#614 Charlie Won't Bite

Megan's husband and child have 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 wherever they get audio.

+ 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 friends, and welcome to episode 614 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, I'll be speaking with Megan, who is the mother and wife of a person with type one diabetes. Today on the program, she and I make the chit chat for your amusement and pleasure. 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 healthcare plan. Or becoming bold with insulin. US resident who has type one, or is the caregiver of someone with type one, please head over to t one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box. Join the registry, take a quick survey, help the podcast help people living with type one diabetes. You can do it while you're on the toilet. Like, I mean, it's that easy. You could quite simply make a do do and help people with type one at the same time. Go test yourself. See if you're up to the challenge. Can you poop and take a survey? T Wendy exchange.org forward slash juice box. Don't forget to turn on the fame

this show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. This most exceptional episode of The Juicebox Podcast is also brought to you by touch by type one, head over to touched by type one.org. To find out more about my favorite diabetes organization. They're also on Facebook and Instagram. You're looking for touched by type one. You can do it type it another browser touched by type one.org. The one is a number. You must have bought this a while ago, huh?

Megan Kenney 2:15
It's been a very long time ago. Yes.

Scott Benner 2:18
The reason I say that is because it's an upgraded way I do it now that that includes, you know, a couple of sentences from the person about like, you know, the main overview of why I might want to come on the show. I can't find emails from you. I can't find anything like I

Megan Kenney 2:34
we talked on Instagram, but we never like yeah,

Scott Benner 2:39
when I do it through Instagram. I'm always like, I don't know. So. So I'm sure that's yeah,

Megan Kenney 2:46
I'm sure I think we chatted a bit like very, uh, I don't know, I mean, I think it was just like, I gave my, the synopsis of whatever. And then you were like, oh, okay, cool.

Scott Benner 2:58
I'm not changing my mind. I'm just saying that. Might see my boss for the first time.

Megan Kenney 3:03
I'm not that interesting. Would you?

Scott Benner 3:04
Imagine if, if five minutes into this, I was like, huh, we're done.

Megan Kenney 3:10
I was actually thinking about that. Before this. I was like, Oh, I'm actually not very interesting. I don't really know what I'm doing. And this could be a big flop.

Scott Benner 3:19
No, it's gonna be great. I, you are being recorded now. Just so you know. Okay. But no, I listen, I won't lie. Right? There's been a time or two where someone starts talking. And either their speech pattern rubs me the wrong way. Or they're Yeah, they're a little slow to their answers. And I just take it as a challenge. I'm like, I can still make this good. I know, I can make this good. I know, there's a good episode in here. I'm gonna find it.

Megan Kenney 3:46
Anyway, yeah, I'll find the nugget of, of goodness. It's all this garbage.

Scott Benner 3:50
In truth. It doesn't happen often. Like it's just there's once in a while where you're like, oh, boy, I don't know what to do about this. There's, like three times in my memory. I've thought maybe I should talk to people before I do this.

Megan Kenney 4:02
Right. Right. Let me vet this before it happens. But

Scott Benner 4:06
I find that people don't reach out if they're not fairly confident that they're good communicators and things like that. So

Megan Kenney 4:15
yeah, well, I could be the first who really, you know, drops the ball. So there's always perfect. Well,

Scott Benner 4:21
let's find out. Go ahead and introduce.

Megan Kenney 4:25
I'm Megan Kenny. I live in Baltimore with my husband Mike, my daughter, Charlotte. We call her Charlie and my son Jack. We, my daughter was diagnosed March of this year, last year 2020. And my husband was diagnosed when he turned 30, so seven years ago in January. Okay, okay. Okay, so I have two type ones.

Scott Benner 4:53
Wow. All right. Okay, give it to me one more time to type ones are Yeah.

Megan Kenney 4:59
So my husband might He is type one. He is 37. He was diagnosed at 30. And my daughter Charlotte, we call her Charlie was diagnosed at the age of five in March of 2020. So right before COVID

Scott Benner 5:13
Okay, so, Mike is 3037. Now that's seven years, Charlie. Just a couple of not even

Megan Kenney 5:23
like a year and a half. Yeah, a year and a half. Not even. Yeah.

Scott Benner 5:26
How old? Is she again? She's six, six. Wow. Okay. Well, I guess your husband, I guess your husband can't give you crap about anything ever again. Right? Like,

Unknown Speaker 5:38
I mean, he would think right. You think I have a free pass for life,

Scott Benner 5:42
but just staring? I got the I gave the kids blonde hair. What did you do?

Megan Kenney 5:49
Exactly. And you brought to the table. Autoimmune Disease.

Scott Benner 5:54
Isn't that interesting, too? Yeah, it really is. It is a crazy thing. Like can't blame anybody. Right? Like, did he know that it was in his family line.

Megan Kenney 6:03
So interestingly enough, his mother also had type one, diagnosed at 42. So obviously, a very strong genetic predisposition. Right. But before, so we had started trying to have kids, right, right around the time he was diagnosed, one of my good friends from college, also married a type one. And they had done like, talk to geneticist and done a bunch of research before they started trying to have kids. So I kind of like, you know, tailed off her information, we actually went to see a genetic counselor, I guess, before, just to sort of see what we were looking at. And basically, they were like, we can't give you any quantifiable information. That would say, your chances are this much higher, right, which I now believe to be absolute garbage. But, um, you know, that was what we were told not that that would have ever changed our decision to have kids. But I just kind of wanted to see what we were looking at. Because there's also autoimmune stuff in my family. My dad has MS. So, you know, we knew obviously, our risks were higher, but in my mind, because Mike was dying. His mom was diagnosed late. Mike was diagnosed so late. I was like, well, if our kids get it, at least they'll get through college. And

Scott Benner 7:21
I might be dead by the time it happens to get me out of this. Yeah. Right. I was

Megan Kenney 7:25
like, yeah, the odds are in my favor that you know, at least, it won't be a little kid situation. But

Scott Benner 7:31
wow. So how long? Yeah, so his mom was in her early 40s. How old? Was he at that point? Yeah, no.

Megan Kenney 7:40
Under 10 Math is not my strong

Scott Benner 7:42
suit. That's okay. But he was. Yeah,

Megan Kenney 7:45
yeah. Yeah. Like he remembers her diagnosis. He remembers her losing a bunch of weight. But she always dealt with, like, I knew nothing about diabetes, based on her treatment of her diabetes. Like, she up until she actually passed away six years ago. But like, I knew nothing like she did vials and syringes. She was very secretive about it. You know, it was very like hush hush. So I think Mike knew that it was something that was manageable, and that you could easily function and live with and, you know, have a normal life. But he didn't know the ins and outs because they kept it very quiet.

Scott Benner 8:28
Interesting. It's not uncommon.

Megan Kenney 8:32
Yeah, either. And I think it's generational. I mean, they were definitely like, older for their age group. They, you know, they seemed older, they acted older. So I just think that that was sort of the how they did things. And you know, it was more of like, a we'll deal with this. Don't worry about it. You know, we got this but um, then, you know, Mike, obviously had to deal with it on his own. And it was a totally different, a totally different story.

Scott Benner 8:57
Isn't that interesting? How so quickly through a couple of generations, it shifted to where? I mean, I turned 50 the other day. And I'm not happy birthday. No, no, I wasn't fishing, but thank you very much. That's lovely. Trying to give context for people who are listening, but I don't look 50 I don't write I don't look 30 But I don't look 50 and right. I just as I look back, I think my life is just easier than people's used to be. Like, you know what I mean? Like,

Megan Kenney 9:30
really? I mean, it's a totally different I even think about my dad who is 71 and then I think about my grandparents when they were 71 And it's like, not even in the same realm of you know, it's it's just so different. Yeah, age is so different

Scott Benner 9:49
now. It's, it's lovely. But yeah, that whole thing about, like a lady hiding her medical stuff and that kind of thing. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's gender, probably not. Like I think a lot of people hide their diabetes stuff. But yeah, I definitely

Megan Kenney 10:08
I mean, even my husband. Yeah, even my husband, he was, I mean, we're under 1437 or 37. He is still kind of quiet about it. You know, he wears a Dexcom he got when Charlie was diagnosed, but he does his MDI does injections in private, he, he's just not all about, like, you know, putting it out there. Like, I always, whenever he starts, he started a new job a couple years ago, and I was like, can you just make sure that someone in your office knows that you're diabetic? Like, just someone I you know, you don't need to like where have, you know, a cat on your shirt, but like, just, you know, just in case, whatever, but make me feel better. And he's just very close to himself about it. Which Yeah,

Scott Benner 10:53
Megan, I have to figure out where there's a little noise coming through your phone before we keep going. Are you doing this to a computer or a cell phone? Computer? I'm gonna switch. Can you move your phone away from the computer? Yes. That better? We'll find out when you start talking again. Okay. Well, listen, things are way different now. Because I've seen my daughter with her friends. And if one of them needs like a pad or something like that, they'll like walk through a restaurant and be like, hey, I need a pad and like 10 feet and walk back with it in their hand like that. You know what I mean? Like, I do think that's a newer, a newer kind of freedom, which is lovely. But oh, yeah, yeah, but I feel I feel like your husband's a good example. Like, of the being, it's not secretive, right? It's just private. Yeah. Is that the?

Megan Kenney 11:41
He doesn't? Yeah, he doesn't keep it like, you know, under lock and key, but he's definitely not. It he, I think, really what it is, and he doesn't want it to be his identity. He doesn't want it to be the forefront of people meeting and being like, oh, Mike, the type one diabetic, like, I think that he's worked really hard to just kind of make it a part of his life and not the entirety of his life. So the way he deals with it is just sort of, as you know, a lower level element to who he is and who his identity is. And we've worked really hard at, in a short time Charlie's been diagnosed, making that a similar situation for her like, I just, I want it to be Charlie first, and then you know, the other stuff that comes along with her.

Scott Benner 12:30
I think that's a good idea. Okay, we do have to figure out your noise, though. So when you're talking, it's getting

Megan Kenney 12:36
on air pods? Do you want me to take them off? Do

Scott Benner 12:39
you have a different kind of headphone? Or can you just take them off and see what happens? You sound terrific. But there's this electronic popping while you're talking. Like that disconnect. Okay, let's see if that's better. That's horrendous. Okay, so this is horrendous. This will. This will make me jump out of window. Can we try? What else can we try?

Megan Kenney 13:09
Oh, I can also go to my other computer. I'm on my laptop.

Scott Benner 13:15
Well, I don't know. I can't tell at the moment if it's the headphones or if it's the computer I'm not sure. Like sometimes when your cell phones nearby, your cell phone pings things and it creates interference. I thought it might be that but you move the phone and that didn't do it.

Megan Kenney 13:30
Okay, what farther away from my phone? I live in an actual shoe box. So being far away from my home is or my phone is not that far away. I go upstairs.

Scott Benner 13:39
Just throw your phone out the window.

Megan Kenney 13:43
I literally might have to go put it in my car. Wait,

Scott Benner 13:45
you're wearing your headphones again? Do you have the air pods back?

Megan Kenney 13:52
Yeah, is that good or bad?

Scott Benner 13:53
No. I mean, it sounds better now. So maybe your phone just wasn't quite far enough away? We'll find out.

Megan Kenney 13:59
Okay, I put it I put it even farther. And I moved my actual physical body to a chair.

Scott Benner 14:04
Okay, were you standing?

Megan Kenney 14:07
I was sitting at the table, but then I moved to the chair very, very close to the table. But, you know, maybe a change of scenery.

Scott Benner 14:15
Very nice. Well, I appreciate the effort. Okay. I seriously don't like there's, there's just a part of me that knows if I was listening to a podcast and there was popping while someone was talking. I'm like, I'm out of this. So you could start being like, I know how to be rich. I'm going to tell you where to find gold right now. And I'd be like, I can't listen. Not if it's gonna pop like that. But anyway, such a first world problem. I got a audio and it just wasn't perfect. But anyway, that's all I think about it. I had to turn it off. You're good. I think that right? Yeah. Yeah. So you I got an interview that just went up the other week with a guy who's like, you know, out in the in like a really cold state in the middle of winter. And I'm like, What's that? Noise nice like it's my furnace. And there was a split second or I thought to myself that okay, or should he after freeze to do this?

Megan Kenney 15:10
Yeah, I don't think we can handle you're not to be cold.

Scott Benner 15:13
Yeah, I need audio nice and clean. You go outside.

Megan Kenney 15:18
And yeah, exactly. Well, so it does make a difference.

Scott Benner 15:21
Yeah. Well, you see you're in an interesting situation, aren't you? How long have you been married?

Megan Kenney 15:28
10 years this year, I lived together for 17.

Scott Benner 15:32
Okay, I love the pause as like the shiana.

Megan Kenney 15:34
Together. Let me wrack my brain. No, you got we were we got together my junior year of college. So we've been together for a long time. But over time,

Scott Benner 15:47
what I like the roundness of the numbers. So you met him when he was like, 20. You've been with him for 17 years, 10 of those last 10 of those years you've been married. He gets he gets diagnosed when he's 30. And so you're with him for 10 solid years before he's diagnosed. So I want to know first what that's like. Because you were married for what? Three years then?

Megan Kenney 16:11
Yeah, so 30 points out. Yep. Exactly three years. So it was, it was shocking, honestly, it it was very. I mean, I think we kind of since you kind of grew up together, you know, we, before your college, you don't really know you are we're figuring it out. We we kind of, you know, started our careers together move, you know, bought our first house, it was all this stuff were his diagnosis as much as now looking back on it, it's just was just a blip. Really, it felt like a big deal. Like I and I think unless he hit it really well, I think I almost took it harder than he did. I think I did like a flash forward of like, but kids but you know, life but travel, but I didn't. I didn't realize sort of that it would just become part of day to day, I think it you know, it felt like such a bigger challenge in the moment, then it would eventually become okay. Not to discredit that it's no, no, no. Yeah, you know, it felt it felt massive in in the diagnosis, and then, you know, it sort of just becomes part of life.

Scott Benner 17:27
So if he is staying private about it, is it possible that you're not seeing the full impact of it?

Megan Kenney 17:35
It's funny, because I think before my daughter's diagnosis, I saw 25% of it, I did not understand the constant calculation, the constant planning the you know, what it really entailed. Because he did keep it to himself. And I honestly, it, he was not a great diabetic before Charlie was diagnosed, like, they once he was high. He, he just, he, it's almost like he didn't have time for it. He didn't want to bother with it. He wanted to just work on his career and have his friends and you know, do our own thing and not let that, you know, curtail his good time. And then I think Charlie's diagnosis really jolted him and his care for his own health.

Scott Benner 18:27
Well, here's why I really appreciate your answer, because it's honest, first of all, but also because it highlights a thing that I'm a little focused on. And that is people saying, No, it was great. It went fine. Or yeah, everything's good. How's everyone see? It's great. Did I just lose? You? May not hear you're there. I can't hear myself suddenly. Hold on a second. Oh, really? I'm freaking out. I'm having a stroke. This is it. This could be Oh, hold on a second.

Megan Kenney 18:58
I told you this is gonna be a real

Scott Benner 19:01
could just be this settings. No, that's right. Where did my headphones go? I'm still being Oh, I know what happened. Don't you worry. Hold on one second. Everybody cut me a break here. All right. Technical difficulties. I'm about to tell a story is gonna make you feel bad for me. So just chill out. All right. I use the wrong template for your episode. And it had weird volumes. I had weird volume, adjustments set up but that freaked me out. I just disappeared in my ears. Like my, my voice comes through my ears at just enough of a level that I'm subconsciously aware of it. But I can't. I wouldn't know that I'm hearing myself. But the minute it goes, right, it feels like I'm in a vacuum talking right? My mouth is moving and nothing's coming. So hey, really Sorry, what is happening? See if I can go back to my thought? Which is that I think that too often people say things are okay when they're not. Like they just do like I asked you like, how was it? You know, with your husband being diagnosed, married for three years been together with probably for a decade, you're like, I wasn't bad. And then we talked for three seconds, and I probably only knew about 25% of the impact. And if I'm being fair, it's possible he's hiding some of it. So you don't you don't know. But it is your default to answer. It's going good. And I think what that means is, it's going good, no one's dead. The house isn't on fire, like that. And we have to all stop measuring our health by the fact that we're not dead right now. Like, that's such an I generally mean like, well, it's yeah, it's a weird way to think about things. You know, if I, if I told you there was an Army coming from four miles away, and their goal was to decimate your town, and you couldn't see them, and I said, How are things right now you guys are fine. Instead of saying, Oh, no, we got a bug out of here. Like there's problems, you know it? So it's a very common answer that people give, which is why you have to really interview them. Because you have to get to like, How's everyone see, it's good, then you talk for a little longer? And it's like 7.9, or 8.5? And it's like, What do you mean, it's good? Well, it's better than it used to be. Okay, it's better than it used to be. It's not good. Like, that's the that's the context. I like to have these conversations. And so just to go to your husband for a second, and I obviously don't know him, I'm not speaking to him. But I can tell you that somebody close to me has been having a problem for a couple of weeks. And I am as close to devastated by it, as you can imagine. And I don't think anyone around me knows that.

Megan Kenney 21:51
Right? Right, because you put on a face and you deal with it. And you know, you got other stuff to deal with. And yeah, it's, it's, it's hard to I mean, it's hard. And it's easy to compartmentalize, you know, what's really going on. But I do agree with, you know, wholeheartedly with what you said about people hiding what's really going on, because, you know, it's, it also makes the people that you're speaking to when you say, Oh, it's fine, it's good, everything's great. It makes them feel like they're doing something wrong, because it's not good. And it's great. And it's not fine. You know, there are days and moments where, yeah, it really does feel okay. But there are plenty of moments where it does not feel like it's going how it should be going. So, I mean, I think in every person I've met and through diabetes, and they're, you know, both of their diagnosis, diagnosis, diagnosis. Oh, that's fun.

Scott Benner 22:45
Some other variations of the world diagnosis.

Megan Kenney 22:49
Diagnosis,

Scott Benner 22:51
I believe, diagnoses?

Megan Kenney 22:52
diagnoses? Yeah, I think so. You were I mean, I was a journalism major, and I can barely write a sentence anymore. Like, truly, it is

Scott Benner 23:00
horrifying. Would you like to shout out your college so people don't go there?

Megan Kenney 23:04
Yes, shout out University of Maryland do not get your degree will last in your brain for three years. Um, but yeah, I just think you're doing a disservice to the people around you by saying, you know, it's all good when, you know, a little bit of transparency might help them think, okay, you know, it can be a struggle. And yeah, I think that was just so important. And learning from experiencing it from such a different side. Like, I really do feel like I learned very, very little, when Mike was diagnosed, up until Charlie's diagnosis. And I think that I myself about about it now, even though it's, it's, it's truly not my responsibility. But I wish I would have known more, because I think there could have been several years in there where we were, you know, working as a team, if you will, to sort of figure it out and lowers agency and, and make him feel more in control of it. And, and, you know, it took Charlie's diagnosis to really get us there. As a family.

Scott Benner 24:14
Yeah. I always wonder, when people aren't candid with each other. If, if it isn't a little bit of like the fear of what's going to get mirrored back to you. When you tell somebody like when you look at your wife, and you're like, hey, I I don't feel in control right now. Or I'm scared. If you don't want your wife to know you're scared. Or if you if you don't want your husband to know you're scared, I guess like that kind of thing. If you don't want a stranger, right? It's an open a can of worms. Well, so in the context of a relationship. Yes. Like imagine if in a perfect scenario, life going pretty well. Nobody gets sick. You know, we've got a couple dollars to pay our bills. You live a whole life and it's very nice. But suddenly you get stressed, like put a stressor in there and you learn that one of you isn't as good of a person as you see. Think they were like, right, like all the sudden you're like, oh, under pressure. Megan's kind of not nice to me. Like, what if that's what your husband was worried about? Like, what if I tell her I'm weak? Basically, that's how it's gonna feel to him. And instead of you going, It's okay, honey, I'll help you. You go. I did want a stronger guy. Like, like, that's the fear, right? Like in your heart. Like when you're going to tell somebody something? So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So relationships are horrible mistake. Is that what you're saying? Because happen now just

Megan Kenney 25:28
what I'm saying is yes, never get married. And yeah,

Scott Benner 25:32
live alone in a hole by yourself. Yeah.

Megan Kenney 25:34
And live alone. You'll figure your own stuff out by yourself. You know, that's it.

Scott Benner 25:39
Well, that's it. That's why it's a two way street. Because everybody has to give a little bit so that everybody can feel comfortable giving the rest. But how do you make that happen? Yeah, I

Megan Kenney 25:55
mean, hard. It's it's a challenge. Definitely different. It is a challenge. Difficult. Yes.

Scott Benner 26:02
So you lifted this whole bit with your husband at this point now? You mean? Seemed like a bright lady. His mom's got it. He's got it. You're like, Oh, yeah.

Megan Kenney 26:17
I got you there. No, but yes, I in my head. I knew because of clearly there was a, you know, line of type one diabetics, I was not blind to the fact that it was a possibility. But I think I was totally in denial. That it was that it was a possibility.

Scott Benner 26:40
This is gonna be okay. Whistle happy to keep going. That's sort of right.

Megan Kenney 26:44
Yeah. Right. And I was like, you know, what, I did all the right things. I had a healthy pregnancy, I nursed my kid for a long time, all the things that they said to do to, you know, lower your risk of, you know, diabetes, or autoimmune or whatever it is. I was like, I'm doing the thing. So like, we're gonna be good at

Scott Benner 27:05
everything Kathleen, told you.

Megan Kenney 27:08
I mean, if no one else, Kathie Lee and Hoda. But yeah, I just thought that it was gonna be good. And little did I know, no, but it was definitely It surprised me, but it didn't shock me.

Scott Benner 27:25
Right? Well, this is where you have to start wrapping your head around more existential ideas, which is, if you really stop and think about all of the families that you know, just break it down into the families that you know, pick the one out where everything's perfect for everybody. I don't

Megan Kenney 27:43
know one, right. There's none. Yeah.

Scott Benner 27:46
And there are some people where you're like, oh, they have, you know, medical issues, or they have financial issues, or, Hey, that kid seems to set houses on fire, or, you know, like, like, whatever, like, you know, you know, you know, everyone's got like, just a little bit of arson Yeah, where you're like, my kid is definitely going to start killing birds soon, like, you have that feeling when you're like, right, right. So, but everyone's got something. The real tragedy is when they get all of them, when a financially disenfranchised person is also being abused by a spouse, and gets type one diabetes, and then thyroid disease and celiac and, like, that's, that those are the people who, who I think we need to have the most compassion for. And I think it's valuable to remember that no one's getting out of this alive. And very few people get through it unscathed. But totally

Megan Kenney 28:43
and that's honestly, that's one of the first things I thought about when when Charlie's diagnosed, I was like, we have the financial means to get the technology we need. We have great health insurance, we will be okay. In my head immediately went to what about all of these other people who face the same disease without the benefit of, you know, the things you need? The things you need? Yeah, it's it that that really, like crushed me a little bit.

Scott Benner 29:13
It's hard to resolve inside of you when you have insurance and you know about people who don't or when, you know, X, you know, on and on those things.

Megan Kenney 29:24
Yeah, I mean, I had a conversation with another type one mom who had recently been diagnosed and, and she said something like, she must have said it on a forum or something that well, why don't you just get a CGM? You know, if you're having all this trouble, just, you know, just get a CDN and the, you know, the person was like, well, we don't have insurance, our insurance isn't covered or whatever. And it's like, putting that in perspective of how easy and you know, quotation marks our life is in comparison to all these other people who have the same stuff we deal with but don't have all the added you know, benefits of All the things we have to make our lives easier. Yeah,

Scott Benner 30:02
no, it's, um, it's incredibly difficult to have perspective when you don't have perspective. You know, right, you know, yeah, there's plenty of other, it's a silly thing. It's not silly. It's it's trite because your mom said it to you, when you were literally like feed that they're poor people somewhere that are starving, you know, just eat finish your food, it's hard to recognize that, you know, for all the things you might hope for, for civilized society to get better at. Places that are in that situation, are hundreds of times better off than some other places that exist right now on the planet, like right now. Right? And it's, it's, listen, you getting diabetes, your son getting your daughter getting it, your husband getting it, that is a huge impact it is it should not be minimized. And when I say you need to find perspective, that perspective shouldn't come on day one, like you don't sit in the hospital. Well, you know, it takes time to see it. And if your blood sugar's constantly low, and then rising up, and you feel horrible and crashing down, and you're calling the ambulance all over the you know, because you're passing out and falling out of bed and all these other things are happening. Well, then, you know, what, you probably don't have a lot of time to search for perspective. And then it becomes it becomes irritating to hear from somebody. And so, you know, there's a lot of steps that have to get you to the point where you can find some clarity and try to step back and see a bigger picture. A lot of people don't even get to that point. And I think that's right,

Megan Kenney 31:34
I think 100% And I think that we had so many things on our side when Charlie was diagnosed, not only the experience of Mike's diabetes, so you know, we're in the hospital, and we were there for 24 hours, they let us leave because they knew we knew what we were doing.

Scott Benner 32:01
G voc hypo pan has no visible needle, and is the first premixed auto injector of glucagon for very low blood sugar in adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Not only is G voc hypo pen simple to administer, but it's simple to learn more about. All you have to do is go to G voc glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used in patients with insulinoma or pheochromocytoma. Visit G Vogue glucagon.com/risk.

Let me just remind you, before we head back to Meghan, to check out T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. And take that survey. podcast is over 30 minutes old by now, you could have made your poopy and done the survey by now while you're listening to the podcast. If you haven't, there's still time do you have to go you feel any rumbles? Anything happening? Huh? Are you regular, you go every day, don't you, if you don't go every day, you might want to look into that. That's a sign of what I'm talking about, though. T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. I also want to remind you to head over to touched by type one, it's a great organization doing wonderful things for people with type one diabetes, and you should know more about them. And you can add touch by type one.org.

Megan Kenney 33:43
They knew we knew how to carb count, we knew what insulin was and how it worked. We knew you know, all these things that people come in out of the blue with no experience of this of diabetes. And they, you know, are basically starting a crash course from you know, page one. And we had that on our side. So I think that we had that and then we had immediately got connected with people who were incredible. And you know, I had this woman, Lauren, who I got connected with through a mutual friend from work and I think we went home from the hospital for 24 hours. She called me to check down on me every day she let me cry to her. She let me ask her every single question. She texted me like she was like, truly my guardian angel and all of this and was like there to support me and just help me figure it out. She gave us your podcast immediately. I started listening. I mean we weren't even a week diagnosed. i i truly credit the fact that we're a year and a half in and I have her a one C at a 6.2 and I sort of feel like some days I know what I'm doing because we had this kickstart. And I think that like, that's one thing that I just feel so strongly about pushing forward is like having that community of people around you and reaching out to the newly diagnosed family and putting yourself out there to really be that support person, if you have the capacity to just even share those little bits of information. Like, I mean, I think three families since Charlie's been diagnosed, I've, I've started, you know, speaking to the moms and helping them just with little things like that. You don't necessarily need a 15 carb correction, you know, for that low that, you know, you're freaking out that why are they spiking after, you know, a low correction, because the hospital tells you, you need to be 15 carbs, like little things that you would eventually figure out course, but to have that information up front is just, it just saved me so much angst,

Scott Benner 35:55
right? And I'm assuming it showed you a world where you thought, oh, maybe my husband needs help, too.

Megan Kenney 36:04
Yeah, and I think, I think that came on his own, like that realization came on his own. And I think it almost scared him straight, like, well, first of all, he got a little competitive. He was like, Charlie can have a better agency than me like, this is you know, this isn't fair of yours. I should I should know what I'm doing. But I think he also wanted to be a positive role model. He wanted to you know, they were their ducks comms and they have the matching pump heals. And it's like it, it made this like, scary, weird thing for a five year old to have so much less scary and weird, because she had a family member in her own house who was going through the same stuff, like when she started to figure out her low symptoms. And Mike was like, Oh, he's your belly feel really empty, like really hollow? Like, you're really sweaty? He's like, Oh, yeah, I have that, too. Like, they had that connection. And they were already super tight. But it just, like, super glued them together, which has been the bright light in this absolute, you know, garbage storm

Scott Benner 37:07
can ask you questions that it's possible, you won't want to answer? Yeah. Was he a good dad before diabetes?

Megan Kenney 37:15
Oh, amazing. Yeah. And this just upped his game? Yes. I mean, I think it also just put so much perspective in it. Like, I think, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think he partially felt responsible. I mean, I, you know, I wish I understand. And I would feel the same way. And, you know, I, I don't discredit that feeling. But I think that he just, he felt like he owed it to her to make it normal, you know, make it feel like, just, you know, we're, we're, we figure it out, like, you know, we're just not going to make it the end all and be all of our lives. And I think that the way that he came at diabetes is a little more, I don't wanna say lacks, because it's not the right word, but just not as it doesn't overwhelm his life in in a positive way. I think he's tried really hard to kind of show Charlie that, like, you can do everything you want to do, you can be totally normal, you can act however, you know, you can do the sports, you can, what literally whatever you want to do, it can still happen. So I think that that perspective, played a huge role in in just like how we sort of settled into it.

Scott Benner 38:36
The most interesting aspect of that to me, is that is that without this without Charlie, right? Without her diagnosis, your husband, I would assume likely goes on the path he was on until something else either knocks him off of it, or forever. And I'm, I'm in a man's scary thought. Yeah, man, I'm not that I'm endlessly interested by the idea that people have a hard time doing a thing that obviously he could do for himself, but a very easy time doing it for someone else. Absolutely. Never gonna not be fascinated by

Megan Kenney 39:15
that. It is amazing. Because he, I mean, I think any parent could say that about anything like, you know, I just, I think that he made it a bigger he put in perspective that if he doesn't take care of himself, and if he doesn't model positive diabetes behavior, he's he's doing a disservice to his daughter and to his his entire family. So I think that it scared him straight a

Scott Benner 39:43
little bit. Yeah. Which oddly means that he didn't see what he was doing as okay for his daughter. It was okay for him but not okay for her. Right. And I think to take that a step farther for people who are listening who are adults who have type one and don't have haven't bumped into the thing yet that shocked them or scared them straight how you put it like, whatever, you don't really need that that's a false thing, you don't really need a thing to shock you into, you could just quite literally just decide to do it. And, and do it. I mean, that's that. Did your husband use the podcast at all? How did that go?

Megan Kenney 40:21
No, I don't think my husband's ever listened to an episode ever. So he is so disconnected from the diabetes community intentionally, I think. Whereas I've taken the total opposite, you know, direction, I immediately jumped in and make connections and started listening. And you know, all of that. He's just done his own thing.

Scott Benner 40:45
I'm so interested in that. I, yeah, yeah. I, there's part of me that believes that sometimes, people want to think like, Listen, I have diabetes, I'm gonna keep it quiet, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. He didn't get to get me to where it gets. Those other people are sick. I'm like, You don't mean like putting it on him for a second like or not taking it away from him? Just anyway, I am different than the rest of you. And if I don't go find the similarities between us, I can continue to pretend that I'm different. Like, that's the psychological thing. I feel like I see sometimes. I can completely wrong, of course, again, no. I'm the guy sitting here that doesn't have diabetes pontificating about what people with diabetes think it's, it's just from my perspective, from talking to so many people.

Megan Kenney 41:32
Exactly. And I do the same thing. And this is why I get on followed on Dexcom share about a husband because I don't shut my mouth. And I give little like, you know, what if we raised your Tracy Barb, you know, unit or two? And he's like, all right, um, follow up. Like, I just,

Scott Benner 41:51
that's interesting, though. What Why would he? Why would he? I mean, listen, are you managing your daughter?

Megan Kenney 41:59
98%.

Scott Benner 42:00
Sorry, you You disappeared for a second? Do you said 98% 98%? Yes. So and she's doing well? Does she have more stability than he does?

Megan Kenney 42:12
I, I would say she heard her her numbers are typically lower. But she's more up and down than he is. I think that has to maybe do with her age and her activity level. And, you know, I'm still trying to figure out like, how aggressive I can be, because sometimes I overdo it. And we're definitely still I mean, we're only a year and a half in. So I'm, I'm really still trying to find that sweet spot where, you know, like, she still rises at night. Like she still has those things where like, I think sometimes because of our experience in our family with having, you know, an adult diabetes, and then people expect me to know what I'm doing. A lot of the time are people like people that I've met have come to me asking for what would you do in this? How would you Bolus for this? Or did it I'm like, truly have no idea because I'm still trying to figure it out myself.

Scott Benner 43:10
Yeah. Um, my thought kind of danced away from me a little bit there. But I mean, he

Megan Kenney 43:16
is. He's not like, control.

Scott Benner 43:18
He has a desk job, right? Yeah, he works in an office. So he could probably handle a little more Basal, because he's not that active during the day.

Megan Kenney 43:27
Exactly. Yeah. So that's when I give little my little, you know, my podcast inspired suggestions. And I think, you know, he, his eyes just rolls so far back into his head that I wonder if they will stay there. But, um, it's, you know, I think I, it's all for the greater good. I'm not saying you know, I don't give suggestions and do these things to be annoying. I know, I,

Scott Benner 43:55
you're right. You're just

Megan Kenney 43:57
No, no, no, not at all. Not like, oh, did you Pre-Bolus For that bowl of pasta, you know, I'm not doing that. But I think I just have seen what little tricks and, you know, tips has done for Charlie, that I'm like, Well, you can parlay that into your own, you know, tear and you might be able to see a market difference in a lower agency and more time in range and all of that but I also need to learn when to just like, stop talking because I can under I can flip it and see from his perspective, like, alright, nondiabetic like you keep giving me all your all your advice. So it's definitely like a i, i got, yeah, it's,

Scott Benner 44:45
listen, I completely understand that sentiment you just outlined Okay, nondiabetic Thank you, and I completely I completely understand it. And at the same time, I don't understand that at all. Like, who cares who gives you good information? Like, why does that matter where it comes from? Exactly like, as long as it's good information it is. And that's that, like, I, I'm fascinated by that, that wanting like, it's, like Think, think about what you're saying, really. He doesn't want to talk to other people about their diabetes, but he won't listen to somebody who doesn't have it, who might have an idea about it. Like it's an it's an isolationist, like, he's taken an isolationist footing, he's gonna He's gonna stay unto himself about it.

Megan Kenney 45:29
And right, it's like, if it doesn't come from the endo it, it doesn't work. Like he was the person. And I think also because mom handled her diabetes, and it was very much the same way. I think that that's definitely taken some. It's he's unlearning a behavior that is not working in his favor. So you know, I think, no, he's not totally closed off to it. And I feel like I'm making him sound like he's like, you know, a hermit like, no. Those were

Scott Benner 46:03
Dicers. No, no, we are dissecting a very small conversation, like tell him first of all right? Never gonna hear this, that doesn't matter. And it's, I'm sure he's a lovely man. I've seen a picture of money or Instagram, I'd marry him. And, you know, like, he seems like a good dad. So I, you know, I'm not I'm not, he's clearly not a monster. I'm, we're just we're nitpicking through psychology right now. Not him, you know, I'm using him to talk to everybody, basically.

Megan Kenney 46:32
I totally agree. And, and, you know, it is just, it's, it's this very interesting place where, I think because I manage Charlie so closely, you know, I think that I've, I just want to share what I'm learning through that and say, this, this could help this could really help you or really, you know, change your situation. And I mean, like, he's not on a pump. But he has said, like, once, maybe like, once horizon comes out, or, or is out, it is

Scott Benner 47:05
gonna be on the part five, they started to call it horizon. Oh, five, Saamy? Pot five. Yeah.

Megan Kenney 47:09
Okay. Well, when that he's like, I would really consider that, you know, three is that closed off to, to furthering his, you know, management and his his knowledge, I think it circles back truly to the fact that he wants to be healthy, and he wants to be in control, and he wants to be in good shape. But he also doesn't want it to take over his life, which I can understand. Like, in a weird way, no, I

Scott Benner 47:38
do, too. I, I completely understand I'm having these conversations, so that we can find the balance for people listening, not because there's a right or wrong answer. But because there are so many people listening, they're all going to have different perspectives, they're all going to have different stressors, they're all going to have you know, different ideas of what success is. And through these conversations, I just want them to find the path of the best thing that's for them. Like, I do wonder sometimes begging if people listening understand that I'm not an app solutionist at all, like I'm not saying anything's the right thing to do. I'm saying here are all of your options here are things to consider that you may not have considered about how your brain works, your psychology, the interplay you're having with other people, and and hopefully those conversations, bring something out of someone like I'm not silly, I don't think I can just say something and it's going to happen, because if I did, right, if I thought that Megan, a couple of minutes ago, when you alluded to not Pre-Bolus thing for pasta, I would have gone on a seven minute rant about that.

Megan Kenney 48:39
I mean, that was just an example. And he does now Pre-Bolus for pasta, I will say that he's he's gotten a truly sense Charlie's diagnosis gotten, I mean, exponentially better. But like his mom never Pre-Bolus for anything ever. Like she I remember vividly going out to a restaurant with her and she would eat her meal. And then she would go to the bathroom. And she would Bolus and I was like, thinking back on it now I'm like, that is in FINITY insanity. Like, I just can't, I can't imagine. But you know, I think it's just I've taken such a different approach. And I I feel like there's so much more information out there that people without the help of an endocrinologist can with obviously, working also with the Endo, but you know, outside of that you can you can learn so much and it's just amazing how different things maybe could have been for her care than they are for my daughter.

Scott Benner 49:45
Yeah, no, I understand. All right. Listen, I I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate him. I mean, letting you talk about it, although I don't know if he's letting you talk. But one day he'll listen You should not tell me yeah, I'll just make the title. It'll be something where he won't although I really want to call it Charlie Bit something. I'm like dying for you to say that Charlie is bit something in the next 20 minutes or so.

Megan Kenney 50:10
Bit. All of our fingers. Yeah, but she Charlie's pancreas

Scott Benner 50:16
does

Megan Kenney 50:19
that. Oh, that so winner?

Scott Benner 50:22
I think I have it all right. I just don't, I don't want it to be too convoluted. Alright, so tell me tell me a little bit about like, let's go back. You know you get done your friend Lauren you said right? Yes, thank you Lauren. But yeah, of course I didn't know we were gonna start personal shout outs during the podcast, but whatever. Well, she did. And I appreciate it. She gives you the stuff, you kind of get fast forwarded a little bit. How does Charlie manage who's your husband's MDI with Dexcom? So how was how was Charlie doing it?

Megan Kenney 50:56
So she's on Omni pod from the hospital. I started not really like a week after I immediately I got you know, the what is it the trial Omnipod I was already talking to insurance about Dexcom the endocrinologist was pretty open to to pumping early. Because I think, again, the fact that we kind of had an idea of what we were doing helped, but I think within six weeks, she was on Dexcom at Omni pod. Oh, wow. Okay, those were some terrible six weeks, I'm not gonna lie. She hated injections. It was some meltdowns. Like I have a very even keeled like, go with the flow kid for the most part. And I mean, behavior came out of her that I had never seen before. And I don't I fully understand why her world was absolutely rocked. But it was as a parent. I mean, I'm sure every parent who has gone through holding, you know, holding down a kid for an injection or, you know, it's it is heartbreaking.

Scott Benner 52:02
Yeah, I did not enjoy that.

Megan Kenney 52:04
No, and, and you had a two year old. Yeah,

Scott Benner 52:07
I used to sometimes I have to run after like, I'd have the needle in my hand. Like, you know, I just, I just had a needle so the needle in my hand, it's got insulin, she'd said, she'd look at me, she usually a big smile, but she just you'd see or feet or feet would plant and then she'd take off. Like, my God. Yeah, yeah, get out some big I'm like Arden, it's not gonna be that bad. It'll be over in a second, blah, blah, blah, come over here sit down for a second. And then she'd sit down. And, you know, the only thing I can relate it to is I've recently seen a couple of videos on YouTube, where this guy's giving these deep tissue massages. And the people he's doing it to are like squirming off the table to get away from it. He's reaching out and grabbing their limbs and bringing them back. And, and that's I used to, I used to have to like in the very beginning until she got accustomed to it. And she never loved it. But until she got accustomed to it, like you'd have to kind of lay over her. And you know, while you're doing it. This is not a good idea, like long term psychologically. Yes. It's not a good idea. And I'm gonna be scarred from this. To this day. Arden hates getting an injection. Yeah, if it has to happen. She's like, wait, wait, wait,

Megan Kenney 53:17
wait, we're not fun. Yeah. And I remember, like speaking, you know, and you said, it's not that bad. It'll be over soon, which is exactly the mindset you have to take in order to not cry have a mental breakdown every time you give a kid. Yeah. But in the hospital, I remember. She was she was so upset to get her fingerprints. And I mean, I was like, how bad can it be? I was like, alright, mommy, I'll do it first. You know, I put my finger. That thing was like, like a bayonet, like,

Scott Benner 53:46
as much fun as you were hoping.

Megan Kenney 53:48
I was like, oh, it's not that bad. My finger was bruised for like, three days, I was like, was throbbing. I said, I was like, you know, and I'm telling my five year old, you'll be fine. It is okay. But yeah, I mean, you do what's best for your child, and no matter the circumstance, but it is definitely one of those situations where I'm like, you know, I'm not living in your body. So I'm just gonna tell you that it's not that bad. But you might miss might actually really hurt

Scott Benner 54:17
making lesser of evil decisions, when it's for your kids is difficult. Because you're always in your mind imagining perfection or what, what a quality decision is maybe, and every time you kind of go below it a little bit, you feel like I'm not doing them. This is a disservice like the trade off between I know I shouldn't have like, I know it was wrong to pin down a two year old and give him an injection. But those were my options in the moment. Like this thing

Megan Kenney 54:47
that you got to do. And you know, she gets a little she needed the insulin

Scott Benner 54:52
right now. Yeah, she's gonna still eat I still need to put this insulin in. And by the way, using you know, for other context, I didn't know what I was doing back then either. They're like, on your worst day, with 10 minutes worth of listening to this podcast, you were a million times better at that than I was back then.

Megan Kenney 55:09
So I go, Yeah, and I'm like fully aware of that. Like, I again, think the fact that I am not currently in like a mental institution would be because I had this kickstart like, I think that the ease in which we've sort of absorbed diabetes into our lives is truly because of the people I met the podcast, and I think probably just sheer will, that we would make it work. But it's, I cannot imagine a parent who is in an isolated situation where they don't know anyone where they don't have the information at their fingertips, like, you know, just, it can be an isolating scary thing where and you know, thinking, I don't know what I'm doing and it has to do with my child's you know, health and well being is pretty terrifying.

Scott Benner 56:01
No, I I agree with you that it would be very easy to just crumble. And that's why I've never once made a judgment about anybody who has in, in any of these situations, whether you're talking about an adult who just can't hack it or children, parents, like it's, it's not everybody wasn't meant to fight a fight like this, you know? Or maybe you you could have been if you had more time or more experience or more maturity or whatever, like, you know, you know, different experiences leading up to it. I just think that my life right, my life was just so difficult that I was like, Oh, wow, yeah, this makes sense. That more difficult. Thanks.

Megan Kenney 56:41
Right. Yeah, absolutely. Add this to the pile.

Scott Benner 56:45
I guess. That's why I yeah, I'm sorry. I was just gonna say like, when they when you hear me on the podcast, say like, if the zombies come Come find me because I'm gonna be alive, but it's over. I just mean, like, you can take it. Yeah, zombies are not the hardest, like, the worst thing I've thought of like, it just, I've seen some, I've seen some stuff, you know?

Megan Kenney 57:03
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I think, yeah, it definitely hard to do quick, a little bit, you know, you have to be willing to be in some difficult, uncomfortable that you're not willing to, it's just the hand you're dealt, but, you know, there will be some difficult on, you know, uncomfortable situations. And, you know, I think so, my, my I have one sister, and she has a developmental disability, similar to Down syndrome. So, you know, we had a little adversity in our home growing up, and I remember my mom saying, you know, she still says it to this day, but people would like, give you advice and be like, Well, how do you handle this situation this way? Or why don't you just try this or, you know, and I never really understood, like, what that could do to you, and to like your brain, but then living with it and having people say stuff, you know, with, even just like when Charlie was diagnosed and being like, it's okay, like, she'll feel better soon. Or like, you guys will get through this. Like, you're, you know, you're really strong. People saying, Oh, I'm like, you're, you're, you're kidding. I guess are we not allowed to swear? Um, I just now that I've been in the situation. I'm like, How did? How could anybody ever say anything like that to anyone ever? They think they're helping you walk today. It's pressure. Yeah.

Scott Benner 58:24
You feel pressured to say something? Oh, what are you going to say? Hey, your kids got Down syndrome. That sucks. Like, you know what? I mean? Like, although I do think, yeah, perfectly honest. I think that would be better. Right? Like, wow, that sucks. I just think that

Megan Kenney 58:38
right? Yeah, a little bit of honesty and truth. Instead of like, you know, oh, my favorite is when people say like, oh, like, we're not religious people. So I don't know if whatever. But people, God only gives you what you can handle that kind of thing. And just say that to someone who is dealing with a situation. And not even diabetes, necessarily because you know, but any any life altering situation where you're struggling, and you're figuring it out, like I just don't, don't tell me that. Really hard.

Scott Benner 59:12
I love the opposite side. People never flip around what they say. So they can really feel the the intent of it. But so what you're telling me is that if I was a big dummy, my kid wouldn't get diabetes. Like that can't be true, can it? And exactly. I mean, if it can, are you trying to make me feel bad for the way my brain works? Like, I don't understand, like, I get the like, you can step back from it and see the idea. The idea is this. You can handle this. That's the idea. When it comes from a religious bend. It's Don't worry. God wouldn't give this to you if you couldn't handle it. Like I understand. I understand it. But in the moment, in the moment you're saying it, you've just told a mother whose child has been diagnosed with an incurable disease. Hey, you got this because you You were the right one for the job. It's like, Are you out of your mind?

Megan Kenney 1:00:03
I don't want the job. I want the job.

Scott Benner 1:00:05
Yeah. And yeah, yeah. Because the context of the rest of it is like, this isn't going to go away, you know, like the the pathway that I imagined that the possibilities that were held for my children feel at this moment, gone. Now, you'll learn later with diabetes, that that's not true. But you don't know that in the moment. You think it's over? You think the life you expected is on fire and you're watching it burn.

Megan Kenney 1:00:34
And that was the, in the hospital. We're sitting at Hopkins. You know, we have wonderful nurse and everybody's so great, and whatever. And Charlie goes to bed and I laid in her bed with her and wept the whole night. Like, inconsolable, just weeping, crying, and the nurse kept coming in and checking on me. Like, she was like, Charlie's fine, you know, like, she kept coming. All I could think I was like, Googling, like, when's the cure? Like what's happening? You know, I mean, this just pity party that I was, I was a mess. And, you know, I, I didn't know. I was thinking so far ahead that it was so not helpful in this situation. I was, you know, what I what I would have said to my former self was, let's just get through tomorrow. Let's just get through the next meal. Let's just get you know, but I'm like, she'll never have a sleepover. How will she you know, will she be able to Will you see her CGM in her wedding dress like, truly insane? Mind talk that I wish now in retrospect, like I could have had talked myself down from because it got me nowhere, except for just like a rash on my face, I'm crying. But I, I think that that is exactly what you just said, like, you know, if you think in the moment that life is over, that life is just there is what will you do next? And, you know, two weeks out three weeks out a month out, you know, six months out, you realize like, it'll be okay, she'll have a sleepover. Maybe it'll be at our house. But you know, she'll do all the things like, she went back to playing sports pretty much immediately. It wasn't. But in that moment, it is. It is gut wrenching.

Scott Benner 1:02:25
Well, we walked out of a carb counting class at the hospital, and my wife who's not an overtly emotional person outwardly looks at me, she's broken up inside and she goes, is Arden going to be able to have kids? And I'm like, My daughter, too. I wasn't ready to think about whether my daughter was gonna have kids or not. She's two. And I'm like, I and then you're in that moment, like, I don't know, what am I gonna say? Do I say something comforting? Or do I say something honest. And so I just went for comforting. I was like, Yeah, of course. But I was like, I don't know. Like, I have no idea about any of this.

Megan Kenney 1:03:02
But it's crazy how your mind goes there so quickly. Oh, yeah. It's like, this opposite defense mechanism where you know, you're, instead of taking one step in front of the other, your brain is just like, down this path of future situations that

Scott Benner 1:03:22
you've got her with retina. retinopathy already. In your mind. Listen, I had someone tell me, I think, again, something they thought was going to be comforting. I said, long term complications from diabetes don't come for like at least 30 years. Well, first of all, that's not true. Right. Right. And but but still, here's why it wasn't comforting, because my kid was two. And 30 is 32. Yeah, 30 plus two is 32. So what, like don't say anything like I get I get the I get the idea. I know what they were going for, they picked a number that seemed like it was so far in the future. And if you told me that when I was 50, I don't think that's good, either. Because what I might think is, oh, I won't really live to see bad complications. So I don't have to take care of this. But you know, like, there's, there's a lot of important about how you speak to people. And, and not only a lot of people think about it,

Megan Kenney 1:04:18
no, absolutely not, but I was on the Facebook group. Maybe yesterday, and which, by the way, the only reason I will go on Facebook, otherwise it is a cesspool. But, um, I was on the Facebook group and somebody had said something about, what do you sort of look forward to what do you what do you think about or research about to sort of look forward to for the future of diabetes and like, sometimes I'll let myself go there and be you know, sort of swept away by oh, maybe by the time Charlie's in college, you know, she'll be on an artificial pancreas or it'll be something where like, she you know, doesn't have Have the carb count and it's more of a a rote, you know, underlying Care Procedure and those kinds of things. I'll let myself go too sometimes. But other than that, it's just, it can just send you down a bad, bad hole.

Scott Benner 1:05:21
Yeah, no, no, it's not a good idea.

Megan Kenney 1:05:22
Thinking about the future. Yeah, thinking about the future in that way. It's like, it's not, it's not worth the time or,

Scott Benner 1:05:31
well, the baggage that I could create, yeah, because you could spend, you could be spending that time on learning real actionable ideas that would help you never reach that future. Instead of just worrying about it coming. The truth is, if you spend that much time worrying about it coming, and don't do very much about today, it might come like, look, exactly, let's be honest with everybody, you have type one diabetes, it's not great news. something bad could happen to you. Right? It could happen to you in a couple of years, it could happen to you in a couple of decades, it could happen to you never, I don't know, you don't know, there's physiology that's different between all of you different impacts that are different in your lives, you can choose to eat differently, you're gonna choose to exercise differently, there's some of you're going to smoke, some of you're going to drink, some of you aren't going to, you know, somebody right now has type one diabetes and doing heroin. Like there's everyone's making a bevy of different decisions. But but the best you can do is lower your time and range, increase your variability, get your a one C as low as you safely can Pre-Bolus your meals, stay on top of fluctuations, change your Basal when it needs to be changed, do those few little things, and then go live your life. And some of you are going to make it to 120. And some of you going to make it to 100. And somebody's going to make it to 80 and somebody is going to make it to 60. And there are people listening to this episode right now, who I personally know are listening, who were in their 50s and wondering how much longer they have, because they were diagnosed 30 and 40 years ago, before anybody paid attention, any of this stuff. So you can worry all you want. But if I was you I'd do something and and give yourself the best shot that you have. That's all I'm doing for my daughter, you know, I could jump on this podcast one day and tell you Something terrible's happened. But all I would have a solace is that we did the right things. We did them as soon as we could figure them out. And and this is this is it. This is the life roll dice. And this is how they come up. Maybe she makes it Oh, no, forever. And I don't know, you're not going to get a guarantee if that's what you're looking for. So Exactly, yeah, it's

Megan Kenney 1:07:46
just one. And I think that that's the biggest takeaway from you know, back to the podcast is being had getting those tools as quickly as possible to lower your chances of to lower your chances of bad things happening in the mean, it you know, sort of in the interim, is massively important just to, to jump right in, and I understand there's a, you know, a period that you're going to grieve and you're gonna be upset, and you know, have a time where you're figuring it out. But to be able to sort of take the information that is there and just do something about it, just take little steps, make little changes, and you know, do the best you can do every day. It's just It's I think that's been like, the truly the coolest part about this is there are obviously a lot of things that I don't have control of that we don't have control of with Charlie's health, Mike's help with everything, really. But the fact that we've been gifted these tools to help make it a little bit better every day is gives me a sense of peace.

Scott Benner 1:08:58
Good. That's excellent. That's really all you can do. You can't control the world, you can't control disease, you can't control your body, you can do the best things that you can do. You listen, if you've got the money, maybe you'll do some blood tests one day and think about it more deeply learn that your vitamin D is a little off that your iron is a little off that your b 12 could be here and make these little adjustments for yourself. There are ways to help yourself, but they're not magical. You're not going to take B 12 and live to 300. You know, like it's it's you can do small things and you know, you can get a little bit of exercise. That's a big deal. When Arden is exercising, she uses significantly less insulin. It's just that that's that's a big deal. It all it'll all add up if you're lucky. And most of you will end up being lucky. Like we people who are diagnosed right now. You know, who have access to this technology. You got a really great shot. You know, I mean a really, really solid honest shot at living Healthy Life. And to be perfectly honest, some of the healthiest people I know have type one diabetes because they're so freakin focused on themselves, that they're like aware of something the second it goes wrong, where other people get a pain and three years later, they're like, I should probably do something about this. So, yeah, listen, yeah,

Megan Kenney 1:10:17
it's being diagnosed in this in today's age with the technology and the, you know, at our fingertips is unbelievable. Like, you know, even this morning last night, we had a sensor failure, and we had to, so she totally slept all night without a Dexcom on and I kept waking up and panicking a little bit, and being like, it's okay, you know, it'll be okay. But the fact that we have the amount of information and sort of sense of, of comfort, knowing you know, I'm watching her she's a camp right now. And I'm watching her blood sugar all day. And it's just we're giving she's a better shot a good health. Exactly what you just said. It's just it's that is very comforting.

Scott Benner 1:11:06
Yeah. Why? I mean, listen, if you think you can control the universe, good luck. But I'd let it go. If I was you, you know, anybody who's who's out there, like, oh, I wanted it to be perfect. It's not perfect. So we give up, or we throw it away. Like that's, that's just ridiculous. Like, listen, I understand. I was a young person at 1.2. I was making plans to have a family. I never once while I was making this plan, I thought, Oh, I'll also have to consider what happens when this happens. Or this bad thing happens or a lady rear ends me one day, or I get up in my back really hurts. Or I get plantar fasciitis in my 40s and have a hard time moving

Megan Kenney 1:11:44
around. That hurts though. Yeah, plantar fasciitis is hard. It's

Scott Benner 1:11:47
terrible, right? Like and when it was very painful. I didn't know what to do you know it and you go to a doctor, and the doctors are, let's just say less than helpful. So I got rid of my plantar fasciitis with YouTube, and a $20 insole on Amazon. Like like it's not Oh, yeah, yeah. But I had been going to doctors for a while. And I was like, and I had resolved myself at one point. I thought, well, I guess I'm a person who doesn't get to move quickly anymore, or stand on their feet for very long, like, and then when you when that comes to you, if you're really thinking the next thing I thought was, I guess I'm going to die sooner, because I can't exercise as much. You know, like, I guess I guess I'm not gonna have the life I thought because my feet. And then I was like, This is ridiculous. It's like, I got to be able to get rid of this somehow.

Megan Kenney 1:12:34
There's got to be a Reddit sub page for this.

Scott Benner 1:12:36
Yeah, somebody must know, we've had some sort of success. And let me go find out. And honestly, that's the way I think about the podcast. If you listen to this podcast, and you think, screw you, it's not that easy. You know, I can't do it. Listen, everybody's welcome to their own thoughts. I prefer to see it as aspirational. I think if someone can do it, then someone else could do it. And that's it to me. That's

Megan Kenney 1:13:03
it. I couldn't agree more. Yeah. Well, I

Scott Benner 1:13:05
appreciate it. And if you did disagree, would you tell me, but that'd be great. If you're like, Scott, that was Yeah.

Megan Kenney 1:13:09
Actually, that's asinine. They're wrong. No, but it is. And I think that that paired with a sense of community and feeling that, you know, you're not added alone. And you know, it's just very important. It makes it makes a big difference. It's so important.

Scott Benner 1:13:28
Yes, it does. And so that's why I think people who find themselves in the situation that we discussed earlier, and I think a lot of people do about being isolated. I think that's a mistake. I think that if it, if you get online and see a person living with diabetes, and they make you uncomfortable, you probably should look hard and see if that isn't how you feel about yourself. You know, like, that's not um, it's, listen, therapy's not rocket science. I'm not saying I could do it. And I'm not denigrating the people who do but you are doing it a lot of common sense mechanism saying getting it

Megan Kenney 1:14:08
done is basically a form of therapy. Is it not?

Scott Benner 1:14:11
I believe everyone should have to pay me $40 A week like a copay? Yes. Way more than that. Well, hold on a second. Let me just do. I'm gonna do some math real quick. Already. times. I'm not gonna tell you how many people I think are listening. I'm just gonna do the math here real quickly. Oh, wow. If you guys could just do that. Do that for you? Uh, I gotta be honest. If you all did it one week, I might be gone. Yeah.

Megan Kenney 1:14:42
Yeah, you know can Kuhn in your in your new house.

Scott Benner 1:14:45
Oh, Megan. You're, you're not thinking big enough. I know how many people are listening? Yeah, no, no. Okay. Yeah. Hey, listen, everyone sent me $40. Done. I'm out of here. Though I would have to be honest with you, that was a big number. I just use my calculator if that amount of money magically showed up here tomorrow, be serious for a second. If

Megan Kenney 1:15:08
you left the podcast, then I would be to blame for bringing this idea up. And I would probably get some hate.

Scott Benner 1:15:14
I would probably get your ripped up on Instagram pretty good. But that's not what I mean. Yeah, well, here's what I was gonna say. If the amount of money I just saw, which, by the way was staggering, showed up at my home tomorrow, if you all just were like, alright, I'll give the guy $40. Like, if that happened? I would. I will first I would giggle for a few minutes, probably, then and then. And then when that was over, I would do very responsible things. And I would just double down on the podcast. I'd hire Oh, yeah, I hire animators to animate the episodes so that people who are visual learners could could understand them, I get lighting and start doing more stuff live, I would talk to more people, I'd go to more hospitals and talk like, I would just see that as is like, I can imagine the things where I could lighten my load right now. Like I could actually afford to hire a person who could edit the show with my sensibility. I love this. Right? Like so like all that would happen

Megan Kenney 1:16:12
wouldn't be that hard. And you know that the majority of people who listen to this podcast because of the invaluable valuable information that we've all gotten, they would be happy to do it. So the you should up at 250 all get 10% And

Scott Benner 1:16:26
why are you getting paid but it's got a pittance tax. Why gotta pay the tax burden. What are you talking about? I think when you think like I have a buy me a coffee page, where by the way people are, I should tell you this is the first time I can say this in a recording. I am sitting in a really expensive chair right now. That is so good on my spent a

Megan Kenney 1:16:50
little money for your birthday. I hope it I forgot to send a note though. Well, I

Scott Benner 1:16:54
appreciate that very much. But my back is 1000 times better over the last 24 hours from this chair. And it's it's it's Listen, it's expensive. I'm not gonna say it's not. And it's something because I grew up really broke. That even if I was looking at the money, and I was like I can afford to take this money and buy this chair, I never would have done it. Like I would have sat here in pain. Look at me, I chastise your husband for this 45 minutes ago and circle full circle. Damn it. And now I'm admitting to it. If the money was here, I wouldn't have I wouldn't have done it, I would have found something more important to do with it. Even if you would have said Hey, Scott, let me give you a couple dollars for the podcast. I'd help the podcast I'd help my pay my mortgage I'd send my kids to college I would me would be the last Holy crap. Look at that stop me would be the last thing I would do. Yeah. But because you guys all it happened on the Facebook page, some lovely person put up a post and said like, let's buy Scott a cup of coffee for his birthday. And then I think in the course of the post, when it really started doubling up. And I mean, if I'm being honest, like 1000s of dollars were coming. And I said, somebody asked me what I would do with the money. And I said maybe I would buy a chair. Because my back hurts. I sit I you know to make you guys this podcast, I sit here about seven hours, like about six days a week, like doing work you'll never see right? And once I said it out loud. And once the people who were putting the money in were like, Yes, get yourself a chair that would make me happy. That easily allowed me to buy the chair. And I'm a person who if I buy anything, it takes me two weeks to get to do it. Like I'll think I do need to Yeah, I'm the same way research it then I feel bad about it for a while. Then there's little self flagellation that I research it right. I'm horrible. Like I shop in a horrible way. I got this money. And now as crazy as it sounds, it felt to me. Like this is what people wanted. And it was okay then. And so I would make the people happy. click click click. And four days later, the chair showed up at my house. And it's amazing. Yeah, it has these tiny adjustments that you would never consider. If you just bought a regular office chair, like you know, Staples or something. And you just turn a knob and like, Oh, that's great on my back. This is amazing. And it's it's, I just I can't thank everybody enough. And now I've learned a valuable lesson from talking it through with you so pass on

Megan Kenney 1:19:28
taking care of yourself. Yep, I guess Mike's now scot free.

Scott Benner 1:19:32
Yeah. Whoo. Was that on purpose?

Megan Kenney 1:19:36
No, but now I heard it out loud and it made perfect sense lovely.

Scott Benner 1:19:42
For Charlie's name in this title. I can tell you that much.

Megan Kenney 1:19:45
I clearly unless she's like low man on the totem pole here.

Scott Benner 1:19:49
Does she love tuna? Because if she did, I would totally call it Charlie Tuna.

Megan Kenney 1:19:53
No, no, she doesn't. She is an excellent eater does not eat tuna though.

Scott Benner 1:19:58
Charlie doesn't need to and it's not a Exactly, uh,

Megan Kenney 1:20:00
no, that doesn't have that ring. That ring to it. All right? Yeah. Oh, but her pancreas did buy stuff. And that was very ready. Yeah. All

Scott Benner 1:20:09
right. Well listen, when I get back to editing this in a couple of months. That's what sticks out to me. I'll be like done. Is there anything we didn't talk about a lot we're hoping to talk about?

Megan Kenney 1:20:20
Um, I don't think so. Um, yeah, I think that was pretty much everything we did. It was lovely.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:31
Thank you out.

Megan Kenney 1:20:32
Sorry. If it was like, diverted? I think I, you know, my mic brought up a lot of

Scott Benner 1:20:40
you. Are you a type a Mac guy? Just a little? Yeah. Do you feel like their roles and we didn't follow them? Is that making you upset?

Megan Kenney 1:20:48
No, not say. Just go with the flow. Thanks for my $40 therapy session.

Scott Benner 1:20:54
Yeah, this. Listen. Here's, here's here's a free a free piece of advice for all of you trying to rip off my podcast out there. I see you. So anyway, you're doing it wrong. And you're doing it poorly, because you're adhering to this like, stringent idea of what you think the episodes are supposed to be. And I'm guessing when you try to divert, you just don't have the personality to hold it up. So oh, well for you. But yeah, for me, yeah. That part probably gets cut out and again. I don't know. Maybe not. I'm so bad.

Megan Kenney 1:21:32
I don't have a lot of like biters right now. I say stuff happening.

Scott Benner 1:21:36
You see a lot of what excuse me.

Megan Kenney 1:21:39
People like biting off your podcast.

Scott Benner 1:21:41
They try and but they're not good. I know. That's what makes it. Yeah, that's why I'm comfortable here. I'm not comfortable. I'm by the way, if you knew me, personally, I'm incredibly incredibly, incredibly competitive. So Well, there you go. Yeah. With myself, mostly. And the podcast being serious. The podcast means a lot to me, because of what it means to people. And I have, I've mentioned this before, but in the past I've seen I was gonna say Johnny come lately, but that made me sound like I was 1000 years old. So I stopped that he a bit. What, that's why I believe the truth of what's happening is twofold. I have ads, and people think, ooh, I can make money on this. I'll try it. How hard could it be to make a podcast? Well, joke's on you is really hard. And the second thing is, there are so many people trying to make money coaching people. And they're trying and then they they put it up on Instagram or online. They're like, I'm a coat. Usually, it's people who have type one diabetes and great abs. They're like, Yeah, I've got abs and I have diabetes, wouldn't you like to be me, and you know, and for $600, I'll talk to you for the next three months, or whatever it is they do to people, right? To tell them about Pre-Bolus thing, you know, or like, just, I don't know it, to me, it feels weird taking money from people like that. The guy who earlier said, if you just send me $40, I could I do see it differently. Like I I can go down that rabbit hole with you if you want to. But but I so what they do is they start these businesses, which I'm making air quotes with. And then those businesses don't do anything. Because I don't know if you're understanding this or not, but Instagrams not a business. So you, you know, if you have 1000 followers, you're going to be lucky to find 10 people. So while they do get people to coach, and they're probably making us I'd say a significant amount of money off of it. It's not what they expect it to be, they want it to be more. And a lot of them try to start a podcast. So they want to give you a tiny bit of information in the podcast and drive you back to

Megan Kenney 1:23:50
the coaching, right, get you to sign up for the next thing.

Scott Benner 1:23:53
It is a very common practice nowadays. And so I'm fundamentally against that idea for me, not for them, people could do whatever they want. I don't think it works. I don't think it's I don't like taking money from patients for information like patients or listeners in this situation. Like I'm very comfortable with advertisers paying so you can hear the show. But I'm

Megan Kenney 1:24:17
also incredibly expensive, like the little I've seen of coaching and all of that. I mean, pretty unattainable for most people.

Scott Benner 1:24:27
Yeah, they want a lot of money. And in the end, in the end, they're going to stretch out telling you this, get your Basal right Pre-Bolus Your Meals understand the difference of different foods stay flexible. You know, stop your blood sugar from going bah bah bah fuse and a Dexcom set your high alarms a little lower all the stuff I'm happy to tell you for free here. And right. I will tell you that sometimes I watched there's this one person I have in mind. My episodes come out and seven to 10 days later their content mimics what my episode was previously and I always laugh. I and sometimes people send me notes No, like, this person speaking, it appears to be Jenny's voice in a different voice. And I'm like, Oh, they use a lot of words, Jenny's did they? So, oh, my God, but it's just what it is. It's fine. Like, I mean, I think that's, honestly, it's, it's not nice, but I mean, it's flattering

Megan Kenney 1:25:25
and that people want to mimic what you're doing and what you've done and what you've been successful with. And the community you, you know, developed. But at the same time, it's like, if you have no original content, you're basically the selling like, you're pretty Instagram page, like, what? What's the point?

Scott Benner 1:25:41
Well, the point is, they're probably making probably making a few 1000 to 10s of 1000s of dollars a year doing it. So if you live in the right part of the country, I mean, listen, how much did you see that? Some of that going for? The coaching?

Megan Kenney 1:25:58
Oh, like, forgot, I mean, maybe like 12 to $1,500 kind of thing, maybe more, maybe 25?

Scott Benner 1:26:06
So so we'll say 1500 For fun, and put that on you getting 50 people a year to do it puts $75,000 Yeah, right. That's a living. That is a yeah, good living. And so, you know, I don't think you should have to pay $1,500 To find out how insulin works. And I'm happy to take money from companies so that I can spend all this time putting this content together. I also think in fairness, this podcast is a repository at this point, it's not just a couple of ideas, like, you know what I mean, like, there's a lot of information in here. And it mostly comes from people's experiences, which I don't pay for, and I'm grateful for, you know, like, you're, I'm not paying you to be on the podcast, and I will make money on this episode. But it, it's gonna allow me to buy computers, and it's, in the end, it's my time that allows the most because I'm a person and I have a family and bills. And if I am, I can't spend all day making you a podcast if it doesn't make money, because I have a family and I have bills, so I would have to go get a different Yeah. So it's pretty common sense, I think.

Megan Kenney 1:27:15
Yeah, I think that's yeah, common sense. But

Scott Benner 1:27:17
all of that will be moot when everyone's listening sends me $40 tomorrow. And I'm a millionaire.

Megan Kenney 1:27:25
Gonna have 75 chairs and

Scott Benner 1:27:29
chairs. I'm going to pay people to stand behind me and hold me up. Like with a sling, and they'll stand on either side. Yeah. Well, you podcast, I would imagine there should be somebody rubbing my back during that once this happens. It really is. Listen, there was a moment where a company came to me and said, Put your podcast behind a paywall. And we'll charge $1 An episode. That's very reasonable. They said people can afford that. They said, if everybody you know, it would have cost somebody $500 To listen to all the episodes. That's very reasonable. I was like, I don't think that's right. And the person says, how many downloads Do you have? And at that time, I had 3 million. And they go, Well, that's $3 million dollars, you know? And I was like, No, don't say that. I was like, but I don't say that, because I don't think it is. Because I think the minute you charged for it. A lot of people would say oh, I'd rather not. Or a lot of people might see an episode called Charlie's pancreas bit the dust and gum, they're not that. But, but then think of all the stuff they'd have lost in here. Like I mean, not this last 20 minutes, where you and I are basically just having a conversation on the phone together. But like, you know, like the, the beginning part about the psychological, psychological stuff and the interpersonal stuff. That's important. And if I call an episode, the psychological import of type one diabetes in family, Baba, ain't nobody gonna listen that either. So right, there's a way to get people to listen. And I think that any amount of money is a barrier. What I like to have $4 million. I would, but that's not how this work right? In my mind.

Megan Kenney 1:29:15
And yeah, and I mean, not that not obviously, you have to make a living and, you know, I understand monetizing it to some capacity. But you also are like, doing a service to this community that, I mean, is invaluable. You're like, it's like for the greater good of, you know, type one and for those who are struggling, and, you know, again, not to, not to say you shouldn't make a living doing it, because it's it's incredibly, you know, time consuming, and it's a full time job, I'm sure, but 100% It's an incredible service to all of us.

Scott Benner 1:29:53
I was happy. Thank you. I thank you very much. I was happy to tell an advertiser the other day well We were talking about 2022 already and, and I said, Listen, I feel really fortunate I have a job that I really like that I think it makes my life better. It helps people. And I make a living from it. I said, That's me, if you could have found me when I was 18, and told me one day, you'll do something you enjoy. That helps people. I would be like, Wow, that seems impossible. Really? Sign me up. Yeah, I'll do that. Right. So I think then, the numbers get weird. Like, is there a number in your head? Where you'd be uncomfortable? If I made that much money doing this? No, no. So you you find the podcast valuable enough that if if for some reason? I for some reason, everybody gave me $40? Tomorrow, you'd be like, good, good for him?

Megan Kenney 1:30:50
Absolutely, because you have the wherewithal to start it, you. It's just, it takes a certain, you know, personality and certain go getter enough to even put it together and make it make it make sense, and then make it accessible to all these people in the way that it's formatted. It's just, it's not, it's just done in a way that's so accessible. And why would I say, because you're having conversations with people who aren't getting paid, who are, you know, sharing their experiences with type of diabetes, that you shouldn't make, you know, an excessive amount of money, because you had the idea, and you created this wonderful platform, like, go ahead, I appreciate that, that I'd be thrilled.

Scott Benner 1:31:33
I'm pretty sure I'm never gonna make that much money off of it. But I want to be able to pay my bills. And I'd like to drive the car, I want to drive and stuff like that. It's not crazy, right? Nothing wrong with that. I will, I'll tell you this. You made a point a minute ago, that's so spot on. And people who don't have a podcast or aren't trying to build something would not know. But in the last 20 minutes, I don't know what made me do it, I reset my I reset the downloads in front of me there on another screen. And so I saw the number, and we spoke for about 20 minutes, and I reset them again. And in that 20 minutes more people have downloaded the podcast and downloaded it the first month it was out. That's amazing. No, but of course this that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying why I'm saying that is when you're busy. Getting 1000 downloads a month, you go ahead and try to find the enthusiasm to make more podcasts in 2015 to grow something so that it's at scale in 2021. That's a long term investment. I had plenty of times along the way. Where if all there, it didn't make any money, or if it made money, it wasn't nearly enough to sustain me. And so there were plenty of times along the way, where if I didn't care about how much the podcast appeared to be helping people, I would have abandoned it if it was just about money. Right. Right. It's just become. I mean, it's been popular for probably, I think it's been popular for ever, in context of what else was available, but it is overtly popular now, based on what else is available right now. And that's only been maybe for the last three and a half years. But oh yeah, I

Megan Kenney 1:33:22
mean, of all the newly diagnosed people that I've spoken to, in the last even say six months, before I even say and make sure you're listening to Juicebox Podcast like oh, yeah, our our endo told us in the hospital or, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's like, it's it's becoming? Yeah, common, like common place with a diagnosis, which I think I mean, I would think you would be incredibly proud of because it's, it's really Yeah, it's it's really amazing. And just the amount of content and information for people is it's overwhelming in a

Scott Benner 1:33:59
positive way, one of the one of the advertisers that I mean, it's the summer now and 2021. And I'm already having conversations about, like 2022 because the advertisers are excited to come back. And one of them said the other day, how did they put it that even though the show is seven years old, it really is in kind of its infancy still. And it's just starting to kind of blossom like right now. Like it's really like it's doubling over itself. Like it's just it's just jumping and jumping and jumping. And so, because it's easy for me to think, oh, seven years, how long could I possibly, like keep this alive? Not how long would I want to do it? I'd want to do it forever. But how long can I keep it alive? Used to be a big concern of mind? Like, right, I mean, like trying to anyone

Megan Kenney 1:34:52
like that now.

Scott Benner 1:34:54
Right? Yeah. Now it's about how long

Megan Kenney 1:34:57
are you going to be interested in it? Yeah, how long are you going to Want to continue this, you know, work and maybe once you can bring on, you know, somebody that did it or whatever, maybe it, you know, makes it the elongates the longevity of it. But yeah, I mean, I'm a small business owner and my business, I mean very different. I'm a graphic designer, but it's just growing a business no matter what it is, is incredibly hard work and non stop, you're never not thinking about it. It's, it's all on you. I mean, it's 100, you are the only person to look at when you fail. Like, it's it's a lot of pressure, especially when, you know, you're looking to make money.

Scott Benner 1:35:37
And it never leaves like like it growth is so steady. It's frustrating, like you just like, I've got to stop before. Like, I just want to wake up one day, one day and go, Why do I have so many more downloads today than I ever have before. Like, I've never, I have constant growth, which is great. But like it's never just made a big leap. And I mean, don't get me wrong. month over month, I've seen leaps of sometimes 20,000 25,000, which trust me is a lot. But still, like, I'd still rather have 5000 More this month than I had last month. 5000 next month, versus like that kind of thing. I'd like to see the steadiness of growth is important. But it's hard to be excited by it sometimes. Because you're putting so much effort into it. You know? Yeah, let's turn into a completely Yeah, podcast about

Megan Kenney 1:36:30
it's weird. The longevity of pocket?

Scott Benner 1:36:32
Well, you're and if you're a small business owner, what did you say you're making?

Megan Kenney 1:36:36
Well, I am a graphic designer, but I mostly do like custom wedding invitations. So it's like a very niche in the wedding industry is, you know, an absolute, just hard place to be. So and it's and I've had the business since 2011. I've grown it very slowly. But

you know, I made a name for myself and whatever. But it's like, the end the burnout is real, like, you work so hard all the time. And, you know, for sometimes it feels like for peanuts. And it's like, what's the point? You know, there come the days where it's like, what's the point? And I'm sure when you're seeing those small growth months that it's in the beginning when you were like, is this sustainable? But

Scott Benner 1:37:17
I'm sure you sit down, you're like, Oh, good. I'm gonna make another wedding invitation. Yay. Yeah. And then I find that taking breaks for too long is bad. Because if I like one time, I got myself way ahead. And I was like, I'm gonna give myself a week off. And so I didn't record for a week and I didn't edit for a week. And then I got back and I sat down. I was like, okay, like, how do I like so I just now I've learned if I take a break, when I come back from a break, it should go into an interview, because I love talking to people. It should not go into editing, because if it goes into editing, I saw like, Oh, dear God, you know,

Megan Kenney 1:37:56
so I did I do this myself. Yeah, I mean, I do. I feel like once you've like, seen, you know the light where you're like, oh, man, I don't have to, like Hustle so hard every day. I mean, then you go right back into it. And it's it can be jarring. But yeah, I agree. Agree.

Scott Benner 1:38:13
You were terrific. I really appreciate you doing this. And Thanks, Scott. I got some therapy. I was having me. I gotta go barely appreciate it. No, no, it's my pleasure. I have to go back and take out the place where you said, Can I set it? And then first I did I

Megan Kenney 1:38:31
first so then I was like, Oh, we can say because I had to actively clean up my language to for the for the families. And this is my, my language is not good. Like the other day, my son is four, four, yeah, four. And he hasn't got a new car. And he kind of like, he was in the back with us. And he kind of like gunned it, you know, like, seeing how fast you know, the acceleration was. And Jack my four year old in the backseat just looks at Mike and goes What the fuck dad? Like, perfectly. Like, on this. Like, it was so perfect that we looked at each other. We're like we can't can't be mad, because it was so well used.

Scott Benner 1:39:14
But, and I imagine you're modeling it pretty well around the house to

Megan Kenney 1:39:17
modeling it. Yes. I'm just seeing a bottle of behavior. Well, I got my journalism degree coming back in.

Scott Benner 1:39:26
Yeah, no, I am. I definitely. Listen. There's part of me that wants to curse on the podcast. And it's funny, I wouldn't do it that much. It would just happen like naturally if it was gonna happen, but then I get comments. Well, it would just it would, it would eliminate some people from being able to listen, so I don't want to do that. Right. You know, no, I totally agree. Maybe in the last year of the show, like the very last year when I'm like, This is it. This is the last year I'm taking the safe, just let it go. I'm just gonna I'll put an explicit tag on it and we'll just talk about diabetes with a lot of bad words. Anyway, alright. Thank you. much would you hold on one sec. Thank

Megan Kenney 1:40:01
you, Scott. Yeah

Scott Benner 1:40:14
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, GE voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Kaipa pen at G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox you spell that GVOKEGL You see ag o n.com forward slash juicebox. Thanks also to touch by type one for being a longtime sponsor of the Juicebox Podcast. By now you better have gone to the bathroom. And if not, I went in there right now. Do you need fiber

thanks very much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

---

Please support the sponsors

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate