#1281 Whole Lotta Rosie
Emily is the mother of a 14 year old child with type one diabetes.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to another episode of The juicebox Podcast.
Today, I'll be speaking with Emily. She's the mother of a 14 year old child who has type one diabetes. There's some other autoimmune stuff throughout her family, and let's see what else. So she's an expat living in the United Kingdom. Her daughter has chronic digestive issues as well as type one, and today we're going to talk to her all about that. Nothing you hear on the juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one and your US resident, I'm asking you, with much love, to go to T 1d exchange.org/juice, box, join the registry, complete the survey you're helping with type one diabetes research. T 1d exchange.org/juice, box. Go complete that survey. Please. When you use the link, hungry root.com/juice, box, you'll save 40% off of your first order. All the details are at the top of the link. Hungry root.com/juice box, and check out the private Facebook group, juice box podcast, type one diabetes. You want to meet people who live with diabetes. You're going to meet a lot of them there because we have 52,000 active members. Us. Med is sponsoring this episode of The juicebox podcast, and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from us med for years. You can as well. Us, med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, use the link or the number. Get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med, this episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by the ever since CGM, ever since is going to let you break away from some of the CGM norms you may be accustomed to. No more weekly or bi weekly hassles of sensor changes. Never again will you be able to accidentally bump your sensor off. You won't have to carry around CGM supplies and worrying about your adhesive lasting. Well, that's the thing of the past ever since cgm.com/juice box. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G vo hypo pen. Find out more at gvoke glucagon.com forward slash juice box.
Emily 2:36
Hi. My name is Emily, and I am the parent of a 14 year old girl with type one diabetes.
Scott Benner 2:43
Your daughter is 14. Emily, how old are you
Unknown Speaker 2:47
47
Scott Benner 2:50
Do you really not know, or you don't want to say, I, yeah,
Emily 2:53
no, no, I, I'm pretty sure I'm 47 you know, you know, like after 45 I feel like you kind of forget.
Scott Benner 2:59
I haven't said this in a while, but there's been twice in my life that I've lived an entire calendar year of my life believing that I was a different age than I was. See, I'm
Emily 3:08
glad I'm not the only one.
Scott Benner 3:11
I just might one day, I said to my wife, like, I can't I can't believe I'm gonna be, what was it 49 can't believe I'm gonna be 49 on my birthday. And she goes, Are you kidding me? And I was like, what? And she goes, You are 49 and I was like, No, I'm not. And I stopped. I was like, 1970 Oh, my God, a whole year of my life happened to me twice. You're 47 she's 14. Married. Any other kids, anything like that?
Emily 3:32
Yeah, married. And I have a 24 year old and a 20 and a 21 year old. Oh,
Scott Benner 3:38
Emily, there's the story, right? There is the 14 year old with a second husband. Or did you guys go to a wedding?
Emily 3:44
No, all, the same, all, all, same, same. What happened? What happened that I have a 24 year old?
Scott Benner 3:53
No, what happened? I get the 24 year old. I'm okay with that. Oh, the seven years between the let, like, seriously, did you have sex by mistake? Like, what happened?
Emily 4:03
Well, okay, so we got, I got pregnant, really young, with our first. And then, you know, after, if you want one, you think, well, let's have another one, right? And so then we had our second. And then I, my husband, went to grad school, and then I went to grad school, and I don't know, we always wanted another one. And then we had Rosie gotcha years later. All
Scott Benner 4:31
right, so I gotcha. So you guys took care. You guys had family first, maybe not on purpose.
Emily 4:38
Yeah, it was a surprise. Yeah,
Scott Benner 4:40
I have a baby like that. And then you took care of yourselves, put yourself in the position you wanted to be in, and then went back again and said, Okay, build a family, build a life. Let's have that, uh, that last baby we're thinking about. Yeah, oh, that's for See, that's a very wholesome story.
Emily 4:56
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I did tell you it's kind of boring, but, yeah.
Scott Benner 4:59
I thought maybe you guys, like, got bored for seven years, then one day, went to a wedding, and the next thing you know, you had a baby. Because that's what usually happens. Little drinky. Little drinky on a Saturday night, feel young for a minute. You know what I mean? I
Emily 5:10
mean my my second kid was pretty, pretty challenging. I felt like I needed a lot of I needed a lot of time in between. And there was a point where they so they're just so, you know, they're non binary, and I sorry, and they use the for their trans FEM, and they, they use they, them as pronouns. Okay, that this is my 21 year old. And sometimes I mix up, though, if I go back, because when they were younger, I think of them as a boy. So if I mess up, it's just because of that. But anyway, when my 21 year old was younger, I don't know, eight years old, and I was, I was kind of working part time at but mostly like staying at home with them, and it was just so hard. And I thought, What could be easier than raising this child? And so I put them in daycare and went to grad school because I school because I actually thought that would
Scott Benner 6:06
be easier. Do they know that about themselves as a little kid?
Emily 6:09
Oh yeah, like, yeah. They were like, yeah. They're just really funny person. And they'll say, Yeah, I was a total asshole.
Scott Benner 6:18
Is there any auto immune with you, your husband or your other two kids.
Emily 6:21
I suspect that my 24 year old has, or I hope that he doesn't have Crohn's or celiac, but I it's possible he's had a lot of GI issues. And you know, you can only tell your 24 year old so many times that they should probably get an official celiac test, but they just took out gluten and that they're like, look, it works. I feel better. So I don't know, I definitely have some arthritis issues, but it, I think it's probably osteoarthritis. My mom has some pretty severe arthritis issues. Also, she's always been told it's osteoarthritis, but it does both of our hers is quite severe now, and both of our issues tend to be kind of autoimmune in nature, likely just called osteoarthritis rather than rheumatoid
Scott Benner 7:13
and Rosie just type one or anything else. If you take insulin or so final ureas, you are at risk for your blood sugar going too low. You need a safety net when it matters most, be ready with G VO, kypo pen. My daughter carries G VO, K hypo pen everywhere she goes, because it's a ready to use rescue pen for treating very low blood sugar in people with diabetes ages two and above that, I trust low blood sugar. Emergencies can happen unexpectedly and they demand quick action. Luckily, GEVO kypo pen can be administered in two simple steps, even by yourself in certain situations. Show those around you where you store GEVO kypo pen and how to use it. They need to know how to use GVO kypo pen before an emergency situation happens. Learn more about why GEVO kypo Pen is in Arden's diabetes toolkit at gvoke, glucagon.com/juicebox, gvoke shouldn't be used if you have a tumor in the gland on the top of your kidneys called a pheochromocytoma, or if you have a tumor in your pancreas called an insulin Oma. Visit, gvoke, glucagon, com, slash, risk for safety information, yeah.
Emily 8:29
I mean, she definitely has some kind of GI issues going on as well, but she's always negative for celiac and doesn't seem to have anything it. I mean, she doesn't seem to present with anything like Crohn's or colitis or anything.
Scott Benner 8:45
Are those issues just since the diabetes? No,
Emily 8:48
she's always kind of had kind of chronic constipation, which I know that seems to be kind of a common theme with a lot of folks with type one, but that, I you know, we've addressed it, but it's, it's still there. I mean, even today. So she, she missed school this morning because of a stomach ache. And, you know, I don't, I don't really, I can't really explain it, you know, we've been to the I've been to the GP. We've been to, I've talked to her consultant about it quite a bit.
Scott Benner 9:16
I have an easy thing for you to try.
Emily 9:19
So, yes, okay, I
Scott Benner 9:21
don't know if you've heard the episode called Arden supplements.
Emily 9:26
Oh, yes, yeah. Has
Unknown Speaker 9:28
she tried? I
Emily 9:28
just haven't, yeah, I just haven't done. I mean, we do a probiotic. I'm trying to remember the one that you Yes. I will go back and listen to that.
Scott Benner 9:37
Yeah, it's 767, but the the quick, easy answer is just to try mixing a digestive enzyme with her meals. Oh, yes, and see, and see if that whole thing doesn't kind of work itself out. Yeah,
Emily 9:51
we'll definitely give it a go. I mean, I feel like we've kind of, we've done the whole macro goal route. And,
Scott Benner 9:57
yeah, it's a low cost. Yeah. Thing, it's there's no skin off your ass to pop the little tablet in your mouth before you eat for a week, just to see how it goes. And, you know, I try to remind people as much as I can, like your pancreas doesn't just make insulin. It does other things and has a lot to do with digestion. A lot of people with type one seem to have digestion issues. Yeah,
Emily 10:18
yeah. I think, yeah, that's a good reminder. Thank you. I will give that a go, and like,
Scott Benner 10:23
I have a question before we move forward, there's a rock song. I think it's an AC DC song with Rosie in the title. And my brain can't think of it, and it won't leave me alone about it. Do you know what
Emily 10:35
it is? Oh, you don't know. No, sorry. I mean, I probably knew all the songs in high school. I got it. I feel like my brain doesn't swear that anymore.
Scott Benner 10:45
Whole lot of Rosie, oh, okay, I don't know what it's about. I'm not making any inferences about your kid. I'm just it got you said, Rosie, and I'm like, oh, there's a song. And I could feel the isn't that strange. I could feel the beat of the song, but I couldn't hear the music, and it couldn't and now, just now, when I thought, I think it's a CDC, then I was able to google it real quick. Anyway. Now I was gonna think about the whole goddamn hour if I didn't figure it out. So I apologize. Now
Emily 11:11
I'm gonna look for it for her. Then she kind of likes the songs from my high school, 70s. Yeah, no, wait, that's not 70s, right? Wouldn't that be later?
Scott Benner 11:22
Wait, a CDC is not maybe it would be this song, 77 okay, it was on the, all right, on the, Let There Be Rock Album in 1977 okay, you're older than you think you are. Emily,
Emily 11:33
it's true, yeah. I mean, it was born in 77 so wasn't listening to a CDC then? But, yeah,
Scott Benner 11:40
sure, but we all were, I mean, honestly, no, in my 20s, like classic rock radio was huge, so you're about you're a couple years behind me, maybe not. Well, I don't know, it's not worth talking about, because that's not why you're here. Mostly, why are you here? What made you want to come on? Well, a
Emily 11:58
friend had been on, and she had said, oh, you should do it and and we, I think you, maybe you were looking for guests on the Facebook group. And I've always thought, Well, I'm not quite sure what I what I could talk about, because you do interview a lot of, I don't know, white middle class moms. I sent an email and thought I could talk about unschooling. So Rosie, she now actually goes to school, but she never went. She did not go to school until age 14. And we are Americans living in the UK, and have chosen to stay, partially because of health care here. So I don't know if that's interesting to
Scott Benner 12:36
we're gonna find out. Listen. Also very possible. We call this episode, white, middle class mom, so you said at the beginning, like, I'm gonna be boring. I'll put a boring title with it. That'll be fantastic. It
Emily 12:47
is, isn't it? Yeah.
Scott Benner 12:49
So how do you end up in in England
Emily 12:51
first? Well, we so we were living in Portland, Oregon, and mostly raised our kids there, and we had briefly lived overseas before. So we lived in Japan briefly, and thought it was a great experience for us and a great experience for our kids, and we were open to the idea of going abroad again. And my husband was able to just kind of get a work transfer over here. And so we came over for kind of this two year experiment, and eight years later, here we are,
Scott Benner 13:24
eight years you've been there now, yeah, you have no accent at all,
Unknown Speaker 13:30
no British accent, yeah,
Scott Benner 13:31
but you don't even like a touch of it. Like, I went on vacation in the south once my father came home, like, you know, like he was on he Hall, so like
Emily 13:39
Southern accent, yeah, it does come out every once. Like, I think there's certain words that I say that on even on accident here. Like, if I'm talking with people and I say tomato, I you know, which is just so ridiculous. But you know, you hear, you hear words the British way, all the time. Then you start to say them. But yeah, I don't think I do.
Scott Benner 13:59
Would you say aluminum, or would you say aluminum? Oh,
Emily 14:04
aluminum. Okay,
Scott Benner 14:05
all right, yeah, yeah. I
Emily 14:06
mean even Rosie. I mean she's been here since she was six, and she doesn't, I don't think she has a British accent at all, although, when we go home to Portland, you know, friends and family will say, Oh, she's got an accent, but she definitely doesn't. I
Scott Benner 14:18
gotcha. Okay, I'm sorry you used the term about school that made it feel like I actually felt like you were making a hemp purse while you were using that term. It sound like such a hippie thing, but what is it?
Emily 14:28
I know it's so hippy dippy. Yeah, yeah, it does, yeah. So unschooling. Unschooling
Scott Benner 14:34
is that like, when what's her name divorced the kid from Coldplay? Did they uncouple?
Unknown Speaker 14:41
Oh, remember that who's,
Scott Benner 14:43
who's the, who's the lady that sells you the egg for your vagina. Oh, okay, and she was married to the Coldplay boy, right? I can't talk about, by the way. I don't want to go down this rabbit hole again, Emily, but I don't like Coldplay, and I. Had that in front of my son. I said they only have two or three good songs. And he's like, my son goes, Look, I'm not a Coldplay fan. He goes, but they have it. They have more good songs than that. And then he made me go through them in the car. And they did have, I'm gonna just say they did have about eight songs that I enjoyed. I just don't like the Coldplay boy. He gives me a weird he gives me a weird, douchey vibe. Just yeah, you know what? I mean, yeah, yeah. Anyway, when they got divorced, they told people they were consciously uncoupling.
Unknown Speaker 15:28
Oh, yeah, that that
Scott Benner 15:30
so with that embarrassment in your mind, tell me again, what it's called, unschooling. Unschooling.
Unknown Speaker 15:36
How does that happen?
Emily 15:37
Yeah, I mean unschooling, it's definitely kind of more of a I guess it is used here in the UK, but it's not necessarily on educating, right, or, or it's not anti school or anti education. I think the term was started by folks that maybe didn't want to necessarily home school. They didn't want say they were, they were going to not send their kids to school, right? But maybe they didn't want to say, Sit at the kitchen table and just, do you know, books in a curriculum the whole time, right? Yeah. I mean, it's again, it's not anti school here, I would say here. People mostly say home educate, I guess, which is kind of, I think of that as homeschooling too. But, yeah, I don't know if I'm explaining, no,
Scott Benner 16:20
I haven't Emily, what? How does it? So first of all, you've got a 2421 and a 14. Does a 24 year old go to regular school, K through 12? So
Emily 16:29
my 24 year old went to so he went to school when he was younger up until about first grade, and then we went to Japan. And so that time I had just the two kids, and I went to his teacher in first grade, and I said, Look, we're going to go to Japan for three months, and it's going to miss all this school. I'm really worried. Could you give me the, you know, the curriculum, and we'll follow along? And I had visions of, you know, we're going to, maybe at the time, you know, Skype, right, zoom, or anything, but maybe we can Skype with the class, and we'll follow along with this curriculum. And you know, this teacher was so nice and printed out, you know, this huge stack of worksheets for us to do. And so, you know, I dragged this all the way to Japan with us, and I remember one of the first week days we were there, I said to my son, you know, it looks like the class is doing they're making this bird habitat out of con balls. So we, you know, we should do that? Well, we can take some pictures, we can send it to your teacher. And my son was like, I don't want to make that. Why? Why would I make that? Why can't we just go to the zoo? Why would we make this bird habitat out of cotton balls? And I thought, actually, you're right. I don't want to make this either. And then I just started taking my kids all over. I mean, you know, how lucky were we? I feel like, very privileged that we got this opportunity. We went to every museum in Tokyo. We traveled all over, you know, as much as we could in those three months around Japan, he was reading everywhere. So he was constantly had a book in his hand on the trains in Tokyo. The train system is color coded and numbered. And he would figure out, you know, if we were at, say, like, you know, the yellow station. I mean, does have a name, but say, like yellow 32 or whatever. And we were going to go to train station, yellow 17. How many stops do we have? So he and he would figure that out. And he so he was constantly doing math, right? And then I could send him to the store at age seven, you know, with Japanese currency, and he would go and buy the milk for us. And he knew that how much changed he should get. So he, you know, he was learning just from living, right? I think my younger one was maybe about four, my kid who's 21 now and then, when we got back to the US, you know, it was summer, and then he was going to start in the next year, or maybe even second grade, whatever it was, anyways, young primary school, right? And so I went to his the next teacher that he was supposed to go into, I think it was third grade. And so I went to it then the third grade teacher, and I said he missed the, you know, these three months of school, and I had this curriculum, but I'm really sorry we didn't do it. So I feel like he's probably going to be behind. I'm really sorry. You know she, of course, you know she gets like, a very serious look on her face and like, oh, okay, did
Scott Benner 19:31
I'm sorry. You can't come back until you give us a cotton ball birdhouse,
Emily 19:36
yeah, yeah. Well, that's right, yeah, where's that cotton ball birdhouse?
Scott Benner 19:39
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Emily 22:29
So then she stopped me several weeks later, and she said, You know, I don't know what you did, but he's actually way ahead. And that's when I realized that, oh yeah, we could just kind of do our own thing. So that kid went through, so he finished around fifth grade, and then started kind of home educating on schooling with us. And then my, my kid, who's 21 got through about, I don't know, the middle of the year of first grade, and I realized, I don't think this kid is cut out for a classroom. I mean, they weren't the kid that was like running to the window when a bus would drive by or anything, but they would just sit at their desk and take a nap the whole time. And so I felt like we needed something else for my, my middle, now, my middle kid, because at the time, they were coming home after school and saying, Well, you know, I'm a stupid one, and everyone else is smart. And I thought, you know, you have to like yourself that minimum, right? You have to at least believe in yourself, or the learning is not going to happen at all. So we kind of started doing our own thing and taking lots of classes. Support. Linen has a really nice, I say, home ed or unschooling community. So lots of folks that are kids don't go to school, but they take classes in the community or extracurricular activities anyway, that's what we did. And then Rosie came along, and at that point, that's just six we moved over. Yeah, we just kept doing it. And then when we moved to London, I mean, it was amazing. She's been to, probably been to, you know, nearly every Museum in London with peers in some kind of home Ed shop, in a museum or over a historical site.
Scott Benner 24:07
I have a question. So, I mean, you have a 24 year old, right? Did they go to college?
Emily 24:12
Yeah, so what they did is, they're really into music, and so when we moved over here, trying to remember the track, they just they did. They wanted to do music production, and they were already kind of dabbling in it on their own, or, sorry, on his own. And so he, let's see, I think he took the S, A, T or no, sorry, he took the US, G, D early, because I think he was about 16 or 17 at the time, and a lot of home, home schoolers around schoolers, in the US use the US GED as a where they were. I'm not quite sure if they're still using it, but at the time, the US GED was sometimes a good way to access, say, like Community College, yeah, or, you know, adult classes that you want to take. And so he took the US GED, and then you. Used to that to apply here in the UK to a what's called the B tech level three in music production. And then he took that diploma, or the B Tech degree, and applied to university here for music engineering, although he did not finish. But that is because he he's in a band, and the band, well, won. The band was signed to a label at that time, and then also, he was already getting paid to do music engineering, so he was kind of, you know, already getting paid for something that he was learning in university. And felt like, you know, he felt like it wasn't really worth it to keep going at the time, you know, of course, I don't know. I think it was maybe kind of an old school idea of mine, like that. You just finished, get this piece of paper, right? This piece of paper is really important that says you've done this. But I think he was right. He didn't really need it, and he hasn't gone back
Scott Benner 25:57
that makes a living, takes care of himself, is doing well? Like, how would you, like, how would you hold up his current success against other 24 year olds?
Emily 26:06
I mean, probably fairly equivalent. I mean, you know, he's still, like, I mean, it's hard to make it in music, right? So maybe I would still call him a dependent in some ways, but, but yeah, he's doing, he's doing, all right. I mean, he's, we just want them to be happy. And, you know, interesting,
Scott Benner 26:24
yeah, Emily, I'm not, first of all, I'm not. I'm gonna ask a lot of questions. I'm not coming down on your position. I'm really interested, yeah, but, I mean, I think I had a kid when I was 24 or you did, yeah, you were on your way to another one, yeah? And then you take a very traditional route, you and your husband, and I'm guessing you've got two advanced degrees and you're living overseas. You guys are doing okay, yeah, yeah. So if you were broke, do you think you'd be like, hey, go to school, figure out something, because you got to get out there and make money. Do you think that this is partly a thing that they're able to do because you're able to fortify it?
Emily 27:03
Yeah, I do think that there's a whole lot of privilege in what we've been able to do, for sure, okay, but I don't necessarily think that a degree is for everyone. I mean, my 21 year old, you know, they were, they work in a pub right now, almost full time, and they're quite happy working in the pub, and they're not quite sure what they want to do. And I think that's okay. I don't, you know, I don't know if they will end up going to university or maybe doing something in the arts or, you know, I think it just depends on the person.
Scott Benner 27:34
I'm flexed by this I have a 20 My son just turned 24 like, two weeks ago, and my daughter's gonna turn 20, right? So I'm in your boat, minus the hey, let's have one more. I'm always like, like, running through this in my head, because I was incredibly broke growing up. My wife was broke growing up. We're more comfortable now. There's part of you that's like, I can't leave you an amount of money to make sure you're okay. Like, you're going to have to take care of yourself. Like, you know what I mean, like, how and the unknown of like, what does that turn into? Like, what if the system just demands what it demands, and whether it's right or wrong? Because I hear your story, and I think this is fantastic. Like, imagine raising a kid for all those years, taking them out, doing cultural things, letting them learn math and real world experiences like all this stuff sounds amazing. Your kids are probably amazingly, like, rich and, you know, in knowledge and experience and all that stuff. But what happens on that day when, like, so they meet somebody, and that somebody's like, I want a baby in a house, and I want a car, and I want the car to be safe, and I don't want to eat crappy food. And let's go right now. You know what I mean? And like, yeah, and you're like, I don't have a degree, I can't get that job, I don't know how to make that much money. Like, you know? Like, I'm happy. And you know what I mean? Like, when does that? That's my worry for me. Like, when does that worry? When does that I'm happy? Turn into I can't take care of myself that.
Emily 29:01
Do you think about that? Well, I would say I've never been anti education. I think, like, I think that my oldest kid is really academic. I think if he wanted to go, and if it was going to be more lucrative for him in the music field to go and do some kind of music to go, like, finish the music engineering degree, then, yeah, he should do that. But I don't know if that is necessarily for his industry what he wants to do. I don't know if a degree is really necessary. If he had said, Look, I want to be a pharmacist or whatever, of course, you know. But I think as long as you know, I mean, he's on the track to supporting
Scott Benner 29:42
himself. I'm talking about, like, when, again, I'm not talking about your kid. I just, you're just a good person to have this conversation with. Like, like, I'm talking about the difference between making enough to get by. You know what? I mean? Like, like, Hey, I got a job. I do. Okay? I make $50,000 a year. I pay my bills. I don't have a. Lot extra, but I have my my house is clean. You know what I mean? Like, I'm okay. I can cover my my nut, etc. The difference between that and when the person looks you in the face one day and says, I want the kids to have a yard to run around in, and it's on and it's on you, and you're like, I don't know how to make that happen. I can't believe I'm saying this, because I don't believe in this, but I do believe in it. I believe in what the world wants, not what might be right for you or another person. Like, what if you have nothing to fall back on? Like, you know, even just that, um, the idea of having a network of other people who went to college, who might be well employed, that you can call up and go, Hey, do you remember me, like, you got anything open there, like that kind of thing, like that. That disappears. You don't build that, that network, right?
Emily 30:48
Maybe you have a different network. I mean, if you Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess there are plenty of folks that went through high school, like us, High School, for example, are here that, like, the GCSE track, which is somewhat similar, yeah, and then didn't go on to university, and they find their way. I don't know if, like, a bachelor's degree, you know, is right for everyone, and that's fine. I mean, in the US, it's quite expensive.
Scott Benner 31:18
Oh, I don't think it is. I don't think it's I mean, honestly, I don't know that it's necessary for anyone. It's necessary if you want to, if you have the expectation of, I mean, a single family home, or, you know, a car that doesn't break all the time, or $5 aside when you need it, or when you get old, and it costs $3,000 a month to stay alive, like, and you haven't worked in 15 years. Like, that's the kind of stuff. Like, it's just interesting. Like, your mind and my mind just we worry about different things. Like, because I guarantee you, you and I agree about all the fundamentals of what you've just
Emily 31:55
said about people and happiness, etc. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I do know quite a few folks that have, you know, degrees, or even advanced degrees, that aren't necessarily like doing well. I mean, they have over well, I mean, they're doing okay, but you know that maybe they could, you know, have not done that track and still been this, made out the same, I don't know, or maybe have, you know, if they're in the US had less, yeah, it's
Scott Benner 32:22
the I don't college debt to worry about, right? It's so the part where I'm jealous of you is that it's the it's in the I don't know, like you're willing to say I don't know, and it doesn't matter, keep doing the thing you like. And I wonder if I'm not a person who says I don't know, but you better make sure you're going to be okay as best you can, even if it doesn't work out. These are the steps you should take to ensure as much as possible. This kind of, like,
Emily 32:50
comfort, yeah? Well, I mean, I was definitely there when my kid was like, I, I don't, I don't want to finish this bachelor's program because I'm already getting paid what they're teaching me. And this is kind of, you know, why would I do this, right? And at the time, you know, like I said, I definitely, and my husband as well, both of us were like, dude, just get the piece of paper right. Get this piece of paper. Since you have a master's degree, you're almost done, right? And, but now I understand. I mean, he would have missed out on all these music opportunities. So, you know, yeah, you're right. I don't, I don't know. I mean, I think, I think he's going to be okay. I'm not worried about,
Scott Benner 33:25
I wonder how much of the difference is just that you're, you grew up on the West Coast, right? Like the upper, the upper Northwest check, and I grew up on the east coast, where it's very like, it is quite culturally different. Yeah, it's like, go, go, go, win, kill, like, or die, you know what I mean? And right? And you, you kind of were like, hey, it's cool. We're gonna make like, Yo, we'll probably make heroin legal, like, like that, by the way, I think they took that back. Do you keep or, yeah, did you do you keep up with home? I think Oregon was like, Hey, we shouldn't have done that. And I think they went backwards on it.
Emily 34:01
Oh, did they? I don't know. I mean, I do try to keep up. I mean, I still vote out of Oregon, but not. I don't think I can vote in that. I don't know. In those measures, I can't, not quite sure, Oregon
Scott Benner 34:13
legislators vote to recriminalize low level drug possession.
Unknown Speaker 34:19
Oh, wow, wow. Wow.
Scott Benner 34:20
They were like, that didn't work. Let's try. It's too bad.
Emily 34:23
I feel like that works in Spain and Portugal. I mean, I yeah, I don't know. I mean, don't quote me there, please. I don't know anything. I feel like it works in other parts of the world, and maybe it could work. But, yeah, I
Scott Benner 34:36
just heard, I just heard it on the news the other day. I was like, they were like, they're going backwards on some of that stuff that they did, because it wasn't that long ago, right? They decriminalized, like most drugs, I think.
Emily 34:47
And I think so I didn't realize they backtracked that. But, yeah, I keep up as much as I can interesting stuff,
Scott Benner 34:53
so you have this great experience. Your children are growing up well, you're like, hell, let's just do it again. You're not the kind of. You're not looking to build up whatever, the whatever the British version of a cotton ball house is. So you're like, I'm not doing this. And then your daughter is is going along fine. How old is she when she's diagnosed? Then,
Emily 35:13
uh, yeah, so she was he, we were here when she's diagnosed. She was eight. Eight.
Scott Benner 35:19
Okay, like six years ago, out of nowhere, took you by surprise, I imagine,
Emily 35:25
yeah, I mean, I was surprised. I My mom has always shared this story that her her told her this. So this story was her grandmother would tell her when she was a child, was that the grandmother had moved from eastern Canada to California as a young woman with a sister that had diabetes, and the sister would have been very young, like late teens, early 20s, maybe, and that would have been at the turn of the century, and they had moved believing there was a cure for diabetes in California. And obviously the sister, she didn't make it right. And so my mom had always kind of talked about diabetes when I was a kid. I have one sister, neither one of us had type one, but I kind of knew about it, like if we were thirsty, for example. But, you know, just randomly, you know, my mom would be like, Oh, you too. Appetite in the family, right? But it would have been way back there and it didn't pop up again. I think my mom has a first cousin as well, but, you know, I didn't have any cousins with it or anything. So it was quite removed. When we lived in Portland for 10 years, I had a neighbor who her kid had befriended my kids, and her kid, at the time, was five and and this was even before Rosie was born. So her kid just liked being at our house. And I think she she had moved back to the neighborhood to care for her parents, and her kid had been diagnosed at age three. I think I was kind of the first friend that she met that when she said, you know, my kid has type one. Could he come over and play and, you know, here's all these things you need to know. Is that okay? And I was kind of the first person, maybe because I was a healthcare professional and was somewhat familiar with type one and interested, right? I said, Yeah, sure, he can come over and her kid had, I mean, he had sleepovers at our house. She when she went on her honeymoon, I I gave her kid mixed insulin and a syringe, you know, I checked his blood sugar in the middle of the night. I remember when she got Dexcom, and I remember, you know how excited she was, and her showing me Look, I can see, you know, his blood sugar on my phone. And, you know, I didn't quite at the time understand the level of excitement. I mean, obviously, now I get it. Yeah, you get it now. But I had all this experience with type one and then throw Z, obviously, you don't want it to be that, right? I mean, I thought, I thought that she might have it just because she was so thirsty and she was, it looked like her muscles were wasting away, right? And I bought a test kit and it and I went in one night, and I thought, I'm just gonna and I knew, and she wasn't. So she was pretty scared of needles, right? So, and there's no way she would have let me poke her finger. So I tried to go in in the middle of the night to like poker toe. And that didn't that did not work. So then the next morning, told my husband, look, I think, I think she might have type one, and, you know, he said, and he was quite familiar with my older kid's friend that had, you know, kind of grown up in the neighborhood with them, he said. Then he started worrying about it, too. And he's like, you know, I'm really worried about this. I think you might be right. And so I knew she wouldn't again, let me poke her finger. I didn't want to hold her down. I knew if this was type one, I needed to go into this with her 100% trusting me, right? And so I called the GP, and I just said, Look, I, you know, I think this is what's going on. Could we come in? And miraculously, we got a same day appointment, which is fairly rare here in the UK, although it does happen. And so I brought the test kit in, and I, you know, just told the GP, look, I think she might have this, could you please tell her? And it just explained that we have to poke her finger, because I wanted the GP to say it rather than me, yeah. And unfortunately, he, you know, he wasn't the best. And there are some great GPS out there in the UK. So I hope this doesn't, you know, give everybody, anybody a bad impression of the NHS, because it is, it is it is really amazing. I had a really horrible experience with it when she was diagnosed. But it is an amazing, you know, the energy test is incredible, but so the G, the GP, was like, No, we don't, we don't need to do that. And I, you know, I said, Well, are you sure? Because I brought this test kit. Here's all her symptoms. And I think. He probably saw in his practice. I mean, he probably saw a lot of folks with type two. He probably, you know, maybe didn't even ever see a kid with type one. I have no idea, but he just didn't really know about it. And well, first I said, Look, could you just then, could you at least dip her urine for me? Because then I'll know. And so he agreed to dip her urine, but then he did it incorrectly. And he said, Well, it does look like there's sugar in it, but, or glucose in it, but that could be an infection. And then I kind of knew that, you know that, that probably, he probably wasn't right. And so he said, Well, I'll order a blood test, right? How about because I did kind of press them, no, we need to do more. This is not, you know, not. And he said, Well, order a blood test. And then I thought it would be like in the US. I didn't have a lot of experience with the NHS at that time, right? So I just assumed the blood test would be, you know, the same day, maybe next door, maybe in the clinic, but the blood test was like next week sometime, and I think it was a Thursday or Friday, so it was, you know, kind of the end of the week, and blood test was in a totally different location. And so I just walked Rosie home from the GP, and I said, look, the GP wants to do this blood test in your arm here, I just want to poke your finger. You can do mine first. And could we just, you know, would you be willing to do that? And I convinced her, so she poked my finger first, and it was normal. And then we did hers, and it just said, Hi. So then, you know, we washed her hands. We did it again, and I again. I don't know if you want to the rest of my my story. It wasn't, it wasn't great.
Scott Benner 41:46
Well, I want to hear about, I gotta tell you that before you make me sad with this. I've so far been the saddest when you told me that your distant relatives went to California looking for I
Emily 41:58
know. Can you believe it? So sad. I know it's horrifying, isn't it? What it like? What a horrible death, right?
Scott Benner 42:06
Well, it just like, we're gonna try, I'm assuming, like horseback or wagon or something like that. Like you don't need my railroad. Yeah, you're making that trip thinking maybe there's a medical advancement there, that's not here, and you don't even make it to find out. And now you've relocated your whole family, and along the way, your daughter died.
Emily 42:27
Like I don't so the story that I know, and so my mom and my sister and I would like to go back to eastern Canada, where this grandmother had come from, and just maybe do some, I don't know, spend some time, and maybe, I think there might be some graves there that we could check out. I'm not sure. But my mom has, you know, she's really into genealogy, and she so, from her understanding, is it was just the two sisters. So the sisters left the parents, basically, and as young women, and, you know, again, probably went by train to California. Yeah, I think when my mom went back to look for the some kind of death record, it wasn't in California, so she's not quite sure, but that was the story that the grandmother had told her,
Scott Benner 43:17
right? Still, it's just, I don't, the whole i It's, it's the desperation of it that made me sad.
Emily 43:23
I know, yeah, I know, yeah. It's horrifying, isn't it was,
Scott Benner 43:26
yeah, that's what it was. Okay. So when Rosie's diagnosed, do you have a little bit of a collapse personally? What were you about to tell me?
Emily 43:35
Well, I didn't want it. I mean, I knew that it couldn't really be anything else. I mean, kids don't really tend to get pancreatic cancer, right, somewhat of a clamp collapse. But also, after all that experience in Portland with my friend and watching her raise her kid, and you know, he's such a lovely person, and I felt like I at least I knew we'd be okay. So I was sad for Rosie, but I felt like, you know, we'll be okay, yeah. So we've gone to the GP, you know, wasn't, wasn't very helpful, but now I've got this finger poke that I know she has type one, but I still didn't know quite what to do, because I hadn't had a lot of experience with the NHS yet. So I called the GP back, and I said, Look, you know, she definitely this has to be type one. I don't know what else it could be. Could you just tell me who in Greater London handles pediatric diabetes? And he's like, Why? Why do you think you need to go to the hospital? Why we can just, How about I'll order a specialist? Was like, I I don't have insulin in my home. What it you know? What if she goes into DKA? What you know? I I'm going to the hospital. I just need you to tell me which one to go to. I'm going. I'm telling so
Scott Benner 44:51
a few minutes ago, you thought we didn't need to check her finger, so I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah. What you know exactly? Yeah.
Emily 44:57
Finally, he gave me a couple. Options. I called a friend. She said, you know, go, go to this one, right? We went to this hospital, and I was just happy that they gave her insulin. But they, they were so weird about about the fact that we home educate, and that became the real focus of our of our visit.
Scott Benner 45:16
How did that even come up? You know? Because they just ask, like, Well, where
Emily 45:19
do you, where do you go to school? And that day, I mean, our plan for that day was, we were going to go to a nature study group in Kew Gardens with a bunch of friends. So it's not like, you know, I'm keeping my home school kid locked, you know, in the basement or something. You know, we're supposed to go to this learning group. And I realized, you know, I got this GP appointment, so we skipped it. We, you know, did that went to the GP that day. Now we've presented at the hospital. And then, you know, of course, they ask all these questions at some point, like when you go to school, and I said, well, she's home educated. And then they said, well, oh, we need to, we need to notify the local authority that you home educate. And I knew why the law? Yeah, well, exactly, they were wrong, so the law is on my side. And I said, Look, actually, you, you don't have my permission to notify the local authority, and could we just focus on the diabetes? So they asked a lot of questions, which was quite frustrating, because I felt like, I've, I've literally just explained ketoacidosis to the GP. I feel like I could probably teach ks two or ks plus School, which is at a school level here,
Scott Benner 46:29
yeah. And now it's like, now the focus went from your kid has diabetes too, at home, what's wrong with you? Yeah, no.
Emily 46:37
So I had to call, I had to call my other one the other kids at home, which they were teens at the time. And I just said, Look, you know, I'm really sorry. She does have type one, and we're going to be in the hospital for a while, and also social services might come to the door. Could you just not, could you not swear at them and just tell them where I'm at? Right? Anyway, social services do not want to see us. And, no,
Scott Benner 47:00
that was a miss. That was a miss, that was a misunderstanding at the hospital side. Well,
Emily 47:04
they messed up. So they did later. They sent me a formal apology, and they apologize. And they were, you know, they were really worried because they had violated our privacy, our information, right? They they should not have shared our information without my permission. That is the law. Like they did
Scott Benner 47:20
it anyway. When you said, Don't do that,
Emily 47:21
yeah, but I mean, at the time, it was pre pandemic, you know, it was pre covid, right? And home homeschooling or home education, it wasn't very common here at the time. And so I think, I think, to their credit, the nurse that saw us had just taken some kind of like, safeguarding, continuing ed, course, where, you know, home educators might be a red flag, right? Obviously, obviously, we weren't. I mean, I'm there to get help, but
Scott Benner 47:51
she thought you got she caught you guys building a bomb in your house or something like, yeah, exactly. She's like, this lady's running a quote. I know it for sure, yeah, for sure. Not crazy, by the way, what, you know, it
Emily 48:04
was a bit weird, and especially because I gone from the GP and again, you know, I logically, I knew there are great healthcare professionals here, but in the moment, because I'm just focusing on get my kids some help Right now, right before she goes into TK, I Google, like I on my phone. I was when we presented to the hospital after dealing with a GP, I literally came in with a UK type one diabetes campaign on my phone, because I thought, what if they think I'm some wacky American? Like there was a moment where I thought, could we, could we make it to New York before she goes into DK, because clearly, no one here knows what I'm talking about, right? And that's fairly irrational, because that, you know, there are, again, are great healthcare professionals. Now she has a fantastic consultant. But in the moment when I hadn't, I didn't have any experience with the NHS, it was pretty stressful, but, but we survived, yeah,
Scott Benner 49:00
but it's a good look into the uncertainty of the situation and how you felt on top of all that. Because, isn't it funny, you had the same thought that your your forefathers had, like, what we there's probably a place that knows better. Let's go there.
Emily 49:13
It's really interesting. Get out of here, yeah, yeah, but
Scott Benner 49:17
a train ride that would have been right, yeah, wow. Okay, so you get this all worked out, she comes home, and what's management like? And, you know, is it needles? Is it pumps? CGM, are available? Like, you get that stuff in any kind of short order
Emily 49:34
when she was diagnosed, the the NHS, or, more specifically, I think it's your called your clinical commissioning group, which is kind of your, where you live in the UK, funds some of the supplies. Okay? So at the time, I think they were funding the Libra, the skin the Libra, that you could scan, right for a lot of kids. And had we pushed to get the Libra, we probably could have gotten that fairly soon, but we left. So we left the hospital MDI, right. And then when we saw our first consultant, they, I think we asked about the Libra, and they were like, Oh well, you know, we'll ask about funding, but we could self fund Dexcom anyway, so we could maybe wait for funding of some sort. But they, they didn't seem very optimistic at the time about funding your our clinical commissioning group funding Dexcom. So I just called Dexcom. The nice thing is, here, Dexcom is just over the counter. We so we paid initially for Dexcom. I want to say it was like 159 pounds a month for all supplies, and at the time, that was cheaper than my friend in the US was paying with her insurance. So, you know, we just wanted to get started on the Dexcom right away. So I think she maybe had the g5 for a little while, and then the g6 came out, I think not too long after she had started on the Dexcom, and then we did MDI for, I think, less than a year, and our first consultant, you'll love this. I I said, you know, we're really interested in the OmniPod. And she said, okay, okay, yeah, we can order that for you. We can, we can do that for you. And I was like, great, amazing. You know, let's, let's get that OmniPod started, right? And so, so months go by between. So here you see the consultant every three months, right? And I went to, so, went to the next appointment. So, how's it? How's it going with the OmniPod? You haven't heard anything? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're working on that, right? So then, and then emailing the nurse to just saying, you know, how's the consultants promised us the OmniPod. So what do we, you know, what are we doing with that? And then, I think six months later, the I asked about the OmniPod, and or the consultant said, I think when we came to the the into the room, she said, Oh, did you get your port? And I said, Okay, wait, what port are you talking about? Are you talking about the port that you actually put the needle in and inject? She's like, Yeah, we ordered that for you. And I said, Oh no, no, no, no. I've been asking her for the OmniPod a pump for over six months. So are you telling me that that is not what you ordered. And she's like, Oh, and, you know, to her credit, like she could have just been really, she could have been really defensive and denied what she didn't know. But she she was actually really, she was great about it. She's just said, I'm really sorry. I thought I didn't know. I, you know, she didn't know at the time what OmniPod was.
Scott Benner 52:39
What did she order? You an i port? Yeah, yeah. Like that took six months,
Emily 52:45
yeah? Well, I don't even know if it would have to, I mean, we never got the I port. But anyway, so she just said, Look, I'm gonna transfer you to another hospital that actually has, you know, that will, that will do the OmniPod for you. And so then we transferred to a hospital at a different hospital, and yeah, and then we got on omnipot. Shortly after that, it's
Scott Benner 53:08
worth going over that you were standing in front of a healthcare professional telling them that you wanted a tubeless insulin pump called an omnipot, and what they gave you was this thing that sticks on you. It injects once, then you can put a needle inside of it to give yourself insulin, so you don't have to get poked over and over again. I
Emily 53:26
know it's pretty bad, but I think NHS has been underfunded for years and years and years. So you've got healthcare professionals that are, you know, they maybe don't have the time and resources to learn more supplies like this,
Scott Benner 53:41
very, very nice. This is like me calling up, saying I'm buying a car, and I show up and you give me a tricycle, and I go, I mean, it's still transportation, but not nearly what you heard me say, you know, yeah, simply,
Emily 53:53
you get used to a different system here, though. I mean, I have been here eight years, and I think now, you know, waiting for things like, right now Rosie's on the we're waiting for her to come up to get OmniPod five. So we're still using the arrows. Oh, you're on the arrows. No, we're using, yeah, only because I feel like if we switch to dash and loop, because we're looping with arrows, right? If we switch to dash, I'm just a bit worried that we'll get stuck on that and not be able to move to OmniPod five for another four years.
Scott Benner 54:22
That a consideration of being in the UK.
Emily 54:24
I mean, I just don't know about switching like that. I just, I just don't know, but we're, we're on the list for OmniPod five, and, yes, it's weight, yes, it's, yeah, you, you don't really get things right away, like you can sometimes kid in the US, but I'm okay with that. I mean, we don't pay anything now, so all of our supplies are hotter. I can't wait
Scott Benner 54:46
for them to call you one day and tell you that it's already and you show up and they get you a Roomba. You're like, Wait, this is a robot vacuum cleaner. I wanted the omnipot Five, no, but on a chance for you. Oh, how. Hospital. Who knows what that is?
Emily 55:01
Yeah, no, it's much better. I assure you that it's now her consultant now is fantastic. And I mean, every time we go to our appointments, they're just like, you guys are doing great. What do you want? Right? And so we've said, you know, we're ready for OmniPod five. Well,
Scott Benner 55:19
living in this system and having the ups and downs you've had with it. How are you How did you figure out how to, how to help Rosie like, where did all that information come from? From your friend who has type one kid has type one? No,
Emily 55:32
no. I think my friend and her son had such a different experience. I don't I mean, Facebook wasn't even a thing when she, you know, when her kid was younger. I mean, I listened to the podcast fairly early Facebook groups. I went to a sugar surfing workshop fairly early on. I went to what used to be friends for life here, which is now called, see, I think it's called children with diabetes. There's a it's like friends for life events, the UK version. And the thing is, like, though, those friends for life events evidence based lectures for the parents. And so it was a kind of a combination of different things, but I knew that I wasn't going to get a lot of information from, you know, the consultant that didn't know about OmniPod. And in fact, I remember going to one of the appointments fairly early on, after we got the Dexcom and showing the nurse and the consultant her Dexcom graph. And they were like, Oh, she's doing great. And I said, Yeah, but she's, Look, she's, you know, she's eating, and then she's spiking to 14, and sure she's coming back down, but she's spiking to 14. And I remember the nurse saying, oh, yeah, but you know, we all spike after we eat. And I was like, but I don't think not. I just don't think I yeah, I don't think we spiked to 14. Obviously that wasn't right. Do
Scott Benner 56:58
you think they thought that that happens to everybody, like people with and without diabetes, my
Emily 57:03
guess is they probably be a bit more informed. Now, I think maybe access to information is maybe better than it was. You're
Scott Benner 57:11
so polite about this. Are you afraid you're gonna get deported or something? What's going on? You're so like, anytime you're like, Oh no, it's okay. They're better at it now. Or I don't think they meant it, or like, like,
Emily 57:22
I think, I think I have a lot of compassion for NHS employees that, you know, I just think that a lot of folks are doing the best they can with what they have. Again, it has been underfunded for years and years and years, and, you know, even at that I I'm staying because I feel like my kid will never, ever pay for supplies, right? But it's, it's not without problems, and that, that being one of them, you get folks that I think the other problem is at that time, I don't think that pump rep or reps that are pump companies. I don't think they did a fantastic job of getting into the UK market here. I think, you know, we go to the consultant and she'd say, like, well, here we have this Medtronic and and that was kind of like the only option. There may have been one other one, but you could tell, you know, they probably had done some kind of session with a Medtronic rep. And I'm, you know, I'm not testing on Medtronic or anyone else, but I just think they had a kind of a command of the market, or knew how to to get in with consultants here that maybe, at the time, OmniPod wasn't in yet, maybe they definitely weren't in at that clinic,
Scott Benner 58:41
yeah. So, you know, we never really said, you said you had kids early, went back, got an advanced degree. What did you do professionally after that?
Emily 58:52
Oh, so I was physical therapist in the US. Okay,
Scott Benner 58:55
so you have, you have, like, that knowledge of that side of it, like being on the provider side for sure? Yeah, it's not easy either. I've been doing that cold wind series with providers, and you know, they're they're anonymous, and they talk about their jobs and everything. And by the time I get done every one of those conversations, I think there's problems on every side of this issue. And I don't totally, yeah, and I don't see a way to fix any of them. It's, you know, always, you know, at the core human issues, obviously. But I don't think there's any way around it. I think we should all just be happy that things run as well as they do. You know what? I mean, yeah, absolutely, it's interesting. But anyway, it's just, it's you're on their side. I like, as you're going, I don't know if you know that about like, about how you there's nothing wrong. Yes, no, I
Emily 59:44
was really mad. I mean, I was really upset. It took me a long time to get over the GDP. I mean, I just thought he was an idiot. It took me a long, really long time to get it over my hospital experience, and I think part of, part of it was. That I presented to this hospital expecting to be treated like a peer and expected to be listened to, and I was, to an extent, but I just felt like, you know, we left with we stayed in the hospital. So we stayed in an award for like, five days, which is a bit ridiculous, considering, you know, we had some experience with a kid with type one. I think it had someone just in the beginning, come to me and said, You guys are going to be great. This is, you know, you know you're going to be fine. We're going to get you trained, we're going to send you home. I think I would have been fine, but we but because I thought that social services was looking for me. And here's my kid, who, you know, she's always home educated or unschooled, right? And she had this, you know, idyllic childhood in London, but, yeah, we didn't do the normal route. I didn't send her to kindergarten. Or here, it's called reception in here one. But you know, we were living kind of, you know, atypical, yeah, lives compared to other, most other people. Because here definitely, definitely at the time. I mean, you know, home education was very rare. It was really stressful. It took me a long, long time to get over this idea that social services is looking for me, and they're going to, you know, make me send my kid to school, or, you know, investigate me unnecessarily and and I felt really protective of her education. I felt like, you know, what a horrible time to assess someone's knowledge or your home Ed provision, when they're getting a type one diagnosis, when they probably haven't felt well in months, right? I mean, she would, she would wake up in the morning, and for months she was, I mean, she she was a bit irritable, right? And she was irritable with her best friend, and so she'd get up in the morning, and she'd eat breakfast, and then she'd just kind of like, sit with her head resting on her hand, like she was going to fall asleep, and she was having a really hard time learning how to read. And by that time, you know, she was eight years old, and I thought, you know, does she have dyslexia? You know, it just, or, you know, maybe I thought she had, you know, some kind of learning disability, but it didn't present until then, right?
Scott Benner 1:02:26
And then that possibility comes in that they're going to uproot the rest of her life now that you've got a diagnosis, yeah,
Emily 1:02:31
really stressful. And, you know, actually, I don't think she's dyslexic. I think she just had diabetes this whole time. And, you know, poor thing, her sugar has been sitting at, you know, 20 something for probably a long time.
Scott Benner 1:02:43
Yeah, she's lucky. She was upright and moving, let alone thinking and trying to learn. Right, right? Okay, well, I want to kind of finish up with, you know, I know people sign up to do this, like so far in advance that you probably don't remember what you wrote, but you know, when it said, what are some of the themes you'd like to cover. You said parenting, modeling the care with joy transitions to teens, giving kids full autonomy in most aspects of their lives. Now, I think your conversations talked about the the autonomy part a lot, actually, but what did you mean about the rest of it? Like, what about modeling care with joy? What did you mean by that? Yeah,
Emily 1:03:20
I mean, well, Rosie's 14 now, which, I think sometimes this, you know, independent, independence with diabetes, or moving towards independence, happens so fast. And probably when I wrote that, I was doing a lot more for her, but now she's so she's going to school. Now she's, she chose to go to school this year, and I totally support that, you know, whatever she wants to do, and she's doing a lot more of the day to day care, and she's doing great. And I think you know where I was going with that was one thing I really have appreciated about the podcast, is I feel like the way that you have cared for Arden is probably fairly similar to how I've cared for Rosie, and I think, have you been a different parent or advocated at a different way of parenting or and parenting with diabetes? I wouldn't have been a listener, right? But I think you know, managing your child's diabetes with a smile on your face and just doing it, even when it's like the smallest task of, you know, poking their finger or bolus, saying right when the phone, the phone could be right next to them. And even if you say, Oh, hey, could you, you know, could you please bolus for this meal? And they're, you know, they don't want to, or they're busy, or they're, you know, they're playing a video game, or whatever they're doing homework. And so you just do it for them and you and again, you do it with a smile on their on your face. I think, I think it's a great way to manage I think probably outcomes are better that way. And my guess is to get more independent, capable individuals, adults with type one that way.
Scott Benner 1:04:59
Okay, okay, that's really interesting. I I mean, I think the same thing. I think you're, you're gonna do these things anyway, if you moan and groan through it, it's just gonna, it's gonna permeate everything, you know, yeah, yeah. And like, I enjoyed this with you. I appreciate it. It's a different perspective on something. I like that. I like that you and I agree. Like, it's interesting because, as you were talking about, like, you know, letting kids learn at home and on their own paces, I guess all makes a lot of sense to me. Like, when you said the kid came back ahead, not behind, I thought that makes sense to me too. Like, all of this makes sense to me. And then the panic I have from growing up broke, like, sets right in like, well, what if you can't pay for yourself? Like, what if you can't get insurance? Like, what if Arden, like, couldn't get health insurance, like, that kind of stuff. Like, yeah,
Emily 1:05:51
for sure. I mean, that's definitely a real concern in the US, for sure. Yeah, I'm definitely not anti degree. It's more of a just, no,
Scott Benner 1:06:02
you don't come across as anti anything. Yeah, you come across as kind of like, thoughtful, wide open, willing to experience things you're not like, you know, you're not, not worried about 50 years from now, but you're not letting it make your decisions for the moment. I thought it was all really interesting. I just, you know, just interesting. Even further, how different people's perspectives can make them pick that information up and what they think about next, like, once they hear it, like you don't even, yeah, this is really, it's wonderful if we haven't missed anything. I'm gonna say thank you, but I'll ask you here, is there anything we didn't talk about that we
Emily 1:06:42
should have? I can't think of anything nice.
Scott Benner 1:06:45
See how easy this was. Were you? You weren't worried, right?
Emily 1:06:48
Much easier? Yeah, I just didn't want to do the gas station. Voice, or cry, those were my goals. You
Scott Benner 1:06:56
didn't. You almost made me cry with that going to California thing, and I didn't hear a gas station? Voice, yeah, no, I feel like I was pretty good about that. Yeah. I think of that as a local news anchor. Voice, too. I love did they do that in England? Did you do that fake excitement about everything on the news?
Emily 1:07:14
Guess so. Yeah. I mean, I don't watch a lot of I don't either, but that kind of news, yeah,
Scott Benner 1:07:21
the local news just cracks me up. I love it. He's like, Hey, Bobby, I have a great story today about a cat that died. Like, why are you sound so excited the poor cat? Yeah,
Emily 1:07:31
that's true. I don't, I don't, I don't think I've ever seen that here. I guess I haven't really seen, like,
Scott Benner 1:07:35
local I love it. When they try to transition from one thing to another in that same voice. They go from like, this upbeat, stupid thing to something horrific, but they never leave that big, dumb voice they have. It's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, there's this bad, yeah. Everyone should find all right, I'm gonna tell everybody how to find this. There's a Casey or Casey case I'm is not a person. Probably anyone knows anymore, but if you he was a radio disc jockey, really like very popular he was on all over the country. So if you Google Casey, Casey Casey case some dog
Unknown Speaker 1:08:11
death
Scott Benner 1:08:12
dedication, go ahead and YouTube Casey Casey dog death dedication, and you will find audio of this guy trying to lay down ads, and they come out of, like, a birthday celebration into a dedication for a dead dog. And he just flips out in the middle of it. He's just like, how do you expect me to come out of a goddamn upbeat thing into this fcking dog dedicated? He's just like, going crazy anyway, that's uh, that just find that you'll, that'll be a nice five minutes. I don't know if that's like, something I can like, include here, or if it's copyrighted, but holy, take a second because you want to hear a person just like, like, in five seconds. Have an existential like, decision to make, like, Am I really gonna do big happy voice out of a birthday dedication into a dead dog like any just,
Emily 1:09:10
he just loses his it's fantastic, and no one can really blame him for losing it
Scott Benner 1:09:18
as he's doing it. I'm like, he's 100% right. I mean, he sounds like a diva because he's, you know, recording ads for like a, like a, I don't know, a radio station. His life is probably fantastic. But, you know, he's like, he just is, like, how do you expect? It's fantastic. Go find it if you haven't heard it. Okay? Emily, thank you very much. Can you hold on one second for me? Sure. Thanks. Oh. A huge thank you to Eversense CGM for sponsoring this episode of the podcast. Are you tired of having to change your sensor every seven to 14 days with the Eversense CGM? You just replace it once every six months via a simple eight. An office visit, learn more and get started today at ever since cgm.com/juice box, US med sponsored this episode of the juice box podcast. Check them out at us, med.com/juice box, or by calling 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med, a huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G VO, glucagon. Find out more about G vo hypo pen at G VO, glucagon.com, forward slash juicebox. You spell that, G, V, O, k, e, g, l, U, C, A, G, o, n.com, forward slash juice box. If you're newly diagnosed, check out the bold beginnings series. Find it at juicebox podcast.com, up in the menu in the feature tab of the private Facebook group, or go into the audio app you're listening in right now and search for juicebox podcast, bold beginnings. Juicebox is one word. Juicebox podcast, bold beginnings. This series is perfect for newly diagnosed people. 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, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongwayrecording.com. You.
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