#1044 Glucagon Story: Heather

October 19, 2023Scott Benner

Heather's child has type 1 diabetes and this is their glucagon story.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 1044 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today on the podcast we're speaking with Heather. She's the mother of a 14 year old child living with type one diabetes. And Heather is here to tell us their glucagon story. 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 are becoming bold with insulin. If you'd like to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com, all you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. I get my joggers, my sweat shirts, my sheets and my towels all from cozy Earth. They have something for everyone. It's quality, it's comfortable. And it's 40% off with the offer code juice box. It feels like everybody's using a G one. And if you're thinking about starting when you use my link, you'll get five free travel packs in a year supply of vitamin D with your first order that link drink ag one.com forward slash juicebox. And don't miss the completely remastered diabetes Pro Tip series. It's right back there and your audio app. It begins at episode 1000. You can also find it at diabetes pro tip.com and juicebox podcast.com. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by us med us med.com forward slash juicebox. Why would you go there to get your free benefits check and to get started with us med You can also call 888721151 for Arden gets her Dexcom and on the pod supplies from us Med and they have much more. We'll talk about that just a little later.

Heather 1:56
I'm Heather. I'm the mom of a type one diabetic diagnosed. It'll be three years ago in August and he will be 14 in September.

Scott Benner 2:05
Your son was diagnosed when he was 11. He's 14 now. Yes, sir. I'm asking the same question of I'm doing this four times today I'm asking the same question every time at diagnosis. Yes. What was explained to you, if anything about glucagon?

Heather 2:23
That it was for emergencies. Um, if you know his sugar was really low, he was unresponsive. And we had to do something right away. That was about it. Okay.

Scott Benner 2:34
Did you get the caveat at the end? But don't worry, this will never happen?

Heather 2:39
Oh, well. Yeah, of course.

Scott Benner 2:41
Not great. It's like they say to you, Hey, listen, these are the pedals in your car, the one on the right makes it go now the one in the center makes it stop. You'll probably never even need that like, right, right? Like, just if you take your foot off the gas quickly enough, you'll just cruise into like I don't. So my point around that always is to give me something and say this is very important. You might be in a life or death situation, when you need this. It's incredibly important for you to have it on you and for you to understand how to use it. But don't worry, because that'll probably never happen. And I get it. You know what I mean? Like I get that they're trying to like assuage your fears. But for me what that did was it when Arden had a seizure, I was like, I don't know how to use this.

Heather 3:24
Right, right. Well,

Scott Benner 3:26
he said we were never gonna need it.

Heather 3:28
So well. Yeah, like at this but at the same time, they kind of tell you like it's not this big a deal. You're not going to need it. But then also they terrify you of Lowe's. Yeah. I mean, I was terrified what I was going to do if he ever got low,

Scott Benner 3:41
the messaging is inconsistent as what I'm saying. Yes, yes, I would agree. Not helpful, but you did. You did? Sounds like you got a clear explanation of it. Yes. How long after that explanation? Did you receive glucagon in the house?

Heather 3:59
Like that we actually got the prescription and carried it Yeah. We I think we went home from the hospital with it.

Scott Benner 4:06
Well, okay, great. So you've got it right away. Do you have enough? Is it like spread throughout your life once at the school once in the bedroom? Or do you have we had

Heather 4:15
to, and so he kept one in his bag that he kept on him at all times. And then we had one at school.

Scott Benner 4:23
Did you spend any time explaining it to other people or did you find yourself thinking that's never gonna happen? It's okay.

Heather 4:29
Nope. I never explained it to school. I mean, obviously he knew how to use it. But if he was passed out that wasn't going to be very helpful. Yeah, no, I never explained it to anybody.

Scott Benner 4:42
What kind of glucagon that they give you in the hospital.

Heather 4:45
His was the in like, injection like we didn't have to mix anything.

Scott Benner 4:51
Okay, was it G voc or was it a different brand?

Heather 4:56
I think it might have been G voc.

Scott Benner 4:58
So they gave you Jeeva Could at the hospital? Is that the one you had with you when the event happened? Yes. You told me about that.

Heather 5:08
So he had taken too much insulin 70 units too much to be exact. Well, hold

Scott Benner 5:14
on, let's slow down. How did that happen?

Heather 5:19
So he, I, whether he was really, truly trying to overdose or not, I don't really know. But he was very frustrated, he'd been high, we couldn't get it down. He suffers with a little bit of anxiety and depression anyway. But you know, we've never really had an issue with it. And he was just kind of going through a lot of different stressors. And so we were at home, and I was actually supposed to go to dinner with family. He was going to go with us, but didn't want to. And so I was like, okay, cool, you can just stay home. And then he got really upset about that. And I'm, I probably check stuff too much. So like, I kind of always have a pretty good idea how much insulin is in his pump. And so I knew that he'd had about 70 ish units in his pump. And I decided not to go to dinner again, have no idea why just kind of that feeling that I shouldn't leave him alone. And then about 1015 minutes later, I heard his pump beeping. And so I went in and asking, you know, why was your pump deepened? And he told me because it's out of insulin. I said, What do you mean, it's out of insulin? You've had 70 units in there? And he said, Yeah, I know. I took it all. Oh, wow. And so you know, he has a 25 unit Max Bolus. So that means he had to, you know, multiple times put that in. And at that point, that was not important. What was important is I had to figure out what to do about this 70 units of insulin he had just taken. And you know, he's a teenager. So his ratios are pretty high. So I mean, I think I figured out that, like his carb ratio at the time, I think was around like seven or eight. So you know, I did the math figured out how many carbs would have to account for 70 units of insulin. And I just started shoving stuff in him, he'd had a bottle of Gatorade, a bag of Skittles, I literally gave him a spoonful of sugar at one point. And we were still double arrows down. And so I was like, I don't I don't know what to do. And I didn't want to take him to the hospital. One because, you know, was he going to make it to the hospital before something happened. And I felt like I could maybe manage this at home. I am a nurse practitioner. So maybe sometimes rely on that a little bit. But then I remembered I had a glucagon. And so I pulled it out. And I was like, we're gonna see if we can figure out you know, like, how many points glucagon will raise your, you know, your sugar or whatever. We never did figure it out. But I figured the worst thing that's gonna happen is if you go too high, then we'll deal with it. But I'd rather that be the case, then, you know, yeah. So I mean, he was still awake and talking and he was alert, and, you know, he knew what was going on. And so I injected him, actually, and I think I did it in his arm. And it stung really bad. And, you know, that it helped pretty significantly, I did have to give him another bag of Skittles. And about three hours later, he ate an entire pizza without taking any insulin. Because even after we had leveled out he kind of started to drop again. Yeah.

Scott Benner 9:14
Like a hole like I'm sorry, like a, like a pizza pie from like a pizza place pizza. Well,

Heather 9:19
it was a frozen pizza. Like, yeah, yeah. So and again, teenage boy, that's not a ton of food for him.

But yeah, I mean, he, he had to eat a whole pizza. We, I think by the time it was all said and done, he'd had like, two and a half bags of Skittles, you know, a couple of Gatorade. Like I said, a spoonful of sugar, the glucagon and a pizza.

Scott Benner 9:48
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Heather 11:53
Yeah, that was part of it. Yeah. All right.

Scott Benner 11:55
Did you ever figure out why you did it?

Heather 11:58
Um, so after everything kind of settled down, and I knew he was, you know, alive and going to be okay, we kind of talked about it. And what he verbalized was, he just wanted a break. He, he didn't want to die. He just wanted to go to sleep for a little while and not have to deal with any of it with diabetes with what's going on in his life. Like, just, you know, many of it.

Scott Benner 12:25
Was he not aware of what would happen with that much insulin? No, I

Heather 12:29
think he could we talked about that. And I think he thought that he would just go to sleep for a little bit. Like he would just kind of, you know, pass out for a little bit and he'd wake up and be fine. I don't he didn't realize that. He he literally could have died from it. Yeah, this

Scott Benner 12:45
is something I um, I think that we don't do enough. But I gave a talk recently to 400 adults, 200 of them were poor type ones. And the other half of them were their spouses. And I was doing a talk about supporting your spouse with type one. And I started just talking about like, you know, just make sure you know how to handle emergencies was another good thing to do. And I was just like, it just made sense. To me. I thought it was a throwaway line, like, you know, make sure your kids know when to call 911, stuff like that. And the number of people in the room who are like, whoa, whoa, what do you mean? It shocked me? Yeah, like, you know, like, I'm like, Well, you know, insulin can make your blood sugar too low. And if, if you have too much insulin, it could take all the glucose out of your blood. And that glucose is what your brain runs on. And your brain will shut off like a light switch and you can't turn it back on again. And right. And people were just like, why? And yeah, it just it, it resonates with me. I wonder how many people don't know that. We're had that thought of your son like, well, I've heard they said, I'll pass out. That'll be nice. I'll pass out first, right.

Heather 13:56
Yeah, I mean, that's really kind of I mean, you know, obviously after that, like, he did, you know, we went and saw a psych doctor, and he went to therapy and all that. And that kind of the conclusion from that was is that it wasn't a suicide attempt in the sense that he was consciously trying to end his life, but it was a I'm just tired of dealing with this, and I don't want to deal with it anymore. I just want a break from it. And him not realizing that that would have killed him. That's amazing. That's like, I mean, I, I, you know, not so much anymore. But when this happened, it's been a little over a year ago. I just kept going over and over in my head. What if I would have left and gone to dinner? Yeah.

Scott Benner 14:42
No, I mean, I don't want to tell you but he would, right.

Heather 14:45
Yeah, yeah, I know what would have happened. And you know, that I've been in that situation multiple other times, and I've always left like I've always just been like, you're fine. You can stay home because he was kind of thrown a fit. And so I was just like, you know, Any other time I would have been like, I'm still going to dinner like you're not going to ruin my plans. But for whatever reason that night, I didn't, I stayed home. And I mean, thank God I did.

Scott Benner 15:14
No kidding. Good for you. That's, that was well done for the whole thing he of course, I mean the glucagon and the way you walk through it and he did the math right away, which is something I don't think people think to do. They just I gave myself too much insulin. Instead of going, this is how much insulin I gave myself, and my insulin to carb ratio is this. So this many carbs will cover that insulin like?

Heather 15:36
Yeah, I mean, he and I, together, sat down and figured out like, you know, this is your carb ratio, this is how many carbs we need to make up for, you know, 70 units. And, you know, because he was a little high, so like, some of that was probably needed, you know, but definitely not 70 units

Scott Benner 15:52
in that sounds like, Wow, you did a great job. Good for you. He now what happens if his blood sugar gets too low?

Heather 15:59
He does. Yes. He. I don't know if it's because of that. But now he tends to run higher than I would like. I think, you know, because he doesn't want it to get low. But you know, it's the it's that balance, trying to find that balance. It's not, it's not easy.

Scott Benner 16:19
I think back all the time on to a story that I was told very, very early on, when Arden had diabetes. This woman's fairly younger child, you know, like, if I'm remembering, right, like eight, nine in that range, has type one, she has an older kid at 1516. And the child gets insulin for dinner. And she has to leave, can I forget she going shopping or something like that? She says to the older one, hey, remember, he's got to eat all that food, make sure he eats all that food because he's got insulin for Right. And, you know, the mom leaves, and the kid doesn't want to finish the food. Well, the 16 year old is doing their best to get the kid to eat. And it's not working. And so the kid kind of like, goes, you know, a little over the top and says, Look, you have to eat that or you're going to die. Right? And the kid goes, What do you mean? And he's like, we gave you insulin. If you don't eat the food, then the insulin is gonna kill you. And that was the first time that child ever heard that.

Heather 17:22
Yeah, yeah. I mean, definitely with my son. I mean, that was it never occurred to him that it could kill him. Yeah. I mean, you know, this is his medicine. This is what he takes to save his life to keep him alive. Right? It never, you know, occurred to him or really, I guess any of us to tell him that also, the opposite is true to do much of it can also kill you.

Scott Benner 17:44
You don't imagine your your Flintstones chewables are going to come to life and Right. Right, right. So yeah, the end of that story is the mother gets home from the shopping trip and the kids in a ball on the floor. Just inconsolable. And why did you never tell me this? Right, like so. I think we've always been very honest with Arden upfront. And and you know, we don't scare about it, but I just think she needs to know it would be like, I don't know, it'd be like putting someone in a car for the first time and telling them like, don't worry if it hits something, it'll bounce off. Like, cuz then you're like, oh, let's go. So well. Yeah. Wow. We did come through on a story. Jeez, that was great.

Heather 18:27
Thanks, it was, it was not fun. We are able to joke about it. Now. I tell him all the time that, you know, he has to be nice to me. I saved his life. And, you know, he's a he's a pretty good sport about it. I do still to worry sometimes. You know, I tell people like he walks around with a deadly weapon strapped to him. 24/7 like, you know, I know that sounds overly dramatic, but it really does.

Scott Benner 18:54
Yeah, I think there needs to be glucagon in places where you stop. You know, I think of schools a great example where you sleep on your person are these are places that I would want them to be. And I would also want people in those situations to understand signs, symptoms and how to use it.

Heather 19:12
Right? Yeah, yeah, I mean, it would be it would be nice.

Scott Benner 19:16
How did you find Chico crypto pen as a user to be?

Heather 19:21
I thought it was easy to use, but again, you know, I'm a nurse and so I'm familiar with how to give an injection and all of that. You know, I don't know how it would have been if I wasn't I mean, it's pretty simple like you just uncap it and darling.

Scott Benner 19:42
Yes. And then dark him.

Heather 19:45
Yes. And then he yells at you because it burns but yeah, I mean, I thought it was pretty easy. Obviously nasal spray the whole lot easier. Which we have also, you know, since this has happened When he got his nasal spray, like, we learned how to take it out and how to give it and I've made sure school knows how to give it and know,

Scott Benner 20:09
I think this thing is, like just part of it like, apparently, if you inject if you see the vaccine in your nose burns like hell on your nose to like, yeah, I

Heather 20:19
guess just Yeah, glucose in general like just so you

Scott Benner 20:22
know it's not glucose in the in the injection, you're not you're not injecting glucose, you're injecting something that makes your liver give off the storage that it has.

Heather 20:38
Okay, I don't think I knew that. So here, I've been a nurse 20 years and have a kid with type one and did not know that

Scott Benner 20:44
it's a completely common misconception, you are not injecting glucose you are injecting, I'm going to I'll actually get the breakdown. And I'll put it in this episode so people can really hear it. But you're injecting something that tells your liver Hey, you've stored glucagon in here, glucose in here and let it out. And that's what it does.

Heather 21:02
Yeah, that great, isn't that? Yeah, that is crazy. I mean, it's also good to know. But, you know, it makes you kind of wonder like, how long does it take your liver to figure that out?

Scott Benner 21:13
Well, the stores to how much does it take to like that, because you can't do it forever because of that, right? Because your liver will run out at some point. So and then it has to build back up again. And I don't know the answers to those questions, but I'll find out.

Heather 21:25
Yeah, yeah. Cuz I mean, I did you know, we had two pens. And so I did tell him that night, like, if it continues to drop, we're gonna have to do it again. We did it. We you know, I think all the food and pizza and all that kept him up. But

Scott Benner 21:39
you can definitely you could definitely do it twice. I mean, the last person I interviewed It was once, then twice more when EMS came. Wow. Yeah. To get them to get back to where they needed to be.

Heather 21:52
Yeah, I'm glad that I'm glad that I didn't. I'm glad we didn't get there. Right. Did you think that would have been scarier?

Scott Benner 21:59
Yeah, no kidding. Well, I appreciate you sharing this with me, that was a brave thing to do. And it's gonna help people obviously, understand better about why they want to have glucagon with them. So thank you very much. Absolutely. Talk to me. Alright, hold on, Heather. I'm recording again. Say that again.

Heather 22:15
Okay. I hesitated to use the glucagon. Because I thought this was only to use if he was like, passed out and couldn't talk to me. Like I had a moment where I thought I shouldn't give this to him. Because that's not where we're at. Very, but I didn't add, you know, I decided to, I'm just going to deal with whatever happens. I'm giving it to him. This, this is an emergency.

Scott Benner 22:41
I'm so happy you brought that up, because I have to jump on another call. And I'm glad we caught that. So thank you very much. I appreciate you going back

Heather 22:47
no problem.

Scott Benner 22:54
Well, first of all, I mean, we have to thank Kevin for coming on the show and telling us that story. If you have a glucagon story that you'd like to share, reach out to me through the website juicebox podcast.com. Another big thank you to us med us med.com forward slash juicebox number one specialty distributor for Omni pod dash and so much more always provides 90 days worth of supplies, and they have fast and free shipping. So I guess if you want your supplies, and you want them quickly, and you want to just click on an email to make them come 888-721-1514 or us med.com forward slash juicebox get started right now

I'm just gonna say this again. I'm now out of glucagon stories. I have a couple more people on the books but I found these to be very interesting conversations. If you'd like to be on the podcast, have a short conversation about a specific glucagon story please do reach out through juicebox podcast.com Don't forget to check out the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes there's over 42,000 members in there at this point. fantastic resource. Don't forget the diabetes Pro Tip series has just been remastered it runs from Episode 1000 to 1026. There's actually a special add in there from should I tell you I'll just tell you a Sensia diabetes. You might not know that name but they make the contour meters. So contour next gen sponsored the remaster of the Pro Tip series. There's a really cool offer in there just for Juicebox Podcast listenership you got to check it out. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.