#751 Bold Beginnings: School

September 9, 2022Scott Benner

Bold Beginnings will answer the questions that most people have after a type 1 diabetes diagnosis.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 751 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Jenny Smith and I are back today with another episode of the bull beginning series and today Jenny and I are gonna talk about sending your type ones to school. While you're listening today, don't forget two things. One, Jenny works at integrated diabetes.com You can check her out and higher if you like, and to nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin. If you're a US resident who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver of someone with type one, in fewer than 10 minutes, you could go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box and fill out their survey. When you complete the survey. You've helped the podcast, you've helped people living with type one diabetes, and you may just have helped yourself T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Hope you're enjoying the bowl beginning series. It's not done yet, there's more coming. If you've missed the earlier episodes, you don't even have to listen to them in order if you don't want to just go find them

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one, please go learn about my favorite diabetes organization at touched by type one.org and find them on Facebook and Instagram while you're at it. This episode of the podcast is also sponsored by in pen from Medtronic diabetes, get yourself the insulin pen that gives you much of the functionality of an insulin pump in pen today.com. Jennifer, we're back. Yay. We're gonna do for the bowl beginning series today. Just the very simple headline here school. Now I was surprised. And then I thought about a little bit. There weren't a ton of questions about school. And then I thought oh, maybe that's because they didn't know the questions they ask. So I started adding more stuff to the list because it hit me pretty quickly. Okay, all right. So what ends up happening, if you hear most people's stories, they're diagnosed and school starts a week from now, it's always it's always that story, right? Like you don't get the whole summer to figure it out or something. It's like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:43
it's over a break. Often, right? It's like somebody comes home for like Thanksgiving break or like the the winter holiday or something. And parents, especially for kids who have just gone to college, their parents are like, you don't look, do you feel okay? You know, and, and there's a new diagnosis. And now you get to go back to school two weeks later, let's figure it all.

Scott Benner 3:06
Anecdotally, I've always believed for like, a long time before I'm started making this podcast, just hearing people's stories and writing about diabetes, that people's lives are very like frenetic. And then when you hit a holiday or a vacation, or a long weekend, even you slow down enough to look up and go, there's something wrong with that kid. You know what I mean? Right? So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:30
right, well, and I think when kids go away, you also you miss the everyday visual that you usually have of them. So then when they do come back, and they look very different. I mean, not just like hair color, or how they're dressing now, there's a very visual, physical difference. And you can say, you didn't look like this. When I sent you to school in September.

Scott Benner 3:54
It's the same problem I have is when I'm walking through the house, I'm like, no one's gonna notice I've lost five pounds. So you just go up somebody's like, do you see it? Do you see the five and they're like, You look exactly the same. Thanks a lot.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:07
So take a beach vacation and then come back. And they'd be like, See, I do look different.

Scott Benner 4:13
So you know, just people say, Well, how do we transition? Back to school? Two big question. People want to understand about 504 plans, which I think are I always thought were widely understood. But then I I just realized I only know about them because of Hardin. And so we'll start but we'll start here. This person said it was crazy to me that after diagnosis, I was teaching my daughter's teacher about her care when it was so new to myself, and I didn't really know what I was doing. So I felt like I needed support and resources about transitioning. And she just said she said the schools can't really do much and they don't know anything. I either. And I will say from my own personal experience, the schools would try to how do i mean this? Sometimes principals are politicians, and it's their job to go, everything's fine, you're going to be fine. Your kid is going to be fine. Leave your kid with us. But they're not used to dealing with diabetes. It's always like, like, my, my daughter had a principal one time I swear to you, if you showed up at the front door, and the building was on fire, and people were jumping out the windows, she would have said, Go home, everything's fine. We've done this before. Oh, okay. She's just glad handing you right into, right into hell, you know, so, but when it's diabetes, specifically, what I find they like to say is, uh, we had a kid here last year with diabetes, or there's cars where there's two kids here. And it, it struck me finally, I don't know, the management style of these two kids at the level of their health, like, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:58
absolutely. That's what I was gonna say. And it's a big one that a lot of when parents asked me, How do we approach this? What do we do about it, and that's one of the first things is to make sure that you have structured the needs to your child, like you said, Many schools have had experience or the nurse has been there long enough that they've had at least one student probably with, with type one diabetes. Again, the school might have a couple, but your child's plan is your child's plan, just because this other child doesn't seem to need accommodation or assistance with things. Their management style is very likely different than what you're doing with your child. And so they're very well we'll need to be some instruction and schools differ school to school system to system private versus public what they have in terms of resources, and allowances, some nurses travel between schools, and they're not always there. So it means establishing somebody that is always at the child's school, for the really young kids who may need somebody to check in with, versus the nurse that's always there. There are so many things that I've heard and seen that I mean, there are 1000s of ways that people address the needs. Yeah.

Scott Benner 7:19
And it does really begin with the scenario you're in. I mean, you just said it. But it's, you could be in a school where there's literally no nurse, and right, they're telling you like I don't know if you've ever met Mrs. You know, Smith, she works at the front desk, she's lovely. She'd be happy to give your kids a shot before from you're like, Okay, who she was, she answers the phone. And, you know, and she might end up being a godsend to you like, I have no idea. And but you have to you can't run in there and have all these expectations, and they don't have the infrastructure to handle it. Correct. Right. And you can't just force them. What I've learned dealing with schools, is that they're just people at work. Like you want to think of them as special somehow, because they're a teacher and etc. But they're people, they're at their job. They're not look, I mean, imagine if someone came to your job, Jenny, and they were like, Hey, we saw the things you do every day. That's great. Here's what else I'd like you to do. Right? This is Billy, don't let him die. You're like, Wait, hold on. I don't want that to be my responsibility. And that's what I would run into all the time. I had trouble finding people to be glucagon delegates, because they were like, wait, I'm like, Listen, if this should happen, if Arden has a seizure, you stick this thing in her butt and push the plunger, and you're going to say that's it. Yeah. And you're gonna save, you're gonna wait for 911 and hope and try to keep it from hitting your head on something like, You know what I mean? Like, nothing different than you would do if a kid needed an epi pen? Or? Oh, no, no, I don't want to be involved. The our school nurse had to search the school to find a handful of people who were willing to do what do it. Yeah. And I think,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:57
oh, sorry, go ahead.

Scott Benner 8:59
I didn't blame them.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:01
Right? Not at all. And, and you do. I think there are two definite, like mindsets that you have to have when you're coming up with a plan for your child one, a teacher is first a teacher, that is what they are, therefore, they have all of the other students as well. That doesn't mean that the needs of your child are not important. But you do have to understand that there's there's teaching that needs to happen. There's a purpose for going to school. So then establishing people that can be the check in person. Many times I've found that it's it's a little bit easier when schools have or your child's classroom has a designated like Teacher's Assistant. That's always there. The teacher has the instruction but has the chance to keep teaching where the TA is kind of there to help and assist behind and maybe more the one that you end up teaching more to because they've got a little bit more ability To help, right. But again, each school I think the biggest thing to go to first is whoever the head of the administration is, whether it's the principal or whatnot, what are your accommodations? Have you experienced this before? What What have you seen as protocols, this is what we like for our child. This is what we do. This is how we navigate and manage and have a plan or an idea already. And again, newly diagnosed, you may not know where to start. And that's where the community is very beneficial. And I've seen many, many plans posted, we've done this for our child, or we have these instructional like, you know, decision matrix that if this, then this, and it's very cut and dry and very easy to follow. Some teachers and people in the school are very willing to follow the CGM data, others don't want to do anything other than just respond to an alert message. So again, everything is very different. You kind of have to see what the school can accommodate. Yeah,

Scott Benner 10:59
we had a wonderful woman who was like, I have diabetes, I can help. And then we're talking to her and she had type two. And you know, she had never taken insulin before. And she was on Metformin, or something like that. And I was like, Oh, sure. Your skills are not going to translate here. But thank you very much. But we still, you know, she was willing to listen, and so there and learn people, and those are the people we taught, and I think that expectations are important. But it's always the seasol to me, you know, it's like, Well, I think my kids should have stable blood sugars at school. And then your school might say, Look, we're not comfortable bumping 150 blood sugar for your kid, like we're not going to do well, we'll treat over whatever the the orders from the doctor say. And that's, that's where I'll tell you, there's a simple sentence that you can put in your order from your doctors, if you can get your doctors to write this. Like, I don't you'll learn it any way you will. But basically, what it says is, these are the rules, unless the parents say otherwise. And then we and then we defer to the parents, and that way you can make to help make decisions. Yes, but you still might run into a nurse or somebody at the school is like, look, there's five kids that have diabetes, the school, we don't do this for any of them. And somehow they think that's a rule, then, you know, and so the way I always think about it is this. School is a long process, you're going to be in the same building. For a number of years, you might move to another building for a number of years, it's still the same system. These people work with each other, they know each other. You have to find a way to get what you want. Without being a pariah. You can't be the person that when you walk in the front door, they look up and they go oh, God, it's Jenny, you.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:48
Oh, right. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 12:52
With this Johnny, with a

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:54
fake smile on your face, and like, Hi, how are you today? In the back of your mind, you're like, oh, no, hate

Scott Benner 13:01
me. Because I because I'm in here going, like, you know, I need you to correct a 120 blood sugar because I don't want my kids blood sugar to be that high. Right? I think that in the end. To break it down. You need, you need to have a plan that you can teach to someone else. Correct. If you're newly diagnosed, I think you need to explain to them, listen, we're just figuring this out. This whole thing is going to be kind of malleable for a little while. I'd appreciate it. If you could roll with this a little bit. I'm also figuring it out. I think you have to understand I don't want to say this. I don't mean this poorly. But I don't imagine that there are many nurses who are one minute at the premier children's hospital in the country working in the PICU that wake up one morning and go you know, I think I want to be a nurse at a middle school in my town. Like, these might be people towards the end of their career. Their training might be older, who knows what what the situation is right? But they're probably not Doctor House is what I'm getting at? Probably not Yeah, it's so they might have ideas in their head that are from a kid they helped three years ago, years ago, five years ago, 20 years ago, you have no idea. So you're, you're educating yourself. You're educating them along with them. But what I ended up figuring out, and then we'll go to some people's questions. I know I've said this in different places on the podcast, but it belongs here in this episode. For kindergarten, first second grade, Arden went to the nurse on a schedule. There was no there's no CGM at that point. So she was she was just going to nursing finger sticks shooting we had her like broke. I basically broke up the day in a way that I thought it seems unreasonable that she'll be she'll get low in my gaps of time, and I look back she never did get low. Oh, of course Ray once he was like eight, so her blood sugar's were pretty elevated to begin with

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Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:27
But you started I think what you're saying here is that even a couple years in, you were really going off of not only technology that you had, but also a baseline that you could teach. That worked easily because it was a structured schedule. And for the newly diagnosed going into a school type setting, I think that's the best that you can really start with is these are the basics that need to be done to keep my child safe. And to allow learning because that's obviously the reason you're sending your kid there to is is to learn. Yeah, and if they're getting interrupted all the time, because of of alerts and alarms and things that are too aggressive for this point in diagnosis. It's not helping anybody

Scott Benner 18:16
well, and and what ended up happening was I basically spent the time from an origin was to till she was five, figuring out an ebb and flow to the day where she wouldn't get low. And then I sent her to kindergarten with that. The school was resistant about some of the things I wanted. And they didn't help her with a couple of things I'll bring up in a second. It happened, we had it set up where she tested, tested, tested, then at lunchtime or snack time even she'd go to the nurse's office, they would test her call me Tell me the number. And I would tell them how much insulin to use. And then they would send her back on her way. And she'd come back and test again. And this would happen before it would happen before snack recess at lunch where she'd get tested. And one day, my timer went off for for recess, and no one called me. So we did a couple of minutes. And I waited a couple more. And I have to tell you, I mean looking back on it. It was I was in like abject horror at that point. It just like we haven't total panic mode is going on, you know, is she is she having a problem? And they're helping her is like, I don't know. So finally I just call the school and I was like, Hey, Scott, you didn't call me about Arden. And the woman. The nurse said, Oh my god, Arden and she slammed down the phone and she was gone. And I was like, and you're like okay, what uh, what is that mean? So I sat there for a second and I thought, well, now she knows I know. And she knows she seems to know something to our way. Right? And she calls back and she goes Hi Arden's with me. She's fine. And I'm like, okay, And then they test her. So a little boy came in with a heart issue and had to be put on a monitor. And they just forgot Arden. And Arden went right from school. And because the nurse didn't come together, she was in kindergarten, she went right out on the playground. So they chant, they plucked Arden with a 50 blood sugar off the top of the monkey bars, and brought her inside. And I then went to the school and said, Look, this is what I was telling you about. Like, we can't just hope that the nice person in the nurse's office remembers to save our son's life every day at 1015. Like, you know, like, we need to and then they were more willing to listen to the ideas that I had. Right. When Arden left second grade, maybe one of the luckiest things that ever happened to her was that her teacher and teachers will know this phrase, I don't know what it is, but her teacher wanted to move from second grade to third grade with the kids. Okay, so she did that. She taught the kids in second grade, went to third grade and taught the same group of kids.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:59
That's a nice school that does that was very cool. And a frequent thing. By

Scott Benner 21:03
the way, that person that teacher was that Arden's graduation, like she showed up at her high school graduation and went around and found every one of those kids and took a picture with them. It was very, very nice. But what ended up happening for Arden was, we had we had fresh eyes that also knew the past. And Arden was struggling in math. So the woman calls me one day. And she says, I know why are you struggling with math.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:30
And I said, why she where she is with her blood sugar at that time of day

Scott Benner 21:34
when we sent her to the nurse. So the math instructor would start five minutes into it every day, Arden would get up and quietly leave the room and go to the nurse's office, come back five, seven minutes later missed the instruction, and then put her head down and try to do the work. Yeah, no one ever noticed. It just it just because it was such a part of the day. And it took her a couple of years to rebound and catch up from that because they were still moving forward. She had to learn the back stuff. And it was that moment. I was like, Okay, we're done. And that's if you go to episode for the podcast, I talked about how I figured out how to text diabetes. And Martin has never been to the nurse's office since that that moment. So the last day of like the last day of second grade. Because she contacted us over the summer and told me that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:21
And that's something to navigate to, you know, because some school systems again, with these plans, you really have to think about how they're written. Because if they're not written specific to what you have worked out and is safe with your child to do texting, diabetes, not having to go to the nurse, the nurse is there in case of need or somebody else. But otherwise, it's just navigated between you and your child. I would say that that's, that's less common. And it's it's kind of a special school or a special written plan that really worked out that way. I've seen much more the, the child has to check in with somebody. And even if your child is very able to do majority of what they're doing on their own, because they do it in the summer, on their own or on weekends or whatever. You have to kind of almost prove that they can do that. Before they'll let you not check in with someone. Yeah,

Scott Benner 23:21
no, I mean, I very specifically on my end, I don't I didn't you know, I was a stay at home parent. So I wasn't at a job. But I could make that part of my day. I mean, if right. I don't know how it would work for other people. But it it definitely. It definitely freed her up to move around the building better. It actually helped us fix problems more quickly, right? Like she didn't have to go to the nurse to find out that she was low and get something like we would do it in the rain. It's how she started bolusing like she would Bolus in class before going to lunch stuff like that. It's not going to work for everybody, for sure. But it was the way I found to get around this stuff that just kept coming up, you know? Yep.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:05
And that's it. I mean, that's important. Absolutely. I've even seen many comments from parents who have problems with any accommodation at all. My my teachers won't do that. They don't have time to do that. Your child isn't special. They don't need this kind of accommodation. I mean, I've seen the total opposite in terms of assistance, which obviously is not what you want to walk into.

Scott Benner 24:31
Why what I would do is every year in the summertime, I'd go and meet with Ardens teacher, and I would explain diabetes to them. Because they're not going to know right? And so you say things like you don't want their blood sugar to get low. They don't know what that means. Yeah, like a great like, why? Because when I'm 60 I don't feel well and when I'm 50 I'm dizzy but do they know like your brain will shut off when you're 20 like I don't know what they know and you will also want to be able to tell them listen And this is a real concern. And we need to guard against this. Having said that, I don't imagine it's going to happen. But then again, correct, yeah, a light doesn't go off on your forehead before you're going to your blood sugar goes to 35. Like, it's just no, nobody tells you ahead of time, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:17
well, and one thing that does hit from a teacher level, obviously, that's their job is to instruct, right? One thing that really sort of comes across in terms of the importance of glucose. And what their job is supposed to be is giving some baseline information about blood sugar level, and learning ability. blood sugars here and here outside of this range, are going to mean that my child may be fidgety may not be paying attention may be causing problems, when it's not, it's not what they want to be doing. It's because their blood sugar isn't right. Thus, my kid isn't going to be learning what you're trying to teach them, it's going to be disruptive. So if you help us to keep their blood sugar in this range, you can continue instructing better, my child will keep learning better. And it's a win win. Right? That's a point that often makes sense from the teacher angle is the association between learning ability, attention ability, and glucose levels.

Scott Benner 26:24
And I, I shone a light on security and, and health and I told them about long term health too. I said, Yes, we because they're like, Well, why don't we just leave our blood sugar higher? And I said, because, you know, there's, there's damage that comes from that, to that it's more long term. I think the way I put it in one meeting one time is I said, Listen, if you want to keep Arden's blood sugar at 200, all day, why don't I just pull her out of school, send her to an island and let her live her life? You know, it's like, because at least she'll be healthy. Like, maybe she won't have an education, she won't know how to, like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:00
work or help herself or know how to pick coconuts. But she'll be

Scott Benner 27:03
alive. And you know, like that. I'm like, That's not okay, either. And they're like, Well, I don't understand why this kid. We don't we don't help this kid until their blood sugar gets to 200. I was like, well, that's their decision, like, No, it's not okay. And you're right, you have to, you kind of have to be both sides of the conversation, you need to get what you need, without upsetting anyone. And you have to be helping them. It's in negotiation, that you're the only one who cares how it goes. I don't know if that makes sense or not. Right. So you almost have to defend the person who you're negotiating with the same time I used to put, every year I would find something in Arden's 504 plan that we didn't need any more. And I would give it away at the 504 meeting to make them feel better. I'd be like, no need to do this anymore. Like you know, you're doing this, you don't need to let's make this easier for you and get rid of this. And then that we'd leave the room and they'd be like, Oh, good. I got. And, and, and meanwhile, you were never really adding things to 504 plans, you were kind of just manipulating them to make them work for the age range, like all the sudden, like standardized tests, or the technology

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:14
that you now have. Right, right, right, God, yeah. I mean, as that changes there, and especially with the technology that's changing the way that it is right now, with all of the FDA approved products, there is less attention that a teacher or a nurse may need to give, it doesn't mean that they don't need to know how to help in the case that it comes up. But this technology can certainly be something to educate them. While their system is going to do this, it should be catching these kinds of things, they still need to touch base, or they still need to check in with you about this. So again, those might be the touch points, kind of like you're saying that you don't have to really do as much. They got something here helping but we still need this in this in this.

Scott Benner 29:01
In the end, you can set up a 504 plan, which is going to give you some legal backing, like once it's in the 504 plan, they have to do it. But there are you do need to understand private schools don't need to accept kids no matter what. Right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:20
That? That's an interesting question. I mean, private schools typically have different rules than public schools. And if they don't have accommodations, it often falls to the parent to find the accommodation so that their child can stay in that private environment.

Scott Benner 29:41
And preschools fall into that heading to Yes, it's might be hard difficult to find a preschool who's willing to do this for you. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it is very interesting. Okay. So some of the things that I've run into no matter what you're gonna Get your kids schedule, and they're gonna have gym right before or after lunch or lunch and you're gonna be like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:08
a lot of fun, I've got a couple little kids who got, they've got recess, then they've got snack time. And then they go to gym class. That's fine, yay,

Scott Benner 30:20
write it off, and then pour it in, then put insolate in, and then have him run some more. Yes,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:26
that's fun. And it's not every day. So you can't even accommodate like an everyday like, pattern or something. It's like Tuesdays and Friday. And this is what

Scott Benner 30:36
I know, I actually did have in one of Ardennes accommodations that they couldn't put activity right next to lunch. But it took me a couple of years to get them to agree to that. And so and it was hard. I mean, it was hard to get them to do that, to be perfectly honest, that was every year,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:54
because it's a manipulation of what the schedule is going to look like for everybody, then it doesn't just affect her, every kid in her class is going to also not be able to have

Scott Benner 31:04
or you have to put a class where she doesn't belong to make it work, etc. And in the end, I never made them do anything. We always did come to an agreement along the way, because I was never looking to be like I I mean, I don't know if I was or not. But I was trying very hard not to be like, Oh God, here he comes, you know, like, I don't want to talk to that guy hide. When Arden went into high school, and the nurse said, I actually brought along the nursing staff. So I learned this in elementary, from elementary school to middle school, I brought the nursing staff from the elementary school to my first meeting with the nursing staff from the middle school, that's a great idea. Because I was like, I'm gonna say I do a bunch of stuff, it's gonna sound crazy to you. And this person right here knows how it works. And so that made the next person. So when I got to the high school, I did it. But the nurse was just like, well, that's not how I do it here. And she pushed back and she had like a big personality. And she goes, I like having a relationship with all my type one students. And I said, Well, that sounds lovely. But in my world, I would love it if my daughter didn't know you. Right? That's what we're shooting for. Okay? Just like every other kid in the school does not want to end up in the nurse's office. I don't, I'm sure you're wonderful. I bet you make it fun for the type ones. But that's not our goal here. So she pushed, she pushed back and pushed back and I was like, listen, it's not what we're doing. Like, it's not gonna happen, like, we're gonna bring some supplies. And if something gets completely upside down, or Arden has to swap a pump or something like that, you'll see her, right. And that's how it ended up going. And she was okay with that after a while, you know, but it took way to talk about it. They had to they had to wait and take time. Nobody ever yelled at each other. That's the other thing. If you're yelling, it's over. Like don't don't lose your don't lose yourself there. I think. You know, as we're talking about this, I wonder if I couldn't create a place online where people can upload their 504

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:03
plans. That would be I think, a really great resource. I mean, kind of like, kind of like you have a place online for people to look for good endos, or good doctors or good educators? That would be a really great resource.

Scott Benner 33:18
Yeah, I wonder if we couldn't just turn them into PDFs and put them so people could look at them can look at them. Because

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:23
you I would even say maybe categorize them, like, toddler age, like almost preschool, you know, grade school, middle school, high school, so that as you filter through them, you can go age appropriate. Yeah. For what your accommodation might look like, or how it might change. Like you said, you took your nurse along to prove to the next entry level of kind of school age, this is what work this is what we did, it is just fine. You know, please accommodate.

Scott Benner 33:51
I'm thinking that because like I'm looking at a question here, like, what do I do if my kid wants to skip lunch at school? Like, I don't know how to answer that question. Like, yeah, I mean, I do. But it's, it's not something you're going to put in a 504 plan or something like that in so there's going to be more, there's going to be more scenarios that are really going to be on you to kind of like dance with then just hoping that there'll be in this document and that fixes everything.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:16
Right? The document really should be very specific needs, right? Not what ifs. In right in what if my kid doesn't want his snack in the morning or doesn't want the snack that was packed and prefers the cupcake that came in as the birthday treat? Yeah, what if what?

Scott Benner 34:33
Yeah, no, the 504 plan can't incorporate everything that your anxiety might put into your head on from day to day like it's like Ardens was stuff like Arden has a bag with her. It'll have these things in it. If there is an emergency in the school, you need to make sure that bag goes with Arden and that was when she was younger. Right? And then as she got older, the language changed slightly to like you can't restrict Arden from taking the bag, you know, once it was on her to remember the bag, right? You know if Arden's load, do this, then do this then call 911, after you've done that call the parents or we had stuff like you have to get the school bus driver trained to understand basic, like stuff like that. Yeah, it wasn't like if Arden decides at 3pm that she wants to x, then you have to, like you can't. I know, that's what people want. But this documents not going to be. It's not everything, you know, it's just it's, it's the stuff.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:35
And if anything, that kind of detail may make it very confusing as to the very, very real and important things that really should be being done every single day. The same way.

Scott Benner 35:47
Yeah, right. But little things like as Arden got older, she would write her blood sugar on the top of a test before she started taking it. So she'd look at her CGM and write her blood sugar on the top. And that way, if the test came back, crazy, wonky, different than you expect her skills to be, we could say, hey, look, her blood sugar was high, maybe you could let her take it again. Right we've ever

Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:09
done with a CGM, you could have followed what happened to the blood sugar, you know, maybe blood sugar started out fine at 101. But then in test taking, she's not really paying attention. And it really starts to dip there too. You can follow that information to be able to go back and say, you know, could we potentially do you do this?

Scott Benner 36:25
It's funny. So if I, if I started this episode over and decided to make it two minutes long, I would say you're in a relationship with these people. Now. It needs to be harmonious. There might be times where you have to bite your tongue. You don't want to get into a fight with anybody. It's a long process. You might be with them for 12 years. And there are going to be times they're gonna say things that you're like, that's not right. But you got to understand their perspective, too. And make it work. Yeah, it's like being married. Except I'm just gonna say without the sex. But you know, if you've been married, I've been married.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:05
Yeah, there's give and take. Yes, exactly.

Scott Benner 37:07
You give a lot and somebody takes a lot. If you're lucky, your kid gets his lunch on time. Okay, all right, Jenny. Well, thank you very much, of course.

A huge thank you to Jenny Smith for being here with me again today. And I'd like to remind you that you can hire Jenny integrated diabetes.com. I'd also like to thank Ian pen from Medtronic diabetes. If you're looking for an insulin pen that does more, you're looking for the in pen in pen today.com. In a few moments, I'll tell you a lot about the show. But one of the things I'll tell you is how to find the series. So if you've just stumbled upon this one, and you'd like to find the rest, there's a way to do that. I'll be telling you about it in just a second.

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