#248 Meaningful Connections
Debra is the Wizard of Positive…
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello and welcome to Episode 240 248. Wow, is that right? may look. Hello and welcome to Episode 248 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by Omni pod Dexcom and dancing for diabetes, you can go to my Omni pod comm forward slash juice box dancing the number for diabetes.com or dexcom.com forward slash juice box to learn more. Well, this doesn't happen very often, but I'm giving you an episode on the day it was recorded. It's not with like a company like not like newsworthy, time sensitive stuff. This episode is with Deborah. And Deborah has a daughter with Type One Diabetes, a son who has autism, and a father who has Alzheimer's. When Debra wrote me to tell me about her positive attitude. I thought I want to find out more about that. And then she came on today and if this is perfect, so we've been talking about management for a while and hearing people's diabetes stories. Let's hear something upbeat. Something that's still helpful about living with type one, but at the same time, maybe not. So Management Center. Let's call this episode like you know that sorbet you get before dinner to cleanse your palate. And then we'll jump right back into more diabetes pro tips with Jenny. And people's stories that are a little more diabetes centric. Not that this isn't. But this conversation just I don't know. It was really kind of beautiful. I really enjoyed it. I felt like I was in therapy. But my therapist was a friend. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And always consult a physician before becoming bold with insulin or making any changes
Unknown Speaker 1:45
to your health
Deborah 1:46
care plan. I'm actually at Rutgers right now.
Unknown Speaker 1:52
Are you really what are you doing there?
Deborah 1:54
I dropped Juliet off at the is through Camp ninjetta. It's like a it's like a day camp. Yeah, for for diabetes, or type one. And I actually went to I went to you know, I graduated from so I always get very nostalgic being here. But she's at the camp right now. So I'm just, you know, I'm going to I'm going to hang out today round this. Yeah, like just kind of walk through the old, old classes. And you know, I mean, after we talk, I'm going to go to my favorite Thai place in Highland Park. That's excellent. Good for Yeah, right. Okay, head I'm sorry.
Scott Benner 2:29
No, don't be sorry. My son has a played baseball at Rutgers a number of times. So I'm familiar with the area right there.
Deborah 2:36
Yeah, well, I met Yeah, I mean, Rutgers. I don't know. I love it here. My husband went here to we both went here and I'm right in front of Amman, Douglas campus right now. But um, I don't know if you're familiar. It's like by Douglas. It's just so pretty here. But it just brings back a lot of a lot of memories.
Scott Benner 2:56
my niece's. My niece is an incoming Junior, I think at Rutgers.
Deborah 3:00
Oh, at Rutgers. Oh, I think it's such a great, like even when, like it's I loved, loved it. I loved I loved school here. I hated high hated High School of school. But loved love college. Like every you know, everyone was different and, and it was liberating.
Scott Benner 3:21
When is the last time you went to dancing for diabetes.com? Or check them out on Instagram or Facebook? If you haven't done in a while, I think now's the time. Unless you're driving and then wait. I mean, finish the podcast because it's gonna get really cool. And like in depth, and I mean, you just gonna love depper by the time this is over and her stories about her father and kids, it's, it's all incredibly heartwarming. But then have your heart rewarmed later today dancing for diabetes.com we're on their Facebook page, or their Instagram account. That's all I got for you.
Deborah 3:59
My name is Deborah. And I have a little girl with type one. And I'm really grateful to be on this. This podcast.
Scott Benner 4:08
Oh, thank you. Your email caught my attention. Because it was just it was it was like my father has this. My daughter has this my son, I was like, wow, like, and then at the end you're like and I have a really good like, you know, overall outlook. And I said, well that that I want to hear about so tell me tell me a little bit about your your daughter's diagnosis. How old was she? How long ago was it?
Deborah 4:33
Well, so she she was just diagnosed a year ago. But Juliet was diagnosed a year ago. He we were actually in Princeton, and I took the kids to see the Wizard of Oz. And she got up four times to pay. And I actually got a little annoyed with her. I thought she was just like bored. And I tend to stay I feel terrible. But I actually like Juliet. I know you're bored. But you know your brother and I are watching this. And she's like, no, I really Have to go. And, and, and she really was going, but then I thought, you know, maybe she's got a bladder infection, you know, so I said, is it doesn't hurt? And she's like, No, not at all. And so that was like the first my first moment of awareness and then over the next couple of weeks, you know, she was just drinking a lot and eating a lot and I, so I took her, I took her to the, to the doctor, for what I thought was maybe a urinary tract infection, but I really wasn't worried because healthy and happy and frozen, eating and just doing very well. Yeah, just exactly. just just just paying a little extra and I thought, okay, it's June it's hot out. But, you know, long story short, she eaten the cup, and the doctor walked in. He sent us to the emergency room. And it was like a it was like a kind of like a moment like, like a like her lips were moving. But I just, you know, I you know, I it was it was very bizarre.
Scott Benner 6:05
It's like a movie, right? Like, everything sort of goes blank and you hear kind of a deafening ringing in your ears and nothing's quite getting through to your brain. And yeah, you're thinking I just thought she had to pay. That's weird. Yeah. Now there's this much larger thing. I hope you understand that. Even though you didn't say it. Deborah, you've already named this episode because I'm pretty close to going with.
I'm pretty close to going with she was off to take a wizard.
Unknown Speaker 6:39
I love it. I love it
Scott Benner 6:40
as you were saying it. Like there's a five year old little boy inside of me trying not to giggle through what you were talking. I was like, oh my god. During the Wizard of Oz, why are we
Deborah 6:50
beautiful. I love it. I love it. Oh, that's that's so that's great. That's so great. I love it.
Scott Benner 6:56
So it knocks you over I imagine Did you you call your husband right away? You just go to the ER?
Deborah 7:01
Yeah, no, I did. I did. We were admitted. next four days. And it's like, we had a whole learn a whole new language. I actually handled it very well initially. No, I, my husband, was he you know, he, it was harder for him. I feel like for me, it came later, like, three months or even two months later, that's when it kind of hit me. And I'm like, wow, this is hard. Yeah, this is this is really overwhelming. Because I you know, I had mentioned my son has autism. And that, that that's, that's been that's been to me, they're they're both very difficult just in different ways. You know, I'm such a connector, what what makes life worth living to me is the connections that that you make with people and you know, meaningful connections. And so it's a little harder to connect with my son even though he's you know, considered highly functioning very verbal. You know, I mean, he's, you would love him. He's very, very quirky he has, he's obsessed with air conditioners, drains, vents, garbage disposals, but it's hard to connect with him, like emotionally, you know, he's and so that's, that's that. That's been very hard for. But in the same breath, also my greatest teacher, and so is Juliet. And so is my dad. And it sounds so cliche ish. But there really are silver linings in, you know, to every cloud there. And it sounds like it sounds very cliche ish. But I do think that there's, there's beauty in pain.
Scott Benner 8:32
It's I don't think it's cliched at all, to think that more difficult existences open up perspective on things that people who don't run into those problems, you know, don't they don't get to see those things. And there's little moments and teachable ideas and things that kind of hit you like, Wow, I can't believe I didn't notice this about the world before. And it does open up, you know, one side gets, doesn't get closed off, it gets maybe slowed down, or it's not exactly what you want it to be. It's almost like you know, your TV was not the brightness all the way up. And but then all this other stuff opens up. And if you allow them all to blend together, you end up with more than you would have had.
Deborah 9:15
You're so right. And I think if someone were to say to me, you know, 15 years ago, before I was married and had kids, if they've, they're gonna say you're gonna have a father with all time or son with autism, a daughter with type one I probably, you know, would not have had children, I probably would have taken a different path, but I'm so glad I did. I'm so glad I did. I did have you know, like I didn't know like, because life is is it's richer, and it's more meaningful. You know? Like, I'm glad that no one told me that because it really is richer.
Scott Benner 9:48
Again, perspective, the EU back then would have known what the EU now knows and you would have made the best decision you could have at the moment it would have in your you know, in your retrospective Look, it would have been wrong, you know, right. I get it. And at the same time, I would tell you that I thought we were probably going to have three kids until Arden was diagnosed and it slowed us down. You know, like it was hard to, in those, you know, initial years, it was, you know, we were so overwhelming, I didn't have a, you know, I didn't have anywhere to go to find out about all the things that were going wrong, we just, they'd go wrong over and over and over again. And you just beat your head against the wall, trying to figure out how to fix it. And the tech, the technology was terrible, then and then not terrible, but it was a meter and like, you know, needles, so you were just like, let's see what we got here with this.
Deborah 10:38
I know. And I and I know that you hear this all the time. But I do want to thank you, because you're you're really doing something wonderful for the community. And, you know, you're really making type one, not as scary. And, you know, you you have found this method, and you have well, you have found ways in technology, your your, you know, really paving the way to make this more manageable. And just, you know, so I, you know, I really appreciate what you're what you're doing. I know you hear this a lot, but it's very good. You're you're making a difference, you know, like you really are,
Scott Benner 11:12
I can't tell you that. hearing it over and over again. It doesn't get old. And I don't mean from my perspective, I mean, because, you know, I was You caught me on a day where I was doing sort of paperwork this morning, and I'm corresponding with different people. And one of them is the initial person who, at Omni pod who heard my pitch about, you know, this is what I want to do with this podcast, and but I need you, I need you to support it before it has any listeners and, and you know, I need you to put ads on it when I can't promise anybody's gonna hear them. But here's what I want to do. And here's what I think it can do. And I was commiserating with her because we were i'd shared a note from one of you guys with her. And I told her I was like, Look, this is you did this as much as anyone else, you know, like, You're the one who after I had made that pitch to every person at every pharma company I'd ever bumped into. And if that person lost their job, and somebody else got hired, I'd find that person and pitch them again, over and over and over again, the person or the person that on the pod that heard me was the third person in a decade to hold that job. And they finally heard me and I was like, here's what I think I can do with this podcast. And, and that it worked is amazing. But as I was writing or the note, and I told her how many people downloaded the podcast in the first 12 months of the show. And then I shared with her that in the month we're in now four times as many people have that have downloaded the show this month, as did the first year.
Unknown Speaker 12:46
Wow, that's incredible. I was like,
Scott Benner 12:48
I think we're on like, a precipice here. Like, I think we can blow this up to the point where this doesn't just reach. You know, the people who listen to podcasts and those people that they talk to, like, I think I could make this bigger. You know what I mean? Like so, I'm really excited. I really
Deborah 13:04
Oh, no, no, no, I'm sorry, I interrupted you. No, no, no, I
Scott Benner 13:08
believe in the next couple of years if I can get this to the point where people have access to it if they want it earlier on in their diagnosis, and really try to shorten the painful part.
Deborah 13:20
That's That's incredible. And it you know, it takes a village and amazing when you have a group of people that come together for a cause I've seen it and I'm living it you know, I really believe in the in the power of our intentions and our thoughts. So that's that's, that's really beautiful.
Scott Benner 13:37
88% of surveyed on the pod users agree that the Omni pod to boost insulin pump makes living with diabetes easier. I have not been surveyed, but add me to that list. Make it 88% of users and 100% of Scott. But you're gonna want to know why I say that. Well, it all starts with the company, right? It's a well run company. So my customer service experiences are good. I get product when I need it. It's not a problem. And then from there, we're talking about putting the pump on filling it. inserting it it's easy, it's quick, really quick, like I can pitstop a pod and like a minute and a half middle of the night. It's easy. Fill the syringe fill the pot, stick it on push a button self insert done from there bolusing Temp Basal is everything you do with your insulin pump is simple, nice user interface on the PDM screen. Easy. I don't have to carry around anything with me right my daughter's not strapped to up insulin pump but they don't. My daughter is not strapped to an insulin pump at the end of a bunch of tubing. That is easy. I can swim with it. I don't have to take it off to take a shower a bath. Easy, easy, easy. And then when it's time to change it again. We're back where we started. Add an E Fill an insertion process, those 88% or 100%, right? The only thing left for you to do is find out if I'm telling the truth. And that's easy to do. Because Omni pod offers a free, no obligation demo, go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box, fill in the tiniest bit of information. And Omni pod will send the demo pod right to your house. Deborah, I couldn't agree with you more. I'm, I'm watching it, I'm watching it now. While you and I record this, where people will download the podcast then downloaded it in the first month it was out. And incredible. So cool. And the notes I got a note this morning on Facebook, I, I now have a I have a forcefield around my emotions when I read your notes, because I just I can't cry all the time all day long. I mean, so I just, I just read, like, that's really cool. I make sure to remember that this is a really new and positive experience for the person who's writing it. And I tried so hard not to just be blazor when I like I don't want to just be like, Hey, good job, you're done. Good. You know, keep going. Yeah, by using the tools that's going to work because it's the truth. Just keep going, I'll be fine. But
Deborah 16:13
no, and that's very hard. It takes a very special person to like, I'm not on on an idea I was years ago. Um, I have mixed emotions, you know, I see how credible it could be. It's just, I, I just get I get very like over what like, like you said, I you know, you want to respond. Art, you know, you want to put your heart into your responses. You don't want it to be just you know, but you can't possibly, and you have hundreds of thousands of people, you know, writing to, you know, it's it's very hard to find that balance, I
Scott Benner 16:46
guess it's there. It's difficult to like if you're if you're driving, I don't know, if you're taking a trip, and you're and you have a rope and you can pull people out of holes. But every quarter of a mile someone's in a hole there at some point. There's one person who you drive by and you go, you know what I'll call 911 for that one, because I can't stop for each one of you on never get to the end.
Deborah 17:09
Oh, absolutely. But
Scott Benner 17:10
I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not supposed to get to the end. Maybe. Maybe I'm supposed to stop at every person.
Unknown Speaker 17:17
Yeah, yeah,
Scott Benner 17:18
yeah. Maybe that's your destination. Maybe it's true. You know what I mean? So as long as I'm growing?
Deborah 17:24
Yeah, I have a magnet on my fridge. Because it's not about the destination. It's the journey, you know, to get there. Yeah. So that's, that's really wow, that's nice. Yeah, cuz I really think every person we meet and every experience we have, whether it's, quote unquote, positive or negative is, is the teacher. You know, like, I spent many years like, even in college, I put this comparative religion class, which was fascinating philosophy. I ended up studying psychology, but I found that I, you know, I was searching for like a guru. Oh, and after being faced with all these struggles, I kind of realized life is is the guru. Like every you know, autism is my teacher diabetes is my teacher, all timers, like life is our life is the teacher, every person, every experience, every you know, and then there's days where you just don't want to do it. There's days where you just you just want to, you know, you just, you just get depressed and like, I write I break I you know, and that's that's fine, too.
Scott Benner 18:21
You're just trying to live your life you don't every, every day doesn't need to be a learning experience.
Unknown Speaker 18:26
Right? Right. Exactly. And that's really
Scott Benner 18:28
what you're talking about really is the goal of the podcast is to get the the tools, the ideas, so just commonplace in your life, right? So that something happens and you just do a thing. You don't have to sit around for 15 minutes, like staring at the wall thinking like, what do I do about this blood sugar? You You want to get to the point where you look at that data, you see the experience that's happening around you with the food or what's going on, and you just go Oh, you know what, this is a Temp Basal increase. I have to do it right here. And you trust it and you do it and it works and the tools work? Yeah, I mean, like when you see a nail that needs to be hammered in. If you've got a toolbox in front of you, and you don't know to pick up the hammer, you could make yourself crazy wondering like, Is it the pliers that does it? Is it the screwdriver, like what am I gonna do, but when you can just look down, see nail grab hammer, bang, bang, bang, it's done and never think about it. That's where I'm trying to get everybody with a diabetes.
Deborah 19:18
Yes. And you and you and you're doing it for shared experiences and your own experience. You know, these podcasts do pave the way to an easier transition and experience. And you know, so I mean, I'm always sharing and sharing you diagnose I actually shared you in Wegmans the other day with a woman add her daughter has diabetes for five years. And she got very, very low and then she ate all this like a whole bunch of candy. And then he's like, oh, now she's going to be 300. I'm like, Well, why don't you just hit a Temp Basal. Like, what is that? I'm like, Oh, I'm like, Well, first of all, have you ever listened to the you know, Scott's podcast, then? No. And and now she's upset. Now she's been listening. She's like, this is amazing. And I'm so yeah, no, it's it's wonderful. Deborah
Scott Benner 20:06
had you on with the intention of telling other people how to be happy not not to make me happy, but it's going well, though. I mean, I grew six inches since you and I started talking.
Deborah 20:18
Buddy, my employer, you know, because I, I see the beauty in people and I like to share that. And my employer the other day, she's like, babe, I'm a six, you're making me out to be a 10. I'm an I'm a six. I know, I do have to kind of like, I know, I'm like, I definitely. I love to read love. And, you know, and see, you know, share with people that the good but I'm just a little,
Scott Benner 20:39
it's not too much. It's not too much. Trust me. It's not too much. I just at some point, someone's gonna be listening. Be like, Listen, he's probably a bad person in other parts of life. Like, let's let it go. Oh,
Deborah 20:51
we have our shadows.
Scott Benner 20:53
I had my moments, but I feel like I hit the main the main ones pretty well. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 20:57
Yeah. But anyway,
Scott Benner 20:58
so I wanted. So I don't know anything about autism. Okay, so I'm assuming I'm assuming your son was diagnosed before your daughter.
Deborah 21:07
Yes. I had studied psychology at Rutgers. And I actually went to dental he worked at, like the Douglas school for autism. And just very bizarre that I interned there. And 10 years later, I was touring the school for my son. And I married an engineer, my husband's an engineer, and two and a half my son was doing a lot of a lot of these engineering, like he was a key is almost like he was afraid of other children his age, he would he you know, whenever we went to a birthday party, he had under my, like, my arm, and he wanted to look at the air conditioner, wants to see the way that they worked. And he wanted to look at the garbage disposal. So when I, you know, I had some concerns, but he was talking, so that kind of threw off. And of course, you know, I also, the idea of autism at the time was just, it was very upsetting. But as time went on, became more apparent and saviors and just, you know, just that he was he was that he thought felt differently. And so I'll never forget that we went to the developmental pediatrician, and she, you know, again, just like Juliet, you know, he murmured the words, you know, your son has autism. And it's like, everything. It was like a movie screen. It was like, it was like I was with a witnessing a movie. Oh, and it, I felt like her words were very painful and almost too much to bear. But behind like, behind the movie was like a piece. And in every event in my life, whenever there's something really tragic, that's almost too much to bear. There's also like, a piece behind the tragedy. That makes sense. So it's like, I'm witnessing this movie, but I'm in the background, and I'm like, hey, it's gonna be okay. No, and I so I got the diagnosis. And then six months later, we got the diagnosis that my father had eimer. Again, same thing, it was like, as if I was witnessing, you know, this terrible horror movie, but in the background, I'm like, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be alright. It's not to say that I didn't go through depressions through the years, you know, or I didn't go through moments or days, weeks of feeling pretty awful, because I did. But what I have found is that there's they're, like, even with so with my dad. He so my mom and dad got divorced. And I was like, the nicest divorce ever. Like as far as divorces go, and he had a long term. He was with this woman for about 25 years. And when they parted ways, that's when I started really seeing the the deficits, I would go to visit him. And one time, you know, I heard the shower on and I said, that is the shower on and he looked confused. And I went upstairs and his whole bathroom was like, flooded. And then, you know, a few weeks later, I went to visit him and I smelled something burning and he had left the remote control by the stove. And I said, Dad, what's what's going on? What you know, you left the remote control and then then he had gotten into the, the icing, you know, after so then he got into two car accidents. And thank God, they were just fender benders. That's when my aunt and I got involved. I'm an only child. And we took him we have a we have a Oh my God, why is the name escaping me? It's a neuro pro doctor. neurologist. neurologist. Yes, we so my aunt, my my aunt, her husband's brother's in Belgium. And we went to two neurologists, and did brain scans and a whole bunch of testing and they said that he has, you know, he has all timers and
so my dad was a very smart man, he had a master's in quantitative analysis, I don't even know what that means. He owned his own CPA firm for 30 years very, he was a mediator, he was a really smart, intelligent, you know, good hearted man, you know, a good a great listener. But he, you know, he was he was busy a lot when I was growing up, he was he was always at the office. And so when he got sick and sort of needed me more, and, you know, growing up, he was my hero, every every little girl like their daddies are usually their heroes. And then when I turned like, 1819, I'm like, but you know, I, I went through a little bit of a rebellious, rebellious stage where I felt a little angry with him. And then when I became a parent, myself, I realized, you know, this is hard. Sometimes it's easier to be like, at work, you know, like, this is really hard stuff. parenting, you know, the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. So, you know, becoming a parent made me grow in compassion. And he did a lot of good for a lot of people. So I feel like his all timers really bridge the gap between us. And, you know, we got, we got very close, and it slowed him down. And I remember this one moment, we're walking through this garden, because he had, he had to go into an assisted living facility, which is right by my house, and I visit him every day. And we're going through this garden. And I said to my dad, you know, what's the greatest thing you've ever done that he's, you know, he's traveled a lot. He's met a lot of interesting people. And, you know, and again, when I was younger, I didn't always feel like a priority. And he turned to me. And he said, You and that was like, a really beautiful moment, that I'm that I just, you know, hold in my heart. And he has this disease. It's sort of like a slow go by. And, you know, now he's, he's, you know, completely in a wheelchair, he's in diapers, he needs to be fed, you know, again, I'm there every day My mom is there. My mom's remarried. And her husband goes with her. I mean, it's such a beautiful, like, it's so amazing. Like, how amazing My mom is who and and her husband, but um, so it's, it's been sort of like this, like, slow goodbye. It's, it's
Unknown Speaker 27:23
a virtue.
Scott Benner 27:25
Okay, I'm sorry. No, don't be sorry. It sounds like what brought you to a place that wouldn't have happened without the Alzheimer's. It just Yeah, like maybe never gets to tell you that. And you don't get to be around him enough to see the other parts of him and
Deborah 27:39
yeah, like, it brought us closer and in ways it really like like, this is the closest I've ever felt. Yeah. Oh, and then tragedy, there's, there's also an sadness, there's also humor.
So this is this is kind of funny. But after he got the diagnosis of all timers, you know, by and my and his best friend, were like, we have to take the car keys away. You know, this is we can't have him driving around like this. And that was really, really hard. Trying to do that. So this is this is kind of silly. So we're four weeks, we're like trying, we're talking to him. We're trying to meditate The best way to, you know, take the car keys, and my husband's car broke. So we had to borrow his car for a few weeks, but
Scott Benner 28:29
he just forgot about it.
Deborah 28:31
Well, no, what ended up happening with this is it gets even funnier. So I work in any part time. I took his car into the city with me, I actually parked in the garage and after work, it was it was late, you know, so I didn't have to worry about parking Park after like five or six o'clock, you could park wherever. And so I had met up with my cousin at a restaurant and I actually parked and I actually sat at the window right in front of where the car was. And we just ordered and we're about to drink our tea. And all of a sudden I hear, boom, I look up I look out the window. My father's car is like standing straight up in the air. And, again, a movie moment. I'm just like, like, it just seems so unbelievable to me. My cousin is you know, I'm just kind of like very detached, like, I can't believe my debt. My dad's car is totaled, you know? And my cousin is he's, you know, kind of very emotional. She's like, I did you see what just happened? Oh my god, you know, and I walk outside. Some guy ran a stop sign fashion to my dad's car. And his car was fine. My dad's car was totaled. And that's how we got the car away. And we got a check from the insurance company for the car.
Scott Benner 29:48
workout in the guy didn't really hurt did any damage.
Deborah 29:51
No one was hurt. The guy in his car had like a little scratch. Or you know, like, like a little something to the bumper. Everybody was fine. It's It's great. Crazy, you know life sometimes. Ah,
Scott Benner 30:04
well, you know what you said a second ago that made me think and I could be so far off on this. And I obviously don't have any first hand knowledge but you you referred to this part of your dad's life as a as a slow goodbye. And it made me wonder if maybe with your son with the autism, if it's not just the instead of it being difficult to connect with him, I wonder if it's just a more slow connection. Like, I wonder if it's more of a slow Hello.
Deborah 30:28
It's so funny. You're saying that and you are so right on I just got the goosebumps. So I always say my dad is yes. It's like he's progressing into this other world, you know, he's he's leaving us and my son is slowly coming in taking him, you know, much longer. But he is I mean, he's, he's amazing. You know, my son, he is definitely that's another. I resisted this for many years. Like I I wanted peace and I wanted to I wanted it to be easier. And I wanted harmony, and you know, and I resisted challenges, I didn't want to deal with them. Until one day, I just, I couldn't, you know, I broke, like, his behaviors were just so challenging. I just broke and I put my hands up to the sky in the bathroom floor 3am crying out, I don't even know who just someone that you know, whatever you want to call it. And I really was sort of desperate and vulnerable and open and out of control. And it was in that moment that I just, you know, I just got the sense that my son is the past light and like, Don't Don't, don't resist this, like, face him and open yourself up. And he's that he's your teacher. Yeah. You know, he's he's the teacher.
Scott Benner 31:46
It's almost like, it's almost like the autism slows down time for him. So like things that he's getting to, he's just getting to slower. And there'll be things he probably won't get to, but because his growth will take more time. But in that, and it's hard for us when we're moving as fast as we are to want to slow down. But you describe that you only got to connect with your father because he slowed down. Yeah, you know, so. So there's, it just, it's, these two things are incongruous, right, you can't like you can't figure out diabetes. While things are happening in full speed, I think that's one of the reasons that the podcast helps is because you can listen to it while you're doing something else. So what it does is it makes more time, right? Because Because I always allude to it. And I say it just sort of in flippant ways like you know, you know, this is all happening, but you have to go to work or take care of a different child or cut your lawn, there's other things happening. But if you could really stop and step back far enough, you could see this diabetes thing and make sense of it. And really, I tell people a lot we talked about a person from on the pod earlier that supported the podcast before any but before they had any reason to the other person, if you want to thank anybody for the show ever. It's my wife, who you'll probably never hear from but who allows this time for me. Like to be a state I was a stay at home dad, right. So I got the pullback farther from the from the diabetes and take a bigger view of it. And then I got to like very slowly put together pieces. And then the pieces became ideas, those ideas became methods. And then I was able to start over about how to tell people about them. I started writing about them. I didn't find that to be as quick as I wanted it to be. So I went into the podcast, and even some of the episodes like it's me still learning how to talk to you about the things that my wife allowed me time to figure out. Right. And so that's why all this exists, whether whether you want to see it that way or not. I'm 100% positive it
Deborah 33:47
is. Oh, yes. And I actually met her and your daughter, pocket St. Peters. And that served me. Well. So beautiful. And I also want to take this opportunity to thank my husband, too, because he is an incredible man. And I you know, it's sad that sometimes in a marriage, you don't always you know, you don't always appreciate each other. But I more than ever. Now. I really do. He's He's an incredible husband and father and so devoted so hard working. And I'm very lucky. Also, to have him as a partner,
Unknown Speaker 34:25
those people like yeah, and
Scott Benner 34:27
what he's doing for you is he's he's making space he's making time. And that time you're dedicating to slowing down so that you can be with your son as he's growing, right? Like we all Is it funny we all complain all the time when we have kids. I just blinked and it went by so fast. And that's not happening to you. It probably feels like it's taking longer, but you don't have that feeling of like wow, I missed everything. You things are happening so methodically, that you really do get to experience every one of them and I guess you're finding at some points. In the beginning, you weren't wired to be working at that speed, maybe,
Deborah 35:05
you know, I, I, I am taking those moments and big life as Oh, because of what I'm being faced with. I do have to slow down. But I, it's just it's kind of a crazy culture, you know, that we live in with our phones, and we're always beeping in terms I really do miss I miss the 80s. I miss like, you know, I miss like, when it was a little simpler. But I mean, this is great, too. But it's a very fast paced culture that we live in. But I, I will say that, yes, I think I have. I think I have more moments of being present. Which, which most of us are, we're most of us are either living in the past or the future, you know, and most of us are not really, in the moment.
Scott Benner 35:51
I know a way to live in the future. And in the moment, it's with Dexcom. That's right, the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor makes you feel like you're flying in a spaceship, a spaceship made out of diabetes technology, because it's so like, out of this world. But you don't have to leave Earth to find it, you really just have to go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box, I mean, way easier than flying into space or jumping into a time machine. Like that kind of stuff, which is a lot of that doesn't exist for real. But what I'm saying is, if you want to feel like you're living in the future, Today, Dexcom is the way to go. What are you going to find when you get to that dexcom.com Ford slash juice box URL, let me tell you, you're going to see the continuous glucose monitor that is at the top of its game, you are going to find the ability to see your blood sugar not just what it is not just Hey, my blood sugar is 140. But is this 140 rising or falling? And if it is, how fast is that happening, all that information at a glance, this information that you can also get on your Android or Apple phone 10 if the person with diabetes in your life happens to be a loved one and not yourself, you can see that information on your phone. Amazing, right? Like your kid could be anywhere you could see their blood sugar dexcom.com forward slash juice box where the links in your show notes were at Juicebox podcast.com, it's time to come to your future, which is technologies present. And get yourself a present isn't the English language amazing. There's so many words that sound the same and many of them are spelled the same, but they mean different things. But no matter how you say or spelled Dexcom it means comfort, quality, better way of life. The shows about the startup again, but before it does. Dancing for diabetes.com dancing the number four diabetes.com check them out on Facebook, check him out on Instagram, you will not be sorry, dancing, you know how to spell da NC IMG four is the digit four and then diabetes di A B t is the A b e t s then.is the period and comm CLM it sounds to me like you're doing an amazing job because there's you obviously are being inundated in three completely different ways on three separate fronts. Right? Like the diabetes feels dire, and it feels immediate. And the Autism is taking forever and is frustrating. And your father's the you know is is is slow, slow, slow, slow. It's very, not a lot of people have to bounce between such varying ideas in one day. But you're doing it.
Deborah 38:39
I'm trying I'm trying to, you know, I think it does take that village, which I've, you know, sort of created my mom, my mom has listened to every episode of your show. He takes notes and she sends them to me. I haven't listened to every episode, but I would like to, you know, I'm, I'm listening to your show. And then also when I because I have a long ride into the city I listen to like podcasts on just trying to stay balanced and peaceful and that sort of thing. But I also I do listen to your show. But my mom is always sending me notes, you know, from from the show and just you know, and I have just some wonderful people that I'm surrounded by and it really does take a village I think to to raise a family to build a an amazing movement. You know, just if everybody if everybody just kind of contributes a small piece of goodness to the higher good we you know, it's it really does make a difference, correct me
Scott Benner 39:42
if I'm wrong. I met your mom in the
Deborah 39:44
lobby outside of you did Yes, he did. as well.
Scott Benner 39:48
As you're talking I remember remembering more and more. It's so I hope you're not insulted like no you said we met at the hospital. I didn't know I'm sorry but
Deborah 39:58
no, not at all. That's probably not
Scott Benner 40:01
gonna go back. They contacted me and I picked a date and I'm gonna go back in about six months.
Deborah 40:08
I know I heard I heard about Yeah, very nice time. That was January.
Scott Benner 40:12
Yeah, a very nice time. And it was just the, I don't think I would have known the complete impact because there was a, there's a fair amount of people there. But one family in particular has kept in touch with me through so I know exactly
Deborah 40:25
which family
Scott Benner 40:26
Yeah. And, um, so it's great to see, they came along so far in six months. It's really cool.
Deborah 40:32
Oh, I told him he should like do a class. I told him. I told him he should do a class because he he's got it. Yeah, he's he's he you like, Yeah, he has exactly what he said. I'm not Yeah, he did. I I'm not exactly we're where you are. But that's okay. You know, we're good. Like, we'll get there.
Scott Benner 40:54
We're all not going to be in the same place at the same time.
Deborah 40:56
Exactly. Right. It's
Scott Benner 40:57
just, it's just, it's To me, it's comforting to know that, that a better place exists, and that you can keep moving towards it. Yeah. And and if you're seeing, you know, like, like we just said, like, sometimes you see improvement improvement, sometimes you see these walls, where nothing seems to get better. And those are the times you just have to sort of reinvest in what you're doing and say to yourself, I'm probably spread too thin in this moment, I'm not paying enough attention to one place.
Deborah 41:23
Yeah, and you need a break. And like you said during the lecture, like always that one parent that, you know, taking on this a little bit, you know, a little more than the other not not, there's no one no one's fault. You know, you need a break, you need you need to just get a break from it, or move your, you know, go out with the other child for a weekend or just sleep. No, just get some sleep. And so, you know, I completely, you know, I couldn't agree with you more.
Scott Benner 41:52
I have a couple of questions. So you said that you thought your husband handled the autism better than the diabetes? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 41:59
Why do you think that was?
Deborah 42:03
The autism was harder for me easier for him the diet? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 42:06
I don't know. Just how you think just yeah, I
Deborah 42:10
mean, yeah, I that's how that's how it is? i? Yeah, I don't know. I think that, um, like we, you know, we had already had one child with special needs. And then to have a second it was like, it just it hit him harder. Yeah, at first. And at first, I'm like, we got this honey, it was almost I look back and I was playing, like, I look back at myself, you know, like, it did hit me. It hit me like, probably two or three months after the hospital. And it was there was a period of like, depression, sadness, followed by, hey, we're gonna do this. We're gonna we're gonna get this.
Scott Benner 42:47
You know, it felt to me when you were talking that you went into survival mode first. And then after things leveled out, then you took time to be upset about it? And yes, right. And yes.
Deborah 42:58
And I think maybe seeing my husband breakdown, like I'm like, Okay, I have to I have to be wrong one right now.
Unknown Speaker 43:03
There's only two of us. And he's fine. So
Unknown Speaker 43:05
yeah, exactly, exactly.
Scott Benner 43:08
Oh, listen, it's a little like a foxhole. Right. If the guy next to us. It can't stand up and shoot, it's on us. You know, you're gonna get overrun.
Unknown Speaker 43:16
Exactly.
Scott Benner 43:17
It's it's very nice that you had somebody else. And it also opens a window into how a single parent situation, really, you guys really need to lock down a friend or a family member to be
Unknown Speaker 43:30
like that other person for you. Right? That's, that's heartbreaking. Yeah.
Scott Benner 43:33
Because when you're crying in the foxhole, you need somebody else to stand up and shoot. And it can't be it can't be the kids. You know, it needs to be it needs to be somebody else that's got your back for five seconds. You said something earlier that made me think about you said about just how hard parenting is in general, you didn't realize till you had your own kids.
Unknown Speaker 43:49
Okay, I thought I think
Scott Benner 43:50
one of the one of the things that I have found to be like, that I'm the most proud of because it is so difficult to do is you know, when you stand in judgment of your children, your children stand in judgment of you for a second and you recognize that they're right about their assessment of you, and that you have like, screwed something up or failed somewhere or not done really what you could have done.
Unknown Speaker 44:13
Learning Yes,
Scott Benner 44:14
learning that you have to stand there and feel it and then acknowledge it not be upset not lash back out. Like all that stuff. That's an incredible like you say you learn from your kids. That's an amazing mirror, right? Because they hold that mirror up to you and you're like, Oh, damn, they're right. You know, and, and I've, I can look back into my own childhood at the moments where I did that to my parents. And they, of course, just, you know, shove the back twice as hard and stop me from talking. But I didn't I don't you know, it was my first inclination as a younger parent. It was my wife had said to me, like, you have to let them talk like they're making sense. And I was thinking, I was like, Oh, I you know, at first I was like, she's just gonna use these kids to fix me. But But nobody Seriously, it's it's one of the most difficult things to do besides seeing your kids struggle or be in pain and not be able to help listening to them. tell you, Hey, you know, here's my assessment of something I just saw you do. And in all honesty, this doesn't jive with how you've told me to live life. So you're gonna have to adjust this or you're a hypocrite and in to sit there and think, Wow, they're right. And then to make that adjustments very hard, but very,
Deborah 45:28
it is hard. And it's so humbling. You know, there's, there's times where I've kind of lost it, and then not not lost a bit. You know, I've I have a lot, I think I have a lot of self control. I very, I really don't get angry very often. I do with the two with my kids. I definitely but but I think it's important to, like you said, you know, when your kids call you out to what, I'm sorry, Mommy, mommy made a mistake. Mommy shouldn't have, you know, reacted that way. And I'm human too. We all make mistakes, you know. So I definitely know, I have no problem saying I'm sorry, or acknowledging.
Scott Benner 46:05
It was most difficult for me because my father yelled, he yelled, that's how my dad would control a situation you just be louder than everybody else.
Deborah 46:13
Right? A lot of a lot of parents
Scott Benner 46:15
when I was younger, like, I fell into that quite easily, you know, and it didn't happen as much because the kids were so easy. Like the only mean like, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for it. But when it came, that was my default. I was like, Oh, I will just be louder than everybody else. shut this down.
Deborah 46:31
Right, right. Of course. No, we just we go with what we know and what we are experienced. Right? Right.
Scott Benner 46:37
I have not broken all the bad circles in my life. But I'm really close on that one. And I feel I feel very proud about it. So
Deborah 46:44
no, that's, that's you're better than me because I have yelled and I don't like doing I don't like to I don't like to with the kids. I really doesn't you know, in the moment, it doesn't happen a lot. The moment it'll feel good. And then like a seconds later, I'm like, at, you know, like, you know, but it's just like when they're not listening. My my dad my dad yell he gave he just gave me a book. So dab rock. go one two never made it to three. And then my mom. Oh, well, I sort of take after more in terms of like my parenting she was very soft. Easy going and but but a real nurturer such a you know, but also a little bit of a worrier. But just so so loving and so nurturing and, and that's sort of where you know, as I think, you know, a lot of it Some of it is my fault because I they are very spirited isn't. You know, when you're strict, they don't really take advantage, softer sometimes. I don't know.
Scott Benner 47:42
I you know, the strictness the strictness inhibits them, though and what I what I've really found about myself is that when it's you mentioned, like yelling when they're not listening, like my kids, listen, they're not like that. It's for me. It's when it not that not that they listened constantly or that you were stolen. But But what I'm saying is, for me, it strikes when, when they're looking at me, and they're saying, hey, look, you just did this thing. And that's not like there's what I've learned to do is just instead of trying to stop them, I just acknowledge them. And I let my ego go. And I say, look, I need you to understand in this moment, I can't take any criticism. Like I just don't, I'm tired. Or I'm just this day's been too much. And as you're right, but I can't stay in here and do this with you right now. Because I just don't have it in me today. So so you're not wrong. I'm not trying to stop you. I'm just telling you, if you have any compassion for me, yeah, let me off the hook right now.
Deborah 48:35
I totally get it. And that's, that is so important, I think, you know, to try to put our egos aside, and you know, because I feel like we don't do many things can just be, you know, I feel like a lot of us don't know how to communicate and through my son. So he has such difficulty communicating. Like, even at work. You know, whenever we have a really difficult client, they say called Debbie, and my one my one coworker, you know, she said, This woman is like, borderline abusive, she's terrible. And I'm and I and I ended up spending some time with her. I said, That's nothing, like, you know, like, you know, some people just don't know how to, you know, for whatever the reason is, maybe they're on the spectrum, maybe they, you know, whatever, there's, there's, you know, whatever the reason is, they just don't always know how to effectively communicate. And I think it's important not to take that personal and, and, you know, sometimes we have to put ourselves on the line a little bit and, and be a little vulnerable to open them up that makes
Scott Benner 49:32
it so you say this is my wife and I had this conversation yesterday off. And I don't know how this happened. But I was saying to her, it was like, you know, now with, you know, how much how much how we see people on the spectrum or autistic or anything like that, and how well they're being helped and, and people are helping them integrate into like a like a life. You know what I mean? Like, a world where a couple of decades ago, you would have just institutionalized somebody. Yeah, right. Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore. I'm like now there's This, these people exist in the world now. And it's so interesting to watch how that's working. You know, like,
Unknown Speaker 50:08
it's, you know,
Scott Benner 50:09
it's really something. Here's how the conversation started. Since we're talking about, I was driving down the street, and I saw this girl who I, you know, for the, I don't know, the right way to say this, but she was clearly autistic. Right, but she, you know, you could write, but gorgeous, like, model, right? And I thought I thought like, This girl is not gonna like some guys gonna be like, Yo, what's up? And like, what happens next? God, I just stood there wondering like all of that, like, I wonder where that goes and how that works? And
Deborah 50:45
I No, no, I worry, I think about I mean, I try not too much about the future. But I you know, I of course, I you know, you do have to think about that. And I plan a little bit through the principles of ABA, applied behavior analysis, which is like one of the only proven methods that has effectively shown to really, significantly help those with autism. It's amazing how much is therapies, really, and help a lot of these kids to live, you know, as some would want to say typical, you know, but like a somewhat typical life. But it is a huge spectrum. I mean, there are there are children that are nonverbal, that are not potty trained. I mean, like the kids in his class, they're, they're fascinating. There's one child that's obsessed with Titanic, those everything there is to know about the Titanic. And there's another little boy that if you say, October 30 1918, he'll say Tuesday, like, you know, he has memorized all the calendar. And there's another little boy who's obsessed with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, he knows every and then, you know, my son loves air conditioners, drains, vents, garbage disposals, you know, like, they're like these, they're very quirky. And they get, you know, like, they get these like interests, and they just are, they're very smart. They're like little savant in certain areas, but then, you know, struggles socially,
Scott Benner 52:16
in the quarter of a block that I drove past this girl, I wondered about her entire life. Like, I was like, oh, like so many different ideas? And what could happen? Just the idea between, like, what if?
Unknown Speaker 52:27
What if?
Scott Benner 52:28
What if a malicious guy's the first person to approach versus what if it's just some sweet person who's just like, you know, what you seem like a person I want to know. And like, and all the things in between. And I was just, I was, I was happy for like, that she was going to have all these possibilities, because you think 30 years ago, she wouldn't have been just walking down the street by herself going for a walk on a nice day, right? Like her life would have probably been more segmented and, and, and, and more restricted. And I don't know, it was just really, okay, so Alright, so, so here's the last part we haven't spoken about. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 53:03
It's you, oh,
Scott Benner 53:06
we talked about, you know, a little bit about the diabetes. But to me, this conversation is more about being positive in the face of health issues. And so, you know, we learned about your father and his, his, his Alzheimer's, your son is his autism, who's taking care of you?
Deborah 53:24
Well, I am my husband is an incredible support. And my mom You know, my in laws, husband, family. Yesterday, they they went to the beach, and I stayed back and you know, my in laws were all there, and especially my, my brother in law, my sister in law there. But I have learned that is not selfish to go get a massage. It's not selfish to ask your spouse like, do I need a break? I just want to sit under a tree. And I just don't want to talk. No. And I and I have learned to love me. Oh, and because you kind of have to spend the rest of your life with yourself, right? And so you might as well learn to love yourself. And I love to read, like I get a lot of fulfillment and enjoy from from reading. Good books are listening to, you know, inspiring podcasts like yours. And you know, I just really try to nurture and take care of myself and I and I see a difference when I'm not. I do see a difference when I'm not used to carving out a little bit of time. For myself, though. I do think that it's just so important to to carve out time for your yourself.
Scott Benner 54:44
Yeah, no, I think that in many. I think if you really look at many families, there are people there are people who take on roles, and these people kind of get pulled together naturally like you don't normally see two like caregiver types married to each other. Do you know what I mean? Like,
Unknown Speaker 55:00
I don't know exactly what
Scott Benner 55:02
I have to tell you, I would joke about this. But if Deborah, if you and I were married, we'd be the two least productive people on the planet. Talking about how we felt all the while, we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have $15 into our name. So, you
Deborah 55:18
know, I'm more of the caregiver.
Scott Benner 55:20
And I am in our situation.
Deborah 55:22
Yes, right. He's more but he's he's the he's very committed. So I'm always the one I you know, I make the breakfast or lunch, the dinner, the smoothie, the smoothies, the foot massages, like, I'm always Are you okay? How do you feel? But then I'm also the first one, like, if he gets frustrated with me, I'm like, then why are we together? No. I love and I made a commitment cheat. And you're my What? You know, so he's the, he's the, he's the he's the he's very committed and devoted, and
Scott Benner 55:50
he's the guy who's gonna get up every day and go to work and make sure everything
Deborah 55:53
incredible. We do this like this cleanse every every January, we do this 21 day cleanse, he and I, and the first couple years, like I cheated, like, after the third day, he's like to those, and I'm like, No, no, you know, or did you have chocolate? You know, he's like, I don't I don't get it. He's like, if you make a commitment, you do it. You know, like, What is? But he is so like you said he gets up every day. I don't think he's ever missed in 17 years that I've no been Matt, you know, been with him. Like, I don't think he's ever missed a day of work. Like he is just so. And he but he's comes home and he he's he's so present with the kids. And he's just Oh,
Scott Benner 56:32
oh, got an engineer's mind. decency. Yeah, I'm on top of that. Yeah, no, I hear you.
Unknown Speaker 56:38
I just put it out with you guys. Well, it's,
Scott Benner 56:41
it's really the same. Kelly's just a bright, like hardworking person. You know, I, my wife is probably one of the, in, in, in the space that she's in. She is probably one of the preeminent people in that, like very neat, Nishi world that she works in. And if you go all the way back to her first job coming out of college, and she got attempt was attempt position. So she comes out, they put her in a in a double cube with a with a nurse. And it's at a pharma company. And my wife says, The first day she sat there, no one talked to her. She came but but not just no one talked to her. No one came up there and went Hi, you work here. Now this is your job.
Unknown Speaker 57:24
She
Scott Benner 57:24
right quite literally just sat there. So the next day again, nothing. So she turns to the woman in the cube. And she says, Is anyone ever going to like, talk to me or approach me or tell me what I was hired to do? Like, you know, like this, she was like 21 years old, 22 years old. And the woman's like, you know, they will eventually but your attempt, they were probably just filling a position. And so my wife comes home. And I'm like, So from my perspective, I'm like, she you just get to sit there and they're gonna pay. Yeah, I was like, This is amazing. And my wife said, I can't do that. So right. On the flower on the third day, my wife asked the nurse, what are you doing? And the nurse explained it to her and it was drug safety. It's the it's the protections of the things you don't say at a pharmaceutical company. Oh, my wife is the person who is standing up for you at a pharmaceutical company. Right? Wow. And so there are these rulings and rules and things from the FDA massive volumes of them. And my wife went and got them and sat down and read them. And now if you want to know anything about that, you come as a fitness industry, right? That's,
Deborah 58:35
yeah, I didn't credit that's my husband. Yes, my husband, I'll just watch the video or ask someone to kind of show it to me,
Scott Benner 58:42
I would have had my feet up on the desk. And if someone came through and said, Scott, what are you doing? I'd be like, I am the luckiest person in the world. I just got a job right off the bat and then die. But that's my whole plan. You know, buddy. wife was like, I won't waste this time. And so
Deborah 58:59
that's incredible. That's
Scott Benner 59:01
right. And it's just very fasting. Because you also because people are like that you also kind of can't tell them, like in the way you want to because they don't feel things in the same way that other people do. Because they're such like working individuals like right, they really are. They get up they strap it on and they go to work every day. It's really it's really something but if it wasn't for her,
Deborah 59:19
it's admirable.
Scott Benner 59:20
Yeah, this wouldn't exist. Because how would I? How would I afford the time to have learned all these things? Or the time to figure out how to tell you about them or the time to actually tell you about them? You know, so
Deborah 59:31
if it was if it wasn't for him?
Scott Benner 59:33
No, please. Definitely Yeah, if I we I say all the time, if our roles were reversed my wife and I would be lucky to live like in a shack on the edge of the river. You know, to me, like the best I probably could have done,
Deborah 59:46
but we're so we're so blessed that we found worked we found out we found them. It I really it's you know, I think I think you actually I think you appreciate marriage even for as you as you get older and the kids start getting older and you really are Faced with some real, you know, but I but I agree with everything you're saying and your wife is my husband. And and thank God thank God for that,
Scott Benner 1:00:09
oh, if they were married, they'd be so happy. They never talk to each other. It's gonna work.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:14
So great. I love it. I
Scott Benner 1:00:17
love it very funny. Well, I want to thank you so much for doing this. It was absolutely spectacular. I did not know what to expect. And it just went exactly, it couldn't have gone any better than I'd hoped. So I really appreciate you being this open and sharing this time with everybody.
Deborah 1:00:33
Well, thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity. And, you know, I, I appreciate it, too. And I'll see you soon. I'll see you in January. I'll be back to
Scott Benner 1:00:43
hopefully you guys can get a whole new group of people to come in.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:47
And oh, yeah, and maybe
Scott Benner 1:00:48
some of the originals can come back and we can advance them along a little farther. That'd be really cool.
Deborah 1:00:52
I already I already told my Oh, my in laws. And, um, and I've shared I've extended it to that we might have to get like a big, really big room. Because I think a lot of people yeah, we might actually have to, because I think a lot of people are extending it, you know, you. So well, we might actually have to get a bigger room for that. But
Scott Benner 1:01:10
I guess we'll see with it. Yeah, the most exciting thing that happened after that was that I got word back. That the the like the person who leads the endo department was very pleased with the conversation that I started. And I thought that was great, because I that's my goal is I hope that doctors talk about this more like this, you know,
Deborah 1:01:29
well, there is a doctor, part of the group, who apparently is, you know, he's he's been doing this a long time. And he's sort of old school. And when that family that you were talking about before, that their daughter's a one c down, like I think, like a five point something. He basically was like, tell me how you did it. And, you know, he, he told him about your podcast, and he showed him what he was doing. And because he sort of this, this particular doctor, he's not my doctor, but I just what I understand very nice man. But I think just more old school, but he's now extremely open and advocating for I actually had spoken to once and I was trying to explain to him that you know that we have too much coverage, because he was the one on call. And he's like, What do you mean, the numbers are fine. They're 7580 I'm like, Yeah, but they were double ours down. From what I what I understand after that family that both referring to before, you know, after he has a one, her daughter's a one c went down. So you know, to a normal range. That show me what you're doing. And and so now I understand he's, you know, very open to this and encouraging of it.
Scott Benner 1:02:44
And maybe we'll see him then like, yeah,
Deborah 1:02:48
yeah, exactly.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:49
I would absolutely love. Oh,
Deborah 1:02:51
thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day. And I'll see
Scott Benner 1:02:54
you soon. Yep. You You go be nostalgic at your alma mater, and I'll talk to you later.
Deborah 1:02:58
Yes, I will. Okay, thank you. Thank you for by.
Scott Benner 1:03:04
I believe that Deborah is the first person to record the podcast by wandering around a college campus. Very cool. I just I again, love this today. It's why I'm getting it right to you. I want to thank Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes for supporting the podcast with their ads, please consider supporting them back with your patronage. dexcom.com Ford slash juice box my Omni pod.com Ford slash shoes box dancing. Number four diabetes.com are the links in your show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. One last thing. This Friday and other defining diabetes will come out at the end of it. Hmm, do I want to put it at the end of the defining No. Here's what I'm gonna do. Yes, I'm going to do that. I think I'm going to Yes, here's what I'm gonna do. On Friday, defining diabetes will come out again other short couple minute episodes, where Jenny Smith and I define a word or phrase that part of your life with type one. I'll also release a quick episode announcing the giveaway the 1 million download giveaway. That's what I do. so that you guys can go That makes sense. It does, right. Guys, sometimes I don't know what to do. Sometimes. I'm amazed the podcast is popular at all. Or that I have any luck running it. I think that's what I'm gonna do. I think I'm gonna release the time. Yeah, right. Yes. All right. This is what I'm gonna do for certain now. I've just talked myself into it. This Friday. Let me find out what the date is on Friday. Because you're getting this on the 30th of July. Friday's the second of August. It's the day before my anniversary. Oh, I should get an anniversary. Oh Jesus. All right, different problem for now. I'm learning a lot right now. For now Friday, August 2, you're going to get another episode of defining diabetes. And the announcement for the big giveaway, the 1 million downloads celebration, going to be 9 billion different ways to enter. They're all going to be incredibly easy. And one winner is going to get the whole thing. Everything it's not like hey, swag bag from Omni pod swag bag from Dexcom free myabetic bag. This this this like, you'll get this and you'll get no no winner gets the whole thing winner take all understand. Look for the announcement on Friday. The second I spent a few minutes talking about what getting to a million downloads has meant to me and what I think it means to the podcast itself and where it's going and we'll just talk about it for a little bit. might get a little weepy or sentimental it's hard to know what will happen exactly. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Juicebox Podcast. I'll see you on Friday for the announcement for another defining diabetes episode. Hope you guys are having a great summer if you live you know in atmosphere where it's summer. And for those of you listening in the other one I hope it's not too cold. How many hemispheres are there hemma sphere? Oh, we're getting into stuff I don't know. You guys want to look it up before I go. How many hemispheres? Are there we're not the first person to wonder this on Google. For any circle drawn around the Earth divides it into two equal halves called hemispheres. They there are generally considered to be four hemispheres but it's generally considered mean is their foreign. Alright, how can there be like okay, generally considered I don't enjoy that as an explanation anyway. Northern Southern Eastern and Western the equator or line of zero degrees. Wait, the equator or line of zero degrees latitude divides the earth into the northern and southern hemispheres. Alright. What about what about the other righteous now we're gonna look into this more. All right, the equator or line of zero degrees latitude divides the earth into the northern and southern hemispheres. The northern hemisphere contains North America, the northern part of South America, Europe, the northern two thirds of Africa and most of Asia. The southern hemisphere contains most of South America, one third of Africa, Australia, Antarctica and some Asian Island.
There are differences in the climates of that this is how we got to this of the northern and southern hemispheres because of the Earth's seasonal tilt toward and away from the sun. In the northern hemisphere, the warmer summer months are from June through September. This makes sense because it's so high right now and it's warm here in the southern hemisphere. Summer begins in December and ends in March. Alright, there's some stuff here about prime meridian. I do not want to get into that. This is going off the rails. I'll see you guys later.
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#247 Defining Diabetes: Standard Deviation
Defining Diabetes: Standard Deviation
Scott and Jenny Smith, CDE define the terms at the center of your type 1 diabetes care
You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Pandora - Spotify - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.
+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
In this episode of defining diabetes, Jenny Smith and I are going to define standard deviation. Defining diabetes is made possible by Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise the Always consult a physician before becoming bold with insulin or making any changes to your medical plan. What is standard deviation?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 0:27
Overall, it's it's the calculated amount of time a variance or deviation for a group of numbers as a whole. I mean, if you really want like the true definition of standard deviation,
Scott Benner 0:43
it's a mathematical term, right?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 0:44
It's statistics. It's a mathematical statistical term. So that we can actually measure quantify essentially the amount of dispersion in a set of values. And for an easy way to describe it with diabetes specifically, and if you're looking at your CGM report, thankfully, clarity is wonderful. It's got standard deviation right next to your overall average or your your average ghost standard deviation, the lower the value, the less variance you have low to high numbers. So if you have a standard deviation of 20, you should have glucose values that look like these little gentle rolling hills up and down. If you have a standard deviation of 73, you will have a lot of math variants that looks like you are on a roller coaster at Six Flags
Scott Benner 1:42
is this goal is standard deviation when it comes to diabetes attached to the gold numbers. So here's what I kind of learned. And if I'm wrong, then I tricked myself. And I'm wondering if I set my my I don't know low goal at 70. And my high goal at 120. But I frequently go up to 150, that makes my standard deviation look higher.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:11
Correct. Because your upper, your upper value is going up even though it's going above your target, right, you're still getting above it. Now, if you so it's giving more variance is starting at 70, you're going up to 150, you're coming back to 100, you're going back up to 150, your standard deviation is going to be higher with the same target as if you stayed 70 to 120 and down to 100 and back up to 110 and back down to 70. Your standard deviations give me a lower
Scott Benner 2:41
new it. Okay. So that means that if I'm person who gives myself this really tight goal of being between 80 and 120 all the time, but my reality is I'm more between 70 and 140, my standard deviation could at first glance look bad. I could but it technically wouldn't be because I'm still only deviating between 70 and 140. Okay, so that's just something it's probably not going to come up for a lot of people but that flummoxed me for a while I was like, how am I keeping my daughter's blood sugar so stable and my deviation looks bad? Yes, because my goals, the numbers that the app was using to make the decisions were so tight, that even a tiny bit above or below it made it look way out of whack?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:27
Well, and it's also specific to those values, you know, even if you had your targets that, um, you know, 80 to 80 to 150, let's say. But if you had 80 to 150, and then all the way back down to 80, and back up to 150. And all the way down to an 80, you may have a lot of time in range, you're still going to have a higher standard deviation, because it looks like a roller from a lower value to a higher value to a lower value. So again, it's the dispersion of the data points, right, it's a variance between the lower number to the higher number. So even with that still 80 to 150 as a target. Let's say she's going from 80 to 110, back down to 80. Back up to 90. That looks like those gentle rolls and the number the value change isn't as great. So the standard deviation is going to be lower. And she's still going to have good amount of time in range there, but her standard deviation will be lower because there's not as much change between the low to high value and for
Scott Benner 4:29
your health even if it's between 80 and 140. You do not want to be bouncing up and down bouncing Oh,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:35
not standard AV is one you definitely don't want the bounce. You want more gentle roll.
Scott Benner 4:40
So if we have standard deviation down and we have time and range down ra one c should reflect that. Gotcha.
Defining diabetes on the Juicebox Podcast. Cast is brought to you by Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes, there are links in the show notes and Juicebox podcast.com to all the wonderful sponsors. But if you want to find out more about getting a free no obligation demos the Omni pod, you can go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box to get started on the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor dexcom.com forward slash juice box and to learn about the good that's being done at dancing for diabetes, go to dancing the number four diabetes.com Thanks for checking out defining diabetes. Come back every Friday is Jenny and I break down a new word or phrase that is impacting your life with Type One Diabetes. Those of you on social media can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. And of course the podcast is available in every podcast player you can imagine and at Juicebox podcast.com. please consider sharing the show with a friend more even though enemy. I mean if they have type one diabetes, and you don't like them, they still deserve good blood sugars. Hey, one last thing I want to thank you the podcast continues to grow exponentially in downloads and subscribers month after month. Right now it's the middle of July in the podcast already has more downloads in July of 2019 than it had just three months ago, in the entire month of April. And let me tell you something. There were a lot of downloads in April. You are growing a community and teaching people how to be healthier.

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The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!
#246 Under the Shade Bus with Maddie
Maddie is a college student living with type 1 diabetes…
A simply delightful episode!
You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Pandora - Spotify - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.
+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 246 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by Omni pod Dexcom and dancing for diabetes, you can go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box, or dancing for diabetes.com that's dancing the number for diabetes.com to learn more. I'm not actually sure how to describe this episode. Just know. Let me give you the high level overview. Maddy is a college student. She has type one diabetes, she's a ton of fun. And periodically she throws her family under the bus, which I found delightful. Let's do two disclaimers today instead of one. First one. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before becoming bold with insulin or making any changes to your medical plan. And if you're part of Mattie's family, I wouldn't listen to this. And trust me, there's no reason for you to listen through. nothing bad happens. She's just I mean, you know, Mattie's confident girl, she's pretty sure she's her parents favorite child. And
Unknown Speaker 1:13
I look
Scott Benner 1:15
just take it from me. If you're related to Maddie, stop listening. Everyone else have a ball.
Maddie 1:29
Hi, my name is Maddie. I'm 20 years old. And I've had Type One Diabetes for seven years. I go to the University of Iowa, and I'm the Vice President of college diabetes network at Iowa.
My life right now consists of a lot of diabetes related things and so that I talk about a few of those things.
Scott Benner 1:55
So you got diabetes around the time around the age that Arden is now so Arden's 14 going into 1513. So but but it was in that sort of formative time, right there.
Maddie 2:07
Mm hmm. Yeah, I was in seventh grade, and middle of middle school.
Scott Benner 2:13
Just like the middle of the year. Everything's chugging along, and then one day, didn't feel Yeah,
Maddie 2:18
what happened? Um, well, it was, it was a funny start to it. My mom thinks this is what really triggered it was a Sunday morning and my friend had this weird birthday party where she came and kidnapped you and in your bed and took us all out to breakfast. And we all had I hopped on. And we all know how many carbs I have is. And so then the following week that Monday, I just didn't feel good. Like I my first symptom was just stomach ache. I felt achy. And we all thought my mom was like, oh, there's a thing, you know, bug going around. So that was our, you know, figuring for the week and I stay away from home from school on Monday. Then Tuesday, I was like, I feel a little better. I'll go and then I call my mom is like, No, I don't feel better. I came home. And as the week went on, this is actually the week of Thanksgiving. And I stayed home from school on Wednesday again. And then Thanksgiving came around and I was just kind of like, I don't know, lazy all day. I tried to eat like Thanksgiving dinner. But then long story short, I ended up going into hospital at eight o'clock on Thanksgiving evening.
Scott Benner 3:26
That sucks. I'm sorry. It's okay. I can never eat pecan pie again, because that was the last thing I ate before I went to the hospital. So here's the thing I'm trying to figure out. Oh, by the way, I once had I stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken one day and got like little chicken nuggets because I was hungry in the middle of the day. And then my appendix exploded later that night. I couldn't even look at a cane and I'm not a KFC. It's not like I was there constantly. I just I was rude. I was hungry. That's what was there. And then we tried to go back in like six months later, the smell of it panicked. Me, so Oh my God, I hear you on the pecan pie thing. No, but you skipped over something that I need to go back to. Yeah. You said your mom blames this that she blamed the kidnapping. Or the I hop.
Maddie 4:07
I think that I have I mean we had pancakes and we were ordering milkshakes at 10am.
Unknown Speaker 4:15
Say we just like go all out. Have whatever you want. It's like a nice birthday for somebody that age.
Unknown Speaker 4:20
Oh, yeah, it was fun. Do you know
Scott Benner 4:21
and this isn't funny, but you are now the second person on the podcast who has been kidnapped. Yours wasn't a real kidnapping. But the first person's was Did you ever hear that episode?
Maddie 4:30
No. What was that one about? It's
Scott Benner 4:31
amazing. This woman was like kidnapped thrown in a in a like,
Unknown Speaker 4:37
you know, in the trunk of.
Unknown Speaker 4:40
I thought it's great. I
Unknown Speaker 4:42
haven't listened to that. Oh my gosh, I'm so cool. I
Scott Benner 4:45
forget what it's called. It's probably called you know, me. It the episodes probably called nothing about like, what happened? It's probably it's probably like jack in the box. And you're like, what does that have to do with anything? And I'm like, Oh, you see jack in the box during the episode. But yeah, no, it's actually I think it is. So Something like somebody's pumped saved their life. I can't think of one right now. Anyway. I'm glad you weren't for real kidnapped. No. So you're growing up with diabetes 1314 1516 thinking of going to college now, are you from Iowa? Or did you?
Maddie 5:14
Yeah, I'm from Iowa.
Scott Benner 5:16
So you didn't transplant to go to college? Okay. So are you close to home? No,
Maddie 5:21
I'm, I'm five hours away. Oh, so I'm literally on the opposite sides of iosr. Everybody. So you're from I, you know, you're 30 minutes away like everyone else? No, I'm actually across the state, which I like it that way. I mean, then it this way, I can be just far enough that I can still drive home.
Scott Benner 5:38
Your answer has shone a light on my ignorance again, because in my mind, Iowa is like, as large as Rhode Island, but it's not. Yes. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 5:49
It is.
Scott Benner 5:49
You guys have like a big chunk of the middle of the country. They're like your
Maddie 5:52
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how many miles it is. But it's, it's a, you know, decent.
Scott Benner 5:58
Is it a five hour drive with an East Coast driver? Or is this a Midwestern sort of a situation because I drive? And if anyone's listening, this is just for fun for the podcast, but I like to get up to about 8590 when I'm on the highway. Yes. Now. Is that how you're driving across Iowa?
Maddie 6:13
I do not drive that way. But I had a friend who driving home last week last year, and she would be gone. 95 probably the whole time. We could make it in four hours.
Scott Benner 6:22
I mean, what are you gonna run into dust? I don't understand what I
Unknown Speaker 6:27
know. There's plenty of policemen. I used to think
Scott Benner 6:29
that my ignorance of Canada was just because it was Canada. Now. I realized, I don't know anywhere where I haven't been.
Unknown Speaker 6:36
Yeah, come to the Midwest. It's It's fun.
Scott Benner 6:37
I see. I like that. I listen, if invited, I will come. Alright, are you anywhere near an airport? See again, here. Here's my
Maddie 6:47
I'm a cedar rapids airport is the thing. But that's very, very tiny. Tiny, right?
Scott Benner 6:53
I'll drive. time for your weekly reminder to visit dancing for diabetes.com. That's dancing the number four diabetes.com. You can also find them on Facebook, and Instagram. Did you bring the college diabetes network to your university? Or was it there?
Maddie 7:10
Oh my gosh, this is kind of like works into how I'm literally like, as connected as you can as a type one diabetic. And I was part of a Facebook group, just like a general Dexcom trying to get you know, because I kind of did my own Dexcom. Like, on my own. I just said I wanted it and I got it. And so I wanted to make sure I had you know, somewhere I could ask questions. And one day, a post popped up on the Facebook page and it said, Hi, we are a small diabetes network at Iowa, University of Iowa and we're looking for ways to send supplies to Hurricane victims in Puerto or where was it in Puerto Rico? I think Yeah, like last year, but
Scott Benner 7:52
last year, okay.
Maddie 7:53
Yeah. And I literally saw that's like, what? I go to Iowa. And I was like, I like commented on it. I had all caps was like, are you kidding white? I go here.
Scott Benner 8:04
What is this? You were like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and like things Onomatopoeia shooting up over your head, like Iowa? I'm in Yeah,
Maddie 8:13
it was crazy. And so I mean, I was so thankful for the community online, because that's literally I mean, she was on the same campus. I was letting you know who she was. So I joined their group chat started going to their meetings, and yeah, this year, we're trying to get it. And last year was the first year that they were actually Well, we're not official really. But this year we are. So we've just been trying to get more people and Kevin events and stuff like that. But it was just a crazy, you know, happenstance, because when before I came to college, like I was, you know, I was as nervous as ever. I mean, obviously, coming to college, like, you know, being diabetic. And so I was like online, looking at every single resource there was and CDN was a really good resource online. I mean, I use their lists, you know, how to tell your roommate and I have you, like, so many different resources.
Scott Benner 9:06
How do you tell your roommate about diabetes?
Maddie 9:09
Oh, my goodness, well, you, I mean, I used it, I kind of started off as like, Well, I have this diabetes and, like, the number one thing is, you're gonna hear alarms at night, and I'm very sorry. And that was the number one thing I was like, I'm really sorry. Like, it'll wake you up, but I'm just trying to live here. And then I taught her how to use glucagon. If I if she hears it going off, you know, a trillion times and I'm still not awake. You can come over, see if I'm conscious. And then I taught her how to use glucagon. And she luckily had a cousin with it. So she kind of knew but yeah, that was my number one thing because I just I always felt really bad when my dexcom alarm go off, but it's the thing.
Scott Benner 9:49
I'm laughing because I feel like I you've explained it, you know, from your, you know your angle. I'm thinking of her angle like she's, I'm packing her stuff and you're like, hey, I have this thing that's gonna be up all night long and I might go unconscious. Can you help me with this drug? Yeah, she's just like, is there it's gotta be another room for me to go to right? I mean, she seems like a nice girl, but I don't want to be involved or was she like, just like, hey, right on I can do that.
Maddie 10:18
Yeah, she was kind of like, okay, you know, like, and luckily we chatted on over you know, there's roommate matching and everything we chatted beforehand, but I actually ended up this is a good tip for people I kept an expired glucagon. And then I made her do everything except inject to make sure she understood what all goes into it because it's a complicated process.
Scott Benner 10:38
It's annoying. Sure, you didn't mean made? You're not forcing this poor girl to do things. You're just the Yep, she's not trapped in your room right now locked to something in case you get low. This year diabetes alert person?
Maddie 10:52
No, no, I'm kind of the opposite of that. I like I almost ride solo. Like, I don't share my data with anyone I, you know, sometimes I'll try to vent with my friends. And it'll be like, I don't know what you're talking about. But that's sad.
Scott Benner 11:05
So what do you I want to dig more still into the the idea of going away to school just for Yeah, yeah. You You said you did a lot of research online before you went, obviously, some of it was to set yourself up with a roommate and find somebody who you could, you know, explain things to prior to getting there so that you're not just dropping this on her while she's unpacking her pillowcases yet. Oh, hey, by the way, the happiest day of your life is not going to be happy much longer. Let me explain a couple things to you. But what else goes into moving away and managing yourself? So my first question is, were you managing on your own at home while you were in high school, or were your parents involved? Let's surf the web together. dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. Make knowledge your superpower with the Dexcom g six CGM system. That's what you're going to see when you type in dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. There's also pictures of what the Dexcom g six center looks like the receiver, what it would look like on your cell phone, if you had an apple watch all kinds of good information. But then there's a button it says get started with Dexcom g sex and you need to click on it. Once you do you fill in your name, a bit of information about yourself, etc kind of diabetes do I have? Boom, next you're not a robot stuff like that. Next thing you know you've done it, you've taken the first step towards understanding what your blood sugar's doing, how fast it's moving, what direction it's going. And once you can see that you'll be able to make treatment decisions that are not just, you know, like sloppy ham fisted like, Oh, I hope this works. I'll eat all these carbs. And I'll hope that works. I'll wait a few hours. And I'll test again like that all just goes away. When you can see the direction and speed of your blood sugar with your Dexcom g sex, things take a leap. Things get easier. Our results are ours Of course, and yours may vary. But I am 100% confident in telling you that when you can see your blood sugar in real time, it makes all the difference in the world. So why don't you start today? dexcom.com forward slash juice box. There is a whole new world waiting for you.
Were you managing on your own at home while you were in high school? Or were your parents involved?
Maddie 13:38
Parents have really never been involved. I like At first my parents were like, Okay, so this is what we're gonna do. You know, my dad gave himself his first shot and we we did everything in the hospital together. And then it kind of drifted away from like any of my parents, you know, input in in middle school, I would call them for the first like two weeks of being back at school. By the way, I went back to school, you know, it's how Thanksgiving works. It's you know, that Thursday to Sunday, like a school break. I got to a hospital like 3pm on Saturday or Sunday, and I went back to school the next day,
Scott Benner 14:13
yo, marry a girl from Iowa. Tough. That's that's what I'm learning here. So I wanna I want an Iowa girl to build my family with because you're apparently like just gonna get like the flu and then get up the next day and go to work. So I'm right back at school. Is this sort of your I know, it's hard to think back to when you're 13 but what do you think that was? You think it was it? No one made a big deal out of it. That you didn't know that it was a big deal that you were just a stubborn kid or like what got you back up so quick?
Maddie 14:43
Well, I mean, my parents have always pushed me She's like, we are fine. Go you know, but I I like went back to school and because I was just kind of like, Well, I mean, I guess I have the tools to do what I need to do. I think our school nurse and my mom I was really good friends with the school nurse. And I think she came over our house and we were like, okay, what's happening and kind of shuffled everything together with a 504 plan and got it in the file on Monday, but I think the most part was just kind of like, I'm not sick anymore. It's gonna be hard, but I can still learn, you know, was there I was healthy. Again.
Scott Benner 15:19
Was there any lack of knowledge that maybe made it easier? Like I don't, I don't mean ignorance in the classic sense of the word, but was there a little ignorance about what was going on? So you weren't, like worried about things? Or did you understand the the pitfalls?
Maddie 15:32
Yeah, definitely. Um, I mean, I didn't really grasp how scary lows where I had my first low walking out of the doors of the hospital, and I said, I feel tingly What's happening? And we tested it was like, 55. Like, I just, you know, obviously, you're given all this insulin, and then you're up from your hospital bed and boom, your blood sugar's gonna plummet. And so I was like, Oh, this is scary, but it'll be fine. You know? And then I got to school and every row for that first month was very scary, because I felt just awful. You know? And, and I would, I would take a buddy to the nurse's office, but that's that walk was never fun. And I didn't realize how scary that was
Scott Benner 16:09
gonna be not a not an upbeat like, Hey, I get to go with a girl who looks like she's gonna pass out to the nurse's office. Yeah, trust me, although there are some kids who want to go to class so badly.
Maddie 16:20
Yeah, there were always those kids. Yeah,
Scott Benner 16:22
they put up with a passing out friend to get out of class. So yeah, so that. That's interesting, because you do like, I remember being incredibly unsure leaving the hospital so unsure that we didn't make it out of the hospital. We just went downstairs to the cafeteria and fed Artem because it seemed because it seemed unsafe to put her in the car without food or stomach. Yeah. And you know, so like, I remember I can picture it in my mind right now. And I'm telling you, it was 13 years ago, the summer Yeah. And I can see my wife and her and us sitting there and looking at all this food and not having any idea what to do and then pulling out that that vial and those needles the first time and being like, Oh my god, I am I'm completely lost. But it just felt like I couldn't put her in the car if she didn't have food in her stomach. I felt like I felt like that for a long time. And so what kind of gear Did you have seven years ago leaving was it just pens or? Um, well,
Maddie 17:22
I left the hospital while I was using syringes in the hospital which I just hated. You know, he had to get the little you know, it's hard to see those little marks you know, and and i'm doing that every nail and then I got to the hospital and I had the little like cartridges that you could dial and so I was lucky I got you know, half unit sumach pens. And then I was on the air which is not really even heard of anymore. flies on that
Scott Benner 17:47
Arden use live Umberto.
Unknown Speaker 17:49
Okay, yeah,
Scott Benner 17:50
cuz land has burned. She would say when she injected Lantus, it burned. And so we
Maddie 17:54
Oh, yeah, I heard that. And it was better. Uh huh. But and so I had one of those little ones. It was like the classic meter that they gave people in that time, it was the little oval one touch meter, it was kind of small.
Scott Benner 18:08
They're here, she's 35 centimeter, good luck. I'm sure this works. Just I remember being in the hospital, and they testing art. And they tested our blood sugar with this meter that was like bigger than a brick. And it obviously looked very expensive. Yeah, and they test her blood sugar. And I don't remember what it came up as. And then they tested her again, with the meter. They said, Now this will be your meter. And the two numbers were nowhere near each other. And I held them up and I went, is this not problematic? And they're like, no, you'll just go with what your meter says. I said, but it says such a different number than the one that I'm assuming works really well. She's if this thing's really expensive, you can't afford something like this. And they're just for hospitals. No, wait, what? Like, which and she smiled and just left. It was like, What the hell? You don't like that's not an answer. And I've learned, I've learned since then how to deal with that, you know, and meters have gotten incredibly more accurate over time. Actually, the one we're using now is insane like that. But but but point is, it's a really frightening time. So you leave now the part that throws me off is that you said you've pretty much been on your own the whole time with it. So I see. 13 is pretty young. But maybe if I grew up in a place where I imagined I might be swept away by a tornado, something like this would not scare me. I don't know. So let's first ask how many tornadoes Have you lived through? Oh, gosh, three or four? Maybe? perspective for the people listening? He has to live through tornadoes. How do you do this? Do you hold on to a pipe in the basement? Mr. Because that's how I imagined it.
Maddie 19:44
Funny story. I have to tell you the story. Um, last. Last, I think it was September, I was out to dinner with a friend in downtown Iowa City, you know, have a nice time. And there's a tornado warning out and they're like literally there's a tornado like 10 miles away, and we're like, oh, great, so we can't have dinner. So we thought we were gonna have to leave. No, it's way too bad outside, like, it's blowing everything away. And so the restaurant as we're all sitting there, they're like, Okay, everybody go downstairs, you know, we'll keep you here, we're gonna suspend service, but we'll keep you safe. We went to the basement. And then the top of this restaurant, starts handing out bottles of beer, because we were gonna be down there for a while. And so they were handing out water and beer, and there's a little kid down there and they were hanging out. People had their food down there. We were down there for a good 30 minutes.
Scott Benner 20:34
Listen, when you're flying away in a vicious cloud of dust, debris and wind, you don't want to be straight for that. You definitely want to be a little buzzed, so that it's fun. Until you get slammed and whenever you get slammed into. Yeah, I swear to you, my knowledge of what you just said, rests solely in the Helen Hunt. Movie Twister, I don't know anything else about although I have a slightly my tornado stories not as scary as yours. But the first time I flew into the Midwest, and I was walking through the airport going to find my car. There were signs like every, I don't know. 50 yards. Yep, designated a door as a tornado shelter. Yeah, the more I saw, the more I was like, I'm gonna get back on the plane and leave. Why do they need so many tornado shelters? Are they just gonna you know, it was I didn't like it at all.
Maddie 21:29
Preparing for the worst all the time. It's fine, we'll get any any measure of bad weather. So we got to be prepared.
Scott Benner 21:35
So I am really getting to that idea like, I I don't live a life where I think I'm where there could be a tornado. Okay, and so this might be a far reach, but I am looking for the reason. I'm looking for the way your parents were able to look at unless they're just bad people, which I don't think they are because you seem nice. I'm looking looking for the way that your parents were just like, Oh, yeah, she's 13 she can handle this?
Maddie 22:01
Well, um, yeah, it's kind of I mean, I'll be honest, I'm, I'm the most responsible person to my family, child, you know, I'm very organized, well, not organized. My room is a mess all the time. But you know what I mean? Like, I'm organized, I like control over things. And, you know, a few days after I was diagnosed, my parents told me they're like, you know, we know that if any of our other kids would have been diagnosed, they probably would have had a really hard time with it. But we know that you are, you know, responsible and you can take on and we're really grateful for that. And they knew that they knew that I was, you know, taking things by the horns, they saw me doing my math beforehand, and I was doing everything right. You know, I wasn't, I've never been a kid who was like, No, I'm gonna sneak a little extra, you know, Cheez Its here or whatever to, you know, not be well, or something like that, you know, they saw me caring about it from the beginning. And so I think that they trusted me with it. And also they kind of realize how little they I mean, both my parents are our health care providers as well. But my dad's a chiropractor, my mom's a nurse practitioner, okay. And so they kind of knew a little bit, but they were also like, wow, this is really technical. Okay.
Scott Benner 23:11
I'm busy. And I don't want to do this. That's what I would have thought. But do you mind if I call this episode favorite child? your siblings won't hear this? Will they? And to find any better parents assessment of your how many brothers and sisters do you have?
Maddie 23:25
I have three. Um, and the funny thing is, when I went to college, my mom told me she'd missed me the most.
Scott Benner 23:31
Okay, so I just want to speak directly to your siblings. At some point. They hear this. I don't know what it feels like to find out. You're not only not your parents favorite kid, but that they don't miss you. But it must be heartbreaking. And I'm sorry that it happened on a podcast I really do. If you guys want to get together coordinated Lee and treat your sister really poorly over this. I think that's valid. So holidays, maybe you get the kind of junky gift and you know, they all just kind of looking Oh look, the favorite hockey stick for Christmas and she doesn't even play hockey. Okay, so I like your enthusiasm because whether or because you realize seriously that you're, you're when your family hears this, your mom's gonna be like I told every one of those kids, they were my favorite. I was gonna miss them the most. I can't believe this poor girl thought that for real, but okay. And the other ones think for sure that you're out of your mind or Yeah, worse, worse. They actually know you're the favorite. And they secretly don't like you because of it. I like this. Are they all still when I will? Well, how would they get away? There's no airport, I guess?
Maddie 24:37
No, um, my brother lives in New York and my sister lives in Chicago. So they are they're gone. I mean, they're not coming back to the Midwest.
Scott Benner 24:45
Maybe they've had the last laugh is what we're saying. So yeah,
Unknown Speaker 24:48
yeah, it's fine. You gonna be
Scott Benner 24:49
the favorite in Iowa? I'm getting out of here. Yeah. Because I'm sure it's a lovely place. Are you Do you have plans to leave or are you I do love it. There.
Maddie 25:00
I really want to like, I feel guilty because I feel like my siblings are going to sprawl them. So, you know, my brother's going to stay over on the east coast. And so I'm like, you know, if I have kids, I want them to be able to have access to them. So I'm gonna I'm gonna give them that and say, in Midwest, I'll be not in the hometown that I I grew up in because it's it's just not fun, but I'll be in a bigger city, you know, you know, Omaha, Nebraska. That's a good city.
Scott Benner 25:26
I've heard of it. They make fun of Yeah, movies a lot. Yes, no. I've decided now that the episode title is favorite child throws shade, that's gonna be that's gonna be the episode cuz you're like, I'm not gonna move away and break mom and dad's heart. My brothers and sisters did. I'm not like that. I like your enthusiasm, and you have a lot of confidence, which I enjoy. I'm also seeing too, thank you that when you You're welcome. I'm seeing too that when you were diagnosed, your parents were like, this one's like, type A and like way loony she'll be fine. And so like, they must have said it nicer to you. But I think what they were thinking was, oh, her neuroses will take care of this. No problem.
Maddie 26:04
Yeah, and I mean, I've I've never been, I mean, my whole family's been healthy, for the most part. And so this is the first diagnosis of something that's going to be chronic and you know, have to be taken care of. And so they're just kind of like, well, I've never done this kind of thing before, but I think I think it's gonna work out and it did.
Scott Benner 26:24
And that's really kind of like to be serious for a minute. That is, it's interesting, because I have spoken to as many people who have served your base personality, right? Who were like, Yeah, I was fine. And it worked out. Okay. And then a minute, I'm gonna dig into what fine meant to you. But yeah, I've also spoken to enough people who were in a different situation who say, I really needed my parents back then they weren't that involved. I attended, I was winging it. And I didn't know what I was doing. I lied a lot about my numbers so that they would feel like it was okay. Yes. So it's interesting for parents who are listening, because I, I spoke at a hospital a couple of months ago. And as I was leaving one of the nurse practitioners, that was their said, I really want to thank you for indicating to all these people that you're involved with your daughter's care, because we have a lot of trouble expressing to parents how important it is to be involved. Yeah, and what I think maybe what I think maybe parents don't understand sometimes, and I believe that's a title to a DJ Jazzy Jeff, Fresh Prince song, but I'm not 100% sure. But what I think that parents don't understand sometimes, is that when you give your kids a responsibility, and you show them look, we trust you, then when they can't accomplish what you've trusted them with, it feels like they're failing you if they tell you I'm not doing well. Mm hmm. And that, and when that happens to kids with diabetes, they turn into 35 year old people who come on this podcast and talk about their health isn't very good. And they're so it's very interesting to see how much personality plays in how kids are able to manage this this burden, and it's a burden no matter what, no matter what your personnel.
Maddie 28:05
Yeah. Yeah. And, and I did one one thing that was different about my relationship with especially with my mom, my mom was, from the time when I was diagnosed until I was 17. So the first few years, you'd asked me at random times, you know, how have your blood sugar's been? And that I hated that. I hated it so much, because she almost acts like if I would say, like, oh, they've been high. She would like give this like, Oh, you need to take care of that kind of thing. Like, you know, this is your thing, but I'm going to check up on you just to make sure that you're not you know, killing yourself. You know, no,
Scott Benner 28:41
I hear you just kind of swoop in offer no real advice or help but go Hey, your
Unknown Speaker 28:45
job. Yeah.
Scott Benner 28:48
Your mom's equivalent. Your mom's like the equivalent of the person who walks by while you're painting a house and yells at you missed a spot right there. Yeah. You're up on a 40 foot ladder, like you know, defying death and they're like critiquing you from afar and have no Yeah, no, no plans of climbing up the ladder and helping so Exactly. I think we've learned I I see what's going on here. Your parents can never listen to this.
Unknown Speaker 29:09
Yeah, I don't know if it's a good idea or not.
Scott Benner 29:12
Well, you know what? You're doing well, so And listen, and no joking aside and parenting? Yeah, they pick the style. And it worked. So good. Good for them. You know what I mean? Like had it not worked, then we could bad mouth them, but we can't. And that's the that's the seriously that's the downside of the parenting, which is you have to pick a you had to pick a direction and sometimes go with it. And then sometimes you don't realize the direction you chose isn't working until it's too late. And so what whether they may you know, whether people make that decision on purpose, where they get lucky. I'll take I'll take luck. So tell me a little bit about if you're if you're interested in sharing a little bit about like a one sees through your 14 1516 years how you manage with your period and like and that kind of stuff like what so I guess Yeah, first of all, what was success? Like, what? When you were like, Oh, I'm doing great. There are so many reasons why we chose the Omni pod for my daughter's insulin pump. But top of the list, no tubing. That was just the first thing that stuck out to me when I saw the Omni pod. All the other pumps were a device that held insulin. And then that device pumped the insulin through this long, thin tubing that went into an infusion set. And I just thought, how is that going to work? I mean, I guess you'll wear the device on your belly holder. I don't know why. And then the tubing, where does it go? Like through your clothing? I just it all seemed kind of, I don't know. It seemed like someone designed it and thought how do I get insulin into a person? Not? How do I make living with an insulin pump? A great thing. So back then Arden was young, and it was our choice. To go with the on the pod. It looked to me like something that was designed from the perspective of the person wearing it, not the just not of an engineer thought, How do I get the insulin in there? But from a person who thought how do I make this a wonderful experience? Now Arden, of course was four years old when we did that. So you think well, maybe Scott chose but Arden decided later, this isn't the right thing for her except that Arden turned 15 today. And she's still wearing the army hot. Because it's everything that it promises to be. And that's really all you can ask of it. It does its job it does its well it doesn't get in your way. It makes living with diabetes a little easier. It makes giving yourself insulin a lot easier. Go to Miami pod.com forward slash juice box right now. And you can try a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod. They'll send it right to your house.
First of all, what was success? Like, what when you were like, Oh, I'm doing great.
Maddie 31:58
Yeah, um, so I feel like Well, I was in sports a lot in high school. And so a lot of my management like, revolved around that, because I was constantly, you know, testing before my practices at night and making sure that I was, you know, above, you know, at that time, it had to be above 150, or even 200. Because I was dropped because I was still on the shots and stuff. But it looked a lot like, you know, I would test enough like, I would probably test five times a day, which is, you know, adequate ish. I mean, I would you know, at times that the nurses would say that I should, but it was a lot of just kind of like, well, that number looks, you know, fine or that number like, Oh, it's a little high. Darn, you know, and I never had the inclination to, you know, like, give myself more insulin unless I was at a meal time. Because, I mean, you talk about this all the time, the fear of insulin, I mean, I would never think to correct myself, especially without a CGM. And that first month after I was diagnosed was just kind of like willy nilly, like, I'm trying here. I'm trying my best. And I tested it enough. And I always was very diligent about like, waiting before you ate, because they were told, they told me you know, you can't eat unless you've taken a shot 15 minutes beforehand. And so that was really hard. But then I did not use shots for more than a month. I was diagnosed in November, and I got my insulin pump the following New Year. So I got very quickly on on that train.
Scott Benner 33:38
Isn't it funny that it's thought of even seven years ago is a year being quickly good, because that used to be the like, Well, once you figure this all out, we'll let you have Oh, no,
Maddie 33:45
it was a month for me a month.
Scott Benner 33:46
I'm sorry. I thought you meant to the following January. No, no. Geez. Well, then, yeah, it was
Maddie 33:51
fast. Yeah. And I got lucky because I mean, I was doing so a quote unquote, well, from my under chronologist, who he was actually an adult diabetes doctor, because he there was no Pete's, and those in my semi small town, and he reluctantly took me on as patient. So I can I kind of had to be good, because otherwise I would get in trouble. And you'd be like, go to a piece and
Scott Benner 34:13
I'm gonna boot you. Well, you know, you know, I, it surprised me when I thought it was a year to the pump, because telling you to inject 15 minutes before is a is a forward thinking idea. So I thought, hmm, it's weird that he wanted you to Pre-Bolus but he didn't want to give you a pump. And then you're like, no, it's only a month like now that makes total sense. Because, yeah. Because he understood how, you know, at least at a main, you know, in a, in a basic way, how the insulin worked and then it needed time to get going before you before you could eat. Okay, yeah,
Maddie 34:44
from the beginning, it was kind of like, you're gonna get a pump, you know, literally in the hospital, but soon you're going to get a pump so you don't have to do this and they go, Okay, that sounds great. But I don't inject myself. So I was definitely looking forward to it. And from very beginning, you would have looked forward to anything they said after they stuck you that day. They stick it with the deal. And they go, hey, there's
Scott Benner 35:01
a way you don't have to do this. You're like, right on what's that way? Yeah. So So tell me. So it sounds like to me. And I'm thinking back to prior to when we kind of got it together, I guess. And and that idea of like, they'd be like, you know, inject at noon for lunch. He at three o'clock tester again, and then you know, and they they never talked about adjustments because it was always like Time to eat again, especially with a small Yeah, you know, exactly. And so I remember thinking back then, excuse me, I remember thinking back then, if we only test when we know the numbers going to be good. What's the point of testing? Like, don't we want to know what's happening in between? And I've said this, you know, I say this a lot. But when back then I would test it crazy times, like I yeah, feed Arden. And then like a half hour later, I'm like, let's test. Then we go into the windows office. They'll be like, why did you test a half hour FDA to like, I wanted to see what was happening. Yeah, and it was like they didn't, that didn't make any sense to them. And then CGM is became a thing. And suddenly my, you know, one of the windows looks back over records and goes, Oh, you were just acting like a CGM. Before they existed. And I was like, Yeah, I mean, it's calm. Isn't that common sense to like, like, you know what I mean, like, was he ever driven somewhere? And you get to your destination, you think, did I fall asleep at some point or
Unknown Speaker 36:28
whatever happened to you? Know, it's disconcerting
Scott Benner 36:30
and it happens to people. For the rest of the night. You're like, wondering about what happened during the trip that you didn't see you? I always felt like that with the blood sugar's like, how am I gonna? I can't just be okay, and go on and live my life because I somehow made it home. Like, I want to know what happened. And by the way, I want to be clear, I don't mean drinking and driving. No, actually, you know, I never talked about this here. I don't actually drink at all. And it's not not a moral thing. I just don't I just never have I probably Yeah, just didn't happen. I probably have not had the equivalent of a case of beer in my life. In total, so. I didn't I didn't mean I blackout drunk drive. I mentally there's been times I've been so tired in the middle of the night or something like you. You know, you just are like, wow, I'm farther down the road than I remember going in. It was dangerous, you know? Anyway, definitely, dude, please. What do you care about danger, you're going to get swept away to oz. One. You're gonna have a flying monkey and a friend with green skin. It's the greatest thing ever. You're gonna be you're gonna be Dorothy one day. I hope not where you'll get collecting the head with a stop sign and be like, what the heck happened here?
Unknown Speaker 37:42
Oh, no.
Scott Benner 37:44
Do you know what a one C's were back then?
Maddie 37:47
Um, they test I believe they tested my AMC at diagnosis. Like I had an endo appointment. You know, that Thursday after I got diagnosed and it was like, nine or something like that. So I mean, when I when I was diagnosed with dementia, my blood sugar was like 580 I think which is high but not I mean, like we were able to come back down.
Scott Benner 38:08
Yeah. and subsequent How often did you go to the endo? Would? Did he see you six months? Or does it? Well,
Maddie 38:14
I think in the beginning, I went every month, because it was so new. And he was nice. And let us comment for a month because he was he was a very busy endo, because he was the only one with the 90 miles. Sure. So I was blessed with an endo. Who was like, yeah, it's okay. Like, we'll we'll do this, you know, we'll dive in. And so I knew that, you know, in the sevens was good, you know, like, it was something that was like, oh, we're just trying to get you down.
Scott Benner 38:41
Yeah, I did that. Did that happen? Well,
Maddie 38:44
I think my first like a one see after like being diagnosed with like, 8.1 or something. And then subsequently, it came down from there,
Scott Benner 38:54
it makes sense. Now see the problem? Not the problem. But what we know nowadays is that as you know, that a one sees pretty much, you know, it's one indicator, it's not the whole picture. And that variability is incredibly important, right? Like the idea of like, you don't want to be 300 for six hours of the day. 200 for six hours a day and 50 for the rest of the day, and then go Hey, look at this. I'm gonna say one say everything's great. Exactly. Right. And so when did you because I'm assuming I'm just this isn't it funny. I just read roundly assume you use it. Dexcom, right.
Unknown Speaker 39:28
Oh, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 39:29
That's funny. I
Maddie 39:29
mean, like, of course, you know, I in the beginning, when I first got that pump, I got, um, gosh, I don't even know what's called, but it was a Medtronic. 720 I think, and it had a sensor to it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That harpoon I fainted The first time I put it in a
Scott Benner 39:50
way to go Medtronic. Okay, so wait, wait and pick something that people refer to as a harpoon?
Maddie 39:57
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Great job. Yeah.
Scott Benner 40:00
Wait, hey, may I say something here? Let me editorialize for a second. This has got nothing to do with my guest. She doesn't feel this way. Maybe worry a little more about the experience of your patience and a little less about controlling the market and making money. And and maybe you'll come up with some better stuff. Sorry. Yeah, yeah.
Maddie 40:20
Yeah, um, so yeah, I use that I got, I got really excited about that, because I was like, wait, I can see my numbers every five minutes and see where they're going. You know, I was excited about, you know, being able to look at my pump, and immediately. And so I immediately was one of those people who was, you know, I'd be in class, and I'd feel so special, because I'd be able to look down and see where my number was. And I would never, you know, like, I feel like I never really thought to connect it with like, Oh, I need to give insulin because I'm over 200 or whatever. You just didn't
Scott Benner 40:51
know what you are. Yep. So interesting. So when do you what you're using right now,
Maddie 40:59
right now, um, well, I've been I had been on Medtronic, for two pumps, cycles, almost two pump cycles. So I got the 530 g when it first came out, which is the the next in the middle that of Medtronic sensors.
Scott Benner 41:15
I didn't say that Medtronic, somebody who used it said that, yeah, bad have your sensors.
Maddie 41:21
So I was using it. And I was just noticing all kinds of issues. And I was finally like, I deserve to demand better of my own devices for you. And I actually came across on Dexcom by literally following someone on Instagram. I follow up my very first Instagram account that was from the diet of diabetic was I have the sugars by Libby Russell.
Scott Benner 41:46
I know that I know that name. I can't picture anything about it. But I've I remember that's a good one. I have the sugars well done.
Maddie 41:52
Yeah, I know. And so I saw that. And she actually had the same setup. She had a dexcom. And she had a old Medtronic pump. And I was like, wait, I can mix and match. But like, I'm not I'm not like bound to this better unit. And yeah. And so I like looked into I was like, wait, well, my insurance cover this, like, this is not from my pump company, you know. So I looked into it. And this was the time that the 670 g was just coming out. And so I went to my endo. And I was like, I'm not happy with the things that are happening. Like, I need something better, something better technology. And he basically, I mean, I think he was paid by the tronic, at least a little bit. And he was like, Well, I'm going to get you on the 670. He was like, Oh, well, I better pump. Okay, okay.
Scott Benner 42:36
And it didn't happen. Let's, for a second just for Madison. You know, safety. Maddie doesn't know that. And doesn't think that Medtronic or any company pays doctors to prescribe, because that would be incredibly illegal. And she's not saying that. In fact, it's possible. You'll just hear a giant beep prior to me saying this. But But anyway, Maddie, there are laws that would preclude companies from paying doctors to prescribe whatever, right. All right. Back in the day. Before those laws were in place. companies would fly doctors to nice places like Hawaii to show them their insulin pumps and their drugs and stuff like that. And they have been known to send. I'm making air quotes, sales associates who look a little more like supermodels to the office with bagels and pens.
Unknown Speaker 43:33
Oh, yeah.
Scott Benner 43:34
But no one pays a doctor to do that. That would be illegal. And you didn't mean to say that? Anybody would?
Unknown Speaker 43:41
No, no, no. Right?
Scott Benner 43:42
That is a child. She's How old are you? 2020. She's like, basically five years old. If you think about it, I would never say that. Right? She didn't nothing. And again, let's move on. So you went to the doctor enough about
Maddie 43:58
that. I was proactive. And I said, I'm going to get something else. He didn't end up being able to get me that pump. So I said, No, I want something different. I want a dexcom because I was noticing how cute was putting her numbers to her phone. I'm like, What diabetes can be in your phone. And as a teenager that was just so appealing to me. So I said, I want that. And he's like, Okay, I guess I can
Scott Benner 44:21
so I got it. And I'm gonna give the bagels back Maddie.
Maddie 44:26
Yeah, um, and I was just so happy with it. I mean, the calibrations were fine, because the old sensors that I had ever had, you know, you had to calibrate it, like four times a day. Um, so it was an incredible freedom for me.
Scott Benner 44:39
I'm glad and so I'm gonna get back to something. I'm gonna get right back to this. Yeah, sure. I say this. I said bagels because I live on the east coast. And for those of you who live in the Midwest and other parts of the country, I've been there and eaten what they tell you as a bagel and just let me tell you it's not it's Terrible the thing they give you and if you ever come east, please get something made out of bread. A prop how good a bagel in New York bagel, some bread, that thing that they hand you in? I was in Indianapolis once. Yeah. And I said, Can I get a bagel? I was getting ready to get on a plane. And I was at my hotel. And I was like, Can I just get a bagel? I'm just gonna put a little something in my stomach before I fly home. And I'm just I don't like to have too much going on while I'm flying. Right? So the girl brings it out. And at first I stared at it. And then I was like, okay, it's just looks different, right? Probably the water. And, and I tried it. And then she came back over and she says you're not eating your bagel. And I went, listen, this isn't a bagel. I don't know what this is. But that's the bar terrible. And you should get on this plane with me and come find out what a bagel is. Because even a bagel that you would buy in a New York airport, which I'm going to assume as dirty. Is 1000 to a million times better than the things she tried to hit me. Now we've spoken too long about bread products. But let's move on to you getting a Dexcom How long ago was that?
Maddie 46:06
Um, so it was a year and a half ago. So it was that summer, June of 2017. And I went all in. I got an Apple Watch before I got my desktop. I was like, I'm gonna do all of it. That's,
Scott Benner 46:19
that's I like the leap in First of all, what? Yeah, and what pump? Did you have? then at that point?
Maddie 46:24
I still had the 530 G. What do you have? And so I actually am still in warranty with that pump. But you can go to Omnipod and say, You need to pay me more because your podcast got me on Omnipod because of it was in the end of December, you released that podcast real quick and talked about the horizons are? Well horizon and whatever the other one was.
Scott Benner 46:53
Dash is coming out. Yeah. Yeah.
Maddie 46:55
And yeah. And they were I was so excited because there was no upfront cost. So I was like, Oh, that sounds nice. But just called on. We've had to be like, okay, what's my situation? It just happened to be like December 26. And they were like, you can get it right now. For $150. That was my copay. So I was like, okay, so I did it.
Scott Benner 47:14
On the pod, you can just send that money to my house and a check if you like, are joking, I'm not joking. I'm joking. Well, good for you. And seriously, you were locked into something. It felt it felt restrictive. It wasn't what you liked. And you were proactive. And you got that all the Joking aside about, you know, what pump I use, or you know, who I'm doing business with. It really is, that's amazing. Because a lot of people get pressured by that, and then just put their head down and take it over and over again. And and forget, you know, let's not crap on Medtronic, again, although we could and we should Medtronic, but we're not going to. And so, you know, any situation if you have an omni pod, and you really hate it, you should go do something else, you know, like try something else. So now. So now in the more recent time, like in the last six months, you told me before we started recording that you started listening to the podcast. So yeah, what have you done? We have 15 minutes left, I want to I want to hear about what you've done. And and how it's going with with your day to day care.
Maddie 48:20
I guess I was still afraid I would. Before I listened to the podcast, I would think I would see it on my CGM. I was at you know, 210 just chillin there for like, you know, three hours. I feel like, I'm not happy with it. But I've active insulin and I tried to correct but it was active. It was like, I'll just wait. So I would always wait. Because my pump told me I couldn't give any insulin right that. So I guess I was in this mindset of like, it has to be a full correction or nothing. And I never really thought of this, like this thing where I could just be like, I'm gonna give a unit and see what happens. Yeah. And that was a really big concept that changed a lot for me.
Scott Benner 48:58
I'm glad. And I'll tell you, isn't it interesting? You just said like my pump said I shouldn't do more. Yeah, but that pump makes that decision based on pretty arbitrary numbers your doctor puts into the pump. Yeah, it tells you, you know, for instance, for people who don't know, if I say, you know, if I'm your doctor, and I tell you, you have an insulin to carb ratio, that is two units for 100 carbs. And you tell it you've eaten 50 carbs and you put it in a unit? Well, the pump says Well, okay, you've put in enough. But that doesn't mean it's enough. It just means it it correlates with what the doctor said the insulin to carb ratio was
Unknown Speaker 49:37
Yeah,
Scott Benner 49:38
right. And so and if the end there's a insulin action time setting in your pump, you tell you tell your pump, hey, I believe that a bolus or any insulin stays active in my body for four hours, six hours, three hours, two hours, whatever it is. And because of that settings, say you had it set at four hours and you put in the correct amount of insulin, no matter what What happens to your blood sugar next? The kind of rudimentary decisions that the pumps making based on information that a person put in without knowing if it was right or not, the pumps saying, Hey, we put in enough insulin in this instance going to be live for four hours. So it's not going to tell you for hours that it's okay to give yourself more insulin. So you're just listening to what possibly could be really false information. And I yeah, this is a good time for me to tell you that. I don't even Arden doesn't even have an insulin to carb ratio.
Unknown Speaker 50:35
I know you just give you an answer like this.
Scott Benner 50:37
I don't even know, I wouldn't even begin to know. And, yeah, it's about, you know, I think of it backwards, I look at the plate. And I think that's eight units. And if we give her enough of a Pre-Bolus, then the initial, you know, the initial impact of the carbs won't be able to overpower the Pre-Bolus. And then if we start to see a drift up labor later, excuse me, I will then assume that the eight units wasn't enough. And I will stop the arrow and bump it and nudge it back down again. And Ted, ah, you know, it really is that easy. Yeah, you know, I was just speaking with someone prior to getting on with you. And she sent me a graph. And she's like, Look, I'm getting it. But she had some lows. And I'm like, well, you're, you know, not crazy lows like 65 where she was, I see that I see where it's unbalanced. And you get a shift around, you know, this, you might actually need lessons or not more insulin if you do it sooner. And we're kind of chatting about it a little bit. And it was just, just uplifting. It was just it was incredible to see the before and after. And I'm really thrilled that it worked out for you as well. So now, yeah, where where do you like you used to say you'd say to 10? And think I'm not happy with this, but it was okay, where do you correct that now? Like, what number do you see really cool, what am I doing?
Maddie 52:00
Um, I work a lot with like, the Dexcom like arrows. So like, if I'm rising above, like 160, or 170, I'll do something. But if it's a straight arrow, I'll wait, you know, like an hour or something to see if it comes back down. Because I do tend to come back down if I do spike to that, but after a meal. But, and something that's really changed since listening to the podcast is at night, I would be terrified to give any insulin at night. And like, why would I do that? You know, I'm at 160 Don't lie. It's fine, whatever. So now I have it set at 140 at night for my high. So if it's over that, I'm going to give something because I've realized how how big of a difference obliterative 140. And 80 is, as I'm waking up,
Scott Benner 52:48
yeah. Oh, how you feel?
Maddie 52:51
Oh, no, for breakfast. You know, you're setting yourself up for failure. If you're going to have a blood sugar of 140 you're gonna have to try and get that down. But also bowls for breakfast, and then your whole days thrown out?
Scott Benner 53:01
Yep. Because if you start bolusing at 80 and you miss on your blood sugar, you might end up back at 140 if you miss it 140 you're going to be at 220 and it's going to start climbing and you're not gonna be able to continue Yeah, you're gonna get insulin resistant. It's all Oh, look at you, Maddie, you are a star pupil. Although many, but to be clear, I've never given you advice because nothing last podcast is advice. I just talked about medical or otherwise, you've made decisions on your own money. Much like when you bad mouth. Medtronic, your own voice your parents, your siblings, Iowa. I talked poorly about bagels. But I mean, honestly, I've been pretty nice through this whole thing. But I should have you on more often. I like how you're willing to throw people under the bus while you're talking.
Maddie 53:49
I mean, I speak the truth. I just speak the truth.
Scott Benner 53:53
Okay, so let me let me add on to what you said for a second. Yeah, you're still pretty new into the podcast, you're about six months in? Yeah. You're gonna realize at some point, that a 140 that you dropped from later, is still a miss timing of your insulin. It's incredibly better than what you were incredibly betters probably not English. It's much better than what you had prior. Yeah, but it's not. It's not quite there yet. And so there will be a way for you to change the timing and the amount enough that not only does the 140 not happen, but the insulin is getting, for the lack of a better term used up, you'll balance the action of the insulin against the impact of the carbs better. And so you'll stop the rise, keep your line flatter. And then as you go out in time, the insulin and the food will sort of lose force. At a similar time. Yep, keeping you from getting low. So you're, you are at a point now without ever seniors laughs that I would say, You're close. Like, like, You're, you're really close to the idea. And by the way, if you never got any closer than this, you're doing great. You don't mean like, absolutely spectacular. So congratulations, good for you very happy for you.
Maddie 55:15
And I mean, I was, I was really happy because like I said, I mean, my last two a one C's have come down. And I thought that my last day once he was going to be 6.4, because Dexcom, but it turned out to be a 6.2. And that's the lowest has ever been
Scott Benner 55:31
one more time dancing for diabetes.com dancing the number four diabetes.com, d A and CING for the A b e t e s dot c o m. Good for you. That's excellent. Congratulations. That's a lot of hard work. And you deserve you deserve to feel good about that. And people who don't have a six to who are listening, don't see maddies thing as being like that girl like yes, got lucky or like being angry at her what you think is, in my opinion, you should think it's hopeful. It's possible, I can do that, too. She's describing a world where she didn't really know what she was doing. And then she figured it out. And she's got a six two, and she's calling her six to not perfect yet. Which means there's more space in there. And and I think this is the most important part. Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of effort you have to give to your diabetes now.
Maddie 56:31
Sometimes I get annoyed with the highs because I can't get them down. But overall, I feel like I can take it by the horns and just say, I know how to deal with the situation. And know what's gonna happen in the future versus like, questioning. You know,
Scott Benner 56:45
can I make a suggestion about the highs?
Unknown Speaker 56:47
So sighs
Scott Benner 56:49
move your move your alarm down lower.
Maddie 56:52
I've got it at 160 right now I
Scott Benner 56:53
know. But listen, if you if you listen, I didn't say it was bad. I'm not coming down. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 56:58
yeah,
Scott Benner 56:59
don't come at me. I don't want to hear shade about me later. You're not keeping that on your family. Leave me alone, okay, but here's what I'm gonna say, yeah, say you're 90 and you're cruising along and you're nice and stable. And you haven't had insulin in a while you haven't had food in a while you start drifting up, you get to 120. It would take a tiny amount of insulin, comparatively, to get back to 90. But once you get to 160, now your blood sugar has momentum, it's a little resistant, and you need to use more insulin to bring it down. Eventually, that insulin you put in to bring down that 160 will become unbalanced with whatever was forcing your blood sugar up. So that force will be gone, the insulin will remain and you'll get low, then you'll have to feed the low. And then yeah, then you end up on the roller coaster. Yeah, that's the cycle I get in sometimes. But if you just go to 120 and bump it back, you've only used a tiny bit of insulin for that. Yeah, you've stopped the high and you're not going to cause a low later and less of your time, effort and focus to do that, then it does the fight with the 160. Does any of that make sense?
Maddie 58:08
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Scott Benner 58:09
All right. We'll get at it, then. Let's go. Do it. Yeah, I don't want to have to have your parents on this podcast is to throw it back at you be like, you know what Mindy doesn't. She says she's great, but she's just okay. I would love to. I would just love to talk to your mom personally. for five seconds. I would I really want to hear the story where she's like, oh, that poor girl. We told her she was the favorite. But I mean, obviously, people don't have favorites, or do people have favorites? I don't. I was saying this to my kids. Do you have a favorite? No, I like both of my kids differently and equal. Yeah, they're different people who I guess I'm lucky enough to like, and I mean, I guess they could be like a whole side be like, Oh my god, like look at this, that but I'll tell you right now, I have a very simple parenting style. Yeah, here's my goal. And maybe you want to take this into adulthood one day, if you ever meet a boy and ruin your life with a pet and a house and a dog and maybe a kid, but to two simple ideas, but the bigger one is this. I want to raise a kid that when they grow up and go out in the world, and they're around a bunch of people, and they're being themselves that when my kid walks away from that group, the group doesn't turn back to each other and be like, Oh my god, what? Like, like, you don't mean like, want to raise a kid who's not I'm gonna have to beat that out twice but but it's only one like I think the rest of it might take care of itself if he's just a decent person. Yeah, you know what I mean? And not not a not a people pleaser? Not like he's with that group of people, you know, doing everything they want and everything but he's himself and to other people on looking. That seems okay. Yeah, see how low my got my bar is, I think, if
Maddie 59:48
not low, just wanted to raise a decent human being.
Scott Benner 59:50
Thank you. Yes, it's gonna turn out to be for me. I appreciate this. Thank you very much. All right. So we're coming up on an hour. I want to make sure that we've spoken about everything you want. And if we have, I'd like to circle back around and finish up with with the college diabetes network again.
Maddie 1:00:08
Oh, I wanted to I don't know if you've heard of that of this, but this is going to come out later. But maybe by the time this podcast comes out, it'll be a safe, Omni pod and loop like, you know, you know, the one that you don't want to put together yourself.
Scott Benner 1:00:21
I know, I know somebody, somebody just so yeah, again, people were here the six months from now, but we are in February of 2019. Yeah, recording this. And Jason, who's been on the show before? No, some somebody cracked the security, I guess in an omni pod, and set up a DIY loop with Omni pod index calm. Is that right?
Maddie 1:00:45
Yes. And I'm I've been literally going as I was in class yesterday trying to learn physiology. But this news, I was just so excited. I was digging deep into Facebook groups and slack chats and all these things. And I was like, I want all the information I can have. Because so many people have success with it. You know,
Scott Benner 1:01:05
does your brain work that way? Do you think you could set up your own like? Well, I
Maddie 1:01:09
think I think that it takes a lot less effort than then. I don't know, techie person needs, but I am techie enough. And also, I mean, I follow up a lady on Instagram, she uses the system for her four year old, and it works wonderfully. If she can keep her kid alive with that, I feel like I can keep my myself alive with it, you know? Absolutely. I'm always willing to take a leap. It's very cool,
Scott Benner 1:01:35
you're gonna be Yeah, you're we're all going to be there sooner than later, there's gonna be my expectation is my hope. And I know nothing. But my hope is that when the dash comes out from the pod, that means then the communications will change inside of the self. That will and I'm assuming tide pool is working on an algorithm right now to work with rod, you'll be able to download tide pool on your phone, and pair your decks in your Omni pod together, probably Well, before on the potty even has horizon on the market,
Maddie 1:02:08
which is really encouraging because that means that these companies aren't saying no, I'm better than you know, I'm going to do it. You know, it's becoming like, No, I'm gonna do it first. But they're, they're both going to happen. And it's a really healthy place to be, you know,
Scott Benner 1:02:21
you're 100%. Right? It is a very modern way of thinking. Yeah, and I have, I've been told by people that on the pod, they want people to have choice. So I guess they, they'll hope you use their horizon system and you love their algorithm. And if you want to use tide pools algorithm in the future, then they're happy if you do that, you know, like they just they want you to be, they want you to have choice. Unlike other pump companies, Mati, who like to lock people into long contracts, force, insulin, excuse me force insurance companies to use only their product, and then make it and then make if I can, and I will, something that really doesn't make their patients happier, healthier, but yet are they're thrilled to force them to use it so that they can make money.
Maddie 1:03:07
Yeah, I actually ran into a lady last night when I was in a workout class. And she had that unnamed pump. And I showed her my dexcom. And I showed her my watch. And she's like, you can see that on your phone. What? And she was like an older woman. And now she's like, lady, you have to know your options. So many people don't know their options. Well, it's it just makes me sad, because you should be able to have the options.
Scott Benner 1:03:30
I think one day, you wouldn't want to hear something serious for me. Yeah, I think one day companies who put actual effort into innovation, and helping their patients to live better and easier, and give them healthier lives that take less focus, like less of your time up. I think that companies who have that focus will one day unseat a company who says look, our stuff isn't as good. But if we set this, you know, if we set this whole thing up correctly on the insurance side, then we can kind of keep our, our hold on the market. Yeah. And and I think that that's not going to work forever. So I'm excited because I can see, by the way, I can see why they thought that it was going to work. Because, you know, I don't know how people how aware people are this, but I thought that tandem was going to go out of business in the US like a year and a half ago. They don't it was looking like they were going to run to Europe and just and just work there. And they didn't
Maddie 1:04:39
think that people are using more. And they're choosing those two other pumps.
Scott Benner 1:04:45
It's great for people that there's choice, right? Yeah, for sure. There was a time years and years and years ago where I thought I wasn't sure what on the pod was doing. But But now a number of years ago, they there was a big switch over the top of the company and the whole focus The company changed. And now you can see a real page patient centric, people who are focused on doing better for people. And yeah, and making them making their lives better. And so I like that there's two companies doing that. But then Medtronic, the other one, you know, and yeah, we lost the atomists. And you can't you can't let those other companies get forced out, because then you're all just going to be using a pump that, you know, Maddie just described as not great. And painful, because that's the only one. That's just that's I don't think that's going to win out. I think there are a lot of I'm cynical about a lot of things. But I don't think that's going to work for them. So I don't think so. I think I think they're making a business decision that that focuses on now and money instead of long term. And I don't think they're going to win that fight. So there's, there's my prediction. Yeah, we'll see. Yes, we will. I managed to the college diabetes network is there? Is there a, what do you call it a branch? Not a branch? What is it chapter
Unknown Speaker 1:06:06
a chapter? Is
Scott Benner 1:06:07
there a chapter at every university? Or if there's not start one? Or how does that work?
Maddie 1:06:13
Yeah. So um, when I looked at the map, you there's a map that I looked at before I came to college, because it's like, well, maybe there's one in Iowa. And there wasn't when I first looked. So that's why I was all excited when I saw the girls Facebook post. So you can look at a map and you can pick college you're going to and it'll tell you if there's one already. And if there's not, you are always free to start a chapter. And I think that it's important that people say like, it's not there, but I'm going to do it, you know, because there's so many like at any college campus, I think we said, we were trying to do the math. How many type one diabetics are on this campus? And it had been like, a 2000 or something. Wow,
Scott Benner 1:06:55
it's a big school. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so and, and so you guys have, you know, basically, I mean, tell people what the chapter does.
Maddie 1:07:04
We aim to do two things, educate and just advocate for diabetes and just support college students. Because I know when I came to college as a freshman, obviously, I tried to plan as hard as I could. But it was nice to have that even preliminary group chat to go to and say, Oh, my gosh, I'm, I've got six units left, and I'm stuck in class all day, does anyone have this infusion site or whatever, to help me out, or I've got ketones, and I'm not sure what to do next. Because I mean, I've met a girl who she was actually diagnosed her sophomore year of college. And I feel like this would have been such a community that could help her to, you know, battle through that and just to have support, and then also just in the world we live in today, educating more and more people about I mean, today, it's a really good platform to talk about, like the price of insulin. And just talking about, like, What Causes Diabetes and stuff like that.
Scott Benner 1:08:06
How many people do you have in your chapter? It's a fairly new and I assume, but how many people do you have members do you have? Um,
Maddie 1:08:13
so our first meeting of last semester, we have like 25 people, which is really good. We're still struggling to have like, you know, regular attenders, but I think that it can only grow. I hope. So. Um, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:08:28
we're just Maddie,
Scott Benner 1:08:28
let me tell you this right now. Okay. And this is a absolutely blanket offer it stands for as long as you're there. Somebody else's there. You get, let's put a number on it because I got to go to Iowa. All right. How do you put How many did you say we're at that school?
Unknown Speaker 1:08:45
Oh, there's 30,000.
Scott Benner 1:08:47
And how many people would type one you think almost 2000?
Unknown Speaker 1:08:49
Well, maybe.
Scott Benner 1:08:51
Alright. You get an auditorium and put in a few hundred people. I'll come down and do we can do a whole thing. We can do the whole board with insulin talk. Yeah, q&a, help and absolutely do that. I can't come for 25 people because of the bagels. If you have people a bag of bagels, then maybe Okay,
Unknown Speaker 1:09:09
yeah.
Scott Benner 1:09:10
But if you can get a nice group together, come out and I'll give the talk and spend send some like real time and if you want to do it over, you know, a number of hours, I won't. I won't rush in and out why I wrote that down. So we will keep that in mind. And I really appreciate it absolutely. And that by the way that offers there for anybody if you can put people together who want to who want to talk about this. I'd love to come talk about it with them. So I do it with the jdrf because the jdrf has the ability to pull together people you know I go to Ohio there were gather over 500 people at Ohio that thing was insane. Oh my goodness. Such an amazingly well run event. So cool. Yeah, I'm heading out to Arizona actually in a couple of days. Oh, fun. Yeah, it said do it there. And
Maddie 1:09:55
Arizona. I want to go to Arizona right now.
Scott Benner 1:09:58
It's only like 50 degrees there. So it's not gonna help much but
Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
it actually integrates warmer. Let
Scott Benner 1:10:02
me let me I'll leave you with this. You seem jealous about Arizona. I'm gonna go plane in New Jersey at nine o'clock in the morning on Friday. Yeah, I'll get out there five or so hours later, I get to spend an hour or two holding myself together, showering and getting changed. I have to go to a dinner to make nice with people. Yeah. And then I go to bed Get up. I do three different talks over six hours. And literally when the last ones over, I'm going to shake hands, say goodbye. They're going to stuff me in a car drive me back to the airport. I'm gonna fly five hours back home, because my son's birthday is the next day. And my and his baseball team is playing. So my wife and I and my daughter we're going to go see and play baseball and his birthday. Yeah. And then I assuming sometime after those baseball games, and on Sunday, I will pass out probably like you almost did when you saw the Medtronic CGM. Yeah, brought everything full circle and we can
Maddie 1:11:00
have fun even though it's gonna be a quick it'll be good. productive.
Scott Benner 1:11:04
I think absolutely. I'm very excited because they've got a great group of people who are really interested and I'm thrilled together. Now Maddie, before we say goodbye? Do you want to apologize to anyone in your family or tell them you were joking or anything like that? I will give you the time right now. Good.
Maddie 1:11:17
Oh, my family loves me. And they know I love them. And we have peace already.
Scott Benner 1:11:25
I'm pretty sure this episode's gonna be called Parent Child throw shade, but we'll find out.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:29
All right, we'll see in a few months, sir.
Scott Benner 1:11:31
I really appreciate you doing this. Thank
Unknown Speaker 1:11:33
you so much.
Maddie 1:11:34
Well, thank you so much for having me.
Scott Benner 1:11:36
I didn't ask you. Um, what do you give a major?
Maddie 1:11:40
Yeah, um, I'm actually in the process of applying for nursing school here at Iowa. So my goal and I'm talking a lot about diabetes in my application, because I want to be a CD. So crossing our
Scott Benner 1:11:50
fingers. Good for you. Congratulations. And I wish you nothing but love.
Maddie 1:11:53
Thank you so much. Take
Unknown Speaker 1:11:54
care. Have a good day. You too. Bye.
Scott Benner 1:11:57
Thank you so much, Maddie. And thank you Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes. You can check the advertisers out at the links that I've provided earlier, or Juicebox podcast.com. And right there in your podcast app, there's shownotes just click on it. Boom. You know how the internet works. Listen, we had a huge power outage in our house while I was editing this episode. So it is now like 15 hours after I started doing this. And it's three o'clock in the morning, but I wanted you guys to wake up on Tuesday morning to a new episode. I'm a dedicated podcaster you guys are dedicated listeners. the least I can do. I hope you enjoyed Maddie. I thought she was terrific. I love the way she joked about her family. I hope you did as well. And thanks to everyone for the great reviews. You guys been leaving on iTunes. Really appreciate those. And as a small token of my appreciation, this is what it sounds like before the podcast starts to record. Testing 123
Unknown Speaker 1:13:05
Hello, howdy. Hi. How
Unknown Speaker 1:13:06
are you? Okay, I
Unknown Speaker 1:13:09
gotta turn this up. Really quick. beak again.
Scott Benner 1:13:13
Hello. Okay. Yes, that's great. Nice. So I'm, you'll laugh at me, but Arden has a snow day today.
Maddie 1:13:21
Oh my gosh, it's snowing here too. We just got a huge blizzard.
Scott Benner 1:13:24
Where are you at?
Unknown Speaker 1:13:26
Iowa? Iowa? No,
Scott Benner 1:13:28
I just assume it says in Iowa constantly during the winter, does it not?
Maddie 1:13:32
Oh my gosh, we've gotten like two feet of snow in the last month. I swear it never ends.
Scott Benner 1:13:38
I apologize. I feel badly about that. Um, I so Okay, so here's what happens here. Right? We cancel them. They cancel them. I go, I'm gonna sleep more, sleep more and I get up later. Now I'm up later. And you know, I don't have the recycling out. I can hear the truck driving around. I'm running
Unknown Speaker 1:13:52
around with everything.
Scott Benner 1:13:54
So everything gets messed up. And then I get everything taken care of. And I'm having breakfast. And I'm so pleased with myself. I'm just lollygagging around, like like, this is all good. And then I'm like, you know, it's later than I think it is. It's so I set this up like four minutes ago. So I'm like plugging things in good timing to time starting files. Like I'm like running around like crazy. And I sit down. My wife's working from home because of the weather. And
Unknown Speaker 1:14:19
yeah, I said Look,
Scott Benner 1:14:21
I have to record right now she goes you said that was like later I'm like apparently it is later now and so
Maddie 1:14:27
suddenly it's 1030 it's just crazy.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:29
Pretty quickly.
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