#1293 The Fighter

August 30, 2024Scott Benner

Sandy has had type one diabetes for 63 years.

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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 back to the juicebox podcast.

Boy, I love this episode. Sandy is 70 years old. She's had type one diabetes for 63 years, and she and I had a fabulous conversation. Nothing you hear on the juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan. Lots of people with autoimmune seem to have trouble with their thyroid, and that's why I've made the defining thyroid series, juicebox podcast.com click on defining thyroid the menu to find out more. A diabetes diagnosis comes with a lot of new terms, and you're not going to understand most of them. That's why we made defining diabetes. Go to juicebox podcast.com up into the menu and click on defining diabetes to find the series that will tell you what all of those words mean. Short, fun and informative that's defining diabetes. When you place your first order for AG, one, with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink. AG, one.com/juicebox, one.com/juice box.

This episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by Dexcom. Dexcom.com/juice box. Get the brand new Dexcom g7 with my link and get started today. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries, gvoke hypo pen. Find out more at gvoke glucagon com, forward slash juice box.

Sandy Schwartz 1:53
Hi. This is Sandy Schwartz, excited to be invited to do a juicebox podcast with Scott and tell you all about my 63 years with diabetes.

Scott Benner 2:09
Sandy, seriously, 63 Yeah,

Sandy Schwartz 2:12
I was seven and I'm 70 now. So you can do the math? Well,

Scott Benner 2:16
I you assume I could do the math, but yeah, that's amazing. Seven years old, 60 through your 70 today. Wow, yeah, it

Sandy Schwartz 2:23
was Barb barbaric back in the day. By

Scott Benner 2:26
the way, I have a feeling I don't know you, but just from your intake form, I feel like you're a little you might be a little salty. I like that. I think we're gonna have a nice time together. So tell me, what do you mean barbaric?

Sandy Schwartz 2:41
Well, my father used to sharpen my steel needles in his wood chop, and I would help

Scott Benner 2:46
him, like, on a stone and or and Sam, like, literally take a steel needle and make it sharper for you, exactly. And

Sandy Schwartz 2:58
you know, there was one walking shot of insulin a day. There was no carb counting, although, after a couple of years, I went to Barnes Children's Hospital in St Louis, and they taught us something called the tag system. Have you ever heard of that? You're the first person to ever say that I have the book somewhere so the everything had a tag. And rather than explain it, we came home from the hospital to Memphis, and I rode my bicycle to the local Five and Dime, which is all that we had in the 60s and aka 711 now, and I bought two Snickers bars, and I came home and my mother made dinner, and I brought the Snicker bars to the table, and she asked me, What are you doing? And I said, Well, I added up your dinner and it's equal to these two Snickers.

Scott Benner 3:57
So I'm skipping dinner, and we're going like this today,

Sandy Schwartz 4:01
right? So I guess that was the beginning of carbohydrate counting.

Scott Benner 4:05
When do you think that was? Now, let me make sure I'm right. You're born in 54 353, and you're diagnosed, what? 60 Yes. Okay, so at what point do you think someone brought this tag system up to you? Probably 1963 64 Okay,

Sandy Schwartz 4:25
I have it somewhere. I'm going to send it to you. I'm

Scott Benner 4:29
googling it right now. Hold on a second. See if I know bacon

Sandy Schwartz 4:32
had a tag. Everything had a tag. So it wasn't just carbs, but it was the beginning of thinking that you could exchange more than green beans for broccoli.

Speaker 1 4:45
Sandy tab T, A, B, T, a G, G. Tab system, diabetes, T,

Sandy Schwartz 4:53
a G,

Scott Benner 4:54
yeah, I'm not seeing it. I mean, I guess it's just something that nobody ever talked about on the internet. I guess I. And that's okay.

Sandy Schwartz 5:00
Look up Barnes Children's Hospital. I'll try. They developed it. I'll find it and send it to you. It was very interesting. Thank

Scott Benner 5:08
you. I wonder too You're you talking about sharpening the needles? How frequently do you remember that happening? I don't remember. Would they get would they get sharpened after they started to hurt because they weren't because they were kind of like pushing instead of piercing.

Sandy Schwartz 5:26
I was seven. I don't remember. I just remember going into my dad's wood shop and helping him sharpen these needles that I was going to be using to take insulin. I very quickly learned to take care of myself as much as possible. I came home from the hospital. I've written about this on juicebox and how it changed my relationship with my mother, but I saw how much pain it caused her. And so at seven years old, I said, Give me that thing. I'll do it. Of course, she drew up the insulin. I'm the one who injected it.

Scott Benner 6:05
You took over your own care to save your mom.

Sandy Schwartz 6:07
You should be shrink. That was a very good statement. I'll have to discuss that one in therapy. Okay,

Scott Benner 6:15
by the way, I've had a couple of episodes. When it got done, I was like, I might be a good therapist one day, but, yeah, but I'll

Sandy Schwartz 6:21
be your sponsor. Oh,

Scott Benner 6:25
okay, well, keep your mind, this podcast thing falls apart. I'll put it on my list of ways I might be able to make a living.

Sandy Schwartz 6:31
I don't think the podcast is going to fall apart. I think it's the best thing that happened to diabetes sensors.

Scott Benner 6:39
Oh, do you really?

Sandy Schwartz 6:40
I did. I really do. I think that the way you run it, the way anybody can say anything, and, you know, I read something, I'm like, Really, they said that, but nobody jumps on them. I think it's very polite and informative and and supportive for so many people.

Scott Benner 7:02
Yeah, I tried very hard to set that Facebook group up so that it operates the way an adult with common sense should live. Yeah, and not. I can't believe you said this, or it hurt my feelings, or that made me upset, like I don't want people hurting people's feelings on purpose, right? But you know, and we certainly don't let that happen. But you know, there's, there's just listen, there's a good example. The other day, this, this person who I like a lot, and who's been a guest on the podcast, put up a post about something, and one of the responses felt a little harsh, but it was still on point, and it wasn't harsh towards the person. It was just, I'm trying not to give away details, but it was, maybe it would have been upsetting, almost being, like, kind of slapped in the face with a with an honest truth about about something. And, you know, I got, hey, this, you know, this should come down. And I responded back, and I said, I don't see it that way, like, I'm sorry you're upset, but there's nothing attacking about this. It's factual and it's valuable, and we're gonna leave it there. So, you know, that's just sort of how I do it.

Sandy Schwartz 8:04
I think it's a giant diabetes support group for the world.

Scott Benner 8:08
It is really, Yeah, no kidding. 47,000 people right now in it. And by the time someone hears this, it'll be six months from when we record this till somebody hears it. And I can tell you, as crazy as it sounds, yeah, there'll be 4000 more people in there by the time this airs, wow. Yeah. So there'll be more, like 52,000 probably by the time this comes out.

Sandy Schwartz 8:30
Well, good for them. It's good for them. Yeah,

Scott Benner 8:33
it adds 150 new members, like every few days. Wow. Yeah. I'm very proud that you said that because, because you're 70 years old and you've had diabetes for 63 years, like to say that this thing I made feels valuable only second to CGM is really touching to me. So I appreciate that 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 hypo pen. My daughter carries GE, voc, 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, jivo 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 jivo kypo pen before an emergency situation happens. Learn more about why G VO, kypo Pen is in Arden's diabetes toolkit at G VO, 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. Visit gvoke, glucagon, com, slash risk for safety information. Today's episode of the podcast is sponsored by Dexcom, and I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about the continuous glucose monitor that my daughter wears, the Dexcom g7 the Dexcom g7 is small, it is accurate and it is easy to use and wear. Arden has been wearing a Dexcom g7 since almost day one of when they came out, and she's having a fantastic experience with it. We love the g6 but man, is the g7 small, the profile so much closer to your body, the weight. You can't really feel it, and that's coming from me. And I've worn one, I've worn a g6 I've worn a g7 I found both of the experiences to be lovely, but my gosh, is that g7 tiny? And the accuracy has been fantastic. Arden's a one. C's are right where we expect them to be. And we actually use the Dexcom clarity app to keep track of those things. That app is built right in to Arden's Dexcom g7 app on her iPhone. Oh, did you not know about that? You can use an iPhone or an Android device to see your Dexcom data. If you have a compatible phone, your Dexcom goes right to the Dexcom app. You don't have to carry the receiver. But if you don't want to use the phone, that's fine. Use the Dexcom receiver. It's up to you. Choice is yours with Dexcom, dexcom.com/juicebox,

Sandy Schwartz 11:30
well, I will tell you that I've worked in the industry for a long time, and you know, I thought, I thought that I knew a lot about diabetes, I find that I not only learn things, but it has inspired me, maybe where I've gotten lots of days a call, it has inspired me to bump up my game, bump and nudge my game. You bumped

Scott Benner 11:58
and nudged your game. Can you tell me a little bit about what being connected to other people does for motivation? For

Sandy Schwartz 12:06
me, the podcast and Facebook groups have inspired me to like I said, bump up my diabetes game a little and and also to help motivate other people, like I I chime in when I think that I can be helpful. Sometimes I grit my teeth with what I read, but I try to be polite and couch what I say like I have, like I just said about my mother, that you know that we came home from the hospital and she felt guilty, and I felt sad that I quote, unquote, lost my mother. And so when I see these parents who you know are are not accepting the illness, it's I personally have a terrible reaction to it. I just want to get in there and say, look what you're doing to your child. But I know that diabetes treatment today is different than it was when I was seven years old. So if my mother had had this podcast, I would be have been treated differently.

Scott Benner 13:21
Are you saying that a parent that can't accept the diabetes and fold it into life is projecting rejection to the child,

Sandy Schwartz 13:31
rejection to the of the child. No guilt, grief,

Scott Benner 13:39
fear. This is from the child's perspective. If the parent doesn't seem like they've got it and they're not burdened by it, what do you give me the bigger picture?

Sandy Schwartz 13:49
I think the parent feels guilt, fear, sadness, anger, goes through all the grief responses and let me not generalize to me, I felt like, hey, where did my mother go? But I didn't know that at the time I have through thinking and feeling and watching the relationship with my mother, which deteriorated from the day I got diabetes, I think that I wish she had accepted it as well as I have. I think as a kid, you go through it. I mean, you go through whatever you're going through, and you don't know better, you just do what you have to do. And then when you see your parents change so much, or let me personalize it, when I saw my mother change so much, it created a rift,

Scott Benner 14:41
and she never got over that, or was it just set and set in motion, and that's how it felt to you.

Sandy Schwartz 14:48
Then it feels kind of sad to say that. I think I never got over it. I tried really hard. I didn't. I couldn't have said all this. If I'd known all this while she was alive, I would have. I processed it with her, but I think it set in motion that mother daughter stuff times 10,

Scott Benner 15:09
so she had all those feelings that you described you feel like she disappeared from the scenario. Maybe she came back and got it together, but by then you were hurt and you couldn't get past it.

Sandy Schwartz 15:22
I think she saw, I mean, she was always very proud of all the steps I made. And I was giving a talk one time at the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami to a bunch of fellows. And she was in town, and I brought her, and I think that was very healing for both of us. I tried really hard to get through the resentment I felt as a child. And of course, I'm putting adult words to childhood feelings, so I don't know that's the word I would have felt. Then I think I felt sad. I felt like I lost my mother, like, where did my mother go? Who is this lady who's always sad and and scared and and not unlike she used to be?

Scott Benner 16:11
And you can connect that to yourself, because even if you don't realize that the timing is, I got diabetes and then this happened, and then you can put that onto yourself, like you caused it almost by having diabetes. I

Sandy Schwartz 16:24
don't know if that's my personality, but maybe like I didn't feel guilty, I felt sad and angry.

Scott Benner 16:31
Yeah, tell me. Tell me. Tell everybody what you do for a living. Well,

Sandy Schwartz 16:35
I'm a psychotherapist, but I also kind of fell into working with some of the big companies writing physician and patient education materials for a long time. So I see patients professionally, and I have had a personal experience in the diabetes space, manufacturing and that kind of thing.

Scott Benner 17:01
I just wanted people. I just wanted people to know because you answer questions like a psychotherapist. That's why should I change that? No, not at all. I actually Sandy, if Can I be honest? I thought because you're thoughtful when you answer, you're like Erica. You listen to me when I talk to Erica. Okay? So you're you're thoughtful and you're pausing. And I didn't want people to think, Oh, I feel bad saying this. I didn't want people to think it was your age. Ah, you're actually, you're, you're, you're considering your words very carefully,

Sandy Schwartz 17:31
okay, yeah, I'm sorry. It's funny when you say my age, because if you ask anyone who knows me, I do not act my age. I mean, I just came back from a Keith Urban concert where I was in the pit, so get out of here, really. Yeah, six feet from the stage, that's fantastic. I could be up close and personal, dancing and hollering and having a great time.

Scott Benner 17:57
Let me tell you something. I spoke at an orthodox event this week. It's this weekend. It's the second time I've done their event. Really lovely group. And when I walk from my room to the where I have to go speak in the morning, or when I'm done at the end of the day, and I walk back, I have my headphones in, and I'm listening to like Metallica while I'm doing that, and I wore my headphones all the way back into a room, and I sat down, and people were already waiting for me. I was early, but they were already waiting for me. I sat down, and as I took out my my headphones, they all looked at me, and I went, I'm not listening to metallic, if that's what you were thinking. And I watched all their faces, and I think most of them didn't know what I was talking about. And I was like, okay, and I put my just put my headphones on. I was like, hey, so we're here to talk about and I thought, why don't we get going early? But I don't think people would look over at me at 52 years old, driving in my car and and imagine that I'm listening to freight ends of sanity. So, so good for you.

Sandy Schwartz 18:56
I drive a Bronco with the top off, and I Blair, Jimmy Buffet, God damn, I used to work on a scuba diving boat. Scott, oh,

Speaker 1 19:06
you're Sandy, you're a party. I see what's going on here. All right,

Sandy Schwartz 19:11
I was 20. I left Tennessee, I moved to Miami, and I quit school and worked on a scuba diving boat for three years before I decided to grow up and

Scott Benner 19:24
you went back to school after that, I did about that. So, okay, so barbaric in the beginning with these needles. But what are the shifts that you remember? Like, what's the first shift in care that you recall, so

Sandy Schwartz 19:36
short acting and so on? That's I was a teenager, and my if there were endocrinologists, neither my mother or nor I knew about them, I was at my pediatrician's office. Maybe I was no I was older than that. I was maybe 15, and because I was drinking beer. So that's how I know this. But. He said to me, Sandy, how come all my other patients go into DKA and you net, you have never been in DKA. And I said, you know that short acting insulin you give me when I'm sick? Well, I decided that I can take it when I eat pizza and drink beer. So I was bumping and nudging you were. I also, even younger than that, I used to take as much one shot of long acting insulin a day, as much as it took to get low and then back up a unit or two. Oh, so I kind of saved myself without knowing your

Scott Benner 20:39
Yeah, you and I have a lot in common. So you you pressed the the boundaries of what they gave you, and because you didn't have a measurement system, you were like, I'm gonna keep trying this till I get dizzy, and then I'll back it up a little bit

Sandy Schwartz 20:50
Exactly. And the same thing with the short acting insulin, if you can give me this, well, here's another thing. I have asthma, and I take steroids. So if you can give me this short acting insulin when I take steroids, and I can take it for pizza and beer. Yep,

Scott Benner 21:06
yeah. So you figured out what to do with that medication before they knew what to tell you to do with it. Yeah, in the 60s, I feel like that right now with glps, by the way, yeah, like so Arden is taking a GLP, and it's decreased her insulin needs pretty significantly. And she just, she's in the middle of her finals, like today and tomorrow, her last finals day for this for this quarter. And she and I were talking this morning, she was calling to tell me, here's what she called to tell me, she goes, Hey, I almost killed an old lady. And I was like, Wait, what happened? And she goes, she goes, it wasn't my fault. And I go, what happened? So she said, I got in my car to leave class, and she's like, and I've got to go to the printer. I gotta print this out. I gotta go home. I gotta change my CGM. Then I've gotta get back to class and I gotta turn in this other final. And if the printer is not like, she's kind of going online, she's like, but I get my car, I sit I you know, I put my stuff down, I get settled. And cars now, you know, they have cameras, and kids drive them, like video games. Like kids don't look over their shoulders. They like, they access cameras, you know. So she's like, I don't know what made me look forward, even though I was backing up, but I'm so glad that I checked my cameras. Then I looked forward and I said, why she goes? This very old woman was leaning on my car. Oh my god. And she had just been walking through the lot after Arden got in the car, and she's leaning on the car, and doesn't realize Arden is in the car, but she's using it for support. And Arden said, If I would have backed up, she absolutely would have tumbled over, slammed her head on the car and just went right to the ground. And she said, Oh my god, I'm just so happy that I saw her. And I was like, no, no, that that's great. And then, you know, I'm glad everything's okay. She's okay, yeah, she she's like, I let her lean till she was done, and then walk away. And I was like, okay, but, but then I was like, hey, you know your CGM is about done. You got to go home and do your CGM. And she's like, Yeah. She's like, that's on my to do list this morning. And I don't think there was a enough GLP in the pen when I shot it. And I was like, What do you mean? She goes, I'm supposed to shoot a half of this ozempic. We're moving her from ozempic to something else, but there's a transition period. And she goes, but I shot it, and I don't even think there was a quarter. And I said that that's not going to be enough. You know, you're going to need to go to the next pen that I gave you and do it again. She goes, will that be too much. And I said, well, the alternative is, your blood sugar is going to be crazy until we get back to the next injection. So just, just do it. That's a thing like her doctor prescribed it for. But, like, our insurance won't cover that. And if you go to any endocrinologist right now and tell them, like, you know, we're like, shooting, like, half you half milligrams of this and that and Arden's, they'd be like, You can't do that. It's not it's not okay for that. But I'll tell you right now, and you might be listening to this right now and be like, You can't do that, Scott, but five years from now, you're gonna look back on this recording and go, That guy was ahead of the curve, and

Sandy Schwartz 23:55
so that's where you were. So do I? I don't Do I seem like the kind of person that would say you can't do that, Scott, I'm gonna say, give me some Yeah,

Scott Benner 24:04
no, I think you're all in I love that example, because you literally took something that they gave you, and they were just like, look for steroid problems if you're sick, like this kind of stuff. And you're like, Well, wait, all that this is doing is I'm having a high blood sugar, and this is bringing it down quickly. I'll apply this to anything. You know what I mean exactly when you say you think that might have changed the course of your health. What has your health been like all this time?

Sandy Schwartz 24:29
My health is excellent. Sometimes I have survivor's guilt because I've lost so many friends to diabetes. But for people listening to this, they have to realize that we took one walking shot of insulin a day. We had no we had no way to bump and nudge. And luckily, that rarely happens like it used to. But my health, I don't have any of the other medical. Colic syndrome, conditions, so I don't have any high blood pressure, I don't have any high cholesterol, no neuropathy, none of the things that make diabetes hard to treat, except I take steroids on a regular basis. But just like you're doing with the ozempic, you just get to know how much insulin you need for how many Miller grams of steroids, and you do what you have to do. I mean, it's it's a balancing act, but it's not impossible.

Scott Benner 25:33
Sandy, tell everyone listening, if you would have listened to doctors and waited for them to help you, where would you be right now? Do

Sandy Schwartz 25:38
you think Dad?

Scott Benner 25:39
You think you would be dead. I

Sandy Schwartz 25:41
know I would be. So when I was had had diabetes 19 years I went to the University of Florida for graduate school, and right before I went, I went to the ophthalmologist and found out that I had background retinopathy in one eye. And so when I got to Gainesville, I immediately looked up their diabetes program, and I was it was 1979 it was 1978 when I went to Gainesville, but in 1979 I joined a research trial there, and I wore the big blue brick that the first insulin pump that looked like it was, it looked was the size of a brick, okay? And we also did the research on home blood glucose monitoring. We would take our we would stick our finger and put it on a strip that looked like the old test strip. It would turn a color. We we would take our own venous blood with an insulin syringe and put it in a tiny test tube, and right on the test tube, what we thought our blood sugar was, and keep those in the refrigerator, and then we would turn those in weekly. And so I was one of the first six adults to wear a pump, and also to do home blood glucose monitoring. So I went to the ophthalmologist in Gainesville after six months. And I think you can finish the sentence. Yeah, everything. No, no retinopathy. It was gone.

Scott Benner 27:15
Yeah. How about that? Hey, I'm actually looking at a picture of the big blue brick. And in case anyone thinks that Sandy is gilding the lily, here it's about 10 inches long. Looks like it's maybe four or five inches wide, maybe two inches thick. It's got like, almost like tubes coming out of the ends, and it almost feels like pipes coming out of the top. And it hangs on the belt, but the person's belt that it's on in the photo is like pulled down like three inches by the weight of it. And it's really something, but it worked, huh?

Sandy Schwartz 27:46
We set the basal rate with a screwdriver in one unit increments. No

Scott Benner 27:51
kidding. I want everybody to did ever complain that my pump doesn't go down to point? Oh, five. You should. You should. You should stop complaining. That's amazing with a screw, like a little set screw, because, yeah, you were restricting the flow, like a like, like, plumbing, yes,

Sandy Schwartz 28:10
yes, it was on. It was an insulin syringe that fit a glass insulin syringe on the outside of the pump. I put a picture of it on your Facebook page. If you look up my name, you'll see it okay. It was pretty amazing. Wow. And then one time, I rode my bicycle to a party, and my doctor was there, and I kept telling him I didn't feel well. And he's like, Well, what do you feel? And I'm like, I don't know. Just not well. He's like, Do you have a fever? I'm like, No. And he's like, Well, what do you feel? I said, kind of shaky, but not like my blood sugar is low. He's like, Sandy. How far did you ride? I said, I don't know, 20 miles. He's like, Have you had lunch? I'm like, No, I don't have to eat lunch anymore. I'm on a pump. I was hungry, but for 21 years, I never knew what hunger felt

Scott Benner 29:01
like, because you were always eating on a schedule, because

Sandy Schwartz 29:05
long acting insulin you have, you know you're feeding it, it peaks. Yeah, I was feeding my insulin instead of my insulin, feeding me so I was hungry, but I didn't know what hunger felt like. No

Speaker 1 29:18
kidding, did the brand of management that was necessary while you were growing up? Did it have any more impacts on your relationship with food? Hell yeah,

Sandy Schwartz 29:30
yeah. I mean, I have had to change my views on food and lose weight, because as soon as I could eat what I wanted. I ate what I wanted, and I still love carbs and sugar and but I have lost about 50 pounds. I'd love to be on the GLP. I need to lose about 10 or 15 more, but, yeah, my relationship to food was, was altered. But, you know, we can check. Change Anything we want to change, if we try hard enough. Well, I'm

Scott Benner 30:03
but I mean, if you think back to very young Sandy, you know, hearing about the tag method, she's like, I'm having two snicker spars for dinner tonight. So like, you know, I did wonder, and I can't imagine being that restricted and having such a specific regimen for so long, and then somebody telling you this part's over now, and you're not going a little crazy in the other direction, you know, like, just makes sense to me, honestly, yeah, one on the lines of, I don't know, every Catholic girl I knew when, when they graduated from Catholic school, cut their hair or did something very drastic to take ownership of themselves. Does that make sense? Right? Yeah, yeah, that to me seems like the same thing. Honestly, just like, you're like, Oh, I'm finally in control. Let me do something big, you know, right? And then before you know it, those that sugar hits you in those carbs, and they're so good, you know, and and you're on your way. Well, can I ask what made you want to come on the podcast at

Sandy Schwartz 31:04
once? I found you guys on Facebook and started listening to the podcast. I just wanted to be involved. I wrote to you and said, I want to be involved. And you wrote back and said, Come on the podcast. I just, I miss working in diabetes. I think, honestly, I think I don't get the jobs I used to get in diabetes because of my age, which I mean, I still have a brain, and I I like to be helpful, if I can be to other people who live with this disease. I see mostly, most of my caseload is chronic illness and disability. And acceptance, not just of chronic illness or disability, but of life in general, but specifically when you're hit with a lifelong issue, is so hard for so many, and if I can help them get through that resistance and to acceptance, then their life is going to be so much richer. So

Scott Benner 32:12
is that the key? In your opinion, acceptance moving forward?

Sandy Schwartz 32:16
I think acceptance is the key to moving forward in life in general, yeah,

Scott Benner 32:22
I do too, changing, being able to change your expectations, not being so cemented on an idea, and being able to accept that things shift that have nothing to do with your decisions. I think all that's really important. Yeah, yeah, to your point, too. Not just about diabetes, really,

Sandy Schwartz 32:43
yeah, life and life in general,

Scott Benner 32:45
when people have trouble accepting things as you've worked professionally through the years, how do you help them get past that?

Sandy Schwartz 32:52
I think it has to do with expectations, and looking at their expectations, grieving what they've lost and moving through the grief process to acceptance,

Scott Benner 33:03
and that's through talk therapy that you can accomplish that. Mostly,

Sandy Schwartz 33:07
yeah, yeah. If not, I have a hammer I can hit them over that.

Scott Benner 33:12
You just whack them like Bugs Bunny. If they after four times they visit, it doesn't get together.

Sandy Schwartz 33:17
I don't know where that came from. I have never said that I'm like,

Scott Benner 33:22
so this episode, heard my titles already that I have written down big blue brick, which I don't think I'm gonna do. There's a Keith Urban song called the fighter. I thought I might call it and but now I'm thinking I just might call it the hammer, because for the first 35 minutes, people will be like, Why is this called the hammer?

Sandy Schwartz 33:43
I love it. I love the fighter. Tia. It's a great song. Yeah,

Scott Benner 33:46
well, maybe that's the one I'm gonna go with. Actually, is there a certain personality that has more difficulty moving forward than other types of personalities?

Sandy Schwartz 33:55
I have to think about that one, and I'll tell you on the next podcast. Okay,

Scott Benner 33:58
how about this? When people come into the office, can you assess them in an hour and know with reasonability how this is going to go? Yes, yes, and that that's about their build and their makeup, right? It's about

Sandy Schwartz 34:11
their ability to have insight and to be willing to let down their resistance and their fears and look inside themselves.

Scott Benner 34:22
Is any of that contingent on intelligence? I

Sandy Schwartz 34:26
don't think so. I mean, I'm going over clients in my mind, and I'm thinking of a couple that surprised the hell out of me, their ability to have insight. So I would say that you would suppose that it's the it's intelligence, but I think it has to do with emotion too,

Scott Benner 34:50
okay, maybe a less measurable part of who they are. So like, I know people, people love to say emotional intelligence nowadays, like a. A buzz word that people like is emotional intelligence, just you understanding the big picture and then not getting in your own way.

Sandy Schwartz 35:07
My goal is equal parts of head, heart and gut. And so a lot of people are stuck in their head and in their left brain, like the thinking part, not the feeling part. And some people are are angry and frustrated and stuck in their gut, and some people are very emotional and stuck in their heart. And I think if we can somehow rearrange and even to some degree, then we can give up some of the baggage. We can stop obsessing so much. We can stop being so depressed, if we can look at all at the parts that make us operate, as far as our emotions. Does that makes

Scott Benner 35:57
it does? Is there anything about it that's gender specific? Or is it people's experiences and that lead to during their growth times?

Sandy Schwartz 36:07
I think that men are more self protective initially than women, but breaking through that resistance, I think we're all pretty equal.

Scott Benner 36:16
Everybody can get through it,

Sandy Schwartz 36:18
no, and not everybody can. But equally well, yes,

the opportunities there and the opportunity. Thank you. Okay, thank

you. Yes.

Scott Benner 36:27
Is there truth to that idea that people can get stuck at a chronological maturity depending on where they're kind of like traumas come from, like, if something terrible happens to me when I'm 14, am I kind of stuck at 14 till I worked through it, or is that just kind of pop psychology?

Sandy Schwartz 36:44
No, I think it's true for trauma or drug use. I think my mom got stuck when I was diagnosed with diabetes. Yeah, it took her a long time to accept the fact that I wasn't going to die. And I mean, she never uttered those words, but yeah, I we call it fixated. Yeah, fixated. I just want to

Scott Benner 37:07
say for people listening emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use and manage your own emotions and positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and diffuse conflict. That's from help guide.org if I have a lower emotional intelligence, but I have a good therapist, they can get me there if I want to get there, right? If

Sandy Schwartz 37:31
you're open to getting there, yeah, if you're not too resistant, if you're not holding on to the past that or or maybe you don't even know it. Maybe you're just too repressed to open up. Well, I was gonna

Scott Benner 37:45
say, Are there people who express that they want to get past something, but then their actions keep them there?

Sandy Schwartz 37:52
No, no. I think once you once it comes from your sub or pre conscious, to your conscious, you've broken the you know, you've broken the jar open. I think once you express it, you're on the other side of the hill, the good side. Yeah, yeah. So

Scott Benner 38:12
people who want change can change.

Sandy Schwartz 38:15
I believe so, yeah, don't you? Do you believe that?

Scott Benner 38:18
Oh, absolutely. I also think that it correlates right with diabetes to that thing I say to people like you get what you expect, like if you expect high blood sugars, as crazy as it sounds, there's these tiny variables in your thinking and your actions that you'll never even notice that are pushing you towards high blood sugars. Right? If you expect to be more in control, you make these little micro movements and decisions that get you there. And it's not a thing you'll see happening, but it's about attitude. It's about who wants it more, you know, who can stick with it long enough do the work not give up that kind of stuff. Eventually, one day, you pop your head up and you're like, Wow, I'm good at this, you know, and but you don't see it happen like that. Yeah, no, I really believe that. I just think that it's funny because I took a very technical thing and then had an emotional reckoning from it. Then the technical thing was I started to see wherever I set Arden's high alarm is where I could keep her blood sugar, which didn't make any sense. If the alarm was at 250 then her blood sugar was frequently 250 I made it 200 then her blood sugar frequently didn't go over 200 so I was like, Ooh, 181 50. Once I was just I was off to the races then. And then I eventually pushed it down to 120 and then I get what I expect, like I saw the technical side of it, which just really is, if I'm being clear, once you have your settings right and you know what you're doing a little bit, you react to those alarms. Your reaction requires less insulin, because it's happening at a lower number. If you use less insulin, you have less of a chance. Below, so you have less of a chance of a rebound high, and that's what keeps your stability there. But the truth is, is that once I saw the technical aspect of it, I realized that there's a bigger picture of unseen forces. And the way it came out of my mouth one day was, I think I'm getting what I expect. So I think you get what you expect, and that's it like, if you say to yourself, I'm going to get up every day and do 10 sit ups and you actually do them, your stomach will get harder, like it's just, you'll get what you expect. You just have to do it.

Sandy Schwartz 40:29
I love that. And probably the best thing I've gotten personally from juicebox is setting those, those high alarms. I mean, I never put it in the term. She just put it in. But I've been lowering them and lowering them. And my a 1c has come down and down. It's never been high. But I'm like, What the I mean, he's right.

Scott Benner 40:56
That's fantastic. What were target a one CS through your lifetime. I mean, I'm imagining the ADA has moved them a number of times through your life, right? Well, there was no

Sandy Schwartz 41:05
a 1c when I went to Gainesville, there was something called a glycosylated hemoglobin. The norm for that was around eight instead of six. And my first glycosylated hemoglobin after 19 years of diabetes, pumping and nudging and using short acting insulin for steroids and food and everything I tried to do was 18, really, and the norm was eight, and I had to get used to hypoglycemia, shaking, sweating, anxiety at 120 then 110 then 100 once I went on that pump, because you get what you expect, and the other way too. Scott,

Scott Benner 41:52
yeah, your body expects high blood sugar, so it makes adjustments to blood vessels and and a lot of different things trying to keep you alive longer at that higher blood sugar, and then suddenly you bring that blood glucose down, and then you have low signs and symptoms at numbers that are not actually low,

Sandy Schwartz 42:10
exactly. Yeah. It's amazing, if you think about it scientifically. I mean an 18 glycosylated hemoglobin is like, A, 15, A, 1c, yeah, no. I mean, I made good grades. I was in graduate school, you know, there was no 504 plans, and I never even thought about my mother, never thought about not sending me to school, but she didn't know what my blood sugar was. So you get what you expect. I mean, I expected to make good grades, and I did. So went out

Scott Benner 42:42
there and found a way to do it. And also, once you felt low at 120 you didn't say, Oh, I better make my blood sugar higher. You said, I better get through this, because I have to keep bringing my blood sugars down.

Sandy Schwartz 42:53
Well, the doctors told me that I was like, I can't handle this. And they were, yes, you can. So it wasn't all me. I had a little help from my friend,

Scott Benner 43:04
wonderful. Yeah, you get by with a little help from your friends. Exactly. Hey, the ADA is telling us right now that less than 7% for many adults. However, a 1c is individualized, and your doctor may give you a higher or lower a 1c goal, depending on your needs. Way to not say anything. Ada, congratulations. Lot of words, lot of words, lot of words. No guidance, yeah,

Sandy Schwartz 43:28
yeah. But listen to me, I think it's dangerous for people to try to have lower like, sugars when, when they don't know what they're doing like I have a friend who died because she got sent home from the hospital, not with type one, with type two, and was on hospice, but her daughter kept giving her her short acting insulin, but she couldn't eat. I mean, so with you know, it works the other way too. What you don't know can hurt you.

Scott Benner 44:01
Yeah, I am not a fan of just saying one thing my thought here is that we don't want to do least common denominator education. So the way I always think of it is, you know, in a class of 20 kids, there's, you know, two or three exceptional kids. There's a handful of above average kids, there's average kids, there's below average kids. There's a couple of kids who are really struggling. And I understand the desire to not want to leave the ones at the bottom of the line like behind, but at what cost is it to the rest of them who could take in more information? And isn't there a way to give everybody what they need, instead of just saying the safest thing, which is, hey, you know what? As long as everyone sees below seven, you're fine, because then people are going to come along and say, well, the ADA says, under seven, I'm fine, you know? And I say, well, the person standing over there doesn't have diabetes. There anyone sees like, 4.8 4.9 right now? So. That's pretty significant difference from seven to 4.9 and they say, well, can show me studies that say that seven is bad. And I'm like, I don't know if there's studies about that, but, you know, show me studies that say it isn't and they're gonna say, Oh, it's fine, because, you know, we've done studies, and people are okay, but you don't know what they're accepting is okay. You know what I mean, like, I don't know the answer to this question. Like, is a seven, okay, six, okay. Is five? Okay? I don't I honestly don't know. All I can tell you is that I try as hard as I can to put my daughter as a 1c as close to normal as I can without putting her in danger. That's what I'm doing. And you know, like, if they got explained to me that way, then I think that everybody on the spectrum of desire and understanding could make their own decision. That's how I feel about it. But makes sense? Yeah, they say seven is okay. So that's what they say. Family growing up, did you were you ever been married? Have children, anything like that? I

Sandy Schwartz 46:00
never got married. I had a son when I was 40, after 33 years of diabetes on my own by choice. I'm not gay. It wouldn't matter if I was, but I'm way too independent. I'm working on that now. Never Say Never Scott I think you might still get hitched if someone can handle me.

Scott Benner 46:24
Well, you didn't like being tied down to another person. I

Sandy Schwartz 46:28
didn't know how to be. I dated, I had long relationships. I had a lot of fun. I'm working on learning to be I'll tell you when I get there.

Scott Benner 46:42
What are you working on being? What are you trying to get to, where I

Sandy Schwartz 46:46
can share more, where I can trust more, where I can let go more, where I can I mean, I have great friendship with men and women, and I've had great, quote, unquote, more than just friends with men. I've just never shared my space for very long.

Scott Benner 47:07
Can you self analyze and tell me why that's hard for you? Yeah, but that belongs on another podcast. Okay, can I guess or do you not want to talk about it?

Sandy Schwartz 47:17
No, you can guess. I just it's go ahead,

Scott Benner 47:20
you get and you don't have to answer, but I've done a lot of these. Did you have any sexual abuse in your past? No, never, nothing like that. Okay, nothing, nothing. Was your dad a problem?

Sandy Schwartz 47:31
My dad was a problem and that he was so loving and so kind and so attentive

Scott Benner 47:38
that you can't meet a guy as good as your dad? Consciously,

Sandy Schwartz 47:41
I would not say that, okay. Subconsciously, maybe Okay,

Scott Benner 47:45
all right. Well, that makes sense. Have I ruined Arden by being an attentive father? I guess we'll find out. Is that what you're

Sandy Schwartz 47:52
saying? No, I think it was more than that for me. But I What did she say? Ask her. I

Scott Benner 48:01
mean, she's got a boyfriend, she seems to be okay, so Okay, well,

Sandy Schwartz 48:04
then I guess the answer is, right, there, people are different. We're all different. Yeah,

Scott Benner 48:09
so you dated plenty, you had plenty of relationships. Some were even long term. You just Were you ever with somebody that you thought that I am going to marry this one

Sandy Schwartz 48:16
if they had gotten their act together?

Scott Benner 48:20
Oh, okay, you're not type A though, right? No, no, not at all. So you're not expecting other people to be perfect,

Sandy Schwartz 48:27
no, but I had very co dependent relationships where it was, I mean, you know, it can be 6040, but it shouldn't be 9010, so Okay, all right, couple

Scott Benner 48:38
people. So there are a couple people on the way, if they would have pulled it together, you would have done it. But would have done it, but you didn't you when you said you purposely had a baby, did you meet a guy and say, Hey, I don't want you involved, but I need, I need some help. Or did you get a donation? How did you do that? Okay,

Sandy Schwartz 48:53
now you have to put me on the after hours.

Scott Benner 48:58
Okay, go ahead.

Sandy Schwartz 49:00
This is not about diabetes. Do you want me to tell you?

Scott Benner 49:03
I mean, if you want to tell me, I want to know. If you don't want to tell me, You shouldn't say,

Sandy Schwartz 49:07
oh, yeah, I first I tried with friends, both having sex and the turkey baster method, and then I went to the doctor, and the doctor said that I needed to take some medicine because I was too old. Here we go to that age. To me again, I was 40, and so I started taking the medicine, and my turkey baster wasn't working. And then the doctor said to me, why don't you change doctors? And I was working at the University of Miami, and I said, because this one's free. And she said, Do you want free or to have a baby? So I changed doctors, and the doctor said to me, why are you doing this with friends? And I said, because, oh, he said something else to me that I haven't thought about till just now. You're a good therapist. And he said, Well, I want, I want. You to look at these sperm bank donors. And I'm like, but I want to know the person. And he said, Well, that's going to be a problem for you later on, or it could be, why don't you look at these? But he also said to me, when I first met him, he said he was sitting behind his big mahogany desk and in this luscious office, and he says to me so you're 40 years old, or you're going to be 40 years old, you're single, you've had diabetes for 33 years, and you work on a university income. Tell me why I should help you. And I said, you know that lady that was sitting in the waiting room with me, and came in before me. He's like, what does she have to do about it? I said, she lives in a big house, she has a husband, she has no chronic illnesses, and I don't know why my life should be any different than hers. And so he said, Okay, when do we start? Oh, wow,

Scott Benner 50:58
very nice. When you said Turkey based you, did you mean that euphemistically? Or?

Sandy Schwartz 51:03
No, it worked. I mean, it didn't work for me, but you can look that up. Oh,

Scott Benner 51:07
I don't need to look it up. Sandy, you're not the first person that said that to me. I've made a lot of podcasts, so, like, I just didn't know if you were just euphemistically talking about in vitro fertilization, or if you were actually at home using a collection from a friend and doing it on your own that, yeah, yeah, we had a whole conversation about that. One of the other episodes, you can cut that part out. Why would I cut that part out? Sandy, that's fantastic. You misunderstand me. If you think I'm cutting that out, that's really what happened in your life. I don't think these conversations are valuable if people are stilted, so you need to be open to say what actually happened to you and what you've done, and you know what's helped and what hasn't

Sandy Schwartz 51:49
I think my life is a person that has diabetes, and I think too many people identify as and this is not a used word anymore. It used to be, but as diabetic, I would never identify as diabetic. I am a person. I have a lot. I wanted to have a baby. I wanted to work on a scuba boat. I wanted to be a therapist. And I happened to have diabetes, and it's important to me to take care of it the best I can. So I it's probably my number one goal, because if I didn't take care of my diabetes, I couldn't have a job. If I didn't have a job, I couldn't have a baby, I couldn't have a house, I couldn't have a car. So taking care of diabetes is number one, but I do not identify as a diabetic. I understand

Scott Benner 52:43
the distinction. I do. Yeah, it's funny. It's and it's not the word as much as it is. The connotation is that, right? Yeah,

Sandy Schwartz 52:51
I'm a person with diabetes. It's not the first thing. Like, I don't go to a job interview and say, Hi, I'm Sandy Schwartz. I have diabetes. But sometime after I get the job, I say, we need to talk about this, or before I get the job, when it's offered to me, I'm like, if you want to use me to get money, you can say I'm disabled because I have diabetes, but it's not the first thing that comes out of my mouth.

Scott Benner 53:16
In Arden's day to day life, she is always aware of her diabetes and always taking care of it, and yet, and I say this frequently when I do speaking events, if I brought her up on the stage in front of a bunch of people and said, Hey, tell everybody about yourself, I think she'd talk for a half an hour and never mentioned that she has diabetes,

Sandy Schwartz 53:36
then you've done a good job. Oh,

Scott Benner 53:38
I appreciate that. Thank you. I think that's a goal for everybody too. You don't ignore it, but you don't bask in it, either, if that makes sense. And

Sandy Schwartz 53:47
since most people who get type one diabetes have parents that are helping them, then it's important for them to make their children's lives important in addition to taking care of their diabetes. Yeah, no, 1,000,000%

Scott Benner 54:05
Sandy, is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have?

Sandy Schwartz 54:08
I don't think so. Do you think so? I

Scott Benner 54:10
think this was terrific. This is one of my favorite interviews I've done recently. Actually,

Sandy Schwartz 54:15
I think you're terrific.

Scott Benner 54:16
Oh, thank you. Do you know you cursed in the middle of it?

Sandy Schwartz 54:19
I cursed a few times

Scott Benner 54:22
you surprised me with the one. I don't know why you're you're just like, you're like, a fucking and I was like, Oh, you caught me by surprise. I love saying, by the way, fucking mother, they're all my favorites, but I you took me by surprise. I wasn't expecting it. So we're gonna call this one, the fighter. Is that good? I love it. Excellent. I do too. What's the next concert you're going to? Well,

Sandy Schwartz 54:45
I'm in mourning for Jimmy Buffet, and when he died, my feelings of immortality died a little bit with him. So there's a big, a big event in Hollywood. Bull. I don't know if I can get a ticket. I don't know what my Knox concert is. I'm, like I said, I'm I I've been to like, 40 buffet concert, so no kidding. You're a paradigm big time. I mean, I lived in South Florida. I worked on a dive boat. I saw him first in 76 at the Orange Bowl opening for the Eagles, and fell in love. I've been to political rallies with him. I followed him around the country. I'm a huge carrier.

Scott Benner 55:30
No kidding. See you say the Eagles, and then I know I'm gonna get in the car and put the eagles on and listen to them for a month. Well, I

Sandy Schwartz 55:36
saw buffet when I was I mean, I saw the Beatles when I was 13. Did you really wear in Memphis, Tennessee, at the Coliseum? It was the first time my mother let me go anywhere with a friend. She dropped me off and picked me up. Do

Scott Benner 55:50
you still remember it? I remember it? Yeah, the Beatles changed the whole world. Huh? That's wonderful. What else have you done that that everybody would be like, Oh my god, I can't believe you were there for that. Do you remember the moon shot? Of course, Kennedy. You remember Kennedy being shot?

Sandy Schwartz 56:06
Oh my gosh, we had to line up outside the whole school, the elementary school, and the principal came out with a big megaphone and told us we were going home because it was a sad day in our country. MLK,

I live in Memphis,

Scott Benner 56:21
yeah, so I was gonna say, what was that like?

Sandy Schwartz 56:24
We were sequestered in our homes. My father took home the cleaning lady with a gun. He carried it. I was the first time I knew we had guns, and he took drove her home. My uncle's store was Ramsay. I mean, you know, yeah, yeah, it's

Scott Benner 56:44
crazy. Wow. My gosh, you've seen like everything. Can I Can I ask a quote? Wait, you have can I ask a question? Has nothing to do with anything? Sure, go for it. How long into your life before you realized that everything's repeating, like politics, entertainment, fashion. You hear a kid talk about politics, and they're like, you know, I think these people are all out for themselves. And you go, Oh, you figured that out, did you when's the first time you realize? Because it happened for me in my 30s. And I was like, Oh, we're just on a cycle, and new people are born and they think they're discovering something, but it's something the rest of us and history have known forever and ever. It's the first time they're seeing it like, do you? Do you agree with what I'm saying?

Sandy Schwartz 57:30
Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, I should have saved my bell bottom Pana worm a

Scott Benner 57:37
couple more times, a number of different in a number of different decades, right?

Sandy Schwartz 57:42
But think about what you're saying. I mean, I don't want to get into politics, but, I mean, you know, there was a time not too long before I was born, it seems to be where there was so much division and anger, and that seems to be repeating, and that's pretty darn scary. Yeah,

Scott Benner 58:00
I think there's, like, more than one cyclical thing happening at the same time, right? Like, so there's a place where, like, I don't know, communities cycle. There's places where states cycle, where the country cycles, where the world cycles, like, it's all like, but in the end, it's, it's only powered by by humans and their responses to things. So they're going to be very similar over and over again. What changes is, you know, the materials the cars are made out of, and the technology we have and stuff like that, so it looks a little different, but it's really the same. And that's why, when people get to a point where, like, I'm so scared, like, it's, you know, this is it. It's the end. I'm like, this isn't the end. Like, it's just gonna happen again and again and again, it's going to keep happening like this. I find it fascinating. I find it fascinating because if you can see that you can live a happier life, and if you can see the repetition in diabetes and learn to accept it and be ready for it and not shocked by it, you can lead a better life. So like nothing should be surprising to you after you've seen it a couple of times, I guess is what I'm saying. That's an interesting analogy to diabetes. Everything is the same. I don't care how different it looks. People, ideas, processes, they're they're all, everything's the same, right? Well, if you stop and listen to this podcast, the parts of it. When I'm not talking about diabetes, I'm still talking about diabetes, right? You know,

Sandy Schwartz 59:24
I get that.

Scott Benner 59:27
How about new music? Do you know who Gary Clark, Jr is? I'm sorry. I don't Don't be sorry. How hard is it to discover new music when you're when you're not around friends as much as you used to be and out in clubs and going to places. Excuse me, speak for yourself. No, you know what I mean. It's harder for me to discover new music. I'm contingent on my son, like my daughter telling me about newer music, and I try to keep up. And there is plenty of new music that I hear that I like. I don't do that thing like. It doesn't sound like what I grew up with, so I don't like it. It's hard to be introduced to it like I'm. Working. I get up in the morning, I take a shower, I eat something, I make this podcast. I do a bunch of work. I eat something again. I do more work. Like, I'm not, like, in my car at high school, I'm not bumping into 500 people. Or, like, have you heard this? Like, you know, interesting. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. All right, my last question for you, I promise, did covid scare the Holy hell out of you? No, Did

Sandy Schwartz 20:00:21
it scare you? No,

Scott Benner 20:00:22
I'm asking, because of diabetes and age, did you think it's going to get me? Or what would you even if you thought that, would it scare you?

Sandy Schwartz 20:00:30
No, I'm more like, go with the flow. Take care of it when it happens. I mean, not that I wasn't careful and didn't get my, you know, vaccine still now, but not much scares me.

Scott Benner 20:00:44
Is there a time in life and maybe you haven't hit it yet where you just say to yourself, what happens? Happens like whatever, like, I can't live forever. So if this is it, this is it, or is that a freeing feeling? Or do you not think of it that way? That is my life the whole time. Oh, yeah, did you think you weren't going to live this long at some point? At some point, well, my

Sandy Schwartz 20:01:09
parents I wouldn't live past 40, which is why I had a baby when I was 40. I mean, no, I ironically, you're calling this episode The fighter. I never thought I would it. Would I that's what I said. A little bit of my mortality died when buffet died, but I still got a lot. I mean, the day Jimmy Buffett died, I probably had 200 texts when

Scott Benner 20:01:36
I woke up. Tell me Jimmy Buffet's death, because he's a contemporary makes you feel mortal, no,

Sandy Schwartz 20:01:41
because what he stood for,

Scott Benner 20:01:46
oh, I see, hey,

Sandy Schwartz 20:01:49
go ahead, tell me what just his free and easy lifestyle is, is me 100%

Scott Benner 20:01:57
Yeah, and he was Still, he still died. Yeah. Hey, did we just figure out why you didn't marry anybody? Because I wanted to marry Jimmy Buffet, well, no, because do you think you didn't have children until you were 40, or get married because you thought you were going to die and you didn't want to start a family and then leave your family. And I'll go a little further, the way you felt like your mom left you.

Sandy Schwartz 20:02:21
I don't know about the mom part, but after I was diagnosed with diabetes for years, I had a repetitive dream. I was this child sitting on the front steps of our house, and this boy would come up to me and sit on the steps and say, you want to get married? And I would say, Well, I have to tell you I have diabetes, and he would run away.

Speaker 1 20:02:46
Okay, so you're afraid of rejection. Maybe. Did it ever happen? Sandy, did a boy ever say no because of diabetes? No,

Sandy Schwartz 20:02:54
no, no, never. I mean, it was part of who I am. Yeah, love me, love my

Scott Benner 20:03:00
fool, and men have loved you despite diabetes, with

Sandy Schwartz 20:03:04
diabetes, not despite Okay, okay,

Scott Benner 20:03:07
yeah, okay, all right, that's all. I just wondered, like, you just said that all of a sudden, and I was like, Oh, I wonder if that's what happened to her. If she just didn't is your child? I forget do. Is it a son or daughter? I don't know. My

Sandy Schwartz 20:03:19
son was in the trial net. He has no markers. Every now and then. He's 30 years old. Every now and then I test him, because I see him drink two Gatorades in a row. And

Scott Benner 20:03:33
so I'm never gonna stop. I'm never gonna stop being a parent. Is that what you're telling me?

Sandy Schwartz 20:03:36
Well, you can't help but notice it, right? Yeah, any other

Speaker 1 20:03:40
autoimmune for you? Celiac, thyroid, anything like that?

Sandy Schwartz 20:03:45
No, I have probably intrinsic autoimmune asthma. I have that's the only other autoimmune because of the long term steroid use. I have osteoporosis, the worst you can have but no, I'm lucky. I'm very unluck. I'm lucky. I mean, part of it is trying to control my diabetes, but like I said, I didn't have any control for 19 years. I think most of it is genetics. And I'm just at the jackpot

Scott Benner 20:04:18
genetics. And you pushed insulin hard. When you were younger,

Sandy Schwartz 20:04:21
I did push insulin hard. I was not afraid of it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 20:04:25
about that? Okay, let's leave it at Lucky. Then I like that as an ending. Thank you so much for doing this. I really, genuinely appreciate it. You can absolutely come back whenever you want to. This

Sandy Schwartz 20:04:34
is fantastic, once things change, I'll come back. Okay, all right,

Scott Benner 20:04:38
hold on for me one second. Okay. Okay,

a huge thanks to Dexcom for supporting the podcast and for sponsoring this episode. Dexcom.com/juicebox go get yourself a Dexcom g7 right now using my link. A huge thank you to. One of today's sponsors, gevok, glucagon. Find out more about G vo hypo pen at G VOQ, glucagon.com. Forward slash juice box. You spell that, G, V, O, k, e, g, l, U, C, A, G, o, n.com, forward slash juice juicebox, Hey kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know what else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the juicebox podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community. Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook, of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in, but make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. I want to thank you so much for listening and remind you please subscribe and follow to the podcast wherever you're listening right now, if it's YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify, or any other audio app, go hit follow or subscribe, whichever your app allows for, and set up those downloads so you never miss an episode, especially in Apple podcasts, go into your settings and choose download all new episodes. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com, do.