it is today. At that point, the only difference in vision I could tell was that the sky was blue, the grass was green, and the ground was brown. And so everything was just stayed oriented. I had to I left my house, went and stayed with. With my dad at his new place, I'd only been to one. So I didn't know the house. And I had to feel the walls on how to get around the house. And in order to see what my reading was, it was essentially just poking, hoping there's enough blood and trying to get it to work. So I wasted hundreds of strips because they weren't filled on up all the way. I put the glucometer right up to my eye and move it slowly to the side and make out the shapes of the numbers that are on the screen. And it was finally once I went back to work at the beginning of 2018 my my insurance was reinstated that I immediately went on the on the pod and about a month later when all the Dexcom

kind of work do you do?

Unknown Speaker 44:41
I work at Costco

Scott Benner 44:43
and so when you were

so when your blood sugar is still incredibly high, your vision was actually worse than it is now so your vision is getting better as your blood sugar is more regulated and lower. I have also had seven Surgery. So a lot of these surgeries were actually reattaching the retina trying to repair the macula. A lot of these procedures, they do take time to reestablish the vision. Due to the disconnect for so long inside the eye. Do you expect more progress? Or do you think you're at where you're going to be? Or do you not know? By ophthalmologists? Has that built it take two years to even show? Okay, and my last surgery was in March, can I ask you are this I mean, the surgery sound painful, but are they, um, once they start to back the anesthesia off, it can be a little bit a little bit painful. But for the most part, it's just a quick outpatient. It's more, you're under local anesthesia. So you can see the tools moving inside your eye. And that's the part that can kind of make you freak out. Okay, that's, uh, that sounds worse than being able to hear the dentist's drill. Oh, exactly. Well, you hear him, and he puts this piece inside your eye. And then you start to see the bright flashes, and they're moving around. And you think to yourself, is he welding inside my eye. And then he calls for, I need, you know, two cc's of you know, a certain way, like when he's talking about oil, and then you see these little drops come into your eye and form into one big blob. And then suddenly, you see right through it. It's just it's a whole weird experience. It's really hard to explain. I, I can't I cannot imagine. I mean, I can imagine what you're saying. But I just can't imagine like sitting still Dorian, is do you have that? Do you have to stop yourself from that feeling of like, I need to get up and get away from this? Or, oh, when you're under the anesthesia? No, you can't. But like they when they start to back it off. On the second surgery I had, it was starting to get really painful during surgery. And I can start to feel everything as aware of everything. But I noticed my feet can move. And the anesthesiologist was sitting towards the end of the bed towards my feet. I just started clicking my feet together as fast as I could. And sure enough, he cranked it back up.

Unknown Speaker 47:10
Okay, I guess I'm awake. Yeah, thanks.

Scott Benner 47:13
There's something stuck in my head. And I'm about to run away. Just so you know. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. Wow. I it's hard to know what to say? Because it seems not just so life changing. But it just, it just seems I don't know what the word is. I don't want to just say sad, but it feels sad. You know, they mean, like I do, how do you deal with that part of it? I mean, are you? How do you how do you keep your chin up, I guess for the lack of a better term.

Unknown Speaker 47:41
Um,

Scott Benner 47:43
I mean, first thing, first, I look at my daughter, she's a year old. So backtrack. And when all this happened, December of 2017, we found out that we were having a baby. So through all of this, also a new dad trying to take care of a newborn with vision loss. So if you can imagine to give Arden when she's a month old, and do with your eyes closed? to code, I have to be honest, I can't imagine anything. You're perfectly honest. You don't need me like I'm sitting here trying to put my myself in your shoes just in my head. And I don't, you know, I it makes you feel like, you know, I should get done with you and shut my eyes and just try to even go to the next thing that I wanted to do. I don't know how I would accomplish that. Are there classes does? Does your doctor offer like direction for you? Like are you going to get better direction with your vision loss than you did with your diabetes,

Unknown Speaker 48:36
I actually meet with a low vision specialist.

Unknown Speaker 48:40
From the time this airs about four months, but next week, I meet with a low vision specialist and they work with different sorts of prisms, implanted into lenses. So the center part of my vision is what to damage the outside is still working. So these prisons will redirect the light to the outside of the eye and make it where the vision should increase for what the doctor say they have seen in the past.

Scott Benner 49:06
I hope that works for you. That sounds amazing.

But it's going to be a lot of almost rehabilitation teaching the outside of your eyes, you do all the seeing rather than the center part of your eyes. I understand that's a and that crystal helps that prism helps kind of retrain parts of your eye that aren't being used as actively I guess. That's what they say. I'm hoping that it's not so damaged in there that that's not an option. Mm hmm. What, um, what took you from, you know, see you, your vision goes the way it went. And you're at this agency that's incredibly elevated. Now you're at a six. Can you tell us what you did between that elevated eight, one C and the six like, how did you make that change so quickly? First, I knew that what you put into your body is probably the most important thing, whether it's insulin, food, hydration, anything. So post surgery, I knew that inflammation was a really big deal. And I went completely vegan for three months.

Unknown Speaker 50:15
I can't say I was happy about it,

Scott Benner 50:19
then I slowly just started to look at what I was eating. And, you know, try not to over saturate myself with processed foods, anything that, you know, I in carbs or sugars have just kept a really keen eye on what I was eating. And then once I got on the pump, it was a lot easier to say, you know, dial up or down when I needed it. And I was still doing carb counting at the time. And I noticed that I was still getting these big spikes in these low valleys. Yeah. And I was actually right around the time that I found your, your podcast. And just hearing how you kind of mentioned to, you know, you do your Pre-Bolus. And then you kind of work it after the meal until it's right where you want to be. So since I started listening to your podcast I have not carb counting is I will pre I will Pre-Bolus and then just go from there. Wow, that's amazing. Good for you. I hate counting carbs, I had to figure out a way not to do it. Because that's how that's why you know about it. Because I was just in my kitchen thinking like, I can't do this for the rest of my life. I had to figure out a way not to do this long book that you had to flip page to page and a page of fruits, a page of vegetables, a page of starches, actually gave you the portion size. And how many grams of carbs were in each one of those portions? Yeah. Yeah. Well, they came out every year from the nutritionist. Mm hmm.

Also a scale, I realized that, um,

I really did not like the idea of having to weigh and measure food. Yeah. And so I just, I don't know, I just, you know, it's a long time ago now. But I just started thinking, like, I got to figure out a way to do this, that that doesn't, doesn't cause me to, you know, need to scoop things with cup measuring cups all the time. Or you think you think to yourself, like there's already enough math involved. I don't want to be, you know, weighing out grams and ounces. And you know, all this different kind of stuff like this, just let me figure out how much insulin I need. And that's all the math I want to do right now. Yeah, yeah. And even like, just that even the math aside, I think it's just the taking something that's so frequent in your life breakfast, lunch, dinner snack, and turning it into a drudgery of any kind is, you know, I think is one of the ways that the diabetes ends up weighing on you get me like one of the one of the weights it has is, you know, it's scared of being alone, right? Scared of long term complications. I don't want to be the kid who passes out at school, you know, and I don't want to count and measure everything I put in my body for the rest of my life, I'm very proud to be able to give Arden you know, a couple of handfuls of a snack and not say, Hey, can you count 23 of those, please? You know what I mean? Like, that's, to me, that's a big deal. And it's important to make your life feel like it's not a weight on you, you know? Can you imagine if she's out at the lunch table, and she pulls out her baggie with 20 goldfish in it. That's all she's allowed. I can't give any of these away, I have all 20 of these bolts in

touch my damn goldfish.

And listen, there are times like, don't get me wrong, like, you know, if we're coming down from a high blood sugar or something and she gets high. I'm like, Yeah, no problem. I'm like, but we can't miss on these carbs. So, you know, take 15 of those. And I'll tell you, you can see, like, there's a sadness on her face. When that happens, like, Oh, no, I, you know, okay, you know, count them out. And, you know, what, if I'm still hungry or not hungry, when I get that, you know, what if I get to 11 of these, and I don't want anymore, I gotta eat the last four or, you know, vice versa. So I just I do my best for that not to, there's enough already coming from diabetes, that you should try to take things away wherever you can. And carb counting was just one of the things I really wanted to take away. Absolutely. It was an unnecessary headache on top of everything else. It's amazing how quickly you picked it up, and you're doing it so well. Like, I'm sure you guys did this, when you would go out to a restaurant and they would bring you a plate of food and you can't dig into your center. And to put Inspector Gadget on how many carbs are in everything on that plate. I do think if my if my if me looking at a plate was in a movie, you would see like a computer overlay fall over top of it and divide up into spots and numbers would pop up over top of AI over piles of food and everything. And

Unknown Speaker 54:36
you'd have the matrix going on behind you and you would have

Scott Benner 54:40
just like Einstein style equations above your head and it's no fun. Yeah, I look at it now. And I think like 710 you know, you count along and you're like alright is 63 and and then that one's you know, the glycemic load on that's gonna be heavy. So You know, we're gonna need insulin, at least in the four hour period, but that stuff's faster and you start, like, I wonder if I could just put some of this up front and the rest after and, you know, it's, it happens so quickly now, like, I hate I hate saying it to people almost because I feel like they think that this is like, you know, hours of their life spent. But I look at it, I'm like, all right, in 63 carbs 50%, up front, the other 50% over two and a half hours. And I think maybe we're gonna have to do you know, a bazel increase, you know, in here somewhere, probably in those last two and three and four hours. Well, and that's the crazy part that I'm still learning is, you know, that, you know, fats and proteins and oils, and you know, all this kind of stuff will make it where the sugar doesn't jive or the carbs won't digest as quickly in your system, but they will kick in on the back end. So, you know, a perfect example is there's a restaurant across the street that, you know, when I have a day off, I'll go over there, I'll grab a couple double margaritas that are made with the GAVI rounds, and all the sweet stuff. A burger sweet potato fries, and I go all out. I Pre-Bolus is 12 unit. I know it's a pretty hefty Pre-Bolus. And then I also increase my basal rate, the 45% for the next three hours. And for the first 30 minutes, I'm sitting there, I will sit right there at 90 and not budge. But then when I'm on my way home, it's 160. And then it's one cent I'm like, okay, obviously, there's not enough kicking in. And I'll give myself another four to five unit. As it gets, right. Yeah, this happened last week. It went straight up to 230. It flattened out. And then it went straight down. And once it hit 160, straight down. I just, I turned off the bazel increase. I turned off insulin delivery everything. And it look like a Boeing jet coming in for landing and sells it one on one.

Look at you.

Unknown Speaker 57:06
That was two hours.

Scott Benner 57:07
It's really amazing. How long

have you been at this? When do you start listening to the podcast? Number

December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, nine months ago. That's really great man congratulate seriously. I've been well done. Congratulations. I don't know what else to say that's a complete life turnaround in nine months. And no, I can't seem like the clarity report. I can't see everything that's on there. But I can't see the little snippet of a graph that you can see on your phone. I just like to see where it can come from and get it to settle down right at the bottom of that gray box. Without dipping into the red. I get some sort of enjoyment out of it. And essentially sharing that experience with with other people. There's you know, it's kind of do what you always say is being bold with influence. Use it where it works for you. You know, they say don't double up on insulin, it could be dangerous well, being highly dangerous to it that you're taking an educated guess. every three months. I'm saying there's the doctors Yeah, you're taking an educated guess every three months, and then adjusting it and then you'll see me again in three months. I'm adjusting it on the fly. Yeah, I hear you. Um, a couple of questions. So do they not make a meter that talks so that you can hear the number instead of have to see it?

Unknown Speaker 58:30
I'm sure they do

Unknown Speaker 58:33
that like that? Since I'm using the Dexcom.

Scott Benner 58:37
Guide? Hold on the phone. I can see that number just fine. On really as long as the bubbles gray. Don't freak out. Yeah. I What? What kind of cell phone? Do you have his iPhone or Android?

Unknown Speaker 58:49
iPad Android drives? gonna say because

Scott Benner 58:50
I think I think you can ask Siri what your blood sugar is on an iPhone. It'll just tell you. I do recall. Actually, I was on your podcast hearing something about that.

And it wasn't sure.

Unknown Speaker 59:02
I know through Android that there's times where when this all is first happening, I would have to use my tablet to take a picture of my phone to see what the glucose reading was. I don't know if it's this way on iPhone. But on the Android phone in the security settings. You cannot screenshot anything within the Dexcom app

Scott Benner 59:23
in the Android Yes.

Unknown Speaker 59:26
Because I do that all the time with iPhone that's interesting

Unknown Speaker 59:29
that you cannot screenshot anything within Dexcom to the privacy policy.

Scott Benner 59:35
I almost cursed okay.

I I'm sitting here thinking like is there not like some giant like with a magnifying glass help you like a big strong magnifying glass to see like your phone and stuff like that with not that I'm sure you haven't thought of these things already, but

Unknown Speaker 59:50
it definitely would.

Scott Benner 59:53
It's almost like the magnifying glasses that jewelers use where it has the lights built into it. There's like, if there's anything that I can't read from zooming in, I'll just take a screenshot of it that way I can zoom in on it. They said through the Dexcom. If I just screenshot the notification bar the reading in on it, then I can zoom in if I absolutely need to. And it's all more just finding ways to make your life work without being a complete nuisance to yourself or others. If you and I met face to face and we shook hands, and three days later, we met again, at that distance would you know, it was me visually. Um, if you didn't say anything, I would walk right by, okay. I do it at work all the time where this might sound kind of bad. But I start to figure out the build of the people that I work with, are you tall and skinny? Are you shorten heavy? And the beginning of the day, I'll make sure I walk right next to everybody. And I'll kind of make a mental note of what color shirt everybody's wearing, that depict colors. So, but from a distance, everybody's just a person until you're within 20 feet.

Dakota, why do you not sound bitter about all this?

I think it's an amazing story. If I can inspire people with it. That's my main goal. Yeah. Do you have private moments where you're just like, I can't believe this happened? He Yeah. You know, looking back on it, it's, I cannot blame anybody else. It's 100% by fall for my neglect. And I was raised with one of those where you know, you had be responsible for your decisions and your actions. And this was a decision that I made my whole life. And luckily, I caught it. The point where I'm not really blind. No, it didn't kill me. I have all my hands and feet for both my hands and feet. You know, it could have been so much worse.

That's an amazing attitude to have.

But there's definitely times where, you know, I used to work on cars and motorcycles and stuff all the time. Yeah, how hard it is to work on an engine when you can't see it. It's not easy. But it's actually easier than you think. Because you can't see it anyways, but Oh, really, you see your hands always up underneath something trying to unscrew a bolt that you've already loosened nine times out of 10 you can't see it. And since I do so many things through feel now you know, I, I live a quarter mile away from where I work. And the only thing that separates my house where I work is an alleyway. So doesn't take the pressure off my fiance, I went ahead bought a cute little beater just gave me to and from work. But I knew at night, I had to light up the road in front of me like it was daytime. So I ran complete wire harnesses underneath the floorboards through the engine compartment, and put light bars across the bottom of this thing so I can see to get from work at night. And surprisingly, it was probably the easiest wiring job I've ever done. Because I knew how to see the tip of my fingers better. We have a few more minutes left and I want to ask you has other parts of the world opened up to like do you find yourself listening to more like radio or music or like how does like your downtime change when your vision but when all of this first happened, it was I was trying to find anything on YouTube that I can just ask my phone to play. Because when this all started, I couldn't even read text message. So I had to ask my phone, you know, a Google read text message and it would read it to me and I would have to talk back to it to send the text message. And that was the only way I could keep in contact with anybody. I ended up watching a lot of market or listening to a lot of marketing like tutorials on YouTube. The Comedy station on Pandora was my go to and I was trying to find a diabetes podcast or listening to and I ended up finding one is a diabetes management. A couple guys based out of San Francisco and it was more just on Whole Foods diets rather than kind of like yours where you actually interviewing people who have these experiences. So a lot a lot more podcasts, a lot of comedy, stuff that could keep me in good spirits and laughing at home I'll listen to the news and to watch the news all put on your podcast I'm still on episode 240 but I have some catching up to do is a lot more audio based and visual based. Ours TV in our living room is quite large. So my spot on the couch, I can actually see what's going on. I can't see the fine details and in film, but I can kind of get the point of what's going on. Gotcha.

How um

how is your relationship been through all this is it I mean, if you don't mind It, what's the biggest change? I guess?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:04
Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:05:06
we actually, we have a long history, we were next door neighbors growing up. So it's not like we didn't know who we were. It's just I played baseball and she and raced motorcycles. He acted and did theater. So we were complete opposites, even though we live next door to each other. And when we reconnected, it was actually the day before my vision was lost. So our entire relationship, she only knows me as being visually deficient. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:35
So it's kind of like we're able to grow through this together.

Scott Benner 1:05:38
That's really That's sweet. Yeah, that's a fortuitous situation. And and especially at the beginning of a relationship, you know, I mean, I've seen people on a second date, you know, say they like a certain movie, and somebody else stopped going out with them. I've never, I've never heard a story where on my second date, I had to tell somebody, hey, I've lost the majority of my vision.

Oh, yeah, that's really sad.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:01
The thing is, we hadn't even gone on a date. And to top it off, we lived in separate cities. At this time. She was in LA, I was in San Diego. Okay, so it was it was more I just threw it out there. Hey, I come to a wedding in October. He said, yeah, we kept talking. And then suddenly, I'm driving home and realize something's not right.

Scott Benner 1:06:21
I want to end on that.

When when something's not right. Is it a light switch at that point to somebody? Is it just go off? Or does it dwindle down to nothing over hours or days? Or like, how does it go from everything I see everything okay to I don't know, with a diabetic hemorrhage, at least in my case, it was, it looks like a very streaky black waterfall in your field of vision. Okay, so it just looks like this constant, like rain or streaks come down within your vision. It's actually blood that's blocking the light from reaching your optic nerve. I see. And I know we didn't, we didn't touch on on this aspect of it. But leading up to that I was taking a different job, I had to get very physically fit for this job. So I was pushing myself extremely hard at the gym. As you know, more weight than I probably should have been trying to trying to push in on a leg press machine and my vision kept flashing crazy. I thought I was just getting a really good workout in. It turns out that it was like the beginning stages of these blood cells being overstressed starting to reverse. Gotcha. How long was that before you started seeing the black waterfall?

Unknown Speaker 1:07:41
About about a month?

Scott Benner 1:07:45
All right. Listen, tell me about what's your web address? And how can people find you? So through my website, or through Instagram, is pipe one motorsports.com is the number one type the number one motor sports calm? And then what are you on Instagram? What's your handle on Instagram is the same thing type the number one Motorsports alright. Dakota I really appreciate you coming on and telling this story. It's not. It's not something we get to hear that often. I really do appreciate there's, you know, other people who have come on and told similar stories, but I think they're all really impactful and important. I appreciate I always tell people I'm, you know, how happy and I am that they were so open and honest. But this is really a this really takes the cake I think for open and honest. So I really do appreciate this. Thank you so much for doing this

Unknown Speaker 1:08:41
facility. Thank you for having me on. About

Scott Benner 1:08:45
the code, everybody. And how about Dexcom and Omni pod for bringing you the show dexcom.com forward slash juice box, my omnipod.com forward slash juice box. Those links are available in the podcast player you're listening to right now on your phone, right in the notes or at Juicebox podcast.com if you can't remember them, but if you do remember them, and you use my link, that'll tell the companies that you came from the podcast I will very much appreciate that. And you will still get the same great technology one way or the other.

Before we go, I'm looking for someone to do an after dark episode with now this is a specific ask, be honest with yourself before you email me. I need someone who's divorced and parenting a child with Type One Diabetes, who will be completely honest about how to work through significant problems when one parent either has Certain management idea while the other one has another, or while one parent is doing a lot of the work, while the other one seems to be ignoring it. This is something that comes up a lot. But of course, it's difficult to get somebody that wants to speak about it. So what I'd like to say is you'll come on and be anonymous. But still, you have to really think about this. Make sure you're not going to get out at somehow, if you think you can tell that story. Be honest, and not vindictive, something that's gonna really help other people who are divorced and you won't get caught.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:35
drop me a line.

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#338 Jordan Won't Be Curbed

Being newly diagnosed at 26

Jordan talks about what it's like to be diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a young adult in the age of amazing diabetes technology.

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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 0:07
Hey everybody, whoo. Oh, excuse me. Hey, everybody. Hey everybody, welcome to Episode 338 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is with Jordan, and it is a absolute delight. Seriously, this hour is going to rush by. And all you'll think when it's over is Oh, no, please can I have more? Jordan is a 25 year old girl who is newly diagnosed. And her outlook on diabetes is almost unlike anyone I've ever spoken to. Very interesting to hear person her age diagnosed right now, and the experience they're having. Beyond that, she really is wonderful. And the conversation is absolutely terrific. At the end of this episode, I'll fumbling around looking for an acronym that I'll never be able to think of. But just so you know, now it's a s m r. Okay, real quick. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan for becoming bold with insulin, be doctor.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod, and Dexcom on the pot, of course, the best insulin pump in the whole world in my opinion. And it's tubeless, you can try a free, no obligation demo of the AMI pod by clicking on the links in your show notes. Were the ones that Juicebox podcast.com that leads you to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. And of course to learn more about the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. There'll be more about these wonderful sponsors, little later in the show. But for now, this is Jordan.

Jordan 2:06
My name is Jordan. I'm 25 years old, I was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes, January 15 2019. While I was 25 years old.

Scott Benner 2:16
So Jordan, I do a thing when people who are newer diagnosed, reach out and want to be on the podcast. Sometimes I say to them, do it next year if you've lived with it. And sometimes I'm like, Yeah, come on right now. I don't know why I get the vibe one way or the other when I do. But you were one that I was like, hey, let's let's get this together as quickly as we can now for you know, coherency sake for people listening. What that means is that you emailed me in February, and now in August 1 recording so right away, right? Yes. I'm sorry that it took so long.

Jordan 2:49
No, no, that's fine. Very cool. I know you're a busy man. And you're booked up. So

Scott Benner 2:53
you're, you're very kind to say that so that other people think that is true about me? No, no. To be honest, it's this was the year that the podcast really showed to me. Like, how it was growing because I am booking Now, sometimes nine months or a year ahead of when people asked to be on and that yeah, that's amazing. throws me off a little bit. Right. You're 25 now where you're you, you're so you're still okay. Is there any diabetes in the family?

Jordan 3:23
Not my immediate family. So on my dad's side, his cousin has type one diabetes, and his uncle. So not any immediate family but distant family.

Scott Benner 3:34
So nobody was walking around thinking, Oh, my 25 year old daughter is probably gonna get diabetes any second now?

Jordan 3:41
Yeah, not at all just hit us all in the face.

Scott Benner 3:44
Now when that happens, and your father then did your father live with your brother while like did your uncle have diabetes, I guess when your your father and he were kids, I guess so.

Jordan 3:53
It's actually my dad's uncle. So it's not my uncle? Um, no, that's okay. But he didn't really see him that much. So he wasn't really around the whole diabetes thing. He didn't really. I mean, my parents both knew the symptoms of diabetics and all of that stuff, but they didn't really think their daughter would end up with diabetes.

Scott Benner 4:20
And so you know what, I was wondering if if had he lived with a brother with it? Was it Well, no, it was wondering what his reaction might have been. So you have a your diagnosis story, I think seems like it's worth telling. So yes, I know. I don't usually just go tell me your whole story about being diagnosed, but I want to hear yours.

Jordan 4:37
In December of 2018 I actually got a really bad car accident. I was at a Christmas party that my company was hosting and I had two alcoholic drinks. I ate a bunch of food budget Carvey stuff a chicken parm I broccoli, and I actually had pineapple Juice. I didn't know at this time that I was diabetic, obviously. And I drove home thinking, Oh yeah, I'm fine. I was at the party for about six hours. I didn't have a drink for about three hours before I left. It was really foggy. And it was raining that night. I was in a really unfamiliar area, and I ended up crashing into a curb on a rotary. So I had to call the cops cops came. They thought I was drunk. So they arrested me. I'm still going through that right now. But I am finding that I was diabetic at the time. I was experiencing symptoms before that. And it's funny because that day before I went to my party, I didn't really think anything of it, but I had Burger King for lunch, which I'm, I was always normally healthy. Burger King wasn't really my number one choice. But I had Burger King, I had a large Dr. Pepper. I will never drink Dr. Pepper again. And I got home in two hours after I ate the Burger King actually threw everything up.

Scott Benner 6:13
Did you just think that was your body being like conscious of your health?

Jordan 6:17
Yeah, yeah, I was like, you know, I had Burger King, that probably wasn't the best for me. So maybe my body was just rejecting the Burger King because I haven't had fast food and so long. So, um, that happened, accident happened. And 17 days after the accident. I was in the hospital and DK.

Scott Benner 6:40
Yeah, so it was coming on and going away still, like kind of ebb and flow and, you know, a little higher. So it's interesting that you think about the, the, like the fogginess of the of the night, do you think Yeah, was your vision? Do you think? Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. Not because it was definitely

Jordan 6:58
blurred? No, yeah. My vision was definitely blurred. And I was experiencing issues with my vision. Actually, I work in front of a computer all day. So I was like, you know, I think my eyes are getting worse because of me working in front of a computer and all that stuff. And it was actually because my blood sugar was too high. So I'm sorry for ya. I'm

Scott Benner 7:20
sure that'll work out. Do you have a good feeling? Oh, yeah. Work out in court?

Jordan 7:24
Yes, I do. I have a very good lawyer now. He definitely wants to fight for me, because it's clear that I had diabetes at that moment, because I actually had messaged my primary care on December 12, of 2018. I was like, You know what, I'm drinking over a gallon of water a day. I urinate a lot. My mouth is really dry. And I was like, I have trouble eating a bagel and blah, blah, blah. And my primary care actually never ended up responding to me. Um, so they actually could have diagnosed me before I even got my accident. Which sort of sucks.

Scott Benner 8:03
It's interesting how we kind of don't communicate still with our doctors properly. There's all this technology available. And still, no one's sort of put it together with how do you how do you speak properly to your doctor? I have to say that ardens endo is really responsive to emails. And oh, okay. We I think I've settled on another episode. But Arden has hypothyroidism and we were able to dial her medication in in a matter of weeks, instead of a matter of a year because it was try this Okay, here's another script, go get a blood test, you know, like that kind of thing. And it just it was so much more responsive. And it really does sound like if someone would have responded to you that you would have had a different situation. Well, I'm glad you're okay.

Jordan 8:45
Yeah, me too. No, I was not hurt in the accident. Um, I wasn't going fast. Just hit a curb and hit anything or anybody else, thank God. But when I was admitted to the ER, I was with my grandmother, and our hospital over here, sort of on a hill. So I'm trying to walk up the hill, and I'm very shortness of breath. I can almost not breathe. So I was walking up the hill walking up the hill, and all of a sudden, I couldn't breathe anymore. I was like, You know what, Nana, like, I need to I need to stop I need to sit down for a second. So I actually sat on the sidewalk. And she was like, Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm gonna go get someone. So I actually had to be wheelchairs into the hospital because I couldn't even walk anymore. I couldn't even breathe anymore.

Scott Benner 9:39
I guess it's a good so it's not a good sign when your grandmother can make it up the hill and you can't and

Unknown Speaker 9:43
it right.

Scott Benner 9:45
I'm gonna just actually I'm gonna divert for one half of a second and tell you though, yeah, when I was a kid, they would decorate the the Burger Kings. The McDonald's with these clings like these big things. They would stick to the window. So like, every time they you know, started a new campaign. It was almost like they kind of To repaper the windows with these things, there was this giant Burger King, he was the size of the entire door. It must, it must have been like three feet wide and six feet tall. So Burger King near my house and I said to my friends one day, I'm like, we've got to get that out of here. And and they were like, what I'm like, Don't you feel like we need this? Like, you know, back then, like we all had stereos that were really big. And like there was glass doors on I thought, wouldn't that be great on the glass door of a stereo? And so we did successfully steal that Burger King cleaning off? Oh, wow. Just really proud of that for some reason, and I just wanted to tell you. Okay, so you haven't you've had diabetes officially? for nine months ish?

Unknown Speaker 10:39
Not even nine months? Yeah. Yep.

Scott Benner 10:42
So this is, uh, this is great. So great. Not for you. But for the pocket. For you. It's a heart for the podcast. It's fantastic. All right. So I'd like to know you're in a major metropolitan area, and you're diagnosed with Type One Diabetes, and you know, January of 2019. How do you leave the hospital? What's the feeling going out the door? Like, what do you think this is going to be for your life. I'm going to start today talking about the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. Arden, of course, has been wearing the AMI pod. Since she was four years old. She's going to be 16. This summer. That's a long time, Arden has been wearing an ami pot, every one of those days since she was four. And it is an absolute staple in her diabetes care. As quickly as time appears to be going in that little parable. It's going even more quickly, quicker, faster. the right word there as quickly as time's going by and that little parable, it's going even more quickly, more quickly can't be right, it's going even faster. That even sounds like wrong. What do I want to say? We're really we were way past what I wanted to say. All I want to say is, you know, everybody's sort of in their home right now. And time is going by incredibly slow and incredibly fast. At the same time, the days take forever. The weeks are going by is that that's what I met this lady here to get it just I'm sorry. It's like 1130 trying to get this done. Because it's not your problem. You don't care. Anyway, my point is, don't wait to try the Omni pod. Especially when they're offering you an absolutely free, no obligation demo, they'll put an omni pod in a box and send it to your home. There you will do whatever you want with it. Honestly, I guess if you wanted to stick it to the roof of your car and tell people you were a police officer. Like you should probably have the color like red and blue. But you could do that with it. But it would make more sense if you put it on your body where your child's body and tried it. See what it's like to wear it on the pot for a couple of days. Take a bath with a shower, wander around the house, do your calisthenics, please, this 1950 I gotta I might be something wrong with me. My point is, it's free and there's no obligation and you'll get to find out what you think of the Omni pod. without taking any risk. Just go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox when you use that link, that's how I'm the pod No, she came from here. So help me out. If you can hit the link, you can find it right there in the show notes for your podcast player for Juicebox podcast.com, where you can just type it in. Now in my opinion, no diabetes technology suite. I don't mean like s ui TE sweet, like a grouping of things. I'm I'm I think I had a stroke a couple minutes ago. But that's not going to stop me from telling you about the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor and how amazing I think it is. I'm looking right now at ardens blood sugar, it is literally 1130 here. And Arden's in bed, her blood sugar's 93 and stable. But about an hour and a half ago, she was falling, and I didn't expect it. But she was drifting down 105 96 a little diagonal Down Arrow, I could sort of tell by the pathway of the of the arrow. This wasn't going to stop. And Arden was you know, wanting to get a shower before bed and they said I think you just have to have just maybe 1012 carbs right here. I know that from experience. You know, and, and I know that hold on.

I'm not editing this at all. I just again I'm sorry. Anyway, I know from experience that the pitch of that arrow, that line was telling me about 10 or 12 carbs, you should took the meme. When we got our shower, kind of bottomed out around 72 and came back up to this 93 number I'm seeing right now instead, I was able to do that. Because of what I've learned from Arden's Dexcom, g six over the years from using Dexcom for years and years and years, I can just interpret that But my ability to interpret that line would be meaningless if that line wasn't there. Without that information, if Arden was just doing finger sticks alone, I never would have seen that drop. As a matter of fact, if we would have tested her right before that shower, I would have seen a blood sugar of 103. And thought boost is perfect go. But it wasn't Dexcom told us that. And they told us that in a way that helped us stop a low from ever happening, and no rebound high. Now, you might notice the music's not playing anymore. But I hit a little stride there and I wasn't gonna stop dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. let Dexcom know you came from the Juicebox Podcast. More importantly, go find out more about it and get yourself one if you can. Seriously, best advice I could possibly give you get an Dexcom yet it on the pod. And they're not sponsors of the show today, but get a Contour. Next One blood glucose meter two links are in the show notes. And at Juicebox podcast.com. Okay, well, luckily, the guy who recorded those ads is not the same guy that interviewed Jordan. So let's get back to it. What do you think this is gonna be for your life,

Jordan 16:12
I felt like a new person. I felt like I didn't really even know much. I had a really bad experience in the hospital, I actually had to learn how to use an insulin pen by myself with YouTube.

Scott Benner 16:27
They just were in the room and shut the door again.

Jordan 16:32
Yeah, the nurses didn't even know how to use an insulin pen, which made me very, very scared. So I was just like, you know what, just give me my pen and I'll figure it out. So figured that out on my own. Of course, my mother stayed in the hospital with me, she slept in my hospital room every single night. It's wonderful. She did not go home at all, she went home, maybe for an hour each day to shower. But that's about it. So I walked out of the hospital, like, I'm a whole new person, I'm going to have a whole new lifestyle. I am not going to be able to eat ice cream at 10 o'clock at night anymore. I'm not gonna be able to eat this, this and that. Um, but obviously, I can eat whatever I want. That was just my thought when I was leaving the hospital. So

Unknown Speaker 17:19
Wow. That's

Scott Benner 17:21
Yeah, that's sad. And but understandable. If they were like, Hey, here's the thing that will keep you alive. We don't know how to show you to use it. But you've got to figure it out. But now, but I think that's kind of that's inspiring, though. And I think it to me, speaks to what I think people can do about taking over their own care and why you know, on some level, why I think the podcast is so important. So right, so you're given an insulin pen, you know, nothing of it. And you're saying YouTube is where you learn how to use it.

Jordan 17:52
Yes, I looked up using an insulin pen on YouTube. And me and my mom watched a video together. I tried it. And I did it

Scott Benner 18:01
was that. That's really spectacular. And I think, a good indicator to anybody listening that, you know, you can't, you can't like forget you shouldn't you can't just sit back and say, I'm getting incomplete advice. I guess. This is my life. Now I'll have incomplete advice. Right, right.

Jordan 18:19
Yes. So definitely doable by yourself. Yeah. Go ahead.

Scott Benner 18:24
No, no, I was gonna say that, you know, initially said, I felt like a new person. And there was a moment. But there was a moment where I thought you were going to go down the road where you're like, I'm a new woman now. Like, like, like, you men. Yes. You meant everything about life. completely different. Day one starting over. Except, yeah, except you don't get to be a baby and feel your way through it for nine years. Right? Exactly. Completely frightening or did you feel supported by your family or what helped them.

Jordan 18:54
I was very, very, very supported by my family. friends came to see me at the hospital. My mom's friends came to see me at the hospital. My grandparents came all the time. My mother and father were always there. My boyfriend was always there. So I definitely had a lot of support. The only thing is, is my family doesn't really know much about type one diabetes. So when I first got diagnosed, we were all on the internet on Google searching. What is type one diabetes? What can we do to do anything that helps type one diabetes, and all this stuff? And going on the internet was probably not the best thing for me to do.

Scott Benner 19:40
Yeah. So I was gonna say, Did you find helpful advice or did you find people going, Oh, my God, everything sucks.

Jordan 19:47
I did find some helpful stuff. But obviously, I ran into like the complications and sort of scared myself. So that was the only bad thing that I sort of saw.

Scott Benner 20:00
That's a unfortunate downside of the I think the need of the internet to help right people is that you're going to find, you know, I say all the time like the internet's for like three things, right? It's email pornography and complaining. And so I don't really know that it's or anything else. And, and so you're, you know, people don't generally get online to be like, Hey, you know what's amazing in my life, my CGM. And here's right, like nobody takes the time to talk about things that are going great because you're hoping life goes great. You know, you, you get stuck on the things that aren't going well. And then there's so much bad information as your story kind of highlights, you know, imagine other people who didn't think to go to YouTube when the nurse at the hospital said, Hey, here's your insulin pen. Good luck. Yeah. You know, then they make their way to the next person who was in that situation, who says, This is what diabetes is, we're all screwed. And then they think, Oh, I'm screwed. And then that's the path they go down. Right. So it's really, um, it's inspiring to know that you found one way, it's sad to know that sometimes people bump into that other information.

Jordan 21:11
Yeah, I mean, I'm sort of happy, I sort of figured it out on my own. Because I am 25 years old. I'm not 12 years old, getting diagnosed. still a kid. So me figuring it out myself sort of made me think that I can do this on my own. This is doable, if I just put my head together and try and do this myself. So I think it was helpful in a way but obviously, it did talk at the beginning. So

Scott Benner 21:41
I believe that too, I believe that it's, yeah, it's something that if you have, you know, sort of the right entree into that you can work your way through with with a with a decent mindset and some luck, you know what I mean? Like you don't bump into some bump into some stuff, you've got, you know, insurance that will help you those sorts of things. So, that that, um, it does lead me to that idea. Like, you're 25 like, you're right on that precipice for like, Hey, get off your parent's insurance. Are you like a gainfully employed? 25 year old a US college students still are you just so I went?

Jordan 22:11
Yeah. So I'm still on my mother's insurance as of right now. Um, but obviously, I'm gonna need to find my own insurance. I am employed at four different places. I am a girl's soccer coach right now. I'm a girls lacrosse coach in the spring. So I work at a high school in my town. I actually went to that high school. I work at a insulation company. I work at champs sports, which is a sneaker store. And then I work at Red Rose pizzeria in Springfield, mass,

Scott Benner 22:46
I believe, I believe you're part of what they call the gig economy. Isn't that? Isn't that what they listen to? If you're like, I don't know, try to stay alive. But you know where people right? People are always looking for gigs. Like, they'll they'll right now. It's like, oh, the you know, unemployment is fantastic. Sure. Because someone like Jordan has five jobs making the unemployment rate for less open jobs because of Jordan, then there should be a lot, a lot of other people in that situation. So you've named a few jobs there. I'm not sure about the installation come? Is there an opportunity in there for you to get health insurance with one of them?

Jordan 23:20
Yes. So if I were to be full time at Red Rose, I would get health insurance through them. I'm only part time right now. I am full time at the insulation company. And they do provide BlueCross BlueShield. So I will be looking into that

Scott Benner 23:37
option when the time's right when you when you have to get off and go right to your parents. Which better insurance then?

Jordan 23:43
Yeah, yeah, they have helped New England and it's definitely helped a lot.

Unknown Speaker 23:47
No kidding.

Scott Benner 23:48
Well, it's just interesting that and let me ask you, do you feel like you know, your five jobs right now. So do you have a job of those five that you think I wish this was my forever job? And I'd like to do this, but I'm going to have to go towards that because of the insurance. Do you feel that pressure?

Jordan 24:07
Um, actually, no, I want to get into law enforcement. So I wanna Yeah, so none of these jobs I want to do forever.

Scott Benner 24:21
Okay. What Why? Why, like law enforcement? Can I ask?

Jordan 24:25
I yeah. So I sort of always wanted to be a police officer, ever since I was growing up. I really know why. I just feel as though I want to provide people with safety. I've always been sort of a leader. I played three sports throughout high school. I was always a captain and I would always look out for my teammates. So I was always that leader, that person that made sure everybody's safe, everybody's good to go. So

Scott Benner 24:59
that's actually one of the Steps To do that, then what do you have to? Do? I mean, the police academy, did you do go through college for that? Or is it

Jordan 25:07
you don't have to go to college to be a police officer. But I do have three and a half years of college experience. I just didn't end up getting my degree. I will be going back and getting it. But I just ran into some car insurance issues and issues that I had to start working to make money.

Scott Benner 25:29
So I thought you're gonna say just ran to a curb, but I heard that story already. So yeah, you did. Okay. Well, that's really that's a great thing. And so this is something you're going to be moving towards soon.

Jordan 25:41
Yeah, I actually applied to be a correctional officer. And I'm waiting to hear back from them. It's been quite a while I passed the physical exam to be a correctional officer back in July.

So I'm sort of getting impatient, but

Scott Benner 25:58
maybe a strongly worded email. Right. And the diabetes doesn't get in the way of the idea of being I mean, I know it doesn't. But I'm asking you, you don't you're not seeing any roadblocks.

Jordan 26:09
No, not at all. Yeah, I don't think diabetes stops anybody from doing anything really. So

Scott Benner 26:15
yeah, there's some there's been someone on in the past who's fighting for certain pilot's license for people and actually making real headway. But there were certain I think certain truck drivers, certain trucks, you couldn't drive in the past. I think that's gone now. And then certain certain pilot's license you couldn't hold for, and I don't know, the designations for the certain plates. It's probably passenger planes. But But I think they're even making real inroads in that. And actually, glucose sensing technology is a big part of why people are being able to or people are able to make headway there. Because they're able to well, you know, so that kind of leads me to do you still have that pen that the nurse doesn't know how to use?

Did you still have that pen that the nurse doesn't know how to use?

Jordan 27:12
No, I'm actually on the on the pod dash. Oh, yeah.

Scott Benner 27:18
I think you're the first person I've spoken to. Really? I think it may be true. Yeah.

Jordan 27:23
Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, I love it. So I started. Let's see, it's August. Now. I started the Omni pod in late June. Okay.

Scott Benner 27:35
And you began right away with dash like, so you've never used the, like the second generation PDM?

Jordan 27:41
Nope, just started the dash. Cool.

Scott Benner 27:43
That's excellent. Yeah. So you have basically a small cell phone in your pocket that you can give yourself in some way?

Jordan 27:49
I do. Yep. It's great. The only issue I do have with the dash is if I put it on my thighs, obviously, I sort of forget about it. So when I'm putting on my leggings, or putting on my jeans, I'll run into it. And sometimes it'll just pop off.

Scott Benner 28:06
Oh, okay. So with just with with your site in general, if you don't think about one, you're just you know, you'll get used to that eventually. I think that I think everyone who's had diabetes longer than you just said, Oh, yeah, that that happens. The beginning. Yeah. So you went to insulin pumping? Are you using a glucose sensor? Or no?

Jordan 28:24
I am. I'm on the dexcom. Look at you.

Scott Benner 28:28
Get you to do an ad right now. So when did you find the CGM? Did you find it before or after the pump?

Jordan 28:35
Yes, I found it after the pump. I was still pricking my finger back in July. So I'm very, very, very new to Dexcom. And I actually learned how to use it on my own. So I didn't even go to my endo. I open up the box, read the directions and did my first one on my own. So

Scott Benner 28:56
this is really interesting, because I see this online a lot where people are like, they sent me my stuff, but I'm supposed to wait for the trainer. I have a I haven't I have a you know, some setup with them six weeks from now. I'm like, wait, you know, wait six weeks. And, and then you know, you'll see somebody come into a thread and say, I should just go ahead and put it on or find a YouTube video. It's easy. And I don't disagree with that. It's easy. But some people feel very compelled to like no, they told me to wait. And they wait. Did someone tell you to wait? Or were you would was that not even an issue?

Jordan 29:27
My endo actually told me if I get the dexcom she believes that I will be able to do it myself. So she was like, if you feel comfortable with doing the Dexcom by yourself, definitely do it. If you want to make an appointment, I can make an appointment for you right now. But just do whatever you want to do. And I was like, You know what? I can probably just figure it out. And she was telling me how it sort of works and how I'm supposed to put it on my body. So I was like, You know what, yeah, I can do that just pretty much sounds like my pump.

Scott Benner 29:57
So your generation is fantastic. Because, seriously, because like, you know, just even like you're you're accustomed to things being an app, right? Like just one, you know, one razor thin sliver of light on your cell phone, right? That's, that's the thing that makes this do that. And, and the idea of, you know, going in just getting information from another person, and that's how you can figure something out. It's interesting, because those people I was talking about who seem scared are usually in their 30s. Like, they're usually a little older, they have a kid already. And they're like, Oh, no, there's rules. Someone said this. And this is what we do. I don't know, I don't know what Dexcom or Omnipod, or any of the companies actually say about that. Like, I don't know, if they're kind of bound by the FDA to say you have to have training. Or if your doctor saying No, go ahead. Is the okay to do you don't mean like,

Unknown Speaker 30:49
Yeah,

Scott Benner 30:51
something that's really so you didn't have any trouble though?

Jordan 30:54
Well, when I started the Omnipod, I remember them telling me not to use the Omnipod without the Omnipod trainer, which I actually went to my endos office, and I got five pump classes from my diabetes educator. Okay, so I didn't get an actual Omni pod trainer. It was just five classes with my diabetes educator. And that's pretty much the classes that I needed. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 31:23
That's cool. And you don't run any trouble. You weren't like, oh, gosh, this all went incredibly wrong. You weren't bleeding on the floor. It just all. Just like, you weren't bleeding out yelling, I should have waited for the trainer.

Jordan 31:36
No, thank God, that didn't happen.

Scott Benner 31:39
I actually don't think that could happen. But no, but that's just, uh, it's just, it's I like that. I like the idea of It's okay, so how have you found pumping versus shots.

Jordan 31:50
Um, I love it. I love the fact that I don't really, I'm not really aware of me getting insulin at all times of the day. It's just sort of how I used to be, you know, I didn't really have to think about it. Obviously, when I eat, it's a different story, I'll have to Pre-Bolus and all that. But it's nice to know that I'm getting insulin at all times a day,

Scott Benner 32:14
without having to stop and calculate and react and stuff like that. Right? I think you're just an interesting, you're just an interesting person to speak with. Because you're right in that sweet spot age wise to be able to easily accept technology. And you're just recently diagnosed, you don't know anything about the versions of diabetes that have come before pens. Right. You know, no CGM. You know, boiling your needles. Yeah. Boiling your Yeah. Just as a story to you, it's not a it's not a it's not a real part of this world. And do you feel like you understand your care?

Jordan 32:53
Yes, um, in the beginning, I was very, very, very scared. Obviously. I was worried. And I was like, Mom, like, you need to have me. You have to have my call. Like, I'm loud at all times. Like, I'm gonna call you if anything goes wrong. And obviously, she was like, Oh, yeah, definitely Call me if you need anything. And she actually just couldn't, she couldn't even wait for me to get a CGM. She was like, wait, so there's something that you can get for it monitors your blood sugar. And you can let me know when you're in dangerous ranges. I'm like, Yeah, she's like, Oh, my God, you need to get that right away. So she was super excited when I got my dexcom just because she has access to my graph and stuff. So she can look at my blood sugar, she can check up on me. And she definitely just needed that reassurance that I am. Okay, I'm going to be okay.

Scott Benner 33:50
So it's telling, obviously, about diabetes that at 25 your mother still feels the same way as a parent of a three year old? Yeah, yeah. Just, you know, yes. Stay in the house. And we'll, we'll, I'll just live here until it's over. Right.

Unknown Speaker 34:07
Right. There's no reason to leave.

Jordan 34:09
Right. I actually live in an apartment with my boyfriend. And we're actually in the same unit as my parents. So my parents are just upstairs. If I were to be anywhere else, I think my parents would be more worried about me, you know, because I'm just downstairs they can walk downstairs and I'm right there.

Scott Benner 34:29
Yeah. What borrow a hole through the floor and just jump in real quick if

Unknown Speaker 34:33
there you go. Yep.

Scott Benner 34:35
That's interesting. Hey, that. So you, you you moved out, but basically,

Unknown Speaker 34:41
that basically did it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 34:44
That's interesting. Yeah. How's the boyfriend taking the whole like, so did you live together when you were diagnosed?

Jordan 34:50
Yes, we did. We've lived together for about a year now. Gotcha. I'm a little over a year. I

Scott Benner 34:56
you know me like it. You know, like if you weren't living together He could have been like, Oh, what's that?

Unknown Speaker 35:02
Right? Yeah. I'll call you next week. And

Unknown Speaker 35:06
see you later.

Scott Benner 35:08
I'm assuming you're working more towards a more serious relationship if you're if you're together and living together, and yeah, do you have a feeling for how it impacted him at all?

Jordan 35:18
Yeah, he was very, very, very scared. I know for a fact, he saw me in the hospital and was like, wow, this is really an eye opener for me. And he was really, he was really great. took care of me. He would ask me what I can eat and what I can, what I feel comfortable with eating and he would make sure that I feel as comfortable as possible at all times. It's great. Um, even his parents came to visit me at the hospital. His parents are lovely. And they even provided support for me. So he was absolutely great.

Scott Benner 35:56
They tried it. They didn't like pull him aside and go, Hey, could we get one with a pancreas? That works? Great. Nice. Yeah. I've, I've heard stories before of there have been people on here who, who know that their partner's parents tried to dissuade them from being with them when they die.

Jordan 36:13
That is just so crazy to me. Yeah.

Scott Benner 36:15
And and vice versa, by the way, also just great stories like yours, where everybody's just like, it'll be okay. Well, I'll do it together. Like that kind of thing. Right. But yeah, it's definitely, uh, yeah, it's a mixed bag of the of the responses, you get that I would have to say more of positive than negative, to be perfectly honest. But yeah, still, it threw me off when the first time someone said that. It was like, wait a minute, your mother in law told your husband not to marry you? Yeah. That's crazy. Doesn't she know, that's the opposite of how that works. Your kids always do the opposite of they should have said I'm all for this. It'll be great. Okay. So, and I mean, go ahead. No, no, you.

Jordan 36:55
And I mean, I did have thoughts of me, obviously, I want to have kids, right. And I had thoughts of me ended up having a baby, and what the chances are of them, having diabetes and all of that stuff. And I asked my endo about it, she's like, Look, it's not promised that your kid's gonna have diabetes. And I wouldn't worry at this point. So I would come home. And I'd be like, oh, what if my kid's gonna have diabetes, I don't want my kid to go through this. And my wife was just like, just chill out. If we do have a child that has diabetes, you'll know how to take care of him. Just think about it that way, him or her? So just think about it that way. And I was like, You know what? You're right. I mean, I guess I will know how to take care of them.

Scott Benner 37:41
The perspective is interesting, because, and I referenced him a lot, because on this issue, because it really struck me when he said it, but as a former baseball player who's actually currently with the Phillies, as a manager, or coach, Sam fold, he's been on the show a couple of times said, Yeah, type one his whole life. And I asked him about that he's got four kids. And you could tell him his response, that the vibe of his response was, I'm fine. They'd be fine, too. Like, I live like, I'm a person, I live a life. This is me, there's nothing wrong with me, why would I care if that was them? And it was almost as if he was saying, and this is me inferring from his answer, but I felt like he was saying, to say that I wouldn't want you know, obviously, I don't want anybody to have any kind of roadblocks they don't need in life, but to say that I wouldn't have a kid because I didn't want that child to maybe have diabetes is like saying my life's not valid. Right? Right. And, and I was really touched by that when he said, I don't know that I went into it then. Because I was a little like, Sam folds on the podcast a little excited. But I know him much better now. And I just I go over that a lot. And I think that that I think that you shouldn't have a kid if you have diabetes until that's your answer. Because right i think that it may say more about how you feel about yourself than it would about I don't know maybe I'm wrong, but it's an interesting thing to think about.

Jordan 39:12
I definitely agree with you. I don't think you should have a child if you are thinking the worst for your child, you know, yeah, I think you should always be positive and always think your child is gonna end up better than you even ended up you know what I mean? So

Scott Benner 39:30
yeah, and I do think seriously for your for your own like idea of self confidence and what you think of yourself to them if you can, if you can't imagine a child that is a an image of you and feel good about that. I feel like that might be more about how you feel about what's going on with you than it is about the kid you know, so Exactly. I think you should find find a way to to, to see that that other way to see yourself in a way that is redeemable and worthy. worthy of being you know, photocopied and going on into the world. Right? Yeah, that's all. I just I never thought of having babies photocopying yourself until just now. Do people even photocopy anymore? Is that almost gone?

Unknown Speaker 40:13
It might be

Scott Benner 40:14
like, gosh, okay, so you live in weatherwise? Are you dead?

Jordan 40:19
No, no, no, my dog. Boy. Sorry.

Scott Benner 40:22
Sorry. I didn't know if I should stop the recording. I didn't want to be a witness to anything. Get me out of a court battle right now if the boyfriend just you know, came in the room and watch over the headless. Oh, crap. Let me get out of this. You live in one of the worst places in the world for weather in my opinion. So I got ya. Why did they put Why did they put that city so close to that ocean? I think it's a bad idea. What how close? How close are you to Boston Harbor in that in that part of the

Jordan 40:51
so to Boston, it takes about two hours to get to Boston. So I'm not anywhere near the ocean. But our winters are absolutely awful

Unknown Speaker 41:01
to heart. Terrible.

Scott Benner 41:02
No. My son was in Boston years ago working out in January for he was recruiting for baseball. And it rained all day. It was a horrendous day of rain, right? I mean, we got done. It was an indoor event. Obviously, we kept going back to our hotel. There's inches of water flowing across the ground. And you know, he's exhausted from his day and we go back up to the hotel room and he's like, I'm gonna take a shower, and then I'll just sit here for a little bit. I can get some to eat after that. Yeah, that's fine. So I'm talking to my wife while he's in the shower. And my wife's like, it's gonna snow where you are? And I'm like, No, it can't. Because there's two flowing inches of water on the ground. There's no way snow could and by the time I get off the phone with her, there's six inches of snow on the ground. And I was like, we live. This is the worst place in the world. This is.

Jordan 41:49
Yeah, that's definitely Massachusetts for you.

Scott Benner 41:52
Snow shouldn't be able to start forming on the ground when there's running water on the road. It's all on. Yeah. Something wrong with that. That whole thing should be a beach is what I'm saying.

Unknown Speaker 42:02
Yeah. Yep.

Scott Benner 42:04
Someone made a huge mistake building a building there for I don't know. Anyway, I'm sure it's lovely that people live there probably like Screw you. This is fantastic. But you cheated us out of the Super Bowl. So I hate you. But, but that's fine. I

Unknown Speaker 42:17
don't even I don't

Jordan 42:18
even not even a Patriots fan. I

Scott Benner 42:19
don't even care that much about that. It still sticks with me a little bit. So anyway. All right. Well, I think we've learned a lot about you. And I want to learn a lot about now kind of where you feel like you're headed. So so you're in it just in such an interesting time of your life for people to hear, I think for people with younger children, or maybe people who were diagnosed not in this kind of the sweetest spot of diabetes technology that we're in right now. So, right, you really don't feel any limitations. I mean, you said that you want to do something that's strenuous, and you know, you're gonna have a gun. So that's not like us. You're not like, Hey, I'll take a safe job. And I'll kind of step back from you know, the world a little bit. you've, you've seemed confident about the idea of having children. How are how is management going? So like, let's talk about that first. Are you honeymooning still by any chance?

Jordan 43:13
I am not.

Unknown Speaker 43:15
Did you know?

Jordan 43:16
I was Yeah. I was honeymooning for about a month. It was I would say it was like March. I was honeymooning. Um, but it was only for a very, very, very short time, fortunately. Okay.

Scott Benner 43:30
And so you've had you know, CGM, and and, and for about three months now or so. And do you base your management off that, like, how are you and I talking is one of the things you Google? Did it lead you to this?

Jordan 43:45
Um, I actually found you guys through Spotify. I listened to the podcast, or I listened to podcasts all the time.

I haven't listened to podcasts while I'm at work. I'm not supposed to. But

Scott Benner 43:59
that's fine. Doesn't matter. Right? It's gonna keep you out of your ears, right.

Jordan 44:06
There you go. So I was actually on Spotify. And me being newly diagnosed. I was like, you know, I'm gonna look to see if there's any diabetes podcasts. So I looked up that I found another podcast I didn't really like, I don't remember what it was called.

Scott Benner 44:23
If there's other diabetes by guests that you didn't like, please feel free to name it. Right. And I'm just kidding. No, yeah. Right. So but that's good. You found a couple and you listen through and you chose the one that was right for you. And yeah, that's it. And so what were you hoping to get out of it? Do you think when you started looking?

Jordan 44:38
Well, when I was newly diagnosed, I like I said, I didn't really have much knowledge about the whole diabetes thing. So I was like, I want to hear different stories I want to hear about if people went through the same thing that I did, or how people went about managing their diabetes. So I started looking You guys, and I think it was a story that a young girl was telling about her diagnosis. And I think it was either her her mom that was on the podcast. And I was like, Oh my god, like I can relate to some things they're talking about. And the information was just really helpful. Because I just didn't even know what to do.

Scott Benner 45:25
Right. So this podcast is now your YouTube video. Is that the vibe?

Jordan 45:29
Yeah, this podcast is definitely my go to podcast.

Scott Benner 45:33
I play but I assumed when you reached out, it was a softball question. I know, you're gonna say nice things. But no, I'm, that I'm joking about that. I am I yes, I am joking about that. I checked with myself to make sure I was joking about that. What I was, what I'm interested in is that idea that you can find, like what feels like big, really incredibly difficult to understand information that can seem smaller and digestible. If it's if it's delivered the right bite.

Unknown Speaker 46:03
Right, exactly.

Scott Benner 46:05
Right. And I'm glad that that's how it hit you because it is my intention. And you know, I don't always do what I need to do. So yeah, I guess in going on

Jordan 46:14
the going on the internet, you see all these big words that doctors use, and you don't really even know what they mean. So the internet just sort of scared me. And when I heard your podcast, you guys were just talking about everyday life. And you guys intertwined diabetes in it, you know what I mean? So I could understand you guys more than I could understand, understand the internet. So it was just sort of a comfort thing. I was like, Okay, this will be cool. I can listen to this, and I can get used to this whole diabetes thing.

Scott Benner 46:48
Is it exciting to think that you'll end up doing that for thousands of other people? By Yeah, very exciting. Yeah. I'm happy for you like you're like closing the loop. Or I shouldn't say that. You're coming full circle, I guess is the

Unknown Speaker 47:03
right. Yeah.

Scott Benner 47:06
I'm sorry. I'm as you're trying to talk about diabetes. There's four different people messaging me on different social media things about their stuff. And I'm like, it's vibrating under my leg to the point where I'm like, I should look maybe though, maybe there's a tornado coming and my phone is trying to tell me it's a turns out I don't live anywhere near where there's tornadoes, so it's fine.

Unknown Speaker 47:23
Yeah, you're from New Jersey, right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 47:25
there's really no tornadoes here. Cuz I'm okay. Yeah, good. Yeah, I'll be good. I just, you know, when your phone starts really buzzing, and you get that feeling like you're like, maybe something is happening. I should know. Yeah. I don't want to be the last one to know that the town's on fire. Right? I don't want to be the last one out of the town. It's probably just somebody disagreeing with me about something instead, you said this, and you're wrong.

Unknown Speaker 47:50
doing my best over here, it helped George a cut me a break. Right.

Scott Benner 47:54
Exactly. Well, no, I I'm, I think about your situation and how quickly you sort of matriculated through it. Because you're, you're in a really interesting spot right now, where you have stability in your life around diabetes, and it's and bigger ideas around your life in less than a year. Right. And that's incredibly exciting to me to think that you were able to go from feeling like a new person, which meant, you know, everything in my life is new and different and scary and raw, to be this comfortable person that you are now, eight months later. I'm just super excited for you about that.

Jordan 48:32
Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate that. And yeah, at the beginning, I definitely didn't think I would be at the point I am now. I definitely thought that I would mourn a little bit more than I did. And have some more grief. But I sort of with all the support that I had for my family. I felt as though I was going to be okay from the start. Obviously, I was sort of upset in the beginning. Obviously, I didn't want diabetes, but I had to take into consideration that this isn't going away ever. So I'm going to either have to deal with it, or I won't be living anymore. Right?

Scott Benner 49:13
Yeah. And I think that's actually an important step that concept of look this is here now. Right You know, I can't ignore it. I used to talk about it in the past about like, you know, getting a bill at the beginning of the month and right and not opening it That's stupid. Like it's

Unknown Speaker 49:29
Yeah, because it's still gonna be they're still

Scott Benner 49:30
in there like it you can't just ignore it like I mean you could could put like a deck of cards over top of it but it's still just the bill under a deck of cards. So Exactly. You just have to you have to just go Okay, this is it. I'll dive in. I'll make the best of it that I can and look and look what you did. You found so many good avenues for yourself that there wasn't a ton of bad and had you had you not look down those roads, you would have been stuck standing still imagining the worst Right. And that really is, I'll tell you, it's, I don't know if it sounds trite or Pollyanna or what, but I really think that worry is an incredible waste of imagination. Because you really are just making up things in your head when you're worrying. Yeah, you have no real not I mean, you know, like, like, don't get me wrong, you're in the room, there's zombies outside. It's fine. Go ahead and worry. But you know, don't sit in the world where there are no zombies and worry about when they're coming. Because, right, they're not real, you know. So it just is it happens to people. And I think some people are more genetically predisposed to that worry. And some people aren't, you know, as much. Yeah, I don't know if it breaks down gender lines, or if it breaks down age, or if your past experiences, I'm sure all these things have something to do with it. I know, I feel very, I have a real caregivers mentality, like I always had always had my whole life like I you know, it's just in a situation where my dad left my mom, when my brothers were little, my mom went to work, it was sort of my job, that kind of like in, you know, to me, like, you have that feeling of like, these people are counting on me. And yeah, and then you get married, you're like, oh, it'll all start over again. And then my wife and I had a situation where she just had a better job opportunity. So it's like, oh, I'll stay home with the baby. Oh, I'm still doing this caregiver thing. Like, you know, and now I, I feel like that towards the people listening to the podcast, which is, it's very fulfilling, and it's incredibly not fair. Some days, you know, like, there there are days when I when I'm talking to people that I don't know, because I can't really stand the idea of what happens if they don't get the information that they need. Right. So I it's my huge goal in mind that the podcast handle that. So I can just reach all those people without talking to them one at a time. Right? Because that's not going to be a valuable way for me to help anybody with IBS. things a little too long. And you're just get one when you're done, which is still incredibly It's amazing. Still, like, don't get me wrong, like the seat to talk to talk to somebody on a Wednesday, and have them send a graph that looks like a horror show. And then right on Friday morning, they're like, Oh, my God, everything's better. I'm like, Yeah, I mean, it's just started, but I know it feels better. I'm excited for you. And they're on a better path, then they're, they're sort of on their way, which is nice. Yeah. But I like the idea that it reached you like, even in such a crazy way, like Spotify. Like, I remember when the company that hosted my podcast is like you can get on Spotify. Now, if you want. I was like, I mean, do I care? And I was like, Alright, so like, there was a day that I spent doing stuff like back and stuff that you'll never know about the podcast, where I sat there and thought, I wonder if anybody will even listen this way. And like years later, I found you.

Jordan 52:55
It's very Yeah, very, I did. So excited. Definitely. It's definitely helped me just hearing all the stories and all of the advice

Scott Benner 53:05
that you guys sort of talked about, it's definitely very helpful. I'm so glad it's there anything that's gone horribly wrong, that you've learned from? Like, have you had any moments where you're like, wow, screwed that way up.

Jordan 53:18
I'm not really, um, I haven't really had a blood sugar that's gone above. Probably, like 300 300 definitely, like critical. Um, but obviously, me being new, I still get into the, like, low to hundreds. But I've haven't gotten to anywhere near 300, which is really, really good. And I'm still sort of I work out a lot. And I have a personal trainer. We do like CrossFit type workouts. So it's very hard for me to monitor my blood sugar and either do a Temp Basal rate, or if I'm lifting heavy weights, I actually don't do a Temp Basal rate at all because my blood sugar goes up. Yeah, so it was definitely hard in that aspect to get used to working out in different workouts do different things to my blood sugar, and so forth. So the deck schrems definitely helped me out with that. I guess.

Scott Benner 54:22
It would it would be very difficult without it for certain.

Unknown Speaker 54:25
Yes.

Scott Benner 54:26
Did you see just the other day we I put up an episode. It's a new pro tips episode about exercise.

Unknown Speaker 54:33
Oh, you did? I didn't even see it. Yeah. Okay,

Scott Benner 54:34
about all the things you were just talking about. And in way in depth with Jenny. So. Oh, awesome. I enjoy that. definitely

Unknown Speaker 54:40
have to listen to that one. Yeah.

Scott Benner 54:42
So what is um, so what sucks? I don't I didn't ask you if it was okay to if you don't want to share you. You absolutely can. But what does success look like? Like what is your agency you're shooting for? What kind of variability right with vigor, standard deviation, all that kind of stuff that Yeah,

Jordan 54:56
looking at? Well, when I was at the hospital, my age See, was that a 13.6? That's when I was in DK. Um, and then in, let's see, what did I see my endo? I think I saw my endo in June, early June. And my a one C was at a 6.4.

Scott Benner 55:17
Wow.

Jordan 55:18
Yeah, that's, that's, that's wonderful. So it was a huge turnaround. She looked at me and she was like, You don't know how good this is? I didn't really even like, know, because I didn't really know the whole concept of Avon see and what it should be what it shouldn't be. And she was just like, you cut your agency in half. And I was like, Okay, cool. And she was like, this is really really, really good, though. I was like, Okay, awesome. So I thought I was on the right track in managing it. Well, which I was.

Scott Benner 55:53
That's excellent. And then oh, what do you think the, like, if I told you, you can only give, I don't know, two or three ideas from the podcast to another person. What do you think you'd give them?

Unknown Speaker 56:07
Um,

Jordan 56:12
I mean, if I were to talk to someone with Type One Diabetes, actually, you know what? My college friend. She was a softball player. I was a lacrosse player in college. We were in the same year, same age. And we were very similar. I got along really well with her. And we stayed in touch after we left college. And she actually messaged me, I would say, two, three weeks after I was diagnosed, saying she was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes.

Scott Benner 56:47
That's random.

Jordan 56:49
Yeah. So weird. so crazy. But yeah, she was diagnosed. And I actually told her about this podcast. I was like, Do you listen to podcasts? She's like, No, I don't really listen to podcasts that often. And I was like, well, there's this one diabetes podcast that really helped me. So I told her about it. And I was like, they have doctors on the episode that talked about diabetes and advice and all that stuff. And I was like, they literally cover everything with life, diabetes, everything. And I told her, this podcast isn't really like a diabetes overload. You guys don't like, talk about diabetes, the whole hour of the episodes, you know what I mean? Like, you guys get off into different topics, and you know, sort of overload diabetes, you know,

Scott Benner 57:44
oh, I appreciate that. Because I, I was very early on in the beginning, I was like, how I mean, how could this like sustain? Like, like, how could How could I? I thought about myself, like, would I, I always kind of tell people, like you could have the secret of life. And if you if you tell it the wrong way, or your audio is bad, people won't listen, you know, they're gonna be like, I'm not listening through static to find out the secret to life. You know, I am not going to listen to you know, and, you know, I've got a couple reviews I think would disagree with me, but like inane banter that goes on forever, that's about nothing. You know, like, I think that this should be about something, it should be valuable. And it should be entertaining, and it should be light. Because, because I could sit down and have a different conversation with you right now. That's super serious. And I would, you know, I mean, I don't know how you'd get through six or seven minutes of that before you you know, as a person listening, you'd think I already live this life. I don't need to be right. I don't need to be hit with it. It'd be like if I was depressed, and I let somebody pour a cup of depression over my head, you know, like, I don't need more. Thank you got plenty right here. Right. I just think the way you described it, like I was hoping you might say like, Oh, I tell people like you know, better to stop below than be higher or something like that. But just your the way you characterize the show was so nice. I was like a little misty. I thought I I can't even speak about it that like if you asked me to describe the show to you. I wouldn't have done as such a complete and loving job is you did. I don't think I could speak about the podcast the way you just did.

Jordan 59:18
Well, I do love it. So I appreciate that.

Scott Benner 59:22
But yeah, so all right, we have a couple of minutes left. You're gonna be the perfect person to ask this question of, okay, I've never said this on the podcast before it comes up in my personal life all the time. And I'm and whoever wrote the review that called me both egotistical and elitist. That hurt. I don't feel elitist at all. I do feel a little egotistical sometimes. But

Jordan 59:46
everybody can. Yeah,

Scott Benner 59:47
I guess I okay. But fair enough. It's someone's feelings. But I'm trying to make a fun thing here for a second. So, in my private life, when I speak to people who listen to the podcast privately, they are Often starstruck in a way that trust me, completely baffles me. Because I don't obviously see that about myself in any way. Right? It baffles more my family. So if I'm on the phone with someone, and you can kind of hear their voice come through, I look over and my wife's eyes have rolled straight up the back of her head. They're down by her ass now they've rolled so far around, you know, and, and she's just like, why are people excited to talk to you? Like, I don't know, just let them have their feelings. You know? So are you. Is it exciting to be on this podcast?

Jordan 1:00:39
Oh, yeah, it's definitely exciting. When we first began the call, it was kind of weird. Like you saying my name, you know, like you talking to me? Because I usually hear you talking to other people. I usually listen to you saying other people's names. But now that you're talking to me, it's like a whole new story.

Scott Benner 1:00:58
It's it's very interesting to me, like you should be on my side of it. Where I'm like, sad for you that you feel that? No, I'm not sad. It's very nice. First of all, but But um, do you in your personal life ever speak to me out loud?

Jordan 1:01:13
I'm not really know, I think

Scott Benner 1:01:16
that shows real stability. Because a lot of people say I talked to you in my living room or in my car. And I'm thinking, I don't know that that's something you'd want to be sharing with other people. But

Jordan 1:01:26
But I understand yours. I mean, I just love listening. I don't know there's something about like your voice that's like calming, you know. Thank you. Um, so I do like listening to you. Do you

Scott Benner 1:01:40
think I think you have a lot of helpful things? Do you think I'm working too hard on this diabetes thing? Should I be doing one of those? Um, soothing podcasts instead? What are those called? Do you know what they're called?

Jordan 1:01:50
Yeah, the I know, you're talking about, um, like the relaxation

Scott Benner 1:01:54
capital word for it, though. Hold on, we're going to get we've got Google, you figured out how to use it in some time. I can't figure out what this is. All right. Come on. How is it not? It's like, Are people listening right now are like idiots this,

Jordan 1:02:09
but yeah, I don't. I know. I can't even think of it.

Scott Benner 1:02:13
This is so absurd. We had a real nice moment here. Like, I saw a person on television the other day, and it was their job. Oh, my God, it's right. It's right on the tip of my tongue. It's not an S. Oh, my God, this is terrible. msnbc came up and I typed that mess. That's not helpful. Google. Help Jesus. Figure it out. My kids would know. Because they're Yeah. Right. But I could maybe do that. I could maybe just be like one of those people. It's like, Jordan, it's time to go to bed. Close your dream. Breathe deeply. Well, those things get mad downloads. And then I don't have to know anything about diabetes to do those. Oh, yeah. So you've, it's really super interesting to me, because this podcast has been up since the beginning the very beginning of 2015. And we're talking now in the middle of 2019. And when you refer to the podcast, you say you guys, so do you think do you think of Jenny, when you're saying that? Are you thinking of like a royal? Like we like the idea of like an entity on the other side of your earbuds? How did you think I sort of

Jordan 1:03:25
Yeah, I sort of think of you and Gemini as like a Power Team. Because I do listen to those a lot just because I do want to hear her insight. Of course, just because I'm so new. So I definitely want to hear like a doctor's perspective of everything that I'm thinking about. But obviously, I still want to hear you talking with her and you relating actual real life to the medical field. So

Scott Benner 1:03:51
I have this soothing voice, by the way, just for clarity, right? I know you mean this, but Jenny is a certified diabetes educator. She's not a doctor. Okay. Yeah. And she's, you know, she has diabetes has had it for a very long time. She's a certified nutritionist. She's got a whole bunch of things. She's like, you know, went to school for Yeah, that's sort of like my diabetes educator. She's a nutritionist. She has cooking classes at the Medical Center I go to and stuff. So that's cool. Exactly. Like my diabetes educator, my heart. I'm so happy that I met Jenny because she and I think about diabetes. So similarly, but yet when we speak about it, the words are all different. And so I think we're a really good blend. You know, when we

Unknown Speaker 1:04:33
Yeah, you guys definitely are.

Scott Benner 1:04:34
Yep. I appreciate that. I appreciate so much about this. That it's, uh, it wouldn't be it would take me another hour to tell you exactly how much I appreciate it. But uh,

Jordan 1:04:44
Oh, my God. I appreciate being on here. So,

Scott Benner 1:04:47
thank you. If we say appreciate one more time, we'll have to name the podcast. No, Jordan Scott. Appreciate each other. And Jenny, right. All right. So we're done. Now. I'm so I don't want to curse because I'd like to try to leave this in. But I'm so pissed that I can't think of the word for I know you'll think about it later today and it'll come up but

Unknown Speaker 1:05:11
doesn't help us now. Join me now right now

Scott Benner 1:05:14
we're recording this is what's real. The real world doesn't exist when this microphone goes off. Okay, because no one can hear it. Damn it. No joking about that. So I'll tell you. I'm gonna give a minute. Yeah, very cool. Arden met Tom Holland this past weekend. Oh my god. Super excited. Arden was 15 year old Arden who lobbied her orthodontist to get her braces off three weeks early so that she can meet Tom Holland without her brace My God. Got that accomplished. decided that the ombre she had from when she was little made her look young went back had the had the fake color, stripped out of her hair to go back to her natural color was, you know, three or four times went back and forth. I'm just gonna wear a spider man shirt. No, I'm gonna wear a nice outfit. I want to look good. My picture one of the fat. I mean, all right. She goes, I might have to have her come on and tell us she will never I can never get her to come on the podcast, but maybe she would love that. I asked her and she's like, No, she did consider She's a friend who has type one. And I think maybe he wants to do it with her sometime. So maybe I'll just maybe one day I'll put them in front of microphones and and let them talk to each other. I won't even be in the room. We'll see what happens. There you go. But but so she goes in she's got this big plan. Now keep clear that there are thousands of girls my daughter's age at this thing. Who I believe all think that with the 30 seconds they're going to have with Tom has their pictures taken. He will marry them. Right right. Like I believe that teenage girl I'm pretty sure they all are like she's told me recently still. It's been days. She's like, I got Russia now. They're so fast. It's unfair to Tom he won't know how great I am. And he didn't get to know me and I was like, yeah, so she goes in with this big plan. She wants to she wants to tell him that her and her friend who are there have a bet that they'd like her to be able to remember his name from the time the pictures taken two hours later when they'll get to meet him for like a signature and autograph on this picture. And so Arden gets her friend goes first does like some like handshake the Tom Holland does that. He had perfected my daughter's like I was gonna try the handshake can't do that. Now. So to now Arden's like she's reached. She's got I'll tell him definitely tell him about the bat. She gets so starstruck, just doesn't come out. And she starts telling you about like, my friend, I have a bet that you can remember our names, and he's like, Oh, I'm not gonna be able to remember your name. And she's like, well, then as the security people, they she's already taking the photo, or shoving her through to the other side, because poor guys gonna be taking pictures for you know, ever. she yells. Remember that? I'm a diabetic.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:51
Oh, that she gets outside. And she goes, awesome. Why did I say that?

Scott Benner 1:07:58
And I said, I don't know. Why did you say that? Just I was just trying to say something I thought would be memorable for the next time I saw him. Oh, the whole day. She's just like, why did I say that? But not that she cares that she has diabetes? She said, She's just like, why didn't I just say like, my name were anything.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:15
Right? I bet he'll remember her though.

Scott Benner 1:08:17
Well, then she so made herself uncomfortable about it through the rest of the day, that when she went to get the signature, I'm like, are you gonna say hey, I'm the crazy person who yelled, I'm a diabetic.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:27
I'm the crazy diabetic. And

Scott Benner 1:08:29
she goes, You know, I don't think it's gonna be good. If I remind him of that. I was like, probably not. They're probably looking for you right now to kick you out of here, you know. And so she just kind of quietly went by. And she's like, the worst part of this is that because I was busy, like, trying to remember what to say, I didn't hug him. And I was like, Oh, so she's getting her autograph. And he's like, Hey, where are you from? And she's telling him and everything. And he's like, well, thanks for calling. And I don't know what else they said. And then she just goes, can I get a hug? And? And he's like, Yeah, sure. And he like, gets up and leans over the table and hugs her. And then we got outside of the thing. And I looked at it as like, she's gonna be happy for like a year. Like she was thrilled to see Spider Man. It's hard. Oh,

Jordan 1:09:09
my God. Yeah. That is so cool.

Scott Benner 1:09:13
It was But anyway, if you need people to remember you, and you just want to scream at them. I'm a diabetic. Maybe that will.

Jordan 1:09:20
Yeah, I will remember that. And it's new to me, too. So it's like, it's new news to me. So I'm just gonna yell it out.

Scott Benner 1:09:27
You'll be super, super excited. I just was so in the end, I'm telling you the story because I just it was it was just I was very proud that whatever my wife and I have done over the last couple of years, that she wasn't in any way, like, obstructed by saying out loud in front of what really was throngs of people. I have diabetes. Like she just she was not put off by it at all. And I just hope, I hope, I hope most people can live like that, like in a way Yeah. They're just not right. You know, they're not. They're not ashamed.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:03
So right,

Scott Benner 1:10:04
Jordan, I thank you very much. I am going to jump in the shower, and then come back and record an episode with Jenny.

Jordan 1:10:12
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Really

Scott Benner 1:10:15
appreciate you being on Take care.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:17
Take care. Nice to meet you as well.

Scott Benner 1:10:22
Hey, huge thanks to Jordan for coming on the show and doing such a great job telling her story. Thanks also to Dexcom and Omni pod for sponsoring this episode of the Juicebox Podcast, please go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box. And dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to learn more about the sponsors. Also, a s m r is what I was thinking of just a few moments ago in the recording. It stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. And there are these recordings mostly on YouTube, where people either whisper or like scratch their nails on things like I don't know all about it. But I'm telling you, it's huge. But I'm not whispering into this microphone. I think it would just be weird if I was like,

Unknown Speaker 1:11:20
Oh,

Scott Benner 1:11:26
I'd like you to relax so you can sleep? I don't think that would be a good use of my time. Or should I be like a deep voice? ASMR? No, that's how it works. I can't just be like, hello, how are anyway, obviously I wouldn't know what to say. This has gone on long enough, don't you think? Anyway, ASMR is what I was trying to think of. It's sort of meaningless, but you know.

Okay, that's all I got for you. It's now 1145. And I need to go to sleep. I genuinely Hope you enjoyed this episode of the podcast as much as I enjoyed making it, I really had a good time talking to Jordan. Thank you so much for listening to the show. And if you're still listening now you must be a huge fan. So this is why I put this information right here. I've launched a webpage called juice box docs.com. It's juicebox D o c s juicebox docs.com. The goal of that is to create a list of endocrinologist and diabetes educators, people who listeners of the show are using it and a lot of trying to put together a list of agile, smart, tech friendly, savvy juicebox friendly kinds of doctors because I get a lot of requests from people about you know a doctor in this area or this area. So if you've got one of those great Doc's send me an email with all the information so go to juicebox Doc's dot com First, see the information I'm looking for. Click on the link, send me your doc, and we'll put them in but only if they're great. They come great. If they're not great. We don't want to share interesting and if you need a great doctor, endocrinologist, certified diabetes educator etc. Check out juicebox Doc's calm. Also, I want to thank Alan, who told me that when I'm talking about diabetes, pro tip calm. Sometimes it sounds like there's an S on the end and there's not. He's diabetes pro tip calm. That's a webpage where all the diabetes pro tip episodes are collected in one place for easy listening and sharing. Thank you very much Alan for sending me that note. Everybody, have a great day. I will see you soon.

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