#468 Two for One

April 19, 2021Scott Benner

Megan is the mother of two children living with type 1 diabetes.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, everybody. Hold on. Hello, everybody and welcome to Episode 468 of the Juicebox Podcast. I don't know why my voice got that high. Sorry about that. Today, let me tell you about the show Megan's on. She's the mom of two kids with Type One Diabetes. She's gonna tell you a story. It's going to be delightful. That's how this is gonna go.

This one doesn't need a big preamble. It's a great conversation with Megan. Like I said earlier, she's got a couple of kids with type one. I really enjoyed speaking with her. While you listen to me speak to Megan, I need you to remember that nothing that you hear Megan or I say 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. A

couple of quick things, check out the Facebook group for the podcast. It's Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, it's a private group just have to prove that you're a real person. And then you can get in and talk about type one with over 10,000 other listeners. If you're looking for the diabetes, pro tip, or defining diabetes episodes there in your podcast player, right, you can find them there or you can find them at Juicebox podcast.com. Or more specifically, at diabetes pro tip.com. There'll be a tiny bit more music. We'll thank the sponsors and get started.

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. You can find out more at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. Check out the meter art and uses it is the most accurate and easy to use meter that I've ever seen. honest, I'm holding up my hand like you do before a court hearing where you're like I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That's exactly what I'm doing right now. Because that meter rocks Contour Next One comm forward slash juicebox just introduce yourself.

Unknown Speaker 2:31
Guess as much pressure. Okay, so hold on, hold

Scott Benner 2:34
on. I'm gonna stop you. Does it really feel like pressure because there's this? Everyone like stops for a minute. I'm like, just just introduce yourself and then we'll start talking and they go out and some people get very formal. They're like, Hi, I'm Scott Benner. I've, you know, this, it's like, it's like, it's like their their x, their exit interview with a job. And then there's the HR guy and like, Oh, we've never met before. I'm Scott Benner leaving the company today. And I want to leave you some parting thoughts about, you know, my time here. And some people are just like, Hey, I'm Megan. My kids got diabetes, and they're done. I'm like, I never know what anyone's gonna say. Are you nervous?

Megan 3:13
The small little synopsis? I'm a little nervous.

Scott Benner 3:15
Are you really? It's just a podcast right?

Unknown Speaker 3:18
Now.

Unknown Speaker 3:18
This isn't. I know, I'm

Megan 3:20
gonna hear my voice later and be like, Oh, that sounds horrible.

Scott Benner 3:24
Well, I will tell you the same thing. I tell everyone else that says that no one knows what you sound like. So you sound to them, like however you sound and they'll have no thoughts about it at all.

Unknown Speaker 3:34
All right, well, I'll

Unknown Speaker 3:35
give it a go. So

Megan 3:36
hi, my name is Megan. My husband and I have three boys. And our oldest two both have type one diabetes. They were diagnosed at the same time. And they're diagnosed about 19 months ago. So currently, they are now seven, four. And then our youngest is three, the one without diabetes.

Scott Benner 4:00
So the two that first of all, the youngest one who doesn't have diabetes. I'm sorry for him because this is probably the last time we're gonna mention him. And the other two, when you said they were both diagnosed at the same time it my heart right away goes, Oh, they're twins, but they're not even close in age. Nope. You just Yeah. Are you like sitting on top of a diabetes bomb or something like that? Like me?

Megan 4:24
Yeah. Then we're a first for the doctor and all the nurses in the clinic. Everyone's like we've had siblings, but never two at the same time. And they're always really thrown off by the fact that they're three years apart in age and the and there was no you know, clear onset. They're like, were they both sick at the same time? Nope, not at all. They were very healthy that entire winter. So okay, I have no idea why the timing was like that. I'm sure we you know, we were looking back at it and we're like, I'm sure they didn't start with it at the same time. We just saw the symptoms at the same time. Okay.

Scott Benner 4:57
I want to pick into this for a second because that's what I was gonna May I ask So, okay, so seven and four, is that right? Correct. Okay, and how long ago were they diagnosed?

Megan 5:07
That was February of 2019.

Scott Benner 5:10
That tells me that they were six and three at the time.

Megan 5:13
Yeah, our oldest was just a little bit shy of his sixth birthday. Oh, five.

Scott Benner 5:18
Okay. So which. So first of all, do you have any inclination about what diabetes is? Like? What was your first thing that?

Unknown Speaker 5:24
Yeah, so

Megan 5:25
we we have type one in our family. On my husband's side, he has two half siblings that have type one diabetes, one was diagnosed, I think he was about 11. But then his sister only was diagnosed a couple years ago in her 20s. have siblings on his father's side?

Scott Benner 5:44
Yes. Don't know why characters, just double check. I

Megan 5:46
don't know. Does that matter? Is there research that goes with that? That'd be interesting. Just imagine if I didn't, on his father's side. And then it's very distant in my family. But my mom has two first cousins who are siblings that both have it, but it's pretty distant.

Unknown Speaker 6:03
That third four years look nervous. Is he just walking around going hard? Can I see where this is headed?

Megan 6:11
No, I, you know, honestly, I don't think was ever on our radar that our kids would ever have it. Especially since you know, I think when we had our, actually, when we had all of our children, there was just the one family member, his half brother. And his sister got diagnosed later, just probably about a year before our children really. So it wasn't really something we thought of much. And then actually, by coincidence, I'm not blood related. But my brother's wife is also a type one diabetic. So we're pretty familiar. As much as anyone could be familiar when they're not living with it day to day. I also work in health care. I'm a speech therapist at an acute care hospital. So I am more educated on type two diabetes, because I work a lot with stroke populations. So I know the symptoms, you know, I know that I know what normal blood sugars are. So there's just a day where it suddenly clicked with me. And I just knew it.

Scott Benner 7:05
Which which kids? Did you see it in first? Or did you see it at the same time?

Megan 7:08
So our middle son, he had just turned three. And I think what was hard for us for a while is since both the two oldest, you know, our youngest at the time was only 18 months. So like, you know, he he's still eating and behaving more like a baby. The other ones, they were doing the same thing. So it was easy to just kind of ignore it and be like, Oh, that's normal child behavior. They're always drinking water. They always want more water, they are always saying they're hungry. They want another snack. You know, that's just what our kids are doing. I guess they're growing boys. Right? So we explained it away for quite a while. But then our middle. There was one day in particular, I was at work and my mom had sent me a message saying like, he is like begging for water. I was like, Okay, well, we have the pediatrician. His three year appointment is next week, you know, I'll bring it up and everything. And then that evening, you know, he was still, you know, talking about water all evening and everything. And then all of a sudden, it just clicked with me. I had remembered that a little bit after his birthday party. He came up to me in the morning. And he said Where's pull ups at night. And I remember saying, You smell so sweet. It must be all those brownies you ate at the party or something. And then all of a sudden, it clicked with me that evening. I was like, Oh my gosh, when he smelled sweet to me, that was sweet smelling urine. And I just we were about to put the kids to bed and I told my husband I was like I just I don't feel right. He shouldn't go to bed. I think he has diabetes and bring him to urgent care. So I go to urgent care with my super happy, delightful sweet kid. And they I'm sure rolled their eyes at me when I was like, I think he has type one diabetes like sure lady, whatever.

Unknown Speaker 8:42
Like get some sleep drink.

Scott Benner 8:46
Like they're probably like, get some sleep and stop drinking after dinner. You know, like calm down a little bit.

Unknown Speaker 8:53
I wasn't sure they thought I was

Scott Benner 8:54
nuts. I wonder how often it happens. That there's nothing wrong that it starts to seep into people's minds that people overreact. Does that make sense? Like I wonder how Yeah, how many times they have to look at people and go, Oh my god, there's nothing wrong with you get out of here. And then until they start thinking that that way, by the way, I just want to take a detour for a half a second. Anyone who doesn't have children yet? Who wants a good reason not to have them Megan just told you that she smelled urine and thought Oh, that's nice, my baby. That could be your life too. If you make a baby or could just you know put some effort in yourself and get a condo. So anyway, if you want to think if you think urine is gonna be a big part of your happiness later. It's going to be if if Anyway, I'm sorry, Megan. So there you are. You are rolling to the Roland to Urgent Care lady. What and what what do they do there? They just did they do like a urine dip.

Megan 9:52
Um, they did a finger prick and he was 530 something I think 535 so we instantly knew I guess even at that point, I guess I still thought because I knew he wasn't like acutely sick that he wasn't NDK. Like, there was no signs of that. So I just thought we were would be going home, and we'd be following up with the pediatrician or whatever, you know, get referred on, I guess I didn't really think this was gonna turn into a whole hospitalization and everything. So the next thing I know, we're in an ambulance to my hospital that I work at, which is not a pediatric hospital. So that annoyed me because I knew they were just going to, you know, do stuff there and then send us out to the pediatric hospital. So we took two ambulance rides that night. So by my other son, so I went to school the next day, and when he got home from school, I was talking with my parents were like, you know, saw the same symptoms as a Can you bring him to the pediatrician and have him checked right now. Right? So they went and checked him. And then Luckily, that one was just a direct admit from the pediatrician to the hospital. So he was there. In less than 24 hours from when we were admitted with our middle

Scott Benner 10:57
you remember his blood sugar?

Megan 10:59
His was for something

Scott Benner 11:01
pikeur Okay,

Megan 11:02
I just remember being on the phone when my dad gave me the call and my the nurses standing there, and I just start sobbing. And that nurse was so sweet. She had no idea what was going on. It was like my other sons coming here now.

Unknown Speaker 11:13
Like, what are you talking?

Megan 11:15
She was wonderful. So yeah, we kind of took over the floor for a while.

Scott Benner 11:18
You didn't consider asking your dad, like just put all the kids in the garage in the car, and I'll be home in a second. We're gonna get I mean, that's crazy. Like, no, no kidding. that's legit nuts.

Unknown Speaker 11:29
That just it was very nice.

Unknown Speaker 11:30
Oh my god. It's like getting hit by a car and standing up in a plane crashing and be

Unknown Speaker 11:37
like that analogy. I

Unknown Speaker 11:38
felt.

Scott Benner 11:40
Just like I can't believe I live to this car accident. I feel very dizzy. And I think my arms falling off, but I'm alive. And then. And then as you're dying on the ground, pinned onto the plane, a raccoon starts eating your feet, and you're aware of it. That's all this is picking your toes. At first. It's like, Oh,

Megan 11:58
yeah, I guess that's kind of how we felt we were waiting for the third way we kept on being so worried about our youngest son. So you know, a couple weeks later, is when we start doing the trialnet testing and all that for him. And so far, everything's fine. But like, that's still how we feel. We're like, well, When is that going to happen? Oh, it does. But it's always what we're kind of just waiting for.

Scott Benner 12:16
You must have PTSD. Seriously, right. Like, you just must walk around. Like, I seriously I'm like thinking like if someone breaks into your home that the rest of your life you walk around the house thinking like someone's gonna come through the windows, I'm just gonna come like you just probably can't shake it, you know? Wow, that's and there's no reason like, not that anybody would know. But no one's offered an idea or just, it's just random that they both. Got it. Alright, so hindsight, hold on a

Megan 12:45
second. Yeah, in hindsight, I think our oldest his son, his symptoms were always a lot more mild than our middle so i can i can trace it back over a longer period of time when I saw that. So I'm thinking he probably actually had it a lot longer and it just wasn't as significant. You know, he was honeymooning a lot longer. Because even now I'm like through the whole honeymoon period. He honeymooned way longer than our middle. And even now, he still I'd have to double check it. But I still think he uses less insulin mostly on a daily basis than our middle does. So okay, something I don't know. Somehow it just like attacked our middle a little bit harder, I guess. So I think his symptoms just came on. So suddenly, and were much more significant. So we noticed it. But I don't I highly doubt they got it at the same time.

Scott Benner 13:40
Yeah, I'm not saying that someone threw a switch on the side of your house and gave everybody

Megan 13:45
but it did. I mean, those thoughts went through our head as we start researching where it came from, or like, Is there something environmental in our home or like, you know, all that stuff comes to you like, oh, should we be moving out of our house? And like, you know, some diabetes trigger, but it's I mean, I think it's all just a crazy coincidence.

Scott Benner 13:59
Yeah. Well, yeah, I think you you outlined it pretty pretty well there. Your your middle son symptoms came on more rapidly, you notice them, and then while it was fresh in your head, you were like, Oh, God, the other kids been doing that too, but not exactly drastically. And so it might have taken him. I wonder how long it might have taken him had your middle son not been diagnosed? How long until you would have figured out your your older son had it?

Megan 14:22
Yeah, I think that's what was emotional about it for me, too. Is he at this, you know, and around the same time, he was having more, you know, like, meltdowns, just like, you know, Qmr behavior problems and changes. And so I think so much of like, what was happening, we just kind of attributed to that, like, Oh, that's just him being dramatic or him Do you know, and like, then I felt horrible being like, Oh, my gosh, those are medical symptoms, too. Yeah. For a while, probably,

Scott Benner 14:51
I'll tell you, for people who don't have children, it's maybe difficult to understand, but I can give you an example. That's once You would think we'd be on such a smaller scale, but almost hit me exactly the same way. When my son was just a few years old, we noticed, you know, over months and months and months that he seemed a little hard of hearing, you know, and he was just sort of like, you'd always repeat yourself to Him, and it wasn't ever drastic. And just one day, I said to Kelly, I'm like, I'm gonna take him to the doctor and have his hearing check, because it's kind of crazy, you know, and the doctor looks in his ear. My friend, Adam looks in his ear, and he goes, his ears completely blocked with wax. And I'm like, really? Like, that's a thing. Okay. You know, like, I just had my first kid, I didn't know, you know, we were still like, figuring out how to, like, pay the bills on time. And, you know, stuff like that. And so we were pretty young. And he says, I like to have the nurses do this, because I don't like the kids to hate me. And I'm like, Wait, what? So he leaves the room. And the nurse comes in. And you know, she takes this lavosh it's just this water the Jets through this tiny little nozzle so that it makes like this, you know, like laser thin line of water. And I guess she's basically drilling a hole through this wax to fill his ear behind it to throw the plug of wax out of his ear. Anyway, I didn't need to describe all that. But the, although it is kind of fascinating, isn't it? And into the wax comes flopping out on to like a little towel. And she dabs off his ear. And somebody says, hey, how's that coal? And we start talking, and he stops us and says, Why is everybody shouting? Yeah. And then it made me cry. Because of exactly what you just said. I thought how do I not help him sooner? Yeah, you know,

Megan 16:38
oh, we went through the same thing with my oldest two, he had tubes put in his ear as he's had wax problems for years. So same thing, like we thought we were past it. You know, he had all that when he was really young, kindergarten comes around. And actually, this was a few months after he got diagnosed with Type One Diabetes. The school nurse is like, oh, by the way, he also failed his hearing screening. And I was like, Sure, I was so distracted by all this. I kind of forgot about his ears. Like, we haven't been to the end and a while. And sure enough, I look and he's got like, you know, he's got impacted earwax. Again. I was like, Oh, great. So I let your hearing go. Because we're so distracted by diabetes. You know, I'm gonna feel horrible. Yeah, parenting is just, like a whole big game of guilt.

Scott Benner 17:22
It's terrible. And listen, I'm gonna say something after I say this, but I'm gonna take interviewing credit for bringing up the your thing, because it brought out your story, even though I had no way to know, but I'm still taking credit for it. But you know, it's just listen, the truth is, it feels like a cliche, right. But you know, from the minute you're born, you're dying. You know, like, it's just you're on some sort of a slow path to deterioration, it's hard to think about, but it's, it's true. And when you have something kind of chronic come up or something that's, you know, quote, unquote, outside the norm. It feels so crazy, like, Oh, my gosh, my kid has this and this and this, and I stop and think about the things that are wrong with me and my wife, and then everyone I know. And then you come to realize that this no one escapes this. You don't mean like this, something like this is happening to everyone constantly. You don't know. You know what it is, but it's happening to somebody. And, and it could be something that's real obvious or something that makes your pancreas stop working, or like I have plantar fasciitis, like I walk around, like some days of the month, and it just feels like someone's constantly stabbing me in the heel. You know, I don't tell anybody about it. But it sucks, and my life would definitely be better if it didn't happen. You know, so, but everyone's dealing with something the person who is born and dies 95 warm in their bed without ever being sick probably doesn't exist, you know? But isn't it what you think's gonna happen when you make a baby? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 18:52
he wish Yeah,

Scott Benner 18:53
right. Everybody thinks that like, Oh, it's gonna be great. isn't gonna be great. It's gonna suck.

Megan 19:00
Especially when you've been home for months on end and doing e learning. Oh, yeah.

Scott Benner 19:04
You're learning English. At the foot of your parents bed on a tiny sofa that we drag into our bedroom so that Arden could do her, you know, be closer to the Wi Fi signal. Like that's what High School is. And my son's getting a degree down the hall in his bedroom. It's all going really great, you know? But But no, seriously, it's just it shouldn't be a bummer. It really should be enlightening. Like, something's going to happen for most people, you know, varying levels. And I think that a lot of people have something go wrong. And then they think oh, luck. See, now life's not perfect the way it's supposed to be. Except I think life's not supposed to be perfect. I think it's supposed to be the other way. Just

Unknown Speaker 19:43
Exactly.

Megan 19:44
Yeah, I think that's one thing that's helped me through all this is my professional experience and helping people overcome stroke and brain injury and various health crisis sees that they don't see coming and it comes out of nowhere and you have to deal with your new life. If you're new normal afterwards, and you don't choose it, but it's choose to make the best of it. And, you know, so I think in running and I used to run support groups for them and everything. So having that experience has helped me get through this. And like, this is just our obstacle, this is what we need to do we have no choice, we can dwell over it and you know, just kind of feel sorry. Or we can just move on and say, Okay, how are we going to get this, you know, life out of this and everything and make it work for everybody. So that's what we do. So

Scott Benner 20:33
best time in the history of mankind to be alive. If this was happening to you, while you're on a wagon, going out west trying to find California, when they went around a little curve on a hill or a mountain or something, they just would have pushed you off the wagon, you know, they mean, that's all they would have been like, hey, grandma doesn't hear well anymore. clunk. She fell. That's the end of it. Like nobody, they leave you in the desert sleeping, and everybody just kind of goes away quietly, and you freeze to death in a coyote. That's that used to be the world.

Unknown Speaker 21:01
That's just so sad.

Megan 21:03
I've been reading the book, I'm totally what's it called breakthrough, or I can't remember, it's called the book about like, the history of insulin, okay. And it's just fascinating. And then you just oh my gosh, your heart just breaks like reading and thinking about how these parents dealt with his with these kids before insulin. It's just, it's just horrific. So Oh, my gosh, I think every day that we have

Scott Benner 21:26
all the tools that we have, it's amazing. I try to remind myself all the time that prior to you know, 1920, or whatever it was, my daughter would have died when she was two. That's all and then she's in the other room. I think learning English. So you know, it's amazing. I it's the same thing that when you hear people like complain about their technology around diabetes, I always think like, really, like, it's not perfect. It's like two years old. Like they just thought it up like five seconds ago. You know, like it's, look what it's doing for you. And I know it Listen, we should always push towards better. But you know, I don't know what is made perfectly the first time and you know, when so? Just take the little. Everything's got pros and cons. You know what I mean? So, you got to take the cons in stride. Because if not, like, what are you doing? You know, you're gonna

Megan 22:17
play I agree to having, you know, I'd rather have the stuff out to me faster and have a few glitches happen, and have to be waiting for it to be perfect.

Scott Benner 22:27
Because by the time they get it, you know, somewhere near perfect, they'll come up with a different idea. And then they'll start trying to get that thing to be perfect. And you'll never see any of this stuff. And again, you could be just shoved off a hill in 1850. Billy looks tired. He's always asking for water. Whoops. You don't like like what do you

Unknown Speaker 22:47
think happened? wanted to go around?

Scott Benner 22:48
Yeah, we let him play with the wolves. That's all fine now. It just like you know, it's things are so great right now. Now listen, not to not to minimize the fact that two of your three children got diabetes on the same day, because that and I've just bleep this out later is terrible. It's really, really, really horrendous. And I'm sorry for you. But how are you guys doing with it all?

De veau hypo pan has no visible needle, and it's the first pre mixed autoinjector of glucagon for very low blood sugar in adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Not only is chivo hypo pen simple to administer, but it's simple to learn more about. All you have to do is go to G evoke glucagon.com forward slash juicebox g vo shouldn't be used in patients with insulin, Noma or pheochromocytoma. Visit g Vogue glucagon.com slash brisk.

Unknown Speaker 24:00
You use a blood glucose meter every day, every day, and you count on it.

Scott Benner 24:08
But have you ever wondered if the meter you're counting on is accurate? Two pretty important question, right? Well, I can point you towards an accurate blood glucose meter. And it's not just accurate, it's easy to use and it has some other stuff about it that I love. I'll tell you about it in a second. But for now, let me just tell you the name the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. This thing is accuracy personified. So good. It's in fact the most accurate meter Arden has ever used as we come up on her Oh my gosh. 15th year of diabetes maybe I don't know if she got it when she was two and she's gonna be 17 Yeah, 15 years. Best meter I've ever seen. It's easy to carry, easy to use has a nice bright light, a nice bright screen and it has Second Chance test strips meaning you can go in hit the blood not get enough, go back, get more without changing the accuracy of the test and you don't waste the test trip. Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box head over. It is a website full of information, you know, when you go to a website, like there's nothing here, there's so much at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox that if I start listing it all here, it's gonna boggle your mind. So I just have to leave you with this great meter, you can find out more about the website, they also have a test trip program, and you may be eligible for a free Contour Next One blood glucose meter, that should be enough to get you over there to check it out. Please use the links in your podcast player or the links at Juicebox Podcast comm if you can't remember the URL, the URL, the contour next comm forward slash juicebox I'm going to quickly remind you to visit T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box fill out that survey help other people living with Type One Diabetes. While you benefit the podcast must be a United States citizen who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver of someone with type one.

Megan 26:21
Oh, I think we're doing pretty good. You know, I literally the very first night in the hospital is when I found your podcasts. I've been a listener for a long time. I'm a big podcast listener to begin with. So one of the first things I did is I'm up all night and can't sleep is what kind of resources can I find online? What Facebook groups can I join I had an I had actually stopped using Facebook for a while because I hate Facebook. But those groups are so helpful. So I I joined again to get back into those groups. I joined some of those I started looking for podcasts about type one diabetes. And so I just started immediately learning as much as I possibly could. And we went home from the hospital already on Dexcom. And we had pumps within a few weeks. And that's where we've been. Yeah, that's cool.

Scott Benner 27:03
So you're proactiveness really got you like leapt you forward quickly.

Megan 27:08
I think I think so yeah, I think we kind of dove right in. And our entire family is incredibly supportive and wants to learn and we had the support of my my sister in law coming and helping us right away coming in organizing the cabinet full of diabetes things and we color coded everything in the beginning just so we wouldn't mix things up. And everyone kind of helped us and we got hit the ground running.

Scott Benner 27:32
I'm gonna ask about that in a second. But I want to just ask like, like, do they both use the same meter or the same glucose monitor that kind of stuff? Yes, currently,

Megan 27:40
we're using everything the same. Currently, they both have Omni pod and Dexcom. And we're looping on auto Bolus. So we're doing all everything's the same. Right now we have had a few times where we've done things differently for a while, like my middle we tried. We used to be on Medtronic, and we tried auto mode for him. And we tried the Medtronic CGM for him do the auto mode. So for a while they run different setups, which wasn't too bad. But we try as best we can to keep it the same. As long as it's working for them. And it's not drastically, you know, obviously, if one child really needed something different we change it. Otherwise, we since get good results. We're trying to keep it easy on all the caregivers

Scott Benner 28:22
read it for like simplicity sake, right?

Unknown Speaker 28:24
Oh, yeah. Yeah, for my

Megan 28:25
own sanity,

Scott Benner 28:27
giant ordering and

Megan 28:28
the organizing and the replacing. And I just it's it's a lot

Scott Benner 28:32
to imagine if Arden supplies came double. I don't even know where I would put them.

Megan 28:36
We have a big cabinet.

Scott Benner 28:39
drawer, but a drawer would not wouldn't do it for two kids. That's great. Oh, that's really interesting. How did they handle it? And are they Is there like a kinship between them over it or not? Really?

Megan 28:51
Yeah. So they're they handled it really well. Our oldest is very mature about it, and he loves, like math and everything. So I think he took to it pretty quickly. He started bolusing for himself. You know, he was diagnosed at the end of kindergarten. So he didn't he didn't it was half day. So he didn't eat at school. So we never had to worry about that in kindergarten. But by first grade he was doing his totally independent at lunchtime, he would Bolus his own meals. He's learned you know a lot about percentages and fractions because of how much food he ate and you know, different percent overrides and all that so he learned a lot that way and he just thought it was interesting. So I think that's how we engaged him in diabetes. And I think he kind of liked showing his brother that it was okay that you know like this is how I stay calm during my pod changes and things like that. So they share kind of little tips on this is you know how I make it better. And like my our middle he already doesn't remember life before diabetes I asked him about and like you really don't remember like even being in the hospital. He doesn't remember any of it anymore, because he had just turned three. So I think this is all he really knows. And because this is so much of our life, like even our youngest, like, he knows everything he knows how to fingerprint he'll set everything up and you know, to fingerprint his brother and he eyes whole asked for, you know, the same like a tape covering, you know, on his arm so you can look like his brothers. And he knows, like, the alarms will be like, oh, sounds I was low, and, you know, so that it's just kind of part of our everyday life. So I don't know. It's just,

Scott Benner 30:35
that's amazing. I mean, it's, it's, it's what you would hope to hear, right? Are they ever? Like, like, is every one of them ever just like competitive with the other one? Like, oh, my number or anything like that? They? Is there any of that going on? Any brotherly jiving? I guess? Little ones? Probably little No,

Megan 30:52
actually, I don't think that really comes up very much. No,

Scott Benner 30:55
that's cool. I want to understand a little more about your older one. And the the math are you? Did he learn these kind of concepts through doing? What did you actually sit down

Megan 31:05
with? I mean, he just he loves, loves, loves math, like he is in second grade. And he asked me for algebra problems. He's got a math brain. But I think just early on, it would be like, Okay, well, you're, you only ate half of the sandwich. And so you know, we talked about the his carb ratio, and how much then he should get. And, you know, we kind of just introduced it that way. So, I don't know, it's just I think it was just a really real life way for him to engage in something he was already interested in. So he just I feel like he just accelerated really fast. That's lucky because of that.

Scott Benner 31:44
That's just incredibly lucky, right? That it's it hit him in his wheelhouse for the lack of exactly.

Megan 31:50
He's always liked being able to control the pump and do things on it. He thinks it's really interesting. And now he's kind of starting to learn about we talk about the different absorption times for different foods. So he's been learning a little bit about that and try some, he memorizes he knows more carb numbers, and I do I'll be like, enter what's the snack again? And he'll be like, Oh, yeah. You know, so we'll bring up certain things that like we already we forget it, like something he hasn't had in three months. And I'll remember how much it was. I'm like, Alright, I'll trust you

Scott Benner 32:22
Arden's more aggressive than I am sometimes. Oh, yeah, I'll be like, how many carbs? You think that is, right? Your how much insulin you want to use here. And she's always a little stronger than I am. And I'm always like, I try that, then. You know, like, I don't know how other people think about it. But I used to take the Omni pod PDM. And, you know, there's, if when you're really trying to, like roll up insulin, like because I wasn't, you know, when I counted carbs, let me think about how to put this. So people who have a pump and you push a button up in the, you know, the numbers going 123, I would just push the button and look at the plate and think five 710 1525 38 and I look over and I stopped at like, you know, 48 and I'm like, that's fine. And just, like, get it going. Because I realized I was every time I tried to be specific about it. I was always too light. So I just thought like, Alright, more, you know, like Moore's fine, more works. And I didn't, I wasn't thinking back then about, you know, the different impacts that food has, I wasn't thinking oh, well, the glycemic load of this food is probably greater than the carb count. Like I think about that now, a little bit, but back then I was just like, stop it. You know, it was like, it was like, literally, like I was on the prices right? And came within $10. I was like, Good enough. I'm gonna stick with that. Bob, let's go with 48. And it's it's really interesting to hear that somebody can think of it so much more specifically, and still have really good luck. Are they both having good success?

Megan 34:01
Yeah, you know, the getting on loop has been a huge learning curve. I think it's gotten much better in the last couple weeks, and we're definitely going to stick with it. But it's been a big learning curve. So we've had a lot more highs recently than normal. But I mean, even even with that a month ago, or maybe five weeks ago, our middle happened to have an A one c done just because he was having other labs done. And he was 6.0. I do think there were probably a few more lows mixed in there too. So I don't know if that was the best indicator because, you know, some of the other stats aren't exactly where we want them to be. But in general, we've always been between probably like 6.0 and 6.7 on a one sees the whole time since diagnosis pretty much Um, so I think our goals are like, our goal is just more stability, like a lower standard deviation. You know, less, less intervention needed from us and the other caregivers. So that's kind of our goal with loop. And we're just still trying to learn exactly how to get there. But we're making strides each time. So yeah, I know, we're still fighting that like, rise, right? When they fall asleep, we're still fighting it like crazy. We do like everything. So that's a big one we're working on?

Scott Benner 35:19
Well, I have to say, I agree with you. And I think of it in a very similar way. I don't think about obtaining an A one C, I think about stability, stability, and a lower number Pre-Bolus, saying, you know, doing the things that I know, lead to success, and then the a one c number just sort of, is a byproduct of that. You know, like, like, if you do these things, you're a one c turns out to be in this spot. If you do the more aggressively it ends up being lower. You know, if you do it too much, you end up with a problem. So you just kind of stay fluid and bring it back again, I think that's an incredibly healthy way of thinking about it. Instead of just thinking about the numbers. Think about doing the thing. Yeah, I don't. Yeah,

Megan 36:04
I don't really yeah, the number of course, we want good numbers, but I really just want them more stable. And I feel like once we see more stability and more predictability, then we can kind of lower our target a little bit from there. Yeah. Right now, it's like, part of our problem is not just learning loop and all that. It's, it's that like, we get these wild card days, I feel like they're thrown in there. And it's like, oh, well, this are the pods, just currently, this one's not working. And we have a lot of those problems with our middle, like, we have to change every two days. And sometimes even that the second day, it's like it's hardly working. You're just like pouring more insulin in and it's like not doing anything. So I feel like there's a lot more variants with him a lot more like, I wonder, Is this a pod? Is it something else? Is he suddenly growing? Like there's, we're constantly trying to figure out? What is the big change because everything will be exactly the same, and love drastically different numbers. So we're trying to figure that out. So sometimes, so

Scott Benner 37:00
does that work better than others?

Unknown Speaker 37:03
Does he have sites? Or sites that

Scott Benner 37:05
work better than Yeah.

Megan 37:08
I wanted to say yes, but I feel like there's still not even really a good pattern to that. Right now we're we seem to be getting the best success on his arms. He is so thin. All my kids are just Third thing. So we don't have a lot of fatty spots to put things.

Scott Benner 37:24
I'm just hard to keep them hydrated with just water.

Megan 37:28
Not really, they drink water throughout the day. And a lot they actually drink a lot when they go to bed for some reason. Everyone likes to drink water while they're listening stories. Yeah, I think everyone stays hydrated pretty well in the family.

Scott Benner 37:41
That's cool. I mean, you know, just trying to think through different reasons why insulin would do what you want it to do or not, is really how I think about it. I just think about, you know, is the water do it. Excuse me, I just got a text from Arden that took my mind off of what I was saying. I asked her to Bolus 10 carbs, and I didn't get a response. So I just put like a little like exclamation on it. You know, you can do that too with accent and then I got oh my god stop in return. And if later I tried to explain to her that if I didn't do that she wouldn't see it. Then she'll just stop listening to me while I'm explaining it to her. So anyway,

Megan 38:15
I did it. We we have the same kind of situation just like you know, if I'm at work, and I'm trying to look and be like, Did somebody do this? Like I want to be like a nag to whoever's with the kids. I'm like, Did you do this or not? So I you know, I just learned how in nightscout you could put different notes and everything. So I'm gonna teach everybody like, here's how you can enter like, extra information so that I can see it and then I won't have to like nag you and be like, was that john? Because I don't want to sound like a nag. I'd rather be able to just look at the info and be like, Oh, great. They just did a finger prick. That's good. Oh, great. They just Bolus extra here. And you know,

Scott Benner 38:44
I don't think I would nag. I don't think of it even as nagging. But I think the thing that bothers me and I think might resonate with people, is that when I text you, Hey, is the house on fire the entire time between after I hit Send and when you respond to me as to whether or not the house is on fire. I'm standing perfectly still, like wasting my life. That's how I feel about it right there. I feel like I'm like I'm standing here waiting for someone to respond to me. I'm not talking to Megan, I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Sometimes you're in a grocery store, standing perfectly still waiting for someone to respond to you or you're you know, you get in your car and you go to drive away. You're like, hey, real quick, can you Bolus to half the unit, and then they don't respond. Now I'm sitting in a dry like in a parking lot in my car, waiting for someone to respond. I just I've explained to her a million times. I'm like, Look, I'm not bothering you. But try to put yourself in my shoes. You've put my life in status. I just paused. You know, like I'm paused waiting to hear back from you. And I was like and after 30 seconds it starts feeling like what am I doing? With my time you know, like I'm standing here waiting for someone to respond to me. And so I'm not trying to bug her. I just want to make sure she sees it and you know at Anyway, I'm sure every parent in the world had has had that thought at some point. I just that's the part of it that bothers me. It's the, it's the wasted time. I'm just sitting there going. Okay. And then by the way, what if she didn't say it?

Unknown Speaker 40:11
exact so

Scott Benner 40:12
now I'm like, then I text again. Hey, and then she'll say, Oh my god, like, or I didn't see the first one. It's good thing you sent me the next one. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's a it's a harsh show. But yeah, I don't like standing there. It just makes me it just bothers me. You know, for the the wasted time and just the pausing. It's just

Megan 40:33
like, yeah, I feel bad. So um, my husband sleeps through absolutely every alarm and alarm will never ever wake him up. So you know, I'm the one that wakes up to the alarm. So as a backup just in case, my dad still has like the urgent low alarm on his. So anytime there's like any sort of urgent low or anything at night. My dad is just sends a an email, like, Is he okay? And I have to respond back like, yeah, I'm on am awake, you know, otherwise. So like, the plan is like, if I don't respond within like 30 seconds or a minute he calls me. Today, I think of my poor dad, I guess quickly. Like, I think even before I go do any treatment, I'm just like, yes, I'm up. I'm up. It's okay. Like, I always just try to make sure because I know you must be sitting there in the middle of the night being like terrified. He doesn't know what's going on, you

Scott Benner 41:18
know, that compassion that you have for your father is really all I'm asking for. And by the way, you said he emails you is does he not have his fax machine handy? No, I

Megan 41:31
think they i don't i guess i don't know why we don't text I think originally Well, part of is because like, he doesn't know for sure if I'm, if it's still my husband's duty time, or if it's my duty time, like so a text message wakes me up like it has a, you know, I have an auditory sound, audible sound, where's my email? I don't. So I think he's trying to make sure he doesn't wake me up. If I don't need to be woken up. If my husband's in charge at that time, you know, so it's just don't respond to me, then we get a phone call. So it's more just like to make sure I'm sleeping.

Scott Benner 42:04
It's a very weird bounce. Also not to give your husband life advice, but never let your father in law complete something for you. It's not good. Just makes her feel like our dad is better at this than you are. So just, you know, I know what to do. And that's never like Kelly's father be the knight in shining armor anymore. That's it. I gotta, you gotta fix that.

Megan 42:24
And I think he's happy to take over some of that my dad's a retired engineer. So you know, he has a mind for looking at diabetes graphs and everything too. So I think he's happy to be like, okay, the more good eyes on this, the better.

Scott Benner 42:37
Sounds like you might have given that to your son to

Unknown Speaker 42:40
that. Yeah, that's my math mindset.

Scott Benner 42:43
Yeah, it's very cool. Well, I'm going back to do you want to talk about the loop for a little bit? Or do you have something else you want to talk about? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 42:52
I'll talk about anything.

Scott Benner 42:53
So what's like, whatever I'm here now. I mean, I stopped my kid from learning for this. So we might as

Megan 43:00
what happened, I don't know. I'm trusting that he's another room learning who knows.

Scott Benner 43:04
He's not

Megan 43:07
Luckily, he goes in person on Monday. So I'm like, we just got to get through a few more days of this.

Scott Benner 43:11
It's interesting to me that they go some days but not other days. I don't mind

Megan 43:15
this is a we've been all virtual. And then we're going all in person starting Monday, so we'll see. Yeah,

Scott Benner 43:21
well, you my brother's kids schools just you know, they were like we're going it's fine. And then yesterday, he texted me He's like, yeah, they're all home now.

Megan 43:30
Oh, yeah, I'm just waiting for that that email on Friday afternoon saying nevermind, but

Scott Benner 43:35
Coronavirus is a little bit like being in a fistfight. And let me explain my thought here. And I'm not saying that everyone should go back to school or shouldn't I'm not a, you know, I'm not a specialist on how germs spread and how disease proliferates. I'm just saying. Don't hit me if you don't want to get your face knocked in. And so like unless you're willing to stand and fight to the death don't start. And so like I don't understand sending a whole group of people back to school and then the minute someone gets Coronavirus, sending them all home again. Meaning Did you not know that wasn't gonna happen? Exactly.

Megan 44:10
Yeah. will be some cases. Yes.

Scott Benner 44:13
And didn't you say like, did you say to yourself, Well, if it happens, we're gonna send everyone home was this just like, Well, I hope it doesn't happen. It was that like, Is that what you were doing? Where you're five years old going? Maybe it won't be us lets everyone cross our fingers. Either. either send them all in there and give everybody Coronavirus because that's what's gonna happen eventually. Or don't go back but like, though, the whole hoping that germs aren't going to spread in a school doesn't seem like a plan to me. Yeah, either do it or don't. But, you know, once you start swinging hands, you can't stop in the middle and go please stop beating me. I want to give up now. That's not how a fight works. So anyway, I don't know it just it seems like a ridiculous notion to me either do it or don't do it but you know, don't do it. imagining that like you know, the laws of Physics and science aren't going to apply to your situation. Very strange. I'm just gonna jump out of this plane without a parachute. If I feel like I'm not stopping, I'll just call do over. I guess it's not gonna. I don't know, I think it's a fascinating way I understand people wanting to go back to school and their lives and everything else. But either, you know, I don't know. It's just it seems like a lack of pre planning domain or common sense. One of the other. So you said some days on loop, there's good days and bad days. So are you is that wrapped around types of food sometimes is it when you don't Pre-Bolus is that we win the loop gets away really

Megan 45:39
tricky. So I even have like one of them an amazing, one of the loop mentors from the group and everything helping me out. And there are days where we are just scratching our heads, I think because I, we can do the exact same food exact same quantity of the food at the exact same time with the exact same level of activity for a couple days in a row and still see big differences, like big differences. So I don't know. No, and at some point, I just have to be like, I can't understand it all. Let's just look at the head. Now. Let's look at the trends as best we can and go from there and just assume that some days are going to be just really confusing. And we have no idea what the differences

Scott Benner 46:22
are put in more. I don't even know.

Megan 46:25
Yeah, I don't know. So sometimes when people talk about all this, like stability, or like, Oh, well, I'm sick, I just do 110% override, and then I'm fine. I'm like, I just like that doesn't make any sense in my world at all. There's no, there's we've never had that much consistency ever. I don't think you ever have one week is totally different from the next week and day to day is totally different. It's like I don't know if it's just the growing children or what and definitely our middle is more variable than our oldest. But

Scott Benner 46:52
yeah, I have to tell you try your best. rides never worked for me. Yeah, like that idea of like, you know, there's, I mean, for people who don't use loop, there's basically a slider that's just like, more, like, turn everything up. 10% 20% 50% like everything down, you know, 30, whatever, you just slide it. And it's, it's in my understanding impacts like basil, and insulin sensitivity. And you know, and all this stuff, and I just don't see it. It doesn't work like a Bolus marks, in my opinion. And I would say that when when loop becomes untenable to me, I just treat it like a tantruming child, and it sits on the sofa for a while. So I just open the loop. And then I act like I normally act and I put it back to where I want it and then close the loop up again. That's it, I have given up on trying to make everything perfect all the time.

Megan 47:45
That's exactly what we've done on the days where we just have like these highs that aren't coming down and loops, not, you know, getting them down.

Scott Benner 47:52
I'm just like, we give up, we are opening the loop, we're bringing it down, and then eventually we'll close it back up. Because it's just it's not worth it. Because in my opinion, if your settings are working for days in a row and then suddenly don't work. I mean, it seems like madness to me to try to pin down why it didn't work on Thursday. And to and even if you could figure it out, how are you going to make a change for that because like you said, there's variability that you you can't figure out, you don't know what the variability is. So when variability hits and causes, you know, the need for more insulin, I always just say just meet the need, just give yourself the insulin your body's asking for I know that becomes difficult for people because they say then how much because they're scared to do too much. But I you know, I'm always just like, I'd rather do too much than too little. So I'm always just sort of on the aggressive side of that. But

Megan 48:41
we try to do to like, especially those early night. Hold on one second. Thanks. Sorry.

Scott Benner 48:52
One of the kids. Yeah,

Megan 48:54
you know, my husband has he's actually still in the house. He hadn't left yet for work. So I was like, Oh, go take care of this. One kids dropping just a little bit. But um, yeah, we definitely are more of the mindset of, I'd rather give a bigger Bolus and catch it on the you know, if we overdid it, catch it as they're falling. Yeah. And then waiting it out.

Scott Benner 49:17
Well, you would definitely think that because you found the podcast on day one. So I must be like, in your ear. When you're thinking about it. It's

Megan 49:24
not totally I know, when people are like, Oh, well, it totally changed my life. I'm like, well, it did change my life. Except this is all I like knew. I never I never had those months of bad advice. You know, I'm very fortunately, we got good advice from day one kind of things. I can like unlearn stuff.

Scott Benner 49:39
Yeah, we can't take the podcast knowledge from your first few months of that you can really appreciate it. Although I really believe that, that finding it early is a big deal because I'm helping. I've helped two different people in the last number of weeks, right. And the one person's kid, excuse me, I got a little dry there. The one person's kid had Diabetes for years, and they get built up fears and misconceptions. And so telling them the right thing to do was hard for them to accept. But then I started with another person who hasn't had diabetes very long at all, and they're just willing to listen. And it's so much easier to get them to a good place than it is to get somebody who's got preconceived notions of things into a good place takes those people longer to break bad habits, I guess, or, or give up on the ideas that they thought were true. And that ended up not being true. You know what I mean? Like I love people are like, my, no, my basil has to be lower right here. Oh, I get low every night at 1130. And I'm like, Yeah, I don't think that's right. You know, I think you're getting low at 1130. Because you're super bad at dinner. And you know, like, like, I, I'm looking at your graph, and you, you screw dinner up every time and then it, then you correct it, and then it makes you low at 1130. And then you've got your Basal super low, and then you correct and there's nothing to stop the correction, you should back up again, like, you know, it's very often has nothing to do with what you're looking at in the moment. And a newly diagnosed person will hear that and go, okay. And somebody who's had diabetes for seven years has been living with for seven years, like, No, no, you're wrong. I get every day at this time. My basil has to be lower right here, like, okay, so it's a hard, it's a hard sell to tell somebody to turn their basil up to stop below. You know what I mean? Which is around about

Megan 51:28
at some point, I mean, you're just so nice to do all that I would be like, then why are you coming to me for help? If you're really frustrated me, I'd be like, well, then just keep doing it your way.

Scott Benner 51:39
I am more direct than that. But especially in person I did. I did say to somebody recently, I was like, Look, you know, do whatever you want, but it's gonna go wrong. And when it goes wrong, I don't have enough time to talk to you about it the rest of the afternoon. And so they did it and it went wrong. And then the next time I spoke to the person I was like, so, you know, like, I can unfollow now if you don't want to do this? And they're like, No, no, I'm sorry. I'm like, Don't be sorry, just you know, and it's fine for them to have to go through their process. I'm not trying to push anybody. You don't I mean, like, the worst thing you could do is? Well, I don't know, I was gonna say the worst thing you could do is make them do something they don't want to do. But I mean, if it works, then you'd think they would accept that, but I've actually seen people watch it work, and still reject it. And that's how bad the fear can be sometimes. You know, they're like, no, that they actually think that when it went right, it went right by mistake. Like, no, we did this. We made this happen. You know, like I had somebody say to me that they're gonna rise now after the meal. I'm like, No, they're not. This is what they always rise after the meal. I'm like, yeah, that was when you were doing it. I'm like, when I'm doing it, they're not going to rise after the meal. And trust that and for the next three hours, they just, they're on pins and needles. You know, and then you'll get a tax like, I can't believe you didn't go up. And I'm like, I haven't thought about it once. Just so you know. I, I saw the Bolus work two hours ago. I haven't thought about it since then. But then they get to it, which is really gratifying and nice. And in honesty, Megan helping other people sharpens my skills for talking about on the podcast, too. So I get something out of it, too. You know, it's good. Yeah. It's not completely altruistic. Oh, my gosh, but yeah, it sounds like you It sounds like you're very fluid. I like I really like that.

Unknown Speaker 53:23
Okay, yeah, I try to be

Scott Benner 53:25
what do you ever? Is it always one or the other? Or do they ever both work? Well, at the same time?

Megan 53:32
Oh, gosh, I don't know, there's a few days where we have like, really good days. They're just like, you're like afraid to even look at the numbers. Like, if I look at them, something's gonna go wrong. But yeah, you know, it's been, like I said, in 19 months, and up until maybe two months ago, I think I had probably had maybe five full nights of sleep. Um, you know, because there's always something with one of them, you know, when you have two of them, you're just up all the time, just even between the blood sugar issues, but then the technology issues like, we went through long periods of times where we just had so many signal losses on Dexcom. And things like that are all the compression loads. Something's always keeping you up. And now I have been getting much better sleep since sleep although again, we're we are higher than where I want to be at night. But I'm right now our goal is again to get a little bit more stable, even if it's a little bit higher, and then bring it back down. So I'll take it for now. And we'll get there. Then I feel really guilty on the days where I'm like, Oh my gosh, I slept all night and then I look I'm like oh it's because they say hi or shoot because I feel kind of bad. But I'm like you know I need that sleep or I can't look at these graphs and make any sense amongst my brain won't work.

Scott Benner 54:50
Yeah, no. Are you so when you're trying to bring this stability to a lower number? Are you doing it with insulin sensitivity? Are you making the insulin sensitivity more powerful?

Megan 55:00
Most of what we've been playing with at night has been Yeah, the sensitivity.

Scott Benner 55:05
Yeah, well, I so Arden, you know, because Arden's older, and she has a period, she's basically three different people every month. And with loop, I've figured out that it's a small increase, or decrease of basil, in conjunction with a small increase or decrease of insulin sensitivity. So whatever way it's moving, if she's needs more insulin, then I make the sensitivity stronger, and turn the basil up a little bit. And that seems to do it. And then you know, when she's super stable, there's that week where she's terrific. And then you just turn it down to the lower edge of, you know, basically this range that I have. And for everybody listening who's like, say, the range, what percent, it doesn't matter what I do for my kid, I'm just, you know, like, you're gonna have to find the range for yourself. But it's just, I found, I basically figured her out three different ways. This is who she is, in week two, this is who she is. And week three, and it's who she is. And week four. And then as we roll through week, the week, as soon as you see the telltale signs of it, you just make the change in the settings and everything's fine again. It's really, it's about stepping back, in my opinion, and not looking too micro at everything. You gotta have to see the bigger picture sometimes, you know,

Megan 56:22
and that's where like, when we see these big differences that will last for a few days at a time, I just can't help but think there has to be something with them being growing children, that is a hormone based change, too. And so that's why I wish that was like a pattern. I wish it was like, oh, for this week, they're like this, and for this week, they're like this, because I feel like we're just guessing every time there's a new change, like oh, okay, well just go with the swing. And yeah, figure out like, why they suddenly swung high, or, you know,

Scott Benner 56:55
I don't care about the y as much like, I would just feel like like, this is my stronger settings. And this is my weaker settings. And yeah, when they start getting higher, I just flipped right into the stronger settings. And then I

Megan 57:05
used to have that when we first switched to Omni pod, I had different basil settings, and they did work pretty well for a while. And it would be like, I had my, they were labeled weak, strong and stronger, or something where my my basil profiles based on like, what they seemed like they needed that day nice. And they actually worked pretty well. But it's kind of funny when like the endosome. She's like, so, which is you like looking at the names of trying to make sense of it. Like, um, she's like, we I look at this now and you're you're stronger is actually weaker than you're, you're weak or something. I was like, Yeah, I know, over time they've morphed. The names don't make any sense anymore. But it makes sense to

Scott Benner 57:46
stop looking for clarity.

Megan 57:48
If I should have named them that way.

Scott Benner 57:51
One, two, and three, guide it. I think that also, as they morph and you start changing, changing, changing, there is a time where you have to just there bastardize too much, you almost have to throw them away and start over again. Now, if that makes sense or not. But that's what we did. That's why we were like, well

Megan 58:11
just go to loop insert.

Scott Benner 58:13
So many dials so many times that you've lost the thread of common sense. And you just have to start over and I do that and then I'll just I pick one basil rate and I start over again. And then I adjust the off of it. And I'm going to tell you that the other day Arden switch to fiasco, we're trying something we really like a Peter, but we're we're just trying to be asked for you know, doesn't matter why right now. But we're trying it. And I have her switched successfully from one insulin to another in six hours. And I hear people are like, Oh my god, it's gonna take forever again, will it? Or will I just turn this a little bit and then this a little bit and then it'll all work again. In the end? I've come to think of these the insulin doing what I mean for it to do, or is it not? Like, I don't think about the rest of it. I'm just like, is it doing what I want? I put the insulin in here. Here's my expectation did that not happen? If it didn't happen? It's not enough, or it's too much, or I didn't do it for long enough for short enough. It's just I wanted to do what I wanted to do. And when it doesn't, I try something different. I just don't stare and I don't you know, I don't whip it around, like you know, 100 100% higher. But I also don't move so incrementally slow that it takes days to get to it. You know what I mean? By then then something changes by that and you're like, then you don't know what happened again. You need to be in that like in that space. Like when I talk about I'd rather see you do something first. So the next thing happens, you know you have made happen so that you can change it, you know, like so you can see Oh, I did this and then that happened. I should have done a little more, a little less, a little sooner, a little later. But once you do something at eight o'clock and then try to figure out the next day at 9am what happened like There's no cause and effect left. You can't make decisions about stuff like that. So it's micro for some things macro for other things. And all I can say is you get good at it at some point. Or at least I did, and a lot of people who follow the show do so I think it's

Unknown Speaker 1:00:16
helping

Megan 1:00:17
me so much. Better. Just not I wouldn't say.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:20
Yeah, I also,

Megan 1:00:22
can I just take a break for like two minutes. The youngest has been running around the house stealing Mommy, mommy.

Scott Benner 1:00:28
No, listen, we can just we're almost at an hour. We can stop here. Like, let's not have the kid out there. Thinking you abandoned him.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:34
I feel like that's gonna be in the background.

Scott Benner 1:00:37
In the background, I let it go because it's fun. Is he younger? Is he the littlest one?

Megan 1:00:41
Yeah, so he's three now he

Scott Benner 1:00:43
can handle himself. Now. Just kidding.

Megan 1:00:46
I thought maybe, you know, it's only been a whole 10 minutes. He's been alone where my husband is left for work, but somehow you still out there be like, oh

Unknown Speaker 1:00:53
my gosh.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:55
They left this. They left us. This is it.

Megan 1:00:59
We had a long talk beforehand. Mommy's gonna be in the office.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:03
A little bit of time.

Scott Benner 1:01:05
Just telling your oldest right now. I hope you know how to use the stove man. Cuz I can't drive. We're dead man. We're dead. They're gone.

Megan 1:01:13
We could do that. Like he comes down. He he's stealing food from like the highest shelf and all time. That's why we're always like, oh, gosh, please don't ever get diabetes. Because if you do, like I don't. Can't stop you from eating this good. Just as is stealing food. This was me. He's here now.

Scott Benner 1:01:27
Yeah. Hey, what's it? We don't wanna say anybody's name. That's all right. But yeah, like that's, it's totally cool. Listen, there's a really nice conversation. I don't know if we talked about anything, but I had a good time. I felt like we did. So that's good enough.

Megan 1:01:38
Thanks for having me. It's really fun.

Scott Benner 1:01:40
I'm glad. That's excellent. I appreciate wanting to do this.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:42
Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Scott Benner 1:01:49
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. Je Vogue glucagon. Find out more about chivo Kibo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juice box, you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n.com. forward slash juice box. Thanks also to the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, you can find that meter at Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. Also look into the test trip saving program and the possibility that you may be eligible for a free meter contour next comm forward slash juice box. I have a couple more seconds for you after this.

I want to thank Megan for coming on and sharing her story. And I want to leave you with the couple of minutes that happened right before we started recording because they made me laugh.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:46
Let's see. I could turn the volume down a little bit to

Scott Benner 1:02:49
sound pretty good like that. All right, actually, there's something in the background of television or something like that. That's coming through loud and clear.

Megan 1:02:57
Hmm. All right. Let me go see that might be my kid on his elearning out in the

Scott Benner 1:03:01
home. There's no school today. Okay, let's

Unknown Speaker 1:03:03
go move them to another.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:06
Alright, hold on one sec.

Scott Benner 1:03:26
people's kids are such a trouble. Children always want things neat things always making noise. need to go to school.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:39
School of all things.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:49
Okay, I'm back. You didn't

Scott Benner 1:03:50
have to hit him. I'm just kidding. If you're still here, I appreciate you listening to the end, please support the sponsors using the links and don't forget the T one D exchange. Super simple to do to help people with type one diabetes. It also supports the show T one d exchange.org. Ford slash juice box fill out the survey. It only takes a few minutes. It's 100% HIPAA compliant. 1,000,000% anonymous, and you're definitely going to help people with type one diabetes. If you take the time to answer the questions. And those questions are not that difficult. They're not hard. They're easy. You know the answers to them already. They're not overtly personal. It's just the kind of data that they use to help people with type one. Thanks so much. I'll talk to you soon.