#1488 The Cat Has Fleas

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27-year-old nurse Cassidy battles T1D, Crohn’s, hypothyroidism, and anxiety while offering a unique perspective on the hospital system.

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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
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.

Cady is a nurse who has type one diabetes, Crohn's hypothyroidism, anxiety and an interesting take on the hospital system. We're going to talk about that and much more on today's episode. 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. 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 juice box podcast is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get your supplies the same way we do from us. Med, this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five. Learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juice box. Check it out.

Cassidy 1:55
Hi. My name is Cassidy. I am 27 years old. I currently work as a registered nurse in pediatrics at a major Midwest hospital, and I'm a type one diabetic, and I have been for 15 years. Last month, those are kind of my major points. You

Scott Benner 2:16
were diagnosed when you're 12. Yes, okay, 27th the best age. You think you don't know this, but, yeah, it is okay. Yeah, what were you gonna say? What about it?

Cassidy 2:29
This year has been a little rough, but it's been good, but it's been like a roller coaster of, like, good news, bad news, good news. You know, we'll

Scott Benner 2:37
find out about that, yeah, but I'll give you my thoughts, and you'll tell me why I'm wrong. It sounds good. The best conversations are when I say something and then people are going, I don't know, man, I don't know about Yeah. So my theory on like 27 is this, you're not married, right? I just got engaged last month. I hear the joy in your voice still, so I know you're not married, correct, right? Yeah, there's still time. Oh, yeah, I can tell you don't have kids. I know you're not married, but you're not 24 and, like, confused and trying to figure everything out, and you're not 35 and have a mortgage and are like, right, yeah. And I've had the same argument with somebody, like, 17 times. There's still, like,

Cassidy 3:16
some optimism there. You can hear, Oh, yeah, no, you

Scott Benner 3:19
have, there's a lilt in your voice. It's lovely and so and you know enough words, but not all of them yet. So life's not completely boring, like you still hear things that you're like, Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, exactly, yeah. This is it right here. This is your golden age. You won't recognize it until it's too late. And you look back and you think, Oh, damn. What about 28 How do you feel about 28 you still have time right in here.

Cassidy 3:45
Okay, okay, okay. When does it end? When you're 30, it ends

Scott Benner 3:49
as things pile on top of you, yeah, and then it turns into something else, like so you still haven't like you haven't had an argument yet with your fiance's Mom, where neither of you actually said what you meant, but you're both trying to get something you want at the wedding. And like, you haven't, like, I don't know, like, you know what I mean. Like, you haven't woken up in the morning and been like, Oh, there he is again.

Cassidy 4:16
You didn't go home. Okay? You haven't

Scott Benner 4:19
woken up yet and had him look at you and go, Oh, okay. See it on his face where he's like, Oh, I can't leave. And you're thinking, like, oh, I can't leave either. And then you buy a cat, but the cat gets, like, some like disorder, and there's like, a chunk of your Yeah, right. So weird that

Cassidy 4:39
you say that, because, literally, like a month ago, my fiance's friend, they adopted a cat, or rather, they found a cat behind like a dumpster, and it had fleas. And my fiance went over to his house, didn't know the cat had fleas, came home. Guess whose cat? Has fleas. Now, the

Scott Benner 5:01
cat has fleas is the name of your episode, by the way. Cassidy, oh, that's incredible, unless you say something awesome between now and the end, I'm not kidding, right? Like the cat has fleas is going to take you a month, and you're basing the cat, oh, yeah, right. And

Cassidy 5:19
there's a month. Oh, three months. Yeah,

Scott Benner 5:21
you're gonna have to replace a sofa at some point. And then, like, and it'll be fun, like, there'll be these small memories in it where you and your fiance, uh, you know, bathing the flea cat, and you're laughing. Like, how did this happen? Except you don't realize that the energy you use to bathe the flea cat is the energy you were gonna use to have sex, right? And then you Yeah, and then things drift into different, like, directions, and, you know, then someone gets sick. Doesn't even have to be you. It could be a person in your life. It beats you up a little bit. You're gonna have a friend who gets into a bad relationship. You're gonna end up spending six months helping her. Like, your car is gonna, like, not work, and the dealership is going to screw you and like, and then just one day, you wake up and you go to stand up, and all that weights just like, on you somehow, and you That's it. This is the time. So it's really looking up from here. Is what you're telling me. I'm telling you, no, you're missing the point. The point is, enjoy, yeah, now is then. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yes, I understand what you're saying. All right, get in there. Do something fun. Have you ever wanted a trip somewhere you kind of can't afford it, a little go, like that kind of stuff, yeah? But please be saving money for the future at the same time,

Cassidy 6:38
also that in this economy.

Scott Benner 6:41
Let me ask you a question. Any chance you'll be able to afford a house, you're a nurse, like you have a real job, you get paid, right? Like

Cassidy 6:48
I do have a real job now. So nice. I mean, yes, I think what we're going to be able to buy is going to be like not our

Scott Benner 6:56
dream. Gonna come with its own fleas. It's probably gonna come

Cassidy 7:00
with its own, please, but we already know how to treat it. So, I mean, we have back on for us, right? I mean, I think this is the first time in my life where I felt like, oh, okay, like I'm not completely just like scraping by, where it's like, truly living like paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, because when I was in nursing school, I was working as, like a PCA, so I was a nurse's aide, and they don't get paid a lot. And I was also working part time, and then in full time school, and I was in an accelerated bachelor's program, so I did my full BSN in 18 months. During that time, I had, like, no money at all. And then before that, I was a barista for four years. So

Scott Benner 7:43
you made people coffees for four years? Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay, it

Cassidy 7:49
was honestly, if it paid the bills. I love it. It's so fun to make coffee, I think. But also, I worked at a cafe in Seattle for a little bit, and so it was like, literally, like, the quintessential, like, exactly what the experience that everyone dreams of, right? Like, as a barista, anyway, not everyone dreams. Obviously, you don't dream.

Scott Benner 8:12
I thought everyone dreams to be a barista. In Seattle, that's crazy.

Cassidy 8:16
If you were gonna be a barista, where would you want to be a barista? I

Scott Benner 8:20
mean, I don't know, in my dreams, you all go tell five other people about the podcast. So, okay, fair enough. Yeah, I don't know. My dreams are different than yours. I don't know. Like serving people coffee makes it makes me feel like I wouldn't enjoy that. I

Cassidy 8:36
think so. I mean, you know, you get it's, it's, it's like any other customer service job that I love. What was fun about it just the like, learning about different coffee learning how to make like latte art and like suggest different things to people. Also, it's different than working at like a restaurant, because when people walk into a restaurant, they're like, hungry and maybe hangry and so, but when people come to get coffee, they're like, Oh, this is the best part of my day.

Scott Benner 9:03
Yeah. I can't, you know, cocaine anymore, so I'm gonna do this, like, that thing, yeah, yes, yeah. Also, your generation is like, were you broke growing up? Or was your family comfortable? My daughter is 20 years old. I can't even believe it. She was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was two, and she put her first insulin pump on when she was four. That insulin pump was an Omnipod, and it's been an Omnipod every day since then. That's 16 straight years of wearing Omnipod. It's been a friend to us, and I believe it could be a friend to you, omnipod.com/juicebox whether you get the Omnipod dash or the automation that's available with the Omnipod five, you are going to enjoy tubeless insulin pumping. You're going to be able to jump into a shower or a pool or a bathtub without taking off your pump. That's right, you will not have to disconnect to bathe with an Omnipod. You also won't have to disconnect to play a sport. Or were to do anything where a regular tube pump has to come off. Arden has been wearing an Omnipod for 16 years. She knows other people that wear different pumps, and she has never once asked the question, should I be trying a different pump? Never once omnipod.com/juicebox get a pump that you'll be happy with forever. I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies. I never had a good experience, and it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while, actually, for about three years now, because that's how long we've been using us Med, usmed.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, us, med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omnipod, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor in Dexcom customer satisfaction surveys, they have served over 1 million people with diabetes since 1996 and they always provide 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping us med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies To the latest CGMS like the libre three and Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating with a better business bureau at US med.com/juice box, or just call them at 888-721-1514, get started right now, and you'll be getting your supplies the same way we do. I think

Cassidy 11:47
it depends on who you ask, because if you ask my fiance, he would say that I grew up somewhat comfortable, but my dad had three jobs at one point growing up, so I mean, I wouldn't call that exactly comfortable,

Scott Benner 11:59
but you weren't worried about money personally as a child growing up, right? No,

Cassidy 12:03
no. So I think that's what the argument was like. We didn't have an argument, but we talked about it a little bit, and he was like, Yeah, but you never were like, oh, where's my next meal going to come from? Or, oh, you know, and that's true. I never, never was aware of our financial situation. And I feel like that's the difference,

Scott Benner 12:21
yeah, my point is, that's how you end up being able to be, like, interested in, like, Frappuccino art. You're not thinking like, I have to quickly get out of here and make a bunch of money or I'm gonna die. Oh, yeah,

Cassidy 12:33
Scott, I was a theater major for about a year and a half. So you tell me if I was aware of finances, literally at all. So

Scott Benner 12:43
we'll change the name of this episode too. Cassidy was comfortably Caucasian. Okay, actually, yeah,

Cassidy 12:50
that's great. Let's do that. That's a good one.

Scott Benner 12:53
And I'm not coming down on you for it. I'm just saying, like, no, it's just Yeah, it's true. I just when you were like, Oh, I find this interesting. I thought, I don't know how she had time to find that interesting, like, because there were things I found interesting, but the energy I used to work in my uncle sheet metal shop was used up on that, so I couldn't, like, get an image, sure, yeah, okay, all right, hippie, I got you. I know what's going on. I know.

Cassidy 13:16
I know my fiance would love you. He'd be like Steve.

Scott Benner 13:22
So at what point do you decide to be a nurse? I was only

Cassidy 13:26
a theater major for a year and a half. It was less about like, financial stability and more about like, it took something that I loved so much and turned it into like, this is what it's going to look like when it's a job. And I was just like, I don't think I want to do this. And I'd always been interested in nursing, like it was kind of like a thought that I'd had, but I was so focused on acting, it was never like a top priority or voice. And so I left the school that I was at and went into pre nursing. So I did, like, all of the prerequisite classes that you have to do. And I just talked to probably three different people who are in nursing, who talked me completely out of nursing. And they were like, nursing is the worst career ever. I'm so miserable, I'm so tired, like, I don't get paid anything. Like, people are awful, blah, blah and like, so at the age of I was 20 or 21 I like, really let that dictate what I decided to do. So I was early enough in the degree that I could switch to a social work degree. So I did that, and then I graduated in 2020 met my fiance. We moved to Seattle for his job, and I was like, looking at entry level social work jobs. I went to an interview. They offered me a job, and I just was like, This is not what I want to do at all. And to do what I want to do, I have to get my masters. But I was looking at jobs like with people who are masters prepared, and they were paying them like, $25 an hour. Oh, my goodness. I. And I was like, Okay, well, obviously, financially, this is not a great decision, because your MSW is like, $100,000 so it's, like, it was just not, I was like, okay, the stream is dead. I don't want to do

Scott Benner 15:11
this. That's where my Oh, my goodness came from. Not that $25 an hour is not a, you know, reasonable amount of money, but it's, I'm talking about, like, after I paid for a master's and an undergrad, yeah, yeah,

Cassidy 15:21
yeah. I feel like social work is an incredibly difficult job for a lot of reasons, but it's just like, I think that they see a lot of red tape, like they're like, I see how to help this person, but there's like, seven obstacles in the way, you know, and so I think that would be frustrating, but so I kind of fell back into researching nursing. I did, like, a ton of research. I talked to a few nurses, and then I was like, I that's what I want to do. I really want to be a nurse. And I found a program. Well, actually, my fiance's dad lives in the Midwest, and he was like, if you guys move out here, you can live in my basement while you go to school. So we did that, and then I was able to, like, save a little money, and then I worked part time, and then just, like, commuted to school.

Scott Benner 16:07
So like, Silence of the Lambs, you lived in someone's basement in the

Cassidy 16:12
Midwest. Was it like it wasn't quite as dungeon? Well, it's a little it isn't as bad as it sounds. It

Scott Benner 16:22
rubs the lotion on nothing like that happened. Nothing, nothing,

Cassidy 16:26
nothing like that happened. Yeah, so and then, yeah, I went through 18 grueling months of nursing school.

Scott Benner 16:36
You hammered away like you got it done fast, huh? Yeah, it

Cassidy 16:39
was. It was definitely like, I think that a lot of people that go through nursing school know that it's not necessarily like the difficulty of the content, but it's more the amount of things that you have to learn in a short amount of time, right? Yeah, and I work at an adult hospital for about a year as a PCA or nurses aide. I thought I was going to work with adults, and then I had my pediatric clinical rotation. There's a floor at the hospital that I work at that's like, the diabetes floor. I like, talked to one of the clinical leaders there, and she was like, Well, I really would like you to work here. So that's where I work now, as a nurse. Oh, awesome. The floor that I'm on is, like, if it is the diabetes floor, but also we're like the organ transplant floor. We get a lot of, like, liver and kidney transplants, and then kids that have had transplants, and then kids that are pre transplant. Like almost every auto immune disease you can think of, we see on our floor too. So okay, yeah, cool. Let's find

Scott Benner 17:37
out about this. So yeah, you were diagnosed when you were 12 with type one? Was that your first autoimmune issue? Or No? No.

Cassidy 17:44
So I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism when I was two days old. So I don't know if it was autoimmune or if it was like congenital hypothyroidism, but I've been told both by different providers, so I don't know if that's truly auto immune. I gotta

Scott Benner 17:59
jump in. Somebody just said this to me in the last couple of days while I was recording, like, How was that possible? No one ever said that to me before. And now, in the span of like, seven or 10 days, two people have said, basically, I was born with hypothyroidism. Yeah, uh huh, yeah. I was two days old. Is your little thyroid underdeveloped? Still today? No, no, I don't think so. There's was. That's why I asked, okay, okay, well, I mean, have you had it scanned? You know, I

Cassidy 18:24
haven't had it scanned, but they've, like, palpated it and said it feels normal. Maybe that's not super reliable, though I

Scott Benner 18:30
love that, the way that we had to make up a word so it doesn't sound like your thyroid is being molested by a clinician. We palpated it is that what you

Cassidy 18:39
did? That's a nursing term.

Scott Benner 18:43
Okay, so you've been taking Synthroid your whole life. No, no. So

Cassidy 18:46
here's the interesting thing, the physician that diagnosed my hypothyroid was like, okay, so it's very important that she takes this medication for like the first couple of years of her life. I think I only took Synthroid for like, two years, and then they re checked my levels and determined that I didn't need it anymore. Do I know if that's like, actually what you're supposed to do? No, it sounds wrong to me, but I don't I digress. I feel like because then they I kept telling my mom, like, before diabetes, I'm so tired, I'm so tired, like I'm cold, and I was like, gaining weight, and they would check my thyroid, and I don't know what my TSH was, but I'm sure it was high. And they were like, Nah, she's fine. I didn't get back on Synthroid until I after my diabetes diagnosis. Then they checked my TSH again, and they were like, Oh yeah, you need to be on Synthroid. And we were like, oh,

Scott Benner 19:41
okay, you're a person who lived through this and has a nursing background. Can you, I'm asking, wrap your head around a person coming into a doctor's office with hypothyroid symptoms, having had the story you had at birth, and then someone saying you it's. Definitely not that

Cassidy 20:01
it's crazy. Yeah, I don't know, because I've thought about that too. Like, because I hear people talk like patients talk about it too, right? Like, you know, oh, we've had these symptoms for a long time, and it kind of and we'll talk about this later too, because the same thing happened to me this past year. But I just think, I don't know. I feel like hypothyroidism is not that rare, so I guess that this theory doesn't really track. But, like, I feel with diseases that are quote, unquote more rare, they're just like, Oh, we're gonna, like, make sure that it's not the more common ones first, and we're gonna make you wait, or we'll see if it goes away, or we'll try. You know what? I mean, Cassidy,

Scott Benner 20:34
I'm trying to get you to tell me if everybody is a dummy. I mean, you work with a lot of people, right? Like, so is it just law of numbers? Like, is it just that if I put 100 people together, a certain number of them are just not going to be good at it. What am I dealing with here? I don't know. I plead the fifth. I don't know. Should we make this anonymous? You want me to blur out your name? Can I ask you again?

Cassidy 20:59
No, I don't want it to be anonymous. Okay, I just think healthcare is really messy, and it's coordinating so many different things all together at once, and it's just like, I've just seen miscomm minutes, like miscommunication happens in my everyday life. As hard as you try, it's just like, it's just there's too much going on, you know, like patient care is so multi faceted and complex and nuanced. And it's just like, I think you just have to know as a patient that you have to advocate for yourself. Because I don't think that it's that providers, nurses like, don't care or don't want to take the time, at least in my experience, like, I haven't really ever felt that personally, but I think it's just like, truly, if you feel genuinely something is wrong, you just have to be very honest with your doctor and be like, listen, like, I understand that you want to take the conservative approach to whatever you're addressing, but like, something is really wrong.

Scott Benner 21:53
You know, you're asking people then to understand the foibles of the system, and they don't. I know, yeah, and they don't. I'm going to say this here, because I'd like this to be recorded somewhere. Today is December 18, 2024 I'm saying this to all healthcare providers. You all got to pull your together, or you're going to get replaced by a chat bot in the next five years.

Cassidy 22:13
Oh, oh yeah, it's already, it's already happening, yeah. Like, I feel like we're already, we already have, I guess it's not like a chat bot, but it's like, it's gonna be, it's gonna be, no, I and it's like, I just had this conversation with my dad the other day. I was like, Well, I think we'll be replaced by AI. He was like, nurses, no. And I was like, definitely. I was like, Yeah, eventually, for sure, like, if not completely, then partially, you know.

Scott Benner 22:38
But if I sat just at a prompt right now and said, 11 year old girl complains of tiredness, always cold. Whatever you just said was put on Synthroid at two days old and then taken off of it. What do you think's wrong? The chat bot would come back and say that the kid has hypothyroidism.

Cassidy 22:59
Yeah, I think it's more like, also, I think providers just can't always, like, agree on certain parameters for tests.

Scott Benner 23:07
Oh, I know. I guarantee your TSH came back at like, four, and they were like, No, this is fine, right?

Cassidy 23:13
That's what I mean. I think it's just like, I don't know. I think it's interesting, and it's also devastating, because you're right, like, they don't understand the system. They might not understand what's going on with them. So if a doctor says, like, you're fine, then they go, okay, you know, and and they they move on.

Scott Benner 23:29
Translate that over to diabetes, right? Someone's diagnosed with type one diabetes, they get poor direction. They don't understand how insulin works, you know? They come back to a doctor six months later with an A, 1c, and the eights. And the doctor says, Hey, how's this? Why is this like this? And the person goes, I don't know. And the doctor writes down, non compliant, like, how come the doctor doesn't write down, doesn't seem to understand how insulin works. Didn't understand the, you know, the my question, right? And the reason is, the doctor didn't understand the question either, or if they did, they would have explained insulin to the person. The person will understand it. And their A, 1c, understand it and their a 1c, wouldn't be nine. I'm telling you that the problem is people, yeah, I'm sorry, because you seem like, I bet you're a good nurse.

Cassidy 24:11
Oh, thank you. Yeah, I try. I think I I do understand too. Like, as a person with multiple autoimmune diseases, like I'll sit and talk with patients for if I have time to, you know, just like about my own experience navigating healthcare, and like how it can be really challenging and frustrating, and if you have something that the vast, you know, like, I think that most providers are educated very thoroughly on things that are super, super common that we see, you know, every day in The hospital, right? But like, things that you don't see every single day, it's just like, it's, I don't know, and I don't really even know what the answer is. Or, like, how we fix these issues with people that have diseases that have a little more nuance to them, because it's like, it's hard to understand, like, the intricacies of all of the diseases, yeah. But. We can't just be like, well, we don't understand, so we're just gonna do what we can and then send them

Scott Benner 25:05
home. My expectation is, is that your healthcare system, one day will give you like, I don't know how it'll work, but you'll log into an account where you will log your complaints, like, everything, like, you'll like, you'll keep a diary of your health. Then the system will be able to point out what might be important to look into. That's my expectation about how it should happen. So, yeah, I don't know

Cassidy 25:29
what. And then people can bring it up, I guess.

Scott Benner 25:31
And nurses and doctors will be more like the guardian of that information. They'll look at the information and say, that seems correct to me, will move forward. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. I've been doing this podcast for a long time, and I mean, it's fun sometimes to, you know, or interesting, or whatever word you want to use, to have this conversation and be like, horrified that they took you off Synthroid, then you got like, you know, hypothyroid symptoms, and nobody did anything, and you're like, some little girl dragging her ass through life, yeah, yeah. But at the same time, like you don't have to have this conversation over and over again to realize that this is just how it is, right? And it's not because someone's not trying, it's not because the health care system, it's just because when you involve this many people into this situation, this is the outcome you get. That's all, yep,

Cassidy 26:18
right? And it's just, that's what I mean. It's just like, when it's so multifaceted, and there's so many different people involved, it just, it just gets messy, and it's hard to like, that's why I don't have a good like answer. I'm like, I don't know how to I like, see the problems. I literally see them, like, at my job, right? I'm like, Oh, yep, this is how this happened, you know? And it's like, but do I have, I don't have a clue of how we're supposed to fix it, and I think that's how other people feel too. They're like, yeah, we see the problems. I think the only thing it's like, it's good for me to see it, though, as a nurse, because then I can do what I can to try and advocate for my patients better, because I know what has happened, even in the past, or what has happened to other people. Being aware of it makes you a better provider, and I've seen doctors do that too, like, where they're like, oh yeah, this is what happens all the time. So I want to make sure that this doesn't happen to the people that I'm carrying. There's no

Scott Benner 27:08
actual fix what you know like when you're 10 years from now, when you find yourself Cassidy at a PTA meeting, okay, and then whatever horrible thing is happening to you, and you're in one of those situations, and you recognize that this PTA meeting is going to go just like the last one, as we'll go the next one, because Margaret over there is cheating on her husband with the soccer coach, and that lady's been drunk since noon, and that guy is full of anger and anxiety, and this person is On a power trip and blah and like, you realize that every time you go into that situation, it's not going to be the same people, but you're going to have a lot of different variables like that in the room. They're always going to exist. And you can step back as a reasonable person and say, Well, I know how to fix this situation, but the next step is to make her not a drunk, make her not a cheater, make him not a lunatic like and you can't actually do that. So the PTA meeting always goes the way the PTA meeting goes, and there's always a mom in town having sex with somebody who works at the school. You're never going to get away from 10 out of 10. Yeah, yeah. Always gonna be happening.

Cassidy 28:21
I will say too. I think this is why, like, your podcast is so important and meaningful, because there's something and the Facebook group too. There's something really cool about having another person, multiple other perspectives outside of healthcare, for people that have a lived experience and really understand diabetes. And I mean, I just think it's really awesome. So I feel like, I definitely like mention it to patients. I don't know if I'm supposed to do that, but I'm like, This is not medical advice. But like, if you if you want community, if you want something, you know that's like, real other parents who are walking through this, like, this is great, and I would recommend, like, looking into it, well, I appreciate that.

Scott Benner 29:02
I'm glad that it strikes you that way, and I appreciate you sharing it, and my opinion is that you're supposed to be sharing it. So yeah, I'm sure the hospital was like, Wait, what's happening? She's telling people about a podcast. No, no.

Cassidy 29:14
I think honestly, I asked one of our diabetes educators about it, and she was like, Oh yeah, I tell them that all the time. They said, Oh, okay, well, then

Scott Benner 29:23
awesome. I'm gonna continue to do that. Yeah. How did you get pulled onto that floor? Do you think that you were just bright, clear minded, doing a good job? And she thought, I need more people like that up here. Honestly,

Cassidy 29:34
my clinical instructor really liked me, and then she introduced me to this clinical instructor that worked on the floor that I work on now. And I was like, Yeah, I'm definitely interested in working with kids with diabetes. I think that'd be really cool. And that was really it, I mean. And then, so then I switched, I don't think I said this, but I quit my job working with adults at the adult hospital, and then I started working as a PCA at the hospital I'm at now. So, yeah. I don't even know if it was so much like, what I did or said or I don't know, I just probably was like, I'm really excited to be a nurse, and I have diabetes, and I'd love to work with other people with diabetes. And she was like, perfect.

Scott Benner 30:10
This one doesn't even know yet, we'll just get her up here and we'll just drain the life out of her up here. Perfect. Yes. What's the the lifespan of a nurse? How long do they usually last?

Cassidy 30:21
Oh gosh, what a question. They say that we're at a nursing shortage. I don't know if you've heard this or read this anywhere, but we're not in a nursing shortage. We're in a shortage of people who are tired. They're very tired of working at the hospital and working bedside nursing. So I think that in the past, like lifespan of a nurse, bedside nurse, working in the hospital. I don't know 2025,

Scott Benner 30:44
years, really, but now, yes, I don't

Cassidy 30:47
even know. I feel like it's, it's hard to find people that work on the same floor at a hospital for more than, like, five years. What

Scott Benner 30:54
do you think happens? Do you think the job is harder? Do you think that people just have a more kind of, like, Go get 'em attitude, like, I'm just not gonna sit here forever. I wanna move up. What do you think's gonna happen to you?

Cassidy 31:07
I think it's a combination of things. I think some people go into nursing and don't know what the job is, or they have higher expectations for what their their work life is gonna look like. And a lot of people graduate nursing school at like, 22 or 23 it's an immense amount of responsibility at, I think, at that age. So like, the people that I work with that are like, fresh out of nursing school, and they're just like, killing it. I'm just like, Man, I could never have done this. I was like, I was making lattes. I don't know about you, but, and I think it's that people don't know. I think it's that people have higher expectations for the job. It's a hard job, it's long hours. You're exhausted. And it doesn't sound like, I don't know, when I started working 12 hour shifts, I was like, oh, like, that's fine. Like, I've worked an eight hour shift, like, you know, what's four more hours? But it's like the amount of stuff that happens in four hours in the hospital is actually bonkers. Like, I tried to write down my busiest day, like, I had a really crazy day a couple weeks ago. It was like, I'd get a call, and then I would have to go and and then I went into a room. Oh, you're a patient, you know, their potassium is high. Okay, now I have to call the doctor, okay. Oh, now your your blood sugar is 40. Oh, okay. Well, I gotta go take care of that and re check it and do it. And it was like that, literally for probably eight hours of the day, and it was just non stop. And so it's like, if you think about like your busiest day at work, like a standard person's busiest day at work, nursing is like that almost every day you go there. So I think people just get burnt out and they're tired, and they're like, Oh, this is not what I imagined nursing would be. And then also, like, nursing has just changed a lot. Like, I've talked to nurses who are more seasoned and have worked for like, 10 years or whatever, and they retire, and they're like, Yeah, nursing didn't used to be like this. I'm done like, and I don't know, I can't say, like, exactly what the differences are. I think it's just technology is advanced, and so we're, we're getting better at treating people, and so I think we just have more. I don't know it's just, it's, it's a conglomeration of, like so many things, but it definitely is harder and rougher than it used to be like to work in the hospital, than it was, maybe even pre COVID, honestly, really, because people have said too that COVID changed everything. And I don't even know what that means exactly. They're like, Oh, yeah, I was different before COVID. And I'm like, Well, what do you mean? Like, how? And they're like, I don't know. It's just different. And that's the response I get from everyone. And I'm like, How can no one tell me? Like, what's different about it? Like, so I don't know. I also think a lot of nurses left after COVID or during COVID, because they were just so

Scott Benner 33:39
is it possible that, beyond that, the world is different, that nursing isn't different? How would they know? Do you know what I mean, like, how would they know that nursing magically got different, right, right? And but not be able to, like, quantify it. You know what I mean? Like, does it feel different to you? Does like the world feel different to me? Does the world of nursing feel different to you. I guess I can't really, like speak

Cassidy 34:03
to that, because I so I started working in a hospital in 2022, so, like, I was already post COVID, but I just know that, like, people were pushed beyond their limits in COVID, really unsafe working conditions, no. PPE, no. Like, everything changed every day. It was like, I feel like it was, I can only imagine that it was, like, an average day of nursing, but like, 10 times worse, because you were dealing with something that no one understood, and that was changing literally by the hour, sometimes, like protocol and, you know, and then people were getting really sick really fast, and I don't know, I just think, like, I can't imagine what that was like, like, I just really can't so

Scott Benner 34:41
then, is it possible that COVID added a layer to the job that didn't feel like it existed prior? And so now suddenly, a bunch of people who came into imagine if you became a professional football player under today's rules, and then. In six months or a year into your job being a professional football player, they added bats with spikes in it for tackling, right, right? Like, you'd be, like, I don't know, my football just got harder, right? That you could say, Why? Because, like, before, why before they couldn't tackle me with a bat with a spike, and, like, now they can. So I don't want to do this anymore. Do you think that it just leveled up? I think it probably just leveled up. I do also, I've heard this argument before. I've heard people argue that a lot of people got into health care at a time where it was like, like, not war time, for example, like, almost like joining the military during peace, and then all of a sudden someone's like, No, we need you to go across the country and actually shoot at people. And you're like, Oh, I thought I was just gonna be down here giving a hand and out band aids and hugs like that kind

Cassidy 35:47
of thing, right? So I think that there, and this is like, total, like, full respect to people that maybe didn't expect nursing to look the way that it does, because I don't think that we do a very good job. Like, well, somewhat, I think in nursing school, we don't really do the best job of, like, showing what the job really looks like. I think when you go to, like, your clinical rotations, you're there for not a full shift. You have one patient, you like, can't do all the things for them, like, you know, there's certain things they won't let students do and whatever. And it's like some I had my my friend who didn't work in a hospital prior, was like, I think working in the hospital would be boring. And I was like, Huh? And she was like, Well, yeah. Like, look, we're just, like, sitting around. I was like, Yeah, but, like, imagine this. But like, add four more patients, and then add the doctors calling you, pharmacy calling you, PT calling you. Every call light is for the nurse, you know. And she was like, oh, yeah, I guess I hadn't thought about that. But like, I just think that, like, nursing school doesn't always paint the best picture. And so then it's like, you're shell shocked when you get into your job and you're like, Oh, I had no idea this is what it was going to be. So yeah, I think anyone who wants to go into nursing I highly, highly recommend that you work in a hospital first, because it gives you, not only, like, it makes you more comfortable working with patients, because it's a very different role than anything else in your life. Going up to someone and being like, okay, like, I'm gonna, I don't know you very well, but I'm gonna take your vitals and I'm gonna talk to you and I'm gonna, oh, now we're gonna go, I'm gonna draw your blood and, like, I'm gonna be taking care of you for 12 hours. Is like, kind of nerve wracking, especially when they're sick and they have, like, tubes, lines and all that stuff. So and you get a better idea of what the hospital work is like. Like, when I was working as a PCA with adults, I would walk eight miles a day. Couldn't even tell you, like, why? Like, where I where I went, you know, but I was just running around doing

Scott Benner 37:39
this. So what's the real answer here? When I hear people say there's a nursing shortage, do they mean like, every nurse should have six patients in a 10 hour cycle, or something like that, and if you're helping more than a certain amount of patients, then that's how you get stretched too thin. I

Cassidy 37:56
think it's, yeah, I think it's a lot of things. I think it's the nursing shortage comes from people leaving bedside nursing. We have plenty of nurses, like registered nurses, in the country to supply the hospitals, but working conditions and like, every hospital is different. Like, some hospitals, working conditions are so terrible they can't keep nurses there. And that's just like, you know, that's just kind of the way it is. Yeah. Like, there are some hospitals that are completely staffed by travel nurses who are getting paid double the amount that they normally would, but they're having to work in these conditions that are maybe not so safe, or maybe they're just, like, I don't know, at the, like, the patient ratio, like the, you know, maybe they give them seven patients instead of four, which is really what they should be giving people as, like, four patients. Okay, yeah, I wasn't sure

Scott Benner 38:41
what the number I was getting. Number I was guessing, but okay, yeah, that travel nursing thing still is confusing. Like, why don't they just overpay the people who work there? That's

Cassidy 38:50
a wonderful question. Scott, I don't know. My dad and I have had this conversation. He's like, these hospitals are gonna have to start paying the nurses more. And I was like, I mean, yeah, I guess. But like, I feel like, wouldn't we start seeing that now? Like, I travel nursing has been really, I mean, it started being, like, super popular during COVID. Obviously,

Scott Benner 39:08
I know a travel nurse loves her life, yeah, it's in Hawaii right now,

Cassidy 39:13
yeah? Well, and you get the benefit of, like, going on a vacation, if you want, right?

Scott Benner 39:17
Like, it's been to a lot of cool places, yeah, so I don't know.

Cassidy 39:21
I think it's interesting, though, because then the hospital has to pay whatever company they're traveling with. Wouldn't you rather just pay your I don't know what I know. I don't listen.

Scott Benner 39:30
I don't know anything about anything. But if you dug into it and found out that the large conglomeration that owns the hospital also owns the travel nurse company, and that they're just passing money back and forth to each other, I wouldn't be

Cassidy 39:42
okay. Maybe you're onto something. Because maybe that's maybe that's true. I don't know, right?

Scott Benner 39:47
I mean, I don't listen. I want to be clear. I have no idea. I don't either. I just work there. I know people who own construction companies that use a certain kind of construction material. So then. Go and start like a shell company that sells the construction material to this construction company. So they buy the material at one rate, sell it to themselves, basically at an inflated rate, and then make too much money on the material. Then take a loss on the job, on the construction side, write it off on their blah blah. So there's, like, trust me, there's, I'm not smart enough to figure this out, but there are people who are, and I'm going to assume that things are set up that way, so that we're just trying to hold on to our Money Longer. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just a boubard system and like, I have no idea, but I'm just saying, if that was what it was, I wouldn't be crazy. It wouldn't, wouldn't shock me. Yeah, yeah. Let's go backwards a little bit, because we've been talking for a while about this. Do you have any other autoimmune besides type one and Hashimotos, or do you have Hashimotos? Or do you not know that? I

Cassidy 40:53
don't know. It depends on who you ask. I'm asking you. I've had a provider tell me that I have Hashimotos. I've had a provider tell me that I have congenital hypothyroidism. I don't know. I just know that I take centroid

Scott Benner 41:05
the way it's treated. It's not it is going to be the same. So,

Cassidy 41:09
right, yeah, what else do you have in April of this year, I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. I mentioned earlier. It's been, like, kind of a rough go, because I was, like, graduating nursing school, and then I got this auto immune disease, and then I started my first nursing job, and then I got engaged. Job, and then I got engaged, and then it's just been, like, kind of

Scott Benner 41:25
a whirlwind. But what a shitty surprise. You should have said, what? Yeah, literally. How does that? How does that? How does that get diagnosed? Like, how does it come on to you? Like, I mean, is it a thing you've always had you just realized? Or did it?

Cassidy 41:37
I've, like, done quite a bit of, like, research on people's experience. Like, I read something that was like, Oh yeah, it takes the people, like, on average, five years to get diagnosed. And I was like, Whoa, that's insane. That's so long. I started having symptoms in January. So it wasn't like that long for me, I guess I don't know. It was longer than I would have liked. I was, like, was finishing my last semester of nursing school, so I was incredibly stressed out. And I do have anxiety. And I had stopped taking my anxiety medication like many months prior. And so I thought that, like, the symptoms that I were experiencing or was experiencing were anxiety related. And so I would kind of lead with that. Like, I I went to the doctor in January, and I was like, here's what's happening. Like, but I have anxiety, so, like, maybe that's what it is. And so, of course, they were like, Oh, yeah. Like, that definitely makes sense. I'm sure you have anxiety. Like, let's put you back on your your medication. And so I went back on. I was just taking Zoloft, so I went back on Zoloft. And if you know anything about SSRIs, like, one of the top side effects, they're gi related, like, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, that kind of thing. I was still having these symptoms, but they were getting worse. I went back to the doctor, and again, I, like, led with but I have anxiety too. And, like, I don't know if this is, like, maybe I'm overreacting, you know. So like, three different times. I was told by three different doctors that, like, this was anxiety. I had one doctor ask me if I had a history of ulcerative colitis or Crohn's. And I said, No, but I have diabetes, type one diabetes. And he was like, Okay. And he was like, I really don't think that's what this is. And I was like, Okay. So then I finished, like, finish the, like, didactic portion of nursing school. And I had, like, a little bit of a waiting period before I started my job, and so I was just, like, just experiencing an immense amount of anxiety because I was getting more symptoms, and the symptoms were getting worse. So now I was having weight loss, fevers, night sweats, sores in my mouth. I like thought I had cancer, because the symptoms for inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer are really like, almost exactly the same. Okay, I went to a, like, a GI doctor, and at this point, I had been to the doctor three times for this. And so, like, and my my family knows that I have, I have, my anxiety is very health related. My fiance was like, Cass, like, I really think that this is your medication. This is anxiety. Like, you're really stressed out. Like, I think, I don't think you need to go to the doctor again. And I was like, I really feel like there's something wrong. So I went to this GI doctor, and he was so nice to me and so kind. And he was like, I really think that this is the medication, but if your symptoms don't get better in three weeks, I want you to come back. I waited for three weeks. The whole time I'm thinking, I'm dying, right? Like, I'm like, I have colon cancer. I'm dying, like, and no one's doing anything about it. I scheduled an appointment with him. I went back to him, and I was like, Could this just be the medication? And he was like, No, this is not the medication. He was like, this is something else. So they did, like, inflammatory test. It's called the calprotectin, and your normal level should be, depends on where you go. But less than 50, and mine was 800 he had me come in, like, emergently. It was like three days later for a scope, he diagnosed me with ulcerative colitis. At first, he. Like, it looks really mild, but it's definitely, you definitely have something going on. And then he was like, I want to start you on prednisone. And I was like, freshly off, like, verse Ed and fentanyl. And I was like, I can't, my blood sugars are going to be so high. I was like, I can't take prednisone. And he was like, Okay, we'll, like, put you on a different steroid. So he put me on budesonide, which is, like another, like, more mild steroid, and it worked. It helped a lot for like, the first two or three weeks, and I had my, like, graduation ceremony during this time. Like, I was, like, relieved, but also I had just been given this diagnosis that, like, I knew basically nothing about. I just felt really angry because I was like, How can I have diabetes? And this, like, I went to an IBD specialist next, and she walked in the room and she was talking to me, and she's like, okay, yeah, like, tell me a little bit about what you've been experiencing. And she was like, Okay, well, I'm looking at your scope results. And this is not ulcerative colitis, this is Crohn's. I was just like, so overwhelmed, because I had kind of come to this, like, I was like, Okay, I have ulcerative colitis, like, I'm accepting it. And then she was like, actually, no, you have Crohn's, which is, like, a similar disease, but also totally different. We have to put you on a biologic medication. And so I'm like, sobbing. I'm like, I don't want to take a biologic medication. I was like, I'm terrified of them. And she was like, I understand. And she's like, trying to talk me down a little bit. Can I

Scott Benner 46:25
ask a question, where do you Where does the medical like anxiety come from? Do you know? No, when did it start? It

Cassidy 46:31
started before I had diabetes got I think it got worse when I was diagnosed with diabetes, because then in my my child brain, I was like, oh, so I can get diagnosed with things, you know. And I even experienced, after my Crohn's diagnosis, I also experienced, like a heightened, you know, what's next, what's next, what's next? I'm gonna have something else. Because, look at me, I have three things wrong with me, and I'm only 27 you know, is your

Scott Benner 46:55
father anxious? Not at all. Your mom, literally, yes, yes, your mom have any other autoimmune stuff, not

Cassidy 47:04
diagnosed. I think she might have, like, the ankle izing ankylosing spondylitis, yeah, because she has back issues. And they initially told her that she might have that, but then she was like, oh, because I brought it up to her, and I was like, do you have that? Because you need to be taking medication for that. And she was like, oh, no, they told me, I don't. But then in the back of my brain, I'm like, You should go see a rheumatologist, because I feel like, maybe you have that.

Scott Benner 47:29
I'm looking at your last name. You're like, European descendants, right? I've

Cassidy 47:34
heard an avian,

Scott Benner 47:37
yeah, right, German, Scandinavian, something like that. Okay, I was just that, like, I was gonna say pure I didn't mean that. Or your mom and dad both from the same it really didn't mean it like that, but your mom and dad from the same damn guy.

Cassidy 47:54
Yes, my my mom is German, so,

Scott Benner 47:57
I mean, I've heard a lot of, like, a lot of auto immune coming out of that part of the world, like with those kind of with those descendants, like, that's not uncommon for my experience. Oh okay. And anxiety, I genuinely think, is probably auto immune as well. So, oh yeah,

Cassidy 48:15
yeah, I could see that, right? I think seeing if your parent has anxiety that's not managed, and you see how they respond to things, you are going to learn that that's the way that you respond to things, especially

Scott Benner 48:26
if you're wired that way already, too, you know, right? And

Cassidy 48:30
like my I remember telling my dad, and my sister is a clinical psychologist, so I've talked to her about this too. I told my dad like, you know, I see these parents in the hospital and their kids are going through, like, really rough, you know, terrifying, like, scary things, and they're so calm. And I was like, I just thought that they would be freaking out, like, and he was like, Yeah, but, like, that's because that's what your mom does. And I was like, oh, right, okay, so that wasn't normal. Like, you're

Scott Benner 48:59
freaking out the way your mom freaked out when you got diabetes or whatever else, right? Yeah. And the reason your mom let your doctor push you off that thyroid medication so easy is because I think she prefers out of sight, out of mind or No, it's okay. They told me. It's not that, my God, it's like, you've met her. Yeah, I know it's good. Yeah, don't worry.

Cassidy 49:16
She's very, yeah, she's very, Everything's fine. Everything's fine, everything's fine. I just need to live 40

Scott Benner 49:21
more years and we'll die any and we'll die anyway. Don't worry about it. Uh huh, yep. So you're following in footsteps, or followed in footsteps already. And so do you really think you have Crohn's, or do you think you're wound up tighter than a top? Oh, I have Crohn's. Okay? All right. Well, that's good. I mean, at least it's real, like, you know what I mean? Like, you're not just, like, having, like, a, like, a psychological implication, psychosomatic, yeah, on your stomach.

Cassidy 49:46
Yeah, they so the way that they diagnose Crohn's, I don't know if you know much about it, so I don't mean to, like, speak to you like you don't know anything, but I don't know you explain it to me. Basically, they do a colonoscopy. Well, first they do like, an inflammatory marker test, which they did. And it was positive. So they knew that one of two things was going on, either I had colon cancer or I had inflammatory bowel disease. And so then they do a colonoscopy, and based on like, the like, obviously, they put a camera in, and they can see, like, the inside of your colon, and when you have Crohn's or you see there's like, visible redness and sores in your colon, and then they can take so then they take biopsies, like all over to see under the microscope which one you have. And some people have indeterminate colitis, they don't know which one it is. For me, I'm actually very thankful I know, because it's just like, nice to have more information. But mine, there was, like, there's a certain, I think it's like granulomas or something. There's like, a very specific cell that is only present if you have Crohn's. And I had that, so they knew immediately. But the IBD specialist that I went to, we didn't even have the biopsy results yet. She just was like, she told me, she's like, I've been doing this for 20 years, like, this is Crohn's, and she knew, and she was right. If you have like anxiety induced, like GI distress, or IBS, or whatever, you won't have any inflammation present. IBS doesn't cause elevated inflammation. And then also your colon will look normal, like endoscopically. So,

Scott Benner 51:14
so what do you do for it? Because they wanted to give you the biologic, and you didn't want that.

Cassidy 51:18
I was terrified to take biologic. I think the reason I was terrified to take the biologic is because, you know those commercials where Side effects may include cancer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it's like all these terrible things, more often than not, that's a biologic drug. Basically, it's like acts on different inflammatory markers in your body. So like, the one that I'm on, I can't remember which one it is. It's very like, it doesn't really matter. Basically, my immune system is overactive and it's attacking my GI tract, so the biologic just brings your immune system back down to where it should be. Okay, some people have to have, like, more aggressive therapy, where they go on multiple drugs, or they go on, like, a biologic that's more immunosuppressive. That's what I'm on now. How long have you been on it? How long have I been on it, since the end of May? Is

Scott Benner 52:07
it helping? Yes, yeah. Is it helping with anything else?

Cassidy 52:12
Do you mean, like other physical I'm saying if you're if

Scott Benner 52:15
your immune system is overactive, are you noticing other things that are not impacted by overactive immune systems, I feel

Cassidy 52:22
a lot less tired. Okay, before I was diagnosed, I, like, could barely walk up the stairs. Having active inflammation in your body like that is just exhausting. Yeah, again, all the symptoms. I was like, I'm dying. Like, I was like, this is the end. I guess, aside from, like, having like, a high blood sugar, diabetes doesn't really give me like, I don't have a lot of fatigue. That's my experience. I don't know if other people feel like they're, you know, they feel more tired than the average person. And maybe we do, and we just don't know like, because we just live with it, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, any of those other autoimmune diseases that cause like, widespread inflammation, that's one of the biggest symptoms. Is fatigue, yeah?

Scott Benner 53:03
But I mean, so you're seeing a lessening of that, a significant lessening, oh, yeah,

Cassidy 53:08
okay, that, and then just other than a near absence of symptoms at all, like, not really anything else. So

Scott Benner 53:16
you're like, the poopy stuff is better? Yes. I don't want to be too technical, but no,

Cassidy 53:24
no, yeah, too technical, Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis. Like, I think people think, and this is, like, understandable, that people think that it's just like, Oh, you just, like, have, like, you just have diarrhea all the time, and that's all it is. It's pain, it's the fatigue, it's fevers, it's like, it's a widespread disease, and it, like, affects so many different things. That affects your appetite, it affects how you absorb nutrients. Or it can, you know, like we, we have kids that come in and their hemoglobin is super low, or their iron is super low, their B, their vitamin B 12, is low, their vitamin D is super low, like, lower than the average person. I mean, I know everyone,

Scott Benner 54:00
you're not absorbing those things that you should be. You just

Cassidy 54:03
don't absorb it. And it just depends too. Like, if you have Crohn's, it can be in your colon, it can be in your small intestine, it can be in your stomach, it can be like, all over. And it just depends on, like, where your body has attacked you. That can kind of change the symptoms too. I've read some stories of people who have Crohn's, and they were, like, I had symptoms for like, three years, like, every doctor told me that, oh, you're just anxious, or, Oh, you have IBS, or whatever, if their disease is in their small intestine, you can't see that on a colonoscopy, and you can't see that on an endoscopy. You literally have to get like, a pill cam study done, because even if you get like a CT scan, sometimes it doesn't show on the CT scan for I'm sure, like, for those people, it's incredibly frustrating, because they're like, I know something's wrong. It just takes them so long to get like, approval to to really look done.

Scott Benner 54:52
Yeah, I'm dying to know, is your anxiety any better? Yes, yeah.

Cassidy 54:56
I also went, I'm on a different SSR. I'm on, like. Pronoun, yeah,

Scott Benner 55:00
I know. But I was wondering about on the biologic, did it touch it? Oh, on

Cassidy 55:04
the biologic. I think that's really hard. Because, like, obviously, when my symptoms got better and I was feeling better, and I knew what was going on, my anxiety was a lot better, because I

Scott Benner 55:13
was like, okay, yeah, see, there's no way for you to measure that, I guess, yeah, there's

Cassidy 55:16
not really a way. I'd be curious, though. I wonder if there are any studies done on that, like, you know, people who are on whatever medication, like, if their mental health is better, the only studies that I've ever seen about that is just like, people with Crohn's are more likely to have anxiety and depression. But they say that about diabetes too. And I feel like any chronic illness, they're like, you're more likely. That

Scott Benner 55:38
makes sense, but I think that's probably just the thing they say too. Like, you know, you have a chronic illness, you're more likely to both. But I'm, I'm trying to say, like, if you have inflammation, and inflammation is impacting you in different ways, yeah, and one of those ways is anxiety, then depression comes along with anxiety, etc, and so on. Like, you know, like, yeah, that all makes sense to me. So, yeah,

Cassidy 55:58
no, absolutely. One of the worst parts about getting this diagnosis was I was like, frantically looking for other people that had diabetes and Crohn's, and I just, like, couldn't find

Scott Benner 56:11
anyone. What anybody was willing to speak up maybe, or that knew,

Cassidy 56:15
I mean, or that knew, yeah, but it's just like, there's one person that I found that I follow on Tik Tok, and I, like, message them immediately when I, like, found out, and we had like, a long back and forth, which was really nice. Yeah. I just don't think those two things, like, coincide very often. Or, like you said, maybe they just aren't diagnosed or what, but I know that type ones, especially on the like Facebook page, like, people have a lot of like, GI issues or, like, it's common,

Scott Benner 56:40
yeah, there's that overlap too, with, like, a lot of people just experience poor digestion after type one as well, which is, yeah, maybe not the same thing, not maybe not the same but wouldn't be the same thing as what we're talking about. But there's overlaps there too. Yeah, it's very frustrating to me, because life is already what life is. And then, like, some people get anxious, like, What the hell, ridiculous. They weed. Didn't help. You tried? I imagine

Cassidy 57:04
I can't smoke weed. I'm a nurse. I'm

Scott Benner 57:08
sorry. I didn't understand. Did you try it? No, okay, no. Nurses can't smoke weed. No. You get drug tested. Really? Where do you what state are you in? Ohio, okay. I mean, in some states, how do they handle that? Like, I always wonder about cops too. Like, if you make weed legal, then can a cop smoke weed?

Cassidy 57:28
No, because even if I were to get a job in Seattle or Colorado, I don't think that healthcare professionals can. I think that they are, because it's on the national level, it's still illegal if they make it legal nationally, then it would be like, you know, because obviously, like, they can't, they don't test you to see if you drink alcohol every day, you know?

Scott Benner 57:49
Yeah, no, I'm assuming you tried that. That didn't work. Yeah,

Cassidy 57:52
yeah, I did try that. That made things worse, actually, yeah, I

Scott Benner 57:56
was gonna say that. That doesn't help, but in 1976 that's definitely what you would have tried, you're like, I feel nervous, is how you would have put it by was just having this conversation with somebody last night, awesome that like, if you go back a number of years, no one's ever like, if you go back 20. I don't know how long it is, but in my lifetime, I never heard a person describe themselves as anxious in my life.

Cassidy 58:17
Yeah, I was diagnosed with anxiety when I was eight, I had certainly never heard the word really used, like, oh, I have anxiety. And I was like, I'm the only one in the whole world that has anxiety, because, you know, and then now, of course, like, everyone is like, I have anxiety. Let me ask you

Scott Benner 58:34
a question, because this conversation I found interesting, and I'm going to end here with this on you, because I want to hear, like, your thoughts about this? Yeah, I'm not saying that people weren't anxious 20 years ago. What I'm saying is, like, you didn't hear anybody, like, running around going, like, I'm anxious, but what you heard was Bill throws things when he gets pissed. Or, like, you know what I mean, like, that one's always crying. Or, like, you know what I mean, like, that kind of stuff. Like, they didn't have like, a word for it. Like, so yeah, and people just pushed through. Now, I'm assuming a lot of them push through with alcohol and drugs, you know, in other ways that they tried to cope. But do you think this is my question that came out of this conversation last night. Do you think it's valuable to be told you have anxiety, or do you think that it's leading when you tell people what's wrong with them all the time? Like, do you know what I mean? Like, instead of just saying like, you know, in high pressure situations, I wouldn't go to Cassidy instead of like that. And then you just being a person who we don't like turn to in high pressure situations, and you don't think of yourself as good in high pressure situations. I'm making up things. But like, instead of like, you walking around going, I have a thing. There's something wrong with me. Is it better? My question is to just think I'm not good in high pressure situations, or is it better to think I'm an anxious person? I have anxiety. Sure, that's my question.

Cassidy 59:49
I think it depends on the person, because I've had some therapists say, like, do you like, identify as a person who has anxiety. I know you have anxiety, but do you not want me to like, say. Like, because of your anxiety, because you because I think for some people, it's kind of empowering in a way. And they're like, okay with it being like, you know, a descriptor of, like, part of who they are. And then some people feel like, oh, it, it makes me more anxious. It the label kind of reinforces the idea that there is something like, going on in my brain that I, like, can't control. I just wonder if we over diagnose anxiety and depression, because anxiety is a normal human emotion. Everyone experiences anxiety. You know, when someone says, Oh, gee, like, I have, I have bad anxiety before I take a test, it's like, okay, well, that's normal, right, right? You just have to manage it. It doesn't mean that you have anxiety disorder, because anxiety disorder is where you are in fight or flight all day, you know. Or you're having panic attacks at random times, and you don't know why. Or, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:00:48
I'm thinking if we stormed the beaches of Normandy in 2024 somebody would have told me that all those guys on the boat had anxiety, but I'm going to assume that what they had was a knowledge that the boat was going to open in there was going to be a lot of shooting. I think it's weird that everybody Yeah, but a lot of people are running around telling you about their diagnosis, about things all the time, almost like, it's like, see, I'm special. I got a thing. I don't know if that's right or not, like, it just feels weird to me. It feels weird to me to meet a person who is 1,000,000% to my eye, completely normal, and to have them tell me I'm autistic, yeah, where I'm in the middle of the most boring thing in the world, and somebody says I can't focus on this if my ADHD won't let me. And I'm like, ADHD, this is just boring. Do you know how many people come on this podcast and tell me before we start recording? Listen, I gotta tell you, ahead of time, I'm gonna be all over the place. I've got ADD, I've got 80 I don't know what they say, and I can't keep a straight thought. I'm gonna be all over the place. I talk to them, there's not one sign of that. And I'm like, Why does everyone think there's something I'm using the word want to be something wrong with them. But like, why are they looking for what's wrong with them? Like, when there's so many things that are right with them? Like, just, you know what I'm saying. I don't know. I agree.

Cassidy 1:02:04
Yeah, you know, as a person who, like, I have anxiety disorder, for sure because, and the reason I know that is because, like, even before I had any symptoms of Crohn's or whatever, I would just be like, Huh, I'm having a panic attack for no reason. I feel really unsafe right now. Why? I don't know it when it's disrupting your life, that's when it's like, I feel like that's when the diagnosis comes at least, that's for me. If anxiety

Scott Benner 1:02:28
is inflammation related, for example, or something like that, then sure, yes, that's happening to you, and I don't want to ignore that. That's happening to you. I'm not, I'm certainly not saying that. And are there more autoimmune issues in the world? Is it possible that there are just more people with anxiety and ADHD, which probably is also inflammation related, or something like, You know what I mean? Like, is that possible? Yes. But in the real world, if it's not stopping you from living your life, I just find it strange that everybody's running around all the time telling me what's wrong with them. Like, I don't know. Like, am I just old?

Cassidy 1:03:01
No, I don't. I agree. I think it's, I think it's fascinating, because, like, and I've talked to my sister about this too, and she agrees that, like, we're seeing it more often, but she has also argued that, like, the criteria has changed, and so it's, like, more inclusive, like, in terms of, like, the diagnosis, like, you know, we can, we can diagnose more people with autism because, like, the spectrum has, like, not grown, but like, I don't know, the diagnostic criteria has changed a little bit. Yeah, when you say, like, you can't, someone tells you, like, oh, I have autism. And you like, can't tell. It's just, it's interesting. But then it's like, it makes me wonder, like, what made them seek out testing? Like, I wonder if it was like, Oh, I feel like I

Scott Benner 1:03:42
Is there a problem and they wanted to get tested, or is it just the world telling them that, oh, I fit into a category. Now I should go find out if I'm really in that category. I just feel like, 20 years from now, we're gonna look at the tight end from the from the New York Giants, and go, he's a giant. He's a real giant. We decided that in the category of giantism, like he instead of just going, there's a big guy. Listen, I'm not making judgments. What I'm saying is, I don't know if there's a value in doing this, like segmenting people down to the last little thing that's wrong with them, or if it's a weird like navel gazing thing that's not needed all the time, that's what I can't figure out. That's all. I don't care. By the way, you'd call yourself whatever you want. I'm already right. Like,

Cassidy 1:04:27
at the end of the day, if you have you know. And also, like, I try to, like, I definitely meet patients. And I'm like, that kid has anxiety, and it's not on their problem list. And I'm like, That is a kid that, like, really could benefit from therapy and or medication, like, you know, just because they're panicking. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's like, looking in the mirror like you, you poor thing, you know. But then there are kids that, like, have a laundry list of mental health diagnoses, and I go and talk to them, and maybe it's just because their medications working really well or whatever. But I'm like, I don't. Know, it's interesting,

Scott Benner 1:05:01
is that person harmed by walking around always thinking there's something wrong with me, there's something wrong with me when they're dealing perfectly fine, dude. He means, like, Can my back hurt? Do I need to be a person with back pain? And is there a difference in there? Like, is that problematic for some, also for some people? Like, I think if you listen to this podcast, you know, I think therapy is great. Like, I think it's a fantastic idea. But yeah, if you asked me if I thought there are some people who get into therapy and stay in it way too long, and it ends up being more of a deterrent in their life than a value, I would say, Yeah, that happens to people too, even

Cassidy 1:05:36
people who, like, the last therapist that I saw was like, I don't want to see you for five months. He was like, we're gonna talk for two months or two or three months, and then we're gonna be done. Because, and he's been doing this a long time, and he was like, there is so much research that suggests that if you hit the whatever problem you're having really hard for a short period of time, it's way more effective. But also, I think some people just, like, want a therapist to vent to, maybe listen if

Scott Benner 1:06:04
you need a part, you want to pay a guy to complain to. That's fine with me, right? Yeah, you know, like, you see, like, like, sometimes super famous people are very germ phobic, and it makes me feel like they just have too much time to think about something. That's how that that occurs to me. Like the guy that works in the sewer. You don't hear him talking about germs, right? By the way, he lives the same life as everyone else, right? I've heard Jason Bateman talk about I've heard Donald Trump talk about it. I've heard like they're germ folks. And like, is it a situation where if you had to get your ass up in the morning and go to work and dig a hole, you wouldn't have time to worry about this? And can that happen in other things, is my question. Like, can you get so focused on something that you turn yourself into the thing you're concerned you might be? I don't know. Yeah, I think

Cassidy 1:06:48
so. But I also do think, like, there are people who genuinely are like, I can't leave my house because I am so scared of XYZ. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:06:58
sure. Like, are there people who are like, agoraphobic, or, like, other, yeah, 1,000,000% but it can't possibly be all of us, can it?

Cassidy 1:07:05
No, I don't think it's all. I agree with you. I think it's a combination of a lot of things. It's just like, but yeah, I definitely think that. I think some people benefit from the label, and I think some people it hinders them a little bit, because then they're like, Oh, well, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I can't wait for

Scott Benner 1:07:20
people to yell at me online for wondering out loud. But

Cassidy 1:07:24
just for the record, we prove of therapy we believe that, you know, I don't know the diagnosis is real. But also, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:07:32
you're not gonna once hear me tell you, like, no, that's not true. You tell me, that's how you are. I believe you like, you know what I mean? Like, I have no trouble there. I'm saying bigger picture. Like, just bigger picture. You're the only one thinking that, though a lot of people I know I'm not, don't worry. Here's what happens to me. Cassidy, I say something, and everyone yells at me about it, and a year later, everyone agrees about it. Scott's just slightly ahead of the curve. That's all like, by the way, I did it this year with this year's Scott gets screwed for caring about you. Was about GLP medications. Yes, we'll find out what 2025 Scott gets screwed for caring about you ends up being. So what you're saying is, you're the real hipster. Actually, I'm a little ahead of the curve on something, yes, not on everything. Is that? What that means? Yeah, I'm gonna grow a mustache and wax it up into a point right now. I think you should. I don't think I could actually, but, my God, listen, I do want to i I'm not covering my ass, but let me cover my ass for a second. You really have an issue or a problem or a concern or whatever, like I'm not sitting here telling you you don't. I'm sitting here telling you that I have met people who have told me they're autistic, who, 20 years ago, would have just been a really smart person that I met, they, by the way, they have a house and a car and a payment and a family, and they're living completely fine. And from the outside, I cannot see any indication that they are struggling in any way, shape or form. And yet, it seems like when they get into a crowd of people, they are drawn to tell me they have autism. Yeah. Okay. Like, I all right. I mean, you say you do you do? Like, I ain't gonna argue with you. I'm like, but what are we doing right now? Like, I have allergies. Sometimes I don't run around telling people all the time I have allergies. Like, I don't know why. Why did you need to tell me that? Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't know if I'm making any sense.

Cassidy 1:09:17
No, I Yeah. I hear what you're saying. And I think it'd be interesting to I'm gonna ask my sister about that, because,

Scott Benner 1:09:22
by the way, beat Cassidy's mom a little bit. Like, just get up and be like, don't worry. We got this. We'll make it.

Cassidy 1:09:29
You were good. Everything's good, everything's fine. God love her. She's great, but she's very anxious.

Scott Benner 1:09:33
We blended wrong. We went from your mom, who would like, be like, That's not cancer, I'll be fine, and then drop dead. That's too much, right? All the way over to I have ADHD, so if we have a conversation, I get off track. It's like, no what? Like, you're pre telling me that you're going to get off track. Like, that's and then I wonder

Cassidy 1:09:52
if it comes from, like, a place of, I think for a long time I was very embarrassed about my anxiety, so I, like, didn't I didn't tell people I. Anxiety, and even now, like, I don't really talk about it unless it's, like, relevant for you to know. Like, I was at work one day and I was like, I'm having a panic attack. And I was like, with my friend, and she's like, Oh, are you okay? I was like, No, but I will be and like, just give me, like, 15 minutes, you know? And it's like, I don't personally, like, love to be like,

Scott Benner 1:10:15
Well, yeah, no, Cassidy, if the gunner on my helicopter is having a panic attack, I'd like to know about it exactly. That's awesome, right, right? I don't know. Like, it's a big idea. I'm not doing a great job of I'm just rambling a little bit, but I just know I get

Cassidy 1:10:29
what you're saying, and I think too, like, it's a, it's a question of whether, because I think I don't know, I can't speak for my sister, I guess. But like, I think she probably would say, like, we just have opened up the criteria more, and we're diagnosing people more accurately or more appropriately. That's why there's like more people with it. But I think it's both, I really do. I think it's that and I think it's also just like people. I think people are getting over diagnosed too. I think

Scott Benner 1:10:53
it's always in the middle. What do I know? I don't know. I don't know. I think everything's always in the middle, like because we see Sal too much. Your mom's generation ignored everything, and now the next generation is paying attention to everything. And then there those people's kids are going to be like, my mom's a lunatic, and then they're going to go back the other way, and it's going to like, see and saw and go back and forth, like, I get we

Cassidy 1:11:15
just got to find a happy

Scott Benner 1:11:15
medium. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, the cat has Crohn's. The cat has Crohn's, is all the cat has

Cassidy 1:11:21
Crohn's. Aw, I really hope not. That would be really terrible. I just want to say this too before I like, forget to say it. The reason I wanted to come on the podcast is because I felt like I was the only person who had type one diabetes and Crohn's. And so if there are other people out there who have both, or their child has both, or whatever, I like, just wanted to be like, Hi, I'm here, and you're not the only person out there. Because it really was like, that was the hardest part. Was being like, oh my gosh, because I see, I work with kids that have Crohn's. I work with kids that have diabetes, I work with kids who have ulcerative colitis. I'm like, but I'm the only one that has both, you know.

Scott Benner 1:11:58
But that's definitely not true. It's not,

Cassidy 1:12:00
but I just think it's isolating. It feels isolating when you're like, it's not that common to have both, and you're like, oh gosh, like, completely alone out here. Oh, I should have mentioned this, because this is connected to diabetes. When I was first having symptoms in January, I had crazy, crazy insulin sensitivity. I would give, like, my carb ratio was like, one to 10, and I would give for 100 carbs, three units of insulin, and I would drop low, wow. And I talked to two different doctors and my endocrinologist about it, and they were just like, oh, no, that's weird. And that was it, which is fair, because it's like, what else are you supposed to say? Like, huh? Well, I had one doctor ask me if I was pregnant, and I said no. And she was like, okay, she's like, hot. That's really weird. I just wonder if, like, your insulin sensitivity changed. I'm like, but this much, it's like, a crazy amount, like, I was, sometimes I was eating and not giving insulin at all, because I was like, I'm just going to drop low. Why would I give insulin? And I don't have confirmation of this, but I genuinely think I wasn't absorbing any carbs, or I wasn't absorbing them as well, because when I would drop low, I also had to drink like, 60 or 70 carbs of juice to get my blood sugar back up. Yeah, and it was, it was terrifying, because I was like, I'm 60, okay, oh, now I'm 50. Oh, why am I still 50? It's been an hour like this was before the symptoms even got really that bad. That was probably the first symptom I had. Actually, I know that people after like, post stomach bug will sometimes have a little bit of that, like increased insulin sensitivity. So that's why I think it just makes sense that, like I was just having inflammation and so

Scott Benner 1:13:41
and now that inflammation is gone and that that impact is gone as well. Yep, that's completely gone. Well, listen, I'm thrilled for you. I'm glad that your anxiety didn't stop you from trying the biologic, because it sounds like it's really helping you. You know, I'm very happy for you. Did they tell you, is there an amount of time that it works for? Like, sometimes you hear people having to switch biologics. Sometimes. Is that a thing? You're on the on the lookout

Cassidy 1:14:03
for nice? Yeah, I so. Was that

Scott Benner 1:14:07
nice? We were like, oh, Scott understands you.

Cassidy 1:14:09
Because you understand there's a lot of people that, I think there's a lot of people that like, are like, Oh yeah, you just taken that, and you're good. Biologics have about a 50% efficacy rate, which is not great. So it depends. Some people, it works for two months and then it's done. Some people, it works for 10 years. I think that that's the hardest part, is that, like with diabetes, there's some predictability, or, I would argue, like there can be a lot of predictability, if you like, have your everything set you know correctly, as it should be, like for your basal and stuff. But with Crohn's, there's and you see, there's not, like, a lot of predictability as to how your body will handle it. Like therapy that you try if you'll respond to, like, one therapy over another, they it's really like a crap shoot. Like they just will, like, start you on a med and see if it works, and then if it doesn't, then they move on to the next one. That was also a stressful thing for me to think about, too, because. It was, like, with diabetes, I was like, okay, insulin will lower my blood sugar, like, 100% it, it will, you know, and this is, like, it might, it might work, I don't know. Yeah, just keep trying things until something hopefully works for you, you know. And that was, I was like, Oh, I don't like that. That's terrifying.

Scott Benner 1:15:16
Well, it's working, though it's awesome that it's working for you, yeah, thank you. I love that. You also don't know the name of it. That was, that was my favorite part of this. You're like, oh, it's

Cassidy 1:15:24
called Stelara. The one I'm on is Solara. They have all of the biologic names are crazy. They sound like furniture from Ikea, like, they really do, if you, like, look up some of them, like, I don't know, there's like, Sky Rizzy and Remicade and humera. There's like, so many now,

Scott Benner 1:15:41
maybe the they just heard you were from a Scandinavian background, and they wanted to make

Cassidy 1:15:45
you comfortable. Yep, they were like, Here you go. Here's here's your IKEA. Med, awesome.

Scott Benner 1:15:50
All right. Well, I really appreciate you doing this with me. Can you hold on one second? Yeah, thank you. This is great.

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