#417 Fossil Friends

From OK to AU

Skylar is an adult living with type 1 diabetes who enjoys searching for fossils.

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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
There's a way for you to support Type One Diabetes Research and the Juicebox Podcast. And you can do that through the T one D exchange. The T one D exchange is looking for type one adults and type one caregivers who are us residents to participate in a quick survey. As a parent of a child with Type One Diabetes, I've taken the survey, and it only takes a few minutes to complete. And the questions are not deeply probing, or overly personal. They're pretty basic questions about living with type one. The process is 100% anonymous, completely HIPAA compliant, and does not require you to ever see a doctor or go to a remote site with the data that the E one D exchange collects. They've helped to bring increased coverage for test strips, Medicare coverage for CGM, and they've helped to implement changes in the ADA guidelines for pediatric a one segals. I find it really exciting to imagine what my participation may lead to, but they need help. They need people data, they're looking for up to 6000 respondents. So just my data alone is not going to be enough. Every time someone completes the process. If you use my link, T one d exchange.org. forward slash Juicebox. Podcast will benefit. So if you're looking for a way to help type on research, and the podcast, this is a simple way to do both. And it's really valuable. So get involved, go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. There's links right there in the show notes of your podcast player. We're at Juicebox podcast.com. When you get there, click on join our registry now. And after that simply complete the survey. I want to thank you for your help and get the show going.

Hello friends and welcome to Episode 417 of the Juicebox Podcast. On today's show. We have Skyler scholars and adult living with Type One Diabetes who's living in Australia, but he's from Oklahoma. And that makes for a very interesting accent and Skyler makes for a really great episode of the Juicebox Podcast. Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. I have a little time here. So I'd like to remind you that if you have a great doctor, or need one, check out juicebox docs.com send me your favorite diabetes practitioner, and we'll add it to the evergrowing list from all around the world. That way when people need a great doctor, they know where to look juicebox Doc's calm. And if you're looking for those diabetes pro tip episodes, they begin at Episode 210 right there in your podcast player, where you can find a list of them and even listen online at diabetes pro tip.com. Alright, here we go. This is it. You're coming Skyler.

Unknown Speaker 3:11
Hello.

Unknown Speaker 3:14
Can you hear me? Yep.

Scott Benner 3:16
Hi. Good morning.

Unknown Speaker 3:20
I just turn you up a little bit.

Scott Benner 3:21
Is this better?

Unknown Speaker 3:23
Yeah, that's better.

Scott Benner 3:24
There you go. I have this just one setting. And no matter how many times I put it to where I want it. It puts itself back. So I I stopped arguing with it a while ago and I just go do it myself.

Skylar Cox 3:40
Yeah, technology is great when it works. Yeah.

Scott Benner 3:43
Yeah. I felt that way about my uncle. A little weird. Anyway. Uh, hi. Good morning. What time is it? Where are you at?

Skylar Cox 3:54
Um, I'm in Queensland, Australia. So it's 11pm here. Wow.

Scott Benner 4:00
Well, good evening to you then.

Unknown Speaker 4:03
Yes.

Scott Benner 4:04
I'll tell you what we're going to do. I'm sorry. Good.

Skylar Cox 4:08
I was just gonna say good morning to you.

Scott Benner 4:10
Thank you. I have to tell you, this is my second Australian interview in like the last five days. Really? The podcast is oddly popular in Australia.

Unknown Speaker 4:23
Yeah, yeah.

Skylar Cox 4:26
I was actually recommended to me by an Australian Facebook groups.

Scott Benner 4:31
No kidding. That's lovely. There was a person who once tried to bring me to Australia but we couldn't quite raise the funds to ship my carcass on an airplane. And it was one of those weird things where I was like, Am I gonna fly 20 hours to talk to people for three hours then fly back. I was like, that doesn't seem to make sense. No, yeah. You know, so we were not

Skylar Cox 4:52
that those flights are terrible.

Scott Benner 4:54
See, that's what I thought

Skylar Cox 4:58
they are you do not think You know that your bomb can hurt sitting, but it can.

Scott Benner 5:07
I just seemed like a bad idea. Like, logistically, it seemed like a bad idea. The idea itself was lovely. And I was excited to try to do it. But that's just crazy. I would have to, I would have to build some sort of a vacation around the idea. And then

Skylar Cox 5:23
yes, yes, definitely. And

Scott Benner 5:25
then do that while I was there. And if I did that I told the person to I was like, let's just do like days of it. Like, let's not just do a couple of hours, let's bring people together and, like, do giant Q and A's and workshop and stuff like that. And I can't just come down there and be like, here's what I think and then leave us like I could, I could do that over zoom for you, you know, that? That'd be easy. I've done it before for Japan, and a couple of other places where you just jump online for a couple of hours. And, you know, yeah, that seems nuts. Oh,

Skylar Cox 5:56
I think it'd be, you know, I think there'd be a lot of interest in it. If you were to come over here and do workshops, and the like, I believe that too. I

Scott Benner 6:05
just don't know. Like I said, one day, I'll, I have to be first of all, when I record all this, so you know, if you go crazy, like understand that, I'll take it out. But in a minute, we'll you'll just introduce yourself Anyway, you want to be known. And we'll start talking. So I was gonna say why don't we do that now so that we don't, we don't waste any good conversation.

Unknown Speaker 6:30
Oh, good.

Skylar Cox 6:34
Okay, just let me know when

Scott Benner 6:36
it's okay. Sorry. It's funny. Some people want to try to do it. And some people are like, wait for the go and it amuses me to figure out. Like you can go whatever you want.

Skylar Cox 6:47
Okay, so my name is Skylar Cox. And I live in Australia. And I use MDI, manual daily injections to manage my diabetes.

Scott Benner 7:02
That's interesting. You call it manual? Daily injections?

Unknown Speaker 7:06
I yeah. Yeah.

Skylar Cox 7:08
I know, some people call it many daily injections. But

Scott Benner 7:11
this is what I've heard.

Skylar Cox 7:14
Yeah, yeah, I've heard multiple as well. I think they're interchangeable.

Scott Benner 7:19
When you said when you said it the way you did, I thought, oh, that works too.

Skylar Cox 7:24
Yep, yep. I think I've heard both interchangeably here.

Scott Benner 7:29
I think many is. seems more ominous. multiple, multiple, just makes it feel like there's gonna be more than too many is just like, you want to keep your blood sugar down, you're gonna inject, man,

Skylar Cox 7:43
I guess it depends on the mood you're in for the day.

Scott Benner 7:46
That's great. I didn't realize you're gonna get off to such an auspicious start. Thank you. So you said as we were kind of warming up, you said that you found out about the podcast in a Facebook group.

Skylar Cox 7:59
Right? Yeah. So I think it was Australians living with Type One Diabetes, or type one diabetes support group Australia. Those are the two main two main ones that I know about.

Scott Benner 8:10
Right. That's a That's very nice. I had, I once had this long conversation with a person from from Australia while I was watering, newly planted trees in my heart. I remember having had headphones on my phone. And we couldn't seem to figure out how to speak because I guess it's not as easy to call internationally for some people as it is for others to I was under the impression that at this point, we were all just allowed to call wherever we wanted, but it ended up being really difficult. And I don't know, we may have actually used Facebook audio to talk to each other. Which is, is that something pretty common for you guys?

Unknown Speaker 8:54
I

Skylar Cox 8:55
yeah, I have personally found that it is a lot better to use Facebook messenger to call people overseas than it is to actually use the phone. For whatever odd reason.

Scott Benner 9:08
Yeah, well, that's what we did. And I got on the phone with this person. And they had been a fairly, I believe, lifelong diabetic. And we're having really like terrible outcomes. And it's always interesting when someone reaches out to you and they're sort of persistent. Like I really wish we could talk and I was like, Alright, well you know, if you don't mind the sound of spraying water. I'm happy to you know, have this conversation. And you get on the phone and or even sometimes on the podcast. I mean, you guys maybe can tell sometimes in the episodes like sometimes someone starts speaking and I think, ooh, this is more than I bargained for. And and at that point, you know, you're you're in And anyway, that person ended up doing really well. And it was exciting because, like I said, there had been a long distance of time with a lot of trouble. And it was it was, it was nice to be able to help. So maybe that one good deed got all the way around Australia? I don't know.

Skylar Cox 10:11
Yeah, well, it's it's likely it is likely.

Scott Benner 10:16
You guys have like a real thing a telephone going on there where you just one person says something and tells another person. And I mean, in my mind Australia's like as big as what?

Skylar Cox 10:26
I don't know. Well, it's actually approximately the size of America. Actually, a lot of people don't realize that

Scott Benner 10:34
is that the map thing with a map is drawn in a weird way for navigation. Have you ever heard that the world map is? This is like the second time I'm bringing this up now. And don't know anything about it. But I was joking, I'll show you is huge. And it's a it's interest. But on the world map, it doesn't, in any way seem so.

Unknown Speaker 10:57
Yeah, yeah.

Skylar Cox 10:58
I think I actually learned in human geography a few years ago that depending on what kind of dimensional map you use, or whatever, some countries are a bit more squished look smaller. And generally, Australia does tend to get the brunt end that makes it a lot smaller than what it actually is. I

Scott Benner 11:17
feel like there's another country near you, that sometimes gets left off of maps to remember hearing about it. Anyway, this is not a typography podcast, if it wasn't. People would be like, wow. And they don't see anything about maps. Anyway, I'll show you really big place. I'm gonna reference back for a second to a recording that I just did that no one's heard yet, with another person from Australia, who sort of outlined a fairly bleak view for me of how a lot of people their diabetes is managed. Are there are the haves and have nots? health care wise? Pretty obvious there?

Skylar Cox 12:04
Yes, and no, I'd say Australia is really, really blessed in with the public health care system when it comes to being a diabetic. But at the same time, we don't have access to up to date technology. So, for example, insulin for a script of insulin 25 300 mil pins cost you $41 flat out to anybody. But in saying that, we may not have access to all the insulins available, such as tresiba. You know, and test strips are subsidized. So they're $15 flat rate for 100 strips, for a personal on a health care card. But, you know, your CGM devices actually aren't subsidized for people who are basically working enough to not be on a healthcare card. And they're over the age of 21. And it's not covered by private health insurance here either. So you're having to cover the brunt of that out of pocket.

Scott Benner 13:16
Is health care card a way of saying government assisted?

Skylar Cox 13:20
Yes. It's kind of the equivalent to the Medicare card in America. Yeah. Yep. So I think the Danny foundation is a big advocate group over here. Trying to raise awareness to the government as to why CGM devices need to be subsidized for every type one diabetic. And that's actually how I currently have my CGM. It's a scholarship through them.

Scott Benner 13:50
Interesting. Wow. And you're younger. Am I right? How old are you?

Skylar Cox 13:56
I am 22 years old. See, that

Scott Benner 13:58
sounds younger. And to me like with numbers, but you have a more mature voice. So if you told me you were 35, I would have just been like, Alright, okay.

Unknown Speaker 14:07
I'm 35.

Scott Benner 14:09
Would you Really? I would too, just in case you're wondering. Yeah. No, I just you mentioned a course a moment ago, and I would think that anyone who heard you say I learned in a course. But heard your voice would think, Oh, this lady's gone back to school. That's lovely. She's probably trying to better herself, but you're definitely younger. So what were you studying in school?

Skylar Cox 14:31
Yes, I am. I'm currently enrolled in uni. Actually, my last test is tomorrow. It opens up online at 2:30pm has to be online because of all the Coronavirus.

Unknown Speaker 14:44
Are you going to cheat? No.

Skylar Cox 14:46
No, it is open book. It is open book now.

Scott Benner 14:50
I'm just gonna say everything is okay. Let me ask you a serious question for a minute, Scott. If you're going to cheat, would you tell me

Unknown Speaker 14:57
Yeah,

Scott Benner 14:57
no kidding. Good for you. I think that one, I've watched two kids, one go completely through high school and one now halfway through high school and a, you know, a Corona a couple of months. And I think that we're teaching our children how to collectively come up with answers. unintentionally. So I'm seeing a lot of a lot of kids, they just they talk to each other they have, they have text chains going, they have all kinds of messaging, they're talking about their homework in the class, they're not talking about the learning. Interestingly, and it's not a good thing. But they are talking about the problem solving aspect of it. And so while I don't believe that a lot of American children are going to know who William Barr was, I do think they're going to know how to pull together six of their brightest friends and conquer anything. So it's a, I think it's a very unintended thing. I used to think of it as we were teaching our children to cheat. But now I don't see it that way any longer. Now, I, you know, it looks like it looks like really good adult tools to have but you know, the way people can communicate so quickly. You know, like, if you had to, if you were taking your, I don't know, you're doing something in school, remembering back when you were even younger, and you couldn't get the answer, and you had to get on your bike and ride to a friend's home to, you know, find out the answer, you wouldn't do that. You'd be like, I'll figure it out. But when you can text somebody and be like, hey, real quick, you know, answer seven, what is that? People do that all the time. So anyway, I would cheat if my test was online, just to you know, want to be very clear about that. I was about the worst student ever. And I would have, I would have taken the easiest way out possible, which, ironically, looking back now at this podcast, this whole podcast exists, because I wanted the easy way out of diabetes. So, you know,

Skylar Cox 16:58
yeah, I never really had that issue. Growing up, because my family was a bit slow to get up to date with your technology. So I, you know, my household didn't actually have a computer until I was just entering high school. I didn't have a phone available to me until my junior year, consistently anyways, so, and I was socially awkward on top of that, so I wasn't really connected enough to be able to get away with that. I

Scott Benner 17:36
want to know how you were socially awkward. But before you tell me, I want to point out that you paused right. After you said slow, you said my family was a little slow. And there was this pause. And I thought, is she going to tell me that her parents are stupid, or that they didn't get the technology quickly? Like I couldn't tell where you were going to go? And you said you'd be honest about cheating. So I was like, Oh, my God, this is gonna take a dark turn. But it didn't. How were you socially awkward? How does that manifest in your life? Um,

Skylar Cox 18:05
I'd say that I was just never really concerned with talking about superfluous things. You know, I didn't really care about who was dating whom, or you know, the latest trend or whatever. I was more interested in talking about more pertinent subjects. And nobody really wanted to engage in that kind of depth of conversation.

Scott Benner 18:32
Can I ask, do you find yourself at gatherings? I don't know, if you remember, gatherings. It used to be, people would go and get together in the same place and talk with each other and eat food and things like that. But back when that happened, did you? Do you feel like Do you ever have that feeling like, Oh, I don't want to be here, because the conversations aren't where you want them to be? And when you try to take them to where you want them to be, it turns everyone else off. Has that ever happened to you? Um,

Skylar Cox 19:02
not really. Because nobody ever really talked to me. Just to be honest, I was just always kind of on the outskirts of those gatherings, you know, prom nights or whatever. I only went because my mother wanted to do my makeup and put me out there and yeah, so I just kind of wander around the tables and sort of eat some of the kinky

Scott Benner 19:27
your mom was pimping you out so she could practice makeup.

Unknown Speaker 19:30
She's like, Oh, yeah, I

Scott Benner 19:32
don't want to do that mommy can figure out this eyeshadow.

Skylar Cox 19:36
Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. It even got to the point where, you know, she was bound determined that I was not going to wear my glasses to my high school prom. And so because I can't wear eye contacts, I went without my glasses, so I could not see anything. So neither Let's just say I ended it about 30 minutes in.

Scott Benner 20:02
Was that so that you'd find a boy? Is that what she was thinking?

Skylar Cox 20:08
Well, yeah, my my mother. Really? Yeah. She She tried to hook me up a few times.

Scott Benner 20:16
Would your mother say bloke if she was talking about a tea or is that not Australian?

Skylar Cox 20:21
Well, I'm actually American. Living in Australia. You

Scott Benner 20:25
ruined the whole pot, and I'm just kidding. That's fine. Where were you born?

Unknown Speaker 20:29
Oklahoma,

Scott Benner 20:31
where the wind comes whistling down the lane. sweeping down, sweeping dammit. God dammit. Can we do that again? where the wind comes sweeping down the lane? Is that the place? You're talking about Schuyler?

Skylar Cox 20:40
No, no, no, no, no sweeping down the plane.

Scott Benner 20:43
Hold on. Third try. Is that the place where the wind comes sweeping down the plains?

Unknown Speaker 20:49
Yes. Oh, I

Unknown Speaker 20:49
thought so.

Scott Benner 20:51
Well, I do know that the waving weed smells sweet. So I've got you there. But so how old were you when you moved to Australia?

Unknown Speaker 20:58
I'm

Unknown Speaker 21:00

18. Oh, well, that

Scott Benner 21:02
wasn't that long ago.

Skylar Cox 21:04
Well, not terribly much my entire independent adult life.

Scott Benner 21:10
So you're not there with your family? Your family's in Oklahoma? Yep. Oh, this is interesting. Okay, let's get into this. What makes you leave Oklahoma and go to Australia? Is it that your mom would dress you up like a hooker and send you outside to find a boy?

Skylar Cox 21:31
No, I found my own boy. And he happened to be in Australia.

Unknown Speaker 21:35
Ah, gotcha.

Skylar Cox 21:37
But there were a few other things because it The decision was he either moved to America or I moved to Australia. So there were a couple other deciding factors in that.

Scott Benner 21:50
And he talks to you even though you wear glasses. Yes. What a progressive guy.

Skylar Cox 21:56
Oh, he actually prefers me with my glasses. He finds it weird without the mom

Scott Benner 22:00
who is joking. I think calling him progressive seemed ridiculous to me. So you meet Okay, hold on. How do you meet a boy from Australia? In Oklahoma?

Unknown Speaker 22:11
Oh, well,

Skylar Cox 22:12
we had a shared interest in pre history. So fossils.

Scott Benner 22:16
Ah, that's right. You like the bones of things that have been dead for quite some time they get stuck in rocks.

Unknown Speaker 22:24
And that is one way to put it.

Scott Benner 22:26
Thank you. I like to, as you know, from listening the podcast, I'm very good at boiling things down to almost simple. And by simple I think we know I mean, you know, really, really, really simple terms. I don't know enough big words to say anything another way. But you so you had this interest together. But he wasn't in Australia, you meet online?

Skylar Cox 22:50
I yes. Yeah. But not through a dating website. It was actually through the fossil forum. So it's actually a pretty well meaning forum. The people are very respectful. You have a lot of scientists on there a lot of avocational paleontologists that have contributed a lot to science and such. And yeah, it just kind of fell in place from there.

Scott Benner 23:21
It'd be great if they change the fossil forum slash dating app. Because where else are you gonna meet other people who enjoy fossils? That's not something you can bring up on your own?

Skylar Cox 23:33
No, we actually have another mate. He's looking for a girl. And you know, we always joke Well, you need to go to the fossil forum because he's also interested in fossils.

Scott Benner 23:44
I think it's a reasonable decision to be perfectly honest with you. Okay, so you guys meet on the fossil forum, which we're getting very close to calling this episode fossil forum. I don't know if you've noticed or not. But that's only because your parents didn't end up being stupid when the simple thing came up earlier. And so he's in Australia, you're in Oklahoma, Oklahoma is not a bad place to what would you call it when you're looking for fossils? There's a word for it right.

Skylar Cox 24:11
Not really is just called fossil hunting or fossil collecting. Okay. And that is

Scott Benner 24:15
that something you did as a child like in high school?

Skylar Cox 24:19
Yep. Yep. I used to go to Black Cat mountain in Oklahoma to look for trilobites.

Scott Benner 24:26
You say that again? Cuz I don't know what the hell you're talking about that look for what?

Skylar Cox 24:30
So trilobites? They're kind of like these pill bug looking things that used to live before the dinosaurs in the oceans.

Scott Benner 24:40
And the fossils look swirly. Is that what I think?

Skylar Cox 24:45
Oh, sorry. pillbugs rolling police. Oh, okay.

Scott Benner 24:50
I found it. Don't worry. I can't believe that. I can't believe that based on what I just typed Google knew I was trying to say trial. Fascinating. Now that algorithm works amazing because I was pretty far off. Okay, so these things are weird. And so you'd go out looking for these. Did you actually find these?

Skylar Cox 25:13
Yeah, quite a few. Wow.

Scott Benner 25:15
That's pretty cool. How old are they? And how to get

Skylar Cox 25:20
cheese? I think the black cat mountain site has been dated to like around 405 million years

Unknown Speaker 25:27
old. Wow. That's really kind of cool.

Skylar Cox 25:31
I think around that anyways, before the dinosaurs came into play,

Scott Benner 25:36
that's amazing. I'm just Anyway, I'm a little lost than in what you're showing me here. That's really cool. How old were you when you were diagnosed with type one?

Unknown Speaker 25:44
Um,

Skylar Cox 25:45
well see that but bits a bit confounding to my doctors. I have been showing symptoms for probably about two or so years before I was actually diagnosed. And they reckoned that those two years may have been the honeymoon ending before I actually got diagnosed. And when that ended, that's when I finally went in and got properly diagnosed. So I was officially diagnosed August 13 of last year. But blood tests back in January show that I was clearly diabetic, but that was missed. And yeah, it's and I've had symptoms since before that. So the idea is, is I was in my honeymoon before I was actually diagnosed. And at the end of that is when it actually got bad enough that I had to go in. And yeah, get properly diagnosed. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 26:47
I have a lot of questions about that. But first, I thought this will stick in my head if I don't ask this. You said I reckon is that that's from okhla. homo, right. Not from Australia, using the word reckon. Do you know

Skylar Cox 27:03
you know, I'm not I'm not sure.

Scott Benner 27:05
That's not a colloquialism from Australia. And from

Skylar Cox 27:08
I mean, I have colloquial is, colloquialisms that aren't really from either place. It's just from reading a lot to gotcha. I thought

Scott Benner 27:19
you're gonna say from being in the desert by yourself. But we're in the mountains myself, but you make up words, Scott, after you're out there for a while. So I so I have a ton of questions. So first of all, you were diagnosed about a year ago, so around the time you were 21. And you had been in Australia for, obviously, about three years, and you still shacked up with this guy, or have you gotten rid of him? Is he still in the picture?

Skylar Cox 27:42
No, he's still in the picture.

Scott Benner 27:44
Yeah, very nice. So you guys are together doing your thing? He about your age?

Skylar Cox 27:48
He's a bit milder.

Scott Benner 27:52
Do you want to tell me about that? Or are we gonna leave that out?

Skylar Cox 27:56
Oh, he's six years my older. I know some people like to preliminarily judge against that. Yeah. A few people

Scott Benner 28:08
don't know how so cuz I was thinking Good for you. Cuz he's probably already got it.

Skylar Cox 28:14
But yeah, well, yeah, that that did help me moving over? Well, a lot of people think, you know, that is too big of an age gap. And to be fair, it is with the mentality of some people. Especially, you know, across different generations. But we were born in the same generation. And, you know, being from different countries. Anyways, we had some differences we had to work through. We dated long distance exclusively for three years, yet three years. So we kind of got through a lot of those differences. And also, my father, for example, knew that I was always going to go for somebody older than myself, due to just my mentality, I guess,

Scott Benner 29:09
what I would think if you're looking for a conversation, you're, you might be hard to find it. 22 years old with another 22 year old I was, I kind of half brought up earlier. I'm not good at some get togethers. If I don't like having I'm not good at just basic conversation. Like I can't just sit around and talk about cars. Were boobs with guys. I can't do that. Yeah. And and so when I try to speak about the stuff that I'm interested in, I see most people's faces glaze over and I'm like, okay, no one cares about this, but me, that's fine. You know, and then you can get into another space where you are with like minded people. And it's it's obviously a much different conversation. But in a lot of those situations, I just find myself like sitting there thinking like, Oh, I wonder what I can get out of here. Because nobody cares, and I can't I just can't do it. Like,

Skylar Cox 30:05
I guess I share that sentiment.

Scott Benner 30:06
Yeah, I try, but I can't and it comes off, I will come off as judgmental. If I get into those conversations. If I don't stop myself, or if I'm not aware of it and stop myself. Just like I'm like, how long can we possibly talk about this? You know, the Sixers are doing great. Let's move on. I don't see why we need to break this down. Like I don't work. I don't work at ESPN. I don't no one cares what I think about this guy's work ethic? How is this what we're talking about? So the world's falling apart around us? Maybe? No? Okay. All right, let's talk about Joellen bead for 10 more minutes. Anyway, point is, don't love it. And, and I get it like I get wanting to be with, I can see how it would shake out to age. With me, Kelly is just, she's so much smarter than I am that like she she grades out as an older person. So even though she's a little younger than I am, you know, I could talk to her. I'll tell you right now, when people ask like, what are you looking for in a person? Even when I was in my early 20s. And I don't even know where I got off believing someone would like make a baby with me at that point. But I thought I really do want somebody who I think will be a solid parent. That seemed very important to me. And I wanted someone I could talk to. Okay, really, I know that sounds like I don't know, like I'm making that up. But it wasn't to me like I want to be able to say something deep to someone and have them pause, consider and respond, not stare through me. So I guess

Skylar Cox 31:43
exactly that that's the key thing, I think to a relationship is finding somebody that you can communicate to, you know, on your deepest passions, you know, interests and everything and have them communicate effectively back with you. And that's really where my husband, Troy and I come in, you know, fossils bind us together. But we also have a love for nature and history and

Scott Benner 32:12
the like. That's beautiful. Exactly. Yeah, I didn't, his age didn't interest me as much like in a salacious way as it did in the idea that I, that made sense to me, because how could you relocate from Oklahoma to Australia, if you didn't have some sort of stability when you reached Australia? And I don't know how 20 you know, three years or four years, I don't know how like a 17, or 18, or 19 year old person could offer you stability to move across the world. So I wasn't and you didn't seem like a person who was just gonna be like, Whoa, let's do it and just see what happened.

Skylar Cox 32:46
No, there was a lot of paperwork, and the like that I had to go through.

Scott Benner 32:53
Yeah. Okay, so do you do fossil collection, which I guess is called anthropology. Am I right? Did I get that alien

Unknown Speaker 33:02
knowledge?

Scott Benner 33:04
When the wind comes sweeping down the plane? I hear it. So paleontology, is that a is that a hobby? Or is it a profession? Or is it a future profession? Like how do you see all that?

Unknown Speaker 33:15
We

Skylar Cox 33:16
like to call it avocational? So we're a bit more invested than your hobbyists, but not to the point where we're professionals. So we're friends with the Queensland museum curator, and we kind of work in tangent with him to identify our funds and to eventually work on allocating our collection to the Queensland museum when we're ready to pass it on.

Scott Benner 33:42
Okay. Is your studies at University are they focused on paleontology? Or what are you studying?

Skylar Cox 33:49
Nope, I'm actually studying nursing.

Scott Benner 33:52
Perfect. That makes total sense. Okay, so there, I was being sarcastic. How did you so you found your way into a nursing track before you had type one?

Skylar Cox 34:08
Um, no, I actually decided to change after my diagnosis.

Scott Benner 34:14
Gotcha. What were you doing prior to that?

Skylar Cox 34:17
biochemistry.

Scott Benner 34:19
Wow, that sounds incredibly difficult. So I Oh, I'm sorry. I just got the chills thinking about taking a biochemistry class. So your your C are you close to being a nurse? You getting there? This? Is that what this last test is for? Are you gonna be a nurse after today?

Skylar Cox 34:38
No, no, unfortunately, I still have two and a half years.

Scott Benner 34:42
Okay. So so you get in like a basic like an undergrad, and then you're gonna go to nursing school? Is that how that works?

Skylar Cox 34:49
I know, two and a half years and I'll be a nurse.

Scott Benner 34:51
Ah, okay. All right. I'm trying to dig out the Why does it take six years to be a nurse or is it because you spent the first couple of years on a different track and then Switch. Yeah,

Skylar Cox 35:01
yeah, pretty much. So I started University in America right after high school. I had a year under my belt, studying biochemistry. And then I decided to move here to Australia. Partly because uni is a lot cheaper here. It's 8000 a year versus 40,000 a year. Um,

Scott Benner 35:23
while you were getting college for 40 it's a good deal.

Skylar Cox 35:26
Yeah, yeah. I'm always Yeah, forking over 40 grand a year. Wow. And anyway, so I moved over here. And then I went to go through and finished biochemistry, I had about two years left on then got diagnosed and realized that I didn't have any particular direction. With that degree, and I felt nursing afforded me a more direct pathway.

Scott Benner 35:56
Good for you. That's wonderful. So when you're, I guess there's two ideas, I want understand. So you're on your, you're doing MDI, we ended did we meet? Because in the in the Facebook group, I was asking for people who are doing really well on MDI. Yep, that's how that happened. Right? So tell, talk to me a little bit about that, like, how do you? What do you What's your management style? And what does that mean that it's working out really well. This is super simple and super quick. I'm just stopping back to remind you about the T one D exchange, please go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Fill out their survey. And when you do, you're supporting Type One Diabetes Research, and the podcast. Super simple way to do good things for people living with type one and help out yours truly keep this podcast going. T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. took me about seven minutes to fill out the survey. It's 100% HIPAA compliant. It's 1,000,000%. Anonymous. And it's definitely going to do good things for people living with type one.

T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox.

Skylar Cox 37:19
I am typically between 92 and 98%. Time and range. I don't really have any highs above 8.5. I try and keep it under 7.2 millimoles. So what is that

Scott Benner 37:37
that got you here? 8.5 would be around 150 ish, little more. 7.2 is about 130. So your your highs are about between 130 and 160. ish.

Unknown Speaker 37:50
Yeah,

Skylar Cox 37:51
I consider 130 a high. Okay, I will actually act at 6.5, which I think is 117. So I'll actually act at that point. And then my lows I consider 70. That's my action point anyways.

Unknown Speaker 38:10
Okay. Okay.

Skylar Cox 38:11
I like that. 70. Yeah. 70 to 130. But I act on 117. And whatever. 4.4 millimole is 4.4 80. Yep. So I'll start kind of eyeing it off around the 80. Mark. You know if it's dropping or not, but if it's just leveling out, then I'll just kind of let it sit there. If it's not like a pressing concern,

Scott Benner 38:38
are you using a glucose monitor of any kind?

Skylar Cox 38:42
Yep, I'm using the CGM provided to me by the Danny foundation. It's the Medtronic one.

Scott Benner 38:51
Very common. That's the common commonly available CGM. And in Australia, isn't it?

Skylar Cox 38:59
No, I'd say Dexcom is actually more prevalent. Um, but in saying that I have tried the Dexcom. And the Dexcom wasn't as accurate for me. Now given that's on the older versions, we still don't have the G six out here yet.

Scott Benner 39:19
Yeah. Where we're using like the g4.

Skylar Cox 39:22
Yep, yep. Gotcha. Yeah. So

Scott Benner 39:26
Well, yeah, we're almost a seven, honestly. So.

Skylar Cox 39:29
Yeah. Which is just crazy. It really is.

Scott Benner 39:33
I'm wearing something right now. Actually, this is my last few hours with it. I'm wearing the Dexcom Pro right now.

Skylar Cox 39:40
Which Yeah, I heard about that. It sounds like it'd be a good diagnostic tool.

Scott Benner 39:44
It is and it's been it's been an interesting an interesting 10 days seeing my blood sugar excuse me and and how, how my body reacts to different scenarios and it's it's fast enough. get really as the things that move my blood sugar around that I would have never imagined away from food. So even though

Skylar Cox 40:08
you have no idea how tempted I am to put one on my husband to see his because each time I pricked his finger, he's at a perfect 100

Scott Benner 40:16
just constantly 100

Skylar Cox 40:18
Oh, yeah, just just constantly, you know, either 4.8 or what's 4.8? Like, 85?

Scott Benner 40:26
I didn't know we were gonna do that again. It's about 87 ish, like, right in there.

Skylar Cox 40:31
Yeah, yeah. So he's just constantly always in there, it's like, Okay, well, I kind of want to see what's going on behind the scenes, you want to be my guinea pig.

Scott Benner 40:40
I, I'll tell you the one thing that that fascinated me more than anything is it when I go outside in the heat and work, my blood sugar tends to go up with or without food doesn't matter and not go up a ton, you know, not, not the way people would type one think of going up if you would go up like 1015 points. But when I was really active or working outside, especially in the heat, my blood sugar would go up a little bit.

Skylar Cox 41:04
That makes sense. Because your body would be utilizing more glucose, I'd be Yeah,

Scott Benner 41:10
elevating. I'm assuming there's like a little control guy inside of me that's like, Oh, this fat ass is gonna try to do something strenuous, he needs help. And they just, you know, hand over a little bit of glucose to make it happen. But I tried eating well beyond my desire to be full, to see what happens. And it still my blood sugar won't go over like 140 something. And I mean,

Skylar Cox 41:36
yeah, I am do see with doing I'm gay, I have tried pushing myself and basically subjecting myself to my own experiments. You know, so I will sit there and you know, I'll have my relatively healthy food days, and then I'll have my days where it's like, I will just gorge out on carbs to see how much I can push myself with this. You know, so it's, while I empty your perfect sugar levels, at the same time, I find it engaging to be able to experiment with my own because they actually do fluctuate a little,

Scott Benner 42:18
I do actually have to do the process of elimination to figure out what's actually causing what I think it's, I think it's amazing to do that. I think it's how you come to bigger answers and how you can then eventually take care of food in a way that you want. That could be problematic, because if you know what the problem is going to be, then you know how to, you know, act on it before it becomes an issue. And

Skylar Cox 42:44
exactly, I just call me crazy, but I actually find it. You know, diabetes is the one chronic illness that you can actually sort of play around with and see your results in lifetime. So I actually in some morbid way find it fun.

Scott Benner 43:03
Well, you like digging around in rocks looking for things that have been dead for a long time, so I'm not judging. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 43:08
yeah, well, I

Skylar Cox 43:10
don't make sense anyway. So well, to one

Scott Benner 43:12
guy he did. That's good enough. I keep flashing back and thinking like what did your dad expect painting up his daughter and sending her out to the world was going to happen?

Unknown Speaker 43:24
Yeah,

Scott Benner 43:26
that's so funny.

Skylar Cox 43:28
He was a bit uneasy, but he trusted my instincts, my instincts, he knew that I was very cautious reasonable. I was going to say from the outset, with any relationships, my motto has always been go for character, not beauty, because beauty fades character remains. So yeah, that's always been sort of my prerogative when looking at a relationship. And, um, yeah, so I didn't really,

Scott Benner 44:04
yeah, in fairness, I only know one thing about Oklahoma. Those people are incredibly scared to drive in any kind of inclement weather. And it was a huge letdown. When I found out I was in Oklahoma, and given a talk. And I thought, this is like, I'm gonna meet a bunch of cowboys. Like that's how I felt about it. I was like, everyone's gonna ride up on a horse, they're going to probably have like a steer like like lassoed and like slung over their shoulder, they're gonna cook it for dinner. These are the people I'm going to meet giant pickup trucks that and the weather got in climate for an hour and people were like, We can't come I was like, wait, why? Just like it's it's and I was like, wait, it looked outside and like, You're kidding. Like, this is gonna stop you thought you were cowboys. But turns out rough and tumble people in less any kind of precipitation falls out of the sky. And they're like, why you Is that exactly if you have any idea?

Skylar Cox 45:03
Well, it depends. Where did you hold that workshop?

Scott Benner 45:06
You're asking me to remember where I was. Exactly.

Skylar Cox 45:09
I said Oklahoma City, Tulsa

Scott Benner 45:12
felt more north. I don't know what that means. Anyway, I don't remember. I feel bad for the people who were there. Like words,

Skylar Cox 45:22
names, your big city, people are a bit more trepidatious about that sort of thing. When it comes to ice and the sort, I'd say we're a bit more cautious, but that's more so because a lot of Oklahomans do drive big pickup trucks. I

Unknown Speaker 45:41
thought that I was like, this is your time. Like,

Skylar Cox 45:43
yeah, but see, the issue with that is trucks like to fishtail. And unfortunately, Oklahoma doesn't get so much snow is what it does ice. And ice can be pretty scary to pick up driver. Because you're fishtailing all over the place. No way back secure. Yeah, exactly. Understand. And because Oklahoma has crazy weather. We also you know, we actually call her bipolar. Nobody expects to constantly have a weight in the back of their pickup truck to prepare for a sudden you know, bout of ice. You know,

Scott Benner 46:17
just thinking if anyone ever says to anyone that, hey, it looks like you've gained some weight in your your back part. You can just say I'm trying to get ready for the ice. I don't want my essence sliding out from under me. Oh my gosh. Anyway, so when I'm interested in about, you know, what are you using is your slow acting insulin.

Unknown Speaker 46:39
So I use Lantus.

Scott Benner 46:41
Okay, and your fast acting is probably novo rapid, I'm guessing.

Unknown Speaker 46:44
No, it's humalog.

Scott Benner 46:45
jemalloc. Okay, humalog and Lantus. You're injecting? How frequently? Do you find yourself in inhospitable places? digging around for fossils? And how long? Are you out there? When you're doing that? How do you manage through that situation?

Skylar Cox 47:04
Okay, so usually about anywhere towards the end of June into late August, October is what we call the fossil season, it kind of depends on the wet season prior. So see, Australia doesn't really have intermittent rain in our area, it just kind of dumps everything in the beginning of the year in one week, and then you're left to deal with what you got for the rest of the year. So during that wet season, we can't really go look. But during the dry season, we can. And so what is there's like anywhere between six and eight months timeframe. And during those six to eight months, Troy and I will go out every weekend. And, you know, anywhere between four and eight hours, we'll just be trekking along, looking for fossils.

Scott Benner 48:05
And so you're pretty removed, I would imagine from amenities during that time. Yes. Okay. Yep.

Skylar Cox 48:11
Yeah, um, we're kind of, we're in areas of very patchy reception. We're well away from where emergency services can get to us quite readily.

Scott Benner 48:29
What do you bring with you then to be ready for that? Do you ever spend the night?

Skylar Cox 48:34
No, no. Because our fossil areas are pretty close to us. So you know, we can just drive, you know, about an hour or so away and come back the same day.

Scott Benner 48:50
Gotcha. Gotcha. I'm gonna ask a question. You don't have to answer. Have you ever found something that it was so exciting that you had sexy time out in the middle of nowhere? No. May I suggest that because it seems like that would be nice. Not that you need to take my suggestion.

Skylar Cox 49:07
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's been brought up before but just the habit ties in Isn't that nice? It's pretty.

Scott Benner 49:17
Everything I gotcha. And by it's been brought up before you mean, Troy brought up and by Troy brought up, you mean every time you're out there, he brings it up? Is that what you're saying?

Unknown Speaker 49:27
No, no, not.

Scott Benner 49:32
He probably has a calendar. And at least like I said it last time, I'll skip this time. For clarity, I would say it every time to I just be like, Hey, you know, we haven't done yet while we were out looking for fun. There's so many simple jokes here that people are filling it in their own head.

Unknown Speaker 49:53
Yeah, but

Scott Benner 49:54
I tried to keep it friendly. But anyway, I can

Skylar Cox 49:59
only imagine What the listeners are thinking of right now?

Scott Benner 50:02
I can't even say what I'm thinking. That's that's where we're at right now.

Unknown Speaker 50:06
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 50:08
But, but no, I just, it just seems very secluded, I guess was my my overall point. Yeah. And so you're right. So you're by yourself. What do you bring with you as far as like, food to sustain yourself? And do you ever do you pack for the idea of like, what if we became stranded, have a car broke down or something like that? Um,

Unknown Speaker 50:31
let's see, well,

Skylar Cox 50:32
I usually have a pack. My pack usually includes like, you know, jelly beans, it's got, you know, your glucagon cha it has insulin. What else is there, we usually pack like a fiber one brownie, because they're like 15 grams, some nut bars, which are like 12 grams, that's protein. You know, and just, every couple hours or so we'll just find a spot a shade, we'll pull over, you know, drink some water? I'll check my sugar levels on them, we'll proceed accordingly.

Scott Benner 51:13
Does the process of looking bring your blood sugar down? Is it is it, I'm assuming it's like a lot of manual labor, right?

Skylar Cox 51:22
Um, it's mostly walking. Because you're looking in areas of erosion. So you're kind of wanting to let nature do the work for you. Because I mean, the chances of you just picking a spot and digging in, the chances of you actually finding something are quite low. But if you kind of let nature do it for you, and you just cover a lot of ground, you're more likely to pick something up. So there is that. And usually, when we go collecting, it's interesting that no matter what my blood sugar levels are, they will drop down to about 4.6. And they will just stay steady around that point the entire time.

Scott Benner 52:13
Do you feel like you just have your basal insulin really well?

Unknown Speaker 52:16
Yep, like, yep, figured out. Yeah, I

Skylar Cox 52:19
do frequent Basal tests. Not, not necessarily test, but I will do continual checkups, like I'll do a lot of examinations of my blood sugar levels to make sure that it is in tune. Because if my base was not said, Nothing is said, I will get, you know, correction doses off, I'll get insulin rebounds and everything. So as soon as my blood sugar levels start going wonky, the first thing I look at is my Basal.

Scott Benner 52:55
I just I'm sure you've heard me say but I think that the Basal is the base and B if it's not right, nothing else works. And just makes sense. I mean that you're out wandering around like this for hours at a time. And holding a blood sugar around 85 is it's amazing. It's well done work. And so how often do you have to adjust your basal insulin like a little more, a little less? Do you find yourself doing that?

Skylar Cox 53:25
I usually only have to do a major change about maybe once every three, four months. But you know, there will be some weeks where it's like, Okay, I'm a little stressed from this, I might need an extra unit or two on and I'll see how that goes. Or Ah, you know, like this last week, I suddenly, you know, I went through one of my major changes. And so I actually went from 24 units down to 15.

Scott Benner 53:55
Well, what was what precipitated that?

Unknown Speaker 53:59
I'm not honest.

Skylar Cox 54:01
I mean, is there really any ever clear cut answer with diabetes?

Scott Benner 54:04
No, no, I was just wondering if maybe, like, you know, you, I don't know threw away like your head. And then you were like either body or something like that. Like that's a it's a big jumps.

Skylar Cox 54:14
It's interesting, because it actually came at a time where I am more stressed. Because, you know, at the end of the semester, you have exams, I recently changed jobs. You know, so there's a lot of crazy things going on right now. And yet, you know, my basal insulin, just just, you know, my body just decided to be more sensitive to it.

Scott Benner 54:37
That's interesting. It's cool. And how long did it take you to figure it out? What do you have some lows and you're like, what is happening?

Unknown Speaker 54:43
Um,

Skylar Cox 54:44
actually, no, I was having a lot of weird highs. So usually, I actually have my insulin to carb ratio and insulin sensitivity factor pinned down in so much that I can do a quick calculation. And I can tell you exactly where one unit of insulin will bring me approximately within point two millimole. Or you know, how many grams carbs will raise me millimole wise, you know, I actually have a graph for conversion factors. That works really well. Basically, based on a variety of scenarios, just simple math, simple algebra, conversion factors. But once you nail down your insulin to carb ratio and your insulin sensitivity factor, it makes it really easy. It's basically kind of like doing the Bolus calculator, you know, your Bolus calculator on your insulin pumps, I'm just doing it manually, you know, adding in a few others, a lot of reading. So, I read a lot of scientific reports, I read about the equation of dividing 460 by your total daily dose to get your insulin to carb ratio. And then 130 divided by your total daily dose to get your insulin sensitivity factor. And then, you know, I never necessarily liked algebra or chemistry, but I was proficient in them. enough that I put two and two together, and I was like, Hey, you know, this is actually really simple algebra and conversion factors. In fact, in chemistry, there's a graph showing how to easily figure out your conversions from like millimoles, to particles, to units of measurements or whatever. And basically, I just took that concept, and I plugged it in with diabetes. So my graph shows millimole units, insulin units, and grams of carbs. And in between those conversion factors, you have your insulin to carb ratio and insulin sensitivity factor, and you use one of the two or a combination of the two to get from one to the other, depending on your situation.

Scott Benner 57:15
Wow. So Geez, that's fascinating. And you figured this all out in the last year?

Skylar Cox 57:22
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 57:26
I told you, you were more like 35. That's why you were so like, I would take that. In the beginning. You're like 35? sounds right. For me, I think that's really uncommon for people to figure out on their own to begin with, and I think at your age, it's really, it makes it a little more uncommon. Do your, does your period change things for you? I'm

Skylar Cox 57:49
not really, because I actually have the implant. Um, so that actually keeps my hormone levels pretty darn stable, thankfully,

Scott Benner 58:00
is that the ring? The my thinking of the right thing?

Skylar Cox 58:03
No, I have the implant on.

Scott Benner 58:06
Oh, the one thing that that literally goes in your arm?

Skylar Cox 58:09
Yep, yep. Yep. And it works really well. For me, the only thing I noticed is before my diagnosis, I had the next one on, which is like the same thing, just different brand. And I found that at the end of like, after a certain amount of time, it starts scaling back on how much of whatever units it gives you. Um, and so interestingly, when I had to go in for my implant on renewal, I noticed I did the calculations because I noticed that my insulin needs increased by a fair bit, and funnily enough, they doubled which accounts for like, the difference between the two because it was a fresh implant, so it was putting out more units or whatever chemical or hormone it puts out in you. So yeah, once I figured that out, I was like, Okay, well, maybe I need to double my insulin does because this is doubled the dose of

Scott Benner 59:15
hormones, whatever I was on, but it becomes consistent and stable.

Skylar Cox 59:20
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, you know, it only took like the first week of fluctuations. And then after that, you know, like, Okay, this is a new implant, it's putting out you know, twice the amount or whatever, of the former implant because when I was diagnosed, I was at the end of the life of the last implant. So once I did that calculation, I was like, Okay, well, my insulin needs probably doubled, and I increased it And sure enough, it matched. Wow, that's

Scott Benner 59:51
really cool. I actually just I looked it up here, because I knew what you're talking about. It's um, do you use there's only two of them right. Then next blomidon or there's next put on next next point on is that is that the one you use?

Skylar Cox 1:00:06
It's the first one I had I currently have the infant on, I think they're the same thing. They're just different brand names.

Scott Benner 1:00:13
Gotcha. And this just this little, how long does it like, I can't tell.

Skylar Cox 1:00:20
Don't know, it's like an inch and a half long. Okay.

Scott Benner 1:00:23
And it's just inserted, is it injected? Or is it inserted surgically? Or how do they do it?

Skylar Cox 1:00:29
Yeah, it's sort of insert, like, they make a small incision, and then it like, injects itself in.

Scott Benner 1:00:35
Hmm. That's crazy. And and it lasts for years, right? Yeah, it

Skylar Cox 1:00:40
lasts for three years. Wow.

Scott Benner 1:00:41
So it's funny, you brought that up? Because I've been looking for a birth control for it not because I, because somebody brought it up to me the other day. I just don't want to get pregnant. I think at my age, it would be it would be difficult. But somebody brought it up the other day and said, Hey, when your daughter gets older, I got a lot of stability in my blood sugar by using an IUD. It was a note i got i get the strangest notes, by the way. And that was one of them. Which I was really grateful to hear about. And it just made sense. instantly. It's like, yeah, this just, you know, give us it. You know, I don't have I forget how this this implant, or this thing? It's probably not an IUD. I'm probably using the wrong words. But it's another it's like a ring or something like that. That has, I guess, hormones on it. Right arena? Yeah. Listen, if something like that, like it again, a lot of emails and I'm standing and I'm like, this one's super interesting. Like a person has taken the time to write me just say, this might help your daughter when she gets older. And I was like, oh, I'll keep that in my head. But then you just brought it up to and it's just, it makes total sense that you take that information away it gets easier to manage your blood sugar's that's very, very interesting. cisely

Skylar Cox 1:01:53
Yes, I see. The only caveat with that is each birth control, you know, each person reacts differently. So the implant on works perfectly for me. But it may not for other people. I know other people have had issues.

Scott Benner 1:02:11
Like they grew like a third arm or something like that, or

Skylar Cox 1:02:15
no, I think the most common issue is inconsistent bleeding. where, you know, some people control Yep, weight gain. But you know, side effects are to be expected when you're changing the chemistry of your body.

Scott Benner 1:02:32
Yeah, you would think I yeah, I guess it's it becomes a trade off at some point. If you decide, yeah,

Skylar Cox 1:02:38
it really does. When you're taking any sort of medication, you have to outweigh you know, you have to weigh the benefits versus the side effects.

Scott Benner 1:02:45
Okay. Hmm. All right. So, how much of your stability is based around your diet? Do you think?

Skylar Cox 1:02:58
None at all. You know, there'll be some weeks where, you know, I'm a star pupil, while not even some weeks, even some days where I'm a star pupil, and I'll just sit there and only eat my meat and my veggies or whatever. And then there's other days, like the other day, I had. Don't judge me. I had doughnuts for breakfast. Um, what did I have for lunch? I had a beasting for lunch, which is like some sort of pastry with cream. And then I had carbonara for dinner. All terrible, terrible, carby thing,

Scott Benner 1:03:35
all the same day. Just went? Yeah.

Skylar Cox 1:03:38
But I never once went above 6.8.

Scott Benner 1:03:42
Wow. That's and that's just with your management of insulin.

Skylar Cox 1:03:47
Yeah, so, um, I do have like some markers. So I try to aim for non diabetic levels, because I know a lot of diabetes educators, endocrinologist, doctors, caution against it, because, you know, they think that's too low for you. But my thinking is, okay, well, if non-diabetics can achieve that, and as long as there, you know, as long as I'm stable and not really dropping below those numbers, then why wouldn't I want to try and aim for non diabetic levels?

Scott Benner 1:04:27
I listen, that's what I do here. So you know, so

Skylar Cox 1:04:31
yeah, so my range is between 70 and 130. And from here, I don't know the conversions. But I think what is it a normal non diabetic is between five and 7.21 hour after eating. And then 3.8 to 6.12 hours after eating. So I try and match those patterns, myself recently.

Scott Benner 1:04:59
So you're saying between 90 and 135, five and 7.2, I have to admit, and I'm gonna do a, I'm gonna do an episode with Johnny about this, at some point, when, when I first began doing the things that I do the things that I talked about on the podcast, and etc, I was able to have even tighter tolerances, like the idea of like any kind of spiking, I mean, not that you could really call 130, a spike, but a blip, right? I just was like, I can keep them all out. But once Arden became a full fledged card carrying lady, that that was not as easy to accomplish. And I've really come to believe that there are people doing amazing things for young kids. But you know, as with timing of insulin, but I don't know that that's a lifelong possibility, all the time of that super steady, you know, 85, blood sugar all day long. It's a, it's a, it's a ton of work that goes into it. And I don't know, like, what I'm not sure of is the love of a parent who can think of a way to do that. And to actually keep up with it. People don't generally feel the same way about themselves when they get older as parents feel about you. Like you don't realize it when you're young, but nobody cares about you more than your mom, and maybe your dad. And and you know, and so once you become an adult, like to keep your blood sugar at 85, constantly, I think you would have to have a fairly strict restriction of carbohydrates to accomplish that. But I agree with you, I don't know that there's anything wrong with a blood sugar going to 130 for a little while and coming back and having a couple of gentle rolling hills throughout the day. That seems very reasonable to me. And it's very doable. I have a question is, did your concepts lead you to liking the podcast? Or did the podcast lead to the concepts?

Skylar Cox 1:06:57
admittedly, my concepts led to the podcast, but I would think yeah, it was my I love learning as much as I can to incorporate my own sort of, say, My way of handling diabetes is knowing it is being able to battle

Unknown Speaker 1:07:17
it.

Skylar Cox 1:07:19
So I decided, you know, as soon as I was diagnosed, I realized, Hey, I don't have to feel achy anymore, I actually have tools within my grasp and knowledge that can be obtained to reverse this around and leave lead a completely normal life. So I just dove ahead in to anything and everything, I could research papers and everything, to formulate my own concepts. And then, you know, as I said, Before, I subjected myself to my own experiments. So now I sort of have like guidelines by which to direct myself as to when to act when to you know, ease up, you know, for a more holistic view of my health. And then, you know, just in all of that, you know, it was just inevitable finding through Facebook, you know, tips from fellow diabetics, and then, you know, of course, the podcast was mentioned. And that's really how I came across it.

Scott Benner 1:08:29
That's what I mean, from talking to you for the last hour. I didn't think you were gonna say, Oh, I was lost until I found you. I thought you were gonna say, I found you because it was a like minded idea to what I was already doing. Yep. Yeah. That's excellent. That's very exciting. And you found all that on your own just like reading research and figuring things out. That's your to be that's really, like I would applaud for you. But that seems weird because it's a podcast if I started clapping right now people like there's a weird noise at the end of the show. I don't know what it was. But seriously, if somebody should stand up and clap, because that's really well done. Good. Now, you handle everything like this. Are you a bit of a mess in other ways, but um,

Skylar Cox 1:09:11
yeah, it's pretty much how I tackle life if I can't stand. Well, I I admit that there are always going to be some things that can't be known. But those things that can be known I want them to be known so I can figure out how to deal with them. That's

Scott Benner 1:09:29
really cool. And by the way, for anyone listening, jump back a couple times to hear Oklahoma come right out of scholars mouth. She said I can't. It just literally went like that for a second. I thought I thought you were gonna get the vapors and start fanning yourself. I was like, Oh my god, we're going right into. We jumped right back into the dialect from Oklahoma. You have a really interesting accent. It's a It's a neat blend. really is. Do you think you'll stay in Australia or do you think you'll finish up uni and drag Troy to go Go home again. You know,

Skylar Cox 1:10:02
yeah, um, to be honest, I'd be happy visiting America, but I think I'm really happy with the way Australia deals with diabetes over here. And you know, because diabetes is obviously a big part of my life. Um, I wouldn't say it dictates it, but it definitely you know, I think Australia better supports it.

Scott Benner 1:10:28
That's really cool. That's amazing, actually, that you found that he only had to fly. You know, like a whole day to get there. Do you come home ever? Like how do you see your parents? Is it like video stuff?

Skylar Cox 1:10:39
I, yeah, I pretty much voice message them. They came over and visited last year. But otherwise, I haven't been back to the States since July 29. of 2017.

Scott Benner 1:10:53
Wow. Did your dad try to shoot a wallaby while he was there something because you know, America?

Unknown Speaker 1:10:59
No, no.

Skylar Cox 1:11:01
He was more keen to try and pet one.

Scott Benner 1:11:04
Gotcha. I have to be honest. Right now. If you showed me pictures of three different animals. I am not 100% sure I could pick a wallaby out. So know why the lobby

Skylar Cox 1:11:14
kind of looks like a smaller kangaroo. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:11:17
hold on a second. This is this is how we're gonna end this episode with me trying to figure out what a wallaby looks like. Alright, so I figured out the spelling. So we're halfway there. Somebody wants to know if you can have them as a pet. That seems like a poor idea. Sir, it's very cool. Oh, wow. If you just told me it was a kangaroo short. I'd be like, Oh, if you told me this is a baby kangaroo. I wouldn't know the difference. Are you sure it's not? Maybe you guys are just used?

Unknown Speaker 1:11:47
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:11:48
Do you think I figured out that Wallabies are actually just baby kangaroos? And no one else knows. I think that's

Unknown Speaker 1:11:54
not i i'd

Skylar Cox 1:11:56
say you know, it is pretty it is a pretty reasonable assumption.

Scott Benner 1:12:01
Skyler I like you. You have not let me get away with any bullshit whatsoever. While we're talking for the entire hour.

Skylar Cox 1:12:07
I'm sorry, I am. I am terrible. When it comes to sarcasm like I can even understand. You know, when I can pick up that somebody being sarcastic to me, I will still give them an honest direct response in relation to the thing they're trying not to.

Scott Benner 1:12:25
You were you were terrific. I I wasn't saying it in a bad way. I was just like, you'd never like, I was like, oh god, I'm married to this girl. That's how it felt to me. Exactly. Because you were just like, you were not letting anything go. And I was like, here we go. I already I already have women in my life who treat me this way. Skylar, I don't know. Oh, my goodness,

Unknown Speaker 1:12:44
it is it is

Skylar Cox 1:12:47
it has been such a struggle. That's been one of my biggest struggles here in Australia is everybody is sarcastic here. And their tone of voice doesn't give it away, like we do in America. So in America, where, you know, we kind of, um, you know, exaggerate our head movements, or, you know, exaggerate our tone of voice to indicate that we're being sarcastic. And over here, they just, they don't give any indication whatsoever. And, you know,

Scott Benner 1:13:17
I have to tell you that away from this podcast, I am proud of how dry my sarcasm is. I I'm only happy when no one understands what I'm joking about. That is my happiest place ever. It's not great in personal relationships, in case you're wondering. But, but you should I am never happier than when I say something I completely don't mean and everyone believes it. I really appreciate you doing this. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you were hoping to get to?

Skylar Cox 1:13:45
No, not really. I was a little surprised. You didn't ask about corrections. But I mean, that's sort of a touchy subject in and of itself.

Scott Benner 1:13:52
Well, hold on a second. Let's get to that. I don't I'm not Can you go a couple more minutes?

Unknown Speaker 1:13:59
Yeah,

Skylar Cox 1:14:00
I am usually up to like two or three in the morning anyway, so it is no big deal for me, to me. And you go.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:08
Um, well, um,

Skylar Cox 1:14:11
I just noticed a lot of people have issues with corrections. And I probably do a bit I'm a bit more daring in my approach. So again, I'd say I probably do what you do with the insulin pump with iron, but I do it the best way I can with manual daily injections or multiple daily injections. So when multiple daily injections we don't have the option of stopping insulin, or you know, delaying it or extending it or any of that are two options are. Give yourself a correction or give yourself more food. Right. That's the only two weapons in your arsenal. So with corrections, to be able to stay within my target range, I kind of go off of how quickly I'm rising.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:11
So

Skylar Cox 1:15:14
I'll just walk you through one of my concepts that I arrived to. So, um, this is the way I think insulin takes about 10 to 15 minutes to work. Food absorbs in about 40 minutes, depending on what type of food you have, this is just an average, obviously, you would see, you know, whether or not you have fat and protein or not. But generally food peaks in about an hour. So that's why you Pre-Bolus about 15 minutes or so 10 minutes for me, I have found if i Pre-Bolus, 15 minutes, I started dipping, and then rising a lot because that insulin, you know, didn't actually cover the carbs, it dipped me a bit. So basically, if I am still trending up between 45 and 50 minutes after eating, so I'll have like, says sly arrow up. And I'm around the 6.5 millimoles per liter mark, you know, just before I hit my 7.2 Mark, one hour after eating, because I want to try and stay under that mark, I will go ahead and give an additional small bolus. Depending on how heavy the meal was or not, you know, if it was just, you know, quick in and out carbs, I might scale it back some if it's just your standard carbs, I'll give the standard amount. And that additional Bolus actually usually kicks in immediately for whatever reason, and starts fighting those additional carbs to bring me back down. To say I'm like going slightly up 4550 minutes after eating. So 6.5 millimoles. Around that time, I usually give like 20%, or whatever my initial dose was, or if I'm like rising rapidly double arrows up or whatever, 30 to 40%. And then, yeah, I will be prepared, generally, to kind of lay down a small blanket of carbs to slow down that drop, if I start seeing myself drop, so I kind of like do the reverse. You know, I can take that 20% of the initial dose, you know, if I have like straight arrows down and go like,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:41
okay,

Skylar Cox 1:17:42
I might, you know, take some carbs to kind of cushion my landing or whatever. But I know most endocrinol address doctors, what not, they don't want you to do a correction until like two hours after a meal. But at that time, you're already suffering from a higher low. Yeah. So, you know, you're generally speaking, if the arrows going up or straight up, that means that my initial bolus or timing was wrong. And more often than not, I can rule out the timing. Um, and, you know, I go, yeah, I configure, yep, I can figure out that it's the amount. So I will go ahead and give that additional amount that I should have probably taken.

Scott Benner 1:18:34
And then it's not stalking if you need it. And that's

Unknown Speaker 1:18:37
exactly,

Skylar Cox 1:18:38
exactly. And you know, it, I hardly ever have any issues with it. Like, you know, because it takes about four to five hours completely to leave the system. If it does drop me, it's usually not that very, very tail end, where it's just starting to really slow down, and I can really see that and it's like, okay, throw in, like, three or so carbs, and that'll raise me half a unit and then you know, I'm sitting easy the rest of the day,

Scott Benner 1:19:09
how often do you find yourself in that situation where you have to bump a little bit after a meal?

Unknown Speaker 1:19:15
Um,

Skylar Cox 1:19:15
hardly ever, actually.

Scott Benner 1:19:18
I bet you that doesn't happen to you much. Because you probably once you see it happen a couple of times you adjust your ratio for the meal then.

Skylar Cox 1:19:25
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think I would say it's very similar to what you do on a pump. I just do it manually, and I keep a close eye on it as you would, regardless of MDI or not. Yeah, and yeah, so And I'll just cushion my landing with carbs if needed, but more often than not, it's it's not needed, because that's insulin I needed anyways. You were

Scott Benner 1:19:48
the right person to be listening to this show, that's for sure. That's excellent. I couldn't agree with what you said anymore. I just don't. I don't watch you know, I've boiled it down to ideas like Don't watch a high, you know, do something about it, catch it with food later if you have to make an adjustment if it keeps happening. That stuff all to me just makes sense. It's, you know, if you ever considered, I'm not pushing you. I'm wondering, because of how you talked about it seems odd that you don't have a pump

Skylar Cox 1:20:21
that don't have a pump. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, at some point, I may try a pump. Just because I want to be able to subject myself to everything and say, you know, I've tried everything. But at the moment, I am happy.

Scott Benner 1:20:44
There's nothing wrong with it. I was just yeah, it just seems like you would have fun manipulating bazelon I just see you at home going, Oh, my God, the greatest thing happened today. I did a Temp Basal decrease.

Skylar Cox 1:20:57
See, with my chances, I'd probably hit the pump with a hammer.

Scott Benner 1:21:02
While you were while you're out there looking for, you know, bones in the ground? Yep. Gotcha.

Skylar Cox 1:21:09
I can't even begin to tell you like you damaged things that you don't even think would be damaged. Like I had to go and work out like $800 for a new set of glasses. Because in digging for bones, I didn't realize that the dust, you know, the dirt was kicking back in my glasses and scratching them. So you know, we're prepping your fossils particularly. So yeah, that that would just be my, my luck. Again, this

Scott Benner 1:21:39
dust is causing problems. More than what I've pointed out earlier. I hear what's happening. I gotcha.

Skylar Cox 1:21:44
But I mean, the reason I brought the corrections up is because it just it amazes me with a lot of people with manual daily injections, you know, that have issues with that. And it's like, Okay, well, if the pump, you know, a lot of people say the pump mimics the pancreas best. Well, if that's the case, then why don't you do the manual version of what the pump does?

Scott Benner 1:22:13
Do you know you think they're just trying to avoid injections, though?

Skylar Cox 1:22:18
Yeah, but initially, I would say yes. But after a bit of time, you hear a lot of people say that injections no longer bother them.

Scott Benner 1:22:29
So why not just

Skylar Cox 1:22:30
Oh, I can't Yeah, so why not just do it?

Scott Benner 1:22:33
I think it doesn't occur to them. I think that I think that they get stuck. It's it, they get stuck in that idea of like, Listen, I count my carbs. I put in the insulin, I wait three hours I test and then I look and I correct if I have to? That's what I've been told do. I'm still alive? Exactly. You know what I mean? So likely, I hear

Skylar Cox 1:22:51
because they were told to do it. And that's the biggest issue I have with that is because diabetes is I think I forget which doctor was maybe Val Wilson or something like that. basically said that diabetes is the only chronic illness where the patient has to do the majority of their health care decisions on a day to day basis. You know, it is impossible to think that an endocrinologist or diabetes educator can make half the decisions that we make during that day. So why, you know, would you it just amazes me that you know, why you would listen,

Scott Benner 1:23:42
watch a bad outcome and then do it. Yeah, yeah, exactly,

Skylar Cox 1:23:44
you know, precisely and it's like madness heating it and not change it. Right.

Scott Benner 1:23:50
Um, well, everybody isn't in the same boat. With their curiosity. Yeah, intellect. me like ability to figure it out. Thank you. You described reading some things and some simple math. And I guarantee you that there were plenty of people listen that it was I did not think that was simple what she said. And it's just because people's some people's minds just don't work that way. mind doesn't. Like this whole podcast exists, because I understand that.

Skylar Cox 1:24:17
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think just trying to think of what I'm wanting to say it's, it's not saying anything against, you know, their willingness or not to engage in that I think.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:40
No, you do.

Skylar Cox 1:24:42
Yeah. yet. You do. And I think there's a lot of stigmatism that oh, you know, you can't disagree with the doctor or anything. You can't take diabetes management into your own Hands. That's not what you're supposed to do. You're only supposed to listen to the textbook or whatever, right? You know, but I think I think what I'm trying to say is that diabetes, because of the very nature of what it is, it demands a more dynamic management system, you need to

Unknown Speaker 1:25:23
be active,

Skylar Cox 1:25:24
if, if you want to do well with it, then you have to be willing to

Unknown Speaker 1:25:29
be involved, you know,

Skylar Cox 1:25:31
be involved. Exactly. And that doesn't mean, you know, completely fine in the face of what your doctor saying, or did you know any of that, but by no means I'm saying find a doctor that has a concept, you know, has the concept that you know, diabetes is unique, it's very dynamic, it's going to require dynamic managing methods. And you know, to be there to support you to basically to enable you to manage it on your own, not make the decisions that you need to make. To manage yourself. Well.

Scott Benner 1:26:08
Well, I agree with you, 100%. And I very much appreciate you coming on and doing this and taking this extra time at the end to go over what you said, I think it's important, you know, people you got to do you got to be involved. You have to you can't just watch numbers and and hope it's, you know, you have to do something. And if you don't know what to do, you have to step back and figure out what it is that's happening. And if that's not clear to you, then find somebody that can help you. But don't just stare at it and spend the rest of your life thinking, you know, my blood sugar just goes to 250. That's what it does. You know, I get 400 once in a while it happens. I yeah, I cannot even begin to tell you that I sorry. 422.20. Yeah, probably I don't

Skylar Cox 1:26:57
think I've ever had that recorded. yet.

Scott Benner 1:27:01
It'll happen at some point. But you're all well, so it's not like you have a site that can go bad on your pump or something like that. So there's some stuff like that. But I'm just going to tell you that the last time Arden's blood sugar was that high. I don't know when that was, that is not something that just randomly happens to us. And it's not luck. And it's not magic. It's on purpose. I stopped that from happening. And so could everyone else. So exactly, just need to have a couple of tools and then know when to use them. That's pretty much it.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:30
Exactly. I

Skylar Cox 1:27:30
think diabetes management needs to lean away from you know, stagnant. Hey, okay, do this and do this. adjust this. See in six months, I think it needs to be okay. You need to look out for this. And do this when you start seeing this. Maybe try out this? You know, they might be? Yes, exactly. I think for me, my three main concepts, and I think this has mentioned on your podcast is diabetes problems, blood sugar level wise, are usually either due to miscalculation of an insulin dose, miscalculation at the timing, or miscalculation on the carb count. And, you know, obviously, if you didn't get the results you want, then you need to eliminate go through the process of elimination to figure out which one did you end? Yep, it's timing, or amount or combination of both. That's just how I think of it like it CDs, the right amount, the wrong time,

Scott Benner 1:28:36
the wrong amount, the right time, that's not gonna work. It's got to be the right amount at the right time. That's it. And it sounds super simple, and it's not, but it is, and once you figure it out, it's one of those things that you'll think I can never believe I struggled with this. I just have it now. But in the run up to just getting it is can be painful. So

Skylar Cox 1:28:55
yep, I could not think to succinctly sum it up more aptly. You should

Scott Benner 1:28:59
have a podcast and then you would figure out how to say a whole bunch of words in three words, because if you don't do that, nobody can remember it. And I know that because I couldn't remember it. Trust me. I I I dumped this stuff down for me first not not for you guys. And and then after I could follow it, I was like, well, I bet you somebody else could understand it this way. So Skyler, thank you very much. I'm going to go I have another recording and a little bit so I need to get ready for that. Fair enough. But thank you so much. Huge thanks to Skyler for coming on the show and sharing her story. Also, I'd like to remind you that if you find yourself listening to stuff like this going, Oh, I wish I knew how many five millimoles where you're going to Juicebox podcast.com. Right up there at the top, you can click on a one C and blood glucose calculator. There's a quick conversion calculator there. That will also help you see what your average blood sugar means. In a one. See, it's very cool. Like I'm here now. So if I type in the my average button was 123, it tells me that instant Scott, that's an average agency of 5.9. And that cool. Let's say your agency was 6.6. That would mean that your average blood sugar is 145, or 8.1. It does all those calculations in an instant, thanks to a very lovely listener who built this beautiful calculator for me. Again, it's at Juicebox podcast.com. And at the top, you just click on a one cm blood glucose calculator. If you're considering going to the T one D exchange to fill out the survey, I want to personally thank you. It's very valuable for people living with Type One Diabetes. And it's incredibly helpful for the show when you do so T one d exchange.org, forward slash Juicebox Podcast diabetes pro tips or diabetes pro tip.com, or right there in your podcast player beginning of Episode 210. Lastly, I'd love to thank you for listening and of course, for sharing the show with other people. And let you know that in Episode 418, I'll be leaving a link that you can go to to watch my blood sugar in real time. So I'm going to wear a Dexcom g six for as long as I can. So that you can see what a working pancreas looks like, while it's working. So thanks to sugar made, I want to thank Josh, the owner of sugar made for helping me do this, you'll be able to see my blood sugar live at Juicebox podcast.com. But there's a specific link you're going to need. So you'll get that in Episode 418. My idea here is that if you can see how a pancreas handles things, it might help you to understand what you're shooting for. That makes sense, as a person using insulin. I know there can be this pressure to just you know, keep the line completely flat all the time. But I thought maybe if you could see that sometimes someone's blood sugar goes to 131 40 and then comes back down again. I thought that would be really helpful and kind of comforting. So I've set this up. I'm going to thank Dexcom for giving me the gear that I needed. And of course Josh from sugar mate for helping me put it online. And I'm excited to share with you so that information will be in Episode 418. Then after that, I'm going to show you the blood sugar of someone who is pre diabetic, has some insulin resistance. And then I'm going to be looking for people who are really great at bolusing for certain meals to put their blood sugars live online during the Bolus, so we can watch them Bolus for these meals, you'll be able to see pictures of the food. And when the insulin goes in and how everything reacts. I think that'll be really cool. And I'm going to be doing the same thing. By the way, when I put my food in, you'll see a photograph of what I ate. It'll correspond with when I ate. Anyway, I think it's a really great idea. I'm super excited for it. That information will be in Episode 418 which is coming in just a day or so. Thanks so much for listening to the Juicebox Podcast. We'll be back soon. Talk to you later.

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