Scott Benner 11/7/25 Scott Benner 11/7/25

#1673 This Is Happening

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Sydney recounts her toddler’s type 1 diagnosis, ER scramble, management, Omnipod 5 realities, marriage roles, faith, and homeschooling—plus practical tips on carb counting, resets, and keeping perspective through chaos.

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

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

Sydney 0:14
My name is Sydney. I am a mom of a two year old type one diabetic, and we're 10 months into our diabetes journey.

Scott Benner 0:25
If your loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're seeking a clear, practical perspective, check out the bold beginning series on the Juicebox podcast. It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal insight into type one. Our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers straightforward answers to your most pressing questions. You'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one. You can start your journey informed and empowered with the Juicebox podcast, the bold beginning series, and all of the collections in the Juicebox podcast are available in your audio app and at Juicebox podcast.com in the menu 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 or becoming bold with insulin. The episode you're about to listen to was sponsored by touched by type one. Go check them out right now on Facebook, Instagram and of course, at touched by type one.org. Check out that Programs tab when you get to the website to see all the great things that they're doing for people living with type one diabetes touched by type one.org. Today's episode is sponsored by the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology. If you are looking for the only system with auto Bolus multiple wear options and full control from your personal iPhone you're looking for tandems, newest pump and algorithm. Use my link to support the podcast tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, check it out. The show you're about to listen to is sponsored by the ever since 365 the ever since 365 has exceptional accuracy over one year, and is the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get ever since cgm.com/juicebox

Sydney 2:28
My name is Sydney. I am a mom of a two year old type one diabetic, and we're 10 months into our diabetes

Scott Benner 2:36
journey, 10 months I'm sorry your son or your daughter son, he's two. Yes, he's two. How old was he when he was diagnosed? So he was 16

Sydney 2:47
months we were diagnosed last November,

Scott Benner 2:49
wow. My goodness, that must have been shocking. It was, yeah, yeah. How many other children do you have? Or no, I have one daughter who's four, four year old and a two year old. Two year olds had type one since they were 16 months old. Yep. And you're here to tell me that you figured the whole thing out, and it's super simple, and you just want to tell everybody what the secret

Sydney 3:09
was, right, good. Oh yeah, that's me. Now, what made

Scott Benner 3:12
you want to come on the podcast while I've been listening to

Sydney 3:15
you since we were diagnosed, actually? Well, my diabetes educator in the hospital gave me your podcast. Just listen to Scott, and he's got some really, like, great things to say. And I've definitely been a faithful listener to you, and I definitely saw a difference once I started, like, implementing some of the things, the bold beginnings series and your intro to diabetes series. So yeah, I actually went. We were a couple months in, and I had started listening to you, like, religiously, and I got on my diabetes educator, and she was like, something's changed, like, his numbers are crazy compared to what they've been like. I was like, Yeah, well, I started listening to Juicebox podcast, and she was like, Oh, yes, I can tell.

Scott Benner 3:58
So, Oh, that's awesome. Very cool. Yeah. What's her name?

Sydney 4:01
Her name is Kristen. Yeah, she's from we live up in New York.

Scott Benner 4:07
Say hi, Kristen. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm very happy. Thank you, yeah. Oh, wow. Tell me a little bit about how you figured out the diabetes was upon you, yeah?

Sydney 4:20
So no history anywhere in the family of type one. My grandfather is the type two. But I actually worked in the emergency room as a tech, not a nurse or anything, just as a, you know, patient assistant care tech for five years before I had kids. So I have a little bit of medical experience. And my son had, just like he had had a cold, and then after the cold, he started drinking a lot, and I thought his throat was just kind of sore, you know, the typical like the signs that you ignore and try to justify. And he was drinking a lot of water. It had gone on for about a week, and he for a few days, had started peeing through his diapers at night, and then one day during. His nap, he peed through his diaper. And I'm like, this is super weird. Like, I know he's drinking a lot of water, but super weird. So one night, I had gotten up with him and he he also was sleeping a lot too. Like, would sleep till like, nine in the morning, which is not normal for him. One night, it was a Thursday night, he woke up in the middle of the night. Had soaked through his diaper, and so I changed him, and he was just water, water, like, crying for water. So I gave him a cup of water, and he drank the whole thing. And I was like, red flag. Like, that's not normal. Like, for sure, something's up. So I like, in the back of my mind, his breath stunk too. Smelled like ketones to me and or smelled fruity to me, which I knew was a sign of type one from being in the ER, so it like flashed in my mind. But I was like, no, like, that can't be it. And there's no sign. There's no history of it on in my family. So I like, went back to bed after I had gotten him settled, and I like, Googled, what else could this be? Like, give me something else here,

Scott Benner 5:54
Google. I'm pretty sure my kid has type one diabetes, but I would love for you to tell me that it's a hang nail that I can't see, please, quickly. Yeah,

Sydney 6:02
so of course, you know the Google searches. Oh, signs of type one diabetes and toddlers excessive there's excessive urination. And so I woke my husband up. It was like, two in the morning, and I'm known to kind of be one of these, like, alarmists sometimes. And I was like, he has diabetes. And my husband was like, No, he doesn't. You need to just go back to sleep in the morning. Why don't we just call his primary and so, like, I just had to pray that night. I was like, Lord, just, please help me just go to sleep right now. There's nothing I can do about this right now. Let me just deal with this in the morning and just get a peaceful night's sleep. And hindsight, maybe I should have woken everybody up, but we Cindy,

Scott Benner 6:38
I'm picturing your husband rolling over thinking I remember her when her crazy was fun, but

Sydney 6:45
exactly yeah. So we I got up the next morning. I called our primary and told them that he was, like, just excessively thirsty. And I decided that they, they were like, Oh, let me see if we can get him in today. We'll call you back. I decided that I was going to pack him up and bring him up and bring him down to my grandfather, because I knew he had a glucometer, and he's only 10 minutes down the road from me, and I was just going to check his blood sugar, just to rule it out, because I knew that wasn't what was going on. So I brought him down to my grandfather's house, who has type two and just said, Hey, can we use your glucometer? I just want to make sure that Cody's blood sugar is normal. So he does the finger stick. And I was like, on the other side of him. So I was like, reading the glucometer upside down, and it read and it said 94 and I was like, Oh, thank you, Lord. And I was like, Oh, 94 and grandpa, like, turns it around and shows me it was 594 I had missed the five. Oh my and my heart just sank. And I was like, Okay, this is happening, like this is happening. So I called my husband. I'm like, we need to go to the emergency room right now. And I called my mother in law to get my four year old, and we packed him up. We skipped our local hospital and went straight to our Children's Hospital, which is like an hour and a half away, because I knew that he needed a line. And I was like, I don't want to mess with our emergency room trying to get an IV in him, like, he needs to just go right to the Children's Hospital. So we got there and got into triage, and he was 428 in triage, and I remember on the car ride down, I couldn't keep him awake. It was like, nap time, but I, like, couldn't keep him awake. And I was like, Oh my goodness. Like, have I What have I done if I waited too long? Like, so we get to the ER, I get to the registration desk and like, my son's blood sugar is high. We need a re like, it's, this is a new onset. So everybody comes running into triage, and yep, he's critically high. It's just a whirlwind as we're like, just getting in we need an IV. We need to figure out if he's in DKA. Yeah. So they got an IV. Figured he was in DKA, just like, kind of looking back, his a 1c diagnosis was 8.9 and everybody like, it was, of course, you know just how emotional it is, just hearing all this. But everybody, like, told me, like, this is early, like, you caught this early. Usually when a 16 month old comes in with type one, their a 1c are much higher and they're unresponsive like and he reversed that a dk, within six hours. So thankful for that.

Scott Benner 9:07
I wonder if you heard John's story on the podcast last week. No, no, I didn't. His daughter passed away, obviously, very tragically, before they could even diagnose her. And I think that's probably contextually what the people in the hospital are trying to say when you say, Oh no, you did good. You found it early because, you know, we they told us the same thing, yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, you know, a day later, they said, Oh, Arden, probably would have slipped into a coma in another 24 hours. Yeah. They were still giving us the like, wait. Great job getting here, yeah, yeah. You struggle for context in that moment, like, Wait, so you're telling me she's 24 hours away from something terrible, and yet we did a good job. It didn't make sense. But it makes sense after you hear about all the people who you know come in in a coma, or aren't even lucky enough to come in in a coma, yeah, for sure. Well. So good job. I mean, I was impressed as you're telling the story like you picked up on a lot of stuff really quickly. Yeah, I think I'm not 100% sure you're talking so quickly. Sydney, sorry, go back to it. I apologize.

Sydney 10:15
No, that's yeah. And so we were in the ER overnight. We were originally they put in for a pick you bed for us, but then we got downgraded to just a normal peds floor, which I was thankful for. So we got to go up, and we were in on a weekend, so they didn't have any diabetes education in the hospital over the weekend. So on Monday morning, we got our diabetes education, and I got to do his injections and his checking his blood sugar over the weekend, just get familiar with all that. And of course, it was, like, really, really scary, but I felt comfortable with it because I had, I was a phlebotomist in the ER, like, I'm comfortable with needles and that kind of stuff, but it's definitely different. Doing it to your your own son, for sure.

Scott Benner 10:56
Well, do you think, I mean, is your professional life what allowed you to I mean, you said the type, I don't know if you know this, right, you've already said the title of the episode. Oh, what's my title? This is happening. This is happening. I thought that was really kind of, like, interesting, how you were hit in the face with this. And you were like, Okay, well, this is happening. And then let's keep going and do the next thing that needs to be done. Is that from your professional life? Or do you think that's just how you are? Oh,

Sydney 11:22
I think, like, I think my, that's part of my personality, which bled into, like, my professional life in the emergency room, and I think, like, just being in the, er, kind of like, kicked that fully into gear. So yeah, I think, like, my ability to just kind of put my emotions aside, which isn't, it's not like I wasn't emotional during this process, for sure, but yeah, I think it was just like, Okay, we have to get this done. Like, we have to get to the ER, we're gonna skip our closest hospital because I know he needs an IV, and they're not gonna be able to get one there, and so we'll have to go to Albany med. Like, yeah,

Scott Benner 11:56
yeah. I I remember this, if I've ever told this story before, but I had been a volunteer fireman when I was a kid, like from time I was like 16 till I was like 20, and we went to this a car accident one time, and I was told that, you know, there's an older woman, an elderly woman, in the front seat passenger side, and we had to extract her. And I walked to the car to look in, to try to assess what we were going to do. And I looked in, and she put there was no one there. So I walked back, and I was like, there's no one in the car. And the person said, you know, the guy running the scene said, No, she wasn't wearing a seat belt. She came forward, she's folded up under the dashboard, right? And I was like, Okay. And he said, we're gonna pull the door. I think we pulled the door, cut the, I forget what they're called the supports that go up the side of the windshield. We're gonna, we're gonna peel it back, pop up the dashboard, try to get her out that way. And it was something about the way he said it to me always stuck with me. Like, I mean, it was horrifying, you know? And he was just like, No, it's okay. Like, we're gonna do this, and then this, and then this. I was like, okay, like, some people just have that, like, have that. It's cool to hear you talk about that way. So this is happening. How have you applied that moving forward?

Sydney 13:09
Yeah, I'd like to say that, like, the first month was easy because of that personality, but obviously it wasn't. It was a huge life change. It was very emotional. But just like, I think one thing that I almost struggled with in the beginning was I didn't really feel like a mom, like I didn't feel like nurturing and loving and comforter, because right now I have to save his life every single day, like I have to be his pancreas. Like, that's number one, like I need to give him the injections, I need to count his carbs, I need to check his blood sugar. I need to wake him up in the middle of the night. Like, those are the things that have to happen so that he can live. And so unfortunately, like, when I'm giving him an injection, I'm holding him down because he's 16 months old, and I can't comfort him right now because he needs this. And like, I remember doing it the first time in the hospital, and I like, I know that sometimes it's like, hard for moms to like, when they're fading, you know, when they're doing their first injection, on their on their toddler, like, you can't do this. And like, I could do it. I like, had no problem doing it, but I did it, and then I sat back, and I was like, Man, did I just shut off mom like I wasn't mom right there. I was just, oh, this is just a patient. And so I struggled with that balance for a while. And I'd like to say I have it mastered, but sometimes I'm like, where I need to just, like, just tap into that mother, like I am his mom still, like, I'm not just his nurse, I'm not just his pancreas. Like, yes, these things need to be done, but I can do them in a loving way for sure.

Scott Benner 14:44
You know, I don't think a lot of people talk about that, but I have felt touched by that over the years, like, pretty deeply the what is it? It's a simple feeling that you're involved in the thing that needs to be done at the expense of the thing that you. Want to be doing, right? And then, yeah, and you put it a different way, like you're shutting off being a mom so that you can do this functional thing that's necessary. I'm with you on that. I think that's incredibly difficult actually. And I think it unchecked can kind of run wild, meaning, like your interactions can start turning into, I don't know, like they're more transactional all of a sudden, and, you know, like, yeah, it's time to do the thing. Let's do the thing. I don't want to do the thing. What you're doing the thing, like, that whole thing, that whole process there, it's a little dehumanizing for you, right? And for your relationship a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm glad you're aware of it, though.

Sydney 15:44
Yeah, yeah. Something to just work on every day for sure. Something else to worry about.

Scott Benner 15:50
The functional stuff you're good at. You're good at the sticks and the pokes and etc. Were you good at the measuring and the counting and the other stuff? When you think of a CGM and all the good that it brings in your life, is the first thing you think about. I love that I have to change it all the time. I love the warm up period every time I have to change it. I love that when I bump into a door frame, sometimes it gets ripped off. I love that the adhesive kind of gets mushy sometimes when I sweat and falls off. No, these are not the things that you love about a CGM. Today's episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 the only CGM that you only have to put on once a year, and the only CGM that won't give you any of those problems. The ever since 365 is the only one year CGM designed to minimize the vice frustration it has exceptional accuracy for one year with almost no false alarms from compression lows while you're sleeping, you can manage your diabetes instead of your CGM with the ever since 365 learn more and get started today at ever since cgm.com/juicebox one year, one CGM. Let's talk about the tandem mobi insulin pump from today's sponsor tandem diabetes care. Their newest algorithm control iq plus technology and the new tandem mobi pump offer you unique opportunities to have better control. It's the only system with auto Bolus that helps with missed meals and preventing hyperglycemia, the only system with a dedicated sleep setting and the only system with off or on body wear options, tandem mobi gives you more discretion, freedom and options for how to manage your diabetes. This is their best algorithm ever, and they'd like you to check it out at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox diabetes.com/juicebox when you get to my link, you're going to see integrations with Dexcom sensors and a ton of other information that's going to help you learn about tandems, tiny pump that's big on control tandem diabetes.com/juicebox the tandem mobi system is available for people ages two and up, who want an automated delivery system to help them sleep better, wake up in range and address high blood sugars with auto Bolus. No,

Sydney 18:10
I don't give up carbs. I'm horrible. I so No, our first we, like our numbers came up very quickly, like our endo was like, We want you to see 60% in range, which I know is on the low end, but like, that's what we want to see. And we got there quickly. We we didn't get a CGM right away. We actually went home from the hospital with a glucometer, and didn't get our Dexcom until a week later. It's looking back. I'm like, How the heck did I do that without a Dexcom for a whole week? And then we got a pump. We didn't get a pump till it was one month. So we did MDI for a month. So our MDI month was scary, like we our time and range was we were just surviving. But once we got a pump, we were able to just dial him in, because, you know, he needs such small doses, like point 05, like, yeah, once we got on the pump, our numbers came up, came up fairly quickly, the carb counting. Like, obviously, I did it for a long time, and I still, I still will look at a package, but just kind of also learning from you just the glycemic index of things, and just the way that some things affect him differently than others in the time of day and all this thing. Like, I definitely start with a base number, like, for his plate that I give him, like, Oh, these. This is how many carbs are on his plate, but this is what's going on in our life. So this is how much insulin I'm going to give

Scott Benner 19:27
him. Good for you. Well, that's awesome, yeah, point oh, five is, is that? Are you telling me you got an Omnipod? Yeah, yeah. And did you go with automation? Are you using Omnipod five or dash? We

Sydney 19:38
couldn't do auto for a little bit because he needed under five units for total daily insulin, so he didn't qualify for auto mode. But eventually that our team, like, worked it so that we could use auto mode. So that's what we've been rolling with now, which I like, we've hit the last couple months have been difficult for us. I don't know if we're dealing with a growth spurt. We're coming up on an endo appointment, so I'm hoping in that we're going to be able to, like, really move some numbers around, because I think that's what we're needing right now. But for a while, for a while, he was doing pretty well in the 70 to 80% range on Omnipod in auto mode.

Scott Benner 20:12
Okay, that's awesome. I listen. I remember the drawing up the insulin and drops, and it was and then eventually somebody coming along and saying, you know, the some of these syringes come in half units. And I was like, no one, why would no one tell me that? Yeah, thank you. And that's still, it still was most of the time too much, but a lot of Arden's meal Bolus were a half a unit for a long time. And some, some of our corrections were, like, a couple of drops, Yep, yeah, it was a lot. I was trying to find, you know, some sort of an adjective to put to it, but it just, it was just a lot. It was constant and exhausting. And I love that you were able to get a pump fast enough that you didn't have to deal with that. That's really great. Yeah, yep. I think it probably ruined two years of my life thing, and I don't think it was great for her either. Being honest, have you dug any deeper in the families or other autoimmune stuff going on?

Sydney 21:11
Not, nope, not in our immediate family. We do like extended family has like, I'm talking my mother in law's second cousin has type one diabetes, but there's, yeah, no, nobody in our immediate family has autoimmune so we haven't done any testing. They recommended we test our four year old and my husband and I, but we haven't done that, and I don't think that that's something that we will do. But yeah, haven't really done any digging in that area.

Scott Benner 21:38
Will you take me through your thinking on not testing the four year old. Yeah,

Sydney 21:42
I go back and forth. I'm not set in stone, and my husband isn't either. But we I was very anxious for like, six months. I still am about my four year old, like that, this would happen. And I also, like, keep hearing even now, like, keep hearing about, oh, it was a year and then the second sibling was diagnosed, and I probably check your blood sugar at least once a month, if not more, just when she's Oh no. She asked for a second cup of water. She must be starting like but I know that like, if I were to test her and she came back positive for antibodies, that I would just every single moment I'd be waiting. I know it might not be the wisest thing, but like,

Scott Benner 22:23
why? Let me stop you saying I don't I'm not judging it. I'm just trying to understand how you're thinking about I don't know if it's not a wise thing or not sure very well, maybe for you.

Sydney 22:32
Yeah, I just think, like, we have a glucometer in the house, and if she were to ever show and she's older, which is nicer. So like, I think, like, maybe older kids sometimes are easier to recognize, because they're able to tell you when they're not feeling good and stuff. And so I don't know, I think that if I were to test her and she were to come back positive, that I would just be very anxious all the time and just always looking and I just don't want her to, like, live like I have a son who's a diabetic, and I don't want to have to have a daughter who's positive for antibodies and might be a diabetic someday, you know, I just wanted to be my four year old, you know.

Scott Benner 23:08
And it's not the same that you're testing her monthly. It's not the same

Sydney 23:12
thing, yeah, yeah, I yeah, I don't know. I think, like, yeah, I don't

Scott Benner 23:17
really know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to point out an inconsistency in what you said, I just wanted to, I just wanted to make sure, yeah, if you were going to be like, Hey, listen, out of sight, out of mind, I'm throwing it up to God. I'll wait and see what happens. I'm never going to think about it again. I would understand your but you're like, hey, I don't want to know for sure, but I am going to constantly look,

Sydney 23:39
yeah, that's a good points, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, uh huh. I just like, don't I? It's like, a fun thing. When we check her finger, sure, you know, gets to do it. I do it. Like, she'll check me. And it's just kind of like, oh, yeah, what's my blood sugar? What's dad's blood sugar? What's your blood sugar? And like, we'll make it a fun thing. And like,

Scott Benner 24:02
Yeah, I like that. I think that's even and I think it's normalizing. And it probably is also like, nice for your son to see everybody checking their blood sugar once in a while. Yep. Is that changing how you feel or what you're worried

Sydney 24:14
about? No, I mean, yeah, it, it's usually when I'm when I'm a little bit anxious. And, like, sometimes it's like, need to just verify, yeah, like she was really thirsty today, I took her to the to the bathroom a couple extra times today, so let's just check your blood sugar. Just make sure your blood sugar's okay and and who knows, I'm maybe down the road, we will do the testing. But I just think, like, if I were to know for sure, then that glucometer would be coming out once a week, every single time. Like, I would just need to know we would be taking her to appointments. Like, okay, is she positive for any more? I don't really know exactly how all that works. Like, what do we need to do? Like, are we going to need to just set up with an endo and just wait for this shoe to drop, instead of it just being like, Oh, let me just rule this out really quickly with my glucometer at home, you know?

Scott Benner 24:59
And. Okay, but you know that one blood sugar test once a month isn't telling you for sure that she doesn't have like, an onset, right? Because you could just be catching her. Yeah, yeah. I know. Listen, I'm not breaking your balls. I just, I just, it's an interesting conversation, also, for people who are thinking of starting their own podcast. Here's a tip, when you hear somebody answer no, but yeah, ask another question because, because they're not sure, and it's fun to talk through. You've done that, I'm gonna say six times in the last five minutes, perfect. That's perfect question. You've been like, Absolutely not. But, you know, maybe, but that's just an indication that you're not settled on it yet, in my in my mind, is it possible that you're not all the way to your answer on this question yet? Yes, yes. Maybe you're not in the head space right now to deal with this?

Sydney 25:50
Yeah, I think that's, for sure, a reasonable draw from that. Like, I'm still, we're not even a year in with my son, and so for now, like, since my four year old doesn't have diabetes, like I am just going to, yeah, I'm just gonna check her finger when I need to, when I think she needs it, and make sure she's not in DKA. And maybe in four years or five years, we'll do some testing and rule out that she won't ever get this, or if she does like, and I haven't even like, I've heard sibling stories, and I haven't like, I don't even know enough yet to be like, okay, so what would happen if she was just positive for one like, what do we do next?

Scott Benner 26:31
Yeah, let me share this with you. Yeah. A lot of people multiple children, and one of them has diabetes, and the other ones never get it. Yep, that happens too. Yep. I feel like you're looking at it from the perspective of it's going to happen to happen. Yeah, I would encourage you to look at it from the perspective of it's still much less likely to happen than it is likely to happen. And I'm surrounded by people with type one diabetes online, and this podcast I'm listening to, and I keep hearing stories of multiples, but maybe those are just the people who think to reach out to be on the podcast, right? Yep, I don't know that there's some, like, cute saying about causation and something I don't really know the saying I would suggest to you to like, I would chill out about it, but your husband hasn't had the nerve to say to you since he was wrong about the diabetes. Thing, that probably shut him up for a while, huh?

Sydney 27:26
Oh yeah. It's funny though, because every time I check my daughter's fingers, he's like, stop. Like, she doesn't have it. Like, yeah, it did stop him for a little bit, but he's right back to keeping me in check, which is what I need. So,

Scott Benner 27:38
oh, but no, but I don't you love though? I mean, it's just such the wrong situation, because you can't really gloat. But like, he was like, just go back to sleep. Go back to sleep. You don't know what you're talking about. And meanwhile, you were 100% right, right?

Sydney 27:51
Yeah, the first time, and probably the only time.

Scott Benner 27:54
But no stop. But it's hard to, it's hard to use this one, yeah, for sure, yank it out six months later and go, Oh, you don't think I'm right about the lawn mower, but do you remember what I was right about the diabetes? You said, No, oh my gosh. How involved have you let him be with the diabetes?

Sydney 28:13
So he is very involved. He is. I could not be more proud of him. Like my husband was a very squeamish person when we got married and does not do anything medical. Like, I remember going to one of his, like, first physicals when we had gotten married and he needed a vaccine and almost passed out on the table. Like, very squeamish could not, like one of while we were having our babies, like, had to be holding on to something. So he didn't pass out type of thing, but he jumped right in and like, it has such been a team effort between the two of us. He works full time. I'm home with our kids, so I'm naturally just the one that kind of does the day to day management, but I can walk out the door any time of day, and he I know he has it, and a lot of times, sometimes he does it better than I do. I'm like, What in the world? How did you keep him in rain for this meal? Like, I can never keep him in range

Scott Benner 29:06
for that. What's he say? What does he say? Yeah, how does he doing it differently?

Sydney 29:11
Oh, he just, oh, just gave him more. Like, sometimes it's just, and who knows what the situation is. But yeah, he pulls his emotion out of it, which just I had talked about. Sometimes I do too, but he can do that better than I can, because he's a man and so, yeah, he is great. He does pod changes and finger sticks and the whole nine and, like, also anytime we leave the house, because I'm a tend to be a forgetful person, like, always just double checks that we have, oh, do we have diabetes? Tougher code. Do we have juice? Do we have this?

Scott Benner 29:39
I think you shouldn't underestimate the power of a boy's willingness to just push harder, you know, like, I don't know, hit it. Let's see what happens then. So he's just using more insulin and having more success while you're, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, you ever tried that? You ever tried? Like, oh, let me just, I'll sprinkle a little more on here and see what happens.

Sydney 29:58
I usually it's Japan. On the day, for sure, I usually tend to be the one who uses more insulin. I use. I usually am, like, more aggressive with corrections than he is, but I don't know he's he's can be aggressive too. I think, like, I just know recognize patterns a little bit better than my husband does, because I'm with him more. Yesterday, he gave him box mac and cheese, which I hesitate to keep in the house, because I have no idea how to keep my son in range for box mac and cheese. It's just one we haven't figured out yet. And he gave it to him. And I got home and he was in the three hundreds, and I'm like, Okay, let's like, Bolus him. Let's give him some more insulin for this. So, but like, he really, he is, he is great, and he does handle, like his typical foods. He nails them every time. So can I

Scott Benner 30:42
ask how old you are? I'm 28 can I give some voice to my jealousy for a second? Oh, boy, sure. I wish I was born later, because they hear you, and not just you, but other women talk about their younger women talk about their husbands and how, like, I'm so proud of him and and like he really does, like you're giving him credit for things that my wife just expects from me, because she's from a different generation, like you are saying, I think this is awesome, by the way, and I'm I'm advocating for it, and I would like somebody, one of you who knows my wife, to somehow trick her into doing what you just heard Sydney doing. And by that, I mean being kind to her husband the way you just said it. I thought, Oh, I was born in the wrong generation, like my wife's just like, just do the thing. Jack. You know what you're supposed to do. Don't come over here looking for a fucking pat on the back for taking care of the kid. I let you have sex with me because I assumed you were going to take care of that fucking kid. Don't make me give you credit for doing it now, Ted, go do something else. I that's how I live, but nicely, by the way, she's lovely and but she actually is lovely. That's not what I'm saying, yes, but it's generational, like there's an expectation, there's no reward for it, sure, yeah, but you guys are so in touch with being kind to each other in a different in this, in a newer generation, I just found myself thinking, like that would be nice. Like I'd like, Do you think maybe behind my back, my wife says stuff like that about me?

Sydney 32:12
Are you sure? Yeah, it's something that, like I had to train myself to do. Just I remember when I first got married, just like, I would just be with my, you know, girlfriends, and, oh yeah, my husband did this. Oh, mine does this. And, like, just remember, like, this isn't actually building my husband up at all, and we're a team, like, and I would hope that he would, like, speak highly of me to his friends. And so, yeah, anytime I can, like, well, one, it's not hard, because he's a wonderful man, and he is, like, my absolute best friend, and so yeah, anytime I can, I'm gonna pat him on the back, because he, for sure, works hard

Scott Benner 32:47
for us. And my son tried to tease my wife the other day, and she goes, what, Mom, you've never made a mistake. And she pauses, my wife, who has no sense, my wife is funny. It's my mistake. Okay. She pauses, looks at me and goes, but talking to him, she's looking at me, but talking to him, and says, No, I've made mistakes. I'm like, hey, thanks. It didn't come naturally. You actually, you saw a group of people and you were like, I don't think we should all be talking to each other like

Sydney 33:21
this, yeah, that's it's Yeah. And then I still struggle with it. But I just

Scott Benner 33:25
noticed that, like, say it Sydney,

Sydney 33:29
he really isn't like, and I just noticed that when I was like, talking poorly about my husband, like, I would start to, like, just see that, like, see the things that annoy me, like the pet peeves about him. Like, I just see them all the time, because that's what I'm talking about all the time.

Scott Benner 33:43
So yeah, oh, I'm talking to all of you, not just Kelly, but Kelly. Listen, I've said it to her to her face. I've said it to her in front of her mom. I'm willing to say it here too. I feel like I'm in middle school. Did you get checks and minuses? In middle school, they give you, like, little you do something good. They're like, Oh, you get a plus, and then you, like, you scream, and they're like, minus and like, at the end of the year, you can trade the I feel like my wife sheet only has minuses on it. The other day, we were sorry, sorry. I think I'm apologizing to Kelly. The other day we were cleaning up because we just had some like, painting done in the house, right? And so we were putting things away, and it was the weekend, and it sucks, like, you gotta, like, put everything back and everything. And I did a million things that day. I want to tell you that I was the kind of person that you Sydney would have gone on a podcast and been like, I'm married to a really great guy. And this Scott, and let me tell you what he did. This is what you would have said, My wife said to me, why did you do that now? And I went, what she goes, that doesn't need to be done now. This needs to be done now. Now that's not going to get done today. And I was like, did you not see and I'm pausing, and I'm thinking about like all the I did that day. And I was like, You're telling me I'm doing it. The wrong order. Like, if you got her in here right now, she would tell you, like, look, it's funny. She'd say, I didn't want to eat late, and because you did this here, dinner is going to be later. But you would say, I can't believe my husband's making dinner. He's awesome, and I didn't make, I didn't make a box, no shade on your husband, but I didn't make a box mac and cheese. I made a meatloaf from scratch. I made I made mashed potatoes from scratch. I made carrots and broccoli, broiler in the broiler, like that's what I made for dinner. And what she knows is I hung the TV back up at the wrong time in my day and messed up the time at dinner. And what I'm telling you is it's not her, I think it's generational, yeah, yeah. Because my wife is really a lovely person. This is a long way of saying, I wish I was born later, because I think I would. I think I'd be one of those husbands that you people would be like, Oh, my guy's great. Like, I think there'd be tick tocks about me. But instead, there's not that's all, and that ends the portion of Scott talks about himself in the podcast.

Sydney 36:08
So it's your podcast. Hey, look,

Scott Benner 36:12
you're even doing it for me. Oh, Sydney, thank you. That was lovely. Is that what this feels like? Yeah. Oh, gosh. Could we do what I want to do this weekend, Sydney, leave that man. Come with me. I'll take care of that kid with diabetes. For you, all you have to do is be nice to me. Okay, oh my gosh. What is the pathway here? Like, you know, your initial diagnosis is done. You're into this part now. You're still learning, you know, but you're doing better. Things are getting better. How do you think about this? Is it a day to day thing I'm just trying to stay alive? Or do you have goals that you're

Sydney 36:48
shooting for three months ago? So we're coming up on a quarterly endo appointment here in a couple weeks. So our endo appointment, so this is only our third end of appointment, because we haven't even been doing this for a year. So our second endo appointment, we hit 6.8% with his a 1c and our team was, like, super excited. Obviously, I know it could be better than that. I was super excited with that. You know, only being six months in, and we were, like, averaging around 70% in range. And I was like, we've got this. We're just gonna get better and better and better. We're going to hit 80% we're going to hit 90% we're going to get us a 1c into the fives. Like, that's what we're going to do. We're just going to get better at this. And the last three months he had a birthday, we it's been summer. We have gone backwards. And I just don't know why. Like, I don't know. I'm thinking we need to just move some numbers around, which I do every so often, but I'm just not sure, like, what it is. We haven't regressed all the way. I'm sure his a, 1c, our next appointment is going to be up

Scott Benner 37:48
a little bit. Has he gained weight? Has he put weight on?

Sydney 37:51
Yeah, yep, he's big. Yeah, he's gained weight, yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 37:54
Are you making changes in the settings that aren't affecting the automation?

Sydney 37:59
Well, I've just adjusted his carb ratios. And the thing that I like would like to talk to his endo about is his basal. Like, I'm wondering if his basal just needs to be increased. His basal is pretty much maxed out in the settings. I almost think that does endo need to unlock it for me, because I can't make it any more than it is right now. It's that, like his Max basal rate is 0.2 an hour, and sometimes he uses that, but sometimes he doesn't. So I don't know if that's what I should move so I'm like, waiting for this next endo appointment to just chat with her, because she's, she is really great, and just kind of see, like, do you think that this is just a timing issue? We've also been dealing with a bunch of behavior things that came with him being two years old, where he just refuses to eat and like, I'll Pre-Bolus him for a meal, and he just straight up won't eat it. I feel like that kid, all he eats are pouches, because I'm having to correct him after Bolus thing because he won't eat the dinner that I bolused him for. So we actually have been dealing with some low iron too, yeah, so he's on an iron supplement, yeah? So we're just, we kind of regress a little bit in the last couple months. So right now, I'm just trying to get back to where we were okay, and then from there get better, like just every day, just trying to get better. So I

Scott Benner 39:10
have a couple of ideas based on what you just said, please.

Sydney 39:13
I love that's excited to talk to you today, Scott, if you'd like

Scott Benner 39:16
to hear them. Yes. First thing, simple thing, you set the Omnipod five up. And when you change a number of the settings in Omnipod five, if you go in and change them, they're changing your manual settings. They're not changing the automation. Yep. Okay, right. So you might need to take your total daily insulin, because I assume you're adding more insulin, okay, if you've been making extra Bolus is, but still seeing higher blood sugars that result in a higher a, 1c then I think that's a pretty basic indication that you're not using enough insulin in general, right? So you might need to just find out what that total daily is and go back and reset the system and start over again.

Sydney 39:56
So if his total daily insulin average like i. Look at what it's been giving him. So let's say it's seven units that he uses, like average on a day. So go back into the auto mode and set whatever his TDI to seven. Is that? What you're saying?

Scott Benner 40:10
What I'm saying is that when he went on the system, at first, he weighed a certain amount and he had a certain daily insulin that he needed, okay? And now that's changed, okay? He weighs more and he needs more insulin, and you're, I mean, I guess the way people are thinking about it is the Omnipod five is just going to keep up and keep changing and changing and changing. But it's possible that his variables changed faster than the algorithm is going to Gotcha. So maybe you just like, I'm talking about, like a clean reset. Okay, just reset the system start over again. Yep, with your new needs, okay, you might be right back where you where you need. That's crazy. Yeah, that's a great idea. I would talk to the doctor about that. Okay? Because I think there's a, I mean, there's a misnomer. I hear people all the time like, well, it learns. And I'm like, That's not. First of all, they don't say that. That's a very futuristic way of thinking about it that is not accurate for the moment. For the moment, it is not like looking and going like, oh, you know, it's saying. It's saying, Gosh, how do they talk about this? You know, in the last 24 hours, you needed a little more insulin, like, so we're going to do a little more here. But it's not saying, Hey, you used to, you know, you used to have five total units a day, and now we're using 15 a day, and I'm just gonna, like, massively change all your settings over it. Yeah, it's not doing that. You can do that. And the doctor, I also heard you say that right now, his Max basal is set at something, and I have to wait for the doctor to unlock it. Yeah, I'm gonna give you two thoughts on that. Okay, first one is, you like your doctor. Your doctor saying you to me, they must be reasonably forward thinking. I like you talking to your doctor about that, but I can do in the future, moving forward, when you get more and more comfortable, I don't want you waiting for stuff like one of the hallmarks of people's success is their ability to change their settings. Okay, I'm going to tell you that that is one of the things that people who are successful long term with diabetes have. It's the autonomy to change their their settings. Okay, that's going to be incredibly important

Sydney 42:17
moving forward. Yeah, I'm, yeah, thankful for all those things you said. One, yeah, I didn't realize that, like, resetting the whole system might give us that kickback.

Scott Benner 42:25
Oh, Sydney, that's my thought. Because while I don't have a list of them off the top of my head, I think people can believe that, oh, I'll go into the Omnipod and I'll tell it like my basal used to be this, but I I need it to be this now, and that that changes it. That does not change the basal rate. The algorithm doesn't go, Oh, she just said was point two, but now point five, I'll start magically giving point three more an hour. That's not what the algorithm is going to do, but what it is doing is changing the settings. So if you ever flip back into manual mode, that's what it that's where they'll be. So what I like is just start over again, and especially with a little growing kid like that. I'm gonna say to anybody who's using Omnipod five who's experienced a big change in body mass or how sedentary or active they are, things that impact your insulin needs, I don't think there's anything wrong with doing a reset on that system once one, yeah, I don't think they'd love that. I said that honestly, but like, I think that's just the case. And I've interviewed enough people who've done it and had, like, really good success with it. Like, sometimes you just need to leap forward, not slowly,

Sydney 43:33
matriculate, yeah, yeah, every Yeah. That makes sense.

Scott Benner 43:36
That's what you got to do. Okay, I'm not a doctor. This is not advice, I don't know, etc, and so on. I find that this is always an interesting question. I don't know there's a good answer to it, but at the age your child is now, what do you think his understanding is of his situation, and what is it you're trying to teach him about his life? He

Sydney 43:59
obviously is only two. He's a very young too, too, like, I don't know he's much different than my daughter. He talks quite a bit, but I think, like she, at this age, would probably have a more of a grip of what's going on. Obviously, he does not enjoy pod changes or Dexcom changes, but he like, a couple like, times that he's just absolutely broken my heart is like, when I asked him, like, okay, bio, do you want your pot on your leg or your belly today? And and he looked at me and he said, have Mama's arm. I'm like, I wish I could wear this for you, but I would do it in a heartbeat if I could put this on mom's arm, but it's got to go on you. And so I don't know. Like, he knows. Like, we've done the whole like, what do you have pipeline diabetes like? So he knows he has diabetes, and he knows that sis doesn't, you know, sometimes he gets juice and sis doesn't, and sis isn't really a big fan of those times. But yeah, we just honestly, our faith is a really big part of our life. So when I put him to bed every single night. I I just pray with him that the Lord would just cure him from this, because I know that I serve a big God, and I know that he's capable of doing that, and whether that comes through medical breakthrough or just through a miracle, like I just am going to continue to pray in faith every single day that he would somehow be cured from this, whether in that he wouldn't need to wear an Omnipod, and he wouldn't need to wear a Dexcom. But I don't want him growing up thinking, like, okay, like, that's the goal, because we also will just trust God every single day that like this is who God created him to be as a person with diabetes and through his strength, like he can get through this every single day. Actually, I wanted to just share this too. Ever since the kids have been like brushing their teeth at night, like that's been a part of their bedtime routine. I just have a little verse that they say in the mirror. And so my daughter will just say every every night at bed, she'll say, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. And my son says, My help comes from the Lord. And we've been doing this since before he was diagnosed. And I just remember when we were diagnosed, getting in the car and just I had a chance to just go take a shower while we were still in hospital, and it was my first time just being alone and crying and praying, and I turned on the radio, and there's actually a song that is that verse, just, I know where my help comes from. My help comes from the Lord. And so that's just something that's been a mantra in our journey, and it's something I just continue to repeat to him, like we know where our help comes from. Our help comes from the Lord, and that's just how we're going to get through every single day a chronic diagnosis is a chance to just rely on the Lord every day when we're counting carbs, doing pod changes, and so that's just what I want to instill in him as he grows, that his strength would come from the Lord, and that we would just have faith that, if it was God's will, he could cure him from

Scott Benner 46:50
this for sure. So you give him an accurate and a realistic idea of his situation, and then give him hope and support to kind of like, buoy, the the emotional side of it is that, is that the feeling? Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's wonderful. Yeah, that's really lovely. Yeah. Amy, I've seen people do that, like, thing online, where they're, they're teaching their kids really young, okay, I have diabetes and all that stuff, and that's really cool. Like, just to give them, like, you know that feeling, but again, know that the reality of it is, like, you know, when you're like, hey, where should we put this pump? He's like, how about on your lady like, like, let me leave me out of this. Yeah. Like, he's, yeah, but he doesn't fight too much. It's just sort of like that to you. Is his indication? Like, I would prefer this not be

Sydney 47:38
honest, yeah, yep, yeah. He does not like pod changes. Like, he'll he doesn't fight it too badly. We actually have a tractor. It's his pod change tractor that he only gets during pod changes. He's a tractor boy. So he gets to hold his pod change tractor. So that makes pod changes much easier. But yeah, he doesn't like it. He actually loves to have his finger poked. He loves to have his blood sugar checked. Yeah. He's always like, Sure, bud, we can check your shirt.

Scott Benner 48:03
Why not? Yeah, isn't that interesting? So what do you think it is about the device changes? Like, does he have the same problem with his CGM? Is it about ripping off the adhesive? Is it what do

Sydney 48:16
you think the actual insertion like, when the pods counting down? I think, honestly, the anticipation is probably the worst part. Like, the inject. I obviously, I've never had it injected, so I don't know. I'm sure it does hurt, but like, I think the worst part, he's just so guarded, like, during that five seconds where it's like, click, click, click, that's the worst part. So I just always like, count with him and hold it for him and but yeah, I think once it goes, then he's fine. It's just like, he kind of, like, gets all like, and then it goes, and he's like, Yay,

Scott Benner 48:44
spring, right? Like, as it's coming, you're like, actually, the the irony there is, I believe that's what the clicking is. I think it's the spring inside the Omnipod. Like, loading up the loading up the shoot the needle, yeah, and you're loading up the stage. I'm like, Oh, it's coming. It's coming there. Yeah, yeah, I will say this, and I know that there's no way to change this, but it doesn't help that there's a different amount of clicks almost every

Sydney 49:07
time. No, I'm like, Is it five seconds today? Six seconds or more?

Scott Benner 49:10
Yeah, I've seen Arden Get the eight. She's like, Oh, come on, that. It clicks on. It's very fun. Yeah? I mean, it's, I mean, I'd love to say to you that he'll get used to it, or it'll just become normal to him. And I think for some people, it does, and I think some people maybe will never feel okay with it completely, like I had experience the other day telling somebody, like, I didn't give myself my GLP. And it's just, it's like, a it's a quick injector, right? And I was, like, running around the house doing something, I'm like, and it was sitting on the island, like, was sitting on the island, like, looking at me, and I'm like, You know what? I got to do this. I got to do it. And I grabbed it and just found a spot to do it, and I held up, and it hit me for a second. I was like, Oh, I hope this doesn't hurt, because sometimes it does, like, sometimes it'll hit something or whatnot, or, you know, and I'm just like, uh, and then you just take it. Breath, and you're like, I mean, it's gonna hurt, or it's not, yep, I can think through that. But a two year old is like, Hey, Mommy, why don't you put it on you, on your arm. Gosh, do you have any guilt about that at all, that it's not you?

Sydney 50:14
Yeah, oh yeah, yes. Like, I, I wish it was me. Yes, yeah. I like, why does it have to be my two year old? And, like, I also said, like, in the beginning, like, he's so tough compared to my four year old, like, who's a girl? I don't know if it's just a boy and he's a girl, but, and she's a girl, but I he's been the tough kid. Like, he always like, would he like, wouldn't cry at the things my four year old would have cried at, like, and he's like, just seems to have higher pain tolerance and just a tough kid. And so I was like, I mean, like, I'm thankful that he's tough, because, like, this is something you got to be tough for. But it's also like, I hope that's not like, I don't know, you know, just like, Oh, why he got it? Yeah, I

Scott Benner 50:56
want to share something with you. Yeah, I've been married for 30 years. Oh, my son is 25 my daughter's 21 and I just heard you say he's always been my tough kid. And I thought, Oh, he's only two years old. That's so lovely. It's so It's so lovely that you're like, you know, for the entire time we've all been alive these past 24 months,

Sydney 51:19
like this tiny blip on, yes,

Scott Benner 51:22
my son, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you who he is. I don't know what I was taken from. It was, I mean, that is who he is, right? Because that's the entirety of his experience. But I, I would suggest to you that you try not to look at them as this thing that they are, and more as this thing that they're becoming, because he's not gonna, like, a year from now, you won't remember this year. Yep, that's true. They keep growing. Like, just keep growing with them. Yeah, yeah. I see people do sometimes where they're like, oh, you know how you like that. The kids are like, I haven't liked that 10 years. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. So sometimes you can get Not that that's what you're doing now. But yeah, anyway, that was delightful. You're like, you know, forever and always. How long have you even been married? We've been married six years. Oh, that's adorable.

Sydney 52:12
Yeah, this is the honeymoon phase. No wonder you just build your husband up wild.

Scott Benner 52:16
Oh, yeah, no, no no, yeah. Now I want to, I will keep this podcast going for 10 more years so I can come back on while Sydney goes. Let me tell you. Goes. Let me tell you about this prick that I got married to. 22 military. How'd you get married? No, no, we're just Yeah,

Sydney 52:33
21 actually, he was 20.

Scott Benner 52:35
Was he 20? Are you? Are you a Crip? What do they call that?

Sydney 52:39
Yes, I'm a cradle robber here. Where did you guys meet? We were in high school. Oh, no kidding. High school sweethearts went to college, then when we were done college, got married.

Scott Benner 52:51
So wow, what do you guys do for a living? Like, just vaguely, don't tell me where you live, sure.

Sydney 52:56
So actually, I didn't finish college. My husband finished college, and he actually owns a business now in he kind of does, like welding and fixes, like heavy equipment. And then I worked in the ER, for five years, and then once I had the kids, I stayed home, so I kind of clean Airbnb is now here and there, but just kind of a side hustle

Scott Benner 53:16
that's nice. So what's he got? Like, a is, like a rope? Was he have a truck? He goes out, like, Yeah, and just, Oh, does he like it?

Sydney 53:24
Loves it. Oh, yeah. It's sweet. He's very flexible, and which is nice, because he can, like, if I have something I have to do, like, he can kind of move things around. And it's

Scott Benner 53:32
really great. That's really cool. Did you not finish college because you weren't interested, or because you were pregnant?

Sydney 53:36
Yeah, I wasn't interested. I, like, started, hindsight, like, I actually started a nursing program, and was like, going to be a nurse, but just as, I don't know, I just felt like this wasn't what the Lord wanted for me. So I just worked in the ER, and then when I had the kids, I was like, oh, I want to stay home. I want to homeschool and be at home. And, like, now that my son has diabetes, I'm thankful that I didn't go get a nursing degree, because, like, I probably would just be working full time right now, and we'd have to deal with child care, and who knows, obviously, that might not be in this situation, but I'm just thankful that I'm home, but I also have a medical background

Scott Benner 54:09
and Yeah, well, I'll tell you. Arden had a phlebotomist when she was younger at her children's hospital, and he was, he was amazing. I wish I remembered his name. I would tell you all his name, but he, if you watched him, I videoed it one time so that I could slow it down, because I was watching one day, and I was like, is he throwing the needle into her? Like, like, Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes. Like, like, a dart. It's like a flick or something. I don't hard press to explain it to you. But, like, whereas some of them would, like, you know, hold the needle up to the skin, get to the vein, and then push it through. It almost felt like he was throwing it, I swear to you. I don't know what I'm saying right now, but like a flick of his fingers, and I one day, I said, Can I video this? And I videoed it. And I was like, Are you, like, propelling it like any he had this whole theory about it. I was like, You're so good at this. And he's like, thank you. Blah, blah. And then, like, one day you walk in, he's gone. And I'm like, Where's the guy? And they said he went to Florida to be a sheriff. I'm like, Are you kidding me? Skill, and so anyway, wherever he is, man, you were awesome. Really cool. Did you like that job? Like, the loved it, I loved it. And you did it in the hospital, yeah? And then in the emergency room, yeah. I like the ladies that do it in the lab centers, yeah, like, where you, like, quest or something, where you go to get your blood draws for doctor's appointments, stuff like that. I like how, like, I don't know how they are all over the country, but around here, they are, like, such, no, Bs, people like, you just like, get in here, sit down, wrap your thing. Bang, here's your get out of here. Oh, my God, I love that. Yeah, I love how they do all that. So you're okay. So you're, how do you homeschool before they're like, how do you decide when it's time to start, like, teaching them stuff? Or is it just constant?

Sydney 55:56
My four year old loves to learn. So she's just been learning since she was two. I've tried to do like, a little bit of formal table work the last couple years, like, oh, like when she was three, let's sit down and do table work. And it's like, oh, this is not realistic for a three year old. So we actually, she's four this year, and I was like, Okay, we're gonna just do a simple English language arts program, a little bit of Bible, and that'll be our homeschool day. So we do that a couple times a week, but it's nothing to it's nothing where I'm, like, rigid about it, like, she's only four, so, but she is, yeah, she loves to learn, so she's usually asking me if we can do it,

Scott Benner 56:32
yeah. How do you imagine that? Do you imagine that straight through graduation? Or do you imagine it, like, until they go off the height? Like, is there a point where you think

Sydney 56:40
Yeah, I think that we'll, I mean, obviously we'll see what what they want, but yeah, at this point, home is where we want them, where we want them learning. So, and we have a lot of we have a good community around us where there's a lot of kids that are homeschooled, so it'll probably be something that we do with other people, like, oh, but you guys are going to go over to this house today. My sister in law is going to be homes. So, oh, you can go school with your cousins today. So they're not, it's not like an anti social thing. Oh,

Scott Benner 57:05
that's a nice idea. Yeah, for sure. What if she comes to you and goes, I want to go to high school? You go, all right, yeah. Well, that's something we can talk about. Yeah, yeah. Okay, nice. How do you make that decision? Like, because you went through school, like, you childhood sweethearts, you didn't meet your husband at your aunt's house, so, like, when that wasn't your situation growing up, what makes you think about

Sydney 57:25
it? I was homeschooled for part of school. Yeah, I did. I went to high school in like, 10th grade and then graduated. I think our faith has a big part of it. We I just want to be really intentional about what our children are learning, and just the public school vibe isn't really what our family needs right now. And obviously, you know, there's a lot going on in the world that, yeah, so just kind of just controlling what our children learn and just being involved also, I just really believe that, like I if I'm able to be home with them and teaching them, I think that's the best spot for me to be and for them to be, like, just learning from their mom. And obviously I'll learn with them as we go, and obviously we'll do standardized testing. They make sure that they're like, learning at the right level and just getting all the things they need. I enjoyed being homeschooled. I enjoyed being flexible. We like going on vacations and being spontaneous, so I think that's just an easier route for us. Yeah, so

Scott Benner 58:15
explain the last bit of it to me that I don't understand. Like, how do you at the end when your kids get a diploma after being homeschooled, like, how is that moderated? What's the word I'm looking for? Like, how do I how do I know that you actually did the thing you're supposed to do?

Sydney 58:29
It's a great question. I actually don't I've been thinking that I'm like, I wonder what, like the actual diploma part, how that goes in? I know people that have graduated, like in our district, like they would, they walked with people, like, at our public school or my private school, I had a homeschooler walk down with us. So I don't know exactly how the recording goes into play with that, but I know, like, once she starts next year, when she's five, our state requires us to start reporting, so every single quarter, we just have to submit a summary of the things that she's learned. And like, sometimes they, like, kick it back and like, Oh, that's not good enough. You need to be a little bit more detailed. And then I believe I like, it's every state's different. We're in a pretty strict state, so I don't know what, like, I said. We haven't really even started, so I don't know everything about it, but I think there are testing that she will have to do when she gets to high school to graduate, like, a standardized test maybe once a year. I'm not I could be wrong about that though, okay, but yes, it is. It's regulated by the state

Scott Benner 59:24
you're learning about it still as well. Yeah, yeah, and they're young enough you have time to do that. Yeah, very, very cool. All right, is there anything that we haven't talked about that we should have, anything I forgot to bring up, or that I missed? No, I don't think so. I did okay. Yeah, you did great. Oh, thank you. See. You did it again. That was very nice. I appreciate that. It makes me uncomfortable when you say nice things to me. I'm gonna run downstairs and tell my wife about this immediately. I'm gonna be like, there was a lady, and she was very nice to me. And you know what she'll say, she doesn't know that you hung the TV before making dinner. I. Know, and I'll say No, I told her that. And she'll be like, Oh, well, then she just doesn't know what it's like to live with you. And I'm like, Okay, I just really think maybe I'm wrong, Sydney, but I really think that in this day and age, I'd be a real catch. I'm being serious. You're laughing, but I'm being but I'm being very serious.

Sydney 1:00:18
Never know, well,

Scott Benner 1:00:20
I never will know. You know what I mean? Because, like, it's, you can't. What am I gonna do push her in a river I can't get, like, she's here, you know what I mean? Yeah, and I love her and all that stuff. So, I mean, it would be weird if I just, like, left.

Sydney 1:00:32
Have you tried talking nicely about her?

Scott Benner 1:00:35
I talk nicely about her all the time. Oh, okay, if I do, she'll say, I don't. I think that's because she's Irish or Catholic. I'm not sure exactly. I'm not sure exactly what happened to her when she was younger, because I wasn't there, but something happened. There's something in there, like, she's very good. I know she speaks very well of me behind my back. I actually should say that, because sometimes I'll hear her, she'll be like, Oh, I saw this person at work, and we're talking about this, and we're talking about this, and I was telling about what you were doing this and this, and I'm like, what you were telling about me? She's like, Yeah. I'm like, Oh, I've never heard you say that before. Like, so that's interesting. And then she'll say, well, Don't push your luck out, and I'm okay. And there it goes. Seriously, I guess maybe you made a good point earlier, long time ago. Now I wrote, I wrote a book, right? And I ended up on this television show, like I was, I was pimping my book, is what I was doing. And I was on a panel with other stay at home dads, and they were younger guys. And the one guy down down there, there's like four of us, I think we were like, on like, kind of high, like, high chairs and and in a line in front of a big studio, it's like 600 people in that studio, and it's crazy. And this one guy starts talking about, like, Well, I think my wife really appreciates me because I do this and blah, blah, blah, and, and he's just being so, like, effusive about, like, how wonderful everything was. And I guess, like, I laughed and not on purpose, and I laughed and, the person interviewing us was Katie Couric, and she turned to me and she goes something like, Is that funny? Or like, what? And I said, I mean, that guy's been married for like, two years. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. I was like, he hasn't even gotten yelled at yet. I was like, two years in, nobody had yelled at me. You're still floating. Wait till she figures out that the fun part's over, and then that she picked that boy. I was like, He's gonna get yelled I wish I knew where he was right now. I'd love to talk to him. Nevertheless, he's not a stay at home dad anymore. I'll tell you that much. Yeah, I still am. I'm not a quitter. You understand? My gosh, all right, Sydney, you were terrific for doing this. I really do appreciate your time. I wish you a ton of success. I want to tell you this, over the years, you're going to get better and better and better at this diabetes thing, and where you are now is nowhere near where you're going to end up. So I want, I want you to keep focusing on what you're doing and learning, because that's important, but try hard not to worry about this stuff and keep seeing that bigger picture stuff that you're talking about, about how your son feels, and you know, like, I think that stuff ends up being just as important as the numbers. Yep, you know for sure. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. Just keep doing your best to strike a balance, and I'm sure you guys will be fine, awesome. Well, thank you, Scott, so much. No, it's my pleasure. I hope you had a good time. Yeah, I did excellent. Hold on one second, all right.

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Scott Benner 11/6/25 Scott Benner 11/6/25

#1672 Balls of Steel

Taylor, dad of a newly diagnosed three-year-old, shares year-one lessons: Omnipod 5, Dexcom/daycare coordination, treating lows without overcorrection, mastering settings over gadgets, and facing GLP-1 stigma

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends, we're all back together for the next episode of The Juicebox podcast. Welcome.

Taylor 0:14
Hey everybody. My name is Taylor, 30 years old, and I'm the father of a top one diabetic who is now three years old.

Scott Benner 0:27
This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by skin grip, durable skin, safe, adhesive that lasts your diabetes. Devices, they can fall off easily, sometimes, especially when you're bathing or very active. When those devices fall off, your life is disrupted, and it costs you money. But skin grip patches, they keep your devices secure. Skin grip was founded by a family directly impacted by type one, and it's trusted by hundreds of 1000s of individuals living with diabetes. Juicebox podcast listeners are going to get 20% off of their first order by visiting skingrip.com/juicebox

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, or becoming bold with insulin.

This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by us med. US med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, get your supplies the same way we do from us. Med, this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five. And at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you can get yourself a free, what'd I just say, a free Omnipod five starter kit, free. Get out of here. Go click on that link, omnipod.com/juicebox check it out. Terms and Conditions. Apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com.

Taylor 2:17
Hey everybody. My name is Taylor, 30 years old, and I'm the father of a top one diabetic who is now three years old.

Scott Benner 2:27
Your three year old was how old when they were diagnosed?

Taylor 2:30
Taylor, just last year, summer of last year. So, okay, you have other kids or No, no, not at the moment. You think it happened more. I would like to

Scott Benner 2:39
does the lady you made the first one with agree with that? She

Taylor 2:43
does. I guess it's all just situational. And the the diabetes kind of threw a curve ball in there, I wouldn't, but it's still, it's still on the table.

Scott Benner 2:51
Okay, yeah, I would imagine. Were you, I mean, did diabetes literally slow you down? Were you thinking, hey, we're gonna have two, three kids, and now you're like, well, let's wait and see.

Taylor 3:00
Yeah, that's kind of what it was that I would say that was the main driving force behind that, just because of all the extra care and attention. But my wife listened to one of the podcasts, and I can't remember exactly it was a guess you had on previously. We're going to Florida on vacation, and we listened to some of the episodes on the way there. And it was along the lines of, if it's not diabetes, and, you know, it could have been cancer, it could have been this. So what's kind of stopping you from doing what you want? And I guess that kind of resonated with her, and kind of brought that back into consideration.

Scott Benner 3:35
Oh, are we going to name the next kid after me? That'd be lovely, by the way, Taylor think about it. Oh, just depends. By the way, you shouldn't do that. I don't think it's funny. I was downstairs just now. There's a guy, a local guy in our town, and he does painting such a good job and such a fair price. He's He's painting my my room. And I was downstairs talking to him a little bit, and his name is Scott. And it's funny that when I call him Scott, it sounds fine to me, but when people call me Scott, I think, Oh, what a terrible name I have. I wonder why that is. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So anyway, let's ask you other autoimmune stuff. Do you have anything? Does your wife or on your sides of the family, does anything exist

Taylor 4:15
me personally, no, my wife does have PCOS. And after, honestly, after listening to the podcast, I'm a little suspicious of some thyroid issues. Possibly we still have some appointments to set up and kind of dig more into that

Speaker 1 4:31
thyroid for who my wife, okay, okay, how? What kind of things make you think that that's a possibility,

Taylor 4:38
just the hair falling out all the time. I'm kind of blinking right now, but I'm listening to the podcast. I know there was a lot of symptoms you went over that I'm like, that sounds like my wife. That sounds like my

Scott Benner 4:51
wife. No kidding, no kidding. Was it hard to go tell her that?

Taylor 4:55
No, not really. Okay. I feel like we have pretty good relationship when it comes to health stuff. Of being open about it and seeing things from an outsider's perspective, because we both do that with one another, that's awesome. But other than that, my father diagnosed bipolar, which she has a lot of other health issues, heart, a lot of joint stuff, has had more surgeries than anyone I know. My mother actually, just last year, the year before, had her thyroid removed because they found cancer there, and the only other autoimmune I believe, I believe my aunt had lupus, and actually her daughter is the only other top one in our family.

Scott Benner 5:37
Okay, well, that's a fair amount. Let's figure out how you figured this out. So the other person within your family with type one that they have type one prior to your child's diagnosis?

Unknown Speaker 5:47
Yes, yes,

Taylor 5:48
they were diagnosed around 17 or 18. They're in their late 30s, so they've they've had it for a while now.

Scott Benner 5:55
And is this a person that you've been around, or is it just like Thanksgiving and Christmas kind of thing? No, it's

Taylor 6:01
been around grow up with I haven't in recent years. She moved to a different state. We actually seen her not long ago. She got to meet my son for a little while, and their top one buddy.

Scott Benner 6:13
That's awesome. Yeah. So type one, something you knew about. So then when your son is, what, two years old and starting to show signs like, what are the first signs that pop up? And how quickly do you figure out what it is?

Taylor 6:26
We did not figure it out. It's a lot like your typical diagnosis stories you hear on here, urinating a lot, drinking a lot, terrible mood swings. But also, he's two years old, so we were like, oh, that's kind of to be expected, you know. So we didn't really pieced anything together, and it was not until a well check at our pediatrician, is when we found out

Scott Benner 6:47
well check at the pediatrician. And so what they do? They didn't do a finger stick. Did they what did they

Taylor 6:52
do? They actually did a urine test when he had been urinating a lot and drinking a lot for three or four months. And we're like, you know, that seems kind of weird, but it's not out of the ordinary that we thought they we brought our concerns to them, and they were like, well, we'll just do a urine test and just to make sure. And sure enough, I believe his glucose from the urine test was like 473, if I'm not mistaken.

Scott Benner 7:17
Okay, that's a good office. You just mentioned the frequent thirst, and they went to the test. That's pretty awesome. Actually, I'm using

Unknown Speaker 7:26
the word Yeah, you're lucky. We

Taylor 7:28
We had just moved there probably six months prior to all that happening, and we've been very happy with their care of him, yeah, and I kind of felt bad at the time our pediatrician was training someone doing their clinicals, and he got to experience all that as well.

Scott Benner 7:46
Yeah, so it's good experience. They might, maybe it'll help somebody else in the future. You know, yeah, and that's what I was hoping, yeah. I bet you, I bet you, it will. So what do they do? Do they I mean, that's a pretty high blood sugar for such a little kid. Do you they tell you to go home, pack a bag, go to the hospital, or how does that work? That

Taylor 8:03
was pretty much what they told us, yeah, they said they would call ahead to the local, I'd say local. It's about half away. Children's Hospital north of us, told us, you know, we can go home, pack a bag, and they'll let us know we're coming. We were both pretty upset about it. I think I took it a little bit better than my wife. And I don't say that as a jab, we actually I took off work to go to the appointment with her. So all that happened. So we drove back to my work. I got out of my company vehicle, got in her car, and we just went straight there. Kind of let our parents know to see if they could get us a backpack, because we just want to get there as quick as we could, just to see what

Scott Benner 8:39
was going on. Of course, obviously, both of you are upset, and it's harried, right? There's a it's a crazy moment, but what did you mean? You think you took it a little better. What was her like? What was her initial response?

Taylor 8:51
I think, just disbelief and just a lot of worry, just what's going to happen. What does this mean? A lot of tears, which rightfully so, and for both of us. And I guess that's more of a, I don't say this in a bad way, but a womanly response, because once I kind of got past the initial emotions, I kind of just focused in. And looks like we need to get here. We need to figure out what's going on, what tests that they need to run.

Scott Benner 9:19
Yeah. So you started focusing on the task, and you think the emotions got the better of her, yes, yeah, yes. Okay. When did the emotions get to you?

Taylor 9:28
Actually, after we had got they first admitted us to the, er, you know, try to see what's going on, IVs, get blood tests and everything. And her parents had brought us some overnight stuff because they told us, like, you're going to be here for a few days, and the endocrinologist come in talk to us, and then the staff there at the hospital kind of explained a lot of the stuff. And I went out to the lobby to speak with them, kind of tell them what was going on, and to get our stuff from them. And I had it all in my head. You know, ready? I was like, they told me this, this and this, get out there, and I sit down with them, and they start asking, and then that's kind of when I clammed up. I couldn't speak, and then it all just kind of hit me there in the lobby once I actually had to tell someone else

Speaker 1 10:15
that. Yeah, no, I'm sorry that sucks, man, are you in a better place today.

Taylor 10:21
Oh yeah, we're not. We're not gonna let this bring us down. Good for you. It's just another thing. We're gonna keep going take care of him the best we can, and hopefully get to a point kind of like you and Arden, where we can pass that control over to them and let them continue to handle it. It's a good

Scott Benner 10:37
plan. That's a good point. Let's figure out how you're doing it. So a year is a pretty short amount of time. I assume they started you. MDI, yes, and then where are you at now? You're still doing, MDI, if you moved on to something else?

Taylor 10:49
Well, I know we're on Omnipod five since

Scott Benner 10:53
February. Okay, this year, how's that been?

Taylor 10:56
It had a turning curve, for sure. But all in all, it's been wonderful because, as you know, trying to give a five or a two year old shot for MDI to try to keep it in range is not

Scott Benner 11:10
an easy task, not a ton of fun chasing him around the house.

Taylor 11:13
No, it's terrible. So that was, that was the big, the big benefit to us once we got on a pump is because he doesn't have to stop and sit down and let us give him a shot or us chase him around. He can just keep doing what he's doing. And we can just, you know, those from the phone, and let him, let him be.

Scott Benner 11:33
Keep going, keep on, keeping on. What is his I mean, he's three, right? But yes, do you have a feeling about how he thinks about diabetes? You do? Like, how do you talk to him about it? What do you see him kind of reflecting back to you.

Taylor 11:45
We've kind of started, I guess, introducing more terms and kind of explaining things to him more. I don't think he thinks much of it as a three year old, but he understands, you know, the Dexcom and Omnipod, because he does mention, you know his pod. He'll say, my pod. You know, if he's high right now, he'll be like, I'm hungry. We're like, hey, you know that's fine. We'll give you some food, but first we need to get your blood sugar down. It's too high. And he'll say, my sugar high. Yeah. So he's kind of getting a few more things as we're introducing him, but as of right now, I think he's just so young, he just doesn't quite understand what's going

Scott Benner 12:20
on. Yeah? But that's the beginning of all this, right? Like, just the small, little understandings that he's capable of taking in, that you're comfortable sharing with him. And like you said, you'll build and build on it, and one day it'll just, you know, hopefully be a, you know, a thing that exists, that isn't a burden, and he understands. And I'll head off to college, or wherever he's gonna go, and you'll feel pretty comfortable that he's doing okay. Yeah. Isn't that funny how that now becomes your entire goal? Yes. What was your goal before that? Well, what, how did you see what was important in your life, what you were going to focus on with your kids? Did you have even a feeling about it, or were you just like, hey, we had a baby. This is fun.

Taylor 12:58
I would say a little bit of that. But I mean, just, just raise them to be a good person, you know, take care of themselves and things like that. I mean, just, I guess you would say typical parent things like, you want your child to do better than you. You want them to be healthier than you.

Scott Benner 13:14
Yeah, don't let me put words in your mouth. But has has the diabetes diagnosis shifted your perspective on family or life or parenting, say.

Taylor 13:24
So we've, we've always been very family oriented. We we see both of our parents all the time. Throughout the week, we'll go visit, we'll eat dinner, family, get togethers, holidays. I mean, we see our family a lot, so we're very family focused. So I wouldn't say it shifted my perspective there.

Scott Benner 13:41
So you're just blending this diabetes into how you were living before you're it hasn't changed a whole lot for you. No, no, it

Taylor 13:48
hasn't changed a whole lot. That's great. I guess one thing we kind of did not get completely into since he was diagnosed early, is like staying with my parents or her parents overnight, or anything like that we have, or just staying over there for extended periods of time, where all you have to do is say, Hey, is he alive? Is he eating? And now let's pay his blood sugar's high, can you dose him? Or his blood sugar's low? Can you dose him? Or here's lunch, dinner, breakfast. Can you dose this much for what you're giving him? How's

Scott Benner 14:19
that been for your parents, though, I mean, because obviously, what I'm hearing is that you have a lifestyle that would have been very interactive with, you know, grandparents and everything, and I assume that was going to be part of it, like, Hey, here's the baby. We're going to go to a movie, and your parents would be thrilled to have him for a couple of hours. Is that, yes, have they talked to you about that? Like, talk to you about the uncertainty that it's brought to them, or where their fear points are.

Unknown Speaker 14:46
Today's episode is brought

Scott Benner 14:48
to you by Omnipod. Did you know that the majority of Omnipod five users pay less than $30 per month at the pharmacy? That's less than $1 a day for tube free automated insulin delivery. And a third of Omnipod five users pay $0 per month. You heard that, right? Zero. That's less than your daily coffee for all of the benefits of tubeless, waterproof, automated insulin delivery. My daughter has been wearing an Omnipod every day since she was four years old, and she's about to be 21 my family relies on Omnipod, and I think you'll love it, and you can try it for free right now by requesting your free Starter Kit today at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox Omnipod has been an advertiser for a decade, but even if they weren't, I would tell you proudly, my daughter wears an Omnipod. Omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Why don't you get yourself that free starter kit, full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox, diabetes comes with a lot of things to remember, so it's nice when someone takes something off of your plate. US med has done that for us. When it's time for art and supplies to be refreshed, we get an email rolls up and in your inbox says, Hi, Arden, this is your friendly reorder email from us. Med. You open up the email. It's a big button that says, Click here to reorder, and you're done. Finally, somebody taking away a responsibility instead of adding one us. Med has done that for us. An email arrives, we click on a link, and the next thing you know, your products are at the front door. That simple, us, med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, I never have to wonder if Arden has enough supplies. I click on one link, I open up a box, I put the stuff in the drawer, and we're done. Us. Med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three and the Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide over 800 private insurers, and all you have to do to get started is call 888-721-1514. 888-721-1514, or go to my link, us, med.com/juicebox, using that number or my link helps to support the production of the Juicebox

Unknown Speaker 17:11
podcast.

Taylor 17:13
Don't think they have any fear about it. They all we really ask of them is if you're going to give him any food, you know, let us know. So we can tell you what to give him, or if he wants something extra, like a snack or something like let us know. I mean, other than that, he's just typical kid playing, doing his own thing, hanging out with them and enjoying

Scott Benner 17:35
it. Do you think that they have a full understanding of it, or just enough to get through those moments,

Taylor 17:41
I would say they're, they're getting better. I mean, they obviously understand, you know, if he's going to eat, then he needs insulin, like they understand the concept of all that. Or if he's low, he needs, you know, something to bring his low back into normal range.

Scott Benner 17:55
Okay, is that a thing you taught them? Or did they figure it out on their own?

Taylor 18:00
Oh, we kind of taught, you know, as we learned as well.

Scott Benner 18:03
Yeah, you guys have all been learning together, maybe, yeah, pretty much.

Taylor 18:07
Obviously, if he's with us, it's a lot better. But also, we try not to put any, I guess, fear or worry on them when he's with them, you know. So if he's with them, and he's just a little bit higher than he needs to be, then, you know, if it's stable, we'll just kind of let it be. But if he's climbing rapidly, or if he's, you know, dropping low pretty quick, like, we will get in touch with him. But like, Hey, you think you could deck fly or z or give him, you know, cracker or something to try to get that back up?

Scott Benner 18:39
Are lows the thing that you deal with frequently or not so much, not

Taylor 18:43
as much. It's more highs. I've went and looked at my clarity report. I check on it pretty frequently, or, I say mine, my son's sure most of the time we're in low or very low range, 1% or less most of the time. Okay, that's awesome. So I mean lows aren't too bad, and if he does go low, usually we get it up pretty quick. But also we have the issue of, usually we're over correcting, so then we're having to get that high back down as well. On the back

Scott Benner 19:09
side, little bit of panic with the low blood sugars create a highlighter.

Taylor 19:13
Yeah, it seems like it. I'm not sure. I'm sure a lot of people feel this way, but they'll be stable. You know, 80s, 90s kind of just sitting right in there, and then it's almost like something just starts pulling it down, you know, a couple points at a time, and then all of a sudden, it's like the arrows slanted down and, you know, we just dropped 15 points. And it's like, what the heck happened? You know,

Scott Benner 19:33
yeah, and is it difficult to know how much is going to fix it at this point, or do you think that anxiety just keeps you pushing the carbs a little too far.

Taylor 19:44
Think it's a little bit of both. Usually, we've kind of got a good routine right now. We know if it's a pretty significant drop, certain things we give him, or if it's kind of a slower drop, it's not as aggressive. I think where the panic sets in you. Which is still something we're working on, is once we give him something, we obviously know it's going to take time for his body to digest it and get that in its system. But it turns into a 65 turns into a 60 and then it turns into a 55 after we've already given him something, we're like, okay, when's this going to work? When's this going to work? Yeah. And we wait, and then it's like, Okay, we have to give him something else to get this up. And then usually it'll, you know, start shooting up after that.

Scott Benner 20:26
Okay, is he good about it, you know, or is there some nervousness that he won't eat when you need him to,

Taylor 20:33
not typically, right? Now, he still sees we use a lot of some gummies or fruit snacks, the Welch's fruit snacks or peanut butter crackers. Usually he sees that as a treat, which I'm sure that thinking will change once he gets a little bit older and he gets tired of eating the same thing every time. So he's usually pretty good about that. The only issue have in terms of eating is we'll fix dinner, lunch or something or breakfast and bring it to him, and we'll dose him, and then it's like, well, I'm not hungry now. It's like, Listen, you have got to eat this. We just

Scott Benner 21:06
dose you. Please just eat this. I'm

Taylor 21:08
convinced that parents with small children could be terrorist negotiators. For the most part.

Scott Benner 21:16
That's so funny. You can make some things happen when you're under enough pressure, right? You got to succeed. My gosh, that's hilarious. Who does most of the diabetes work like does is your do you guys both work? Does you want to you stay home or you want to split schedule? How does that go?

Taylor 21:33
We both work. My wife is in the school system in the county we live in, and so she's off in the summertime. She has breaks throughout the year, so it kind of defaults to her when she's off, yeah, but when we're both working, it's kind of 5050 actually, my wife just texts our daycare and asked if he could have some gummies, because he's starting to drop a little bit because they're eating lunch right now. So it's, I would say, during normal working between her and me, it's kind of 5050, and sometimes I'll be busy and she catches it, or she'll be busy, I'll catch it, yeah,

Scott Benner 22:06
but a lot of the management happens through text messaging and and remote monitoring. Yes, that is correct. That's awesome. I mean, it's really great. Like, people haven't been around this for a long time. It was so much harder when you couldn't see blood sugars. I used to have to like text art and ask her what her blood sugar was. We actually had a system. She'd sent me a number with an arrow too, because at first I was like, you know, just send me the number. And then I realized the number was meaningless if I didn't know the direction. So, you know, when I noticed I sound old, but when they started adding like emoticons to texting like they weren't there at first, you know. And in those little arrows in the boxes showed up one day. I was like, Oh, thank God. And then they put then they put arrows with like, two arrows in it. I was like, this is like, I feel like this is just for me, you know, yeah, catering to me. Yeah, those little blue gray, if you have an iPhone, the little blue gray boxes with the white arrows inside of them, they actually have diagonal, up, diagonal, down, left, right, you know, it was just perfect. And when you need, when you need dual arrows, you would just do two of them. I'm remembering now, and that's how we managed for a long time. Like, I'd be like, I would type BG, she'd send a number with arrows. I'd say, you know, three carbs, five carbs, you know, Bolus point this like that. We did that a long time. Like that is made me really good at it, and it helped her be out in the world without having to stop and start all the time, which I always thought was a big deal. And it really, like, warms my heart to see people doing it like all these years later, and now you can pick up your phone like you said. See the number right there, contact people quickly. I think texting, still to this day, is a, is a diabetes tool? Yes, yeah,

Taylor 23:49
especially in the case 100%

Scott Benner 23:51
Yeah, 100% Yeah. With, especially with children, etc.

Taylor 23:55
And like you were talking about the technology, you know, you have a lot of people come on with frustrations with, you know, these companies coming out with these new technologies. Once I got caught up on the podcast, I was like, You know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to the first few episodes and start listening from there. So I'm kind of burning the candle at both ends. And it kind of shocked me when you explained how all that worked back then with the cradle and the older Dexcom and stuff. I was like, holy cow, this is 10 years ago, and we've got from there to here. And it just kind of shocked me, yeah, how far it's coming that short amount of time I

Scott Benner 24:31
had to install one year, I had to install a I don't even know what they would but they called it back then the cell phone company made these extenders, and I had to install one in a central location between all of Arden's middle school classrooms so that her phone would work and that I could get her blood. Oh, my God. Like you should just saw the loop the hoops I had to jump through to get the school to let me, like, plug this thing in. You know, the last day of school, I had to go back and get it. They're like, come get your thing. And I was like, also. Uh, kind of to jump into something you said a second ago. I just this morning online, saw a post, and it was, was specifically about people like this woman's like this Omnipod five I don't like it doesn't work. Blah, blah, blah. Look at my kids blood sugar online. And I started, like, picking through, trying to understand who she was like, before I answered, right? And you could see that, yeah. You know, the kids had diabetes for a couple years now. I've been using the Omnipod five for a little while. I looked at some pictures. The kids grown a lot. She had good success with it at first. Doesn't have it now. But what I realized, moreover, is that, like, she came into diabetes at a time her son comes into diabetes at a time when the idea was like, put this thing on, put that thing on, and push these buttons, and the thing is going to do the thing, you know what? I mean, it's going to take care of your high but, and I realized, like she's having these conversations, she doesn't fundamentally understand how insulin works. I guess never had to really like they put it on a more newly diagnosed child whose insulin needs were probably lower, and then the needs grew. The kid got bigger. I could see that in the pictures. And, you know, nobody went back and rechecked these settings, and, you know, and now all of a sudden, she's up to the part where I see people all the time like, this device doesn't do what it's supposed to, and I'm thinking like, you're gonna switch to another device and have the same exact problem. And so I just said, Look, I would look at these episodes that talk about how to figure out where your insulin to carb ratio, where your sensitivity and where your basal should be, and switch that thing back into manual. And let's get those settings straight first. Then when you can do it well in manual for a little bit awesome. Then I listen to these three tips, these pro tips about Omnipod five make sure you understand how the system actually works, put the thing back into automation, and then go listen to those pro tip episodes. Because I don't know for sure that you understand the impact insulin is having, how to use it how the timing works and how your different foods are impacting and, you know, that might seem like a big thing to do, but, you know, you can't just put this tool in someone's hand, set it up incorrectly, and them not understand why they're pushing the buttons and then blame the thing, because if they get caught in that loop, They're going to change pumps 1000 times. Like, you know, right now, tandem might be listening going, Oh, and this is awesome. They're going to switch from Omnipod five. Omnipod might be like, Oh my god, no. They're going to leave Omnipod. Like, they're going to leave Omnipod, they're going to go to tandem. They're going to leave tandem, they're going to go to Medtronic. They leave Medtronic. They're going to go to twist. They're going to just keep jumping around thinking that the thing doesn't work and never quite understanding what they're supposed to be doing, and so I've been paying a lot of attention that lately, with more and more a ID systems coming up. Anyway, I don't know why I said that. I think it's because it was fresh in my head. Hopefully that fits in the conversation. I

Taylor 27:53
would say that's probably one of the hurdles that I'll put it as I have one leg over the hurdle right now is adjusting settings on the fly. I just recently actually adjusted them a little bit. We had a few weeks stretch where it should. I'm not sure if he's going through a growth spurt. Nothing physically had changed about him. He was eating about the same, but we were just running high, more than I would like to, and it just seemed like we were pumping him full of insulin, because right now we put in, like, the minimum 80 units in the Omnipod right now, and typically in the three days, I mean, we may use 30 to 40 units out of it. And we got to a point in that, that few weeks stretch, where, when we would change it, there'd be 20 units or less. And I'm like, I don't know what's going on. And I just found it took me a, you know, a couple changes to recognize, like, maybe something's going on here, maybe I need to tweak something. So I went in, adjusted the sensitivity, and I adjusted the insulin, the car, kind of changed some of the schedules up. And it seems like that has kind of got it under control. I'm not sure about anyone else, but that was one of my biggest, I wouldn't say fears, but just like I said, a hurdle to get over is like, I don't need to run to the incorn endocrinologist every time to change the stuff on the fly. I need to try to figure this out on my own. Because, like, we've just say we, like, I'm on the podcast every day. Like has been discussed on the podcast. I mean, you you know your child, or you know yourself better than your endocrinologist or your GP, or anyone like that. And if you can get over that hurdle of I need to tweak this, then I think it, you know, that just makes it better.

Scott Benner 29:30
I was on stage last weekend. I gave a couple talks that touched by type one. Did one with Jenny. We did a cute we did a like an ask Scott and Jenny. That was awesome. Did this thing in the kids room, which was fantastic. It must have been like, God, there must have been 60 or 70 kids in that room, and, you know, and all different ages. And I just, I sort of do a thing with them, where I just kind of go around, like they ask questions, and, you know, we let them talk to each other, just let them see how similar their lives are. You know. Yeah, and let them ask their questions and make their statements and their pronouncements about things. And then I ran right into a room gave a talk. I actually based it on the all the small sips episode this year. I basically said, like, you know, like, look, here's the things that people said that helped them from the podcast. These things might help you, too. And went through them, and towards the end. Got the vibe from somebody that they just were unsure, like this, you know, more newly diagnosed, how's this gonna go? And I looked up, and I'll be honest, it's the biggest crowd I've ever spoken in front of. You know, there were a lot of people in that room, and it was a giant room. It's a much bigger room than I'd ever spoken before, like, to the point where you can almost hear your voice echoing off the back. And there were people so far away, you couldn't make out their faces. And I just told I said that the whole crowd. I said, Look, you're all going to be okay. And I said, I've been doing this a really long time, spoken to a lot of people, the people who do well, have have two simple things in common. And I said, you all have one of them today because you're here. I said, the one, the one thing you have to have around diabetes is a desire to understand and to be involved. And you obviously have that, because here you are. And I said, and the other thing that I see successful people have is the confidence and the knowledge to change their settings. That's it. I think, if you care and you're involved and you know how to change your settings. That is a huge part of making it through the actual management portion of

Taylor 31:25
diabetes. Yes, I mean, just like you said, I mean, it doesn't matter what product you use, the settings are wrong, or if you don't have the confidence or the knowledge to work on those and try to make it better, then it's just, you're just going to be in that same situation where you just, you're having poor management, not necessarily in terms of because you don't try, but it's, I don't know if it's the confidence or a fear thing, but if you can get past that, it's going to make it

Scott Benner 31:51
better. Yeah, you know, it's like getting in a car and not knowing how to drive it, then blaming the car when you lose the race. You know, it's, yeah, gosh, I think I'll probably just come out and say this, all these systems are great. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, I know I do ads for a lot of them, and thank them all. I hope they keep doing their ads. But, you know, get the Medtronic, get the Omnipod, get the tandem, get the twist. Like they're insulin pumps. They have algorithms. They're different, and you're going to find one of them that fits better with your lifestyle or your vibe or the way you do things, there's no doubt about that there's a better choice for you out there, but I'm not going to tell you that the best choice is A, B, C or D or whatever. It's, whatever fits best with you. But in the end, they all have algorithms that work pretty damn well, and they're probably all going to keep trying to improve them a tandem. Just put out a nice little update for theirs. What did it do? It, among other things, gives you the opportunity to do extended boluses while you're in Automotion. That's a great ad. I think, yes, that would be great. Yeah, right. Fantastic. Omnipod five is right now, in a they're doing studies to, I think they're, I don't know what they're calling, I can't remember, but it's like a 2.0 version of their algorithm for, for this, like, right for, you know, for the back the way this thing works. And, you know what? If Medtronic, medtronics, got a new CGM and that 780 G, I hear a lot of people love that pump. Like, I've talked to a lot of people where that pump think that pump is awesome. You're going to update the CGM. It's probably that system is going to get better. Twist allows you to target a lower number. It's using, you know, a version of loop. You think that's going to be the last version of loop it uses? I bet not. I bet you they're going to get the okay to like, I bet you they're out there. This stuff is all awesome. You don't know how to use it. You don't know why you're doing what you're doing. It ain't going to work. And it's all going to look just as random as if you were on MDI and you didn't know what you were doing, as if you were on a regular manual pump, but you weren't Pre-Bolus in your meals, like it's all timing and amount people. I really I don't care if you're using the latest and greatest algorithm, if you're using some Do It Yourself system like Arden is or anywhere in between. If you don't understand how insulin works. These things are not going to work out for you. Your settings have to be right, and you have to understand how to use the insulin. Yeah, and you're it sounds like you're doing a pretty good job. First of all, do you think there's any honeymooning for your for your son, or do you think you're at his full need?

Unknown Speaker 34:16
I would say that it's full on.

Taylor 34:21
I would say, which, I think I've heard you talk on the podcast about this. You know, seems like, usually when they're diagnosed younger, the honeymoon is not as long. I think we may have had one or two days where we went from, you know, three to four units a day, MDI to one unit for the whole day with with his basal as well. But, I mean, we just had a few days shortly after diagnosis, we had that. And then other than that, it's kind of been, I would say, the norm as of right now. So

Scott Benner 34:51
not a lot of honeymooning. I was interviewing a doctor recently. I do so many of these, like, I'm sorry if I, if I get this a little wrong, but I feel like. What he was telling me was like, yeah, when you're diagnosed really young, you're smaller. Pancreas is smaller. You have fewer beta cells. And I was like, oh, like, I had never occurred to me,

Taylor 35:09
yeah. And it makes sense once someone points it out,

Scott Benner 35:13
and maybe a few words, not the right word, but like, you know you're whatever. I don't know. You have to find his episode was really good. It was the first time I felt sad about Arden being diagnosed when she was younger. Like I was like, oh, had she been alive longer, maybe there would have been more. And I was like, Oh, I didn't think of it like that. And I, you know, again, if you're looking for me for the technical explanation, you're in the wrong place. But it was just sort of the way he put it touched me. I should find his name and tell people where it's at but, but I want to hear more about your story right now. So you have a couple of notes in front of me. I'm going to jump around a little bit. Are you on a GLP medication yourself? Are you thinking about doing it?

Taylor 35:57
I'm currently not. I'm still kind of on the fence about it. I am pro GOP one. I do believe it helps a lot of people, and there's a lot of benefits to it. Still just considering it right now, and my wife, at the time of the email I sent you, was currently on one. Now she's off of it right now.

Speaker 1 36:16
So tell me why she started it and why she came off of it,

Taylor 36:20
I think, just to help with some weight, to try to get where she wants to be. Think she started on the mongero or mongiarno, okay, started there. I think she got up to, I believe, the second highest dose, and kind of plateaued there for a little while. And when she stepped up to the highest dose, that's when she kind of started getting sick from it a lot more leading up to that, no real issues, and she had lost some weight, but just like I said, plateaued.

Scott Benner 36:50
So wait, was she up to 12.5 or 15? I want to

Taylor 36:54
say maybe the 12 okay was, because this has been a while back now,

Scott Benner 36:59
yeah, that's okay. But like she so she just did it for weight. So it was that bound, or it was somebody gave her a manger. She didn't have a pre diabetes diagnosis, no.

Taylor 37:10
How the hell did she get I think she was able to do it because she had PCOS, okay, okay. She actually had it prescribed from her OB.

Scott Benner 37:18
Ah, I see and how much weight did she lose? I

Taylor 37:21
believe she lost 20 pounds or so, 20 or 30 pounds right in

Scott Benner 37:25
there. Did it help her with her PCOS symptoms? I

Taylor 37:29
believe a little bit like I said, I still think there's some kind of underlying thyroid issue there, but I think it hopefully she doesn't kill me for saying this, but I believe she'd become more regular on it, which she's also taken birth control. But before, even with the Bucks control, she still was having irregular periods and things like that.

Scott Benner 37:47
Okay, oh, Tyler, you're so sweet. He's like, I hope she's not worried about this. I sometimes don't remember that everybody's brain doesn't work like mine. Because I was like, why would anyone care if you said that?

Taylor 37:59
But I she knew she knew all this, doing this, but she never really asked, like, Hey, what are you going to talk about, or anything like that. So she has no idea

Scott Benner 38:07
her period was going to come up. Okay, so, but you're saying at 12 and a half she was doing well, but that at 15 she started not feeling well. What did that? What were the adverse events she was having?

Taylor 38:18
Nauseous all the time, throwing up, just felt terrible in general, on

Scott Benner 38:23
the 15, you think so. Did she just go back to the 12.5 then? Or did she stop using

Taylor 38:28
it? I think she stopped using it for a while because, and it was fairly quick. And I don't know if it was something you know, that was already on its way, because it was the day after when she went up to the next dose. It was like, immediate, woke up that morning, felt terrible, was throwing up, so she come off of it just because they wouldn't let her refill for the lower dose, just because she had just filled the higher dose. So she came off of it until her prescription come up. But it mean it went on for a week or two, and she was like, I just don't think I can do it right now again, because she just felt that bad. I see, I see, once she kind of got up, not necessarily the habit, but just got out of doing it, and she started feeling better. She's like, I'm not sure if I want to do that again. I'm like, Well, maybe that one just doesn't agree with your body. Maybe you need to try a different one. So she tried the Z bound, and it was the same thing, even at the lowest dose, just almost immediate, just that same sick throwing up things

Scott Benner 39:22
like that, because that Benner manjar are the same drug so like so after using it for how

Taylor 39:26
long? I want to say it was probably five or six months, I believe

Scott Benner 39:30
interesting. Did she gain the 20 pounds back? Yes, that's the part she's going to be upset with you about, not the period thing, by the way. But okay, so it was really helping her. You think it was helping her metabolically, or was it helping her just eat less? How do you think the value was? I

Taylor 39:45
believe it was eating less as well, just having that, like you've talked about the noise in your head of food, noise in your head just gone. Helped without help with eating less, she just felt better. In general, had more energy. I guess from, I'm not sure what's happened, because I believe she even went back to, I can't remember which one she even tried another one and still had the same effect. Was, I'm not sure what goes she's not on one, but is still considering trying it again. And I actually took advice from you and told her, I was like, Well, you know, on the podcast, I'm sure she hates hearing me say this all the time. On the podcast, they micro dose the GLP, I was like, maybe that's what we need to try instead, is, you know, just start smaller doses and kind of work up from there, or try to get that in between.

Scott Benner 40:35
I am a big believer tailor in the idea that the companies had to do testing on dosing. So they picked doses. I think there's probably also financial reasons around this, but I don't understand that piece of it as much, but as as raw as around the dosing, I think they had to pick plateaus, like, you know, two and a half, five, whatever, seven and a half, like that kind of thing. I think people are shooting that stuff where they could get value out of less of it, or maybe more or having it more frequently or less frequently, or whatever. Like, I think there's not this similar to insulin. I think that in the future, people will think about dosing GLP medications in a more personal way. And like, Arden has the smallest injector, the number and I think she has, like, 2.5 pens, but we don't use all of that. And yeah, if you guys would have, I wish everyone could have seen Arden and I trying to choose lunch yesterday. It was, it was freaking hilarious, because I was working downstairs. I bought a laptop last year so I could be a little more mobile and be in the, you know, more social part of the house more frequently, instead of sitting in my computer all the time. So she's gonna study all day for a French exam. And she's like, do you want to study with me? And I was like, Sure. So we kind of, like, staked our spot out in the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table together. I brought my laptop down. I was writing a, I'm putting together a speech that I'm giving somewhere in a couple of weeks, and she was doing that, and she's like, you know, I gotta eat lunch. I haven't eaten today. And it's funny, we don't say I'm hungry, we say I have to eat. It's a different vibe now, right? I said, Oh, I said, I say, Yeah, okay, I could eat too. What do you want? She goes, I don't know. And I She's like, Well, what do you want? I was like, I don't know. And it's not like, the I don't know, like, you know, like, Oh, we're all going to the restaurant. We can't pick one of our favorite restaurants to go to. Yeah, you are not hungry, in the same way that people think about hunger. So start, she brings one thing up. She goes, what about this? And I said, okay, like that, that sounds like a good idea. Do you want that? And she goes, I don't know, just tell me what to eat. We finally, like, she finally kind of landed on an idea. And I was like, all right, but she couldn't commit to it. Like, I was like, you want to do that? Like, because it was a thing, I was gonna have to run out and get something for and she just couldn't commit to it. She's like, she's like, Just do it. I'll eat it. And that, to me, is like, if you've never experienced that idea of like, you know, you're hungry, it's time to eat, but you don't feel hungry in your stomach, and your brain is not giving you one idea in the world about what you should try to eat. It's a fascinating thing. And I'm sure some people might think it's like, oh, God, that's horrible. You don't crave anything or but if you're a person who craves too much, or, you know, has a propensity to overeat, or whatever, it just, man, it just takes that away. Yeah, and not only that, but, you know, the week before, she didn't, she didn't have the medication on board, because, I mean, I've shared with people on here, like, Arden's got a bit of a needle phobia she's working through. And, you know, there are some weeks that we go to do it and she just can't bring herself to do it, and so we have to adjust her insulin needs, and everything changes, etc. But last week, you know, I said to her on Sunday, I was like, you know, try to do the GLP, you know. Just looks at me like, yeah, if you brought it in here, maybe we could try it. You know what? I mean? I was like, okay, so I, I filled the syringe, I went to her room, but she was in the shower, so I just, I left it. And I thought, like, well, I'll leave it here on the table, and when, you know, she gets out of the shower. But then I fell asleep. There's the end of the night. Next morning, she sends me a text. She's like, Hey, are you, are you recording right now? And I was like, No. And she's like, Could you come here for a second? And I went to her bedroom, and she's barely awake, like she's literally just pulling herself together and, like, the first like, half conscious words, she's like, I did my shot last night. She was really proud of herself. That's awesome, yeah. And I was really excited for Yeah, and, but then, you know, two days later, we're sitting at lunch, she's like, I don't know what to eat, and she's not using a full dose of the smallest dose. It's fascinating. She can still eat like, there's not she's not too over full or anything like that. But that part in her brain is gone, and her blood sugars, I wish you could see the difference from the stability. Ability today, just last week, even on, like, more food, but less variability, it's really fascinating, nevertheless. So what makes you think about doing it? Yes, I

Taylor 45:11
would say mainly just the weight loss part of it, but also just I needed. I guess my thought is, like, I want to be here longer, like you've talked about, like, if there's something I can do, something I can take to help me be here longer, for my son, for my family, then I need to try to pursue that.

Scott Benner 45:28
How much weight do you think you have to lose? Tell her, I

Taylor 45:30
would say I think I would be happy with, you know, 3040, pounds. I work in a pretty active job. I'm climbing ladders and crawling down in pits. You know, I'm working on my hands all the time, but there are sometimes I'm in an office for a week at a time. It just kind of depends on what we have going on. So, I mean, it's not like I'm sedentary or anything. There's periods of it, but, yes, but yeah. So I mean, I still stay pretty active. I think the the food noise, I would like that to kind of quieten down. But I would say mainly

Unknown Speaker 46:02
that explain it

Scott Benner 46:03
to people like you just bored. You eat, or you start eating, you can't stop, or what? How would you put it into words? I

Taylor 46:10
would say it's probably like that. For example, I'll leave work. I'm heading home, you know, I know we're going to eat in a couple hours, but I had lunch earlier in the day. I'm not hungry. I know I'm not hungry, but, man, a milkshake and a large fry sounds good, right now. You know something like that, like it just comes in your head. It's almost like a little ear worm. It's like, Hey, that sounds good. You should stop. It's on the way home. That sounds like something you need stuff like that. I ran

Scott Benner 46:35
to the grocery store yesterday to pick up three items, and it was at that time of the day, it was like 435 o'clock. It had been a while since art and I had that lunch. It's weird to talk about like that, like I knew I should eat, like I knew it was time to eat, that I was hungry, right? That I could eat something if I wanted to, but yet there's no compulsion to do it whatsoever. And compulsion is even the wrong word. There's like no idea to do it whatsoever. Yeah. And I had this, like, thought in the past I would pre there's this one aisle that has, like, you know, like, small, like, I don't know, little candies or stuff like that, like a grabbable thing that you'd have a few of, and they'd be gone. And it's, like a treat, like, as an example. And, yeah, I thought about all the times that I'd been to that grocery store, walked back up that aisle, spent $1 or two on something and snacked on something in the car on the way home. Yes. And I actually thought, like, is that a thing I'll do today? And then that was it. I was like, No, I have no desire. I pictured that aisle in my head. Of all the different things are in it, everything that I thought. I was like, You know what I mean? Like, I just, I felt like, not nauseated by it, but just like, I have no desire to do that whatsoever. And when I tried to consider, like, like, what if I just pushed, pushed through and grabbed one of those things right now, I was like, I would really hate that. Like, I would really just not want it. It gives you a control over your life, that is, if you hadn't had it in the past. Is pretty awesome, actually.

Taylor 48:01
Yeah, the weird thing about when it comes to or, for example, you know, that gets in my head, it's like, you know, that sounds good. You should have this. But other things in my life, it's easier. I have that control. I can be like, No, I'm not going to do that. Or, Yeah, I'll do that. Or, but when it comes to the food, I guess it's just not the same, whatever chemicals that they put in, you know, all these foods. It's, it literally has you addicted to it, sugar, salt, fat, I believe combination, they've got it down. Yeah? Well,

Scott Benner 48:29
look at you. You're like, milkshake, sugar and then fat, fat and salt on the fries. Perfect. Yep, you know what I mean, perfect. Yeah. I mean, they found a way to Jack your brain, that's for sure. Yeah, so not for nothing. Like you think it's maybe a little bit about weight right now, but more about just overall health

Taylor 48:47
and longevity. Yes, that's the main thing, you know. If I knew, I mean, obviously I'm not at a weight that I want to be like I said, I can. I'm still active. I still, you know, I don't really have any aches and pains or anything. I can't see, you know, my heart or my liver, kidneys, you know, I can't see that stuff, yeah, and don't know what's going on with it. So I just know, hey, I think eating a milkshake and fries, you know, every so often, it's probably not the best thing to do, you know. So I would say that's the main thing. Is I just want to be here for my family. Yeah, of course, as long as I can, Lord willing,

Scott Benner 49:25
good for you. That's awesome. I'm glad you're thinking about yourself like that. I mean, so what's stopping you?

Taylor 49:30
I don't know. I guess it's just some hurdle I have to get over mentally, just getting over the stigma of it's like, oh, well, why can't you just say, No, I'm not going to eat carbs or fries or, you know, why don't you just eat healthier? Why don't you exercise? That's interesting. And, you know, I guess just a ridicu ridicule from others. It's like, Well, why don't you just do this, you know?

Unknown Speaker 49:52
Well,

Scott Benner 49:53
listen, I'll, I'll share this with you right again. Back to this weekend, I was up on that stage and giving that talk in front of everybody. And, you know, there's, you know, little things you hit along the way. And I bring up thyroid stuff for people, by the way, as soon as you bring it up, you know, end of the talk. 20 people come to the stage, yeah, and they're like, Oh my God. Like, wait my TSH is four, and I have all those problems. My doctor said I was okay. And I was like that. They all like, go off to help themselves. And I shared too. I said, you know, for those of you who have been here for many years, I've been coming to this event since its inception, probably, gosh, I probably been there eight times. You know, I forget how long they've been doing me, but I've been at every one of them. And there's a covid year in there. They didn't do it, maybe. And I said, some of you might recognize that I don't look the same anymore. And I said, I said, I just want to be completely clear, like I lost this weight by using a GLP medication. And if you have any questions about that while I'm walking around, I'd be happy to spend free time talking with you about it. You know, I know there can be a stigma around it, but here's some other things that I've seen it help people with. And you know, there's a couple of episodes you might want to go listen to if you want to hear about some impacts that people with type one have had, or people with type two, and people started to clap. And I just, I put my hand up. I was like, Oh yeah, I don't really do much. But then somebody pulled me aside later and said, No, I'm on a GLP two. You did a lot more. And you think it's not just the commitment of sticking yourself once a week with the thing, it is all the other stuff that comes with it, like it's a it's more about the psychological stuff, the fundamental shift about how you think about food or, you know, or that you have to consider, like, what you're talking about, like, you know, Am I cheating? Am I giving up? Am I not doing a thing I should be doing? Like, is this, I don't know, whatever thought popped into your head. And all I can tell you is that that's you're not gonna care about any of that when you're clutching your heart and going to the floor 25 years from now, when you're like, Oh no, you're not gonna go like, I could be not having a heart attack right now, but I didn't want to cheat. It's all bullshit. Taylor, you know what I mean? Like, and I wouldn't, yeah. And in the end, what I would tell you is that those people in that room are very supportive. And I'll tell you the same thing that I would tell my kids when they were growing up, like people who don't have our best interest at heart, we don't care what they think, yeah, you know, so, trust me, those are just people wanting to judge something. Yeah, always, yeah. I don't know what. I don't know what, what, what they're missing in their life, but, like, don't let them take it out on yours. Yeah, diabetes wise, like, going back to your son for a bit here, you've talked a lot about, you know, you the podcast and listening to the podcast and everything. Like, could you? Could you give anybody who's got, like, a newly diagnosed kid, like, a little bit of like, What helped you here? You know, what was your takeaway is that that were valuable for you.

Taylor 52:42
Honestly believe the what you've always said, Just be bold with insulin, because I think that was one of our biggest fears when we were first diagnosed. Like we don't want to give too much, you know, we're afraid we're going to hurt him, or, even worse, you know, kill our our kid that is still new to us. I mean, he's two years old, so and we just got trouble getting, yeah, we just got him, and we also had trouble getting pregnant and everything. So like it when I

Scott Benner 53:10
almost asked PCOS made it more difficult for to have the baby, right?

Taylor 53:15
Yes, yes, it did. We had one miscarriage. Unfortunately, I'm sorry. In terms of some people on those you know, there's some people they've tried for 10 plus years, is probably, I have a child, and that's wonderful. I'm all for that. You know that that makes me happy when someone else has a child of their own, because it's just a feeling you can't really describe. It's joyous. I think it took us about two years. We did take, you know, short break there for a little while after the miscarriage. So, I mean, it took us a little over two years to have our son, and like I said, we were just scared to death of doing something that would hurt him. And it just eventually, I just kind of got over that. And I'm like, we have to get this blood sugar down, like we need to get more insulin, you know, if it's high, you know, things like that, right? And just give yourself more credit. I want to say this, and don't take it the wrong way, but people that have good results, it's due to what they do, not because of what you've said, because you're not I mean, what you've said is correct, and you give them the tools to do it, but give yourself more credit, because Scott is not doing that for you. Scott, give you the tools you have to do it. So give yourself more credit.

Scott Benner 54:26
You know, I try very hard to tell people all the time when anybody you know, very graciously will reach out and they'll say eventually something like, you know, look what you did for me. Or I'm like, I didn't do any of this. Like, that's first of all, someone else should have told you this a long time ago, and I'm not some great genius. I don't understand a thing you don't understand. You know, I've laid some ideas out in front of you. You've decided which ones fit in your life best, and then you're doing the hard work. You're putting them into practice. You're remembering to do them every day. You're learning things going off on your own. Yes, you know. I guess I've said this in a lot of different ways. I really just do see myself as, like, the coach that's just yelling at you, like, get out there. You can do it. You know what I mean? Like, like, you know, just go, go, go, try the thing. It's gonna work. Like, you know, run the play. If it doesn't work, run it again, you know, we'll get there. Like, you know, Let's be together on this. I really just think I'm a cheerleader, like, to a great degree, you know. And I might be a cheerleader who first says, like, hey, you know, you got to understand how this works. And, you know, you can't just go out there blind. You're going to have to have some some tools and knowledge. But yeah, you know, I'd even go so far as the is the one to be honest, and tell you that in the beginning, I didn't realize all that, like, in the beginning, I thought, like, well, this is how I do it. If they do it like this, they'll be okay. And it is, until I put it out there for so long, that I realized that you guys were going to cherry pick from what I was talking about. And it wouldn't just be for me, but it would be from other people that came on the podcast and shared their ideas. And like, you're going to cherry pick from all of this and build your own thing and make it work best for you. And then again, if you don't do the work and you don't put in the effort, none of that's going to matter anyway. And so I agree with you. I agree with you

Taylor 56:12
like you said, the tools are there. I mean, there's some things like, I think you've kind of said you kind of have to read between the lines, because what works for this person may not exactly work for you, but you can take what they've done and kind of tweak it for yourself. When my son was diagnosed, I think his a 1c was like 9.5 something. It was pretty high for a two year old, and within a year's time, we just recently went to the end, though, maybe a month or so ago, and we're all the way down to 6.2 just just from putting to practice. What I've learned from this? Well, that's because we have, we have no one else personally that we know, other than my cousin. That's top one where we live. So it's kind of, it's hard to get ideas off other papers, you know, see what they're doing.

Scott Benner 57:01
Well, that's really well done. Taylor, good job. How do you find the podcast? Like, how do you like find it to begin with?

Taylor 57:08
It's kind of funny. My wife is not a podcast listener, but also at her job. She works in the school system, like I said, so she doesn't really have the time to sit down when you have 30 kids running around the room, sit down and listen to a podcast. But once we were admitted to the PICU, I guess my wife got online and was looking up different things. She was like, Have you heard of this podcast? I'm like, no, because she knows I listen podcast, because I'm able to with the job I do throughout the day. I was like, No, I haven't heard of it, but all you know, I'll look into it. And a month or so went by, and then one day, I was just like, I kind of forgot about that. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna look for that and listen to it and just put it on, kind of listening. And I guess the turning point was, I don't, I think I started listening in the 1200s somewhere in there, is when I first started listening. And you had said Your daughter was diagnosed at two years old as well. And it's like my ears just immediately turned on. I was like, what does he just say? Like, I felt like I wasn't alone. You know,

Unknown Speaker 58:05
yeah, yeah, no kidding.

Taylor 58:06
And just from there, I've just started listening from there.

Scott Benner 58:10
I'm forever going to be fascinated by the different roads that people get to it that pit hit you and captured your your idea. I think some people make it because they're lost, or some people are, you know, like, they feel like they've tried everything they can. They're willing to, like, well, I guess a bike, I mean, because, I mean, it sounds ridiculous, right? Like I listen to a podcast and it helps me with my diabetes, like, gets,

Taylor 58:33
you know, yeah, you're like, there's no way that works, yeah, right. I

Scott Benner 58:37
swear to you, I would think the same thing. Like, if I intersected myself, I'd be like, this is probably some bullshit. I would feel the same way. It's not until you dig into it and you really find out it's interesting to me to know that you were aware of it for months before you listened. I just got another one of those letters again recently, where the person's like, Hey, I started listening and really did not like you, and then came back to it, and then, you know, now we're really having a lot of success because of the podcast and etc, like, it's fascinating all the different ways that I don't know that people end up here eventually. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that with me. I really do. It's very, really, uh, lovely of you to want to do this. Well, then that's my really. My last question is, like, what motivates you to want to be on the podcast after? You know, after this

Taylor 59:21
year, at the time, I hadn't heard a lot of guests come on that had, you know, early diagnosis stories. You know, seem like a lot of the people you've had on. It's like me or my child have, you know, we're five years after diagnosis, three years after diagnosis. And when I applied to try to come on at the time, we weren't even to a year yet. And I just kind of wanted to give my perspective to someone that's in the grand scheme of things, very early diagnosis, right? And pretty much, to let those people, maybe someone, when this episode comes out, this that's their first one they listen to, and just let. Know, like it's gonna be fine. Use this podcast as a tool. You can figure it out it's gonna be all right, that's

Scott Benner 1:00:06
a good message. I'm up for that. All right. Well, the only thing that we didn't accomplish today, Taylor is we didn't come up with a catchy title for your episode. That hurts me. You didn't say anything ridiculous, other than the negotiating with terrorists. Well, yeah, you know what? That was good?

Taylor 1:00:28
Like, please eat this food. It's almost like, yes, we'll give you a million dollars in a helicopter to escape. I

Scott Benner 1:00:33
don't really care. It's fine. We'll do whatever you want to do. We need to get past this part right here. I've had that deal. I've begged in those situations too, like, please just take a bite of this. Or that, that horrible feeling like you're not hungry, we already pushed the plunger. Like, that's,

Taylor 1:00:48
yeah, it's already in you, like, we have to do something. Oh my gosh. I would say one of our one of the times we were, like, almost frantic, that we were like, You have to eat. This was this last Thanksgiving, so his first Thanksgiving post diagnosis, and we made a plate, and it was the most insulin we'd ever give him at one time. And we give him the insulin, and then he's like, I don't want to eat. We're like, we almost immediately lost it. We're like, we've never given him this one, like, Please, you have to do something, which we did. We did have a low then, but we were able to catch it. It wasn't his lowest low that we've ever seen.

Scott Benner 1:01:26
But I would have with the pie out. Taylor, I would have pulled the pie out right away. I would have been like, immediately, just like, here please. Ate dessert for dinner. Here you go, buddy. Something. Do you like an apple pie? Huh? That'd be awesome, wouldn't it? What did you end up doing? Did you talk him into eating something?

Taylor 1:01:41
Or, pretty much, like you said, kind of got some kind of dessert out, and was like, Here, eat this. And then once he had that, he was like, oh, now I'm gonna eat my other food. And it's like, we didn't account for the dessert part. Now we're gonna have to wait till this comes up, catch it on the back end, you know.

Scott Benner 1:01:53
But you figured it out, right? Yeah, we did, yeah,

Taylor 1:01:57
you know, we did have a low and we had a immediate hot bike afterwards, but, you know, give it some time, you know, let it play out. And we, you know, got back in range.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:06
I think

Scott Benner 1:02:08
that that day probably lent you more more knowledge and experience than you even realize right now. You'll pull from that experience multiple times. Yes, if you already have it,

Taylor 1:02:19
to put it bluntly, having the balls of steel when you're, like, my son would be at daycare, and like he's going low, was told, you know, the people that run the daycare like, okay, give him this. Give him this. And like you're just sitting there, like waiting to pull, you know, tell him to give him more. Like you're waiting to see that, you know, curve flatten out from the low, like you just literally have to, like, you've said, I don't remember how you word it, but like, you know what's going to happen, just like, wait for it to happen.

Scott Benner 1:02:47
Yeah, but you have to trust that what, what you know is going to happen is going to happen, and then act at the appropriate time.

Taylor 1:02:54
Yes, it's just kind of hard for us, because we're both of us where we work, we're like, 30 minutes away, so it's not like we could get there in a short amount of time.

Scott Benner 1:03:02
Feels like if something really got sideways, it would be too late by the time you got there.

Taylor 1:03:06
Yeah, and we have had a situation at daycare where I have called them, and I'm like, not trying to scare you, but his glucagon is there and explain the whole deal. And I'm like, look on the package. It'll tell you how to but I'm also going to tell you how to do it. Only use this in this situation, like I'm just letting you know. And then my wife had called him and kind of explained the same thing as well, because she didn't know I called. She just seen the number. And then we, we communicated after the fact, it's like, oh yeah, I just called him too, which, you know, luckily we didn't have to use that. But after the fact, when we went to pick him up, they're like, we prefer to talk to him. He was a little more calm.

Scott Benner 1:03:46
Your wife was coming hard. Yeah, she wasn't like,

Taylor 1:03:49
super frantic, but she like, I guess they could tell in her voice, like, she was pretty worried about it, and I just tried to stay calm. I'm like, this is, you know, this is what could happen. So you're aware. This is how you take care of it.

Scott Benner 1:04:02
She was like, don't you let my baby die,

Taylor 1:04:07
which we broke a record the other day in terms of the blow while at daycare or not at daycare those other night. Actually, it was one of those stubborn like, we didn't overdose for food. I'm not sure what was going on. It just kept dropping and dropping and dropping. We actually kind of underdosed for what we thought, because he was a little bit on the lower end. We didn't give him as much food, okay? And eventually said low when we're like, okay, like, let's check this just to make sure. And sure enough, we were at like, 28 and we're like, holy crap, my gosh. Like, that is not good, which we knew we'd already given plenty of stuff to try to get that up. So I know it's going to take some time, but I mean that once I've seen that 28 come up, I'm like, my eyes just popped out of my head. I'm like,

Scott Benner 1:04:48
holy crap. You don't have any feeling for how it got to that.

Taylor 1:04:51
No, no, just normal, kind of normal dinner, actually, like I said, a little bit less than what we would normally give him just because we knew he'd be. Up and around and kind of active. And this was after we actually had gotten bed to go to sleep, because we kind of leveled out after the meal, and it just started slowly creeping down. And then, like I said, I don't know what it is, but even if we're just slowly creeping down in like the 70s and 80s, it's almost like just someone pulls a lever and then we're just dropping.

Speaker 1 1:05:19
Wow, yeah, is activity you think it could be,

Taylor 1:05:24
but I'm not nearly as knowledgeable. But things like, I'm not sure if it's after he's kind of calmed down and we're, you know, ready to get in bed, if all of that just kind of starts working then, because I would think he would start working as he's doing whatever the activity is, whether he's running around the house or playing or something like that, jumping off my head onto the couch or something, you know,

Scott Benner 1:05:46
head diving. So you think that when the day winds down, he starts to calm down and relax, his blood sugar starts to drop.

Taylor 1:05:54
It seems like it, for some reason, interesting. I'm still kind of testing that theory. But then, then also, you know, we'll be in a good range. And then middle of the night, you know, he had some kind of spike in the middle of the night, it's like you're asleep. You've not anything. It was stable coming into the night, you know, yeah, not sure what's going on there. And there's sometimes, you know, we have to wake up and, dose, yeah, it ain't

Scott Benner 1:06:15
a whole lot of fun with the diabetes, I'll tell you that much.

Taylor 1:06:18
Yeah, I would not recommend it to anybody,

Scott Benner 1:06:21
yeah, with that meme like diabetes, do not recommend something like that. It's like a Yeah, I agree. I genuinely appreciate you coming on, spending the time. I know you're at work, so it's nice to you to be here and to share your story like this. And I do think we now call the episode Balls of Steel. That'll be good. So I appreciate you. I appreciate you coming through at the very end there. Thank you. Yes, no problem. I appreciate it. Yeah, hold on one second for me. Okay, all right.

Did you know that skin grip has donated over $100,000 in scholarships to help people with diabetes. The people at skin grip, they know what it's like to live with type one diabetes. They know what it's like when your devices fall off at the absolute worst time. And they're here to help skin grip.com/juicebox save 20% off your first order when you use my link. That's what you get for being a Juicebox podcast listener. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five. And at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you can get yourself a free What'd I just say? A free Omnipod five starter kit, free. Get out of here. Go click on that link, omnipod.com/juicebox check it out. Terms and Conditions. Apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com. This episode of The Juicebox podcast was sponsored by us, med, us, med.com/juicebox, or call, 888-721-1514, get started today with us. Med, links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com, hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

My diabetes Pro Tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward, practical insights that truly make a difference. This series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin dosing adjustments or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal experience, and we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The Diabetes Pro Tip series runs between Episode 1001 1025 in your podcast player, or you can listen to it at Juicebox podcast.com by going up into the menu. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com,

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Scott Benner 11/5/25 Scott Benner 11/5/25

#1671 Deez Nuts - Part 2

Part two: Scott and Kirby dive into fat/protein bolusing, gaps in clinical guidance, parenting/language around food, online noise, and real-life T1D pragmatism—with laughs, candor, and Buffalo Bills jabs.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Kirby 0:15
My name is Kirby, and I'm a mom of a eight year old who was diagnosed just about a year ago with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 0:23
This is part two of a two part episode. Go look at the title if you don't recognize it. You haven't heard part one yet. It's probably the episode right before this in your podcast player, my diabetes Pro Tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward, practical insights that truly make a difference. This series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin dosing adjustments or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal experience, and we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The Diabetes Pro Tip series runs between Episode 1001 1025 in your podcast player, or you can listen to it at Juicebox podcast.com by going up into the menu. 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. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about missed boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses, learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox today's episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is the meter that my daughter has on her person right now. It is incredibly accurate and waiting for you at contour next.com/juicebox oh my gosh, yeah, yelled up at the doctor. That's one

Kirby 2:14
that drives me nuts, if I can talk about that drives me nuts, because there is no doubt that you need to Bolus for those things I get, especially as a dietitian, that even just teaching carb counting is an uphill battle for a lot of people, luckily for me, like I was teaching it for a decade or more before this happened, so it was I was old hat. It drives me nuts that that wasn't one of the first things we learned about I get it is very difficult to kind of suss out, because everybody's a little bit different, and you got to kind of tweak the way that you do it. But it is just just yesterday I was re listening to your fat and protein pro tip with Jenny, and I sent my husband a text. I said, OMFG answers, because I wanted that the idea that you were guys were talking about with doing the protein at the end, and what was it like doing 0% up front, 100% over three hours. I wanted that. I also wanted. I hadn't even heard of the concept of doing a temporary basal increase for the fat, and both of those things make perfect sense to me, because I understand how protein gets turned into glucose, and I understand how fat slows down digestion. Why is it almost a year later that these pieces are being put together for me? Because I have an eight year old who eats pizza, he eats mac and cheese, he eats all of those things. So we went a year not being able to practice and nobody teaches it.

Scott Benner 3:40
It's not. It was never going to occur to you that's like, how

Kirby 3:43
would I even know to like and I did actually ask early on about bolusing for those and somebody said, No, people don't normally have to do that. Well,

Scott Benner 3:51
if it makes you feel better, two things if, first of all, it makes you feel better. I didn't recognize it. Somebody told me about it. I recognized the action and the need, but I didn't put it together with the fat and the protein, right? It wasn't until, like, I was talking about it so much that somebody who knew about that was like, yeah, that's this. You should talk to this lady. There's a lady in Canada, like, she's got a website called waltzing the dragon. She came on the podcast and, like, laid the whole thing out for me, really technically. And I was like, oh, that's what I do. I just didn't know that's why I was doing it. Yes, yeah. And now it's part of the thing. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's why this thing keeps building. It really is me learning as I go right, just like you are. And I think that if someone would have said that to you on day one, I don't think it would have stuck to you anyway.

Kirby 4:35
It might not have stuck, like the way to do it, but acknowledging that it was something that we could address when we were ready, would have been nice, because, you know, it would be like, then I would know to ask. But instead, I had somebody early on say, you don't have to. And you know when, when your kid gets diagnosed with something, even, no matter what you know, even as a dietitian, as a mom, everything I knew flew out the window, everything it was gone for, like. A hot second. So like, anything, people said to me, that's what we did for a little while just to stay safe. And then I was like, well, would have been nice if they had said, when you're ready, we can talk about this. Well, it

Scott Benner 5:12
makes the assumption that they know too. And I suppose, bring this full circle by telling you that the person who was chastised in the doctor's office was told by the endocrinologist, not that, like, that's a difficult thing to explain to people, or like, let's not confuse them with that. Told them that's not real.

Kirby 5:28
Oh my gosh, see now that I have to laugh because it's infuriating. Of course, it is absolutely infuriating. I

Scott Benner 5:34
don't know what to tell you. Like, people are people aren't perfect, and some of them are

Kirby 5:38
doctors. I suppose my Yeah, my expectations are way too high for people. My dad has always said that, like, Well, I mean, are they really that high?

Scott Benner 5:47
I think so. Mean, I really do. I yeah, I try very much to have a more human view of this. Like, I know doctors, they're just people too their husbands and wives are mad at them. They have kids that don't listen. They can't afford stuff. They, you know, like they're paying off their blah, blah, blah. They, you know, their moms are sick. I can't believe any of us get up in the morning and go do the thing we're supposed to do half

Kirby 6:10
the time. I will. I will give you that, yeah, but, but because the fat and protein thing is real, your dog dying shouldn't prevent you from acknowledging that. No, you know,

Scott Benner 6:20
but it does. And you know, because you forget, or you're tired or whatnot,

Kirby 6:24
well, in the case you just said, they actually denied it, or they don't know, maybe they don't know. Yeah, I'm fired up. I give people a lot of grace right now. I'm just fired up. I'd

Scott Benner 6:34
be, listen, I'd be happy to get fired up with you. I, you know, I started telling you about something before we got on here, and I alluded to it at the very beginning, that I don't know if I'm getting older and surly or if I'm starting to like, really, I pay a lot of attention to things. Like, I'm either nosy or I'm interested by things, right? But I watch the world as closely as I can, and I've noticed lately that no one seems to know how to comport themselves anymore, right? In public, right, right? They're unaware of each other. They don't know what they're doing. They're I watched two people talking the other day. One guy just coughed in the other guy's face. He didn't like flinch when he coughed, and the guy that got coughed on didn't flinch. And all I could think was like, we're like, a couple of years removed from covid, where everybody wouldn't even, like, stand near each other, right? And now it's all gone out of your head, like, not the button, but forget covid. Like, it's all going out of your head not to cough in someone's face. Then go, Oh, I'm so sorry, or for the person to even react. I was like, why is so? I watched that app, and then I walk around, I see I'm in the grocery store just for contact, right? And this woman's like, you know, she grabs something off the shelf, she walks a few feet, gets into what I would consider to be the main thoroughfare at the end of like, she's she couldn't be in more people's way if she set out to be in more people's way. And then she stopped and started doing something that could have happened anywhere, but she's now blocking the traffic of four different directions, and she is completely unaware that this is happening. So I stop, because whether you think this or not when you're listening, I'm a good person, okay? And like, I'm gonna give her the benefit of the doubt here. Kirby, right? I just stop. I got headphones on. I'm listening to something. Truth is, I ain't in a hurry to get back to where I'm going either, so I just sit, I chill out. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for her to, like, figure out what it is she needs to figure out and get and start moving along. And she looks up and sees me, and then eyeballs me, like I'm doing something to her. And I was like, Is this a fucking joke? Yeah, I'm like, lady. I didn't say anything. I just smiled and gestured for her to go by. And then she walked by, and I was like, Oh, my God, she's mad at me.

Kirby 8:52
It's wild. That's awesome. Really wild.

Scott Benner 8:55
In this same trip, people are going along. I watched a guy get sherbert or, like ice cream or something, right? Like the colorful ice cream, is that sherbet? Herbert sorbet? No, it wasn't sorbet. Anybody know I was in the sorbet section. I would have known if it was sorbet. Okay, gets it out, takes 10 or 20 steps, realizes he doesn't want it, and puts it down somewhere that's not frozen anymore. I was like, okay, and then no lie as leaving and checking out, checking out, checking out, checking out, doing the whole thing. There's a waste paper basket, like, there's like, there's like, super cashiers. They don't actually have to run the registers, but they seem to run the whole thing. You know what? I mean, they have a little like, podium. They have, right? Yeah, and the podium has a little waste paper basket, actually, because they do a lot with paper. And this family's walking out. Father, I'm going to call him, 3840 years old. Wife, same age. Son, eight, 910, range. Daughter, seven, eight, range. Like walking along, I see the daughter get a look on her face, and then she just Hawks up a loogie and spits it in the waste paper basket that the people are standing next to the cashiers are standing. And she just kept going. And the mom saw it happen, nothing. The dad saw it happen. Nothing. The brother kept going, and all I could think was 1978 I'd be 50 feet from that location right now. My dad would have hit me so hard, right? Like I would have just flown. I just would have flown through the air, through the grocery day. Is it right to hit your children? I don't

Kirby 10:37
think so. No, there's we got to get somewhere in the middle somehow,

Scott Benner 10:40
from the time I was nine till the time I'm 54 went from like, this is a beatable offense, to like, No one looked up, right? And this was not okay, like she wasn't get for any of you listening, I know how you all are now you try to make an excuse for everybody, like there was no reason she couldn't have just like, lived five more seconds and spit that into a bush outside. She was so close to being outside, you know what I mean, and no direction, even, not even like, so now I'm watching, God, I got my car too. I'm leaving so, like, I stay not close. I'm not being creepy, but I stay, I stay close enough to see, like, am I gonna get outside and see a little parenting? Hopefully, no, that part was over already. That's what

Kirby 11:26
was in my head. Is like maybe they were waiting to talk. I thought so

Scott Benner 11:29
too. That was me again, given the benefit that they get girl outside, they pull aside. Nice to go. Hey honey, listen, you know we don't want to spit in the trash can. Blah, blah, blah, you know nothing,

Kirby 11:40
and I don't know how, like, I mean, I could have all sorts of, you know, speculation about how all this came to be, but I can, at least, with you, acknowledge that it's just something has disappeared, and some it's sometimes I find myself like, gosh, this seems so obvious. Like, how to be a good person, how to think about our impact on other people. Well, why

Scott Benner 12:05
do I bring this up here? Because I think that the only because my my initial reaction was, I went home, I said to my wife, we got to go right, right. She's like, what? I'm like, we got to bug out. I was like. I said, if we can sell the house, great. If not, let's just burn it to the ground. We got to get out here. And she's like, why I tell my long winded story about the grocery store? My must have caught my wife in a mood, because she was like, agreeing with me. She never agrees me. We've been together way too long. And so I was like, okay, but then what I landed on was running is the wrong thing to do. I got to keep going to the grocery store and just acting the way, like a generation ago knew to act right and like, and maybe that'll help something.

Kirby 12:43
I think so that's the whole idea of Be the change that you want to see Right? Like, that's it

Scott Benner 12:47
for the people you're talking about, like, who are very honestly, probably listening to this. Like, if you know something, like, put something into action. Like, maybe, maybe your work will say yes to it. Like, you know, like, try something. Because otherwise, whatever the version of spitting in the waste paper basket is 10 years from now is gonna happen. Somebody doesn't stand up and say, Hey, I think we should talk about the fact that sometimes fat needs a Bolus. Like, it'll just go away. Like, nobody's gonna like, I don't know where we're all headed exactly, and I don't want to be high minded about my stupid podcast. I think people who know have got to keep saying so Agreed, agreed, right? And maybe you'll be wrong, or maybe you'll bump into people won't agree with you. Maybe, if I would have said to the guy, like, Hey, man, your kid just spit in the waist paper basket. Like, are you going to do something, even if he didn't take offense to it? Right? Which, of course he would. But like, say he was going to be thoughtful about it. He might be like a kid had to spit. Like, what do you want to do? To spit on the floor? Like, right? No, I wanted to hold it into her mouth, swallow it like a human being. Live through it. Go be uncomfortable for five seconds, and don't make everyone else part of your problem. A guy just coughed right in the other guy's face. He didn't even notice he did it contour next.com/juicebox that's the link you'll use to find out more about the contour, next gen blood glucose meter. When you get there, there's a little bit at the top. You can click right on blood glucose monitoring. I'll do it with you. Go to meters, click on any of the meters. I'll click on the Next Gen, and you're going to get more information. It's easy to use and highly accurate. Smart light provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels, and of course, with Second Chance sampling technology, you can save money with fewer wasted test strips. As if all that wasn't enough, the contour next gen also has a compatible app for an easy way to share and see your blood glucose results, contour, next.com/juicebox and if you scroll down at that link, you're going to see things like a Buy Now button. You could register your meter after you purchase it. Or what is this? Download a coupon, oh, receive a free contour next gen blood glucose meter that. To tell contour next.com/juicebox head over there. Now get the same accurate and reliable meter that we use. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, who is making life with diabetes easier with the mini med 780 G system. The mini med 780 G automated insulin delivery system anticipates, adjusts and corrects every five minutes. Real world results show people achieving up to an 80% time and range with recommended settings, without increasing lows. But of course, Individual results may vary. The 780 G works around the clock, so you can focus on what matters. Have you heard about Medtronic, extended infusion set? It's the first and only infusion set labeled for up to a seven day wear. This feature is repeatedly asked for, and Medtronic has delivered. 97% of people using the 780 G reported that they could manage their diabetes without major disruptions of sleep. They felt more free to eat what they wanted, and they felt less stress with fewer alarms and alerts. You can't beat that. Learn more about how you can spend less time and effort managing your diabetes by visiting Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox,

Kirby 16:14
and that's this is why it's so hard to do the right thing, because we are living in this kind of and I wouldn't say it's not so hard to do the right thing. I was saying it's we have so many different perspectives on the right way to be that are existing around us that make it kind of hard to move things forward. But truthfully, like, as I sit here, I think, like, Where will I be with all of this in five years? Right now, we are just getting our legs under us, but as soon as there is a path, like I want to be on that path talking about it, and maybe I'm not the one to make the change, but my voice could potentially be one of the voices that propels it forward. Well,

Scott Benner 16:50
all of our voices, yes, exactly. Everyone's got to do it, because I earlier said there's no way it's going to happen. That's me being cynical, telling you that it doesn't look like things are going that way. It doesn't look like they're going in a direction where enough people say, hey, you know what? We got to say something about this and around diabetes specifically. Like, I'm not the only one. But you know, when I was writing a blog, most of those blogs were just like, I don't know how to put it exact. They were just like, Woe is me. Blogs, right? They were like, diabetes is hard, isn't diabetes hard? It's so hard. It's hard for me. I know it's hard for you. Let's be sad together, you know? Like, that's a lot of them were like that. I had conversations back then with people writing those blogs. Some of them were really and I was like, I'm like, I look at you privately, like you're doing so well, why don't you tell people about this, right? I don't want to get involved in that. I'm like, oh, okay, great. Yeah, I don't want to tell people what to like, because then it's going to open you up to, like, somebody's going to tell you you're wrong, and then they're going to yell at you. And I was like, people been yelling at me for 15 years. It's not bad, you know. It's really not that bad. You can live through it, you know.

Kirby 17:54
And you know, like, how long it takes and what actually goes in to being able to discover these things, and the things that you discover sometimes really are just for the person with type one that you're considering. Yeah, right. And some of them apply to everybody, but especially when you're early on, you're like, can't make heads or tails of things. Like, you don't know what the difference between those two things are,

Scott Benner 18:14
right? So I agree, too that you're not going to know what they are. So somebody should say them all, and then you can just figure out which work for you and which don't exactly. It's fine. Everything's not a rule. And the other thing is, too, is when someone's, you know, online, you know, disagreeing with you, you know, that's a minority of people, right? Like, you know, I Kirby, I'm not going to bring up where we are in the world's history today, because it's not for this podcast, right? But, yeah, I told my kids yesterday, I was like, I know it seems like the whole world knows about this. And I was like, but it's really only a small fraction of people. And, you know, there's only a small fraction of people who even know who that person is. There's only a small fraction of people who know that this happened. I just went out to I stopped by a health food store yesterday afternoon. No one knew what happened in the world. If I would have said to the person, hey, do you know about this? They would have said, I don't know who you're talking about. Most people are not the internet. I was like, I know it feels like everything that happens on your screen is everything. And I was like, but the truth is, is that if you go look it up, only a small fraction of people are online every day, right? And as you get older, you'll realize that that's not the whole world. It's a piece of it shouldn't be ignored, and it's not nothing. But there are a lot of people out in the world just doing their thing, living another day. And I was like, and you you should. That's, in my opinion, what you should be doing.

Kirby 19:38
I agree. I actually it's funny that you said that. Because I went to see a new therapist, I realized that I wanted to talk to someone after my son was diagnosed, because I was, you know, having all the stuff going on, I'm like, I just need something to ground me. The first thing I talked to her about was some stuff I was seeing not related to type one, but things that were causing me a. Lot of anxiety and panic that I was seeing online, and she was just like, limit your exposure. Like, how much of that do you need to know? I was like, Well, I think I need to know. She's like, No, you don't actually need to know any of that. If you need to know something, will that information get to you? I said, Yeah. And she said, limit your exposure. So I had to take an action. Yeah, it's like a spring cleaning, almost. Of the things that you're exposed to, it's like, really remove the stuff that is not serving you, because you're gonna get the information that you need. And why do that to yourself? Because you get sucked in. And so anyway, that's that was some of the best advice I got.

Scott Benner 20:40
Yeah, it's great advice, and also it counts for everybody. Like, it would be easy to say, oh, you know that that's how famous people get treated. Like, I've heard people say, like, well, they deserve it. They want to be famous, so, like, they take what they get, right? But it happens to me. It would happen to you if you had 10 followers on Facebook. Like you can go online right now. And I am either a deity or an asshole, and neither are true. And you know, like, who knows? Like, where does that come from? Like, why would you like listen? I'm happy I get that. If you if the podcast has helped you, then you're grateful about it. Like, that's very cool. I think that's awesome, and I'm happy that it, it helped you. But like, at what point I don't know. Like, how could this make you so angry? You need to tell people that I'm a bad person, right? This person, like, said something that I disagreed with, and now I'm gonna go make sure to tell everybody that I can find, to let them know that they're wrong. And I'm like, my god, like, what are you doing? This isn't hurting anybody. It is bonkers, but I'm saying that happens to people. Like, I'm not famous. It happens to me. It doesn't happen often, but it happens to me, and it happens to people in their regular lives too. Like, right? Like this, listen, I don't understand people's psychology enough to really, like, speak about this, but like, whatever that framework is that applies to, you know, the most famous person in the world, down to some guy with a niche podcast about a niche disease, because that's really what this is, right? Like, it's not even diabetes, it's not even type two diabetes, type one diabetes, right, right? Like, there's as few people as possible within diabetes in your regular life, like I saw yesterday, there's people online ranting to three followers, and one of the followers is busy telling them how right they are, and one of them's busy telling them how wrong they are. And I was like, Oh, my God, this is four people talking. Is what I'm seeing here.

Kirby 22:33
And that's, I mean, that's a microcosm of what is like happening, yeah, everywhere.

Scott Benner 22:37
To bring it back to what you were talking about around diabetes, specifically, like you can get into that space and what happens? Like everything feels so what like Why was, what was the feedback online doing to you? What did you see and how did

Kirby 22:51
it make you feel regarding type one or the other? Stuff that I was the type one thing that mostly it made me feel comforted that there were so many questions and so many people that had found their way through it, but early on, it felt a little confusing, because so much, and still, I mean to a degree still today, because there's so much that's so specific to our situation, and it's very hard to explain all of that, like on a Facebook post, you Know, Like, here are all the things you need. And that's one thing. Another thing, if you know any of the tech people are listening, would be great to have the ability to put more into like, if, I'm say, if we have to treat a low and to put in how much we treated and when, because I don't remember, I don't I wish we could put a little bit more that wrote alongside the graph, so that when we're looking at it, because I don't remember, I don't remember what happened last Friday, I'm like, I know that he had pizza and we I can't remember quite what we did. So I think that that's partially how I feel sometimes when I'm trying to piece things together based on other what other people are saying online is like, it's not exactly what we're experiencing, and it's hard to place it, kind of transpose it into our situation. So, but what we do is, I know you asked this earlier, is like I hear something, and then I try it and I see if it works, and then if it didn't, I try to figure out why, and then maybe I'll go back and see if I can find information on somebody else saying the same thing, and try something else. And so it's just like you kind of keep trying new things until you find it which you know is going to is going to change again with, you know, as the years go on. But I had to figure out how to use it, because at first it did feel like a little bit. It made me feel a little anxious, because it was kind of, it seemed like so many people had so many answers, which was cool, but then I was like, Well, I really don't know how to, like, really into what we have going on. I mean, there's

Scott Benner 24:44
something about the way the internet works and being online works, and, you know, social media something that just, it just, I don't know if it's the the speed it runs at, or what it is that it helps people who are already anxious to feel more anxious. Right, right, right, or in an anxious situation to feel it turned up somehow, yeah. But the irony, of course, is this is the best place to get the information for sure,

Kirby 25:10
yeah. And I think what I, you know, I would urge people to do is just be mindful of, you know, how you know your tone comes across different when you're typing versus talking. And what struck me a couple of times is when people say things so definitively, like, Do this, do this, do this, do this. It's like they don't come along with your disclaimer of, this is not medical advice. It's like, you know, it's like, you have, you have, I'm so happy for you. You have found what works for you. But when you kind of say it like, this is exactly what you need to do, which not everybody does, I will say that's the minority. But when you're searching for answers, sometimes the minority feel a little bit louder to you. You know, it's like if you get a haircut and, like, a million people tell you it looks great, but one person tells you it's not the best look on you. That's the one you focus on. So

Scott Benner 25:56
you should try being me long enough you learn how to ignore those

Kirby 25:58
people. Well, I don't know if they have wonderful hair, though. I mean, so come on, the

Scott Benner 26:02
voices who have been scared in the past are often the the loudest, yeah? Like, because I see that through throughout a number of different conversations. Like, you know, my kids blood sugar has been high for two hours. What do I do? Go to the emergency room? Like, wow, yeah. And then, right, you get the like, well, if they don't go and something happens, then what? And I'm like, okay, okay. Like,

Kirby 26:24
not on you. It's not, you're not responsible for that.

Scott Benner 26:27
Something that happened to somebody, another one that I and I don't, I don't see any humor, and I don't see any humor in any of these because it's something bad's happened to somebody along the way. But like, anyone who's had an eating disorder, and you start saying, like, Yo, you know, I didn't want my kid to have this cookie. It turns immediately into the worst part of what happened to them. They are now going to, like, they're gonna tell you about right? Because they don't want that to happen to your kid. And it's a loving thing. Like, I really do think it comes from a good place. I think all this stuff comes from a good place. Oh, for sure. Of course, it does. Often their experiences change the way they communicate it, yes, absolutely, the communication can feel very aggressive, and then they don't. They don't know it's aggressive,

Kirby 27:13
right? And I think, you know, I'm very tuned into that, because I see it all the time with, like, weight loss. So I don't work directly with people, but I hear a lot of weight loss conversations, and somebody will find something that worked perfectly for them, then they'll tell somebody, say, You should do this, whatever the thing is, and because we're different people, everybody has a different body, it might not work for that person. And what sometimes I'll say often will happen is that they'll blame themselves. They'll think that they did something wrong, when really it wasn't the right thing for them. And I think the same thing kind of applies here, is like if, if we say things with authority that can leave somebody feeling like they failed if it didn't work for them, or if maybe you didn't have all of the information. So, and I don't, I mean, I think you're right. Everybody is seeing this from a very loving place, because if they found something that worked, they want to spread the good word. Right? When

Scott Benner 28:04
I was just writing the blog, there was this moment, this lady, she's a lovely woman. She wrote a book called Kids, first, diabetes, second. And I mean, I want to be completely honest, I have a passage in the book. I haven't read the book. So I want to just be clear. I'm so sorry. She hears this, I haven't, I haven't read your book, but I don't read. Nobody should take that offensive. I haven't read her book. I don't actually know what it means. I think what she meant was, like, try to see the kid first, and then, like, I mean, there's no other way to put this. I watched kind of like, very aggressive low carb people say, Oh, she means that health isn't as important as having fun. And I'm like, I don't feel like she's saying that at all. Yeah, yeah. You know, it was like that. That's a weird distortion of what she's saying, right? But around that time when that book was in the zeitgeist, and it was popular enough, and, you know, like, it was like kids, first diabetes, second, this lady doesn't care about blah, blah, blah. I mean, some people, some people, some people think it's a great way to think, like, hey, let's make sure your kid's happy first. Like, who knows what you care. But I got wrapped into it at one point, because I started making the podcast. Then on the kind of the tail end of that, and it was the it's episode 11, which is crazy to say, because, like, so early years will be like episode 1800 or something like that wild. Oh my goodness. But in Episode 11, I was searching for a title, and I back then I didn't know how to make the titles, so while I was editing it, I just wrote down things that I heard me say in the middle of, and it was like a talking head episode where I just was talking to myself. And I think at some point in the episode, I said, that's when I learned to be bold with insulin. I was like, Oh, I'll call this episode bold with insulin. Oh, my God, right. And I call it that. And it became a thing, like, it's, it's a mantra. People use that term, right? And for sure, that wasn't on purpose for me. You know what I mean? Like, I just, it was a catchy phrase that I heard inside of the 45 minutes that I made the recording and I made it the title, and now that's a movement. Now. Well, those same people came at me, oh yeah. He just wants you to use a bunch of insulin for everything. He doesn't care if you eat healthier or not. I'm like, I don't think that at all. But then I got to make a choice, and the choice that I fell to was that what I see mostly from people, is they have trouble with high blood sugars, and that caused them problems long term. And I don't think it's a good idea to put into their head that there's an amount of insulin that's too much, right, because it could lead them to not use enough insulin, and to ride with higher blood sugars, and to think that higher is better than low, and all that other stuff, right? And so, like, I've got to pick a messaging basically, like, what side of this coin am I going to stand on more firmly? And I stood on the idea of, like, I think you should learn how insulin works so that you can use it very effectively. I'd like you to Pre-Bolus so that you don't you know, because that that is definitely going to keep you from using more insulin. You're not going to be fighting highs later. I don't want you to get low afterwards. That is certainly not a goal. But in the end, you need as much insulin as you need. And for 10 years, that small group of people you know are like, Oh, he's pushing insulin on people. He's, you know, why won't he just tell them to eat low carb? And what I mean, you as a nutritionist, know, like, you can't tell people how to eat. No, that isn't gonna work. No, well, it's just not gonna work. Like, even if I was, even if they're right, like, like, just say, give it to them for a second, right? Like, you know, I'm thinking to this one person, you know, like, sorry, I'm laughing, but she's just so crazy, but in a very lovely way. And by the way, now there's like 20 people who think I'm talking about them, and they're all like, I'm not crazy. Actually, you all seem a little crazy to me, but that's just my opinion. Maybe you're not

Kirby 31:46
like each other's crazy,

Scott Benner 31:47
but at the same time, like, I think that they just have been saved by a thing, and they know it's working for them, and they want other people to know, and they and they do think that, like, too much insulin will cause problems, by the way, hey, between you and me, it is better to use less insulin. Yeah, yeah, but not so much so that, like I That would be nice in a perfect world, right? If you ate lower carb and you got all your nutrients and you were using less insulin, that would be, I do think that would be a better way to go, right? But when most people don't live lives like that. That's not good messaging for them, right? Yeah, you got to do the bigger picture thing. Like, look, I've never gone all the way on what I think, but like, I do say it out loud enough that, like, I don't understand if you're drinking soda with sugar in it. I do not understand you. I don't understand why you would do that. Having said that, I'm in the minority. Cook and Pepsi are pretty big companies. They're doing okay, you know what I

Kirby 32:48
mean, right, right? And, and I think, you know. And that's interesting, that you're bringing that, that up, because that is something I have struggled with, because in it, you made me think of it when you said, kid, first diabetes, second or later, whatever it was that that has been like this convergence of the way I wanted to parent around food, and now trying to make it make sense in the context of diabetes, because I had a very specific and I still hold it philosophy about the way we talk about food and the way we talk about what we consume, and it really pressed me to figure out how to stay true to that and align with my own personal philosophy and still help my son and help our family manage his diabetes. So like, you mentioned soda, but I'll use juice, because I know he's mentioned like orange juice a few times, right? Like, I come from a place of there's no and I hate saying this because it's been said so many times, but it has been said so much because there's truth to it, which is, like, no food is bad food and but then you have to start asking yourself, like, what constitutes food, and is it the amount that you're having that is the issue, or is it the actual food? So like in the case of orange juice, or any juice, part of the issue, especially with kids, is that it has been over served. It's at too many meals, they get too big of a portion. But we come from a place of it has a place and it has some nutrients in it. It can be considered part of your fruit intake. So the way we talk about that is different than what you might tell someone who's trying to manage their blood sugar right like so it's been really interesting, even with I'll back up a little bit more too. Even just what I've told my kids about food is that I won't tell them. I would never force them to eat anything. It's something I told them so early. I will never make you eat anything. I'm not even a try a bite club type of person. If you don't want it, don't eat it. But fast forward, and my son has a low blood sugar, and he has to eat or drink something in the very early days. He said, Mom, you told me that you would never make me eat something if I didn't want to. I didn't know exactly. So it's like all of these things coming together. That's it's just so interesting to see. Like, I say interesting, but really, sometimes it's challenging to walk the line between. The two, because I think as he gets older, he'll find foods that are that he enjoys, that are better for his blood sugar management. But right now he's still a kid learning to eat, and part of that is letting them explore, letting them you know, you're in charge of what you put in front of them, but at the end of the day, they can eat of that what they want, and I have to try to help manage his insulin around that. So it's just, it's, it's tough. I think when, when you start talking about the actual food, with with the kids, and the drinks, we're still finding our way,

Scott Benner 35:33
but yeah, you just shouldn't drink sugar. Like, I think it's just, yeah, like, that's

Kirby 35:39
the thing. Like you can, I mean, it's if I had my druthers soda probably wouldn't have been invented if I could. That's not the world we're in. You know,

Scott Benner 35:49
don't not drink soda, by the way, I do. I drink diet soda with, I know frequency is the right word, but, like, I drink diet soda. I said this recently when I was talking to Jenny. I was like, you know, like, orange juice. Like a couple of swallows of orange juice, like, is, like, that's awesome. Like, a 16 ounce glass, exactly, right? Yeah? Like, that's way too much.

Kirby 36:09
And I think I always use the example, like, we all, like, you'll people say, like, we shouldn't, you know, donuts are bad for you, right? Like, that's, that's the thing that people will say. It's like, Well, so is an apple, if you only eat apples and bags and bags of apples, and only apples for your life, like it is the dose, it's the dose, and that the environment that we live in right now is not really that conducive to, you know, foundational foods that are good for health and moderation of the other foods. That's just not where we live. I

Scott Benner 36:37
don't understand the chemical mechanism of it. But I can tell you, like, after, you know, having used the GLP for two years, now, if you gave me a donut, I could take a bite of it and go, Oh, that's good, and then not eat the rest of it, right? But I know for certain that before the GLP, I would avoid the donut, because, if you because, if not, I would eat as many donuts as was there,

Kirby 37:00
right, right? Yeah, it is working on your hunger and your fullness hormones. It's also helping with food noise. I don't know if you experienced that, but like, the internal narrative so that it

Scott Benner 37:09
is, I hear people say, like, oh well, you just, you know, have to have more, you know, restrain or something like that. Like, it's not just, I don't know how to explain that. That's not what was happening. Yeah,

Kirby 37:20
no, I'm with you. I mean, I think that those are it's people don't, even the experts, we don't fully understand all that goes into hunger, fullness, weight, metabolism, you know,

Scott Benner 37:31
yeah, you have to experience it to understand it, yeah, and I can't. It's still hard to put into words, to be perfectly honest, like, I'm not, I was not an undisciplined person, but I definitely had weight to lose, and I was definitely eating, you know, too much, or the wrong thing, or whatever, enough to hold that weight. And, you know, and there's plenty of times where I didn't eat that way, and my body just never, like it never responded to eating well, and no kidding, like, without a certain amount of sugar, like I would have told you in the past, if you said to me, like, cut out sugar, I would have said, Oh, I don't know, like sugar, so only one of the ways, like, my digestion works the best. Like, if I cut too much sugar out, I can't go to the bathroom. Interesting, that's the thing I would have told you. I believed 100% and it seemed like it was proving itself out in my life. I don't know what it was doing or not doing, but I can tell you that I don't have as much sugar anymore, and it's not a problem. Yeah, so, and I wasn't having a ton of it, but I was having some, right? I don't know, like, I just think that the entire thing is, it's easy to say, like, this is the way to do it, if it's working for you, exactly. It's also not easy to put into practice, just like anything else, like, say, you know, if you're a runner, you you tell a great shipment, everybody should run. Well, that's, oh, yeah, too easy. That's not true. Yeah, it's not gonna work for everybody.

Kirby 38:49
That's, that's right, some people can't even walk a mile, you know. So it's, and that's that you can use that as a, you know, what's the word? Metaphor, you know, like, some people can't do what you're doing even at a slow pace. So

Scott Benner 39:01
I just think that in the end, like people shouldn't suffer, agree, and no matter what pathway it takes to get them to that, if it's eating low carb, then that's great. If it's running every day and they can do it, then that's great. If it's somebody needs a GLP medication, then awesome. Like, in the end, like your life is a is a very finite thing. It is very short and very finite, and it could end at any second. And even if it lasts as long as it possibly can, it only lasts 7580 years. And those last 15 years aren't gonna awesome to begin with. So, like, so maybe you're getting like, 60 years that are awesome. But also, if you're an adult, remember this, you don't really remember your life before you were like 16 anyway, so you lose the first 15 to that maybe 20, and then the last 15 you can't walk. So basically, making this not sound great, Life is 35 years long, okay, so, like, while I'm in those 35 years, I gotta struggle the whole time. No, no, no, I'd like people to be as happy as possible in that

Kirby 39:59
great yeah. And I think that's what like, the foundation that we lay with the kids, especially like in the setting of type one, is so important, because though they won't remember every single thing you said, you are creating their formative experiences around food, around their diabetes, and the way you talk about it is so important. And that's what like I with with my kids, and especially with our type one. I won't ever say like, Well, you shouldn't eat that because of your diabetes. Those words will never leave my mouth. I won't even say that. You know, that's not a great food. That's not a bad food. The only thing I'll ever say is, if there is something that is has something in it that's not great for them, like an ingredient that's not good for little bodies, I might say, Oh yeah, it's got something in there that's not great for little bodies. That's as close as I get. But what you're describing like the joy that we can get out of food, that ability to do that, is laid. It's a foundation that's laid at such an early age, like I grew up in the area of, you know, the Jenny Craig's and all of the women and my family going on diets and eating salads. And that has stuck with me till this, this exact moment I still struggle, and that was put there early. It doesn't mean you can't learn to cope with it and learn, you know, ways to to thrive, but it has just been so, you know, it has come into focus for me so much with the diabetes, because the way we talk about food, we have started kind of walking on ice a little bit for a minute. It was or eggshells, then ice. What's the you know, whatever. Yeah, we can walk on thin eggshells or on ice.

Scott Benner 41:26
How about you walked on thin ice shells? I love it. That's that's the episode. Walking on thin ice shells. There you go. Okay, I don't know, these nuts is

Kirby 41:35
awesome. I know I'm gonna, how about go bills? Can we do one of those? Oh, my God,

Scott Benner 41:40
that's insane. The bills are never gonna win anything, and for you to assert otherwise is ridiculous. Gosh, okay, in this moment, what a disaster.

Kirby 41:54
You have enough stuff

Scott Benner 41:55
when that quarterback will win. You know, when that quarterback will win? Think long and hard what you're gonna when he leaves buffalo? That's when it'll win, because he's pretty good. Yeah, you guys are jinxed. I don't know how to put it. Remember the time you lost four Super Bowls in a row. I think

Kirby 42:11
what you mean is, remember the time we made it to the Super Bowl four times in a row.

Scott Benner 42:16
That's not what it felt like, please.

Kirby 42:20
So see again, formative memories that gave me grit.

Scott Benner 42:23
Brother, hey, listen, there's something to be said for that. Like, you know, like living through a lot of disappointment really is helpful. Sometimes.

Kirby 42:33
I'm telling you, I do look at it as they went for years. So I mean, not every day that no one

Scott Benner 42:39
there's the only way you could possibly look at that, because otherwise you would have to fling yourself into one of those frozen rivers. You know, they mean that you live near and honestly, no one should live, no one should live where you are. It's too cold.

Kirby 42:50
It's not that bad. You know, we had like, 90 degree days all summer, so,

Scott Benner 42:55
but humidity, right? Yeah, it's been, it's been hot, yeah? No good.

Kirby 43:01
All right, listen, talk nice about your food, people. That's what I'm saying. Just be me.

Scott Benner 43:05
I'll make a point to that too. Is you don't always say what you mean, either, and it's hard to, like, remember it day to day, moment to moment. Like the other night, Arden and I were doing something, and it was something she had trouble with. And I said, Okay, well, you know, I said something like, let me know if you're gonna do it, because if you're gonna do it, because if not, I have to throw it away because it's not going to be good after this time. Doesn't even matter what we were talking about. And she felt bad about that. But I didn't mean. I wasn't trying to make her feel bad about it. Like, I just, I was like, I was like, and then I realized, I'm like, Hey, we have more. It's not a big deal.

Speaker 1 43:36
Back track, back, track, back. Yeah. I was like, I just

Scott Benner 43:39
want to like, like, I just want to know, like, what am I supposed to be doing with it? Right? Doing with it right now? Like, you know, I mean, because it won't last past this, and I want to toss it so it doesn't get confused with something else. Blah, blah, blah. And then she's like, well, thanks a lot. And I was like, what? She goes now, I feel bad. And I was like, Oh, I didn't mean for that. Yeah. Wait, did you look back over your life and figure out how many times something like that happened? Oh,

Kirby 44:00
my gosh, yeah. And I'm sure it happens without them even telling us, yeah.

Scott Benner 44:04
My point is, you're doing it. You're doing it right now. Like you don't know it. You think you're trying not to, which is commendable, but like, it's gonna

Kirby 44:11
happen. It is, yeah, it's tough, and it's like, it's a learning process. I think as long as your intentions are good, that's the part that will stick. You know, we're not bringing our own baggage, and putting that

Scott Benner 44:21
doesn't really work is when somebody makes you a Bills fan, like, that's, oh, my damaging and there's no way out of it. You know what?

Kirby 44:27
I mean, you're gonna be feeling so ridiculous in February of 2026, about this conversation.

Scott Benner 44:35
So after the joy of the Eagles winning a consecutive Super Bowl happens, what? How will I feel? Exactly what's

Kirby 44:41
gonna you're gonna feel so silly when we bring that home. You're just gonna feel

Scott Benner 44:47
I'm so sorry you had Stefan Diggs and you ruined it.

Kirby 44:50
Oh, please. He's fine. He's good, we're good, everybody's good.

Scott Benner 44:55
You ruined Stefan

Kirby 44:56
Diggs. What do you think of that he was part we you

Scott Benner 44:59
ruined his. Career,

Kirby 45:01
I'm not gonna I have opinions, but I'm not gonna share them right here.

Scott Benner 45:05
Just been on a decent football team. Imagine what would have happened for him, stuck up there. Remember, you ruined that beautiful defensive ends life, too. He was so good. What was his name? Oh, my God. Which one was the most famous defensive lineman you've ever had in Buffalo? Ever? Who you mean? Ever? Oh, my God, look at how young you are. How old are you?

Kirby 45:27
I'm 42 really, I'm trying to think of who you could be talking

Scott Benner 45:31
about. Wait, are you sure you're thinking of the bills? I definitely am. Hold on, like, old. What? Like a Yeah, older, older. I'm just gonna do it here.

Kirby 45:39
Like, like Bruce Smith. You can't be talking about him. No,

Scott Benner 45:42
you ruined his life too. Yeah,

Kirby 45:46
I can't believe the turn this is taking. If you could see my face, this is

Scott Benner 45:49
like, what did he win? Nothing. Uh, he won the one of the great defense events.

Kirby 45:56
He still is. If you asked him today if he would have, he would say, I would there was no place you'd rather be than right there, right then you

Scott Benner 46:05
would have said, I would have rather been somewhere warm where we could have won something. What

Kirby 46:08
do you think? Bruce Smith, if you are listening, please tell Scott Benner that you are proud to be a bill and that you wouldn't trade it for the world.

Scott Benner 46:17
I don't believe. I think he wished he would have played in the year of free agency. Think

Kirby 46:21
of his name, because I thought you couldn't be talking about him. I was trying to lead

Scott Benner 46:25
you to the greatest defensive end that ever played for the bills.

Kirby 46:28
But you said that we ruined him. His

Scott Benner 46:32
career was ruined by playing in Buffalo.

Kirby 46:34
Like, why does he still spend half of his time in Buffalo then? Because

Scott Benner 46:37
he didn't make enough money to get out of there, because he was before free agency, and he got screwed.

Kirby 46:42
He's nuts. That's it. I

Scott Benner 46:45
can't believe you didn't say, put these in your mouth and shut up.

Kirby 46:51
You just said it. You say all of the

Scott Benner 46:53
things. For me, the bills are terrible. I don't know what to tell you.

Kirby 46:56
We can't go bill. We can't end like this.

Scott Benner 47:01
They should be a good team, and they're just not. I don't know why.

Kirby 47:04
Oh my gosh, you did watch the game on Sunday, right? It doesn't

Scott Benner 47:07
matter. And you have our old defensive coordinator, and I like him, McDermott,

Kirby 47:12
right? I'm gonna send you, yeah, he's amazing. I'm gonna send you a note in February. Just wait. Make sure you're checking your inbox. Make sure you're checking

Scott Benner 47:20
I will look for when you say, oh my god, I can't believe how they lost in the playoffs again.

Kirby 47:25
Okay, listen, here's a deal. If they lose, you have to send me and my family on your juice

Scott Benner 47:31
cruise. Listen, I can't afford that. Wait a minute, are you referring to the game was, was it the ravens and the bills? The game that the Ravens lost, you're taking credit for winning. Well, not me personally, okay? Because that the bills didn't win that game. The Ravens lost

Kirby 47:48
it. You do know that everybody plays until the last second, right?

Scott Benner 47:52
You can't lose a game when you're up 40 to 25 that's your fault when that happens. This is just a difference of opinion. It's a difference of opinion, right? Like between somebody who was watching the game from a third party position and a person like yourself who's trying to make yourself believe something that's not true. I want I swear I don't even care.

Kirby 48:11
How about that? I'm going to tell you something cute. My son said, because when they were playing Sunday night, I did not make it through the first night. I watched the highlights because I had to get up in the morning. But my husband was watching part of it with my son, and pointed out, I can't remember his name on the ravens, who's a type one. And my son, yes, yes, yes. And my son so sweet. He says, I wish Josh Allen had type one, like not

Scott Benner 48:33
because he wanted, because he wants some of the room for with diabetes. Yes.

Kirby 48:38
And I loved that he felt so okay about having diabetes, that he wasn't like, he wasn't wishing it on an enemy. He was wishing it on a hero, because he wanted it. You know, it was such. I was like, That is

Scott Benner 48:49
sweet. I take your point. Noah Gray has been on the podcast. He's, I

Kirby 48:52
just listened to that one. So good, right? Actually,

Scott Benner 48:56
I think I have an email here from here. I have an email here from, oh, my God, look at all these emails. You people, you got to stop emailing me. It's enough. I don't, I don't have a person. It's just me over here.

Unknown Speaker 49:13
Oh, where's her drawback of fame?

Scott Benner 49:15
I Yeah. I am emailing with, yeah. I'm emailing with Chad, mumas. Mumas, oh yeah, wife, right now. I think they're both. That's awesome, yeah. So that's, that's another guy, like he's, yeah, we love

Kirby 49:32
seeing it better than the bills problem. Stop it. Just are the bills we were going in such a good direction. We were getting off of it. And then he went back. He went back.

Scott Benner 49:43
I know I felt like I did. Okay. I think we're just gonna call this the episode The bills suck, and then that'll if I swear I would

Kirby 49:50
be the worst. The worst I would choose these nuts. Okay, I would.

Scott Benner 49:54
We've spoken for an hour and a half, even longer. Rob's gonna have to turn this into a two episode pod. Podcast. That's gonna be a two part podcast. Oh, and I never once brought up that my mom bought a Kirby vacuum cleaner when I was younger, and to ask you if you knew what that was,

Kirby 50:10
of course, I did, because I have to always say to people say, like the vacuum my response, which I've been working on since a child, is yes, except I don't

Scott Benner 50:19
suck. There you go. Not like the bills. So we were so close see what you did, though, you allowed me to do that by saying, Oh yeah, okay, all right. Well, thank you. We're done now. Goodbye. Okay, hold on a second.

Thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode. We've been talking about medtronics, mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night, whether it's their meal detection technology or the Medtronic extended infusion set, it all comes together to simplify life with diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox, I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter that my daughter carries. The contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour, next.com/juicebox and don't forget, you may be paying more through your insurance right now for the meter you have than you would pay for the contour next gen in cash. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now, and links at Juicebox podcast.com, to contour and all of the sponsors you Okay, well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me. Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review? Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribed in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me or Instagram Tiktok. Oh gosh, here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page you don't want to miss. Please. Do you not know about the private group? You have to join the private group. As of this recording, it has 74,000 members. They're active talking about diabetes, whatever you need to know, there's a conversation happening in there right now, and I'm there all the time. Tag me. I'll say hi. If your loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're seeking a clear, practical perspective, check out the bold beginning series on the Juicebox podcast. It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal insight into type one, our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers straightforward answers to your most pressing questions. You'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one. You can start your journey informed and empowered with the Juicebox podcast, the bold beginning series and all of the collections in the Juicebox podcast are available in your audio app and at Juicebox podcast.com in the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way, recording.com

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