#403 Hiking the FOMO Trail

John has T1d and Wanderlust

John is a teacher, a traveler, a husband and an adult living with type 1 diabetes.

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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 0:10
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 403 of the Juicebox Podcast Today's show is with john. JOHN is a teacher who travels the world teaching children, hiking trails, and just generally living an adventurous life with Type One Diabetes. Hey, don't forget that 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, or becoming bold with insulin.

This episode is titled hiking the FOMO trail. And it is sponsored by Dexcom Omni pod and touched by type one, you can go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to find out more about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box to get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump and of course touched by type one.org.

John Palmer 1:27
My name is John Palmer. I'm originally from coastal California outside Santa Cruz. And my brother was diagnosed with diabetes at about 16. And then I was a late bloomer and didn't get it till I was about 31. And at that time I was living and working and teaching abroad. And actually just when I got diagnosed was when my wife and I had decided to take a year off from teaching. We met my wife and I met she's from Idaho, we met in Thailand teaching in Bangkok. And then we moved to Cairo, Egypt together. We were teaching and working there. But then we decided to take a year off to try to hike across the United States. And so it's like day three, I'm back in California, I'm getting ready for this big adventure. We're getting married two weeks before we start this big hike. And then I go to this kind of routine oral glucose tolerance test that I had been kind of enrolled in with Stanford University. And they're like, hey, things are out of whack. You're not good right now. And then all of a sudden, it all just kind of clicked into place. Like oh, yeah, I've had glucosuria for six months. And that's why I'm so tired. And that's why I can't put on weight and it all kind of just suddenly fell into place.

Scott Benner 2:39
Alright, john, you've already said a lot. So let's figure some stuff out. So you thought we'll get married and then go for a hike for a long time? Was that just to test the marriage out? Just to make sure it was right.

John Palmer 2:51
Right. It's one of those weeding out processes again, just make sure she really wants to be married with you. You can be stuck in a tent with somebody for a couple thousand miles. And yeah, you're pretty, pretty sure that you guys are gonna get along.

Scott Benner 3:01
I was gonna say you'd probably either be married forever or divorced in three weeks. Right? So right? Yeah, it's

John Palmer 3:07
a good litmus test. That's for sure.

Scott Benner 3:09
You were enrolled in the study at Stanford? I'm assuming because your brother at that point? Yes, exactly.

John Palmer 3:14
Yeah. So I was in trial net, which I think is one of the larger ones. And so I've been in trial net since I was early teenager. And then every six months or so I'd go to Stanford and they would just Just give me a big ol cup full of sugar water and then just watch my pancreas slowly try to beat it down. And then I went in there that one time and they just came back with this look on their faces. Oh, no, this is that's not the look you want from somebody and they showed me these huge numbers as Oh, man. This is? Yes, I'm part of the team now.

Scott Benner 3:45
Wow, that's amazing. We get trial and that has been on the show before my son's done it. It's a very reputable and and, you know, great way to track people who maybe don't have type one diabetes, but but could one day they they'll test you now for markers, I think there's five markers that indicate whether or not you're more likely to get type one diabetes. So did you know that you had the markers?

John Palmer 4:10
Right? So all of that information just really just flew over my head when I was a kid because you know, I started so young. So I'm sure I have all of that data, you know, when I was 13. But God knows what a 13 year olds going to do with that information. I was worried about, you know, Pokemon, and the girl sitting across me in history class. And so once I was, you know, been in the city for 10 years and and found out that I was type one, then we went back and looked at the data and my wife who you know, very small, so she went and kind of analyze a lot and find out I did have some of the markers. I did have some antibodies, so the writing was sort of on the wall if I was looking for it.

Scott Benner 4:46
Yeah, you just weren't really looking I guess. I mean, at that age what it just makes a lot of sense. Hey, can I get you to mute your phone and take it off? Yes. And take it off the table. Thanks. Yes.

I don't think the people listening care it just My brain jumps and then I have to start over again.

John Palmer 5:04
Yeah, I know exactly 100% that that ding alarm. Yeah. Oh, man, do I have an email that I have to get back to settling?

Scott Benner 5:12
But you know, I don't know you might need that phone for Are you using a glucose monitor?

John Palmer 5:16
No, actually, I am as low tech as you could get Currently, I'm on MDI. And, yeah, just a finger sticks. Just real low tech currently.

Scott Benner 5:26
How old are you now?

John Palmer 5:27
So I'm 32 as of now.

Scott Benner 5:30
So this diabetes thing is really new for you?

John Palmer 5:32
Yeah, yeah. So I'm only a couple years into it. But when when I got to that trial net, and they told me they're like, Hey, you know, your numbers are out of whack. And then suddenly realized, I probably have been suffering from this for a little while. So yeah, I was definitely a late bloomer polegato when I was 31. Maybe 30 is when my pancreas really started on quitting on me. Yeah.

Scott Benner 5:56
So do you have feelings about technology? Are you trying to avoid it? Are you thinking of doing it? Like, where are you at?

John Palmer 6:03
No. So when I got diabetes, I was in and started listening to Well, when I found that I was diabetic, I stay in my brother's place, and they spent probably like seven days just reading every hospital, you know, protocol procedures that they would use, because at the time I was without a job, didn't have insurance paying out of pocket wasn't something super doable for like the more advanced technologies, but no, I'm listening to the benefits of technologies, I think that I would be remiss to not give them attempt. So as I've been in Costa Rica, and my new job, I'm new school new insurance stable for the last six months or so a few months ago, I started contacting my endocrinologist, to put me in contact with the people that have pumps, and more specifically, I'm really looking forward to getting a continuous glucose monitor. But the technologies in Costa Rica right now aren't where we would like them to be. And so I guess, this is kind of time sensitive. But we're currently in the kind of COVID crisis. So it's a little more difficult to get the technologies that I would like, but in the future, yes, that next step is continuous glucose monitor for sure.

Scott Benner 7:21
I just wasn't, you know, I don't have a judgement about it. There's plenty of people who manage really well, without anything, it's, you know, it's not a life I'm good at. But, you know, there's plenty of people who told me they are.

John Palmer 7:33
Yeah, I understand that it just is such a trade off, because you're just gonna have to get the numbers that I would like to get, I just have to finger stick more often, I have to have a lower carb diet, you don't have to exercise at certain times in certain places, I just I have to do a little bit more to get the numbers that I want to. Because I'm lower tech, but know that that would definitely be the huge benefit to be able to have a pump and more specifically a CGM.

Scott Benner 7:57
So I want to go back a little bit. And I just feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't ask if you're Mormon. No, no. Okay. Because there have been so many Mormons on the show. And they always are telling a story about going somewhere to teach or to help somebody and I just thought, you know, why don't I just get this out of the way and find out up front? And, and I beginning to think it's the it is the prefer diabetes podcasts for the Mormon religion, but so I'm trying to understand a little bit what draws you to leave the country and go help somewhere else? Like, tell me your whole path around that?

John Palmer 8:34
Yeah. So I think that you're looking at it a little more altruistically than I was, I think that I was just finishing college and I'm like, hey, I want to go. I want to go travel the world. I want to go see stuff I want to go. So I thought, well, I can teach because I was teaching as a substitute teacher in California. Okay, well, I was substitute teaching credential, that's plenty. That's enough to get my foot in the door in a developing country. So I looked at a few different places I wanted to go Asia seemed fun because it just seemed kind of like the opposite of all the things and places that I knew as I grew up, so I was like, Okay, let's go somewhere with a low cost of living. Thailand, Bangkok seemed like a perfect fit. And then once that was there, I kind of saw the limit of how far you can go with you know, a basic teaching credential. So that's when I was able to get my master's my teaching credential abroad. And then with that, I was able to travel to these other different countries to continue teaching at an international schools. Okay, so

Scott Benner 9:31
you're just looking to be somewhere kind of chill and warm and go and still do your job.

John Palmer 9:37
Yeah, just looking for a sense of adventure because you know that the teaching racket in California or in America, it is what it is, but if I could do that in some, you know, exotic locale, then it seems so much more appealing to me.

Scott Benner 9:47
Okay, that's, that's pretty amazing. And you found a person who was willing to do that with you, too.

John Palmer 9:52
Yeah. I always joke that she's my Thai bride because we met in Thailand, but she's, you know, a farm race girl from Idaho. And we met up They're playing Ultimate Frisbee one day and we just hit it off and just started dating. You know, right then

Scott Benner 10:05
where you met in Thailand.

John Palmer 10:07
Yeah, we met in Thailand on an army base throwing frisbees to each other. And, yeah, we just started dating. And one thing led to another, we decided that we wanted to move to our next, you know, teaching location together, which was Cairo, Egypt. And I think we're six months or so into that. And I said, Hey, do you want to hike across America, you want to? Do you want to try to do this 2500 mile hike across the United States? And she's like, Sure, yeah. Sounds great. And then a week later, I was like, hey, do you want to take a year off to try to do that? And she's like, Yeah, sure. And then a couple weeks later is like, hey, do you want to? This is on the Nile River,

on a little boat among my name, like, hey, do you want to marry me? She's like, Sure. So like, okay, these are all lining up. Got my partner for life. Let's go do it. Do you?

Scott Benner 10:47
Would you consider yourself someone who has wanderlust Do you just want to catch

John Palmer 10:52
up, but I'm also I'm also a big homebody like this, this COVID quarantine, I haven't hated it. You know, it's given me lots of time to like, do all the things I want to do give me lots of time and space. But no, I definitely love that. You know, that sense of adventure. Look, you know, collecting passport stamps, I think we're up to 50. Right now, each of she has five more countries than me. And we always travel together. So I don't know how I'm gonna catch up to her. But yes, we do love traveling in new places, seeing new things.

Scott Benner 11:19
That's really interesting. I see, Your Honor. You're like, quite literally, on the Nile. When you decide I've drugged her all over the place. She said yes to everything she married me is probably like a no brainer.

John Palmer 11:31
Right? Yeah, exactly. She said yes. So far, all these crazy ideas. What's one more,

Scott Benner 11:35
so I'll whip out the craziest one now? How crazy? Was it when the diabetes I mean, it sounds like you guys probably just rolled with it. But was it an impact for her when you were diagnosed?

John Palmer 11:47
You know what she I received she's smarter than me. She said maybe six months before we left Egypt. I'm just like, we're watching the movie. And I peed like three times during the movie. And she was a bad man. I and I was attributed because Cairo, Egypt is rather polluted. And to get it's likely, it's a polluted city. And so I was assumed that I was the air quality. It's the poor water. It's, it's this or that. And it's the third time in getting up during the movie. She's like, hey, maybe you have diabetes, kind of half jokingly and I was like, Oh, no, I'm not going to get that till I'm older or something. I had some, you know, stupid throwback liner. Right? And then lo and behold, she was right. The whole time.

Scott Benner 12:21
Did she know about your brother?

John Palmer 12:23
Yes. So she was aware of my brother and the whole thing.

Scott Benner 12:27
It's interesting. I'd love to know if she was doing her diligence behind the scenes. Like I like this guy. I'm going all over the place with him. He's gonna ask me to marry him at some point. I wonder what this diabetes is? Because it sounds Yes, it sounds like she knew about it. You know?

John Palmer 12:39
Yes. 100% I'm, she's great at googling things behind our back or you know, my back. And so I'm sure that she was googling ik, like, losing way peeing all the time. Those are symptoms, what could be the and of course, you know, you're going to come across type one diabetes as one of those So, and she knew that my brother was so yeah, she put one on one together, far more quickly than I was willing to accept.

Scott Benner 13:02
I would never look at Kelly's Google history because I'm afraid it would say stuff. Like why is this guy an idiot? And how do you how do I sneak away in the middle of the night or you know, smother a person with a pillow? Like you don't mean like that kind of stuff? Yeah, well, if you know where longer you'll be, you'll be more concerned.

John Palmer 13:17
She had plenty of opportunities on trail to smother me or pushing you into a black bear or something.

Scott Benner 13:22
push me into a black bear. I don't know why I found that so amusing.

Unknown Speaker 13:30
Seems like

John Palmer 13:32
the most dangerous was she hikes Fast Money so she's always you know, 20 feet in front of me. So she pisses off all the rattlesnakes and whatnot. They're sleeping. She walks by kisses him off, and then I come stumbling through and there's these rattlesnakes, she's ready to start nipping at you, but those are the times I'm like, Katie,

Unknown Speaker 13:48
do you love me?

Scott Benner 13:50
I'm interested. Do you? Have you ever said to her? What if we walk together?

John Palmer 13:55
Yeah, but yeah, I guess but she

Scott Benner 13:58
can't. My wife can either when I go out in public with my wife, she's, you have to keep up with her. Yeah, she's motoring along and you're like, hey, are we in a race that I'm not aware?

John Palmer 14:08
Right, right. I just tell her I'll see you at the next water source. I'll see you the next campsite. I'll get there when I get there.

Scott Benner 14:14
Dude, she's trying to leave you somewhere. So um, so you know. So you're in Thailand, you end up in Egypt? You I guess you finally do come home you get diagnosed and then you go on your hike through the through the trail is that right?

John Palmer 14:26
Yeah. So I was I they gave me a test kit right then and I've just started religiously checking my blood sugar's and I was hovering around 100 maybe 110. So with I naively thought with with diet with it to ketogenic diet, if I keep it low carb and I'm, you know, stay super hydrated. You know, maybe I can keep these numbers at bay. I thought that maybe I was the 1% of 1% of type ones that have these exigent circumstances that allow them to do this, that or the other. You know, I was doing I was googling stem cells and I was looking for every avenue I could do anything other than face the fact that I'm gonna need to get on insulin and start doing things the right way.

Scott Benner 15:05
Yeah. Did you speak to your brother in that time frame?

John Palmer 15:08
Oh, yeah, yeah. religiously. I was constantly calling him like, Hey, what's up with this? How does this work? And so it was, I think that if I didn't have a brother, that was type one, and I didn't know the ins and outs of type one diabetes, that I never would have gone on trail and tried to hike 1000 miles with you know, a decreasingly functioning pancreas. Satya,

Scott Benner 15:28
did he give you any advice in that time that you ignored? But you look back on now and think that was the right thing right there.

John Palmer 15:37
Right. So he gave me some advice. But he honestly, I've been since I become a type one diabetic. I've been really hounding him to read this article, read this book, go listen, these three podcasts because I find that he got a lot of that. Don't die advice from hospitals. You know, I talked to him, I was like, hey, what were your numbers when you were, you know, 15. And he's like, Oh, my endo said keep it 130 and just go from there. So he got a lot of, again, that don't die advice that you get from a hospital protocol to, that's not really going to keep you at the numbers that you'd like to with control. But it's just to keep you keep you out of the emergency room.

Scott Benner 16:13
Yeah, it's just it's interesting, because he got it at a different time, you know, in history and at a different age. And I was wondering if he was going to be the one who was like, Listen, here, here's the skinny on this. Or if you were going to look at him and go, Wow, I'm learning so much. I think maybe he's in a different place than I want to be in.

John Palmer 16:33
Yes. Yeah. That's a really good point. He was very instrumental once. So I hiked 1000 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail, and then winter hit. And so I had this kind of like, winter couple months, I was like, What am I going to do? So I flew to Florida to try to hike across Florida and I get about 500 miles across Florida. And my numbers just kept creeping up and creeping up. I was like, Okay, this is this is not working. And I think I was on Metformin at one time, which is kind of like a type two diabetes medication, right, that an endo prescribed to me and, and that was working with decreasing effectiveness. So I thought, Okay, well, this isn't working. So I called my brother and he was living in Miami at the time, and I'm somewhere in Central Florida in the Everglades or what have you. And I said, Hey, Mike, I need you to come pick me up. So he drove out there picked me up, took me to his place, and I just remember that first unit of insulin when I you know, shut it up on my butt. I immediately just felt this wave of euphoria. This like my body was finally like, Oh, this is what you've needed the whole time. What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you why'd you wait this long on us? And he was very instrumental in giving me a proper advice for Bolus and Pre-Bolus. Seeing all the all the basics that you kind of need laid out in front of you.

Scott Benner 17:43
That's excellent. I I wonder how many people have that story because I hear it so frequently. You know, I have type one diabetes, but I was diagnosed as an adult and someone gave me Metformin. Now, you don't need you given Metformin because they thought you were type two, or because they because I don't understand otherwise.

John Palmer 18:02
Yeah, cuz they, I was, I was showing them my numbers. I'm like, Okay, well, you're not quite type one yet. You're type one and a half. So this might prolong it. You know, your pancreas might last Another week, another month, another six months, a year or what have you. So this might help me hurt the tide.

Scott Benner 18:17
Yeah. Okay. So they were trying to move you through your honeymoon without insulin.

Unknown Speaker 18:23
Yes, exactly. Right. Okay. Do you in retrospect, I

Scott Benner 18:26
was gonna say, looking back.

John Palmer 18:27
Yeah, yeah, looking back. It's like putting duct tape on the Titanic, you know, it was all the way down. It was like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. There's, there's just you know, it was on the way out.

Scott Benner 18:37
Yeah. And you should have been using insulin at that point, you think

John Palmer 18:40
100% on it. In retrospect, as soon as I found out, I should have driven to Mexico or driven to Canada loaded up on insulin. And then, you know, try to do what I was going to do. Right. Which is actually what we did, because we I'm in between that kind of winter. My wife and I we met in Thailand again to kind of visit some friends. And I thought, well, Thailand's insolence so cheap, let me just run by some pharmacies, and I was just getting it for a fraction of the price essentially. Gotcha. JOHN,

Scott Benner 19:09
are you stalking plastic cups while you're talking to me? What's go?

John Palmer 19:12
I got a cute little kitten, and she's going crazy. So I removed her toys. So it should be it should be quiet. We've had a little quarantine Kitty, which has been really fun. But yeah, noisy.

Scott Benner 19:22
You gave birth during this quarantine. Something like that. How did you get it? Uh, how did you get the kitten delivered to you airdrop. Oh, well,

John Palmer 19:29
there's Yeah. Well, there's unfortunately just a million cats on Facebook that need adoptions. So we found a little cat its mother died. And yeah, you know, the owner was happy to deliver it on over so yeah, we got a little cat.

Scott Benner 19:43
So is that kitten an indication that you are not going to be traveling the world anymore.

John Palmer 19:48
I know we really want to try to travel the world as much as possible. But we do want to have kind of home base and we're actually hoping that's kind of going to be in a bit of an adventure cat. So she's a kid. Right now, but we got a little halter and a little leash and stuff and we're slowly taking her out to the parks and walking her around a little bit. Hopefully we're gonna get her into a little Catholic and height trails with us. So

Scott Benner 20:09
So the plan is that this kitten one day will be a cat who's sitting in a boat in Egypt, when you say, Hey, I think we should have a baby. And

John Palmer 20:17
exactly, that's the plan.

Unknown Speaker 20:19
Girls girl's gonna get tired of you at some point.

Unknown Speaker 20:22
At one point, she's

John Palmer 20:23
gonna say enough is enough.

Scott Benner 20:26
JOHN, do you have any ideas that involve you cutting the lawn on Saturday?

John Palmer 20:31
Yeah, but you go fix the garage.

Scott Benner 20:33
That's so you really? See you're, you're a free spirit. John's like you. I have to tell you, I don't I like my dogs. Fine. But I if you if I want to sleep past 730 I can't own a dog. It's it's that it's that impactful. And if I'm trying to imagine a world where I'd be like, I'm gonna travel still, we'll take the pets with us. I think that's a special person that has that thought. And it's not, you're not um, you're not not thinking it through, you understand the impact of it. And you're actually you're up for it. Yeah, no

John Palmer 21:05
hundred percent. In fact, this cat to me is kind of just a little dry run for the diabetic dog that I really want to get. I want to get like a young hungry Mutt and do the best I can to train it to smell my blood sugar. And then I'll have you know, a super fun diabetic dog that can take hiking with me. Like a cool Yeah, cool. Animal for life.

Scott Benner 21:24
Have you heard my episode with the guy that did the strangest dog himself? You did?

John Palmer 21:28
Yes. Yes. Hundred percent.

Scott Benner 21:30
So this podcast is is is ruining your life, john. But I my real. My real question here is in your initial like, correspondence to me. You were telling me about the you know, the diagnosis, then right off onto the trail? And how the podcast was helping you back then can I ask how you found it?

John Palmer 21:53
Oh, yeah, it was tremendous. So I had exhausted all of the I had read all of the hospital protocols that they have for people with type one. And I listened to every TED Talk. And I was like, Okay, well, I'm a glutton for podcasts. So there has to be a diabetic podcast out there, and listen to a few. And then I found juice boxes like, Okay, this one's resonating with me. This is kind of your easy come easy go disposition was kind of in line with my temperament. So it's like, Okay, this is this one could work. And then hearing the numbers, and the technology and the lifestyle that people were using and living in, I was like, Oh, this is super tangible, like I can do the things I want to do. while still being a type one diabetic. And, you know, going everywhere I want to go and doing everything I want to do. I'm not gonna let you know, type one, be the thing that I use as the excuse. Because I mean, I use plenty of other things is excuse. I just don't want to take one to be my excuse.

Scott Benner 22:45
I don't want to make you so bold, john, that you're trying to travel the world with a caravan of puppies and kittens, though? Like you have to be a little reasonable. You understand? Right? Yes,

John Palmer 22:54
yeah. And I think one of the things that I've been able to figure out along the way is, you know, how to manage insulin and testing and all those things, moving from country to country, you know, on a road trip on a hiking trip on planes, having to manage all of those things. It's Yeah, it's just been trial by fire, essentially.

Scott Benner 23:15
So was the podcast more about attitude for you? Or are you picking up management ideas to because you have no technology? So it's interesting.

John Palmer 23:23
Yeah. So yeah, the technology parts just made me envious. And, you know, actually, the way I've kind of thought about is like, I'm going to hit those same figures, I'm just going to do it with low tech. If that means that to check my blood sugar a million times a day, then that's all I'm gonna do. Because I want I want I yeah, I kind of demanded myself to hit these numbers hit these quotas. So I'm hearing the numbers that people are able to get with a continuous glucose monitor and and, you know, an omni pod or a pump. And I thought, well, I should try to do the same thing, even if I'm low tech. So it took a lot more work and a lot more. Yeah, it just took a lot more work. But you know, I was still labeled and looking at my agency numbers. When I was kind of untreated. I was at a seven and then it brought it down to a five three, and now I've been about a six the last couple of weeks, and those are significantly higher than I would like but I kind of dabbled in vegetarianism and veganism for a minute, but I found it to be super unsustainable, just because it was so high carb. Okay. But yeah, I have been able to essentially hit some of those numbers and trying to

Scott Benner 24:26
how much intensive time is spent getting that five or that six with the, with the vegetables or are you in a rhythm now?

John Palmer 24:38
Now and they've been a bit in a rhythm where I know, I think, specifically for myself, it was being able to have some foods, they know what they're going to do. And then when I do miss the mark, I have a handful of you know, little tricks or tips that I use to kind of move my blood sugar the way that I need to There's always a yoga mat. I'm always, I love cold showers. So I know I can move my blood sugar 1020 points, at any point if I want to by taking a freezing cold shower, or doing some jumping jacks or hopping on my bike or doing like, I love playing for his niece or wife and I always go through freezing at the park. So I'm trying to do all the other peripheral things to try to keep it in line. If, if I can't do it with the tech that I have,

Scott Benner 25:27
who told you about the cold shower? I've never heard that one.

John Palmer 25:30
Oh, that one. Um, I think it was just some kind of hippie guru thing. His name's Wim Hof. He's kind of just some like Yogi cold water, it's kind of those Heat Shock proteins and cold shock proteins, I think there's a good bit of science backing those up. So I love taking super hot showers where I'm just just sweating bullets the whole time, kind of like a sauna. If I had a sauna, I would do that. Or a cold shower can move at the same. Or I find that if you know, a couple downward dogs on a yoga mat can move what I need to move, you know, in varying degrees. So I try to use all those other kind of physical tools to move my blood sugar when I need to, because I'm not currently with the technology that would like to have.

Scott Benner 26:11
It's interesting. I hadn't heard the cold side I I have heard of quite a bit about sauna dry heat. And that and that Heat Shock being good for you. But I didn't I didn't know the other part of it. And obviously the activity is just, you know, it's right there. Arden's working out more, since we've been trapped in the house, doing doing more intensive workouts. And, you know, if she there's either we have to manipulate her insulin prior, she has to take some sort of a snack going into it. Or, you know, we have to, you know, she has the time it after a meal and sort of let the meal help with it. Because, you know, she can see 70 or 80 points pretty quickly come off her bladder with a workout.

John Palmer 26:55
Yeah, hundred percent. I can recall you talking about being out all day with Arden for a softball tournament in the blazing heat for you know, 567 hours. And while I was trying to do the same thing, hiking, you know, a marathon a day, every day, day after day, I was trying to do those same things. But with the limited technology, it just took so much more management. Yeah. So like if I'm up in the mountains, and am I lightheaded because there's no oxygen up here on my lightheaded? Because I'm low. So in all of these situations, when in doubt, I would just test it out,

Scott Benner 27:31
how often do you think you'd have?

John Palmer 27:33
Now, sometimes it's as low as five, six times a day. But when I was on trail, sometimes you'd be 2025 30.

Scott Benner 27:40
And that, and that was necessary, you found that you never were like, Oh, I'm doing this too much. This was what was needed.

John Palmer 27:45
You know, it's funny, because when I talked to kind of an old school and endocrine, he was like, oh, tests, you know, test once before a meal and three hours after, and I was like, Well, I'm testing, you know, 1020 times a day. He's like, Oh, that's too much. And I'm like, Well, my number is gonna be not my number is going to be off. If I'm not testing that much with the things that I'm trying to do.

Scott Benner 28:04
Yeah, I think when they say that back, then their expectation was that your blood sugar was going to go somewhere around 300 and then drop back down again. So you might as well not pay attention while it's high, because it's going to be high anyway. Right. And then if it's high, three hours later, once the food's out of you, then it's okay to try to fix that number. And that's just a, you know, obviously, an old way of looking at it, he took a new way of thinking without the technology and applied it. And you know, I've talked about it before prior to Arden having a dexcom. We tested a lot and and always in those times where I was like, I need to know what's happening now not so much about when the food went in. That you know, that model wasn't in my head, it was more about trying to figure out the bigger picture without being able to see a glucose monitor.

John Palmer 28:51
Right 100%. And I feel like trying to flesh out that beer picture is a bit of a challenge with that tech without that technology. Because the the way I kind of envisioned it is like if you guys with your CGM, you have a graph. So I wanted a graph to but all my data points were, you know, a finger stick. So I still thought like, I want to know what this graph is doing. And not having data points isn't acceptable. So I just got a more finger six got to find out

Scott Benner 29:16
and you're back. But your background? Is that a way? What am I asking here? Is that a way that your brain always worked? Or did you make this adjustment for diabetes?

John Palmer 29:27
I think I definitely made this adjustment for diabetes, because I think my personality might be a little bit more like, Oh, we can brush it under the rug. It's we don't have to address it today. We can put it off till tomorrow. And then when I kind of got hit with abuse, I was like there's no waiting for tomorrow for diabetes. It's all user managed. It's it's all falls on me. So I kind of grabbed the bull by the horns in that regard and really took a proactive, proactive approach. And when I do mess it up and I'm lethargic and I you know, didn't Pre-Bolus for a thing or something and I'm not seeing the numbers that I Should I kind of look at myself in the mirror? And I think like, well, there's only one person that can change this. So it's got to come from me.

Scott Benner 30:09
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John Palmer 34:11
I kind of look at myself in the mirror. And I think like Well, there's only one person that can change this.

Scott Benner 34:17
You know, that's incredibly commendable, john, because, you know, you spent most of the time on here so far talking about a carefree idea, you know, lifestyle, like if you apply data to almost any of your other decisions, the data would tell you to do something different than what you're doing. And so I was like, that's really kind of incredible that you made that shift just for this but didn't lose it in the rest of your life.

John Palmer 34:40
Right. Yeah, I think I yeah, hundred percent. And on that note, I think I tried to parlay this kind of like boohoo I have diabetes into No, let's go attack this situation. Let's go move forward proactively. Kind of like you. You echo in this podcast. pretty frequently. It's like you have to be proactive about it. You have to be Making Moves to move into the direction you want to go. Because there's it's never gonna happen on its own otherwise,

Scott Benner 35:05
yeah, no diabetes is a lot like you walking in the woods with your wife, if you get behind, you're always just always chasing and you're never gonna catch up. Right? Exactly, yeah. And then you know, your wife, finding a place to stop for water is basically your body. Finally, finally, you know, clearing all the food out of your system, and hopefully, your blood sugar returning to normal, and we're at least a good starting place. Now, I'm obviously a firm believer in being ahead of diabetes, I would much prefer you do something that goes, you know, the direction you don't mean it to do, but at least you can say that Alright, well, I did this, and I got a little low. Next time, I'll know how to do it better, rather than constantly letting diabetes go first. And then you just staring into the abyss wondering, you know what happened, because so many things have now happened, you have no earthly way of deciphering all of them. You know, you have to be ahead of the wave, you know, just count.

John Palmer 36:04
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I feel like that that proactive kind of not aggressive approach, but kind of like a Yeah, the progressive approach, I think, is really beneficial for diabetes. And on that note, I also tried to kind of use diabetes as the reason or the justification. To go that little bit extra to like, this morning, I went for a bike ride and bought a bike off of Craigslist a couple days ago, because just want to be able to get out in the city and kind of move around in the hills. And I thought, Okay, well, I'm tired, I should go home, but I saw a church up the hill is like, well, you have diabetes, you should probably go bike up to that church and get a little bit more exercise because it won't kill you.

Scott Benner 36:43
Nice. And that and that that was your push, you're just I need this exercise for my overall health. Specifically, because I have type one, you know, it's a bonus otherwise,

John Palmer 36:54
all right. And I think I took that from something that you had kind of said about art in I think it was maybe getting ready for summertime and like, hey, Oregon, what are you gonna do over the summer, you can't just, you know, hang out here and watch Netflix all day, you got to go do this, this or this? And that kind of thought, you know, john, you're lazy. If you're left to your own devices, you really got to get this internal fire to keep moving because diabetes is it's walking either way. You got to run faster than it.

Scott Benner 37:20
I'm hearing a Morgan Freeman voice over my head. Left to his own devices. JOHN is inherently lazy.

John Palmer 37:29
Beginning of Shawshank, right, yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 37:32
Luckily, podcast.

Unknown Speaker 37:34
Yeah.

Scott Benner 37:36
That's where Scott Yeah. Scott said you should get up doesn't take his own advice, by the way, just tells john and his daughter and anybody else who's listening.

John Palmer 37:45
Yeah, for sure. And I'm taking all the little cheap tricks. I can like, whatever. Like I heard some cheesy motivational quote, The other day, I was like, motivation is like a shower doesn't last, you need a new one all the time. And that's kind of the way I feel about motivation. And I was trying to channel some tip or trick or even if it's some chintzy little thing, if it gets me to do the thing that I should have been doing already, then it was a success. Whatever works,

Scott Benner 38:08
honestly, I mean, quite honestly, like whatever works, if you need to hang up a poster or write it on your hand, or, you know, put somebody in charge telling you to move, like whatever it is, make yourself accountable is you know, it's fasting. Listen, I've been stuck in this house for, you know, six weeks now. And the other day, I thought, hey, Scott, what if we just didn't eat one day? Like, you know what I mean? Like, what if we just like tried to scale back this, you know, because it's, it's just, there's, there's times when there's nothing to do, and you do find yourself going, like, Oh, this is just a cracker. It's just a pretzel, but they're all calories that I would normally eat. And so I just, I looked at myself in the mirror, and, and I was like, This isn't okay. Like, you know, I put a couple pounds on since this started, and I was already not where I wanted to be. So I just, I put it in my mind, I was going to do something, I didn't know what it was going to be. And I saw another person online, say, Hey, I'm doing a water fast. And I thought I could do that. And so I did a 36 hour water fast. And then I went on intermittent fasting, and I lost seven pounds in like five days. He was fantastic. Yeah, you know, and so I'm just like, it's not, it's no trouble for me. I actually kind of prefer it, why would I not? Why would I not do this more frequently. So now I'm going to wait seven days and I'm going to hit that I'm going to do the 36 hours again, and just you know, put in that and by the way, 36 hours, you're asleep for eight nine of them anyway, it's just one day. It's one day of drinking water when your stomach says hey, you're hungry. That's,

John Palmer 39:41
ya know, I'm a big fan of that as well. And if I ever have like a blow up meal with you know, burgers and fries and dessert or whatever, the next morning I'm like, you know, this would be a perfect opportunity to maybe skip breakfast and lunch and then I got a 20 something hour fast going, you know, it's not like I don't have the calories in my system from yesterday's gluttonous meal. So Let that clear knows. Yeah.

Scott Benner 40:02
I think sometimes psycho psychologically, and maybe subconsciously, and maybe not so much. You have that sort of like, I don't know what to call it, but like, you feel like Well, I've already messed up. I might as well double down. And instead, instead of waking up after the fries and the and the and the burger and saying, Let me do something a little more reasonable today, you're like, well, let's just go for pancakes. I've already screwed this whole thing up.

John Palmer 40:29
Right, right. There's leftover dessert. Let's eat that for breakfast. Yeah,

Scott Benner 40:31
right. And before you know it, you're eating cold pizza off of the counter. With underwear standing over the sink, when nine hours prior, you are literally mumbling to yourself. Why did I eat all of that pizza?

John Palmer 40:43
Yeah, exactly. And so I found that, like, I get especially early in my kind of diabetes. I was I got really envious. I got really jealous. And not. Yeah, maybe even resentful of people just eating carb laden things all around me. And like, man, I can't I can't do that, that I'm so jealous. And then I realized, well, I could have a bite of it. Yeah, I can't have, you know, five slices of pizza without, you know, dealing with my blood sugar for the rest of the day, especially without tech. But you know, I can I can have a bite, I can have a nibble I can. You know, there's little things I can do. Where I feel almost sated enough. Without having blown my blood sugar up.

Scott Benner 41:21
I have a question where you have five slices of pizza person prior to diabetes?

John Palmer 41:26
No, probably not.

Scott Benner 41:28
That interesting, then just it really is very reminiscent of the, you know, the kind of, you know, sheltering in place we're doing right now. There's people who never leave their house for years, they don't care about it, then suddenly someone tells them they can't leave their house. And they're like, this is bull. I, I need my freedom. I want to go outside. You never went outside before what do you even care? But But you you see people eating food that all the sudden you think I'm not, you know, quote unquote, allowed to have that, which wasn't, you know, which isn't true to begin with. And I can follow you through five slices of pizza, if you want to try it sometimes. But But the point, the bigger point is, is that you didn't want the five slices of pizza, you just didn't want to be told you couldn't have.

John Palmer 42:10
Yeah, exactly. And it's like that kind of fear of missing out like everybody's just eaten away carelessly. And I have to do all of these things. boohoo for me. And then again, trying to channel that into Okay, well, how can we use this for like, a positive motivating force rather than a boohoo Poor me? And again, like I'm very envious and jealous of the people with a good hold of their technology where they can I know what four or five slices are going to do. So I can have five or six because it's not that far off from you know, a few. I think,

Scott Benner 42:42
you know, I'm sorry to cut you off. It's a very important point to make here. That you didn't want the five slices until someone told you you didn't want them. And how often is that happening to people? You know, how often are they like, oh, I've got this type one diabetes. Now look how it's ruined my life. I can eat an entire lemon meringue pie. Have you ever done that? Did you ever construct? Did you ever once in your life thinking oh, I'm going to do today? lemon lime pie, whole thing? nine inch pie? Cuz no one's you know, no one's ever thought that before. You've never thought that before. And you can't let yourself be kind of pushed around that way, by your thoughts. Because your thoughts? Often, you know, they're often fighting against you a little bit. You don't you don't realize it all the time. It's just it was really interesting when you said that. So I appreciate you bringing that up.

John Palmer 43:30
Yeah, it's that kind of classic FOMO fear of missing out.

Scott Benner 43:33
Yeah, right. If I was younger, I would, I would have said FOMO. But I you know, I'd have to Google that to be sure that it was what I meant. And because there'd be part of me that would think that that was an 80s like grunge band or something or 90s grunge band or something. Even I forgot that grunge was in the 90s just now I've just I've crested that age where I could just whip out FOMO on my own, you know? Yeah. Somebody texted me something the other day. It was one of those like four letter acronyms. And I thought, let me just Google that before I respond to make sure I'm responding properly.

John Palmer 44:04
Right. That's when the beauty is that teaching middle schoolers. I teach middle school history. And so I'm always up on the latest. OK, Boomer or whatever, whatever little saying, you know, it's going around. Yeah. Well, your gigs out there.

Scott Benner 44:18
You're old to them. Where are you teaching right now?

John Palmer 44:20
So now I'm in the capital city of Costa Rica, San Jose. Do you speak Spanish?

Limpopo?

Yeah, so I spoke very little Arabic, and pretty decent Thai. And then I've been really working on my Spanish. But that's

Scott Benner 44:35
sort of part of your Lord though. I'm assuming they want you to teach the kids in English.

John Palmer 44:40
Yeah, so these are Yes, spoiled international students, kids. So like their parents might have went to a university in Australia or in States or Canada or wherever. And they want their kids to go somewhere similar to that. So they put them in these kind of yet spoiled rich kids schools.

Scott Benner 44:57
My sister in law teaches children in China. online and she said their their parents are almost always physicians or, or very wealthy people and they're trying to get them through you know that the education system in China which apparently is, is like a it's like a one and done thing like if wherever you land at the end is where you land and it really it really does impact the the complete rest of your life.

John Palmer 45:23
Right and it's super rigorous as well. Yeah.

Scott Benner 45:26
Wow. So okay, so you have a Costa Rican cat I didn't realize that.

Unknown Speaker 45:30
Yeah.

John Palmer 45:31
Well Chico, Kenya, Costa Ricans are called Tika so we got our Chico kitty,

Scott Benner 45:35
kitty. That's it. I'm writing that down. Because I think that's amazing. And so far pushed into a black bear is the name of your episodes. I'm trying to get away from that.

John Palmer 45:46
Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:47
so so you teach five days a week? How does that work? I'm interested.

Unknown Speaker 45:52
Yeah, yeah,

John Palmer 45:52
it's just a regular. If you saw the school, if you saw the kids, if you talk to them on the phone, you wouldn't know that they're in Costa Rica. It's just a super normal school, maybe slightly better. I mean, I started at some really, really impoverished schools and some really not rough situations, but they definitely didn't have all the academic supplies that this current school has. But yeah, it's um, it's a really really high level students. They just super on the ball really supportive students and parents and staff that it's a really, really great situation. super happy to be here currently.

Scott Benner 46:27
Is it a place you could live forever? Or is it not how you think of it?

John Palmer 46:32
Oh, no, it definitely we moved here. And we're like, oh, we could be here for for a while. So I think that we're going to be here for three, four years. Have a cat a little car little little crappy four by four and a surfboard. So we're going to be here for a little while. Okay.

Scott Benner 46:47
It's one of the places that I always dreamed about vacationing. And then when I look I think, oh, I don't speak the language and and then I I talked myself out of it very quickly, but it's it's Is it a place have you do you always feel safe?

John Palmer 47:00
Yeah, hundred percent, especially coming. I mean, growing up outside the Bay Area, California. I mean, I, I some more carjackings in San Francisco, are more attempted muggings in San Francisco than I have in any of the places I've lived abroad. But that again, is if you're in the wrong spot at the wrong time, then, you know, you kind of brought it on yourself. So yes, super safe. Great, relatively good infrastructure. It's fantastic for the region. The the people that's one of the things I really enjoy about living in Costa Rica currently, it's just the disposition and the friendly nature of the people.

Scott Benner 47:36
And the minute do the municipalities treat the expats? Well,

John Palmer 47:41
oh, yeah, they they really enjoy the gringos out here. They they most gringos that come out here. I know that's kind of a racial slur, but they use it down here, the term gringo and gringa, kind of in a friendly way, which is different from what I was used to in California, but they really like gringos here. They, it kind of it pushes the economy around a little bit here and there where you know, gringos come down and they buy a bunch of properties. So the property values might go up, or the buying power of the local currency might go down because of all the influx of cash, but no, it's um, about 30% of their whole GDP is tourism. So they really, really enjoy people coming through.

Scott Benner 48:21
I'm laughing in the back of my mind feeling like someone went off to you know, john, when we call you a gringo, it's good. Don't worry. You're like, Okay, thank you.

John Palmer 48:31
Yeah, you say, nice.

Scott Benner 48:34
Every time you walk away, there's a group of guys that are like, he buys that every time. It's amazing. Anyway, doesn't leave anything. It's got such an idiot. I mean, he's nice and all I like what he's doing with the kids. But why is he so easy to get this over on? I, I hear what you're saying. There's different terminology that in different places Can you know it lands that can land much differently?

John Palmer 48:59
That's one of the other things about living here too, and just living anywhere. broadest is how remarkably similar it is to the lifestyle that you might lead in the West.

Scott Benner 49:09
How so?

John Palmer 49:10
There's, I mean, we watch Netflix, there's a Gold's Gym across the street. I could walk to the movie theater in four minutes. You know, everything's surprisingly normal. If you can learn how to say pojo instead of chicken you can get by

Scott Benner 49:24
live if you can learn to say for your freedom, you can order some fried chicken you'll be okay. And and are you picking the language of just completely organically just from being around speakers?

John Palmer 49:37
No, I'm not studious enough to do that. I wouldn't maybe no, I'm not immersed enough to do that because my home life is all English because my wife and I Well, we pepper each other in Spanish, but we're not having long, intricate conversations in Spanish. And then my students all speak perfect English and my academic studies and the things I teach are all in English. All my meetings, all My administration or my colleagues are all Western. So I do take the the school does a really good job of supplying a one or two hour language class once a week. And then there's million free apps and whatnot and all the subtitles for everything we like, if we're watching a Netflix show, we always turn the subtitles on Spanish. There's little tips and tricks we do here and there to try to catch a new word or two every day.

Scott Benner 50:23
That's kind of brilliant. The subtitle idea really is interesting. And you know, I'm not that you wouldn't, but your friends like you hang out, like are used to just you and your wife back at your place at the end of the day until the next day. Are you meeting people and like, branching out socially?

John Palmer 50:39
Yeah. So again, I play Ultimate Frisbee, which has just been a godsend for everywhere I go. In every major city, there's a big opening for the crew, there's big groups. So everywhere I move, I immediately have a network of friends to plug into right away. I've been playing for 15 1015 years. So I'm a half decent asset to a team. So for example, when we moved to Costa Rica, we went out to the practice, we start playing, we did the best we could. And in that practice, they're like, Hey, we're going to a tournament in Panama. Two days from today. Can you come with us? And we're like, well, I've school on Tuesdays, I can't come but let me know about the next one. And so maybe I think it's about a couple months ago, my wife and I, we took a bus to Nicaragua to go play frisbee tournament with our team with a bunch of bunch other Central American teams. So I got to play with my team, meet new friends meet new other people in the region. So that's one of the really, really valuable ways that I have to kind of connect in with the community, right? And then also, the school does a really good job of linking you up with other like minded folks.

Scott Benner 51:41
I guarantee that no matter how long I do this podcast, no one is ever going to say again, I took a bus to Nicaragua to be in a frisbee tournament.

John Palmer 51:49
Yeah, anybody has their niche, right? No, no, I'm

Scott Benner 51:52
pretty sure I'm pretty sure you've spoken a sentence, no one will ever speak again. That's, well, that's incredible, honestly, like that. And I do, I firmly believe in what you say. And I traveled not nearly as much as you. But every time I get somewhere, I think this is like everywhere else. Everywhere is like everywhere,

John Palmer 52:11
you know, and 100% when every time I go to like a major downtown tourist trap, Main Street type of place, you see the same mass produced Chinese tchotchkes at every single High Street and every single you know, major city, like if you're in, if you're in Chinatown, in San Francisco, you're gonna see the same things that you would see on the tourist trap street in Costa Rica, or in Cairo, or in Bangkok, they all have the same kind of mass produced stuff. And like when you, the more you probably realize,

Scott Benner 52:39
I mean, things are so similar. You're making me feel like there's a warehouse in China production facility, where they walk in on one day, and the sign comes up and says Florida, and they're like today, we're gonna make stuff that people who go to Florida will think has been natively made in Florida. And tomorrow, it'll be Thailand. And the next day, it'll be here and you know, stuff that you I'm wondering

John Palmer 52:59
that same thing too, because I feel like I see the same, the same, you know, t shirts, the same mugs the same, you know, cupholders for sale all around the world.

Scott Benner 53:07
Yes, I have a beautiful little Um, I don't know what you would call like a wooden dish that you put on your your desk that holds thumbtacks and like little loose things that don't have anywhere else to go. That was bought on an island and definitely made in China.

John Palmer 53:22
Yeah, exactly. I wonder how many local Yeah, local tchotchkes people have mass produced in China. So how

Scott Benner 53:27
does your health insurance work there? How do you get your insulin every

John Palmer 53:30
day health insurance down here is really good. So um, well, that's again, that's a product of my school who has really good health insurance. So when I found out I was diabetic, it was probably the worst time possible because I was in between jobs, living on savings for that year trying to do some, you know, big, epic hike. So I'm like, I don't know how to pay for any of these things. And then it was, I needed all of these prescriptions in America, and it couldn't buy anything over the counter and it's prohibitively expensive. So it was actually cheaper for us to fly to Thailand. And we also flew to Cairo just to see friends and both both of those locations, and I just stocked up for a couple hundred bucks worth of insulin there. I had a backpack full of noval rapid or Lance lantis or what have you. It each of those locations. Now that I'm here in Costa Rica, we have really good health insurance. So I just walked to the local pharmacy, I pay out of pocket. They were bursting back in USD in a couple weeks or in a week or so. As far as the technology that's still left leaving something to be desired, but they don't quite have the CGM here yet.

Scott Benner 54:35
Okay. And so if you wanted to CGM, you'd have to pay cash and have it shipped from America or they won't even do that, or will they because you're an American citizen.

John Palmer 54:44
So they have they have a I think Medtronic that's the big brand, right and tronic

Scott Benner 54:49
tronic has the 670 G and the I can't think of their CGM name at the moment and then there's Dexcom was the one Arden uses and I fed in Libra which is not a container This monitor, but it's one of those ones that you can scan the thing and get the number without testing.

John Palmer 55:05
Okay, so I think they have the Libra and then they have an old Medtronic or two and they do not have a dexcom yet. So those are some of the CGM technologies that I'll be looking forward to getting in the next six months as things open up here.

Scott Benner 55:19
Yeah. How were you? When you said you, you'll be there for a number of years? How did you transition back home? Is your experience there looked on as, like, desirable back here when you want to come back?

John Palmer 55:32
Yeah, so I was able to get what I kind of saw the ceiling on teaching without credentials. in the developing world that kind of saw there, there's a pretty low ceiling on kind of your salary level. So I was able to get a master's degree while working abroad from Framingham State University, which is out in Boston. And so that's like, again, a Western recognized, you know, full fledged master's degree. And then all of the all of the schools that have been working at our Western Association of Schools and Colleges or wosk, a super they're wosk approved that the yet the big accrediting body. So all of the schools I've been teaching, it would transfer to my air quotes, like years of teachings, years of teaching earned. So if I did go back to teach in the West, all of that would kind of build up to increase salary and job position, what have you. But truth be told my wife and I don't have any plans on returning moving back to the west anytime soon? Because we they pay you a ridiculous amount of money to be a teacher in Cairo in Egypt? So we're thinking maybe after some nice cushy years in Costa Rica, maybe we'll we'll go for another cash grab and another developing country?

Scott Benner 56:47
Interesting. I don't want exact numbers. JOHN, I'm not asking your business. But if a teacher in America makes how much a year, on average, do you think 30 4050. Okay. And in Costa Rica,

John Palmer 57:02
oh, easy. 30 4050.

Scott Benner 57:04
Right. But you get to live in Costa Rica. And then look Costa Rica and lower

John Palmer 57:07
cost of living, right. And so and they pay for flights to and from wherever you want to go once or twice a year, and they pay for your housing, and they pay for your insurance. And there's all these other little added bonuses, like there's a school bus that comes to my front door to pick me up to take me to school every day to and from,

Scott Benner 57:23
wow, $50,000 in Costa Rica is like how much in California,

John Palmer 57:28
in California, it would probably be a similar buying power, maybe a little bit more. And, and most of our salaries are paid in US dollars. So there's actually this, there's this kind of cultural trend in Thailand, where people just ask you how much you make, and they ask you what your rent is. And at first was really jarring. But I found it to be really liberating, because it only kind of helps the employee to know what they're getting paid and all the people around them and only kind of adds to the the abilities of the employee. So I really appreciate having this kind of candid open open conversations. So in Thailand, they don't pay you anything because people want to move to Thailand. So you're looking at that, without a credential you're looking at, you know, 20 30,000 with a credential, you're looking at that 30 4050. And if you're at a good school, you're somewhere in the 60 7080 I did, I had a guy that I played Ultimate Frisbee with. He was from Iowa, he taught physics, and he was making 110 a year. And again, net negligible taxes, free flights, free accommodation, you know, all these other perks that you know, would be unheard of in the western. What?

Scott Benner 58:33
Why do people want to be in Thailand? What's the attraction?

John Palmer 58:36
There's a lot of medical tourism there. It's it's cheap. It's a lot of Australians go there Russians go there a lot of anything on the kind of that region of the world

Scott Benner 58:48
on it's really popular there. Gotcha. Okay, so now we are leading up to asking if, if it's 30 4050 What is it in Egypt?

John Palmer 58:58
Oh, it was summer. Yes, there's 4050 for like an entry level teacher. But again, there's literally no taxes and every other thing that the school pay series, so let's say your base salaries 40 50,000, then they're paying you 800 bucks or 900 bucks a month in rent. And so if they're paying my wife and I each 800 900 bucks a month in rent, and we're spending, you know, 700 bucks in rent between the both of us, then you know, just cash in hand.

Scott Benner 59:28
I see Oh, and then there's such a there's just no taxes. So you're, you're really bringing that money back with you.

John Palmer 59:35
Yeah, and, for example, there Uber Eats there in Cairo. Like I would order maybe three or four or five shawarmas like a kind of Middle Eastern burrito, I'd order you know, 20 of those a week and they're maybe 60 cents apiece, delivered pot fresh to your front door. Wow. Versus the Yeah, there's a multitude of things that made it really easy to live there. Conversely, there are some geopolitical things and some cultural things that make it slightly less appealing to live there, which is why it's considered air quotes a hardship position, which again, makes you that much more marketable when

Scott Benner 1:00:09
you go to another spot you're willing to do it. Is that that are Westerners not as welcome there as they are in Costa Rica.

John Palmer 1:00:17
Yeah, that's Yeah, that's one way of putting it. Um, also, it was really troubling for a really good example of this was my wife and I, we would, you know, traveled around together, and you just kind of got stared at all the time. And then I went to a frisbee tournament in Dubai, my wife got sick, because she got sick a lot there just because the, it's kind of, again, a slightly polluted or rather polluted city. And when I was traveling through the airport, and you know, going through customs only things I just suddenly not getting stared at. And it just felt like it just flowed through the airport and got no friction at all. And then it came back and I told him was like, hey, Katie wife. It was just so smooth moving through the airport. And she's like, Well, yeah, it's terrible for me moving anywhere without you. And I thought, Oh, it's so much easier for me to move without you. Because there's just a lot of unwanted attention towards Western women, or failed women. She was a lot of sexual harassment. I

Scott Benner 1:01:16
see. Oh, yeah. Oh, she Well, she probably looks naked to them, even when she's dressed. Right. That's interesting. And Cairo is such a dense city. Yes. Like it is. Really, those buildings are right on each other. It's,

John Palmer 1:01:30
it's, it's arguably the most densely populated city in the world. It's got about 22 million people. So it's one of the largest population centers in the whole world. And with little to no infrastructure. It's Yeah, it's it's a good challenge. Wow.

Scott Benner 1:01:43
But you, but it's, but it's worth it. Because your it'd be a little more money. And it sounds like you're up for the challenge.

John Palmer 1:01:50
Yeah. And it was such a great experience. Like, when we moved to Costa Rica, we got to know all of our colleagues, and we would just listen to them complaining like, oh, Costa Rica is this and this is wrong with Costa Rica. And we're like, Whoa, you know, how much worse it could be? I guess that was that was that was our takeaways? Yeah, I guess things aren't perfect. But you know, you could be in a situation that's a lot less desirable than than this one. Okay.

Scott Benner 1:02:16
Well, you're doing great work, man. It's really, it's a special kind of person who'd be who's willing to travel around like that, and put up with, you know, what your wife described? And, and, you know, just just, I mean, I want to be more honest, I think it's, I don't think everyone's got it in them to just go somewhere that they can't imagine in their mind. You know what I mean? Like getting there initially, there's so many fears. Like, I had a question that was based on fear earlier that didn't ask you and I thought I was gonna ask you, if you had a medical condition, would you want to come home, but that's just my, you know, probably baseless feeling that things are just better in America.

John Palmer 1:02:52
Right. And there are so many things that are air quotes better in America. Um, there are a lot of things that you can get an equivalent version of. So for example, while playing Ultimate Frisbee again, I blew up my ACL. Just before, I think it was like a month before we moved from, from Bangkok, Thailand to Cairo, Egypt. So I'm completely hobbled up, my wife has to move all of our stuff from one apartment to another and pack it all up to move to Cairo. And meanwhile, I'm getting an ACL surgery. And I was kind of worried, like, Do I go back home to do it? Do I get it done here. And so I started looking into the type of medical treatment I could get in Thailand for a significant operation like that. And I found a doctor that does nothing but ACL surgeries, he worked for the Thai national soccer team. He's been doing it for 30 years, he used all the latest medical technology. Big GE, you know, MRI machines, like all of it was, you know, top of the line stuff, and it cost me three grand out of pocket.

Scott Benner 1:03:56
Yeah, I all I could imagine, while you're telling that story, is your wife packing up that apartment and thinking this guy's a real treat? I'll tell you.

John Palmer 1:04:05
What, just wait till I ask you to hike across America with me?

Scott Benner 1:04:08
That's great. Well, I mean, listen, I'm sure there are things that are that are I don't know what the I don't think the word is better. But you're accustomed to it. There are things here The people here are accustomed to would feel different going somewhere else. It's a special person who can just make that leap and be accepting like that. Do you have a we're at an hour and I can't keep you much longer. But do you have any perspective on why that is? Did you grow up with like, hippie parents? Or like, Where did you get that feeling from?

John Palmer 1:04:36
Hmm, you know, I think a lot of it came down to reading a reading a few books and then also being kind of immersed in situations that I wouldn't have desired them to be like that. So I think I think a good example of this was like two weeks into Cairo. We're driving 90 minutes across the city and the driver I'm in the backseat. The Uber driver didn't buckle in his seatbelt. So he His car had this automated Ding, ding, ding, and it would go off every 10 seconds for a 90 minute car ride. And instead of asking him to buckle in his seatbelt or do something that, you know, he wasn't clearly wanting to do, he was happy to live with that thing. I thought, Okay, well, I can try to change the situation to make it the way I want to, or just accept it and try to enjoy it the best I can. So I found that to be a really good meditative practice to try to just enjoy the situation I'm in, regardless of the circumstances, when if there's circumstances that I want to if I need to change them, then, you know, be proactive about changing it. But if there's something that you're not willing or able to change, then just accept it for what it is

Scott Benner 1:05:40
because the driver is not bothered by the digging. So there's obviously a way to be Zen about it, right? What is it about you that? Listen, I'm gonna first of all tell you, I would vote for I don't want it the thing but it but if, if it's going to, then there must be a way to teach to talk yourself into not wanting to be upset by it, I guess. And maybe that is the same thing for the travel, just the idea that this is going to be different. But I don't have to react to that feeling I have inside like, Oh, this is different than what I'm expecting, it makes it wrong.

John Palmer 1:06:15
Right, and bringing that full circle back to diabetes back to type one, you know, it's not the situation that many of us would have chosen, or any of us would have chosen. But you still have to deal with the situation as it lays right now, and having kind of a positive and productive approach can at least give you the feeling that things are okay.

Scott Benner 1:06:33
Yeah. And at some point, I would tell you that after enough time, you know, I don't want to overuse something people say all the time a new normal, but it really does become you're accustomed to it. And then it shouldn't I think of pumps site changes as an example of this that you wouldn't know about yet. But they happen regularly on some sort of a, you know, you know, every few days, like, you know, situation for your on a schedule. And it in the beginning. I know, at least for me, and I've seen it for art, and you do get that feeling like Oh, here it comes. Like it's that thing I have to do again. But really, it isn't much different than what we were talking about before, right. And so at some point, you just give yourself over to the idea that this happens on this schedule. And if I expect it, and I tell myself, it's not a ding, ding ding it's just, it's what it is. And I'm not bothered by it anymore. I haven't had that feeling in years. But in the beginning, I did. And it was that feeling of I don't want this to be happening. versus this is happening. And I don't see it as bad. So

John Palmer 1:07:43
yeah, hundred percent.

Scott Benner 1:07:44
Oh, john, I really appreciate you doing this and for reaching out. And yeah, I mean, it's a magnificent story. And yeah, well,

John Palmer 1:07:51
I was I'm really appreciative that I could just give back in some small way to kind of the the resource that had given me so much when I really needed it. So you know, happy to touch base with you.

Scott Benner 1:08:01
I appreciate that. I also if four years from now, you've been using for a pump and a glucose monitor for a while. Come Tell me I'd love to have you back on again that make an interesting full circle.

John Palmer 1:08:11
Yeah, call you back from the next country.

Scott Benner 1:08:13
Yeah, we're Yeah, wherever don't don't even guess where it could be. could be anywhere.

John Palmer 1:08:17
Yeah. Leave it up. We'll leave it up to be decided.

Scott Benner 1:08:20
All right. Listen, that cat's gonna kill you in your sleep one day just so you know. Like they say the only difference between house cat house cats and lions is that the house cat knows it can overpower you if it could, it would come for you.

John Palmer 1:08:32
Yeah, well, mini lion. Yeah, hundred percent. If only

Scott Benner 1:08:35
if only it was if it felt like it could get you. It would take a shot john, just so you know.

John Palmer 1:08:40
Right, right. Dogs man's best friend. Cats are just putting up with us. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:08:44
no kidding. It's wonderful. A really thank you so much for doing this. And thanks so much to Dexcom on the pod and touched by type one for sponsoring this episode of the Juicebox Podcast. Don't forget that dancing for diabetes program for touched by type one is coming up soon. Go to touch by type one.org go to programs, click on dancing for diabetes. You'll see it right there. Check it out. And of course to get that free, no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump you go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Then head right over to dexcom.com forward slash juice box to learn more and get started with the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Hey, everyone, its Scott. As 2020 starts to wind down here. I just wanted to say thank you, the podcast. I'm looking now at the statistics for the podcast. And I'm realizing that since 2018, there's only been three months that didn't do better than the month previous to it. And when that happens, it only happens by like a percent or two, it's absolutely fascinating to watch the growth of the show. And that's completely because you all share the podcast with other people. So I wanted to tell you what that does. When you tell someone else about the show when it grows, and other people find it. This is from the private Facebook group. For the podcast. It's called Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes. I was referred to the podcast by a mutual tea One day, my son was diagnosed two years ago in August at the age of eight. He is now 10. And in my opinion, has made leaps and bounds in managing and administering his own MD is within two weeks of diagnosis. Don't get me wrong, there's been some very hard and struggling times. But after listening to several of these podcasts, as a parent of a type one, I paused and thought, this is exactly what I needed to hear. We are not the only ones. The other people are doing the same things we are day in and day out. So please keep up the great work. And the show. An adult comes in and says that not only are they a nurse, and thought they were going to be great at managing their type one diabetes, but it turns out that, you know, that's not how it worked. I BG levels are all over the place with extreme highs and unexpected lows. Simple things like doing yard work and walking around a mall caused me to come crashing down. But thankfully, I found the Juicebox Podcast through another Facebook site. And it is opened my eyes to a new way of managing my diabetes, I have been so afraid of being bold with insulin, because I live alone. And I work in a fast paced environment. I'm constantly worried about going low at night or having a seizure. So I live on the high side. This podcast has taught me so much and has given me the tools and the confidence to try to keep my BG in a tighter range. Thank you to all of the Juicebox Podcast followers for your knowledge and kindness. These messages come through Facebook, I get them on Instagram. They come as podcast reviews, mostly on Apple podcasts. Here's one from that the type one community is somewhat small. And when you're newly diagnosed, there just aren't a lot of people you can talk to and learn from. I found this podcast early on and I couldn't be more thankful for it. I know we wouldn't be doing so well, just three months into diagnosis had I not decided to listen. But doesn't matter how you share if it's in person on Facebook, Instagram some other way. As long as you're telling other people about your experience, they have an opportunity to have the same experience. And then the show grows and it reaches more and more people. The more people that reaches, the more people are able to support the sponsors. And the sponsors want to continue to support the show. And then you continue to get more show. It all is just one big ecosystem. And I guess it's one little ecosystem honestly. But it's the right kind of ecosystem that kind that helps. So I really appreciate all of your support, that you listen so fervently and that you're sharing the show with other people. it's um

it's incredibly touching. I wish you guys could all get these messages. They're heartwarming, no kidding that these messages seeing people's happiness health, getting a text from Jenny yesterday about. She's like I want to do more to help people. That kind of stuff. It fills my heart. It's great for my soul. And I hope you are having a similar experience with it.

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