#1399 Glucagon Story: Different Sarah

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Sarah shares her low BG stories. 

• Seizures, blood sugar chaos, and life-saving moments.

• How Sarah took control after years of fear and confusion.

• Why experimenting with diabetes management made her stronger.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Sarah is here today to tell her glucagon stories, and she has more than one. This is only the sixth glucagon story episode, and somehow I have a repeat name, so that's why this one's called glucagon story different. Sarah, sorry, I didn't know what else to do. The other Sarah is at Episode 1029 please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com. All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com. I know that Facebook has a bad reputation, but please give the private Facebook group for the Juicebox Podcast, a healthy once over Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. The group now has 47,000 members in it. It gets 150 new members a day. It is completely free, and at the very least, you can watch other people talk about diabetes. And everybody is welcome, type one, type two, gestational loved ones. Everyone is welcome. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one. This is my favorite diabetes organization, and I'm just asking you to check them out at touch by type one.org, on Facebook and Instagram. The episode you're listening to is sponsored by us Med, usmed.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, you can get your diabetes testing supplies the same way we do from us. Med,

Sarah 2:04
Hi, my name is Sarah. I'm 31 years old, and I believe I'm here to talk about glucagon today. Sarah,

Scott Benner 2:11
the last recording I did was with a 31 year old. Any chance you were diagnosed when you were 29 because then I don't

Sarah 2:16
have to erase this. No, no chance. I am sorry. How old were you? I was 14. I'll give you a minute to do the math. I

Scott Benner 2:24
don't really need a minute because, like, 10 more is 24 and then six gets you to 30. So it's 17 years ago. Good work, Scott. See we got Do you think other people like count like an idiot? Like I do. Yeah. It makes me feel better, actually. Okay, so tell me a bit about your diagnosis.

Sarah 2:44
Oh, man, how much time do you have? I was 14 freshman year of high school and running cross country, so probably the first time in my life where I was running that many miles that consistently, and I was losing weight. And, you know, being a 14 year old girl in the early 2000 you're like, cool, losing weight. But then I got super tired. I started drinking a lot of water, peeing every half an hour. It got to the point where I was drinking probably 1632 ounce n, l gene, bottles of water every single day. Wow. So it's crazy gallons. That's gallons of water. And I didn't think anything of it. You

Scott Benner 3:31
just thought, Wow, I'm running a lot, I'm losing weight, I'm doing all the right things. This is what my body needs.

Sarah 3:36
And it was a really hot September for up here, so I was like, Well, you know, dehydrated, drink a lot of water. It's fine,

Scott Benner 3:45
okay, all right, sick, wait a minute. 32 times 16. A second, 1218, 19, to carry the 1420,

my God, you think you

were drinking five over 500 ounces of water a day.

Sarah 4:03
It was like, four gallons daily. Wow,

Scott Benner 4:08
no one said anything. Your parents weren't like, hey, nothing

Sarah 4:12
got I have six siblings. Oh, okay,

Scott Benner 4:16
you weren't committing a crime. So they were okay with whatever was happening, and I'm in the middle of them. So you think they forgot about you years ago, years before that? Well, the

Sarah 4:25
thing is, I was kind of like the perfectionist child that really didn't need a whole lot of attention, and, you know, very easy to entertain myself, take care of myself, and they didn't worry about Sarah. So

Scott Benner 4:39
I'm gonna go down a weird road with you. Does that bother you? No, no, because I've heard from people who are like, look, I was like, the one that was good at math or I was good at homeworks, but nobody ever helped me with my homework. And there were times I sat there while other people were being helped and thought I'd like some attention from my family too, but that you didn't have that. Feeling,

Sarah 5:00
no, not really, okay. And, I mean, I feel like my parents in general were a little bit inept at parenting,

Scott Benner 5:08
okay, um, they were good at the other part.

Sarah 5:11
Oh, yeah, excellent at fairing.

Scott Benner 5:15
So you're, I'm looking at you today. You're fair skin. You seem to have a reddish hair. Are you Irish? I am 100% Finn Finn. Okay, all right. And six kids, was it like their job to make kids? Is that a religious thing?

Sarah 5:32
Well, we grew up apostolic Lutheran, which I don't know that they like, straight up, don't believe in birth control, but, like, they're very family oriented. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 5:43
So, you know, so make a lot of kids, why a family of seven is small? What do you I mean, if you don't want to talk about this, we can just keep going. But why would you say your parents weren't great at

Sarah 5:54
parenting? They're not good at communicating at all. And, you know, my dad worked swings, so eight hour shifts of days and then nights, and then afternoons and days and nights and afternoons and so he was just wrecked all the time. I gotcha. So he was a little, I would say, impaired, being able to very well communicate and orientate with his family. Being exhausted. Yeah, exhausted. Okay. And honestly, it seems like a lot of bins in general just aren't good at communication. And so if you don't want to get a little bit personal or have those deep, close conversations with anybody, you're not having them with your kids either. Gotcha?

Scott Benner 6:42
Are you? Do you have any children? Not yet? No, we're hoping you're thinking, you're you're working towards that. Okay, how was your communication?

Sarah 6:51
I made intentional efforts to work on it, and so I feel that I'm a very good communicator. And you know, my husband, I always said when I was younger that I would never marry a Finn, just because of the communication issues I saw growing up. And my husband's like 75% Finn as well. And fortunately, he's a good communicator too.

Scott Benner 7:14
You guys live in a logging community somewhere in the northeast, pretty close. Yeah, my goodness, okay. I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies. I never had a good experience, and it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while, actually, for about three years now, because that's how long we've been using us Med, US med.com/juice, box, or call, 888721151, 887211514, us. Med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omnipod, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor in Dexcom customer satisfaction surveys, they have served over 1 million people with diabetes since 1996 and they always provide 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping us med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like The libre three and Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide, and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating with a better business bureau at US med.com/juice, box, or just call them at 888-721-1514, get started right now, and you'll be getting your supplies the same way we do. 14 years old, six siblings, dads working. Your mom's got six kids. Was she involved at all? Or was it just like, Sarah do the thing and you did it?

Sarah 8:55
Yes and no. So we all kind of did our own thing. We didn't have a lot of oversight from our parents, like when we tell stories to our parents about things we did as we were kids, they had no idea, right? And, you know, they tried, certainly, but trying to keep up with seven children, and, you know, pay attention closely to each of them, and if one's a little more of a troublemaker than the other ones, then they're more likely to be the focus, which for me was fine around

Scott Benner 9:27
diabetes specifically, though, did your mom like? Well, what was your care like? I guess. What do you remember having to do when you were first diagnosed? When

Sarah 9:35
I was initially diagnosed, I was hospitalized for five days, and then they put me on Atlantis and Humalog, and probably started with a sliding scale, but then they pretty quickly connected me with a traveling endocrinologist, because we don't have endocrinology where we. Live. Okay? So a guy from eight hours away would come up here every three months and check in with the kids and say, Okay, we'll change this. We'll change this, and send you on your way. Yeah, so it was human log in Lantis, MDI for a good year. And you know, that went okay, but I really didn't have very good guidance or teaching, so we didn't really know what we were doing. And my parents, you know, their extent was, what's your blood sugar? Take your insulin, right? That was it. But, yeah, not super involved. And I've actually found out in retrospect, in the recent years how freaked out they were about it, because things weren't working well for me, I'd be high, I'd be low, I'd be high, I'd be low, and like, now I know why, yeah, back then, now, but my parents, yeah, they were just freaked out. I actually work as a diabetes educator now, and I had a patient telling me who used to work with my dad. He's like, Oh, you're the daughter with diabetes. He was telling me about you, and he thought you were gonna die, really, yeah, wait,

Scott Benner 11:16
16 years ago, like in 2000 and wait, when was like 2000 8007, yeah, okay. Your dad thought you were, you were a goner. The

Sarah 11:30
reason I'm here to talk about glucagon is I have a few stories. Oh,

Scott Benner 11:33
okay, all right, but, but his idea of this was that it was unmanageable and would shorten your life.

Sarah 11:41
Well, my endocrinologist told my parents that I was a brittle diabetic, and that's just the way it's gonna be.

Scott Benner 11:47
Ah, got it? My

Sarah 11:50
mom, she got so stressed about it she saw this book for on a magazine cover or something, the diabetes detour diet, obviously aimed towards type two diabetes, but she's like, maybe it'll help. Maybe it'll help. Let's do this. And so we did the diabetes detour diet didn't help at all, I would imagine.

Scott Benner 12:11
I mean,

Sarah 12:12
she lost like 30 pounds. It was fantastic. It was

Scott Benner 12:15
for it. Hey, Sarah is still gonna die, but I'm gonna look great at the funeral, like, I feel good. Okay,

Sarah 12:22
so, yeah, I was just in rough shape. And honestly, through my teenage years, I myself, did not expect to see 30. No kidding, because they face, they

Scott Benner 12:32
mimicked it back to you, or because you were getting low so often, you just thought, I'm not. One of these is going to get me.

Sarah 12:37
Yeah, I figured, you know, with the severe highs and the severe lows and close calls, I figured I'm not gonna make it. And honestly, because of how horrible I felt, I was okay with that, because I didn't want to live past 30 feeling the way that I did, like crap

Scott Benner 12:54
all the time. Do you know, like, my rough math just now told me that, like, 1% of the finished population has type one diabetes. Like, that's a big number. Like, how would you not know more about it? You know what I mean? Also, I have to say the podcast is shockingly not listened to in that part of the world, which freaks me out, because they're English speaking, and you would think they'd be able to, like, listen and it's, I mean, of all the countries that it's listened in, some of those kind of, I guess Nordic countries that, like, are like, have high populations of type ones. They don't seem to listen to the podcast there as much. I'm fascinated by that, too. Yeah, has been for a while. Okay, all right, so your mom's not that involved. Everyone just thinks, like, Sarah's like, a ticking time bomb. You start thinking that you don't feel good to begin with. When's the first time you have a seizure?

Sarah 13:47
Probably when I was 15, maybe a year and a half after diagnosis. How

Scott Benner 13:52
many do you think you've had over the years?

Sarah 13:55
At least eight, at least eight, and probably more that I'm not aware of. Like while you

Scott Benner 14:01
were sleeping, you think, yeah, okay. And how about low blood sugars, where you needed help? But, oh, countless, countless, dozens more more. No kidding, you were bouncing constantly. Okay? So No, CGM, obviously, no. When? When did you get one eventually?

Sarah 14:23
So a year after I was diagnosed, my endocrinology office told me, Hey, you can go on a pump now. And they gave me the different pump options. They showed me what I think was probably an animus pump, the Medtronic pump, probably a mini med back then, and the Omnipod. And because I was a swimmer at the time, I'm like, Oh, I either want this pump that's, you know, big and clunky but it's waterproof, or I want that Omnipod. And in hindsight, I think my endocrinology. This must have been contracted with Medtronic, because they told me, Oh yeah. I mean, you might not like them as much, and your insurance probably won't cover it. Either of those. They'll probably cover the Medtronic, though. And for where we live, we have, I had, the best insurance you could get. So, like, I know they would have covered that omnipot, and I really wanted it, but they hardcore pushed me to a Medtronic pump. And then eventually it got, like, that really old, just terrible sensor that connected with it, yeah, and was a horrible experience, but I got on that pump. I'm

Scott Benner 15:40
just gonna say this is crazy, but you, you grew up somewhere around Minnesota, right? Yeah, close, yeah, because that's where, that's the area that Medtronic is. The major part of the company is located there. And I've you just always see that people in that part of the world, part of the country, seem to get told Medtronic, Medtronic, Medtronic, a lot in old stories. It's really interesting. I want to say it Medtronic is currently an advertiser on the podcast for their Medtronic community. It is what it is. They probably had great sales people. You know what? I mean. I'm sure they did. Yeah. So, wow. Okay, so you get put on a pump. I got put

Sarah 16:18
on this pump. Yeah, that is not waterproof, and so me, being a swimmer, I swam multiple hours every day after school, and I, of course, had to take my pump off, and I didn't have anything about having to take a little bit of insulin here and there during practice. So every day after practice, blood sugar over 400 right, every single day, correct? Brings it probably way too far down overnight. And then, you know, waking up in the middle of the night treat the low sweating like the whole thing, right? Just a constant roller coaster. So then what I suspect happened the first time I had a seizure was maybe after like, a swim meet, which is longer than typical swimming practice, and my blood sugar is probably extremely high from being disconnected from my insulin pump, also the adrenaline, the cortisol going on while you're swimming and competing, and so being extremely high after practice, And you know, or after this meet, take my insulin to correct, take my insulin for whatever food I was having, and I probably didn't need most of that correction insulin. So then, in the middle of the night, I'm sleeping, and because I have six siblings, we shared a room, and my sister probably, luckily, she had the bunk beneath me, so we had bunk beds, and she said she could hear me just kind of like, thrashing around, making kind of weird noises, and then, like, really, just flipping out. So she she's like, Sarah, Sarah, and she looks up at me, and I'm convulsing. I'm foaming blood out of my mouth. You bite your tongue, maybe, yeah, get my tongue, get my cheek. So between the foaming spit the blood, it just looks traumatizing for my poor little sister. She screeches, run on, runs out of the room to get my mom. And of course, my dad's on midnight shift this night. He's

Scott Benner 18:24
not home. Your sister's yelling about the Lutheran devil is in her room.

Sarah 18:30
And so she goes to get my mom. My mom comes running in. She flips out. She doesn't handle stress well in general, and it's just chaos. And you know, another sister shows up, probably some of my brothers too. I think it's my older sister who figured out how to give me my glucagon, okay, and then, you know, call EMS, and they hauled me off to the emergency room to get me stabilized. And that was that you're about 15, I went to school

Scott Benner 19:00
the next day. Yeah? And that glucagon would have been the red box, right? Yes, yeah, you have the red Lily kit. Yeah. So, okay, so they somebody, did your sister give you the shot? Because the big, it was a big needle on that glucagon thing. It is gnarly, yeah? So your mom not helpful. You're dead. If it's just you and your mom in that situation, she calls 911, if you make it to the ambulance, that God bless but she ain't gonna be able to

Sarah 19:25
help you. Wow, there was another time. Okay, go ahead. There's been a few times. So that happened at least twice while I was in high school, probably from the swimming situation. Okay? Years later, years later, I had gone to school for engineering, I moved out to Washington, and I kind of wandered around for a while, and then eventually I'm like, You know what? I kind of want to go home, repair my relationship with my parents, spend time with them. And so I was living at home, and I think two of my brothers were also living at home, two. Two. I was in this phase where I would work out at night and similar sort of thing. The stress, the cortisol, doing heavy weight lifting, adrenaline, blood sugar gets super high. And I was trying to figure, I was trying to figure out diabetes at this point in time, yeah, thinking, you know, I think I'm going to make it to 30. I might as well. As well figure it out. So

Scott Benner 20:23
how about how old are you at that point?

Sarah 20:27
Oh, gosh, let's see this would have been. I'm gonna go home and talk to my 17, 2017,

Scott Benner 20:34
Oh, Jesus, not long ago, really. No, not that long ago. Okay, so you're like, in your mid 20s, mid 20s, and you've now had diabetes for a decade or more, and you're starting to think maybe I should figure out how this works. Yeah, okay, all right, I got it,

Sarah 20:51
yeah. So late night workout. Do my thing. Blood sugar's high. No surprise. Take some correction insulin. Have a shower, go to bed, didn't think anything of it. My bedroom and my brother's bedroom were right next to each other, and our beds were against the shared wall, right? He said that he was laying in bed, and two o'clock in the morning he's just getting super frustrated because he cannot sleep, and then he hears this death moan from my bedroom. Just well, what it is is when you start a seizure, your diaphragm contracts and all the air from your lungs is pushed out, and you let out this, yeah, so he hears that, and it freaked him out enough that he came running into my room, except I sleep naked until I had my door locked. And so he's trying to get into the room. He finds the key to unlock it, and he walks in, and he sees me just completely naked, seizing all over the bed, freaking out, but he's a little bit more level minded, and so he his first thought is, turn her on her side. Okay, so he comes to turn me on my side, and I start fighting him, right? And my eyes are open, and he said, the look in my eyes was just terror, and he couldn't tell, like, if I was with it, or if I was, like, trying to tell him something, but couldn't speak. But I'm just fighting him. He runs and gets my mom, and again, my dad is working midnight. Yeah, sure, of course, not there to help. Why not? So he runs and get my gets my mom, and they didn't know where my glucagon kit was, and honestly, it was probably expired. Anyways, still would work, but

Scott Benner 22:38
yeah, so

Sarah 22:40
what they decided to do was they got corn syrup and poured it in my mouth. Oh, and then called EMS, and they're like, we'll let them do the glucagon if they have it. So I kind of come out of that the

Scott Benner 22:59
corn syrup got you What's that? The corn syrup brought you out of it. I don't

Sarah 23:04
know if EMS showed up and gave me glucam automatically, or if they let the corn syrup

Scott Benner 23:10
because we don't want you choking to death before the seizure can kill you, right? But, but I get their I get their thought, like, what are we gonna do? Right? Like, we need to do something. Okay, all right, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Sarah 23:22
So I kind of come to and first thing I notice is there's a towel over my shoulder. I'm sitting in my bed naked with a wet towel on my shoulder, and I am sticky. Yeah, I'm like, What the heck? And I see strangers in my room, my older brother, my little brother, my mom, standing around, what? And I tried to speak, and I could not speak. And my first thought was, oh, my gosh, I had a seizure, and now I have brain damage.

Scott Benner 23:56
Oh, you had that thought. I was

Sarah 23:59
terrified, and it's, yeah, that post ictal phase, you're cloudy, yeah. I immediately thought, I must have brain damage. I can't speak. But then I realized my tongue, my cheeks, were just ground meat by that point, right? Wow, they're telling me what's what happened, and I like motion for a sticky note and a pen, and I write down my blood sugar was over 400 before bed, and that was the last thing I had remembered. And they're like, Well, yeah, that makes sense. And they gave me the option of going to the ER or not. I'm like, why? At this point, this

Scott Benner 24:42
is old hat. Now I'm good. Why don't I just take a shower instead? Since, yeah, two weeks

Sarah 24:47
afterwards, though, I that post Ital phase lasted and I was just cloudy. Couldn't concentrate. I genuinely thought I had brain damage for a good two weeks after. Words, okay, did

Scott Benner 25:00
you tell anybody? Oh, yeah, yeah. You're like, I definitely have brain damage. So when you look back at it now, are these all avoidable? Like, if you knew how to use insulin better, yeah, yeah, absolutely, they just probably don't happen, right?

Sarah 25:17
Yeah? Like, looking back at all of the episodes that I've had, I can understand why they've all happened, except for one, okay, there's one time where I'm just like, don't know where that came from, don't know why. Seems

Scott Benner 25:33
crazy that that one happened. Yeah, okay. You carry glucagon now. Oh, yeah, yeah. You do Which one do you carry? The nasal or the Chivo.

Sarah 25:41
My insurance company covers Dexcom. Me the nasal, so you have

Scott Benner 25:45
the nasal, the powder, okay, yeah, everyone knows how to use it. In your life. You're married, right? I am married. Does the boy know how to use it? Oh, he knows how to use it, yeah, okay. Has he ever had to Oh, yeah. Okay. So how long have you been married? We've been married five years. Okay, you've had a seizure in the last five years. When's the last one you had? Though,

Sarah 26:06
I've had a seizure in the last two weeks have you really? Yeah,

Scott Benner 26:10
tell me how the one that happened two weeks ago happened. So

Sarah 26:14
this was actually Easter Sunday, okay? And I use, well, I was using IPS at that point, and my build had just expired, so I had to build the new one, and I messed up the build, so it actually ended up being the one that we're not supposed to be using the 3.4 point zero instead of the 2.33 right? So I don't know if you, if you're aware of what's going on with the Iaps. I know

Scott Benner 26:44
a little bit, yeah, I know a little bit with drama going

Sarah 26:47
on there. Yeah. So I built the 3.4 point, oh, which is buggy, and crashes a lot. And so it was that day, I believe it was that I started using it and like, Well, we'll see how it goes for this pod, and I'll probably switch over to loop until I'm able to build the 2.33 but instead,

Scott Benner 27:12
but so this one was at least not you Right? Like, well,

Sarah 27:16
it wasn't, it wasn't. If I paid a little bit more closer attention, I would have realized that going to bed, you know how when you're having a blood sugar rise with IPS, it's aggressive, and then it backs off. So I've had some really noisy dexcoms lately, and so it'll be like 80 190

Scott Benner 27:40
110 100 so you got a bad reading. It Bolus, and then the reading went back again.

Sarah 27:46
Well, I got a bad reading of 131 with a straight arrow up as I'm going to bed. And so I just clicked on the little Bolus button to see what it was recommending. And it was recommending 3.5 units, which for me is a ton. I'm like, I'm not gonna do that. I'll do like, 1.7 not realizing that, while I'm deciding about this, it initiated its own micro Bolus of point eight, and

Scott Benner 28:10
then you gave it 1.7 and

Sarah 28:12
then I gave 1.7 and not even an hour later, I had a seizure. Unfortunately, my husband was home, which he's not always, because He works nights. Okay, like we knew right away that my blood sugar was starting to drop. I'm like, Ah, cute. It over Bolus. So I drank a juice box, ate a roll of Smarties, and I'm like, that should cover it. And I just laid down and went to sleep, and then all of a sudden, my next awareness is, I'm holding my phone and like trying to do something on it, but I can't figure out what I'm trying to do, and it's not working whatever I'm trying to do. So I just lay my phone down and my husband's looking at me like, What are you doing now? And I'm like, I'm fidgeting with something, and I feel like I might do something that I'm not supposed to because I'm not completely aware right now, so I'm just not going to do anything. He goes, okay, yeah, well, you had a seizure.

Scott Benner 29:21
He's like, I know you're just getting back in the game, but here's what's been going on here while you were gone, right? Oh, wow. He took a video

Sarah 29:27
for me this time at least, so I could see, like, what was going on, right? And he said, as he was giving me another juice box, I had the seizure. And he's like, Well, let's see what the juice box does, maybe that'll be it. And you know, I'm starting to come back up again, and then half an hour later, I start crashing again, and it's another juice box. And now you start coming back up, and then I'm crashing again. And at this point, you know, my iob, according to Iaps, was. Was negative. And he's like, Why do you keep crashing? You shouldn't be continuing to crash if you don't have any insulin on board. We can't figure out why, but I was so nauseous and just sick feeling. I'm like, I cannot drink any more juice. And he's like, you have to you keep dropping. And I'm like, why don't you just give me some Dexcom me.

Scott Benner 30:21
And then we went for that, and that helped. Yeah, we

Sarah 30:25
had a conversation about, he's like, Are you sure you really want this? I'm like, I'm pretty sure if I drink more juice, I'm gonna throw up, and then we're gonna I ended up throwing up anyways, yeah? So I'm like, yeah, just give me the back semi and juice

Scott Benner 30:38
sick is a real thing that overly sweet, like stomach that it could give you, it's not good, yeah. How come you didn't just eat something at some point?

Sarah 30:47
I don't think I was aware enough to think of that. How about him?

Scott Benner 30:50
Where was he with? Here's a piece of bread like nothing. We don't even keep bread in the house. Would you like a cracker? Look like nothing, like that. So you've just been at this for so long, you did the things you thought were gonna work, and they just didn't work that time, like with the first the juice box of Smarties, that kind of a thing like, that'll be okay, and it just wasn't. But is it reasonable for two units of insulin to make you that low when

Sarah 31:16
I was on ozempic? Yes, okay. I have since stopped ozempic. And honestly, just like the month and a half has been a struggle out of kind of nowhere. I think we were all sick. We probably had the flu, we probably had COVID, so I wasn't as active as I normally am. So in general, I'm pretty doggone in sensitive to insulin. But just this last month and a half, it's been a struggle to have a consistent insulin sensitivity. I guess.

Scott Benner 31:47
What did someone give you ozempic for? Because you sound like you're not in you sound insulin sensitive already. I

Sarah 31:54
am okay, and I'm very fit. I'm healthy, yeah, PC, OS, no, no. I approached my provider and said, Look, I am starving constantly. I can't stop thinking about eating. I eat a full meal, and half an hour later I'm looking for something else, yeah, and this is maddening. And I told her, Look, it's because I don't make Amylin. So, yeah, I could take an Amylin replacement. I could take sim line, but that's a three times a day injection at least. Or I could take a once a week injection of ozempic and have the exact same effect. How much were you injecting? I was at one milligram when I stopped. Did you need

Scott Benner 32:37
it? Could you have not gotten away with less? I probably

Sarah 32:39
could have, but I liked how I felt at one milligram. Okay, so

Scott Benner 32:43
you had found, but So why'd you stop taking it then? Because we want to have babies soon. Oh, they're doing, listen, I am certainly not a researcher. I want to say that up front, but they're starting to do studies on pregnant women on glps, and I think they're going well. So

Sarah 33:00
yeah, I really want to see the research on of course, I really miss the ozempic. But you know, reading the insert is specifically says, If you're planning on getting pregnant, yeah, stop this medication at least once in advance. I

Scott Benner 33:13
think what the insert says is, we haven't tested on pregnant people yet, so, yeah, yeah, which is a shame, but yeah, but hopefully they'll get to it. They are. I don't know who they is, but I've seen some GLP studies with pregnancy happening and they they're going positively. I feel the best I've ever felt my life. And I'm using zepbound. I just got my blood work back today. My blood work is fantastic. You guys know, if you listen like I'm always have forever having to get, like, iron infusions a couple times a year, because my ferritin crashes. My Fert is 180 I haven't had an iron infusion over a year, yeah, just from, like, my digestion, working, like properly, actually absorbing the nutrients that I'm taking in, right? What about the GLP made you feel good? Do you think because you're not taking it for weight. You're insulin sensitive already. This was just about hunger for you. So,

Sarah 34:04
yeah, it was maddening to just constant hunger, constant food noise in my mind. When can I eat? What am I going to eat? And so taking that away gave me so much more mental space. Honestly,

Scott Benner 34:18
did it happen for you? The way my wife describes it. She says she would open her eyes in the morning, and the first thing she would think is, I wonder what I'm gonna have for breakfast. And then she would think about it, and she's like and by the time I finished breakfast, I started wondering about what I was gonna have for lunch, and she's like, that all went away on a GLP, I guess

Sarah 34:36
I wouldn't say that I was instantly thinking about food right when I would wake up. But when I was a kid, my dad called me a bottomless pit. I could eat and eat and eat and I would eat just about anybody, and always have room for more. This

Scott Benner 34:54
is since, since your diagnosis, not prior to it, right? Yeah, I know that people don't. I. Understand that a lot of type ones have that insatiable feeling, and I know people just think it's, I don't even think they think twice about it, that it could possibly be connected to diabetes. But turns out it is. Well, knock this baby out, and then we'll get back on ozone book. How come your insurance is covering that?

Sarah 35:19
So I've had really, really good insurances, right? And I specifically became a nurse so that I would continue to have really good insurance after I got off my dad's

Scott Benner 35:31
insurance. You thought about that a lot when you were younger. Oh yeah, for the very first time last week, Arden talked to us about it. So in one of her college classes, they're talking about, like, health health care. And she called, like, not in a panic, but she was like, Hey, I have to get a job with good health care because I'm going to get kicked off your insurance when I'm 26 and like, she's going on and on, and I'm like, first of all, we've already told this to her, like, I don't know why she wasn't paying attention the first time, she took it super seriously all of a sudden. And she's like, this stuff's expensive that I use. And I'm like, Yeah, I know I'm paying for it. Like, I know people probably think, like, I get everything for free, but that's not how that works. I don't get any of this. Like, our insurance pays for all of our supplies. And, you know, the companies actually can't give me, it's not legal for them to give me that stuff, and so it's not available. It's never been offered, like I we pay for everything. But she suddenly was, like, thinking about it. So it's interesting that you thought about it too. You became a nurse, partly so that you'd have good health care,

Sarah 36:34
I would say mostly so I would have good health care. Wow, that's interesting. When I was a teenager, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, and I am a really good massage therapist, okay, that's what I'm passionate about. I love doing it, but you don't get insurance doing that. So I went to school for biomedical engineering out of high school, okay, but I hated the whole sitting behind a computer, not interacting with humans, sort of thing. So I'm like, you know, I'm just gonna massage and milk out this time that I'm on my dad's insurance until I'm 26 and then I realized Cobra would allow me to keep it for another three years. So I paid an exorbitant amount of money for three years to keep my dad's insurance benefits and get that really good coverage. It's

Scott Benner 37:25
a lot. It's a hey, do you side hustle massage now? Do you nurse? Yeah, gonna say that's what I would do. Did people come to you or do you go to them?

Sarah 37:35
Depends on the situation. Okay, interesting. It's a

Scott Benner 37:38
cost to get a nice rub down for an hour.

Sarah 37:42
Depends on where you are, okay, and it's certainly changed in the last few years. I worked for a chiropractor for good five years, and because it was usually covered by insurance plans, they could only charge like $1 a minute, which is what the insurance Yeah, that's pretty cheap now compared to what people are wanting when I massaged, when I lived out in Seattle, it was like 90 to $100 an hour, if, depending on where you're working. I worked in a hotel spa that charged, I think, it was 165 an for a 50 minute massage, which I thought was insane. It's

Scott Benner 38:25
interesting. But prior to me losing weight, I was one of those people. I would watch a YouTube video of like, a chiropractor, and I would have like, actual, like, daydreams about going there and having that done for me, like I'd be I used to say I just wish a car could just drive over me, flat me out, and then I could come back to life like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. I think that's what I need, and I don't think about it anymore. Now that I've lost weight,

Sarah 38:50
it's interesting nation probably, well, yeah,

Scott Benner 38:53
I think so. I just I'm not creaky and achy and everything like I used to be. I don't crack my neck anymore. I do still, if I work too much, I do still lean, like, lean over a counter and stretch my back kind of that way. But it's not the way it used to be, like, I used to be all beat up. I felt all beat up all the time. I've had, like, conscious thoughts where I'm like, I'm gonna drive to South Carolina where that guy puts that thing around your neck and yanks your head up. I definitely feel like I need that. Meanwhile, I don't think that's a good idea at all, probably, but nevertheless, scariest seizure you ever had. And why was it scary? Which one pops in your head? Were they amalgam? Probably the scariest

Sarah 39:32
one I had was again, living at my parents, and at that point, I was living in the attic, okay, because more people were living at their house at that point in time, and the attic was the only place that was open. So I made myself a little room up there. And this was really like at the start of when I consciously decided i. Going to start to figure this out. And so it just involved a lot of experimenting, which very often didn't go well. But so what happened is, I think in the middle, in the early, early morning hours, my Omnipod emptied out, and I was not with it enough to address that. So I'm like, Well, okay, I'll just, uh, take a small injection of insulin until I get up and address this. Okay, that small injection of insulin, I don't think was actually that small of an injection of insulin. And so I I you know, go to sleep, and then I wake up, and I'm just delirious and soaking wet, and my body's trembling. I feel like I'm gonna throw up, and I know that I'm three floors away from everybody else, right in the attic, yeah, and so everything inside of me, I'm just willing myself get out of bed, get downstairs, get help, and I'm just very gingerly but weekly, because after you have a seizure, your muscles take a little bit of time to figure out how to function again. It's like your legs will give out from under you. So I'm like holding on to the handrails as I'm trying to go down the stairs, and I'm looking down at this very narrow stairway. It's steep, and I'm looking at my legs and my feet, and I see them, and they look mangled to me. It looks like my legs are on backwards as I'm going down the stairs, and it's just a disturbing image in my mind of my body is messed up, which obviously my legs were on straight.

Scott Benner 41:48
Oh, they weren't backwards. No, I'm just kidding, shockingly, but I was hoping that was your interpretation of it. Yeah, yeah,

Sarah 41:55
I'm hallucinating as I'm trying to get downstairs. And so I go down these stairs, I get to the second floor, and then it's a long hallway to the other end where the next set of stairs are, and I'm just hanging on to the walls as I'm working my way down the hallway. And I get to the top of the next set of stairs, and I sit down, and I just start sliding myself down those stairs. And then when I get halfway down the stairs, I'm just help, help. Just weak voice. Don't really have much in me, and I'm just trying to call out for help. And I know my I can hear that my parents are in the kitchen on the bottom floor on the other side of the house, and I'm just calling out. And eventually my dad heard me, and he comes in to see me, and he's like, what's going on? What's going on? I'm like, I need sugar. I need sugar. I need sugar. I think I had a seizure. And he basically carries me into the kitchen, and my mom starts freaking out, what do you need? And you're naked,

Scott Benner 42:55
by the way, right? Not at this Oh, look at you, because I remember how I had clothes. Okay? Because I'm like, you sleep, by the way, the worst part when you said I woke up soaking wet, I was like, Ooh, naked. Suck to the sheets. That's what I actually thought like. But so you okay? So your your mom freaks out, your dad helps you,

Sarah 43:12
and they give me some orange juice and and set me down at the table and just give me a little bit of time, and they're asking me questions. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I can't have a conversation right now. I don't know what's going on. Do

Scott Benner 43:26
you ever have the feeling Arden described to me that it felt like she was jumping, and when she clarified it, what she meant was there was another person in the room. When this happened, and when she could see them, they were 20 feet away, and then the next time she was conscious, they were 10 feet away. And then the next time she was conscious, they were in front of her. And she described it as feeling like she was jumping through time. But really she was like, seeing, not seeing, seeing, not seeing. Has that happened to you? Yeah, yeah. Is that is that strikingly like frightening or,

Sarah 44:01
Oh, definitely the first few times it happens. But I'm unusually able to be objective about what's going on with my body. And like, if get your way through freaking out, I'm focused, right? So, like, emotion gets brushed aside. I just focus on what's the problem? Let's fix it. Almost

Scott Benner 44:24
feel like you're trapped in a, in a, in a body that can't move talk, but you feel like you know everything is happening around you. Do have that, that experience? Yeah, yeah. That's how Arden described it, too. Okay, so now I have to, like it's an incumbent upon me to ask you this, you're a nurse. What kind of NURSE Are you?

Sarah 44:47
I am an RN, and I did a very brief stint on the cardiac unit, and then, by a weird chain of events, I was approached by a. Diabetes educator who wanted to retire, and she said, Please take my job so I can retire.

Scott Benner 45:06
So you're a CD CES. Now

Sarah 45:08
I'm not eligible to test for my CD ces until the fall, because you have to be licensed and working hours.

Scott Benner 45:16
Okay, so you're that close to that. So I'm going to ask you a question. I don't mean this harshly. Why can't you figure this out?

Sarah 45:23
Well, Scott, I do feel like I have figured it okay. I just have a lot of crap situation.

Scott Benner 45:30
But you know that, like, I'm just the mouthpiece for the people listening. Everyone's wondering, like everyone's listening and going, I don't get it, like she said at the beginning. She's like, you know, like, because I'm worried that what they're thinking is, oh, Sarah, can't figure it out. How the hell am I supposed to figure it out? Because you're not, listen, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna make a statement. I'm gonna ask you a question. Do you think you're a brittle diabetic? No, there's

Sarah 45:52
no such thing as a brittle diabetic. It just means you don't know what the heck you're doing, right? And that

Scott Benner 45:56
was gonna be my next question. Do we even think that's a real thing? You're pretty sensitive to the insulin. What's your insulin

Sarah 46:02
sensitivity in your pump right now, it's at 105

Scott Benner 46:06
that's pretty. That's pretty. Are you stature wise? How tall are you by five? By five you and you said you're fit. So five, five would be like 135 pounds.

Sarah 46:19
I'm at 150 but I'm very muscular. Okay, all

Scott Benner 46:22
right, so then you're a muscular 551, 50. Your sensitivity is, you're right, that's 105 is crazy. So what's your insulin to carb ratio? One to 20?

Sarah 46:33
Like one to 22 and of course, it changes based on time of the month, right?

Scott Benner 46:39
And your basal is what like point four an hour.

Sarah 46:44
When I was on ozempic, it was point four to point five. Okay, and now it's more. I think I've got it up to like point 6.7 Yeah.

Scott Benner 46:53
So what is it? Do you do you pre bullish your meals? I do okay. And what's the spike for you when you eat? How much? What's the number where you're like, Oh, I spiked

Sarah 47:07
while I was on ozempic and doing my usual, usual care. A spike, I would be upset being above 140 okay? You know, waking up in the 70s and 80s, very typical for me, right? Very minimal variation. Very comfortable in the 60s. Very rarely would I be hit in two hundreds, except for this last month and a half being sick and who knows what going on. But it seems like in the last couple of days, it settled down quite a bit. So

Scott Benner 47:38
on ozempic, was your A, 1c, like, like, 5657,

Sarah 47:44
no. Typical was less than 5.5 5.5

Scott Benner 47:46
okay, all right, how long did you do ozempic for three years? How many seizures did you have in those three years?

Sarah 47:54
One, okay, hey,

Scott Benner 47:58
do you want to know why Scott do but that's great, but why?

Sarah 48:02
So it was my first day working as a brand new nurse on the cardiac unit. And, you know, 12 hour shifts, you know, going through the orientation, all the new stuff, which, sure, it's stressful. And I was looping at that point, my blood sugar is just creeping up, creeping up all day long. I'm like, it's, it's the stress, it's the cortisol, adrenaline, yeah. So I set an override, and I want to say it was probably like a 50% override, and once I set that, the remainder of the day, blood sugar, beautiful. Back down below 100 nice and steady, minimal variation. I'm like, Okay, fine. So I went home from work, and I am fried.

Scott Benner 48:49
Long day, lot happened. Long

Sarah 48:51
day we had a dead body. I'm just like, I want to go to bed because I have to work again tomorrow morning, right? I got home, my husband had made dinner for me, you know, just wants to get the pre run down. How did everything go? And then so I ate and took my insulin like had my shower, go to bed. I forgot to cancel the override. Oh, and I am far more sensitive to insulin when I sleep. Yeah,

Scott Benner 49:21
how much was the override 50% Oh, you were getting one and a half times the insulin you needed. And then you and you were exhausted and you fell asleep, yeah,

Sarah 49:29
I was just crashed, yeah, way too much insulin. And so probably

Scott Benner 49:37
was the override arm when you Bolus, yeah, oh, so not just your basal and your Yeah,

Sarah 49:43
also that Bolus. And it's all within a short amount of time that I did that and then go to sleep. Yeah. Fortunately, my husband was home. He again, works nights, and so he was going to be up for a while, and he's out in the other room, and he hears the. Death moan, right? And comes running in and finds me seizing, and straight away gives me, I don't think it was back semi then it must have been that the lily box, the lily kit, yeah, so he gives that to me, and it's taken a really long time for me to come out of it. And so he found another one and gave that to me, which that one definitely was expired, but whatever. Yeah, he calls EMS, and he actually is a registered nurse at the local emergency department, so he's got a pretty good relationship with the EMS workers. And so they come in and they're they're just watching me, seeing how things are going. And they said it was probably an hour of me sitting there in bed, and just like not with it at all, they're staring at me, trying to assess my mental faculties. What year is it? And I'm like, it's 2016 who's the President Trump,

Scott Benner 51:01
Milford Fillmore,

Sarah 51:05
they asked me, Do you know where you are? I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm at the hospital in Marquette, and obviously I'm not my husband asked me, Do you know who I am? I'm like, You're my nurse. And he goes, No, Sarah, I'm your husband. And I just go, No way.

Scott Benner 51:23
I got married to a boy and he's hot. I did it. I told you, you start talking to voices. I told you we'd get a guy. My god, that's crazy. That went on for an hour,

Sarah 51:37
yeah. So after about an hour of just me not coming around, they're like, yeah, maybe you should bring her in, right? And you know, being EMS workers that my husband knows, they're like, you're probably fine to just driver, we'll save you on the ambulance bill, right? And he gets me in the car, and he keeps, he keeps telling me, you had a seizure. We're going to the ER, I gave you glucagon. You're okay. We're just going to get you checked out. I'm like, Yeah, okay. And he keeps telling me I'm your husband. I'm like, You're my husband. Okay, you're my husband. Yeah, you're my husband.

Scott Benner 52:17
You didn't know somebody was related to you and you were being told you were wouldn't you be scared or, or, you know what I mean, or I guess you don't. You're not. You don't have the wherewithal to be scared.

Sarah 52:28
I'm pretty docile. Honestly, pretty docile.

Scott Benner 52:32
You could kidnap me, easy, Scott. I just want to say, I'll go along. Oh, you're my mom's friend. Sure. Let's go. But

Sarah 52:41
if you give me problems, we're gonna fight, yeah,

Scott Benner 52:43
but I will smack the out of you if you come for me with that glucose, that's for sure. Oh, my God. Seriously

Sarah 52:49
though he got me to the ER, and they put me in a bed, and he's telling his co workers what happened and what he's wanting, yeah. And so they hook me up to dextrose, and they get a sandwich. And of course, the plan is, pump me full of dextrose, get that blood sugar up. Even though at that point, my blood sugar already was up, my brain just wasn't catching up to it. Yeah, and he tells the nurse who's assigned to me, he goes, she's not gonna like it if you start pumping that dextrose in her, she's probably going to get mad, actually,

Scott Benner 53:24
because her blood sugar doesn't look like it needs it. So yeah, and

Sarah 53:28
yeah, dextrose would be unnecessary.

Scott Benner 53:31
Sarah, have you ever seen a I don't know what the word is I'm looking for. Why can I come up with the word I want? Have you ever had your brain scan to make sure you're okay after all these seizures. No, no. Do you think about that ever?

Sarah 53:45
No, because I can still do calculus pretty comfortably. Because,

Scott Benner 53:48
you know what a quadrilogical Something triangle is like? I don't know it obviously I think

Speaker 1 53:54
critical thinking skills. I'm still very logical. I can think through problems, and, you know, I don't feel like I have any

Scott Benner 54:02
actual deficit, but the light hearted conversation aside that we're having, I you don't want to be having these seizures, obviously, so and one in three years after having so many to the algorithm. You think is, had you not, I didn't mean to say screwed up, but had you not screwed it up? Yeah, had you not screwed up the override? You wouldn't have had one except for this weird one you had recently that you can't figure out what happened, right? The more recent one, oh, no. The more recent one was when you put on the wrong DIY app.

Speaker 1 54:34
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one that I can't figure out happened was actually a year after the year after, I don't know. You

Scott Benner 54:44
can't say you don't know right after you said, cognitively, I'm okay. There's so many. Scott, no, I know you're just trying to keep them all straight as all. What would you say to people about, like, being safe? Like, you know, like, obviously you're. A different story, and most people are not going to have nearly as many as you did. But I mean, is it? Just have glucagon on hand. Make sure people know how to use it. Try not to be alone. Like, what do you do if you're alone? You know what? I mean,

Speaker 1 55:14
I'm a lot more conservative. I guess I would say I do a lot of experimenting, honestly, yeah, sometimes it doesn't work

Scott Benner 55:22
out. Well, what are you experimenting for? Like, what is it you're trying to get to?

Speaker 1 55:27
I just like to understand how things work. And, you know, see how different things make me feel. Like, I experimented with a Fresa. Sometimes I use it here and there, yeah, you know, experimenting with the ozempic. Now I'm experimenting with SIM line, Metformin, yeah, the different insulins, the different algorithms. I just want to find what works well, and to be able to tell people, This is my experience with this medication or this algorithm or this system. Yeah, this is what you could feasibly expect. Don't mess it up.

Scott Benner 56:01
Is the sim line helping you with the hunger problem? Or no,

Speaker 1 56:06
it does, but it's very tricky. With figuring out Bolus timing, it's literally

Scott Benner 56:12
three times a day you have to shoot it. Yeah, that's tough. I have to be honest that. GLP, I haven't thought about food in forever, like I actually got busy last weekend, and I had that feeling at like, four o'clock in the afternoon. I was like, What's wrong with me? And I was like, something's wrong. And then I was like, Oh, I haven't eaten today. Like, I got up, I got involved with the dogs. Then a thing happened. Then this project I wanted to get to I started, and then before I knew it, I was like, what is wrong? And then I was like, Oh, I haven't eaten today. And I was not hungry, like, not hungry at all. It's wonderful stuff. I have to, I have to say that Arden's using a half of ozempic right now. She started at a quarter. She's at a half now, her insulin sensitivity went from one, I I've said it like 42 or 43 but in that range to like one to like 93 now, and her basal is down. Her insulin to carb ratio is weaker, like, just everything. Like, she's using a lot less insulin. It did impact her eating. And I haven't, you know, I'd have to get her on here to have her really talk about it. And she's, there's times where she's like, I can't eat, and there's times where she's like, I can eat fine. Like, you know, I just not as I don't eat as much. But her decrease in insulin isn't just because she lost a little weight, but a tiny like, on her, it probably looks like a lot, but it's probably 10 pounds, you know what I mean. But her insulin usage is not directly related to the food. It's it's something about that, the GLP and how it slows down your digestion. It's just fantastic. So I think at some point it'll be offered to every type one, if I hope so. Yeah, once insurance comes around on it, you know, I think it's more about the they got to figure out how to make enough of it first. Like, I actually think, like, 10 years from now, like the whole society might overall look differently because of it. It's really impactful. So you're shaking your head, yes, you know, because you've used it. So I probably just sound like, I'm, I'm being paid by a GLP company, which I'm not.

Unknown Speaker 58:23
I prescribe it all the time. Yeah, do

Scott Benner 58:25
you good? Yeah, I I am not being paid. But I want to be clear, I would accept money because I genuinely have had such an insane experience with it, like my wife and I, both our lives are like completely different artists too, just, you know, and so because we found a doctor who was willing to, like, kind of deal with things the way you were talking about, this is very nice of you and brave of you to do because you because somebody's gonna judge you over this, just so you know, like, Oh, I'm sure I get crap online once in a while, because I've shared, like, Arden came on here and talked about having a seizure after her senior prom. And you know, if you dig around in the right corners of the internet, you'll hear some horrible people like say, see his daughter eats carbs, and look what happened to her. So I've actually seen that if those people are listening, I hope you fall on a sharp stick. I don't care like and she doesn't care either. That's what happened to her. She had a very similar experience. She had a big day. She was very active. Her blood sugars were fantastic. All day long, nothing. I was watching it like, you know, remotely she was paying attention to there was nothing that you would have thought like nothing you would have thought that was strange. And then she had, like, they had some weird meal at like, three or four o'clock in the morning, and she didn't even Bolus for all of it. It's like she knew, and she still Bolus less, and still, you know, an hour and a half later, you know, she's having a seizure, and her friends are helping her out of it. And so I talk about it because I. Don't want people to be scared, but I don't think you should be ignorant of the fact that it can happen, because you do need to be ready for it, you know what? I mean? Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:00:07
so, and it's frustrating how infrequently glucagon is prescribed, yeah, even to type one diabetics, yeah, they

Scott Benner 1:00:18
should have it. Arden has one with her constantly. There's one in her bedside. There's one in the bag she carries around. I have them in my house, like they're everywhere. Do you want the injectable? Or are you happy with the like, if you had your druthers, would you pick chief oak? Or do you are you happy with the vaccine?

Speaker 1 1:00:34
I probably would pick G, VO, just because, you know, this last time that I had the vaccine he administered. I was actually conscious and aware for that, and it hurt so bad. Not

Scott Benner 1:00:47
fun. It was horrible. Yeah, squirting a powder up your nose wasn't pleasurable. Getting

Speaker 1 1:00:52
punched in the face right through your back to the end of your occipital bone felt

Scott Benner 1:00:57
like it went right through your brain. Yeah, you were just like, whoo. Here we go, like that burned, right? Yeah, yeah. So I glucagon burns in general, though, right? The injections burn too, don't they,

Speaker 1 1:01:08
yeah. I mean, that could be, is it the glucagon, or is it because it's an im injection, right? Which doesn't feel good,

Scott Benner 1:01:15
but not in your head, yeah? So I, so what I actually have, a, I have a trainer pen here, a G vo trainer pen. And what I love about it is it's like, it's, it's just like, it's cap, click, done. It's over, like, you know what? I mean, it's the self injectors are, like, they're pretty great. I had this experience with a few of the sponsors to the podcast, but GEVO is a sponsor because Arden uses it. And I was like, Hey, if you want to sponsor the show, my daughter uses this. And she uses it because it was the first glucagon form factor that actually allowed her to carry it with her, because we didn't carry the lily kits anywhere. Like, what do you no one's gonna figure that out. Yeah. What are you hoping for that a Rando is comes along and goes, Oh, I bet, like, your mom couldn't get it together. Like, did it? Yeah, you know what I mean. Like, so, yeah, it just never seemed reasonable to me, and it was very hard at a school level to talk a nurse into even training to do it. But this one, nobody has a problem with. They're like, yeah, sure, because it looks like

Speaker 1 1:02:18
it's pretty dummy proof, although I have had patients who have had loved ones screwed up, really?

Scott Benner 1:02:24
Boy, it's pretty simple. But anyway, that's, uh, sorry. Is there anything we didn't talk about that we

Speaker 1 1:02:33
should have? I mean, I could probably just tell you a lot, a lot of stories about glucagon or anything in general, but

Scott Benner 1:02:38
you might have to come back one day, and we'll talk not about glucagon. I like you. You're fun. So Thanks, Scott. You know. I appreciate it. How do you know about the podcast? Probably a

Speaker 1 1:02:47
year and a half ago, deer season, I needed something to entertain me while I was cleaning and gotten and processing my deer, and so I'm like diabetes podcast that sounds interesting, and I didn't like it at first, to be perfectly honest.

Scott Benner 1:03:03
Yes, I'm very coarse. People don't like me, generally speaking, no, not at all.

Speaker 1 1:03:06
I'm like, this guy doesn't even have diabetes. Listening and like, he might know something. Oh, he actually knows what he's talking about. I can, I can deal with this. I

Scott Benner 1:03:17
get that he doesn't have diabetes. Anger. I mean, I understand it like, I probably would be like, wait what? This is ridiculous, but I'm glad you stuck with it, and it's really cool to know that I'm with you while you're cleaning deer. Yeah, I wonder, where else? I wonder, what else people are doing while they're listening?

Speaker 1 1:03:34
Oh, you probably don't want to know, Scott, that's

Scott Benner 1:03:38
Oh, my god, yeah. Maybe I don't shooting deer. I never would have thought somebody would have said I was gutting and cleaning a deer while I listened to your podcast. People don't. Oh, now I'm gonna wonder forever what you're all doing. Seriously. All right, that's good. Leave me on that one. That's good. Let me. Let me think about that for the rest of the afternoon. Hold on one second. For

Unknown Speaker 1:04:02
me, I A huge

Scott Benner 1:04:06
thanks to touched by type one for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check them out on their website, touched by type one.org, or on Facebook and Instagram. The conversation you just enjoyed was brought to you by us. Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get started today and get your supplies from us. Med, hey everybody. I know there's so many episodes you might be like, I don't know where anything is, but if you go to Juicebox Podcast com, or go to the private Facebook group and look in the feature tab, you'll see a complete list of all the series that exist within the podcast. And I'm talking about after dark ask Scott and Jenny, algorithm, pumping bold beginnings, defining diabetes, defining thyroid, diabetes, pro tip, diabetes, variables, mental wellness, type two diabetes, how we eat and if we add something. Results like, say, my weight loss diaries, which we did, you'll find them there as well. And as a matter of fact, we're about to add a new list right now about GLP medications, because we have a seriously nice grouping of episodes on that topic. This is a good way for you to keep up with what's going on on the Juicebox Podcast. And even a better way to find those series that are, you know, compendiums at this point, 1020, episodes that are all on the same topic. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed, you're following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Hey, what's up, everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better, and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way, recording doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way. Recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.

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#1398 I Don't Understand... Arden Eight

Are laughter and yawning contagious, exploring empathy and mirror neurons.

Discussion on comedic preferences and stand-up comedy styles.

John Mulaney's humorous GQ interview and its impact on live audiences.

Behavioral mimicry: coughing, smiling, and other shared human behaviors.

Parasites on parasites: the endless layers of life.

Existential musings on the origins of life, space, and the universe.

Personal anecdotes and the quirks of public interactions.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends to the Juicebox Podcast.

Arden's back today, and we're going to discuss why laughter and yawning is contagious. But you know, we'll end up talking about more than that. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan if you're living with type one diabetes, the after dark collection from the Juicebox Podcast is the only place to hear the stories that no one else talks about, from drugs to depression, self harm, trauma, addiction and so much more. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and click on after dark there you'll see a full list of all of the after dark episodes. If you find yourself enjoying today's show. Please share it with someone else who you think might also enjoy it, and don't forget to subscribe or follow the podcast in your favorite audio app. It really helps the show. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com

Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 and the Dexcom g7 warms up in just 30 minutes. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juice, box. US med is sponsoring this episode of the juice box podcast, and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from us med for years. You can as well us med.com/juice box, or call 888-721-1514, use the link or the number, get your free benefits. Check and get started today with us. Med, should we do today? Can dogs love homing pigeons? Not even know what that means. How do homing pigeons know where they're going and how do they get back? What is a homing pigeon? A pigeon? They used to take pigeons and put little messages on their tie them on their legs, and then send them all Oh, but then, how does, how do? Why wouldn't you just call it the pigeon with the message? Because they're called homing pigeons. No, no one knows. Okay, okay, all right. Hold on. A second. That's on there. We could do time. Well, it's too much. I can't do that right now. Why is laughter and yawning contagious? Is Taylor Swift evil? Yes, yeah, we don't want to do how life insurance works. How do they dig tunnels? Sign Language,

Arden Benner 3:02
the yawning thing, I think we were actually talking about in my class, and there is no evidence of why that's contagious at all.

Scott Benner 3:11
Why is laughter and yawning contagious? That's what we're talking about today. You're saying that there's no evidence

Arden Benner 3:16
of it at all. Well, laughter is not contagious. It's just like someone laughs, like it makes you laugh, like you think it's like funny, or like you have a reaction to it, but yawning is like, there's no evidence that, like anything is happening now, because you said yawning, I know I feel like I'm gonna yawn too. That's why I think this is a bad idea to do that one we're already

Scott Benner 3:37
a minute ago. We're sticking with it. Let's start with laughter. So the the phrase laughter is contagious. I don't think it's meant like, you laugh and then I uncontrollably laugh.

Arden Benner 3:48
Well, then that's just a stupid thing to talk about. Like, yeah, like, obviously, if someone laughs and like, you're gonna have a reaction to it, and it's gonna be laughter.

Scott Benner 3:56
But maybe not, though, because remember, tell everyone you don't enjoy stand up comedy, not your thing. I don't think, I don't think it's a real skill. Okay, so Arden's not a stand up comedian loving person. I just don't

Arden Benner 4:11
like stand up comedy where they have to write their script out in advance, because then you're not really a comedian. You're just a writer. We also performing it, yeah, but I don't think those are funny. But

Scott Benner 4:22
this is not the point. The point is, if we put stand up comedy on television, which is very popular nowadays, right, you stare right through it. It doesn't grab your attention, you don't laugh. And then was it last summer, two summers ago, for my birthday, we saw John Mulaney live,

Arden Benner 4:37
oh, I was laughing when he told his serial story. You

Scott Benner 4:42
were the person we took that we were like, Oh, this is just a waste of a seat. She's not gonna like this, but you laughed throughout his performance.

Arden Benner 4:48
I giggled, for sure, but like I didn't. There are some stand up comedians that I just don't think are funny at all. I think John mulini has a funny essence about. Him so, like He's just funny to look at, and that makes him funny. And he's literally voices a pig and Spider Man, like He's just funny. Wait, why is he funny to look at? He's a funny looking guy. Is he? You don't think he's funny looking He is literally a cartoon character. I've never

Scott Benner 5:21
really thought about it. Now I have to look also, he's married to a very pretty lady. Yeah,

Arden Benner 5:26
exactly. It makes it even funnier. What makes that funnier? Like? How did that like? What you just feel like? What he looks like a cartoon character? Yeah.

Scott Benner 5:37
Well, I was gonna say he looks like a puffier. Jason Bateman, he looks like, if you like,

Arden Benner 5:44
if like a board game character could walk

Scott Benner 5:48
in his face. Yeah, he kind

Arden Benner 5:49
of reminds me of, like, fix it. Felix, from wreck it. Ralph, you know who that? I gotta

Scott Benner 5:53
look this up. I don't know, fix it. Fix it. Felix, yeah, oh yeah. How about that, Bobby, damn. Yeah, that's pretty good call. Yes,

Arden Benner 6:05
he just has a cartoony vibe about him, so that that automatically just makes you funny. Like, some people have that, like comedian essence, and he has that. There's some people you listen to who are comedians who I literally, I just, I don't find them funny at all, like, I just don't find them funny. But when he told that serial story, I was crying out, but also like he didn't. It's not like he wrote the joke like he was reading an article,

Scott Benner 6:33
I know, but we've now seen him do it like. So this was interesting, because you felt like, Oh, he's not really performing this. But then a friend of yours,

Arden Benner 6:43
oh, I didn't, I didn't say he wasn't performing it. I just there's something about the fact that comedians will write their scripts in advance and then, like, try to perform it for you and try to be funny about it that I don't find to be funny. Yeah, I know you have a very strong feeling about this. I think, like comedians who do like audience work or whatever, whatever it's called, like he's the audience. I think they're naturally funny because they're coming up with stuff on the spot. And I think it like his delivery of reading that article was funny, and also a lot of what he told was stories that had happened to him. I think storytelling can be funny, but I don't think like comedians who like make up literal jokes are funny. Like every time I watch America Scott talent and a comedian goes on automatically, I want someone to press the red buzzer.

Scott Benner 7:32
I think they're just bad comedians generally, though. Yeah, they are. So are there stand up comics that you can think of who you enjoy their and you laugh at their storytelling.

Arden Benner 7:42
Oh, who's that guy on tick tock? He know it. He doesn't really make me laugh, but he also has one of the he's a little funny looking, and sometimes he'll do stuff that makes me laugh, and I'm like,

Scott Benner 7:55
Haha, you're not talking reminds you're not talking about you're

Arden Benner 7:59
gonna speak over. Okay, cool, because we can see each other talking. He reminds me of, like a geeky version of, um Seth Cohen, like a geekier version. You know who Seth Cohen is? No, from the OC.

Scott Benner 8:13
I thought you're gonna say Matt rife, that handsome boy that does the tick tock. Oh, I don't, I don't think he's funny. I have to tell you what his tick tocks are funny, but I tried to stand up, and no offense to him, but it was bad. So

Arden Benner 8:24
what is this guy's name? I'll find it.

Scott Benner 8:27
I just want to say too that John mulaney's ex wife has like an edge to her, which you wouldn't expect, and she's writing a memoir, but not mentioning him in it. Why am I reading an Anne Marie? Oh, go ahead. His name is Jeff Arcuri. Okay, I think, yeah, this guy you think is funny? No,

Arden Benner 8:50
I don't think that he is funny. I think that when the crowd interacts with him, it's funny. He's good at

Scott Benner 8:56
what they call crowd work. What's that podcast? You love that I and he's funny looking, oh, the basement yard. Is that it?

Arden Benner 9:05
I love the basement yard. They also, like, aren't even funny. They're just really dumb. They're just really dumb. And I think, like, if you met them and told them, like, I don't know if you guys are even super funny, you're just you really don't know a lot about life, they would like, be like, yeah, and then agree with you. You don't think

Scott Benner 9:25
they're putting that dumb thing on. No, I don't think. What do I call it? Every time I ask you about it, I'm like, What's that? I call it? Like dumpster podcast. Why do I think that? Yeah, let's go backwards for a second. Anne Marie Tendler, married to John Mulaney for years before. I believe he maybe went, what they call off the wagon and she left him, or something like that. But who is she? Like? Why does she get to write a book that doesn't Oh, she's already a writer. I

Arden Benner 9:51
remember watching comedians and Cars Getting Coffee, and John Mulaney being on an episode, and. In having to go rug shopping for her, and that's it. That's the only time I've ever heard of her. She's

Scott Benner 10:04
written three books, the daily face pin it, 20 fabulous somethings, and men have called her crazy. So she's a writer, and now they're letting her write a, I guess, a more personal book, but I don't understand why. I mean, if you're not going to mention John millennium, do I care? Known professionally is Anne Marie tenler is an American multimedia artist known for her work in photography, makeup, hairstyle, textile crafts, and notably, and notable specialty is make handmade lampshades. You can be famous for making lampshades. Oh, my God, that's upsetting. But then he married Olivia mun who's out of his league, right? Yeah, like, visually. I know we're not supposed to talk about people that way, but Right? Well, yeah, I don't know how you guys order your diabetes supplies, like CGM pumps and testing equipment, but at our house, we use us Med, and I'm gonna walk you through the entire process right now. I'm looking at the email from us Med, it says it's time to refill your prescription, dear Arden, please click the button below to place your next order. Then you click the button that was it. Two days later, I got this email, thank you for your order from us. Med, we wanted to let you know that your order and it gives you an order number was shipped via UPS ground. You can track your package at any time using the link below, and then there was a link, and then it showed up at our house. Now I'm going to walk you through the entire chain of events. On the 29th which was the Saturday I clicked on the email. On that Monday, the first I got an email that said the order had been sent. Four days later on the fifth the package arrived. If you can do it easier than that, you go get it. But if you can't us, med.com/juice, box or call 888-721-1514, get started today with us. Med, get your diabetes supplies the same way we do the Dexcom g7 is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and it features a lightning fast 30 minute warm up time that's right from the time you put on the Dexcom g7 till the time you're getting readings. 30 minutes. That's pretty great. It also has a 12 hour grace period so you can swap your sensor when it's convenient for you, all that, on top of it being small, accurate, incredibly wearable and light, these things, in my opinion, make the Dexcom g7 a no brainer. The Dexcom g7 comes with way more than just this, up to 10 people can follow you. You can use it with type one, type two, or gestational diabetes. It's covered by all sorts of insurances. And this might be the best part. It might be the best part alerts and alarms that are customizable, so that you can be alerted at the levels that make sense to you. Dexcom.com/juice, box, links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com, to Dexcom and all the sponsors. When you use my links, you're supporting the production of the podcast and helping to keep it free and plentiful. Yeah. I mean, like, she's,

Arden Benner 13:09
she's, she's pretty, yeah, she has a sort of pretty that's like, she's

Scott Benner 13:15
both pretty

Arden Benner 13:17
on a screen. But also, if she was walking down the street, like, I would be like, she's pretty too. Yeah, she's got that vibe. And it's not, it's not like, overwhelming at all. It's just like, Oh, she's very pretty. He

Scott Benner 13:28
out kicked his coverage. Why did they use that as a saying? I don't even know what that means.

Arden Benner 13:33
It's like, I really think that you should explain the serial portion of what I'm talking about so that people understand what I mean. Well,

Scott Benner 13:40
how am I gonna explain that? Fine, I'll do it. You can remember it.

Arden Benner 13:46
I do remember it because I was seeing my pants. Also, for some reason, we had seats, and I was the only one who wasn't sitting with our family. I was sitting behind all of you guys, and then I was sitting next to a random family, and I was, like, trying to stay quiet, but like, I just physically, like, I couldn't, like,

Scott Benner 14:05
I was crying, yeah, you were cracking up. And honestly, yes, at that certain part, did you not remember? Yeah, but we think we all thought you were, well, first, can I read you this? And then what? And you tell me why it's funny. Laughter is actually contagious. It's not just the saying. When people hear someone laugh, their brains can automatically respond, creating a desire to laugh along, even without fully understanding the reason behind the laughter. It happens because of mirror neurons, specialized brain Oh, I

Arden Benner 14:33
just learned about mirror neurons. It's what it's when you do what the opposite person is doing, yeah, like your neurons act like they're neurons.

Scott Benner 14:40
That really happens, specialized brain cells that activate when we see or hear others perform in action, is why I cry when people cry,

Arden Benner 14:46
yeah, probably, yeah. I just had a whole test on I had an exam on this a couple of weeks ago. Oh,

Scott Benner 14:50
here. These neurons play a big role in empathy and mimicry. Laughter is also a social bonding tool in group settings. Laughter can help create a. Sense of connection. I mean, these are things we know, but that's

Arden Benner 15:01
why I think that this like connects to, like, you know, like, when you people go to, like a zoo and they like talk to, like, apes and gorillas and stuff, and they'll like, do what you're doing, it's because they whatsoever, they have, like, a they have a conscious like, their consciousness is there, yeah, like, they pass the mirror test, or something called the mirror test. So, like, there's certain animals that can, like, they look in a mirror and they know that they're there. They don't think it's another animal. You brought up the mirror test in another episode. Yeah, exactly. So the commuter neurons so that they're, like, doing what we're doing.

Scott Benner 15:34
Gorillas are intelligent animals whose cognitive abilities are often compared to those of young human children.

Arden Benner 15:42
Like toddler, toddlers, or something like that. I

Scott Benner 15:44
mean, I've met some kids that were older. I would be like, That kid's not as smart as a monkey like so maybe, yeah, okay. So

Arden Benner 15:52
I sent mom a video of a monkey doing, wait, a monkey's doing. What? A setup, okay? And I thought it was so funny, and she did not respond to it. I just got left onto the window. You want to see it. She's

Scott Benner 16:06
just never I would like to see the thing, and I have the full GQ article that John reads from in the bit that you wait. Ready? Are you ready? Yes.

Arden Benner 16:20
I said it to her, and she didn't respond to me. Oh, listen

Scott Benner 16:23
to me tell people how much you love little monkeys and

Arden Benner 16:28
that you would definitely I love. Yeah, I want to pet monkeys so bad. I know they say that they attack people, but part of me thinks that me and monkeys think very similarly, and that those who I want to attack the monkey would want to attack so I am not a danger. You

Scott Benner 16:41
think you and the monkey would vibe, and therefore it would be okay.

Arden Benner 16:46
Oh, completely Wait, a monkey. The

Scott Benner 16:49
ones people keep the little capuchin monkeys. Capuchin

Arden Benner 16:52
like, who doesn't want something called a Capuchin monkey? Well, let's see. The

Scott Benner 16:56
pros are. They're intelligent, known for their problem solving skills. Maybe they could help you with your coding test. And the cons are they can be aggressive, if not properly trained and socialized. They also live the 40 years old requiring a long term commitment that's gonna live longer than me. What's your longest relationship so far? Like, romantic? Yeah, 11 months, because you got to make it. I'm only 20. If we get you a monkey right now, you'll be 60 when it passes away. It's crazy. They're also marmosets. People keep but they're like wild animals. The care is very specific. Tamarinds specialized diet care requirements. Can live 15 to 20 years. Squirrel monkeys, they require social interaction.

Arden Benner 17:39
Squirrel Why would you name something a different animal, squirrel, monkey. It's like, it's like, spider monkey. Isn't that a thing? It's the next one on

Scott Benner 17:46
the list. Spider Monkeys. They're intelligent. Yeah. Their intelligence means they can be quite destructive, if bored. They can live 30 plus years. So me, there's so many, hi, many places keeping monkeys as a pet is illegal. That one lady had that Chimp, that chimpanzee in it, like that, oh, attack that woman, yeah, like her friend, like, I think really hurt her. Okay, so I have here, John Mulaney, GQ, article, what Article? Yeah, that does she send it to me? No, hold on. I'll send it to you, and then you're gonna tell people why it was so funny. All right, it's so funny.

Arden Benner 18:18
It's important to say, Well, some people have probably seen this, but it's on Netflix, but it's important to say that the whole what were we at, the whole stand up act, right? Is about how he had just gotten out of rehab. Yes, correct, yes. Okay, right. So it's like, kind of serious, because he just got out of rehab, but it's also comedy, and this is his ending. This is, this was his closing thing. I remember it because I thought, Oh, my God, I'm gonna pee my pants. I gotta get out of here. We're just looking at it out and thank you. Laugh. I'm just reading it again. So wait, what happened? He someone called him to do a GQ, cause him to do an interview,

Scott Benner 18:59
an interview, but he's whacked out of his mind. Oh yeah, he is on heavy drugs.

Arden Benner 19:08
I feel like we have to read the whole interview. Who do you want to be? I don't even know. What

Scott Benner 19:13
do you want? Do you want to be John, or do you want to be the interviewer? How am I gonna get through it? By the way, John Mulaney has spoken about being, uh, addicted to alcohol, cocaine. I love that he can joke about that, and Vicodin, are some things that he's talked about. And this, this whole like, good. Do you see the first question? Hold on a second. The original story is below. It's like bolt bolded the first questions, bold Did you see any ghosts today? Um,

Arden Benner 19:45
already asked. I don't I'm confused why she asked him that I'm trying to figure it out. Who do you want me to be? John? Sure.

I'll ask the questions. You be John Mulaney, okay, okay, okay, all right, go ahead. Did you see any ghosts today? I haven't, but I walked out. What is supposedly the most haunted building in New York City. Oh, where is that? It's a vacuum on

14th, between Fifth and Sixth, and it used to be a boarding house. My, oh, my, apparently, just incredibly haunted, like alter guys taunted.

Scott Benner 20:17
What about vacuum cleaner? Store made you laugh immediately,

Arden Benner 20:20
because what the hell is he talking about? Oh, get

Scott Benner 20:24
up on that microphone when you're reading. Did you get a chill or a bad vibe? It doesn't

Arden Benner 20:29
give me a bad vibe anymore. I think when I first walked past it, I knew what it was, so maybe I faked the bad vibes. Although I walked by a house that was haunted in Los Angeles, and I didn't know it was haunted. It was just kind of like, Oh, what's this house? And then slowly I was like, I don't like this place. I'm going to walk away from here with my dog. And it was called The Murder House of Las Felice, and it had a terrible history. That's the only time I've really had a creeping sense of ghouls and ghosts out of nowhere, and then,

Scott Benner 21:04
what is he talking about? Why don't you ask the next question? I'll do that answer. I

Arden Benner 21:09
feel like there's a horror comedy in your head begging to come out at some point.

Scott Benner 21:13
Well, I'm trying to think I'm not good with hard devices like twists and things like that, but I could write a comedy about someone who's just haunted and scary. I do have an idea. I used to watch this show, ghost kids, children of the paranormal, and it was about real life, six sense kids. And it was very compelling. And I believed these kids, and I always thought that would be fun, like Bad News Bears type movie, where either one of the players sees ghosts, or maybe it's kind of like a dawn, like a down and out team, because they all see ghosts, and that's their thing, as opposed to being like the team without much money, they're the team, but this is like a co grant, if I've ever heard one, they're the team that sees ghosts, so that's why they're last in the league. And if you think I'm not just making that up. I'm not just making that movie up on my feet. You're absolutely wrong. I'm coming up with it as we speak. All right, hold on. Would you watch? But I don't want to add to your plate, which is already pretty full. Look at that. Look at the interview. Trying to be nice to him. Maybe like bringing them back a little bit, you have this Marvel Contest of Champions thing you're doing, which is a continuation of your spider ham roll. Actually, we're coincidentally talking on the anniversary of spider verse. It turns to today.

Arden Benner 22:32
It does turn to, yeah, I remember two years ago going, Oh, into the spider verses out. I'm not just kidding. I do recall it. You know why? It was the first movie I was ever in, so it was a big deal. Then it

Scott Benner 22:45
went on to critical and popular acclaim. That's always good. Yes,

Arden Benner 22:49
which Peter Ramsey and borrow proschetti. Proschetti and Rodney Rothman, they made such an incredible film that I definitely felt a part of it. It felt like watching a perfect meal being served, and I knew I chopped the garlic, I felt in all of it. And then people go, congratulations. I'd be like, on what? And then they'd be like, the movie. And I was like, Oh yeah, that's other people. And they're like, No, you're in it. And I'm like, Okay, fine, if you want to give me credit, I'll take it.

Scott Benner 23:15
You got his cadence there a little bit, I

Arden Benner 23:17
know, because that's how he was saying. I'll ask the next Okay, good. Well, how does it feel to be reprising the character again? Now for this campaign that you're doing, it's so

Scott Benner 23:26
natural. It's crazy. The thing that was fun about doing this character was that I spoke in my voice the way I talk with slight volume raises. But it took until someone offered me a spider man, pig character before I could say, like, oh, they just want me to be me. I feel like Cary Grant got a I feel like Carrie grant got a lot of those offers where he's like, where he's like, I see they just want the Cary Grant shoot in my first wreck, in my first records. I was like, What are you looking for? And they were like, talk the way you would.

Arden Benner 24:05
This also coincides with the new season of big math. It seems like you gravitate towards voiceover work a lot more often than some of your peers. What is that you like about it? Oh, I

Scott Benner 24:15
really like it. First off, it's something about the acting. It's performative. Fully. If you watch someone do an animated voiceover, you're throwing the action into it. You're trying as much as possible to recreate the loss of breath or the fact that they're struggling to get over something, and other than breathing on the mic too harshly, you're able to kind of act in that space can't breathe. I find it really fun. Also, it's an easier way to do, like, five takes in a row. You can be like, actually, let me do five blammos. And there's no, there's not camera rolling and 100 grips and lighting guys. So you can just go, let me do five blammos. It says here in the article, he proceeds to read, blame, oh, five different ways. Blammo. Blammo. Oh, blamo, blamo, blamo. And that's acting, what I just did. So you can really play around. So you can really play around, even more so than you can on set. What's interesting is when you first get into the voiceover booth, normally, I'm coming off the subway, and I haven't been in talking and yelling. So everyone comes into voiceover. It's not that they're rusty, it's just more like they're just used to speaking in an inside voice. So the first takes of any animated thing be at big mouth, or this new Chip and Dale project or spider like how he throws in his Chip and Dale project or spider verse, the first takes are always like, Hi. This is Peter porker. I'm here. I'm a reporter. I want to help too. And they're like, Okay, great. Now do it with energy and as if you were definitely Peter porker and not someone who was just on the subway. Hold on. I'll reach you the next one. Awesome. He's awesome. He must have been about to get to the best part. Okay, well, the whole thing's the best part. I don't care what people think you have. The Chip and Dale thing with Sandberg, I'm sensing a theme of voiceover characters here. I love

Arden Benner 26:07
how you said that I chose them. I must admit, I, for a very long time, much, very much wanted voiceover work. And then big mouth, then spider verse came along, and I was like, yes, yes. So I don't want to say I just accepted these films, because I would take anything, but more, like I was really open to it, and then they offered it, so I took it.

Scott Benner 26:26
What about the spider ham roll specifically? Do you enjoy tapping into especially now that you're getting to do more of this time around? I like

Arden Benner 26:34
that. He takes his day job seriously. He has an air of he's always pushing the reporter thing first, I like that he, I don't know if he maybe compared to some of the other spider verse spider creatures. He might have the highest EQ seems very sensitive about himself and others. But I mainly like that he talks in an old timey voice and says stuff like blam Oh. And I think also can't help himself with hand puns. Anyone who goes for jokes constantly, even though they know that they're completely hack and stupid, is always a hero. All right, let's take a breath. Wait, Dad, this is the best one. I want to be here.

Scott Benner 27:12
I want to talk about how this year has been for you creatively, because around this time last year, you were coming off sack Lunch Bunch, which was arguably one of your biggest creative risks, and it really paid off. How has your creative process been impacted by this year? If

Arden Benner 27:28
you heard that spoon, it's because I'm eating a bowl of fruit loops working in this new reality. At first, I thought, okay, now's your chance. Literally, you'll be alone without any collaborators. You create anything you want. There's no clock. And what I realized was I really like working with other people, which was not hard. Once people really dove into working over zoom at first, when I heard about that, I was like, There's no way people are going to work this way. I don't know why I was so skeptical, but I was and I definitely was thrilled once I started being in touch with friends again and collaborating on the new sack lunch bunches and did the oh hello podcast, the life and death of Princess Diana. Once I was back, even virtually, with the people I love collaborating with, like Nick roller, Marika Sawyer, I felt much more at home the idea of sitting alone waiting maybe someday I'll have my ADHD under control and we'll be able to do it. I'm probably on stage with an audience or with other people writing documentary now, or recording big mouth or those movies. I'm not Philip Roth. And I know you'll think I'm Phillip Roth Frazier, but I'm not.

Scott Benner 28:25
Oh, man, you just popped the bubble. I know I'll

Arden Benner 28:29
ask the next question, wait, has working on late night, Late Night with Seth Meyers giving you that structure you were seeking

Scott Benner 28:37
laughs. So I guess he laughs. It's really fun, and it's really fun to go into an office and work with friends. It's not simply a case of structure, but yes, it is nice to have an office, where office to go to, where it's super safe after doing Saturday Night Live, I thought I really miss going into a workplace when I realized I had very lucky opportunity to go into Seth's show, I was stoked, because I realized not a lot of people get to recreate that or have that interaction right now, so I'm extremely lucky to be able to watching

Arden Benner 29:07
your segments. Made me wonder, would you ever build up to having your own talk show just John Mulaney and guests? Well,

Scott Benner 29:14
it's interesting you say that from my segments. I don't know if the persona I'm playing in those segments would get his own talk show, but I always wanted to do a talk show where the guest is always someone from a job that I don't understand. I'd love to interview a dog catcher and be like, what's that like? How do you feel about yourself? I'm not judging, but I am a little How do you feel? Rounding up dogs and taking them to the pound. I had two ideas for a talk show ones. And by ideas, I mean I thought about them in the privacy of my own room. One would be just interviewing people who do anything that interests me, and I don't mean like on the ground and I'm watching them do their job. It would be like a talk show set, and they'd come out, and there'd be a band and so forth. In case you were confused. City. He meant go to work with them. The other thing was just to have only elderly people on which I obviously would not do to the risks. But I just thought it would what are the risks of

Arden Benner 30:12
having elderly I think this was during COVID. Oh, okay, all right.

Scott Benner 30:16
But I just thought it would be great to talk to old people, especially if they were comfortable talking about being at the end of their lives and just go, did you like it? Did you not ideally? Maybe like a four year old and an 84 year old, or a 40 year old and a 94 year old, that would be our ideal lineup.

Arden Benner 30:34
Okay, I think we should skip to the bottom, okay, where she says to him, this goes on forever. Everyone should read this, by the way, where she says to him, I think what we've established in this conversation is that there are a ton of different ideas rattling around in your head that you should definitely make happen.

Scott Benner 30:49
If that's what people took away from this, I'd be thrilled.

Arden Benner 30:54
She says, I don't want to take too much of your time away from the Fruit Loops. They're

Scott Benner 30:59
done. They're long gone. Frasier was he eating the fruit lips the whole time? I believe so, because he she heard this at one point, and

Arden Benner 31:07
it ends and she says, we're a year away from sack lunch now. One of the key segments, and that was talking about fears after the year that we've all had. I wanted to know if your fears change with 2020

Scott Benner 31:17
Well, I think a lot of people have noticed what isolation is actually like it's not good for you. I think people have adopted a great deal more compassion in some regards for their fellow man. Isolation certainly is, I don't know if it's a fear so much as now appreciate how scary it is that other people pretty much make life worth living, but my major fear remains the same, which is the Russian mafia. So now in the stand up, what his what does he end up? By the way, Frazier Tharp is the editor at GQ specialized in dictating entertainment coverage. I believe Frazier is the writer of this, this piece. They are. I mean, kudos, Frazier. It's wonderful. But what does he say then in the stand up afterwards? Like did? He was just, no, it ends the stand up. He just reads that at the end of it, yeah, okay.

Arden Benner 32:10
He's like, Thank you for having me, whatever. But it was, it's the way that he does the fruit lifts part. And I just, I can't take it. I think he might have had like a spoon with him that he dropped on stage. No, yeah, I don't think so. Something happened. I feel like he makes the sound or something. You

Scott Benner 32:31
were just so into it at that point, though, and he

Arden Benner 32:34
was and he says the whole like, if you heard that noise,

Scott Benner 32:40
I dropped my spoon. You should watch this. Do you know what it's called, that up at the John Malini, but do you think you were laughing because you were in a big group of people like do you think if you would have seen that at home, you wouldn't have laughed like that?

Arden Benner 32:58
Maybe, I don't know it's possible, but God, the Fruit Loops killed me. I was long gone after that one. Is it? Baby? J,

Scott Benner 33:06
no, I don't think so. It is. Is it? It is because that's his latest one from 2023 it's called Baby. J, I'm sorry I couldn't hear that great because Netflix was playing in my ears when I was looking so when you're around your friends, oh, it is okay. When you're around your friends, you guys giggle like crazy.

Arden Benner 33:24
Yeah, they they have a lot to say. But do you think? Well, I've also, I've also known them their whole lives. So you know, I know every detail about them. What makes things funny? What makes what's not funny? Okay, I don't know the whole yawning thing, though. I can't, I can't help you with that. What do you can't help me with that. There's no evidence to

Scott Benner 33:43
that. Why do you mean there's no that happens to everybody, doesn't it? Yep,

Arden Benner 33:47
there's no evidence to why that happens. Is what I'm trying to tell you. It

Scott Benner 33:50
says there is Hold on a second. No, there isn't. It brings up mirror neurons again. In fact, it is so contagious that you don't ever have to see another person yawn, to yawn yourself. Sometimes all it takes is hearing a yawn or thinking about one. You may be yawning right now, talking about this,

Arden Benner 34:07
trying so hard not to do it.

Scott Benner 34:09
Well, it's like, Oh, I did it right away. You

Arden Benner 34:14
wouldn't know this because you never went to college. But like when I go to, like, my big lecture classes, as soon as one person coughs for the first time, it doesn't stop. The whole class. Okay,

Scott Benner 34:30
so this is really interesting to me.

Arden Benner 34:32
The whole class, it does not stop. And I know they don't have to cough

Scott Benner 34:37
the first time it happened to me. I'm gonna sound I don't know what I'm gonna sound like right now, but I'm a big fan of classical music, so mom and I saw Yo Yo Ma in New York when we were younger.

Arden Benner 34:48
And it was like, it was like five years ago,

Scott Benner 34:53
Mom and I have seen Yo Yo Ma number of times live, not just once. What?

Arden Benner 34:56
Yeah, was I alive? Probably. You don't even know.

Scott Benner 35:00
I mean, the last time we saw him was 2018 God is it 2024 so six years ago, saw him in Washington, DC. But the time before that, I don't remember, we were in New York, and he'd play for a while. And throughout the playing, there's just, there's this smattering of like, like throughout the crowd, right? He'd stop playing, and then it was silent, like during the intermission, silent in the place. Then the little bell would ding. Gives you the idea, like, you know, in a couple of minutes, gonna start playing again. And as soon as the pressure hit some people that they had to be quiet, they started like, they start coughing, coughing, yeah, yeah. It's ridiculous. I know it's so annoying that pressure it's annoying, is what it is, okay. Why, in a moment when quiet is required, do some people cough? This the thing I'm noticing and no one else is noticing, or is it going to heightened awareness of silence? This is what I think it is nervousness or anxiety intense situations, such as during exams, important meetings or performances. It can make people anxious or nervous, and anxiety can lead to physical responses like dry mouth throat, which triggers a cough. It's a kind of nervous tic that releases some of their tension, tension to respiratory sensations, psychological influence. There's an also an element of suggestion. When one person coughs in a quiet room, they might become more aware of their own throats and then feel compelled to cough. Yeah. It's really annoying. It's fascinating. Like, as soon as you need to be quiet, someone's like,

Arden Benner 36:43
that's why. Like, you know that movie a quiet place? Yes, everybody did. No one would survive that. Everybody be done in 10 minutes. That's right. Who wrote that? John Krasinski from the office. I love him. You didn't get that part right. How do you feel about him? And Emily Blunt, hmm,

Scott Benner 36:59
she seems fancier than him,

Arden Benner 37:02
right? But also, I find him to be more attractive than her.

Scott Benner 37:07
What say you? Why is this? I don't know. He's a man who's gotten much more attractive as he's gotten older. Am I

Arden Benner 37:13
right? She's gotten more manly. I would say, really, I thought

Scott Benner 37:16
it was weird that he was gonna play like it's fantastic. Four No, no, no, no. He's in an Amazon series. It was pretty good. Jack Ryan, oh, yeah, I never watched that, yeah, and he was believable in it. But, like, see how his face is, like, build up and gotten no, I can't see what you're looking at his face. You think about his face, he looks more rugged. Oh, I thought you meant in the show, he looks rugged now, like he filled in. Yeah,

Arden Benner 37:40
more manly. He seems more manly now. And he's very strong. I'm pretty sure,

Scott Benner 37:44
yeah, that's from being rich and being able to, like, lift all that stuff all the time. But I don't know, like you think he's the better looking person in their relationship. I

Arden Benner 37:55
think so. I also think that Emily Blunt looked much better with her red hair than her blonde hair. Really, I think the blonde hair makes her look older. And I also think that she's one of those people that's like, she was cast in like, a couple good movies, and now she can, she's just casting, like, some terrible stuff. But people would just be like, Oh, it's

Scott Benner 38:13
definitely blunt. You think she had such an opportunity after, um, your favorite movie? Yeah,

Arden Benner 38:20
is that your favorite also, wait, is that your favorite movie? It's one of my favorites. Devil Wears Prada. Yeah, it's a great movie. I can watch it. But I took my, um, when I was in like, sophomore year high school, junior yeah, I forgot. And I took like, those college classes for film. I put that down as one of my favorite movies. And I remember the professor being like, that's one of the best choices that, like I've seen so far. And I was like, Do

Scott Benner 38:44
you know what year that movie came out? Yeah, 2006 How do you know that? Because I love that. You just know that? My god, that was awesome. Yeah, she's very famous, but she hasn't been in a lot of good movies. Am I wrong? I mean, yeah, she has Yeah, Gulliver's Travels, The Wolf Man, this is stuff nobody's seen. Arthur Newman, Edge of Tomorrow was awesome with Tom Foos. That was great. Were they like, it's Groundhog Day. Do you know the movie I've never seen, I've never seen Edge of Tomorrow is really good. You should watch. Oh, I finished that movie I was telling you about yesterday. Oh, let me say she was in looper. I enjoyed looper. Oh, and Sicario. You ever see Sicario? No, that's a good movie. But

Arden Benner 39:31
I'm talking about, like, now, like, she was in Oppenheimer. I know that, yeah,

Scott Benner 39:35
but, but right before that, the movie she did before that, was Jungle Cruise with, like,

Arden Benner 39:39
Judge, I was gonna say it's with the rocker, yeah? Like, what is that? And that

Scott Benner 39:44
last thing, fall guy, I put it on on the cable, but let me just tell you, it's not good. You know what I mean? So, all right, go ahead. I'm sorry. We're gonna also, you

Arden Benner 39:53
know what? I feel terrible about that the woman who plays Pam is not close to as famous as Jon, Christopher. Ski. You think she should be more famous? Uh, I don't know that she should be more famous, but, I mean, he really leveled up compared to

Scott Benner 40:07
her. Pam Beasley, what's her name? Pam Beasley, no, her the actress, Jenna something, oh, played by Jenna Fisher. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. God, sorry, sorry, jeez, I'm sorry. I don't know her name. You're coming at me today. I'm sorry I didn't know her name. Yeah, I mean, she's making a podcast. I mean, can you imagine, yeah,

Arden Benner 40:27
with what's the Angela woman? Right? What a lovely profession. Yeah,

Scott Benner 40:31
no, I see he really did, like, let's, let's go through them, right? Most of them didn't do much rain. Wilson's just, like, professionally rain. They must be also wealthy. That's what I keep thinking. Like rain will especially

Arden Benner 40:44
because what it's still on all those platforms, it's still like, you go to a hotel, the office is playing

Scott Benner 40:51
always, Steve Carl's gotta be always. Steve Carl's gotta have, like, amount of money, right? Yeah.

Arden Benner 40:56
He's also been in so many movies. He's in one of the best rom coms of all time. Crazy Rich love, everyone should watch that. What is it? Crazy Rich, love, Dad, you've seen it. Come on, have I really

Scott Benner 41:07
crazy? That's great movie. Whoa. I know we shouldn't believe this stuff online, because whatever, but his estimated worth is $80 million so yeah, maybe that's why she's making a a podcast. Maybe she's just doing it because she's what's, what's her estimated worth? Hold on, a second. What's her name? Again, Jenna Fisher. She was in

Arden Benner 41:28
a she was in a sitcom for like, five minutes, and then that ended too, being divorced or something.

Scott Benner 41:33
I mean, the inner web has her at 12 million bucks. You can make it with that. That'll get you through. Don't you think, yeah, I'll take 12 million. I read somewhere that Jenna Fisher made 30 to 40,000 an episode for the first three seasons of the office. And after that, this is like Reddit. And after that, what I don't know but these pot I'll tell you what the podcast skip her. You know, they just sold that smart list podcast for a big pile of money. Again, like they sold it once, like three years ago, and then they sold it again to Sirius XM. So that

Arden Benner 42:06
would be 800 around $840,000 a season for the first three seasons, so times three. So she makes 2.5 million for the first three seasons. Then she's got to get a raise from there, right? Yeah, because that's a lot of money. But think about it. It's not that much money. It's not

Scott Benner 42:22
live the rest of your life money. It'll especially if you're spending it living like in California and stuff like that, it's gonna go away, right? Yeah, they don't even pay people like this anymore. I don't think at one point she was raised to $100,000 an episode. Is that back when they were doing 24 episodes a year?

Arden Benner 42:39
Yeah. So that's what, 2.4 million a year. Give that, like, four seasons, that's 9.6 million. She's got, hopefully still, but still it ends. And then what? Well,

Scott Benner 42:51
yeah. I mean, you could make it through your whole life with 10 million but, I mean, really have to try,

Arden Benner 42:56
yeah, but not if she's not, if she started spending, like, Oh, I'm making money now I'm saying, like,

Scott Benner 43:01
she'd have to try meetings. She'd have to live like a regular person. Yeah, maybe she does. It's

Arden Benner 43:07
not, it's not like, so interesting. How quickly money goes. Yeah.

Scott Benner 43:11
It's horrifying, actually. Yeah. So the coughing thing. So how many other things are we doing because the people around us laughing, yawning, coughing. So hold on laughing, yawning. I'm gonna yawn again, by the way. I wonder if we blink when other people blink. I just yawned again. I seriously, all right. So I asked, what else do we do? Because other people have done it.

Arden Benner 43:38
Let's see, maybe, like, touch our face a certain way, move our hair. Phenomenon

Scott Benner 43:42
is often referred to as social contagion, or behavioral mimicry. Smiling, well, that's nice to know clapping. Think you smiled when I said it was nice to know that about smiling, I laughed at you, oh, oh, because you were like, because I was being like, Oh, I really think that's nice to know because you could smile and other people would smile too. I smiled at a lady in the parking lot today at the grocery store, and she smiled back at me. Well, that's

Arden Benner 44:05
great. It was really nice. No, it was. But I have a thought in my head right now. Go ahead. I remember hearing watching a show or something, and they were talking about, like, oh, like, how do you know if it's like a young girl, she's in high school, and she was like, I want to know if my crush is looking at me, but I, like, can't tell, and they did, like, a yawning test. Oh, so she started to, like fake yawn every time that she looked away from him, or something like that, to like fake, you know, because if he saw her doing it, because it's all about if you have to see the person doing it, right? So,

Scott Benner 44:38
yeah, it's every time you say it, I yawn, go ahead. So she

Arden Benner 44:43
like, turned away, and she was like, every time I felt like he was looking I would yawn, and then I would kind of like, turn my head back to that area. And she was like, and finally, like, I saw him starting to yawn whenever I did, that's a good tip. That's

Scott Benner 44:54
a pro tip, a flirting pro tip. So do you want to know what else we do around each other? Smiling? Clapping, a standing ovation. If you stand up and start clapping, is that why we have to stand up at like, sporting events and concerts? Because once somebody stands up, everybody does it. No, I thought that was just kind of respect standing I never understand standing ovation. I'm at a baseball game. I can't sit and watch it. One guy stands up. Everybody stands up now. We're all standing for nine eggs, which I don't mind, because I'm used to standing at your games. But like also, here's one crossing your arms or crossing your legs. Oh,

Arden Benner 45:30
I saw I was I walk. I was walking like that yesterday because I was cold, because it's getting cold here now, and someone walking towards me, I saw them look at me and do the same thing. Their arms, cross their arms, yeah, almost like, oh yeah, it is cold out. I'm gonna cross my arms. Now. You've reminded me that it is cold and yeah,

Scott Benner 45:51
in a modern phenomenon, if one person in a group checks their phone often, other people's will very reflexively, yeah. Well, that makes sense. That makes perfect sense. Giggling, similar to laughing, giggling can be contagious, especially in awkward or quiet situations. Looking in a certain direction, you can look off and get other people to look off in that direction as well. Eating.

Arden Benner 46:12
Well, yeah, but that makes sense, because people will be like, What are you

Scott Benner 46:15
looking at? Yeah, I know. But also you could just not look that way. Eating, nodding. Start nodding. People nod along with you, right, uh, scratching or touching your face. That's what I said, touching your face probably. And in group settings, like a meeting, if one person stands up to leave, others may start to stand up too, almost like the like they think, like, oh, it's winding down or on board, and it's now okay to leave because someone else has thought it,

Arden Benner 46:43
yeah, it's like, one person closes their laptop in class, and suddenly the class is over. Yeah, very interesting. And I always sit there, like, do we not have like, 10 minutes left? Like, what are we doing? Like, what one person? That's like, one person gets out to go, and there's like, seven minutes left to class, the professor will be like, Okay, guess that's it for you guys. Goodbye. Like you can't control them anymore. It's insane. It's crazy,

Scott Benner 47:07
wild. Heard of like people leaving, yeah, and

Arden Benner 47:10
I always sit there and I'm like, no respect. That's crazy. I

Scott Benner 47:15
think you and I have done a public service here today with us. You agree it'd

Arden Benner 47:20
be a public service if any of these people could take my exam for me. So

Scott Benner 47:24
far, we've done inner monolog, money, fingernails. What blind people see? Why don't people get what about

Arden Benner 47:29
being itchy? Like, like lice? Like, when you say lice and people think their heads are itchy, okay,

Scott Benner 47:35
when or when you think a bug is falling on you? I said, What about when someone talks about having lice? When someone talks about having lice, many people immediately start to feel itchy and may begin to scratch their heads. This is a psychosomatic reaction where just hearing or thinking about something triggers physical sensations in the body, even though there's no real cause, like actually having lice, your awareness is heightened. You have you can get a sympathy itch, or even the like hypnosis, like the power of suggestion causes your brain and triggered a physical reaction. Does your head feel that? You know that we're talking about it? Yeah, on the left side, I have one in there. I feel like in the middle for a second, just I also kind of need to take a shower. So I'm not really sure what's going on. What was I just gonna say? Have you ever seen the a close up look at the bugs that live on your skin? Yeah, I don't. I'm good. You don't wanna do that. No, I'm fine. I'll be good without that, I think. But just personally, you know what I mean. So how's school going?

Arden Benner 48:35
It's fine. I have a lot of work to get done this week before I come home, so I'm not doing it all at home. But other than that, what do you

Scott Benner 48:42
ever What are you and I? You and I doing together when you come home? We have any plans? You should not tell the internet about that. Why? Because I need to get my Oh, the other thing, what were you talking Well, you've been gone for a while. So my eyebrows are a wreck.

Arden Benner 48:57
My eyebrows are too. I plucked a little bit right in here and right here, but it's just, it's never the same. I to get my nails done too.

Scott Benner 49:03
Mine are struggling. No, I had to. I had to, like, do some, like, weed whacking up there on my own. But my eyebrows suck, right? Yeah, mine are great. You do have great eyebrows. Mine are terrible. I don't like them at all. But, oh, we're gonna tan together, Dad, don't tell the internet that. Why don't do that. Don't tell them, you know, don't tell them about UV

Arden Benner 49:26
No, just as a man, don't tell them that you're getting

Scott Benner 49:29
I just came, we came back from vacation, and I know I understand. I completely get it feel like I looked better with a little bit of a tan, and now it's starting to fade, and I kind of want to punch it back. Everyone looks better with a little bit of a tan. I'm gonna punch it back up a little bit. Is there anything wrong with that? No, I'm just, am I the crazy one? What was that? It's an impression, something from a thing. Yeah, that you wouldn't know about one second. Sending you a picture, I think you need to see. Okay? I mean, sure, let me know when you say it stop. Don't send me that just a little bug that's on your skin, that's Is there a bug in the bug? Is there a bug in the bug? No, that's a picture of the bug. That's its mouth, all the little feelers and the pinchers and everything on it. It's crazy that that thing exists. You don't know it's there, and it's probably right now, like, in your butt hole, or between your teeth or on your toes or something like that. You picked probably the three worst places. And it's, well, yeah, I'm thinking of where, like, Where would I if I was a bug? Or would I really want to be in the dirty spots? You know, so like, but that you don't feel it moving,

Arden Benner 50:34
yeah, I don't understand. It's like, where their own little universe? That's

Scott Benner 50:38
right, you're, you're the universe, one of those little bugs. It's like, when does it end again? The are there bugs living on those bugs? Because I'm, I'm the earth version of this. Yeah, you're a little bug living on the Earth. Yeah, crazy. There can't be bugs living on the bugs, right? Because we'd see it with the microscope, wouldn't

Arden Benner 50:58
we? No, it's probably not strong enough. There probably is bugs living on the bugs. Wait, are there bugs? It just, it's just, literally, it never stops. But if you got reincarnated as this bug,

Scott Benner 51:10
I mean, it might be relaxing. Oh no. I was listening to an interview today about somebody making French fries, and I was like, That, sounds like a nice, relaxing job. Okay, so can I said, Are there bugs living on the little bugs that live on humans? Yes, there can be bugs that live on the bugs that live on humans. This is part of the concept known as hyper para Wait, hyper parasitism, where parasites themselves have parasites, in the context of

Arden Benner 51:40
Yeah, and so on and so forth. And this never ends well, this is why it's like, what like, we know about our universe, but what about other universe? Like, it's not crazy to think that there's like, other stuff, viruses

Scott Benner 51:53
are alive, right? Yeah. Or what about like, how, like, the coral reef is alive, or whatever. It feels like a apartment complex of people who just needed a place to stay to me, and they just jump on like, right? Because the corporal reef is just living things that live on a rock, and then they die and leave their ex ex, those skeletons. Is that what it is? Man, I don't know. Okay, some people, by the way, argue that viruses are alive, but some people say they're not. They don't have cellular structure. They can't reproduce on their own. They have no metabolism. But the the argument for them is they can reproduce with help. There seems to be evolution, and they interact. Sounds like me, what sounds like you? They can reproduce with a little health, with a little help, no metabolism. Your metabolism is pretty good, don't you think, yeah, it's average. A coral reef is primarily made up of living corals and calcium carbonate, which is like limestone structures that they produce. But where do they start from? Like, where do they start

Arden Benner 52:52
from? Where does anything start from? That has been my question since I can remember, there's living organisms, like coral. That's why like, even like, I'll hear about other people is like, like, all these different religions or whatever that people believe. And I'm like, This is great. This might be true, I don't know. But where does your thing start from? How did that come about? And then we just kind of look at each other, and we don't have the answer, yeah, because I know it didn't just pop out of thin air. That's not how that works.

Scott Benner 53:23
Well, there's, I mean, what are the I

Arden Benner 53:27
just don't understand how anything was made. Anything at all. I don't get it.

Scott Benner 53:32
So what are we looking for common thoughts about, like, how the planet began?

Arden Benner 53:36
No, don't even look that up. It's so deep. It's just because, like, think about it like this, like, we're made, okay? Our parents make us. We're all these different cells put together. But before humans existed, or whatever, there's like plants, but then plants are made from something. Something's made from something else. Everything's made from something, right? Everything's made up of something. But how does the first thing get made? How does anything exist? Yeah, how is how does space exist? Because space is made up of things too. What come first the chicken or the egg? Yeah. So how does space exist? But then, if there is no space, what is there? Because even when there is nothing, nothing is something. Because I was

Scott Benner 54:18
going to say, maybe it's even like the way the coral reef started, right? Like, stuff just congregates in one place, then keeps building. But where did that come that stuff get there, right? Yeah, you should see the extensive, like, amount of information that's coming back from my question, yeah, because

Arden Benner 54:33
it's probably, like, the greatest question in the world. Like, how, how do

Scott Benner 54:38
we? There are several widely accepted scientific theories and concepts about the beginning of planet Earth and the formation of the solar system, the solar nebula hypothesis, the formation of Earth, the cooling and solidification of Earth, the Haden effect. Hayden eon, the first few 100 million years of Earth's existence are known as the Hayden eon. On a period marked by extreme heat, widespread volcanic activity, frequent collisions with other space debris. It was chaotic. It's fine, but where did all that come from? Well, then I, at the very end of all this, I asked the other the follow up question, where did the material for that come from? It says, And it said, Man, I don't know. The material that formed Earth and the rest of the solar system came from the remnants of earlier cosmic events, particularly from the death of pre previous generations of stars. But

Arden Benner 55:26
where do the stars come from? But where did that come from? Like we could just keep going forever, right? Doesn't make any sense. Well,

Scott Benner 55:33
I mean, it does make sense. It just you don't know where it came from. Don't you want to know? So bad. I mean, I'd like to know. Oh, that is my biggest question. So the big bang theory is the beginning of the observable universe 13 point 8, billion years ago. So I think the idea is that what we're able to know is how far back we're able to look, and that's based on how strong our telescopes are. Yeah, because, what's happening to us right now is the end of some reaction or action that happened at the beginning. So wherever the beginning was, there was a beginning that it all just kind of moved out in 360 degrees. When

Arden Benner 56:14
you look into space, you can, you can see like in the past, or you can see, like, what's going to happen in the future, or something, right?

Scott Benner 56:20
You can see what's coming. Yeah, so crazy. That makes no sense at all. Singularity. That's

Arden Benner 56:26
why, when people ask the question, if you could have they're like, Oh, you can have dinner with one person, dead or alive. I always say, like, whoever it is that, like, knows where everything started. Whoever that person is, that's the person you're looking for. That is the person I want to talk to. So there are obviously limits to our current knowledge about this, but this is pretty awesome. You should go to chat GPT and ask this question. Do you know in second grade, we had to write, we're supposed to write an essay on anything we wanted. And I asked my teacher if I could write it on like that. I was like, I don't understand where we come from. And she's like, let's take a new topic.

Scott Benner 56:59
How about cats? Do you like kittens? They're very Yeah,

Arden Benner 57:03
actually, I ended up, I ended up writing a story about how a dog got hit by a car. Did you that's

Scott Benner 57:07
what you went to? Yeah, you are now, think we're getting the answer to this one. I know it's so annoying. It's my it's my biggest mystery, interesting. I think some people are just gonna say, like, like, I think that if

Arden Benner 57:19
you were in a situation where you were murdered, and I didn't know who murdered you, and I was someone said, I can either tell you who murdered your father, or I can tell you how everything was created. I I'm sorry, but

Scott Benner 57:30
you're already dead. So yeah, so you know, whatever, even if you were to say, I think God made all of this, that's cool. Where did he? Where did he come or she? Where did they come from? Then? Yeah, exactly. I see your point. You can't just like God, like no God, have little bugs living on his skin.

Arden Benner 57:52
If I was God, I would make sure no bugs lives on my skin. All right, let's stop there. Be like, you know what? Let's not, let's not have that.

Scott Benner 58:01
All right, well, let's stop there. I think we've done a great job today. I hope people stuck the John Mulaney reading, because it was definitely worth it. I appreciate doing this with you. I like getting together once a week while you're away at school. I think this is pretty awesome. I'm getting nice feedback about the podcast from

Arden Benner 58:16
people. Whoever gives you the bad feedback, give me their number. I'll talk to Yeah. What are you gonna say to them recently, it was, it's for when I have to talk to them. Oh, I just logged wait. Recently there was bad feedback. No, recently

Scott Benner 58:27
there was great feedback about the money episode.

Arden Benner 58:31
A money episode, yeah, we talked honestly. I can't lie. I don't know what you're talking

Scott Benner 58:35
about. Oh, that's awesome. Do you know when Isabelle and I just talked about this last night? She's like, do you think you'll ever I literally do

Arden Benner 58:42
so much stuff here, like, I don't know what we've talked about. I know we talked about Bridget Mendler, and I know that's where my knowledge ends.

Scott Benner 58:49
We've talked about internal monolog, money, fingernails, what blind people see? Why don't people get sarcasm? Bridget Mendler, and today we did. Why is laughter, yawning, coughing, etc, contagious? I remember

Arden Benner 59:03
the what blind people see thing pretty well. I remember a little bit of the fingernails, because I just, like, wished you would stop using big words, but that's about

Scott Benner 59:11
it. I just logged online to see where I don't see it here, but what popped up in front of me is there's a person in the private Facebook group that's celebrating their five, five, a, 1c, they're super excited. So that's awesome. But there were people who were who liked the money episode a lot that you and I talked

Arden Benner 59:28
about, I wish I remembered it. I couldn't. I can't tell you you didn't listen. What was

I don't listen to those

anyway, that brought supposed to listen to myself. Yeah, I had the conversation, I know.

Scott Benner 59:40
But people come to me and they ask me about what happened on episodes, and I'm like, I say the same thing. I'm like, I don't know. Like, I talk about it, and then I ship this off to an editor. So I don't I used to at least do the editing myself, so I would get to hear the conversation again six months later. And then when it went up, when it went up, then people. Asked me a question. I'm like, Oh, I just heard this last week, because I was you

Arden Benner 1:00:03
asked me what I learned in class today, and it took me a while to, like, I only retrieved like, one thing of what I learned. Like, I don't know. Yeah, that's a lot to ask. You. Think

Scott Benner 1:00:11
people learn while they're sleeping? Like, is that possible? We'll figure that out a later date. Nevermind. All right, and we and that's, I have to pee so bad. Go P we're done. Okay, bye. Anyway,

the conversation you just heard was sponsored by Dexcom and the Dexcom g7 learn more and get started today at dexcom.com/juice. Box. This episode of the juice box podcast was sponsored by us med. Us, med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get started today with us. Med, links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com the diabetes variables series from the Juicebox Podcast goes over all the little things that affect your diabetes that you might not think about, travel and exercise to hydration and even trampolines. Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on diabetes variables. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with someone else who you think might also enjoy it, and don't forget to subscribe or follow in your audio app. And make sure you have that setting that says, download new episodes, make sure that's checked off. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Hey, what's up, everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way. Recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way. Recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it? You want rob you?

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#1397 Caregiver Burnout Series: Part 5

Navigating social experiences post-diagnosis 

Navigating Social Life Post-Diagnosis: Erica Forsyth discusses the emotional and logistical challenges caregivers face in social situations.

Practical Tools for Caregivers: Discover strategies to manage social interactions, from finding trusted care to handling well-meaning but tough questions.

Breaking Isolation: Explore how to balance caregiving with maintaining personal and social connections.

Shared Experiences: Real stories and advice from caregivers to help lighten the load and find a supportive path forward.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Erica Forsyth is back today for our fifth installment of the caregiver burnout series. If you've missed episodes, 123, and four of this series, go back and get them. If you're interested in learning more about Erica, you can find her at Erica forsyth.com if you're enjoying the podcast, please follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and don't forget to share this with a friend who you think might also enjoy it. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com if you or a loved one was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective. The bold beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is the meter that my daughter has on her person right now it is incredibly accurate, and waiting for you at contour next.com/juice. Box. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, and later in this episode, we're going to be speaking with Heather, who will talk about the importance of education and understanding the impacts of hyperglycemia. Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper, Erica. Here we are for episode five of our caregiver burden series. What's today's topic? Right?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 2:11
Today's topic is navigating social experiences. Post diagnosis

Scott Benner 2:18
is the part. This is your part. There's just so much to do for our infant, the management consumes our lives. There is no time to socialize, no time even for each other.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 2:33
That's sad, yes. So obviously, you know, navigating social experiences post diagnosis is going to look and feel different depending on the age and stage of your child's diagnosis, but for the most part, you're in a season of shock and grieving and adjustment. So there is this natural struggle and concern of, okay, how do we navigate social gatherings, and that whether it's parties, whether it's office, talk, community events, whatever, when we're so we're talking about social gatherings, really, any kind of social interaction. The research says, you know that many parents struggle with attending these gatherings being social due to the disruptiveness and seriousness, seriousness of type one. A lot of the The research also said in the beginning it's really hard. You if you're at a party, for example, and you're trying to talk with friends, but then you're worried about, like you're you're looking at the CGM, or you're worried about, Is my child going low? We have to go treat the tension. Is kind of a two fold situation. Obviously, you're concerned for your child's health, but also you're kind of holding this like, what is, what is this other person going to think about? Or how are they going to think of me when I'm kind of half here, I'm kind of half listening, but I'm like, Aha, aha, and I'm looking at my phone or, you know, or like, or excuse me, and so you're that is another burden to carry. How to manage those interactions and the conversations? Yeah? Like

Scott Benner 4:04
when you're driving the car, the passenger doesn't judge you for not turning and looking at them while you're talking, right? They know you're focusing on another thing, and they can tell it's important. But around the diabetes, especially in a world where a lot of people hear from people like, Well, yeah, but you've got it under control. Now, she looks good, you know, like they don't understand what it is you're burdened with and thinking about, and then you get judged for not being present. Yes, right? Yes. So not only do you have to feel shame for not being present during a birthday party or a gathering or something like that, but you've got to sit there and wonder when you're going to get shamed in return for not acting the way you're supposed to act in that situation. The

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 4:47
car example is really good one, because in that there's the expectation and there's norms, right? But part of this burden of navigating these social interactions is the other meaning, the other. Person you're talking to doesn't know, doesn't have those, you know, those norms set in place, and we're going to kind of flush that out well, especially

Scott Benner 5:07
because when you start explaining it, you sound kooky. I've always found that through my life, like, whenever you start telling people about diabetes, they look at you like, Are you out of your mind? And then when you stop and think about it, later, you go, Oh, I do sound like I'm out of my own and by the way, I might be a little bit like, I'm panicked that this is gonna go wrong, or that they're gonna grab a cupcake and I'm not gonna know about it. Where he's gonna go, the kids are all gonna go run down the street, and she's gonna get low while she's like, Oh my god, yeah,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 5:33
yes. And you're so you're setting us up really well for when we get to the tools conversation. How do we respond to those moments? And then let's say you kind of get past that point of, I don't, I don't know how to do these social interactions. And you get to the point of, well, maybe we want to, maybe we I want to go out with my partner, or maybe I want to go take a yoga class, or whatever it is, even if, when you have that longing to to have that social connection. You might also experience the challenge of either finding reliable care, whether it's family or or professional, finding it and then trusting that care, right? So that's like the second hurdle to get through, which we're going to talk about, also

Scott Benner 6:19
because it's gonna feel like nobody can do it, right? Yeah, mostly you're gonna be like, well, I'll look for and, you know, maybe you get lucky and find, like, a type one kid, and, you know what? I mean, you're like, Okay, well, you have it, so that's good. Or another parent, I've seen that before. I've seen parents, you know, buddy, this is gonna be in the Tools part, isn't it? I'm sorry it is. No, you're good. You're good. But I always get worried about hitting the wall and giving up, actually, in all of this, like, as you go through, like, you know, at what point do you just say, I don't want to stand there and be judged, I'm not going to go, or I don't want to I don't want to deal with the food. I'm not going to go. I'm never going to find a babysitter. We'll just stay here. And then, before you know it, you haven't left your house in five years. You know, yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 7:01
that is exactly what happened. So all of this leads you to staying at home.

Scott Benner 7:06
Yeah, I've lived through this, Eric. I'm aware of how it's gonna go.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 7:11
Oh gosh. And I know, you know, we giggle, but this is, this is so painful and challenging, right? That's why we're we're highlighting this. It changes

Scott Benner 7:20
the course of your life? Yes, it really does. There's a big difference between getting married and sitting around having sex and eating frozen pizza and not being able to leave the house because of all these things. You know what I mean? Like everyone goes through a moment a season in their life. Erica, to quote you, from another episode, where, like, hanging out kind of alone and at home, like you're building your you're building your family. Yeah. I don't know if people realize that happens or not, but you hunker down at some point, right? But then you go back out again. But this is one of those where you could hunker down for the wrong reasons and just become isolated.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 7:53
Yes, yes. So because it, it becomes so painful to have to deal with those conversations or the questions like, oh, it looks like things are well, like, your it looks, how is your child adjusted? How have you adjusted? Like, look, you guys are, he's on the soccer team. Good for you. And people obviously don't know, because they don't know, yeah, how hard you're working to make it look so easy. Yeah, I'm thinking

Scott Benner 8:14
of shooting up a bank. Becky, thanks for asking. Yeah,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 8:18
yes, right. Yes. Uh. So, okay, so what? What can we do? So these, these next, these tools, are going to kind of be a random mixture of, kind of filling your toolbox with actual tangible tools and some kind of cognitive tools. So again, we're leading with, you know, noticing the why, noticing the chatter that's going on in your mind. I know a lot of parents, when they start to go out, whether it's on a trip or to the beach, they might think must be nice when you when you're looking at other families, like, must be nice to go to the beach and not have 50, you know, fruit snacks and 20 juice boxes and a bag full of device changes, like, It must be nice, or it must be nice to go on a trip but not have to worry about going through the X ray, etc, etc, right? I

Scott Benner 9:04
haven't driven away from my house more than an hour without ice with me in quite some time. And you know what I mean? Just that little thing, like, I don't want to drive too far away, because we'll take we'll take insulin with us, and we keep our insulin refrigerator, so we'll throw on some ice, and the next thing you know, you have a little cooler, and you're like, I don't think about it anymore, to be perfectly honest. But for many years, as you're doing it, you're just, you just under your breath, you're like, and believe this is what I got to do, to go to the mall, you know what I mean? So I hear you. I'm sorry,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 9:31
yeah, so that must be nice, so and so in the beginning that obviously, or in, you know, again, periods or seasons of change, that is either, you know, resentment or bitterness, but underneath that is the grief, right? Of like, I can't like this is, this is hard, this is sad. Why do I have to do this for my child? Why can't we just go off as a family without thinking about all these things? Why can't we go camping again? You know, whatever it is that your your family used to do, and you're noticing that. Must be nice, and so to honor that like it's hard offer yourself that that compassion that you are on that journey of acceptance, it's okay to have those thoughts, and it's normal, and being kind to yourself is so important in that space.

Scott Benner 10:12
This episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes. Learn more about hyperglycemia at Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper.

Speaker 1 10:22
Well, Hi, I'm Heather lackey. I am a wife and mom. I have two children that are seniors in high school, and I've had type one diabetes for 34 years. And I'm a dietitian and a diabetes educator. You know, I'm the Director of Global Medical Education. I lead a team of clinicians that are developing content.

Scott Benner 10:44
How do you feel when your blood sugar is high,

Speaker 1 10:47
irritable, thirsty, hungry.

Scott Benner 10:51
What do you enjoy most about your job?

Speaker 1 10:53
See education working. See people thriving. That's kind of the fuel that feeds, you know, my fire,

Scott Benner 11:01
what would you like to see community members talk about more

Speaker 1 11:05
hyperglycemia is the critical thing, right? That leads to short term and long term complications. Hyperglycemia is the greatest unmet need in the treatment of diabetes currently, and I think that that's where technology can help if

Scott Benner 11:20
you're having trouble with hyperglycemia and would like to talk to other people in the diabetes community. Check out the Medtronic champions hashtag, or go to Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper far too often we accept the blood glucose meter that someone hands to us, the doctor reaches into a drawer and goes, Here, take this one. That is that, is that the one you want? Is it accurate? You have no way of knowing. But if you want accuracy, and you want to be confident in the blood glucose readings that you're getting from your meter, you want the contour next gen. It's incredibly easy to get the same meter that Arden uses. Just go to contour next.com/juicebox that's all you have to do. The contour next gen is easy to use and highly accurate. It features a smart light that provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels, and, of course, Second Chance sampling technology that can help you to save money with fewer wasted strips. Contour next.com/juice box. And I do think you can get through it. Yes, yeah. I mean, genuinely, I I've had those thoughts, but I don't have them anymore. Like, I don't even think twice about it. I could just, I mean, I could probably do it with my eyes closed. Grab the insulin, grab the ice, to the thing that I have, a little cup I use, like, you know, like, I just, it takes 30 seconds now, and you don't think about even just, like, pump changes used to feel like that, you know what? I mean, like, you just like, oh, it's gonna happen. And then it happens, and I gotta get the thing and I gotta open it up. And you just, the whole time, you just just grind in your gears that you have to do it. And then one day you just, I mean, for me, I just didn't think about it ever again. I was like, Oh, I guess it's just what happens. It's like, brushing your teeth kind of feeling, you know,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:01
sometimes, so that's, that's, that's a nice moment when it feels like brushing our teeth. But, yeah, some, I mean, even, you know, 34 years in, I still like, Ah, dang, I gotta change my pump today. No,

Scott Benner 13:11
no, I imagine you were, you actually were very helpful for me, because I mentioned how hard and Arden will take a pump down to, like, the last unit, you know what I mean? Like, it'll be 11 o'clock, and I'll be like, Arden, listen, if you just change your pump before you went to bed, you know, you'd be great, but if you go to bed with this pump, like, at 8am it's gonna need to be changed one way or the other. And so, you know whether you're gonna, like, sleep in or not. And I don't know, it's just the way you put it to me, like, and just sitting there looking at you, like, at your age, having had diabetes for so long, you're like, Oh, I ride those pumps right to the bitter end. And I was like, oh, okay, well, then that's a thing I won't talk to her about anymore, because that, to me, felt like a piece of this I can't understand anymore, didn't

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:59
I mean, yes, and I think that's, would it be wise to change it for the before the last 10 units? Because, you know, although, like, Oh, let me be clearly agree, yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 14:09
100% right, yeah, but, like, but I'm not, but I'm not factoring in the other part of it, which is, she lives with it. Actually, I used your experience as a proxy to fill in a gap in my thinking about Arden, and that helped me a lot. I don't know. I

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 14:25
never told you. Oh yes, well, I'm glad I normalized my procrastination behavior. I don't know, but there's something about like you don't want to. It's not even about wasting the insulin, although that might be a little bit. It's just about wait. Well, why do it now when there, I still have got time, and I can do it tomorrow morning. I don't know. It's a weird

Scott Benner 14:45
I have come to think of it cool thing as her trying to create as much time between touching diabetes as possible. That's kind of how I I've come to think of it when I'm I'm trying to, like, help

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 14:56
her. So, yes, yeah, that's good. That's good. So. We went off tangent. But that's okay. Hopefully that normalized. Yeah, some of that very well, yeah. I hope so. So in the in the kind of noticing this chatter around trying to face social interactions, if you're also feeling like, gosh, I can't, as you already said, Scott, you know, I can't, I can't trust anyone. And maybe that is the actual reality that you have, there's no family, there's no real, reliable source of caregiving other than yourself. And so I want to honor that. And is there something beneath that? Of you know, what if I'll never forgive myself? If something happens like they they go high for while I'm gone, or they go too low or and again, those are real fears. I'm not. I don't want to minimize those, but is shame preventing you from taking some opportunity to take care of yourself?

Scott Benner 15:51
Yeah, like, they there's like, a middle ground, you know, because, you know the there's i, we all have friends who are just like, whatever. It's fine. They go on vacation, they don't take their kids with them, and you're like, Oh, my God. Like, they're like, No, it's nice for us to get a lot, you know, we get away on our own. I'm like, Oh, I would never do that. But you guys seem fine. You know what I mean, like, so you have this, like, held belief about, like, no one's gonna, you know, in this example, no one's gonna be able to do this. They're gonna mess it up. I'm just not gonna go out. I'll stay here. And then you know, the family across the street with diabetes is, you know, I don't know, on a three day Benner and the kid's fine, I wish everybody could come to the middle a little bit. And I do think that happened, because every there are people who just have a freedom about them that are just, it's just, like, everything's going to be all right. And I'm like, Okay, I said to the Arden the other day, I think I have that, but my wife doesn't, so we blend ourselves to the middle, which is kind of nice, actually. Yes, the Arden was saying something the other day, and I texted her Three Little Birds, and she's like, what? And I was like, you don't know that song. And she's like, what? I'm like, every little thing is going to be all right. And she was like, she's like, whatever, so, but I think that. I think everything's going to be all right. I wouldn't drift a three day Benner, but I would drift a little far to that side. My wife pulls me back a little bit, and I anchor her from being too you know, oh God, let's never go out again, because this isn't going to be okay. Uh huh, I don't know, yeah, but what if? What if everybody's thinking one way or the other, and nobody's there to pull you back to the center, I guess. No, I'm sorry. I'm talking a lot. No, it's good.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 17:23
It's Friday. It's good. Okay. So as we talk about going into social experiences, we talk about the burden of explanation. What you already referenced in the beginning, you know this, what do you do when people either they think they're, you know, asking compassionate questions, but they might land as more, you know, ignorant, or even though they're really trying not to be God

Scott Benner 17:45
only gave it to them because they knew you could handle it. Yeah, no one's ever said that to me, where the little voice in my head hasn't gone you just so you all know, and I know you meant well by it, and I never said it out loud, but it never feels good. Yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 17:57
and those are people like, right? They're trying to offer encouragement, and they're trying to affirm your strength, but, gosh, it just land, doesn't land, right? So having something prepared, it feels maybe inauthentic, but in that moment when you're feeling extra fragile and vulnerable and you're you want, but you also need to be out in the world, or need to interact with your child's teacher or other parent in the classroom to have something practiced like, Thanks for checking in. It turns out type one is way more. Is way scarier. It's way more complicated than I ever knew. And then usually people might say, or you could even say, you know, if they're saying, like, how are you doing? Like, it's not looks like Teddy's doing great. And if you aren't quite ready to say anything, so you know what he's doing, okay, I'm not really ready to process or share. And then oftentimes people say, How can I help? And then we're going to get into some tools, right? Because then we feel stuck. What do we what do we want to say there?

Scott Benner 18:56
I'm glad you bring that up, because that sounds healthier than what I do. So I'm Madagascar penguin. The whole thing. I don't know if your kids are old enough to have watched the movie Madagascar probably no. There's three penguins, and they're constantly up to mischief. And when they get caught, the one that's in charge goes, just smile and wave. Boys, just smile and wave. And that's what I do. I do it to end those I do it to everybody. I'm like, oh, yeah, everything's great. Oh, we'll change that right now. Don't worry. When people how's it going? I go away in my head, yeah, I don't want to think about the last 20 years of diabetes when you ask me the question. So I go, she's doing great. Thanks for asking. And that's and generally speaking, by the way, that's true. But the nuance around it, I think the nuance isn't worth sharing in that moment. But I liked the way you were talking about it, like, hey, it turns out this is harder than I thought it was. Like, like, maybe be honest. Anyway, keep going. I thought that was wonderful. I don't like, no, yeah, and

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 19:49
that's good, because it matters who the audience is, right? We don't have to, I think this burden of feeling like, do I need to educate? Do I need to explain to them how. Hard it is, even though you're inside, you might be just like, barely hanging on. And then when someone says looks like you're doing okay, or he's back in class, or he's playing sports, way to go, and you're inside just feeling like, oh my gosh, this woman has no idea how hard this is. Yeah, you get to then make that choice, right? And you'd be like, Oh, everything's great. Or we're Yeah, we're doing okay. Or to say you can do a little it does it feel like you want to do a little bit of education, right? To say, Gosh, type one, it turns out, I had no idea what it was before he was diagnosed, but it's, it's way more complicated and way more serious than I ever knew. But I'm not really ready to like share everything quite yet. But thanks for asking. And as human beings, typically, they want to help, right? And so I often hear, when I'm like, role playing with caregivers in this, people then say, well, how can I help? And it's hard to say, well, you know, you can't drop off a casserole, right? Or maybe you could, I don't know, but that's that's complicated, you know? How

Scott Benner 20:57
can I help? Can I have your pancreas? I So

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 21:03
this like having these resources and mantras planned and prepared, just as we did, like I remember in the the team session at the conference that we just were at at the touch by type one, I asked them, What do you say when people ask you, what's on your arm? Because in the beginning, you might not be prepared. And they, a lot of them, had prepared things like, Oh, I'm part robot, or, Oh, it's my CGM. What's a CGM? Oh, ask, ask your parent. It's complicated. Yeah, you know all these prepared things to protect you, to not have to go as deep as you want to, right? In those moments, right?

Scott Benner 21:38
Arden was asked once if she had cancer because insulin makes Omnipod for insulin delivery. But they also make a medication. They make a pod that delivers medication that you get after chemotherapy that helps.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 21:50
I've been, I have been asked that. I was asked, are you on, are you either post chemo or something, along with cancer? Yes, actually, I forgot about that, so you just brought that up.

Scott Benner 21:59
I can't forget because my mom called me one day and she goes, I'm wearing Arden's pump today. And she was like, like, I think she felt like a kinship. It was nice. I think she felt excited by it. Yeah, you're gonna get asked any number of crazy things, is that a nicotine patch? Is it this? Is it that, like, you know,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 22:16
yes. Or with the pump I used to get, are you on call?

Scott Benner 22:20
Oh, really? Because it was like, on your waist, like a

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 22:22
pager. Yeah, look like, I mean, it still kind of looks like a pager, but I don't think. Don't forget anymore.

Scott Benner 22:26
You look young because I'm here and I'm old, but don't say stuff like that, because, yeah, I'm old. It's

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 22:33
okay. So okay. So what do you do when they say, How can I help you? May you've got, you've navigated that awkward either, you know, ignorant question, and you've shared what feels appropriate to you, given the audience, and then to have some things ready. And a lot of you guys probably know some of these resources already, but I think it's good to hold them here. I actually share this episode with a lot of my clients. The Best of Juicebox explaining type one, number 836, it's you and Jenny, kind of it's just a one hour explanation of what it is, and it's good for coaches, teachers, family. So I think you might have other specific

Scott Benner 23:08
episodes. It might actually be part of the Pro Tip series too. Oh, it's not a best of Juicebox. It might be pro tip. I think, what? Well, no, I think it. I mean, you've, you've caught me. I put it out. Yeah, I put it out as an episode. I think I'm, Wait, isn't that interesting? Let me take a look. I think it's part of the EXPLAIN type one, yeah, so you can find it as part of the Pro Tip series. At 1019 it ran as a best of episode at at 836, and I think it initially ran and that came from the community. Yeah, the community asked for, like, what do I I'm so tired. Actually, you're reminding me about this. I'm so tired of explaining this to people. I wish I had something to hand them. And Jenny and I were like, well, we could make something that you could hand them, and then that's what we did. So, oh, yeah.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 23:53
And it's a great, easy, you know, you email it out to friends. I email it to clients a lot, to have them share it because it is. It is a real part of this transition, this burden of interacting with people, family, friends, a lot of you guys already have, whether it's five, oh, fours, A, T, 1d, you know, one sheet. There are great resources, you know, touch by type one has already, you know, a PDF letter to the teacher. They also have the type one at school. American Diabetes Association has great safe at school resources. So these are things you probably already know, but if not, there's a lot of things out there already created for you, for the coaches, teachers, family caregivers, another great resource from behavioral diabetes.org are these etiquette cards. I don't know if you've seen these before. Scott, you can print them out as a PDF, or you can buy them from their website, and they fold up to like, the size of a business card. Now, ironically, they have, they have two different types of cards. One. Is for, you know, people who don't have diabetes, and the other one is for for parents, like, what your teen would like you to know, okay, but it would be great, right? If there was one for caregivers to be able to hand out, but they highlight things that are are challenging, and to talk about with your with your teens, and then also with with family members. And so I just wanted to share that from behavioral diabetes.org I'm

Scott Benner 25:27
happy to steal that idea. What your teens would like to know would be good, good podcast episode, actually. Oh yeah, yeah. And I just looked while you were going over that, that episode in the last month, the explaining type one has been downloaded 1000 times in the last month. So people really must share it more than I didn't realize how much it was being downloaded, I mean, and I say that because it's been out for years and in the last 30 days, 1000 times is a lot.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 25:50
Wow, yeah, that is a lot. Yes, no, that's a good idea. Yeah, we could just even go through those, those topics, because there's often, like, we have a lot of these feelings and tensions, but then when they're put to words, it feels just so, so validating and Yes, can I ask

Scott Benner 26:08
you a question to Can I ask you to suppose a little bit but for the people who are are burdened by these burdens, obviously, this is completely real. Do you think there's anyone that listens to just goes, Huh? This never happened to me. I don't feel this way at all. Like, do you think that's possible, like, just personality wise, or do you think they're lying to themselves to some degree? Or do you think there could be a mix of that? I think

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 26:30
there probably is a mix. So supposing a caregiver, their child's diagnosed, and they are able to go out into the world and interact and don't feel that burden of who, how do I explain? How do I manage my own emotions as I'm explaining what it is possibly, and maybe that's someone who's who's highly self aware, who's who's grieved, and feels like their grieving, their grief is contained. Maybe they've gone through a lot. Perhaps they're highly resilient, and they feel like, you know, we've gone through x, y and z, we can manage this. Maybe there's an over sharing, but like we've talked about before, like maybe you're grieving and emotions are coming out to anyone and everyone who will listen. Oh, we've

Scott Benner 27:10
all had a friend get broken up with and then it just all comes and you're like, oh, please stop sharing all this with me. It's too much. Yes, please stop. Listen. I said it because I think I was probably a mix, like I was handling it, but I also think there were impacts that I was pretending didn't exist as well. And now getting to make the podcast, I can look backwards and see them more easily.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 27:33
Yes, like in the moment, perhaps it might feel like you're you're processing and interacting with the world in a really healthy way. And that might be true, and hopefully that is true, but maybe upon reflection, looking back and thinking, well, maybe I was holding everything in and pretending, doing the as you were saying, like, everything's great, thanks, and then you're going home and just into a puddle, just

Scott Benner 27:55
smile and wave, boys, just smile and wave. That's the line from the movie. Yes, I also find it's valuable to just assume I'm always making mistakes, and that way I just don't know what they are at the moment, because sometimes you are and sometimes you're not, but if you always think you're right, you're never going to be able to look back and and self adjust. And, you know, maybe I don't know, learn from it, move on. So I try my artist. You know,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 28:21
that is the complication, or the the duality and pain of that burden of smiling and waving. Does that feel easier on the moment? But then do you end up feeling isolated and alone and feeling like people don't get it? Yeah, but then it also feels exhausting, right? I have to say, Gosh, this is really hard. Listen to how hard it is. It could feel

Scott Benner 28:43
easier in the moment, but I definitely think it does damage. Like, the only time you're gonna get away with that is when you get so old, like, I'm so looking forward to this part in my life, when you're just like, there's nothing left. I did. This is who I am. Let's just ride it out. Like, I can't wait to get to that one, but until then, you're growing hopefully so. But I am excited to get to that point where I could just be like, Listen, I want to let you all know this is as good as it's gonna get, and I'm gonna stop worrying about it now. But that day's not today, Erica, so gotta keep going a little longer. I guess. Did I cut you off before you got to the babysitter list? I apologize. Yeah.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 29:17
So the last thing a lot of you guys might know this too, from type one together, there's a babysitter list that they've created that you can go look and type in your zip code and see if there are any type ones who have registered as babysitters in your area. So I think that's just a nice resource to have from them, from type one together. That definitely eases the burden of explaining what type one is, right? Because they have, they're living it. But then there still is, you know, the conversation around, how much do you want them to to treat, not treat? You know, all those things like, how personal you have to have, the personal type one management conversation, but not the, this is type one diabetes conversation, and

Scott Benner 29:57
that's Raquel, by the way, she's been on the show. Yes, yes. And she started

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 30:01
as a babysitter and then created this whole thing.

Scott Benner 30:05
And once drove me to an airport, which is a a piece of I don't think anybody knew that, but I gave a talk somewhere. When it was it was at the beginning of Uber, and I was like, I'm not getting in someone else's car. Like, that's not happening. And Brock was like, I'll take you. And I was like, okay, that I'll accept you. You look like somebody I can hold accountable. So nice. Yeah, anyway, yeah, she's lovely. Before

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 30:28
that was the beginning of Uber that's just that you just dated yourself. Now, listen,

Scott Benner 30:33
I'm very old. That's neither here nor that I'm getting, I'm getting by Erica and having dark hair, really, it's the only thing saving me at this point. But no, I mean, it was ride shares were new, and I was like, I'm not calling a stranger who couldn't get a job with a taxi company to come pick me up in their Corolla. I'm not doing it. And I was really adamant about it. Just in case you're wondering. I was like,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 30:52
Do you do you take Ubers now, now, or lifts?

Scott Benner 30:56
I care less about my life now, so no, I mean, I do now, but it's a little more of a sanctioned, you know, yes, you know, it has been normalized. Yeah, in the end, I'm an adult. I would like to be in my own car, but if I can't be, then I will do this. Is that an old person thing? Like, I want to be in my own car? I

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 31:16
don't know if that's an old person thing. That might just be a human being thing, I don't know. Young people don't seem

Scott Benner 31:21
to care about anything Erica. They're just like, whatever. It's fine. We did good. We're good.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 31:26
Yes, I think, I think we are good. And that also that it, you know, with the Navigating the social experiences and gatherings, it will, you will grow and evolve. And that those pain points that we discussed, you know, hopefully will lighten. Yeah,

Scott Benner 31:44
now i Listen, I I spoke with a person today. I record sometimes more than once a day, and she's in her 70s. She has type one diabetes, and she was making this point, and she just said, you know, it's not like when you break your arm and you just forget about it. And I thought, Oh, she's been alive so long that she broke her arm at some point and doesn't think about it anymore. Like, if you're eight, you're like, I broke my arm last summer, you know? And that idea that eventually just keep going and you don't remember, I'll tell my kids if they're arguing or something, and I'll say, listen to me. A year from now, you won't remember this. And that's an indicator of how maybe unimportant this moment is like again, not that in this moment you're not having a real disagreement or something's not happening, but you don't have to judge it as if it's going to be with you every day for the rest of your life, because sometimes you make that a self fulfilling prophecy. You

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 32:37
know, yes, to give it perspective is so important anyway.

Scott Benner 32:41
All right, I'm out of gum store wisdom for today, Erica, we have to go gum store candy. What is the what it Wait? What's the saying? Dime store wisdom, right? Who's gonna find it first? I mean, I'm using the internet. What are you doing? Is that the saying, dime store wisdom like a little kernel of truth you pick at in the unluckiest places, I don't know. Oh and then in Oh Brother, Where Art that was that this episode or no, that was this episode. Okay, hold on a second. Erica and I, we sometimes record more than one episode. In this sitting he's trying to tell his wife that he has value, but he uses a word, and now I can't think of what it is. Let's see. George Clooney tries to convince his estranged wife Penny of his worth. She has doubts, especially with his slick talk and past mistakes. So he defends himself by saying, I'm the damn patter families, basically declaring that he has value because he's the man of the family, even if he's flawed. And she replies with a dead pan that he's not bona fide. That's what I was thinking about. I don't know why, like, I I'm sorry. It's the end of the day anyway. See it in context, you'll love it. Uh Oh, brother. Where art thou? I don't know what year it was made, but you should be able to find it all right. Now we're gonna go, okay, okay, see you.

I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter that my daughter carries, the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour. Next.com/juicebox prolonged hyperglycemia can lead to serious health problems and long term complications. Learn more at Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper. This episode of the podcast was sponsored by Medtronic diabetes. Are you starting to see patterns, but you can't quite make sense of them. You're like, Oh, if I Bolus here, this happens, but I don't know what to do. Should I put in a little less, a little more? If you're starting to have those thoughts, if you're starting to think this isn't going the way the doctor said it would, I think I see something here, but I can't be sure. Once you're having those thoughts. Products you're ready for the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast. It begins at Episode 1000 you can also find it at Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu, and you can find a list in the private Facebook group. Just check right under the featured tab at the top, it'll show you lists of a ton of stuff, including the Pro Tip series, which runs from episode 1000 to 1025 I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed or following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way, recording, wrong way, recording.com and one more time. If you're enjoying the podcast, please make sure that you're subscribed or following in the audio app that you're listening in right now. If you're listening online, go find one of those free audio apps and subscribe. And if you're enjoying the show, please share it with someone else who you think might also enjoy it. You.

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