#1388 Multiverse
Bridget who is a former educator has 2 kids that have Type 1. We talk about raising a young type 1, 504 plans and planing for a possible school lockdown.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back friends to the Juicebox Podcast.
Bridget has two children with type one diabetes. She's a former educator, and today we talk a lot about what goes into raising very young children with type one we talk about 504 plans, and we delve into how to address school shooting possibilities in those 504 plans. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Are you an adult living with type one or the caregiver of someone who is and a US resident if you are, I'd love it if you would go to T 1d exchange.org/juicebox and take the survey. When you complete that survey, your answers are used to move type one diabetes research of all kinds. So if you'd like to help with type one research, but don't have time to go to a doctor or an investigation and you want to do something right there from your sofa. This is the way t 1d exchange.org/juice, box. It should not take you more than about 10 minutes. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast, private, Facebook group. Juice box podcast, type one diabetes.
Today's podcast is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juicebox, you can get your diabetes supplies from the same place that we do, and I'm talking about Dexcom, libre, Omnipod, tandem and so much more us, med.com/juice box, or call 888-721-1514, the show you're about to listen to is sponsored by the ever since 365 the ever since 365 has exceptional accuracy over one year, and is the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get ever since cgm.com/juicebox
Bridget 2:06
I'm Bridget Tisha, and I have two kiddos with type one diabetes. My son, Teddy was diagnosed when he was 18 months old. He's now seven, and my daughter Eliza was diagnosed just after she turned two, and she's now five years old. My kids are back to back in school, first grade, in kindergarten, and I really hope to share my experience with kids, young kids in school. As previous to having children, I was an assistant principal, and so I have a little more insight into what's going to keep our kids safe and happy while they're in school. So I'm happy to be here.
Scott Benner 2:54
That's awesome. I'm happy to have you wait. So let me do this again. You have two kids. The first one was 18 months.
Bridget 3:00
Yeah, just a baby five. Now he's seven, seven,
Scott Benner 3:04
excuse me, and the five year old was two when they were diagnosed.
Bridget 3:08
Yep, she had just turned two, and now she's five years old.
Scott Benner 3:13
Okay, um, wow. Do you have any other kids?
Bridget 3:16
No, we're two for two. So where's that?
Scott Benner 3:20
I was gonna say, any plans for a third kid?
Bridget 3:22
No, I don't know if the odds would be in our favor. So we're gonna we're two for two.
Scott Benner 3:27
Yes, it's gonna say, did you think of having more kids before this happened?
Bridget 3:31
You know, when my husband, I were married, he's the youngest of five, and I'm the middle of three, so we wanted to have a larger family, thinking three, maybe four kids. But at the time of my son's diagnosis, when he was 18 months old, I was five months pregnant with my daughter, and it was just to say I was at capacity with taking care of him and then being pregnant, and then obviously her diagnosis to follow. I still am at capacity. So we are so lucky that those two are our two, but they're going to be our only
Scott Benner 4:09
two. Yeah, I wouldn't even get a dog if I was you. No, I'd be like, nothing that takes more of my time. No way. You just said something. I don't know if I heard it wrong when my husband and I were married. You mean at the time you got married,
Bridget 4:21
yeah, we actually were married for about nine years before we had our son, and so we had a lot of time to think about how we wanted to start our family for us. We really considered finances. And we said, once we make X amount of dollars, I feel that we could financially live the life we want to live and give our children the life that we want them to have. You know, we hit that X amount, and we said, maybe in two years, then maybe two years, and maybe two years. And so, like I said, we were married for nine years before we decided to have our kiddos.
Scott Benner 4:50
Was the extra years? Were they for more money piling up, or just, you just kind of didn't, like get to it, or you were doing other things?
Bridget 4:58
No, it was more of like. Found were originally from Cleveland, and then we moved to New York City. We lived in the city for the past 10 years, and then just last year, in the summertime, we moved out to the suburbs. We traded in the city for the beach after having been married in Cleveland and having this adventure in New York City and living life there. You know, that's actually where we started our family in the city, to then move out here now. So it's more of getting married young, living our lives together, and enjoying each other, to then decide to start a family. Cool, yeah.
Scott Benner 5:32
I mean, I live near New York, and you see a lot of people kind of run to Jersey or Long Island or something like when, when it's time to have a send to kids to school, right?
Bridget 5:43
We're across the bay. Yeah, we're in Westport, so we're across from Long Island. Just
Scott Benner 5:47
the idea of having your kids, like, walk through the city every day when they're five to go to school or six. So, like, it's, I don't know, like, I don't think it's for everybody, but you were a city person. You lived there a long time, so, well, yeah, we did, what about it made you move?
Bridget 6:01
It was COVID, I say, of course, as if that was the catalyst for a lot of changes with families, my husband got COVID Three weeks into lockdown, and at the time, people were still disinfecting their mail. He had a quarantine for 10 days in our bedroom, and I was in the rest of the apartment with two kids. Everyone cried every day. My daughter wasn't even one. My son was two at the time. And it was then that my husband thought, you know, let's find whatever, an Airbnb, a lake house, a rental. And sure enough, this home was on the market. They weren't showing it because everything was shut down, but there was a garage code that they let us punch in and go look at it ourselves. So that was really the catalyst. And then once our kiddos school reopen, we would go back and forth from the city out here in the summertime, and then just made that permanent move when my son started kindergarten, which is a pretty common story for Yeah, New York City families, I'm
Scott Benner 7:01
laughing about the how did you choose your house? Well, it was one that was for sale and had a garage code, so
Bridget 7:07
you got it. Yes, the one we the bar was pretty low.
Scott Benner 7:12
This one will be fine,
Bridget 7:15
yeah. I mean, there was only so much Tiger king that he could watch to then look for a house. So it worked out well for us. I'm
Scott Benner 7:23
a solid hour train ride from Manhattan, and I knew realtors that were selling houses sight unseen, at like, exorbitant markups, because to people in Manhattan who were just like, I need to get out of here. Well,
Bridget 7:36
I'm gonna say you're talking to one of them, but we did buy three weeks into lockdown, no one knew what the market was going to do at that point.
Scott Benner 7:43
Yeah. No, not, not that early on. Hey, when you said everyone was crying, did you mean all four of you or just the kids?
Bridget 7:49
Oh, no, all four of us. All four of us cried every day.
Scott Benner 7:53
Do you think now, listen, I'm not saying you have a tiny little apartment, but when I was young and broke, we looked at apartments in the city and didn't end up getting one often. I think back to why we didn't, and I think it was because the best one we found, meaning the best space that we found, the toilet, was in the kitchen. There was like sides of the bed you couldn't traverse because it was too close to the wall.
Bridget 8:15
Yes, I'm sure we looked at the same apartment at one point or another. Our apartment worked out well because our kids were still so small, yeah, where, even now, by New York standards, was a very large apartment. I don't think that we would be as loving or as kind to each other as we are in a home versus that apartment. Yeah,
Scott Benner 8:38
it happens when you're too on top of people, it's hard. Yeah. Okay, so let's figure out your 18 month old, is your oldest? They were diagnosed first, and is there any other autoimmune in your family or type one. Today's episode is sponsored by a long term CGM that's going to help you to stay on top of your glucose readings the ever since 365 I'm talking, of course, about the world's first and only CGM that lasts for one year, one year, one CGM. Are you tired of those other CGMS, the ones that give you all those problems that you didn't expect, knocking them off, false alerts not lasting as long as they're supposed to. If you're tired of those constant frustrations, use my link ever since cgm.com/juicebox, to learn more about the ever since 365 some of you may be able to experience the ever since 365 for as low as $199 for a full year. At my link, you'll find those details and can learn about eligibility ever since cgm.com/juicebox, check it out. You've probably heard me talk about us Med and how simple it is to reorder with us med using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up. Up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works? And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording was like, US med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your order's ready. You want us to send it, push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait. I think it lets you put it off, like, a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it. Us, med.com/juice, box. Or call 888-721-1514, get your free benefits checked now and get started with us. Med, Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new eyelet pump. Check them out now at us. Med.com/juice, box, or by calling 888-721-1514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast. Player, and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us, med and all the sponsors. So
Bridget 11:08
the type one that is within our family is one of my husband's older sisters. She was diagnosed when she was 11 years old, and previous to her, there wasn't any family history that when she was diagnosed, it was actually because she suffered a seizure, went to the ER, and that's how they discovered it. Just last year, one of her two sons, who's eight years old, was also diagnosed, type one. Okay, I say my kiddos kind of are the family history. My sister in law, her name is Sarah. Sarah was diagnosed when she was 11, and then my two kiddos, and then, like I said last year, one of her two sons. Further information is that there's 11 grandkids on that side of the family. Of the 11 grandchildren, three have type one diabetes. One actually had a congenital heart defect, and there is another who has a severe form of muscular dystrophy. Wow. So there's a lot going on, at least on that side of the family that really, our family, in itself, could be a research study, but we were familiar with it before the diagnosis,
Scott Benner 12:21
does your husband have celiac or hypothyroidism or something like that? No,
Bridget 12:26
neither. Now, my mom does have hypothyroidism, so it would be a maternal grandmother, but nothing else within the family. Yeah,
Scott Benner 12:36
listen, Arden was diagnosed a couple of weeks after her second birthday. And that was, I mean, crazy enough. She must have weighed like 19 pounds right before she was diagnosed. She was down to, I think, 17 when she was diagnosed, or something. But an 18 month old, yeah, it's so high. I mean, you and I know things that other people don't like, thankfully, no, but it's just right. It's difficult on a level. It's hard to put into words, yeah, but your first diagnosis was, what? A few years five, five years ago, a little more than five years ago, right?
Bridget 13:11
Yeah, yeah, about five. I'm trying to do that quick math, yeah, five and a half years ago at this point.
Scott Benner 13:17
So does your 18 month old start with the CGM, yes. Actually,
Bridget 13:21
we left the hospital on the g6 part of the story of Teddy's diagnosis was it was over Christmas time, so even though we're living in New York City, we went back to Cleveland to visit family, and he was diagnosed on december 27 and while we're there, sure enough, and Sarah, even though she's in New Jersey, She obviously was in Cleveland, visiting family as well. She came to the hospital the minute that we heard the diagnosis. We called her right away. So she came to the hospital and basically said, this is the technology you need. Don't let them tell you, otherwise, you're smart enough to figure things out as needed as you go, but the technology is basically going to hold your hand as you figure it out. So yeah, we left the hospital on the g6 and then 10 days after that, once we traveled from Cleveland back to this city, we started on the Omnipod. So we were early adapters. As soon as we could have been we literally had to get the prescription filled in that time to then start the Omnipod.
Scott Benner 14:29
Aunt Sarah was some good advice early on. No kidding, yeah,
Bridget 14:33
I don't know how families do it without an Aunt Sarah, because she's been such a source of content and comfort she has, the experience and empirical evidence the back of what she says, but then we also get the warm and fuzzies from her because she's staring at So, yeah, if I could be anyone's ver real Aunt Sarah through this podcast, then
Scott Benner 14:59
all the. Matter, that's wonderful. So insulin needs at 18 months, you were still able to use a pump.
Bridget 15:05
We did. We started on it. Like I said, we never really went through a quote unquote honeymoon stage. And as I talk to more people, it seems more and more common, just because Teddy was, quote unquote, so far gone. Once we were transferred at a different hospital, we ended up speaking with an ER doctor who saw us, and he just told us, You were hours away from losing this kid. That's how far gone he was. So we didn't have any insulin needs, or, I say, like light insulin needs or diluted that's what I was looking for? No, yeah, so we started on that pod, yeah, 10 days after we left the hospital.
Scott Benner 15:47
So he's in DK, but when you look back in hindsight, how long had it been going on before it hit him that hard? Yeah,
Bridget 15:54
probably, I'm gonna say the the first sign or first red flag that we noticed was about three and a half, four weeks before his actual diagnosis, and I had gone to our pediatrician for his 18 month well baby checkup, and I just said, you know, we started on water, which is common among kids that age, in a sippy cup, and he's peeing out of his diaper. What do you recommend? And our pediatrician at the time said, you know, there are these things called spouse pads, or like maxi pads for diapers, and I'll help with absorption, and he'll be great. His weight was similar to what it had previous been, previously been about six months prior. So there wasn't that huge weight loss, but that was the initial again, like questioning because of a red flag, which we didn't know at the time was a red flag. Yeah, the urination was we thought due to his drinking water.
Scott Benner 16:52
Yeah, you probably thought, like, hey, super hydrated. This is awesome. I mean, looking
Bridget 16:56
back, it's actually more embarrassing, because I did think it was awesome. Yeah, I mean, he would wake up. We'd put him in his crib, and he would wake up at midnight, and he would be soaked from knees to armpits in his PJs because he peed out of his diaper. And we started using ASL sign language as soon as Teddy was born, so he could just communicate with us, and he would be signing for water, and we were breaking our arms, bent ourselves on the back to say, look at our child asking for water, like
Scott Benner 17:30
hydrating. Beautiful, yeah, oh, Bridget Can I tell you? I I've said this in the podcast before, but it you're bringing back so many memories for me. Yeah, that we were heading to a family vacation, and we stopped for gas, I'm gonna say, an hour before we got to this, like, beach house that my mother in law had rented for everybody. And when we stopped, we got this, like, one of these, just giant drinks, right? Like, I mean to say it was 64 ounces is probably not even correct. It was huge, okay? And Arden was just, like, in a car seat, and she wanted it, and we gave it to her. We got to where we were going. She was done. She finished the entire thing, and I went to get her out of her car seat. So you have to kind of reach down the side to get the buckles Right, yeah, and I reached down, and my hands, like, went underwater. Like, I'm not over exaggerating, in a puddle, yeah, yeah. No, no, yeah. I mean, and I My first thought was, oh, God, she spilled this drink into her seat. Like, that's what I thought happened, because I was, because I remember, like the cup was empty. And I was like, Wow, that's crazy. Like, she's such a small little person, you know? And then I was like, this is obviously what it is. And I picked her up, and I'm like, oh, Kelly here, like, you know, and we got her out, and I unbuckled, then I saw the seat, like, full, and I unbuckled it from the car, took it. I had to dump it out of the car, yeah? And then, like, rinse the whole thing off and wash the thing. But it was all urine on, unbelievable. It was insane. Yeah. And still, for reasons that, if I stopped and think about now, keeping in mind that that was probably over 18 years ago, yeah, as I think about it right now, I'm like, dummy, why did you not put everyone right back in the car and drive to the hospital? Unless you don't know what you don't know. I mean, but how do you not know that one, you know what I mean, like, like, that's not right. Like, my brain should have said that's not right and right. You know I get
Bridget 19:28
it. I do yeah, and I say, I hate that. I get it. And I know that our stories are so common, it's almost scary how common it is, or how that progression works probably, too, yeah, the urination, too. Then other red flags, and then the diagnosis, and then the hindsight of all those red flags stacking up, and
Scott Benner 19:50
then having somebody tell you in the hospital that Arden's like, she's a day away from being in a coma when you bring her in,
Bridget 19:58
yeah, yeah. I. Do know? Unfortunately, no, I'm
Scott Benner 20:02
saying you know, like, you know, yeah. Anyway, okay, so you go back to your Well, you're in Ohio, though, where you're diagnosed, yeah. So
Bridget 20:10
our pediatrician was in the city, and that's where our whole life was. And so now we go to Cleveland for Christmas, and on Christmas Day, Teddy did not want to open any presents. He was so tired and showing blue, like cold, like symptoms, labored breathing, kind of a raspy voice, cough, didn't want to eat or drink anything. So it was a bummer of a Christmas. But the next day, on December 26 we took him to an urgent care. After going to the urgent care, the doctor sent us to get a chest X ray, thinking RSV or pneumonia, those came back clear upon leaving now the urgent care doctor said, you know, if he's not better by tomorrow morning, take him to the ER, that's the direction you're heading in. Sure enough, that evening, we watched Teddy's belly button get sucked back to his spine because he was breathing so hard now he was sleeping, so we were hesitant to wake him up, to take him, and literally, just waited for him to wake up in the morning, you know, 6:30am to take him to the ER, we do that immediately, like I said, Because he didn't seem any better. And in that type one world, I say tail is old as time. They try to get an IV in him, and they couldn't, because he was so dehydrated. The ER doctor asked us a series of questions of signs and symptoms, and then let's say question number six were, how were his diapers? And I said, as much he's peeing out of them, can you soak? And this doctor immediately started and said, he has diabetes. We're going to take care of him and trying to get the IV in him. Then, like I was saying they couldn't, this doctor steps in to insert an IV into Teddy's neck because the other veins weren't available in his arms and feet. I will tell you, I'm actually hearing this go on from another room, as I am five months pregnant. Didn't eat anything in the morning, and I'm holding Teddy on a bed, and my husband says to me, you don't look so good. Are you okay? And I say, if anyone has a banana, I would feel a lot better. So they take Teddy away from me. With my husband, they go into another room. I now am starting to have tunnel vision. My mustache is sweating, and I tell one of the nurses, I said, I'm gonna pass out. I'm just going to lay down here, but I'm okay. I just need to eat something so I now, never actually lost consciousness. I'm talking with the nurse the whole time, and I hear this, er, doctor, I'll edit the profanity say, let me f and do it to get that IV into Teddy's neck, because the nurses weren't able to at that point, I did start to feel a little better, and I had something to eat, and they transferred us from the hospital we were at to one with a better pick you, where we stayed for four days, and then we were just in a regular room for two more days to learn All Things type one before we were then released.
Scott Benner 23:22
Wow, that's crazy, yeah, jeez. And at any point during this, like, when do you correlate it to, oh, I have another baby. I'm cooking a baby right now. Like, is this gonna keep happening? Is this gonna happen all because you have to think that at some point, right?
Bridget 23:38
Yeah, at no point in the hospital, though, because it was everything was so compartmentalized hour to hour. And truly, Teddy was in such a state that we, on day three in the PICU, were saying, When is he going to be himself? When are his eyes not going to be so glassy? I mean, it took a long while, felt like a long while, for him to like, come back to himself. We were actually told when we seriously asked that, when will he be back to himself? But they slowly had to bring his blood sugar down to avoid potential brain damage. And it was only I say after that fourth day where Teddy seemed to like come back to life. Could I think anything beyond and so when our daughter was born, we did ask our endo about doing the auto antibody testing, and our endo just said, Absolutely, but wait until she's two and a half. The results seem to be more conclusive after two and a half. Oh, and sure enough,
Scott Benner 24:36
don't worry. Yeah, we'll give you results before then. Don't worry about it. Yes.
Bridget 24:41
And so that's how we found out. Yeah, I was always on our own.
Scott Benner 24:45
Okay, all right, I see. So let's see, what'd you want to come on the podcast about? That was all very interesting. I appreciate that, and thanks for the trip down memory lane too. Yeah, Jesus. I can picture myself and Arden. And and Kelly in different scenarios, still like we're standing there, still,
Bridget 25:04
still when she a diagnosis when she was two, yeah, when you picture it now and granted, you know she's a lot older than my kiddos. Is there a sense of time separation? Because right now I still could see or feel like my kiddos are those babies, but they're five and seven. So do you have a time separation of that memory to present day? Yeah,
Scott Benner 25:31
it just makes me like talking about it. I don't know how to put it exactly. I feel tight across the top of my chest. That's interesting. Like, on the top of my chat, like I feel like, I don't know if this is like, fight or flight, or if I'm like, getting ready to try to do something. I flashed a certain moments over and over again. We went for a walk through, like, kind of an arboretum the night before, and I remember looking back at her and thinking, God, something's really wrong with her, and I remember hanging over a balcony with a computer to steal Wi Fi from the house next door to figure out if she had diabetes, because Wi Fi wasn't a thing back then. Yeah, I can feel sitting in a chair with my wife after they took her from us, like I can feel my wife touching me right now, like sitting there because I was so sad and like I I've said it before here, like I felt, like I could feel how sad Kelly was, like when she touched me, yeah, and I've never had that feeling before. And
Bridget 26:31
would you say that those that vulnerability is something that is was common? Like, were you in in tune and in touch with your emotions at that time to recognize what you were feeling. Or is it only in looking back that you now can re feel and name those emotions? No,
Scott Benner 26:50
I mean in the moment, it just all hurt. It all felt like different kinds of physical pain. Yeah, like as after you realized what was happening, like, I remember like, holding in crying in the emergency room, yeah, and then holding it and holding it. Then I couldn't and but Arden was asleep by then, I remember feeling so grateful that she didn't see me cry. Yeah. Like, that was one of the moments I remember sitting at a traffic light talking to Kelly and saying, I think when we get there, we were saying, like, she's gonna have type one diabetes, like, that's gonna happen, yeah? And I remember saying, like, everything's gonna change, yeah, like we're gonna have to do a really good job. And Kelly was like, Yeah, you know. And like, but we just sat at this red light in this industrial district, and it was so I don't know, honestly, it was, could have been three in the morning when we were heading to the hospital. Remember the time anymore, but it was super late, yeah, and I remember sitting there thinking, like I don't need to sit at this red light, like I could just go through it. And then I but I just sat there instead. And I remember being in the Kelly sent me out for a meter earlier in the evening, and I had the conscious thought, standing in the in the pharmacy, in a 24 hour pharmacy, that if I didn't leave with the meter Arden, would never get diabetes. Maybe it would be a good use of my life to just stand here, yeah, like, so that this doesn't happen to her. And, I mean, it's silly, but like, that's how I felt in the moment. Yeah, I had to will myself out of the out of the store with the stuff with the meter. No,
Bridget 28:27
it's not silly. It's relatable. I mean, the the negotiating that I've done with myself and my own mind, or, you know, with my husband. My husband's name is Joe, I will tell you that when our son was diagnosed, it was all new to us, but he and I are both radically type a people that we knew we could handle anything. I remember thinking and saying, Actually, I just want to be 90 days out. Give me three months of this, and I'll be a pro. We're now way beyond the 90 days, and I'm still not a pro, but when my daughter was diagnosed, it was only at her diagnosis that my husband was holding her. Did he cry because he knew what was ahead of her, where? When our son was diagnosed, I'm gonna say ignorance is bliss. You know, we didn't know the reality of it, even though we had the overarching idea. But it was when our daughter was diagnosed that a lot of those similar emotions paralleled what you were saying. Yeah,
Scott Benner 29:35
no, I hear that, especially now that you understand what's about to happen and not just the physical and the time and the mental energy stuff, like, that's, you know, that's part of it, but the implications, you know, over them, or even, like, I mean, Arden's 20 and, yeah, you know, the other day we were talking and, like, we're adjusting some of her medications, their blood sugar has been. And higher than we wanted it to be for, you know, a couple of weeks while we're getting stuff together, sure. And I was like, I need you to do this. And she's like, I'm trying. I'm studying. I was like, Alright, I need you to just take 10 minutes. Stop, like, stop for 10 minutes. And I hate that. That's what we're talking about off at college. And she's doing a really good job, and she's putting all this effort into studying and everything. Yeah, and I'm telling her stop studying to do this, and it feels so very unfair, and I know it's hurting our relationship. It's hurting her like her experience, and yet it's the exact right thing to do. It
Bridget 30:39
is and I'm convinced, whether we're talking about a kid who's two or who's 20, that we as parents take it on. I say that, you know, I'm telling my story because my kiddos will have their own story to tell, and I want to make sure that diabetes is the least interesting thing about them. And so here you are talking with your 20 year old daughter, essentially doing the same thing to make sure she's safe and healthy. So
Scott Benner 31:12
I was upset last night where my wife and I were talking about this in bed, and she's like, you're talking to me, like, I'm her right now. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Like, I'm like, I'm like, hold on, you know, yeah, and I said this is going to sound crazy for a second, or not crazy, but just, I don't know. I don't know how it sounds exactly, but when Arden struggling with something, or I'm even seeing she's doing well, but there's a struggle ahead, or you're worried about the things like we just talked about, I picture different people that I've interviewed, or people from the Facebook group, yeah? And I look at them all as, like, you know, the idea like, you know, so popular in movies now, like a multiverse, yeah, right. I look at all the people that I've spoken to, yeah as infinite possibilities about where my daughter could go yes, and I'm trying to get her in the direction of one of the people whose story seems the most well balanced and healthy. Yes,
Bridget 32:12
that's totally, totally see that or relate to that. I only recently went to a breakthrough T 1d event, and there's a lot of younger parents and parents younger kids. And then there was one woman in particular who said, My daughter is 24 I just come for the extra support. This is what she's doing, x, y, z. Her daughter was diagnosed when she was about three years old. And I said, You're the one I want to talk to to know that you have a grown up, you know, like your child has now grown up, like you've walked the walk. As I can offer any sort of support, I can almost like to newly diagnose parents of younger children newly diagnosed. I cannot get enough encouragement from I say, someone like you, Scott, having Arden or this other mom that was there at the event, because we don't know what the future holds for them. We don't know as parents, how responsible they are going to be in college. So we're trying to bank as many good years as we can so that they can live like they want. Yeah,
Scott Benner 33:14
not only that, but you can make every right move, and it won't matter like, you know, you still have young kids. Like, look, this is not a dig on you. You have young children, right? And as your kids get older and older, it's and not that you don't see this in other personal relationships you have in the world, but you recognize that, like you're not in any way in control of who someone ends up being, yeah, or how they take something when it's said to them, or how they traverse an experience when it's presented to them, like, you just keep putting them in the situations and saying the things and modeling the things that you think are gonna lead to some sort of like success in those moments. Yeah, but like, I look at like there's a guy right now. I won't say his name, but there's a guy I'm thinking of right now from the Facebook group. I don't know him. He's a grown man. I think about him almost all day long. Oh, wow. Like, like, he just his life is just not going the way he wants it to go, and I'm finding myself trying to figure out how to help him, even though I don't know him and he hasn't asked for my help, yeah? But I think I'm trying to figure out how to help him, in case, one of the things I'm seeing happen to him happens to my daughter. Gotcha, yeah? You know, I don't think I'm really gonna help I want to be clear, I don't think I'm gonna, like, fly in, like, on a white horse and save his life. Yeah,
Bridget 34:40
yeah. Very Steinbeck, of you, like, they're all my sons, as if you get out there,
Scott Benner 34:44
well, it's not even, like, I don't even know that. Like all, listen, this is a weird medium. I talk into this microphone. You guys take out of it. What you take out of it? I'm not in control of that, right? I hope that more people take something good out of it than, than not, right? But for me. Personally and for Arden and my family, yeah? Like, I don't know. I just look at everybody as like a learning like, again, like, it's like a multiverse of possibilities of what could happen to her. Yeah, and I'm trying to figure out how to manage all of it, in case one of it. I mean, I don't know. Like, does this not sound like parenting, really? Like, yeah, yeah. So was
Bridget 35:22
there ever a time when Arden was, I say, in school, whether, like, elementary, then through high school, where she did actually surprise you, type one or not, but in the sense of you saying, like, you know, you never know who your kid's going to grow up to be or how they're going to react to something, was there something that actually surprised you about her in a particular instance,
Scott Benner 35:44
surprised me, like, badly, or maybe just,
Bridget 35:49
yeah, maybe just more of that what you expected, like, here we are talking about you don't know who they're going to grow up to be or what they want to do with their life. Was there, and my kiddos are so young that we just haven't experienced it. So is there, was there any time that you can think of, even if she were in elementary school to high school, where she actually surprised you with her reaction to something?
Scott Benner 36:10
So I think that when I'm surprised by Arden, it's because she comes off so strong that when she's not when she's actually hurt by something, that doesn't surprise me, but it it takes, I guess it takes me more by surprise, like, I'm like, Oh, I didn't imagine that you'd feel that way in this and then I remember that she's young and and, you know, like she's got her vulnerabilities as well, but she doesn't, she doesn't, she doesn't show them to people very much. And you can get confused into thinking, like, that's who she is, like she's, you know, like rock, like nothing touches her kind of thing. Yeah? Like, I mean, I've seen her break up with boys and expect, like, a thing to happen, and then it just, it's not what happens. She deals with it in her very own, like, kind of unique way. Yeah? So when something actually does knock her over for a second that shocks me a little bit.
Bridget 37:03
That's so interesting. Yeah, what I say? What a great quality to have, but yeah, I'm sure as a parent, then that is a bigger surprise,
Scott Benner 37:11
but also feels unfair, because I recognize that everyone struggles with things, and then I feel badly for not knowing what those things are, yes, because she's obviously taxed by them. Yeah,
Bridget 37:23
I say I can relate. When we were living in the city, our kids went to a private school was, you know, choose program up through 12th grade, and so they would hold some parent seminars on how to raise a reader. And one of them, in fact, was called How to instill grit into your child. And I attended this seminar, and I was like, oh, man, you don't even know, like, the definition of grit here is so relative, as we're talking about, you know, a 10 year old in a karate championship versus these toddlers of mine that I have and what we're dealing with. I heard
Scott Benner 37:59
some grown ladies complaining about something the other day, and I was like, Is this what qualifies? Is hard for them? I was like, This is insane. Yeah, it's all relative, right? Yeah, exactly right. When I was listening to them, like, these are things that are really taxing them, like, so I'm not making fun of them. I'm just like, there's nine different levels of hell above what you're experiencing. But okay, also I don't. I've spent that's an interesting thing. Like, how do you instill grit into somebody? Like, I've done a whole series about resiliency with Erica, because I thought about that as well. And in the end, I don't know that you can just make someone resilient. Yeah, I think it's just, it's how you react to things. That reaction to my eye, is built on whatever your lifetime of experiences is how the people around you reacted, you know, the tools you had at your disposal every time you were in one of those situations. You know, could you afford it? Because, I mean, all the other problems that come with everything, right? I don't think people just decide to be tough or not to be tough in a situation. Yes,
Bridget 39:01
I would agree on that. No, I just, I totally agree. It's all
Scott Benner 39:05
relevant, and it's what makes all this so scary. Because you could have, like, stood up to the first 20 things and been like, wow, bang, bang, bang, no problem. The 21st thing comes along and you're like, you know what? I can't do this anymore. Or it hits you from a different angle, and it takes you by surprise, and you don't get back up again.
Bridget 39:25
Yes, it's true. I remember I say even before I had kids, and within my extended family, there were some other just tough times and tragedies and saying to myself, I don't need tragedy to know how lucky I am. And then here I have kiddos, and then they're both diagnosed, and it's like, I don't I still feel that way. I still feel like I'm so lucky that they're ours. I didn't need the tragedy to know how lucky I am. And so that's interesting, how you say that too? Yeah,
Scott Benner 39:55
even though you didn't need it, did it level up your perspective? Oh.
Bridget 39:59
Oh, my goodness, leveled up my perspective and then changed the weight of my vocabulary. So I might have said previously, oh, I'm tough and I'm strong. Well, now tough and strong have such a larger meaning than they originally did. Or, you know, just to come back to grit, like I've always been a very gritty person, but now that grit is, you know, to the nth degree.
Scott Benner 40:33
I feel like I've been buried alive and unearthed myself like a dozen times. Yes,
Bridget 40:37
yes, that's it. And you might have even said before that you were resilient, but now the actual connotation versus denotation of resilience are even farther apart because of, yeah, what you've come through.
Scott Benner 40:52
I'm just always endlessly fascinated about why, like, people's reactions and situations. You know what I mean, like, at some point in my very young life, someone told me, You're adopted, like people had you, and they were like, eh, here, and then gave you to us. And my mom, of course, sold it like we were so happy to i She said all the things you would say and that are obviously true, but it doesn't negate the fact that somebody gave birth to you and was like, I don't know, yeah, but, but I feel like I'm okay, but obviously I'm changed at the same time, yeah, and then, you know, and then things happen again and again and again and again and and you're okay, but you're changed, okay, but you're changed. But I've never just sat down and been like, I give up, right? You know what I mean? And so I like, These things keep happening. I watched my son go through this for a while, like, where he was just, like, everything goes wrong all the time. And I was like, yeah, that it's not going wrong. It's just everything's always changing and morphing and reshaping into something else, and it's not what you expected. And so it feels wrong,
Bridget 41:56
that's it. And so it feels wrong, even though the reality is not black and white, and that good versus bad. And you know, I'll even share in talking with my therapist about this and my kids diagnosis that I went through something very difficult and very strange, and I am now changed. Being from Ohio, I have this Midwest almost toxic positivity, like this prima Pollyanna and I am not that same person that I was before their diagnosis. It's not to say I'm better or I'm worse, but changed, and so it's interesting to hear you even say that with your son in Yeah, in that regard, of just things not going the way you maybe envision, not even that you wanted, but just that you expect it,
Scott Benner 42:50
right? I watch him so interesting. Probably around 12 years old, he was significantly a significantly more talented outfielder on his baseball team than the other boys, yeah, but he didn't start. And you'd look back at it and say, well, there's a coach's dad there, there's, you know, coach and a kid and a lot of there's, yeah, there's these political reasons. And you step back and really suck? Is that what's happening? Like, does my kids suck, or is this like a political thing, right? Yeah, and you never are gonna know for sure until hindsight, but hindsight told me okay, it was political and it was structural, and he was trying to fight through a system, right? That's fine. Then he got to school, and he was treated really well in middle school, when he played, but then when he got to high school, he started off being treated well, and then he ran into a coach who was he came home one day and he just said, this guy's so cruel to everybody. I don't want to play for him. Wow. And he played for him for a while, and then one day, he just said, I'm not going to do this anymore. And at that point, Cole was starting in center field for his high school baseball team and playing well. And he went to the guy one day and said, I'm quitting, and Cole was on track to play in college, and he said, I'm quitting. I can't play for you anymore. I can't stand the way you treat these guys. Wow, what a brave thing. And you would think, but then everyone on the team turned on him, oh, man, and treated him poorly. So while he didn't get to play high school baseball for the last year and a half, he was in high school, yeah. And then he had to go off on his own, his personal time, and play baseball to keep, like, up the idea of going to college, yeah, then he got to college. And then you get to college and you realize, oh, my god, the same political structure exists here that did in, like, in Little League, it's and you fight through it again, yeah, and again. And he has this awesome senior season, and at the very end of it, God, I don't know if this is too personal, but somebody on the coaching staff apologized to him quietly into his ear for not seeing who he was sooner. Wow. Said to me, he's like, that was not comforting. You mean, I was who I thought I was, and you didn't see it, and you wasted this time in my life and my opportunity,
Bridget 45:10
right? That probably pulled on him. Yeah, all these
Scott Benner 45:14
things feel like everything stacked against you all the time, and you as a parent, are trying to say, look, you're healthy, you're standing upright, you got a good education, you met all these people, you had these experiences. They weren't where you expected them to be, but look, they've made you stronger. That's going to help you in the future. That's a hard thing to sell to a 21 year old, you know? Yeah, yeah. And a hard thing to sell to a little kid, all this struggle is going to make you stronger. And it's now He's 25 and it did. It all worked exactly the way we thought. But I don't know if you asked him, like, Would you trade it like? I don't know how he'd feel about like, the fiery walk through to be hard at the end. You know what I mean, right?
Bridget 45:52
I do. I totally do. And then to give it the title of brick, or do we qualify that then as better? Is it worth it? Yeah,
Scott Benner 46:04
because, because, to him, it probably feels like, I mean, I wouldn't want to speak for him, but I would think it feels more like you outlasted these mothers than I'm pretty right. This one's coming at me and trying to take my thing, and this one's trying to take my thing, and this one wants to get in the way of the thing I'm trying to accomplish. And I just didn't die in the face of their pressure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what that's gritty, and also, it doesn't sound fun, but exactly
Bridget 46:30
that's something like, is it even? Is it worth it? You know, there are things that you come out of that you would say, Oh yeah, it was worth it, and I'm better for it. I don't know if he would apply that to the last year and a half he had in high school?
Scott Benner 46:43
Yeah, right. It isn't until you get, like, one win, and then I find, like, for me personally, it all sort of just goes away. Then, yeah, you're like, oh, I don't know if it's not something to do with our the timeline of our life and our expectations. Does that make sense?
Bridget 46:59
Yeah, almost like the recency theory. I can totally understand that. Yeah, tell me that. What is that recency theory is really just whatever has happened the closest to the time that you're talking about or referencing is what you hold to be true. So even if, like, you know, you went through all these hard things, but now life is better hunky dory. You could say that it's worth it, and it's really just because that's where you are now. So it's the most recent,
Scott Benner 47:24
yeah, if you didn't have long term memory, which, by the way, is maybe shaky to begin with, about how we remember things, but if I was just the person I am right now with all the thoughts in my head that I have and I didn't remember yesterday, I don't know that it would matter, right? You know what? I mean, yes, yeah, that. So that's the thing that I think you have to be able to, you have to be able to, like, not fall down. And if you do fall down and get up, and if you do forget up, keep moving and then not look back. I think all these things are true. Yes, it's the seething anger that you get when you look back at like, Oh my God. You know that happened, and that happened. I don't, I don't think about even problems I have today. Some of them are with, you know, professionally or personally or something like that. Like, I just wake up the next day and I'm like, Let's go again. I don't like, what happened yesterday? Doesn't matter. Yeah, my
Bridget 48:12
husband and I often, with our kiddos in particular, will say to each other, relentless forward motion. And that's what we have to do. I say to keep ourselves going, to keep them going, to make our family as harmonious as we can't we have this relentless forward motion, yeah,
Scott Benner 48:28
yeah. And as long as something doesn't literally kill us right, or damage us to the point where it alters our ability to be who we want to be, right, then, you know, you got to just take the good with the bad and then just keep going right. Try to stay with the good and keep running forward. I'm with Yeah. I really am, yeah, that's awesome. Geez, sorry. We're 47 minutes into this now, okay, dealing with school. Oh, this is what you really want to talk about. Tell me about school and 504 plans.
Bridget 48:56
Yeah. So I wanted to talk about 504 plans because as my kiddos are getting into what I call, quote, unquote, real school. I mean, they were diabetic when they were in preschool. We didn't need to have a formal plan in place because they weren't being tested on how well they molded Plato where now it's, I'm gonna say, a little more serious. And so in creating their 504 plan and having my experience as an assistant principal, my perspective was maybe different, even sharper than other parents coming into this. So I really wanted to talk about 504, plans, because they sound super scary. So here I am trying to be the prover real Aunt Sarah in offering comfort with the content to say these plans are in place to keep our kids safe and healthy. These plans are in. Place so that they can attend school like every other kiddo. And the specifics are going to be different for every kid, because there are individuals, but there are some ideas that apply to everyone, like actual testing in relationship to blood sugars, I hope that parents can recognize their kiddos have different actual physical behaviors and different cognitive behaviors when their blood sugars are obviously too low and you're in an urgent situation, but then also too high, I mean above 180 and we can see change in my son's focus versus where he is if he's in a more ideal range. And so that can be in your 504 plan. I also want to be clear that 504 are different than IEPs, and it's nothing that we need to dissect here. There's actually a podcast called the heart strong, and it might be episode 42 or 43 if I can plug it right here. And they talk about the difference between 504 plans and IEPs, depending on what your kiddo needs. IEPs are just more for, I'm gonna say learning disabilities, or if your child needs extra help on a specific area of learning more 504, are just the the medical plans. And I want to stress to parents that they are advocating for their kiddos, because they are the expert on their kiddos, and so these 504 plans really can be whatever you want them to be. Now, yes, the school needs to sign off on it, but you're there to advocate for your kiddo. Most schools or districts have actual 504 forms. I think a lot of parents hear the term 504 and they say, Well, where do I get it? Or how do I do it? You do not need to approach a 504 meeting with any documents in your hands. They will be created together with your faculty, staff, administration, the nurses in your school. That's one thing that I always came to the table with. I created an actual binder for my kids that talks about what type one is, how to react when the kids are at snack time or lunch, how to treat highs, what to do in an emergency, how to read the Dexcom. I even have a Excel sheet chart that if I were to fall off a cliff, you could match up the kiddos blood sugar on the x axis with the Dexcom arrow trend on the y axis, and then spot them together to say, okay, no action is needed. Or, oh, let's treat with 15 carbs, whatever it is while I
Scott Benner 52:59
Oh Bridget, how did you do that? Just a
Bridget 53:02
lot of time. Actually, I have to give the credit to my husband for creating the actual, actual Excel sheet. But truly down the x axis in increments of 10, we have it labeled from 60 up to 250 and then across the y axis we have each of the arrow icons from double up, single up, angled up, steady, diagonal down. And it works single down, double down, yes, and you can match up the kiddos again in increments of 10. So the closest blood sugar reading they are to 10. Let's see, for example, like if your kiddo is, I'm trying to find a good example here 90, but they are diagonal down, and according to their schedule, they're going to recess. They're heading out to recess. And my daughter, Eliza, is 90 diagonal down, and the nurse can't get in touch with me. She can go to this chart to say, oh, you know what? We're going to give her five carbs of sugar before she goes out to recess. So for us, it just be like five individual fruit snacks, and then we know Liza is safe to go out to recess. So it was created again, if I were to fall off a cliff and can't get in touch, or they can't get a hold of me, they don't need to. This was the the nitty gritty. I had to use that word that I wanted to spend a little more time talking about, though, on these 504 plans was if there were a emergency, if there's a lockdown if there's an active shooter, and that's where this binder or that chart would, in fact, come into play. And so it should be written out in a 504 plan the best care to keep your child safe and healthy. As I talk with more parents, moms in particular about this safe and healthy, typically for us, means a steady blood sugar that there isn't an emergency, yeah, where the reality is safe and healthy for all students is going to look different than our kiddos in those emergency situations. Yeah, I was wanting to connect the shooter that sort of thing. You've
Scott Benner 55:00
been, I mean, tell me what you did professionally again, or I
Bridget 55:03
had kiddos. I had, you know, worked in retail for a while, but then I was an assistant principal at an elementary school, and just previous to that, I was the writer for an instructional design company. So I taught people how to do their jobs. Taught garbage men how to physically drive the truck and sanitation workers what to do in a recycle facility. So lots of teaching, orientations, administrative work in that regard.
Scott Benner 55:29
So tell me, then, in a real like, like, emergency situation, yes, how likely do you think it is that a teacher is going to be like, oh, there's an active shooter in the building. Hold on. Let me get Teddy 504. Plan.
Bridget 55:43
Yeah, right, right. I agree with you that everybody
Scott Benner 55:46
get in the corner and let's pray to God. We're hitting the
Bridget 55:49
nail on the head with a hypothetical that's actually real. I so I wouldn't call it hypothetical. Your example is exactly what we're referring to, and so I've worked with, obviously, my kiddos, teachers and other teachers I know to say, what is going to be the best and the easiest way to take care of our kids in emergency situations. So every classroom, I'm gonna say, across the country, it has like an emergency go bag, and it's where they keep all of the kids emergency contact. I feel like I only remember my teacher bringing it like if we went on a field trip, but this backpack is in the classroom and would be wherever the lockdown location is for the kiddos. And so we keep this binder in those backpacks in the respective classrooms where my kiddos could be for reference, I do send an email the teachers a digital copy, because, I mean, it's so hard to talk about that you don't want it to be real. We have to keep them safe where, if my five year old is being escorted through the hallway as an active shooter is in the building, and her teacher pushes her into a art supply closet. That emergency backpack is not going to be there, but the teacher would have her phone on her so she could pull up that digital copy. My kids do wear spy belts throughout the day, and so they hold their medical devices, extra fruit snacks, things like that, to keep them safe and healthy, but it has to be thought of as as their parents. There is a Nobel Prize winner in economics, I think, from 2009 was the year, and she said that there's no reason that bureaucrats, no matter like how well meaning, like how well meaning, or like how intentional they are at solving the problem. They don't have the strongest incentive to get the solution right, but we as parents do. And so, you know, just from my experience, and then having the two kiddos put me in the new, the unique situation to share that, you know, I feel like they
Scott Benner 57:57
write it all down. They're like, it's all written down, it's going to be fine. And then when the time comes, nobody can find it, nobody knows what it means. What it means. Yes, you've got it. I want to tell you right now. Maybe this is wrong, okay, but here's what I told both my kids. Yeah. I said, if you're on the first floor, I want you out the window, zig zag to the to the tree line, go about 10 feet deep into the trees, make your way out to the main road, and then get back to the
Bridget 58:20
house. That's similar to Alice training. If any other parents or kiddos are familiar, you got it, yeah? That's called a similar to Alice
Scott Benner 58:26
training. Arden, I told bang, a juice box, jump out the window, zig zag the tree, walk. Like, I mean, I don't know what else to say. Like, yeah. I mean, I have had so many conversations with so many people in so many different situations where they have been what they thought was prepared, or they have been the people that they thought were going to be rock solid in the moment and then they just weren't. You know,
Bridget 58:49
we actually have told our kiddos the same that, if ever in doubt, they can have more fruit snacks or an extra juice box, whatever it is. Yeah. I mean, we've even gone as far as we tell the teachers, like all of their devices, if you're on a true lockdown, all of their devices can be powered off. People for decades, were handling their diabetes without the technology. So it can be done. And we have said, power off their devices and give them five fruit snacks every what I forget, what we said, There's something like 30 to 60 minutes until it's safe to turn them back on, as if, like, we'd rather have them running high than running
Scott Benner 59:25
low. Okay, you'd rather see your kid with a 300 blood sugar than beeping that draws attention to them
Bridget 59:31
exactly. And I say you're right for the beeps and the boobs. I mean, I had to tell my five year old she can't wear her light up unicorn shoes to school because, God forbid, she applied an extra ounce of pressure to her heels while in that supply closet to give away her hiding spot because of her light up shoes.
Scott Benner 59:50
You know, it's funny, so I see, Listen, I I know how often this happens, and I know that preparation is probably key, but at the same time, you. Think that I don't know. Percentage wise, this is not going to happen to most people. And then, so then there's, like, that other side of it is, like, are we freaking out a generation of people to be ready for a thing that may or may not happen to them? Like, can't. Like, it's such a hard thing to think about. You know,
Bridget 1:00:16
I oh my gosh. I do know what you mean. We live a stone throw from Newtown, Connecticut. So yeah, I do know what you mean, because we know those parents. We actually, you know, I say, have an acquaintance of one of those teachers. So, yeah, yeah, you're just
Scott Benner 1:00:31
from where it happens. Really does change how hard it hits you. Like, I'll talk to people I know that are from like, the middle of the country. You talk to them about 911 and they're like, well, it was, like, really scary and all, but like, it doesn't feel as real, because I don't know anybody was there. It's really interesting. You know,
Bridget 1:00:48
that's, I think that's more than interesting. That's fascinating. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:00:52
I'm talking about back at the time, I'm sure now, with distance of time and years, they understand the impact of it. But right, as it happened, they were just sort of like, oh, it's weird. Like, a, you know, I mean, like, it hit them differently, I
Bridget 1:01:04
think, yeah, a news story, as opposed to, yeah, a
Scott Benner 1:01:08
thing that, like, where. So I could have walked out in my backyard and I could see the column of smoke for like, days, right?
Bridget 1:01:13
Yeah, yes, yeah. I say exactly. And so to talk about this and to bring it to parents attention to then relay it to the school administration. Hopefully will, will never have to be put into practice. But I know that I feel better with more information. I want to know as much as I can, and then potentially cherry pick what I actually apply, but I want all the information to then decide what I'm going to do with it, and so that, in particular, in that sort of situation, I actually, I say, put in the same category as the advice that I tell my kids, they are never allowed to be the first one out the door for a fire drill. I said, You are never going to walk out first. You always be the last one out, and it's for what we've learned through actual not drills, but active shooters, and I'm only going to be as prepared as I possibly can for the best outcome that could possibly be through all things in my control.
Scott Benner 1:02:22
Well, listen, I You're gonna hear an episode on the podcast next week that's gonna absolutely fry your brain for your preparedness. Because, okay, a woman came on to talk about how her kid left their her phone in the car before she got on the bus, and so the mom had to call head to the school and say, Look, until I can get the phone there, just go to the 504 plan, handle everything with shots and etc. And by the time she got to the school, the school nurse had given her daughter 150 units of insulin. No, yeah. Why do you hear it?
Bridget 1:02:53
It's crazy. Oh, man, I say I can't, I can't wait. I'd ask you what happened, but that'd be some major editing for you. Yours
Scott Benner 1:03:01
will come out way after theirs. But I don't want to give it up for the people who are just hearing it right now. Yeah, yeah, no problem. But I'll tell I'll tell you, if you're listening and you're interested, you are looking for episode. Give me a second. You were looking for episode 1323, it's called school nurse mistake. So
Bridget 1:03:19
unbelievable. We actually had an instance at summer camp this year where there were multiple t1 DS in my daughter's camp group. The wrong remote was used on the wrong child. So I received a text message that said, Liza passed down snacks today. And I said, No problem. Nothing needed. And then about 20 minutes later, I got a phone call that said, we made a mistake. We actually dozed her for a friend's snack count, but your daughter did not actually eat anything.
Scott Benner 1:03:47
Oh, I have another episode coming up about a camp. Oh, my God, where the kid was crying for three solid days sick in DKA because they weren't giving her enough insulin. Oh, boy, she finally just cried so much. Somebody actually let her somebody called her mom for it, because they weren't supposed to call the parents, yeah. And then later, in hindsight, they find out that, like every stop gap that was in place at this I'm not going to say the name of the camp, but respected diabetes camp, okay, oh boy, okay, every stop gap they had in place to stop these things from happening failed all the way straight through. Oh, wow,
Bridget 1:04:20
that sounds like an expensive lawsuit. Yeah, I don't think that's
Scott Benner 1:04:23
what they're gonna do, but, like, but bear there that happened. So the kids running around like, you know, with, like, ketones and super high blood sugars and all this stuff, sick and crying and and they only like, and they weren't gonna let the kid call, like, she's, like, begging to talk to her family, and they won't. They like, no, it's against the rules.
Bridget 1:04:43
Oh my gosh, I couldn't imagine that. Yeah, yeah.
Scott Benner 1:04:47
So I like everything being written down and planned out and but at the end, my expectation is you're in this on your own, and you you should know the things that you need to do, and it sucks because you're talking about young kids. It's, you know, yes,
Bridget 1:05:01
exactly. And training my kiddos, teachers or camp counselors, whoever the grown up is in charge, I tell them, 504. Is a side. Paperwork aside, these are the two takeaways. One, how to read a Dexcom. If you can interpret that arrow trend, then you can be ahead of any potential urgent situation. And then two, how to treat a low? Treating a low is more, I'm going to say, important, or has to happen quicker than correcting a high. And so with those two takeaways, hopefully families can feel a little more comfortable when their kiddos are away from them, whether they're at school or whether you have a new babysitter, you know, or whether you know. I am trying to think of a different like caregiver situation, but with those two takeaways, how to read a Dexcom and how to treat a low there's a lot more confidence that comes that grown up or the caregiver can have to know that the greatest medical intervention that the neighbor across the street could do while my kiddo is playing in their backyard is give them a juice box. Yeah, it's easy and comforting, as opposed to anything with pokes, needles, syringes. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:06:16
I would also like to say that my expectation is in most of these situations, it's going to go well enough that you're not going to be in a dangerous situation. But yes, I mean, I put a fairly thoughtful 504 plan in place when Arden started school and they said, No, this is the 504 plan, really, these five bullet points that I actually said to them at what in a meeting. I was like, if you think those five like ideas are going to keep her alive, I'm like, You're You're out of your mind.
Bridget 1:06:49
Oh my gosh. How did they react? What was their response? I
Scott Benner 1:06:53
was a pain in the ass, right? But that's how I felt to them. I made them like, call her down before recess in kindergarten every day and test her before she went out. She didn't have a CGM, like, she would just get a meter test before she went out, that kind of stuff. Yeah. And then after they tested her, they had to call me to decide what to do next.
Bridget 1:07:12
Yes, because we text throughout the day with our school nurse. And
Scott Benner 1:07:16
this I'm old. This was before texting, even though four kids at a store yesterday said, I look like I was in my mid 30s, but that's another story. Yeah. And then I had a timer on my phone because I and if my timer went off and I hadn't heard from her, that was it was beyond the time before recess, so yes, we got behind beyond the time. I called the nurse's office. I've told the story before, but the nurse picks up the phone. I said, Hi, it's Scott. And she goes, Oh my god, Arden, and hangs up the phone. Yep, I get it. She calls back minutes later, hey, I got I just got Arden off the playground. We missed her. You know, some poor kid had like, a problem, like, literally, like, a problem with his heart, and they had to, like, they had to do something. And so it happened right at the same time that Artem was supposed to get on recess. So the nurse never called down to the room. You would say, Well, why didn't the teacher send her? She sends her every goddamn day. How come not because that phone call didn't come so she didn't do it right? And why didn't Arden say something? Because she's five, and so the nurse runs out on the playground, finds Arden at the top of the monkey bars with a blood sugar in the 50s, oh, my goodness. And brings her in and straightens her all out and everything. And yeah, I took that moment, I actually got dressed, went to the offices where the administration was, sat outside of the Office of the Superintendent, and I said, I'm here to speak with the superintendent. They told me I didn't have an appointment. I said, that's fine. I'll wait.
Bridget 1:08:46
I waited in regards to potential homicide.
Scott Benner 1:08:50
So I went in, I laid out everything I had tried to set up with this 504 plan. I actually tried to set it up the year before Arden started, because I knew it was going to be a thing that kind of laughed me out of the building at that point. And I said, this is what I want. Here it is. And it was nothing was crazy. And I said, and it seems like maybe there should be an aid like that, you know, looks in on Arden at certain times, because obviously her teacher can't handle it, and the nursing staff might have a different problem, right? And he said, we can't afford that. And I said, Do you think you can afford it? More or less me suing you till the end of time? And I said, because I'm not a litigious person, I've never actually been involved in anything like that. I It would be my, my joy of my life, to not be involved in anything like that, right? I said, but if you kill my daughter, I have to assume that the sadness and grief that I will feel will only like I'm doing something valuable with it, if I just keep going till I put Arden's name on the front of this building, and this is the Arden Benner high school one day, and I have all of your money and none of you work here anymore. And I said, because I can't imagine that I'm going to be able to get up and focus. Focus on anything else, or you could just pay the aid, and then it was all fine forever and ever after that.
Bridget 1:10:05
Well, I don't know how it compares, to make you feel good about it, or that much worse, but I'll tell you at my kiddos elementary school, when Teddy started there last year in kindergarten, he was the third diabetic within the school. So there were three. And now this year that my daughter's there, there's four. Well, because there were three last year, the school did hire an additional part time nurse, and that nurse was at the school from 10 until two, because that runs the gamut of NAS times through all lunches,
Scott Benner 1:10:39
and then probably a little bit afterwards, after some of the Yeah, actually, it does actually
Bridget 1:10:43
cover Yeah, a little bit afterwards. The
Scott Benner 1:10:46
right thing to do in that situation, like you have a responsibility, you need to have a staff person there to manage that responsibility. Yes,
Bridget 1:10:53
and their numbers are tracked. And now all these details I'm giving you, I'm not saying they're directly in the 504 but I'm referring to it because this is how we manage that the day to day routine. I really hope that the day to day is boring, and so we spend the majority of the 504, on those potential situations, or emergency situations or field trips, you know, like something that's an anomaly, but talking about these details and referencing what we do with my kiddos, I hope we'll just help other parents. And so there is an actual school nurse iPhone, and so the nurse has all four diabetes on that school phone, so she doesn't have to follow on her personal phone, you know, and basically keep it within the four walls of school. We text when they arrive. I say they're in. We text when they leave, and I say I got them so that she knows when she's, quote, unquote, on and off the clock with my kiddos in particular, and that is how we best keep them safe and healthy just real quick. In regards to the field trips, we have a written in that I, as the parent, either myself or my husband, we have the right to first refusal to not go on a field trip. It's always assumed that we will be attending the field trip. My first grader, he told me he didn't want me to go with him this year, and so I didn't, but that meant that the part time nurse did go with him, because he always has to have someone, obviously a grown up, to take care of him, and so that instance is also written into the 504 I really could talk to you forever, Scott. I feel like it's the best celebrity encounter of my life. That I just want to mention one other thing in the regards the 504 plan, as we talk about lockdowns on different drills. There, typically with schools, is an evacuation site. And when I talk to other parents about this, they are clueless, and then so appreciative. If there were something horrible that happened at a school and they needed to remove the children, not just, Well, yeah, like if there were a true fire, not just a fire drill, but a true fire. And then you gotta go pick up your kiddos. There's not gonna be a filing through of the school grounds, find out where that evacuation point is for your child in their school, and potentially put a go bag at that location for our kiddos. It's like a furniture store, and so I have a mini backpack there, you know, talking with the store manager to say, you know, this is my kids names. This is where we can put it. And so if there is an emergency and there were a fire at my kids school, I could even get in touch with the local fire department to say, Hey, I know this school is evacuating. To the furniture store. Please make sure whatever is needed, you know. And again, that's if there isn't a grown up around or something, can't
Scott Benner 1:13:46
I think somebody's gonna think that sounds crazy, but that seems brilliant to me. Yeah, that's awesome. You don't know until you don't know, Yeah, isn't that interesting? Oh, what a great idea. Oh my gosh. So
Bridget 1:13:57
that's just one other important point, yeah, that I wanted to mention, because again, the day to day, hopefully, is boring, but there are those other situations that if we are the if we are over prepared, we can feel that much more happy and secure. Now,
Scott Benner 1:14:12
I mean, I've told people every year through entire time Arden was in school, like, I know this all probably seems like insane. I was like, but we're not prepping for the things we expect. We're prepping for the things we don't expect. Yes, yeah, it's the truth. Yeah, yeah, most of it's going to be okay day to day. We've got that all kind of worked out already, like we're trying to be ready for the things that you know are just going to surprise the hell out of you. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah. I'm glad you think of it that way, and I like you've raised an attention to it too. Thank you. We were trying Now you sound completely reasonable till you said I was famous, and then that part you sound you sound a little silly, but, but other than that, you sound perfect. Got it? That's very nice of you. Okay, listen, I this was terrific. Did we not talk about anything we should. Have
Bridget 1:15:00
we touched on so much even drying parallels, Arden, to both of mine kiddos is radically helpful for that day to day, what wool and T 1d looks like can look like as they grow up, and it's wild for me to, you know, think that far down the road with my kiddos, as you know, like I'm texting with the nurse right now about snack time and who needs what. So it was really great to talk with you.
Scott Benner 1:15:32
Oh, I appreciate that so much. I enjoyed it as well. Well. Thank you so much. No, I appreciate you doing this. Thank you. Will you hold on for a second for me,
Speaker 1 1:15:39
absolutely. Thanks. This
Scott Benner 1:15:48
episode of the juice box podcast was sponsored by us, med, us, med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get started today with us. Med, links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 CGM system, one year one CGM. That's the ever since 365 learn more and get started today at ever since cgm.com/juice box. 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 thinking about getting an algorithm pump. Don't know where to begin. Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu, click on algorithm pumping, and you're going to get a long list of a lot of episodes that will help you to understand better Juicebox podcast.com Find algorithm pumping. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed or following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com, you.
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