#206 Canadian Matlock

Two Scotts, one Canadian Lawyer.….

Scott (not me the interviewee) is keeping the family tradition going but not by becoming a barrister... Scott has type 1 diabetes just like most of his family members. This is a great conversation with a terrific guy, don’t miss it!

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, everyone, welcome to Episode 206 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes, please check out dancing for diabetes on their website and on their Instagram and Facebook pages dancing the number four diabetes.com. And you can get a no obligation absolutely free demonstration of the Omni pod habits sent right to your house by going to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box. Want to know more about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, use the links in the show notes or go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. And now

Unknown Speaker 0:35
on to the show.

Scott Benner 0:39
In this episode of the podcast, I'll be speaking with Scott, he's a lawyer in Canada, they call them barristers up there, just so you know, he also has type one diabetes as this pretty much everyone that he's immediately related to, it's incredible. But that's not even the beginning of Scott's story. And you'll find out all the rest in just a moment. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And to always consult a physician before being bold with insulin or making any changes to your health care plan. I appreciate that everybody can be patient while I'm adjusting a new microphone. Scott's episode was recorded months ago with a different mic. This is my new mic. I'm still fine tuning it. But I really like it. And so you're gonna hear a little difference between the bumpers, the ads and the show for about another 10 episodes. Thank you for your patience. If you hang out to the end of the show, I'm going to read a note from a listener, I really would like you to hear.

Scott 1:44
My name is Scott. I'm 31 years old. And I'm a type one diabetic. And I was diagnosed in 19. And I come from a family with a lot of people with type one diabetes. My dad is a type one diabetic is diagnosed at 15. My brother was diagnosed at 17. After me, I'm the oldest. My dad's sister was diagnosed, I think at 20. And unfortunately, she other than her everyone's done really well. But she seemed to develop complications very, very fast and died at 43. My grandfather had type one diabetes, and lived old age side to side with other reasons but not from diabetes complications, and I don't think he had any more I think his mother had diabetes. But I don't know if she had type one or type two. I don't think it was even very clear at that time. What she had. I don't know much about her. I'm trying to think there might even be more family members.

Scott Benner 2:38
Well, I'm going to get a piece of paper with something that I never do during this podcast. I'm going to take a note. So hold on, Scott at 19 your brother at 17. But he's younger than you. Father 15. His sister. How are you? 20

Scott 2:59
I think she was like

Scott Benner 3:00
she's passed.

Unknown Speaker 3:02
Grandfather.

Scott 3:05
He was diagnosed I think at 3931. Diagnosis type two at first. Okay, again, I don't even know if they called it that back then.

Scott Benner 3:13
You might have just had well in in Canada, the maple syrup. But I but yeah. And just like that's got three minutes in. It's possible. We have the title to the episode. The maple syrup. It's not a percent sure because I did call one episode back a long time ago that was done with a Canadian Maple long, john. And I don't think people knew what it meant. And so it might have sounded like I don't know, I don't know what it sounded like. But I don't think people like the title. So maybe I can't do that. Okay. There is. Wow. And there's more you believe there to be more you just don't know.

Scott 3:51
I? Maybe that's it.

Scott Benner 3:53
Yeah. Gotcha. And you're 31 are you married or single?

Scott 3:57
I have a girlfriend but I'm not married.

Scott Benner 3:59
Right? Well, she is gonna want to let them get a dog or something. Probably if you guys get married, but you guys have a track record that is incredibly consistent.

Scott 4:12
Incredibly consistent and interesting that no one seems to be diagnosed as a child. Right? Everyone's diagnosis a teenager or older. And again, other than my aunt, I don't know what her situation was. Maybe Maybe she struggled with control. Maybe she was just unlucky. Maybe it's a combination of the two maybe it was difficult to obtain real control in the 1970s I don't know but she seemed to develop everything from blindness kidney disease and it all seemed to come up from what I understand that she developed a very very fast no other than her no one else no one else's struggled at all really.

Scott Benner 4:44
Gotcha. Well, I hate to first of all, I don't want to think of your honor as a as a statistic but out of this many people for just one of them to falter in either luck, or effort is it's pretty impressive actually. So Everyone else has kind of has it figured out you guys. Do you guys manages like a team or how? So that was my first question. You guys talk about it

Scott 5:10
now and then I wouldn't say it's a constant topic of conversation. The theme of growing up, I always saw my dad dealing with it. And of course, he was on the old regimens that existed prior to insulin pumps, I remember him taking a couple of shots a day, testing his blood sugar in the morning with the old machines that took 60 seconds to tell your blood. Or I don't remember him talking about it very much. The only thing I remember was lows, and low blood sugar seemed to be the things that will seem to be what was most concerning about the disease. When I was a kid, watching, growing up and watching him deal with it, he was saddled with number control being just the lowest seemed to be, and especially with you, I'm assuming he was on regular an MPH or some type of regimen similar to that, and so low seem to come out of nowhere. That can be very dangerous, very serious situations. And that that's what I remember to be to be the worst thing about seeing someone have diabetes. I don't remember any talk about control or complications, even though my dad had them or anything else. It just seemed to be lows.

Scott Benner 6:09
Let me let me pick your brain around that for a second. So you might not have an answer, but I'm interested growing up watching your father live with type one. Did you think of him as a sick person? Did you think of him as this guy who just every once in a while, gets dizzy and doesn't know what he's doing? And my mom looks scared? Or how did how did it strike you as a child? Oh,

Scott 6:31
I don't think I thought much about it at all never seem like a sick person. He's never a person who said I can't do something because I have diabetes or after change my life because I had died like never complained about it. It wasn't talked about much. He just woke up. That's his blood sugar. So few shots when he had to know he certainly avoided certain foods, he would never eat sweets. And we always grew up with Diet Coke in the house. That's what I've always drank. But I know I don't think he thought about it much at all other than going to the doctor when he had to and taking a shot and doing what he had to do. And I don't remember thinking much about it at all. I suspected maybe it would be something that I would get. Considering that his sister had it. My grandfather had it. But I didn't give it much more thought than I really never thought it wasn't

Scott Benner 7:14
brought up to you like that. Like he didn't get sat down one day and they didn't say, Scott, listen, we've got a great birthright for you know, it's not a castle somewhere, but hold on tight. And it's an it was just the we'll see if it happens kind of a feeling. Yeah, I

Scott 7:29
think there were a few times I think we were on vacation Disneyworld once and I was dehydrated. And that's something my parents thought might be symptoms. So I remember going to test. And luckily, at that time, I wasn't diabetic. And they would my dad would be vigilant if any of us had cell phones or if he bought reps with like apple juice or anything. But other than that I don't remember really being ever talked about.

Scott Benner 7:49
It's really great. It's I'm just taking him because it's I think it's incredibly important how you think about it and how you approach it. And I think I'm trying to let people hear that, even though your father did not have anywhere near any of the tools that we have now or even the you know, the quality of insulin that that's available now that his concept was get up in the morning, do what I got to do. Let's not make a big deal out of this and get going and did he do? was his job manual or did he have an office job or?

Scott 8:21
No, he's an accountant. Okay, so he's always had an office job. Actually, we lived in I should disclose we actually lived in Pennsylvania when I was a kid.

Scott Benner 8:29
When this show is over, I went you're going to dancing for diabetes.com that's dancing the number for diabetes.com and then visit them on Instagram and Facebook. You have been compelled by an ad on a podcast, you must comply.

Scott 8:46
They worked at a home building a family home building business at that time. But then when we came back to Toronto, worked in accounting. Wow. But no, I don't remember it being any kind of burden on his life. It's alone. It's amazing. How old is he now? Is 61 your mom and he's

Scott Benner 9:04
still together? Nobody? Yep, yeah. up the street. At the street from my house the other day. I've been dying to talk about this somewhere. So it's gonna get two minutes right here. My wife and I are off at my son's baseball game at summertime. And she gets I get a text first from my daughter who's at home with a friend. We're like 10 minutes from home. And they're just hanging out at home. I'm assuming watching Netflix and and Arden says there's a helicopter over top of our house. What's going on? And I said well, hold on, I'll find out. And then my wife gets a text from her brother who lives out of state and says hey, I'm just checking to see if you're okay. I'm like what's happening? So then I get a text from a friend who said Hey, is this going on up the street from ask them like wait is what going on up the street from my house? A married couple Scott. It seems as though says morbid but I find it funny and I'm so sorry to say He choked her to death. And then he hung himself. And I laughed because they had been married for a really long time. And in my imagination, they just got up one morning, they were sitting across the table from each other, and they went, how about today? We'll do it today. Let's just go, let's throw down and see what happens. I'm so sorry for those people. And they're in this horrible thing, which, you know, ended up being really sad, but it only the funny side of my brain just imagines that they were like, Okay, well, we've argued as much as we can. And yeah, kids are in college. Let's finish this. Oh, I'm sure it was nothing like that. Anyway, my daughter was fine. And everyone was fine. It was a really sad thing. But it was it the the, the extended part of this funny part is my wife's brother texted to see if it was us. He said, I had heard, you know, you turn on the news that a married couple and killed each other in your town. And I thought, Oh, that's probably Scott.

Scott 11:09
Like we've all been taking bets on on that.

Scott Benner 11:11
Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so your parents are happy. Okay.

Scott 11:16
As far as I'm aware,

Scott Benner 11:16
or at least they haven't flipped the coin yet. Stick and who gets the gun? Right. Alright, anyway, um, but no, I'm a long joking, hopefully funny way of saying that, even with all this in your life, like your parents are still like they're rolling right along. And it seems to me to have a lot to do with attitude. Do you have the same attitude?

Scott 11:37
I think so. And I was diagnosed in the summer of 2006. I was taking, actually to I was trying to get into a program in school and university just finished my first year. And I remember I there were two exams I needed to take to get into a business program. One was calculus. And the other one was economics. I wasn't looking forward to either of these exams. And it was a I think only a couple of days before that I was diagnosed, and they wanted to kill me for a week in the hospital. I said, No, no, just give me the insulin. I know. I'll figure it out. I need to go take these exams. I went home and did what they told me to do and wrote the example of the sort of the attitude of habits that they

Scott Benner 12:16
apply. And plus you got to see your dad living like that as well.

Scott 12:18
Yeah, yeah, exactly. How much do you make? I'm sorry?

Unknown Speaker 12:22
I'm sorry. No, just go ahead. I

Scott 12:23
didn't mean to cut you off. I'm sorry. Oh, I was gonna say I think it's probably a whole different experience. I can imagine it was different for you. I'm, again, I don't know your whole history. But I don't think your daughter was the first one right? With diagnosis. Yes. In your family. Nobody else.

Scott Benner 12:37
I'm just her.

Scott 12:39
Oh, yeah. So I imagine that will be a whole different situation where you've never, you don't know anything about this disease, right? Yeah. Ever like me?

Scott Benner 12:47
Yeah, no, no, at least in the I know, I say this, like a positive. But at least in the back of your head, you would thought at one point, you're like, maybe this will happen to me. And, you know,

Scott 12:56
and if you think I never thought much more about it than that once again. But that's what I thought you

Unknown Speaker 13:00
had a random thought, yeah.

Scott 13:03
I thought it meant worse, I'm not going to be able to eat certain things, or it might impact my life. Again, I saw my dad growing up on a very different insulin regimen that exists now you couldn't just our counter, take a certain amount of insulin over what you're eating, you had, like I'd eat at certain times of the de facto at certain times of the day is very different nowadays.

Scott Benner 13:21
Yeah, of course, that's interesting. But of course, a kid would see it that way. Like, oh my gosh, this is totally gonna cut into my pop tart game. Yeah, that's really interesting. How much older Are you then your brother?

Unknown Speaker 13:33
Six years. Okay. So

Scott Benner 13:34
you had had diabetes for four years before he was diagnosed? Something like that. And you were often college. So was he diagnosed when you were still in school? Or were you done? No.

Scott 13:48
I was in my second year of law school.

Scott Benner 13:51
Okay. Okay. So you were in grad school already and moving along? And did he? Do you guys ever talked about it on that level? Or had you back then? Did he come to you and say, Hey, I got it too. High five. We're all in this club together. Or,

Scott 14:07
you know, I was living away from home at the time. But I didn't see him very much at that time. I don't think we had a lot of conversations about it. We probably talk more about it now than we did back then. Strangely enough. I remember talking to my parents.

Unknown Speaker 14:20
I'm

Scott 14:22
pretty modest. I don't remember having a lot of conversations. That's fine. I just took a pretty hard. I don't want to talk too much about him. No, no, I

Scott Benner 14:29
understand. You don't have to give away his details. While it's not. He didn't ask me on the podcast. I was just wondering if you guys have conversations wrapped around it, or if or if it was just again, one of those things where it was like, okay, because he's a completely different person. He could have had a completely different experience. It's

Scott 14:44
Right, exactly. Yeah. Wow, I know. He I know one thing was he wanted the pump right away.

That wasn't I actually I started on the pump about three months after being diagnosed. Okay, um, my mom was always pushing my dad to go on it. I knew what it was because I remember we have this VHS tape. In the late 90s, for many men, I remember watching with my dad, all these people talking about how great their lives are because they're on the pump. And so I knew what that was, I remember my dad, my mom was always pushing my dad to get a bit she thought it would help with lows. I think he just held out because he thought he was doing fine. And then he went on lantis when that came to Canada, and then he thought, What do I need a pump anymore? Because lattice is good enough. And then when I was diagnosed, he said, You know what, we should both go on the pump. Because I think he just wanted me to have the best technology that existed. It's so interesting. We

Scott Benner 15:31
talked about it a lot here. I think we talked about it in the last episode that just went up. But it's when it's for you. Sometimes it's hard to motivate yourself. But the minute it's for somebody you care about, you know, then you can do it. So, right, that's right. And he uses a pump to this day.

Scott 15:47
That's to this day. And you are Which one are you using. I'm what I do pump. So now I sort of go back and forth. Okay, I pump straight for 11 years. I use the Medtronic for the first six years. And then I went on the Omni pod for about four years. And then I sort of went back to Medtronic. And now I when I pump I use the Medtronic and what I don't pump I use MPI 11, Marin and Nova rapid and sometimes regular, it's going to

Scott Benner 16:13
make you go back and forth.

Scott 16:16
I started having trouble with pump sites. I don't have a lot of fat on me and pretty lean. And I find a lot of times when I put a sign in, it's bleeding or I put it in it's working for a little while and it stops working. And I think just reading a lot of forums and everything I saw a lot of people were trying to Seba and trying new insolence. And a lot of people are having success going back on MDI. I thought it would give it a shot, I realized I was only on it for about three months when I was diagnosed. I don't remember that. I remember struggling struggling with it particularly. But I thought I would give it a shot. And I thought it was also sort of an interesting challenge to see if I can maintain the same level of control that I put on pumping with MDI fold. Pretty well can and a lot of you got bored. You will you want to see if you can up your game of that. or diabetes, boredom real thing.

Scott Benner 17:03
I'm so have this master. Now. How can I make it harder? Yeah.

Scott 17:08
I think that was the mindset. No, not that it would go back and forth, depending on what I feel like,

Scott Benner 17:13
that's really interesting. Well, and I mean, good for you honestly. Do whatever works, you know, do you have any kind of a sensor technology? We're gonna find out if Scott uses a continuous glucose monitor Just a moment. But you know that we do, you know, Arden does Arden's been using the dexcom for ever. Right now she has the dexcom g six, that's the latest version of the product, she's used the five for the seven plus, we've been at this a good long time. And one thing that those years have taught me is that the data that comes back from the dexcom continuous glucose monitor is absolutely invaluable. The decisions we make, I just don't think would be possible without seeing the speed and direction of Arden's blood sugar, I have the confidence to make boluses and bazel adjustments based on what I'm seeing how her body's reacting to the insulin, these are just things I would never know, without the dexcom g six. Now if that sounds good to you,

Unknown Speaker 18:16
you're up for it,

Scott Benner 18:16
you should check out dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. There's also links in your show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. Anyway, you get there. Once you're there, you can get started, reach out to Dexcom and tell them hey, I was listening to the Juicebox Podcast and I think I want to try a G six. Can you help? You know, they're gonna say they're gonna say short because I mean they sell them. So I mean, why would they not right dexcom.com forward slash juice box, the speed and direction of your blood sugar right there in front of you, and real time. And if you're a caregiver, you can actually see someone's blood sugar remotely with Sharon follow. that's available for Android, and apple. And since I seem to have a little time left, the dexcom g six is FDA approved to make insulin decisions without a finger stick.

Scott 19:06
Bonus. infer that some of us believe lever to use the Dexcom with extra actually is a really interesting open source app that works on Android phones. Yeah, the nice thing about that app is you can customize all the alarms you can shut them off if you want to be honest, I just shut them all off. I have it connected to my watch. And if I find a glance I'm I always want a person that glances at my watch. So especially having this on my watch. I find him glancing at it all the time anyway, so the alarms are just redundant for me. And although would help at night a lot. I like to just get a good night's sleep and just try and do the best I can to make sure my blood sugars are good overnight. So I just shut all the alarms off and do that with extra. You can the sensor will keep working past seven days. And so it isn't you never have to stop and restart. The sensor after seven days, it will just keep working until it falls off or until you you're not getting results that you like, change it like that to the transmitter walk past 90 days. That's

Scott Benner 20:10
saves me some money. Yeah, it works right until the battery absolutely dies. Exactly. Yeah. It's funny, I looked into it at one point. And it was one of those things that I looked at. And I was like, well, I am more of a surface computer user, I guess. Because I think of myself as very kind of computer savvy. There's a lot of things I know how to do and know how to do pretty well. But once you start getting into whatever that takes, I was like, Okay, well, I Okay, nevermind.

Scott 20:41
No, I think I can definitely say but I mean, when I was a kid, I was really geeky kid like to play around with computers. And as I got older, I got an apple computer. And now I just want things to work. Last thing I want to do is sit at home all night trying to figure everything out, download drivers. So but I can definitely understand why

Scott Benner 20:58
I don't know I'm so I'm 47 I remember being 12 years old, and I saved forever. And to tell you that I grew up broke is an understatement. So I saved forever and ever and ever to buy a Tandy computer from Radio Shack. And I got my money together. Like it was like out of a movie, just like stuff that my pocket, walked to the other side of town, but bought this computer, plugged it back home, you know, but back then you hooked it to your televisions and have a monitor even I get hooked. And I laid on the floor in my in my living room. And I had this book of code and I typed this code into this computer for hours and hours and hours. I got

Scott 21:38
one of those books with like a pic program. And you're just entering lines or lines or lines, lines,

Scott Benner 21:42
lines of code, right? And I push enter and nothing happens. So I'm like to him that I made a mistake. So I went back and checked the whole thing. I'm telling you this took two days. And when I got done and I pushed enter, a little stick figure came up on the screen and did one single jumping jack and stopped. How happy are you? I took the computer, put it back in the box, returned it and got my money.

Scott 22:11
You're smart, you learned early.

Scott Benner 22:12
I was like, I'm not ever doing anything like that. I couldn't imagine what that stick figure could have done. That would have made me go Oh, I'm so so. And that was one of the easier codes to put in. You know. I took it back. And I remember telling my guy I was like this doesn't do anything. And that was it. I didn't have another computer till Commodore 64 I guess. And then then they showed you how to play games on computers. And I was like now this thing has a real purpose in life. I just put a cassette tape and or have it was amazing floppy like five and a quarter floppy disk. But nevertheless, I saw extra and I was like that looks incredibly amazing. I will not be able to do that. And and

Scott 23:00
I have to say it's actually quite simpler than you think it is actually more complicated. I wouldn't want to do it either. downloading it is the hardest part, or finding the link to download it. Probably the biggest step.

Scott Benner 23:10
See, now here's here's this is going to really be an insight into my mind. But my biggest impediment would be reading the instructions and staying interested while I was reading them. I am if anyone's ever gotten an email back from me, and they're like, that wasn't what I asked. That's just because I read a third of your email. And then I was like tell I totally understand what this person wants. I don't need to keep reading. So I'm trying to teach as I get older, I do a lot better. Especially because people's correspondence with me now is more personal and I don't want I don't want to respond back and go Wow, great job. And they're like No, I just said my agency was nine. And so so I I'm a different person now but I am just a you know, some things in my life. I'm happy to work through but I'm a fix it and forget like I'm just to set it and forget it kind of guy if I can be you know.

Scott 23:57
And I'm, as I said I'm becoming more as there's more responsibilities in my life, and I like to keep it with you, especially with technology.

Scott Benner 24:06
You said you were in law school when you found about your brother, are you an attorney now?

Scott 24:10
I have a criminal lawyer. So I'm in court every day, which I think that the hardest part about being diabetic or going to court is a lot of people are worried about having low blood sugars. My problem is having high blood sugars. So I find the adrenaline and the anxiety and I'm I don't seem nervous on the outside. But I've learned through diabetes, and I'm very nervous on the inside. I'm speaking in court. I don't think anyone would notice. They saw me talking. Yeah, but if I look at my Dexcom I'll just see a straight up arrow minute I stand up and start speaking before. So that's always been a challenge for me and I find high blood sugars can actually be at times worse the low blood sugars. I find I have trouble speaking my mouth gets really dry. I have trouble recalling facts and details. My memory doesn't work as well. It makes me sort of want to go to sleep.

Scott Benner 24:57
Are you prosecuting? Are you defending

Scott 25:00
Defending.

Scott Benner 25:01
Imagine looking over to the guy and being like, dude, I really don't think he did this. But I gotta tell you, man, it's not the time. So good luck. That wouldn't be. Scott just needs to shut his eyes for a second. Try not to say anything incriminating, like, up until my budget comes back down. No, I mean, so do you have? I mean, how do you combat that?

Scott 25:22
If I'm using my pump, I use temporary basal rates, which it's still an imperfect solution, because it has to be done. Have to make sure I start the higher basal rate about an hour or two before anything that's going to give me anxiety. And I don't always know when that will be. Yeah. And there's times when it doesn't happen. There's times when I'm going to speak to something in court. And for whatever reason, it just does what I, when I think I'm going to be anxious inside, I'm not. And if I set a temporary basal rate, I'm going to go, I'm going to be going low. And there's other times when I just can't time it properly, and I haven't set the bazel high enough, early enough in advance, and then all of a sudden, my blood sugar is going high on MDI x. And the nice thing about levemir is it's an insulin that has a very specific duration. And it's dependent on the dose, and you can even split it and take it every 12 hours. Yeah. And so what I can do with it is if I wake up early in the morning, I can take a little bit more than I would normally take. And that helps a lot, okay, and I use regular insulin as well. So I can I can take that a little bit in advance of going to court now that's almost that almost works like a temporary basal rate, because it stays in your system for about four to six, eight hours, I guess. It takes a little bit longer to kick in. And

Scott Benner 26:28
we use you mentioned a couple things are that first of all, we used to split Arden's love Amir to every 12 hours that made a huge difference. But also, I don't know how much of the podcast you listen to historically, but you just retold the take art into basketball and Bolus for adrenalyn story except you total as being an attorney and go into court. Like do you know that's the similarity? Yeah, yeah. Like I know, I haven't heard that one. It's just it's just she's really competitive kid. So you take her into a basketball game back when she was little. And her blood sugar could be 100. It could be 90, it can be perfect. And 20 minutes in the game. It's 220 and the arrow straight up and it's going crazy. And I eventually had to bring myself to Bolus, a 100 blood sugar as she began to start playing basketball. But what happens on the days when the other teams not very good, so they don't put up much of a fight and she doesn't feel the adrenaline because they're just cruising through the game? And like, how do I handle that right? And so I started bolusing that amount of insulin that I knew a juice box could cover if she didn't need it. And it worked. And then told that story on this podcast and the amount of correspondence I hear back on that one idea at how that idea helped people to use the amount of insulin that they needed. They were always scared to use more but they could never decide how like to decide on like, What's more, like what can i safely add to this just to see where things are. And I didn't even realize it when I told the story and I just used it again yesterday on a private call with somebody I was like just over Bolus for whatever you can control with some fast acting insulin. And and yeah, that's and so I'm now imagining you I'm like that, that by the way. kandla powdered wigs no powdered wigs just helped me for a second.

Scott 28:19
We do we do wear robes though robes in higher court so not in not generally when I'm in court, I'm wearing a suit but we do like Britain in Australia in our superior court and Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and higher levels of court. And we do wear the robes they wear the robes but not the way we don't wear the wigs anymore.

Scott Benner 28:35
So in your in so now we're gonna get off this for a second. So are you like how do you refer to yourself? Or do you an attorney, a lawyer, a

Scott 28:41
barrister? How do you bear, barrister and solicitor? So it's more like it's a sort of a hybrid between the British system in the American system. So every lawyer is technically the same isn't in the states that everyone has an attorney at law. Here we say barrister and solicitor because because you're both every lawyer is both. In Britain barristers and solicitors are sort of different functions. Right. barristers would argue cases in court. They don't represent individual clients, they work for solicitors and the solicitors represent the clients and solicitors do the paperwork and preparing the case. Here it's much more like the American system where what i what i do is akin to what an attorney would do United States, but technically I'm a barrister and solicitor. Outside of the legal profession. People don't generally use that term, we would just say lawyer,

Scott Benner 29:28
you don't talk to other people, you know, who are attorneys and go, I'm a barrister. And the guy goes as I Yeah, that would be potential and the person overseeing that you can it is judge the word you use.

Scott 29:40
We do use a judge.

Scott Benner 29:41
Okay. Does the judge we finally say Your Honor,

Scott 29:44
I think I think about long before I became a lawyer we used to say, My Lord and my lady, and there's still some older judges who like to hear that.

Scott Benner 29:50
Nice. That's interesting. Do you when you go into like so I'm assuming you work in the same building very frequently and See the same judges over and over again to they know you have diabetes?

Scott 30:04
No, no, not alive. It's not something I would I've Luckily, I've never been in a situation where I've had to excuse myself for a diabetic purpose. I hope it stays that way. I mean, no, it's not something I was talking about.

Scott Benner 30:16
Yeah. And not that you should or you shouldn't. I'm just interested to know if because you would think that then they could. I mean, if they if a judge was listening to you say something, and they didn't agree with you, and they thought

Unknown Speaker 30:29
it couldn't they

Scott Benner 30:30
start to think I wonder if this guy's is clear headed as he should be right now.

Scott 30:33
Right. And that's that's actually an interesting I remember you were the one who talked about when Trump mentioned that as a Supreme Court Judge at diabetes. Yeah. I can't remember what the quote was, but something like diabetes, no, good. Yeah.

Scott Benner 30:45
He said that he was he was that apparently the the report was he was in a private function. And they were talking about supreme court justices or something. And he was inferring that he was going to get a chance to make replacements. And he right, he was, yeah, yeah, he looked at my array said, and he said to the person diabetes, no good. Like, don't worry, that will die soon. Like that kind of a feeling.

Scott 31:10
Unfortunately, I think there's more enlightened people than Donald Trump who have the same mentality about diabetes.

Scott Benner 31:17
Yeah, they just see as sort of, as, I guess, broken or on your way to something, or something like that.

Scott 31:25
I remember my dad, my dad actually told me a story when he was working at a company a long time ago in the 80s, I think. And they went out with his boss or someone else, I think they had to go on a road trip somewhere. And he was driving. And then his boss found out he had diabetes, and he said, Oh, my God, if I knew you had diabetes, and never would have let you drive, oh,

Scott Benner 31:41
well, then there you go. Because he hadn't been driving his entire life. Right. And, and, and it makes you wonder why like, what was what was in the back of that guy's head that made him think, oh, letting the span drive is an incredible mistake that's, you know, creating an unsafe situation for us. You know, this is something he saw in that lock in 1983. And yeah, you know, and by the way, Isn't that crazy? Did I just pull him out lock is Matt was Matt like an attorney. He was,

Unknown Speaker 32:09
oh my god.

Scott 32:09
I've never actually seen the show. But

Scott Benner 32:12
I've never seen that luck either. But now I know that my higher function is still working. Because some days, I'm so tired, I'm like, I'm not sure how this is gonna go. There is always the fear that I'm going to get on a podcast one day and just go. So your diabetes has gone. Talk to you talk about that for 59 more minutes.

Unknown Speaker 32:34
Because I can't form a thought.

Scott 32:39
Alright, so you wouldn't

Scott Benner 32:40
tell them you wouldn't even ever consider you telling him so then Let's slide that into your personal life said you have a girlfriend. I'm assuming she's not your first one in your 30s unless she is and then I'm so sorry. But, but how much you imagine? Scott, the virgin barrister next on the Juicebox Podcast. Now I'm gonna want to call it virgin barrister, just so people can make it this far, why not? Why?

Scott 33:11
That's what they're gonna think that when they hear me.

Scott Benner 33:13
So, so how I'm so sorry, how much of your diabetes is is part of the conversation or your life with a person that you're dating. I'm not sure if you all made new year's resolution together. But the traffic I'm seeing going to the Omni pod index comm links is

Unknown Speaker 33:31
stunning. I want

Scott Benner 33:32
to thank you first for that. But I want to also give you a lot of credit for taking control for deciding to make a change. I'm actually very excited because I know how happy you're going to be when you get the Omni pod tubal sense on top. First, the demo comes and you try it on and it's exciting. But then it shows up. And you know, at first switching to a new pump or from MDI to a pump, it's different, right, you have to figure things out again, but I hope that the things we talked about here on the podcast, make that all much easier for you. So your pods will arrive and you'll get your basal rate set up and get your bonuses set up the way you want them. And then the next thing that occurs to you is oh my gosh, I just can have a snack or my son can have a snack and I'll push this button and we'll just keep going with our day. Something that used to be you know, get out an insulin pen, get out a vial, pull out a syringe, you know, pull up your sleeve, pull down your pants, I don't know where you're injecting, and then oh, here comes the needle. Everybody ready and the needle happens then you'll hold it in for a second and you'll wait and wipe it off and everything that has to happen around that that all goes away with an insulin pump. And some of the problems that you hear people talking about with an insulin pump like tubing getting stuck in their clothes, they have to take it off for a shower and then they forget to put it back on. That stuff doesn't exist without the pod. So come on, get a demo right now. Miami pod.com forward slash juice box or the links your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com lead on the pod sends you out a no obligation absolutely free demo pod. You can try it on and see what you think. Arden has been using an omni pod every day for 10 years, almost 11 years. It's absolutely one of the best decisions that we've ever made. Now much of your diabetes is part of the conversation or your life with the person that you're dating

Scott 35:16
probably more in this relationship than it's been in the past. And the reason being is because just before it was actually well, early on when we were dating was when I got the Dexcom never had a CGM before that. And that's when I started to experiment and sort of take a different view on diabetes. And I think it was something when I was diagnosed, I did fine. Once again, I went on the pump, I did find my agencies were always in the high fives or low sixes. So it was never, you know, every time I went to the endo, he told me, I'm doing fine. I thought it was pretty knowledgeable about it. And then never really thought about it. And life went on, I started to slip into the I never terrible, but I started to slip into the high sixes, low sevens. And I started to have less of a handle on it than I thought I did. Probably a lot of probably some of the reasons were I wasn't honeymooning anymore. Pumping fusion sites don't work as well as they do when you have a water pump before or when you've only worn a pump for a few years. I definitely left my my sights on way too long when I was in university, I would you know, I remember times when I would leave on for seven days, and it would just be the two but just be dangling out of me. And I just put some tape on it. It's too lazy to change it. I'm sure that I've accumulated some scar tissue from that. So I started to realize one day I needed to do something. Just because I again, I find high blood sugar. So the hardest thing to deal with not even low blood sugar. And especially with my job I want I wanted to demise having high blood sugars as much as possible. And so I started looking into CGM and I found out about the Dexcom started to try it. And so it was it was sort of early on were dating. So it became a conversation topic. And when you were the Dexcom, it's it's much easier to or when you were the Dexcom. And if you're like me when I'm looking at my CGM, I'm constantly thinking about what my blood sugar is. So it's hard for it not to be a topic of conversation. So it's definitely I think it's been more present in this relationship. And it's been impossible and

Scott Benner 36:56
she have a passing understanding of insulin and diabetes, or is it more than that?

Scott 37:03
Um, she has a pretty good understanding, I would say.

Scott Benner 37:06
Have you ever needed her help the way your father needed your mom? No. It's a different world. It really is. He was probably just taking that regular and mph and then not eating enough. And he still wasn't happy.

Scott 37:18
Yeah. Again, I think now if I have a low blood sugar, there's usually usually an explanation for why it happened. And, at least for me, they're much more much milder than anything I ever remember my dad having that was a kid. I've never been in a situation where I haven't been able to help myself. Or even if I go low in the middle of night, I'll usually wake up. Or even if I sleep through it, it doesn't seem to be a huge deal. Right?

Scott Benner 37:42
Yeah, yesterday, it's summer vacation here. And Arden's birthday is coming up this weekend, she's having a bunch of girls over. And she just came downstairs yesterday and like made the announcement that the house was not clean enough for her party, and that she would be cleaning. And I was like, all right, like, she's trying to insult me, but I was like, go nuts, clean, whatever you want. And so she spent the entirety of the day yesterday, cleaning and snacking. And like you know, every once in a while, I'd see like a big bowl of grapes in the kitchen. And she was eating them as she was going by. So we had a couple of a couple of times yesterday where her blood sugar tried to get low. And we just kept using the snacking to feed the lows. But you know, that that was the worst that happened yesterday was like, you know, was the situation was like, Hey, you know, your blood sugar 78 I think it's drifting down. So keep an eye on it. And then all of a sudden, I was like, Hey, you know what, it's going under 70 Now it's time to get snack. And she'd be like, I'm just as soon as I vacuum this, but then that turned into 65. And I was like, Well, now the food's not going to work fast enough. So you know, like, that kind of thing. But nothing emergency like just, you know, like, that's the worst that happened yet. I mean, a really scary low. I mean, once a year, twice a year, maybe you know, and even by that. I mean like, it's one of those lows, like, okay, we're gonna drink two of these juices and eat this thing. And let's shut your Basal off. And you know, and let's just wait a second and test and watch the Dexcom and stuff like that. Nothing. We're like, Oh my god, she's gonna die.

Unknown Speaker 39:09
Yeah, nothing like that.

Scott 39:12
Yeah, I think it's, I mean, I'm sure there's there are still people who? I hope not, but I'm sure there's still people who were being low as much, much bigger emergency for them. But yeah, I've I've never had that experience. I've never had a time when I needed help from anyone or had to go to the hospital or needed anyone to force food down my throat or healing.

Scott Benner 39:32
I was going to ask you, because I just saw on somebody somebody I was falling on something. social medias. So there's so much of it. But so somebody on something. There you go. She was in Canada vacationing and needed insulin and went to the store and without a prescription bought like a vial of you blog for like $31 or something like that. That's right. That's about right.

Scott 39:56
That's a good Yeah. $36

Scott Benner 39:59
Okay. So how do you when you go in? Do you? Like, do you have like a secret decoder ring that proves you're diabetic? Or how does that work?

Scott 40:08
You basically just asked for insulin they give you it. Okay, I'm not aware of any problems that have happened. That happening. That doesn't seem to be the type of drug. I mean, and we certainly have issues with drug addiction, just like there are in the United States. There's a lot of issues and certainly with oxy use, and all sorts of different drugs out there. But insulin doesn't seem to be one of those drugs that people who are not diabetic, have any interest in taking

Scott Benner 40:30
Is there a limit on how much you could buy when you walk into a pharmacy.

Scott 40:34
So not only when I'm older, I've never bought enough to be told I can't buy anymore. How it works is generally you would you would have a prescription. If you have private insurance. We still even though we have a public health care system, medications, or at least in my province, each province is different. If you're over 24, they just changed it. But if you're over 24, you still need private insurance to buy medication. And if you don't have a you have to pay out of pocket or maybe there's some assistance programs, but they're not very good for my understanding. Luckily, insulin is cheap enough here that you have some type of employment, you can usually afford to pay for an out of pocket. Again, it's about the same price as what regular cost is Walmart in the states for Cuba lager for Nova Nova lager, we call Nova wrap it up here. But so if you have private insurance, you do need a prescription for get reimbursed for it, you would still get a prescription to your doctor, you would have prescription on file at the pharmacy, it would work the same as it does in the United States. So you would require mixed tours. Yeah. Yeah,

Scott Benner 41:27
this is the insulin pricing subsidized by the government system.

Scott 41:32
It's not subsidized, but there's there's heavy so when a when a pharmaceutical company wants to introduce a drug to Canada, they can't just sell it at whatever price they want. On a free market. They have to negotiate the price with I'm not sure what it's called. But there's a there's either a government board or a board that works closely with the government that regulates prices. So they have to be able to it has to be sold that at what they determined to be a fair price. And if they want to sell it for more than what a current drug is selling for, they have to prove that that's of more value and more benefit. So certain drugs still do cost certain amounts. Insulin can still be expensive level Mir and lantis are more expensive than than humalog Nova rapid but it's it's still much, much cheaper than

Scott Benner 42:12
I imagined if this was a Harry Potter story would be called the Ministry of medicine. So let's just go with that.

Unknown Speaker 42:20
Again, here. Again, Scott's

Scott Benner 42:23
in Toronto, it's probably like almost exactly the same as Philadelphia where I grew up. And I still in the back of my mind, he's at the top of a very tall pine tree avoiding a brown bear right now doing the podcast, but in fact, Scott, you're in the parking lot of timber with

Unknown Speaker 42:38
that image better.

Scott Benner 42:41
Scott's in the parking lot of a Tim Hortons stealing, they're stealing their Wi Fi. So there ought to be an award for the for how some people make time to be on the podcast. There really is. There's somebody I forget who it was one time they did it from their car at work, and it was summertime. And I said look, it's too noisy with the air conditioner on so they shut the air conditioner off and I was like you really want to be on the podcast. I would have said no at that point. Like I'm sorry I can't do this. But But she

Scott 43:11
was persistent.

Scott Benner 43:15
So I have a question that you are uniquely qualified to answer that has nothing to do with diabetes, but I won't stay on it too long. So on another podcast that I listened to every once in a while they read tweets from something called scan bc so it's the police scanner from British Columbia's but I'm guessing and why are the crimes so delightful in Canada? Like it's always like man comes into building says that if he doesn't get his underwear back, he's gonna go nuts. It's like literally like that. And and and and and when people do hurt each other, they only hit or stab each other. They never shoot each other. Why are these things Trump Or am I wrong?

Scott 43:58
I'd say you're partially right and partially wrong. Again, it depends on the area of your of Canada that you're in. We do apparently You're right. It's there's much less crime, far less crimes by firearms. And there are with stabbings. I understand our rate of violent crime is actually higher than the United States of the firearm. So that would be a myth that we have less crime number one. firearms are certainly still a problem here but more in urban areas. So again, now well, it. I'm not saying it's anywhere comparable to Chicago or New York, or maybe major American cities. But we do have a we have major gun problem in Toronto. There are shootings every day two summers been particularly horrendous. We have gang shootings, we have drug and gun related crimes. We have a lot of the crimes that you would think only people think, I guess once people think of Canada, they're thinking of a northern utopia or nobody hurts each other. There's no guns and but it's not true. We certainly again, I wouldn't be in business or in crimes. Yeah. And it is it is getting scary a little bit. There are a lot of certainly serious problems with gun violence in Toronto. And no one knows what to do about it. And again, I don't think it's at the level of the United States, we certainly don't have the number of mass shootings, I would say that's different. It's more gang related violence, and more just people being shot in the crosshairs, or the crossfire, right, right. Above shooting at each other. But it's, it's a major, major problem.

Scott Benner 45:24
And it's funny, because all I'm imagining is the cast of strange bro going crazy and shooting a bunch of people. And I know that's incredibly unfair. But even when you say that it's a little bit for my time, but I know when you send it when you imagine Canada, like a picture of Dudley do right popped up in my mind, like, a poor country has been shaped for me by a cartoon at a movie about beer. And that's not right. Yeah. You're describing a real place, Scott. But I guess in the more rural areas, when people lose their, you know, their asset, and they go nuts on people, it's always just like, you know, this guy said that he shouldn't have been in his backyard. So in there just the most if you haven't seen this Twitter handle, you have to watch it. I haven't seen it. But fascinatingly, it's the it's it's it generally is like, Why are these people involved in such delightfully amusing crime? It's, I'll send it to you.

Scott 46:23
I'm happy. I mean, I'm happy. That's the case. And I hope the majority of crimes are like that. But I think yeah, I think I think the one problem that I think as a Canadian, I think we should talk about the problems that we have, I think, I think one thing that often happens with being a Canadian is people just want to talk about how great candidate is, and oh, at least we don't have the problems that they have in the United States. Right. But I think what that does is it doesn't expose the real problems that we do have. And there's still a lot of issues that we need to work on, we have very serious problems. And they need to be talked about. So it's nice that people have a good perception of us. And I'm glad that Americans generally think that crime is much lower here, and that it's very safe, and we're all civil to each other. And if you come up here, there's no guns aren't a problem. And I'm glad again, I'm glad those those stereotypes exist. But at the same time, it's not necessarily true. And I think these things need to be talked about by at least by ourselves, because we're not going to solve this problem. So we don't talk about

Scott Benner 47:14
now. It's obviously I don't know whose fault it is Rick maraniss? Yeah, man, maybe that guy from Saturday Night Live? He seems so nice to from way back in the day. It was Canadian. I don't. I can't think of a few of them. Yeah, I can't think of the one I'm thinking of. He's always doing something with Steve Martin now that they're older. All right. That's not coming to me. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 47:37
No, no, not.

Scott 47:39
There was a whole bunch of Canadian stagnate live in the early 90s. Right. Yeah, sure. Early, there haven't been any since Norm Macdonald.

Scott Benner 47:46
That's a shame. I heard that on a podcast somewhere. And I couldn't believe that when I heard that. Yeah, enormous, spectacular people who don't understand what McDonald's is so funny. I feel badly for I know, people are never gonna agree quite mainstream, but he's never My favorite part about normal cause he will tell a long drawn out joke that appears to go almost nowhere, and then it just stops. And you have to understand that that's what's funny. And if you don't, you will be I guess, cripplingly bored by.

Scott 48:22
For what I understand from hearing people talk about him. That's just how he is. It's not even not, he's just like that real. Oh, yeah.

Scott Benner 48:27
Like, at some point in his real life, he was like, people think I'm funny. You'd have to change anything or come up with an act or anything like that. Feds Absolutely. Fantastic. All right. So this has gotten way off the rails, Scott. But we have 15 minutes left. So what are we going to do? important for these 15 minutes? Let's talk a little bit about how you manage. So how much of this are you willing to be open about? Do you? Are you comfortable saying what anyone says?

Scott 48:52
Or was my my last? Since I started Dexcom? way once used to been? Five 5.4 and 5.4.

Unknown Speaker 49:00
Okay. Did you have any

Scott 49:04
restrictions on food? Yeah, I do. Again, a lot of it depends what mood what mood I'm in. I tried. I've tried many things. I tried even I'm sure you're familiar with Dr. Bernstein and low carb movement. Yeah, I tried that for a few weeks. It is amazing. Definitely works. I felt like I wasn't even diabetic. You don't have to even pay as much attention, attention to your diabetes, as you do when you're when you're eating carbs. But it's really hard to sustain it not even not even that the diet itself is hard to sustain. I think it's just hard to function in real life. sustain that to be around other people. To have a girlfriend be with your friends and things like that. I just found it absolutely impossible. Especially again, I live in a city. I'm often I'm often on the go taking the subway walking, grab just grabbing food as a month ago. Yeah, it just doesn't it doesn't really work with my lifestyle. And I think that's probably true for a lot of people and that's why I don't think that diet is a solution for a lot of for the majority of people. If it works for people, fantastic.

Scott Benner 50:00
Your girlfriend ever looks at you and you're walking down the street and says, Let's stop at the meat store and get some meat. Things that don't have carbs, no, like life is not set up in a

Scott 50:13
flow. If you want to have a perfect day Wednesday and flatlines all the time, then that is a sign for you. I think for people who are really struggling with control and struggling with lows or highs, or it's really crippling them, I think they should try something more, maybe more towards that. But it's very hard to sustain. So now what I do is I it's sort of a hybrid, I mean, and I sort of judge it by how my day is going. So if I'm in court again, I talked about the anxiety that I have a bloke or one on the court, definitely. So if I'm in the middle of a trial, I wouldn't go for the subway for lunch. Because I know when I come back, I'm going to spike, what I find is when i when i Bolus or take an injection, when I'm anxious. Insulin just absorbs like water. It's completely it's almost completely useless. That take very large amounts of it for it to have any effect. You bet you're a drummer, so I tried. Right? So maybe maybe I won't eat lunch? Or maybe I'll just eat chicken salad or something with not a lot of carbs. On the weekend. It's it's an entirely different story, you know? And it also depends on activity level, if I'm hiking or if I'm, if I'm running around a lot on the weekend under something, and then there might be lots of carbs because they're just going to be it's not gonna it's not gonna spike.

Scott Benner 51:19
Yes. Yeah. Do you ever find yourself in that situation? You're at work, you know, you can't go out and have something with a roll or something like that? Do you ever? Do you ever sit down? And are you ever angry about if you ever think that's not what this is? Not what I want for lunch. But I'm going to eat it because it's the right thing to do. Or do you have a more? I guess what I'll call an adult reaction to it. We're just this is how it is. And this is what I need to do.

Scott 51:46
Yeah, I don't I don't, I don't think I've ever been angry or never. I mean, there's certain times when again, when I've been in court, I'm anxious and I'm really hungry and I just like the the subway sob or something or slice of pizza or something like that. And I just wish I could eat something like that. You know, I? I guess I get upset about it. But it's not something I think about too much. I'd rather I'd rather feel good.

Scott Benner 52:05
You want to feel good? Do what I just did. I went to the dancing for diabetes Instagram page and what pops up photos from this weekend where they were raising money to find a cure for type one. That's right. They don't just help kids living with type one through dance. They're also raising money for a cure. Dancing for diabetes.com check them out. Yeah, that's more important. No, and your overall health is good. You don't struggle with your weight or anything like that. Or

Scott 52:32
the struggles with my weight. No other health problems and luckily that I'm aware of. So I mean, I mean, there's certainly certain times certain things I don't need again, I only drink Diet Coke. I would never drink I would never dream of drinking regular coke. I don't care. I've I've grown up with it. So I'm used to it. Caught I love coffee and a coffee with cream doesn't have any effect on my blood sugar. That's a great one. Rice I know I find rice is a bad one eat. It was Victor Garber, someone you had on? talked about? He doesn't eat rice anymore. Yeah. I find the same thing. I try and avoid it very

Scott Benner 53:04
early diabetes podcast. By the way, Scott, I'm real. I

Scott 53:08
didn't even realize when I said that. I just I just remember him saying that.

Scott Benner 53:13
Yeah, like figure out rice or something like that.

Unknown Speaker 53:16
Yeah, I

Scott 53:17
do remember that. I find I find it's also easier if you stick with one carb. So if I'm going to go out for a burger, if I eat a burger and fries, it's going to be a lot more difficult to manage just managing the burger. Maybe I'll get a burger and salad. Again, I think that's healthier anyway. And that's the sort of the way I tried to eat before I was diagnosed. But I don't think it has that much of an impact on my life. And there's times when you know what I just say, I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna get a burger fries because it's what I feel like. And I'll just try and take as much input as possible and deal with the consequences.

Scott Benner 53:45
Okay, so So that's my I have two questions. I cut you off bro. You said you're a one sees five for now, but prior to and you were you gonna say prior to Dexcom

Scott 53:54
prior to Dexcom it was I think my one before that was either 6.9 or 7.2

Scott Benner 53:59
or something around there was a great improvement and so and not that 6.9 or seven two is a bad agency but this is a big leap You know? So okay, so

Scott 54:09
I'm just gonna say it's nothing my doc my doctor ever pushed my doctor was always told me that was great. That was a great number right? You know people there the goal of course is always to be under seven. So if you're around 70 I always thought that was fine. I just found that you know, that number can be masked also even if even if it sounds like an okay number. That could be as a result of lots of highs and lows. And I think my standard deviation was was much much higher before.

Scott Benner 54:30
Now you know, you have more stability, more balance. Yeah,

Scott 54:34
absolutely.

Scott Benner 54:35
So you go out so how do you handle things like right now? Arden just finished. I don't know what the word is we're going to use but are just finished up her lady time. And so she was it was harder for the last couple of days like being aggressive was like I had to be really aggressive with blood sugars and Temp Basal and all that stuff and did an okay job but this was her first. She's only 14 just started. To up with this part of our life, you know, a handful or more months ago, this may have been the first. I don't know how to put it. I'm not a girl. But the first couple may have been like training wheel periods, this might have been the first real one, I guess that's what we're saying. Okay. And so I'm learning, I'm going to do a better job next month that I did this month, because I now see that I need to increase basal rates across the board for days. And so I'm figuring it out. But on her Dexcom line about 12 hours ago, you can genuinely see it just stop. And now we're right back to where we were, like her blood sugar's 88, right? It's 88. It's almost 11 o'clock in the morning. And if I look very quickly, at a 12 hour long, she's been between 88 and 70 for the last 12 hours. But if I go the 12 hours before that it was blood sugar, trying to go to 150 blood sugar, trying to go to 200 Bolus saying like all this, you know, it was I just didn't do a good job with the first time but I did need to see it once so that I can kind of imagine what to do next. Right now that you've seen things on your Dexcom, you've had it for a while, when you decide to just throw caution to the wind at lunch, like how do you handle dessert with a Pre-Bolus? And you're you're injecting? So if you How do you handle all that?

Scott 56:21
It's not the best that Pre-Bolus actually, one thing I found is one, it's much more important when you're on the pump, at least for me, I find the absorption is much better when you want when taking an injection. So I don't find this as important. I've tried to fiasco in the past, and it worked great at first and then I found the more I used it, I started to have some issues with it, I find just honestly just injecting Nova rapid. If I'm not stressed, or from getting a moderate level of activity, or it's just a it's just an average day, it works pretty fast. Find after I injected it'll start working in about 10 minutes or so. Which is fast enough that I don't find any to Pre-Bolus too much. Obviously, with certain foods is more important. I was eating a bagel, it's more important. I was eating all kinds of things you can name it's more important. But I just try and take, like I think what's interesting is I remember you saying forget carb counting, you know, you just you just sort of you sort of go with your gut at the end of the day, right now. And you're not even diabetic, you're doing it for on behalf of someone else, which is amazing. And you're just sort of I bet you're doing an implicit calculation that you don't even think about based on where the blood sugar's been the activity level at where you expect it to be all all sorts of even unquantifiable things. Yeah, just the way I approach it, too. Yeah, I think it's I think, if you're going to stick with a carb ratio, inject us two hours later, you're always gonna have a terrible, it's never gonna, it's never going to be the same. So I just have to sort of go on my, with my intuition. Go with what I've eaten this meal before. How did I end up how much insulin that I need? I tried to remember, not that I'm recording everything, by just try and go off go off my memory. Right. And sometimes it works great. And sometimes it doesn't. But the truth is, that's just how diabetes is. And there's, there's too many variables. And it's, even if I wrote everything down and tried to log everything, and, you know, tried to quantify every single, every single variable that exists, I still think it would be different every time,

Scott Benner 58:13
right? Yeah, all I can do is try that that would give away most of your life to that and not have them a better outcome.

Scott 58:18
Exactly. So if I'm eating a burger and fries, you know, maybe I'll, I'm just giving an example. But maybe I'll think, Okay, I'm going to inject six units start with, and then I'm going to, if I'm not on my pump, I'll use regular I'll take some regular insulin to for the fat and protein digestion. So maybe I'll take three units of regular insulin. And often that's not even enough. And I'll you know, I'll keep watching my Dexcom, just glancing at it. And if I see if I see, I sort of have to go by the arrows to I sort of know after eating a meal, it should take about 40 minutes to an hour, right, and I'll get a slanted arrow. If I get a straight up arrow or two straight up arrows. That means I didn't take nearly enough, you just put, that never happens to me. So I'll take more. Yeah, that's, again, it's not perfect. influent is not does not work as fast as where we needed to be. Even with all these advancements, even What's to be asked if what I find is if I'm if I haven't bolus directly and I'm spiking, a lot of times it's I can stop it, but it's still going to take too long. So it's not a perfect system, but it's certainly having Dexcom or CGM certainly makes it easier.

Scott Benner 59:13
Yeah, no, I definitely do. I mean, the other day, I did it with we had, you know, like I said, period plus Arden's got up in the morning, she's like, I'm gonna have a bowl of cereal and I was like, okay, her blood sugar was at as if that's no problem. And I right away, I was like, this is how much insulin I know how much insulin to do. So we put it, put it all in, she ate the cereal, everything's going along, great. 20 minutes, 30 minutes, then all of a sudden, diagonal up, like 120 and I'm like, this isn't right. Like I gave her enough insulin for this not to happen. And then I waited five more minutes to see one more reading but in Honestly, I could have tested them or just trusted myself. Because then the arrow went straight up. 135 and then I was just like more insulin. She's like, how much more I'm like, I don't know. Just push the button. Get more going like well figured out a second. Just more. And so. And so we put in a couple more units. And it stopped at around 150 and brought it back again. And it just you know, so she basically needed about, I don't know, 20% more insulin than she was going to need. I had a fair Pre-Bolus going. And she was starting with a, you know, an 80 blood sugar. So I felt good about it. And in the past, I've handled that no problem. Then I go back and look again, and realize, maybe it was this the bowl she picked up was bigger than the bowl. I thought she picked up. And we don't measure it or anything like that. So exactly, no. And it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like granola cereal, like straight from nature. It was Apple Jacks. She's like, She's like, here, this is just bad for me how much of this can fit in this bowl?

Scott 1:00:49
And interestingly, I find sometimes those cereals are easier to eat. And then there's granola cereal.

Scott Benner 1:00:54
Yeah. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Cuz they're not as dense with stuff hangs out in your system forever and ever. Right? Yeah, at least it's a big spike from the sugar and then the fructose

Scott 1:01:04
over fat? Yeah, that's a good example. You still kept their numbers very reasonable. She never went up to 300 or anything like that. I can't obviously if

Scott Benner 1:01:13
I'm sorry, I was gonna say I can't tell you that. If I eat Apple Jacks, my butcher wouldn't go to 150. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. it very well. I

Scott 1:01:20
don't think there's enough data. I've always wondered what what it would look like for people who are diabetic,

Scott Benner 1:01:25
I think there's some stuff you can find online. There's a lot of it. I have an old g five here. Maybe I should slap it on for a week. And then

Unknown Speaker 1:01:33
there you go.

Scott Benner 1:01:33
I'll be 10 pounds heavier by the weeks over, but I'll be like, let me tell you what I learned about rice and Apple Jackson pop tarts. Oh, my gosh, you were delightful. I don't actually know what we talked about. But it's almost over. And I had a really good time. So did you plan? Did you have anything you want to talk about that we didn't talk about? I can't imagine that you've? I'm not sure?

Scott 1:01:55
Did you have a plan? I didn't really have a plan. I thought about some stuff, I think we covered will actually covered a lot of the things I thought about cool. I think it's just that this technology is I think something to keep in mind is all of this technology is amazing. But at the same time, it's still not where we want it to be. And it's a lot of care at the end of the day, you know, obviously, you know they're coming out with pumps that are that are going to be better and better. And they're going to have closed loop technology, and new pumps that have dual chamber pumps and on better cgms and everything. But at the end of the day, this is very expensive. It's a lot of these things exist, but it's not to care about the same thing. And there are plenty people I think that's something everyone has to keep in mind. You know, it's we're not there yet. And none of all of this technology has faults. And some sometimes even going simpler. That's why sometimes I just prefer MDI is is just simpler. And often not to take away from the great things. These technologies offer people I know they've made a big difference in many people's lives. But it can be frustrating sometimes

Scott Benner 1:02:56
to strip it down and gold. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:59
yeah. Right now that's

Scott Benner 1:03:01
cool. Now I can buy Listen, I completely agree with you, I can see 100% all sides of what you just said. And I think there's value in it for everybody. It also made me think that to some degree, there's a class system in diabetes, too, right? There's people, there's people who either have the cash or have the insurance and there's people who don't. And,

Scott 1:03:23
and there's that and there's there's the education and time. I mean, the amount again, the amount of time I I live my life, I don't let diabetes take away from my life. But I do devote a significant amount of mental energy and energy just managing it. I don't I don't think everyone has time to do that. Especially it's amazing how much time you're able to dedicate to your daughter. And I think that's amazing.

Scott Benner 1:03:42
Yeah, I've said that. It's just my life is just it'll lend itself to me being able to give time as if you were, if you were the guy that built the courthouse and not the barrister inside of it, Scott, then you might not have as much free time energy, you know, money to devote to the even just the thinking about your diabetes. And that is really important to remember that you know, people don't people, will you hear people say I ignored this.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:08
I don't know, like, did

Scott Benner 1:04:09
you ignore it? Or did you get up at six o'clock in the morning to go to a job where you didn't make very much money and all day you thought about the bills you couldn't pay? And when you got home, you had to go to a second job. Like there's, you know, there's circumstances that allow you more time, you know, or latter

Scott 1:04:23
and then not only not only that, but then when you're more stressed in life, your blood sugar is going to be worse,

Scott Benner 1:04:28
right? Yeah. And if you and if you're in a financial crunch, that's a constant stress that you may not even be aware of. I mean, look at you. You said it without a CGM. You know, you wouldn't even realize that when you stand up and feel completely composed at work, you're not you know, or maybe you are composed. It's just everything inside you. It's just like who Here we go, you know, like this is it because I'm imagining and I'm gonna keep you a little extra but I'm imagining when you're defending someone who you believe is innocent. You feel pressure to make sure that they don't serve a penalty. They don't deserve Yeah, it's got to be an incredible, like burden, I would imagine.

Scott 1:05:06
It is a burden and even even, you know, not to get too off topic, but even if I think they're guilty, sometimes with the case, I still want to do the best job I can you still have a responsibility, it's still an adversarial system. At the end of the day, I don't make a decision about whether they're guilty or innocent. That's up to the judge jury. But I still have to, I'm the defense lawyer, I'm the only I'm the only voice they have. And if they tell me they're innocent, I have to believe because no one else is gonna argue their innocence. So it can often be a nerve wracking experience.

Scott Benner 1:05:32
It's really cool. It's just an interesting, interesting way to have to live your life because it's, I love the idea that you're dedicated to the rule of law, and that it is your job to argue for this person, because you're their voice. That's amazing. And at the same time, I think about you on a personal level, like what do you do? When you get somebody off? That, you know, did something like does that? Do you feel good about that? Do you feel bad about it? Like, you know, how does that impact you personally and your blood sugar and everything else?

Scott 1:06:02
I think it depends on the situation. I'm Fortunately, I haven't represent any anyone to reprehensible. So I may have represented people who I thought we're probably guilty, who probably were guilty, may have done something bad, but not not something to the level where I'm going to lose any sleep because they're out on the streets. And they put it that way. And most people don't go to jail forever anyway. You know, unless you've committed a pretty horrible crime. Most people don't spend that much time in jail. And it usually, honestly, at the end of the day, it often makes things worse than better. So I think that this could be a whole podcast on it, though.

Scott Benner 1:06:36
Yeah, no, I'm

Unknown Speaker 1:06:37
saying that it would be very rare. I'd

Scott 1:06:38
lose sleep ability. Okay, gotcha.

Scott Benner 1:06:40
That's why I was just wondering, like, if it's, you know, I mean, cuz in the end, they did what they did, and whatever they'll do in the future is on them to you didn't just serve in the system, that's really something. No, well, thank God, you were able to get through school and do this, because it sounds like you're really good at it. And, you know, now I've spoken to a barrister.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:59
So

Scott Benner 1:07:00
somehow, you've elevated me somehow to Scott. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say goodbye and pushed off and then just say goodbye to you personally, and then I'll let you get back to you.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:11
Okay, thanks, God. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:07:14
Thank you so much, Scott, for coming on and sharing your story about living with Type One Diabetes, thank you. Dexcom on the bottom, on the

Unknown Speaker 1:07:21
BOD on the behind.

Scott Benner 1:07:25
If you knew how long I've been editing this, you would just be like, thanks. So I'm dizzy. I've been up here for hours. Thanks very much to Scott for sharing his story. And thanks again to Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes for sponsoring the show you love the show, they brought it to you check them out, dancing for diabetes.com. That's dancing the number for diabetes.com. They're also on Instagram and Facebook. My omnipod.com forward slash juice boxes where you can get a free no obligation demo and get started today with tubeless insulin pumping in dexcom.com forward slash juice box to get a G six continuous glucose monitor these things are the staples of my days with Type One Diabetes. And I think they could become yours as well. There are links in your show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. Before I go, I want to tell you that now for five straight days, the Juicebox Podcast has been charting in its category on iTunes, which might not mean a lot to you guys. But it means a ton to me. And what it tells me is this, you guys are sharing the podcasts with other people. That is incredible, absolutely incredible to make that list is is pretty difficult. At this point that Juicebox Podcast has downloaded more than about 87% of every podcast that's active on iTunes. And that crazy, and I don't have a budget for marketing, it's done by you. Something here helps you and you tell someone else about it. And it continues to grow. And the more it grows, the more people it helps if you need an example of why that's true. I just got back from Ohio at the jdrf summit. I spoke to 600 people who otherwise would not have heard this podcast. In a few months, I'll be going out to Arizona to do the very same thing, another five 600 people who don't know about this podcast who will after that, thank you so much for sharing. And I want to I want to really I get so many of these, but I'm going to share this with you. So for everyone out there who's sharing the podcast, it gets to somebody and you know, you don't know who and you don't know how it's going to help them who they're going to tell. Here's the message I just got, quote. Hi, I will try to keep this short. I've been diabetic for almost 21 years, I've struggled finding a method to gain the control I wanted to until I stumbled upon your podcast, late August, I was on a Medtronic pump. A one C was 8.8 August 24. I moved to the Omni pod in the Dexcom g six. I started to be bold with insulin. And in November my a once he was 5.4 my endo even told me she didn't think it would drop that significantly. She knew based on my clarity report it was going to be lower but was floored with how much I've never felt better in my life. I am no longer in a it's me against diabetes mode. There is this amazing community of support that I had no idea existed. Please keep doing great work. It changed my life.

Scott 1:10:13
Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:10:14
I assert to you that you guys did that. You heard something that was valuable, and you told someone else about it. I just said this, if no one's listening, if no one's sharing, it doesn't matter. Thank you so much. thanking you for this person. I'm thanking you for me, and I'm thanking you for every person who's gonna find this podcast in the future. I hope you have a great day and I'll see you next week.

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