#446 I Lost and Found Carrie

February 26, 2021Scott Benner

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 44

This is Carrie!

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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
Recently, I learned that some people who listened to the show refer to themselves as juice boxers, which was not something that I knew. But I did like the idea. Anyway, I'm gonna mention that again in a second. And then tell you about today's show.

I have to apologize to today's guests. Because, well, you know, sometimes you get an email, and it falls down your inbox. And like six months later, you're like, Oh, my God, I remember that. And I can't believe I lost track of it. And you don't know what to do or how to email back because it's awkward. Well, you can list this episode under that heading, because somehow this episode slipped down in the folder that I have it and I must have opened it which redated it and then it slid down. It doesn't matter. But whatever. Whatever the case, this should have come out a while ago. And so I apologize to today's guest. And of course, if things timeline wise don't seem to make sense. That could be why. Please remember, while you're listening 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.

I didn't mention it at the beginning. But did you notice that's the old opening to the show. Like that's how long ago I recorded this episode, the file, right to the files, you want a little back room, I have a template and the template has the music in it, then I record on other tracks. So this template was built so long ago. It's the old theme music. And I just left it in there to make the point that I screwed this up. Before I start with Carrie, I want to remind you about the T one D exchange. The T one D exchange is looking for type one adults and type one caregivers who are us residents to participate in a quick survey that can be completed in just a few minutes from your phone or your computer. After you're finished the questions which are simple. They're not in depth probing questions. I did it in about seven minutes. You will be contacted annually to update your information. But you know, it might just be you get contacted. You're like no, there's no update. That's it. At that time, they may ask you further questions. But this thing is completely anonymous. So your name is not attached to it at all. He is 1,000,000% HIPAA compliant, and it will never require you to see a doctor or go to a remote site. This is a way for you to help with Type One Diabetes data research without leaving your house or having to be in a study. Every time someone completes the process using my link, T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. You will be benefiting Type One Diabetes Research and the podcast. So thank you. Past participants like you have helped to bring increased coverage for test strips Medicare coverage for CGM and have provided changes in the ADA guidelines for pediatric a one c goals. That's one of those things that doesn't sound like a big deal. But it really is. The T one D exchange helped motivate the ADA to lower agency goals, that information goes out to doctors, then it reaches you, then you get different marching orders from your doctor, not just you, but the whole world to strive for lower a one sees better time and range, that kind of stuff. So it's incredibly easy and exciting to imagine what your participation might lead to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. There's links in your show notes. Please give it a chance, at least head over to the link and see what you think. It's a genuinely good use of your time. Go ahead and introduce yourself. You seem jacked up, we can get going.

Unknown Speaker 4:09
Okay,

Unknown Speaker 4:10
so

Carrie 4:12
I'm Carrie, and I'm 45 and I am a mom of two. I have a seven or no 16 and 13 year old and I was diagnosed with type one last year at 44.

Scott Benner 4:31
Get by surprise. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 4:33
you could say that. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:35
44 Have you been Have you been sick through your life? Or was this your first never

Carrie 4:40
nothing. I'm very very healthy. I've never had an issue in my life. I literally I literally just say I have type one at 44 because I'm a kid at heart. So

Scott Benner 4:55
well not that you can't get it at any age. People have gotten it in their 60s, even But my thing is, it's more like, and maybe you didn't have this feeling, but I've always segmented my life up, like, you know, if I can just make it to 18 I can just make it 25 you know what I mean? Like, and

Carrie 5:12
I've heard you say that.

Scott Benner 5:13
Yeah, but in your 40s you think if I'm getting sick in my 40s I'm getting cancer, right? Like, that's, that's exactly

Carrie 5:20
what I thought. Right? But, but I mean, I literally, so I guess last? Well, it wasn't last was last August. And I thought I was killing the over 40 metabolism game when I lost 20 pounds. So I was like, I mean, I got like, three different you know, once I had three different people say, Oh my gosh, you've lost so much weight and I wasn't trying, I was eating like a teenage boy. And, and still losing weight. And I was like,

Unknown Speaker 5:51
What are you talking about? This

Carrie 5:52
is great. I've worn pants that my that I wore before my son was born. And you know, still haven't lost the baby weight. And so I was like, I mean, of course the

Scott Benner 6:04
it's gonna just be me and Holly Berry and a couple of other like, really fit skinny 50 year olds in the world.

Unknown Speaker 6:10
Yes.

Carrie 6:11
I was like, This is great. I'm happy. I'm not going to the doctor. This is great.

Unknown Speaker 6:15
Are you married?

Carrie 6:16
I'm not sure I've been divorced for almost 10 years. Because if

Scott Benner 6:20
you were married, you'd be like, I'm gonna have to get rid of this guy and start over. Yeah, I didn't know I was gonna look this good in the last third.

Carrie 6:27
I know but like so and then of course I had the other normal symptoms the the weight of in the world, the weight loss, and then this severe thirsty, peeing constantly. I actually what, what else? Oh, I had, I was my fingertips and my toes were going numb. So when I went, I find that my mom traveled to the doctor with me to make sure that I went because I'm just not that like, overly hypochondriac. You know, I don't overreact. So I went, and they were like, I don't think you're diabetic. I was, well, I actually when I went, I said, I either have diabetes, a thyroid issue, or I have a tapeworm. And I don't know which one they're like, well, I'm sure it's not a tapeworm, and you don't fit the profile for a diabetic. And so we'll just test everything. And so they did. And come to find out when I went back the next week after my labs were in. My sugar was a 356. And my a one C was 16. Oh, how

Unknown Speaker 7:35
did you feel? I felt fine. No kidding. Yeah. And that's what is that's

Unknown Speaker 7:40
why I was like, I'm

Unknown Speaker 7:41
fine. I'm

Carrie 7:42
just, you know, whatever, I'm fine. I don't feel a high at all. And so then, so they, they were like here, here's a pen of basketball or just give your shot self a shot at the end of every day. And you know, just if you're going to eat pasta, just eat a little bit, make an aside. And I'm like, okay, so they showed me how to give myself a shot. And off I went two weeks later, I was Oh, and I lost my sight.

Scott Benner 8:10
Okay, hold on a second. Wait, we got to slow down, right. Like you need to take a breath. I'm thinking all right, we gotta we gotta do one of the things. Are you on a Mac or a PC?

Unknown Speaker 8:18
I'm on an HP

Scott Benner 8:19
and hp. Okay. I was just hoping to silence your reminder somehow, but I don't know how to do that. Oh, that's my phone. Is it? Can you put it on? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 8:29
Yeah, yeah, I got it.

Scott Benner 8:30
Okay. So let's slow down. Your your agency is 16. Yes. You and they tell you to just give yourself a shot of insulin at the end of the day.

Unknown Speaker 8:41
Yeah, like a long, long, long acting because

Scott Benner 8:43
they think you have type two diabetes. Right? Okay.

Carrie 8:47
That's my that's my general practitioner.

Scott Benner 8:49
Right. And if you have pasta, do what?

Carrie 8:52
Just use like, if you're going to eat it, just, you know, portion it much smaller than you would don't make it the meal. Make it the size. If you're going

Scott Benner 9:00
to drink hemlock. Just have a sip. I gotcha. Right.

Unknown Speaker 9:06
Just on the weekends, and then Off you go. Off I

Carrie 9:09
go. Two weeks later, it was a little bit after Christmas. And I so I ride the train to work. I work in DC. And can I say something? I know you

Scott Benner 9:21
live in DC, or my next or my next question would have been? Where do you live that they gave you this kind of advice at your doctor's off?

Carrie 9:33
I live near Annapolis, Maryland.

Scott Benner 9:36
Yeah, you're by the way your email addresses what made me think you live in that area. Oh, okay. Good.

Carrie 9:41
I'm saying Yeah, okay. All right. Well, so, so actually, I should take a step back my doctor did when she had me get my labs work my labs done. She also ordered me an MRI of my pancreas because she said that pancreatic cancer does show up. Sometimes. As diabetic symptoms

Scott Benner 10:01
Oh, do you think she thought you had cancer and she was just like, give yourself some insulin and then we'll really yeah, I see. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 10:09
so,

Carrie 10:10
yeah, so like, I'm like, holy crap, what am I gonna tell my kids? Like, I don't even know what to do. So then finally, my, my,

Scott Benner 10:19
what am I gonna tell my kids? Remember that bad stuff I told you about that it's not true. You're going to live with him. Forget all that stuff. Mommy said when she was whining 10 years ago, and I don't mean like whining like talking. I mean, like, you know, with a bottle of wine. And

Carrie 10:34
yeah, so I'm like, oh my gosh. So I totally was panicking, panicking until the results came back, which were fine. So that's good. But then, like I said, a few weeks after Christmas, I'm at work. And I'm like, I can't even I just had my eyes tested. And I'm like, how in the world is my eyesight, so bad, I couldn't see close up at all. And, um, and it was like a busy time of year for us an election year. And so was just very busy. So I couldn't read barcodes on different pieces of inventory or equipment that I was supposed to be able to do. And I was, like, useless pretty much. And so I just like kind of broke down and was like, I don't know what's going on. Well, then, I checked my sugar. And it was like, literally 600 Mm hmm. And so I'm like something, something else has to be done. Like, I can't live like this. This is this is frustrating. So I did make I made an appointment with an endocrinologist. And I saw her for the first time, last February. And ever since then, I've been on the straight narrow, totally good. And so I'm on. Well, I first started with multiple inject multiple, multiple daily injections, she switched me, she's like, oh, and I was taking the Metformin that the doctor prescribed when I was when she thought I was type two. So she's like, definitely stop taking that that does nothing for you. And she said, I can just tell by your numbers that you're type one. I mean, I did end up having the test with for the antibodies done, which confirmed type one. But I did the multiple injections from February till about May. And then I went on pump and CGM.

Scott Benner 12:25
How long was it from the time you saw the GP till February when you went to the end? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 12:30
December to February.

Scott Benner 12:32
I think it's possible that you're describing the absolutely haphazard diagnosis that a lot of type twos get

Unknown Speaker 12:41
I do to that yeah,

Scott Benner 12:42
that probably in hindsight makes you pretty sad to look back on not just for yourself, I would imagine it's just it's a strange thing. You know, here you have diabetes. I'm not really gonna tell you too much about it. Don't eat pasta. And but I mean, you know, if you do just don't have a ton, and in right, here's your insulin and a meter and check it once in a while. You'll be anyway Good luck. It was Yeah, that's really crazy.

Unknown Speaker 13:05
I mean, literally,

Carrie 13:06
they literally gave me a booklet that looked like it was from 1970 with Andre the Giant on the front. Stop it.

Scott Benner 13:15
That's oh my gosh, you know, I don't usually like the title of the episode is to come out this early but Andre the Giant is the title of your episode. Carrie, so you're gonna have to say something way better the next morning. Get away from that. Oh, no, I

Carrie 13:30
got it. I got a really, really game

Scott Benner 13:32
start winging one liners all over the place. No, but that's, that's so what did the pants What did Andre tell you?

Carrie 13:40
Andre told me to eat less carbs and no sugar. And, you know, you know, his his wife? I'm not even sure red hair. older lady. They were walking in a park and just you know, I don't know. I kind of just browse through it and throw it away. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 14:03
he's not the picture of hell.

Carrie 14:07
I mean, if it wasn't him, it was his definite doppelganger.

Scott Benner 14:11
I have a question. Was he in the unit hard in this or dress like a regular?

Unknown Speaker 14:17
whatever it's called. Well, at one

Scott Benner 14:18
point in his career, he has the one the one that went over the one shoulder you remember? And then when he really stopped caring what people thought of him, he just went right to the bikini pants.

Unknown Speaker 14:29
He really didn't care. Oh

Scott Benner 14:30
my gosh. I'm gonna get him here fighting Andre the Giant or Andre the Giant fighting Hulk Hogan and it's hilarious image.

Unknown Speaker 14:39
That was the Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 14:42
I got I listen. I wish you would throw that pamphlet out because I would have asked you to mail it to me.

Carrie 14:48
You know what? I can get another? You Really? Why not? You are handing them out.

Scott Benner 14:54
I guess it was just a year ago. Right?

Unknown Speaker 14:57
Yeah. All right. Give

Unknown Speaker 14:58
me another one. The

Unknown Speaker 14:58
next time you're getting it. So getting it.

Scott Benner 15:02
Okay, so Andre, the giant didn't help you that much. You document it out much. You found it. And oh, that did help you.

Carrie 15:07
She is amazing. I love her like BFFs and my clinical manager that helps me with my pump settings and everything. We're BFFs also, and they have been the reason why I'm doing so well.

Scott Benner 15:25
Well, that's wonderful. I have to tell you that I was scared that you were going to tell me that that was just the level of what was going on there. Because I just last week had to turn down speaking at the jdrf event in DC. He has my date, the date didn't work for me. I was already traveling that day. Oh,

Carrie 15:44
yeah. So next month, February 29. I'm going to the type one summit in Las Vegas. Oh, why does

Scott Benner 15:51
nobody invite me to that kind of stuff?

Carrie 15:54
I invited myself Oh,

Scott Benner 15:55
well. Yeah, but that's different. I don't want to pay. I just want to go talk. Oh, yeah, but yeah. Vegas, really the flight and hotel is probably like $85. Right. Right, exactly. But um, I did break my heart just to go on from that aside for a second, because they have a huge chapter. She was talking about maybe 1000 people have signed up already. And I just, I really, I love that part of the country a lot. I love it a little more of the spring than I do in the winter. But I was excited. And then they dropped the data on me and I'm traveling, I'm going to see my son play baseball in Florida. So I couldn't do it. And I was like, Oh, you have to invite me next year. And she goes, Well, it'll be the same time next year. I was like, well, you have to have it a week earlier next year. Invite me next year. So

Unknown Speaker 16:42
yeah, I did.

Carrie 16:44
I did the jdrf walk in DC this past year. And on my own non non team, just myself. I raised over $1,000 we could you Congratulations.

Scott Benner 16:57
We're just we're just a walk us through

Carrie 17:00
last year went last year. It went through by the monument down to the Lincoln Memorial.

Scott Benner 17:09
So that's a good jdrf walk.

Carrie 17:11
Yeah. And it was it was really good. It was really nice. Now I just got a call like last night and wanted to they wanted to know if I was coming again. And this year or this coming year, it'll be closer on the Mall. So a time of year is that usually it may it's at the end of May.

Unknown Speaker 17:29
Really? Yeah. Mm hmm.

Unknown Speaker 17:33
Aha pencil you in?

Scott Benner 17:35
I don't know. I think I'm speaking in Orlando. But listen, we should do a thing. have everybody walk into a room and we'll talk afterwards about using their insulin.

Unknown Speaker 17:45
I love it.

Scott Benner 17:46
I just want to see the monuments again. I haven't been down in a while. Oh, yeah. Anyway, all right. So pumps. Yeah, there's what do you got going?

Unknown Speaker 17:55
I got going. I'm on Medtronic, and the

Unknown Speaker 17:59
G six. CGM

Unknown Speaker 18:03
X. How did you uh,

Carrie 18:05
well, it just, this is the guardian. It came with the pump together. And I, I didn't really ask and I just was, like, she, my doctor was like, you know, here's the Medtronic. Wrap. And here's and so I didn't have any I didn't really

Scott Benner 18:25
I'm not. By the way. I'm not saying you shouldn't cut the Madonna pump. You don't usually see people with a Medtronic pump and a Dexcom. CGM. It's a it's an interesting.

Carrie 18:33
I have I have the guardian. You have the guardian. Guardian. Six. Yeah. The Guardian sex.

Scott Benner 18:37
Not that Jesus.

Unknown Speaker 18:38
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 18:39
How's it working for you?

Carrie 18:41
It's so awesome. It's like I literally,

Unknown Speaker 18:44
I

Carrie 18:45
I never go low. I mean, I if anything, I will go high. But it's because I'm still, I'm still kind of learning. I mean, I'm, I've been on the pump since I since May. And like auto mode since like a month after that. And my agency is 6.6.

Scott Benner 19:07
Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, boy. Good for you.

Carrie 19:10
Yeah. And that was in less than six months. So I thought that was a pretty a pretty good jump from 16.

Scott Benner 19:18
Yeah, no, pretty good. Please. Are you kidding? Yeah, she's

Carrie 19:22
back. Everything's my visions back. My I did have a bunch of hair loss. But that's also getting better. But I had a lot to lose. So it's okay. And I did develop hashimotos. So I do just take Synthroid once a day for that.

Unknown Speaker 19:43
When were you diagnosed with that?

Carrie 19:45
Um, that was in like, March of this year.

Scott Benner 19:50
So after the type one diagnosis, yep. Do you think you had it prior or No,

Carrie 19:54
definitely not because my thyroid was checked in December before that. When I was when I was diagnosis type two. Gotcha. And it was not it was on the normal scale.

Scott Benner 20:05
How's your energy with it? Like with with having hashimotos? Is your juice, okay? Do you sleep things like that, or how's it affecting.

Carrie 20:14
So I'm definitely more tired. And my energy level is not it is not where it used to be. But it's it's definitely getting better. Some days, I'm just exhausted some days I'm not. But I think that's just diabetes. And I used to be a runner, I'm still trying to figure out my pump and exercise. Because I go, I will go extremely low with any cardio, anything like that. So I mean, I know I can suspend delivery, but I hate doing that. And I just feel like I'm like, I'm not going to catch up if I don't. If I do do that.

Scott Benner 20:56
Well, do you have the option? I wouldn't say to suspend delivery completely. But you have an option to scale back the power of the insulin prior to the exercise.

Unknown Speaker 21:05
Yes,

Carrie 21:05
yes, you can do that. And I was just nervous. Yeah, I know. It took me a long time to actually just go running and see where I was with doing nothing. So I'm running with like, a phone in one hand and my pump in the other hand with constant eyes on my pump. But um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's definitely one of my goals is to get back into that, because I really do miss it.

Scott Benner 21:32
Well, yeah. So there's, I'm going to try to find it for you. There's an episode of the podcast that talks about exercise. It's one of the prototypes. Have you heard? Have you found the pro tips?

Unknown Speaker 21:43
Yeah, okay. Sure. Well, so

Scott Benner 21:45
this one is, I'm going to click on it, it doesn't start playing. So just be strange. Episode 256 is called diabetes pro tip exercise. It's me and Jenny Smith, and we're talking about how Yeah, you can stop yourself from getting low in that situation.

Carrie 22:00
So yeah, because I certainly don't want to end up looking like Andre the Giant.

Scott Benner 22:03
Well, you know, I would also think you don't want to be you know, on the Mall, laying on your face, hoping somebody comes by and doesn't think you're drunk. It helps you.

Unknown Speaker 22:12
And you know, I

Carrie 22:12
that's that was my route that I used to run on my lunch breaks every day, every day, I would run from the Capitol, to the around the monument and back and that was about three miles all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. And back was five, a little, maybe a little more, say almost six. And that I would do that during my lunch break every day.

Scott Benner 22:32
You see, I try to get I keep telling my wife like, why do we not go to Washington with a cherry blossoms are blooming? Like I want to do that?

Carrie 22:39
Because you want to sneeze all

Unknown Speaker 22:40
day? One time to see it. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 22:43
guess yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 22:44
don't know.

Carrie 22:45
I don't think I don't think I've actually done that.

Scott Benner 22:47
Or you just, you just made everyone realize that everything they want to go do somewhere else probably sucks. And you have to ask the person who lives there. Like, for instance, you know, I've never until very, very recently ever laid eyes on the Liberty Bell. I

Unknown Speaker 23:03
don't think I have either, but I've

Scott Benner 23:04
driven past year 1000 times in my life, you know, and so, I've I've quite literally been on the road, you know, you can look over and go there's the building where the Liberty Bell is I could park here and go and whatever. Right, you know,

Carrie 23:18
it's true. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 23:19
I

Carrie 23:19
I think the first time I went to the White House was in like 1998 when I started working at the Senate.

Scott Benner 23:26
What do you do? Can you say what you do?

Carrie 23:28
Yeah, I I work for the sergeant at arms, which is support for all of the Senate and committee offices in IT support services. And so we track all of your all of the office equipment, the computers all that stuff. TVs copiers all that stuff. I worked in the Senate for 19 years for a member and then he retired and now I'm finishing out my years there at the Sergeant at Arms where no election depends on my, my job.

Scott Benner 24:02
So a lot of pressure around election time.

Carrie 24:04
Yes, it's very busy for us. We're taking in all of the equipment we have to you know, wipe all the hard drives and and you know, recent re submitted to the new member and yeah, it's it's it's pretty intense. And so that's what I was going I was going through all of these symptoms when we were doing all of that during the election

Scott Benner 24:26
season. What was I just I just had a thought in my head do disappear, or can I find it? Huh? Hold on. Let's find out. This is totally where an ad is gonna go. So let me just I was just thinking, Oh, my gosh. All right. I'm going back over now My head

Unknown Speaker 24:44
is it hard action actions.

Unknown Speaker 24:49
Damn it.

Scott Benner 24:52
I'm so so disappointed in myself right now. Listen to the old add music didn't, didn't didn't. Anyway, I'm just reminding you again about the T one D exchange. That's it T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. One brief last time, the T one D exchange is looking for T one D adults, NT one D caregivers who are us residents to participate in their quick survey. That's it. I'll get you right back to the episode. T one d exchange.org. Ford slash juicebox. Just do it. That simple. Just type in your thing and you go do the thing. And then like 10 minutes later, you're like, I did a good thing. thing, thing, thing and smiles. Who doesn't want good things and smiles? Do you not want good things and smiles? Are you one of those people who doesn't want good things and smiles? I don't think you are. One the exchange.org forward slash juicebox make good things and smiles.

even know what happened. I just lost my thread for a second. Oh, it's gone. It'll come back to me. That's okay. So Oh, I found it. Oh, yes. 19 years ago, it used to It's been more than that now. But how do you? How do you initially get a job like that?

Carrie 26:17
So definitely back then it was you know, someone, I, my, my grandparents godson was working in this office as a legislative fellow, which is they're on loan from their specific department, like Department of Energy or Department of Health and Human Services. They are borrowed from the Senate, but they're still paid or to the Senate. But they're still paid by their agency. So they're just we just like use them for their expertise in a certain area. So he was he was working there. And they needed somebody to answer phones and, you know, constituent services. So I applied and they needed somebody right away. And so it was my first big girl job that turned into my career. And so what I did then was I answered phones, I had flags flown over the Capitol for constituents that request I did tours of the Capitol. Things like that. Just you know,

Unknown Speaker 27:19
a lot of

Scott Benner 27:21
phone calls was was the member you worked for local? You weren't child, were you? Did you have to travel in and out of DC? Or did you stay in work just there?

Carrie 27:30
I didn't until so I didn't do that in the full capacity of the 19 years I moved into, I became the correspondence manager. And I dealt with all of the incoming correspondence that we received from constituents or whatever.

Scott Benner 27:50
So like, the day I wrote a letter that said, Yeah, dear Congressman, I didn't vote for you. I'm not in your party. But I did come to your office a couple of times and talk to you about type one diabetes. I'd really love to go to the Obama og inauguration. Give me tickets, you would have gotten that note?

Carrie 28:07
I did. I gotcha. Okay. Yes. And

Unknown Speaker 28:12
so, yeah, I

Carrie 28:13
did that. And then, as he announced his retirement, I was in charge of archiving his 30 plus years of service center. So yeah, it was the best I will tell you, it was the best part of my, my job for the last like 22 months of closing his office. So at that capacity is when I ended up having to travel to Las Vegas, and close his Las Vegas office, and go through tons of awards and memorabilia, over 800 pieces, and catalog and, you know, send all of that stuff out to the repository where he's, you know, is keeping all of his archivable material,

Scott Benner 28:58
feel free not to answer this, but when you're doing that kind of work. Does it matter if your politics match with the person you're working for?

Carrie 29:08
I think, I think it would, if you were in the legislative portion of the office, I was in the administrative portion. That's what I'm saying. You know, I, I think that not everyone is going to align perfectly, but you know, I think it helps if you do have a little bit of, you know, common interest.

Unknown Speaker 29:32
You know what I mean? So

Scott Benner 29:34
it isn't, it's an office job, but at the same time, I mean, how often in most people's lives in their office job, do they hear their boss say something that could sway the you know, sway policy in the country and, and then you have time to think like, I mean, you can get mad at your boss or like, you know, we're gonna start doing this like this. Now, you think I think we should do that. But that's different than, you know, I'm gonna go you know, I'm gonna go vote for this amendment. And you're thinking Please, don't Oh my gosh, don't do that. Please don't like you know, and then you start feeling like, I would imagine that you start feeling like you're furthering a thing that you don't want to see further. But it would be interesting. That's all.

Unknown Speaker 30:13
Yeah. You know,

Carrie 30:14
I mean, just to give you kind of a reality check, I sat at the front desk and answered phones during the Clinton impeachment trial. So I was called, I have very thick skin these days, because of that, because I was called every name in the book, you know, and, and, you know, so you get that you and you get mostly complaints. And you know, not many people take the time to

Unknown Speaker 30:40
call in a compliment. It's like the internet.

Scott Benner 30:44
No one goes online to be like, you know, what's great, my toaster always works. Always perfect. I just want everyone to know, you know, no one ever says that, like, but how happy are you when your toast comes out? Nice and even right? Never thought to yourself, tell someone I gotta go. I mean, someone should know about this toaster, you know? No, I hear you. That's, that's definitely. And so when that when that person calls, they want to make sure that you know, they're happy, sad, mad, whatever it is, right. And so it they give you the full, the full throat of how they feel, not feeling not realizing like, Yo, I'm really just, I'm just answering the phone. Right. You know, like, I mean, they must feel like you would turn around, then go to your senator and say, Hey, listen, he just said, Yeah, you must want my input on this. And here's what the people are saying on the phone. Yeah. Not how that works.

Carrie 31:37
No. I mean, they're, they're interested in you know, definitely, like tallied, like, you know, against or for sure. But, of course, not the whole, you know,

Scott Benner 31:49
they want to know which way the winds blowing.

Unknown Speaker 31:51
Right. Yeah. Right.

Scott Benner 31:52
Right. That was Yeah, that's exactly what's going on in the impeachment now, like, when? Because we're, we're recording this as, right as, as the republicans are probably two thirds of the way through their initial folly. And, and and when this started, you heard Well, there's not going to be any witnesses. There's not going to be we're not going to bring documents into this. And then as I went to bed last night, there was a republican on television going, you know, I do think we need to hear from this Bolton character. And I thought, Oh, yeah. So he felt the wind change, and he did not want to be downwind of a stink. So he ran around the other way. And I was like, Oh, that's that's exactly what's going on here. Yeah, I

Carrie 32:34
think Jake Tapper is the one that called it not the elephant in the room, the white mustache in the room. He's like, I mean,

Scott Benner 32:41
he should have made a Lorax reference with that mustache. Maybe this taffer guy is not a comedian. But no, but it really is politics aside of it, it's it's interesting to see like, you know, I'm okay. As long as the majority of the people who are voting for me agree with what I'm doing in the minute that looks wrong. I'm gonna run to the other side of the boat before we capsize. And, yeah, very interesting. You must have seen a lot of crazy stuff.

Carrie 33:08
I have seen a lot for sure. centuries. I mean, yeah, I mean, there. I definitely have. I mean, I, I can't say it's all been good since I was there when the Capitol Police officers were shot. And, you know, that was very scary, of course, but, you know, a lot of good too. So, but, and I, I, you know, I've had my kids while I was there, I was married and divorced. While I was there. I feel like I've, you know, lived your life that really lived my life there. And I, when I retire, whenever that may be, I want to go back to school and I want to do radiology, diagnostics. monography. Okay.

Scott Benner 33:47
I thought you're gonna say, I was 100% Sure. You're gonna say I want to teach history. He took me by surprise on that one.

Unknown Speaker 33:53
No, I

Carrie 33:53
I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I think I've finally figured it out. And I think that that's a good way to make, you know, an income and be able to live anywhere I want. Let me

Scott Benner 34:07
ask you this, without asking any political leanings? Do you see it being more true that this is all just bs? And they're gonna do whatever they want? Like the people who feel like that about politics? Or do you see sort of the pageantry and the beauty of it and the, and the history of like, which side of it

Carrie 34:26
is like, you know, beauty in this? No beauty. It's, to me, it's, it's an awful thing. And I hope that though, I hope that

Unknown Speaker 34:39
the other side will

Carrie 34:42
come to their senses and have a fair trial.

Scott Benner 34:44
Okay. And then in an aside of the impeachment, like the entirety of it, like, like the political world in general, do you like how do I put this? Have you ever seen the American president? I don't think so. It's a movie where it's you know, it's They sort of speak romantically about politics. And and like, and when you talk about, like, you know, they when they people who talk about the framers, they hold these, like, ideas really close to their heart, like, is it less like that and more business? Or are there some people walking around? Or just like, golly, this is the way this is supposed to be? I want to do the right thing here, or is there not a ton of that?

Carrie 35:22
I don't think there is. Um, you know, I've been fortunate enough to see from an, you know, a senate office side, and then they also the outside. So it's definitely, it's definitely a different picture. You mean, you have I think there's politics and everything, no matter no matter what, or where you work.

Unknown Speaker 35:45
So

Carrie 35:47
I, I do feel that some people are some, some members are strictly with their party. Okay. And, and both sides. Yeah. I agree.

Scott Benner 36:03
Yeah. And, and, and so it would matter, they could see or hear something. And I think any reasonable person would be like, oh, gosh, well, we can't do that. And they'd be like, No, no, if we do that, I get to build airplanes. So we're totally doing

Carrie 36:15
fortunately, unfortunately. That's it. And that's what's so sad.

Scott Benner 36:19
Yeah, it's interesting. It really is that it's alright. Well, you answered my question. You answered my question the way I imagined you were gonna answer and I was just, I was really, there was just part of me that was hoping you were gonna be like, No, you know, it's not I see a lot of people down here who care deeply. You know, they're still talking about George Washington, and they want the right. You were like, you were like,

Carrie 36:39
those people were like, Who?

Scott Benner 36:40
Yeah, everybody's trying to get there. This is what you're telling me? Yeah. Gotcha.

Carrie 36:44
Oh, yeah. And, and, and to be very honest, the hill staffers mostly use the hill experience for resume builder, to go off and work in the private sector, because they can make so much more money. Half of them are lawyers, right, they can make way more money.

Scott Benner 36:59
So not a bunch of bright eyed college kids, thinking I could I could change the world. They're thinking I can get a resume.

Carrie 37:06
There's definitely that too. Right. I mean, there's definitely that too. Gotcha. But, um, but a lot of it is, you know, just

Scott Benner 37:15
a stepping stone you it's a ladder.

Unknown Speaker 37:17
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well,

Scott Benner 37:19
I don't know that it's ever been different than that. Or, you know,

Unknown Speaker 37:22
right. Yeah, I don't think

Scott Benner 37:25
I it weirds me out, when people are like, things have changed so much. I'm like, and they haven't. Nothing's changed. There's just more of us now. And you have social media, so you can see it happening faster. You're, you're more aware of things. But somebody, somebody's always been career building and stepping on somebody else's throat to get to something else. That's not a new, it's not a new path in life. But you know, it's funny, what's new is when you know, what's not new, but what's sad is when you do meet somebody who just wants to go do a good job, you know, be treated fairly, you know, maybe move up once or twice isn't looking to, you know, light the world on fire and be at the top and everything. Yeah, and that that person just gets treated like they get manipulated by the people who are trying to climb it. So

Carrie 38:10
I think that you've kind of described me, but I was fortunate enough not to be stepped on. I hung in there. And, you know, I, I was the longest serving staffer in my senate office. And yeah, and I, I think I did pretty good, even though I wasn't in the legislative part, because those are the ones that really come and go the administrative portion is, is, you know, there most of the time, they're there for the long haul.

Scott Benner 38:38
Well, I think it's really wonderful. I think it's something to be proud of. So thank you. Absolutely. Okay. All right. I gotta bring this back to diabetes somehow.

Unknown Speaker 38:47
Yeah.

Scott Benner 38:49
Okay. You're not gonna have any information? Maybe you will, if you don't just say I don't. But do you see the the other side of the fight about insulin pricing? I do have thoughts on it that you're willing to share?

Carrie 39:05
So I feel so Gosh, I feel so lucky that I have awesome insurance. And I feel terrible for those that are struggling. And I've seen where a couple different states have, you know, kept insulin prices to people

Scott Benner 39:27
or people in Medicare right. Or some orange state?

Carrie 39:29
Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. I want to say it was Michigan or something, but I can't be positive.

Scott Benner 39:36
I find that article funny because the headline makes you feel like no one's ever gonna pay more than $100 a month for insulin and then you read three more sentences. You go out. No, not everyone. Yeah,

Carrie 39:46
I mean, I literally get five vials of Nova log for $25. And so I feel spoiled, because that's just what it costs me. It doesn't cost me anything. penny more. And, um, and that, of course, I mean, I'm not on a ton of insulin. I mean, I know there's some people that are, you know, I think I have like 85 units for three days. Oh, okay. Yeah. So if that's not a lot,

Scott Benner 40:16
no Arden uses up every bit of 200 units every three days.

Carrie 40:21
That's crazy. And like, that's, I mean, it's not crazy. It's reality. But it's, there's people that use a lot more like that need cheaper prices, because they have to have so much. And it's a life saving.

Scott Benner 40:38
It's, you know, it's interesting, as you were saying that I just realized, Arden's had diabetes for a really long time now, and I don't know how much insulin isn't a vial of insulin. It's, it's never been a problem for me, because we had insurance too. I just write us a vial of insulin. When I'm done. I throw it away, and I get another vial of insulin. That's just how it goes, you know? Something, it made me feel bad, good job. Not that I, I was very compassionate to begin with. But I just

Carrie 41:07
like, I feel like oh, my gosh, I'm getting this for such a cheap price. Why are other people struggling? And so if? Well, I,

Scott Benner 41:14
because you're also probably paying, if I'm guessing you have a couple of kids, you're probably paying six or $7,000 a year out of your income to have private health care insurance, then you probably have a $2,000 deductible on top of that. So it's not cheap. It was the eight grand a year.

Carrie 41:34
Well, I mean, amongst other other stuff. Oh, yeah. But um, yeah, I just I really hope that because so many are affected by diabetes, I really hope that there can be some type of mandated cost.

Scott Benner 41:52
Yeah, I mean, listen, there's, um, you know, a very happy liberal who lives inside of me who would like to see things like that be free and conservative guy sitting next to him going, we can make things free, you know, that's not how this is gonna work. affordable, affordable, would be a hell of a step up.

Unknown Speaker 42:09
Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:10
or, or the other thing that I never missed, I never understand in any walk of life. Just identify the people who can afford it and give it to them and make the rest of us pay for it. And it isn't going to be fair, and you know, what everyone will have to get over the fact that it's not fair. And some people are gonna gain the system and get free and so on who don't deserve it, because they have the money to pay for it. And you know what, that's gonna have to be the cost of doing business. And let's just get it done. Let's let's not let anyone suffer rash, die. It because they can't afford it and then work forward from there to make it more reasonable for everybody if you can.

Carrie 42:51
Yeah, I firmly believe that I just want everybody to be okay.

Unknown Speaker 42:57
Right. You know,

Scott Benner 43:00
I like the way you think. Hold on. One second here, Harry. I'm actually going to be doing insulin with somebody who's not Arden. One second.

Unknown Speaker 43:09
So

Carrie 43:10
you're giving insulin right now? No, I'm

Scott Benner 43:12
agreeing with a person's idea. So you're gonna hear on the show, pretty soon. It'll probably it'll be probably months before people hear this. But my daughter's friend. Jani is type one. So the way they met was Jani used to read my blog. And she liked it. And she was, you know, the same age as my daughter. And so one day she was on Instagram and thought, like, I'm going to try to find Arden and she found her and she messaged her, that she wanted to connect on Instagram because Arden's private, and Arden mostly, you know, I think deletes we know that those kind of requests, but if someone has diabetes, you know, Arden's always like, yes. And has diabetes, like, you know them, you know, that's usually what she she asked me, I'm like, I don't recognize that kid. And she's like, all right, I was like, What are you gonna do? She's like, I don't know. And she walked away. And then it turns out that she, you know, said yes to the friend request. So Jani and Arden have never met each other in person. They are 100% best friends. Oh, Arden is the only other person besides her grandmother that Jani knows who has diabetes. And I don't believe that Arden knows a lot of people who have type one either. Any of them she knows are mostly probably from online. And so Johnny's blood sugars are to be to be polite. an unholy mess,

Unknown Speaker 44:42
a train wreck, just

Scott Benner 44:43
really bad. And so, uh, for years of their friendship, I wasn't aware of that. I, you know, I don't run around asking people what their budget is. Okay, listen, I do this a lot. But you know,

Unknown Speaker 44:57
I kind of do that.

Scott Benner 44:57
I'm not going that far. And so it Do you and so, you know, so one day Arden comes to me and she's like, I think Jani needs help. And I was like, why? And she's like her blood sugar's like all over the place that like, I don't think she's figuring it out. And so I said, All right, well, you know, if she wants to talk to me how to talk to me, and I sort of let it go, and then they sort of never came in asked, it was always like, you know, was implied like, oh, her mom would say something like, I'm going to put on a plane, she can come live with you for a week. And I'd be like, yeah, I'll send her over. Like, you know, what, we'll straighten it out. And nothing ever came of it. And then finally, one day, a couple of months ago, Arden said it to me again, and she really seemed concern, so I proactively reached out. And last Saturday, so on to three, like four days ago. I talked to Jani on the FaceTime for a little bit. And her agency, I think it's like 870 point seven. But more importantly, she's over 400 a couple of times a day for Oh, my god blocks of time, you know. And so my plan was I was going to have Jani on the podcast. And we were going to I was going to talk her through the stuff we were going to do. And I just did not have the heart to even wait until we could record. And so I just said like, we're gonna do it right now. And then you'll come on later, and we'll talk about what we did. And she's like, okay, I really I in my heart. I was wanted to do it as we were doing it, like, you know, like 20 minute interviews, like every couple of days for a couple of weeks, though, so you could listen to her go through it more in real time. But I just couldn't let her wait that long. And yeah, that's awful. Yeah. So she's doing terrific right now.

Carrie 46:36
That's awesome. And she's still living at home or whatever.

Scott Benner 46:39
She's 15. Yeah, but but her her last 24 hours. I don't think she's been under 70 or over 140. And we're working on getting her her Basal hammered out. But I would say that since I'm looking at the last 12 hours from midnight to now. So for like the last 11 or 12 hours, because she's in a different time zone, my brain figure out which way I should I should be adding or subtracting. But she's been right at like 90 and 100. So

Carrie 47:10
that's so awesome. She's gonna feel so much better

Scott Benner 47:12
told me already. She's like, I was doing my homework the other day, and I can focus and it's really cool. Wow, she's a really nice kid. And, you know, it was a pleasure to help her. But what it taught me is something that I already knew and just made me sadder about it like this kids four or five years with this, maybe longer. I'm thinking about it. And you know, she's just going along, doing her best doing what she's told, thinking she's doing okay, knowing it's not okay, but not thinking there's another way. And then I was just like, hey, let's turn this here. Turn that here. Let's Pre-Bolus a little more. Yeah, no, I think you're counting your cars a little light and boom, like that. That's,

Carrie 47:51
I mean, that's how I learned by listening to the podcast. I I never. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 47:57
I,

Carrie 47:57
I thought about Pre-Bolus thing. And then I was like, Oh, I'm just too scared. And then I did it. And I stayed in normal range. I didn't even get it. You know, I didn't even get an arrow up. And I'm like, holy crap, this is amazing. I think I'm perfect. And like, when I when I got the, like straight line, and on my diagram or my graph, like for the whole day, I was like, either I'm dead or perfect dead on. Because it was just a straight line with no rise. No, you know,

Scott Benner 48:28
it's exciting when you come to it.

Carrie 48:30
And it is. So it's, I feel like I've just won the Stanley Cup.

Scott Benner 48:35
But this hindsight make you feel like, by the way, it's funny, I was thinking of a hockey reference to use in my talk in Dallas next in two weeks.

Unknown Speaker 48:43
With any hockey reference,

Unknown Speaker 48:44
you could,

Unknown Speaker 48:45
I'm a huge hockey fan. Okay,

Scott Benner 48:47
hold on, we'll talk about two things. So first thing I was gonna say was that, as exciting as it is when you get it, I would think for people who have diabetes for longer, you're in a different situation. But for people who've had it longer, they start looking back and thinking like, Oh my gosh, like that was it. You know, a guy on the podcast said a couple things and now my blood sugar stable and going on for years. That's how

Unknown Speaker 49:11
I feel. I

Carrie 49:11
feel myself like, you know, I have I belong to a couple different Facebook groups for like, for my pump and for type one. And, you know, I feel like I am able to offer advice for what worked for me. Obviously, everybody's diabetes is different. But you know, if you have a suggestion, I know everybody that has diabetes is willing to hear it because at some point you'll try anything. And um, what's that? I

Scott Benner 49:36
was just gonna say Carrie like i i would say i don't find everyone's diabetes to be that different. Like there's there's a lot of differences among people, people people but I think at the core like the you don't mean like those couple of ideas are very similar for everybody about how to use the internet. Everything else is a

Carrie 49:55
well yeah, yeah. I mean, I just, I mean, some foods affect me differently, and I Like my coffee, my coffee, I have to put in like 25 carbs because, you know, I don't even have sugar in it. So but isn't that cool? You

Scott Benner 50:11
figured that out? You just looked at her like this shouldn't be, but it is so so what

Carrie 50:15
works? Yep, exactly. That's, that's where it's gotten me into trouble with like different foods though because I have a food thing. And it's like my pump says, Oh, well, I can just give carbs for that. And it doesn't erase the food that you ate. It just gives you insulin to to absorb that food. So, I mean, I feel like in 1.0 my one shoulder it says, Oh, yeah, go ahead meet six bagels. Yeah, yeah. And so that's where I have to learn to, you know, that's where you have to watch what you eat. Because

Scott Benner 50:51
it really is that you, you get so focused on whether or not you can cover something with cars. You don't think about whether or not you should be eating that thing.

Carrie 50:58
Right. Nailed it. That's exactly how I feel a lot of the times

Scott Benner 51:02
not thinking about yourself as having diabetes for a second and just think of yourself as a person. Would I eat six bagels? No, I don't think I would you know, but now you're eating Bolus for your like, watch. This is amazing.

Carrie 51:14
Yes. Look at this. I can stay average blood sugar. Too easy.

Scott Benner 51:19
Watch this again. Do it again. keep giving me the bagels. I'll

Carrie 51:22
work the whole thing out. Right. And yeah, I'm like, and some people like, Oh my gosh, can you eat that? I'm like, hell yeah. I can just watch this. I press these buttons, and I'm good to go. Then

Scott Benner 51:31
three days later, they're like, human carry was skinny. Yeah, apparently that insulin doesn't take the calories away just the car.

Carrie 51:41
That's what I'm fighting with. It's an internal struggle.

Scott Benner 51:45
But it's very, I think it's common. I also think it's common to not consider the sugar using to treat lows. And people are always like, Oh, I'm struggling with my weight. Insulin is making me heavy. I'm like, Is it the insulin? Or is your budget low? And you're drinking juice all the time? Because I'm

Carrie 52:02
very lucky that I don't. I don't go low a lot at all. I mean, it's only maybe if I overcorrected. A little bit, but um, or, you know, on calibration days, I, you know, I sometimes it's mostly the reading. I don't feel low a lot is I guess what I'm saying. It's not it's not a true reading.

Scott Benner 52:23
Yeah. Jenny, when Jenny talks about your pump, she's like the people it works for it works for people. It really doesn't. And right. That's interesting.

Carrie 52:33
Yeah. And I see a lot of that in the the Facebook groups. Yes. They people complain, complain, complain, I hate this pump. I hate this pump. And, you know, I think I think a lot of it has to do with maybe settings and things like that, because I had, like I said, I had a wonderful clinical manager, and she was so knowledgeable. And I could call her anytime and I'm thinking and I even said, I think I need to set my, my high alert, lower. Because I don't want to go that high. And I don't ever want to go that high. And she's like, okay, you know, like, that's fine. I, she's like, I was just giving you some wiggle room for the beginning. You know, when you started on like, nope, she's like, you are on this. And like, my, my endocrinologist. They're like, I wish all of my patients were like you, you're gonna you're go, you're

Scott Benner 53:29
all in? Yeah, you figured it out. And it's working. And so, like, why accept the higher blood sugar if that's not necessary, right. And it's interesting, too. I wish all my patients were like you. What does that mean, though? figured it out. You wish they all figured it out? Like, why don't you help them figure it out? You know,

Carrie 53:47
I, I think more so. My attitude towards it all. Like, I, I just, I don't realize that I'm doing anything different than anybody else. But I

Unknown Speaker 53:57
you know,

Scott Benner 53:58
doing it the way I asked you to do? What's that you're doing it the way it occurs to you to do it.

Carrie 54:03
Yeah. And, you know, I'm following their advice, and I'm doing what they're telling me to do. Not everybody is a is a, quote, good diabetic. And, you know, I think that if you put if you follow what your doctor your doctor says, and you know, what your clinical manager suggests, and it works for you, you should keep doing it. And I mean, she's like, you're doing so well with everything and you know, whatever. So I'm, I'm just like, I guess I was, you know, all gung ho and you know, whatever you want me to do,

Scott Benner 54:38
I'll do it. You think you can keep it going?

Carrie 54:41
But you know, I don't feel any burnout yet at all. Even though I went all in right at the beginning. even have my type one tattoo on my wrist instead of a medical alert bracelet. And, and I I'm just I I think it is what it is and you Deal with it. It's a daily, it's something you deal with every day and you just take it day by day. You know, I mean, if I think if you think about, you know, whatever comes next week, you kind of get overwhelmed. Yeah. Oh, like,

Unknown Speaker 55:15
Oh my gosh, what am I gonna?

Carrie 55:16
Do I have a wedding, the pump is gonna show or what I'm like, No, I'm 45 I did not give him

Scott Benner 55:23
any so interesting. You just brought up your age, because I was just gonna bring up your age. And, and I was gonna go back to what you said a second ago. So I have, you know, I've recorded like, 350 of these things, right. And the amount of times that an adult with Type One Diabetes has used the phrase, I'm not a good diabetic, or, you know, I'm a bad diabetic. And I always think, Wow, that's a phrase that would not resonate once with a parent of a child, right? They'd be insulted by that, that they write the possibility of it. But adults don't seem to be. They don't seem to think of it the same way. Think when adult says it, they're saying, I'm, there's a thing I know, I'm supposed to be doing. Right. And I don't do it. Bad dialogue like that. Like, like, like that feeling, right? It's not a it's not a I don't it's not a condemnation of somebody or themselves. It's just the idea of Look, I know, there's the thing I'm supposed to be doing, and I don't do it, etc. And what you're saying is, you know, there's the thing you're supposed to be doing, and you're doing it. And I wonder how much of that comes from being? Like, like, where you were diagnosed, right in your 40s mature been through divorce? work, right? working, you know, in a high pressure situation, like you're more of like, this is what needs to be done. Do this thing. person, right? I'm guessing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're You're a task person. You're like, Okay, give me a few. I

Unknown Speaker 56:49
will do it.

Scott Benner 56:50
And that's even shows when you said because, you know, once the senator retired, I, you know, basically catalogued his life. I bet you there were a lot of and you liked it, I bet you there were a lot of people that heard that and thought, Oh, well, that sounds like the most terrible thing I could possibly write. But you're a test person, you do a task, you do the task. That's excellent. That's insightful. It really isn't. I was afraid when you said, when you made the like the bad diabetic reference, I thought about that people are gonna just be like, Oh, no, but there's more to it than that. You really have to dig through it a little bit. You know, you can't just hear the word band and go oh,

Carrie 57:28
yeah, and I, I think, I think it's just about how you embrace it yourself.

Scott Benner 57:36
Oh, attitudes got to be a huge part of it. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Like, you've got to go with like, I can get this done. Even when it's not going right. You have to be you have to keep up that idea of I can get this done. You know, I can spoil this for you. Because again, this will come out much later, but I asked Jani, my daughter's friend. And I hope to get her on the recording saying this when when I record with her later this week. How hard was it only having one friend Really? Who had type one diabetes and them having a completely different experience with their blood sugars? Like how did that make you feel? And I really was wondering, like, is she gonna say, like, I was a little jealous or like, what? And she said, it just made me feel like, you know, I want that. And but not like, she shouldn't have it, and I should like it. And it was like, Oh, this is nice. She's younger, they're friends. Like, she doesn't have that feeling of like, you know, you know, I, you know, adversarial right away. And, and I hear people sometimes say like, I don't think people should share their, like their successful graphs online. I 100% disagree with that. I think that I think you should be able to like, imagine you're a person struggling with something and it becomes the norm. And you might say to yourself, Well, this is just diabetes. I can't do anything about this. But how great is it to be able to look up and go, that can't be right, because look at that person's blood sugar looks way better than mine. And so, instead of being mad at them wonder, what is that person doing that? I don't know about? Right? And I want to know, best steal from them. You know what I mean? Like, don't try to reinvent the wheel, go find out what works and do it is how I feel about it. Yeah,

Carrie 59:12
like one time. My son and I were sitting there watching, I don't know, probably a hockey game. And he said, Are my pump beat to calibrate? And he he goes, Oh my gosh, Mom, I'm so proud of you. And I said what I said why? And? And he's like, you don't ever complain. You You made me forget that you even have diabetes. And I was like, Yes score, because why would I want to put that burden on my kids? Hey, that

Scott Benner 59:43
didn't happen on his birthday or a holiday did it? It wasn't he was not fishing for it.

Unknown Speaker 59:49
No, he comes

Carrie 59:50
up with some of those one liners pretty often.

Scott Benner 59:53
That's lovely. No, and Yeah, me too because and I talked about it here a lot too. Like you have to You can't just, you can't get enveloped in drama. And there's plenty of opportunities every eight minutes to be dramatic about diabetes, there really just is, you know, Arden had a muffin at school this morning. And she Bolus really hard for it. And while you and I were talking, she hit like 81. And she started going down. And she's not going to get a message about that. I'm just sitting here talking to you. And I have, I can see her blood sugar off in the corner of my eye because I don't want to get lost in this and and not see it. I don't I don't stare at it the rest of the day. I actually only have it visible to me constantly when I'm recording. Alright, because I kind of get lost in conversations a little bit. So I just texted her while you are talking a long time ago. It's like, hey, there's like four candies in your bag, just eat them. And she did that. But, you know, I could have been like, Oh, she's gonna get low. She's at school, like, you know, like, it could have been a lot. A lot of times you get to decide how you react to things, you know? So you brought something up now that reminded me of that. I said, I was going to talk about two things. And I talked about one thing, and then we talked for 15 minutes. So the thing I was trying the thing I was considering, for my talks, I'm giving two talks this month in Dallas and in Atlanta. And

Unknown Speaker 1:01:13
when is Dallas?

Scott Benner 1:01:15
like two weeks like February 16, maybe a Sunday?

Unknown Speaker 1:01:19
I'm not shut out of here. I think so. Are you gonna be there too?

Scott Benner 1:01:22
Are you really gonna be in Dallas, then for hockey? Oh, to see the other Oh,

Carrie 1:01:27
my son is playing your son plays hockey? Yes,

Scott Benner 1:01:30
he does know I will be in I will be there if you want to come so funny. Lovely to meet you. But it sounds like you're busy. But but so anyway. So this will mean a lot to you is that I was trying to decide how popular professional hockey was there. Because if I, if I don't feel like it's very popular, I won't use an example that I use, I'll find a different one. And so I, I think a lot about is a very famous story that at this point. Now I think every person who's tried to encourage people has brought up at some point, but I've been aware of this story for forever. Wayne Gretzky, a young Wayne Gretzky in his backyard learning to play hockey, you know, back when his father would take boards and make a frame in the backyard, right on the grass, fill the frame with water and let it freeze. So he actually had a surface to practice on in his backyard, which I guess is one of the one of the things you can do when you live in Canada, right? And so he said that the kid was having trouble keeping up with the game, right? Gretzky wasn't really he was chasing, which is a very hockey term chasing. And it's a term that I use about diabetes. And the first time I thought about it about diabetes, I didn't connect it in my head to hockey, I just thought, oh, we're chasing these blood sugars all the time. And then I remembered what Wayne Gretzky's Dad told him to help him Stop chasing, he said, and you probably are aware this, he said, you know, you got to skate to where the puck is going not to where it is. Yep, yeah. Right. And so, once you gave Wayne the vision to see where the play was headed, or where the puck was headed, he, he moved himself to where the puck was going. And so now he's in real time with the play, not always behind it. And that's how I talk about bolusing about, you know, I'll tell people, there's a million different ways to say it, but lately I've been saying, you know, it's like a time travel movie, nothing you're doing right now is affecting right now. It's for later, and so anything that's happening to you now was set in motion in the past, so when you're using insulin now, it's really for later Yep. Right. That kind of an idea. And, and then I would usually say something about Wayne Gretzky, but it's very possible that I was thinking like, maybe the people in Atlanta I'll be like, hockey. What? I might do something else.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:50
In Atlanta. Yeah. You think so? Probably not,

Scott Benner 1:03:53
but the stars are still in Dallas, right? Oh, yes. Okay. But is the are the Thrashers in Atlanta? Maybe my gosh,

Carrie 1:04:00
I don't think they still are.

Scott Benner 1:04:03
Now keep up with hockey. Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:06
I'm just a caps fan. You know,

Scott Benner 1:04:08
and, and your son plays your older son.

Carrie 1:04:11
Yes, he's 16.

Scott Benner 1:04:12
What's the goal here? Did you want to play in college? Are you being assaulted? Do you need to call

Carrie 1:04:19
Mike? Oh, shoot my dog. Oh my gosh, Brody. He probably Oh, he's workers outside. 100%

Scott Benner 1:04:26
sounded like he said what when you said Brody.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:32
Oh, Mike, I

Scott Benner 1:04:32
was waiting for you to go, buddy. I'm recording the podcast. Can you be quiet? Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:38
Hey, keep it down in there.

Scott Benner 1:04:40
We're so close to being done. Don't worry about it. It's fine. I was just gonna ask you if your son's trying to play in college, but I don't

Carrie 1:04:48
know. I don't think so. Because he's just I mean, he just he's played since he was like four years old. And and he plays for his high school team now and he plays for a club. And he's just enjoying it. You know, while he while he's still in school,

Scott Benner 1:05:06
well, you're a bomb to fly to Dallas. So you can play hockey because there's got to be an ice rink in Washington somewhere.

Carrie 1:05:11
There's plenty. But yeah, this is a tournament and unfortunately, he plays travel. So, yeah, we've been up and down the East Coast for sure. If

Scott Benner 1:05:24
I would, if I had one thing I could say to every person who's in charge of travel organizations for any sport, it would be stop making people fly all over the country to play youth sports. Not enough.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:35
Ah, yeah. Thank you. I

Unknown Speaker 1:05:36
agree. Not necessary. Yes.

Scott Benner 1:05:39
I probably said it here before, but my son's always chosen, where he plays baseball with very basic rules. Is it affordable? Will he play? Is it close to our house? Those are pretty much the rules we would followed for a very long time.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:55
Absolutely. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:05:57
Yeah. I mean, and listen, and if you were one of those people who was you know, gonna get drafted by the capitals? You wouldn't, you wouldn't have to go show them they'd find you. It'd be okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:05
Right. Right. Exactly. There's,

Scott Benner 1:06:07
there's no six, seven kids skating around in Washington right now playing it a semi pro level that the NHL is not aware of,

Carrie 1:06:14
I can guarantee you there's all of the moms and dads that think that their kids are going pro or not in this area. And I can tell you that right now.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:23
Do you make little people in your area?

Unknown Speaker 1:06:27
Oh, God,

Carrie 1:06:29
we have, you know, we have a ton of different a ton of different leagues and teams throughout the area, but they're just not at the caliber of the Northeast.

Scott Benner 1:06:44
It's a random thing to be a professional athlete. I am Yeah, by the way, being a hockey mom is like extra,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:52
extra, so

Scott Benner 1:06:53
you have to wear like actual, like outdoor clothing to hockey practice and stuff like that right to stay warm inside?

Carrie 1:06:59
Well, I mean, no, it's um, it's Jesus. It is. You know, they have a warming room and then but inside the rig, it's pretty chilly. So you, you know, hats, gloves, hand heater, hand warmers, seat warmers, things like that. But the new nice new rinks have all like have those heaters hanging from the ceiling. So you can? Well that's where your money's

Scott Benner 1:07:25
going, by the way there. There you go. Yeah, you're down to go to Dallas and buying heaters with the money. cheap. Yeah, I have to say there was a time as I'm being a bit of a hypocrite my son's done a couple of travel things. But we really did limit I think he only traveled twice, maybe far away. But what once was in Atlanta in the summer. And the second game of a doubleheader, I had resolved myself to the fact that he was probably going to die from the heat from the heat. And I was standing next to a telephone pole, like sucking in my gut shipping, shimmying around the pole as the sun moved around the Earth trying to stay in the little bit of shade that this telephone pole was making, because I thought at least one of us should live through this. It was so incredibly hot. It's I can't even imagine it was terrible, really, really terrible. When the game was over. We went you know, we had rented a car. And in the back of the car was a cooler full of, you know what it started out as ice at the beginning of the day, but it was just at the end. And it was freezing cold water still in the cooler. And my son walks over. And he used to be a modest, more modest person at that age, he came over to the back of the car just started taking off with clothing in the driveway. He didn't care. Like you know, he's like, I have to take this off. I have to like it was like a bad movie, like gonna die gonna die. And he says, and he says, Can I take this water and I was like, sure. And I thought I thought for sure he's gonna reach his hands into it to try to cool his body off and he grabbed it, lifted it over his head and dumped head. And when as the water cascaded down his filthy, sweaty body and splashed all over me. But one thing that I remember was that the water splashing on me it was hot. This freezing cold water went over his body and it warmed it up as it went, Oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:09:04
you are kidding. And I

Scott Benner 1:09:06
actually said I was a Hey, let's um, let's get you back to the hotel. I think people who live around here are accustomed to a different heat. So

Unknown Speaker 1:09:18
yeah, and not only that, but it's humid. It's terrible

Scott Benner 1:09:20
was one of the worst days of my life. It was really bad. Anyway, you were terrific. I realized as we were talking, I don't know if we talked about anything that you wanted to talk about. But

Carrie 1:09:30
no, we're good. Like, I got plenty.

Scott Benner 1:09:34
Excellent. I'm so glad. Or sometimes I'm just like, ah, she was chatty. And there was nice things to talk about. You have interesting life and stuff. And I thought let's just find out about that.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:43
You're good at what you do. You're very kind.

Scott Benner 1:09:46
Well, thank you so much. I'm gonna say

Unknown Speaker 1:09:49
thank you.

Scott Benner 1:09:50
Thank you. Well, first off, I'm very sorry Carrie for losing your episode, but at least they found it felt really excited when I found it, then I felt bad about it. And then excited again. So you know, I just kind of bounced back and forth. Anyway, here's some new music. It's better, right? Hey, and I want to remind you to go to the T one D exchange at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Fill out that survey, go do a good thing. That helps everyone living with Type One Diabetes. And hey, something else I mentioned at the beginning juice boxers, right. So it turns out, it's more of a thing than I knew it was. And we're approaching 3 million downloads of the podcast, which I'm super excited about. And I didn't want to do a giveaway, which I mentioned in an episode or so ago. Because I don't know, giveaway seems so 1991. So I made a juice boxer shirt, and I put it on sale on the merchants page. For as absolutely cheap as I can make it, the price will go up when we get to 3 million. That's my point is, that sounded weird, as I was saying, like, hey, when we get to $3 million, the price is gonna go up, what I should have said is until we hit 3 million downloads, the price is going to be $5 off as absolutely cheap as I can make it. So it's a really cool little black t shirt says juice box or in a circle. And then bold in the middle. Somebody said it kind of reminded them of Iron Man's thing, but you'll have to go check it out. Is it Juicebox podcast.com. And then up at the top, there's links and you just want to click on merge. You'll see it right at the top of the merge page. I got myself one. That's how much I liked it. I didn't know you guys called yourself, juice boxers. But I think that's cool. And I appreciate that you're so excited about the show. And I really appreciate how much you share it with everyone else because that's where the growth comes from. I certainly don't have a budget for marketing. And that we went from 1 million to 2 million so quickly. And then from 2 million to 3 million even more quickly than that is crazy. I mentioned it recently. I think we hit 4 million inside of this calendar year still. So things are just really exploding. It's because you guys are so kind. I'm sorry even have to charge you for the shirt, but it's just covering my cost and shipping. So I hope you like it. And if you don't like it, don't buy one. I mean for God's sakes don't buy a shirt you don't want not that I have to tell you that But anyway, I bought one. I paid full price by the way. It's really the only option. I would have given it to myself for free, but I just don't have that ability. So I paid for. This is really into the weeds found the T shirt thing. Anyway, thanks so much for supporting the podcast for listening. One more time. I'm really sorry Carrie, I lost your episode for so long. We'll be back next week with more episodes of the Juicebox Podcast.