#1487 Braving the New World
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Pam was diagnosed with T1D as an adult. Adventures in travel and retirement.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.
Today I'm talking to Pam. She wrote a book about traveling with type one diabetes. She was diagnosed with type one later in life, she's retired now. Awesome conversation. Really enjoyed it. You're gonna love it too. That's why we called the podcast what we did today. It's the title of her book. That's just a hint, in case you want to go look for it. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. I know this is going to sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free virtual type one diabetes clinical care, education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa or Louisiana, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you. Blue circle health.org, you know why they had to buy an ad. No one believes it's free. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juice, box. This episode is sponsored by the tandem Moby system, which is powered by tandems newest algorithm control iq plus technology. Tandem mobi has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox
Pam 2:19
My name is Pam Saylor, I've been a type one diabetic for 12 years, and I was diagnosed when as an adult, when I was 52
Scott Benner 2:29
years old. Wow, you're 64
Pam 2:31
I am almost 64 next month. Yeah,
Scott Benner 2:35
I'm also almost 54 and I know exactly what you mean. You just asked me something before we started to record, and I said, Oh, let me, let me hit record first, and then then you can ask. So ask your question again. I
Pam 2:45
said, if I go down some verbal cul de sac, can you clip it out? You do edits, right? What is your concern? Because sometimes I'll go off on a tangent, and then I reel myself in and go, What was the question? Kind of like I did just now. I want to know if you have editing capabilities. All
Scott Benner 3:03
right, so there's an editor, but reasonably speaking, we don't cut content. Oh, we like cul de sacs. We cut, I don't know if you say something horrifying, we might take that out. I don't know. We probably leave that in. So okay, the editor really does is he kind of takes air out of the conversation a little bit. So if there's like, if there's a super long pause, you won't appear to pause that long. Okay, if you um or click your tongue or something like that, that'll come out. Okay. Other than that, though, we don't really edit things so, but I've been doing this a while. I don't think we're gonna get into that trouble. Yeah.
Pam 3:39
How long have you been doing this since your daughter was tiny, and now she's in college. So
Scott Benner 3:43
I started writing a blog when my daughter had been diagnosed for a year. So that was she was born in 2004 she got diabetes in 2006 I started writing the blog in January, 27 2007 Wow. Then in 2013 I wrote a book about being a stay at home dad. Right while I was out pushing the book, I met Katie Couric. I did her television show. While we were walking off stage, she stopped me to tell me that I was very good at talking to people,
Pam 4:20
and the podcast host was born,
Scott Benner 4:23
well, not for maybe two more years. I think I launched the podcast january 2015, and what happened was, is that blogging just kind of got passe. It was going by the wayside, like people just weren't reading long form blogs anymore, and I was helping people like I was genuinely helping people with diabetes. I knew I was, and they would tell me that I was, and I thought, am I really just gonna, like, let this all go? Is it just gonna disappear? People are gonna stop reading and then all the good that this is done, it's just over. And then, I swear to you, I thought, Okay. Katie Kirk said I was good at talking to people. I started what ended up being pretty much the first diabetes podcast that stuck. So there was, like, some blog talk radio shows before that, but I don't think a podcast. What
Pam 5:12
I found out I volunteer for my Hoa, and I'm the president, so I have to run meetings, and at first that really terrified me a lot. Standing in front of 30 people answering questions, and you never know what the questions are going to be, that was pretty terrifying. But after doing it two or three times, I realized it really was not that difficult, and you could pretty much answer any question or just say, I don't know, and I'll get back to you later. So I think the more you try new things, the easier it gets to do it. I
Scott Benner 5:47
agree. I also think that some people are suited for it and some people aren't. Yeah, that's probably
Pam 5:52
true. My husband is not a talker, so it would it would be harder for him. I'm a talker.
Scott Benner 5:57
I've had people on who aren't naturally chatty, and they do fine, but you have to lead them through it a little bit. I on purpose have people on the podcast that aren't media savvy or don't find themselves doing stuff like this all the time, because I think it leads to more honest conversations. Yeah, interesting, yeah. So the way you have to get on this podcast is such a slog that my assumption is when I turn the microphone on, on your recording time, if you're there, you really want to do this, right? You know that really is kind of how it gets set up. But anyway, Katie Kirk, lovely woman. She's the whole reason I thought to do this. I also loved podcasts back then. I listened religiously to Kevin Smith's podcast called smod cast, and I grew up listening to Howard Stern. So I'm very much like talk radio, and I like listening to people talk to each
Pam 6:51
other. I'm a recent convert to podcasts. We sometimes go on road trips, and if you're in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, sorry, I love Kansas, you have to have something recorded, downloaded, ready to go, or else you lose all signals. So we sometimes listen to hours of podcasts on the road.
Scott Benner 7:08
Yeah, I do the same, not my podcast, but I listen to other people's still. I really do enjoy listening to people interact. I also like once you get to know them, a little bit that feeling you know that ridiculous feeling you have that you know them. I think the
Pam 7:23
most important thing is the voice, because there are some people on a podcast and their voice will just grate, or it puts me to sleep. It's such a smooth, low, deep voice. It pretty soon I'm nodding off
Scott Benner 7:37
a little too old time radio or a little too local news is that what you don't yeah,
Pam 7:44
a good voice will get me hooked almost no matter what the content is.
Scott Benner 7:48
I'm most put off by the that ability to make a high pitched excited comment about the most banal thing, like, you know,
Pam 7:58
yeah, exclamations everywhere in the podcast. We're at the
Scott Benner 8:01
corner of fifth and eighth. Somebody's built a snowman. Oh, my God, Katie, look. Does everyone see? That's why everyone loves Philadelphia. There's snow. Like, just shut up. No one thinks that. You don't think that. Stop trying to make something out of nothing, you know, just talk like a person. But anyway, let's find out a little bit about your diagnosis. So what were your first inklings that something was happening? My
Pam 8:25
first inkling that I had type one diabetes was on a post it note, really, yes, it was my birthday. Coincidentally, I had just turned 52 my husband and I had been on a trip somewhere, and we got back in town, had a stack of mail, and I had a letter of envelope from my doctor, and I had been to see her in December for routine checkup. So I opened this letter from my doctor, and it was the lab results. Right on top was a big yellow post it note, and handwritten on that post it note, it said patient has type one diabetes. Call office for follow up. I wish I had saved that post it note. I didn't save it. I, of course, flipped out. I didn't know what. I had no inkling. I had no to my mind, no symptoms. My daughter was a nurse, so I called her and and went through the test results with her, and she told me later that she knew right away that I had type one diabetes based on the test results, but she didn't want to spin me out further when I couldn't call my doctor for till the next day. So she just was reassuring. So called the doctor, went through more testing, and sure enough, I was type one diabetes.
Scott Benner 9:40
That sucks. Do you use post it notes still, or have you stopped
Pam 9:44
still? Do I have? I have not been traumatized by post it notes. Look
Scott Benner 9:47
at you. Persevering. That's awesome. I mean, initial thoughts. Do you think, Oh, that makes sense. My uncle has it. Or that doesn't make any sense. I don't know anybody with diabetes. Well, my
Pam 9:57
maternal grandmother had diabetes. Eats. And when I was a kid, I saw her give herself shots with needles that to me, looked gigantic. No one ever explained that to me or what she was doing or why. But as an adult, I came to understand that she had type one diabetes, but no one else in my family did. On either side of my family, and I had gone 52 years with no health problems. Basically, I rarely even caught a cold, really. So in hindsight, the weeks leading up to my diagnosis, my vision was really, really, really blurry, but I just thought maybe it was time for new glasses, or I needed eye drops, or I had zero inkling that this was in my future. You
Scott Benner 10:42
know, it's funny, I didn't get sick a lot growing up, either. And with the exception of autoimmun issues, Arden doesn't get sick very often. And, like, you know, it's funny, there must be such a fine line in there between, like, you have a supercharged immune system and you have a way to supercharged immune system. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I hear people say that a lot like, I don't get sick very often, but I have diabetes and I have Hashimotos, and I like that kind of thing. Interesting. I don't know if I'm reading too far into it, but your relation that had it, was it type two or type one? This episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump an algorithm, the tandem Moby system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus, which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, the this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control iq plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head. Now to my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, to check out your benefits and get started today, you can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes, the Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends. And the app will also provide you with a projected a, 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juice box. When you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juice box. Head over there. Now
Pam 13:20
it was type one. It was my maternal my mother's mother. It was type one because she gave herself shots. That's what I'm assuming. No one ever really explained it to me long
Scott Benner 13:30
ago. Yeah, when you look back at extended family now, like your father's side, your mother's side, is there any like celiac or arthritis or thyroid or any other autoimmune stuff?
Pam 13:41
No, I have a hypothyroidism, low thyroid. I've had it for about 30 years. Both my daughters are hypothyroid. As far as I know. No one else in my family has any autoimmune disease at all. No other low thyroid, no no problems in that area at all.
Scott Benner 13:59
Have you ever had the thyroids check to see if they're Hashimotos, which would indicate auto I
Pam 14:03
have not, and I don't really understand the difference. Well, one's
Scott Benner 14:07
autoimmune and one's not. So, oh, okay, yeah. So no,
Pam 14:11
I've never had testing for that. Interesting.
Scott Benner 14:13
Your daughters freak out when you got diabetes. They start doing the math, or they like, I'll be 52 one day. My
Pam 14:19
oldest daughter did freak out, in fact, when I sent her a text or email telling her probably kind of frantically like, Oh, this is so awful. This just happened. She didn't reply to me for weeks, and later, I we were talking about that time, and she said because she was so freaked out that I had type one diabetes, that she was afraid she would get it, and so she just couldn't, couldn't reply to my to my email. That's
Scott Benner 14:47
something, and you guys did eventually talk about it. Yeah, yeah, we eventually talked about it. Can I ask what you thought when you didn't get a reply? Was that common?
Pam 14:55
I think that was about par for the course in our relationship. But it's always been a little bit strained, and so, you know, I didn't know what was going on, but I thought, well, she'll get back to me when she gets back. You
Scott Benner 15:07
don't have to tell me about your whole life unless you want to. No no, no. But that's part i i was not terribly surprised, okay? Because, I mean, I think I would just be very upset, like, if I said, Hey, I've got a really important question about where to go on vacation, and they didn't get back to me. They didn't get back to me like motherfuckers. What is wrong with them? If you had a situation like that, then I understand.
Pam 15:30
I mean, I was in denial for quite a while. I was angry for a while. I was in denial for a while. I ate, well, I ate healthy. I didn't drink soda. I don't have a sweet tooth. I not overweight. I'm all the cliches about diabetes that you can think of thinking this, this can't be me, this can't be true, right? So eventually you get past that, when you realize it really is true, and so you just start to deal with
Scott Benner 15:56
it. And Pam, you don't smoke. I did, but I quit
Pam 15:59
15 years ago. I was gonna
Scott Benner 16:01
say in the 80s or 90s? Yeah, yeah. I mean, everybody smoked, yeah, when you were younger, right? Pretty much. My mother did. My father did, yeah. I mean, everybody smoked when I was a kid, and nowadays. I mean, the truth is, you smell a cigarette outside now you're like, what that's it strikes you as odd. You know, I know you realize how gross it is. I don't know about where you live, but I'm less shocked when I smell weed than when I smell a cigarette at this point. Oh, I know that's
Pam 16:27
really true. Yeah, when I'm in Colorado. So that's really true for me.
Scott Benner 16:33
You float around in Colorado, I imagine. Well, that's an interesting one. You're 64 it's legal, almost. Did you try it?
Pam 16:41
Yes, yes. We do, from time to time, do edibles rather than smoking it, because I don't like to smoke it. It's too harsh. Yeah.
Scott Benner 16:48
Do you use it for recreation or for a purpose? You know, it's
Pam 16:53
just three or four times a year we get out the edibles, put on a movie that we think is going to be good, and just relax. It's more relaxing thing. Nice.
Scott Benner 17:03
Oh, that's awesome. Good for you. Why did you want to come on the podcast? First
Pam 17:07
of all, you don't have a lot of adults on your show, and I wanted to be the adult in the room saying, for anyone like me who is shocked by this diagnosis, you've had your whole you've lived a chunk of your life, and now you think your life is going to have to change. And that was one of the things I was determined. When I got my diagnosis, I wanted to keep keep my life. I wanted to keep skiing. I wanted to keep active. I wanted to keep traveling. I love traveling, and so I don't think there's a whole ton of stuff out there to help type one diabetes or people with any chronic disease. How do you travel for three months? How do you travel for a long period of time? We all know on a short trip, you pack your little suitcase with a pile of supplies and you're good to go. But if you're going to travel for a month or two months or a year, like my husband and I did when we went to Europe, I wanted people to know that's doable. So I wrote a book about how to do it. I learned as we traveled, and I just want to encourage people to keep their life and not let type one diabetes be something that makes you sit on the couch in fear or
Scott Benner 18:12
worry. Well, that's awesome. Had you ever written a book before? Or is that your first? No, that was my first book that says, what's it called?
Pam 18:18
It's called braving the world, adventures in travel and retirement. Oh,
Scott Benner 18:24
it's awesome. What made you think I could write a book? Because I've had, listen, I wrote a book and it's hard. Yeah, I'm gonna just say it's not, it's not a lot of fun. That's the first thing. And it's not like you don't do it for the money. And, you know, I mean, if you're famous, maybe you would write a book for money, or, you know, if you're getting paid off by, you know, because you've been in government, but if you're just a person writing a book, you're not going to make a bunch of money. It's incredibly hard to market them. Yes, the publisher, generally speaking, does not help you with the marketing very much, which is a thing people wouldn't know. Like, I got myself on the Katie Herrick show, and it's time consuming in a way that's hard to put into words, and you really get lost in it. How long did it take you to write it?
Pam 19:04
Oh, it took over a year. And we traveled to Europe for a year from 2017 to 2018 and then we got back, and we all know COVID was in 2020 and I'd already started the book when COVID happened, and really it was great, because I had nowhere to go. There was nothing I could do. So I could work on the book, and I started to pull it together and polish it. I took writing classes, which helped me a lot to polish the book so COVID. If COVID hadn't happened, I might not have had the discipline to sit down in my chair day after day and and put together this story, which I start at the beginning when we land in Rome and we finish up in Venice. So COVID is maybe the reason I wrote the book.
Scott Benner 19:54
Yeah, so you're writing and you realize I have to take a class if I'm going to do this. Well, I. Right?
Pam 20:00
I thought it helped a lot. It helped me figure out the plot and things to leave out, and how to to what things how to build drama, how to build, you know, interests the writing classes. There's a local writing group school here in Colorado, and I went to several classes there as I was writing, and that helped me polish up the book a lot.
Scott Benner 20:23
Did you have an editor? Did you do it all on your own? I did,
Pam 20:26
yes. I had a great editor, and she took out all of the duplicates, and when I went off on a tangent, she would call me down or correct the language. She was wonderful. She was great. I'm gonna
Scott Benner 20:39
ask a question, at the risk of sounding like a thumb, did someone approach you to write Did you write it and then sell it? Did you self publish it? How did you get it into the world?
Pam 20:49
I wrote it and then I self published it and I self promoted it. So I've been on another podcast. I've had reviews from different Oh, indies, it. My book has won a couple of awards, which I can't think of off the top of my head. That's funny. Independent publish, publisher, review awards. So it was well received, and it's for sale on Amazon, so it's out there. I've sold I don't know how many books, but it was a labor of love. It's got a lot of information about traveling. It's awesome.
Scott Benner 21:21
I'm looking at it right now. It's really awesome. I'm on your website. All right. Here's the link where I can buy it. This will get me to Amazon. Will it? Click here? Yes.
Pam 21:30
And there are pictures on my website of our travels, and I talk about the different things about traveling. Little blog posts about how to ski with diabetes. That was a learning curve.
Scott Benner 21:39
Tell me about that, because you were a skier your whole life. Yeah, I was a skier.
Pam 21:44
Well, starting in my 30s, I learned to ski and loved it. You know, when you're doing any sort of exercise and you have type one, you're never sure what to do with your settings, like, should I go into activity mode? Should I lower my insulin? Should I increase it? And it was always, it was always pretty tricky and but I didn't want to quit skiing. I didn't want to sit at home. There was a time period where no one skied, that was during COVID. So when I went back to skiing after that, it was a re learning curve. But it really helps to have the sensor, Dexcom sensor, the insulin pump help a lot.
Scott Benner 22:22
What did you find once you were diagnosed, as far as direction from from medical people? Did you find it to be valuable, or did you find that what they said left you more confused than when you started at the
Pam 22:35
time, we lived in Kansas City, when I was first diagnosed, and my doctor's office, my Endo. Well, first I got rid of my general physician and switched to a new doctor, because I think type one diabetes deserves more than a post it note. But then when I started going to an endocrinologist, they had a team, and they had a diabetes educator who really helped get me going, get me started. Of course, I was doing MDI at the time, she helped a lot, and the only really bad tip she gave me was she told me, If you're when you're ready to eat, don't take a dose. Don't take a shot until the food is in front of you. Oh, and of course, now we know you have to Bolus about 15 minutes or so ahead of time, but at the time, that's what I was doing, is waiting to see the food, try and calculate the carbs, and then I would take my shot, push
Scott Benner 23:27
the plunger, start eating right away, Yep, yeah. And you get high and stay high for a while and not know what was happening. And all that went
Pam 23:34
along. What took me I would say, Well, I've been 12 years, and the first five or six years were very difficult, because I'm organized type a person. So for the first five or six years, I was trying to control diabetes. I was trying to figure it out. I had lists, I had charts, I had graphs. I was trying to figure out why piece of toast on Monday would not affect my blood sugar, and the same piece of toast on Tuesday, and I would go high, and it drove me crazy, so I I'd try and track it, and I would try and keep track of what I ate, when I ate it, and I would take these charts and graphs to my doctor's office, and eventually she just looked at me and said, Do you really think you can control this disease? And I'm like, yes, yes, I do, but she she convinced me that's really not possible. And so for the last five or six years, I still want to figure things out and keep track of things, but I go with the flow a lot more. If I go high, I just try and and deal with the high. If I can look back and figure out why that's good, but if I can't figure out why that's fine too, it doesn't matter. I still have to deal with the high or the low. So I think I've been a lot calmer, a lot happier the last five or six years. I. People on Facebook pages, and they're still in the phase of trying to figure out every little thing, and maybe that's useful for them, but I I find it much more relaxing to let some of that control
Scott Benner 25:11
go. Where does this attitude lead you? For your A, 1c,
Pam 25:16
I'm usually about 6.0 or 6.10 it's awesome.
Scott Benner 25:19
That's really great. You might enjoy the Pro Tip series from the podcast.
Pam 25:23
Oh, I've listened to some of those. Yeah, bump and nudge has been a real really, has helped me out a lot.
Scott Benner 25:28
Oh, awesome. That's great. I like your attitude too. Like, you know, it's funny, because I think people could hear you talking right before I asked your a 1c and they'd be like, Oh, here it comes. This lady's got an eight and a half a 1c you're saying like you were making yourself crazy over the little things I was, yeah, there's no need for that, that's for sure. But I don't agree completely with the doctor that you can't figure out most of it, but I do take your point about the like, you know the Monday toast thing, where you're just like, well, Mun, m o n, what does that mean? But Day, Day is day. The sun's up during the day, this Sun's high in the sky. I'm high because day isn't like, I know. It's like, you know, you start doing that, but it's
Pam 26:05
like trying to read tea leaves. Sometimes you just don't know. And the bottom line is, you still have to take a shot or take a chug of soda or eat a piece of toast to bring it back up so you just have it's better to know how to deal with it. I
Scott Benner 26:23
have to tell you that the reason that I've boiled the idea of diabetes down at its core to timing an amount is because I think it applies to all the situations. You know, if your blood sugar is too high or too low or not, where you want it, you at some point use the wrong amount of insulin, or timed it incorrectly, or maybe a combination of those two things. So now, when you're thinking about it, it can be as easy as well. My blood sugar is high, but I used enough of a Pre Bolus that doesn't make sense, and I didn't get high till 45 minutes after I ate. And, oh, I didn't know that fat could make your blood sugar stay high, like, you know, like, right then, then you learn those things and apply them along the way. And before you know it, I find most people are doing great, but you're also doing awesome.
Pam 27:06
What I do quite often is I'll guesstimate carbs, oh yeah, and take a shot, and then when I go hide later, I'll actually look up the carbs, or I'll look at the box, and I'll go, oh yeah. That wasn't 20 carbs. That was 40 carbs. My
Scott Benner 27:20
daughter's college. I sent her a note yesterday that said, Did you eat a bag of sugar? And she goes, she goes, No. And I responded. I went two bags. She goes, I think I miscalculated. I was like, yeah. I mean, it feels like it to me too, but she got it under control. To your point, I didn't freak out, you know, it wasn't, it was a it was a shitty blood sugar. It went up like over 280 I mean, it really shot up. She just missed the mark completely. And then she gave herself more insulin and got it down without getting low. And you know, the whole process took three hours. But you know, she's not running around beating herself up about it. And I think that's where you're at.
Pam 27:58
I have to remind myself, though, pretty often, not to be reactive, because when I see that arrow going up, it's hard not to jump on your phone and go, insulin, insulin, insulin, yeah. So I have to, like, look at my watch and go, 15 minutes, wait 15 minutes, maybe an hour. I mean, to force myself to wait, because my instinct is that arrow, that up arrow, needs immediate attention. I
Scott Benner 28:24
don't 100% think you're wrong with that. You should listen to the rest of that Pro Tip series, but I know your idea of, like, oh, it just jumped up for a second. Then you go hitting it with a bunch of insulin that was too much. Like, that's obviously not what you want to do either. But if you didn't use enough insulin and it's flying up, you mean, you do need more. And I take your point that's a lot to figure out and and to try to get through. Especially, I think I don't want to say it like this, because I don't think of you as an older person, but like, because it came later in your life, is it a thing? I'm trying to decide if you're like, look, I really just got to make it like, you know, 30 years, you know what I mean. Do you ever think that way about it.
Pam 29:00
I'm encouraged by the fact that there are a lot of type ones out there that have been fighting this disease for decades. To me, I don't think it's going to limit my lifespan, but I am really grateful I did not get this disease as a child. I just feel so sorry for children who have to grow up this way. I'm glad I didn't have to. Yeah, when I see a little two year old, you know, in a photo who has a pod on their back, that's just, that's just sad, yeah, that's
Scott Benner 29:31
tough. It really is. I was just wondering if you were like, I think of myself as in the last third of my life. Like, I think of like, you know what I mean? Like, I think of life like, birth to mid 20s, then mid 20s like to, like, you know, when your kids leave for college, and then, like, you know, the rest, you know, I'm like everybody else I, you know, I overestimate myself and everything else. And I think like, oh, people lived till they're 85 Like, sure. Then I saw my mom in her 70s and her 80s, and I was like, Oh, this is not what I was picturing. I started to say to my wife, my mom passed a year or so ago, and I told my wife, I was like, I am going to treat the next 15 years as if they are my last 15 years. Now I'm not planning on just like shutting off at the end, but like, I'm gonna pack all the things that I thought I was gonna stretch over 30 years into 15, just in case, like, you know, just in case my hip stops working, or I get cancer, or something like that. I'm just gonna be a little more proactive about it. Because, you know, if you're if you're like me, like you. I got married, I had kids, I spend my time trying to make sure they're okay. And you feel like, well, you'll get to a spot where everything will be settled, and then you'll just like, coast. But I mean, doesn't sort of work that way. And you don't realize that till it's a little late.
Pam 30:51
I look at it like, I want to travel more. I want to travel a lot. And probably I figure I have 10 years where I can do that fairly easily, yeah, and then after that, lugging those suitcases around is going to be harder. So I'm like you. I the next 10 years. I want to travel more. I don't want to skip a year. I want to keep going, because I know after that, mid 70s, yeah, it's going to get harder to travel. Now, I know a lot of I have 75 year old friends who are active and busy and but I also have some that are, yeah, sitting on their couch and have breathing problems. You never know what you're going to get when you hit 70 or 75
Scott Benner 31:34
we make the biggest mistake of measuring ourselves against the luckiest people. You know what I mean, like nobody, because we want to be them. Yeah, right. Nobody says, like, you know, it's always it's funny, I said local news twice in this one. But like, you know that, you know, once a year there's just 100 year old woman on the news celebrating her birthday. She's smoking cigarettes, eating pound cake with another hand. And you're like, That's it right there. Like, I'll just live to 100 and smoke cigarettes. She look at it, but she's the one it happened to. It's almost like being upset with Lebron James, like he just got lucky. You know what I mean? Like, it's you don't you don't get to sit around and aspire to that. It just, it's ridiculous.
Pam 32:10
Yeah, cigarette in one hand, a glass of wine in the other hand. How did she do that
Scott Benner 32:14
on the news and she's cursing, and people are like, it's your birthday. She's like, leave me alone. She didn't even kidding. She and you're like, oh god, she's gonna live for 10 more years. But we look at that and we think, and we think, Oh, that's we all live that long. It doesn't work that way. So that's
Pam 32:26
what we think is going to happen. Now, secretly, I think my husband anticipates I will die before him because I have a chronic disease, and so sometimes he's
Scott Benner 32:36
holding on. He's like, I'm gonna get one year by myself. He by the way, you'd be miserable. But go ahead,
Pam 32:41
I joke about that, and it's like, oh, so are you gonna remarry? And he'll be like, No, yeah, definitely
Scott Benner 32:46
not doing that. We do that here. Everyone thinks I'm dying before my wife all the time, that every time it comes up, I think they're just trying to pick at me, but they're like, you'll die before mom. And I'm like, Oh my God. Like, is this how we're talking about this? Men usually do. I know, but I was a stay at home dad. I'm almost a lady. I should get some breaks somewhere along the line. You know what I mean? You know, I have a neighbor who's a decade or so older than me. They said to me recently, I don't want this to be about politics, but they said they were like, politics aside. I was like, yeah, they go, we're very excited for how well those Tesla cars seem to be driving themselves. Yeah? And I thought, well, that's a weird thing for an older person to be paying attention to. And then she said, because we think that might be our only way where we'll be able to travel one day, is if the cars can drive themselves, really? And I thought, Oh, wow, how about that? And these are very mobile people up doing things all the time, but they're closer Ubers
Pam 33:37
a lot when we travel. Uber is all over Europe. It's everywhere, and trains and busses, of course, but yeah, we when we go overseas, we never rent a car, we never drive. We use public transportation or Uber. Yeah,
Scott Benner 33:53
it struck me, because it's a it's a thought I've had before, like I've said to my wife, I hope they really figure out that self driving thing, because it's possible that we'll get to an age where, like, we'll just think, like, oh, the kids are only, you know, 40 miles from here, or, you know, but, or a day, you know, a couple of hours. But we can't do that. Like, imagine if, yeah, imagine if you could just get in a car and be like, Hey, here's the address. Let's go now. By then, you'll be old. You'll push the wrong button, you'll end up in Poughkeepsie. You know, you're like, what happened? But it's funny, because when she said it to me, my response was, Oh, my God. I've never heard anybody say that before. I've had that exact same thought, like, I hope they figure out this self driving thing, so when I get older, I can get around this
Pam 34:36
should be a poll. Like, how many people have ever thought that in their life? I bet you. I
Scott Benner 34:40
mean, if they're not paying attention. First of all, I've seen it work, like in videos and stuff, astonishing. Well, you know, I would imagine another couple of years, the way AI seems to be able to, like, learn and double itself and everything. Like, maybe you'll actually get there where your cars will just be like, hey, where do you want to go? So it's very possible. Yeah, I'm excited. And also. It really does make you feel like, like, maybe I could extend my just that mobility, a
Pam 35:05
little mobility and activity, and keep going. Yeah, just the
Scott Benner 35:09
thing you don't think about when you're younger. Hey, I wanted to ask you, this is gonna seem like a left turn, but did you get any bad reviews? How did you handle them on your book? Like one where you read it, you were like, oh god. Why did they hate me so much. No,
Pam 35:21
I didn't. I get them all the time,
Scott Benner 35:23
that's what I was wondering.
Pam 35:26
Well, you I have 50 or 60 reviews on Amazon. I think they're all pretty good. There might be a stinker in there, but I don't remember reading them. Maybe I skipped over them. Yeah,
Scott Benner 35:35
you're smart. I read mine when I wrote my book. Yeah, there's someone genuinely hated me. And they didn't just hate me. They hated words for existing so that I had access to them. They were very, very upset. It was tough, because my first, like, eight or nine professional reviews, because my publisher sent it out for professional review, first came back really strong, and then reader reviews started coming back really strong. And then I think I must have caught like, a like, Oh, this is just, obviously I wrote a book, and I'm great at it, and I don't think that. I don't think it's some awesome book or anything like that. But then one of the reviews came back and it, I mean, it was just like, it's not really what it said, but what it felt like it said is, I hate him. I hate words for existing so that he could use them. I hate his family for knowing him, the person really didn't like me, and it took me back.
Pam 36:25
Yeah, there are trolls out there. I had some of my friends BETA readers. I had some of my friends read the book before it went out. Yeah, and my friend's mother said that this was a bad review, but she said, this is a trite book that I don't see the point of, or something like
Scott Benner 36:45
that. That's exactly what I'm thinking about. Want
Pam 36:48
to share that with me, because she thought I'd be hurt, and I just thought, well, you know, you don't have to like it. That's fine. Thank you for your input.
Scott Benner 36:55
Not War and Peace. I didn't say it was I know. I think
Pam 36:59
it has a lot of valuable information. People who travel will want to know, but there you
Scott Benner 37:04
go. What I've learned is, is that a book is content just like, you know, just the digital world. We think about it differently now, but it's nothing's ever for anybody. I mean, there are, I promise you, Pam, there are people listening to you and I right now who hate me, and they're doing something called hate listening, which is the thing I cannot wrap my head around at all. But they just listen to see how right they are to not like me. That's awesome. By the way, their downloads count just the same. It just is what it is. What I've learned is, this is me. This is how I think about this. Here it is, you like it, that's great. If it helps you. That's awesome if you don't like it, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not really sorry, but like, you know, like a sorry, it couldn't be for you, but I don't know why you're still here. You know,
Pam 37:47
I was in a book club for 20 years, and every month, we'd meet once a month, and every time, half the people loved the book and half the people hated the book, and it was never the same people, and you would shift allegiances. And so I really understand that you're never going to get 100% of the people to like something you've done. I mean, if half of your book club hates Steinbeck and Hemingway, you're not going to get a rave review from everybody.
Scott Benner 38:14
Yeah, I interviewed a 24 year old girl yesterday, and I was stunned. I was like, you like this podcast. I was You must not understand any of my references. She goes, I don't understand most of them. She's young, yeah, yeah, right. She just doesn't Well, here, this will be funny. She mentioned how bad her doctor was, and I said, Any chance that doctor's name was Dr Bombay? See how you're laughing? Pam, because you've seen bewitched. And she was like, what now?
Pam 38:40
No, that's not his name. But when
Scott Benner 38:42
I pressed her, I was like, Why do you like this? And she's just like, I don't know. Just, I just, like, listening to you do this, I'm like, okay, great. So you can't, like, I would never target a 24 year old, recent grad and be like, you know, like, I think you're gonna love me, but she does. So who cares? Why? Yeah, I can't understand why. Like, I mean, if you're out asking people for their opinion, then you know they're going to give it to you, but I'm not asking you for your opinion. If you don't like it, just stop listening. There's so many things in the world I don't like. I've never once sought the personnel to tell them. But an odd thing, I
Pam 39:13
think maybe I've left one bad review in my life, and it was for a book that was really, really bad, and I hated reading it, and probably quit at page 30. Bad reviews take so much effort. Yes, I'm surprised people do it, but I think you write, there are a lot of haters out there. I can't
Scott Benner 39:30
wrap my head around it, like I don't understand listening to something I'm not enjoying. I don't have that kind of time first of all, but like something I'm not enjoying, there's one podcast I have to listen to for a professional reason, you know, I shouldn't say more, because 19 different people are gonna think I'm talking about them, and I'm not. I don't like one of the announcers, but the information so good. I just lived through it. And I've had people say that about me, by the way, which is, like, I hate that guy. I love what they talk about. So I'm like, hey, whatever. Right on. I'm doing my best over here. So let's talk a little bit about the process. Test like you decide to write the book, but are you writing it in hindsight from experiences you've already had, or do you go out have new experiences with the idea that you're writing a book before we
Pam 40:10
left? I kind of had the idea that I could write a book about this or that I might and so I kept a diary journal, and I took photos and I sent to keep in touch with family. I would send a group family email once a month. It kind of summarized what we had been doing. And those were really valuable when I went to write the book, because they were immediate sensations of what was happening that at the time. So when I came back, I had these notes and an idea, and I started writing. And as soon as you start writing, you start cutting. So it was like, add some, cut some, keep shaping it, I guess is the word, and taking classes along the way, which helped enormously, and send it out for people to read it and give comments, send it out to reviewers online to give comments and reviews. So it took at least a year, and like I say, COVID helped because there was not a lot else to do.
Scott Benner 41:14
Yeah, did you ever get feedback that you were just like, I know that's not right. I'm going to ignore it. Yes.
Pam 41:19
I mean, yeah, there were some things where I didn't want to include it in the book, because I thought it it wasn't part of the theme I wanted to develop. I was developing three themes. One was my husband and I had just retired. So what is it like to now be on top of each other? 24/7 traveling in a foreign country where neither one of you knows the language, if you don't have a good marriage, that could kill you right there in trouble. And then I wanted to talk about diabetes, how I could buy insulin in Italy and Croatia and London for around $50 and that's a month supply just walking into a pharmacy with a paper prescription, and it doesn't cost a fortune. I wanted to write about my experience with diabetes. And the other theme was just traveling in general, and how fun it was to travel and the things we got to see. Yeah, so if something was outside of my free themes, I didn't have to mention it. I could downplay it. I could shift it around. So, yeah, you have to shape it. That's
Scott Benner 42:23
awesome. So what was your finding like traveling? How did you manage the supplies needed for months and months of being away? We planned the
Pam 42:32
trip for about a year, and I started stockpiling supplies right away, and I did that by my doctor would write a prescription a little more than I needed each month, and I would go back every 30 days like clockwork and pick up the extra supplies. And I just kept doing that until I had probably a six month stockpile of insulin vials, pens, test strips, everything I needed, pods. So when we left the country for our year, I had my carry on. Suitcase was full of nothing but diabetes supplies, plus I had a beer cooler with ice in it where all my insulin was. So that got me out of the country. That got me going for about six months. When we got to Rome, the first place we went, I found out that I could go to the Vatican pharmacy with a paper prescription, and they would refill that prescription, and they took the prescription, scratched their heads, and came back with a box of pens. They don't have vials there, so I took the pens, I knew I could fill my pump with those, and that added to my stockpile. And our next stop was Croatia, and all I had to do there was take my paper prescription to the pharmacy, and they filled it again with pens. They didn't have vials, so I left with a stockpile. I added to my stockpile every chance I could, even though I hadn't run out of supplies yet. The only thing I couldn't get were my pods, because Omnipod doesn't mail the pods overseas. Okay, so I had them, mail the pods to my daughter in Colorado, she packaged them up, and by then, we're in Croatia, and she packaged them up, mailed them to me in Croatia, and the Croatian customs office would not deliver them to me. And I got a notice in Croatian, which I got help translating. And it basically said something about you cannot get medical devices in Croatia, they would not deliver it. They sent it back to Colorado. So I went back to MDI, because I was out of pods, flat out and MDI. Then we moved to London, and I had my daughter mail the shipment of pods again, this time disguised as books, and they made it through without problem. And so I went back to to the pods after a couple weeks of MDI,
Scott Benner 44:54
let me ask you a sneaky question. Did they know it was medical supplies? Because. She declared them as medical supplies, or did they
Pam 45:02
in Croatia, she called them medical supplies or devices, and somehow that set off alarm bells.
Scott Benner 45:08
Yeah, I would, I would have said, that's a brick in there. Just relax. I'm mailing bricks to people. Calm down. What do they say? It's easier to ask for, you know, the easier
Pam 45:17
to ask for forgiveness than permission, than
Scott Benner 45:19
permission. That's exactly right. Awesome. So Wow. So you just also, I'm going to assume it's the daughter who did respond immediately to your text about the diabetes, not the other
Pam 45:29
one. It's my daughter, yes, my daughter, the nurse who responded right away. You didn't put
Scott Benner 45:33
the other one in charge of sending it the diabetes supplies.
Pam 45:37
I did not so, but the problem with shifting, I didn't know at the time, when you go from MDI to a pod, it's really easy to overdose on insulin, because there's some residual, I guess, insulin in your system. So first day I've got my new pods, I pop one on my arm, oh yeah, we go out about our day, and get home later that night, and you know, I'm on the couch, my husband goes to the bedroom to read. He comes out an hour or so later, and I'm unconscious on the couch. He does a finger stick and I'm at like 20 or something. He gives me a shot of glucagon, which revives me enough that that we can go to a London emergency room. And waited seemed like forever. Got to see a doctor who didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what was going on. They sent us home, and I kept my insulin really low settings, and was afraid to go to sleep, but eventually went to sleep. And when I finally got back home and explained all this to my doctor, she said, Well, what you should have done, you have to set your pod settings for the first 24 to 48 hours of shifting back to a pod, you have to keep your numbers really low your settings. I didn't know that, and so I had this emergency room experience in London, which cost me nothing. I never got a bill for that. Awesome. And the next day, when we went, we went back to the hospital to refill the glucagon. They didn't charge me for that, because healthcare in Europe, for you know, a lot of people is really even tourists. It's not that expensive about that. Yeah.
Scott Benner 47:13
So basically, you were shooting your basal and then with active injected basal insulin, and you threw your pump on it, and it started running your basal profile to see a double basal. Double basal puts you out. What's your basal
Pam 47:26
rate? Well, I don't know what it was at the time. I don't know off the top of my head, what is it now? What is it now my basal rate? It
Scott Benner 47:32
shifts throughout the day. Are you an Omnipod five?
Pam 47:35
Oh, yeah, I'm an Omnipod five. Okay, and the Dexcom g6 Gotcha?
Scott Benner 47:39
Okay, yeah. I mean, that's great. What kind of injected basal were you using? Was it Nova log, I think at the time, not basal. Levere Lantis, oh. Levemere. Levere, how about that? And that's something we couldn't get levime to last to my daughter for 18 hours even. Well,
Pam 47:57
I was breaking it into two two doses. So I would do a morning and an evening dose. So I had done an evening dose next day, got up and put on a pod.
Scott Benner 48:06
So now that this has happened to you and you have hindsight, you look back and you go, Oh, that's so obvious. How did I miss that? Yeah, sucks. Well, at least your husband didn't do what I thought he was going to do, which is come out and see you unconscious and go, haha, I told you I was going to live longer. Yeah, actually helped you. It's
Pam 48:22
nice. He saved me. He
Scott Benner 48:24
didn't go. I told those suckers I wasn't going first. So weird that you talk about that when you get older, but you do, so get ready if you're getting older at some point, you start looking around. You go, you start joking about it, yeah. How's this gonna happen? Are we all going? We're not. I hope we all don't go at the same time. That'd be horrible. I you know, I don't want the kids to die before me, but I don't want to die, you know, you start doing all the it's terrible, yeah?
Pam 48:50
Anyway, although diabetes, I mean, this is kind of grim, so, yeah, but if you had some terminal disease, which our country doesn't really help you deal with very well. I think a large dose of insulin might be a solution to a long, slow, debilitating, grinding disease.
Scott Benner 49:12
That a thing you've thought about. I'm sorry, have you thought about that? Oh, I have, yeah, a lot of people do. They don't talk about it very often, but, but when you pick through with people and get deep enough with them, they will tell you that they've considered that idea if they should ever get into a bad situation, right? Yeah, sucks. I it all sucked. Listen. Pam, the whole thing is terrible. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not, I'm not gonna sugar coat it. Like, my daughter's doing really well, but there's just no doubt in my mind that if she didn't have diabetes, that a burden that would be lifted off of her would be immense.
Pam 49:44
Well, I'm talking about a chronic cancer diagnosis or or no,
Scott Benner 49:48
oh, I know. I'm just saying that that's not a thing. Like the Alzheimer's or the average person walking down the street doesn't think like, Oh, I hope I don't get Alzheimer's one day. But it doesn't matter, because if I do in my refrigerator, you know, like, that's not a thing. Most. People get to think about, I think,
Pam 50:01
once you have a chronic disease, you think about your health more. And you think about, Yeah, how's this going to end? More? Well, you definitely
Scott Benner 50:09
think about your health more, that's for sure. Is it maybe just the first time in your life, it's actually like the conversations come up in your head, like, I wonder how this ends?
Pam 50:18
Oh, yeah, because I, I've never really had anything. I've never had illnesses. I haven't been sick very much, even now I have diabetes and low thyroid, you know, cholesterol, so I don't have a big stack of pills I have to take every day.
Scott Benner 50:36
Yeah. So still doesn't seem that huge, too, or does it? It doesn't. It doesn't. Now also, you're a 1c you're probably healthier than most of the people walking the planet. So I think that's the thing that you can't it's hard to be excited about. But like, once type one says to you, you have to pay attention to your to yourself, and you do it, you come to realize, like, well, I am now in charge of, you know, gaging a thing, making adjustments to something that other people just walk around, I know, unaware. That's not good for them, until it's too late. So I'll watch
Pam 51:08
some TV show where people are digging into these dishes of potatoes and rice, and I'm going, you can just eat that, can't you? You can just eat it and shove it in your mouth. But some of them can't. But what's happen in an hour? Yeah,
Scott Benner 51:21
but, Pam, some of them have type two diabetes or pre diabetes. They don't realize it. It's true. And they just, I mean, listen, you know, it's a thing you don't hear anymore. You remember people used to say, like, oh, after Thanksgiving dinner, everybody gets sleepy. It's the tryptophan and the turkey, I'm gonna guess. Hindsight, it's the high blood sugars everybody had. Like, I don't doubt that tryptophan is, whatever the hell tryptophan is, but you didn't have eight ounces of Turkey and you passed out for a week because of it, right? Probably so many people living with pre diabetes, you know, for type two, and then drive their blood sugar high after a big meal, and they don't realize how sleepy it makes them, etc, and so on. Like, there is value in getting type one in that it focuses you on your health like that,
Pam 52:04
and what you eat and how much you exercise. If, if you're paying attention, you have to pay more attention. I have a friend who's type two, who does not really do anything to take care of his diabetes and and he's type two, if I had the option of dieting and exercise to make the needles go away, I would be all over that. So to me, it's just mind blowing that you have a type of diabetes where you could take a pill and watch your diet and exercise and you choose not to do that could
Scott Benner 52:38
help. Yeah, I don't get it. Well, there are people who have done that, and it doesn't help but like, true, but he but you gotta try, yeah, yeah, right. If you're saying this person is just like, Ah, I guess this is how I go then, yeah. Listen, I don't think it's a willful I probably sound like a hippie now, but I don't think it's a willful thing where people are just like, I just don't feel like taking care of myself. I think there's a psychological thing going on that freezes them, and I don't it's, I'm sure it's different for a lot of people, but you know something about the way you grow up, or something that happened to you or didn't happen to you when you needed it to and now suddenly you have trouble motivating yourself or caring about yourself enough, or maybe your blood sugars are so high that you're cloudy and you Can't even, like, focus on, like, who knows, you know what I mean. Like, it just, it does suck. But for sure, if somebody told me, like, a, you know, going for a walk around the park would make my daughter's diabetes go away, I'd push her out the door. Yeah,
Pam 53:31
now I'm going to be trying to figure out what his motivation is to not take better care of himself. Yeah,
Scott Benner 53:37
it's interesting, and I guarantee it's not conscious. I spend a lot of my time on this podcast asking people why they do things, and I'm telling it no one knows. No one knows about why they do anything they think they do or they you know, it makes me mad or this or that, but that's not like, why does it make you mad?
Pam 53:55
My off the cuff diagnosis, now that you brought this up, I thought about it a bit, is that he's a person who's always been a take charge, person in charge of the family and the finances and whatnot, and he doesn't see himself as a sick person. And if he doesn't act on it, then he can continue to not see himself as a sick person. I've heard
Scott Benner 54:15
that story from people just, I'm going to pretend it's not happening, because I don't want to look like I'm sick. I've heard that one
Pam 54:20
my image of myself, can't I don't want to change my image of myself as a healthy person, so I'm not going to deal with
Scott Benner 54:27
it. I listen taking a massive amount of crap online and other places for like, I started taking a GLP medication, like, over a year and a half ago, and this morning, I got on the scale, and I am, you know, I lost another two pounds. I've lost 56 pounds in a year and a half. My life is completely different now. I am healthier, happier, I feel better, I sleep better, I breathe, I everything. I do everything better than I did a year and a half ago. And yet, I'll still run into people once in a while that would be like, Whoa. So you just cheated, huh? Yeah, cheated. I took the medicine and I stayed alive. Good for you. Well, how is that? Someone's reaction right there? It's fascinating to me. Like, not, hey, congratulations, or you look great, or this is awesome, or I'm glad to hear you feel better, or whatever. Or just don't say anything.
Pam 55:14
They probably want to lose weight too, and they're they've been slogging through diets their whole life, and it does seem like you've taken a shortcut,
Scott Benner 55:21
yeah, but even when it's not about, wait for them that idea of, like, you did something that I don't have the option to do, or, you know, or they make a moral judgment about it. So they're like, like, even, like, you listen, you earlier said, like, I like, I'll take a gummy a couple times a year and chill out. They're gonna be plenty of people be like, you know, you could have gone for a walk or done some deep breathing exercises. You shouldn't be doing weed or like, but, you know, like, it's just doing weed. Look at
Pam 55:45
me. You're these are just more of the haters we talked about earlier, the people who are going to leave a bad review, the people who are going to make sure that you know that they don't like your book there. There are those people out there. And I've been on a GLP ozempic for about a year and a half have you, I've lost 15 pounds, good for you, and but now it's since it's not prescribed or recommended for type ones after the first of the year, my insurance company is going to look at that, and it's likely they won't renew it, because I'm not in the category of person who should get it for weight loss or weight loss. But it also helps with your numbers, of course, but it's not really prescribed for type ones. No.
Scott Benner 56:25
I know we have an awesome group of episodes about glps from this year, but what I was going to tell you is, is that if your weight is still over, where your insurance company will cover it, just switch to week over. Okay, you'll be getting those em pick and we go via the same exact thing.
Pam 56:39
That'll be my tip for the first of the year. We'll see what they do. Yeah, if
Scott Benner 56:43
they say no to it, just tell your doctor. Like, look, just write me. We go before weight loss. Then also, okay, tons of great episodes on the podcast about GLP. I wish I'd
Pam 56:51
lost more weight you. You said 56 pounds, that's amazing. I've only lost 15 and now I'm stuck. Did you have 56 to lose? No, probably another 10 pounds would be, would put me right in the range of where I want to be.
Scott Benner 57:04
What's your um, dose at two units a week, two milligrams, or you right? Yeah. Is that how it's met? I'm forgetting how the OCP pen is measured.
Pam 57:13
Yeah. I think that's a max dose. Yeah. So when
Scott Benner 57:17
you use it for weight loss, the doctor has the autonomy to continue to push your dose up until you're losing weight. I use zephbound, which is from a different company, but I'm on like, 12 and a half milligrams a week. Oh, okay, I'm telling you right now. Like, let's go. Yeah, I'm almost done. I was talking to a friend yesterday who was like, what's left? And I was like, there's these, used to be three handfuls of fat around my midsection. There's two now, like, there's, like, once they're gone, the rest of my body's actually transformed already. Like, it's, it's just right here,
Pam 57:49
I think you're right about how it changes your life. I feel more active. I go to more exercise classes. I mean, carrying around 10, even 10 or 15 pounds of extra weight. It's it's difficult, it's
Scott Benner 58:03
terrible. Like, my joints are better. My ankles, I used to have planar fasciitis. I don't have that anymore. My back doesn't hurt my my back used to hurt all the goddamn time. My back doesn't hurt anymore. I sleep better. Also, like other things that you should, you should, you might like this podcast, by the way, Pam, but there's other things, for instance, like I used to have to get iron infusions all the time because my body I could, I wouldn't absorb iron for my diet. But now that I'm on a GLP, I get all the iron I need for my diet now, and I haven't had to have an infusion in almost two years, I think
Pam 58:36
eventually most people will be on glps, because they have so many awesome side effects, awesome results. And I don't think they found any bad side effects. Yet, there's
Scott Benner 58:46
people like, have issues like, with everything and and one, there's a couple of reasons why they're, you know, scary about giving it to type ones, one for reasons that they don't completely I don't even know if they completely understand or not, but you are at a higher likelihood to have to go into DKA. Part of how it's going to get prescribed to type ones, if they get the prescribing set up, is going to be that you have to have a ketone meter and check your ketones like, that's going to be one of something I don't do very often at all. One of the things they're going to do the other thing is that it can significantly and change your insulin needs. Like, look at you like, you like, you just tried to switch from MDI to a pump, and you almost killed yourself. Yeah, imagine if you, like, Yak yourself up with GLP, and all of a sudden your insulin needs are down by half, and you don't know that, and you're not, you know, being directed well by a physician, or don't have support, or whatever. Like, those are the things I think they're bigger concerns about that's my expectation, right?
Pam 59:42
There needs to be a lot more education and maybe intervention if you're going to do glps and understand how they
Scott Benner 59:48
work. That education extends to the doctors who, generally speaking, aren't going to understand any of this so
Pam 59:54
well. I and I don't think there are as many diabetes educators anymore. It seems harder. To get help. I've heard
Scott Benner 1:00:02
that, by the way, that they're having trouble, that there's not as many endos, diabetes, educators, stuff like that. I think there's not enough
Pam 1:00:10
information off of Facebook from people who are more experienced than I am. And sometimes a little tip, which you have to think of, you can't just take anything you get off of Facebook at face value. You have to think about it and work through it, but there have been some really valuable tips there, where people who have been doing this for decades longer than I have know more about it than I do, and they help me clarify my thinking and what I need to do.
Scott Benner 1:00:35
Yeah, have you found my private Facebook group?
Pam 1:00:37
I have not. You should it's got 50 in the Juicebox Podcast Facebook group. There's a
Scott Benner 1:00:45
Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. The private group is, I think, at this point, like 56,000 members. It does like 125 new posts every day. There are a lot of people in there.
Pam 1:00:56
You know what I have found that, and a lot of those are younger people. It seems to me just off the thinking back to when I was reading that. And there are a lot of daily posts, you really get buried in that pretty quickly. Pam, may
Scott Benner 1:01:09
I you you've said this twice now, so I'm going to dig into this before I before I let you go. Also, I don't know if you said this while we were recording or not, but it was when we first got together. But you were like, Is this really going to last an hour? I don't imagine I could fill an hour or over an hour now, in case you're wondering, yeah, so twice now, like, once you said, I haven't heard a lot of older people on the podcast and like, so let me tell you something that you probably aren't seeing. So are there more parents of kids than adults with people with diabetes on the podcast? Maybe, but I don't imagine it's more than about 6040, okay. And the Facebook group also might feel that way, but they're there. They just don't talk as much. So it's not as heavy one way as I think you think it is. There are a lot of adults there.
Pam 1:01:58
There are lurking adults on the podcast and Facebook group who are tuned into it, but they don't always speak up or show themselves.
Scott Benner 1:02:08
Yeah, they're not as inclined to be involved. Like, are you like you're 64 like, you didn't grow up with the internet, right? So I did not. Yeah, are you inclined to just jump online and start telling people how you feel? I will
Pam 1:02:20
jump online and ask questions or reply to some people who are asking for information. Yeah, I'll jump online.
Scott Benner 1:02:27
That's awesome. It's not a lot of people. That's not a gear. A lot of people have actually that ability to do they it's more now, obviously, because kids are growing up with it, they have, sure, fewer difficulties with it. But generally speaking, it's not a thing that people easily do. It's interesting. I've seen some really cool studies about how difficult it is for some people to actually just post something online.
Pam 1:02:49
No, I like the internet. There's a lot of information out there. It's, I don't know how we got along without it, but I most people say that nowadays, Yeah, no kidding, we had to actually go to books and encyclopedias to look up facts instead of just Googling damn facts.
Scott Benner 1:03:03
Let me tell you. I'm gonna give you something here, and then I will let you go, because you must have a life. You have to get back to. I do try episode 1212, and 1238, okay, dr, Tom Blevins on GLP medications, Part One, two. I think you'd find those really interesting. Okay, all right, just a really thoughtful guy on glps, and He will answer your questions for sure. Great. Thank you, Pam, thank you. Tell people the name of your book again, please.
Pam 1:03:31
The name of my book is braving the World Adventures in travel and retirement, and I have a website at Pam Saylor, s, a, y, l, O, r.com,
Scott Benner 1:03:41
go check it out. The book's blue. It's got a piece of blue luggage on the front of it, in case you're looking for it and you you can't find it. Pam, thank you for doing this with me. I really, really appreciate it.
Dexcom sponsored this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g7 at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox, earlier you heard me talking about blue circle health, the free virtual type one diabetes care, education and support program for adults. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but I swear it's free thanks to funding from a big T 1d philanthropy group, blue circle health doesn't bill your insurance or charge you a cent. In other words, it's free. They can help you with things like carb counting, insurance navigation, diabetes technology, insulin adjustments, peer support, Prescription Assistance and much more. So if you're tired of waiting nine months to get in with your endo or your educator, you can get an appointment with their team within one to two weeks. This program is showing what T 1d care can and should look like currently, if you live in Florida, Maine Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa or Louisiana, if you live in one of those states, you. Go to blue circle health.org to sign up today. The link is in the show notes, and please help me to spread the word blue circle health had to buy an ad because people don't believe that it's free, but it is. They're trying to give you free care if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. It's ready to go right now. And like I said, they're adding states so quickly in 2025 that you want to follow them on social media at Blue circle health, and you can also keep checking bluecircle health.org to see when your free care is available to you. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast was sponsored by the new tandem Moby system and control iq plus technology. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, check it out. Okay. Well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me. Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Uh, why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review? Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribed in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me or Instagram. Tik, Tok. Oh gosh, here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page you don't want to miss. Please do not know about the private group. You have to join the private group as of this recording. It has 51,000 members in it. They're active talking about diabetes, whatever you need to know. There's a conversation happening in there right now, and I'm there all the time. Tag me. I'll say hi. The Diabetes variable series from the Juicebox Podcast goes over all the little things that affect your diabetes that you might not think about travel and exercise, to hydration and even trampolines. Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on diabetes variables. Hey, what's up, everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way. Recording.com, you got a podcast? You want somebody to edit it? You want rob you?
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