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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Episode 451 of the Juicebox Podcast.

So sometimes I struggle to describe the episodes here in the beginning. And when I do, it's mostly because so much happened, that I don't know how to encapsulate it. This is going to be one of them. You're about to hear Mike, Mike's an adult. He is a father, he's a husband, he has type one diabetes. And the best I can say is, this is a story of him growing up and living with type one. I think it's incredibly interesting and valuable. I do not know how to put it into a sentence. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan are becoming bold with insulin.

If you've been hearing about those diabetes pro tip episodes, you can find out more about them at diabetes pro tip.com, where they begin in your podcast player at Episode 210. There's also information about the defining diabetes shows afterdark episodes and so much more at Juicebox podcast.com.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo hypo Penn. Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. This episode is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. And you can find out more at Contour Next one.com Ford slash juice box there's a lot going on at that link. It is well worth your time.

Mike Sasser 1:58
My name is Mike sasser and I've been a type one diabetic for coming up on 25 years.

Scott Benner 2:04
How old are you, Mike?

Mike Sasser 2:05
I am 3838.

Scott Benner 2:09
So you were 13. And you were diagnosed?

Unknown Speaker 2:11
Yeah. And how old are you? Turn 14 just turned four? Just

Scott Benner 2:16
14? Okay, we'll say 14. How you have children? How old are they?

Mike Sasser 2:20
So I have a 12 year old who thinks she's 17. A eight year old who think she's five and a seven year old boy who? I don't know what he thinks.

Scott Benner 2:35
I'm sure he doesn't think much of anything. Yeah. Give me one second because you're, I'm gonna check your voice that you know, it might get sorry. It's working. I just said I wanted to check into my ears. I think in my ears. You're a little low. But on the recording. You're good.

Unknown Speaker 2:49
Okay, sounds good. So

Scott Benner 2:50
I'll turn my turn my ears up a little bit. So the reason I asked about the age of your children is I was wondering if you are concerned that they might get type one.

Mike Sasser 3:01
So, No, I'm not. And specifically, because they're all adopted, which, which doesn't mean they won't get it. But if they get it, it won't be my fault.

Scott Benner 3:14
Mike's like, I can step back from that one and just go Hey, what a coincidence.

Unknown Speaker 3:17
Yeah.

Scott Benner 3:19
Oh, that's nice. How many? How many should give Three? Three children? Yep. You know, I'm adopted. Right,

Unknown Speaker 3:25
Mike? Oh, I didn't know that.

Scott Benner 3:27
Like, you gotta listen all the episodes, not just some of them. So yeah, no, no, I

Unknown Speaker 3:31
like

Scott Benner 3:33
what led to adoption. Did you just want to adopt? Were you having trouble conceiving? How'd that happen?

Mike Sasser 3:39
Yeah, both actually. So my family's my wife's family. And I had a history of infertility. And my, my father actually is adopted as well. So when my wife and I got serious, my girlfriend time, and I got serious about family. We just kind of had fairly frank conversations on if we couldn't get pregnant, would we be willing to adopt? And both of our answers were Yes. And five years into marriage. We weren't getting pregnant. And so we just decided All right, let's let's do this. So we adopted all three of our children through the foster system here in California.

Scott Benner 4:23
That's really lovely. But because you wanted children you could never really enjoy the freedom and the great feeling that came with not being able to get pregnant and having sex.

Unknown Speaker 4:35
It's funny.

Mike Sasser 4:37
I joke with a lot of my friends who you know they've their wives have birth children that when we brought our daughter home or first starter home, we were able to

Unknown Speaker 4:49
raise resume,

Mike Sasser 4:50
you and each other intimately that same night where they had to, they had to wait, you know, a

Scott Benner 4:56
little while at least, your celebration is definitely different than most The virus that's for sure, right?

Unknown Speaker 5:01
That's exactly right.

Scott Benner 5:04
Do you feel okay, Is everything all right? Are you wearing a diaper? What's happening?

Unknown Speaker 5:10
Why is that? I don't I don't get any of that that

Mike Sasser 5:11
none of that's funny because I don't understand it. Yeah. Trust me,

Scott Benner 5:14
it wouldn't be funny if you understood it. Oh my gosh. So diagnosed that 14. Was there any diabetes in the family line?

Mike Sasser 5:26
Yeah. So none that we knew of my dad was adopted, and we had no family history. No, none, medical or otherwise. So, it turns out here the last number of years, my dad has been able to track down his biological family, and there is a significant history of diabetes there. But for us back then it was totally out of the blue. Maybe,

Scott Benner 5:52
maybe your dad's not adopted, maybe they sold him for insulin.

Unknown Speaker 5:55
It's possible Oh,

Scott Benner 5:58
my gosh. Well, you know, it's, I feel your pain on that. Because anytime that I'm involved in a medical situation, the doctors likes to tell me about your medical history. And I was like, I I'm the first one. So I don't know, you know, and that really does. You know, it's sometimes I think it hurts because you don't have any preconceived notions, but sometimes I think it helps because you don't have any preconceived notions, you kind of learn things clearheaded Lee, right, but I know race situations, it would be nice that just have an uncle to tell you like, Oh, yeah, hey, here's how this, how this has gone and give you a little bit of a head start. But that's Yeah,

Mike Sasser 6:37
yeah. And like you said, on the flip side, you know, if you if you have a family history of cancer, or something like that, I feel like, you're going to be looking over your shoulder, you know, especially as you get older, like, oh, when's that? When's that cancer coming? So I know, there's probably positives and negatives to it. You know, we have my mom's side. And then obviously, I had had my dad, so me not being adopted, the immediate family, medical history was available. Just nothing, you know, past that, at least on my father's side.

Scott Benner 7:09
So 25 years ago, your regular an MPH.

Mike Sasser 7:15
Yeah, so I took both long lasting throughout, twice a day. And then you know, short, short acting insulin, generally, four times a day. So I would combine the morning and night shot together. So minimum of four shot today. Why I was supposed to take though most of the time I did not take especially if your high school

Scott Benner 7:39
really tell me. Yeah, that.

Unknown Speaker 7:42
Would that.

Scott Benner 7:43
Tell me about that? You just ignoring it? Or what are you doing? Yeah.

Mike Sasser 7:48
So and also sorry, my voice is super raspy. We're here in the Central Valley in California, and we've had tons of wildfires. And the smoke is just really gotten to me. Well, you're the only one that knows

Scott Benner 8:01
what your voice is supposed to sound like to everyone else. Like they just think you have a sexy voice. So let it be.

Mike Sasser 8:06
Because makes me sound like I'm at 88 instead of 38. So no. Yeah, when I got diagnosed in 96. So like a little quick rundown, you know, everybody's got most everybody's got fairly traumatic story. My, my grandma, who my grandparents, we were very close to as a family, and she had gotten cancer late 95, early 96. And so she was dying from that sometime in those few months. I developed diabetes but or developed threat word. It kicked in, and but my family missed all the classic symptoms, you know, drinking like a racehorse and peeing like a racehorse. And then she died early February. And then two months, two days later, her husband, my grandfather passed away, more or less, you know, broken heart. And at the same time, during that stretch I had been will just say violently dislocating my shoulder sports injury. And so I've been in and out of the hospital. I had, I think, in a matter of three months, I dislocated it like three or four times. And so anyway, I was having all these symptoms, but at the same time, a lot of crazy life was happening around me. So my parents mostly thought that it was just how I was reacting, you know, Grandpa, Grandma dying and all this medical trauma to my body. And in all my grades went from A's and B's all the way down to C's. Teachers were calling, wondering what's going on and the explanation was, you know, life's just rough right now. So In May, right before I graduated, actually, the night before graduation, I went in for a pre op for my surgery for my shoulder the following day. And when the nurse was drawing the blood out, she gave me a really, really funny look. And, you know, so I did, I didn't know anything different. And so my parents took me home and I'm probably within half an hour, we get a call from the family physician saying get down here immediately went down to his office, he's like, you know, talking to my parents, your son's diabetic, yada, yada, you got to get them into the ICU immediately. And so, you know, how to sugar of it was like 741 when they found me, and so, you know, ICU for a day, and then in the pediatric ward her nine more days. And I don't know, I kind of have a pretty easygoing personality anyway. So, although that was really, really scary, I didn't realize the gravity of what had happened to me. Yeah. Or what it was going to look like for the rest of my life. And so, you know, for the first few months, you know, doing all those shots and all those testing, it just sucks. And, you know, fast forward now I'm going into high school. I didn't have a whole lot of friends go with me from junior high to high school. So in a way, it was cutting, starting new with new crowds. And I didn't want to be that weird guy was no different than everybody else.

Scott Benner 11:43
Like, you just want to be there for your own reasons. That's all. I'm dying to understand what the nurse sawle drawing the blood, like, do you think there was Skittles swimming in your blood or

Mike Sasser 11:54
something? super thick, you know, just inhumanly thick. Something was definitely wrong. And so anyway, yeah. So I mean, that was, that's kind of the setup for just a high school of wanting to conceal it. And, and just not taking care of myself. And I mean, I have a sense apologize to my parents, because they, you know, they were on me, you know, how are you testing? Are you taking shots and averages live? Like, yeah, testing. You know, you remember, you know, before many dinners, my mom's like, Alright, go and go in and test before dinner. I go in my room, sit down for like, two, three minutes and just come back out. And you know, how's your sugar? Oh,

Scott Benner 12:37
it's fine. So So, Mike, let me jump

Mike Sasser 12:41
is pretty bad.

Scott Benner 12:42
Yeah, let me jump in here. So I understand if it struck you that you wanted to conceal it. At school? What I don't get is then like, I mean, you went into the room, you did the whole thing. Like you were in there, like why not test your blood sugar? What was your you remember your thoughts around that?

Mike Sasser 13:00
No, all I could say is my personality. I'm, I'm ridiculously stubborn. And I think I just at some point made up my mind that you know, as a 14 year old, without the the wisdom of age, going, you know, I'm just, I'm just not gonna deal with this, like, I'm fine. You know, of course, I feel horrible. But I think you know, if you're if your sugars are running high for a long time, your body just starts getting used to being uncomfortable. And you know, you you feel normal at 250 when you shouldn't, yeah. So you know, I still take shots to bring it down from like, crazy highs and stuff like that, but it was just very undisciplined, very undisciplined.

Unknown Speaker 13:46
I have a couple

Mike Sasser 13:47
and I didn't change my eating habits really, either. Okay.

Scott Benner 13:50
Well, I have a couple questions, I guess. So. Let me let me kind of like rummaging around in my brain for a second. I wonder if you could tell me, did you have any long term feelings for what the impact was on your health? And if you did, did you care or like, What, did you have any thoughts around that at all?

Unknown Speaker 14:09
No, because

Mike Sasser 14:11
I didn't know any other diabetics. You know, part of it's like a rebellion, right? If somebody tells you, Hey, this is what's gonna happen, you're like, well, it's not gonna it's probably that teenage boy, Romano or machismo or whatever, whatever you want to call it. So it was like a denial of what, you know, the future could possibly hold and not really believing it would happen to me. That's pretty athletic, pretty capable. So you know, I just didn't see it coming. I didn't, didn't have foresight at all.

Scott Benner 14:44
You're making me wonder. I'm actually making a note here. Like I'm going to try to find a psychologist to talk to I'm like so interested in that concept of it can't happen to me around you know, smoking or this or anything like I like who buys a pack of cigarettes, smokes everyone and conch believes. I've heard that this might not be good for you. But I mean, that's got to be for other people.

Mike Sasser 15:06
You know, it's a it's a really Yeah, I'd love to hear and answer. Your question I kind of wonder is, is how do you teach children perspective? Or teens perspective? You know, it's like, some things you have to live out and learn. And no matter of people telling you matters, apparently. No, I

Scott Benner 15:27
mean, do you think this is why people like a couple 100 years ago, just the punch their kids? Do it? study?

Mike Sasser 15:34
I think I think people still want to do it, they just know that they're gonna get thrown in prison for it.

Scott Benner 15:39
We've, we've, we've legislated the kid punching out of parenting, you know, I mean, the frustration, I mean, being serious the frustration of saying something to somebody and having them just be like, Oh, yeah, and yes, and you to death and walking away is one thing. But you know, around medical stuff, it really is something very different. And it's funny that diabetes fits the bill for life threatening. But I don't know, because you do it at home, it doesn't happen in a hospital, like for whatever reason, you can get away with it feeling like, Oh, you know, it's not, it's not going to be that big of a deal. Or maybe it's just because the impact, maybe you just explained it, really, maybe it's because the the real serious impact won't happen for years. And because your body does sort of adjust the feeling higher, I'm helping. I'm helping a kid right now. It's funny, she's probably the age you were when you were diagnosed. And, you know, she was very accustomed to the mid to hundreds. And, you know, for the first couple of days, you know, I'd get a note that was like, she feels really low. And she was like, 120. And I was like, Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. Like, that's, it's gonna be like that. And then it only took a few days for and now suddenly, if her blood sugar gets over 180 she's complaining that she doesn't feel well.

Mike Sasser 16:54
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty amazing how how well, your body adapts now quickly, it learns.

Unknown Speaker 16:59
It's crazy. But

Mike Sasser 17:01
you know, I mean, I think I think part of it is is for for young kids are also like, teenage in junior high age, how important it is for them to get into community with other diabetics. I was so isolated. And so there was no accountability. And no, like, you know, like, you can talk to your friends about something at that age that you don't want to talk to an adult or a parent about?

Unknown Speaker 17:29
Yeah, of course. Yeah, I

Mike Sasser 17:31
would just, you know, for anybody in that age range that is diagnosed is really connected into community. And knowing that it's okay, knowing that, you know, you're not a pariah. I think it's really important for us, I mean, probably important for everybody. I guess,

Scott Benner 17:50
to have like, a sounding board to write like, someone who we're sure has similar experiences. Where did you find that? Or did you?

Mike Sasser 17:59
I didn't really, you know, I think so really what what changed, unfortunately, changed my outlook on PBS was, was just starting to realize a lot of the effects of it. I think, so I've had significant diabetic retinopathy in both my eyes and have had surgery, I think four surgeries, maybe five. And one your eye? On my eyes. Yeah, my left eye is is good. And, and I can see 2020 with glasses, and in my right eye, unfortunately, and the first surgery, the while removing scar tissue that the doctor accidentally ripped the retina, and is basically Game Over in my right eye after that, so I'm blind in my right eye. You know, and, and, you know, and then just other neuron neuropathy issues. Really like, Oh, crap, I need to, I really need to start taking care of this. And then then probably the most credit goes to just getting married. And my wife, you know, is like, and then I want you, I want you to be around to pay me

Scott Benner 19:13
100% Yeah, so I want my wife to be around to the baby.

Unknown Speaker 19:19
And then,

Mike Sasser 19:20
and then also, a real big shout out goes to just technology. So the first five years through high school and into college, it was on injections, and you know, like, didn't want to deal with it. And part of it was like the inconvenience of it, which sounds ridiculous now. When I was, I think five years into it, I got my first insulin pump. And now like totally changed my world. And you know, every iteration of new insulin pump and CGM everything has just gotten better and better and better. So today, you know, 20, almost 25 years into it. My diabetes can troll. anyone sees her better than they ever have been. mostly due to technology and, and, you know, the fact that I want to see my kids grow up and get married and hold a grandbaby.

Scott Benner 20:12
So when at the beginning of I mean, at the beginning of the Reaper coming to collect, you just were like, Oh, geez, I guess I'm not going to be the one that gets away with this.

Unknown Speaker 20:21
Yeah,

Mike Sasser 20:22
yeah. Well, and again, like I, I never had a community of diabetic so it wasn't like, acknowledging that other people will or won't. It was, you know, like, single soldier, I'm just going about this alone. And so yeah, when those no those things started to hit, it was like, Well, that was stupid. I guess I should have, you know, should have taken care of this. That was five, six years previous.

Scott Benner 20:49
Let me ask you about doctor, the doctor's visits in that time, like, you know, I'm, I'm always a little stunned, because a lot of people tell that story of like, Oh, my parents, like, did you test you know, did you give yourself your insulin? And you're like, yes, and then they go, okay, but there is a report card at the doctor's office that tells you that that probably didn't happen. But how does how does that fail? Like, in your perspective, how does that checkpoint fail people? Well,

Unknown Speaker 21:15
my,

Mike Sasser 21:16
the first doctor I got when I got diagnosed, was in our local area. Apparently, one of the the best endocrinologist, there was one of the heart. Now, the hard part was it I think this is gonna sound weird, no, no matter how I say it, but so he was he's Chinese, and he would go to China to visit often. Which is all great and good. But when he would come back, like his accent, his English was so hard to understand. I have to ask my parents, but I honestly think we're all I had no idea what you're saying. And you're trying to catch up and be like, I you know, and so obviously, we get numbers. And you know, we get our a one c back and, you know, average of you know, like, whatever, 250 bucks, or whatever it was. And it was a era we got, we got to try better. We got to do better. So I don't know, I think there was a disconnect. Obviously, obviously, there's a disconnect in there somewhere. And

Scott Benner 22:22
what did you say? What do you say the average blood sugar was like, 250. Yeah, probably that 250. That's an A one C of 10.3. By the way, I went insane. Let me let me shout out real quick. One of the listeners, who is a coder who who made a one C and blood glucose calculator for the podcast, it's at Juicebox Podcast, comm forward slash conversion, or you can get it on the main page with the menu, but I just went to it typed in 250 mg dl and it told me you're a one C is 10.3. And by the way, if you were in Europe, you'd be a 13.9. And yeah, anyway, insane. Yeah, handy to have. But I want to go backwards a little bit. As I plug my a one seat calculator into your conversation. Don't worry, you're making me think of a childhood vacation where we went to the Great Smoky Mountains and spent like a week. And when we came home, my dad spoke like Tex Ritter for like a month. Yeah. And yeah, and I don't believe he was doing it on purpose. I don't think he was like doing that Madonna thing, you know what I mean? Like, I think he just picked up an accent. And that's it. It's an interesting idea that you could go home to visit somebody and come back and just be more difficult to understand. But still, the number doesn't lie. So does that. Does that mean? That that number doesn't mean something to your parents? Or, but that even That's insane. Cuz your dad, your dad would know about this right? Or no?

Mike Sasser 23:52
Yeah, I mean, part of it is kind of a foggy memory going way back then. You know, I mean, I'm not that old. But that was a few years ago. Um, you know, my, my dad was a firefighter for, I don't know, two and a half decades. And so I think there was like this. This idea of, we kind of know what to do, but not specifically for this sort of thing. Like, in general, I can take care of medical stuff. And I don't know, I mean, I think part of it was to, you know, I was still involved in sports, although those were kind of crumbling, as my health crumbled. You know, puberty, just life in general. And, and, again, I probably would go back just to the fact that we were alone and didn't have a community to really, you know, tell my parents, you know, what the heck's going on here? Yeah, your son is not doing well. And just general ignorance, you know, like, I kind of find it little hard to believe, but apparently in my high school, which I don't know, I think we're close to 4000 kids, you know, I was the only one who was supposed to go to the nurse or taking my shots or whatever it was. So the nurse at the school didn't really have a good understanding what it is which, you know, like, your last or second last podcast about talking to people about diabetes. Type One Diabetes is really good, because, you know, a lot of people have general knowledge, but not specific knowledge about it. Yeah. And so if they don't have specific knowledge, they don't really know what's dangerous, or what not, and what to look for and what not to

Scott Benner 25:36
know. I mean, I'm not I'm not coming down on your family, I just, I'm really trying to, I'm trying to dig away at the, at the reasonings, and maybe other people can recognize it in their lives or, or even practitioners listening can understand that whatever, you know, whatever. Mike's doctor said to Mike and his parents didn't lead to Mike having a better a one C, or any kind of outcome or anything like that. And you see yourself, it's interesting, the way you dug into it, your dad's probably a more blue collar kind of guy, like, we'll just get it done. And you are athletic. So you appear vital. And the only mean, like, so it's just like, I'm fine. Look at me, it's almost like when the thin person has a heart attack, everyone's like, how did that happen? Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, then people can eat poorly, too. You know, like, it's, it's interesting, I literally think of a friend of my parents growing up. And the father was just, he was a real and active and man, he died in his 40s. And he ate terribly. And I think he was actually a victim of the fact that his body didn't put on weight, because he just thought, like, the rules of nutrition didn't apply to him. You know, and, and so maybe when you're just active and young, you just think the rules of how diabetes works don't apply to you. Or Yeah, you know, it doesn't even make you want to take the time to figure it out. But it's a different way. No,

Mike Sasser 27:02
there's probably something else I have a big streak of, I guess, anti-authoritarianism, I don't know if that's a word. Check it out.

Scott Benner 27:09
It is now is now if everybody

Mike Sasser 27:12
tells me to do something, I generally want to push back against it. So you know, if I had doctors who were saying you need to do this, that this, you know, you need to be filling out your little logbook for everything you're eating, I'm going there's no way in Heck, I'm gonna be there. Mostly because you've told me to do it. Which is not a great recipe for success in life in general. But

Scott Benner 27:36
watch the tramcar please. No, thank you.

Mike Sasser 27:40
I mean, there's there. Yeah. So another big help for me was, you know, when I met the time, I got my insulin pump. I switched insurances, and I gotten a new a new endocrinologist who I, I had, I gotta think now, she's been with me for 20 some odd years, but her personality was, you know, this is your thing, you deal with it, I'll help you, I'll coach you. But you know, you're not a kid, even though I still was in a lot of ways, right? You take care of it. And so it, it was a, I suppose, all throughout high school and into college. It was like other people wanting to take care of me. And push back against that. And then, you know, there was a get along with, you know, getting married along with seeing the issues that were coming up. I was like, Oh, crap, I better take care of this. I gotta, you know, because if I don't, I'm gonna die. Nobody else is gonna die. If I don't take care of this. Yeah, it'd be me. So anyway, yeah. Well,

Scott Benner 28:43
it's interesting, too, that when your wife made the same demand, you didn't feel that way.

Mike Sasser 28:48
Well, that's not necessarily true. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 28:52
Let's ruin your marriage.

Mike Sasser 28:54
Honestly, in a lot of people fight a lot of marriages, they fight about sex and money. And our fight has always been about my health. And especially those first few years it was it was not good. And many fights many fights over that. But

Scott Benner 29:13
I'm just laughing to myself, Mike, because I conjured and I apologize already, but I conjured up an image in my mind of you and your wife having very lovely sex while she yelled at you about your blood sugar. how's this going? What's your blood sugar? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 29:31
Jesus, one thing that ever happened.

Mike Sasser 29:34
You know, she probably frustrated if my blood sugar was low during the middle of it. Yeah. Um,

Unknown Speaker 29:40
no.

Unknown Speaker 29:42
You know, I mean,

Mike Sasser 29:43
she wants me to be around. And, you know,

Scott Benner 29:46
I gotta be honest with him. Like, I want you to stick around because it sounds like you're getting laid a lot. So just would be a damn shame if that came to an end for you.

Mike Sasser 29:57
I don't disagree. No, I, you know, again, she just wanted the best for me. And I'm sure part of that is, you know, she wants the best for us. Yeah. But a big part of it is, you know, the best for me. And, and, you know, she's seeing me go through these eye surgeries, and, you know, and all the all the complications that goes with that stuff. And you know, and then as I accrued a couple more medical issues moving on, I was just like, Hey, man, you know, you really got to take care of this. And her biggest frustration is speaking on her behalf would just be, you know, the lack of me wanting to take care of myself. You know, which ties into who I am as a person and my youth age. personality. So, anyway, yeah,

Scott Benner 30:51
well, your management style Now, obviously, is different. You started the pumper act in the college ages, what do you think would have been different? If like, if you were diagnosed today versus when you were diagnosed? You think, do you think like, I mean, how much is like, how did you even find the podcast? Like, what is it? What is it that's different about your life right now, that would be valuable for people to know?

Mike Sasser 31:14
Well, I mean, a technology played a huge, huge, huge role in me being where I'm at today, physically. And I remember I were, I've been on the Guardian from mini med for I think, coming up on three years, something like that. And then the previous two years, I was on Dexcom. I think it was the G five back then. And that was like mind blowing, health changing, being able to see that little arrow. Yeah. It was like, radically changed the way that I saw my diabetes, what was happening, what wasn't happening, the trends, you know, all that kind of stuff that your listeners, and most of your listeners would know very well. So just the technology made such a huge difference for me in being able to manage. Well. And then also, I said before, I think just the the social aspect of it, knowing people with diabetes, and getting involved with people diabetes, so I think, no, I like how I found your podcast. So I work as a civil engineer, even though I'm not licensed yet. Don't tell anybody.

Unknown Speaker 32:32
No one knows. It'll be fun.

Mike Sasser 32:34
Yeah. So I'm working. I listened to podcasts often. Which again, you know, listening to podcasts while doing math. Right.

Scott Benner 32:47
So if I drive over a bridge in California, and I, I end up three feet shy of the other side, I'll know what happened.

Mike Sasser 32:53
Right? Yeah. So we don't work on public projects. Yeah. So if you're in a private place, and it falls apart, it can be my fault.

Scott Benner 33:02
Can you imagine I'm tumbling to my death from the third floor. My last thought was the engineer was probably listening to a podcast when he did the math on this thing.

Unknown Speaker 33:09
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I listened to a lot of podcasts. And, you know, I

Mike Sasser 33:17
found a lot of the podcasts I found kind of earlier on, it just didn't really connect with me, for whatever reason, and, and I also can, like, switch to podcasts. So no have like, one a day I listened to you one different type. And I have a desire to, in general, help people who are in pain. And, you know, that can kind of tie into some of my, we'll just call it faith based thoughts. But in the desire to help people who are in pain, generally physically, because I have a better understanding of that than then emotional or mental or whatever. And it's like, well, if you're going to do this, you need to really just be outside of yourself and get more reference on people and how they feel and think and what their experiences are. So, I mean, that kind of drove me to the podcast, and then I, I can't remember which one I listened to first, but I had a rule. And the general rule I, if somebody is podcasting about diabetes that doesn't have it, and it kind of irks me automatically. But for whatever reason, I mostly probably your personality, yours doesn't hurt me at all. And

Unknown Speaker 34:39
I guess, you know,

Mike Sasser 34:40
it's probably because I don't feel mothered, and here's my, you know, anti authoritarian again. I feel encouraged by your podcasts and not mothered. Well, there's a number of other ones that just kind of like, well, this is what you should do, and this is how you should do it. So hey, no,

Scott Benner 34:55
no, no, I listened that was really thoughtful and I'm very proud of myself for not stopping You in the middle to proclaim that I have the best diabetes podcast. Because I felt like that's what you were saying you listened to a lot of them, they didn't work out for you. And then you found this when I was like, Oh, this is where I want to be sarcastic right here, but I let it go because you were really thoughtful. I appreciate knowing that and yeah, and and I, I appreciate that it strikes you that way. I don't want to tell anyone to listen. Like let's like, strip all bullshit away for a second right? And let me tell you something, I could take you and 900 other people and fix your blood sugar's by Wednesday. I got I can do it. I know how to do it. I'm good at it, you know, but I don't think there's any benefit to people with type one diabetes for them to be spoken to like that. I just I can see where that would just rub you the wrong way immediately. Not even just because I don't have Type One Diabetes but because like you've been fighting you've been in this fight for so long, and it's not going your way. I can't imagine how infuriating it would be for someone to come along go no no just flip that switch and turn that dial and just let's move that to there. Okay, there you go. Like that would make me want to jump off a building if I if someone did that for me.

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Mike Sasser 38:58
And it's also just the idea that, you know, you could fix it by Thursday, or you know, in a few days or whatever, but you're not going to be there necessarily next year, falling or whatever, you'd

Scott Benner 39:08
screw it up

Unknown Speaker 39:10
to take care of it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 39:11
you know, you'd mess it right back up again, because you have these. So the way I think about it is is it I don't know you can call them like ghosts or you know, just things that aren't true that you think are true about diabetes. And yeah, in a nutshell, Mike. So many people's basil insulin is wrong. And when your basal insulin is not right, nothing else works well, right. And so everything that you see happening isn't real. It wouldn't be happening like that if your basil was correct. And so and what's the one thing that people with diabetes ignore more than anything else? It's their basal insulin. Yeah, they just don't pay. It's like it doesn't matter for some reason. It's fascinating and so on. You know, again, going back to this girl who you know this 14 year old girl who I'm talking with right now, Basil insulins at point four really needs to be point eight. Again, imagine she's got she's got 50% too little basil and so on. Yeah. And so you say, hey, push your basil up. And then every time it's not just tired, it's everyone I've ever spoken to. I can't do that I get low all the time. You want me to give myself more insulin, but I get low? I'm like, No, no, you're getting low, because you don't have enough basal insulin, you're coming in with extra meal Bolus trying to make up for it. The food digests out of your system, the insolence left behind, it crashes you low, you panic, because you don't know what's happening. You eat a bunch of food, you don't cover it, you shoot back up again, you get caught in this loop, it happens constantly. And then I come along and say, Hey, you know what your problem is here, you don't have enough insulin. And their minds just overload. They don't know how to think about that. So even when I put this person that I'm talking about where they needed to be, I've watched them for the last three days. Because of their preconceived notions that are all built on these ghosts, they make the wrong decision at every turn. And now and then it's my then I have to explain over and over again. No, you can't do that. That's not why you got low. This is why you got low. Are you sure? Are you sure? Because what I think is and I'm like, Yeah, I know what you think. But what you think is completely wrong. You know, and so if I were to set it and leave that person alone, they'd screw it back up in three seconds.

Mike Sasser 41:32
Yeah, and that's exactly the story of my life for, for the first I don't know, 10 years of pumping, was having my basil away to hide, you know, to cover. I mean, I'm sorry, that my basil way too low, and cover with these giant bolsters at mealtimes, which, you know, cross my fingers, you know, was, was wrecked enough. And that was a arm wrestle that me and my endocrinologist have had for years and years and years and years. And it took a long time to swing that back around to correct proportions.

Scott Benner 42:07
Yeah. And, but and, and knowing that, and me being around this for so long that I understand that about people. That's why the podcast works, because it's not trying to jam it all down your throat in one hour. Or it's, it's, it's, you have to keep listening. So that it so that I'm my voice is that tapping on the back of your head that makes you one day just go Okay, like, I know, it's not apples to apples, because this isn't management. But I one time got an email from somebody that just said is a very simple email. And it said, okay, you went, I'll get an omni pod. And I was like, what, like, there was nothing else to the email. And I laughed when I read it. Because what I recognized was that he had listened to this podcast for so long that he was finally like, I'll try this pump. I mean, I'll do it. And and it wasn't even. I don't even think it was his decision. At that point. He was just like, Oh my God, I've heard about it enough. I'll give it a shot. And I think that about management to like, one day, you're just going to be like, Oh, my God, I'll Pre-Bolus if this guy will just shut up, you know? So, yeah, 100% Yeah, 100%, you know, and it just takes time and it takes time for it to, to sink in. It's easier when you're dealing with the newer diagnose people are the easiest, because they have no preconceived notions of what this is. So you just tell them do this, and they go, Okay, and then it works. And then they're like, wow, that worked. And that's the

Unknown Speaker 43:34
Yep, yep.

Mike Sasser 43:37
That's all people that are there. The hard part?

Scott Benner 43:39
Yeah. You're you're all thinking you know what you're doing? You don't? Listen, I said all the time. If you know what you're doing, your agency would be in the mid fives, and it would stay there Stabler with very little effort. And that wouldn't be an indication that you know how to use your insulin. That's it. Not that. Well, not that hard. It's incredibly hard. Mike. By the way, the podcast is popular because yeah, it's hard, you know? Yeah, it's,

Mike Sasser 44:05
I mean, no doubt it is, I think, you know, I've been bumping around in the, in the low sixes right around 6.0 for a long time. And I know, for me to get under six, that I'm gonna have to really, you know, start cracking down on step two. And part of me is like, Am I am I okay? where I'm at? Do I want to focus so hard on this one aspect of my life? And which is, you know, important. It's a big part of who I am. And, but it's not all of who I am. So it's hard in a way where it's like, trying to decide how much time you spend on your overall health versus the time you spend living, I suppose I suppose those are obviously tied together, but I'm not sure Just kind of an interesting equation.

Scott Benner 45:01
No, yeah, good point. He really do. That's why that's why I'm I pride myself on taking some of these big concepts, explaining them out over episodes, but also whittling them down to basics. So that in the moment the basics lead you and the episodes, educate the lead. I don't know if that makes sense or not. But yeah, in the end, man, get your basil, right, assess it periodically. Pre-Bolus. And understand the difference between carb impacts its glycemic load and glycemic index. It's the whole game. That's it. And after that, it's timing and amount, use the right amount of insulin at the right time. And you're done. If it's on a if it's on a business card, how to get to it. And I've been on that,

Mike Sasser 45:43
I've been on that the Guardian closed loop system. So that's been a super big helpful thing for me, okay. Because it kind of joke like, it covers a multiple multitude of incorrect, or counting sins. On my side, I should say multiple, but you know, allows me to be a little less specific, exactly right about, you know, the numbers. So

Scott Benner 46:12
now, so you can be more aggressive with the carb count. And then the Guardian can take away the basil, if you've overestimated, is that it?

Mike Sasser 46:19
Yeah. Or flip it can be less, I can give less of a bolus, and it will make and again, not like, you know, here's a, here's a big bowl of ice cream, and I'm gonna take, you know, five units of insulin, not that crazy. But you know, if you're off,

Unknown Speaker 46:37
I don't know, I

Scott Benner 46:38
510 cards, you know, it'll, it'll cover for that. At the very least keep a 250 from happening or something like that. Yeah,

Mike Sasser 46:46
yeah. I mean, you know, I, I'm in range way, way, way, way more than I'm out of range. Yeah. And, you know, also, I think a lot of diabetics will kind of figure out that they, you know, they're if they have a regulated schedule in their life, and that it's a lot easier to take care of, because you know, what to do when to do it? And if you generally, I don't know, maybe this is just for our family. But we have similar meals, over a week or over a month. So you get a good idea of, you know, okay, this meal is going to require more or less, or you know, you can do you kind of get into a it's easier to estimate what you're doing, because you've done it a number of times.

Scott Benner 47:35
I agree with you. I mean, it definitely having a schedule, takes away some of the variability, and it takes away your need to have to, like, guess on the fly. If that and yeah, but I also think that eventually, I mean, maybe I'm wrong. But for me, I've gotten good at guessing on the fly, too. But I also if you really if you heard the conversation a second ago, if you really heard like, when when I thought about like a loop. I was like, Oh yeah, be more aggressive. And you're like, you could even be less aggressive. I was like, ah, and that migrate, there's the difference between ardens five, five and your six? Oh, like probably the truth.

Mike Sasser 48:14
You know, it is yeah, it is 100%.

Scott Benner 48:17
It's mindset, it's just about like, I'm going to, I'm going to you know, I used to talk about this more years ago, but in my opinion, be bold means that I'd rather get low once a month, because I was too aggressive than be high every day because I wasn't right. You know, and so, and, you know, also that doesn't mean just like start using more insulin it again, it's basil Pre-Bolus glycaemic low glycemic index understand foods, you know, the difference between 1010 carbs, excuse me of watermelon and 10 carbs have a baked potato, different impact. Right? Right. And so you can't just count 10 carbs and put the insulin and then later go, like, I don't understand what happened. Because what happened was, is that some foods don't punch at the same weight as others and you have to address to know that, you know,

Mike Sasser 49:08
yeah, and then I also have, you know, so hey, here's more issues. I'm the only and so I got like eight years ago or something like that I got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. And so what I can eat for that has been a big effect on the diabetes side. And then a few years ago, I got diagnosed with gastroparesis, and just don't know if you're familiar with it. Yeah. So it's just been that's been real trick to start learning, because things are digesting a lot longer than twice as long really, then would have normally. So all of that kind of has been. Well, let's

Scott Benner 49:51
balance it. Yeah, dude, your six is impressive, given all the the roadblocks, honestly, you know, the gastroparesis is amazing. is a big sticking point in obviously talking about being aggressive, because you could what I mean, in short order for people, you could eat something, and it might digest the way you expect, or you could eat something and digestion doesn't happen for a really long time. And if you put your insulin in and the digestion doesn't happen, you get low. Is that basic? Right?

Mike Sasser 50:20
Yeah, yeah, Correct. Correct. Yeah. Well, that's such, which is why I think why the, you know, the closed loop system has has

Unknown Speaker 50:31
helped

Mike Sasser 50:34
me do it again, kind of covers the covers the unexpected digestion timeline. Yeah. But you know, even with that, like, depending on what food you eat, you know, naturally, you know, things with loss of oils or grease are going to take longer to digest. So there's still a good amount of, you know, planning, okay, what am I eating? How long is this gonna take? What do I take now? Do I take something later? You know, all those sorts of things factor in when we just like they would with anybody?

Scott Benner 51:05
Yeah, really? Well, two things. First of all, I genuinely believe that algorithm based pumping is going to save countless people with type one diabetes. Like just it's once you have the settings, right. You know, you could I can use it yesterday, Arden had Arden eighth. And this goes into my second part, which is diet. So Arden ate something in the middle of the day yesterday, that was just really difficult to deal with. And it pushed her blood sugar up to like that 181 90 range. And it's, it didn't matter how much insulin I gave her. I must have been six hours at 180. And so and we were aggressive through those six hours, which is probably how I stopped it from being 300 to be perfect, right? Yeah, right. Yep. And you would expect after that, that overnight, she's going to be low. Except that because of the algorithm that's managing Arden at this point, I can see how it managed her basil overnight. And it's fascinating. Like, I'm genuinely fascinating how she needed insulin in places didn't need it in other places, and her blood sugar last night. So you know, coming down out of this one, I got her here at 176 at 11:45pm. Right. But by two in the morning, she's 116. And I birth by three in the morning, she's 81. And she was 81 to 95 all the way up till noon. And that's that's, that's while everyone was sleeping, and coming out of a stubborn high because of a diet choice that used a lot of insulin. So yeah, it's just you mean that? Everyone who can afford it? Just try it. You know, try that try one thing, right? Yeah, gotta be like, man,

Unknown Speaker 52:54
we gotta

Mike Sasser 52:56
we gotta figure out how to make I mean, shoot insulin accessible to everybody. It's ridiculous. And then, you know, these these great tools, I don't know, whatever. Now we can get into politics and talk forever about what's wrong.

Scott Benner 53:10
There's obvious stuff is wrong? Well, but and then the other problem. I see I struggle to call it a problem, because I think at the base of what this podcast is about, it's the idea that if you know how to use insulin, you can manage your diabetes well. And an extension of that is you could probably eat anything you wanted, if you knew how to use the insulin for it. I think sometimes people hear that and think, oh, that's, you know, great, like, I'll just eat cake forever. But I don't, I don't mean that I've never meant like, just eat terribly all the time. But at the same point, like some people are going to eat in a less healthy way than others. And that shouldn't preclude those people from not having high blood sugars. Right, right. So there's obviously you can make different diet choices that will make your insulin use less, and that will change everything for the better. But at the same time, I'm not into telling people what to do. And I don't like the idea that Oh, just because this person eats I don't know like more processed food than probably they should what they don't get to live healthy, you know with their insulin like that doesn't make sense to me. So the the basis of the podcast has always been you can eat what you want, if you know how to use insulin. And at the same time, I'm going to tell you I know how to use insulin, right? Yeah, yep. A macaroni and cheese out of a box. Crushed Arden yesterday. And and most people would not have had the nerve to throw in as much as long as I did once it got out of hand. So you know a lot of Boston Yeah, it's just it's it's not real. Like it's I can't give her I can't there's other parts that I can give her. That wouldn't do that to her. But it's it's I mean, it's it's in a box. There's cheating here.

Mike Sasser 54:59
Not sponsored by Kraft macaroni is what you're trying. I don't think

Scott Benner 55:01
I'm ever getting that one. No, cuz, Listen, I'll be great to Kraft macaroni and cheese. That stuff is hard to abuse insulin with certain it's not poison to be perfectly. Yeah, you know? It just it and so people need to understand that it's but it's a choice, right like I looked at Arden when she said, Yeah, I think she's getting her period if I'm being honest. And she's like, you know what I really want. I'm like, oh God. And so I said, I don't think I can keep your blood sugar down with this, like, I'll give it my best shot. And she was just like, I don't care. So you know, that's going to happen to people. And when that's going to happen to people, they shouldn't end up needing AI surgery 20 years from now is what I'm saying.

Mike Sasser 55:43
Yeah, I know, this didn't and I think, you know, I think a lot of the tools are out there that help make up for bad decisions and bad self care, which isn't an excuse to have that self care. It just mitigates some of the what would have been, you know, really bad. eventuality is of it? Yeah. So the goal is still for individuals to take individual responsibility, and to do the best they can learn their body, you know, and just use the tools appropriately.

Unknown Speaker 56:17
Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Benner 56:18
Yeah. Listen, not being able to be perfect. Shouldn't be cause for health decline. Yeah, if you can help it, and I think with insulin, it can be helped. Yeah, that isn't to say that, I don't think you probably shouldn't eat, you know, processed food 24 hours a day. I don't think you should. And, and I try not to and I try to have my my family not do that. And it's a big difference. You know, like, it really is. And it's tough, because a lot of us are brought up in households that don't have a lot of money. And so boxed or bagged food is usually more affordable. It's usually easier to prepare for people who are working long days, like there's good reasons people end up in this scenario, and then they put whatever they put in it makes it taste like heaven. You know, and eat real food. You're like, Oh, so bland. It's like, yeah, doesn't have 19 chemicals in it that make your brain go, Oh, my God, this is amazing.

Mike Sasser 57:20
Yeah, I mean, you know, that those are just choices that that families have to make. And and I'd say, in general, you know, eating like a healthy diabetic should be the goal of anybody. Yeah,

Scott Benner 57:33
yeah. As the person with diabetes, there's

Mike Sasser 57:34
so much crap out there and your food anyway. And you know, I get it. Like, if, if you're on the road, and you need to go grab something, you just need to go get it? Yeah. And then, you know, like, what are you willing to sacrifice monetarily in life? If you can? You know, like you said, there are people who can't hear it, if you can, you know, like, hey, maybe we give up this toy, and work on eating a little better, a little healthier. So, you know, and those are all just, again, you can't legislate that. I can't boss people around, that's just got to be either a self discovery or an encouragement to go, Hey, man, this is this is gonna be, you know,

Scott Benner 58:15
yeah. And that

Mike Sasser 58:16
and I don't have high hopes work for the United States. In that regard. It's gonna get worse, just

Scott Benner 58:20
in general, it's, you know, path of least resistance is usually the path that gets taken. But I think just in general, that's really what I mean for the podcast to be like the informations here, you know, okay, now you know how to use the insulin, your choice about what you eat next is not up to me. And I'm not going to like sit here and tell you what to do. I am doing a series of with people about how they eat. So people are coming on and talking about different, like, ways of eating. And so that'll be there too. And maybe, maybe someone will hear it and go, Oh, wow. I'll try that. You know, but the concept that I'd come along and tell them like, you have to do it like this. And if you don't, you're gonna die. I mean, listen, even that might be true, but that's not my place. And right, you know, I'm not into telling people what to do. So it just

Mike Sasser 59:07
yeah, and the more you learn, well, and maybe this is just my personality again, but I feel like the more you tell them, the more they'll resist that and be like, No, you know, I'm going to do what I want to do.

Scott Benner 59:15
Do Do you think you're the only one that feels that way?

Mike Sasser 59:18
Nobody told me I might just be a certain stranded people.

Scott Benner 59:22
I think no one wants to be told what to do. Some people push back and some people Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I don't I hate being Oh my God, I there's some things that make me so upset being told what to do. I hate. I don't like the concept of wasted time breaks my heart. You know, there's an I'm sure that, you know, if you had a VCR and you had tapes in my whole life, you could it wouldn't be hard to figure out why I feel the way I feel but there's just some things that just ring a bell inside of you and and, you know, then your personality takes over. Are you a person that just goes okay, I'll let it go. Or are you somebody who just fights and I mean, yeah, you sound like you You fight and I fight to, you know,

Mike Sasser 1:00:02
that VCR reference totally just dated you.

Scott Benner 1:00:05
I wanted to my dad, we were so broke, right? You want to know, you want to know how in hindsight, I can tell my dad was gonna leave my mom here it is, well, we were broke in a way that is hard to put into words and a VCR when they were first available cost $1,000 only thing you could do with them was either tape, you know, something from your television, where you could go to a place and rent a movie to watch now, in my town, you had to go to a pharmacy who had a small room in the back where there was maybe 30 choices of movies to rent and renting the movies was really incredibly expensive to my dad comes home one day with this VCR. And to say that the VCR was now the most valuable thing in the house would have been an understatement. You know, like it and so everyone's like, we never spend money on anything. What is this? And then I realized, like, I think my dad had decided to leave us and he was trying to sprinkle like, things in the house that I don't know exactly, but he clearly like, stopped worrying about financial things. Yeah, and started like, you know, just being like, here, you guys that you'll like this. Now Meanwhile, the pharmacy was too far from my house to walk to. And he was the only one that drove so when he left. I had $1,000 box sitting under my television. I couldn't do it. I kind of ended up being mean, you know?

Mike Sasser 1:01:35
Yeah, kind of sold that thing and went out and bought some comic books or something. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:01:41
listen, I was angry back then. I should have thought it through the window of where he moved to. But but but but anyway, like, you know, everyone has stuff going on in their lives that were has gone on that impacts how you act today. And you know, there's plenty of people who get nervous or stressed and reach for food, because who knows why? Because, you know, maybe they were sad one day and their mom came along and they're like, here, honey, have some chocolate. You know, like, Yeah, because I didn't know where to form. And, and my point is, is that when you eat that food, you shouldn't have to have a blood sugar of 300. So, you know, I used to avoid it. Yeah, that's what the podcast is for me is it's good. Yeah, it's managing insulin, and then you decide how to do it from there. Have we missed anything, Mike?

Mike Sasser 1:02:31
Um, well, I guess I real quick. I think well, the way that we got connected to do this podcast was Oh, yeah. Yeah. She had a podcast with Jenny, Jenny or Jen. Jenny.

Scott Benner 1:02:48
I think I don't think and I think she's Jennifer. Jenny. I don't think I've never heard anybody call her Jen.

Mike Sasser 1:02:54
My sister's Jen. So I know. I get it mixed up. Anyway. And it was on the mini med in The Guardian closed loop system. Oh, and so you guys went through it. And I all fired up in a negative sort of way. And I just felt like it was in general.

Scott Benner 1:03:17
There usually it's bad. Yeah, it was your like, they did a hit job on the on the back. And I love the Medtronic. Yeah, you yelled at me Hold on. I can find that. Well,

Mike Sasser 1:03:29
messenger message that's a well Holy, Holy moly, not dating myself. Now. So I after I listened to it, you know, I'm sitting there at work. And I stopped on my civil engineering. And I pick up my phone and start typing something on Instagram. And I get it out. And then as soon as I send it, I get Oh, crap, man, that was stupid. So then I delete it. And I'm like, I need to have a better you know, more measured response, and just kind of share my feelings. And then seriously, within like, two seconds, you you pop the response back to me something to be effective. I saw your message, and then you deleted it. You know, we'd love to chat and I was like, Oh, crap, I got caught. So anyway, and then so kind of my response to that was or the reason why I was a big deal. And then I retracted It was kind of this idea around, I was no identity and I was I I find identity in my Medtronic pump and CGM. And so the problem was, in that I felt you know, part of my identity and being crapped on really tough work, you know, that's how I perceived it to be Yeah. And instead of having a measured response going, Hey, let's talk about this. You know, these are, these are what I see about it. These are, you know, how it's really saved my life and a lot of ways the initial reaction was just, you know, anger and lashing out in a way, digitally yelling a wrecking. And you know, so I think that's kind of how this conversation started. Because you know, something in my life that I have been working on is really where do I find my identity. And when you when you're identifying something, or where you find your identity in something, those people in that group that align with you are kind of your, you know, your team, or your tribe, for lack of a better term. And so anybody who's outside of that there's there there can be this automatic response of, well, you're not us, you're not one of us. And so then there's, there can be a negative view of anybody outside that, which ultimately is super unproductive, and super unhelpful. And so just the idea of like, taking a step back and be like, look like we can disagree and have a great conversation about the pluses and minuses. I don't need to be defensive. Yeah. And so that's kind of the genesis of how we meeting.

Scott Benner 1:06:13
Yeah, we have to, I have to tell you, I, I really was being genuine, I was interested in your thoughts, because I didn't feel yelled at I just, I was like, Wow, he really identifies with this part. And and, and so that didn't strike me for two reasons. One, I don't use an insulin pump. And I guess, and also, my daughter doesn't feel like, I don't think she feels like her diabetes. So that's a different, like, that's outside of my concept. But also, my brain just doesn't work like that. In general. Like, you know, when people you know, you watch a football game, your team loses, and people are just destroyed for days. Yeah, I don't feel like that. Like, like a football game is entertainment. And when it's over, it's over. I don't ever think about it again, like 10 minutes after the Eagles won the Super Bowl, I kind of forgot the Eagles won the Super Bowl, it's like, wow, that was really exciting. And then like, it was sort of over and I didn't care anymore. I don't have what you're talking about that, um, that that, that tribal feeling to things. Even when I watch my son, and maybe, you know, watch my son play baseball. And like, you know, so he, he, my son can pitch and actually throws really hard but doesn't pitch. He's not a pitcher. But this summer, and other times happened to him in college in a couple of places. There are times when they just they run out of pitching and they're like, hey, he throws like 90 miles an hour. And you know, and he'll get in. And people are always saying to him, I'm surprised at how calm you are given all the pressure. And his response is always the same. I don't feel any pressure. And they're like, why he goes, Well, I am not a pitcher, I'm doing you a favor. And so you'll get what you get and be I don't give a crap if we win this game or not. And and and I was like, I never understood that because he's felt like that forever. And I'm like, What do you mean, you don't care if you win, he goes, and he'll say, Look, I don't mean I don't care if we win, like I want to win. Everything I'm doing is geared towards winning. But this day is about me doing my best. And that's it. And if that doesn't end up in a win, he doesn't see that as part of his. I don't know, identity, I guess like Yeah, he showed up and he did his best. I'm not connected to this game. Except for the fact that I'm playing it. But how this ends doesn't, it doesn't change who I am or what I did. And so that I think is kind of the concept around here in general. You know, I know that's how I feel, and why I wasn't insulted or sad at your note and why I was just interested in hearing more because here's from my perspective, Jenny's Jenny's as smart as they come about diabetes, and she's used that pump. And so I'm like, Alright, well, let me get Jenny's opinion of the pump. And I'm sure if I would have gotten you, you would have given me a different opinion of the pump. But you also have a different story. And Jenny story is more clean in that her her management is good. She knows how to use her insulin. She's got you know, real ideas about all the pumps. And so I her opinion, I can't believe I'm going to say this to you. But her opinion about the Medtronic pump carries more weight with me than yours does.

Mike Sasser 1:09:32
Yeah, for sure. Right. And and I

Scott Benner 1:09:33
totally get it but I don't mean that in a bad way. It's just like, I think hers is more. You know what, you know, what a reporter supposed to do? Right? Like just yeah, just talk about, like the facts as far as well as they see them. And, and so I wasn't like, oh god, I did something wrong. I'll fix it for this guy. I was like, Look, we did a thing. I'm proud of how we did it. Now. Let me find out why it made you feel that way because I think that would be interesting. for an hour never brought it up?

Mike Sasser 1:10:05
Well, it's it's good. And, you know, my point in the retraction was just that the feelings that I was having were wrong. And that, you know, having that exclusiveness in whatever route that you have, is it a way to bridge anything? You know, like? I don't I don't know, maybe there's a, maybe there's a try to frame this. You know, like, we, I think we all get broken down into two groups that we either choose to join or have to join, like, you know, type one diabetics, we're all in this group, not because we've chosen it, but because we're here. And so now if we're, you know, listening or watching commercials for type two diabetics, it is our is. And again, maybe this is not your personality. It's my response, like, man, those GM type two diabetics, they

don't know how good they have it, or, you know, or whatever? Or is my is, do I have a feeling of empathy? And like, man, yeah,

I get it, like, this sucks for you. And, you know, how can we how can we build a bridge? How can I be empathetic, and my initial response in general, is, is a selfish and like a protective of the group that I'm in, in general. And I, we obviously broke down all the way into, you know, this specific pump, I'm was am wearing. Yeah. So it's just that idea of like, you know, like, we need to be, as people, and especially now and in our world, people who work on building bridges outside of the groups that were already in, again, whether by choice or not by choice, and working on empathy and sympathy, to move forward. And so and it's really, so that's what I wanted it, you know,

Scott Benner 1:11:58
I think you did that work through, but you didn't have because you made me aware of something that I honestly never would have considered. And at the same time, I'm thinking, listening to you that I think hearing that having that reaction, reconsidering it and then meeting up with me today, I think my day ends up being valuable for you as well. Am I right?

Unknown Speaker 1:12:16
Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure.

Scott Benner 1:12:18
I saved you basically like, No, I'm just kidding.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:23
Oh, man,

Mike Sasser 1:12:24
maybe you taught me a life lesson or helped me. Three, three, learn a life lesson that I've had to learn hundreds of times before.

Scott Benner 1:12:30
Well, I hear what you're saying, Mike. And you're welcome. Now, just kidding.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:35
I appreciate it.

Scott Benner 1:12:37
Nice. Just kidding. But, but I mean, like, Listen, let's be honest. That's what conversations supposed to do. Oh, sure. And we really have gotten into a weird space where between headlines and tribalism and wanting our team to win all the time, and not having context for what we're talking about anymore. And feeling like, you know, it used to be called politically correct, right. But now it's it's woke culture where just anything that seems wrong, has to be burned to the ground. And there's no nuance in any conversation. Like, that's not a good way to come to an end. Like what you and I did is, that's how people were supposed to talk to each other.

Mike Sasser 1:13:18
Yeah, yeah. 100% on that, I mean, if anybody's listening that that's what i would love, you know, the legacy of this episode is just have conversation and view the other side, weigh it. And, you know, take the pros and the cons and go from there doesn't mean we got to agree. You know, I may never be a fan of the Omni pod. But that doesn't mean that I have to hate you for you know, every single episode talking about Omni pod.

Scott Benner 1:13:46
Yeah. You also should take conversations about the Omni pod as conversations about pumping, just from my perspective, right pump isn't on a pod. And like, right, look, it's easy to get these things confused, because of, you know, ads, but I want you, whoever you are out there to do whatever works for you. Right? You put it on the pot on and it turns out that the candle angle or something like that doesn't do well with your body type than get a different pump. You know? That that's it. That excuse me on the pod Now, hold on one second. Neither I nor Omni pod has the expectation that my job is to talk every person with diabetes and using an ami pod, right. And by the way, they might expect that. You know what to see, the interesting thing is no, I know they don't

Unknown Speaker 1:14:37
know. And

Scott Benner 1:14:38
because of conversations like yesterday, I put up an episode yesterday where the person said I tried it on the pod. It did not work for me. And I got rid of it. And we had a whole little conversation. If you go back and listen to that one. I don't know what it is 373 maybe. And you really think about editing and listen to the conversation. I could have edited out what she said about the Omni pod. But I would never do that they would never ask me to do that. And I don't think that would lead to this being an honest conversation with people. So I just want people to be better. Don't get me wrong, like making a podcast. I'm not just any podcast making this podcast is time intensive. This is a full time job, right? And so if I can't get compensated Somehow, I can't make the podcast and I am not going to ask you for money. The listener, like I'm not going to put up a Patreon and say, you know, or, you know, ask you to pay for, you know, put it behind a paywall and tell you every episodes, let me tell you something, if I put this thing behind a paywall, and made you pay 99 cents for every episode, I'd be wealthy. But I'm not doing that. And I would never do that. I'm gonna make my money through advertisements, like a good American. And if I and if I can't, then I can't, but that's the way I'm going to try to do I could never take money from you. I just had someone asked me the other day if they could pay me to fix their kids blood sugar. And I said, I'll fix your kid's blood sugar, but there's no way I'm gonna let you give me money. Right? That's just money.

Mike Sasser 1:16:08
I mean, just send it my way.

Scott Benner 1:16:10
Listen, Mike. Again, I meant everything. I just have it if someone's getting the money, it's going to be made not yet. But now I just don't think I don't think good health should cost extra. Yeah,

Mike Sasser 1:16:21
that's all well, yeah. And I guess I would you know, just to, to put a bow on it what you said a minute ago, just about you just want people to be better or healthier? or How are you verbalized? It's like, that's the goal of discourse, in my opinion, and having conversation, it's just like, let's get better as a group, and whatever the issue is, whether or not it's, you know, pumping, diabetes, whatever, politics, race, just have the conversation and let's work on getting better, and getting better as a people. And as a person as

Scott Benner 1:17:00
an individual. We've ignore it, we ignore nuance, we don't take time to find context, we make leaps, a guy's not wearing a mask, he doesn't care about my health. Right? That's it just like that i subscribe, you know, I don't know if that's true or false might be either, you know, this politician is on this side. This one's on this side. That means that one is for this and that one's for that oversimplification, right, I subscribe to a concept. There's a I've spoken about it here once but there's a an author, he's Long, long daddy killed himself. So. But he wrote a commencement speech. And delivered it called This is water. And I know now everybody who hears my accent is like, That's hilarious. His name is David Foster Wallace. I read this as water. Once a year, I give the commencement speech in a small hardcover book to everyone who graduates from college that I know. Because in that commencement speech, among other things, what, what the author is saying is you don't know why people are doing things. And I've always kind of taken his thought and boil it down to this, like, you know, a guy speeds past you, and traffic cuts you off, you know, almost kills you and speeds away. And your thought immediately is, you know, this guy's a bad person. He doesn't care about other people. He doesn't care about safety. He's terrible. And I think it's very possible that that's true. But I prefer to think maybe it's just really got to go to the bathroom. And I've driven fast having to go to the bathroom before. Now. Is that true of everybody that cuts you off? It's not. But it's much healthier for me to believe that it's possible. And to not judge? Because the truth is for someone who just cut me off in traffic, they're really just trying to get to a McDonald's and run through the place like a lunatic so they don't soiled themselves. And yeah, and when the truth is that some people have a good reason for doing what they're doing. And some people have a bad reason. And I've done those things for what I thought were good reasons. It seems very strange for me to just assume that everyone I see is an ass and doing stuff for the wrong reason. Yeah. And so I like when you're yelling, you know, and you were yelling at me, it's fine. But But like, you were you were really pissed. And I, I just thought, like, Oh, this is interesting. I wonder why he's mad? Let's find out. Let's find out. You know? And because I can make up reasons why I think you're mad all day long. But that's not the truth. And now we know why you were upset and we know about a million other useful things about you and, and, you know, maybe the next time somebody pisses you off, you'll stop yourself, maybe we all want anyway, context and nuance. It's worth working on, you know,

Mike Sasser 1:19:51
it's worth working on, which is, you know, part of it. I mean, that's a set a general goal in my life and all interactions and so I suppose I would just encourage anybody who's listening who doesn't have the personality of Scott to to make that a kind of a personal goal to to work on. It's good and healthy for my heart. My family.

Scott Benner 1:20:14
Yeah. Mike listen to that's my goal. I often fail at it.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:19
Yeah. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:20:20
yeah, totally for sure. So I often I often have the exact reaction that that you know, other people have to and I just try my hardest to you know, backpedal from there as quickly as I can. My are no yellow yells at me all the time. She's like, it's fascinating. She's like, you're always get upset and then 20 minutes later, you know, the right thing. And I'm like, Yeah, I grew up poorly. Cut me a break. I'm trying. I get the parental guidance of a, of a mole rat. Lucky I got this bar. Shut up.

Mike Sasser 1:20:57
I mean, it's not funny, but it's funny.

Scott Benner 1:20:59
What happens? You know, my dad left my mom, you didn't really try too hard. My mom was busy work and trying to keep us alive. You know, happens to a lot of people that we have. Yes. Yeah. The Brady's weren't sitting around making sure I did my homework. So you know. I said, so I don't do the right thing every time exactly when I tried to.

Mike Sasser 1:21:19
And nobody does. Even if they had perfect parent. I don't know. He's got perfect parents. But my kids are perfect parents. Like I don't know

Unknown Speaker 1:21:25
what you're talking about.

Scott Benner 1:21:30
Yeah, there was if there was such a thing as perfect. There wouldn't be therapists, that's for sure. That'd be the first thing.

Mike Sasser 1:21:37
But that is for sure.

Scott Benner 1:21:38
Yeah. But no, seriously, man. I just think you know, I think a lot of things you said here today were really valuable. And I'm sorry, took you over the time. But I thank you so much for doing this. I'm glad you

Mike Sasser 1:21:49
got to work for a few hours. Also,

Scott Benner 1:21:51
I gotta say to other people. This is not an open invitation to yell at me through messaging. Okay.

Mike Sasser 1:21:56
Mike's Mike's nobody got first amendment right.

Scott Benner 1:21:59
Yeah, you send all the notes you want. I'll just block you. I don't want to be yelled at I just Mike's note. Hit me the right way. Don't be like, Oh, no, I have some stuff. I'd like to tell Scott. Keep it to yourself or start your own damn podcast. Leave me alone. Yeah. Okay.

Mike Sasser 1:22:11
There you go. Yeah. Message Board for just people ranting. Nobody's going to read it. It's a place for you to rant while

Scott Benner 1:22:18
yelling scream. You know, people used to go for a ride and scream in their car. Get back to what works.

Mike Sasser 1:22:24
Okay, yeah. Just Just pull over and don't cut somebody off while you're doing it. You're gonna have a big you know, heart issue of identity while you're cutting them off. Go

Scott Benner 1:22:36
cry in the shower, like a normal person. Leave me alone. Okay. Like, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Mike Sasser 1:22:44
Thanks for the time. I appreciate it. Scott. That's my pleasure.

Scott Benner 1:22:51
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. g vote glucagon. Find out more about tchibo hypo pen at G folk glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n.com. forward slash juicebox. I also like to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter for being a sponsor on today's show and of the podcast in general. Find out more about that great little meter at Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box and of course to Mike for coming on the show so openly and honestly describing his life with Type One Diabetes. I'll see you soon.