#819 Quadriplegic and Type 1

Kate is the most resilient person I've met in a long while. She is also a quadriplegic who has type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to year nine. That's right season nine of the Juicebox Podcast. This is episode 819.

Today I'll be speaking with Kate. She is a young person living with type one diabetes for not very long. I recorded this not too long ago but have been saving it especially to start off a new season with Kate's story is one of perseverance and resolve. That's right. It's of perseverance and resolve. And it is uncommon. And I took a lot from it. While you're listening today, please remember 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. We're becoming bold with insulin. If you're a US resident who has type one or is the caregiver of someone with type one, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox and complete their survey. The T one D exchange surveys supports diabetes research. And it can only do it with the simple answers to the simple questions that you get asked in the survey. T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox help move diabetes research forward, right there from your home, or on your sofa, or wherever you're sitting. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod five, and the Omni pod dash. You can get started right now at Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. today's podcast is also sponsored by us med now us med is the place where Arden gets her Dexcom and Omni pod supplies. And you can get those and much more US med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 Get your free benefits check today and get started with the white glove treatment from us met.

Kate Brim 2:14
Hi, my name is Kate, I have been a type one diabetic for a little over a year now. Um, and yeah, so it's actually not really where my story started. I had a spinal cord injury in December of 2017. And so it was kind of a kind of had a lead of events that have happened to me over the past five years.

Scott Benner 2:45
We're gonna find out about that. How old are you now?

Kate Brim 2:50
I am 24 years old

Scott Benner 2:52

24. Kate, you have a an older voice? Do you know that?

Kate Brim 2:58
I do not know.

Scott Benner 2:59
Maybe it's just the headphones. Could just be your microphone. You sound like I don't know, you sound like you? Well, maybe it's not that I was gonna say you sound like you've been through some, like you have kind of gravitas to your voice? You know, you're like my name is Kate. Like you just very Have you always been like a measured person?

Kate Brim 3:20
Um, I would say definitely. Definitely. In the last few years, ya know, since since my injury, especially it's kind of forced me to grow up really fast.

Scott Benner 3:32
I don't mean this poorly. Okay, please take me at my word on that. But if you would have told me, I'm 56 years old. I would have been like, alright, that makes sense. Because Kate's got kind of a low, easy way about her like you speak like, I don't know. Alright, let's figure this out. Okay, so you're 24 G's you were diagnosed a year ago with the diabetes, but you're saying that something happened before that. So tell me about it, please.

Kate Brim 4:01
Yeah, so it was December of 2017 is when the injury actually happened. But prior to that, in high school, I had started experiencing back pain. But I really didn't think anything of it. I was, uh, on the rowing team. So I was, you know, kind of putting a lot put my body through a lot. So I just kind of dismissed it as Oh, you know, you're not stretching while you're using your body really hard. You know, Lottie, Dottie da and I just kept on going with life. And then it was the end of my senior year and I happened to be in a Rite Aid pharmacy. I think that was picking up a script for one of my parents or something. Anyways, I was headed down the like aisle that gets me closest to quickest to the pharmacy line and happened to be a my, my right leg gave out and I fell and I ended up knocking over a whole shelves worth of pills, like supplements and stuff and I was like awesome, perfect, perfect I'll for this to happen too. And so it was that was kind of like the eye opener of like now something seriously going on I gotta get this figured out.

Scott Benner 5:24
So did you're in that moment? Did your legs just give out like what was the sensation?

Kate Brim 5:30
Yeah, it was my right leg completely just buckled underneath me like I was walking and it was like, Nope, you are. You are not continuing.

Scott Benner 5:40
No pain prior or anything leading up to the moment.

Kate Brim 5:44
I had been experiencing pain and I was having really bad like sciatica and stuff. At the time. I didn't know it was sciatica. I just, you know, it's like, wow, I'm getting this like shooting pain down my leg. My back hurts a lot. I feel like an old person. And I'm not even 18 years old.

Scott Benner 6:04
Had you mean I just ask had you been telling your parents about this or no?

Kate Brim 6:08
No, I had not. No, it was just, I completely thought it was no, I had been putting a lot of work in as far as rowing because we had the State Championships coming up and it was my senior year. So I was really putting a lot of work into that. And I just dismissed it. As you know, your body's going through a lot. Right now you're putting your body through a lot of work. Okay, that was I just dismissed those that

Scott Benner 6:36
are on the floor in the pharmacy, vitamin D, zinc B 12. Flintstones chewables. They're all around you. This is how I imagined it, by the way, just like marbles on the floor of my right. Yeah.

Kate Brim 6:48
Oh, yeah, that's exactly what it was. And I haven't Of course, it happened to be in one of those moments when there was a lot of like, a fair amount of people inside the pharmacy. And I was like, a few people came over and they're like, Oh, you're right. And of course, me being the young person. I was like, Yeah, I'm fine. Get myself up quickly start like picking up the bottles with these few other people that are helping me and you can kind of tell that it looks startled, but I just tried to brush it off like nope, nope, I'm fine. It's okay. I just, you know, stumbled or something. So we get it all picked up, I go to the pharmacy pick up the script that I needed to pick up. And then know when about what about my day, the rest of the day. And I think it was a couple days after that where I was like, now I really got to really got to get this looked at. So I told my I think I told my mom I don't even think I really directly told her that I think it was actually I went for one of the sports wellness checks, then my primary care was doing like, all the things he does to check. And he was doing one of the reflex checks in my legs, and I had none of the reflexes and he was like, oh, we gotta get this looked at and then that's what led to me getting. I think it was just an MRI. Okay. And then they saw a herniated disk. So at first, they weren't on the row of like physical therapy. That didn't help. So then they did an injection that didn't help. Continue with physical therapy. This was probably another like six months that you know,

Scott Benner 8:37
can I ask, did you continue to row or did it shut down your activity?

Kate Brim 8:41
I continued to row I wrote all four years of high school. Yeah. I so and leading up to that, like, you know, we saw the herniated disc, and the doctor that they referred me to is like, oh, did you have an injury or anything? And I was like, No, not that I can. I can recall like, oh,

Scott Benner 9:06
yeah, I sit on a thing. And I go back and forth in my arms a lot. But other than that, and throw myself on the floor at the pharmacy. I haven't done it.

Kate Brim 9:15
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so I, you know, went through that things weren't resolving the disk did not go back in like they had hoped were hoping it would. So they went in did a microdiscectomy. And it actually ended up failing pretty immediately. Like I've still when I was in the hospital, they're doing all the tests to see if, you know, oh, is that nerve still being pinched? And one of the tests they did with my legs, they it incline them to do another scan, and they saw that the disk had herniated. So we kind of went back through that whole process that I did leading up to that first serve. Free. Okay, still weren't getting

Scott Benner 10:02
give me a second Kate, they did the okay microdiscectomy also sometimes called micro decompression, minimally invasive surgical procedure performed on patients with a herniated lumbar disc, during the surgery surgeon will remove portions of the herniated disc to relieve pressure on the spinal nerve they did that didn't do anything for you. They went back to pt after that.

Kate Brim 10:23
Yeah, so we went back to pt, they were hoping that just because of the surgery, it was, you know, the muscles kind of all got moved around and stuff. And that it would it would go back in, you know, once the muscles are kind of back to their homeostasis kind of kind of point.

Scott Benner 10:42
Like both to you when they said it, or

Kate Brim 10:45
I I was I really young, yeah, young and uninformed and really didn't know what the heck was going on. You know, I'm just like, okay, yeah, I want this pain to go away. Like, alright, let's continue with pt. And I was, at the time, I was still in the mindset of like, okay, you know, little hiccup, like, I'll get, get back to life, you know, here. Just do what the doctors tell me and take care of my body as best as I can. In this time, and I'll I'll get back to normalcy. So yeah, we continued PT. I can't remember at some reason, I feel like they did another injection. Yeah, I had two or three spinal injections. And then, yeah, so it still hadn't helped. They did another MRI, they saw that it was still still herniated. So they went back in and did a revision laminectomy. And within that, he said that, like as he was doing the surgery, that, you know, my disc was, was not like, fully intact, it was kind of just crumbled in pieces. But within that surgery, something happened, we still don't have exact answers as to what happened. But when I came out of surgery, I had lost like all feeling in my legs. And actually, I had lost feeling from about the C four down and a lot of movement from the sea floor down. And so that then led to a long hospital stay of many tests being run and trying to figure out you know, what the heck happened? And to this day, they don't have exact answers, but their best guess is that I had a, either a spinal stroke or a blood clot that traveled up my spinal, spinal canal and damaged, damaged my spinal cord.

Scott Benner 12:58
You didn't get this done behind a Dunkin Donuts, or anything like that, right?

Kate Brim 13:02
No, no, I did not. Nope. It was actually one of the one of the best practices in Michigan. So yeah, no, it

Scott Benner 13:13
was can you describe for me a little bit at that age for good, I guess doesn't matter what age you are, but waking up and having that experience? I mean, just devastating. Seems like the word but can you talk talk me through the days afterwards?

Kate Brim 13:32
Yeah, so that surgery was December of 2017. I had actually I had graduated high school then. And I had started immediately at Ferris State for construction management leading up to them. I was actually like, I was working for a directional drilling company that installed fiber optic internet. And like, I'll tell you, like, I really thought my life was set and like I was on my path, you know, my career path as far as doing construction management, you know, I was working in a kind of indirect path of construction, but like, you know, I was doing what I loved I was working outside you know, doing physical labor. Yeah. And that was that was what I loved. I was very much so an outdoor person. And in that moment, I will say like, probably the first two to three months were like really dark for me. I was just stuck in this like, how am I going to do what I was doing and like, go into Paris and stuff and for what I was going to school for, like my mind was just stuck and in how am I going to get back to that? When in the moment, you know, I was like fully dependent on other people as far as my care, and on top of that I was having, you know, just a lot of health complications from all of it. And so yeah, it was definitely, definitely really dark. In the beginning days, as far as that I was. I will say like, just because I think a lot of it revolved around the puzzle biotrust that I had inpatient at the rehab hospital I was at, he kind of just went real textbook with it and was like, Alright, this is gonna be your life, like, you're going to need a caregiver 24/7 You're going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life. And you're going to have to figure out how to how to make this work. And I was like, wow, wow, pal. Like, nice to meet you, too.

Scott Benner 15:58
Thanks for sprinkling the roses around before we talked about it, you know?

Kate Brim 16:02
I mean, yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 16:03
I wonder if I wonder if he was at he had to be Hey, there's no way no way any woman with any reasonable mothering skills said that to you so. So I wonder if he had just seen people fight it for so long that he found the man I don't know. seems weird to me. It's it to me, it seems like the almost similar to, you know, if a person with diabetes isn't managing their diabetes, well start telling him about, you know, oh, you know, if you want to lose a leg, I guess you keep going like this, you know, like, it's really just a rough way to come at someone, you know, when maybe a little more concerning care might help. But yeah, I just want to make sure that I understand everything. So this this injury, that a surgical injury, I guess is how we're thinking of it, right? Yeah, yeah. So we attack this this problem first. There's a surgical injury. And it leads to I want to understand because I don't I'm not good with the terminology. Kate, you're paralyzed. Is that Yeah, that's the word. Yep. From about wear down. Like, I'm sorry. I'm like, is it between the nipples and the belly button? I'm trying to think of a way to say it and I'm not good at it. So is it like midline like your sternum, like where we're at?

Kate Brim 17:23
I'm affected from about the collarbones down. Okay, to some to some degree. So I, I have like, I have no movement in my legs or my core, and then my arms so my hands are pretty affected my triceps are pretty shot. And so it's, it's kind of hit or miss. So it's, they would consider me what's called an incomplete spinal cord injury. So signals are still being sent down this the spinal cord, but they're just, they're fuzzy. They're kind of messed up. They're not complete Yeah,

Scott Benner 18:04
so yeah. Sorry, that was this the most descriptive yet anyone has ever uttered on this podcast. Yeah, so I'm gonna feel like is what you were saying. But but that's Wow. Oh my god and you're 18 years old when this happens 19 at that oh, because they you know, because you had to go to physical therapy six times. So it's so you're so your hands like right now. How did you set this up for yourself today? The the interview where did somebody actually have to help you with this? We all get our diabetes supplies from somewhere at our house. We get them from us med. Why do we do that? Well, US med offers white glove treatment. They are the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide, the number one specialty distributor from the pod dash, and the fastest growing tandem distributor again nationwide. US med is rated number one index com customer satisfaction surveys is that amazing? Over 1 million diabetes customers have been served by us meds since 1996. And they offer you better service and better care. But they offer you more than that. They also offer you 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping. When you place your order. They carry everything from insulin pumps, diabetes testing supplies, and the latest CGM is like the FreeStyle Libre three the Dexcom G six and I'm hearing that they'll have the Dexcom G seven chest as soon as possible. Guess what else us med is doing through their pharmacy benefits us med dispenses Novolog insulin aspart and humor log insulin lispro How about that? Us med.com forward slash juice box head over there right now and get started. Or if you prefer the phone 888 7211514 Get your free benefits check and get going with us med. Sometime in 2008. When my daughter was four years old, my wife and I had a conversation sounded a little like this. We don't want Arden to go to school. While she's doing MDI, we want her to have a pump. And so we went out and looked at all of the available pumps. And it was easy to decide to go with the Omni pod. It was tubeless, it was small, and it wouldn't hold her back, or get caught on doorknobs, she could swim with it, take a shower, go to gym class, all without being attached to a controller by tubing. That was a long time ago. And my daughter has been wearing it on the pod every day since then, every day since 2008. And here we are standing in 2023 on the pod has been with her through the entire thing. Omni pod.com forward slash juice box so you can make that same decision. Go find out right now if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash. Or if you're looking for something with an algorithm, something that can make some of those insulin decisions for you. Go check out the Omni pod five, they're both at the same link Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Now you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial the Omni pod dash. So that's definitely worth looking into. But if you're looking to get started with an algorithm, you can't go wrong with the Omni pod five, give it a shot. Maybe many years from now, you'll be able to say that Omni pod has been a friend to you for all these years, just like weekend Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. For full safety risk information and free trial terms and conditions, you can also visit on the pod.com forward slash juice box. If you can't remember the links, they're all at juicebox podcast.com. And when you click on my links to Omni pod, to us med or to any of the sponsors, you're helping to keep the show free and plentiful for the listeners. So please, if you're going to buy this stuff, use my link. Now we're going to get back to Kate's conversation, which is longer than some of the conversations that you're accustomed to in the podcast but but so very worth it

Kate Brim 22:44
so I set it up myself, I will tell you, it's like everything for me, just takes a lot longer. So like I was up, I got up about about six o'clock this morning, got myself breakfast, got myself dressed. But it took me a long time to get to the point where I am, like, I will tell you is definitely a bumpy road. As far as learning how to transfer into my wheelchair by myself and even just propella a manual wheelchair by myself, like I that was the one thing in the beginning. You know, they had told me oh yeah, you're gonna need to be at a power chair. And I was like, like, hello, that is so inaccessible, that big, bulky thing, like, my arms work we're gonna make we're gonna figure this out.

Scott Benner 23:38
So getting out of so do you live by yourself?

Kate Brim 23:42
Yes, I actually do. So up until about a month ago, I was living with my parents. My mom, she comes home on the weekends. So it was primarily my dad and I and, but even with that, like I was, I would say 90% independent. For a long time, I had a nurse coming in a couple times a week to help me with basic ADL things like showering and stuff just because, you know, what surfaces is not always the safest, but

Scott Benner 24:23
you didn't pick up any seal skills after this happened to you? Yeah.

Kate Brim 24:27
So Yeah. So.

Scott Benner 24:30
So okay, so you had somebody coming in? I can't I'm so sorry. I'm fascinated. And I want to get answers. And I don't know how to be delicate just because I don't know the right words. But how do you go to the bathroom?

Kate Brim 24:45
Yeah, so because of my spinal cord damage. I have. I'm on what's called a bowel regimen. And then also I have to use intermittent catheters to relieve my my bladder and stuff. So none of that is voluntary for me anymore. And so it just though that's another step in my life, that it takes a lot a lot longer than the average person and it takes, you know, having a regimen. And so yeah, that was awful. In the beginning days, that was a huge hurdle for me because I was getting a lot of bladder infections. And so that was, yeah, that was probably one of the biggest hurdles for me to get over in the beginning days, you know, they had done what's called, uh, in the beginning days, we started me off on intermittent catheters, I was getting a crap ton of infections, like really bad infections to the point where I was like, throwing up and passing out and stuff. Cuz then they did a super

Scott Benner 25:53
hold on intermittent catheters, like the nurse showed up and gave you a Foley. And that happened every once in a while, or what does that mean?

Kate Brim 26:01
Um, so Foley catheters typically are a catheter that's placed, and it stays in place for you know, anywhere from two to four weeks, and then it's changed out again, an intermittent catheter is essentially a catheter that's inserted, drains the bladder and removed

Scott Benner 26:20
it who would do that for you than ours?

Kate Brim 26:22
I actually learned how to do it myself. But I also had help from a nurse in the beginning days,

Scott Benner 26:28
okay, because I'm because because you said the nurse was only there every couple of days, but you couldn't go a couple of days without urinate. And that's why, yeah, that's why I was trying to figure it out. So you could Wow. So you were to dumb this down for me, you'd like pop a straw in there, let it out. And then that's it. You go back to life. After that, go back to live. Yeah. How many times a day do you need to do that?

Kate Brim 26:51
Um, it varies from day to day, depending on like, how much fluids I'm drinking, especially since I really picked up on the handcycling. I'm drinking a lot more. So me right now. It's typically every three to four hours. Okay. All right.

Scott Benner 27:10
Do you live in a rather small place? Or is it bigger because you need open space?

Kate Brim 27:17
So the place I'm in right now is actually quite cozy, but it's there. It's like, really? It's open. Like, if you saw it, you'd be like, Wow, this is a small place, but like, No, I've made it work. It works. Yeah, yep.

Scott Benner 27:36
Okay. So we got number one, covered. Number two, you said about something

Kate Brim 27:44
in the bowel regimen. So it's, it's kind of like the catheterization it's you know, I have to use what are called suppositories when tonight to help move that along, because essentially, so the, the intestines, they have something what's called peristalsis. And that's essentially what moves you know, the fecal matter through your intestines just naturally in ours is slowed down and paralyzed. A lot. And so essentially, we have to manually evacuate. Yeah,

Scott Benner 28:24
there's that. Yeah. Yeah. Can we just call this episode? Yeah.

I'm sorry. I don't know what else to do. I love your Yeah, very much. So. Okay, so that's how that happens. Does it make you got I can't believe you got diabetes, but hold on a second. We're not even up to that yet. I'm trying to figure out when you when you go to eat or drink, obviously, you need to sustain yourself, but is it in your head? If I eat this, it's gonna have to come out.

Kate Brim 29:00
Um, so in the beginning days, it was definitely hard. Because the really tricky part about it is like, you know, we have to keep things are relatively easily able to move through our system. And so that really included you know, eating a lot of fiber and figuring out what foods might like, Oh, does this food upset you or cause things caused you to get more constipated and stuff? If it does on the beginning? Done? Say that again.

Scott Benner 29:36
If you find a food that doesn't go well with your body than done, you don't eat it

Kate Brim 29:40
again. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, pretty much except for come

Scott Benner 29:44
okay. What's the one where you're like, alright, I'll take the hit for this.

Kate Brim 29:48
So ah, I think I think it's definitely still it's been hard for me so like pretty immediately after my second surgery, I developed a couple allergies that are like epi pen worthy. One of those being adhesive and skin glue. So that was fun healing my incision after my second surgery because the allergic reaction, but the other one happened to be dairy, which eliminates a lot. So I would say, I was like before I was sensitive to dairy and you know, it would give me really bad gas and diarrhea. But now it's like, it's just out of the question. I can't have it. Like, and so I will say just because of how crappy I feel, I really have not had too many foods where I'm like, Yeah, that's gonna make me feel like crap, but I really want it just due to how crappy it makes me feel. Typically I since my injury I once I found what works best for me. Like, I've stuck to it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 31:06
Okay, I'm gonna tell you something I wouldn't normally do. My daughter just texted me, right. And I'm gonna read the text back that I sent to her. So she's in college, she's been college for three weeks. I can't give a lot of details. But there was a roommate issue that was fairly horrendous. And took a number of weeks though to to get through. So she's not having a good time, but and it's just starting to get normal. Couple days go by and then hurricane Ian decides it's going to hit directly where she's at. So people bug out. She stays behind. They're hunkered down. Thankfully, the hurricane takes a turn, never even touches them barely rains. So I kept telling her I'm like, Don't worry, Arden I was like you're gonna get through this, the hurricane things going to end on Monday, you're gonna go to school and things are gonna start to look up and she just texted me. I forgot my water bottle. It's already a bad day. Now, Kate, if you don't mind, I'd like to respond to her. I'm currently interviewing a 23 year old girl who became paralyzed at 18. Then last year, she got diabetes, she has to put a pillow on her own as to find water. Can I do that? Okay, send. There we go. All right. Now, that's parenting where I live. I mean, holy heck, I forgot my water bottle that day is shot. So I'm trying to think about like, if there's a water bottle across the room, and you're looking at it, you want it you're like, Alright, I guess I can get there in 20 minutes, like good. You know, I mean, like, I It's, it's, I don't know how you can I'm gonna ask you a question. I'm dancing around in my head the whole time. How do you not give up?

Kate Brim 32:55
So you know, that's, that's a question I get a lot. Yeah, I would imagine when I was in rehab, I was in rehab for a really long time. I actually had a dietician at the time come in and for some reason she just like something in her registered like this person just need someone to talk to and something she told me it was a quote that said you know, essentially a said, you know, I can I can sit here and perpetual sadness of and just, you know, mourn in my loss. Or I can make the best of my situation. And just just get on with life, you know, things are going to be yes, yeah, things are gonna suck at times. But like, we just got to find light in this situations and you know, move on as best as we can. So like, I'll tell you like in the beginning days, one of the first things I discovered while This really sucks was I had gotten myself ready for bed and then the time came where I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna transfer into bed and go to bed night get myself transferred. And at the time, I'll tell you like, transfers took me a good probably five, six minutes, okay, just to get myself into bed. And I get myself into bed and I get the covers over and I look up and the lights are still on. Now I'm like, Oh, I

Scott Benner 34:27
would have given up I would have just I would have I would have thrown myself out of bed and tried to jam my head into the floor. I would have I swear to you, Kate, I would have sat there going

Kate Brim 34:39
no, that's quite literally what was going on. Going through my head. I was like, Are you kidding me? Like

Scott Benner 34:47
oh my god, I would have would have been like I would hit myself. Like an ants don't work right. I would just oh my god, I would probably lose my mind. And and you're who helping you, therapy, your parents.

Kate Brim 35:04
So it was at that time I was doing outpatient rehab where I was going into the hospital every day, but staying at home overnight. On that day, I remember it was just my dad and my dad is one of those people. He's he's older, he's kind of hard to hearing and at the time, I really didn't have a lot of lung capacity.

Scott Benner 35:26
Okay, perfect. Keep going. Tell the story. Yeah.

Kate Brim 35:30
So I was like, I can try Yellin, it's not going to get anywhere. And so, of course, you know, I'm like, I'm one of those people, it has to be dark in the room for me to go to sleep, like, has to be dark. So of course, I get myself out of bed. The first thing I did was I went on Amazon and I ordered an Alexa because that was one of the things they told me in rehab was like, you know, be thankful we're in the day we are. And you can order things like Alexa, turn your lights on and off. And I was like, that is so stupid. Like only lazy people do that. I'm not doing that. But that day that that happened. I was like, nope. voice activated lights are happening.

Scott Benner 36:12
Oh, yeah, you would think so. And anything else I can figure out that will help me? Oh my god, I swear to you. Okay, I would have I would about you gotta be kidding me. Because there's gotta be hindsight, right? Like, there's got to be a part of you that thought I could have lived with the pain in my leg?

Kate Brim 36:31
Oh, most definitely. Yeah, there was, you know, I, I will say though, there was never a point where I was like, truly, like, just just take me back, take me back, I will say like, I definitely had points where like, Man, I really, really, really miss my past. And like, This really sucks. But at the same time, I was put in a place where fortunately, like, immediately, I had an amazing support system around me to like, adapt to this new new life. You know, the rehab hospital, I was at Mary Free Bed. They have an amazing adaptive sports, you know, program, getting people involved with doing the things they love, again, whether it be adaptive sports, or just things within the community. And it happened to be for me, it was actually like sports. So I discovered wheelchair rugby, and handcycling. And because of that, you know, I was surrounded by other people who were going through very similar situations as me. And like, getting to see that, you know, life is definitely still possible. Even despite this really circumstance,

Scott Benner 37:55
yeah. Yeah. Wow. It's amazing. I mean, I guess it's interesting, because there is literally no other option, other than that one, right, because just dying is the other option.

Kate Brim 38:11
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. And, you know, it was one of those things where I was like,

after I had had that, chat with that dietician, it kind of turned over a new leaf where I was like, okay, yeah, this really sucks. But like, we got to do everything we can to make the best of the situation. And at the immediate time, for me, that was just doing everything I can to be a part of community. So at first, the first probably year, it was trying out every single adaptive sport I possibly could. And physical therapy, outpatient physical therapy. And then the crazy hair and me decided, no, I really want to go back to work. And mind you, I was still was going to school. I just transitioned to online. One. Yes. So if I'm not going to school, I don't have health insurance. Because I was on my parents health insurance. I have so I had to

Scott Benner 39:21
like wrap my head around this part yet. Is there? I mean, I just assumed there was disability that covered stuff like this, but is that not the case?

Kate Brim 39:30
It was not the case. My mom's health insurance is very stingy on like, kids, okay, yeah, you can stay on the health insurance as long as you're in school. That's that's how we've interpreted it. Because every year we get a letter having to submit proof of enrollment. So yeah, that's that was definitely definitely fun.

Scott Benner 39:55
How many master's degrees do you have?

Kate Brim 39:58
Yeah, it was So I think I think what we did in the beginning was like, I was just doing one class at the University I was going to because you just had to be enrolled part time. And because the university I was at the classes were accelerated one class covered the credit limit. It was a class every eight weeks. I understand. Yeah, so it was no, I

Scott Benner 40:27
can't you can do this till you're 26. Is that right? 26. Yep. Then what happens?

Kate Brim 40:33
Then? I so actually being on the national team now for handcycling. I have a health insurance opportunity.

Scott Benner 40:45
group purchase for everybody.

Kate Brim 40:48
It's the National Medical network. I not fully understanding it yet, but we're still still kind of looking through all that and like getting a full understanding of that. Because yeah, let me tell you, I'm definitely a deer looking into headlights as far as the day I come off my parents health insurance.

Scott Benner 41:10
I'm sure you're making me think of Hold on a second. This is going to be ridiculous. Okay. But I believe the Mennonite Church, which I built which I you know what that is Mennonites? Yeah. Okay, well, alright. Okay. Well, cool. Was that one of the classes you took? I believe the Mennonite Church has done a I think they have like car insurance and like, like, like insurance for their homes. I don't know if it's health insurance, too. But there's such a large group of people, they're able to purchase insurance. So if you're part of the church, you can get this insurance. Please don't ask me how I know this. It's just, it's one of the weird things in life that I remember. And I was just wondering if the if the handcycling association or if people with spinal cord injuries in general could do something like that. Although I tried to imagine the insurance company it was like, how many people with spinal cord injuries? Do you want us to cover? Yeah, sure. Come on in. But you'd still have to pay for it. You know what I mean, like, and you're not working? Right?

Kate Brim 42:13
I so that's the that was the part I was actually getting to was the crazy here. And we decided no, no, I want to go back into work. Get back back to work. So I went through a resource in Michigan called Michigan Rehabilitation Services, Mrs. Yeah, essentially, what they do is they help people with disabilities find employment. So within that, they found me a job through what was called Downtown ambassador program. And with that job, what I was doing was pushing around all of downtown, you know, essentially just helping people within downtown, find places that they're trying to get to help with events that were happening downtown. We also helped, you know, kind of keep the homeless population at bay. If you know what I mean, their

Scott Benner 43:15
whips and chairs or like, you

Kate Brim 43:18
know, so in Michigan, they do a really, really good job as far as you know, just enforcing upon the homeless population, like, look, yes, you're homeless, but, you know, please keep our city decent and like, just don't make us look trashy.

Scott Benner 43:38
Do you sort of just kind of go around and do civic pride with them?

Kate Brim 43:44
Um, just essentially, like, you know, if you get the homeless people who are, you know, heavily intoxicated with alcohol or drugs, then you know, we have to call the police get them involved.

Scott Benner 44:00
All right, Kate, I have to tell you, I have so many questions. I don't know if I can let you answer any question longer than 30 seconds because I need I need. Do you drink?

Kate Brim 44:10
I do not know you before. No,

Scott Benner 44:14
no, you get high. No. Did you before? No. Do you want to I'm definitely

Kate Brim 44:21
not it. Not an adventurous person when it comes to all that.

Scott Benner 44:26
Okay, that's that's fine. Um, what else? Oh, God. Do you date?

Kate Brim 44:31
Yep. So I'm actually engaged. He and I met when I was at Ferris, so before my injury Yeah, so actually, when my injury first happened, he kind of became a like, stressed mess. And I just had to like, step away a minute and be like, Look, I've got like, a lot happening with me and I'm up You're myself out, I can't figure myself out and help you figure this out, right, just with how bad it was. So we took a pause for a while, but then we started dating again. And now we're engaged. And we have been for about three years now.

Scott Benner 45:19
Alright, Kate, you know what I'm gonna ask you next. Right? Yeah. Okay. As much as you want to answer the question, how do you be intimate?

Kate Brim 45:31
It's, it's different for, you know, different for everyone. It definitely, you know, a lot of it was just figuring out what, what works best for us. We're actually long distance right now. And actually, we have been throughout the entirety of our relationship, just because we lived two hours away. And since I left Ferris, he, he was still at Ferris, at the time, finishing up his degree, but I was back in Grand Rapids. And so, you know, for us, a lot of it has just been like, time to see each other in general, just because of us working with two completely different schedules now. And now that I'm in Colorado, he's actually still in Michigan, but you know, working towards figuring out like, Alright, what's the next steps for me to be able to move out there? So ya know, our relationship through our whole whole relationship has been been long distance but you know, on the grace of God, we've we've really made it work.

Scott Benner 46:48
That's amazing. You're also amazing is your activity life as I'm you don't mind if I'm Facebook stalking you, I imagine while we're talking. So you have like, I see racing bikes. shooting guns. Here. I don't know what this is. Are you ziplining in this photo? Goodness yellow helmet. Seated in a like a look at your like, I don't know I do so much stuff, Scott. I can't keep track of it all. Oh, yeah. It was I got a canoe here. I mean, a canoe, there's wheelchair. Is this like basketball?

Kate Brim 47:33
Am I see? It wasn't the big tank looking chair with this gnarly looking at on the front of it.

Scott Benner 47:40
Huh? Okay, how many things? Why are you making me look lazy? What is going on? This is what I don't understand. Why am I looking at your activity and going I gotta pull it together. And at least do as much as I'm sorry. How do we characterize it peril of what is it? Going? How am I not doing as much as you as what I'm thinking? And I'm feeling very badly about myself. Okay. Tell me about the bike races a little bit. How far are they?

Kate Brim 48:08
So they vary in distance, I do two events, called the individual time trial and the road race. The time trial is essentially a race against yourself. And then whoever at the end has the best time wins. So it's really challenging because you're, you don't see who you're racing against, you know, you're not chasing, chasing the mouse the whole time. And then the other one is the road race. Those ones are typically longer. The time trials that I have done so far have been anywhere from like I'll say eight to 15 miles. And the elevation within them vary greatly. And then the road races are typically a lot longer. And those can be anywhere from 20 to 30 miles.

Scott Benner 49:06
Oh my god. I don't like driving that far. What do you think of that? All right. All right, Kate, I think it's time I think I understand your life well enough to move on to this. I you by God, you get type one diabetes. How Yeah. That probably felt like you left every light in the world on and gotten to bed I'm imagining. So first of all, any autoimmune issues in your family line, etc. Oh,

Kate Brim 49:39
I'm a John Doe when it comes to family history. I was adopted in 2004 when I was seven, three or 2004 when I was four and a half from Ukraine, and we have none of my family history. So so as far as Figuring out me and my health has been like, something happens. Oh, okay, this is this is what we got to deal with now. Okay. Um, yeah.

Scott Benner 50:10
Kate, I'm adopted as well. Oh, are you? Yeah, I know exactly how you feel like you just everything. Well, listen. I don't think it's fair to say I know exactly how you feel. But on this one point, I know how you feel like just everything is a mystery. And you have to figure everything out from step one. No, no aunt pulls you aside at Thanksgiving is like, Listen, if you fart a lot after dinner, here's what you should do. It happens to all of us. Nobody talks about it. Like you don't get any of that stuff you get like, I have a problem. And I have to figure out what it is on my own. Because there's no one there to help. So yeah, you've got that going, wow. How are your parents? Well, I'm going to decide well, from it, how are your parents with this injury? Like? Had they both handle it gracefully? Or was it hard for them?

Kate Brim 51:00
Um, I, I have really, I have yet really to talk about with my dad, he's always kind of been sheltered with his emotions, he's never really been good at expressing them. So he was pretty quiet through the whole thing. My mom, she is definitely a lot more expressive with their emotions. But in a good way, you know, it's, she and I are definitely very close. And so it was definitely hard for her in the beginning. But at the same time, I think I I have had, definitely, and I think this just stemmed from me being adopted and in my really kind of shitty upbringing in the education system in my beginning days due to not speaking English. Um, I have always, you know, if something major happens, like, I definitely want to have a full grasp of it and, like, have full control. I've always been that way. And so I think, I think things have gone as smoothly as they have just because of that, that aspect of things where I'm like, nope, nope, this is yes, this is Cuba. Like, alright, we got to figure this out, you know, keep keep the road as smooth as possible.

Scott Benner 52:29
I can't believe you had to learn English on top of all this, too. But yeah. Kate has already ever been three months of your life where you're like, This is going well.

Kate Brim 52:42
Yeah, it's one of those looking back at it type things. You're like, wow. Yeah, you know. It's, it's one of these things where, like, in a way, it sounds weird, but like, I'm so thankful I've had everything happened to me that I have had happened to me because like, it's just made me so much more thankful for the things I do have. And like, the opportunities that that have come across. Like, I'll tell you, yeah, I've gone through definitely had a lot of hardship, as far as, you know, just making it an everyday society. And I definitely still do to this day have my half my down days, but, you know, it's, it's at the end of the day, it's all been all been worth it.

Scott Benner 53:35
Yeah, I mean, obviously, everyone has not been down. So I imagine you did as well. Like, that doesn't surprise me. But your overall attitude about this is astonishing. And is it something you can take credit for? Or is this just how you're wired?

Kate Brim 53:53
I don't know. It's, that that has had definitely been a question of mine of, like, you know, you know, why? Why I have been able to take this so well. It's kind of like, it's been a question of mine. But I'm like, alright, you know, I'm glad that that I am able to take it as well as I have been, and I think so much of it has just been because of this poor system I've had

Scott Benner 54:23
you must know other people in similar situations to yours that are not handling it. Well. Is that true?

Kate Brim 54:29
Yeah, no, I've definitely definitely met my fair share of them. It's, it's very sad. You know, and I, I have done everything that I can you know, as far as, at the end of the day, you know, you've even said this in your podcast, like, we can do as much as we can to help others. But at the end of the day, it comes down to you and you putting in the work to make the best of your situation or to make make out what You want of your life and of your diabetes or of your spinal cord injury or whatever it be. And so, you know that that message right there kind of has been what I think has helped me get through so much, you know, I still I still want to be able to enjoy life and enjoy joy the times I have with those around me. And so you just have to keep on keeping on,

Scott Benner 55:29
does it? Does your injury impact your life expectancy?

Kate Brim 55:36
Yeah, it definitely can. It's one of those things kind of I kind of, to me, it's, I've looked at it a lot like the diabetes. And, you know, because of the spinal cord injury, I have a lot of nerve damage. And I have autonomic issues, you know, being able to rubber regulate temperature and blood pressure, and I get this thing that's called autonomic dysreflexia. Every once in a while, whenever my body's like, Yo, something's wrong, but I can't directly tell you what's wrong. So we're just going to freak your body out.

Scott Benner 56:11
We'll sit down for a second reboot. Yeah, great. Yeah. Yeah. Kate, I am drawn to ask you, did you sue the doctor?

Kate Brim 56:21
I did not know. Did you think about it? It was no, it was, for me, it was just one of those things that I was like. I just, I guess I just the whole time was like, alright, you know, blood clot or spinal stroke. But at the same time, I think I was in that moment. In the immediate of it happening, I was very, like, alright, you know, okay, it's like a broken leg. You know, we'll get back to live here really soon. All will be fine. I think. I think that's what, in the beginning days, you know, weirdly,

Scott Benner 57:02
it helped me a lot. That feeling that you could get back to normal normalcy. When you when you come to grips with the idea that you're not going to, is it after you work through other stuff? And then you can kind of then think about the next step. Is it more about that, then? Does that make sense?

Kate Brim 57:22
Yeah, question wrong? Yeah. No, I think, for me, a big, big part of it was just, you know, getting involved. Getting involved with adaptive sports, adaptive sports has been a huge part of my recovery, as far as, you know, the mental side of things. And just getting, like being okay, with all right, this is this is my situation, you know, life still can be really, really, really, really uplifting. And there's a lot that I still can do with my life. And so, yeah, for me, it was just the community that I was surrounded with, helped me tremendously.

Scott Benner 58:07
Wow. It's, it's amazing. So I'll just ask you, when you're in your situation, what's the first thing you notice is up, but it must have been crazy being diagnosed with type one, right? Like, what did you notice first?

Kate Brim 58:25
Oh, okay. So I, I'm kind of one of the similar stories of you know, I go on a vacation and then hits the fan. So I have had been working at Amazon for gosh, a little over a year at that point. Okay. I started right at the beginning of the pandemic. So maybe a little longer. Oh, gosh, time flies by too fast. Anyways, so I was working at Amazon, our building was brand new and had literally opened, like, the pandemic happened, our building opened. So we're like figuring out a pandemic, on top of opening a brand new fulfillment center. And so, because of that, I was working a crap ton of hours, like, easily, I would say averaging 60 to 70 hours a week, easily on the minimum, and so and I had just kind of redirected myself because of COVID You know, sports had really stopped and so like that was just that was my new pet temporary path of life right there in that moment was was working at Amazon. Um, and you know, at first I was, it was kind of another like little leaf that turned over for me. It was the first job that I had where I felt like it If I wasn't being limited because of my disability,

Scott Benner 1:00:06
what were you doing there? Or what are you doing there? If you're still there?

Kate Brim 1:00:10
I'm actually not still there. Thankfully, out of there,

Scott Benner 1:00:14
oh my god, the stories about Amazon are true.

Kate Brim 1:00:20
No, it was for us, because in the beginning of the pandemic, you know, when a building first opens, they're going to be understaffed. Okay. So we're understaffed, were having to maintain all the COVID practices of masks, social distancing, COVID testing, you know, all that. But we're also a brand new building that was opening right before Prime Day. Okay, so, yeah, so I was working a crap ton of hours there, I was doing everything from what they call rebidding, which is essentially grabbing these items from this tray. And then you have to put it into the correct spot of the shelf, and the shelf has like 100 200 different little slots that it can go to. So I was doing that at first, then from there, they moved me to what is called Smart pack, which is essentially this machine that packs these items. For you, you have to stick the items into the machine, it shoots down and packs it and then I was there for a very long time, because they really liked my rates. And, but with that, I will say like it was I had explained you, you know, it was the first job where I had, that I had where I really didn't feel like I was being limited because of my disability. Right. And so like I was picking up over time, like I would stay in LA lay, you know, I was I was working all the time. And then at a point it kind of got to where I was like wow, I am like really tired like a we got to the point where mandatory extra time was being called because it kind of turned over in to COVID where like things were opening back up. And then all of a sudden, people aren't wanting to work in physical buildings anymore because they've been working from home all the time. Yeah. And so then our building and still to this day started experiencing like really bad employee shortages causing them to have to call me t weekend and week out like all the time and so then we're working a lot of MBT which is mandatory extra time. And, you know, it was another one of those things all right, you know, it sucks, but I'm just gonna do it. And then fast forward kind of closer to when I took my first vacation from there it was I was going to a camp actually specifically for adults with spinal cord injuries. And it was in Indiana and I actually drove down there leading up to that camp. I I had been extra tired but I just dismissed it as burnout. You know, like burnout from working a crap ton of hours every single week for you know over a year. And mind you that job is a very physical job like on average I was doing around 30,000 pushes a day in my wheelchair. Wow. Yeah, so it was like it was a physically taxing job and so yeah, I just dismissed you know, all my tiredness and lack of motivation outside of work just because of you know, I'm tired and burnt out. So I was like really looking forward to this vacation us step away from work, you know, get back into doing things that you know are for me. Um, so I drive down to the camp. The first few days of the camp, you know, everything's going going pretty okay. I had actually started experiencing about bout of constipation. Like right before leaving for that camp. I still was having issues throughout the camp. And then my body decided that at the top of this really tall rock climbing Wall outdoor rock climbing wall that it had had enough. And I ended up collapsing. So they get me down. I come back to you know, they're cooling me down, it was hot outside. So we kind of just dismissed it as like, Oh, she overheated they did call the ambulance just because the doctors that were there at the camp were like, ah, you know, she's not not had a bowel movement. And over a week, she collapsed at the top of this rock climbing wall as something might be something's clearly up. And so they sent me to the hospital via ambulance get me to the hospital. At the hospital, that hospital, they strictly just dismissed it as like, Oh, yep, you're constipated. Take Milk, milk of magnesia you know up your stool softeners and all that, give me a bag of fluids didn't do any blood work or anything in the hospital and discharge me. So go back to the camp, I still feel like crap. It's we had one more day of that camp. And then I and we all pack up and head home. On my drive home, I something in me clicked where I was like, No, I really, really do not feel good. Like something is not right. And so I I call my primary care office. And I explained to him what had been going on and, you know, all the symptoms I had been having. And I explained to him like, hey, you know, I'm I've been at this camp, I've really not been feeling a lot. I've been extra tired. I've had a lot of constipation. And he kind of asked me a couple of questions like, oh, you know, how's your fluid intake been, you know, thinking I might be dehydrated from just being outside and stuff. And I was like, Nope, I'm drinking freaking gallons of water. Like, we're doing just fine there. And, um, then just within the conversation, something within Pam was like, Hey, I like you need to get to the hospital. As soon as you get back here in Michigan. I think you're diabetic ketoacidosis. And I was like,

Scott Benner 1:07:21
over the phone,

Kate Brim 1:07:22
over the phone. And I'm like, I'm sitting there. Like, what the? Yeah, you know, like, I was just sent via ambulance to a hospital and you're telling me over the phone that like, whoa, buddy, you got you got real problems.

Scott Benner 1:07:38
That's well done. People must be embarrassed for two reasons about the story while they're listening to it right now. First of all, if you have diabetes, and you're not as active as you want to be Kate was diagnosed with type one paralyzed rock climbing. So really, try harder. And the other one is the doctor who was able to look past all of your normal problems, and just look at the symptoms and say, Okay, if Kate was any other person, what would I think this sounded like? That's really astonishing.

Kate Brim 1:08:10
Yeah, he he has been, like, my favorite provider I have ever had. Well, yeah, as far as as far as just general care. Like, the things he has noticed about me, even despite my RDF dog body, like has been on like, holy crap. That's really? No, he is truly an amazing, amazing doctor. Yeah. And so I, I'm kinda it's another one of those like deer in a headlight moment and I'm just driving down the road. I actually ended up pulling off to scream. I'm a truck stop. Like I did. I sat there for a minute, like, holy, what the hell is happening now? Mind you, at this time. I like when he said diabetic ketoacidosis I know. I knew what it was. Just because my family my dad, he was a cardiac ICU nurse. My mom she works in health care, like health care is in our, our family. Yeah. So. So I'm sitting in that truck stop. And like, I didn't even get out of my car. Like I didn't, I didn't do a walk around or anything. I'm just kind of sitting there like, holy, what the hell is happening. So I kind of, I didn't even I didn't even call my mom or anything. In that moment. I was just so shell shocked at the moment. I was like, wow, you know, like, what's next?

Scott Benner 1:09:46
Is it was it just a generalized ringing in your head? Or are you doing the math about your current situation and adding diabetes to it?

Kate Brim 1:09:56
That yeah, right there my current situation and adding Diabetes to it i i very quickly went to the dark side of diabetes and I was like like I this this can't cannot be happening I you know I've already gotten nerve damage I already have wound healing issues because of my nerve nerve damage this the last thing I need, you know, and so I I kind of got myself a little re gathered drove the rest of the way home. Got to the hospital there and I hear my primary said like, okay, when you get here, just let them know, while you're here, I'm gonna let them know you're coming. Lottie, Dottie da so I did. They immediately got me like a bed admitted surprisingly, mind you this is in the middle of another wave of COVID. And so they got me in and they do the the basic, you know, check your blood pressure all that my blood pressure was really high. I think I want to say a lot of that just was due to me being like stressed in the moment. And so they do that. Then they do bloodwork the one nurse, she did a finger prick. She was like yeah, your blood sugar's really high. This is not good. Like, it's one of those moments where you're like, what a nurse is worried in a hospital, you know, it's bad. And I kind of just did a deep swallow. And then I asked her, I was like, Okay, what is it? And she's like, it's an eight hundreds. And I was like, I

Scott Benner 1:11:51
don't know what that means. But that sounds high. Yeah.

Kate Brim 1:11:54
No, I knew what a mean. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:11:57
oh, no kidding.

Kate Brim 1:11:58
Yeah, no, I knew I knew what all this meant. And I'm sitting there. Like, I just drove six hours home with my blood sugar over 800. Yeah, that probably wasn't great either.

Scott Benner 1:12:11
Well, okay, so they get obviously they get your blood sugar down, and they get you set up. But I want to go over just contextually the operation you have of your hands before I asked you about how you you've handled your diabetes. So how are your fine motor skills?

Kate Brim 1:12:30
Not so hot. So

Scott Benner 1:12:33
your arms are really the are the are the best operating part of the system between your shoulder and your fingers?

Kate Brim 1:12:40
Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I know she tells me that blood sugar. But in in this whole situation. They're looking at me as an incompetent patient as far as being able to take care of myself. They're not really like treating me. Like I'm someone who takes care of myself. And so you know, they're kind of just doing everything without out telling me and I don't know why. In the moment, I really was not like, hey, you know what's going on? What are you doing? What's this? What's that? Like? Why are we doing this? I just I was really in shell shock in that moment. So I then I stayed in the hospital. I think it was about five days. Yeah, I was in the hospital about five days because I also had a bowel obstruction amongst all that. And so long story short, they give me taken care of and they had I don't even think it was a an endocrinologist. I think it was just a diabetes educator they had in the hospital you know, pretty much just came gave me a little pamphlet of like, alright, this is this is your short acting, and this is your long acting insulin and, you know, this is how you're going to administer it. And I'm like, why now? Like, like, what? And so I kind of still just this whole time, I just feel like a deer in headlights. You know, I'm i i did not get I never felt like I did not leave that hospital feeling like, Alright, okay, you know, we got this. We're gonna figure it out. It's gonna be okay. Like, I felt like I'm holding these two things. Two little grenades that could possibly kill me.

Scott Benner 1:14:45
I'm probably gonna mess this up at some point. And that's that and we're done.

Kate Brim 1:14:50
Yeah, so. So I then the one thing they had directed me to do is like, oh, you know you need to call your Her primary care office to do a follow up admission appointment. I called them they had been expecting me to call and she was like, Oh, yeah. Can you come in? It was it was literally two days later, which that also blew my mind. Because all my other appointments I had tried to schedule since COVID was like, oh, yeah, you're not either not going to be able to see be seen at this time, or you're waiting? Six, seven months. So I was I was very surprised. So he gets me in. And then he then actually had within that appointment, gotten a hold of one of the spectrum endocrinologist, they actually immediately set me up with the Dexcom G six and the TC 1x. Two. And it was solely because of my because of being a quadriplegic, yeah, they pushed, okay, yeah, they pushed it, they really pushed it. And so that was really helpful. But at the same time, I was like, okay, that's, you know, that's one part of the hiccup solved, you know, I'm not having to continue to figure out how the hell to give myself these injections, you know, with not working hands. And so we got that set up. I did did the it was actually in the doctor's office, you know, kind of via the telemedicine the training for it, they got me set up with the Basal and control IQ. And so, you know, they get me set up. And with the person who was training me, she gave me a bit more information as far as like carb ratios and your Basal rates and, you know, as basic of a good understanding as you can get, except, still not you know exactly what you need. So I'm like, Okay, a little bit more information. That's nice. All right. So now, now, I have the insulin pump, and the Dexcom G six. And that was like, that was the beginning of me really? Getting to see you know, what exactly is happening with my blood sugar. And mind you throughout this whole thing, you know, since they had got my blood sugar down, you know, kind of back to a point where I'm like, All right, you know, I feel okay, feeling better, you know, everything's, everything's okay. But then, once I got the Dexcom, it was like, I started to realize like, oh, low blood sugars, oh, high blood sugars. But I wasn't getting any, like, autonomic response as far as my low blood sugars or my high blood sugars. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:55
I have so many questions. So first of all, can you you can apply your Dexcom and your pump on your own?

Kate Brim 1:18:01
Yeah, okay. Yep. It takes a little longer and every once awhile there's a mess up, but,

Scott Benner 1:18:06
but you can get it done. And so you can fill the pump as a T slim use cartridges or do you Karcher? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yep. Okay, so that is something that's doable. What about your absorption? Like? Do you have to Bolus the same as other people? Or do you not need to? Pre-Bolus Do you need to Pre-Bolus more? When you're low does juice and things like that hit you the same way. Those questions.

Kate Brim 1:18:34
So yeah, so when I, when I first got the Dexcom that was when I really, you know, started noticing me like, was starting to be able to, like interpret how insulin was affecting me. Because up until that point, you know, I was doing I was doing finger pricks, but it was like, All right, I see this number but you know, what exactly is happening with it. So one of the first first moments that I had where I was like, because the one thing they did tell me in the hospital is like you need to like whatever you do, you have to avoid really low blood sugars. Low blood sugar is bad, bad, like really dangerous. And I was like, okay so the first time I got a low with my Dexcom it was actually happened to be I was on my hands cycle at the time, I still didn't understand what the alarms different alarms meant. And I I'll tell you, I was, I guess a little stupid and ignorant in the moment and really didn't take the time to be like, Oh, this alarm means that and that alarm means that there was just I was trying to still maintain you know, my regular life back home. And so I was on my hand cycle I had about two 90 minutes of my workout left, and then I hear the alarm. I'm like, Oh, I've got 20 minutes left, I feel just fine. Like, I'm gonna keep going, you know. So I finished the workout, then I look at my Dexcom. And it says, it's just so low. And I'm like, oh, that's bad. So I get into my out of my bike and into my chair as quickly as I can, you know, sprint up my ramp, get my manual glucometer. And it tells me I'm 23. And I'm like, Oh, that's really not good. Like, I could tell I was, you know, I had the anxiety running through me, but at the same time, I was questioning what like, how, why am I not feeling? You know, deathly sick right now, like, what the heck is going on? And so, you know, I did. I did at that point No, to like, I didn't just shove a bunch of food in, in me, it was because I was very immediately into the diagnosis. I was very scared of high blood sugars. I think in the beginning days, I was more scared of high blood sugars, then I was of low blood sugars just because of that aspect of me not feeling my lows. Yeah. So I did take it really slowly, as far as like consuming carbs. In that moment, you know, it was kind of like, alright, I ate a few. At the time, I ate a few crackers, waited about 10 minutes did check, ate a few more crackers until it came back up. But then it was it was that moment where I was like, alright, so like, we I gotta figure this out. Like, this is not good. But at the same time, what is going on as far as, like me not feeling you know,

Scott Benner 1:21:54
why are you not having any of this? Like, were you sweating, having trouble thinking?

Kate Brim 1:22:00
So I don't sweat due to my spinal cord injury? Okay, yeah. So

Scott Benner 1:22:08
but you didn't have a seizure? You didn't feel dizzy? Nothing, literally nothing.

Kate Brim 1:22:12
That's crazy. Yeah. So yeah, it was that moment where I was like, because I had had the people in the hospital tell me my primary care tell me like I'd had multiple people tell me like, low blood sugar is really, really dangerous. So like that happened. And I was like, what?

Scott Benner 1:22:34
Finally got a superpower. Kate? Finally got one like a real one. So yeah, when you get low now, still nothing.

Kate Brim 1:22:44
Still nothing? Yeah, except for I'll tell you in a little bit. But so I, I had had that low. And that was that was really the turning point of me like, Alright, we've really got to do some digging as far as figuring this out. And so that was when I started getting on the internet. Because he had referred me my primary had referred me to an endocrinologist to actually be able to get into an endocrinologist. And it was, it was four and a half months out from for me being able to see them

Scott Benner 1:23:16
no problem. That's yeah, and I'll just wait four months. What that's not well done. Well, we need your GP back. That guy knows what to do.

Kate Brim 1:23:25
Yeah. So so in that moment, you know, I'm like, alright, you know, we gotta gotta figure this out. I have, thankfully, you know, I have been a big podcast person as far as for me, it actually first started with listening to podcasts for like fitness and nutrition, you know, just dialing in my nutrition to build muscle because I was like, Alright, I've got all these atrophying muscles, like I got to be able to keep some, some sort of muscle on and develop the muscles that do still work. So it started with that's really what started me in the podcast realm. And so then I searched type one diabetes actually was first within Google and I found a lot. I found I found your podcasts I found mastering diabetes, I found the FTF warrior like I looked at all of them. I definitely did not just just look at one route and decide all right, this is how you take care of diabetes. Like I really took it all in I bought a crap ton of books, as far as you know, diabetes, like I just I wanted to be able to figure out every aspect of it. Because I knew, like I knew off the bat, you know, Insulin is the hormone so like, everything under the sun is going to affect that. And so a lot of it was just figuring out All, for me, you know, based upon how I'm living now, you know, what do what do I gotta do to be able to get this part part of me better manage. Right, right. And you're actually your podcast was definitely a huge part of that huge part of that. So you know, I started figuring it out more I, to this day I'm still living in like, I just do not understand, you know why my body has no autonomic cues as far as lower high blood sugar?

Scott Benner 1:25:38
Yeah, well, the thing is that it and I'm sure you know this, you figured it out already. But just because you don't have the cues doesn't mean that the bad thing at the end of the line is not going to happen to you like, there is a low blood sugar low enough where you're just going to shut off. You're just not you're just not going to have any of the lead up to it with the seizures and you know, that kind of stuff. You're just gonna, I'm so sorry to say it's like, you're just gonna die if your blood sugar gets too low. Yeah, yeah, no,

Kate Brim 1:26:04
it's how do you spell that?

Scott Benner 1:26:08
How do you handle that?

Kate Brim 1:26:12
It's been scary. Yeah, like, it's definitely definitely brought out a lot of a lot of stress on my part, just because it's brought on a lot of stress. But I will say, and it's actually more so been in the recent days, because of something I had happened recently. What happened? Well, leading up until then, you know, I had actually started to get really good at managing, like my time and range and stuff on my standard deviation had been doing really good. And then the instance that I had recently, so I just moved to Colorado. It's almost been a month now, God times flying by. So I just moved to Colorado. And I will tell you, the one thing I for sure took for granted back in Michigan was I knew where I was going, because I lived in the same house for over 20 years. From the day I was adopted up until I moved to Colorado, I lived in the same house like I knew everywhere I was going like there really there was not getting lost for me. Um, so now here in Colorado, all of a sudden, you know, I'm like, I'm a coward in the middle of the field like, Whoa, we're where are we? And so the Gosh, when was it last Saturday? Not the sprint Saturday that we just had, but

Scott Benner 1:27:49
it's a week ago.

Kate Brim 1:27:51
The 24th. Yeah, yeah. I, so all of my long rides are typically on Saturdays, because Sunday is a rest day where I don't do any exercising. So I've always planned my long rides on Saturdays just because of it being arrested on Sunday. So I had been sent this route from another hand cyclists that lived here a few years ago. And I was like, Cool, sweet. It's a nice, really, really easy loop and happens to actually be a loop that doesn't have a lot of climbing because up until this route, I had been doing a crap ton of climbing. Oh, yeah. So happened to be I had to drive to the road. Excuse me, I had to drive to the route. And then it was actually kind of out in the country, like really out in the middle of nowhere in this little city called fountain. So I get my bike out, you know, all is going well. I get to about the 40 mile mark. And the my bike computer tells me to turn on to this road book drive. And I look over and it's a dirt road. Mind you the weekend before the same thing happened where it wanted me to go on a dirt road. I went on the dirt road but then ended up with a flat tire. So this time when he wanted me to turn on to book drive. That was a dirt road. I was like yeah, no, that is not happening. So i i At first I did actually turn on to the dirt dirt road, but pretty immediately, like probably 10 seconds. And I was like yeah, this is not going to work because it was a very loose, loose dirt road like it was a sandbox dirt road. And so to get back onto the pavement, i Then stop looking on my computer to see if maybe there's a road a little further up that I can turn on to because mind you I was like 10 miles from being back Back to my my van. So I was like, pretty close to being done. I'm not seeing anything. So I start backtracking the way I had come in every road it's wanting me to turn on to was a dirt road. So, up until this point, you know, I was doing really good with fuel and it happened to be right before that road that I turned on to though that I had to turn on to that book drive. That was dirt, right, I had taken my last pitstop to get in fluids and get in my gels that like carb gels that I had happened to be right and now at an alpaca farm. So like I'm having the time of my life, I'm out in the middle of nowhere hanging out with alpacas, which happened to be my MO one of my mom's favorite animals. So like, I'm smiling from ear to ear, taken in some videos from my mom. Then pack things up and go to go to book drive. And it's like, oh, shoot, here we are again, like, lost again. Good job, Katie. So I start backtracking. Every road it's wanting me to turn on to is a dirt road. So I'm like, okay, all right, I'm doing fine. So I backtrack the whole way. I'm, I'm at this point. Probably about, like 53 or 54 miles in, and then I'm kinda like, all of a sudden, where I'm like, Wow, I'm not feeling so hot. Like, I'm tired. So I take I take another stop. This was about about seven miles from my van. Okay, I take another stop. Drink the rest of the fluids I had, which, at that point, I had probably gone through about a liter and a half of fluids. Okay. Took the one last gel I had I had gone through three gels each of those gels have, what is it? I think it's like 22 carbs, or something like that. Had had three gels. And I had had one of these bars called a grab the gold bar, which is just a really densely filled calorie, dense bar. It's like almost 300 calories just for the bar. To like, really, in reality, I should have been fine. And I had noticed my Dexcom alarm went off and said I was 55. And I was like, Oh, it was in that moment. I was like, Okay, I'm low. But at the same time kind of question like, wow, I really don't feel good. What is like, this weird took my last job because I said I was 55 took a big drink of the fluids I had, which also had carbs and like it was a carb mix, right? So I had had a lot of carbs on board. And I keep going get another couple miles and I'm like, I really don't feel good. And like, what I had noticed would have been like no, I'm in trouble was I was going down a hill. And you know how when you start biking down a hill, like it gets easier to pedal. Well, that wasn't happening for me. And I was like, something's up. So I stopped. I do a manual check. And it says I'm 19 Okay. And I'm like, how I'm like, shoot, I'm really in trouble. And like, at this moment, you know, I will say I was definitely a bit bit foggy and like, trying to figure out like, Alright, what do I do in this moment? I, for some reason, thought of everyone that I knew in Colorado Springs and was like, well, there no, I'm 30 miles away from Colorado Springs,

Scott Benner 1:33:47
you think the call 911 Just Just hold on. Hold on, let it happen.

Kate Brim 1:33:56
In this moment, while I'm like trying to think of what to do at the same time, I my body was just like, so tired and so out of it. So like I didn't know to like every time a big truck went by, I was trying to get my hand up to like try to wave them down. Because I was like I have this huge asked like not gonna fit a little tiny Sudan to help me. So like I was trying to get help wasn't getting help, but then it happened to be like, I felt my eyes getting really heavy in the moment. And I was like, no, no, I really need help. I really need help. And then it happened to be something happened and I happen to have enough vision in me that I saw straight ahead like I'm talking, you pull in, you'll be there within 20 seconds of walking happened to be I was literally right by a fire department, the Hanover fire department and I was like, immediately I was like, Oh, they're my help. So I put All in. And they had this sidewalk. Like, I'm so thankful for how their sidewalks was constructed. It wasn't a 90 degree turn to get up to the building. It was an angle I see. And then it came straight. So I was actually able to get right up to it with my bike, and I knock on the door and ask the the lady for help. And so then she gets me taken care of as far as like getting me more food and fluids. Like she answered the door. Her name was Joe. And I was like, hi, yeah, I got I got really lost and ended up having to backtrack my route, which added a lot of extra mileage. And I like I really need I need any fluids and food. And that's, that's what came out of my mouth. And she saw my pump on my waist and she was like, Oh, do you need any medical attention? I was like, my blood sugar's low. I just need food. Like, that's all I was thinking about was like, I need food. So she got me the food. Got me, you know, got me into their truck, my bike into their truck, you know, back to my van. I just kept consuming food for probably another couple hours. Got back to Colorado Springs. And kinda in that moment, I was like, wow, that was that was really not good. That was it was it was a huge eye opener for me like, yeah, that was that was a little too close for comfort. Like,

Scott Benner 1:36:44
yeah, yeah, there are a lot of people listening right now who wouldn't have gone on that bike ride who aren't quadriplegic. So those who have diabetes have been like, that sounds like a lot of work. I probably wouldn't have done that. And you so is it. Partly? I mean, you said ignorance earlier, just because you're new to it, you don't really know. But also, I'm assuming because you've never had the feeling of being low. You haven't had that. That fear kind of come to Jesus moment where you're like, Okay, this is the thing I have to worry about. And so yeah, you can be low, low, low all the way to 19. Where you really were, yeah, you were you were on that store. That's amazing.

Kate Brim 1:37:25
And here's the thing is, I really think I was lower than that. Because like, I pulling into that fire department, like, holding the fire department, they got me taken care of. And I will tell you like it's stressed me that out as far as like being scared to get back on the bike and stuff.

Scott Benner 1:37:48
Yeah, I might, I might think.

Kate Brim 1:37:51
But I don't know if it's just the like, stubborn part of me. I was like, you know, all right. You know, you love love handcycling you're not gonna let this stop you. So for some reason, the next day. For my ride, I had an easy recovery ride. I went back out there, like, because I just had so many questions like I needed to see all again, as far as where I was what, you know, what was all going through. So when I had seen the fire department, I thought it was Hanover Fire Department station 325. And the only thing I had seen was their main building, like where their little kitchenette and stuff is. I didn't see any of the garage or anything. This place was flippin huge. But me in that moment, I it just seemed like one tiny little building where the help was.

Scott Benner 1:38:50
You're lucky you went to the right door even. There was also isn't a paid fire department or volunteer department. Because I'm I'm wondering if you're lucky if there was even anybody there.

Kate Brim 1:39:06
Well, so that was the other thing is she told me she was like, You got really fortunate. You came in just the right time because I was about to head out for the day. And I was like, Don't tell me that I was 19

Scott Benner 1:39:18
Yeah, no, I'm gonna say I looked online and I think it's possible. That's a volunteer place there. That means there's probably not people there in the middle of the day. They probably just because when there's a fire, she was there doing something. Now you really did get lucky. Well, I mean, yeah,

Kate Brim 1:39:35
it was it was definitely I got very lucky. So what

Scott Benner 1:39:38
what are we doing now? Like, are people now aware of where you are when you're writing and things like that? You have backups?

Kate Brim 1:39:45
So yeah, so the next day I went back, you know, I was like, holy shit. You are really in a dangerous situation just because going back in a fully conscious state like this. Look, everything looked completely different there. was for huge stalls for the truck was two main doors, and I just happened to choose the right door. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:40:09
that's a good That's really incredible. I looked online, it's a big building. And it's long and expansive. It's not like two stories, right? It's one like kind of spread out. Yes. Level. Yeah, that's really Yeah, yeah, you got lucky. Well, okay, hold on a second. We I am so sorry to say this, but like, I'm up on another appointment and a little bit. So I have to I have to wrap up. But let me start by asking you if there's anything we didn't talk about that you really wanted to get to?

Kate Brim 1:40:39
No, not really. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:40:44
It's an astonishing story. Yeah, it just it really is. It's, it's crazy that your life is that. That it's that big. And I'm wondering if I mean, that bikes got to feel like freedom to you, right?

Kate Brim 1:41:02
Yes, exactly. It. Yeah, that's the first race I did. And hand cycling was like, it was the first moment that I had where I felt just truly unstoppable. And, you know, like, the limits are endless,

Scott Benner 1:41:19
better than driving a car even.

Kate Brim 1:41:23
Yeah, I think so. Because, you know, for me, it was like, I'm exerting physical energy and just get to feel super strong in that moment. And yeah, that was, I think that was just my true love for handcycling was, you know, big reason why I went back out to that, that fire station the next day, but like, that moment was, it was a big eye opener as far as like, alright, you know, we got to figure figure out more better safety protocols. So I did buy this like, little satellite GPS thing that I can have things sent my load, send my location, every so often. So I got that. And then also had some people show me routes that are like, actually saved, so I'm not having to backtrack. And it's so

Scott Benner 1:42:17
interesting, because at the core of all this, Kate, you're still 24 Like, you have the you have the attitude of a 24 year old single girl, like you're like, Oh, I'm gonna go for a ride now. And just not thinking about I guess, I don't know, it's just, like, if you put me I'm a parent, right? And I'm older. And so if you said to me, I'm gonna go for a bike ride, my brain immediately comes up with 15 reasons why you shouldn't or things that we have to do before you do it. But you don't feel that way. You feel like I'm gonna go for a ride now. I mean, that you went out the next day. It's, that's astonishing. Like that's, that would that would have stopped most people, most people would have been like, No, I'm good. I'm not going to ride my bike for a while till I figured out something but you just so so the control IQ was taking your Basal away, but it wasn't helping. Right?

Kate Brim 1:43:07
Well, so actually, I've actually not used the control IQ in quite a while just because I've not in normal circumstances, I've not had as good of control as I like, okay, um, so I had set a temporary for that right? Ride, okay, but because I had to backtrack my ride, and I was so focused on trying to figure out how to get back without having to completely backtrack. I forgot about my temporary expiring it's the one thing I truly hate about tandem is if you set a temporary it does not notify you when that temporary it expires. It doesn't just expire it

Scott Benner 1:43:46
just sends it doesn't beep and say okay,

Kate Brim 1:43:49
yeah, so that's what happened is my temporary I had set it to 25% of what my normal Basil is. And it went back to my my normal basil. And so I'm getting a crap ton more insulin while I'm out here exerting energy and mind you it was like 8687 degrees in dry Colorado. Hey,

Scott Benner 1:44:12
Miko makes me wonder how much do you weigh 110 pounds and what is your Basal rate?

Kate Brim 1:44:19
My Basal rate right now for like, just strolling about everyday not doing exercise is about 1.7.

Scott Benner 1:44:26
Okay. Okay, yeah. And so part of that's probably because you have your digestion slow. I imagine foods days and you longer that kind of stuff. So you're getting impacts along the way from that because 1.7 for your weight. I mean, listen, you're the first quad Can I just say quad? I don't know what to say it's okay. You're the first quad that I've ever spoken to. So I don't have any context for how insulin might work and you do need to Pre-Bolus for meals. Yep, you do. But how long?

Kate Brim 1:44:55
Me I do it about 20 minutes like 20 minutes is the minimum Usually, what's your Excellency? My aim once my last day once he was 5.1?

Scott Benner 1:45:05
And what range do you look for? Where do you try to keep your blood sugar?

Kate Brim 1:45:10
In a happy place? I say between 80 and 150.

Scott Benner 1:45:14
Okay, what do you call it? What do you call spike after a meal? Like, where do you go? Oh, I really messed this up.

Kate Brim 1:45:21
I start looking at it for me at about 130 I start looking at it at about 130. And if it's like, either creeping up or staying up there, I'm like, okay, you know, let's get this back down. And then, like, as far as my homeostasis point, it's definitely you know, that the high 90s Low one hundreds for me.

Scott Benner 1:45:46
Okay. How often do you get low under 70?

Kate Brim 1:45:52
Oh, not that often, really. So my last looking at Dexcom clarity. Like, my, my time and range has actually been the last seven days has been at 9%. Which I'm really happy, happy with 2%, low 4%. High 1%. Very high. It's in so I have liked keeping that tighter range, just because for me, I like I've been thinking long term, you know, I've already got these impacts that are affecting me. And so I've got to do my best to, to keep on top of it.

Scott Benner 1:46:42
Yeah. What What's your diet? Like? What do you eat in the course of a week.

Kate Brim 1:46:47
Um, so I, I would say I stick definitely just naturally stick lower carb. But recently, we've been trying to figure out like, trying to really figure out my carb ratios, and I'm trying to figure out the Pre-Bolus is for certain types of carbs. Just because with how physically demanding cycling is you need carbs. Like. So we've recently been trying to figure that out. And it's definitely had some, some great successes. And then there's moments where it's like, did I even give myself insulin? What the

Scott Benner 1:47:24
hell? What? What's your carb ratio for meals?

Kate Brim 1:47:28
Ah, so I actually just recently adjusted right now it's about a one to eight.

Scott Benner 1:47:33
It's interesting, because Excuse me. Sorry. Sorry, your Basal is more than I expected for your weight. But yeah, but your carb ratios? Well, it's heavy, but it's not crazy.

Kate Brim 1:47:48
Yeah, it's no, I will say so. Like, the Basal rate that is, as far as when I'm, like just pushing around in my wheelchair. It's kind of expected just because of how few calories we burn sitting in a wheelchair. Like it's so much less, you know, walking around and doing day to day we're burning a lot more. And so that's the only thing I can think of just me naturally having really low blood pressure because of my injury. I'm just not burning a lot at all.

Scott Benner 1:48:21
Yeah. Hey, is there any certainly high side to this? Do you not get your period anymore? Is there anything good that comes from this at all?

Kate Brim 1:48:30
Like Fortunately, no, that's still happens.

Scott Benner 1:48:33
Unbelievable. That's a kick in the ass right there. I'll tell ya. So, yeah. So if you got pregnant, it would it would kill you. Right?

Kate Brim 1:48:46
It would not kill me. No. Um, but it's definitely a very high risk pregnancy just due to the the aspects of autonomic dysreflexia. And being in a wheelchair. Yeah, no, definitely very that people have done it. I might not have injuries have

Scott Benner 1:49:07
done it. I didn't know that I might not have met killed literally, I just meant like it would kick your ass like, so. Yeah, more than maybe usual. Do you think about that? Do you have any thoughts about that at all?

Kate Brim 1:49:20
I personally have decided, you know, I am 100% okay with adopting, like, I'm so thankful I was. I was adopted, especially with just everything going on in Ukraine. Now say

Scott Benner 1:49:32
we didn't talk about that. But you're having your own personal war while the country you came from is in a war. And that's evil. Yeah. Insane.

Kate Brim 1:49:39
Yeah. And so, yeah, just there's been many, many people I've met that have been adopted and thinking about myself being adopted. I'm like, you know, I would love to be able to provide a second chance for an innocent child who didn't ask for that central situation.

Scott Benner 1:49:57
You think you could do it? You think you could raise a baby or would you adopt a or older?

Kate Brim 1:50:02
I don't know. I haven't thought that thought about that yet. It's a it's a

Scott Benner 1:50:06
young Kate. Surface Young.

Kate Brim 1:50:08
Absolutely figuring out how to function.

Scott Benner 1:50:12
I don't I don't know what to say. I'm really thrilled that you shared this with me. I I don't know if I did a good job of talking through it with you or not, but I feel like I learned a lot. So it must have done okay. Yeah, yeah, I just, I mean, your life is, is incredibly different from anybody I've ever spoken to.

Kate Brim 1:50:31
Yeah, it's no, it's definitely been a roller coaster of adventures. That's for sure.

Scott Benner 1:50:39
What do you do for fun? Be set forget the writing and all that stuff. Like I figure that's part of your probably part of your mental health routine, the writing and everything, but like, just like, do the I guess my question is do the days get long? Or do you have them filled with things when you're just at home?

Kate Brim 1:50:57
So this is actually since moving to Colorado, this has been the first time where I've actually had like, free time to just do things. Because up until Colorado, I was working a crap ton of hours going to school full time. And cycling. Yeah. So like my plate was jam packed. As far as schedule. So since moving to Colorado, it's been filled with, like just going to check out new places finding hiking paths, there's this one called hunt falls that I've done a few times now. And also just finding new areas to cycle and hoping to God I don't get along.

Scott Benner 1:51:44
How about this? There's two things I wanted to ask you one thing I'm gonna ask you one thing at a time. Did you have friends in Colorado when you moved? Like were you moving to a place you knew people?

Kate Brim 1:51:53
I know a couple of people but I've only recently met them since the since going to the World Cup and World Championships.

Scott Benner 1:52:01
What made you move to there?

Kate Brim 1:52:03
There. I was offered a residency program here at the US Olympic and Paralympic Training Center. Wow. No, it's

Scott Benner 1:52:14
are you going to try to? Are you trying to compete in the Paralympics?

Kate Brim 1:52:19
I am keeping my doors open as wide as I can as far as opportunities with whatever I do. I would love to believe that I can get to that point, I actually took first place in all four races I did between the World Cup and World Championships. And so, ya know, the World Cup and World Championships was a really good, really big eye opener to me as far as like, where you are. Yeah, yes. Where I was and like, how far I've come with myself and how far I still have yet that I can go. Well, good

Scott Benner 1:52:58
luck. And the other thing I wanted to tell you is that people report all the time that higher elevations can lead to lower blood sugars. So I just wanted to tell you that.

Kate Brim 1:53:08
Yeah, it's no actually it's weird. So I've had a little bit of the opposite I, of course I rates, my rates have gone up as far as insulin needs since being here. Yeah, it's been really interesting. And I don't know, I think I'm hoping a lot of it is just due to stress, just because I'm, like, in a completely new area and don't know where where I'm going.

Scott Benner 1:53:35
Yeah, I could be right. You could just be stressed out. I noticed that when my daughter moved to school, that she had different needs while things were going on. So yeah, I mean, maybe you'll find a settling in point after you've been there for a while. Yeah. Okay, Kate, my last question and I'll let you go. I've kept you over time. I significantly I'm sorry. I normally ask this person, this question of people. And I always think I know what they're going to say you're the first person I thought not to ask it to because it seemed obvious to me, but maybe it's not. So let me just ask. I give you a magic wand. You walk again or get rid of diabetes.

Kate Brim 1:54:16
Oh, goodness. You know, it's weird and I think I'd honestly say like neither, you know, well, I've both of these really shaped actuations have brought so much opportunity and just like growth in my life like in a weird way I'm so thankful that they've happened to me. I I think it's it sounds like it takes it's taken me getting knocked on my ass to really, like really get a full understanding of like the consequences of our failed efforts and just, you know, the work that that we can put in the opportunities, I have the strength to that I have all of that.

Scott Benner 1:55:15
It seems to me that the removal of extraneous distractions from your life has allowed you to focus on what actually matters to you, and that your physical state is not as important to reaching those things as maybe other people would expect. Is that fair?

Kate Brim 1:55:33
That is, yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Would that 100%?

Scott Benner 1:55:37
Okay. Wow. Well, thank you so much for sharing this all with me, I really appreciate you taking the time. This was wonderful. You know, I don't know if you're aware of this or not. I record almost every day. So when you and I began talking, I didn't know you, were you. Oh, really. Which is why when I mean, I obviously know, I'm going to interview you. I know that. I know that coming up on my schedule. There's a young girl that sent me a really cool note, and popped up on my Facebook page, who was quadriplegic in a chair and was gonna come on the show. But as I came in here and sat down today, I didn't know that you were that person. And so when I said initially, that your voice sounds very mature, like you've been through some, I did not know I was talking to you at that moment.

Kate Brim 1:56:25
I've gotten that from a lot of people. I seem a lot more mature than my age, and I definitely attributed that to the injury.

Scott Benner 1:56:35
Yeah, yeah. I don't think we're gonna be seeing you on Tik Tok shaking your boobs, is what I'm saying. Yeah, no, yeah. You've you've transcended past that part of life. That seems like, do you think if none of this happened to you, do you think you'd be dancing on Tiktok? Do you think you'd be doing what they do? You know, I mean, they are you didn't? You didn't sound like that kind of person to begin with. But

Kate Brim 1:56:55
no, I really don't. I very quickly got myself into employment and like, figuring out my path of life. Yeah. Which was construction management and doing the working for the directional drilling company.

Scott Benner 1:57:10
Right. You were you are pretty focused right away. Oh, yeah. All right. Well, Kate, you're spectacular. Thank you very much. I appreciate you doing this. No, thank you. Yeah, my pleasure.

First, of course, I'm gonna thank Kate for coming on the show and telling us her story. And then I want to thank Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash and the Omni pod five, head over to Omni pod.com forward slash juice box to get started and learn more. I also want to thank us Med and remind you that you can get your diabetes supplies the same way we do at US med Call 888-721-1514 or visit us med.com. Forward slash juice box. Today, Kate taught me that I can do more than I thought was possible. And I hope that's what you took from this as well. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're looking for community look no farther than Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook, a private group with over 33,000 members. There's something there for you. I promise. A question a comment, a conversation, support, whatever you need. You'll find it at Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook and don't let the name fool you. There's plenty of people in there that have type two diabetes, moody Lada are caregivers of people with diabetes. There's It runs the gamut over there. You really should check it out.

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