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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to another episode of The juicebox podcast.

Let's see what we've got today. This is Erin. She's 38 she's only had type one diabetes for about a year. She was diagnosed with gestational diabetes when she was 36 there's some type one in her family, but mostly, we talk a lot about her gestational and then what happened afterwards. At the very end, we chat about her diagnosis story. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juicebox at checkout. That's juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com 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 dot com slash juice box. Hey, do you have type one? Or Does your child have type one? Would you like to help with type one diabetes research? If you do and you are, please go to T, 1d exchange.org/juice, box and spend about 10 minutes completing a survey that will help type one diabetes research to surge forward, T, 1d exchange.org/juicebox,

this episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next.com/juicebox this episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Eversense CGM. And sure, all CGM systems use Transcutaneous sensors that are inserted into the skin and last seven to 14 days, but the Eversense sensor is inserted completely under the skin, lasting six months, ever since cgm.com/juicebox, did you know if just one person in your family has type one diabetes, you are up to 15 times more likely to get it too. So screen it like you mean it one blood test can spot type one diabetes early. Tap now talk to a doctor or visit screen for type one.com. For more info.

Erin 2:23
I'm Erin, and I was diagnosed with type one in January of 2023 that's not long ago. No, not long at all. So really, I guess my whole journey actually, really started in March of 22 when I was pregnant, I was diagnosed with gestational it evolved, obviously, from gestational diabetes into type one. And so it was quite the journey. And that's kind of why I wanted to come on the podcast. Was because I was diagnosed like, I don't remember them really talking about the possibility that it is type one, or that it could be type one, I just really remember them saying you have, like, a 50 to 60% chance of becoming type two later on in life. So that's really what kind of drew me to the podcast. Was because, and I'm actually the more and more I see on Instagram, and I, you know, start meeting more and more people that way or through social media, is actually rather quite common, surprisingly, of women having GDM, which actually is just the early onsets of type one.

Scott Benner 3:41
Okay, how many pregnancies Have you had?

Erin 3:44
Just one, one. And I am old right now, 38 I guess. And so I was 36 when I was diagnosed with the gestational and I was diagnosed with type one at 37

Scott Benner 4:04
Okay, 36 years old when you were pregnant, how far into the pregnancy?

Erin 4:09
So I would say, I think I did the glucose test about 25 or 26 weeks into the pregnancy. Is that test unpleasant? The drink is not great. I will say that it's not terrible. It really. I lucked out and I was able to choose between orange and lemon lime, I think. And I picked the lemon lime, and so just, it really just tastes like flat Sprite or flat summon up. I've heard that the orange tastes like flat crush you drink it. And I kind of had this feeling after the fact, like after they did the blood work and everything, that something wasn't like quite right, because boy was, my little boy, very, very active for. Few hours after drinking the drink like way more active, like doing somersaults, it

Scott Benner 5:06
felt like so you and he were on the sugar high after that exactly. Yeah. Okay, so you did the glucose tolerance test. You failed it, obviously, yes, yeah. They tell you you have gestational and then what happens so,

Erin 5:18
and I can actually tell you what my number was because I looked it up. So my number was 297, after the one hour glucose test. Is there a range? Do you know? Yes, and they want you between, I think it's like 100 and 130 or 140 and then they consider you pre diabetes at, I think 141, I don't remember exactly the number, but yes, there is a range, and I think I was almost double. I'm at 297, I was almost double that range. You left

Scott Benner 5:49
the range and you were on your way to Mars. Okay, so they say to you, you have a coin flip chance of being a type two later in life. Is that right? Yeah, okay, and that's right after the glucose tolerance test, yes. So

Erin 6:02
in all of the training for gestational diabetes, my insurance company is both insurance and like the medical system. So I did the first glucose test, and then I actually had to go back and do a three hour glucose test to confirm that it was gestational and I fail the fasting test because my fasting glucose is 121,

Scott Benner 6:27
what is the longer test entail?

Erin 6:29
You do a fasting glucose, they check it if your number is below 95 then they go ahead and have you drink the drink again, and then they take your glucose, or they take your blood every hour for three hours afterwards to see make sure that your body is actually processing

Scott Benner 6:48
the glucose. Gotcha? You hang out in the office during that

Erin 6:51
yes, so yeah, I would have had to hang out in the lab the entire time, good

Scott Benner 6:55
times. So once this this diagnosis happens, do you manage with insulin? Or what did they do for you? Once

Erin 7:03
they sent me home, I was they got in contact with me for classes, and they got me set up with a glucose monitor, and for the first like week or two, they just had me try to do monitor it with diet. And so I ended up going super low carb with it, where I was just eating, like protein and veggies for most meals, and then walking right after walking for a minimum of five minutes after eating, depending on what I ate, also Okay, and I was able to manage my daytime numbers with exercise and diet, but nighttime, after about two weeks, my nighttime numbers were 120 plus, and so I ended up having to use NPH at night,

Scott Benner 7:56
so they had you should do one injection before bed or after dinner or when before

Erin 8:01
an injection, before bed, and I was absolutely terrified of giving myself an injection. My husband ended up being the one that had to do the injections. I couldn't even get the needle to my skin. I was so terrified of it.

Scott Benner 8:18
So did he actually do it for you through the entire pregnancy, or did you eventually take it

Erin 8:23
over? No, so for the entire pregnancy, he did it, which was really all of six weeks, because my son came at 36 weeks, six days, and so we really only had to do the insulin for like, six weeks.

Scott Benner 8:36
Okay, so you felt like you had diabetes for six weeks, and then you give birth, do you just imagine it's over at that point? Like, like, what's your they

Erin 8:44
told me, yeah. They were like, now that the placenta is out, out of you, like, it's done, you don't have to do any more finger sticks. The only thing you need to do is do a follow up blood work. I never wanted that the follow up blood works or, shame on me, you

Scott Benner 8:58
were just like, I don't have diabetes anymore. It came out with the baby,

Erin 9:01
kind of, I think part in the back of my mind, part of me, was like, I think part of me kind of knew early, like before I ended up, that something wasn't right a few months after I had my son, because, you know, I was so thirsty, like everyone talks about and but it wasn't thirst, it was like, dry mouth. So I was constantly drinking, because I just had this, like, dry throw, dry mouth feeling okay, and I was ravenously hungry, and I just kind of attributed it to the fact that I was breastfeeding. You know, I was postpartum. I was breastfeeding. That's probably all it was. I do remember, I think, at the end of August of 22 maybe September of 22 I remembered one day looking at like a street sign and going, wow. Wow, that's kind of blurry. So I, of course, I Google, you know, is it possible to have blurry vision while postpartum? Not thinking, just to type, what can cause blurry vision?

Scott Benner 10:15
You're like, if it's not postpartum, then I'm not really seeing blurry. That's fine.

Erin 10:18
Yeah, that's fine. I'll be fine. And then actually, it went away.

Scott Benner 10:22
Did you know if just one person in your family has type one diabetes, you're up to 15 times more likely to get it too. So screen it like you mean it one blood test can spot type one diabetes early. Tap now talk to a doctor or visit screened for type one.com, for more info. So

Erin 10:43
I had it for, like, I don't know, maybe a couple days. And then the blurriness went away, and I was able to see just fine. Again. In October of 22 I ended up contracting covid. And then, of course, I was breastfeeding, so my son got covid and said, then my husband was helping me with my son, so then my husband got covid. So we all got covid In the beginning of October of 22 I like how

Scott Benner 11:10
you said contracted covid. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Prior to covid, nobody would have said, Hey, I contracted a cold this week. No, the new words to it, okay, you can give covid through breast milk.

Erin 11:24
So I know, I think what happened is I gave it to him just by breastfeeding, yeah,

Scott Benner 11:30
he's down there, and you were like, just pouring them right on his head.

Erin 11:35
Don't even think I thought about, oh, I should wear a mask while breastfeeding him when I was sick, it just didn't even cross my mind. I think at that time, did

Scott Benner 11:45
you know it was covid? At first?

Erin 11:47
No, at first, I just thought that I the flu. Maybe I because the first symptom I had was a fever of 102 and so I didn't think anything of it. And then a couple days later, I was like, Maybe I should do a covid test, and it was positive. You know, a lot of people

Scott Benner 12:07
are talking about this covid thing. I'm hearing about it everywhere

Erin 12:11
I you know. I mean, I'm in human resources, so I'm having and I live in California, so I have to send out notifications. When, at that time, I was sending out notifications when anyone contracted covid and was in the office, and so I was like, maybe

Scott Benner 12:28
just spitting on that baby while it's breastfeeding. You'll be fine, good. Don't worry about it. It'll be fine. Yeah, okay, so sorry. Do you think so because you didn't get the blood work done after the pregnancy. You don't know if your blood sugar stayed up or if the covid kicked in, type one. So you don't really know what happened, huh?

Erin 12:51
Yeah, so I don't really know what happened. I mean, I did do, you know, I did a finger stick in the morning just to see kind of where I was at. And I want to say I was probably around 100

Scott Benner 13:05
or so. Did you do that thing where you were like, this thing's probably not even accurate. I'm probably actually 85 Hold

Erin 13:10
on just one second. Let me my work. I'm on my work computer, so I don't want my Outlook constantly Oh, dinging, dinging. So bear with me while I try to get out of everything. As

Scott Benner 13:23
a podcaster, I would like to thank all of you suckers who let people work from home, because I have absolutely no trouble recording with people during the daylight hours because of you, and I think you should make all these people go back into the office. They're stealing from you. What do you think of that?

Erin 13:40
By the way, I'm actually sitting in my office. Yeah,

Scott Benner 13:42
no, of course, you're like, Oh, now I'll record a podcast, then I'll get back to work.

Erin 13:46
Hey, you know what? It's fine. I just

Scott Benner 13:50
watched my wife get up and decide to make a sandwich in between the time, where I believe the company she works for expected her to be doing something. So you know

Erin 13:59
what, they it's fine.

Scott Benner 14:05
So you're in human resources, let us, like, go off track for a second here. Do you think at some point this is just going to stick, or do you think companies are going to like, go, Hey, we're not getting the same productivity out of people. We need to get people back into a job like setting

Erin 14:20
I really think it depends on the company culture, but I do. I have been hearing more people saying that they've been going back into the office more frequently. But I do think that there's going to be more of a hybrid. You know, we're going to get a couple days more flexibility. Yeah, it's just more flexibility. Yeah,

Scott Benner 14:38
there's no doubt that the lack of commuting is it's valuable for everybody. You know, you're not as tired when you get to work. You have more life to live. But I also see what my wife does is like, in the beginning, I was like, oh, no, commuting. She'll have, like, more out because my wife used to drive a long ass way to work and and instead, she just works. Do. During the time she saved commuting. So it's not like, I think there's part of me that thinks the company's getting more out of her by not making her go in. And yeah, yeah, right,

Erin 15:08
I am that way too. So if I don't have to go, like, if I'm working from home one day and my husband's taking our son to daycare, I'll work from the time that they leave until either the time I have to go pick up my son from daycare or the time my husband comes home, but I would say, during covid, my husband's company that he was working with at the time, they saw to go in the office a couple of days a week. And so I would start working from whenever he would leave the house, and then I would work until at least an hour or so after he got home. So I was doing at least nine to 10 hours a day, five days a week. I

Scott Benner 15:45
see all the value. I'm not unaware of it, but I'm just old enough that part of me just thinks, like, go to work. Like I know that's like when Elon Musk told his employees, if you want to work at Tesla, you're coming to your job. And if you don't want to come to your job, you don't work at Tesla, which he did, I think during covid, like, he was just like, you know, I was like, privately, I was like, that's cool. I would have said that, if I was him, I would have been like, I'm paying you show up and do this thing. But at the same time, I do think my wife does more work when she doesn't have to commute. I do. I think the company's making out by not bringing her into the office, and they're not paying for that building or whatever else they have to do. You know what I mean. So I don't know how to like fall on it, but I can tell you that my son is fresh out of college, and one of the first things he looks for is either a remote or a hybrid. Like offering, you know what I mean,

Erin 16:36
it totally and I think it's a culture thing too. So like the company I work for now, what we do is very abstract. You need the ability to say, to go into somebody's office who might be more of an expert than you, and ask some questions. And it's a lot harder to do that when it's only through teams, but when you have the ability to walk over and be like, Hey, can I pick your brain for five minutes? And there's value in that, you know, then they get they like, answer all of these questions, and they actually come to a conclusion that they would have never come to before. They

Scott Benner 17:17
weren't together without it. And I guess the other problem could be, is, if you're hybrid, what if I'm there on Wednesday and you're not there on Wednesday, and then,

Erin 17:25
yeah, you have to schedule a meeting. So it's more Yeah, you know, it's less impromptu and more scheduled.

Scott Benner 17:32
Meanwhile, people who have, like, what I'm gonna call real jobs, are like, Yeah, okay, well, I can't change someone's tire from my house, so I go to work every day. But right? You know, I see both sides of it. I'm just old and crotchy enough to be irritated by people who don't have to put in a lot of effort. I don't know. And by the way, I want to be clear, I make this podcast 25 feet from where I sleep, so I'm a bit of a hypocrite on this one. And me going somewhere wouldn't make this any different. So anyway, no, I

Erin 18:00
would still be the same regardless of if you went into because you'd end up going into a studio, it would be exactly the same thing. It just happens to be your spare room as your studio. So,

Scott Benner 18:10
yeah, I my accountant one time said, Why don't you rent a studio space that you have to get up and go to it. We can write that off. And I was like, you want me to spend more money, to save a little bit of money? And he was like, yeah. I'm like, I don't understand what you're saying. And I still don't understand, like, I don't understand anything accountants say to me, if I'm being clear, nothing at all. Anyway, we're pretty far off the track. You. Let's go back through it. You got the you get pregnant on purpose, by the way. Are you trying to have a baby?

Erin 18:37
Yes. So we decided after the first year. So after 2020 my husband and I decided we're like, Hey, let's go ahead and try if we have a baby. Great. If not, that's totally okay too. It took me about nine months to get pregnant from when we made that decision. I need

Scott Benner 18:57
to ask you, though, like 36 is like, did you get married later? Or did you just wait a long time to to get have a baby?

Erin 19:04
We started dating in 2010 we got married in 2015 So, and I was almost 30 when we got married, and then we just waited a little while longer, the mindset that we didn't really know if we wanted to have kids or not so and then covid happened, and then we decided, hey, why not? Let's try having a kid. Crazy

Scott Benner 19:29
question, if you knew that having a baby would lead to you having diabetes, would you have done it?

Erin 19:37
Yes, because I absolutely love my son so funny that you that you asked that question, because not was it yesterday or the day before? So just three stories, I just went from MDI to the Moby, and so my son is kind of still very freaked out about the infusion set. It and seeing all the tubing and, you know, the pump and all of that. So at first, was upset by it. Now he's quite fascinated by it and wants to see it all the time. And so I was showing it to him, and then he picked me or something. And I was like, don't, you know, be careful, bud. And I was like, Don't kick that, because that's, you know what keep it is keeping mommy alive. Granted, he's 22 months, so not like he actually remembered and understands what I'm saying. And I don't know, I said something like, you're part of the reason why Mommy has that. And then I changed my thought, and I went, most likely I would have ended up type one at some point in my life, it just happened to be that the pregnancy is what triggered it.

Scott Benner 20:47
The contour next gen blood glucose meter is the meter that we use here. Arden has one with her at all times. I have one downstairs in the kitchen, just in case I want to check my blood sugar. And Arden has them at school. They're everywhere that she is. Contour next.com/juice, box, test strips and the meters themselves may be less expensive for you, in cash out of your pocket, than you're paying currently through your insurance. For another meter, you can find out about that and much more at my link. Contour next.com/juice, box. Contour makes a number of fantastic and accurate meters, and their second chance test strips are absolutely my favorite part. What does that mean, if you go to get some blood and maybe you touch it, and, I don't know, stumble with your hand and like, slip off and go back, it doesn't impact the quality or accuracy of the test. So you can hit the blood, not get enough, come back, get the rest without impacting the accuracy of the test. That's right, you can touch the blood, come back and get the rest, and you're going to get an absolutely accurate test. I think that's important, because we all stumble and fumble at times. That's not a good reason to have to waste a test trip, and with a contour next gen, you won't have to contournext.com forward slash juicebox, you're going to get a great reading without having to be perfect. This episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by Eversense, and Eversense is the implantable CGM that lasts six months, ever since cgm.com/juicebox Have you ever been running out the door and knocked your CGM off, or had somewhere to be and realized that your adhesive was about to fall off? That won't happen with ever since, ever since won't get sweaty and slide off. It won't bang into a door jamb, and it lasts six months, not just a couple days or a week. The Eversense CGM has a silicon based adhesive forge transmitter, which you change every day, so it's not one of those super sticky things that's designed to stay on you forever and ever, even though we know they don't work sometimes, but that's not the point, because it's not that kind of adhesive. You shouldn't see any skin irritations. So if you've had skin irritations with other products, maybe you should try ever since unique, implantable and accurate. So if you're tired of dealing with things falling off or being too sticky, or not sticky enough, or not staying on for the life of the sensor. You probably want to check out Eversense. Eversense, cgm.com/juicebox, links in the show notes. Links at juicebox podcast.com, I also enjoy listening to the conversations people have with babies that don't understand them because they're by themselves and they have nobody else to talk to, exactly also, maybe you see a therapist there, you know what I

Erin 23:49
mean. And then the internal, my internal Donald don't dialog after that was, don't say that to him when you're older, he doesn't need to know that. That's what triggered you to have type one. Yeah,

Scott Benner 24:02
that's fine. Yeah, no, I know it's interesting, because you definitely can't do that. I mean, you and I,

Erin 24:09
exactly, I was like, you said it now he'll never remember that conversation and move on.

Scott Benner 24:14
Yeah, let's not do that again. It's interesting, though. It means very, very interesting. Actually, I'm, I'm impressed that you said it, and then thought, why am I? I should not do that. You know, like a lot of people say things and just blow right past it, so it hit you right away. Was it instantaneous?

Erin 24:29
Yes, it was like, once I said it, I was like, Oh, I shouldn't let him ever think that he's the reason that I have this.

Scott Benner 24:38
Yeah, no, that's good. I'm glad you're thinking that way. And

Erin 24:41
I think part of it is, is that, you know, and kind of, going back to the GDM, I was ashamed of it. I didn't tell anyone. Like, when I had to do my finger sticks, I hid in my office and, like, turned my back so nobody could see through my window that I was doing it. It, I only told a handful of people that I had it, and because I felt a lot of shame for it,

Scott Benner 25:09
can you tell me about that? Why do you think you felt that way?

Erin 25:13
I think I felt that way because I saw the statistics that, like only 10% of women have it. And how could it be me? Like, I think it's just you that kind of internal, not like grieving process. I

Scott Benner 25:29
guess you didn't feel like you did something wrong.

Erin 25:31
I did, I guess feel like I did something wrong, but then at the same time, I was like, but I didn't. And so everyone was telling me, You didn't do anything wrong to have this happen to you, but it just I, I just remember not wanting anyone to know and just feeling ashamed of it. And I remember when they told me, you know, they sent me home from the fast, from the glucose test, that I started to cry because I was so ashamed, a bit, not because you were kind of like, why is me? Why me? Like, why am I the one that has this, yeah,

Scott Benner 26:10
not not angry or confused or even sad, but specifically ashamed,

Erin 26:18
yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Has that gone away? Yes, now it has. It's gone from, you know, and I, I know I mentioned earlier that I don't care about, like, Instagram and that kind of stuff, but, and that's not why I'm on here, but I feel like I've used that as kind of a platform to talk about it and feel less ashamed over it. And once I got out of the hospital, I felt inclined to share my story and to, I mean, I don't share every day, but it just kind of blips and, you know, stories and Instagram and things like that, and just kind of talk about my journey and what's going on. And once I was diagnosed, I think that's where I was, like, got over that kind of shameful feeling, and when this is my new normal. So let's just go on and accept the fact that I had GDM, and now I have type one, and now what am you know? What am I going to do moving forward to in this new

Scott Benner 27:26
normal as a question, sharing digitally about this? Did it help you in real life? Yes. Okay, so it's not just that you abstractly don't have a problem with anymore. You can tell people about it through Instagram, for example, but that's translated over into what they call IRL, yes, exactly.

All right,

good. Well, that's I was that's interesting because, you know, so often people tell you what's wrong with social media, and this is an example of something where it helped you. Yes, I just didn't know if it would have been interesting if you were able to share online, but not in person. You turned your back so people wouldn't see. I'm sorry,

Erin 28:05
and now I have no problem. I mean, in the beginning, I definitely struggled with doing my injection, so like, if we went to a restaurant, I would typically pick out what I was going to eat ahead of time inject, either right before we went in, or I would order, and then I'd go out to the car and inject and then come back. And then probably about a month or so after being diagnosed, I was like, I'm not going to think I listened to one of your episodes where you, you know, stopping and saying something to I think it was a little girl who was injecting at a table. Yeah,

Scott Benner 28:44
that got me out of jury duty years later. I'll tell you how. Finish your story. I'll tell you how.

Erin 28:52
So I think hearing that made me go, it's okay. People aren't really paying attention to you. Anyways, they're paying attention to themselves. And from then on, I had no problem with it. I think around work and around coworkers, there were very few people I told at first, and now I'm much more open about it. And

Scott Benner 29:15
what was the reaction? Was it what you expected? A lot

Erin 29:20
of people start with, I'm so sorry, you know, and things like that. And I think part of it is the majority of people don't understand type one, right? They understand the concept of diabetes, but they have no concept of what type one means. And I think that's also why I started kind of posting more on social media too. Is a lot of my friends just didn't understand. And I was like, well, I might as well use this platform as a way to help inform people that I know, and I can do it as a whole, instead of telling everybody individually.

Scott Benner 29:59
Yeah, good. For you. So I was in a Red Robin with my children. I feel like, if you know what Red Robin is, it's like, yes, yeah. It's like, I don't know, slightly better cheeseburgers, but not really good. We were leaving, and there was this little girl giving herself a shot at her table. And I just happened to be walking by as we were leaving, and I made eye contact with the mom, and then I said to the little girl, I'm like, good for you doing that at the table. I said, I'm proud of you for giving yourself your shot here. And I said, my daughter has type one too. And my daughter waved. And we kept going. It was like that quick. And years later, and I mean, years later, I got called for jury duty, and I was still like the one like very much taking care of Arden's blood sugar while she was at school. And I was worried that if I got called for a jury that I wouldn't be able to interact with her and manage with her. So I called the courthouse, and I started explaining this to this person on the phone who ends up being the mom from the restaurant. How funny, and she let me out of jury duty. And that great. That's fantastic. Yeah, I didn't know. See, acts of kindness can't get paid back right away. You gotta wait exactly it all comes around. How insane is that? Like I was explaining to her, like, look, this is how I do this thing with my with my daughter. And like, you know, and I don't know if you know what type one diabetes is. And she's like, I do, my daughter has type one diabetes. And then we started talking a little more, and she's like, are you Scott from the podcast? And I went, Yeah. And she goes, Oh, my God, you're gonna think this is nuts. Years ago in a Red Robin, and then she told me the story, back to me, and I was, like, unbelievable. Like, that's really crazy. I think it's a big deal when you're bold in public like that, because I think you don't know who else is going to help, you know? And

Erin 31:54
that's kind of, I think, why I started to do it more in public, too, and just not care about it so much. And it was, I remember the first time I was at a work event, and, you know, I the one of the people sitting next to me, he already knew that I was diagnosed with it, but other people at the table didn't necessarily know, and so I just kind of leaned over to him, and I was like, Hey, do you mind if I take my insulin. Now I can go to the restroom if you know, it makes you uncomfortable. And he said, No, it was fine. So I, you know, of course, calculated how many carbs I was going to eat, and then gave myself the injection. And and then the people around me started asking questions. And so then it actually, you know, I started talking about it. And so it actually ended up being kind of a learning opportunity for other people, and since then, I've become less, I guess, concerned at work. I'm good, not that I was concerned, but I just now, there's

Scott Benner 32:53
two ways to think about it, and you're interested, like, have you heard the cold wind episode with the human resources professional? I have Okay, so what do you think? Do you think your job could be in jeopardy for knowing, for somebody at your company, knowing that you cost more money than other people do?

Erin 33:12
No, I don't think so, because my I have to say I I love my company and my direct supervisor, direct manager, is incredibly supportive, and she's great in so, no, I don't think so, but I have learned listening to the podcast. So I'm actually on my husband's insurance, and there was something, oh, I know what it was. It was gevok. So gevok is was not part of the formulary for glucagon options. And so I actually ended up calling his insurance and talking to them, because they're self funded, asking them why it wasn't covered. And I think I need to call back and double check to make sure that they put it on the formulary, but they actually looked into it and they were going to see what they could do to get it added as an option on the formulary. Your husband's company is a self pay they're a self funded insurance.

Scott Benner 34:19
Can we take a detour for a half a second. Can you tell me what was your impression of hearing that? Because cold wind is an anonymous episode, so the person's not just anonymous. Their voice has been changed. And she came on having been a human resources person for, I mean, decades, and she talked about the people that her company would have her come up with reasons to let go of because they were costing them too much in healthcare and obviously completely illegal and immoral, but she shared the stories nevertheless. How did you interact with that episode?

Erin 34:53
It actually didn't surprise me any so in my tenure as an HR professional, I have worked. Worked for software development. I've worked in healthcare. I've worked for pharmaceutical distribution company. I've worked for a union, and now I work for a conservation and mitigation company. So honestly, a lot of the cold wind episodes don't surprise me a whole lot, and I think it's just from my time in healthcare, because prior to becoming a HR professional, I actually worked in a doctor's office right out of college, and so there's a lot of things that I think just don't surprise me anymore. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:43
but does it change your mind? Like, if you So, here's the question, if you change jobs again, or say, your husband, I'm trying to make up something that forces, forces you off of his insurance, right? And you have to get your own and you change jobs, would you keep it to yourself then? No,

Erin 35:59
I don't think so, because I think for safety reasons, for me, people need to know.

Scott Benner 36:06
Yeah, no, I agree. It sounds like that in some scenarios, scenarios in which you're not going to know you're in or not in, you could end up being on the chopping block later for your health reasons. And

Erin 36:21
if that's the case, I think being in human resources, as long as I have that, if I felt like I was let go for an unethical or like an immoral reason, I would probably file a complaint. You would fight back. I would fight back, because I think that that's, unfortunately, there are employers that are out there that are still doing things like that, but in my opinion, or in my experience, there's a most employers do actually care about their employees, or to an extent, I will say, to an extent, you know, because they care about the bottom line, and the employees are usually what help the bottom line. Yeah,

Scott Benner 37:05
I understand. Okay, all right, thank you. I appreciate that little flight of fancy. Yeah, of course. So today, you're managing with the Moby, and I'm going to be remiss if I don't ask you about it. How is it I

Erin 37:18
am loving it, since it's my first and I actually so funny things got I got it less than a week ago.

Scott Benner 37:26
Oh, okay, so you don't know what the hell you're talking about, but still, I

Erin 37:31
mean, I've, you know, I see a difference already, okay, but I love the ability to not have to inject all the time, and because I'm if my blood sugar gets over, you know, I have my eyes set at 180 at the moment. If it starts creeping to 180 I want to inject, even if I've just injected like, I want to take more insulin. I'm like, No, you need to let your insulin work and see where it goes. Let's keep an eye on it, and then in 45 minutes, if it's still half an hour, 45 minutes, if it's still high, then we'll see what we need to do. But I love the control IQ, doing the correction boluses and things like that, because otherwise, yeah, it's just, I love the less than a unit corrections that it does, because that's where I was struggling with is I was doing, you know, I had a vial and a syringe while the syringes are in unit one unit increment, so I would be eyeballing if I try to do anything less than a unit, Yeah,

Scott Benner 38:35
but you're in such an interesting situation because you haven't had diabetes that Long, and you've jumped onto like a completely brand new pump, right directly from MDI. What made you choose that pump over Medtronic 780, G OmniPod five or even the the x2 from tandem?

Erin 38:56
Well, my two choices, I think, through my insurance, were primarily tandem x2 or OmniPod. When I was initially diagnosed, especially after listening to your podcast, I was like, Dad said, I want OmniPod. That's what I want. And I even got the sample that you can order through OmniPod because I was just fascinated by the fact of not having to have tubes, and it's all self contained. I don't know, summer last year, I started looking at cost for insulin insurance, or my endo team told me I had to wait until, you know, essentially, six months after being diagnosed. Think that's pretty common for most people, and the only reason I didn't go on a pump earlier was because in June of last year, I decided to go with the g7 because my original CGM was the libre two, and then I decided to go on the g7 In. And so that kind of stopped my team from saying, hey, let's get you on a pump. Because, you know, it's barely, at this point, barely integrated with the x, with tandems, other pump, right? And so I started looking at pricing and tandem while was more expensive up front, it is cheaper overall throughout the year, where OmniPod would have cost me significantly more because of the I think, co insurance that I would have had once I met my deductible,

Scott Benner 40:37
the way your insurance is, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, you're fine, yeah, it's just the way your insurance is set up. Put you in that situation,

Erin 40:46
exactly, okay, exactly. And then I think at my October appointment with my endo nurse practitioner, because my endo team is a nurse practitioner and a CDE and then an MA within the group. And so my nurse practitioner at my October appointment was telling me about Moby, and she said, I really think that that's going to be a good fit for you and your lifestyle and the things that you want. And so I was super excited when she said that. And so that's kind of how

Scott Benner 41:19
it all happened. Well, yeah, I mean, if the OmniPod was out of your reach for cost reasons that I think the Mobi makes this the next best sense, right? And it runs the algorithm, the the tandem control IQ algorithm, so you just didn't go from you literally went from not being able to inject less than a unit of insulin to an algorithm taking care of your blood sugar. And I'm interested to know, like, what's have, has there been an improvement, like, in your like, what do you see on your clarity report?

Erin 41:49
I haven't actually, I should probably look at my clarity report. I've been trying to kind of give it a week or so to see what the difference is. I definitely have noticed that there are times that I'm less in range in the last 24 hours. But I think some of that has to do with I always tend to get evening highs. And I think it just has to do with I'm really bad about eating higher protein and fats, because I like to not have to bolus for a snack sometimes, but then it's like, Okay, now it's catching up with you hours later. Get

Scott Benner 42:28
the rise anyway, yeah. Do you know how to bolus for fat and protein?

Erin 42:33
Kinda, yeah. I think I just choose not to. Sometimes. I

Scott Benner 42:38
gotcha, you're trying to see if the algorithm will take care of it for you. Yeah, I

Erin 42:42
think part of is that some of the evening stuff, I am trying to see what the algorithm will do, and just trying to understand better of what it you know, where it needs my help. And then sometimes I just go, Okay, enough is enough, and I'm going to do a correction. And then it says, Oh, you have too much insulin on board. You can't do a correction. I'm like, Okay, well, I guess I'll just wait then.

Scott Benner 43:04
So, yeah, you're in the very beginnings of this. There's an episode called control IQ ninja you should listen to. I

Erin 43:11
think I've listened to it once, but I wasn't, obviously, it wasn't yet. I do need to go back and listen to

Scott Benner 43:17
it again. And there's fat and protein episodes in the Pro Tip series. And if you go to the Facebook group, in the feature tab, there's a whole list of fat and protein episodes, if you want to get involved in them. Okay, cool. You haven't had type one that long, but you seem really well versed in the podcast. Like, where did you

Erin 43:33
find it? So right after I was diagnosed, and I think it was like a, I don't know, within a week or so being diagnosed, a friend of mine actually sent me a link to your podcast. And once she sent me that link, I just started listening. I actually started listening. I listened to the episode she sent me, which I think was episode it was in the eight hundreds. It was one of the ones where you reposted an older episode. You know, how do you talk about diet type one or something like that? And then I went back to Episode One, and I listened to from episode one until about 75 to 100 I don't remember where I stopped. And then after that, I was like, Okay, let's jump to some of the newer stuff. So I skipped some of the other episodes I have listened to the defining diabetes and the pro tips multiple times, and a few of the other ones, just because I feel like most of my management comes from what I've learned. Oh, I'm

Scott Benner 44:46
glad that's great. So, so what does that translate to for you? Like, what are your outcomes? Like,

Erin 44:53
I definitely am way more bold with insulin than I. Think I would have been had I not listening to the podcast. I feel like I have a lot more confidence than I would have, or than I did nice. And I also think that I'm kind of at the point of starting to come out of the honeymoon phase too. I've definitely noticed needing an increase in insulin over the last couple months so and also, the other thing too, is, is I just kind of do things, I think, and I think the podcast gave me the confidence to go, let's just try increasing so when I was on MDI, I would wake up and my blood sugars would be 121 30. And I'm like, I don't love waking up fasted at 121 30. So I was like, okay, tonight, let's try, you know, we'll eyeball a half unit more and see where that takes me. Yeah, and then after a couple days, I'd still be on the higher side. So I was like, Okay, well, let's try a little bit more. And I kept doing that. And so, you know, of course, my endo team. I love my endo team. She my nurse practitioner would be like, just remember, you don't want to fall more than 30 points. And I was like, I know she's like, and I see you falling at more than 30 points, somebody like and if you notice, I've also taken fast acting insulin about the same time that I'm taking my Lantis at the time, because I was seeing the trend of the rise, and I'd be trying to catch it at like 121 30, so it didn't hit 180 200 plus, where then I would stick there all night long, right?

Scott Benner 46:34
So the way I talk about this, it vibes with how your brain works. Mm, hmm, yeah. Now I can tell, like, you seem it's interesting, because I don't know if people are noticing or not, but your overall general attitude about diabetes, and the way you talk about it, comes off more like you've had it for 15 years, yeah, but you just got it, and you're not being, it's not like you're not being careful or thoughtful about it. You just seem to have a more kind of like a, you know, I wonder if it'll cover the fat on its own. I'd like to see if it's going to do this. I put in extra insulin here because I don't want this number, like, it's all very, um, I don't know. I like it. I like how you're talking about it, I guess is what I'm trying to

Erin 47:15
say. Uh, thank you. And I think part of it just has to do with the fact that I, you know, I look at my a, 1c when I was first pregnant, and it was 5.5 so there's no reason why I can't have three, you know, pre type one, A, 1c numbers. There's no reason why I can't have a, you know, be fasting at 100 there's no reason right that I shouldn't be. And so it's just finding the balance between too much insulin and not enough insulin. And where is that kind of sweet spot? Yeah, you know, I remember when I was first diagnosed, and the first time I met with my I think it was during my intake, my nurse practitioner, she said, you know, at some point, you're going to know more about how to manage your diabetes than I ever will, and so I think that's why I also kind of take it into my own hands, because at the end of the day, I know she has my best interests at heart, but She also has to make sure she's doing the right thing and taking care of her, you know, covering herself and all of that, and, you know, and so I also take that into consideration too.

Scott Benner 48:30
Yeah, that's great. That's fantastic. And thank your friend for me for sharing the podcast with you. That's how it all Yeah, I was having a long conversation the other day with somebody about that exact like, I don't know how to put it exact. I have a couple of jobs. Like, making the podcast is one of my jobs. You would think that's my job, but then promoting it and working with advertisers and worrying about numbers and downloads and long term, you know, viability and stuff like that, that takes up a lot more of my time than I care to I care to believe is true. I just like the struggle every day is, how do you get more people to know about it? I had a at a meeting last night with an AI company I'm considering basically leasing the the podcast to an AI company who is going to like, it's basically an AI doctor, okay? And so it's an app or a web portal where you go and ask questions and get, like, real answers about your diabetes that's actually connected to your live CGM data. I've seen a couple of samples of it, and I've done some live, you know, like last night, I messed around in it for about an hour in a meeting where actually connected to a person. And I said, What's my blood sugar? And it said, right now, your blood sugar's 78 but you should see. The information it gave back. And then I said, Okay, do you think I'm going to get low and like, what should I take right now to, you know, stop that from happening? And then it gave back a thoughtful answer. I said, Okay, I'm gonna have a meal right now. How much should I bolus and when should I How long should I wait before I eat, and it told me those things. And the the the creator of this, you know, the founder of this company, it's a very new company, still said, I would like it if the users could talk to the podcast and, and he's like, you know, there's a world in the in the future where, you know, it'll respond back. And he's like, we have so much of your audio. He's like, we could it could respond back in your voice, like you digitally, could talk back to people through the podcast. I'm like, that's insane. Like, he's showing me all that, right? And I'm trying to like, like, is that something I want to do, is something I want to be involved in? Like, I think it is. And I'm going through all of it, and, and, and in the course of this conversation, he asks me, what's your dream? And I said about my business, because, I mean, the podcast is a business, right? And I, and I said, my dream is scalability. And he he seemed confused, and because I didn't say, like, I want to make a bunch of money, right? Like, I don't think I don't think I said any of the things that he expected me to say, right? Yeah. And I was like, I said, Listen, I try not to say this out loud, because I don't want people to take it the wrong way. And I was like, but there's this scene, and this is not an apples to apples comparison, but there's a scene at the end of Schindler's List where Oscar Schindler realizes he still has a piece of jewelry, something that he could have traded for a person for their life, and that he, you know, almost mistakenly, didn't, didn't do this and and now he's looking at this piece of jewelry that he's wearing and realizing it's, it's, it's Another person. It could have been another person. It shouldn't be lost in anyone looking at about how many people he helped, like, like so many people, but what he was focused on was the one person he didn't get to. And I swear to you, and again, the Holocaust and my diabetes podcast have nothing to do with each other, but that feeling, I feel like that all the time. I constantly think there's this information here, and I see it help people, not just once in a while, and not colloquially. Or somebody emails me now and again. I'm talking about dozens of people every day, telling me directly, I listened to that Pro Tip series, or I heard bold beginnings, or this happened, or that happened, or, you know, and I'm doing measurably better because of that, and as heartened as I am by that, or by hearing you tell me how valuable the podcast has been for you. The right after I get that nice little burst of, oh, this is helping. That's nice. There's a voice in my head, or a devil on my shoulder, or whatever it is, who just says, Why can't you reach more people like, like, and so I constantly feel like I'm failing.

Erin 53:12
That makes sense. And solely, yeah, I think it's so I totally hear, like, get what you're saying and, and I think that's just, we always look for, what can we do? Be doing better, and how can we reach more people? And, I mean, I will, I definitely share the podcast and the Facebook group with you know, because on Facebook, I'm in a couple different like, adult diabetes groups, and people are like, I'm newly diagnosed, and I go, Oh, you have to check out the Facebook group, and you need to check out this podcast. It is super helpful, and it's helped me. And I will send them links of, you know, the defining diabetes, the pro tips, a link to the group, and because I, I agree with you that we all, like those of us in in this realm, it's all about how we share the information with others that are new and coming into it, but then also, How do we reach those that are already, you know, in it and doing their own thing, and think that they're doing great, but don't realize that they could probably be doing a little bit better.

Scott Benner 54:29
They're struggling, yeah, and they know it or don't know it, so it that's beyond me, like so I said to him, so My dream is that there was a way to accomplish that, because right now, I am completely hamstrung by the idea that it is a word of mouth medium. There's not much more I can do about it, and I don't think everybody would enjoy listening to me. I don't think everybody would maybe even understand, but I've seen such a response that I feel like I would like people. People to have at least the knowledge that it exists, so that they can make the decision, yes, I'd like to try this, or no, I'm not going to try it. And that way I'd feel more confident that I did more and and that more people could possibly be find value with it. That's pretty much it. So anyway, it's nice of your friend to tell you about it, and that's what made me think of No

Erin 55:27
absolutely. And I find it fascinating. You know, if you Google type one diabetes, I think your podcast is usually one of the first things that pops up now, so, or at least when I google search it. So I just find it fascinating that it's it's definitely there, and that feel like I hear a lot of parents talking about that. You know, when they're in the hospital with their child, they start Google searching, and all of a sudden, you know your podcast comes up and they talk about how the podcast has helped them, too. So I just find it kind of interesting how it all comes together, not

Scott Benner 56:09
fast enough for me. I'm also very competitive, so there's that's mixed in there. But you know, as I was talking to this, this gentleman in, I don't know, our third or fourth meeting, and you know, he said to me, he goes, Look, Scott, he's like, that your podcast is in the best I can tell, the one of the most valuable things for people with type one and, you know, really well known and respected and etc, and the rock solid information, like all that stuff. And he and he's like, I'm I'm a little confused that you think it's a failure. And I was like, oh, it's not a failure. It's a huge success. I think the way he put it was, nothing else touches you in this space, like you're he's like, you're so far ahead of everybody else as far as like, connections to listeners and followers and stuff like that. And he's like, but you don't see that as success? I said, No, I see that as a massive success. That's not the thing that keeps the fire burning, like, right, right, that I expect, but I expect to get 15 notes this morning from people who are doing better. I don't get that same Jolt from it like, I appreciate it and I respect it, and I'm happy for those people sincerely, but it they just makes me think, go find more people and help them too. And if that doesn't happen for me, I can get melancholy. Is the wrong word? I it can be hard for me to get motivated, right? Like, yeah. Like, I almost, I don't know this is a bad way to put it, but I feel like it's got to be somewhat similar brain wiring to betting on something like, you know, like people bet on sports, for example. It's not even about the money, right? It's you're chasing whatever that feeling is, and, and, or from Russia, yeah, yeah. And I, I want to help more people. And that's, that's my only goal, is to help more more and more people, but me the bag of meat who has a job and a life and everything, who has to get up every day and sit down here and, like, rev their brain up and, like, spit this stuff out. Like, I need, I need something to chase. If that makes I don't know if that makes sense or not. No, it does, yeah, so I'm, I'm always looking for that. And it's nice that the podcast is like, I mean, I looked at it this morning because he brought it up last night. I don't normally look at the rankings, but it's just like, it's crushing in like, 48 different countries, and that's fantastic. Oh, my God, it's amazing. Like, it's crazy to think that there's like, like, you know, you remember the little girl from Russia? Have you ever heard that episode? I don't know if I have, oh, find from Russia with sarcasm, okay, okay. And great episode of like this. At the time, 14 year old little girl who got type one diabetes in like, she lives in Russia. She found the podcast and then went to her mother and said, I need a CGM and a pump and, like, put it on her mom to figure out how to get it for. And then I think, her mom, I don't have to travel to America, so I forget how they did it exactly, but they got it for. And then that girl, like, managed her a 1c to within an inch of its life by herself with just the information she got from me. That's crazy. That's insane, right? Like, I think that's that's amazing, people in Australia, New Zealand, God, I have listeners in everywhere, like, literally everywhere. And still, when I get up in the morning and I look at my whiteboard, which, right now is saying to me, so here, I don't usually say this stuff out loud, but why not? I have an idea for a series of shorts, and I'm going to call it small sips. I have an idea for bitch sessions where I think people should come on and bitch about one specific topic, about diabetes. I have an idea called I don't understand, where somebody comes on and just says, Scott, I don't understand. And then. Makes a statement, and then we try to figure it out together. And all this stuff, like, ways to use AI, and all this stuff, like, I need to, like, I don't know, like, it's hard. It's not hard to get excited. I'm excited about the podcast. It's hard to work as as long and as focused as all these ideas need when it's just me. And so it helps me to turn on a computer every couple of months and look and go, Oh, I'm winning. And that sort of makes me feel like I don't know that's where I get my energy from. So anyway, that's probably too long of a look into my weird psyche, but that's why you guys are all being helped, because I'm incredibly competitive, and I want to win everything. So

Erin 1:00:42
no, but I think that's I think it's fascinating, because it just goes to show how much you care about it and that you want to reach more and more people. Now that I'm in this, I don't know if you want to call it a club, but club, it feels like there's so many people with it. But then at the same time, when you actually look at the numbers, you're like, there really aren't that many people, not even in the grand scheme of things, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:01:07
a couple million people out of three, 30 million Americans, or something like that, right? Or, yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's an incredibly rare illness. It doesn't feel like that because of the podcast makes it feel like everybody has diabetes, absolutely, which is part of the choice. Yeah, that's what. It makes you feel good about it, because everybody you talk to us type one.

Erin 1:01:29
And I think that's the same thing with like the Facebook groups too. It makes you feel like, oh, there are a lot more people out there that experience the same things you do every day. It's comforting. It is, it is comforting. And it's also kind of going back to why I started, or when I started sharing on social media, I think one of the very first, like stories or posts or anything that I did when I got my CGM, was I, you know, posted a picture with my libre two on the back of my arm. And somebody that I knew, you know, years ago, that I used to do ballet with when I was younger, she sent me a message, and she's like, kind of like, why are you wearing that? Like, are you wearing that just because, for health reasons? Not. She didn't say it that way, but, you know, trying to understand why I was wearing them, and I explained it to her, and so she told me she actually was diagnosed with type one a few years ago, and and so that we've totally reconnected because of type one. And so it's just really interesting. I like how

Scott Benner 1:02:33
she approached you, like you're not doing that, like bro science thing with the CGMS, are you right?

Erin 1:02:39
I now looking back on it, I see how she could totally think that. But yeah, I was like, no, no, no, my

Scott Benner 1:02:49
baby gave me diabetes,

Erin 1:02:52
exactly. But you know, in talking with my parents also, my maternal grandfather had diabetes, and so I already always knew about that, and I always kind of had this inkling that maybe one day I would end up with type two.

Scott Benner 1:03:10
The grandfather had type one or type two.

Erin 1:03:12
They don't remember because he's actually no longer with us. He passed away in the early 80s, but he was diagnosed, think, in his late 40s, so it was like the 60s or early, late 60s, early 70s? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:28
no,

Erin 1:03:30
so they did shots.

Scott Benner 1:03:33
How about other autoimmune stuff in your family?

Erin 1:03:35
So on my dad's side, his uncle had type one and passed away when he was in his 30s from complications. And then, I don't know, oh, there is arthritis on my mom's side of the family too. Both my mom and my grandma have

Scott Benner 1:03:54
arthritis. They have RA. Is it autoimmune? I

Erin 1:03:57
don't know if it's RA or not, but they both have it.

Scott Benner 1:04:01
What about hypothyroidism, celiac, none

Erin 1:04:06
of that that I know of for sure. Has your digestion changed since you were diagnosed? Not really. I mean, maybe a little bit, but not a ton. I did start taking in January, I did some digestive enzymes, and boy, did that change my insulin sensitivity? Oh, it made me way more sensitive to insulin at the time. I actually kind of stopped taking them for a while, and I haven't taken them in a while, but at first, boy, was that an adjustment with insulin needs? Yeah, it was. It was actually quite fascinating to see it change like that. And it was like overnight, too. It didn't take much,

Scott Benner 1:04:49
yeah, because the food's not sitting in your stomach as long. Yeah. Scotty takes this every day. Okay? I hear from other people. I hear from other people. I can't remember. I'm like, you know when you remember when you're on the toilet? You're like, I should have took that thing. I'll tell you what I've done that thing. I haven't said this out loud yet on the podcast. Am I gonna tell you? Why not? I'm, oh, my god, slippery elm bark.

Erin 1:05:17
I don't elm bark. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:19
yeah. You're gonna hear about that on the podcast. Eventually, when I I'm doing an episode with a digestive kind of guru, and I got on with him, explained all my digestive issues, and he was like, I want you to take slippery elm bark. And I was like, Okay. And the it took two days, but two days later, I don't know how to I like a king, Aaron, like, like, I imagine a king goes to the bathroom, and the guy texts me, goes, how's it going? And I, of course, texted him back and said, I'm like, a king and, and he's like, Oh, I knew it. Now I have to take a test like, to like. So he masked something with the slippery elm bark. And he's like, now we'll figure out what that is and see if we can't correct that. I was like, okay, right on. So he sent me, I have to take this, like, urine test. I think I have to pay like, $300 for it, but I'm gonna do it. Because he was like, he was so right, just from listening to me that I'm like, I wonder what I wonder what else he knows. So anyway, it's been really interesting. Like, yeah, slippery elm bark. It just, I guess it coats it, coats your insides with, like, more of a mucus layer. And I even hear online that women use it for other dryness. Does that make sense? Interesting? Uh huh. Case your who isn't hot enough, I guess. Like, anyway, who the hell knows? I don't care. I'll try anything

Erin 1:06:45
that's fascinating.

Scott Benner 1:06:45
I was like, Whatever, man, I'll do it. He added a instead of the digestive enzyme I was using. He's like, use this one that has HCl in it. And I was like, which is hydrochloric acid, I guess. And, and he's like, you know, it turns out that it's possible, if I would have met this guy 25 years ago, I wouldn't have had, like, reflux and all this other stuff. It was a, it's fascinating. It just really amazing. Anyway, there'll be a whole episode on it at some point. But anyway, is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have?

Erin 1:07:15
I think I wanted to talk about kind of my diagnosis experience a little bit please do after covid, in November of 22 I ended up having mastitis, and I took antibiotics for it, and then in December, I was speaking of having to the bathroom, was starting to really have the experience of not being able to and in my mind, I was like, oh, it's the antibiotics that's, you know, All I need is in probiotics, and I'll be fine. No, no. But got worse and worse, and then the week between Christmas and New Year's, I was so sick I couldn't get out of bed. I would try to go get my son out of bed, and he like, I couldn't make it from my bedroom down the hall to my son's room without stopping and like catching my breath and then making it into his room. Like the day my husband took me to the ER. He actually happened to be out of town for work, and he left the night before, and I called him, and I was like, Hey, I just ate, I don't know, I think it's like, some watermelon or something, and then, like, 10 minutes later, I threw it up. And he was like, great, that's fantastic. I'm not home, and you're getting sick and you're taking having to take care of our son, who is, you know, seven months at the time, yeah. So he called his mom the next morning and had her come and help with our son, and I'm trying to breastfeed. And mind you, in October, I was at a wedding and noticed I had lost some weight. But then in December, right before Christmas, I, you know, put on some of my work clothes, and I was like, Whoa, these really don't fit. And I was almost embarrassed by the fact that my clothes were so big, and so, of course, didn't think anything of this time. So finally, my husband comes home, and he's like, I'm taking you to the emergency room. So he takes me, mind you, I had thrown up again the next that morning after eating. I think I don't know. I all I really wanted was like peaches and like Activia yogurt and like all the bad things that don't help you when you have high blood sugar aren't produced, yeah, you are producing insulin, yeah. And so again, threw it up within like five minutes of consuming it. So obviously, something was really wrong. I'm glad he made me go to the emergency room when I got there, you know, they This was covid time in the hospital, and so they had, like, a nurse sitting at the front door who did, like, kind of a pre check in. And, you know. Told her, Hey, I'm not able to go the bathroom, and, you know, I'm just not, like, I'm super nauseous and I don't feel good. And she told my my husband told me later that she told him that she doesn't think that it's what I think it is. She thinks it's something else. They wheel me over to the intake area. They get me on the scale. I look down and I'm like, I just lost like 30 pounds in like three weeks. Wow, yeah, wow, wow, yeah. So I lost a lot of weight in three weeks. How tall are you? Six foot and usually about, think, like three weeks earlier, I was about 155 I think at the time when I was checked into the hospital, I was about 130 and I had, you know, obviously had clothes and boots on and things like that.

Scott Benner 1:10:50
Aaron, I'm sorry, you're six feet tall. You had 155 How come you're in human resources and you're not like a runway model or something like that? What's going on?

Erin 1:10:59
You know, it's funny, I get asked. I used to get asked that a lot. I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:11:04
I just never, you never went that way. Well, I

Erin 1:11:07
think part of it was when I was younger, I would have been considered a plus size model, like I wouldn't have, because I was never the, you know, real thin

Scott Benner 1:11:17
back in the day, yeah, when back in the day, yeah, you know, right? Yeah. So

Erin 1:11:21
that was interesting. You lost 30 pounds

Scott Benner 1:11:24
in three weeks. Did you in? In your heart of hearts? Did you have weight to lose? No, no, you were happy at 155

Unknown Speaker 1:11:33
Mm, hmm, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:11:34
Are you like, a tall and like straight, or are you curvy, tall

Erin 1:11:39
and pretty straight. I mean, I definitely have some curves, but nothing crazy. Okay, you know, people look at me now and I'll be like, Oh, I could, you know, I feel like I could use to lose a few and they're like, You look fantastic. Did

Scott Benner 1:11:55
your mother in law notice it when you were busy showing your moves to your mother in law when she came over that day? Were you like? Did she say you, honey, look like you lost weight or anything like that.

Erin 1:12:03
So after the fact, everyone told me that I basically looked like crap.

Scott Benner 1:12:10
It didn't tell you what, it would have helped

Erin 1:12:13
you. I mean, I look back on pictures and I look looked dreadful. I literally looked like I was dying right right at Christmas, about that eye sockets were all sucked in, like, I just looked dreadful,

Scott Benner 1:12:29
and you didn't notice it was as it was happening. Either,

Erin 1:12:32
no, no, I didn't notice it. And, you know, I didn't think anything I was I think I remember asking one of my friends like, Hey, did you lose a lot of weight when you were breastfeeding? Because that's where my brain went. My brain went, Oh, it's postpartum. It's just breastfeeding.

Scott Benner 1:12:49
You know, has the weight come back for you? Oh, yeah,

Erin 1:12:53
it came back with a vengeance. Because once I started on insulin, I was ravenous.

Scott Benner 1:12:58
You don't realize either that that the high blood sugars were also helping you keep weight off. I mean, obviously, because you lose it, you you realize that at the time. But like, you know, once you start taking insulin, and you were probably eating so much while you were losing weight too, right? Yeah,

Erin 1:13:16
right. Well, to produce milk too, yeah, your

Scott Benner 1:13:19
body was trying to do a lot of different things at the same time, while it was shutting the was shutting down. Exactly,

Erin 1:13:23
interesting. So really, actually, the whole kind of the crazy part of my diagnosis story is so I was in the ED for, I think, like, six plus hours. They finally take me back, my husband again, covid time. My husband's not allowed to be in the ED with me, which, in hindsight, I wish he would have just been like, I don't care what you have to say, I'm staying with my wife. Because the doctor, like, I don't really remember a ton of my time in the ED, oh, other than I remember the, you know, them taking me back. I had to do the tests. I think I did a urine test. They did a stomach X ray to make sure I didn't have a blockage, and then they did blood work. And once they did all the tests, the doctor's like, well, you know, there's nothing that I see at this point. And so my husband finally came in when they were getting ready to discharge me and and he's talking to the the ER doctor, and he's like, she needs fluids, like, she's dehydrated. And he just was like, Well, do you want to wait like, an hour or two to, like, be able to get fluids? And so he's like, if not, then you know, you can just go home, keep drinking the Pedialyte that you're drinking. It'll be fine. You'll be fine. And he sent me home with, like, a bunch of, like, laxatives and wait,

Scott Benner 1:14:41
did you get discharged without a diabetes diagnosis? Yeah,

Erin 1:14:45
yep. So I didn't thought this is where it this is the kicker. Go ahead. So they discharge me. They send us to the pharmacy. We collect all the things that he ordered. We get in the car. We drive the 20 minutes. Home. I get we get home, I get back in bed, and then within 10 or 15 minutes of getting home, the ER, doctor calls me and goes, we need you to come back to the ED, your blood sugar was over 500 Oopsie. Yeah, our fault. So, yeah, you shouldn't have let me go.

Scott Benner 1:15:21
They let you leave without seeing the blood work they took. Did they take the blood work for them?

Erin 1:15:27
Right? I don't understand how no one could think I

Unknown Speaker 1:15:30
know. Okay, all right, it's fine. So

Erin 1:15:32
we go back and mind you, you know when we leave, I'm still drinking the highlight that I had with me. And so we get back there, and nurses are livid that he let me go, okay, and they do a finger stick, and I read over 600 Wow, yeah, so because, I mean, obviously I'm drinking Pedialyte, so of course, my blood sugar is going to keep rising. So the that particular doctor ended up getting off the shift by the time I got back, so his colleague checked me out, and you know, he had me, of course, again covid time, so I had to have a mask on. So he had me pull down my mask, and he's like, I can smell the ketones on your breath. So he's like, we're gonna get you in a bed right away. Right away is two hours later, because, you know, it was right after it was the beginning of the year. So I think it was like the first full day covid January, 3 or fourth. Yeah, it was covid Palooza, yeah. And there were over 200 people in the ED at the time. And so finally they get me in. He sees me still in the hallway, and he gets mad, and they finally get me into a room and get me on a insulin drip and an IV and all that and so, so I'm in the Ed, I don't know, almost 24 hours, I think, before they get me into a bed upstairs in the hospital, you know, because ICU didn't have a room for me, so they had to get me to a point where I could be in a non ICU room, because I responded to insulin pretty quickly. So they get me upstairs. The first room that they put me in was a room that was made for one patient, but because of covid, they had two beds in the room. I was in the bed that was in the corner with no call button, like they had a extension cord, basically, that I could, like, push the call button, but it would go to the bed to the main bed in the room. Yeah. So all my belongings were on the bed with me. Mind you, I also had a breast pump. You know I was they got me in one of the hospital breast pumps. I hadn't pumped in over 20 nurse or pumped in over 24 hours. At this time, they put the pump at the end of the bed, so now I'm getting mastic really bad mastitis. Can't pump because the pumps at the end of the bed can't really reach anything. I watched one of my nurses trip over my IV pole trying to be able to log all of my information because you just jammed in the room. This is just a really tight space, right, right?

Scott Benner 1:18:15
But did you think you were in trouble? Like, did you think I'm not okay? Like, like, What's your understanding of your health?

Erin 1:18:22
I don't really remember the doctor talking to me in the ED about anything, because I was still kind of so out of it at that point. It wasn't until a good solid 24 hours after being in the hospital that I started actually having memories of things and was more kind of in tune of what was going on, I think. So I remember looking at the whiteboard, you know, with my information, and it says insulin dependent. And I so I Google, I'm like, insulin dependent. What does that mean? And so then I see that it says type one. And somehow, for some reason, like this, like relief came over me and was like, at least it's not type two. And then I was like, You don't know anything about type one or type two. Why? Why is that a thought that you had? I don't know. It was just

Scott Benner 1:19:11
your blood sugar was over 600 so, you know, yeah, probably not thinking very clearly either. No.

Erin 1:19:17
And they did a covid test. And so, you know, my husband stayed with me until, I don't know, 6am the next morning, he went home to go take care of our son because my mother in law was still taking care of him. And then they come back to bring me some things, and they're not allowed in my room. And the nurse was actually rather angry that the security let them back to see me because I tested positive for covid. Oh, okay, I didn't have covid symptoms. I had had covid in October, and the hospital said no that they would not retest me. So. To see if it was a false positive. Yeah, they had the positive. They were going with that then, yep. And so I didn't get to see my son for like, four days straight because of it. Wow. Oh. What fun. Yeah, Jesus, yeah. And then I had a nurse one, one of my first nurses, I was more awake at the time, and you know, they were doing all the the injections in your stomach. And I kind of pushed her hand away on accident, you know, a total subconscious thing. And she's like, You need this. You did this to yourself. Wait, what did you do to yourself that I gave myself diabetes? Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. But I did it to myself. So mind you, I filed a complaint about

Scott Benner 1:20:43
her when I got out of the hospital. Does anything happen when you do that, or do you never find out about it?

Erin 1:20:49
I filed the grievance. I think they said that they asked me, like what I wanted, and I just said, you know, I just want somebody to have a conversation with this nurse, so that she understands that patients don't always, do you know? They don't know what to do, not to do, and like, have a little bit more compassion and empathy for your patients. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:21:12
this is real life. It's not a podcast she's listening to where everybody who doesn't agree with her is wrong.

Erin 1:21:17
Yeah, exactly. But then I had some AB. So once I got out of that room with two people, I was able I was put in a room by myself, because I requested that right away so that I could pump more easily and kind of take care of those kinds of things. I ultimately didn't want to lose my milk supply at seven months postpartum. And so my first nurse that I had in my second room. He was fantastic. He was the one telling me about having a CGM, and he was the one that, he's, like, talk to your Endo. They're really great, like, you can get a CGM. And he was telling me about it, it's, he's like, it sits on your skin, it'll read your glucose, you know, continuously. And he's like, you want that for what you have. And so he was great. And I just couldn't, honestly, I am so grateful for him. The one thing I wish is that I could get in contact with him now and tell him how impactful he was for me. And also tell him, if you have other patients that are in the same boat as me, tell them about the podcast.

Scott Benner 1:22:29
That's nice. Well, I hope you get in touch with him. Then if you're going to

Erin 1:22:35
help me, no so. And then I was on the CGM within a week of being released from the hospital.

Scott Benner 1:22:41
Okay, yeah, it's fast. It's excellent, yeah. Well, you're on a good path. I mean, and you think you might be honeymooning a little,

Erin 1:22:47
maybe a little, so I don't think, honestly, I don't think it's much anymore, if at all. But I do think for the first year, I definitely was honeymooning. I was honeymooning, probably hardcore, until about September, and then I could see it starting to kind of taper off a little bit, right? But, you know, my insulin needs just kind of started to increase a little bit. And so I think that's what's making me think that I'm kind of almost done hunting meeting, if not done hunting meeting, I

Scott Benner 1:23:14
gotcha All right. Well, Erin, I very much appreciate you sharing the story with me and having this conversation. I, as I told you before we started recording, I'm going to go pay my taxes now, and I'm getting a blood draw today. So my day is just all about vampires and what I'm giving them. It's a full day today. Full Day talk to you. Gonna put some go to the post office and say, Hey, can you postmark this? Because I don't want it to be late and and then I'm going to go to a lab and let somebody stick a needle in my arm. So, yeah, big day for Scotty, yeah, good

Erin 1:23:49
luck with that. Thank

Scott Benner 1:23:50
you. It's time. I've been it's I'm getting a checkup with my doctor now that I've been on GLP for a year, so it's time for a checkup.

Erin 1:23:59
Well, good. And I, you know, i Congratulations on everything that's happened with that. I, you know, I listen to your diaries and everything.

Scott Benner 1:24:07
Oh, thank you. Yeah, well, the next one that comes out, you'll hear me cursing at the end, but it's going very well. It's hard to hard to be upset, but I had a setback last week that I it just surprised me and pissed me off, all at the same time as and it landed on the day when I had to make the diary. And I'm making the diary, I'm like, God, I'm mad. So anyway, work in progress. But thank you. It's very, very kind of you. Hold on second for me and I will.

Did you know if just one person in your family has type one diabetes, you are up to 15 times more likely to get it too. So screen it like you mean it one blood test can spot type one diabetes early. Tap now talk to a doctor or visit screened for type one.com for more info, I want to. Thank the Eversense CGM for sponsoring this episode of The juicebox podcast, and invite you to go to Eversense cgm.com/juicebox to learn more about this terrific device, you can head over now and just absorb everything that the website has to offer, and that way you'll know if ever sense feels right for you ever sense? Cgm.com/juicebox, a huge thanks to the contour next gen blood glucose meter for sponsoring this episode of The juicebox podcast. Learn more and get started today at contour. Next.com/juicebox if you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app. Please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. 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, wrong way recording.com, do.