#1360 Best of Juicebox: Jesse Was Here

November 16, 2024Scott Benner

Originally aired on December 13, 2016.

Sensitive topic - please consider not listening with children present.

Michelle has been a strong advocate in the “d” world since her son, Jesse, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2000 at the age of 3. After the sudden loss of her son at the age of 13, she continues to advocate and educate.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends, to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

This episode originally aired on December 13, 2016 it was episode 90 of the Juicebox podcast called Jesse was here. It's marked as a sensitive topic, and at the time, I wrote, please consider not listening to this with a child present. Michelle has been a strong advocate in the diabetes world since her son, Jesse was diagnosed with type one diabetes in 2000 at the age of three, but after the sudden loss of her son at age 13, she continues to advocate and educate. I'm running this today as part of Diabetes Awareness Month to memorialize Michelle, her husband, Jeff, Josh and Tammy Stahl and Barry Sievers. These five people all part of breakthrough T 1d ride team recently passed away in a tragic car accident. Please keep Jeff, Michelle, Josh, Tammy and Barry in your thoughts and prayers, and think of their families and loved ones. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, please Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G vo hypo pen. Find out more at gvoke, glucagon com, forward slash Juicebox. This is a content warning. This episode of the podcast deals with life and death. As I know that many of you listen with your children. I just wanted to let you know that you might want to skip this episode with your kids.

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 1:54
I'm Michelle alsweger. I've been involved in the world of diabetes since my son, Jesse, was diagnosed at the age of three on march 3 of 2000 I became a director of jdrs in those early years. I helped begin some ski snowboard camps called riding on insulin, which my son participated in, and I kind of stepped away from diabetes for a few years, my son was kind of sick of talking about diabetes, so I took a job at a woman's magazine and just kind of volunteered my time in the world of diabetes. And then on February 3, 2010 my 13 year old son, Jesse, passed away from his type one diabetes, and I became an advocate, more so for people who also have lost their children to type one diabetes throughout actually, all over the world, I mentor about 100 families through a private Facebook group, getting them connected to each other so that they have the support that they need. That's

Scott Benner 2:54
really amazing. Oh, okay, so how old was Jesse when he was diagnosed?

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 3:00
So Jesse was three years old when he was diagnosed.

Scott Benner 3:03
What was the presentation? Was it average? Normally? Yeah, it

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 3:08
was every typical, you know, everything he was, the little, skinny three year old boy, all of a sudden, started wetting the bed again. And I was kind of flustered about it, because we had a water container in our refrigerator, and I caught him getting up in the middle of the night, getting himself water. I thought he was just fascinated with the fact that there was a spigot that he could mess around with, but it turns out he was just really super thirsty. And it was a Friday afternoon, and I was ignoring the warning signs. I didn't want it to be diabetes. I grew up with five aunts and uncles with type one diabetes, my grandma raised five and back in the day when insulin, you know, came in a glass syringe, and it was even before urine test strips. I was around people who use test tubes to check their urine for all of that. So we, you know, the typical signs took them to the emergency room. It was one finger poke. Simply, I was very fortunate that there was no misdiagnosis, and they just simply said he has diabetes. And so

Scott Benner 4:06
you, you had a fair feeling from your your past, your history and your family, that that's what was going on. Yeah,

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 4:13
absolutely, I definitely wanted to be in denial and but you know what, there was also that point where, you know, I'm driving to the hospital and I'm, you know, saying out loud to whomever the universe, you know, please don't let that be diabetes. And then at the time, I was thinking, Well, wait a minute, I hope it is diabetes. Don't, don't let it be something like leukemia that could possibly take his life, right? Never occurred to me that it could possibly take his life.

Scott Benner 4:38
Okay? So, three years old. Gosh, that's a while ago now, injections like, like, just, there's no glucose monitors or stuff like that right at that moment.

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 4:50
No, there were meters when in 2000 so he had meters. He actually, at the age of five, went on an insulin pump. Okay, he was one of the first kids in our area to go on at. Because I fought with the endocrinologist to make that happen. And actually, you know, if you flash forward to 2010 he actually did have a continuous glucose monitor. He actually didn't wear it very often. It was at a time where they were still a little bit sickle, and he decided he didn't want to feel like the front of an airplane, you know, dashboard. He felt like were too many devices hanging off of him at the time.

Scott Benner 5:27
So was he? Was he wearing it at the time of his

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 5:30
passing? No, he was wearing his pump. He was wearing a pump. Okay, so,

Scott Benner 5:33
okay. So I think we should just dive right in, because, like I told you before we started recording, it's, I always think to talk to you, because it always becomes my concern that, you know, inevitably, someone passes away. And I don't want to say how frequently it happens, because I don't know it. It feels like at least once a year you hear about someone that that's lost their life, who's had type one diabetes and living with it. And then it's always my fear that when people see that they that they become more cautious about their own care, but maybe in the wrong way, maybe in the way where they're like, Oh, I'd be happier to accept the high blood sugar because, yeah, maybe they kind of incorrectly think that the way somebody's passed is just because their blood sugar has gotten very low. So

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 6:15
yeah, your podcast is timely, because this has been a topic that there's many of us. They've been talking about this topic, the high blood sugars, right? Yeah, Derek rap, who is the jdrs CEO. He and I have been conversing about that exact topic, and I've been talking with beyond type one about that topic, because I think it's, it's phenomenal, right now, I'll back up just a little bit. When Jesse, when Jesse died back in 2010 nobody was really talking about death due to type one diabetes, right? We're all kind of scared. We don't want to talk about it. And let's face it, endocrinologist didn't really tell us that diabetes was something you could die from, right? So, you know, it was something we said, no, just take good care of yourself. You live a long, happy life, right? So when he died, because I had international attention from a documentary I had done. People knew me, and so they thought, oh my gosh, if this can happen to this mom, it can happen to any of us. And so it puts everyone in panic. And so I think every time you hear of a death, and you know, you said, once a year, I hear from someone at least once a week that has lost a child to type one, at least once a week, some become more public than others, because some people just, you know, when they when they passed away, they their way of dealing with it is to kind of go inside. They're they're not going to be proactive, and they just needed, they just, that's how they're going to grieve. So what's happened is, everyone talks about dead in bed, right? Which is, I'm so afraid my child is going to have a low and he's not going to wake up in the morning, which is rightfully so. I get it, and, you know, it's a fear to have. That's why CGM are so amazing and alert dogs. But what people don't think about, and they're not talking about, is the high blood sugars. The one thing I've learned through all of this is, I call it the dangerous cocktail. The dangerous cocktail. Everyone's got their eye on those low blood sugars in the middle of the night. They're waking up in the night. But I don't see parents panicking as much when their kids are at a 500 or their meters are just reading h i They're not testing for ketones. I know a lot of families don't even own keto strips. I know a lot of adults with type one that I work with in our endurance community don't carry keto strips, which they don't realize. The dangerous cocktail is this. This is what I've learned from the depth is if you have a high A, 1c and then you tack on and you add that you have a high blood sugar right now, and you have large ketones, that is a recipe for disaster. So like, for instance, if you have a teenager who's currently an ANC of 12% their bodies, and I'm no medical expert, right? I'm just, this is my opinion. And what I've seen, of course, is there if their blood sugars are high, and they have a high ANC, and those large ketones, and they are in DK. And as moms and dads, we're not as afraid of those high blood sugars. And we also have a fear of taking our kids to the ER, because we've learned over the years that we feel like we know more than the residents that are there, right? I mean, I bet you there's 100 people that will listen to this podcast and have a memory of taking their kid to an ER, and the resident starts to load up insulin drip instead of a glucose drip, right? And you're like, Whoa, what are you doing? Right? So we have this, we have this doctor mom and Doctor dad syndrome, where we we think we can take better care of them at home than at the hospital, and then by the time they get to the hospital, it's too late.

Scott Benner 9:40
Yeah? And that makes no it makes a ton of sense. And I think it feeds right into, you know, everything that you've said so far, plus everything that I see, usually, hold on. I have to tell arm to drink a half of a juice, just texting her, we're good, okay. And so, you know, so I think that what you see here is that, first of all. Yeah, like you said, when you start off, I remember getting, you know, somebody handed me glucagon, and I was like, What's this? They're like, Oh, you know, it's in case they get really low extension, you'll never use it. Don't worry about it. And so then that's the overall feeling, like, Oh, she has type one diabetes. It's horrible. It's going to be with her forever. But even the emergency thing, I don't even have to understand that well, because it's never going to happen. And then you know, as you're acclimating yourself to trying to figure out how the insulin works. The message from medical a lot is better high than low. And then you're and then that the you're sort of the human part of you takes over, right? Well, they said 150 to 200 was okay, but it's only 210 so that's fine, right? And then your body, you start to accept it. Well, 250 I mean, that sucks, but it's not terrible. I can get it down. And before you know it, 180 200 is your norm. You live there. And then when you see a 320 suddenly it doesn't seem that horrible anymore, even though your blood sugar is now at 323 times what it should be, and, and, and there's not that panic. You do see it all the time, like people say, Well, I want to get them, I want to get their blood sugar high overnight so I can sleep. I don't even understand that I'm up as much when my daughter's blood sugar is high as when it's low, maybe more honestly, when it's high, because more difficult to deal with. It takes longer to adjust and fix.

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 11:15
And a lot of a lot of parents aren't actually informed either, though, that you know, in their kids, there's a child can have 150 blood sugar, which, you know, fine. It's an it's in a range. But if they're, if they're sporting any kind of ketones, and they're not getting, like, you can be 150 and say, Oh, if I just don't dose insulin, they'll be fine. Their body constantly needs that insulin. You constantly need to be feeding that system. So you can be in danger at 150 if you have large ketone, yes, if you're not, yeah,

Scott Benner 11:43
it's my daughter's sick right now. She's why she's home from school. She has a head cold. She doesn't have a fever, she doesn't have the flu, just has a head cold. And for the last two days, her blood sugar has been difficult. It sticks at 200 I have to give her enough insulin to knock a horse over to get it to move down overnight. At three o'clock. She's growing on top of it, so overnight, I get three o'clock in the morning the night before, it just it tried so hard to go up, and I, I felt like I was, I was putting insulin with a funnel instead of with a cannula, you know. And and then last night, I just didn't wake up, I think, beeped and beeped and beeped. And at 6am I opened my eyes, the first thing I heard was it beeping, and I thought, and I looked at the graph, and sure enough, at three o'clock, she went from like 120 like straight up. And I went in. I tested her. She was 310 she had been 310 for three hours. You know, for the most part, I Bolus so much insulin. I mean, just two and three times what moving her 200 points should take. And I still had to Bolus again and again. And by the time she was down to 80, it took me, I'm gonna say, the better part of four hours, and I gave her, you know, so much more insulin than I would have in a normal situation, because very likely, and I didn't test her, but very likely, she had ketones, plus it's more difficult to affect the high blood sugar. You know, once your blood sugar is high, it takes more insulin, normally, those sorts of things. And then I think that's how people get caught in the loop. They see a 250 and they go, Oh well, you know, it should be this much insulin, and then they end up using half as much as it takes. And then two hours later they go, Oh my God, it's still 220 and they try it again and again. Before you know it, it's time to eat, and then it just, you get caught in this horrible cycle. It is very hard on your body, and so you know, and it's, it's not going to kill you this second, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have a hard effect on you. And I think that's hard for people to hear that they're that they're they or a child, has a disease that has two sides of a spectrum, and both sides of it are equally dangerous, just the timing of the most dangerous, like, do you want to, do you want to have something horrible happen to you right now? Do you want to have something horrible happen to you 10 years from now? Do you want to have something horrible happen to you three months from now? And what, I think what happens is that becomes so overwhelming for some people that they just panic and pick a side and they give up in some way. And I'm always trying to tell people that it's not as crazy as it sounds if you're struggling with it. It is much simpler to keep a blood sugar more around 100 than it is to keep it higher and and then it just takes practice and a little bit of knowledge. And a lot of times that is knowledge you don't get at the doctor, which is why community ends up being so important sometimes. But you know, that's why I asked you on I just, I just wanted people to hear from somebody who had lived through it and was still talking about it, that, you know that. So, I mean, I guess Can we go backwards a little bit, and I don't know how much of this you talk about, but do you know the the steps that happened, that that led to Jesse's demise? So

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 14:48
it's interesting. It's interesting. So I'll give you my perspective on this. So ever since that happened, and every time there's a death in the D O, C deputies online community, you know. There's different sides that happen. There's times where I feel it's really awesome, like I'm so happy people talk about this now, because even if we save one life, it's like one parent decides to get up an extra time in the night, or one parent knows the warning signs, like, as long as we're talking about I think it's really good. Then there's this other side, where I like to protect the parent from seeing things. Let me give you an example. I'll go back to your actual question. So there was a recent death. The young lady's name was Alex, and it blew up all over Facebook, and it's so well intentioned, and the people who are posting it? Mean, well, right? Yes, but what I saw and made me sad, and a lot of the parents in the community that nobody wants to belong to, right? This lost community, we respect the parents privacy. So what happens is, someone posts that photo like I would rather see it. Say there was another loss in the community, you know, prayers, sadness, all of that, that's fine, but what happens is the threads blow up, and what you see is, well, what happened? What was the parent doing? And then you see hateful things, like, clearly the mom didn't know what she was doing. Or, how did that girl not know for 48 hours she was in D, K, a, such that that could have been prevented, that what I see in that is there is a mom out there who's suffering. She's going to suffer for the rest of her life. She lost the child. And these people are gossiping. It just comes off as gossip, because those those parents, as much as they want to know what happens, got you already know the answer. We know people die from extreme highs and extreme lows, and all you have to do is keep doing what you're doing, getting up in the night, checking what happened to Jesse is what I will tell you everybody is, I don't go through the steps of what happened that day, because when I'm asked to do that, you're actually asking me to relive my worst nightmare, Right? So there's, there's a, I call it the slideshow in my head. So I have to shut off the slideshow because I can't relive that memory. So what I do is I tell you simply this, you're already doing what you should be doing. It's highs and lows. The coroner actually told us he's basal and he labeled it as D, K, a, and I can second guess it. I could read the coroner's report. Nothing is going to bring him back, and nothing is going to save you know, Aiden, or anybody, right? And it you just have to keep, just keep trudging. And another thing I tell people a lot is you can spend so much time focused on the diabetes and asking me questions about exactly what happens, and you miss that your child, you know, gets hit by a bus walking across the street, or riding his bike, or riding an ATV, or, you know, he gets cancer. So, so that's kind of how I always handle that question, is, there's no there's no pinpoint, there's nothing that's going to save your child by learning exactly what happened. I mean, in all the families that I've encountered, the 100 families that have found me and found our private Facebook page where they can grieve and dream or share good details or Happy Days, is the college age kids. There is something there to be said that when you're sending your kids off to college, the biggest thing I see is death due to DKA. They go out drinking with their buddies, or they simply just don't tell their roommates they even have diabetes. Or how to give them a glucagon, or how to if I'm acting weird, you know, give me, give me a juice box. This is what these are the steps you need to take. What happens is maybe they went out drinking and they're acting a little weird, and people just put them to bed thinking that they're just drunk, right? And then they don't wake up. There is a very big preventive measure you can take in that situation. Well,

Scott Benner 18:56
I would say that, and I asked you that question, hoping you would answer it the way you did, and more, just to kind of spur on this part of the conversation, I guess. So when you see people in the community or online or wherever it ends up being, and they start wanting to mine out the information. How did this happen? What are the steps? I always think they just want to know what happened, because they are just hoping that the story is opposite of what they do. You know what I mean? Like, like, they just want to hear that someone did something wrong, or someone did something, you know, in their eyes, it's not correct or different than they do, so that they can sit back comfortably and say, oh, okay, good. I'm not doing it the way they did it, so my kids gonna be okay and and it's just, it's just to me. It's let me know how to put it really. It's just a wild like flailing into the world, like, you know, just, please let this not be my story. And I need to hear, I need to hear your story so I hear so I find out it's not mine. And, and in the end, that they don't see how horrible it comes off. Is, is fascinating. And I'm not saying you don't have those thoughts. I mean, you you spoke about the the little girl, or the the girl who who passed recently. And I try very hard not to pay attention to just any of that. I don't think it's any of my business. I don't pay attention. And I heard one person say that, you know, the kid had it was in decay for, you know, days. And it did pop into my head like, God, didn't they test? Didn't they know, but at the same time that my next thought is is very simply this, and I mean this completely, completely honestly, it's a really terrible disease to live with. The factors that affect you come from so many different directions and so fast, and everyone's understanding of it is different to blame anyone for anything that happens with type one diabetes and the use of man made insulin and not having a pancreas that works is just flatly not. It's not human You can't blame somebody for that. It's no different than blaming somebody for, you know, being in a car accident, or, you know, falling off of a bridge, or, I don't know what the hell like anything. You don't even there's some things in the world that just happened to you. You can't be blamed for them. And it's it's wrong to try. I think so

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 21:09
well. And the reality is this, there is not a parent out there who's lost a child isn't already dealing with blame on their own, right. So there's, there's so much Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda, no matter how it happened, where it happened, when it happened, if I spent all my time blaming myself or my ex husband, I wouldn't live day to day. And like, people don't understand sometimes that for the first few years and sometimes, I mean, I have people that I've been part of this group for seven years, we've kind of gone through this together. They never kind of escaped the constant pain and suffering of it, they just That's That's where their grief took them. It's interesting because we're talking about this because someone shared an article with me today about grief and loss of a child, and like, seven things I've learned from from loss of my child. So well written and it's and like, step number seven just really resonated with me is that because of the deepest pain that we have felt, we really experienced joy more than the average person. And I don't know if you can completely understand that, but like, because we know the bottom of bottom, like when we see joy, it's such a strong emotion. And the same with grief, like any kind of loss we feel now, like, say, someone goes through a breakup, I call it. How do I explain it? It's like, it's like, you already have a sunburn, and then the sun shining and burning it worse, right? So everything you feel painful is twice as painful, and everything like joy, really stands out. And I say that because, like some people can see me on the diabetes online community, I write a lot for beyond type one. I, you know, I've written for D life, and I share my joy a lot. And I, you know, I am living a great life. I tomorrow, I leave for Rutger Ridge, Colorado, and I get to ski with, you know, 25 type one key coaches and help train them and and then run a camp on Saturday up there for kids with type one diabetes. I'm living a really good life, and I've decided when I say things like, people ask me, how are you? And I can say I've never been happier. It used to really pain me to say that, because I would always think, what is that person thinking in the back of their mind? By God, she lost her child. How can she say she's happy well, because I have to move forward. I have to continue living. I can't live in doom and gloom every minute. But don't for one second think that a parent who's lost a child isn't feeling this underlying, constant hole in their life. They're just they're just learning to live with just like, much like you learn to live with, you know your child's diagnosed diagnosis, right? Well,

Scott Benner 23:43
I was gonna say yeah. I was totally Yeah. I was just totally gonna say I it's, I mean, I'm prefacing it needlessly, because I don't feel like you need me to, but it obviously, it obviously doesn't compare. But at the same time, I know what you mean about the joy thing. Like, I always tell people like, now that my daughter lives with this chronic illness that does envelop a lot of our time. It does loom over top of your head. Is she okay now? Will she be okay later? How is this gonna affect all these things that when something good happens, you really do feel it very purely, and at the same time, when something that you used to think of as being bad happens, you can laugh it off almost sometimes, like, sometimes I'm just like, That's not important. Is that person upset about that? You know? Like, they totally should get up with me tonight at 230 and watch Arden try to eat a banana in her sleep. Like, like, I think that would definitely change their mind about what bad means. But at the same time, I heard what you were saying. I guess that when you see something bad that it brings all of your emotions to the top more, because I can't imagine how strong you are to be able to get to the point where you can say, This is the happiest I've ever been. Because being someone who has not nearly gone through what you've gone through, I'm having a hard time imagining being able to get past the idea that I'm allowed to be happy. Me after and and that I should be or that I'm not hurting something, and that you figured that out, that path that's magnificent. I'm so glad you're sharing it with other people, because it's not something anyone can imagine, obviously, unless, unless it's happening,

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 25:14
the only way you can, the only way you get there is with support.

Scott Benner 25:18
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Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 26:30
And you know, I was just very fortunate that the people I chose to surround myself with, you know, I have to tell you, like, there's this very weird thing that happens at boss, you and I have written about it, but when you when I lost my son, I also, I was very involved in the diabetes world, you know, I'd done a documentary I had, you know, given to, you know, done every JDRF ride every year, all over the country and and all sudden, like, who's going to want to Be around the person who lost their kid to diabetes. If your kid, you know, if you as the parent who have a healthy type one living at home, you're going to want to spend any time with the mom who lost a child. I really panicked I was going to lose this entire community, and I was very blessed and fortunate that my my people rallied around me and, you know, and it's, you know, I talked about, you know, I'm very blunt. I talk about, you know, the loss of Jesse and and moving forward and what I continue to do for the community. But I just, I guess, I just feel very lucky that I was, you know, allowed to stay here. Of course, I use my time wisely in that, you know, when I'm in a riding on insulin case number camp, and I'm standing talking to a 10 year old kid, you know, and he says, How old was your son when he was diagnosed? I just say three. And yeah, he asked questions I would never talk to, you know, those kids, sure, you know, and tell them, I lost my son because it's not inappropriate. He

Scott Benner 27:59
was about your age when he passed. Yeah, there's, there's, there's, there's no value in that. No value. Yeah, exactly, and, but it is really cool that that people did that because I, I tried to imagine, do people struggle with how to speak to you when they know? I imagine they would, right,

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 28:16
sure. Um, I mean, the worst is when someone doesn't know. I mean, now it's been seven years, so it hasn't been as bad, because most of the people I know know, but you know, in the in the early first couple years, it's just so horrible is, you know, you run into an old neighbor and they're like, gosh, how's Jesse? And you're like, Well, you know, and you what's hard for those families, and myself included, is if forces you, they're grieving for the first time, and you're forced to re grieve something. You've you've gotten your you're at Step 29 and they're at step one. And you know, so you see their pain and you see their grief, right? So, you know, I, I don't even reach out, like if, if a family is lost, I don't reach out to them. I kind of wait for them to find me, let them come to me when they're ready. And some are never ready. Some just decide, you know, it's just not their thing to grieve with. Others, they just, they just don't find a need for it. But it's a solid group that helps each other, and I'm really proud that a lot have gotten involved. And, I mean, I don't know if you know, but like, beyond type one is really involved in the whole DKA movement to get information to every pediatrician in the US. Yeah, warning signs. And while that's not going to save a Jesse, it is going to save kids, and it's going to save lives. And I'm like, I'm just so proud of the people beyond type one that they took a sensitive topic that I know that they've been contacted by others in the online community who are saying, you're scaring people with this topic. And, you know, I think that their opinion, and I can't. Really speak for them, but just from conversations I've had with them, is they're like me. They don't care if it saves one kid. It's worth talking about.

Scott Benner 30:08
Yeah, I interviewed Mary recently, and we were talking about all these different ideas and and I can't see, I can't agree with that more, and at the same time, like you're scaring people, the idea that you're scaring people by bringing that up, I that that starts to scramble my head, because here's what I'm scared by. I'm scared by all the people I see online who say things like, hey, my kids blood sugar has been 300 for three hours. Should I correct again or I don't, you know? Do you think it needs more insulin? Like, and I'm not scared because they don't know. I'm scared because someone hasn't explained it to them, because their doctor didn't tell them, because they got some sort of info. Some sort of information that led them to that thought and and you can, you can shine a light on things like DKA, you know, awareness, and try to pretend that that's scary, but that's not the scary thing that's going on in your community. What's going on in your community, I think, simply put, is that most people don't understand fundamentally how insulin works and how to use it. I really think that's the most scary thing, because at some point then, and I know most scary is not English, I'm pretty sure, but, but most, very scariest is what I'm saying is, is that, is that none of us really get taught how to use insulin and how it works. And then, you know, I,

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 31:23
I have a, I have a really interesting story like, just to share quickly on that is so one of our elite coaches, I'll use her name, because she won't care, Lauren, Lauren and I have gotten very close over the last few years, because she also did the Ironman Wisconsin with our group this last year and doing it again. So we've gotten to be friends. And she's She stayed at my home, and she was over in Austria. She lives over there quite a bit of the year because she trains with the ski team over there. And I follow her on her Dexcom share. There's a few people that I follow just because they look at me as someone that's kind of an outsider, not a parent. You know, I'm not going to chastise them, but I'm kind of a safety net for Lauren when she travels. That's cool. And so she's seven hours ahead of me, and she is having roller coaster blood sugars. And I'm talking up to high, down to low, up to high, down to low. And I mean h, i and l, O, W, and so we're in constant contact, and she's just staying in a place with a 20 year old kid who has no understanding of type one diabetes. She ends up having to administer her own glucagon. So I just kept her on the phone for a couple hours, and we just hung out while I worked, and I kept her safe and just watching her graph and trying to help her, I just finally said, You know what, Lauren, I know you're not going to want to hear this. You're scaring me. Your numbers are scaring me. The fact that you have large ketones are scaring me. You need to be in a hospital. And she said that I'm in Austria. I'm afraid of the language barrier. I'm afraid they're not going to know what to do. And I said, You need to be where the right equipment is and get the help. And I think if Lauren didn't know me and didn't know Jesse's story, I don't know that she would have gone to the hospital, but she went and she she was very grateful. She said, Thank you for pushing me. I was in severe I was severely dehydrated, and I was definitely in DKA. Now, had she gone, kept going at home, I don't know what would have happened to Lauren. And so I, when I when I hear that, you know that lets me sleep at night, that I helped Lauren, that I know that Lauren went to a hospital simply because she knew Jesse's story. And I'm sure there's other parents all over the world that I don't even know, know of Jesse's story, and probably had a similar situation. And you

Scott Benner 33:44
and I have never spoken before this, and we don't, we don't know each other, and yet you come into my mind frequently, yeah, yeah, and so, and it's always wrapped around this issue, and I don't want to, it's funny, we always talk about this community online, but and I wonder if people realize when they're in it, I'm kind of going backwards, but when they're in it, that they're not that they're likely not going to be in it forever. And so as a person who has had a blog for 10 years, and I'm sure that you have a similar idea, the names and the avatars, they come and they go, and they come and they go, and people get in there, and they either get the information they need, or they stay till they're comfortable, or whatever it ends up being. But in the moment that they're there, they believe that this is the world, that it's always been like this, and it'll always be like this, and they've just added themselves to it. And what I know as an outsider looking from, you know, a back a little bit that in six months, they'll stop coming around, they'll understand insulin, they'll not be scared anymore. They'll get the answers they need, the comfort they need, whatever it ends up being, and they'll go back to living their lives. I always feel good when I see people disappear. You know, when I see them leave, I always imagine that they just have everything they need and they just want. Go back to their life and and at the same time, when you see somebody who is just so fervently, just arguing or trying to make points, or what did this person do? Like that whole thing, I think they're missing the point of it. The there's this there's this comfort there. There are some people who have been there for so long, they could come really help, like you did with Lauren and and I just wonder if sometimes it's not lost on them that they're not the driving force of what's happening, that the the entity is the driving force of it. I don't know if that makes any sense, or even why I got off on that tangent, to be perfectly honest with you, but it just always, it always strikes me when someone's raining or raving or or coming out, like they're just like, I know what to do. And I'm like, Yeah, I feel like you've been here for three weeks. But go ahead, tell everyone what to do, and you know, and then and then, and they get going, and then and then, I always look at the threads and I think, oh my gosh, this person asked a simple question. There is a simple answer to it. You can agree or disagree that I know what that answer is. And then six people come in and say six different things. And I always try to picture the person either and going, I asked a question, six people answered six different ways. I don't know what to do now. Like, who do I randomly pick? Do I just take the person whose avatar looks the most pleasing to Me and decide to believe them? Like, how does it end up working? But to know that there's someone like you who you can trust. What's coming from them is huge. And I think that those are as are the community, even though the people who are maybe the loudest in it or the most active, maybe they may never know that, you know, but, but so it's a it's a really huge thing you're doing, and I think I'm thanking you in a very long, convoluted

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 36:45
the do see, you know, the whole online community, it's such a resource. And the same breath, when I meet a newly diagnosed family, I say, just be so careful on the do see, because there are the shamers. The shamers being the ones that say, Oh, my child's never been above 170 I'm calling the F on that, okay, because we've all been there. And, you know, you're not magic, you're not a unicorn. You know, there's the shamers and those people that know everything, or, you know, they're there. I think some of the D, O, C has gotten a little bit, dare I say, out of control again. I'm probably gonna get my throat cut to that. But there are some, I mean, I've been blocked from a major one that I never have once made a comment on. Never once they

Scott Benner 37:33
just decided you were out, huh?

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 37:34
I got I got shun based on somebody else I knew. And I'm like, Why did I get shown from that, but turns out, I don't really care. But you know what I mean? It's just, it's like, it's a drama filled, you know, do see situation, and I don't need to be there, but, like, I warn people, it's like, just be careful the information you're seeking and where you're seeking. It wasn't,

Scott Benner 37:53
I'll be, I'll be completely honest. If you asked me, my honest answer would be, there's good information, there's bad information, and there are crazy people. You have to figure out what those three things are, yeah, yeah. And so it just, it, just, I maybe can stay out of it a little more. I know this is going to sound completely backwards, like I'm in 1982 or that I, you know, voted for Donald Trump or something, but, but I think because I'm a guy, I don't get it as hard, you know, I think there's something to that. I think that I'm not one of the moms that it just doesn't it doesn't hit me as hard, but I still get it. You know, for every this will sound like humble bragging, but you know, for every 10 emails that are like, Hey, I listened to your podcast and my kids a 1c is down two points. Thank you very much. I didn't understand how to do this, or I never thought about this before. You know, every once in a while, you hear from somebody who's like, you're a pompous jerk, and you think you know everything. And I'm like, I don't think I know anything. I'm trying to tell you what works for me do whatever you want with that, you know, and so, and at the same time, I've had someone yell and rant and rave at me, because I, you know, I let my daughter eat whatever she wants to within a certain degree, we deal with it with instant. So I get hammered for that. And and, and I just have taken a very interesting tactic where I don't care, and so I just really, I pay no mind to it, and I do sometimes. I do sometimes. Thank the fact that a number of years ago, I wrote a parenting book, and I got these reviews, and the reviews were mostly very glowing, and then some of them were not. And then I just realized it was like, someone read this book and loved it, and someone read this book and hated it, I'm not in control of that, you know, like I can't possibly be in control of that. And I think of this the same way, my information is not dangerous. I always preface what I'm going to say. We'll say it right now. 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. There, I'm not telling you what to do, and so you do whatever you want. And at the same time, please don't yell at me, because I don't like that, but I am just going to delete it if you always,

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 39:55
you know, you make an interesting point. And like, you know, like I said, beyond type. One has given me a really good voice. And like I said, I appreciate them, and I did an article about etiquette. When you hear in the D, O, C, that someone has passed away, how do you handle yourself? And like, one of the biggest things I say is don't make this about you. And you know, don't, don't reach out to that parent, because I understand the empathy I understand. Oh my gosh, I too, have a child with type one diabetes. You're living my worst nightmare. Yeah, we know we're living your worst nightmare. You telling me that you still have a child that is breathing isn't helping me. You're helping yourself. You're making yourself feel better. You're not making me feel any better. So just, I just say, Stop yourself. Don't post on their, you know, funeral page, don't, you know, gosh, my child has diabetes, you know? And you know, I

Scott Benner 40:47
can commiserate with this, yeah? Because you can't, yeah. Draw, draw a strong line to your point with this. Almost every wedding toast, or someone who stands up at a funeral, who these people try to speak about the departed, or they try to speak about the people getting married. But if you really listen to what they're saying, they're telling stories about themselves, even when people don't mean to do it, it's hard for them not to relate things back to themselves. It really is a very human trait, you know, like, I boy, I can't say who, but I remember sitting at a wedding, listening, and I was like, Is this person ever gonna mention the bride and groom? Or no, I don't think, I don't think they're going to No, no, this is all about them. They but they thought, they thought, thought they were talking about the bride and groom. It was fascinating. Yeah, you know,

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 41:38
I really do believe the majority of people, they absolutely mean well. And I know that. And you know, like, I always tell people to it's like, if you don't know what to say, just say, I don't know what to say, if that's okay, that's saying something, yeah, or don't say anything. It's okay. But it's it's amazing to me. Like, in an article about etiquette and explaining, don't, and I write, don't. Don't ask the person what happened. If they want to share, they're going to share. I say that in my article, and I will kid you not in the thread that follows on beyond type one, I was completely attacked by people saying she's not telling us what's happened. She we have a right to know. We have a right. She's hiding something. I'm like, by God, you did not read my article. So my article says, Don't ask me. I'm telling you not to ask me. And you're, you're telling me, I have to tell you, No, I don't, I don't have to tell you. And you know what, there are people who have asked me, and I, of course, tell them, you know, detailed information, and it just, it's, it's a right moment or a wrong moment, and I get to choose when that is and or who it is. Or, you know, it's like simple things tangent wise is like, you know, you're shopping at Target, and someone asked me, you know, because they're looking at the groceries I have on the card or whatever, like, oh, how many kids do you have? I don't get into details because I'm not going to forage a friendship with the cashier, right? I have four kids. I don't need to elaborate. Now, if it's someone I value in my life, I'm going to say I have four children. Unfortunately, my son, Jesse, actually passed away when he was 13, because I know I'm going to have a relationship with that person, and it's worth me telling and going through pain where and actually putting that person through pain, right? Because the target cashier really probably doesn't want to

Scott Benner 43:26
know that, and I wasn't trying to make you feel badly. And now they think they did and they probably didn't. And so here's what we've learned. I think, Michelle, shut up is the is the it's the right thing to do. It's everyone shut up. Don't, don't. You don't have any thoughts you you haven't perfectly crafted your comment to be the exact right comment. You know, you don't have a story that's so close to someone else's that they're going to be happy to hear it, that this person is going through such a multi faceted thing on an emotional level that you'll never understand. Just don't, just don't, you know, like there's nothing you can do, you know, make a donation to a diabetes charity in the kid's name, but then don't go out in the world and tell anybody. Do it for yourself. Don't do it for someone else, or so that someone else knows what a great person you are, or so that you can feel better about it, or feel comfortable it's not about you. Somebody had a horrible tragedy. Leave them alone. Am I close? Is that close? Or have I gone too far? Have you hung up like, you know what? That was too hard line for me.

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 44:30
I mean, like I said this, you know, this book by, I believe her name is Amanda Miller, I literally just shared it with, I mean, it was so poignant and and just explaining, like, what, what we're feeling, how we're feeling it, and the best thing you can do is just be supportive. You can be supportive and loving without understanding, if that makes sense. No, it does. I don't want you to ever go into your brain and try to imagine what it feels like not to have your child. No one should feel that pain. I don't wish that upon. My worst enemy, because I know what it feels like. I want everyone to stay in their bubble, their happy bubble, really honestly, for as long as they humanly can, because it's a really nice place. You don't really realize how nice it is until you're on the other side of

Scott Benner 45:12
it. And it's not just with the death of a loved one or a child, by the way, too. You will eventually get out of that bubble. Like I remember being a young person in my 20s who was just married. I was like, this is all perfect, until the first time that, like, my hot water heater broke. And I was like, life's not as perfect as I thought it was. And then I fought with my wife one time. I was like, Oh my gosh. How did that happen? And then, you know, like, just your bubble continues to degradate it. It breaks down over time, until, and I hate to sound like, you know, but till the till the actuality of the real world hits you from all sides, like you can only insulate yourself for so long, hold on to this part of it for absolutely as long as you can. Don't let this part go. You can assume that the election might have been rigged by Russians. You can think that your neighbor probably is a bad guy who is dumping bleach in your Bush because he doesn't like the way it's blocking his driveway. That all that stuff is probably happening. It's okay to know that, but try to stay, try to stay blissfully ignorant about this, right? Just it's always going to be great. Everything's going to be great. I love my kids, I love my life, I love everything. And this is always going to be like this, because one day when it's not, yeah, it's going

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 46:16
to hit you, right? You don't know. And that's always my advice to people. I say, please just go let your type one live their life, because you don't know when anybody's bus is going to hit, so just go live. That's the best advice I can give to anybody, and that's that's why I keep doing what I do at riding on insulin and and watching all these kids and and the adult. I mean, you know, I have, you know, 100 endurance athletes all over the US and Canada, that race, you know, with type one diabetes, and like, I see them living life and mentoring and speaking and, you know, telling people to live their best life. I mean, that's, that's how to live it, yeah.

Scott Benner 46:54
But do you remember the egg crack challenge? Okay, so the boy that that was for who I can't believe but his name is, it's just slipping my mind at the moment, I interviewed his. I interviewed his. Karen Mendo, oh, yes, thank you. I interviewed, I interviewed Miss hover, yeah, year, a year ago, and in the course of that, that conversation, the one thing that stuck with me, it sticks with me every day I might think about her constantly, is that she said that no matter what the outcome with her son was, even though he passed away, she would not have changed anything about how he lived his life. And she just talked about how happy he was and how Grady was doing at college, and he was the captain of his lacrosse team at school, and that he was a happy, fulfilled person, and that she thought if she restricted that because of diabetes and he got an extra day, she just didn't think that that those days would have been valuable, as valuable as him just living his life. And man, I really do think about that all the time, because it is easy. It is very easy to wax poetic about this, like, live your life. The bus might hit you, like all that stuff, and I believe it, but to really do it that's like, that's top level brass balls. Like she's she believes that now today, as much as she did then, and I give her a ton of credit, and I think you fall right in that same category. So I just think it's just a wonderful message for people you really do just need to live for today and be happy not worry about what's gonna happen tomorrow. You kind of can't, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 48:27
She's a friend of mine, and she is part of our group. She's found us. She's a she's an amazing lady, so she still has a big, loud voice out there,

Scott Benner 48:36
just to stick to your guns after that, to not one time go, You know what? Okay, maybe I would have changed like to not do that is such a respectful position for her son, you know what I mean like, and for her family and her life and their decisions and all those other things I I'm always there's a couple of people I think about a lot when I look at my daughter, because it is not, it is not a stretch to be going along, living your life just as easy as could be, getting great blood sugars for weeks on end. Hey, my a one sees 5.8 I'm kicking this right in the butt. I should start taking care of other people's kids. I'm so good at this, blah, blah, blah, like really starting to feel it, you know. And you could be going along as well as that. And still, sometimes I walk into my daughter's room at night to, you know, look at her CGM, test her blood sugar, turn off the fan, whatever it is I'm gonna do. And every once in a while, I do look at her and I think, My God, is she gonna make it the whole way? Like, maybe not, right, you know. But I never think that of my son, but he stands on a baseball field with someone throwing a ball 100 miles an hour, and I never think I wonder if that ball hit him in the head and kill him. Like, I never think that, you know, and in the end, both are fairly likely. So isn't it weird how being attached to the disease then suddenly makes you feel like, oh, is this something I need to be focused on more. Michelle, let me tell you a secret. I don't drive this. Hate limit, you know, and it's funny, and it's funny. I never think I'm about to slaughter my whole family. It never occurs to me, you know, never once. And so you can get yourself in the right mindset. And I think you proved earlier by what you were talking about that there is no mindset that you can't become happy with if you if you work at it hard enough and have the right support. Honestly,

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 50:21
I get asked. I get asked all the time, you know, why do I choose to continue in diabetes? Like, how do I do that? How do I how do I put myself around the disease every day? And I, you know, that's my way of grieving, that's healing and coping. Like, first it was coping, and then it became healing to be around others that I get to still accept that as part of my life, and I don't know any different, like I want to help other kids. I want to make sure another family doesn't go through what I go through. And the piece that and people who've heard me speak have seen this because I use it as a PowerPoint slide. Is about three weeks after Jesse died, I was feeling very, very sorry for myself, and sitting at my dining room table crying, like, what am I going to do with my life? And you know, this is horrifying, and you know, everything, every thought you can think of, and I got my nail and one of his teachers sent me his last writing assignment, and she's like, Oh, I, you know. And it was a very kind of like, oh, by the way, I thought you might want this. And I'm thinking, Oh my god. Thinking, Oh, my God, you have no idea what this piece of paper means to me. And it was a, it was his last essay that he had to type or write up, his handwritten actually, and he could write about any topic he wanted. And the topic was, my mom is courageous. And the entire, the entire thing, just in detail, this is a kid who said, mom stopped talking about diabetes. He would say it all the time, but in writing, he put I am so proud of my mom. She does the JDRF bike ride every year, and if that wasn't enough, she became a director of JDRF, and if that wasn't enough, she decided to do an Iron Man for me, and I got to cross the finish line with her, and she did a documentary, and he just keeps going. And he said, I just am so proud that my mom has always put me and my diabetes first. So for me, it was just like, well, there you go. Jesse has told me what I'm going to do with my life, and that's why I do what I do. It

Scott Benner 52:19
meant so much to him that you were on his side like that, and now you're just on everybody's side. I, you know, I was gonna make a comparison, and now it just seems small, so I'm not going to, but just gonna let it go. But I think that a lot of people who stay in the community and work really hard like this, I think they feel very similarly. I think that it's just you, just you said it before. Like, how do you this is what you know. How do you stop doing it, right? How do you I some days feel like, sometimes you see online, someone who's struggling with something, then you're like, wow, it's such a simple fix. I wish I wasn't running out the door right now. I would just send them a message and say, you know, if you call me right now in 15 minutes, I can explain this to you. You know, like, I don't want you to struggle like this anymore. Like, I don't want your kid to feel like that. I don't. I don't want to live knowing that somewhere you are broken down in your house because you can't figure out this simple thing that I know the answer to. And at the same time, I can't spend my entire life talking to people about things like this, but you found a way to dedicate a ton of your life to it. I'm trying to do it with a podcast. You're doing it with your work and and there are a lot of people doing it in a lot of different ways, and I think that's the core of what the community is, and it's obviously driven by stories like yours, with Jesse's letter and and just tons of other people who have had impactful moments in their lives that have that have drawn them to want to help somebody else. You're everything you said is beautiful here. Thank you. I appreciate you doing this

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 53:52
well. Thanks for having me

Scott Benner 53:53
on. This is enough. This was a you know, when you have to thank me. Now stop it. So let me, let me, let me. We have to do something pleasant, and I'll beat for a second. Hold on. Would you share your favorite happy memory of Jesse with me?

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 54:10
Oh my gosh. Favorite happy memory? Well, I don't know if you've ever seen Have you ever seen like a little green Jesse was here. I don't know if you've ever seen it, but I use it a lot in my photos. So summer of 2009 right before he passed, we all, we went on a family camping trip, all the kids, and we were, we were, I don't even know how to explain it. It's Wisconsin, right? So you're up north, kind of hick. I don't know how to play it. So the camping spot had a it was a makeshift shed that they kind of turned into a bar. We're all inside, because it's Wisconsin. You can bring your kids into bars. Yep, I shamelessly just told you that my

Scott Benner 54:52
brother lives in Wisconsin, drinking beer was like the state sport, I think, isn't it? If not for the Packers, it would be like. A legal thing is so I'm sorry. So why not bring your kid to a bar? I live in Wisconsin, I understand.

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 55:05
Go ahead. So, so we're there, and the walls are this dark green, and the people that own the place give you these gold markers, and you can write all over. So there's writing on every single wall. And so I write on the wall, my daughter writes on the wall. And then, and then there's the at the time, it was 12 year old, Jesse, and he simply writes, Jesse was here on the wall. And why did I take pictures of him writing that? I have no idea, but it was this fun moment. And he wrote, Jesse was here. And so he passes away. And this is kind of a crazy story, because it goes beyond just a favorite memory of Jesse, but that clearly was a favorite. And there's some reason why I took a picture, I you know, and I'm sitting with my brother, and I said, Oh my God, they're gonna, they're gonna paint over that someday, like every year, that's what they do. They just paint over start again and start over. And the new people that come to this campground write their new memories and thoughts. So I said to my brother, I need you to go up there and use part of Memorial Fund to cut that out, and we'll redo it, and we'll whatever it takes, but I need to own that real estate, that piece of the wall, and he goes up there, and it's it's it's foreclosed. Bank foreclosed on it. So it's locked up. I'm not going to say how I got it, but that piece of real estate is in my living room, and it is something that every year on the anniversary of his death, which is February 3. So the number 23 I don't know if you've seen that, but 23 has become his number, and it's used all over the world because of February 3, and people changed their profile picture to that, that Jesse was here, and it's become kind of a movement. And you know, jdrs is even, you know, mile 23 of every JDRF bike ride is a mile of silence in his honor, artists have changed drawings and put 23 in it, and I own actually the 23rd print of something that they did in honor of Jesse. So I guess happiest memory is that I'm so glad that I have that piece of him that he wrote, and that people are inspired by that. But and here's a goofy, funny, funny Damn kid like he, he was very contagious in his his mannerisms and his way of dealing like, you know, you have to walk through like, a really crappy part of this, our city to get to school, like we are sub our subdivision kind of was in kind of a lower income area, and all the kids loved him, like every kid would talk to him, and he'd talk about, you know, if that kid wants to beat me up, I just say, Hey, I bought some Cheetos. Want some Cheetos? You know, he just had this way about him. And, you know, there's still a plaque that hangs at his his middle school about him and inspires others, and I'm just proud of who he was. I wouldn't give up one single day of those 13 years that I had with him.

Scott Benner 58:12
Well, I appreciate you sharing that that's spectacular. And even as I asked the question, I was like, What a dumb question. Why would I say that you answered? And I was like, wow, I've worked out. Okay, oh my gosh. Well, I'm just, you know, we're up on an hour. I don't want to keep you any longer, but I just genuinely appreciate that you came on, and thank you for having me on. No, you're very welcome. Is there anything that you want people to know? I mean, is there a Facebook group, something that you

Michelle Bauer (Alswager) 58:38
know? The thing, I guess, is if people are still listening to what I had to say, would be if, if you if, if you know of a family who who loses to type one, and know them, you know the right thing to do is connect them, you know, like, with a group like mine. Because, man, I would have done anything to have my group when Jesse passed, I I needed to know there were other people who stood in my shoes and understood, don't try to fix them. You know, I see some deal the do see, like, try to manage those people, and we're here for you, and, yeah, you're there for them. But like, don't make it about yourself and just pass them on to this group. Like, it's not even my group. I don't it's not even my group, it's, it's, it's everybody's group that's a parent who's lost and and, you know, connect them with me. I'm happy to you know, on Facebook, it's called families of type one losses. And you know, it's only for the parents. So if I get a request from someone who's just wanting to see what we're talking about, they don't get added. It's definitely a place for the parents to breathe and have privacy and and feel the hurt maybe a little bit, yeah,

Scott Benner 59:47
and people who have a very special set of tools that they can help you with, and they're not, they're not tools you have. So let them get to that families of type one loss, yeah, okay, all right. So. Well, I hope you have a happy holiday. Merry Christmas, and your new year is fantastic. Have a great day. Scott, you too. Bye, bye.

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breakthrough T 1d who, of course, formerly was the JDRF put out a lovely blog post about the accident. I'd like to read it to you now. It says the leadership staff and volunteers of breakthrough T 1d mourn the tragic sudden loss of 5t 1d champions on Friday, November 1 2024 that night, five people who were pillars of the breakthrough T 1d ride community died in a tragic single car accident. The group included two married couples and one single individual, all very close friends and veteran breakthrough T 1d ride participants. All five people were inside the vehicle at the time, and there were no bicycles involved. Understandably, the tragedy sent shock waves through the tight knit ride community, as well as the entire breakthrough T 1d organization. Chris Eaton a lead volunteer partner for breakthrough T 1d ride, and the ride Advisory Council knew all five people well. Ride is the greatest group of people you wish you didn't need to know. Our friends embodied that feeling of inclusion, hope and a steadfast focus on getting to a cure, said Chris, they will be sorely missed by their families, friends and the ride community. Jeff and Michelle Bauer were highly involved in breakthrough T 1d ride especially Michelle the breakthrough T 1d RIDE program is a family, and Michelle exemplified this, day in and day out, said Anthony garrossi, National Director of ride and endurance, Michelle has been a dedicated T 1d advocate since her son, Jesse, was diagnosed with type one diabetes in 2000 at the age of three, tragically and unexpectedly, Jesse passed away at the age of 13 on February 3, 2010, after Jesse passed away, Michelle continued to advocate, educate and push the envelope in His name in honor of Jesse, the day he died, and generally, all people who have passed away from T 1d mile 23 of each breakthrough T 1d ride is written in silence, whether it was riding 1000s of miles in memory of her late son, Jesse authoring a book to help grieving families, Bringing her husband, Jeff Bauer, into the ride family to join, to joining the ride Advisory Council. Michelle was all in. Anthony added in her spare time. Michelle had a number, excuse me, in her spare time, Michelle had numerous other T, 1d focused projects, including Jesse was here, which encompassed her work with other families around the world who had lost loved ones to T 1d Jeff proposed to Michelle in 2018 at mile 23 of a breakthrough T 1d ride. The couple had a lake house in Wisconsin and spent a lot of time there. They were avid boaters. Jeff and Michelle are survived by their blended family of five children, Alexander Bauer, Claudia Bauer, Samantha al swagger, Joseph alswager and Sarah alswager, all of whom are now adults. Josh and Tammy Stahl became close friends with the Bowers through the RIDE program. They rode together mostly, most recently, in late August, Josh started riding in 2010 for his and Tammy son, Gavin, who is now 17, who lives with type one diabetes. Josh had completed and competed in 13 rides, including Lake Tahoe, lacrosse and Death Valley. I've been fortunate enough to talk to Josh and Tammy at rides over the decades, said Dan Wolf, Executive Director of breakthrough t1 DS Wisconsin chapter, who has long been involved with ride, most recently in La Crosse, excuse me, were where we traded stories of our spirit jerseys, kids. Rides and what makes the RIDE program special? Which are the friends you make along the way? Josh and tam are survived by their son, Gavin Stahl and Blake Stahl Barry Sievers first ride was 10 years ago. He had completed five rides, including Nashville, Loveland, La Crosse, while he had no direct type one diabetes connection, he was always willing to help with a smile. He hosted training rides at his house and even helped transport bikes with his trailer. Barry's infectious smile and boundless energy embodied our team Wisconsin Spirit wrote Joe Brady and Scott Hagan in a statement they issued together. Joe lives with type one diabetes, is a veteran ride Coach Scott and Scott is Barry's best friend who recruited him for his first ride a decade ago. Barry was the senior financial manager of an Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is survived by his adult son, David, and two school aged daughters, Emma and Addison. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. You.