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

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends Welcome to Episode 192 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is with Ashley we're gonna call it bolusing, cursing and tacos. I'm very proud to tell you that the episode you're listening to is sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the G six continuous glucose monitor by Omni pod, the makers of the tubeless insulin pump that Arden has been using for a decade, a decade. Hold on, do the math. Yeah, 10 years. And by dancing for diabetes, you can find Juicebox podcast.com and the sponsors in the show notes of your podcast app where you can actually just go to Juicebox Podcast COMM And the links are there as well. You're ready for the music.

I want to take this opportunity to welcome any new listeners. I just got back from the jdrf event. in southwest Ohio, you guys were terrific spoke to a group of people there had to have been 500 people in that room. There's a great picture on my Facebook and my Instagram, if you want to see the room. Absolutely amazing. Thank you very much. jdrf, Southwest Ohio. Anyway, guys, if you're new to the show this week, this is what I was telling you about. This is an absolutely terrific episode. It's good conversation. It's great management talk. There's a little bit of everything here. But don't forget this. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making changes to your medical plan. If you're interested in finding out about having me come out and speak to your group, just reach out through the links at Juicebox podcast.com.

Ashley 1:49
My name is Ashley and I have been type one diabetic for going on 23 years now.

Unknown Speaker 1:57
Wow. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:59
How old are you now?

Unknown Speaker 2:01
You're 27.

Scott Benner 2:03
Oh, okay. So you got you got in the game early?

Unknown Speaker 2:06
I did. Yeah.

Scott Benner 2:07
So actually you are a our talk today is going to be a prime example of when I tell people on the podcast, I don't prep at all. I really don't prep at all. So here's what I usually there's a little look behind the curtain we set I talked to people. And I'm like, this sounds interesting. Let's set it up when we set it up, and then usually get set up for months in advance. And then I sit down an hour before we're going to talk. And I go over our correspondence in about two seconds. Except I couldn't find any correspondence between you and I. So like, because now there's so much By the way, this is not my fault. There's so many social media platforms. Now. I have to sit down and like we talked about email. Was it text? Was it through Facebook Messenger, if it was through Facebook Messenger, was it through the blog website? Or was it through the end? Was it Instagram? I'm lost now. So actually overwhelm you. overwhelmed me, I'm too old for all this is what I'm saying. I really, I was sitting here this morning thinking like I should just find a younger person to help me with this part of it. But why are you and I talking? What led you know what led you and I did to meet and get to this spot?

Ashley 3:20
Sure. We did connect via Facebook. I had reached out to you initially because I volunteer with jdrf. And I started start working as an outreach volunteer, which is like a mentor for newly diagnosed patients. Yeah. And so one of the women I started mentoring, who actually you've talked to, I guess, she was like, Oh, you got to listen to this podcast. I can't believe you've never heard it. And so I started at the beginning and pretty early on you talk to someone who was in Northeast Ohio. And they were talking about how they took their daughter to the Cleveland Clinic rather than going to like the children's hospital because of how great it was. And at the time, I was looking for a new endo. And I looked them up and I was like, wow, they're like number two in the country. Why have I not been going there? It's only 40 minutes away. And now I have the best diabetic care team I've ever had my a one C has gone down like multiple points. And I attribute that largely to starting to listen to your podcast and getting more involved with the community. So I reached out to you and thank you told you how long I'd been diabetic how long it took me to get here and you were like that's so interesting. You should come off.

Scott Benner 4:45
Right so now I'm caught completely backup. Here's what I heard the podcast helped you. I didn't hear anything. Oh, no, I'm just kidding. So no, no, that's so first of all, that's really cool. It is interesting. You know, I tell people all the time when they come on. I'm like you're gonna say something that's gonna help somebody And I don't think that that person would have ever believed by just saying the name of where they go would have ended up helping you. But I mean, look at that, like they they came on and spoken your a one C is multiple points lower now. And that's pretty cool. What is what it is. So when you were tight, let's go back a little bit diagnosed 23 years ago when you were four. And so like, wow, I'm just gonna just like try to whip out a date real quick. But is it was it in the 90s or the late 80s or the early 90s?

Ashley 5:30
It was actually 95.

Scott Benner 5:32
See how I said early 80s, early 90s, late 80s. And then I said start to say mid 90s I was trying to cover every It's Friday, by the way. So Alright. Okay, so mid 90s. Four years old. Was there any? Did your parents have any way of knowing this was coming with or other people in the in the family with diabetes? Or did it really

Ashley 5:53
come out of nowhere? No, it really came out of nowhere. I'm pretty sure when they took me to the hospital and the doctors told them that I had diabetes. I'm like, 90% Sure. My mom's response was Isn't that like for older, larger people? And I was this tiny little kid who had no idea what was going on?

Scott Benner 6:13
sure your dad was looking for a firehouse to leave yet to his property. Right. And that's enough of this. Well, yeah, because who would know? Right? Like right, you really are stuck with the you know, with the BS that's out in the world diabetes is for heavy people had diabetes for your grandmother like you know, aren't you know, oh, I have an uncle has diabetes. He takes a pill. He doesn't drink soda anymore. Like that kind of stuff. Like so. I get not understanding where your parents young parents?

Ashley 6:41
Oh, yeah, at the time, they would have probably only been about 30. So they're still pretty young. And my younger sister had just been born like four months earlier. So I just really wanted to you know, keep their lives interesting.

Scott Benner 6:54
Yeah, Yeah, no kidding. Give that's got to be. Can you imagine like, put yourself in that position that like all these years later, a little four year old kid, everything's going great. Right? You make you make another one because you like we are on such a roll here. Look how cute this little one is. We can do it again. And then somebody starts yelling about diabetes while you're holding a newborn. Be like, oh my god.

Ashley 7:14
It's actually ridiculous. I've thought about that. Now that I'm past the age that they were when they had me I'm like, I can't imagine that big in their shoes. You know when that?

Scott Benner 7:25
You just said that a doctor Haleigh? Can you watch them for a second? We're just gonna go get a soda and then just never come back. And probably divorce in the parking lot be like, you know

Unknown Speaker 7:34
what, okay, right? It didn't work out.

Scott Benner 7:36
We'll see you later. It really is. Listen, it's shocking. I was in a very similar situation where my kids are my son's 18 now, and my daughter's just about 14. So we had them just far enough apart that I imagined that I could manage it as a stay at home dad, and that we thought we could rebound a little bit after paying for the first one to go to college for the second one like so we spaced our kids out like that. So when Artem was diagnosed in 2008 was a 2006. My son was like six years old, maybe five or six years old. And I remember the same thing. Like I had this cute little boy, he played baseball, we bought a house. You know, everything seemed really great and was like, let's do it again. And you know, like, and then she comes out and she's adorable. And you're like the first two years or like this is amazing. Like the last thing I remember before being diagnosed like big life event was my daughter's second birthday party, which we had in our backyard and completely overblown. There was a man like with a pony drunk driving the kids in a circle. The grass was getting ripped up. I was like, I don't care. You know, the Philadelphia Zoo came out with a couple of animals. It was like an armadillo walking around and an eagle and I was like we're winning life. And yeah, then like, a couple weeks later, I was like, oh, what happened? You know, like, just boom like that. You and your parents ever talk about that?

Unknown Speaker 9:00
Sometimes,

Ashley 9:03
because obviously we remember it very differently. I was, you know, really young. And I just remember being overwhelmed. I wanted to go home, but I, you know, didn't feel good. I actually distinctly remember we were at Children's Hospital and Homeward Bound was playing. And my grandma was the one who came in and told me I was going to have to stay overnight and I cried and to this day, I can't watch that movie.

Scott Benner 9:27
Please check out dancing for diabetes.com dancing, the number for diabetes.com diabetes always ruins so Oh, um, when my wife was in the hospital with Arden because we were on vacation when she was diagnosed, and I had to keep going back to the vacation house to stay with my son. And that was back when like little portable DVD players were like a thing. And my my daughter watched sky high over and over again. Oh my god. And now if it comes on, I can see my wife like physically get ill. Yeah, it really bothers her. It's interesting. So what was your movie Homeward Bound? Yeah, that's probably not a bad movie not to be able to watch it.

Ashley 10:09
I know. It's, it will occasionally come up in conversation because well, you know, so it'd be like, Oh, yeah, this cute movie that I watched as a kid, I'm like, nope.

Scott Benner 10:18
That's the diabetes movie that movie gets. Well, at four, it's just I mean, okay, so four years old to your pay. So you and your parents, when you and your parents talk about it, can you get a feeling from them? Like, are they this? Is it sadness that they try to mask? Is it guilt? Is it like, what what do you think they feel? When you when you kind of have that conversation with me? I mean, or maybe, maybe they don't let on at all? Because I'm always interested about like, how, how does art and perceive how I perceive diabetes? Because you know what? I mean? Like, I, I hate it. So what does she know that you don't I mean,

Ashley 10:58
right. It's a it's different from both of them. And it's kind of neat, having talked to them, and like looking in retrospect at like, how they responded to me over the years and realizing what it was they were feeling and thinking. My mom, she actually just passed away this past November. Thanks. But she, whenever she would talk about it, it was always this like, instant fear. Like when I got Dexcom. And I was so excited. I was showing it to her how it worked and everything. If my phone like, so much has got a text message. She would like shift and be like, is that your blood sugar? Do you need juice? And I get I don't think she slept my entire childhood. I'm pretty convinced that this?

Scott Benner 11:45
Yeah. Is that funny, like so every time? She thinks about diabetes, it's her first thought that something's wrong. And you're right. And you're in danger. Yeah,

Ashley 11:54
yeah, yeah. And then my dad. He is, at this point, he's just drunk. And he's like, you know, way more than I do. The technology is so advanced. It looks really cool. Just so he's kind of fascinated by it. But he's almost like, and I could be wrong. But it was like he's relieved that he doesn't have to keep up so much with it anymore. Yeah, if that makes sense. But every time I get my a one C or go see the endo, I call him. And he's so excited to hear you know how much better I'm doing. And he almost can't believe it. Because when I was diagnosed, I think my agency was 14. Yeah. Oh, wow. And that last one was 5.9.

Scott Benner 12:34
So your dad probably feels the way guys feel when their ex wives get remarried. And they're off the hook for like,

Unknown Speaker 12:41
you know, that's

Unknown Speaker 12:42
probably accurate. Yeah. Dexcom off the hook.

Scott Benner 12:47
But you know what, it's funny it brings up for me, is that is that I'm always worried. It's and I'm glad to hear you say it. You're laughing through it. Because I'm always worried that Arden will see it as me being on the hook. You know what I mean? And like that showed one day look back and think, oh, that poor person like, like, like one day, she'll figure out what it really means to have diabetes on her own, like a real like, by herself feeling. I don't want her to look back and feel badly about what we did, because I don't feel badly about it.

Ashley 13:17
Oh, good. Yeah, I totally get that. Because my husband and I have been together for a number of years now. We started dating in high school. And that was one of my biggest fears before we got married, that we really had to work through was the guilt of putting that on someone else. And he is so I mean, he's the tech guy. He's obsessed with Dexcom and all the data and like seeing the trends and whatnot. But I get so worried that I'm gonna burn him out eventually, you know?

Scott Benner 13:45
Yeah, I definitely. I mean, I can't say that. I wouldn't be worried about the same thing. If you know, it's already part one of them. Yeah. But it's not that easy to, you know, like, and so you start adding other things and, you know, and in your his radio shack project or something like that, on the weekend or something, and that's not how you want. I'm assuming you don't want to be seen like that. Like, I bet you. I should probably let you tell me, but I bet you, I bet you like that he cares, but you don't want him to burden to have that burden. Right.

Unknown Speaker 14:16
Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 14:18
How do you balance that then?

Ashley 14:21
That's a good question. I mean, I'm, I'm pretty self sufficient at this point. I mean, I will get, you know, my Dexcom weekly reports and show him and get really excited about it. And he has some input. It's really funny, like if my blood sugar's low. And you know, when your blood sugar is low, for instance, you don't really think clearly, sometimes, like, I know it gets all fuzzy, and I'll just looking at and be like, what should I do? And he looks at me, he's like, what, what do you think you should do? And I'll give him like, I don't know I'll start but are gonna be like, maybe I should take a glucose tablet. He's like, I'll go get those for you.

Scott Benner 15:00
It's a variation of that every couple knows about the restaurant conversation. Where do you want to go? I don't know. Where do you want to go? I'm not that hungry. Why are we going that?

Unknown Speaker 15:10
Oh, God, I

Scott Benner 15:11
know that you say, oh, we're hungry. And I'm just trying to go with you. Well, that's stupid. Where do you want to go? I might Oh my God, my wife looks so disappointed in me when I don't know what restaurant I want to go.

Ashley 15:22
I probably give my husband the same look. So I get it.

Scott Benner 15:25
I always look back at him like, but you don't know either. Yep. Why? Why is it okay for you not to know, but me not. And I know, I always just trail off and give up. And then I take a restaurant that I'm sure she's unhappy with. So

Ashley 15:38
I know that conversation all too well. I can't make decisions. It's just like, awful. I know.

Scott Benner 15:43
I think my wife is so busy making decisions at work. Then when she comes home, she really is not looking to like be the person in charge of a lot of things. Especially I get that. Yeah. So okay, so I'm trying to like, because, you know, some people have a completely opposite reaction and don't want their spouse in any way involved. As a matter of fact, there's no way to know when your episodes gonna go up. But around episode one around Episode 150 ish, there was a person on who said that they didn't even take, like they were dating and really and was struggling, struggling struggling with diabetes and never led on to their, to their boyfriend, their who became their fiance, who then became their spouse. And finally, she was finally able to tell them like, Look, I'm I don't know how it looks from the outside, probably pretty good, but I'm not doing well. And I was like, wow, that's an issue I'm assuming to didn't want to burden, you know, or cause a problem, or you know, what I mean? Like, it's right, it's a it's a hard, it's a hard thing to figure out. You know, so let me go back a little bit, you said that, you found a new doctor. And that, you know, it's really improved things. So, how long ago was that?

Ashley 16:51
About a year ago now? Okay.

Scott Benner 16:53
So So prior to that, the 22 years prior to that, were you like, how would you describe your kind of like, like how your care was going?

Ashley 17:03
You know, it was it was going okay. I, I've always kind of embraced my type one as a part of me. So I've always tried to take care of it. I went away to college, and you know, found an endo closer to me. And you know, did what I could. And it wasn't doing too bad. Right before I switched to my current endo. I think my a once II was hovering between like seven and eight. And I was happy with it, but knew I could do better. And I was starting to hit that point to where like, probably around 15 to 20 years with T one. I was just feeling burnt out by it constantly and not even I struggle to use the phrase burnout because often that means that people stop taking care of themselves and let it get out of control. But I hate not feeling good. Oh, I would maintain it. But I'd be really bitter about it all the time.

Scott Benner 18:06
I gotcha. I like both singing and cursing. Which is probably the title of this episode. Now that I think about it. But yeah, that so you hated it. We're tired of it, but are too stubborn to stop doing it.

Unknown Speaker 18:20
Basically. Yeah,

Scott Benner 18:20
that's great. Well, good for you. By the way, I think it might take a little bit out, you know what I mean? Like it right? Sometimes not giving up takes a lot of different. A lot of different like, faces, I guess you don't mean like not, it doesn't it's not just like bear down and go when I when sometimes it's good. Bye. And so, so you were getting by but you didn't have anyone see, like you knew it could be better.

Ashley 18:43
Did and I was happy. I was you know, I mean, emotionally, I was just a mess all the time because it was always there. You know?

Scott Benner 18:49
Okay, so So is this thing that you felt like, I can do better at this, but I'm not and so it's making me upset on top of that. I really don't want to be doing this anymore, but I can't give up. That's not a good place to live at all. Yeah. Why Why? Why didn't you have an A one seemed more like what you were looking for? Like, was it lack of like just tools? Did you not? Like know what else to do?

Ashley 19:18
Yeah, it was. I mean, it was a mix of things up. I've been on different kinds of insulin therapy. I mean, like when I was diagnosed, all we had were the syringes you know, the basic injections and I went from that to pens to a tube pump and then now mon Omni pod, which has made all the difference. Just because for me personally having to detach even for like the 10 minutes it took to shower, my blood sugar would spike like crazy things like that. But it was that and accepting things that aren't necessarily true. Like I love your kids. First bold with insulin because I just had it in my mind that, you know, I would eat and inevitably I'm gonna spike to 200 plus, that's just a thing that happens, you live with it, and then it comes back down. And it was accepting that accepting where I was, rather than trying to get it better.

Scott Benner 20:19
You know, let's just take it back a step. Today, we're going to talk about Dexcom. We're going to talk about in very simple terms, do you know what a continuous glucose monitor is, if you don't listen closely, and if you do, just use my link and order it now. But if you don't, the dexcom continuous glucose monitor is a device you wear it, and it tells you how fast your blood sugar's moving, and where it's at. So for instance, right now, Arden's blood sugar is 91, I can see that because she is at school, wearing the dexcom g six, that's the newest version. If Arden's blood sugar begins to move up or down her Dexcom will indicate that to her, and to me, because I'm able to follow her, you're actually able to have up to five followers. But anyway, if her blood sugar should begin to move, with some very easy to understand arrows, the Dexcom will indicate to me how quickly she's moving. Is the arrow pointing straight up or straight down? That means one thing? Is it pointing diagonal for diagonal down? That means another thing you look at it, you quickly know Oh, her blood sugar's moving about two points per minute. Maybe I should do something now. Maybe I should just keep an eye on it. That is what the Dexcom does. And I've talked about it on a very basic level today, because I was somewhere this past weekend, where I was talking about Dexcom. And I was just like, I know, everybody loves Dexcom. And somebody came up to me afterwards said, what was that thing you were talking about that began with a D. And I thought, all right, there's more work to be done here. We need more people to understand continuous glucose monitoring. And I think the best way to understand it, is to go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box and find out more.

I'm getting ready to go off and speak at something in a couple of weeks. And I keep trying to figure out how to only have an hour to basically try to fast forward people through the ideas of this podcast. And I just keep thinking about like, how do I start, like, you know, like, how do I? How do I put them in the frame of mind to believe it so that we can talk about it? And because you can't just start giving examples, because you'll have people have the same thought, like you just said, like, they'll be like, that's not how this works. You know, like, or that guy knows something magical? I don't know, or something like that. And I think in the end, it's just, it comes down to like, it comes down to understanding like, I think that, you know, if I said to you right now, like, do you not make a million dollars in a year? You'd be like, no, that's not a thing that were happens. But somebody looks at me, but somebody knows how to Yeah, I don't know how to like, if the motor in my car blew up, I wouldn't be able to take it out and put in a new one. But somebody knows how to do that. And right, you know, and so the difference is, is that when your car breaks down, you don't, you don't automatically think, Oh, well, there's no one in the world that can fix this, I'll just die. Like, you know, like, you don't you don't have that thought you think oh, there's a guy, I'll go find a guy or a woman, somebody can do this for me. But when it's diabetes, it's that horrible, horrible sentence right away like you my, here's what happens, I eat my blood sugar goes to 200 there's nothing I can do about it. That's just diabetes. And, and the truth is, that's not just diabetes, that's diabetes, if you don't understand how to use insulin really is kind of that simple. You know, and, and it's no one's fault, because nobody gives you the right. Like, talk about it. In the beginning. Nobody says hey, this is how the endzone works. And you know, you're gonna have to start using it here if you want it to do something over here. And I don't know, it's just seems so unfair, because then look what happened to you. Like you just described yourself as being burdened, unhappy, burned out, you know, but none of that was necessary to piss you off. Like once you figured it out. Were you just happy? Are we angry afterwards?

Ashley 24:03
There's a little bit of both. And I think it was more happy and relieved that I didn't want to realize I could do it. It was almost like winning a game, right? Like, I felt like I had finally figured something out and felt really accomplished. And there's really something to be said to that. Like the reason I you know, found the podcast or got these other tips and tricks to start doing better, was connecting with other type ones, which I've never done. I mean, like I said earlier, I'm the only one in my family who has it. And I never really grew up with other type ones. I think my first type one friend was in college. We happen to already be friends and she was diagnosed while we were in school.

Scott Benner 24:50
She probably thought you gave it to her. I knew not to hang out with Ashley.

Ashley 25:00
But, you know, I started, I reached out to beyond type one which has their app with all the forums and such. And so I got super involved with that. And through them, I got like book recommendations. So I normally can't read like medical books. I just get so bored. I don't process any of it.

Scott Benner 25:19
Yeah, I might be like, that might be why this podcast exists, by the way.

Ashley 25:24
I love it. But I did pick up a Bernstein's book, because someone had mentioned on the app, you know, oh, I read this in my a, once you went down two points. It was like what I don't believe you. So I read it and made some of those changes. And then that led me into, you know, Gary Snyder's book, and then Adam Brown, who writes for diatribe and like things started to change there. almost instantly when I started reading what other people were doing, but there is still this like, disconnect because I couldn't talk to them and bond with them over it, you know,

Scott Benner 26:00
and that's that this does that for you being able to listen to other people like actually talk?

Ashley 26:05
Oh, absolutely.

Scott Benner 26:06
That's great. I'm glad to hear Yeah. Yeah, it's it is. So community is, it's funny, because I have this conflicting thought in my head. It's not conflicting, actually, I guess. But I, here's how I think about the idea of community. I think it is incredibly important. And below for reasons like you just said, like, you know, because you're because the guy at the deli counter can't tell you how to use your insulin. So you need to find somebody who are you know, who knows that he can share these things with you. But at the same time, sometimes we listen, I don't do it. But I see community get oversimplified. its importance over simplified like, you have to know that someone's going through the same thing as you, which is absolutely true. You have to know that there's other people out there, and they've got your back and all that. And that all is absolutely true. But it doesn't culminate with success. If the rest of it doesn't come the tools and the ideas, concepts that really work. supports nice, but, you know, listen, if you go up to bat and you strike out, and your coach says, as you're walking back, it's okay. You'll do better next time, but doesn't tell you how that's going to happen. You know, like, because maybe you need to land your foot a little sooner, your hands need to be a little higher, like, those are the kind of things you need to know. It's cool to be supported. But you also need information. All right. And I think there's a little too often that some of us just we go with the cheerleading, but we don't go with the coaching for some reason. And you need a mix of that. So I but I think it's, I think it could also go the opposite way, where if someone just sat you down in a room and gave you all the tools and you still felt isolated? You might not have the I don't know, like the inner energy to put them to use even.

Ashley 27:49
Oh, it's true. Yeah.

Scott Benner 27:51
Well, okay, so. So you found see, is it mostly through beyond type one and their and their community? Or have you kind of branched out everywhere? You a little bit everywhere?

Ashley 28:02
I'm a little bit more everywhere now. Yeah, it's start there. And then what I really wanted was to connect with more diabetics who had been type one as long as me. Because it's just, I don't know, it's different when you've been living with it for so long. And because I was burning out so hard, it felt like I just wanted to talk to someone else who experienced that got through it. But I wasn't finding that necessarily as nice as it was to connect with others. So I had read a couple of posts, and I had an endocrinologist recommend like, Well, you know, you've been doing this for a long time, you probably have some knowledge to share, especially because, you know, your management overall is pretty good. You should see if you can work with other diabetic. So I connected with the snail mail program at the type one. And then I was feeling super motivated. And I emailed the local Children's Hospital where I spent a lot of time as a kid and was like, hey, I want to like do this, maybe talk to parents show them like you know, that their kids are gonna be okay, because here I am 20 plus years later, or, and they were like, well, we don't have anything, but maybe you should reach out to jdrf. So I reached out to jdrf. And I got an email back from our chapter here. And they're like, we are definitely looking for mentors to work with newly diagnosed patients, you should come out for training. So I did. And so now I go to a bunch of events that they host in the area and I'm mentoring quite a bit. I discovered that there aren't, it seems like more and more people are being diagnosed in their 20s 20s and 30s. And there weren't really any mentors who could be That age and relate to them and talk to them. It's a lot of parents of type one kids mentoring other parents. And so I was instantly paired with a couple of people, which has worked out really nicely. It's fantastic. Like I said that one of my women that I work with, she was one who told me about the podcast, and we just like, hang out now. Spread.

Scott Benner 30:23
That's excellent. Can you tell me your first name? Danielle? Danielle, that's right. Thank you for sharing the podcast, by the way. Yeah. Every once in a while, every couple episodes, I beg at the end, I'm like, please tell someone else. I don't know how I'm not good at doing it. I don't really know. I social media might not exactly be my thing. And so and I can't afford that. So which would probably be the best thing to do? Maybe I should just do that. Should I buy a Facebook ad? Who would pay for that? Actually? Me that's always the question. Yeah, who's gonna pay? It's overwhelming life question.

Unknown Speaker 31:03
I work in nonprofit. So we're asking a lot.

Scott Benner 31:05
Who's gonna pay? Well, I have to say that, um, you know, I feel similarly to what you just said, like I, I did a jdrf type one nation talk a couple weeks ago. And it just went, it went really well. I really, I really saw leaving them, like, wow, you actually can take somebody who's just lost, and bring them, like, bring them right up to speed. Like, it's because the things that are lost on and the things that they're they're experiencing is kind of speed bumps and stuff, they can't get past. It's pretty universal for most people, you know, and so if you can hit on sort of those core values and and say, you know, hey, here's a thing you're probably experiencing, and then they think, Oh, I am experiencing that and then go, oh, and then it builds a little trust, then they kind of listen to the next thing you say. And then they start seeing, hey, that person's saying something that's answering these it's filling in holes for me, like I have gaps in my understanding of what's happening. And that just made a lot of sense. But what I saw from a couple of people was, Why is no one told me about this before and anger, like it's why I asked you about earlier like, so a gentleman that came up to me and is thrilled as he was to kind of have the gaps filled in and he felt like he could see a little better now. Because you know, cuz you know, what happens is your gut tells you, I shouldn't be letting my blood sugar go to 300 and just waiting for it to come down. But then the doctor told me not to stack insulin or whatever. And then you get conflicted that way. So that that gap gets filled in. And and you can see the happiness like he was thrilled. But at the same time, I felt like he was mad. Like, like, he wanted to go back and find the doctor and say like, why did you not tell me this? You know, we've been struggling forever. Why would you not bring this up? It felt nice, like to see him get over it. But I felt sad for him that sort of the same way when you were talking like all those years of not feeling like, like you're doing what you mean to be doing. But you're still putting in all the effort not getting in any of the return. Like that just seems I might just have a mental block from like, there's a couple things in life that I don't like the idea of, and I guess wasted time is a really big gum. kind of thing for me. Like I don't like to think of people wasting time makes me sad.

Ashley 33:22
So yeah, and I get that. I feel like part of my problem, too was occasionally I would get bits and pieces of information or treatment. But it was never communicated to me in a way that made sense. Like I still remember. And it's so funny. It's way now just because of how much more controlled my blood sugar's are literally on a daily basis. But I remember being in college, and talking to my endocrinologist and saying, I don't want to do I'm tired of the fluctuations. They make me tired, I don't feel good. And he said, Well, why don't you consider waiting to eat if your blood sugar is 200 or higher, like it should really be under 200. And I looked at him and told him that wasn't possible. I was like, I'll never eat them. If I do that.

Scott Benner 34:10
I get that. Yeah, like, right. I can't imagine my blood sugar under 200. So when am I gonna eat?

Ashley 34:16
right? Exactly. So getting like little tips and tricks with it. But he never explained why that works. Like the he was basically kind of introducing me to the concept of Pre-Bolus saying,

Scott Benner 34:29
right understand,

Ashley 34:30
like, why does that make sense? I don't, I'm not going to do that. Because then I'll just be hungry and I'm not pleasant when I'm hungry. So that's not happening.

Scott Benner 34:37
I wish you could have been here the other day where Arden's blood sugar, like spiked up coming out of something that went up like 180 and it sat there and I was like, Oh, and I tried to bump it down. It didn't move. I was like, Oh, it's gonna be one of these. And we had food coming up in like 45 minutes and my wife's like, what are we gonna do and I was like, I'll tell you what we're gonna do. And so I bolused for the 180 The Pre-Bolus for the meal, like 45 minutes before the meal, and I just I just crushed her blood sugar and I got it back down. I think she started eating around like 75 or 80. And then as soon as the food started going in, and I could see like, there was like a, it wasn't a diagonal down. I had it in this nice drift. So do you know what I mean? Where the arrows steady, but the blood sugar still drifting down a little bit? Oh, yeah. So it's drifting like that. I let her start eating a little bit, and then I Bolus the rest of it. And that was it. And she stayed right around 90 after that. Yeah, but we went from like a stubborn 180 to eating 45 minutes later, and a blood sugar back at 90. And that's just timing. It's just the timing of the insulin. It's all it's all it is. It's so super simple. Once you get it like Do you find that? Like, once it hit you where you're like, Oh, my God, this is it?

Ashley 35:52
Yeah. It's great. Because I'm like, What? It's funny because I refused to do it back then. And now that I'm doing so much better, I look back and go, Oh, he was onto something, if only I had, like understood was

Scott Benner 36:07
a kernel of really good information for you. It's just not enough. Right? Right.

Ashley 36:11
And so I've tried different things. And I'm pretty low carb now, which is relatively easy, because I'm actually also celiac. Okay, so I was already eating gluten free. And so then when one of the things I got my a once II and my blood sugar, so much better, so much more controlled, was I went pretty low carb. And now I'm kind of in this place where I'm starting to introduce more back into my diet and really working on Pre-Bolus thing and Temp Basal. I'm like addicted to them now. I think I posted on Instagram, I use my Instagram exclusively for diabetes, awareness and advocacy and things are like, accomplishments, things like that. And I post on Instagram one day, I had gone to get tacos with my husband and he was like, okay, just if your blood sugar spikes, don't be mad at yourself. Like you haven't had like, this many carbs in one meal on a really long time. And I super Pre-Bolus I did a Temp Basal. And I don't think I ever went above 110. And I just stabilized around like 85 an hour after the meal was fantastic.

Scott Benner 37:19
He said that to you? Did you actually think in your head? I'm gonna be bold with insulin.

Ashley 37:23
I actually did and that he was me. He was like, it's just remember what your podcast guy says. Like people.

Scott Benner 37:29
So larious I just there was an episode up recently. I think it's called Jane has a guy. And she Yeah, she goes to her son all the time. And she's like my guy on the podcast. I was like, that must really piss him off. And she's like, I

Ashley 37:42
think I was just telling him about this episode. Yeah. Like, yeah, she's got a guy. So but it was good. It was this moment to where they had like, brought out our nachos or something. And I had taken insulin, I looked at it. I looked at him and I was like, I'm gonna spike This is more carbs than what I accounted for he goes, so take more. It was the most simple response was like, Oh, yeah, I guess I could do that. But I get so and I know, it's something you've talked about a lot. But there's the fear, especially of low blood sugars that I mean, I was raised with that fear. My parents always had it. And that, you know, came on to me, and I was like, oh, okay, I, I could just take more He's like, yeah, I mean, worst case scenario, you always have glucose tablets on you. And it turned out great. So I've been getting a little bit more adventurous.

Scott Benner 38:32
I have an adventure for you to go on. How about trying a free, no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, it is super easy to do. All you do is go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box, tell on the pod your name, your address, and they send you a demo pot, right to your house. It's magical, there's a box out front of your house probably has a number on it. It'll come right into that, then you just take it out of there. It's amazing. And you put it on and go Hmm, this is cool. I'm gonna get more of these. He called on the pop back and say, Hey, I tried on the demo, I loved it. Let's go baby, and they will help you with the rest. That's simple. I don't even need the rest of this music. I mean, I guess you could go out and find another insulin pump if you wanted to. But it's gonna have a tube on it, you understand what I mean? You're gonna have an infusion set on your body, it's going to be attached to probably two feet or more of tubing that goes all the way to this other thing that holds the insulin. And then you have to clip that to your belt or I don't know what you're gonna do with it, put it under your hat maybe. And that's where you control to get your insulin on those other insulin pumps. But on the on the pod. The pump is self contained. It has the insulin in it, you wear it right on you. And then you tell it you need insulin from a wireless controller. Just pull it out of your pocket or your bag, push a couple buttons. Insulin goes in, stick it back in your bag. That's that. Nothing to clip to you. Don't worry, no one one's gonna think you have a 1983 pager. When you're with the army pod, tried today, absolutely free, no obligation. And I'm telling you, you're gonna love it. My omnipod.com forward slash Juicebox.

Podcast. Yeah, that's good for you that I listen to it's one of the it's one of the tenants of it like with fear. A lot of this doesn't work. Because if you're afraid and you can't kind of act in the moment, you can't be bold, you can't say, I know that I need this needs more insight, I have to do it. Because because then you're you know, I don't know, you wait, and then when you wait, that that hesitation throws off the balance, the timing of the insulin and the and the carbs. It really, really is that kind of like, it can be thrown off that easily. It's it's sort of like, I don't know, imagine if you were a hockey goalie and you reacted a half a second late to everything. You don't mean like, it's like, oh, the puck went by, and then your arm moves. And it's like, I still moved. I was so close, but it's just it's too far away. It's over now.

Ashley 41:07
And I feel like that's what I've been doing for so long because I was functioning so much in that fear.

Scott Benner 41:13
No, no, I I definitely understand. Listen this morning. Arden came downstairs for school this morning is a half day for her. And most of its Good Friday today. Well, we're doing this and most we were supposed to have off to her district. Suppose I'm off, but it's not enough that they made this. Oh, right. Yeah. And so we, you know, we said to the kids, like, what do you want to do? Because they said, you know, if you have a religious reason, you don't have to come in and I said, the kids, I'm like, I'm more than happy to lie and say if I really want to go to school. So my son's a senior, he's like, I don't want to go to school. And so I called him out this morning, my daughter said, there's a math lesson. I don't want to mess. And we were like, okay, so she went in. So she gets up this morning, she comes cruising down the steps. And maybe we have to leave in five minutes. And it's that the only pod is expiring. And I and I'm like I said to her, I'm like, is this the Hey, you have eight hours left? Or is this the Hey, it's over? And she goes, Oh, no, it has eight hours left? And I was like, Are you sure? Because I said cuz I could just change it really quickly. And she's like, no, it is. So 20 minutes later, she's at school, and she texts me She's like, Hey, you know, I need a new pod. It's like, so I just kind of I cruise over the school really quick. We changed the pod in two seconds. And she was 120. And I adjust Bolus, a little bit of insulin to for the 120. But it had been long enough that it didn't move. And I was like, okay, so I switched the pod. And I did a Temp Basal increase, I think of like 30% for an hour. And we both like a point to write. So that was eight o'clock. And it's 1015 now, and her blood sugar is 94 Wow, been so steady. But the bolt, here's the idea of not being afraid, right? Like we think 120 and you just gave a little bit of insulin, you shouldn't give any more insulin right now. But no, we just swapped off the pump. So it you know, the pump was on for a couple of minutes, it takes a little bit for the absorption to start over like like, you know, you're like there's a little bit of stuff going on there. And I know that from experience. And so it would have been easy to say, well, let's wait and see what happens. But by the time we waited, what would have happened was diagnol Up arrow 135 which now would have needed the point three plus the but the bazel that I use plus more and then I wouldn't have had the nerve to use more and they just fall down that rabbit hole of just chasing. And yeah, you figured it all out actually good for you. Seriously, I'm so excited for you like I'm, I'm really happy for you. It's hard to be happy for a stranger over a podcast. Because it seems a little like I don't really have any. I don't have any right to be like happy for you, dude. I mean, like, but I feel really good for you like it's, it's cool.

Ashley 43:54
Hey, thank you. Yeah, and I get that too. It's like, this morning, I woke up and my blood sugar was right around 78. And then I checked it a couple minutes later because I was too lazy to get out of bed and it was down to 74. And I was like, okay, it's creeping down. I should probably get up and eat something. And so of course, that's how I got up. It was like in the 60s and I was like, okay, so just need a little bit of something. I had like half a glucose tablet, and then I was like, well eat breakfast now. And then I got an arrow straight up. It was at 94 and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna take a little bit of insulin right now. Which like, I know if I had your crazy it's probably gonna stabilize fine. I was like, No, trust me, I know what's gonna happen next. I'm going to take just a smidge of insulin. And right now what oh six and just cruise in. So

Scott Benner 44:45
listen to it. This is I just repeated this to my wife the other night, because she's she's still working on some of these ideas. And I and I said to her, this is just a very important you have to believe this. You have to do it. You have to be willing to have a low Once in a while, because if you if you err on the side of caution, you're going to have a ton of highs. And it would I would much prefer to have to deal somehow with a low once or twice like to look at that situation you just described, handle it, you know, pretty aggressively when thoughtfully and then have it go wrong one time, because it's gonna go right 10 times, you know, you mean like you can't and you can't trade the 10 good blood sugars for the one. I can't believe I have to drink a juice box situation. Because then it's the opposite. Now your blood sugar is high 10 times on one time you were right.

Unknown Speaker 45:35
Right. You?

Scott Benner 45:35
I mean, do you find that more often than not, you need more insulin than you initially believe You do? Yes. I think that is true. I think that we all get a little caught up in counting carbs and saying, hey, look, my you know, my pump says this much. And so that's right. But nobody stops to think that the person who put the number in the pump was you and you didn't know what you were doing. And you set your insulin to carb ratio. You're like, right, my blood sugar moves this far, you know, for every good blah, blah. It's that's random. That's not a real thing. That's it, right? It's a guess.

Ashley 46:10
Right? And that's experiences I have with it. I'm still not good at guessing. Like I know, you talk a lot about, like, Oh, I have no idea how many carbs shape. They're just No, she needs this much insulin, which is fascinating to me. I love it. But there's been a couple of times where I can pull that off with small things and all look at Phil my husband and be like, okay, I, you know, I took insulin, I'm gonna eat this. And he's like, oh, how many carbs that you account for? I was like, I don't know, I just, you know, took a unit. You know,

Scott Benner 46:35
lunch, baby, here we go. Well, do you do that? Do you readdress. If something goes wrong with that? Do you readdress the insulin if you're not right, yeah, that's all I that's what I do. I mean, I'm not like, I really hope people understand that I don't get her blood sugar right every time. Right? Like to me like there's, you know, today is going to be an example in about 2010 minutes you and I might still be on. And she's going to tell me that it's time for her to eat because it's a half day, so it's much earlier than she usually eats. And because it's only half day, she's not hungry enough in the morning. So she takes just snacks. So let me tell you what's interesting today, she has a little bottle of she's got a 16 ounce bottle of water with like a Snapple packet. And so there's no carbs in that, right? There's a small banana. But now as I'm saying that I don't really remember exactly how big it was. And she has four Oreo cookies. And a bag of Cheetos.

Ashley 47:32
Oh my gosh, I want to eat like her. Yeah, right.

Scott Benner 47:34
And so she's so thin. And so um, and so just sitting here right now thinking about it. I don't know, like, I like to get a number out loud. For that, I'd say six, just off the top of my head not to think through with the banana probably has 15 ish carbs. I'm sure that the little grab bag of Cheetos is probably 15 carbs, there's 30. Now the Oreos are 40 carbs. That's like 70. So there's like 70 carbs in there. But here's the stuff you don't think about, she's probably not going to finish the whole banana. Right? And the cookies are going to be like a big burst up front, but probably not a it's not going to sustain. There's nothing really sustaining in there. nothing that's going to hold her blood sugar up for hours. And so saying sex? I don't know. It's probably right. But she's 92 now. So no matter what I do, when i when i Pre-Bolus or with the SEC, she's going to go almost all the way to 75 before she starts eating. So I can't I can miss a little bit. Because the worst thing that's going to happen is it 45 minutes from now, I'll start seeing a diagonal up arrow and if that diagonal up arrow starts to cross 110 and 120 I'm going to go Okay, you know what, that wasn't enough insulin. But I'm also planning ahead for the idea that she'll be home in two hours. And so even if she's a little low coming in the door, it's gonna be lunchtime, and she's gonna be ready to eat again. And and I don't think that people think that stuff through far enough, like something you're doing now could be just a I don't want to call it a Pre-Bolus. But it could be a pre consideration for what's going to happen two hours from now.

Unknown Speaker 49:12
Yeah, yeah, you

Scott Benner 49:13
know what I mean? Like, don't think of yourself as low at 70. If it's a meal time, think of that as an amazing Pre-Bolus for a meal. And then because then by the way, you don't have to pre if your blood sugar is 75 when you're gonna have dinner, that is your Pre-Bolus you know what I mean? Now your Pre-Bolus only needs to be a couple minutes doesn't need to be this really well thought out like 15 or 20 minute thing. You just need to give it a little bit of a head start over the food. I love that you figured it all out so seriously.

Ashley 49:41
It's still something I'm trying to figure out like how to Bolus for a gluten free pizza. We're still trying to figure that one out. What what happens, so I will like last time we did it, I thought it was gonna work out really well because I Pre-Bolus I was probably around 95 or so. So by the time we got the pizza, I was like 73 ish. And so I ate the pizza. I was on an increased Temp Basal. I was kind of hanging out there for a while. And then like an hour or two later, I spiked up to 180. Like very quickly, very suddenly.

Scott Benner 50:17
So from where to 180, from, like, you might have just set up and I tripped out a little bit like imagine imagining your graph in my head. So like, were you 75, right? The 180? Was it like a sharp spike?

Ashley 50:30
It was a pretty sharp spike. It wasn't like two arrows up. So it started to creep up but like to an area that I was comfortable with, obviously, like 90s hundreds and then like, I think around the time I hit 110 or so it was like, oh, we're going straight up. Now.

Scott Benner 50:42
Here it goes. Did you bolus right then in there? I did. Yeah. And it stopped at 180 and come back, or did you have to re address the 180?

Ashley 50:52
No, I had to re address it again.

Scott Benner 50:54
Okay. So then, however much you use to try to stop the spike, and for the readdress Did you get low later?

Ashley 51:03
Oh, I'm trying to remember I, I think I started to but stopped the low from actually happening. I had to eat something which I'm not complaining about. But I got Yeah.

Scott Benner 51:11
So if you really want to think it through the amount of insulin you put in for the spike plus the amount of insulin you readdressed with minus the amount of insulin that the snack later would have taken. That amount belonged in the initial bolus but stretched out over more time with an extended bolus. Yeah, right. And so you could have been like, whatever that Bolus was like, let's just make up a number. Let's use round numbers. So let's say it was a 10 unit bolus. And you ended up using five more units. So and then you ate something later that really would have eaten do we'd abuse two units. So you needed 13 in total, but you need a lot of it back ended back where you saw the spike. So you could have done a 13 unit bolus, instead of a 10. Put in the amount a percentage of it that would have that would have equaled what you did do. And then take the rest of it and drag it out over maybe 90 minutes or two hours. And then that probably would have done it, or what got you a lot closer. Right. Yeah. And so now that But listen, the first time out, there's no way to know, it's not like, you're not gonna be like, oh, pizza. I know what I'll do. But, but now that you've seen it? Does that make sense? It does.

Ashley 52:21
Yeah. And it almost like requires that failure to know. Like what I have to do to get it right. I just, I'm so determined to get things right. Oh, so mad. I didn't do it. And, you know, I've got Phil over here who's like, that's okay. Just do it differently. Next.

Scott Benner 52:37
It really not to repeat myself over and over again. But it is such an important thing. They're not failures. They're just experiences. Like they really have you have to see it before you can imagine. You can't just imagine that a thin air, not something that's something like that. Once you see it, then you just look back and go, Okay, I see. You know, this is this is where I needed a little more, here's how I could have stretched it out. There's, you know, it's a ton of things you could do, you also need to be kind of bold enough to I wish I it's my own sentence that I've made up and sometimes I tripped over it, but you have to be willing to believe that what you know is going to happen is going to happen. Right? Right. You can't You can't do that. Like, oh, maybe this is the time it'll all just work out real nice for me for reasons that are unknown. Because when that happens, that just means you screwed up something somewhere else. It's kind of it's covering for this, you know?

Unknown Speaker 53:29
What do you

Scott Benner 53:32
How many times do you see a spike now during the day?

Ashley 53:36
It depends on what you consider a spike. I guess. I tried to keep it under 140. And I would say I get that a couple times a week. It's not even necessarily daily. Good for you. That's it.

Scott Benner 53:49
It's amazing. I sometimes, you know, I some artists sometimes spikes once or twice a day. And yeah, we get it back really quickly. But now I actually did just pull up her. Her CGM while we were talking a little while ago because we've had like maybe the best like last 12 hours in a long time where you know her blood sugar's just been like, between 85 and 100 for 12 hours. Wow. Yeah, really, really steady line. So even I'm like, I wonder what pack in here. Right? Because there was a lot of like, it's funny, like there was a spot last night around eight o'clock at night where she said, I'm gonna want popcorn later. I was like, Okay, and so we're just hanging out, and then our blood sugar starts to go down. And I think okay, now's the time for the popcorn. And you know, so she gets this giant I don't even know she likes the popcorn to this like little like stuff she sprinkles on i think i think the popcorn is a delivery system for like the powdery cheese stuff she likes to put on it but uh, but she's, but she's like hidden all this popcorn. If I told you if I showed you how much popcorn it was, and then I would never even consider wondering how much carbs are in it, like I just letters to my wife. What are we gonna do? Miko let her start eating. You know, she's like, she's like 70 now diagonal down, and then she's eating and eating and eating. And then eventually, like maybe 45 minutes later, the blood sugar kind of starts like it swings around, it's coming back a little bit. And then I look at the popcorn and I go, Okay, well, that popular internet needs some insulin, like it can't be free, right? And so I put in like three quarters of a unit. And then it kind of hung and then I saw an arrow go straight up at 90 and I'm like, Okay, and so I put in a whole unit, because usually popcorn for her around two units. And I put it in and I swear to you just boom, leveled right out again. I was like, I was there was one of those nights where I wanted to stand up in the middle of the room and be like, hey, so just one. Like, like, Why is no one bringing me a medal? Or can I be on ESPN now because I've won something.

Ashley 55:54
I've done that. I've literally thrown my hands in the air when I feel like what, like I did it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 56:00
It's totally kicking this thing's asked today. So it just, but here's the thing, if I give her those 1.75 or two units for the popcorn, when she starts to eat it, she's gonna get low. And if I wait too far into when she said she's going to get high, it was just this moment. And I could see it on the CGM. Like, like it's, it's what it is. It's, it's once you start seeing that stuff, it's magical. Like

Ashley 56:26
there's so many things to consider more than just the food. I mean, you mentioned it earlier with you know, you're keeping in mind that she'll be home in a couple hours, things like that. It's you know, what's going to happen next, that's also going to affect it. Because I know recently, I went out to eat and I just had to totally guess. And so obviously, I spiked, I went up to like 199 it was like, stupid, proud of myself for keeping it under 201 99. But you know, I was like, Oh, look, I'm still keeping it down. But I kept in mind that we were going to be walking around. And then sure enough, you know, just crept back down and hung out at like 120 most of the evening, it was fantastic. Dancing for diabetes, spreads awareness through the art of dance to better educate the community, raise funds to find a cure and inspire those with diabetes to live healthy and active lives. Please join us on November 10, for the 18th annual dancing for diabetes at the Bob Carr theater in downtown Orlando. Tickets are on sale now at Dr. Philip center.org. You do not want to miss this.

Scott Benner 57:36
It's amazing. Yeah, and there are times where you can't just be like I'm gonna crush this 199 because you have to give consideration to what's coming next. All right, you know, you can happen with softball a couple weekends ago. Oh, hold on a second. Arden. It's lovely. She says his lunch now. I think she meant lunch is now I said is it? She said yes. Okay, at seven blood sugar. So I definitely need to know if she's hungry. So I'll ask her. And she'll say, I guess. helpful. About Yeah, thank you. I'm gonna do what I say six units. 6.00 extend. And she's gonna start eating right away, because this is like this weird half day bowls. But she's 87. So let's do 50%. Now the rest over an hour. And I think it's possible I bail on some of that extended balls. And I think it's possible that I cancel the extent of Bolus and Pre-Bolus with the remainder of it. But I'm not gonna know, for 20 minutes or a half hour.

Ashley 58:48
Yeah. And I have to ask, when you do stuff like that, you're like, Okay, I'm gonna do the extended Bolus, but you know, I might cancel it. And then after, you know, and put a new Bolus later, so then we're just exhaust you to be thinking about it. So much like each individual Bolus, if that makes sense.

Scott Benner 59:06
Here's the secret about me. Let me take a drink. I'm thinking about anything ever. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 59:16
The trick?

Scott Benner 59:18
The trick is, I am an incredibly chill person. I really don't. I won't think about this again. Until the next time, it requires me to think about it. And so I have her, she's, you know, there's a threshold at 70. And there's an eye here, if she goes over 120 she doesn't hear until she goes over 130. And so my expectation is, is that what I just did is gonna work out fine. But what could happen is I could hit a low where I have to bail on the rest of the extended balls. And that would be if she takes two bites of that banana and goes and puts it down doesn't eat it. See it Don't even make her finish her food. I don't there's no like, prerequisite for what she eats or what she doesn't eat. Listen, she's gonna eat those Oreos. I'm pretty certain about that, right?

Unknown Speaker 1:00:09
I mean, what

Scott Benner 1:00:10
I'm thinking she started with the Oreos because that's where I would go. And so and and, and she's gonna eat she's gonna get into those like little Cheetos things she has pretty well. And she's gonna drink some but not a lot like so I kind of have a feeling in my head based on how she eats in general, what's going to happen, right? But if she hits 70, then I'm going to know, okay, let's bail on the rest of that insulin. And if she hits 120, I'm going to know who I should have put in more of it upfront. So let's cancel it and put in the rest now. But I'm not going to ever think about that again, unless she hits 120 or 70. I just I'm a boy, Ashley. Really, that's probably my secret is that and I joke about it. And at the same time I don't like I've been I've just realized the other day, I was in my laundry room. Because that's what I do. I do the laundry. In my laundry room, there is a really big blown up print of Mike the cover of my book, because the books called Life is short laundry is eternal, even though it has literally nothing to do with laundry. But so it's it's hung in there. So that every once in a while I can look up and go, I did write a book one time, that was cool. And that's pretty much what it's there for because my wife won't let me be happy. So I have to do it on my own. And so I go in there sometimes I looked at the other day, and I actually kind of read the jacket of the book and it said something like Scott's been a stay at home dad for 12 years. And I was like, I've been a stay at home dad for 18 years. And I think I'm pretty good at it. And I think one of the secrets of it is, and this is gonna sound incredibly sexist. But I've been around a lot of women who stayed home with their children. And a lot of women are neurotic. And and and worried constantly and I don't blame them. I blame I blame nature. And that like mommy feeling that you have, like, everyone's trying to kill your kid. I saw people this morning on Facebook. This woman's like, my son's playing fortnight, and I'm afraid people are gonna show up at our house and murderous. And I'm like, there's a thought I'd never happen. I could never think that ever once.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:12
And never go there. Oh, my God,

Scott Benner 1:02:14
like like it. And by the way, if that happened, I'd be like, I can't believe it's where the one people who got murdered. I guess all right, bad luck. But right, but but so I just don't have like, there's whatever that gear is that a lot of women are punished with when that when a baby arrives. I don't have that. And so I have just enough narcissism, the belief that what I just did is right, and no ability to worry about anything. So I just won't think about it again.

Ashley 1:02:47
Fantastic. That's it. I have to say, Phil is very jealous view. He says his calling in life is to be a stay at home dad or stay at home husband. And that's all he wants. And I'm like, yeah, you can keep dreaming because I work in nonprofit. And you're the one who's going to grad school for machine learning. Yeah, like it's him. Yep. Yeah, he's like, I know, but just make it happen. Come on.

Scott Benner 1:03:08
There's a few things I like to say to mess with younger people. One of them is some because my wife and I have been married for a very long time. And we got married pretty young. And people are like, what did you notice about her? And I was like, she had real earning potential. And I don't. And I joking, but it was, but I just not just. But, but but you know, I'll say that or when people say, oh, we're getting married, I always like to respond with up were you tired of being happy? Did you get your fill of happiness? All right, yeah. But but it really is. It's the best job ever. Like if you said to me tomorrow, Scott, I'm gonna need you to get up on Monday, you know, and go to work, you know, be there by eight stable for I probably chained myself to something in the house and start getting me out of here. Now. It's, um, it's, it's funny, because I'm in my mid 40s. And I think that I might have been one of the very first generations to like, openly, it's funny, I'm talking about like, I'm gay, but openly be a stay at home dad without being embarrassed about it, but still get a ton of pressure from other men. And so the generation in front of me, like my father in law's age, they just think I'm taking advantage of my wife. But it's just it's simple. Because by the way, they don't. My father in law doesn't do the laundry, he would never consider that he wouldn't go grocery store. He wouldn't do any of the things that like he wouldn't talk to his kids. You're gonna be like, all the things I do. He doesn't imagine I'm doing he imagines I'm doing what he would be doing during the day, which I'm assuming is drinking coffee and watching television. And so and so. There's that. Then there's guys in my age bracket, and then they fall into two very distinct categories. They either think I'm soft, or they're really jealous. Yeah, let me be clear, Ashley. You should be really jealous.

Ashley 1:05:00
It feels like I'm great at laundry I can, you know, cook and everything just set it up for me so I can do

Scott Benner 1:05:05
there are times that I get a little snippy. You know, like, I'll cook dinner and then no one's hungry. And I'll just like, I sound like a five year old kid. I'm like, No, no, it's fine. I just spent the last two hours doing this, no one has to eat. It's okay. Let me just clean the dishes. Now, I do sound like a, like a sitcom person. But for the most part, like joking aside, like a lot of what I've been able to figure out about diabetes was because I didn't have to go to work like that. I'm not talking about another thing. If I needed to take two hours, the middle of the day to figure something out or to watch a blood sugar five years ago to figure out how it worked. I had that freedom. And I also had the freedom to it's little stuff, like I know it's the most people need two incomes, and it's not lost on me, I could certainly use another income as well. But like seeing my son come in the door in the afternoon and being able to stop and talk to him for 20 minutes. Like like real people. And not everything, just like crashing around if you guys have children as you move forward, I can't tell you how important I think it is to just make time to like exist together. Because you know it, we are always jumping from thing to thing or worrying about, you know, something like it's there's never enough time to just be and, and I got my son upstairs, I can vividly remember remember the day he got on the school bus for the first time. And three weeks from now we're going off to his college so he can go to a new student mixer. And it's crushing a little bit to see how quick to see how just how much that that adage of like it goes by quick. Like, how true it is. It sucks. So yeah, so try to do that. If you can let your husband stay home. Listen, why don't you stay home and then just tell them you'll tell them about it. It'll be very sad right?

Unknown Speaker 1:06:53
Now, I'll text you throughout the day and let you know how it's going.

Scott Benner 1:06:56
Nonprofit you make about the same amount of money as staying home.

Ashley 1:07:01
Yep, yep. Yeah. And here I am trying to sense he's doing machine learning because he's such a data guy. I mean, that's what he does. Now. He's a software engineer. Like you should totally go work for someone like Dexcom or and flex. He's like, Yeah, I would love to do that. Or you do that. And I think

Scott Benner 1:07:20
he's smart to keep fighting for it. Really is yesterday, I did a I did the podcast with Kevin Syrah yesterday. Because the Dexcom g sex just got FDA approval, I did that. I edited it. And I got it up quickly because it was time sensitive. And then I went out and bought Easter flowers, and made dinner and vacuum. So it was a pretty, pretty easy day, I'm going to tell you. So I tell him, I think you should keep fighting, he really should. Because it is well worth winning that fight the there is a downside, here's the downsides. And this might help you and I'll let you go. buying your wife a gift with money she made is not a masculine feeling, going, going up to run her birthday and be like, here, I got you this thing. And then noticing she doesn't like it and then realizing you bought or something she doesn't want with money. She made it sort of like, wow, this is a complete failure. And I do think that there is on some level whether anybody wants to agree with it or not. There's something burned in us from the beginning. That even though I don't think a lot of people at this juncture in time, want to admit it, there is something in you that wants to see your husband go out with a club hits something over the head and drag it back to become like, like there is like, when when you don't do that. It's Um, I don't think it's sexy anymore. Like, I don't think doing the dishes is as sexy as you think it would be. You think it would be exciting if he would do the dishes because he doesn't do the dishes. Once he does them every day, you'd be like, Oh my God, my husband's the guy that does the dishes. And it's not as exciting in practice, as it is, in theory is what I'm getting. So there's a little look into the behind the scenes of being a stay at home Dad, it's not exactly for you. It wouldn't exactly be as exciting as you think it would be.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:16
Right? Right.

Scott Benner 1:09:17
You'd be a little like, Oh, he's so hot. Right? But this Why is he not going out and making us money?

Ashley 1:09:26
I'd be worried I'd come home and be like, so would you do today? Like very acute thing? Oh, that goes

Scott Benner 1:09:31
on for a couple years in the beginning. It's because there's an incredible jealousy for the person who has to leave. And yeah, I tried in the beginning. It's a long story, but we had this little red convertible when our kids when our son was first born. And it was a two seater. It was such a fun car. My wife and I had it before we had kids. And then she went you know, I started staying home she went to work and the next thing I know I'm like sending her pictures like outside of the zoo with my son like buckled into the front seat. And like you know We're out with the top down everything. And I in my mind, like, seriously, I thought, I don't want her to miss this, like he had such a good time today, this is something she'd want to see. And I'd share, like, back then cell phones were terrible. So they'd be these little crappy pictures, you know? And, and she would she eventually told me one day, she's like, you have to stop sending me those. It just makes me mad. I was like, why? And she goes, I want to be there. I want to be involved. I don't want him to do anything that I don't see. And, you know, like, I it's hard for me to be at work. And I was like, Okay, I'm sorry. And then I just stopped doing that. Like, I just took the you know, and it is one of those weird things that, I don't know, maybe I'm an idiot, but it didn't occur to me at the time. I was like, Oh, she would want to see this. But what she wanted was to be there. But Joke's on her. She paid too close attention in college. All the time was like you should have just not done as well in school. And this wouldn't work at all.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:57
It's great. Right?

Scott Benner 1:10:59
So that's the lesson today. Actually. Don't try too hard.

Ashley 1:11:02
Got it. All right. Don't think so hard to Don't try too hard. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:11:05
Listen, set the bar super low. That way. Anything that goes right is a major accomplishment. that's a that's a lesson I'd probably disillusioned you now you're probably like, Oh, I sounded so good while I was listening the podcast, but now that I'm talking to him, it's very upsetting. So did we cover everything that you meant to talk about? Sure. Yeah. Cool. I like to just very chill and easy conversation that I enjoyed.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:31
It was it was fun. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:11:33
Thank you very much. Thank you dancing for diabetes for sponsoring the podcast. And of course, the Dexcom and on the pod for doing the same. Please go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box, go to my on the pod.com forward slash juicebox. Or go to dancing the number four diabetes.com what I mean or go to go to the mall. Have yourself a trifecta of diabetes delight. Get yourself the two books insulin pump that Arden has been wearing for a decade. The pump that helps us do all the things she does between her activity and going to school making adjustments and not being tethered to something no tubing. Right then you have that and then you get your Dexcom g sex and you can see your blood sugar which way it's going how fast it's going. And you can send your kid on sleep overs into school and they go play sports without worrying because you'll be able to see their blood sugar wherever they are. Think about how happy you'll be when all three of those things happen. I think I'll happy I'll be when use my links in the show notes or Juicebox Podcast calm