#625 Divorce and Disagreement

February 7, 2022Scott Benner

Candice is a divorced mother with two children. Her youngest has type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 625 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's podcast I'll be speaking with Candace. She's the mother of an 11 year old child with type one diabetes, and she is divorced from her children's father. Today we're going to talk about what that's like when you and your ex don't agree about type one diabetes. Today while you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin. If you're a US resident who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver of someone with type one, and you'd like to support type one diabetes research from the comfort of your home, you can do that by taking a survey in less than 10 minutes. I think I should have said in fewer than 10 minutes in fewer than 10 minutes at T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. There's links in the show notes and links at Juicebox Podcast comm it really only takes a few minutes

this show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. today's podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one please check them out on Facebook, Instagram, and it touched by type one.org.

Candace 1:55
My name is Candace and I have two sons and a 15 year old and I have 11 year old type one diabetic cannabis here

Scott Benner 2:03
we are together. I feel like you and I have spent some time online talking recently.

Candace 2:09
We have I like to pop up in one year lives and like you would just be and I was like super excited and squealed like a little fangirl like Scott's talking to me.

Scott Benner 2:19
It's very, very strange. And you should not admit to that out loud.

Candace 2:23
I'll own it out.

Scott Benner 2:25
I appreciate that. I know my wife popped into that live for a couple of months my daughter did through my wife and wow. So she sent me a message at like my wife, like through Kelly's account. And she I could tell she was teasing me when it went by. And as soon as I saw the words I thought Arden wrote that I think

Candace 2:44
are really saying that you're like there's no white way Kelly said that has to be my daughter.

Scott Benner 2:49
It was way too sweet. And like and so I was like this is not Kelly.

Candace 2:55
I love that you know that about?

Scott Benner 2:56
So and so she's messing with me. And I'm like, alright, but yeah, I thought that was great. I just, I came upstairs to edit the show one evening, and I just didn't have it in me to do it. And I was like, I'll just jump online and say hi to people instead. And then it turned into like a whole thing. A couple 100 people in there for a while. So

Candace 3:14
yeah, and it was late for you. Because here in California, it was probably like 830 or something or eight o'clock. So it's been late for you.

Scott Benner 3:21
I was just bored. And I didn't want to go to sleep. And I didn't I didn't. I just didn't want to edit a show. So yeah,

Candace 3:28
well, you had a couple 100 People who are all pretty excited and excited and fanboying and fangirling out to talk to you too. So

Scott Benner 3:34
very strange. How old was your 11 year old when he was diagnosed?

Candace 3:37
He was 11 he was diagnosed in November of last year?

Scott Benner 3:41
Oh, nine months ago? Yes.

Candace 3:45
So we're kind of still on the newbies of all this stuff.

Scott Benner 3:48
Okay. 11 years old. I'm making notes for myself. Also, people should know that I looked up saw that it was August. I immediately knew that August was the eighth month of the year and added one month.

Candace 3:59
Oh, you're so good at your stop math. Right, right.

Scott Benner 4:03
Because November, in November, there's one month left. And so maybe it's closer to 10 months, but I thought you would agreed at nine. So I said Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk for a minute about what that was like. So how did you figure out that something was up?

Candace 4:19
Kind of the standard. You know, my kiddos hadn't they had this kind of crappy health insurance through my ex for a year and they hadn't been seen. And it's like the pandemic and they were both were really healthy nothing coming up and I was just had recently had switched in my job to getting them on my health insurance and I immediately had scheduled a well check visit for both of them. And my 11 year old I'll just call him little dude. The little dude has always had a big temper but had recently and it had been COVID So it was kind of hard to know with throwing just massive tantrums every day, just flipping out over zoom Man sobbing and crying. And it was like not completely out of character, but the intensity and the frequency was up. And really the only other things where his skin got really dry and I was like lotioning this kid up every day, and he was drinking a lot of water. So we took him into the doctor's, both boys the same time doctors checking them out. He noticed with the 11 year old, he said, you know, my ex is a tall guy, he's six, four, and I'm five, five, and he and my other my older son is big. He's like six feet tall. And he's like, you know, a little dude is a little bit on the smaller side, I want to check his growth hormone or some hormone and so we're going to do a blood draw. Instead, okay? Bill, the 11 year old, he flipped out, he's never had a blood draw, I had to hold him down. We almost left that day without doing it. Because he was so scared. And they did the blood draw, and we went home. And I guess I found out later somebody had checked glucose, just kind of as a afterthought. It wasn't the doctor even who did it. And the next morning, we went, we left the hospital to after the blood draw, we went and got giant ice cream cones and sprinkles on top, actually have a picture of him eating an ice cream cone. It's like the last day that I knew everything was okay. And that at 730 in the morning, I started getting calls from the doctor saying you need to go to the hospital, your son has type one diabetes, and it was just like the day before Thanksgiving, and just like oh, crap. Okay. So we drove to the hospital. My ex husband was visiting his girlfriend's family, and they were in San Diego, and we're up near San Francisco. So that was pretty far I called him and he was kind of unsure, like, do I come back? Do I not I was like, I'm not gonna tell you what to do. So he ended up driving back, but we checked into the hospital. Kind of, you know, it was a whirlwind. It was really tough. My guy was a hysterical, you know, like, they came in to do the first insulin shot. And he we had to hold them down. I mean, he was just sobbing. It's too much. It's too much. I can't handle this. And I'm just like, holy crap. I feel like I went into like, hyperfocused mom mode, you know, with, like, we got this, we're gonna do this. And so yeah, we spent the next few days in the hospital, but it was also kind of the beginning of dealing with my ex. And, you know, my ex wife loves the boys. We've been divorced since little guy was 10 months old. And we've had a decent co parenting relationship. You know, in the beginning of our divorce, we did the whole, like nesting thing where like, the kids didn't move back and forth, like we did, you know, where he would come to the house, and I would leave kind of thing, okay. So we were able to do that for a number of years. Because, you know, the baby, he was so little the time it was like, I don't want him moving around. And my other kid was, you know, three and a half, four. And so we were able to co parent enough. But I've been sort of the primary caregiver, like, I'm the one who's been, you know, doing the appointments and camp and IEPs and doctors and kind of advocating for things and you know, they go to his house every other weekend. And it's kind of like, that's their thing. And they zone out and play video games. And I'm the one who's like, you know, camp in soccer, and, you know, parkour gymnastics and all that kind of stuff around he shows up for

Scott Benner 8:20
what everything else.

Candace 8:23
Yeah, everything else. Exactly. And I guess I just, I just kind of was okay with that dynamic, but within the diabetes, like, it became not okay. And it became very apparent even at the hospital. You know, he drove back from San Diego. And so he showed up at the hospital on Thursday, we had checked it on Wednesday, the 25th. And he, you know, he hung out for a couple hours and left, the all the doctors were like, Wait, where did he go? And I'm like, you left? And they're like, No, we got to teach you all. So my boyfriend's. And I've been together for 10 years. So he's known little guy since he's been, you know, 18 months old. You know, and we're camped out there. And they've got, you know, the dieticians and the Enzo and, you know, the nurse practitioner and all the people coming and doing the teaching, and everyone's like, Where's, where's the dad? And I'm like, he went, how, you know, I've called him, you know, whatever. It's like, you need to get him back. You need to get him back here. And I'm like, I have, he's like, I'll call back and put me on video. And I'm like, they're saying, You need to be here. They they need to show us stuff and like, oh, you know, I got this. I couldn't get him back. And then the hospital starts telling me well, we can't release your kid until all the adults now and I was like, well, then somebody from this hospital needs to call him because he's not going to listen to me. So we got together with them endo and the charge nurse and they call and I had their little meeting and then I guess somebody called him and so he showed up on Friday morning. And the boyfriend and I like took off because we realized like if we were in the room, we had so many questions were like, you know, neurotic Jews. So we had like, the lists of the what ifs. And what do we do when and we were sort of taking up all the space. And I was like, We need to get out of the room so my ex can just listen, and they can talk to him. So he stayed. Actually, he came in on Saturday, so he wouldn't come in on Friday. And that was the point we're kind of people were panicking, and like, how do we get them in here? So he came in on Saturday. Kind of got the teaching for that day, and they sent us home. And yeah, so

Scott Benner 10:28
I have questions. Sure. Okay. So he left and said, I got this, was there any reason to believe that he understood diabetes?

Candace 10:38
No, okay. He's, he's a he's a guy, you know, that has a lot of swagger. And like, he's kind of arrogant. And he believes he like knows stuff, even when he doesn't. And it's like, sometimes to a fault. You know, it's great to have confidence. But he didn't, you know, I think he was tired. He had just driven like, 10 hours, and he was wanted to go home and sleep. And I don't think he understood what this was. I think he thought, oh, you know, I gave a couple shots or something.

Scott Benner 11:07
Yeah. Here's the next question. So he's at the hospital prior to leaving. You're there. Your boyfriend's there as well, I imagine. Yeah. Is that just an uncomfortable situation for your ex?

Candace 11:18
No, you know, we've been since we've been together, we've been together 10 years, like we do Halloween together, we do birthdays together, like actually, my ex and my boyfriend get along better than my ex and I do. So I use my boyfriend a lot of the time to communicate with my axe, so they're good. They're totally fine. I have a picture actually, both of them sitting next to each other, like shooting on oranges.

Scott Benner 11:39
So okay, so alright, I'm just trying to figure out like that. So I'm gonna, you know, you're describing a person who is maybe has some false bravado about things. Maybe this was one of those situations where he thought, Oh, the BS way I usually get through stuff isn't going to work here. And then he just maybe panicked and laughed. Yeah, you know, and thought you guys are a family. You'll handle it. And then yes, yeah. Then Then I'll only be there on the weekends anyway, for video games. He didn't know exactly. Exactly. Video games were a variable for blood sugar.

Candace 12:13
Exactly, exactly. It doesn't know about the whole gentleman.

Scott Benner 12:16
But okay, so you see, you work all that out. I assume he got his instruction, and you got yours. And now you had home. I know. This is kind of off topic. Tiny bit. But did you try to have Thanksgiving when you got home? Or do you just skip it?

Candace 12:33
No, we just skipped it. It skipped it. It was at that point. It was Sunday, you know, so yeah, it was kind of done.

Scott Benner 12:42
I'm not making a turkey. No, no, although they're really cheap. Four days after Thanksgiving.

Candace 12:47
They must they must be I'm a terrible cook. So I wouldn't have cooked Thanksgiving anyway, we would have probably went to a restaurant.

Scott Benner 12:54
That wasn't a big deal. You know, I've never done that. That's interesting. Really. I grew up watching my grandmother prepare like a big meal and I almost robotically prepare the meal that she used to prepare ahead. It's amazing. While my family sleeps, I just get up. Lucky them. Nobody. Nobody helps me. It's okay. Because later when I do the dishes, and they don't help me,

Candace 13:16
you got to do the dishes after cooking. That's not fair.

Scott Benner 13:19
They're terrible. People really? I mean, I don't get that podcast. Deserve Yeah, too. Bad group. So alright, so your home now? You come home with needles and a meter. Yeah. And a kid who, three days earlier was punching nurses almost because you were. So how did that all work out?

Candace 13:39
He was unbelievably amazing. Within a few hours, this kid turned around, I would have never guessed it. This is a total wimp, like in life like I've always he's feisty and he's fiery. Any sensitive and I did not think this was gonna go out. But like he turned it around. Like, he just, I mean, kids are resilient. And he just was like, Oh, I get to eat as many cheese sticks as I want. I'm like, yep. Okay. And like he just kind of embraced it. He's like, I've got it. He's like, I have got a I don't forget and like a condition and it's incurable. Yes, you do. And we just yeah, he kind of was not cool with that I got him a lovey when we were there at the hospital I think in like in the you know, gift shop and like he named it Barrett. I'm a therapist and be like, you know, psychological about it. I was like, interesting. You name the kid, the stuffy beret. And he held on to that stuffy but he came home and he was just brave and he took his shots and, you know, we had him test all of our blood sugars. And we really just, we were like, We're gonna make this like as Chill as possible and as disruptive as possible. And he really went with it. And in sort of ways, we were lucky that it was a pandemic. He was doing school from home. And so I was working from home. So it made sort of dosing, lunch and all those things so much easier. And so it was kind of an easier way to start this.

Scott Benner 15:18
Yeah, a lot of consistency. Yeah. Okay. Is any of the Do you think maybe he calmed down when his blood sugar came down? How high was his blood sugar when he went in?

Candace 15:29
It was 580. Um, yeah, I think he's already kind of a moody feisty kid. But it changed. Like once he got home was on insulin, like the tantrums stopped the screaming, throwing stuff, like tantrums that he was having over school definitely stopped his mood was definitely different.

Scott Benner 15:50
What about the I can do this is that I, maybe I'm looking too far into this. Is that from the dad does he do the kids now that like? My understanding was,

Candace 16:04
he was very, like, I can do this in the sense of I don't want anything to do with it. You guys do it all. Like, don't ask me like, you know, the beginning of like, how many you know, chicken nuggets? Do you think you're gonna eat how much this and it became like, don't ask me just figure it out. And so we gave him shots. We did it all to him. And all he had to do was like sit there with him. That was

Scott Benner 16:24
really good. Okay, with this, the taking the injections, checking his blood sugar, that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. How long? Did you do it that way? I mean, are you still doing it that way? It's only been

Candace 16:34
Yeah, we switched to a pump in the beginning of June. So really recently, we got the tandem, we got the Dexcom pretty early on, we got that in about like January, maybe a month or two in. And that was great. It was pretty scary, though. He was scared. We went to the doctor's was one of the few times you know, we went in person because everything's like video calls. And the boyfriend had them put put it on him first. And then we put it on little dude. And he was really scared and like, I don't want to wear this thing. And I don't like it. And that hurts. And we were like, just how about you wear it for one day? You know, and he worked for the one day and he was like, Okay, no more fingerprints. Yeah, I like this. And I was like, fantastic. And then we really did want the pump. And we were pushing for that. And like, you know, they, they were kind of I don't know, if they're reluctant. They're kind of the old school stuff, too. We want you to know how to do this all old school way of blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I get this and I think that the nurse at some point, you know, that we talked to all the time got that when I started adjusting, you know, Lantis and carb ratios on my own to you know, figure out blood sugar. She was like, okay, we can move to a pump. And, you know, at that point, you know, we've been doing it for for a while. And so they were okay, you know, we'll move you to the pump. I like

Scott Benner 17:51
how your son sort of a cheap date like he music was overtaken easily by if I just get eat a bunch of cheese sticks. This is better. And it took it took one day of not getting his fingers like stuck in he's like, alright, I'll do this this thing. Yeah, that just before he's like vehement. I think there's a good lesson in that for people actually. Because you do see sometimes like people talk about, like, my kid put up such a fight. They, you know, they made these declarative statements about, you know, I'd sooner died and do this thing. And

Candace 18:21
they get in the hospital, he had said, I want to die. You know, and then within six hours, he's walking around his like, get a beautiful room like in this, you know, Oakland, downtown Oakland, top of the top floor of the hospital there. He's like, I got this TV with my name on it. And it's got

Scott Benner 18:43
in between his fingers.

Candace 18:45
Yeah. Yeah, he was he was he was like, I've got it going on. So yeah, for sure.

Scott Benner 18:50
I just think that's important to realize that I mean, those are fairly common reactions to things like that. And I think that you know, oftentimes and understandably This is the first medical situation people have ever been in so they they take the kids super literally the word and yeah, very seriously like you know, he he she said, This is how they feel and so this is it now and I'm always like, I don't know like yeah, what was the position you let him make you know, I mean, yeah,

Candace 19:21
exactly like this. This is health and we've been very pro like it's his body and like, you get to choose where stuff goes on you or how we do it and we're very slow like, shots. It was always like, Okay, you show me where are you ready? We'd always counted down but it wasn't an option. And so the same thing with you know, we kind of step by step was just like no, this is what's happening. I get it. I hear your protest, but we're gonna try it and then if you don't like it, alright, we'll talk about it.

Scott Benner 19:47
Yeah, baby. You have to give it a shot. I mean, honestly, I I refinance, financed our mortgage. A year ago during the guy never asked the kids what they thought about it once. I didn't say do you guys think about this refi I'm thinking of taking some years off but leaving the payment the same.

Candace 20:04
Right? I don't like Kelly had something to say about I don't

Scott Benner 20:06
know, even she just she's like, what's gonna happen? I told her she's like, okay. But no, I mean, money. I just think like, I'll tell you what cutting years off your mortgage saves you a ton of money. That's what's really great. But But my point is that, I mean, it's a health concern. And yeah, and I get that they're scared and that you don't want to, you don't want to force them into something, you don't want to make them do something that they don't want to do, because that has its own set of pitfalls, you but you have to try it because they can't imagine the other side of this like you can. And so you have to show it to them is all

Candace 20:44
No, and they're scared. You know, when they're scared, like, and he's a very avoidant kid. If he's scared, he's like, I'm not doing that. Scary. That sounds scary. Hell, no. Oh, thank you, yeah, horse want to sign me up to attach something to my body know that I know already. The fingerprints that's tolerable, and then you get the Dexcom on, you're like, Oh, this is way better.

Scott Benner 21:05
And then all of a sudden, you understand you're in a different and new situation. And they're different implications down and yeah, to make you have to make decisions based on those. So. Okay, so I'm assuming for a large part of this conversation, we're really going to be talking about the difficulties you were having. With their dad. Right. Like,

Candace 21:26
yeah, I mean, it's, it's been a struggle. And, you know, I joined like, a bunch of Facebook groups, I think, just, you know, Facebook groups in the hospital, you know, like, and I think I found the podcast, like, like, a weekend, you know, it's just, I think my way of dealing with anxiety is, I'm going to learn everything, you know, and I'm going to read everything, and I'm going to find out as much as I can. And, you know, the more that I was learning, I was like, oh, like, this is really complicated, you know, they sent us home with, like you said, like, some needles and instructions, or ratio, you know, and the ex got that, you know, and every other weekend, they go to his house, and I'd send them and we had, like, you know, the log book where you wrote down everything he ate, and how much insulin you gave, and, you know, the instructions, and I would send all of that with them. And like, we get the book back, and like, the numbers were wrong, like the amount of insulin he was giving was wrong, you know, the food, I could see what he was eating, and it was like waffles with chocolate syrup for breakfast. And I'm just like, you know, and, and those are the things that I like, Oh, I'm like, I can't dictate what he's gonna eat at that house. I can't dictate, you know, moving his body, but the numbers are wrong, the amount of insulin he's getting is wrong. And so we have tried both the boyfriend and I and every which way to be like, hey, you know, this is hard, you know, you know, we have each other to talk to and bounce ideas off. And it's just you. I mean, he lives with a girlfriend, but his girlfriend is like, very hands off about the kids like, those are his kids there. She's not involved really with them. And so I get, it's just him and I have compassion for him. It's a lot. But I was like, call me call the boyfriend call. In the middle of the night. You can call before every meal. Like I'm terrible at math. I thought immediately when this went down in the hospital, like, I'm going to kill my kid, I am the worst at math ever. Like, I have never passed a math class I got through graduate school without ever passing algebra, like, it is insane. And I'm just thinking, I'm going to kill my kid with this insulin thing, and ratios and carbs and you know, insulin sensitivity factors. So I understood I was so compassionate for him about how hard this was, but I was like, call him call us we, you know, we'll work it through because I could always bounce everything off my boyfriend, like, Are my numbers, right? Did I do this? Right? Yeah. Can you check the you know, the syringe and he didn't. And, you know, he would, oh, I got this. I'm fine. I don't know. You know, and then we get the book back. And we're like, dude, the numbers are off. Like you gave way too much insulin, or I don't these numbers don't make sense. And we've walked it through with Oh, yeah, yeah, well, no, I just, you know, I was just tired. All right, this, this or that, you know, and then he might call for a meal or two and say, okay, he's getting, you know, 45 carbs. What do I do? And what's his blood sugar now, okay. And we give it to him. And that's it. And then he would be like, I'm good. And then, you know, it started happening with especially with the Dexcom. I would see little guys numbers, like just up rising, you know, and he's like, sitting around, you know, 300 or whatever. And I call my accent, like, you got to test for ketones. And he's like, yeah, oh, I can't find the bottle. And I'm like, Okay, well, go to CVS. Like, you got to test him for ketones. He's over 300 He's been there for a while, right? Oh, yeah. Well, no, it's a prescription. Right? No, it's not a prescription. You can get it on Amazon. You can go to CVS you can go to like, you know, the damn any pharmacy, and he just, he didn't do it. He just wouldn't do it. And I like I don't understand Like, I know you love this kid, and I just don't think he understood how dangerous it was. So and

Scott Benner 25:07
so what do you have to try to make him understand the gravity of it? Like, what's the I mean, the steps obviously didn't work. I mean, yeah. Let me jump ahead for a second ask a question. So jump right back. Does he get it now? I don't know. Okay. All right. So then what have you tried so far to explain the gravity of it.

Candace 25:29
I have called every single member of our endo team and begged them to call. I have talked to an endocrinologist. I've talked to our you know, nurse practitioner, I've talked to the dietician. I've talked to our social worker, because we have like the whole team. And I've explained this because, you know, this is I'm struggling here. And finally, when we got to the pump, and it was the first week on the pump, and little dude went to his house. He came back, he went to camp, I had texted the ex over the weekend, I said, how did that change? Go? Because I knew this would be the first time he was doing it. And he didn't respond to me. And that's also a lot of issues. I will text him and he just doesn't respond. Um, and so I texted him on Sunday when it was supposed to go down. How did it go? No response on Monday. I could see little dude was at camp and he was really high. And I was like, hey, like, how did this that change? Go? I can see that. He's high at camp. And he's like, is that the cartridge thingy? And I'm like, Yes, it's the whole thing. The thing that's attached to his body because we have a to slim and the cartridge thing. Like, if that doesn't have insulin in it, he has no insulin, his body. He's like, you know, oh, yeah, I was gonna do that this afternoon. And I'm just like,

Scott Benner 26:43
Alright, I have questions. Here we go. Though some of them will see him in delicate. I know, You've been apart for 10 years. But how old are you right now? I am 45 How old is he?

Candace 26:56
He's 46.

Scott Benner 26:58
Okay. 10 years ago. How long were you married for when you when you got divorced?

Candace 27:04
We have been married for about four and a half years.

Scott Benner 27:08
So you guys got married? Like, right in your early? 30s? Yeah, like

Candace 27:12
I was. Just to turn 30

Scott Benner 27:14
Was that your first marriage? Yeah. How about him? Yes. Alright, so now the questions are gonna become more pointed out sorry, was the Nick then.

Candace 27:25
Cool. Um, he was checked out then. And he was always off in his own world. He's like a computer guy. He is or at least thinks he is brilliant and always on the edge of either disaster or brilliance. And he's like about to you know, have a major breakthrough and whatever it is, he does computer wise. I don't understand any of it. Or he's about on like, the verge of despair. So he's very involved in his career, and I was always kind of the one doing the kid thing.

Scott Benner 27:55
Mm hmm. I heard you say really? You made a reference to being like super focused or or asking a lot of questions. You said Jewish like, yeah. Did you did you marry a girl? Is that what you did? I said my parents not tell you that. Yeah, I'm not Jewish and I know that you did that wrong. Like what is Ray? All right here like

Candace 28:21
an honorary Jew though. I mean, you seem like you could totally be

Scott Benner 28:25
easily totally cut. That's not the point.

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Touched by type one has a simple mission to elevate awareness of type one diabetes raise funds to find a cure and inspire those with diabetes to thrive. They do that through programs and services. And you can find out more about them at touched by type one.org they're also on Facebook and Instagram. There are links to these and all of the sponsors in the show notes of your podcast player or juicebox podcast.com.

Okay so that the entire time you're talking I'm like, what did she do she she found a Gentile I got married and that's the whole thing up like I can tell immediately that The point

Candace 30:01
No, I made some bad choices. I was living in Boston and I was in grad school and I met him and I'm you know, I'm from California, and I'm like, oh, big handsome guy. I am 29 Hold on, let's get married.

Scott Benner 30:14
I know more about you than you think. So. I want to say two things here. First of all, you're cool. If you're not Jewish, just I'm telling you Jewish girls sometimes have expectations that go and boys don't know how to like, like meet and that that's not for nothing. But I thought you met a big tall handsome boy, didn't you?

Candace 30:32
I did.

Scott Benner 30:34
You all that you want to tell the girls now the young ones. Married Jewish boy. Or the nice. Nice guy. Nice guy. He's, I guarantee you right now, if I was that tall, and handsome, I would put almost no effort into anything. You don't have to. I would just walk around like be like, Hey, do you see how God damn handsome? I am. Come over here and do stuff for me. Like make me food or clean the thing or I don't know. I would be 1951 in my head. If I was

Candace 31:08
that guy. What happens like after you're like, you know, once you hit past 6162 You just don't have to try.

Scott Benner 31:13
I don't even know. I I'm so jealous. A tall man. I couldn't even begin to tell you. I have to. I'm like a child. I look up at them. And they look down at me. And I know they they absolutely think I'm a woman. Like I'm not even kidding. Like, I know. They look down. They're like, Oh, everyone's shorter than me. It's just not a man like I am. I know that is in the back of their head somewhere. Not everybody know. Decent people. But that's not likely.

Candace 31:39
My boyfriend's gonna kill him. But he's pretty sure like, like ways. Oh, no.

Scott Benner 31:43
You figured out that the boyfriends Jewish? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, please, him. You won't marry this guy. This guy stuck with you for 10 years. You're not gonna marry him? Because the last guy didn't work out.

Candace 31:56
Yeah, no way. Never get married. Not happy way to go Kansas. I learned my lesson on that.

Scott Benner 32:02
figured everything out backwards. But that's okay. Yeah. All right. So we can't

Candace 32:06
I wish I could go back to my 29 year old self. So you don't need to get married, like I didn't even really want to is more of a like, I felt like oh, this is the thing I'm supposed to be doing. You know,

Scott Benner 32:14
I'm older. Yeah, in this case, so pretty.

Candace 32:18
He's so cute. I want to have babies and like, this is kind of what we're supposed to be doing. I'm 29 You know, like, and then like,

Scott Benner 32:26
I think you're supposed to wait till after you're bored about the sex before you make decisions like that. Next time, I would well, next time. Why next time you got a guy now he's gonna stay with you till the end of time. Yeah, no, we're not getting married. It's never gonna happen. This new guy would he'd stay three days after you kicked them out with me?

Candace 32:43
Yes, yes.

Scott Benner 32:46
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I hope all you girls hear what's happening here. Let me take a drink. I grew up my entire life with women around me telling me you're such a nice person. You're such a good person. Girls are gonna love that. Blah, blah, blah. Let me tell you something. Not one girl appreciated that.

Candace 33:06
Yeah, no, I went for the guy that, you know, he ignored me. I was I got to Boston. I was dating two guys. When I first got there. I was like, Yeah, I'm on my own. I'm in grad school. And I was dating this doctor. And then the this guy and I call him the computer guy. And the doctor liked me. And he wanted to he wasn't Jewish, but he wanted he was all over it wanted to date and computer guy. My ex was ignoring me. Of course, I wanted to be with the guy who ignored me.

Scott Benner 33:31
For non Jews out there. The doctor part makes him acceptable. Even though it wasn't Yeah, your mom would have been like, that's fine. Oh, yeah. We'll convert him later. Don't worry about that, Doctor. Don't you worry, sweetie. Exactly. Right. Listen. So okay, now we're past the sins of the flesh. Let's just saying. But we're still left with a guy who loves your boys, but is mainly good for video games and ignoring things and not texting you back. Yes. And so then I have to ask. If he texted you would you text him back? Even if it wasn't about the kids? Yeah, you would. Okay, so middle middle the day, hey, blah, blah, blah. I have a question. I don't understand how the the garbage disposal works. I'm assuming he doesn't understand that. And so and you, you would say, oh, it's the button next to the thing you wouldn't want

Candace 34:25
because it would be so out of character for him to text me randomly. I would be like this must be important.

Scott Benner 34:30
Okay. But if you sent him a similar text, you're not going to get any response whatsoever. Is there a chance that this is because his girlfriend doesn't want to see him texting with you and your boyfriend doesn't mind if he texts you?

Candace 34:44
That is a possibility. His girlfriend's been around for about six or seven years. I always invite her to the birthday parties and stuff and she has shown up a few times but I don't even know this woman's last name.

Scott Benner 34:56
Is she blonde?

Candace 34:58
Ah, she's kind of like lightish brown hair maybe blonde? I don't know. I haven't seen her in years. Like, I couldn't even probably pick her out of a lineup anymore. Like I haven't seen her. It's been years since I've seen her. So I think she's very, very threatened by me.

Scott Benner 35:11
I have no judgments about blondes, but if you get Arden back on here ever, I will ask her opinions. If you have a certain angular jaw and a lightness of your hair art and says she doesn't trust you.

Candace 35:23
I think ours is a smart girl. I

Scott Benner 35:24
don't even know what that means. Like, but she'll be like, not sure about background like how do you what are you basing this on? She just use the jawline. Like, what? What do you take from that? Exactly? She's like, I don't know. I just I can tell. I'm like, Okay, I think she's kidding. Anyway, I just wanted to work in one of Arden's jokes so that 10 years from now, she hears that she'll be like, Oh my god, I used to say, Thanks, Dad. Yeah.

Candace 35:48
Okay, so painting with broad strokes here.

Scott Benner 35:50
Yeah, right. That's a good point to say once in a while. I don't assume if people listen, they understand. Like, like you listen, you understand like that. I'm kidding about that. I think.

Candace 36:03
I think so. I think most people who listen one have to get your sense of humor, or they wouldn't keep listening.

Scott Benner 36:09
You would think and and unless this is your first episode, and you're very blonde and have an angular jaw. And then right now I've may have, I might have just gotten myself out of a subscription or lesson, but that's okay.

Candace 36:20
Are you freaked out? All the Jewish all the short Jewish guys out

Scott Benner 36:23
there? Just a blonde girls, hang on? You're gonna love us? Just stick with me? Okay. You have no idea how many people are just like Jewish? What's that? People in the middle of the country right now? Like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Candace 36:38
We're the ones running the world. Right?

Scott Benner 36:41
That's what I heard. Lasers. Yeah. Deshaun. Jackson told me last year anyway, so not getting them? How crazy some people are. Okay, so you're in a weird situation, quite obviously. And yeah, you're not getting out of it. It's been a number of months now. It's not getting any better. So you don't think that it's that he doesn't care? But no, you don't have enough access to him to figure it out. And you're trying now to get other people to intercede doctors or anybody to step in and say hey, here are the things you need to understand. But it's not happening. So my last question about him. And then I'm going to move on to ideas about how to work this out. Yeah. Is he a little open today? Or no?

Candace 37:26
No, I think he's actually a really bright guy, which is even more frustrating. I think that he's just so focused on his work and his own life that this it's just not, I don't know, if he doesn't get the urgency to it. You know, like, we had a situation a couple nights ago, where I could see little dude was like, drifting fast down, and I assume I'm watching the arrow and it's like, my night off. It's Friday. The kids are gone. I've had them for like a week and a half. And I'm like, Yes, I'm gonna chill out. And I'm, but I'm looking at the Dexcom. And I'm like, he is dropping seven points every five minutes. And at like, 100 Or maybe it was like, he was at 110. And I was like, He's gonna need uncovered like snacks and texted no response. He starts dropping down to 90. I was like, hey, carbs, nothing. 20 minutes later, he's at 80. You know, carbs? carbs, carbs. No response. It's 11. Bile. It's about 11 o'clock. I ended up just calling my kid because he has a iPhone now for the Dexcom. Yeah, I call him on FaceTime. I'm like, Dude, you need Have you looked at your your number. He's like, what? Because he's playing video games. It's 11 o'clock at night, but she wouldn't be awake at my house. 11 o'clock at night. I said, look at your Dexcom he's like, Oh, I'm 68. I was like, yes, we need some carbs. Okay. So he goes in, he got himself some carbs. So I was like, alright, so I figured out i'll just bypass. You know, I always gone through the exe to try to do this stuff. And I was like, okay, you know what, I'm just gonna go straight to my kid.

Scott Benner 39:00
Yeah, he won't, and that your ex won't care. No, he'll be happy to be out of it. Yeah, I wonder if I see through similarities here. I wonder if not being around while the while the while your son's growing up. makes it so that you don't have those moments along the way. I don't even know how to like describe those moments. But moments when yourself becomes less important when you start to see a bigger picture about the kids and what they need and how much time that takes and you where you have to make that thing in your head where you go, Okay, there's this thing I enjoy. I used to play this game or I used to do this, but I can't do that anymore. I don't have enough time. Like I used to play video games when I was in my 20s too. And I didn't play the video game in forever. Like decades, probably. The closest I come to a video game is like walking in my son's room and going oh my god, this is so realistic. I'll stand and watch it for a couple minutes and I'll be like, that's amazing. And then I'll ask him a couple questions. And then I leave because I'm an adult.

Candace 40:01
Yeah, he hasn't gotten he hasn't had that. I don't know, like, there was something you know, and I'm sure a lot of, you know, yeah, you just have this transformative thing, right? Where like the center of the universe changes from you to them, and that he didn't happen. And so he loves them. And they're great. But he doesn't see that he sees, like, all the extensions of him and how much they're like him and, but he doesn't really see them. And they it's the 15 year old doesn't notice it as much. But the 11 year old does will come home and he'll be like, I don't feel important. Or he was doing work all weekend, or I want to go back I missed him. And I was like, oh, but you just spent all weekend there. But like he's like, you know, we talked about having a loved battery. I'm a therapist. So I'm like, how's your loved battery? He's like, it's empty. And it's like, they're not getting the interaction. They go over there. They sit in a room and they play video games, and yeah, they get fed. And but like, my ex has never taken them on a trip. Like, not like to cabin or weekends anywhere.

Scott Benner 41:06
So it's like you're cuddling them for the weekend. every other weekend? Yes, yes. Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be harsh. But. And, and he doesn't. It's interesting, because he doesn't have the time in the simulator, right? Like if if, if the 10,000 hours thing is anywhere close to being right. You've got 30,000 hours, and he's got 300 hours? Yeah. Ah, okay. And that's going to work out the same way for the diabetes. Because I'm always saying, you know, I know we don't want things to go wrong. But you almost need them to go wrong, so that you can see what wrong looks like. So you can figure out what, how to get to right. And I know it's a weird thing. But you have to have a lot of experiences over and over again, meals after meals after meals. So things start making sense, and aren't having those experiences either. So you're you're coming at him with, Hey, listen, I see that the pitch of this line tells me at 110 that he needs a snack and he probably wants and goes to kids blood sugar's 110. She's out of her mind.

Candace 42:06
Exactly. I'm like, I'm just like, you know, the over protective helicopter Jewish mama who's like intruding on his weekend?

Scott Benner 42:12
Yeah. And I tell you a secret about boys. Once you stop showing them your soft parts. They don't listen anymore. Yeah. That's really the only

Candace 42:21
control you have over man is that there's no concern that's not happening.

Scott Benner 42:25
If they think something may one time at some point, ever again, happen. Like I'm thinking that Friday night, your poor boyfriend's sitting there going, I'm not having sex.

Candace 42:36
You know, he's pretty worried too. And he's frustrated. I mean, we've both been up at like 1am. And where we see little dude go in low. And we're like, Is somebody going to give him carbs? Is someone coming in, and we just see him bouncing around 7068 70. And it's like, 2am. And we're like, do we call him and like, sometimes we have sometimes you've texted and like, I don't think there's times where he's treated him. And he didn't go really well. He was uh, he ended up fine. And it's just like, and I've asked the ex, I'm like, Did you wake up? And he's like, Oh, sometimes I can hear my alarm. And I'm like, okay, then what do you do to fix that? Hey, there's an app called Sugar mate that calls you Hey, do you need to get like a speaker, but he can't get the urgency. He just doesn't get it.

Scott Benner 43:23
I have two things. First thing is you just sort of proved my earlier hypothesis by saying that, in that scenario, on a Friday night, when your kids are gone, your boyfriend who has been with those kids for 10 years, is worried about them, like a father would be? Absolutely he's not. He's not just sitting there thinking like, this is the weekend off, where we have a bunch of sex and go out to dinner and stuff like that. Now he's actually kids. And he's been with you for 10 years, who doesn't expect a bunch of sex anymore anyway. And that's the other thing. And so then the next thing is this. Are you learning anything from watching the non interventions? Like Have there been times where you're like, Oh, I was wrong, we didn't need to intervene.

Candace 44:06
I mean, I guess since I've seen some lows, that I'm guessing we're not treated because there was no bounce back where he just kind of drifted in the 60s and then kind of settled back in the 80s, where I would have treated it in the middle of the night. And I was like, oh, okay, like, that one's alright. But I would I just wouldn't have risked it. You know, I would have given them some carbs.

Scott Benner 44:26
I'm not asking you to, I'm just saying if the experience is going to happen anyway. Yes. As well learn from it. Yeah, learn try to learn from because there are times where you just have to have the balls to not do anything. Yeah, a 60 blood sugar's not that time. I'm not saying that but but you're there is something to learn from all of the experiences and from all the data, so don't waste it. I mean, I mean, you're gonna be angry and upset and all that stuff. Yeah.

Candace 44:52
And the higher in the higher blood sugar is the one and then and I and I used a lot of the language you had talked about, I was like, you know, I had texted him at different points. I was like he's running at like, 230. And I was like, you know, when he's over 200 We are taking minutes off his life. We are losing fingers and toes. We are losing eyesight. Like, let's not do this. And it's like, it doesn't land. It just doesn't.

Scott Benner 45:18
Even he can't be scared by it. No. Yeah, it's the height is tall.

Candace 45:23
It's the height and suits all

Scott Benner 45:25
and you get over like six, three. You're just like, I'm a superhero. Yeah,

Candace 45:29
he's six, four. So

Scott Benner 45:30
there you go. Yeah, he just like I'm a superhero. Like, it doesn't matter. I hear this. I don't like, Okay. I'm not anti tall people. I'm just saying. People got to find out how it feels to be five, nine. You got to live like that a little bit.

Candace 45:44
You're the same height as my boyfriend. That's funny.

Scott Benner 45:47
I'm the worst height. I'm not tall. I'm not sure. That's really terrible. I'm tall. You know, the odd thing is, you know, I'm taller than most of the people I meet. Yeah, I would imagine. And then I meet one person who's six, two, and I'm like, Oh, I'm a baby. That's nice. I don't like meeting people that I know. If we got into an altercation, they could grab me by my face and throw me that doesn't feel that's something you worry about. Sometimes. You see those big tall people, they look so strong.

Candace 46:19
I don't know. I'm five, five. So and I've everyone my family is really tall. So I've always been super short. So I'm kind of used to being the short person to make my 15 year old is already six one. So I'm kind of already getting, you know, everyone's getting taller than me in my house. That's

Scott Benner 46:32
fair. That's all. That's all I'm saying. I hear you. Oh, maybe tall people have problems we don't know about. I think that's probably true too. Tall people problems. If you're all your problems. I wish this wasn't just the diabetes podcast. Because right now I'd say if you're tall, you have problems, please contact me to be on the show. I would love

Candace 46:50
to call in Tell me all about how you can't find pants that fit?

Scott Benner 46:53
Yeah, listen, if you have type one, and you're really tall, we'll find something about diabetes to talk about in between me going. So tell me what it's like? Well, I

Candace 47:01
had a type one boyfriend in my 20s. And he was six, six. So it didn't turn out well. So.

Scott Benner 47:06
So you're bringing up a question that I had a minute ago, I lost and I brought it back. And if you don't want to answer, I guess I understand. And it's okay. But why did you guys get divorced? Did you hate each other? Were you arguing all the time?

Candace 47:21
Um, no, we were arguing a lot. So you know, I had just had little guy 10 months before we were going to couples therapy. And I guess I was seeing the therapist on my own too. And I was talking her and I was like, you know, I'm somebody who like, holds everything in. Like, I don't tell her about my feelings. Like, and this is the most I've talked about myself forever. I'm a therapist, I talk to other people all day long about their stuff. And I told the therapist, like I just want to tell my ex like all the resentment and all the things that I've been holding on to for the past few years. And, and she's like, I think if you say that it's going to be the end of your marriage. And I was like, no, like, we've come in here week after week. And my ex is like my heart murmur. And I was like, I have to have my turn. So we go into therapy. I say my piece we walk out Max is like I think we should be done. Oh, oh, oh, man. You know, and it wasn't.

Scott Benner 48:19
Did you want Did you want that?

Candace 48:22
I wasn't soul crushing. I mean, I was like, Alright, I don't know how to be a single mom and I was crushed. But I wasn't devastated. Like it wasn't good for us for a long time. He was checked out the whole time and I don't think that was gonna change and so yeah

Scott Benner 48:47
was he cheating? Me cheating?

Candace 48:49
No. I don't know. He there was a there was a I don't know if it's real cheating. There was a girl online that I think he was talking to you who lived like halfway across the country. So not yet achieved in real life yet?

Scott Benner 49:00
Not yet. Yet needed a plane ticket? And

Unknown Speaker 49:04
exactly. Plane ticket. Yeah. All right.

Scott Benner 49:07
That's sad. I didn't mean to laugh. It's

Candace 49:11
sad, but it wasn't like some big catastrophic explosion, which was why it allowed us to be able to be like, Okay, we have this baby in this, you know, preschool kid, how do we, you know, make this as best we can for them. Alright, let's like, you know, we didn't have lawyers, we got to, you know, we also were broke. So, not a lot of fight about so we got a mediator and like, alright, let's work this out, you know,

Scott Benner 49:32
Frosted Flakes, and I'll take the Mini Wheats, and we'll get it exactly.

Candace 49:35
There's not a whole lot to fight about. So you know, it was really just kind of ironing out visitation. And since a little one was so young, it was like, Okay, come over two times a week, hang out. I'll take off for a couple hours, come back. And then every other weekend, he'd come and like, stay here and I would go to my mom's house and then early on, I met my boyfriend and I go stay at his house and you know, then he finally got his own place where he could bring the voice to after a few years.

Scott Benner 50:00
Whether Was there ever any like regret, like, did you ever cross in the doorway when he came over to take his turn? And you think to yourself, like, should I note? No, never? No. Did he ever say we're doing the wrong thing? No, no. Interesting.

Candace 50:17
No, I think it was pretty. Like we're good. We're let's let's not do this anymore. Yeah. You can ask for

Scott Benner 50:25
what? I don't want to say this in case your kid hears it. But we got my youngest. My kids never gonna hear the youngest one like, hey, maybe we can fix this with the baby. Where was the mistake? Sorry.

Candace 50:38
Oh, no, the youngest. So it was kind of like we just had. So we had a few rough years with the my older one. And then we have like, six months, or like stuff was good, like, or at least good enough. And I was like, I really I grew up as an only child. And I really wanted my kids, my kid to have a sibling. And I was like, Look, we should have a baby. And that would be cool. And he was like, yeah. And then it was like, a couple months later, like, oh, maybe this isn't a good idea. And he or she got back on birth control. And by that point, I was like, oh, and I'm praying, okay. And then surprisingly, my ex at that point was really excited. He was really excited to have this baby. It was a complicated pregnancy, he had a lot of kind of mental health issues during that point. So I was very alone. During the pregnancy. I had gestational diabetes, which was actually one of those things that I felt like in the hospital, I was like, to the nurses, I had gestational diabetes, and I give this to him, you know. But like, he never went to a single appointment when I was pregnant with little guy, and I should have, like, so like, things really haven't changed. Okay, now.

Scott Benner 51:44
So. All right. We haven't been making light of a man with mental illness for the last 50 minutes. Have we? No,

Candace 51:52
no, he's a functioning like person in the world. Like he is not like severely anything. He had a struggle during that time period about work and a bunch of other stuff kind of colliding. But he is an okay person in the

Scott Benner 52:05
world. I don't need his details. I just wanted to make sure that like, yeah, that kind of like high level and I was like, Oh, come on, like, say that at the beginning.

Candace 52:14
He was and I wouldn't be so frustrated, right? Is this functioning guy? He is smart. He is capable, and I can't get why he can't get this.

Scott Benner 52:24
Can I ask you what it felt like when you were pregnant? He was excited. And you were halfway between? Oh, I was looking for my birth control pills again. Is that a weird feeling?

Candace 52:34
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely it was kind of like this. Oh, crap. Okay, like Pavitt. Alright, we're gonna do this. And like, you know, and then once you know, baby's there, it was like, All right, like, I'm gonna be excited about this kid right now.

Scott Benner 52:49
No, I'm not. And this is no reflection on your son. Obviously. I'm just trying to talk to you like an adult. So totally. Yeah. So you, he doesn't I don't

Candace 52:58
think there was a whole lot of like, we're, you know, oh, like regret, or I think it was once I realized I was pregnant. It was like, Okay, this is what's happening. And, you know, I'm all on board.

Scott Benner 53:06
Gotcha. I'm going through my questions in my mind, that one was completely inappropriate. So that won't happen. And you all have no idea how many questions I don't ask, during the course. conversations where I'm like, I wonder about No, that won't work.

Candace 53:26
I certainly love ask people. Yeah, but their loved ones all day long are lovely, nice

Scott Benner 53:30
people that listen to this podcast, too. And they don't want to Oh, I'm sure they don't want to hear my darker thoughts. Like, I'm trying to

Candace 53:37
just slap an after dark, you know, title on this. And that's why you want

Scott Benner 53:42
to wait for that now. Okay, we would have cursed I feel like you and I would have cursed a lot if this was an after dark episode.

Candace 53:48
Definitely, I am trying so hard. Doing well,

Scott Benner 53:51
you've cursed once. Thank you at the 4546 mark. But I made a note so I can go back and take it out. I'm sorry. Also, I burped around 14 minutes. So I'll check for that. was very quiet, but I I'm aware of it. So now I'm going to go back and check for it. If I don't take it out, no one will ever know. But if I leave it in, maybe I should just leave it and see people can hear it. It'll be it'll sell a rumble. But it's nothing. Anyway, that's not the point of this conversation. The point is, you're screwed because this isn't getting any better.

Candace 54:23
No, it's really not. It's like this limbo. I mean, the pump has helped in certain ways, because he's not having to do the math anymore. Like the math thing. I actually was really blown away by that because I'm like, the most math challenged person. And I thought like, of course, he's gonna get the math part like and the fact that he couldn't, I was just like, what is happening? So the pump has definitely made it easier. Like, you know, there's less to input. We have, you know, the control IQ. So there's a little bit more management happening, but there's like, he's still not getting the nuance like, uh, you know, I tried to talk to him about Pre-Bolus sake, you know, and it's like, crickets? No like, if Yeah, if you're having a pizza dinner, why don't you Pre-Bolus 1520 minutes at a time, you know, like,

Scott Benner 55:10
when you call him a computer person, is he professionally computer person? Are you saying he really like has a great gaming system that he put together? Like, what is it versus Yeah,

Candace 55:18
he's like a professionally that's like what he does really?

Scott Benner 55:22
Yeah, but not math related or doesn't like, no,

Candace 55:25
no, it's all like some weird like, I don't know, it's like, I mean, he must be smart. He's like, in some stuff. I don't even understand what it is. Like he hangs out with people from Silicon Valley. So he's telling me about all the important people he's talking to.

Scott Benner 55:40
The one of them know how to tell him to Pre-Bolus I

Candace 55:43
wish they would. I wish they would. Well, I think our nurse has called him somewhat recently, when we when we switch to the tandem, I was like, we had set up the tandem training separately. I was like, we need to be trained separately. I was like, because my boyfriend and I will sit there will ask question after question after question. And he'll just sit there quietly and not ask anything. Right. So I was like, can you train us separately? Okay. You know, and then I talked to the the educator, I was like, how did it go? Did you think he got Oh, yeah. He told me he read the manual. He totally understood that. I was just like, Oh, crap. Like, there's Yeah, no. And he didn't know. I mean, that was the first set change was like, is that the cartridge thing? Okay,

Scott Benner 56:24
if I read the manual, the manual was helpful. I wouldn't have a podcast. So because there's manuals for everything. Yeah, uh, so the is the plan just to get the algorithm up and running so well, that you can circumvent him and just text your son? Like, yes. Do you think your son will get to a point because he's still pretty young, where he'll take on some responsibility for this piece when he's with his dad?

Candace 56:48
I think so. I think the last few weekends was the first time where I've directly texted him, and he like, actually answered his phone, which was great. And he went, you know, I just, I packed his backpack, and I have, you know, there's a couple bags of the, you know, 15 grams Skittles or whatever. And so like, I know that he has those. And so like, at this last weekend, I was like, Hey, go grab some Skittles. Okay, so I think like, my plan is just to like, yeah, circumvent the x, just go straight to the kid. You know, it's a little frustrating, actually. I mean, I guess I can actually text him now about, you know, doing a correction, because because we, you know, we do it here all the time, where if he's running high, and like, you know, control IQ isn't whatever, I'll say, you know, can you give yourself a correction of a couple units, and he can do that on his own. So I just, I think I probably call them access house and say the same thing now when he's running high, because when he's running high there, I can text Max and be like, you should really check and do a correction and may or may not happen, but I could probably just go straight to my kid now.

Scott Benner 57:45
Yeah, but then you really don't get any downtime at all. No, I

Candace 57:49
don't. Yeah,

Scott Benner 57:49
I mean, I get downtime. Like, I can say to Kelly, like, I'm gonna go do something now and then need to pay attention, Arden. And, yeah, generally that happens. So. And then I have my time, even if it's just a little bit like an hour, like, you know, even like, going grocery shopping or something like that. Like there's one store that I can't get service in, and I'm, I'm, like, so grateful for that because I leave and I'm like, Hey, I'm not gonna have cell service. Don't

Candace 58:15
forget, you're like, hands up in the air. Like, I'm

Scott Benner 58:17
free. And they're just like, okay, like, yeah, excellent. They'll pay attention to it now. I don't know. Like, can I ask you as crazy as it sounds an hour into it? Like, why did you want to come on?

Candace 58:32
Um, I think I just I had scrolled through a lot of podcasts. And I looked for all the divorced ones. So I was like, There's got to be some other people who are got to deal with this. And like everybody that you had had previously on, we're like, got along, and we're communicating. And the kid was doing well in both houses. And I'm in a bunch of like, you know, moms, a T one groups. And there's other moms out there who are posting like, you know, my kids at the axes, and they could see the blood sugar, and they're not responding and what do I do? And I'm like, Okay, there's other people like me. I mean, I think I wrote in my email, I was like, I don't have the answers. But I know there's got to be a bunch of other people like me are like sending their kid off every other weekend and like, have no control over what's happening. And it's like, such a helpless feeling. And I think this was probably a way of me feeling like, I can do something. This is something I can do. I have no control there.

Scott Benner 59:22
I can tell you after being around this space, the way I have been for as long as I have been, it is one of the most frequent and significant concerns for people is that one of the spouses in a divorce relationship doesn't do anything, and then it's almost torturous, like the other one has to watch it happen. Or if you don't have a CGM wonder about it happening. And then they don't have this communication. They can't even quell their fears. They live in this heightened sense of like, kind of like horror the entire time that kids gone. Either seeing what's going going on and knowing it's bad for their health or Yeah, imagining that's what's happening and not even being able to see.

Candace 1:00:07
Yeah, it's terrible. It's a terrible feeling. And it's like, I run anxious anyway, and like, it does not help at all. Like, I'm just, it's tough because I used to have my weekends off. And I was like, I can go be free. The kids are gonna be there till Sunday, and like, I can go do my thing. And now it's like, I'm looking at my phone, you know, and I'm texting and I'm worrying and it's sucks. And it's, you know, diabetes is exhausting, and a full time job as it is and then having another weekend where it's like, I'm still on call

Scott Benner 1:00:37
that I run nervous. And I'm imagining, have you heard Roxy in an earlier episode? Like, Yeah, girl with her sister the entire time that you're talking like, Roxy is gonna love this episode. And then you just said I run nervous. And I thought that's something Roxy would say about herself.

Candace 1:00:53
Run. Yeah, run anxious and nervous. Nervous.

Scott Benner 1:00:57
Anyway, I so you're in. Every I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of everybody who's ever written a note like that. And I don't know how you make another person care. Like to me, if you came to me and said, Look, when our kids blood sugar is like it is when he's here. Or when she's here. This is how she feels. This is how he feels. And when you put him in this situation where it's bouncing around, it's getting high, it's getting low, literally changes who they are, like, if you said that, hey, I'd be like, Oh, okay, I'll fix it. You know, I didn't know that. But when you're in a situation where you'll say that to someone, and they'll just go, Ah, I'll get to it. I don't know, I don't know what to do about that. And I don't know that it's it just it seems kind of cruel to me to like, bounce the kid from, from well managed to don't manage, and back and forth and back and forth. Because at some point, your your axe has got in anybody's axe has to realize that that one day that kid's gonna go, I don't want to go there. I don't feel well when I'm there. Like, it's gonna ruin that thing. But maybe some people just don't have that kind of parental connection. Maybe that's just

Candace 1:02:12
No, I don't, it's for me, like, it's, I think for my little guy like, he, I don't, he doesn't feel high. When he feels when he's high, he doesn't feel different. I don't necessarily see any behavioral changes. And he obviously knows when he's low. And when they're at my axes, they literally don't leave the house, they are sitting in a bedroom playing video games. So I think he doesn't feel it. If he's super high, where if we were here, and we were out, we're out doing stuff. And so he might notice it a little more and retreating it you know, like, if he's high on like, We're going swimming, right? Like we're gonna get you dropped down. And his house like, I think he's just so like, I mean, I don't think they kids both have kids are like, could be completely addicted to video games, like they would never leave their house and they can push play, and they wouldn't even eat if he didn't like make them. So I think they're perfectly content to be there and play video games. And I don't think that my ex is engaging enough with them to notice any changes behaviorally, I think, you know, he checks in online, we feed them and you know that maybe they hang out and have dinner. But you know, that's probably the extensive it

Scott Benner 1:03:15
hard for me to think about that. Because I'm just gonna say something, it's gonna be embarrassing, but my son's leaving for college in four days. And going back for his senior year. Now, he's been here for a while because of COVID. And last night, he was in the kitchen. Last night was one of those weird nights where I was like a shorter cook. Nobody wanted the same thing. And so I spent like three hours it felt like from like five to eight o'clock cooking for different people. But everyone was downstairs waiting for their food and doing something else at the same time. And I'm just going to tell you that I liked that we were all in the same place. Yeah, and it's lovely. And then it got done. And I I was like, I was just hot from cooking. And I said to Kelly, like, I'm gonna take a shower before I go to bed. And I will as I was walking up the stairs, I had this fleeting thought, like, I don't want anyone to think that it burdened me for hours or you know that I was crumbling at my core. But I was walking up the stairs and I thought, well, maybe I should just stay downstairs a little longer until cold goes to his room and then I'll take a shower, because I don't want to waste this time where we're together when he's going to be gone in four days. Yeah, I totally get it and I don't understand how somebody who's only seeing their children every other weekend to begin with wouldn't make that weekend as special as possible and together as possible. I create like fathom what you're saying which is what makes it even more difficult and I'm imagining in a classic relationship where this is happening where the man is acting more the way your ex is. And the mom who is not just been raising the kids but now has been in trouble. Mind in this diabetes stuff like I would imagine you couldn't put it into words, if your life depended on it. Like, why is this happening? Yeah, there's no way for you to know.

Candace 1:05:09
I know, it's, it's really hard to make sense of it because I know he loves them. But he just engages with them in a way that is doesn't make sense. Like, I don't get it, we have so many things that like me, my boyfriend, and my two boys all do together, you know, whether it's like, playing, you know, cards, or, you know, we, I mean, yes, we drag them off their computers, we're gonna go and do something, we're gonna go take a walk, like, we go on vacation. And I understand like, you know, I think those moments are so special. And like, I feel like they're fleeting that the fact my 15 year olds willing to hang out with me, I'm hanging on to that, you know, as long as possible. Anybody who's not shunning me

Scott Benner 1:05:50
yet anybody who doesn't think that's gonna come to a grinding halt is not paid? Yes.

Candace 1:05:54
Like, I can see the ticking, you know, the fact that like, in any moment,

Scott Benner 1:05:59
and maybe, look, let's just just take ourselves out of who we are for a second. If that's not how a person feels that I understand this. I understand not caring if they play video games all day, because I don't feel like a person who wants to be around all the time. Together, maybe your husband and your ex husband didn't have that with his father, whatever. But I didn't know that was my father either. But that's I mean, the point is that some I think some people just aren't, aren't wired that way. And I don't think they're men necessarily. I think it could be women as well, like some people are just not parental. You know, like, in that way. I think that it

Candace 1:06:35
I think it's, it's something like about being related. It's not just parental. I think it's something about the way he engages with people in general. Like, I think he struggles with people and friendships and he doesn't have a lot of close friends. I think there's something about the way he relates to people and engages with people. That has some obviously issues. Yeah, that's,

Scott Benner 1:06:56
that makes me sad. Yeah. And I get I understand, it happens, and I don't think I'm perfect at it. I think there are probably times where I'm around my kids, where they're probably like, Oh, this guy get him. Of course, I'm not quite getting it as good as I could. But at least, I always feel like at least when it's over, and they're off living their own lives. And I'm hopefully old and alive, that I won't regret the time we spent, like, I might say, I wish things would have went differently. But I know that I I was there and I tried. And that

Candace 1:07:29
yeah, you're never gonna wish that you had like less of that.

Scott Benner 1:07:32
Yeah. And that they'll look back and say, you know, not a perfect person. Always. They're like, Oh, always available. And I mean, I think that's just what I'm shooting for. I don't know this whole thing's weird.

Candace 1:07:48
Yeah. And it's it's just, I get I guess, I don't know why she was so surprised by it. I think I shouldn't have been but I still was, I guess I had hopes with the diabetes. Like, yeah, like, he's gonna be responsive. He's gonna do the right thing. He's gonna, like really be involved. And it's like,

Scott Benner 1:08:06
but the truth now just went exactly the way it was gonna go. It was Yeah. So yeah, I was I think I was naive to think anything different is the answer. Don't expect things from people they don't have to give.

Candace 1:08:18
I don't know. I don't think there's an answer. I think all you can do is, I mean, I've worked really hard to have a good relationship with him and try not to be judgmental and to be compassionate and put out there that this is hard. And that I'm like, I mean, I bet I'm open 24/7 You can call me you can text me like, I'm happy to talk to you. And, and I don't, I don't know. I just I don't know how you get the urgency into somebody I know that the nurse call them and explain sort of the dangers, especially once we got to the pump of like high blood sugar and what you need to do and you know, but I still don't think you necessarily gets it.

Scott Benner 1:08:53
Yeah. Okay. Oh, there you go. I'm gonna end on. I don't think you can expect things from people they don't have to give. Yeah, and you're gonna have to adjust and work around those things. It's just you're you're asking a flower to be a rock, vice versa, whatever. Just not gonna happen. Yeah, so she, jeez. Well, this was fun.

Candace 1:09:15
That was fun.

Scott Benner 1:09:19
Candace, just would have done what your mom told you. This all would have been okay.

Candace 1:09:24
Oh, I just want to marry a Jewish boy.

Scott Benner 1:09:28
I don't even know if he ever said that to you. I just imagined that while you were getting.

Candace 1:09:32
She actually did. I mean, I think it was kind of like, oh, yeah, I think she'd probably expect that I wasn't going to marry a Jewish boy, you know. And I feel very lucky. I have my boyfriend who is like this wonderful father figure to the boys and they love him and he fills up all those cracks that are missing. You know, like he's the one who shows up to every conference and shows up to everything and goes to the doctor's appointments with me and has his notebook out with all his questions and you know, they have all these their bedtime routines with him. And so like they're getting that they just don't get that from the person. They really want it from the most, which is my ex like they so badly want it from him. I can see them, you know, really trying to get it and it's just not getting heard.

Scott Benner 1:10:14
Yeah, one of my brothers is a really excellent stepfather. And there's not enough praise that goes,

Candace 1:10:23
No, there's not there really needs to be like, a lot more like, even just the name like so. You know, we're not married. So people ask my kids all the time, like, Who's that? And, you know, like, we've I've tried to like, what do you want to say he is, you know, and because people ask all the time, is that your dad? Is that your dad? I mean, our doctor, the dentist, they all think that that's their dad because they've never seen the other guy, you know? And I'm like, Well, you can say like, your bone is dead. You could say he's like your stepdad like, you know, and I think they end up saying stepped out because that feels comfortable. And people know what that means. But there really isn't the name for that person. You know, weird

Scott Benner 1:10:57
things step that I wonder what it means. Is it like a step away from my dad? Like step dad meaning homozygous? I'm googling Google way. I know another Stanford. I know, we're just the word come from Google. Don't just tell me how can you tell me stepdad means another term for stepfather? Like that is not valuable for redundant on my a man who is the husband of or a partner of one's mother after the divorce or separation of one's parents? Or the death of a father? Yeah, but where does the word come from? Like, why did somebody first say stepped out? Step? One, seven. away, right? Like that's the Yeah, how it makes you feel?

Candace 1:11:36
Yeah, and it sucks because he does not feel that way. He feels like they're that

Scott Benner 1:11:40
he's the top step. Yeah, totally calm top step that I will. Please don't

Candace 1:11:46
actually I call him the phone baby daddy who likes faux that's actually his title.

Scott Benner 1:11:53
Okay, this I would have left you till now. I'm just kidding.

Candace 1:11:57
Thank you, God. I just want to leave you a name that you'll have to bleep out

Scott Benner 1:12:05
to leave on a laugh canvas. That's all. Thanks. Yeah, you were very kind to do this. It's uh,

Candace 1:12:14
yeah, no problem. I felt like there had to be other people out there like me, you know, like, it's hard. No, he's not like, my ex isn't the devil like, right? He's not this bad person who's doing bad things out in the world. He doesn't care. It's like, what do you do with somebody who's indifferent? And I know like I said, I don't have the answer. They just know that I'm living in it sucks.

Scott Benner 1:12:31
Yeah. Okay. Can I ask you one more question, but I'm gonna stop the recording. Okay, yeah. Did your ex have a huge

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