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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
Hello, welcome to the Juicebox Podcast. This is Episode 173. Today's show is called the nanny. And it is sponsored by ami pod, and Dexcom. On the pod, of course, is the tubeless insulin pump that Arden has been using since she was four years old. And Dexcom makes the GS six continuous glucose monitor. You can learn more about both of those products later in the show in the show notes, or at Juicebox podcast.com.

Mari 0:39
My name is Mari and I am a full time nanny for two little boys, one of which was diagnosed about seven or eight months ago with Type One Diabetes. So I spend a lot of time managing that because he's very young and relies on me 100%.

Scott Benner 0:57
Please remember that nothing you hear in the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making changes to your medical plan.

Thanks for coming on and doing this. I really appreciate it. Let's figure out a couple of times. You've been in any for this family for how long? almost four years for your see you were over three years into the into the life with them when when their child's diagnosed? Is it their younger or older child who was diagnosed?

Mari 1:39
It's the younger one. And so I've been with the family since before he was even conceived like he is he is essentially the closest thing I've ever had to have a baby of my own.

Unknown Speaker 1:50
I gotcha. Can I ask how old you are?

Mari 1:52
I am 33

Scott Benner 1:54
Okay, so 29 years old. Had you been a nanny prior to that part of this family?

Unknown Speaker 2:00
Sorry, did you say 29?

Scott Benner 2:02
You were 29 when you started working for this family?

Unknown Speaker 2:05
Oh, I guess so. Yeah.

Scott Benner 2:06
I was what you were like was I

Unknown Speaker 2:08
I'm like wait, I'm 33 now. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 2:10
I got it. Um, were you prior to that prior to the family you're with now? We're Yeah.

Mari 2:15
So I started babysitting when I was 11. And I've worked with kids on and off ever since. I think I was a full time nanny for just a few years before that, and a part time nanny before that. And also a caregiver for an 87 year old woman. So I've done a lot of just like, preschool stuff with kids. But full time meaning it's probably been about eight years. So this

Scott Benner 2:38
kind of work. Would you say it's it's who you are really like? Are you a caregiver at heart Do you think?

Mari 2:45
I think so, especially with kids and young kids. I really love like just little little kids who are just so curious and learning about everything and explaining to them, you know, why a leaf falls down and turns different colors or something like that, you know, I I studied biology. So I love talking about science with little kids. And fortunately, the two little kids I watch are really into that kind of stuff.

Scott Benner 3:12
It's funny, I was just thinking this morning about stuff like that, because my son is getting ready to leave for college. And he's our first and I've been a stay at home dad for you know his entire life. And I was thinking back on the things I wanted to share with him before he left and I can only kind of the memories I have of when he was really little are of things like that, that I think some people might find benign, but I thought were some of the best times, you know, just describing something they've never seen before letting them sit and watch something watching them see something for the first time. Like that stuff really impacts me. It's cool that it that it reaches you the same way. That's really okay. So can we use the little boy's name?

Mari 3:53
Yeah, so his name is Jacob. It's a pretty common name.

Scott Benner 3:57
The game is gonna pick you out. Alright, so Mari so Jacobs diagnosed at what age?

Mari 4:02
And it was about a little over a month after his second birthday. Okay. Okay. Sounds familiar.

Unknown Speaker 4:09
He does a little bit. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:11
So you're on in a really kind of, like, strange way. So Jacobs mom listens to the podcast. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, she

Mari 4:18
does. And she introduced me to it. And you

Unknown Speaker 4:21
know, I say that she forced you to listen to it.

Mari 4:25
On this great podcast, and I said, Okay, sure. Yeah. Hmm. And, you know, because a lot of podcasts or whatever, but, um, I ended up after maybe a month or so of her just talking about things she learned on it, just checking it out. And, and now I've listened to a lot of episodes.

Scott Benner 4:42
I'm really interested in, he's home. His parents have this information that were given to them to them by doctors. Were you in the room at the doctor's office, or did they pass this information on to you in the house?

Mari 4:54
So add diagnosis, actually, I brought they come to the doctor and met his mom there and I was in The room for it all it was, that was hard. But and then yeah, and then they went to the hospital with him like dad came home from work, he was on like a Skype call basically, in the room with us all. But then they went to the hospital together and I picked up the older kid and hung out with him while they were at the hospital, you know. And, but then like the next day, during all the kind of the, you know, when they're trying to teach you everything all at once. I came in on on the weekend, and it was a Friday. So I came in on Saturday and Sunday to the hospital to learn some stuff. And I think other than one doctor's appointment, and I have been at all of the diabetes appointments, all the intro appointments,

Scott Benner 5:47
did you or Jacob's mom pick it up faster than one of the other? Did you find yourself helping each other? Like, what was that process in the beginning of like, how did you complement each other in that situation?

Mari 5:58
So I just want to mention that his dad is just as involved as his mom and I are okay.

Unknown Speaker 6:03
Okay, do they work in the home? Or they work out of the home?

Mari 6:06
No, they both work. And that's why I'm there. So much. Gotcha. Um, but they're even when they're at work. They're still very involved. And you know, if I have anything that I'm not sure about I text with them. I keep them in the loop. Like if he's dropping because he has a CGM. So he's dropping fast. I text them to let them know like, Hey, I just gave him some juice. He's actually 70 he's not 40. Yeah, whatever.

Unknown Speaker 6:33
Well, that's beautiful.

Mari 6:35
Because I know if I was looking at that, I, I'd want to know, someone is handling it.

Scott Benner 6:40
Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine watching it fall and thinking, Oh, I know. I know, Mari has it and then you don't. And then you just sat there and did nothing while it was happening. Like that would be a finder's fee. I think what you're doing is so kind, not that it just to let them stay in that loop. Take that anxiety away. That's really because that's extra work for you as well. Right?

Mari 7:00
It was, but I always deal with the problem first, and then I make sure that they know I I've been doing it right. But so I think that for the three of us, we learned different things at different rates. I mean, and we all learn from each other. And I think it you know, even if you hear from someone else how to do something or listen to the podcast and get ideas, you kind of have to troubleshoot, you kind of have to experiment yourself. And you know, it's just it's different hearing about something that she learned to do than doing it myself or something.

Scott Benner 7:39
It's it's an important message that everyone really needs to hear as I just was just speaking to somebody the other day, and you know, at the end of the conversation that was so just in this spot, again, how much insulin is like, No, no, I was like, I can't tell you. I don't know, try, you know, pick a number that makes sense to you give it a try. See what kind of a response you get. Try it again, it

Unknown Speaker 7:59
is a look, it's gonna be a little bit of an experiment until you figure it out. And at this age, it changes so much like his needs one week or so different from his needs the next week.

Scott Benner 8:10
Yeah. How much is he? Why do you think?

Unknown Speaker 8:13
Too much? Pick me up carry me up the stairs? I,

Mari 8:18
I should know, I feel like he's like in the low 30s. Yeah.

Scott Benner 8:22
And so that's not a lot of body weight. Because you you need we need the fat to distribute that insulin around.

Mari 8:27
Luckily, he does have a good little chub layer, which, you know, helps, but I'm sure it's gonna disappear in the next couple years. For that whole four or five year old, were there just so any?

Scott Benner 8:40
So did you have any personal or family experience with diabetes? Um,

Mari 8:46
I have like a family friend who has type two, but I didn't like when, when he was diagnosed, I did not know the difference between type one and type two other than that they had different names. So I have come very far I didn't even though I studied biology, like we never talked about diabetes. I studied animals and ecology and plants and stuff.

Scott Benner 9:05
So I just was trying to establish whether you had, you know, with any backgrounds at all, no. Yeah. So you're you're without any, you know, any idea of what's happening? You're been with the family long enough. You saw the baby you saw Jacob Lauren's you probably feel as close to them as anyone who's not blood related them could possibly feel I would imagine.

Unknown Speaker 9:26
I think so.

Scott Benner 9:27
Yeah, of course. And and so would you describe it as heartbreaking when he was diagnosed?

Mari 9:32
It was one of the it's one of the hardest things I've ever been through. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I, because I was also at work. I was trying my very, very hardest not to completely fall apart and be there and supportive for his mom. I was sitting there thinking, you know, the best thing I can do right now is not fall apart and be strong for her so that she can fall apart. Right. And then I can make sure that Yeah, Jacobs, okay, then

Scott Benner 10:06
I was just gonna say 10 minutes into this conversation, and I already think you need to be paid more money. And I don't know how much you make because you are fantastic. Really like, That's such a, that's such a human like response, like the idea of let me be the strong person for them because that's not part of your job, right? I mean, like, there's no other in the, in the four years prior to that you never like, I'll be the rock here. Like that's, you know,

Mari 10:29
that's the nanny, your job really, essentially is to make the parents life easier and facilitate them being able to work while still having their kids raised in a way that they, you know, care about and are a way that they relate to and to take care of their kids so that they can go to work and not worry, you know, that that is my job is to make their lives easier, right?

Scott Benner 10:53
I didn't I didn't think of it like that. But you're obviously 100% right? Okay, so you're in the hospital, you're being the you're like, I'll hold it together. How hard was it to hold it together? What did you want to do? If no one could see you? What do you think your action would have been?

Mari 11:08
Oh, I definitely would have just cried. I'm a crier. I cry almost every episode I listened to just so you know. Yeah, I know. It's okay. I mean, especially when they get to the diagnosis stories, I always cry, like, Oh my God, because I just feel that moment again, when, you know, we were all in the room together. Um, but what I did was, I took him home, he fell asleep in the car, thankfully, because he really wanted to eat and we couldn't give him anything, you know. And while he took a nap in my car, his mom packed everything up. And then they went to the hospital. And then I sobbed for like, two hours. Until I had to go pick up his brother. So yeah, I mean, it was definitely it was heavy, you know. And I didn't really even know what it meant. At the time, I just knew that it just meant a lot was going to change. You know,

Scott Benner 11:58
like this promise of whatever you feel like life is when you start a family, like it just feels like it's dashed in that moment. And especially without perspective of what can be done or how you can live, it all seems really, like finite, like, oh, gosh, like, it's almost like you fast forward to the end of your happiness. Like you used it all up or something like that. But that's not the case. And so how long did it take you to get clear of that? That feeling? Like when did the when did the clouds break? Do you think?

Mari 12:28
Um, I think one thing that really helped me was that very first weekend, when we went in, it was very overwhelming, you know, all the training and, okay, now you're giving him a shot, like, but I've never given anyone a shot before, you know, it was that the nurse that we worked with, is a type one. And, you know, she has two healthy kids. And she's a nurse, she's successful. She's really involved in the diabetes community. She does diabetes education. And she works obviously with the endocrinologist and stuff. And she, she's amazing. And just such a lovely, successful person. And so meeting her and made me feel a lot better. That's, that's pretty immediate. I mean, it was still all very overwhelming. And I think that probably another breaking point would be like, about them a few weeks or a month after we got the CGM. And the first year like, Oh, my God, this is what's happening, right. So Well, once you start learning how to better manage it through what you learn from seeing that. Then I started feeling like, oh, okay, like, this is manageable. We can do this, you know, it's like a roller coaster like you hit these hard spots. And then you kind of find some relief once you learn from them. And

Scott Benner 13:52
it gets better and better as it goes, Well, how old was Jacob when he got the CGM? Now that school's over, I let my kids sleep in a little bit, you know, for the first couple weeks to let them rest up. That would Arden's diabetes, sometimes that could be problematic. I guess if I didn't have a dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Here's what happens. And it's happening right now. It's early in the morning, as I'm recording this for you. I wake up Arden's blood sugar has been 98 overnight, really steady, great night's sleep. That was exciting. But then I noticed a little trend down. So what I do is I go into a room and I set a temporary basal rate, a little decrease of her insulin, just enough to catch that drift down and brings it back up again. Now here I am an hour later, and her blood sugar is 100. It was going to be low. Her blood sugar would have went from 80 to 70. And it would have kind of kept drifting. Anyway, that's what would have happened if I didn't have Dexcom g sex but because she did. I woke up. I got dressed. I looked at my phone my phone showed me Yeah, I think I'm seeing what I'm saying, I made a little adjustments or insulin. And the next thing you know, everything's okay. Again, no drinking juice in her sleep, not having to wake her up, and she still gets to sleep. And I get to come down here and get the podcast together for you. If you're interested in learning more about the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, please go to the links to your show notes to Juicebox podcast.com or you can type into your browser dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. I'll tell you what, let me screenshot Arden's 100 blood sugar real quick, and I'll put it up on Instagram and on Facebook. So if you follow me on social media, go take a look. Is it official yet? are we calling a 100 blood sugar on a dexcom CGM a Quincy? How old was Jacob when he got the CGM? Oh,

Mari 15:46
I mean, this was like, I feel like it was around a month after diagnosis. But I'm a little fuzzy on the timeline. But quickly in the beginning. It I mean, we we asked for it that weekend. And obviously they were like, Whoa, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. But, you know, we pushed for it. And it didn't take a lot of pushing. But

Unknown Speaker 16:03
we did. How'd you find out that quickly about it?

Mari 16:07
Well, our nurse that I was telling you about, she was wearing one. And she just she just kind of mentioned like, well, in the future, like there are things that we can do, you know, like this, and there's pods, and there's, you know, you were

Unknown Speaker 16:19
like the futures now.

Mari 16:21
And you know, his mom was like, we want one of those right? And they're like, Oh, you don't want to talk about it? Or you know, we want one definitely, you know,

Unknown Speaker 16:27
like, yeah, so yeah, quickly, please.

Mari 16:30
We're all very glad about that. I can't believe they let like nine month olds who are diagnosed out of the hospital without one. Crazy.

Scott Benner 16:38
Yeah, I haven't said it in a while. But I think if you want it, you should just you should have it the day you're diagnosed. I it's just a strange idea that something this kind of fragile and difficult to understand is left up to your imagination. Most of the time

Mari 16:53
are like nine month olds, and they say like, oh, let's stay on MDI, like, but you can't even go small enough for a child. But

Unknown Speaker 17:01
but is Jacob using a pump?

Mari 17:04
Yeah. So he's on the Omni pod. And he has a dexcom. Okay, we just got the G sec. On Friday. So it was as I was leaving work, it showed up? I don't know if he's wearing it yet or not.

Unknown Speaker 17:16
But it's exciting. We do you see how easy the insertion process is. It's so like, simple and fast. And yeah, I

Mari 17:24
mean, I can imagine based on what I've seen,

Scott Benner 17:27
yeah, it's pretty cool. So let me ask you this, Mark. What's your schedule? Like? I mean, you can't work seven days a week for the rest of your life for somebody, right? You must go home, like when does that happen?

Mari 17:38
So I work 730 to 530, Monday through Friday, and sometimes I say an hour late if someone has a meeting or something. So I'm about 50 hours a week, I do come home on the weekends, and I do have a husband and a stepdaughter. And I do have a life outside.

Scott Benner 17:54
Well, the only reason I ask is because what I'm really wondering is is when you leave. And you know if it's just for the evening, or it's for overnight, it's for the weekend. Can you forget about Jacob's diabetes ever? No.

Mari 18:08
I mean, maybe like while I'm watching a movie.

Unknown Speaker 18:11
Yeah, I understand.

Mari 18:13
Like, like, taking a shower. I'm like thinking about like, Okay, how could I have done that bolus yesterday? Better? Like, I think about him all the time, because he's like, my baby.

Unknown Speaker 18:24
You know, what his blood sugar is when you're not with him?

Mari 18:26
Yeah. And sometimes they look, they don't I mean, I know that they're both very proactive, and they pay a lot of attention. And he's in good hands. But sometimes I look, you know, I'm eating lunch. I'm like, Well, I wonder what happened to him today?

Scott Benner 18:42
Is it strong enough that? Could Is there something you could see on that? Dexcom when you're at home, and it's not your job anymore to be looking after Jacob? Is there something strong enough that could make you cross that line and contact them? and say, Hey, what's going on? Like, I need to know, like, the same way? I don't, because it seems inappropriate. Like, as I'm thinking about it, right?

Mari 19:07
Yeah. I mean, I don't think so. Because, I mean, I don't know, I guess I would have to be faced with something. That would, that's scary. But I mean, I've I've seen scary when I wasn't there, and I just waited it out. And then it was fine. You know, it's fine. And then on Monday when I came in, and they said, yeah, that's when we tried pizza. You know? Like, that's when we tried pizza, but something else was going on, you know, I mean, and I've been there too, where like, I have double arrows down and I'm like, How did this happen so quickly. And sometimes on the CGM. It looks so much scarier than it is in real life because you can do a quick check and you can know where they really are. Right? Yeah, no, yeah, it's it's delayed. So sometimes it's it's kind of like making when you're not there. You're panicking over Something that doesn't need to be panicked over, you know, yeah, it's

Scott Benner 20:02
interesting that you bring that up. So this, it's Monday. Now you and I are talking on Monday morning. It's right before the Fourth of July. And last weekend, which is just the last two days of my life on Saturday. I think Arden played a softball game at 8am 11am and 2pm. It was 100. And some degrees, the heat index was crazy. It was that it was terrible. And then she came back the next day and had to play 11am and 230. And it was hotter the second day than it was the first day. So the first day, we get there, and her pump is scheduled to be done, I think around seven o'clock that night. So as we get there early in the morning, I'm like, you know what, everything's great. This is gonna be fine. Like, I can make this pump last this day, you know. And so first game starts adrenaline hits, or I start bolusing for the adrenaline. I try again and again, it seems resistant, but I feel like I'm having success with the pump and I am and I get her blood sugar to come back and went up to like 165 I got it back down I go. game ends we go off to you know, I don't for people in the northeast, we went to wah wah, which I just found out is named after the noise a goose makes I don't know if that's interesting for anybody. But we went to while while we picked up like snacks and and you know, different foods and Arden had to eat. So I'm bolusing on top of that, but knowing she's going to go back out and play again in this incredible heat. I keep her blood sugar down. But around the third game, something happened. And I just could see on the CGM like this climb that's happening in her in her blood sugar. Like I started thinking this pump is on its third day it's coming up on its you know, its last couple of hours. We've been out in this hundred degree heat all this time. And I bolused once I bought this twice, and I didn't get what I expected. So I went over to the bench. I asked her coach, like just leave her out for one inning, one half inning, and we changed her pump right on the bench. It just 110 degrees. And so you know, I've got this big wad of like paper towels and art and splashes some water on it to clean off her stomach. And she goes, this is just like Grey's Anatomy. I said, Marie, I said, it's not really sweetie. And she was like, No, no, it is and she's all excited and she's done it. we swapped that pump in three minutes on a bench, you know, in a baseball field, got it going and had her blood sugar to come right back down again, was great. That night, her blood sugar wanted to be low. And so she ate a meal later in the evening. I don't even think I gave her 15% of the insulin for that I thought I should have given her. And I still had to cut her bezels off over the night to keep her from crap like from getting under 50. Or Now, the next day is I just know I'm like the next day I'm like I'm new pump. Same situation. This is there's going to be a moment right where this is worse. She goes to the first game, everything's great. We go, you know, grab some food, we're sitting in the car, and I said to her, Hey, I'm like your 79 diagonal down time to start eating. And so she starts eating, and 79 becomes 75 becomes 69 becomes 40. Like before, I know it's 40. But she's taken in an incredible amount of food by that point. And that's to your point, like herb CGM said 40. But I thought she's not 40. You know, if she ate, she ate 20 minutes ago, even if she's 40. For the second, it's going to come right back up. And it did it did exactly what I expected it to do. But to believe that for a moment to be able to look at that number that you rely on so much throughout 24 hours a day and be able to sometimes look at it and go, I can't worry about what that says for the moment. That's a difficult leap to make. And that's a difficult leap to make when I'm there and I'm with her. And I'm 100% confident that that I know that what's happening is happening. I just really I feel. So it's a very long way of saying I have a ton of compassion for you having to be in that situation and not be able to make sure. Like that must be just genuinely very difficult. I I would find it incredibly difficult, I guess is what I'm saying?

Mari 24:20
Well, I mean, like I said, I have a lot of confidence in his parents. They're both smart people, and they both are really paying attention. I feel so that does ease my worry a lot, right? Like if I knew he was a babysitter, I might be a little bit more.

Scott Benner 24:41
So can I ask you on your side? You said you have a husband and a stepdaughter? Does your husband ever said to you, Mario, we're talking more about Jacob's diabetes than we are about our own life does it? How far does it bleed into your into your real life?

Mari 24:56
Um, he has never said that to me, but he's just kind person. You know, I, I don't like non stop talk about it definitely my some of my close friends. They're like, wow, I know a lot about diabetes now. No. I think my friend said to me the other day, I can tell how much you care about Jacob. Because every single time we talk, we talk about him. You know?

Scott Benner 25:24
Yeah. What do you think? Does that do you think? Are you trying to subconsciously or consciously create advocates? Or do you think it's just so on your mind?

Mari 25:33
I mean, I like to educate people about it, because I feel like nobody knows anything about it really, unless they're involved in it. But also, I mean, anytime you talk to any of your friends, and you kind of catch up, you just talk about what's going on in your life. And a huge part of what's going on in my life is diabetes management, you know?

Scott Benner 25:51
Yeah. And so that's just really, it's not eye opening, I would, I'd expect you to say it, but it's incredibly interesting that even in your removed situation, you're having the same exact experiences and feelings that everyone else who lives with it as, like, there's, I guess there's no escape. I you know, I don't know, I don't, I don't mean to make it sound, you know, like scary, but like, it's just a difficult thing to walk away from at the end of the day and never think about again, I don't I

Mari 26:18
definitely. And when you have like such a strong bond, I mean, I've I've raised him, you know, I held him when he was just a little baby. And I took over care for him full time when he was about four months old. I like slowly took over, over those four months. And then four months, you know, she went back to work and it was just us. Wow, she

Scott Benner 26:41
must really trust you. Because that's, uh, that's pretty cool. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't just mean with their kids. I mean, for me, you know, that young that that that amount of time since diagnosis, that's really a, that's really something, you know, like, even four months just with your baby, great, but two years with the.in, a two year old diabetes is, is like a four month old. But you know what I mean? Like, it's like, here, I don't like her killed this thing. Take it from me. It's not easy.

Mari 27:11
I mean, I'm also a very meticulous person, kind of a perfectionist, and I studied biology. So I went through physics and calculus and all that. So the math aspect of it was pretty easy for me to pick up and stuff. And I remember them saying, like, you know, it's a good thing. You're our nanny, or I'd have to like, quit my job, you know?

Unknown Speaker 27:33
Yeah, that makes sense.

Mari 27:35
I think that my personality is a good fit for taking care of a diabetic kid.

Scott Benner 27:40
Okay, so let's, let's talk about that. Then she goes off to work, and you're with a two year old who has diabetes. What an awesome two year old Jacob has an awesome two year old could very easily be the name of this podcast episode. I don't know if I've spoken about it yet in the podcast, or if it's still coming up. But this is a very infrequent situation where you're hearing a podcast that I just recorded. So it's July 4, finishing up with the edits right now, putting in the ads, and I'm going to upload it for you. Anyway, you're gonna have heard me talk about art and playing five softball games last weekend three on Saturday, two on Sunday, in hundred degree plus weather very humid. I cannot tell you how indispensible per on the pod was the obvious stuff, first of all, it's to bliss. So she's wearing it constantly, she can get her insulin while she's playing. It's wireless. So when I use the PDM, to make decisions about her insulin, it can be done from, you know, outside of the dugout, you don't have to bother, nobody has to walk in, she doesn't have to pull out some sort of a controller from her. You know, I don't even know where you would put that while you're playing softball. But anyway, the grander point is that Arden still needed her insulin, and I was still able to be bold and aggressive with it while she was playing. But there were times when she didn't need the insulin as much. And I was also able to set temporary basal rates to restrict her insulin. If I saw dips in her blood sugar, she got high from adrenaline at some point, we needed a bunch of insulin, then a little later, it was a little too much, and we were able to tail it back. These are things that you just can't do with shots. You can't restrict insulin with shots, but you can with a pump. And you can do it much better and much easier. And much simpler, would be on the pot. Go to my omnipod.com Ford slash juice box, the links in your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com to get a free, no obligation demo of the AMI pod today. Don't forget to listen to the story where I had to change her pump at the game. I did it on the bench took three minutes. The on the pot is amazing. She goes off to work and you're with a two year old who has diabetes. What are your findings early on like you you're you're pumping at that point, right?

Mari 29:50
Well, early on we were doing MDI, like, a month or something or maybe even longer. I'm trying to think okay, he was he was diagnosed very early December. And mid January, I think is when he went on the pump. And he was already on the CGM at that point for a little bit, but we first tried with diluted insulin because his basal rate was so low. And we were not having good success with that at all. And as soon as we switched to regular concentration, it went much better. Like even though we're giving him supposedly the same amount of insulin, it was just working a lot better. And I'm not sure why.

Scott Benner 30:33
So when you said you weren't having good success, you were having high blood sugars?

Mari 30:37
Yeah, like, it wasn't affecting him. Like it should, given the amount we were giving him. We thought,

Scott Benner 30:44
right. And so you stopped diluting it you went started using it? Were you drawing like little, like bits with syringes in the beginning? Like, yeah, I

Mari 30:53
mean, because a lot of his doses ended up being like quarter units. Yeah. Or like point seven, five or something. I mean, he's a small guy, you know, you talk about giving Arden like nine units for a meal. And I'm like, he doesn't even have nine units in a day, you know, including his bazel.

Scott Benner 31:08
Where do you Where do you see that change? We everyone who's seen a change knows exactly how that feels. I just talked to somebody the other day, who I was telling, like your sounds to me, like they need more insulin. And the sticking point was, but it seems like so much. And I said, I know, that's that's how, you know, they're growing, like right there when you start having that feeling. Because, you know, we are adults who are listening to this, who use, you know, 60 units for a meal, you know, and they're, and they're laughing at the nine units and definitely thinking, gosh, a quarter,

Unknown Speaker 31:37
what is that, like, for me?

Mari 31:38
Most meals are under one unit.

Scott Benner 31:41
Okay? Still, when he's four,

Mari 31:44
and we still use carb ratios, and I still carb count, but I, I, as my boss says, not all carbs are created equal. And if it's something processed, I tend to almost double the carb count. You know, if it's like, crackers, and it says that this is 10 carbs, I'm like, no, it's 20. Or if it's something like a cookie, I've learned to triple the carb count. Well, so I'm still using carb counting. Right? But it?

Scott Benner 32:13
Yeah, but you're still making a big deal. Yeah, you're using bigger to say I did the other day, we were on our way to that first softball game on Sunday. And she's like, I'm gonna have this chocolate chip granola, but I don't know what it was like it was you know, like pho healthy, you know what I mean? And I was like, Okay. And she's like, how much do you think? And I said, How much do you think and she's looking? And I did say, Well, I'm a shark. I was like, how many carbs is insane, isn't it? She was like, 17. And I said, Okay, I said, try two units. But it wasn't I was wrong. It was probably more like two and a half. Because by the time we got to the field, 20 minutes later, I gave her more insulin again. Because I saw a hit, I was about 135 diagonal up, and I thought, ooh, you know, we missed on that a little bit. So, so I bumped it back down again. And, and and then I then my timing was off, because then an hour and a half later, she was like 80 diagnol. down. And that's I

Mari 33:13
need a handful of fruit. Right, right. Yeah.

Scott Benner 33:15
Oh, please. She drank a half a juice box on deck. She had a bunch of bad over shoulder and a helmet on. And I stuck the straw through the fence. I was like, just drink half of this. And she said I don't want it. I was like, yeah, just drink out of it. And so she just did a two little sips, because I have I have found the tiniest juice boxes. It's Yeah, ours are eight carb, our juice boxes.

Mari 33:36
So what I do if I want him to drink half, because he's too and doesn't have good self control, is I hold the straw with my finger halfway out of the out of the juice box so he can only drink half of it.

Unknown Speaker 33:48
That's a great tip.

Mari 33:51
I'm learning all these little tricks which make it so much easier one that I've come up with recently, which may help anyone who has a young boy with potty training. He can use almost any public restroom standing up if he stands on my feet. That has saved us so much hassle. He just stands on my feet and then he's the perfect height to be in the toilet without sitting

Scott Benner 34:14
because Mario If not, you're holding him under his arms and now you're in charge of aiming.

Mari 34:18
He can't relax. How can you relax if someone's holding you up in the air over toilet?

Scott Benner 34:25
I love that. Put this put it halfway in idea which sounds dirty but I don't mean it that way. And so with the with the straw like that's brilliant because when he when the juices gone, you're like oh, it's done buddy and then in his mind he got what he what he was there for he doesn't you have

Mari 34:40
to watch out because it starts compressing

Unknown Speaker 34:44
Yes. Oh

Mari 34:47
yeah, to take it away. Nope. It's fine for now. Thanks.

Scott Benner 34:51
I don't think anybody thought they were gonna get a physics lesson on juice boxes today on the podcast, but they've done it. That's it. Yes. That is simply brilliant. It really is.

Mari 35:00
Then you have the rest, in case, you actually needed a whole one. Oh, please. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 35:04
told her I'm like, I'm keeping the other half of this

Unknown Speaker 35:06
the other day. Oh, sorry, no, no, I

Scott Benner 35:08
just was gonna say we did end up using it, that's all.

Mari 35:11
And the other day we went swimming. And usually we only swim for maybe half an hour or so. And it's so much of me just holding him because he's learning he's only two or two and a half, you know. And he had so much fun. He was just jumping in and out of the pool. And I think he actually got a lot more exercise than he usually does. And plus, we've been a little aggressive with insulin all day, because lately we've been having to be to get him down. And after swimming, he just, everything was really steady for a long time. And then suddenly, it was like 86, double down or something. And I looked at how much insulin was on board. It wasn't that much. I think it was like point two units. And I just gave him for carbs of raspberries real quick. And he steadied out at 75, or 77. Somehow, I guess he came back up a little bit. And then he started slowly drifting down, he just hit 75. And I just gave him two more raspberries, one more carbs, so five carbs or raspberries, just like and then it was like it was beautiful. He just slowly floated up to like mid 90s, or something over the next hour.

Scott Benner 36:22
And then that highlights very well something that I've been talking about, which you won't know about if you're listening to the podcast, because I'm ahead of everyone else in real time. But that it just struck me six, eight months ago, like wow, I'm talking about bumping and nudging insulin, I should also be talking about bumping and nudging food. It's a similar idea. Like you don't have to drink the entire juice box, you don't have to open up, you know, fruit snacks and eat every one of them just because they're there. You know, like,

Mari 36:50
whatever it is, you're using, like one or two gummy bears, like if he's going down. And that's what we have, I'll give him one gummy bear, maybe two,

Scott Benner 36:59
I sometimes on the way, on his way to school, if she looks like she's gonna drift a little low, I just I'm like, Hey, here's these chewy vitamins that usually have a dinner time just have them now, because they have a few carbs in them. And sometimes that's all you need is just a little nudge in the other direction. You know, a little gas a little break. Like,

Mari 37:18
I feel like the bumping and nudging is a little harder with such a small kid. Sure, I'm sure versus an older kid or an adult because sometimes point 05 units can take him from let's say, like 120 to like below 80. You know, it can drop him that much. Little.

Scott Benner 37:39
That's nice. And that's in a situation where you're pretty confident. There's no other reason from earlier.

Mari 37:44
I'm never authentic. There's no other thing going on. I'm, I'm convinced there's always something else going on. But my point is like, he's just so small and so sensitive. And then he's got like, growth hormones and like, constantly eating and I mean, even though we really do kind of space things out, I just, like, constantly eating. It's like, every three hours you have to eat again, like just to do this again.

Scott Benner 38:09
Why don't we eat again next month, I got your blood sugar at 85. Let's just leave it here forever. By the way, the sentence I'm never confident is maybe the funniest thing anyone's ever said in the past, I was fantastic. I'm never confident either Mario, I hope people know that. I hope they know that I'm always just sort of like this will probably work. I'll try that I'll try this.

Mari 38:31
I'm never confident that there's not other things going on. You know, I'm always like, well, it could be this, this or this. And I can come up with so many reasons why this could be happening. But really what I need to do is do my best to feel in the moment, you know, reach a stable ish blood sugar, and keep him feeling good.

Scott Benner 38:50
So was it helpful for you? If you heard it when I said that idea that a lot of times I see people frantically trying to figure out what happened instead of dealing with what is happening. Because I don't know if you ever heard me say that. But I once said it and a person I know who has had Type One Diabetes for a very long time. An adult recently told me that was one of the most impactful things that they heard on the podcast was just that idea of like, when my blood sugar starts going up or starts going down. I used to spend so much time trying to diagnose why it happened. And I wouldn't do anything about it. And any and he said now I just I deal with what's happening in front of me found that very helpful. And it just seems like what you just described like that idea of like not getting lost in the water. What what this could have been scenario.

Mari 39:36
I mean, I definitely the most important thing is to pay attention to what's going on and do whatever needs to be done. But I think that trying to figure out why it's helpful to because you're trying to prevent it from happening in the future or predict that it's going to happen in the future. You know

Scott Benner 39:53
what later after though, whatever is happening is over

Mari 39:56
that's like the tax to the parents comes later. After Right, you have the priority, especially with a low is below, right making sure he's okay making sure he feels good making sure that we stabilize at least prevent it from dropping further and bring it back up. Without overshooting it incredibly,

Scott Benner 40:16
you don't, especially with somebody that little, like that rollercoasters that much worse than, yeah,

Mari 40:23
I remember, we were, you know, at the gym, you know, like a little gymboree thing. And he had been he spiked pretty high after breakfast meeting in the 200, I think. So I was really aggressively trying to get him down. And I knew I probably overdone it a little bit. But I was going to catch it with some fruit, right. And then when he was dropping, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna catch this with this fruit and gave him the fruit. I didn't catch it. And he was still dropping, and he was he was going to go low, and he still had a lot of insulin on board. So then I gave him juice, because I didn't want them to be really low. And then as soon as he started going up, I knew he was going to go up probably to 180 or higher. based on the amount of carbs I'd given him, so I immediately bolus him for all the fruit I gave him but not the juice.

Unknown Speaker 41:16
I was thinking more Yes, my

Mari 41:18
moment, one year something unsettled in the you know, near 100. And I when I got home, I told his mom what I did. And she was like, Oh, I was really surprised, actually that you gave him juice. And he didn't spike super high. But that makes sense. You know, now I know why. This is one of

Scott Benner 41:33
my prouder moments. Mario,

Mari 41:35
I try to catch lows with fruit. That's my thing. I always have like five carbs of raspberries or strawberries or blueberries or something like that weighed out in my purse, right? In case you know, when we're driving, I'll be passing him strawberries, when we're going to pick up his brother. I'm like, Hey, are you just want to eat a couple of these real quick. And I always try and catch it before I have to go to the gummies or the juice. Yeah,

Scott Benner 41:57
you're hoping to stay away from that stuff, obviously,

Mari 41:59
is actually low. I go.

Scott Benner 42:02
Yeah. And you know, fruits great too, because fast acting sugar that doesn't hang around a long time in your system too

Mari 42:09
well, and it's not as fast acting as gummies, right? Because there's fiber and stuff. So it's a little bit slower. But it's fast enough that as long as you're not dropping super quick, you can catch it, you know, and I'm really excited about this preventative, or predicted low that the G six does, because that's what I'm doing. I'm looking at him. I'm looking at how much insulin he has on board. I know how like what I've set his basal rate at, and I, you know, he'll be like 130 and but he's dropping fast enough and has enough insulin on board. I'm like, I need to be giving him food now. But if I was just pricking his finger,

Scott Benner 42:45
you still see the 130

Mari 42:47
I'd be like 130 word great. And then like 20 minutes later, he'd be you know, 60 or 40. Or

Scott Benner 42:54
I don't see the predictive pop up that often. But it actually did last night. And I wasn't surprised after all that softball that he'd been Arden took a shower when she came down from the shower. I always wonder if people like see this the way I do. When Arden asks me for food. She's like I'm hungry. That's genuinely or generally, excuse me, a precursor for a blood sugar that's going to fall. If Arden asks for food at times of the day when she's not normally hungry. Even if her blood sugar looks good. I'm like, Oh, I bet you're her bunch of resets are coming down. So she asked me to pop popcorn. And I was like, Okay, I'll do that. So I just put it in a pot with some canola oil and make popcorn, right. And so I walked out to start doing that. And I got the predictive low alert, she went, she was just under 70. And it said, You know, I forget what it says like, we expect that your blood sugar will be under 55 and 20 minutes or something like that, whatever that message is on the G sex

Unknown Speaker 43:48
about

Scott Benner 43:48
Yeah. And so I said to her, Hey, bonus time, it was like you can have more carbs. And so you know, let's turn this into a real like kids snack now at 839 o'clock at night. And she came out into the church came out into the kitchen and she's looking around. There's never any food. She says even though I'm pretty sure if we locked ourselves in here, we could stay alive for two months, but but she's you know, she's looking around. And she saw that at lunch in between the softball games. She bought this, like chocolate doughnut that she thought she was like, I want this chocolate doughnut. Then she got outside of the car. And she's like, I can't eat this while I'm playing softball. And I said, well, it's just gonna melt and but I jammed it in the cooler. And I guess I must have kept it from turning into a horror show. And so when we got home, I slid it into the refrigerator. She opened it up and she's like, Oh my god, I'm going to have this chocolate doughnut. And I was like, Okay, and so knowing that she was the predictive low was coming. It's hard. It's not hard to put into words. But if somebody can tell you you're 70 now, but you're going to be 55 in 20 minutes. Then what is going on is a perfect Pre-Bolus for something like this right she's got a low blood sugar to begin to lower blood are going to begin with, it's still trying to go lower. She ate this donut. And then she had some popcorn, and I gave her a little bit of insulin for the popcorn and golden was really something like I was like, wow, that predictive, low alert. Actually, it did not, I don't think she ever would have gotten that low because the popcorn would have hit her. But she would have gotten lower than I expected. My popcorn bolus probably would have made me think I use too much insulin there when it wouldn't have been that it would have been from probably from the shower earlier. You know what I mean? Like all these things conspiring against you that I wouldn't have been able to imagine without that information.

Mari 45:35
compared to many. There's too many factors going on all the time, right? Yeah.

Scott Benner 45:41
Well, listen. Now I want to call the episode Mari has strawberries in her purse. So I don't know what to do. I'm really up in the air here. It's going to it's going to, I don't know, it'll be down. It'll be a last minute decision.

Mari 45:54
So I always have like a beef stick, or something like that, which doesn't go bad, right? Which is like a one carb snack. In case he's like, I'm starving. I need food right now. And I always have the carbs. Always.

Scott Benner 46:07
So how do you deal with? What's the impact on Jacob's brother? How old? Is he again? I'm sorry.

Unknown Speaker 46:13
He's five.

Scott Benner 46:14
He's five. Does this all is he very involved with the diabetes thing? Or is he feel separate from it? Or does he like

Mari 46:21
to like enter the calibration numbers and stuff and he likes to be there when you're doing like a big check or something? He's he can do math, basic math and stuff. So he's very into like, the numbers and stuff and you know, if he sees the, the your cell phone open, and it says he's like to something, he's like, oh, Jacobs 237. That means he needs insulin, you know, like,

Unknown Speaker 46:48
you see it out. So

Mari 46:50
I mean, even Jacob, you know, if you ask him, like, what do you do if your blood sugar's too high? He goes, small incident. What do you do if you're low? gummies? Or eat food? You know, he knows. Yeah, and

Scott Benner 47:01
you're keeping it light hearted around them, too, which is great. Listen, don't let that older kid learn too much, you lose your job. And so

Unknown Speaker 47:09
they'll keep the money in the family.

Mari 47:11
Oh, is the nanny, make him learn everything?

Scott Benner 47:14
No, I'm just kidding. But you know, listen, we, you have to live to this is really, I'm fascinated by by how entrenched you are in it. And I don't see another way around it. So let me ask you this, from what you've learned so far. Do you think it's possible to bring a school nurse along to this depth? Or do you think they don't, it requires time together that doesn't exist in that relationship?

Mari 47:42
I don't think and I'm not an expert. But I don't think that anybody can get to where I am or where you are, or where any of these people are, who are taking care of type one diabetics, young type one diabetics, I don't think anybody can get there. Unless they are actually day to day with somebody, I think even like, like the endocrinologist, like she's seeing all these different cases. And she's seeing all these graphs and stuff. And I haven't spent enough time with her to know if she's actually spent, like a lot of time with just one patient. But I just think I just think it's different when you're sitting there day to day with somebody watching what their blood does, from every single meal, you know, every single hour, it's just, it's different. You know, it's a

Scott Benner 48:36
podcast would have any value for like a school nurse or somebody who is in that position of being around the more but not a lot.

Mari 48:43
I mean, I think that Yeah, the podcast would have value for anybody who has a loved one or somebody that they need to take care of, you know, a babysitter or a school nurse, anybody you know,

Scott Benner 48:55
but that for that real, that real like, entrenched understanding, I think you're right, I think you just have to be around it. And I think it's important for people to know who have kids who don't feel like they're picking it up yet. Like, you might just not have enough time in the simulator yet. You know, like, maybe you just need to go through these things, more and more and more until they start making better sense.

Mari 49:16
And, you know, it's, this has been hard for me because as I said before, I'm very meticulous, I'm kind of a perfectionist, and I like things where, if I do this, I get this result. Like I loved chemistry, it was one of my favorite classes. But in this case, if I do the same thing three days in a row, I don't get the same result. And that's really hard. For me, it was really hard for me to let go of the idea that I could keep him between 80 and 120, which is my goal is to constantly keep him there. It is not what I accomplish, but that's what I wish from moment to moment I could do that. And that that was really, really a tough one for me to give that up. And to give up the idea that I was actually going to be able to accomplish that I still try. But you know, if he's if his spikes after a meal stay below 180 I really do feel successful when they're like, they below 130. I'm like, What? How today's awesome, you know, I'm super happy. And when he goes above 200 I try not to beat myself up. But you know, breakfast is harsh man. We have him on a higher carb ratio. And a lot of times I end up doubling his bazel. And he just, you know,

Scott Benner 50:33
yeah, I had over Bolus for breakfast this morning. Because besides you and I recording at 1130 my time at 1030. My time I had a phone call with somebody at a company that everyone would know about something that everybody cares about, which is pretty much all I can say about that, I guess. But, but Arden comes cruising downstairs like in her pajamas and her sports bra. And she's like I'm hungry. And I was like, Well, I'm going to be talking to a gentleman 10 minutes from now for a half an hour. And then I'm getting off and I'm getting rid of the podcast. And she said something quick. And I was like, Yes, so something quick. And her blood sugar had just gone from like she slept in very late to like, God 1030 so I had Qatar Bayes law for a little bit. And I was getting arise the good 90 diagnol up so she bought us a little bit when she got out of bed, but it still made it to 120. So now she was going to be eating at 120. And I didn't really get to give her too much of Pre-Bolus. And by the way, she chose pancakes that weren't handmade. So the ones that are handmade, because they're in there from good natural ingredients, they're fine, but those ones that are like, hey, just add water. So you're gonna have pancakes really quickly, which we keep a couple around the house for these situations. They're harsher. So I over Bolus, yeah, terrible. They're really bad actually. So I over Bolus I double bazel the whole thing, it wasn't enough time. And I needed to get her out of the room so I can get on this call, basically. And she did she got up to like 175 diagonal up before we stopped that I had to Bolus again, to stop the stop the arrow and bring it back down. And now it's two hours, you know, it's two hours since then. I can look real quick. Her blood sugar's 140. So this was not the most successful bolus I've ever made in my entire life. I didn't do all of the things that I knew I would have had to do, I could have controlled those pancakes with more time or opportunity. But to your point, 300, right. It's also not 300. It's also not stuck there for two and a half or three hours. It's just a spike, that that was easily controlled and brought back again. And I'm where you're at, I don't beat myself up about it. I just you know, it's not my goal, but it's also not a failure. And I think that's really important what you said like, it's just, you have to keep in perspective.

Mari 52:53
I also said I try not to beat myself up.

Scott Benner 52:57
What's it look like Marty, when you do beat yourself up?

Mari 53:00
I just feel bad. I just sit there and think about what I could have done better, which I think is somewhat productive.

Unknown Speaker 53:07
Yes. But not the part where you feel bad.

Mari 53:10
Yeah, I, you know, or on days when I just keep bonusing him and I can't seem to get him down. You know, there was one time where that was happening. And I really aggressively Bolton and he dropped fast. And it was really scary. And I had to give him you know, it was scary because it was my first time experiencing that. Now I think I'd handle it a little better. But I had so much adrenaline you know, and I gave him fruit and I gave him juice and he was fine. Even though the CGM did drop down to 47 for one cycle. But after that, I learned that I really shouldn't bolus him more than once an hour. But on stubborn days, my rule is to wait at least half an hour

Scott Benner 53:55
to see so, so much to my points that I've made previously. As much as a mistake feels like a mistake, a mistake. If you treat it correctly. If you pay close attention to it, you learn way more from those moments than you do from the other ones. Right? Because you saw how much insulin is too much insulin, but you can also use that information to make a slightly better decision next time still be very aggressive, but not to the point where you're 47 when it's over.

Mari 54:21
And I will say that occasionally I do Bolus and then Bolus like five or 10 minutes later, if he's rising, rising, rising, and I say okay, like I'm giving him point two units to stop this. But then for the next few cycles, he still rises. Yeah, I might add in like another point one or point 05. But I'll call that, you know, then I won't Bolus for another 40 minutes or an hour or something.

Scott Benner 54:45
And keep people should keep in mind when you're, when you're saying point, you know, point one that's, you know, half that's 50% of the original Bolus, it's a lot more insulin then you know, it's like saying I it's like if I said do i Bolus j units and I put four more In, you know, like it's a, it's a, it's a fair impact.

Mari 55:03
But you have to think that like, when he ate, I gave him say like, for breakfast, it might be like point nine, and then maybe his blood sugar was like 140. So that's another, like, I don't know, we just changed all the correction factors that don't quite have it. But something like point two or I don't know. But let's say the original Bolus was then you know, 1.1 or something. But then he's still going up past 180. I might add in another point one or point two or something and double his bazel rate. Because I think of it this way, if I'm adding in 2.2, and I double his bazel rate 2.1 an hour. Like, I can make that up by giving him like three strawberries. Yeah. So I always try and think about like how much extra insulin I'm giving him versus how much food I would need to give him to make up for that. Is it feasible that I can make him eat that amount of food easily. Because I never want to give him an extra Bolus that is so much that I wouldn't be able to make it up in food. I think of things that way. Like,

Unknown Speaker 56:10
that's a smart way to think about it.

Mari 56:12
When I think about a unit or a dosage of insulin. I think about it and how it equals in strawberries or blueberries.

Scott Benner 56:19
That's that's the sillies. That's the story that gets sent here over and over again about when I was trying to figure out how to Bolus for for adrenaline during basketball. I was like, I know I need more. But at the moment doesn't seem like it makes sense for more insulin. So I just my initial bolus was for what I knew I could cover with a juice box.

Mari 56:39
And also you don't know like, I've heard you talk about this. You don't know when that influence. I mean, sorry when that adrenaline is going to stop. And I'll say for for your age, adrenaline makes sense and competitive situation. For Jacobs age, I should say for Arden's age, right. But for Jacob age, adrenaline is tantrums. Right. And so when he has a tantrum, he doesn't usually have the kind of tantrums that wear him out and drive his blood sugar down. He has the kind of tantrums that drive him up really fast. And, you know, like we're in a great place where maybe we're like at 120. And I've just bolus him to bring him down before we eat our afternoon snack and then he starts having a tantrum. And it's like, he'll be 180 all of a sudden.

Unknown Speaker 57:26
And that's not fair.

Mari 57:27
How long the tantrum is going to last is going to last five minutes is going to last 20? I don't know. And I don't I haven't quite figured out how to deal with the gentleman. So then I give him insulin and hope it was the right amount. But how do you know? I don't know how to combat that hormone. I don't I don't know what the right amount of insulin is for that situation yet. Is it out every day? You know, I haven't had as much experience as I have with, Oh, well. I know how to deal with blueberries. Because we have a lot of blueberries, you know, so that

Scott Benner 57:58
I can do and you have plenty of practice in one day, you'll realize that'll have happened enough times or hope or maybe he'll grow out of it. But you'll be able to figure it out at some point. I saw something incredibly interesting yesterday, and have a tie in the last inning of a tie game. So it was the they were so is the bottom of the sixth inning, they were getting ready to go back out on defense. And Arden ran out to her position and her blood sugar started going up. And I thought it was weird. The timing was strange. And I couldn't do anything about it because she was on the field. So when she came back in, I kind of met her at the fence and I gave her some more insulin. And when we in the car later she said, Why did you have to Bolus before I've added in that last inning and I said oh your blood sugar jumped up. And I said I couldn't figure out why. And she was I know why. And I said I said why she goes the game was tied. I delete off the next inning. And she's like I got she's like I just got nervous that I was gonna it was gonna be on me when they came back around again. And I was like nervous. Yes. I don't know it not really nervous. It just it just like she couldn't really put it into words. But I think she was getting amped up to go play defense get three outs not let them score and come back. And then she felt like it was on her to get them that run they needed. And that actually made her blood sugar go up this fast.

Mari 59:14
Yeah, if you think about just how it feels like as a person when you get an adrenaline rush, it's intense,

Unknown Speaker 59:20
you know, really, so

Mari 59:22
you're probably releasing insulin and sugar at the same time to you know, good times and

Scott Benner 59:27
it's hot and everything else is going on and she's hydrating as much as she can but it never feels like she told me at one point she said I drank so much water today. I could feel it moving on my stomach when I was writing.

Unknown Speaker 59:38
I'm so sorry.

Mari 59:38
That happens to us when he has ketones. He'll be like my tummy feels weird like that because you just drink a lot of water.

Scott Benner 59:44
Did you ever shake them and put your up to them? It's fine. You can hear it slosh around.

Mari 59:48
I can just bear it when he's moving. Move enough. I mean, he's too you know how they are always in motion. You know,

Scott Benner 59:55
tomorrow we're coming up on an hour. This was really great. Did I not? Did we not say anything? That you were hoping that would come up?

Mari 1:00:02
Well, we could say that one month after diagnosis, Jacob had an 8.6, a one C, and three months after that. So about four months after diagnosis, we got him down to a six, seven. And I think that that may be the difference between using MDI with no CGM to using up a pump with a CGM. Um, and also as learning a lot.

Scott Benner 1:00:26
But look how quickly you got to it to once you had that feedback. And that information, how quickly you were able to go from, you know, to to lose points off that a one c just but what do you think is average blood sugar is in the course of a day.

Mari 1:00:40
Even now, and also I'm not there at night, you know, so I'm not part of that whole thing.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:45
Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:00:46
That's what you don't have to get involved in that. That's kind of lucky.

Mari 1:00:50
Yeah. I mean, they're very diplomatic about it. They take turns. You know, I think it's really nice, because they both work full time. You know, in your case, you're at home so you take care of the night. That makes sense,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:04
right? No, I agree. Yeah, just

Mari 1:01:06
work full time. So they just take turns. I think that's so diplomatic and

Scott Benner 1:01:11
awesome. Understand, we're gonna rock paper scissors in the middle of the night, just like, like, how do you

Mari 1:01:16
know they take turns? For each night? Tuesday night is me Wednesday night is you know, like, yeah, so sometimes though, he'll have a good night, bad night. Good night, bad night, and I feel so bad for the parent who gets the both bad night. You know,

Scott Benner 1:01:31
they never match up for me, by the way. I like like on the nights. I don't know if this happened to other people. But Arden's blood sugar's perfect. It never goes up, it never goes down. I get in bed and I can't sleep. And I'm like, this is some sort of a cruel joke. Like, how is the tonight's not the night, I couldn't just like lay down and fall asleep the nights when I need to do something. I'm struggling to keep my eyes open to do it as like, why but just one time?

Mari 1:01:55
Well, it could have to do with just being exhausted over the idea of having to do it and make you tired. I don't know. No,

Scott Benner 1:02:02
I don't disagree. I also think that like there's that when the blood sugar's not giving me a problem. My brain immediately goes, Oh, what are the other things I would do if my daughter didn't have diabetes? And then I get overwhelmed with things I'd like to do. You know what I mean? Like, like, maybe watch an episode of something on Netflix, like, oh, like, maybe I'll do that maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll think about things like maybe, and then I just get, I get the I get the opportunity to use that free time. And for some reason, I can't use it to sleep sometimes. And it's disappointing when you don't fall asleep, and the blood sugar never beeps never moves. You're like, Oh, I know, tomorrow night, I'll,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:40
I'll zonk out.

Mari 1:02:42
I'm gonna feel like sometimes when we have these, like amazing days, where I'm just like, wow, this all just went so smooth. And then they'll be like, a terrible night, right? Or they'll have like, a really smooth night where I'm like, wow, that's beautiful. And then we just have the crappiest day. And I'm like, and there's just no rhyme or reason. Sometimes, well, Mari, I

Scott Benner 1:03:03
think that as he gets older, as Jayco gets older, you'll see more rhymes and more reasons, and you'll have less fluctuation like that. And, you know, a lot of it will come with his body getting bigger, a lot of it will come with you got the three of you having more experiences, but but I think you're well on your way to finding more of that balance that I think is, you know, everybody desires, and you guys are really to be commended. Like the three of you working together like this is just really, it's fantastic. Like it's not, you know, some people have real trouble and there are people listening now who are, you know, in their husband, their wives, and they fight about this stuff all the time, I hear about it a lot. So it's, it's not it's not like

Mari 1:03:43
we all agree 100% on everything. But, you know, ultimately, they have the say, right, and I'll do what they want. But they also are totally open to hearing my ideas and letting me try out things within reason. So

Scott Benner 1:04:00
yeah, okay, the freedom to just, you know, to get your thought out in the world with somebody judging it, and then give it a try and see what happens

Mari 1:04:08
when all that, you know, they're like, if you feel like you need to make a call, make a call, do it, you know, and then if we didn't like that call, we'll let you know, afterwards, you know, but like, in the situation, I don't have to sit there, you know, questioning myself too much.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:23
Just act you know,

Scott Benner 1:04:24
so Jacob's parents who are not naming you guys are handling this incredibly well. And maybe one day one of you will come on and we'll, we'll talk about the other side of this conversation. Marie, I really appreciate you doing this. I know it's early where you are. Listen,

Mari 1:04:39
it's it's like 930 right now, right?

Scott Benner 1:04:41
It's still it's the morning. I'm like looking at the rest of my day going on wonder what I'll do now. It's like 1230. So I'm actually going to run. I'm going to take Arden to get her teeth cleaned because that is the excitement that is my life. And, and I just genuinely appreciate you doing.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:56
Yeah, thank you for having me on.

Scott Benner 1:05:00
Thank you so much on the pod to Dexcom tomari, to the family that Mario works for to Jacob for being awesome. And all of you for listening. Don't forget, you can go to Miami pod.com forward slash juicebox or the links that I've put everywhere to get a free, no obligation demo pod today on the pod would be thrilled to send you out a demo so you could wear it, try it and see if everything I'm telling you is you know, copacetic also dexcom.com forward slash juice box or again, the links in your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com. To get started today with the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Happy Fourth of July to those of you living in America. I'm super sorry to those of you living in England and everyone else. It's Wednesday. I'll be back next week.