#1464 Ego Death

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Jordon is a type 1 who uses weed and mushrooms - we talk about it all.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends, we're all back together for the next episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Welcome.

Jordon 0:15
My name is Jordan. You could also call me Jomo, if you'd like. And I am a type one diabetic.

Scott Benner 0:22
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. AG, one is offering my listeners a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of d3, k2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drink AG, one.com/juice box. To get this offer, 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 juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com Are you an adult living with type one or the caregiver of someone who is 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, T, 1d exchange.org/juice, box, it should not take you more than about 10 minutes. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about mis Bolus or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses. Learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. I'm having an on body vibe alert. This episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 the only one year where CGM, that's one insertion and one CGM a year, one CGM one year, not every 10 or 14 days ever since cgm.com/juice

Jordon 2:17
box. My name is Jordan. You could also call me Jomo, if you'd like. And I am a type one diabetic.

Scott Benner 2:24
You say I could call you jumbo Jomo. Oh, damn, I love Jumbo. But I'll go Jomo if you need me to. You've actually been

Jordon 2:32
saying something about fumo. And I'm just like, it's act. It's FOMO. I'm Jomo. I know it's FOMO.

Scott Benner 2:40
It's so funny. How that? I guess marketing people probably love that it's grabbed so many people's attention. So we all know it's FOMO, but what Omnipod was doing was saying like fomu, right? So fear of missing out on Omnipod and I was joking around, going, is it fumu or fomu or like that? I guess it really worked.

Jordon 3:00
I should probably start doing it. Caught a lot of attention, for sure, I

Scott Benner 3:04
should start doing that ad again. Apparently, you guys got very upset. I got no, I genuinely got notes. People are like, it's faux Moo, and I'm like, and they're like, well, you're saying it's FOMO, but you're saying Moo, so it's faux Moo. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. I know. Like, I okay?

Jordon 3:20
Yeah, I thought the whole conversation around it is just funny, because I really don't care, but everyone else does, and it's like, Whoa, there. I mean, people care about so many different things.

Scott Benner 3:30
They really did care about that one. Yeah, that one was interesting. It took me by surprise. I'm not gonna lie. How old were you when you were diagnosed?

Jordon 3:37
I was diagnosed at the ripe age of 35 oh gosh, how old are you now? I am 37 not too long then, huh? Nope. It's been about a year and a half.

Scott Benner 3:48
Okay, all right, you sent a comprehensive list of things you want to talk about. Oh,

Jordon 3:53
I was probably super manic at the time when my hormones were rebalancing. I don't even remember what I wrote, but looking back and listening to some more episodes. I'm like, jeez, I probably rambled

Scott Benner 4:03
on. Oh, we'll see. I don't I mean, listen you, it's all laid out for me here. I don't have a lot to do, but my it's gonna be an easy lift for me, as they say, fantastic. Tell me first, is there any other autoimmune in your family or with you? I

Jordon 4:19
do not have any other autoimmune disease. I've actually been pretty healthy all my life. So this was quite a surprise, and it took me about six months of asking my mom, are you sure? Are you sure no one's type one diabetic? And then she finally figured out all of the people on her side of the family that were type one diabetic. So I have two cousins with type one diabetes, and one of those has a child with type one

Scott Benner 4:45
so no one except for these three people, correct and me, yeah, and you, so now four, oh, your mom's on top of it. Is it just the thing where, when you ask people in the family, do you think they limit it in their minds to like themselves, their parents? Parents and that's it?

Jordon 5:00
I don't think so, because our families are pretty close. They grew up pretty close. Like my mom knew of it's her niece who had type one, so she always knew that she had type one. But you know, I asked everyone, I was like, even like, rheumatoid arthritis, does anybody have anything? And the answer was no across the board, until

Scott Benner 5:20
the until the answer wasn't no, and you dig a little bit. So people kind of stay private, and these are just cousins. You didn't know that well, maybe my

Jordon 5:27
parents and my my parents family are a lot older than I was, so I did spend time with these cousins, but she she actually got diagnosed at six years old, and she's almost 65 years old now. So she's almost 60 years with type one diabetes, I didn't know the other ones. Oh,

Scott Benner 5:43
good for her. That's, that's, that's a nice little run. Okay, so how do you figure out you have it first?

Jordon 5:47
I just want to state that when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes, my a 1c was 18% so I was quite sick for a very long time leading up to my diagnosis, I would probably place it. You know, when you're diagnosed, it's just this huge rush of what actually happened. When did this actually start? Because by the time I actually went in, I couldn't walk, right? So I remember it was like, I don't know, 2021 I guess, and all of these COVID vaccines are coming out, and all of the news, like, all these dangers, blah, blah, blah, this vaccine gives blood clots in your legs. That's the one that stuck out to me. And at that time, my legs had started to cramp significantly at night time, especially, like they wake me up in the middle of the night, and I feel like my leg was about to, like, rip off. Okay. I was like, Oh no, maybe I have blood clots from this vaccine. And, you know, I just kept watch on that. I just kept thinking about it the whole time, but the symptoms kind of started to build from there. So, okay, that's the earliest I could place, like, really significant symptoms.

Scott Benner 7:04
When you look back Jordan, I mean, an 18 A, 1c is, is pretty significant, even, like a DKA diagnosis. So how long do you think this was all going on for?

Jordon 7:12
I'd say probably about two years leading up until I finally went into the doctor.

Scott Benner 7:17
Oh, you you think you had, like, a lot of on set, and you just didn't do anything about it for that long.

Jordon 7:23
Yeah, I like to say I gaslit myself through the honeymoon phase. You

Scott Benner 7:27
were like, I see some people saying about this, this vaccine, it's probably got me, yeah. And then you're like, so you you'd follow any idea if it got you out of looking deeper at what was happening,

Jordon 7:39
absolutely. And, you know, there was so much going on in life around those few years. I was moving cities for jobs and, you know, all the lockdown that I honestly just thought I was exhausted. I was in my 30s at this point. I'm like, oh, maybe I'm just getting old. And this is what it's like, yeah, then there were some just symptoms that I couldn't ignore. That's

Scott Benner 8:03
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Jordon 10:19
were a few that lined up right towards the end. I wasn't able to go more than 30 minutes without having to use the restroom, and I was not always around a restroom. So there were often times where I'd have to pull over on the highway and use the side of the road, or I'd have certain corners of my route home that I knew I could sneak into and no one would bother me. But it got to the point where I was also like falling asleep on the road while driving. I was thinking I was tired, you know, stop in to use the restroom. Get a coffee. Drive for 30 more minutes, stop in for the restroom, grab a Coca Cola this time. You know, it's like the coffee's not working, maybe the Coke will, yeah, downing a huge coke. And then, you know, how long is your commute? Jordan, My commute is short, but I do a lot of driving tasks for work. Okay? I live in Orange County, so I have to drive up to La often or down to San Diego often, and it's just a significant time, yeah,

Scott Benner 11:19
no, actually, in the car for many hours and but constantly stopping, recharging yourself with some sort of caffeine, taking a an incredible, wicked piss, and then moving on again, pretty

Jordon 11:29
much, yep. And that just got to the point, you know, in at night time, it was really bad. But really the thing that sent me over the edge was back to my legs. They just really stopped working. I live on a second floor, so walking up the stairs and walking down the stairs like my tread wasn't correct, it wasn't normal. It was getting stuck, and I actually feared that I was going to fall down and hit my head. So no kidding,

Scott Benner 11:55
in your mid 30s, you're like, My legs aren't working anymore. Yep, had you never been sick before that. Like, did you live a pretty unencumbered life prior to this? Absolutely,

Jordon 12:04
I never got sick, maybe once every couple years. Never got the flu. If anything, it was more physical injuries. But I'm not used to, I was never used to being sick.

Scott Benner 12:16
Yeah, so you're not particularly a person who's just ignoring things. It just feels like it just feels like this can't be what's happening to me, right? Well,

Jordon 12:25
I didn't know diabetes existed at that time. I did. But you know, it just jumping forward to when they hand you that pamphlet in the diabetes education and I'm reading it, and I look up at the nurse, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, why didn't I know this before? You know, all of the shaky legs off balance, like I could have dealt with this a long time ago,

Scott Benner 12:45
like, this is crazy that this didn't occur to me sooner.

Jordon 12:48
I mean, immediately I was like, you've got to be kidding me, this is the answer to all of these problems that I've been experiencing for the past two years.

Scott Benner 12:58
Right? Were you able to let go of the I mean, was there guilt around it, or did you let that go?

Jordon 13:02
I mean, there was so much guilt for things not health related, you know, all of the things that uncontrolled diabetes over two years does to your personal life and your relationships, I felt very guilty about those. You know, what sorts of things happened, having to move often during the pandemic was very difficult, and I was just married in 2019 to my beautiful wife. She's an Irish citizen, so she actually did the 90 day fiance thing to get here. Okay? So I was moving her around the person that she met. I was clearly not that person. My I had a short attitude. I was clearly not able to comprehend situations very well. I was, you know, short at work, I had an attitude. I, you know, things that I never experienced before. Looking back on it, I'm like, I was absolutely unhinged for quite some time. So my guilt was more around treating people poorly, okay, but once I understood that I was kind of out of control, and that was kind of a symptom, I guess, of uncontrolled diabetes, yeah, kind of let that go. I did immediately apologize to everybody, you know, I even called my parents. I was like, Look, I'm so sorry. You know, I forgive you for never figuring this out earlier. You know, I didn't know what was going on, especially right as my a 1c was dropping. You know that the six months after that, it was just a whole whirlwind of emotions and experiences and forgiveness and, you know, figuring out how to give grace to myself. And, yeah,

Scott Benner 14:42
that's interesting. Did you do like, a, like, a 12 step tour? Did you go around and apologize to people in your life? Pretty much,

Jordon 14:49
pretty much. I mean, it was even things that I was, I work in a theater. I work in technical theater. Things were really stressful opening up the theater after the pandemic, too. You know, nobody. He was coming back to work, there was so much to do. Part of why I was ignoring the symptoms. I was like, I'm just overworked. I'm tired. I'd create accidents. Like, nobody got hurt, they got I'm so grateful for that. But, you know, I I'd cause accidents, and

Scott Benner 15:13
I've never done that. Give me an example of how. So we

Jordon 15:17
work with heavy theatrical equipment, you know, like a big theater light, and they go on, like a boom base, like there's a heavy weight on the ground, and a pipe screws into it, and then you clamp a bunch of lights on it, okay? And, you know, I clamp too many lights that it would be top heavy, and it would eventually just fall over. And

Scott Benner 15:36
you think, because you just weren't, like, you didn't have the mental focus,

Jordon 15:41
yeah, in between having to go to the restroom while doing all these tasks, it was really difficult to give it the concentration that you really needed to make everything safe.

Scott Benner 15:50
You're rushing around to go back to the bathroom again. I

Jordon 15:53
mean, we use these scissor lift genies that go up, you know, 30 feet in the air and come back down. I couldn't make it halfway up sometimes before I have to come back down. It was really bad. Listen,

Scott Benner 16:03
I could probably just stay in this the whole time. I'm not going to. But it is fascinating how consistent these stories are with people that, you know, their health is just deteriorating, you know, and crazy things are happening to them, and they're just like, I'm probably just getting older, you know what I mean? Like when you were 20, if I would have said you, hey, you know, in your mid 30s, you're gonna have to pee every 20 minutes. That's part of getting older. You go, I don't think that's right, right?

Jordon 16:26
It's like, why is everyone keeping this a secret from me?

Scott Benner 16:30
So funny. Yeah, exactly. Why won't people tell this story about the peeing? But okay, so you get your diagnosis, you're newly, newly married, and you kind of work out your life stuff, which is fantastic, and people were receptive to your apologies.

Jordon 16:44
Oh, my God, so much. So absolutely. And in fact, you know, the situation in my house was rather difficult that, you know, we had decided to go to therapy and go to couples counseling to figure out, you know, what my problem was now that looking back on it and time just lined up so perfectly that I was diagnosed a couple days before our first therapy session, and we sat down, and I'm struggling with this diagnosis, and my wife is struggling with having lost Her husband, that she said something that really stuck out to me, and it's really helped me the whole time. And she basically separated the situation from itself. She said what you were dealing with was this, like third party you you had a mistress that was in the shadows that you didn't know was there. Both of you didn't know it was there, but it was causing difficulties. So she really helped me separate, you know, the uncontrolled diabetes and the diabetes from who I am as a person. And that's just really helped me with this whole journey.

Scott Benner 17:54
Yeah, very con and not just kind, but, you know, a lot of emotional maturity there from her, for sure, she was great. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Okay, let's look at this list. Do you feel like the COVID vaccine had something to do with your diagnosis? I mean,

Jordon 18:08
a little bit in a way, like, I know I'll never know what did, but considering that, I can pinpoint a moment in time, like, I don't think I'm just correlating something, even though it's clearly a correlation, I think they're connected significantly.

Scott Benner 18:24
Let's start with the dates first. So you you think it's possible that this health trend was happening over two years. When was two years like, what point in time is does those two years begin?

Jordon 18:36
I was diagnosed with type one diabetes, officially on 420 2023

Scott Benner 18:44
okay, but you think it may have been going on since 2018

Jordon 18:49
No, not 2018 this would have the symptoms would have been going on since about 2021

Scott Benner 18:55
since 21 okay, sorry, okay, so you were diagnosed about a year and a half ago. Can you look at like, when you got there the vaccine and when that two years falls? Are they do they those dates fall close to each other?

Jordon 19:09
Yes, they absolutely do. So it would have I'd received like, you know, the second half of the first vaccine in March of 2021 and then I was diagnosed in april 23 so it was a year, and, like, a month, and the in the timeline, and like I said, I just remember all the news about the blood clots, and I took them seriously, like, you know, I and let me just say that I've had every single booster since. So I'm not, like, trying to say the, you know, it's causing type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 19:39
That's not the, yeah, that's not the conversation. I'm just, I'm trying to get, like, just through your, you know, through what happened to you and and I have some things to say about it as well, but I'm trying to get all the information out first. So what was your reaction? Like, you know, sometimes people get inoculated for something, and then they they'll get sick. Like, some people get the flu vaccine, then they get the flu. Did you get Were you sick after you got inoculated? Yeah. Nope,

Jordon 20:00
never got sick. Never got sick. The things that started were, I remember peeing at night time, and I remember my legs starting to give up on me. So do you ever get COVID When I was diagnosed and I got the A 1c of 18% I didn't know what an A 1c was at that time. So I went to Google and I learned that all of the charts only went up to 14% and I was like, so 18% it's obviously not It's not real, like, this is fake. So I'll go back when it's convenient, and get retested. Then I got COVID for the first time. Okay, so I got COVID right after my first a 1c result.

Scott Benner 20:41
Gotcha So, your a 1c was creeping up. Actually creeping up is the wrong word, was flying up. I'm clearly not a doctor, right? But a lot of people's diagnosis come after a virus. And, you know, I can speak for my daughter, specifically, she had Coxsackie, and then her onset happened. This is not uncommon, like, this is a very well understood way that type one can kind of get thrown, you know, into the forefront. So you are likely walking around with some auto antibodies that are indicator, a marker that you could get type one diabetes, yep, you know. So you get, you know, a virus. It kind of like kicks your immune system into gear. You know how it goes, right? It goes and they go, you know, the the T cells go, find your beta cells instead of finding the, you know, the illness or whatever. And I mean, I think we all understand that, that when you get a vaccine, the vaccine, you know, is trying to get your body to respond to listen again. This is outside of my purview, but they put the sickness in there so your body goes, Oh, this is bad. I'll learn how to get rid of this. And then that's what a vaccine is supposed to be, right? If it gets that response going, and your body is is in, is ripe to, you know, for those T cells to go get your beta cells instead. It doesn't sound crazy to me, you know, it certainly doesn't, yeah, and

Jordon 22:07
I'm also not going to discount the fact that if I were to have gotten COVID, I'd end up in the same place. So, you know. But that didn't happen. I understand. Okay, okay.

Scott Benner 22:16
I just wanted to understand from your list. All right, I like this list here, ungodly a one sees cholesterol on type one. What about your cholesterol? Yeah.

Jordon 22:23
So I'm a really skinny dude. You know, I had even lost 25 pounds. I was down to like 120 pounds when I was finally diagnosed. I'm not one that gets sick often. So I received an actual phone call from my doctor. And I was like, did doctors normally call people. Is this? What's going on? Yeah, but when she told me about the odd A, 1c she also told me that my LDL was really high. And I know nothing about cholesterol either. I know that I was a really skinny dude, and having really, really high cholesterol was super bizarre as well. So those were the two results that I'm now learning are quite connected the high

Scott Benner 23:01
glucose and has your cholesterol gone back to normal?

Jordon 23:05
So they put me on a statin, and I avoided taking it for about six months, and my cholesterol did come down a little bit. I don't really know how the numbers work, but my LDL was like 190 or something like that. And with in six months with just insulin, that came down to about 160 almost a year on statins, and you know, it's back within range. I'm below 90 now. So how's your diet? I'm a vegetarian. I was been vegetarian for like, eight years, and after my diagnosis, I was having a hard time with protein. So we've introduced fish back into our diet. Okay,

Scott Benner 23:39
what does that make you a what it's not now, you're not a vegetarian. You're,

Jordon 23:44
I guess it's a pescatarian. Technically, my wife goes, if you hear me talk about food, I never say what I am. I just eat. And I'm like, okay, that makes sense, too.

Scott Benner 23:54
So I'm looking here. Type one diabetes can impact LDL, cholesterol levels with overall lipid profiles in several ways, glycemic control, poorly managed blood sugar levels in type ones can lead to higher LDL. Hyperglycemia can alter lipid metabolism, promoting an increase in LDL, particularly in the more harmful, small, dense LDL particles. People with type one, insufficient insulin, can affect the liver ability to regulate cholesterol, inflammation, oxidation chronic high blood sugar can cause inflammation, oxidative stress, which oxidizes LDL particles. If type one diabetes leads to kidney complications like neuropathy, LDL levels can rise further. So that's what I can find about that. I can also tell you that in one of our episode somewhere, Jenny goes off on on a bit of a rant about type ones getting statins when they don't need them. So, but it sounds like it helped. You. Will you try to get off of them? Has the doctor talked to you about that?

Jordon 24:53
You know, my last a 1c check, my last round of blood check, they didn't call for a lipid panel. So I asked. To for them to write a script for it. So I'm going to go in and get that done. I have a feeling I really do not want to take statins for the rest of my life. Yeah. But every single endocrinologist I've talked to, and I've talked to more than just my primary Endo, they just look you dead in the eye, and they're like, No, this is you just

Scott Benner 25:19
should yeah, again, not a doctor, not advice, and I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but if pharma companies run around saying, Hey, here's some obvious reasons, like some of the ones I just read, why people with type one diabetes should use a statin, then why not give them to them? And then it kind of becomes the standard of care. And then I don't know if people think about it as much as as if they just say, well, this is what we do. So here, take it so, I mean, I don't know, man, if I was you, I'd get it rerun. If my LDL looked good, I'd say I'd like to come off this medication and try again, you know, in an appropriate amount of time to do another blood test and see if it stays that way. Because, I mean, if the things I just read were what impacted you, and you were maybe in the middle of, like, a lot of diagnosis over two years that culminated in an 18 A, 1c, then, you know, now that you're doing better, maybe you don't need that anymore.

Jordon 26:10
That's completely the route I'm planning on taking. If my LDL has dropped since my last one a year ago, I'm gonna get off of them until my next, my next round of tests, just to see I'm not going to tell anybody about it. I'm just going to do it

Scott Benner 26:25
now. Listen, you know what I'm saying? Tell your doctor, etc. This part of me wants to jump ahead on your list, and part of me wants to keep going in order, because you've done such a nice job of laying it out here for me. You said my frame of mind post diagnosis about how to view this new chronic illness in my life. You're calling it like a new shot at life, and I'm interested in what you mean by that. Yeah,

Jordon 26:48
so I don't know really how to get into this, but I guess when I was sitting there in the doctor's office after my a one, after my official diagnosis, and I do want to say that I had my a 1c of 18% and I wasn't put on insulin until 28 days later. So

Scott Benner 27:08
wait, wait, hold on, they didn't rush you to a hospital. No, Scott,

Jordon 27:11
they let me ignore phone calls, and I went on March 23 for my first test. I didn't go back to get retested until April 14.

Scott Benner 27:21
So they just, like, they called you and you just didn't call

Jordon 27:24
back. No, I talked to them. I was like, Yeah, I don't believe this test result is correct. I'll come in and get

Scott Benner 27:30
it retested. But like you said, you were altered at that point. I was completely altered at that point. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I can commiserate with this, because if you've heard enough of the podcast, you'll know that I had very low iron at points in my life, and it was difficult to talk to me about things like I had a very short fuse, about nothing, it completely and utterly connected to the low iron. Yeah, so if you're foggy in your head, it's hard to respond to things, you know what I mean, and

Jordon 28:00
the fact that I got COVID Very soon after that first test, it just completely washed me. I had no idea what was going on, but I did spend that time between March 23 and April 14 looking into it more and kind of connecting the dots that Jordan you might actually have type one diabetes, because that's what she said. She told me, she goes, I've never seen an A 1c this high before, and she's a young person, so I doubt she's seen I don't know if many people have seen an A 1c like this, but she was like, I talked to some colleagues, and they're like, if your test results are confirmed, you have uncontrolled type one diabetes. I'm just like, you've got to be kidding me, like I'm 35 years old, I don't have diabetes, you know? And then I go off and get COVID, and then I look into it further, I learn what ketones are. So I asked my wife to pick up some ketone strips while she was out, and, I mean, they were just black as could be, yeah? Geez, man, oh, you're lucky. I'm so lucky. And that's kind of to your original question is that I was sitting there in the doctor's office. They're finally giving me insulin. I have no idea what's going on. My wife is sitting there. Has no idea what's going on. We're reading this information. It says like, if your blood glucose is over 300 you need to go to the emergency room immediately. And I just poked at 369 and I hadn't eaten in 18 hours.

Scott Benner 29:28
300 I could do that standing on my head. I mean,

Jordon 29:30
at that point, I was like, What am I some super human I honestly felt like the most diabetic person in the entire world, at that moment when everything was kind of coming to like fruition. When I was understanding it more clearly that this was like something really significant and life changing.

Scott Benner 29:47
You were like, I have the most diabetes anybody's ever had in

Jordon 29:51
this very moment. I sure did feel like it. I

Scott Benner 29:54
mean, you were in DK, they, I imagine they share that with you, right? Scott,

Jordon 29:58
I have spent. Year and a half trying to figure out what DKA is. And, you know, I gaslit myself through two years of ladder. Chances are I was absolutely in DKA. I mean, I don't, I don't know how they test for that, how they determine that, but, yeah, I mean, I was throwing up my dinner. I was, you know, you

Scott Benner 30:15
never landed in the hospital, not once. They just gave you insulin. A month later,

Jordon 30:20
they gave me insulin 28 days later, yeah,

Scott Benner 30:24
I don't think you were treated well, in case you're wondering, well, and

Jordon 30:27
here's me thinking I was treated so well, and my life was saved by these people. And then, you know, a year later, you look back and you're like, Oh, my God, they're so lucky. I'm not dead.

Scott Benner 30:36
Yeah, they should have tackled you and drug you to a hospital. That's what it sounds like,

Jordon 30:40
I mean, knowing more about it, I'm kind of a little upset, but I'm well, so that's all that matters.

Scott Benner 30:47
We're gonna move on. You say you feel like something really awful could have happened to me, and it kind of gave you that renewed idea of, like, this is another shot at my life.

Jordon 30:56
Well, no, like, in a like, let's get a little metaphysical here, but I'm sitting there and they're given teaching me about Lantis, and they're teaching me about Humalog, and they walk me through giving my first 12 units of Lantis is what they give me first. They're like, here's how you drop insulin. Here's 12 units of Lantis. And I'm telling you, Scott, the second I put that syringe into my stomach for the first time, like the whole world around me, like melted and spun and everything transformed in like, this weird sense that I can only now, like, place it as, like, I jump timelines. What do you think happened? I think I had this realization that I've been like diabetic my entire life, and that there wasn't a day of my life that I had lived where I wasn't a type one diabetic. I mean, even looking back to childhood and everything, I'm just like, Whoa,

Scott Benner 31:49
that poor kid. Why do you think that, did you have symptoms throughout your life? Well, I don't think so. Maybe, no, you're you are talking more about like, kind of like spiritually, then, yeah, like

Jordon 32:00
spiritually, like that person is dead, like the non type one diabetic version of Jordan who lived his life without type one diabetes is gone forever from this world no longer exists. How

Scott Benner 32:13
much weed or other stuff were you using when you had this thought? Funny,

Jordon 32:18
I do smoke a lot of weed, which makes it really ironic that I was diagnosed on 420 I'm not sure if you get that reference, but it was my favorite holiday up until a while ago. It's funny enough, when I checked my blood sugar for the first time on the glucose meter, you you open up your glucose meter and you had the first question it asks is, what time is it? And you look up at the anatomic clock in the doctor's office, and it just clicked over to 420 it was 420 on 420 when I took my first gluco stick, and I was like, my blood sugar is going to be 420 it ended up being 369 but what a bummer. I know I was a little upset, but my wife is over here. Like 300 you need to go to the ER, I wonder what 400 would have done.

Scott Benner 33:03
400 probably would have sent you to the ER, on your back. How long have you been smoking?

Jordon 33:10
A very, very long time, probably since I was, like, 18 years old. I'm 37 now, so almost 20 years daily.

Scott Benner 33:16
Oh,

Jordon 33:17
yeah, regularly,

Scott Benner 33:19
okay, which means, like, wake and bake a lot of times. Yeah, okay. And then throughout the day, you like, how do you do it? Do you like, hit a joint a couple times? You smoke the whole thing, like, just

Jordon 33:32
a couple it's, I usually use a pipe, and it's like, one or two hits in the morning. And then when I get home

Scott Benner 33:39
from work, how do you describe to people what it does for you? You know, people don't really ask. I'm asking. It

Jordon 33:45
makes me feel good. It makes me enjoy things. It makes me I give a lot more grace. I have a lot more patience. I have a lot more creative thoughts.

Scott Benner 33:57
The Weed couldn't cut through the high blood sugars, though, huh? Well,

Jordon 34:00
I see it must have been making me feel good the whole time, because I was just ignoring all the symptoms of the illness. But,

Scott Benner 34:07
you know, people listening here to think, if you weren't hot, you would have figured out you had diabetes two years

Jordon 34:11
since, yeah, I'm sure I would have,

Scott Benner 34:16
was your access to weed part of how you tricked that lovely girl into marrying you from Ireland.

Jordon 34:20
No, get this. We actually met on Tinder in Dubai, of all places. So is very much a place where you do not smoke weed. Oh, can I ask why you were there? I was living there. I was working there, and she was also there, living and working at the time.

Scott Benner 34:36
So you swipe, catch her. You guys meet there, and you start dating in Dubai. We start

Jordon 34:43
meeting in Dubai. We're there for a few years. Then I get another job in Doha, Qatar, right next door, and she gets a job there. We move there. And then that project that I was working with ended in. So I moved back to Seattle, and we had been engaged before then, so we just figured it was best to come this way, as I had work, and that's kind of how that all started.

Scott Benner 35:09
You can't smoke there, though, right where in Dubai, yeah, no, you can't. So what did you do while you were there? I had friends

Jordon 35:19
who were Arabic, from Egypt, from the from around who were a little more risk adverse than or I was a little more risk averse. They were a little more comfortable with it. So I, you know, had friends. You always have friends.

Scott Benner 35:33
So you do this completely privately. Then, Oh, for sure, yeah, for sure. What were the risks like? What would have happened if you got caught? I didn't

Jordon 35:41
look into it, but I'm sure I would have been, I mean, and I don't really know how it works, but as an American citizen, I had a lot more lenient than a lot of people from a lot of other countries, but I'd pretty sure they would have put me in jail for a long time,

Scott Benner 35:55
severe legal penalties, possession, use or trafficking of cannabis can lead to long prison sentences, fines and deportation, even small amounts or trace residues can result in four years in prison. Yep, wow. Can you imagine being diagnosed with your type one? Would that have lined up by any chance? What's that? What if you got locked up in Dubai? Would you have gotten type one during the four years in prison?

Jordon 36:18
Jeez, 2018 to 22 Yeah, you'd probably be

Scott Benner 36:23
dead then, Oh, for sure, yeah, you get be deported, serving a sentence. You'd be blacklisted from returning to the UAE. Oh, wow, that's interesting. I like how you handle you handled it like a like a stoner, though you're like, I just didn't look into it. It was fine. Yeah. I mean,

Jordon 36:38
you know, you always find a way

Scott Benner 36:42
life. Finds a way Scott and so does weed. I've been a lot

Jordon 36:44
of places, and I've found weed in every single one of them. I would imagine.

Scott Benner 36:49
I would imagine it's everywhere. You said in your list here, you use psychedelics as well. What kind

Jordon 36:54
I do use psychedelics, you name it. I've done all of them, but mostly I and, you know, leading up to my diagnosis, I was micro dosing on psilocybin mushrooms.

Scott Benner 37:07
How does that work? The micro dosing, so

Jordon 37:09
the micro dosing is very, very small amounts of it to where it has no psychedelic effect on you. Have you ever had, like mushroom coffee or any of those mushroom supplements kind of gives you, like an energy boost.

Scott Benner 37:22
I haven't, but I I've heard of them. Yeah, they it's kind of

Jordon 37:27
like an energy boost, like a clean caffeine, so to say. But that's kind of the effects of, like, a micro dose of mushrooms, okay? And you usually mix it with other like non psychedelic mushrooms, like Turkey's tail or Lion's Mane mushroom, they have, you know, really great properties in terms of like brain health and in connecting neurons and things like that. So,

Scott Benner 37:52
okay, is there a difference in using these things pre and post insulin? Yeah.

Jordon 37:57
So that is a story in itself. Go ahead, my first blood work was done on March 13. But two weeks prior to that, I actually did my largest dose of mushrooms and had a complete ego death then as well. So I was, you know, through this whole diagnosis process, I was probably still living from, you know, living the thoughts through that, during that, that mushroom journey. We call it a journey. And, you know, I do not really use these recreationally. Sometimes I do, but it's more so for, like, therapeutic sense, if that makes sense, I don't know how someone who doesn't use psychedelics really views them, but it is a very therapeutic and healing medicine. They're referred to as medicines in my house. But I did have my largest mushroom journey about a week prior to my first ANC result, where I had kind of lost the ability to navigate the psychedelic realm in the same way that I was used to, and instead I was kind of presented with, I met a couple gods. If that sounds I mean, I guess that tracks right? Do mushrooms? Meet God. I

Scott Benner 39:11
want to hear all about this. So because you already said ego death, and I met some gods, and it feels like you're gonna have, like a definite, like Little Red Riding thing, where you meet three different pigs. They're building different houses or something like that. So I want to hear about all actually, that's not three little that's not Little Red Riding Hood. That's what is that pigs, that three little pigs, mixing up my stupid references for a second. But I want to, I want to hear all about this. So like, let's start at the beginning. How long have you been doing using psychedelics to go on these journeys in

Jordon 39:42
a therapeutic sense, in more of a therapy sense, it's probably been since about 2020,

Scott Benner 39:48
How'd you learn about them? I was introduced

Jordon 39:51
to psychedelics when I was in college. We used to pick field mushrooms out of the couch and dry those. And have some tea. Okay?

Scott Benner 40:01
And so somebody, somebody at school, told you about this. You did it at first recreationally, but then you've kind of, I guess, paid more attention to it, spoken to more people, and you're using it more now for for what, really

Jordon 40:14
just for a sense of healing, trying to figure out. So really the main purpose is it kind of removes the conditioning that we've built up in our minds for you know, all of the years that we've lived. It opens yourself up to other possibilities. If you're struggling with something like if I'm struggling with grief, I can focus my my session on dealing with this grief and trying to learn whatever lesson the mushroom world is going to teach.

Scott Benner 40:43
Okay? I mean, walk somebody through that who doesn't understand like the mushroom world is going to teach. So, what's the what's the experience like?

Jordon 40:51
So the experience is rather scary. If you don't know what's going on. I'm not the one who is working with the mushrooms, like, I'm not the mentor. I'm kind of just the like, I don't know, what are you? If you there's a therapist, and then there's the patient, I don't, you know, people aren't

Scott Benner 41:12
going to understand that. So, like, you kind of have like, a, almost like a shaman, to get you through your your journey when you're using the psychedelic. Is that, right, correct?

Jordon 41:21
It is all in a very controlled environment. It is not really something I do by myself very often, though I am fully capable of it, but when I am seeking help or guidance, I do go to, yes, a shaman,

Scott Benner 41:34
okay? And by shaman, we mean a guy named Gary, right? Yeah,

Jordon 41:38
we'll just, we'll just call her Laura. Okay. You know very you, you would never assume, if you met me or Laura, that this would be part of any of our lives. You

Scott Benner 41:49
know, everyone who doesn't live in California is like these are these? These are the LA stories I hear. But how long does this process take? Like you, you show up at her place at 9am and you Leave when

Jordon 42:03
you know, around four o'clock, five o'clock,

Scott Benner 42:07
six, seven hours. And so you you ingest the mushroom. It takes a while to do what it's going to do. And then, do you feel like you're still in the room? Do you like do you go away in your head? Do you feel like you're somewhere else? Yeah,

Jordon 42:22
it's a mix and mash of all of that combined. There are moments where you're kind of stuck in your head, you know, like how you've seen movies where, like, the walls start to transform, or the colors start to melt, and all of that stuff is real, and that's the visual aspect of psychedelics, but if you close your eyes, your brain is actually just going absolutely crazy. And the probably the best way that I could describe most of my experiences, especially when I close my eyes, is like, imagine you are a student and a film student in an art school, and you're asked to make a 15 second short film to represent life, but you can't have anything recognizable about life, and you're just watching 1000s of those take Place, kind of in no particular order, it's just these visuals, these things, that are coming out at you, and you do your best to remember it while you're in the moment, so you can take the lessons of whatever these things are with you, in your back to your conditioned mind.

Scott Benner 43:35
Do these journeys help you with anxiety, stress, trauma, like, is there anything you can point to that says, like, prior to trying this, I felt this way, but now I feel differently.

Jordon 43:48
Yeah, for sure, I I remember the first time, and this is recreational use, but the first time I ever did LSD, I came to the realization that there was probably no film director in Hollywood who has not done a psychedelic because filming a cinematic scene is really impressive, and it's very difficult. You know, not your average, not every average Joe, can go out there with a camera and just, you know, film something. But for the first time, I was able to kind of see the world through like a more universal lens, that that was not just me. There's a you feel a sense of connection with anything and everything that's around you. And if I had never taken psychedelics before, I don't think I would have experienced that kind of connection. Like fungus is a mycelium, right? Have you ever seen like, the way that fungus grows? It's like a network of web that kind of stretches, and I'm not going to be completely accurate with this, but that mycelium web basically encompasses the whole world, like it's fully connected with each other, all around the world, just about so it's this. Amazing, like, sense of connection with not only just the people, but like, with the air you breathe, with the birds that are singing, with everything, you kind of get a sense of, I am that also,

Scott Benner 45:13
okay, all right. So you see the world differently, but you didn't have like, it's not like you were depressed before and not after, or anxious you have, like, social anxiety, and it's gone now, or anything like that.

Jordon 45:25
Myself. No, I was, the main reason that I use psychedelics is to continue to work towards full empathy and just, you know, like, this is so hippie, but, like, just love,

Scott Benner 45:38
okay, have any trips until you get there, you think,

Jordon 45:41
yeah, I'm working on it, yeah.

Scott Benner 45:43
How many has it been? Have you lost count? Oh, for sure. Okay, for sure. 50 more or less. No, probably

Jordon 45:50
less. I probably, you know, 20 to 30 times with different substances. Is

Scott Benner 45:55
it cumulative for you? Like, the way you are able to connect with the world, like, does it get greater every time, or does it move? Or do you feel like that? It happens and then it regresses, and then you have to bring it back again?

Jordon 46:10
No, I feel of strong connection to each journey. And every time I go back into it, it's like I'm back into a not so familiar, but familiar space that I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate. It's like a world. You know, it's a world, and the better you are at understanding this world, the more that you get out of it. Like the guy who created the mouse, the computer mouse, I think he was on LSD when he created that. So I'm like, maybe I could find a lesson like that.

Scott Benner 46:43
Okay, if I told you you could live in only one world. Which one would you pick?

Jordon 46:48
Oh, this one for sure. Okay. However, I will tell you that if I'm on my dying bed, like if I'm in hospice and they start to take out all my medications, I'm my wife, knows she can. I would like to have some LSD in that saline drip as I drift off into the next world.

Scott Benner 47:03
Okay, does your wife do any of this stuff? Yes, okay, that's part of the way you connected.

Jordon 47:11
It's a part of the way that we have continued to connect. It's this world. So she's from Ireland, and they're very Catholic over there, and she moving here, kind of opened her eyes in a lot of good ways and a lot of bad ways. You know, America is just very different and very chaotic compared to a lot of other places, and she had a difficult time with that. So she has found psychedelic use to kind of open her eyes up to that a little bit and to to kind of try to get a sense of what's going what, what is actually going on in the world. But no, she does. She does participate as well. She She's more reverent towards it than I am.

Scott Benner 47:57
Talking about it like it's a spiritual experience. Absolutely, you're talking about it like it's more of a chemical experience. Yes, okay, interesting. And let's see, is it dangerous for people who are listening? Are there dangerous? Like, could you go on and not come back? You

Jordon 48:14
know, I listened to a couple people talk about psychedelics recently, and they always seem to start off their conversations with the risks, and they always say that there are no real risks, like in terms of dying or in terms of getting stuck with these psychedelics. And they always start off their conversations like that, because it's always a question that people have in their mind. So I should have started off with that. I actually intended to, but thanks for bringing it up. No, it is dangerous thing, and it's not one thing that you're going to want to go back to the next day. You know, I'm going to have my experience. I'm going to think about my experience for six more months before I'm even going to want to consider it. You know, it's not something that is really prone to addiction. It has no addicting properties. Okay,

Scott Benner 49:00
it doesn't feel addictive to you. How about do you feel addicted to weed?

Jordon 49:06
I don't. I could stop and I could be fine. I just choose to keep going back to it.

Scott Benner 49:13
So you've never had a bad trip. Like, where, like, you get, like, super anxious, paranoid, like, the hallucinations frighten you, or anything like that.

Jordon 49:22
I mean, sometimes they are frightening. I wouldn't consider it a bad trip. You know, it's all kind of relative in terms of what you take away from it. Some people meet demons and then come out and, you know, swear, Jesus killed these demons and they're now Christian for life. That's a bad trip for them, and Jesus saved them from that. However, that's what they took from it. I wouldn't consider that a bad trip. They're now happy, sure. Now I'm just going

Scott Benner 49:46
to jump in here and say that the internet says that prolonged or heavy use of LSD can result in cognitive impairments, mood instability and persistent hallucinations, making it difficult for individuals to function in normal daily life. It also says that. A predisposition to mental health conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar, if you have those, LSD can exasperate, exacerbate these conditions or trigger latent psychosis. So absolutely,

Jordon 50:10
that's why I highly recommend finding somebody who takes this very seriously. They do kind of screen for these things that you're speaking of I just want

Scott Benner 50:21
to say that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician, or at least find Laura before making any changes to your health care plan. Like, like, I'm just talking to you about your experience. And I think everyone, I hope adults, understand I'm like you are not telling people like you should do this thing like you just, you know, sharing your experience

Jordon 50:39
Absolutely and you know that I would kind of shy away from talking about this if I felt that I would be judged negatively in any way, and if they do, then that's probably something that psychedelics could help with.

Scott Benner 50:53
Listen, I know people who are voracious for this kind of thing to be taken more seriously by the health community, that they would love to try some of this stuff to get past some significant trauma they've had in their life. There's, uh, studies going on at Hopkins, right about this, I think where they're helping, trying to help soldiers get through I, you know, things, and I'm for whatever helps people like you know, if something helps you, I think it's awesome if you if smoking every day makes you feel like you're a better person, or you're experiencing life in a way that it's more, you know, conducive to how you feel, then I think you should smoke every day. And if you don't, then I don't think you should. I'm not for telling people what to do that. That's for certain. So

Jordon 51:37
one thing that I struggle with in some of these journeys of mine is who keeps telling us what to do. That's just this loop that I keep getting stuck in. Is like, why are we doing the things that we're doing? Like, who's telling us this? You know, I'm in control of this right

Scott Benner 51:53
now. There's no hard and fast rules about most things. And, you know, we do things because it's how they've been done prior, and because they morphed with the times, right? Like things change as they go. But I hear this morning, somebody said something they use the phrase the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And I thought that's so funny, because if that idea would have been originated, like, 10 years ago. Instead of whenever originated, it might be more like the squeaky computer fan gets the graphite and, like, you see, do you see what I'm saying? Like, so, like, you know, at some point there's wagon wheels and they squeak, and somebody smears some grease on them, they don't squeak anymore. And then one day, somebody complains about something, and makes that leap in their head and goes, Oh, the squeaky wheel gets the grease right, like they got what they wanted because they complained. But if that would have happened for the first time, like I said 10 years ago, it would have been, it wouldn't have been about wheels and grease, it would have been about something else. And so I guess my point is, maybe I should do some LSD before I try to talk about this. But no.

Jordon 53:02
And I mean, I knew that coming on to this, that I would be talking to someone who is not had the experience, and that's okay. I'm not the best person to kind of, you know, speak to the benefits of it. I'm just simply a person who has experienced benefits from it.

Scott Benner 53:16
Yeah, you don't need to be the one who ascribes the reason why. You can just say, I do it, and this is how it works out for me. Yeah,

Jordon 53:23
I do it. I'm a normal dude and I'm a really good person. That's kind of the taboo that needs to be broken.

Scott Benner 53:29
Oh, I understand what you're saying. Yeah. I was just saying, like, back to your original point of, like, why do we do what we do? Like, who says what's right and what's wrong? I think things just get set and then they morph slowly over time, right? And and there will be another saying for the squeaky wheel gets the grease one day there sure will. There will be another saying for that. It'll mean the same thing. And no one alive at that point will have ever heard the squeaky wheel gets the grease, yep. And so we set things up, and then they morph slowly, but in the end, if you wanted to run around and say, you know, use another euphemism for that, you could. We see language change all the time, you know, just for that, like people you know, they, they have different ways of talking. They they ascribe those words to scenarios. Who says that? You know me saying lit, which is not a thing I would say, but like, would is any different bad or worse than somebody else saying that was cool. And so who tells us what to do? I think the ether does. Do. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, the more things that people agree with then we say, well, that's the norm. That's

Jordon 54:43
kind of the connectivity that I seek when I'm in my psychedelic state.

Scott Benner 54:47
Yeah, and I'm going to tell you that I don't think there's any such thing as normal. I think there's just what more people are comfortable doing, which I guess means normal, but it doesn't make it abnormal. If you're not. Doing those things for sure. In my opinion, just because you're not following the crowd doesn't make you a criminal or or abnormal or something

Jordon 55:08
like that. Yeah, and a lot of people who didn't follow the crowd are the ones who changed the course of the world forever. Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:15
listen, it's up to you, right? Do what you're gonna do. Maybe you'll invent a mouse, although that's been done already, Jordan, so we're gonna need you to do you to do something else. If you know, you imagine, you imagine, if you wake up one day and you're just like, I've got it. You designed something we already have. And you're like, I figured it out. What do you do for a living? You said you're in a car a lot.

Jordon 55:34
Well, I work in theater. I work in live entertainment and theater, in a professional theater, okay, I'm a production manager, so I'm more administrative, but I do a lot of stuff. Okay,

Scott Benner 55:45
I wasn't sure if that was a side gig or if that was your actual work. So, okay, awesome. So, I mean, I assume that, like, this kind of, like, looseness is valuable in your job.

Jordon 55:57
Absolutely, absolutely, there's not many tight asses who do very well in this field. You're

Scott Benner 56:04
telling me, it's possible there was some weed in the room when they somebody said one day, like, I think we could turn Lion King into a stage play.

Jordon 56:10
Absolutely without a doubt. That

Scott Benner 56:14
makes sense to me. How do you manage your diabetes? You still use an injections? Or do you have a pump? Or what do you do?

Jordon 56:19
Yeah, I was on MDI for my first year and a half, or, you know, year and couple months, and I just upgraded to the tandem Moby about, oh, wow, uh, six weeks ago. How are you finding it? I love it. I absolutely love it. It was another one of those experiences where I put it on and I was like, whoa. This is a new a new part. This is a new me. This is, it was very, very overwhelming, but I love it so much. What has it brought to you? It has brought me the freedom to eat, more intuitively, without having to give myself injections. I was I understood diabetes. I like to say, I think I understood it very quickly, thanks to a lot of the amazing resources, like the Juicebox Podcast that are out there, and I got my a 1c under control very quickly, and I did very well. MDI, and I was kind of hesitant to actually move on to a pump, because I was very comfortable in my new setting, but I found I was able to replicate my numbers within the first two weeks. So it was absolutely amazing. How's

Scott Benner 57:22
your standard deviation? Like, where do you what's the range you shoot for? Under 30? Your standard deviation is under 30. That's what

Jordon 57:29
I shoot for. I think, right? I mean, I'm actually experiencing my first bout of potentially battling an illness, and all of my numbers right now, my basal rate is usually, like, around point six, 5.7 right now, it's two, and I'm holding steady so

Scott Benner 57:44
but wow, look at you being able to pivot like that. What gave you the courage to go from point six five to two?

Jordon 57:50
Because I was looking at my tandem source reports, and I noticed that while my basal insulin was like 15 units a day, my Bolus insulin was like 40. So I go, This isn't right. I'm Bolus saying to correct for the incorrect basal. So I just yoked it up. I was like, either I'm gonna go low and have to treat it, or this is exactly what I need. And it happened to be exactly

Scott Benner 58:16
what I needed. And you think this is during an illness that

Jordon 58:19
I went up to the mountains, to high altitude. I think I'm dealing with some allergies. I was kind of dealing with some sinus pressure. I'm feeling a lot better today, but there were three days where my insulin needs i i average like 3025, 30 units of insulin a day at this point, but I was averaging 55 to 60 over the last three days. So okay, but yeah, I pulled up. My standard deviation is over the last 90 days, is 34

Scott Benner 58:46
and this is in a very short time you haven't had a pump for long. Is that right? Correct? Wow. I think, generally speaking, elevation seems to make people more insulin sensitive. So probably not wrong for you to assume you're, you're battling some sort of an illness. It just needed some more insulin, and you'll just pivot back when that, when that need goes away, absolutely. Hey, look at you, man. Good for you. That's That's awesome. What was your last day? 1c, if you don't mind, yeah,

Jordon 59:13
I just got it a couple weeks ago. Is a 6.2

Scott Benner 59:16
No. Good for you. Look at you. You're doing terrific. That's awesome. What is diabetes education look like for an adult in your area, like, what were you told and how much was was from them, and how much did you have to figure out

Jordon 59:29
on your own? By the time I got my second confirmed high, A, 1c, I was, I was, I already knew I was diabetic at that point, I didn't need the antibodies tests to prove it, even though they came later. So I just started soaking in all of the information I could before I even met any doctor to talk about diabetes. I read the whole book, Think like a pancreas, cover to cover. I took notes. I figured out my own ratios prior to getting insulin given to me. So I would say the education. Patient was rather piss poor, and brunt of it was done through myself.

Scott Benner 1:00:04
Okay, how did you find the podcast then? I

Jordon 1:00:07
can't quite remember, but during the first few days of acceptance, I was wildly searching through Facebook, through Google, through anything that had to do with type one diabetes, and I think I kept seeing this pop Juicebox pop up and think like a pancreas pop up. So those were my first two resources that I went to. They turned out to be pretty supreme,

Scott Benner 1:00:33
excellent. I'm glad they were helpful for

Jordon 1:00:34
you. What actually got me into your podcast was, well, I went to Tik Tok, first and foremost, to kind of figure out what was going on, because I also had these chronic hives all my life. Get this, I've had chronic hives all my life, all my life, since I was a kid, since I was a child, since being on insulin, I have not had one flare up.

Scott Benner 1:00:54
Hmm, interesting. Do you have your thyroid check? Too perfect. Thyroids

Jordon 1:00:58
like right in the middle on the you know,

Scott Benner 1:01:01
tell me your TSH, do you know it?

Jordon 1:01:03
I think I have my test results right here. Let's see I did, but it logged me out of my health portal here. But I did make sure I didn't get them checked at first, but the second time I, you know, my first indo follow up six months after diagnosis, I made sure that they checked my thyroids, because I hear it all the time on this podcast, good,

Scott Benner 1:01:21
good, good. Do you have any indicators for hypothyroidism, like low energy, digestive issues, skin, hair, nails, like hair falling out, dry skin? I did, but

Jordon 1:01:34
I think I could connect a lot of that stuff to to the diabetes, the high blood sugar, yeah, but my, TSH, I got it checked in March this year. It was a one.

Scott Benner 1:01:44
Oh, man, look at you. Oh, good. That's awesome. Yeah, that's beautiful. So you had a lot of symptoms that could have been a number of different things, but taking the insulin, getting yourself under control, all that stuff went away. Everything went

Jordon 1:01:57
away. I mean, I cannot begin to tell you how good I feel. I felt, I feel better than I've ever felt in my entire life. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:02:04
that's excellent, man. I'm happy for you. That's what. That's really awesome. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to because I went by your list, but I don't know if you even knew what the list was.

Jordon 1:02:12
Yeah, I have no idea what the list was. But, I mean, I think we pretty much talked about, talked about everything. Can

Scott Benner 1:02:19
I ask? Is there any auto immune on your wife in your wife's family, because a lot of that stuff can run around in Ireland,

Jordon 1:02:25
yeah, her mom has, oh, gosh, I know what it is. I just can't think of it. Where you have the rat, the rash, psoriasis,

Scott Benner 1:02:33
okay, is that auto immune? I believe it is. Yeah. And

Jordon 1:02:37
I think she has arthritis as well, some some form of arthritis. But

Scott Benner 1:02:41
okay, do you guys talk about having kids prior

Jordon 1:02:44
to my diagnosis, prior to the pandemic, I had already taken care of that, and we decided long ago we will not have kids.

Scott Benner 1:02:51
And this, you took it. How'd you take care of it? What'd you do?

Jordon 1:02:56
I went to doctor snips a lot.

Scott Benner 1:03:00
Wow. So you guys got together and said, no kids, and we're gonna make sure it doesn't happen. I mean, absolutely I want to say, I don't I don't care. Like, you understand sound like it's not a judgment, but I'm interested to know, like, what made you say, I don't want to have children and and how the hell did you find a girl who agreed with you first?

Jordon 1:03:19
Like, I'm a very progressive person. Scott, if you have maybe assume that, but I it's really not my

Scott Benner 1:03:26
choice. You know, the lady said she didn't want to do it. Yeah, if

Jordon 1:03:30
she didn't want to have a kid, then it was definitely her prerogative to not have a kid. I was not convinced one way or the other, that being a parent was a good idea or a bad idea, but our lifestyles were not really conducive to bringing in a child. I work in theater entertainment. We haven't lived in the same actually, we live here in this city for three years now, and that's the longest we've spent in one city in the last 10 years, really. So just our lifestyles really weren't conducive, and we're just not really fans of the state of the world. It's a little too chaotic and a little too polarized to bring a child into it.

Scott Benner 1:04:05
Okay? You've got that vibe, and you're just like, um, we're not going to do this thing, yep.

Jordon 1:04:09
So now we got to figure out what we're going to create, you know, as a couple throughout our journey. But it's definitely not going to be a child.

Scott Benner 1:04:17
Okay, what do you think it'll be? This is interesting. What could it possibly be that's

Jordon 1:04:21
what we're struggling to figure out, that's what we're that's what we're working to figure out. And that's, you know, some in a way, that's kind of what the medicine is, kind of helping us figure out as well. Okay,

Scott Benner 1:04:32
I see. So you're doing a little some people say it's like little trolls or l like, Have you ever seen a troll? Have you ever done that one? Yeah,

Jordon 1:04:39
let's take it back. So good. I did my largest mushroom journey, leading right the week before my diagnosis. And during that journey was the first time I was ever approached by actual, like physical entities, like I saw gods, we'll call them, or spirits or deities, I don't even know, but the first one was like a VERY END. Angelic figure, and my wife tells me about this journey, and she says that I was laying on the floor, I was curled in the fetal position, probably in DKA already, in this incredible Ego Death journey that I'm in. But I met this first God, and he told me that everything was going to be okay. He's like, just like, it's okay, calm down. You are fine. You are well, taken care of. That was interrupted by a second spirit. We'll call this one a spirit, because he was showing me how he was in charge of creating all of the sounds of the universe. And he was kind of orchestrating, like the birds chirping and harmony and all of these beautiful, beautiful just overwhelmed with these beautiful sounds. And then finally, I was interrupted by this last guy who is, like, a little more shadowy, you know, film noir esque kind of guy, and said that it's I'd still be able to eat all the chocolate I wanted to. So these are the three people that I met and taking that and looking at it through the lens of a now newly diagnosed type one diabetic. I took those lessons. The first one being I could still do whatever I want. Absolutely, diabetes is not going to stop me from doing anything. In fact, it's only going to lead to me being able to do more. I think. Secondly, the noises, I think that was just, you know, part of the journey. But the third one telling me I was still allowed to eat chocolate, and then, you know, hearing podcast or hearing other influencers who are just talking about managing your insulin levels and still being able to eat intuitively. And they were all just really important lessons that I have still held on to. Here I am talking about a year and a half later. I still think about it, and I still hold on to those things, because I honestly think I was, like, a couple days away from dying, like, in all honesty,

Scott Benner 1:06:49
I mean, you could have been it certainly. I mean, it was a long time, and a high blood sugar and a significant, you know, a 1c and it wasn't touching you, meaning, like, it wasn't like, I mean, you're losing your legs, but if you would have just kept pushing through it, you could have went over. There's no doubt it could have happened that way. Yeah, so

Jordon 1:07:07
you know, and you ask, is there a difference between the journeys prior to diagnosis and post diagnosis? Well, I didn't meet people like this. I didn't meet gods. I didn't meet, you know, other figures, they were more just like you're in this world, figure out what the lessons are. This was like, cut, dry, plain, simple, like they were telling me, hey dude, there's something going on. But they weren't being negative about it. They were giving me permission to keep going. It's an

Scott Benner 1:07:33
interesting perspective. It really is. I think we should probably end on the fact that you and I have a lot of similar tattoos. Oh my gosh, that's right, yes, yeah. How old are you? I'm 37 now. Okay, you're 37 I'm 53 but do you on someplace on your body? Have Calvin and Hobbs? Calvin being space man spiff, yes, I absolutely do. I do too. Do you have the time machine? I don't have the time machine I got you there. Do you have Stupendous Man? I do have Stupendous Man. All right, I have that. Do you have Calvin as a giant when he's doing his homework? No, I have that one. And I have the cover of the, I think, probably the most famous book, which now I'm gonna like struggle for the name of, but where he or Calvin and Hobbs look very devious on the front of it. Oh yeah, next to each other. I have those as well, but yours are in black and white. Yours are cool. Mine

Jordon 1:08:27
are all black and white. And I actually want to do one more Calvin and Hobbs themes tattoo. And you know, the drawing of Calvin and Hobbes speeding down the hill in a wagon? Yeah, of course. Yeah. I want to replace the wagon with a unicorn, and I want to have Calvin and Hobbes riding a unicorn over my back as my kind of respect to type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:08:47
Listen, if you get that, I want to say it, I'm reaching out

Jordon 1:08:51
to tattoo artists, and no one responds back. I'm like, I think I'm going to have to figure out someone to draw this for me before I go to them, but I'm definitely going to do it. I

Scott Benner 1:09:00
have to tell you, I'm looking at mine right now. Tattoos are crazy. Like, in my first one that I've gotta probably got when I was, like, 20, there's no color left in Hobbes at all. He is basically just black and white, though all the orange is gone, although, like, the white in his belly is gone, like it's still some color in the bushes and Calvin's hair and a little bit of red in his shirt. But I stay alive long enough, this is going to be black and white too, I guess. Yep, that's interesting the first

Jordon 1:09:28
So, speaking of illegal things in Dubai, tattooing is also illegal. But for my birthday one year, my wife found a Russian tattoo guy who tattoos out of his house, like we walked into his house and went into his, you know, where the breakfast nook would be, and it's a tattoo studio. And in the living room, his child, like six year old child's playing Mario Kart, and I'm sitting back there getting tattooed by some dude with, you know, all this Russia propaganda around his house. And, you know, I'm he's tattooing cat. Alvin and Hobbs. He'd never heard of him. He's like, Oh, this is funny tattoo.

Scott Benner 1:10:04
You're like, whatever. Jordan, you're something, man, that's awesome. I'm just, I'm looking now I might have to have this thing recolored like you're talking. I'm like, maybe I should do something with this is the guy that did these. Is still my guy? Still alive, still kicking?

Jordon 1:10:19
Is he still tattooing? Yeah, he is, all right. When'd you get

Scott Benner 1:10:24
yours? I got my first tattoo, which is the Calvin and Hobbes on the side of my leg. I think I was 20, which would make that that tattoo is older than me, 33 years ago, the first one. Okay, yeah, let me give my guy a shout out here. Hold a second. I've never done that before. I don't know if he still calls it what he calls it, let me say if he's changed the name of the place or not. I'll look real quick. Tattoo Odyssey, yeah, he's on Castor Avenue in Philadelphia. Get a guy's name. Guy's name is Gill. I wonder how old he was when he did that. He's still there. That's awesome. Yeah, Gill's tattoo Odyssey, if you're, if you're in the Philly area, you want to check it out. I would imagine there's a picture of my leg in a book somewhere up on a wall, or something like that.

Jordon 1:11:08
Oh, and I know you wanted to close on the tattoo, but I there. So I most I just recently posted a like, I don't know, commentary on one of your podcasts that you did where the nurse gave that poor girl 150 units of insulin, and I posted it on tick tock. And I tried to get a lot, tried to get people to go to Juicebox, but Jesus Christ, it must have hit the algorithm in a weird way, and these nurses just went wild on this post. It kind of went a little viral.

Scott Benner 1:11:39
What happened there? Because I saw that, and I appreciate by the way, Jordan, God, love you. I appreciate it. In your first video, you never say the words juice box podcast, you say diabetes podcast. Broke my heart, but

Jordon 1:11:50
I did tag you in the comments, though I know broke my heart. I'm sorry.

Scott Benner 1:11:57
I said to somebody. I was like, hey, something with Juicebox finally went viral, but he didn't mention the name,

Jordon 1:12:02
oh yeah. I figured type one diabetes would be a much more like, Oh

Scott Benner 1:12:08
no, you did that. Listen, I'm not busting your balls like it was just fun. It was funny from my side. I was like, oh, somebody finally blew something up with with a story from the podcast in it, but he never said Juicebox in the audio. But man, that thing got you a couple 100,000 views, right? I think

Jordon 1:12:22
it's like, 400,000 get this. They give you metrics, and like, people have spent 4000 hours of real time watching that video. Isn't that crazy, it's wild. And just the amount of nurses who are coming in and validating that experience, like, oh yeah, this happened. And it's like, Oh, my God. So

Scott Benner 1:12:41
you're getting a lot of nurses that come in and go, you we don't know what we're doing. Is that what's happening,

Jordon 1:12:46
pretty much, is how it happened. Yeah? Great. That's uplifting.

Scott Benner 1:12:50
Yeah, no, I appreciate listen, I first of all, it's very nice of you to, you know, mention the podcast at all on your channel. I appreciate that, right? Probably tagged

Jordon 1:12:58
you in like 50 comments that day. So sorry about that.

Scott Benner 1:13:03
No, no, don't be sorry. It was, it was, it was awesome, like I popped on and I was like, oh, what's happening here? We can tell people, what are you you're at. Kiss me. I'm Irish.

Jordon 1:13:11
Kiss me. Hi, rish. Oh, my, oh, that's

Scott Benner 1:13:15
my B without my glasses. Kiss me. I'm H, I G, H, rich, alright, yes. H, Joe, Mo, t1, day

Jordon 1:13:23
high, like, uh, hyper, glycemic, yeah. What made you start with the tick tock? Well, I was doing tick tock before, and I don't have a big following. It's kind of just therapeutic, like, just like a, like a video diary of my life through the years. Yeah? But I did go to Tik Tok when I was figuring out what was wrong with me, and it was the first time that I felt a sense of community on that app. And since then, I've dedicated my whole entire account to type one diabetes awareness, especially adult diabetes awareness, especially dudes with diabetes as adults? Yeah, I just don't think there's enough out there.

Scott Benner 1:14:04
And you're positive on it too. I like that. I've seen some people try to do the thing where you you sort of take whatever trend on tick tock is, you know, and try to adapt it to diabetes. Or, you know, do the complaining thing, where you jump on and you bitch about somebody to try to get the number up or something like that. But you're just really positive. It's excellent. Yeah.

Jordon 1:14:22
I mean, as weird as it sounds, I have such profound respect for type one diabetes as a disease that I struggled with understanding how serious it was. And I think a lot of men, especially with the egos that we walk around with, don't really pay it the respect, it's it deserves. Like diabetes saved my life. Diabetes gave me another chance at life. If I were not type one diabetic, I would not be here anymore. That person is gone, right? So it is a positive thing in my life. It's an annoying little thing, like, I wish I could have positivity without it, but it is. It's something that saved my life. So

Scott Benner 1:15:00
Well, I'm glad you're feeling better and you're putting your effort out there the way you are. I appreciate it. Should I call this episode ego death? What should I call it? You

Jordon 1:15:07
could call it ego death. You could call it whatever you want. Your names are rather Great. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:15:14
I appreciate that. All right, man. I thank you for your time very much, and if you hold on for a second, I'll tell you a couple things when we're done, but I really do appreciate this. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:23
Cool. Thanks. Yep,

Scott Benner 1:15:32
the podcast episode that you just enjoyed was sponsored by ever since CGM. They make the ever since 365 that thing lasts a whole year. One insertion every year. Come on. You probably feel like I'm messing with you, but I'm not. Ever since cgm.com/juicebox thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode. We've been talking about Medtronic mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night, whether it's their meal detection technology or the Medtronic extended infusion set, it all comes together to simplify life with diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card if you or a loved one, was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective. The Bold beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start that series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player, or you can go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com you.

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