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#856 Best of Juicebox: Texting Diabetes

Podcast Episodes

The Juicebox Podcast is from the writer of the popular diabetes parenting blog Arden's Day and the award winning parenting memoir, 'Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal: Confessions of a Stay-At-Home Dad'. Hosted by Scott Benner, the show features intimate conversations of living and parenting with type I diabetes.

#856 Best of Juicebox: Texting Diabetes

Scott Benner

Episode 482 Too Much Insulin? was first published on Feb 23, 2015. Text messages to manage Arden's type 1 diabetes, who knew that would be so effective?! While at school or anytime that Arden is out of the house, the simple process has led to lower a A1c, better grades, an increase in self-confidence and much more. 

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon MusicGoogle Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio PublicAmazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

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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, welcome to episode 856 of the Juicebox Podcast

Hey everybody, we are back with another episode of the Best of the Juicebox Podcast today, we're gonna go way back way back February 23 2015 Episode number four. It's called texting diabetes. I know right? Like how do you text like hello diabetes? Are you there? No, not quite like that you'll see. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise please Always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes, or care for someone with type one, and are from the United States, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Join the registry complete the survey. This helps diabetes research it significantly helps T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox take you fewer than 10 minutes. Help people with type one help yourself maybe definitely helped me.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by cozy Earth. Cozy Earth has been featured on Oprah's Favorite Things list like five times. Their products come with a 10 year warranty and cozy Earth bedding is temperature regulated and is available in either viscose bamboo which is what I have or linen. Cozy Earth loungewear offers optimal comfort while maintaining a flattering and elegant fit. You can imagine me in pajamas looking elegant, and don't miss their new waffle collection towels. And somebody online just told me they bought them last night and we're very happy with them. Now here's the best part when you go to cozy earth.com and shop sitewide no matter what you buy. All you have to do at the end while you're checking out is apply the code juicebox one word juicebox to save 35% on your entire purchase 35% What did I just say? 35%. It's an amazing amount of money. Head over Now get yourself some sheets or some socks or some jammers. I don't care what you're up to.

Unknown Speaker 2:37
Just don't forget to save the 35%

Scott Benner 2:39
you know. Welcome to the Juicebox Podcast episode four. I'm Scott Benner. This podcast is if you're just finding it a conversation about being the parent of a child with type one diabetes. Episode Four is going to take a an upbeat turn because Episode Three got kind of somber at parts, even though I thought the information was good. And I don't want to I don't want to have to bummers in a row. So although I don't think Episode Three was a bummer. I actually think it's a it's an uplifting story. It's just sometimes the topics are heavy, you know. Anyway, episode four, we're going to talk about the way that my daughter Arden and I manage her type one when she's not in my vicinity, when she's not with me. This is just a this ends up being such a great but you know, thing that happens by mistake by you know, by happenstance that ends up just informing so much of how we handle type one today. It has to do everything with an academic upswing for my daughter, it has everything to do with how an A one C that wasn't too bad to begin with is now fantastic. It has a lot to do with her confidence. It has a lot to do with the fact that she can now you know, change insulin pumps on her own. This this one moment really is a big moment. So I'm gonna take you back to Arden in second grade. She's in fifth grade now. She's going to be 11 this summer. But I'll take you back to second grade. She's upstairs in a two story house. We live in a two story house. And I need to know what her her CGM says. And to be honest, I just didn't want to walk upstairs. So I texted her, just said CGM question mark. And she sent the number back. And that was it. I was hooked. I was like, Wait a minute. Is this fantastic? But beyond it just being fantastic that I didn't have to get up and walk upstairs all the time or go find her if she was somewhere. I started realizing. Like right there. I was just sitting on the sofa thinking what's the difference between upstairs and at a friend's house? What's the difference between upstairs and in the backyard? Oh my god. What's the difference between upstairs I was at school, and there really is only one difference. It's my sense of being in control. And can you hear basil snoring? I hope you can't. A puppy he snores like crazy. It's my sense of being in control, right? It's the largely false feeling that I have that if something were gonna go wrong, I could somehow be Superman and stop it. So you can't really stop something from going long. You can plan well, you can, you know, give the right amounts of insulin, you can understand all that stuff, that stuff helps keep problems from happening. But if something unforeseen was just gonna go bonkers, that it's gonna go bonkers whether I'm upstairs or downstairs, or she's out back, or she's at her friend's house, or she's at school. We just need to be sure that there's an adult there, if that ever happens, that understands and can react, and it doesn't need to be me. And that was really a huge leap. For me, I just, I let go of that feeling that false feeling that I was somehow a guardian completely in control. And that nothing bad could ever happen if I was around. This text message ends up being the text message that launches 1000 chips, because it allows me to recognize that, you know, I falsely have an idea of control. And it gives me the bright idea that we could utilize this texting in other places, you know, when Arden's out of the house. And we do to so much success, in fact, that it starts just becoming everything, you know, it's everything. It's it's how we do school lows, highs, meals activity, it's how she goes to her friend's house and plays in the snow yesterday. It's how she's on a school trip today. Without me. It's that one little moment of letting go, that builds and builds and builds to where we are here today. So let me let me tell you some other good stuff that came from that. So first of all, in second grade, we were beginning to become concerned about artists academics, because she was falling behind in areas where we did not expect you know, as people who feel like we're reasonably, you know, we're not over or under estimating learning, we know who she is, as a person as best we can. I'm telling you Arden's grades and her grasp of concepts was not where I expected them to be for her. And, you know, you start getting worried that it's just you know, Arden is going to be a person who struggles at school. But in the end, what ended up happening was, she was leaving class to go to the nurse. And a lot of times, because of the timing of the nurses visits, it was coinciding with learning something new. So her teacher would begin to teach, she'd get out half of a thought it would leave the room come back five minutes later, and because Arden coming and going seems so natural to the teacher. And even though she's a fantastic teacher, it just seems so normal for her to come and go that it got away from her that Oh, Arden walked out during the during the explanation of this. But that didn't stop anybody from moving on the day just kept moving. So Arden would miss the direction, the instruction and then be expected to do the work. And she was struggling. We got lucky. The teacher that Arden had in second grade was really a fantastic teacher and she moved with her whole class and there's a word for it educators, it's popping and educators were heads right now I don't know it, but she moved with her whole class to the next grade. So in third grade, I didn't have to start over new explaining diabetes to someone this you know, day one was, was fantastic. But we made a big change. And here's the change we made. So we go into the 505 go into the 504 meeting after second grade in the summertime, sitting in front of a teacher and two nurses and you know, an assistant principal and I think there's a counselor there and it's me now I've been banging on these people's heads for years. Arden has to go to the nurse she's gotta go at this time. And this time she's got a test here here we can look at the CGM but there we have to test I need her to Pre-Bolus for a meal. So she's got to come down early. You know, I made them give her the aid when she was in kindergarten like there was so much that went on about Arden needs to go to the nurse she needs to go the nurses is very important. And I go and I sit down and had 504 Meeting look, everybody square in the face, thank them for the year, how great it's going. And then I say now next year, I don't want Arden Dakota, the nurse at all. I want her to stay in the class. So a couple of lucky things happen where that made that possible. First of all, her 504 plan covers her having a cell phone. The second thing that helped with the idea of Arden not having to go to the nurse's office was our outgoing governor that year, signed a bill that said that children with diabetes could test anywhere in a public school didn't have to be a nurse's office. It could be in the hallway, it could be in the bathroom. It could be anywhere you want to be so armed with the idea that a Arden was now allowed to test anywhere she wanted to, and be, I saw the light about me not needing to be so involved or anyone needing to be so involved that I thought, Okay, well, we can do this right, we could just do this texting thing while she's in class. So in that 504 meeting, after second grade, I dropped the bomb. Next year, I don't want to leave the room, she's going to test give herself insulin, you know, drink juice or eat food, if she needs it. She's not going to go to the nurse, if we can help it, and I don't want or need the teacher to be involved. It'll be between Arden and I no different than if she was upstairs in the bedroom. Now, you know, if something happens, then the teacher would spring into action. And of course, I was a little nervous about that. But because this teacher was a second year teacher that took away a little bit of that uncomfortable feeling, which is one of the lucky things. And the people in the room. You know, we had built a very good relationship slowly, brick by brick over years, people trusted me. And I think they saw a person who was like no look at she has to be in the nurse's office all the time, who flipped and said, No, she doesn't and thought, well, if this guy is saying she doesn't have to be the nurse's office, you know, maybe we don't have to. But still, you could see the the anxiety like they those nurses were going to be out of the loop. The school was going to be out of the loop. And I and in the end, what I said to them was, Look, she's my kid, if I do something wrong, if I give her too much insulin, or not enough insulin, let's be honest, it's not on you. You weren't involved. There's nothing legally that you did. So this is kind of lightening things for you. And I think that was what pushed him over the edge or like this guy's right, you know, he could, he can mess up as much as he wants. It's not on us. I think that's what they were happy about mostly. So the third grade year of school art and never goes to the nurse one time, never once. And her academics pick up.

G's really, like a like a rocket, they they go back right to where you think they're going to it took a little time she had to catch up. But, you know, now in fifth grade, I don't think of Arden as having any academic instabilities, you know, it's amazing. And that's just I'm telling you, just from not going to the nurse, third grade, no nurse, now we're going to transition to fourth grade. And in our district, that means Middle School. And I know that's probably early for middle school for most of you. And it's an overcrowding issue here. But nevertheless, she's going to have to transfer into another building, same district, different building. Different building means new nurse, different building means new, you know, new principals, new counselors, new people who don't know me, and people who have no reason to trust me or understand what we're doing. So what I did was I brought a nurse from the elementary school and Ardens, teacher to the 504 meeting for the middle school, and I just let them explain it. The nurse didn't have a lot to say she was I didn't see Arden once last year. And that's it. There were no emergencies, nothing we had to run and go find her for it. She said I think she fell on the playground, I had to give her a band aid once. But we never spoke about her diabetes, the teacher spoke to the fact that Arden was falling behind academically and took a little bit of the blame. In the meeting. She said, I really feel like I should have seen it. But it was just such a normal part of the day, he just escaped me that she was leaving all the time. Hey, everyone, it's Scott, I'm just going to take a quick second out from the show to tell you that I'm very interested in talking to you, the parents of children with type one. If you are interested in being on the Juicebox Podcast, please go to Ardens de.com or juicebox podcast.com. Scroll to the bottom, click on contact. Send me off a quick note. I would love to talk to you on the show about type one about parenting about technology, about diabetes, about your frustration, great ideas. You have questions, anything at all, anything, you know, parenting or diabetes related, though, go ahead, send a note. We'll get you on the show. Now back to the podcast. It really is a matter of perspective on it's on saying that she was leaving all the time, isn't it but because you know, as a person who is thinking about diabetes in that way, like oh, I need my kid to go to the nurse's office, she only goes four times a day. That's not too bad. But if you get up, walk to the nurse handle what happens in the nurse's office takes a few minutes come back. It could be 10 minutes, a short trip could be 10 minutes, and you do that four or five times a day you've lost 45 minutes or an hour. Now if I told you I was going to send your kid to school today, and randomly take an hour of their day away from them, you'd say no, you can't do that. When you say oh, you're gonna do it because they have to go the nurse for their diabetes. Oh, that doesn't sound too bad. 15 minutes we'll be fine. It's not fine need to be in school. It was a bit of a hurdle at fourth grade at the middle school. The nurse felt so uncomfortable not being involved, but I could see in her face this the same thing I was going through, you know back before For the texting, she didn't want to be out of control. She didn't like the idea of there being a child in that school that she wanted to keep safe and healthy, that she wasn't going to have input into. And what I said to her was, look, it's okay. Arden's my daughter, she's had diabetes, and she's two, I know exactly what to do, we are going to talk all the time. And if there's a failing in the system, then she'll come to you. If she can't get a hold of me, or I can't get a hold of her, then she'll come to you. I said, but no, this if our text me from class and says, Hey, my blood sugar's 60. And it's falling. I'm not sending her to you, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call an ambulance at home. So she's gonna drink a juice box, she and I are gonna stay in contact over those next couple of minutes by text message. And when I'm comfortable that she's stable again, she and I are going to stop talking. And that's going to be we're going to keep going about our business. Nothing special. So couldn't be more, genuinely couldn't be more happy or proud to tell you that in fourth grade. Arden never went to the nurse for a diabetes related situation. She was down there if you know her insulin pump, I think twice kind of errored, and I went in and switched and we switch them in the nurse's office because there was privacy there. But Arden's never had to go to the nurse for anything diabetes related now in third grade, in fourth grade. And now this year, halfway through fifth grade, never once been to the nurse, it's so glaring, that the nurse sometimes sends me a note to say if our never just wants to come down and hang out or say hello, you know, we really don't feel like we know her. And I very privately think I'm glad I don't want her to know you. i She doesn't need to know you. She doesn't need a nurse. She's She's good. Today Arden is on a school trip. This is the first school trip I haven't gone on. And the very simple reason why I didn't have to go today. Now. Last year, I wouldn't have gone either because of the texting. But there was still an issue of insulin pumps. What if there's a real like kind of catastrophic incident with her insulin pump and it needs a new pump. I wanted to be there to change it. Up until a few months ago, Arden could do all the steps, but she'd never done all the steps start to finish. It ends up being another, you know, happenstance, he kind of thing that gets Arden to putting her insulin pump on her on the pod on by herself. So just like the text messages is born out of me not wanting to get off the sofa one day. My wife and I, Kelly and I were away for a business thing for her. Well, it was an overnight event. It wasn't very far from home, we were about an hour and hour and a half from home. But just far enough that you needed to spend the night Arden and her brother went to her aunt's house. And I think we were like on the last day of an insulin pump. And I kept saying to Kelly on the way out the door like maybe we ought to just switch this thing early. Because I have a feeling it's going to just it's going to you know, it's not going to make it till tomorrow, it's going to need to be swapped. But our blood sugars were okay. They were just starting to get stubborn. You know what I mean? And by the time we had dinner at this event, args blood sugar was great. And then all of a sudden, it just started heading up and she's texting me, hey, my blood sugar is going up and we're poor and insulin. And it's not going down. And so I guess about 45 minutes or an hour later, I texted her and I said look at it that pumps gotta get changed, you know, it's the site decides done and it can you do it, I'll walk you through it, I'll text you through it, or I'll call you if you want me to. And and I said you know what, that's a good idea. I'll call you and I'll walk you through it. Go ahead. I told her Go ahead, fill the pump with insulin and prime it and then send me a text message. And I'll call you and we'll go through the rest of it. About three minutes goes by but in my mind, you know I said to my wife like it's been a long time I told him to prime that pump and I haven't heard back from her you know something's wrong. She's lost her nerve. You know something I'm gonna have to drive home you know, I explained to my I'll explain to your sister over the phone. I'll you know something. But I had every bad scenario going off in my head. Next text message I get back from Arden is a response to me because I'm not texting her. Hey, what's going on? And she goes, Oh, I'm done. And I thought she meant that she filled the pod and primed it. I said, Okay, I'll call you and let's we'll talk about the rest. She texts back because you don't have to call. I said I'm done. I put the pump on. It's all done. I'm finished. And I was like, Oh my God. That's fantastic.

But it's the situation that made it happen. Right. Like she was in a room with a person she knew. Didn't know as much about her insulin pump as she did. She was with her aunt, her aunt knows a little bit about it, but certainly not as much as Arden does. I wasn't there. There was no one to bail her out. This was on her. And bang. She takes care of it just like that. And I really do think diabetes. You know, in the diabetes world and outside of it. Children just get so much out of being challenged. It really does bring the best out in them and this certainly was one of those times. Now that Arden can change your pod without me being there. It's a game changer for For us, and it's why I'm not on some school trip today. You know, Arden is at a science center or a Space Center about an hour and 45 minutes from our home. And isn't it great? I'm just I'm thinking now I'm not really sure where she is. I'm not 100% sure if she's at the Space Center or the science center, it doesn't matter to me. It doesn't matter where Arden is. She's on a class trip. You know, her blood sugar today's never been over 170 hasn't been lower than 115. She was 115. When they got on the bus at the end of the day to come home. She's probably on a bus driving home right now the last time she and I texted, she's like, Hey, everybody is gonna have a snack and have a snack. She Bolus for it. And she's on a bus right now laughing with her friends. I don't even know where she is. It gives me so much joy to tell you that I don't know where she is. Because she's fine. And nothing went wrong with her on the path today. She didn't need the extra pump. She took her the insulin she talked about, you know, but it's right to take the stuff. But had something gone, you know, funky, she would have just found a place and changed the pod and gone about her business. I know she would I know she would have done it. And it all starts in that second after I text her back in second grade from my living room to the bedroom upstairs. What's your CGM say, it all starts in that moment afterwards, when I start realizing I just need to not be that involved. You know, she can do more than I expect. But I don't want to throw it on or all at once. And that has been a really huge benefit of the texting at school, which is different situations come up every day, you know, everyday is not always the same with diabetes. And so their experiences, you know, a little bit of a high before a meal a little bit of a low after a meal a low before gym a high before gym? How do you handle all these things? Well, you have to, they have to happen. First of all, you can't stop every bad thing from happening or every undesirable thing from happening. Because if you stop those things from happening, you never have the experience of them happening. And you know, as well as it, you can't always stop, you know, undesirable moments with diabetes and always stop, you can't hardly ever stop them. So the only real benefit in these moments is learning from them. That's what's been happening with the text messaging. And it's been happening, you know, slowly over time Arden gets to see a situation arise, she gets to hear in the tone of my text messages that I'm not upset. I'm not frantic, I know what to do. Sometimes we choose what to do, and it doesn't work out really well. And she doesn't, you know, we have to make another adjustment. But that that's not a big deal either. And these experiences continue to help Arden grow as a person who lives with type one diabetes, to the point where she's not thrown by things when they happen. And that's probably the biggest that's probably the biggest impediment is not to see a low number and start running around with your hair on fire or not to you know, not to set a correction into into motion and the correction doesn't really affect the high blood sugar. You can't be you know, throwing your hands up constantly and going, oh my god, I can't believe this is horrible, blah, blah. You can't be like that all the time. It's just got to be what it is. I got a high I put some in some oil, it's not working. What are we going to do next? We're going to adjust the basil, are we going to? Are we going to inject some insulin? Are we going to try a new pump? You know, are we just going to Bolus again, you know, maybe this is just a carb counting mistake on our part. Maybe we should just Bolus again or she's low. not to panic when she's low. You know, everyone's got their own level of comfort and I completely respect that. But I see online sometimes people are like, Oh my God, my kids blood sugar was 70. And it was an arrow down or CGM. They almost died like oh geez, you know, most die. 7070 is a great blood sugar. I mean, the down parts not fantastic. But really think about what that means and arrow down to 70 means you're falling about two points per minute, which means that five minutes from now you're going to be 60 which still is not a panic situation for most people drink a juice. It'll stop at 60 The arrow kind of curls back around again before you know it you're fine.

Unknown Speaker 24:14
Reed trying to block his teammate Chris butcher. Here's the checker I thought I

Scott Benner 24:18
would take a second to let you know that the next episode of The Juicebox Podcast will be an interview with 21 year old NASCAR driver Ryan reed Ryan just won in Daytona in the XFINITY series. And we're going to be talking to him about his type one diabetes diagnosis, racing with type one and find out what it feels like to win a NASCAR race.

Unknown Speaker 24:39
Day total What a finish.

Scott Benner 24:42
If my daughter was a panacur because she saw a low number, then that would keep us from transferring the responsibility to her. She can't be someone who panics. And I'm not someone who panics. My wife's not someone who panics and we're teaching her that but slowly through Experience is not by saying to her art and you can't panic if your blood sugar gets low, that's not teaching anybody. You can't teach people how to be. They have to just grow into who they're going to be. And so this simple, silly idea of just texting has facilitated all of this. It has been maybe one of the best decisions I've ever made by mistake or not on purpose and in my entire life. The handoff of Arden's care happens constantly. It's exponentially growing. It's not as slow as it used to be. It used to be one little thing every couple of months. Now I can see her gaining confidence constantly. You know, whether it's today's trip, or yesterday at a friend's house playing in the snow. You know, yesterday is a great example. My son was playing in his final freshman basketball game yesterday, I really did want to go see him play. So Arden comes home from school, I say to her look, we're letting the dogs out. As soon as the dogs are done outside, we're gonna get everything together, and we're gonna go see Coldplay. So he just pack your bag up, you know, bring some snacks if you're hungry, whatever you want to do, but we're gonna go and so she's running around packing and I'm running around with the dogs. And her phone. She gets a text on her phone from a friend of hers. Can she come over and play in the snow? Now I really have to go or I'm going to be late like I need to go. So I said to her, you can go that's fine. But you know, we got to do it right now. Like there's no time to make big plans. I can't call my mother. You know, I said what's your CGM say it's on the low side. I think she was like it was after school. She hadn't had a snack yet. I think she's like 85. And I said, okay, just you know, let's get going. But you have to have a snack before you go outside. So we drove up the street. I dropped her off at her friend's house with a study 85 on her CGM. And I said to her before you go outside and play, have 15 carbs of something. Head out, put your CGM in your pocket, make sure it's zipped up so that you know it can't get wet. Pay attention to the alarms text me if you have a problem. That's it with that I dropped her off. And then I drove about a half an hour from where she was to watch my son play basketball. And not a problem. Not a problem in the whole world. Nothing went wrong or blood sugar didn't get high didn't get low. But if it had CGM would have beeped. And she would have done something about it. And you know, if she had to go inside and talk to the mother that was there, even though that mother's not, you know, some diabetes guru, she would have been fine. Absolutely fine. I was never, never nervous or never uncomfortable yesterday, even though it was a last minute thing, even though it was not a perfect situation where I was leaving her even though she was going to be doing something strenuous. I never in that hour, I watched my son play basketball. I did text with her once or twice, but I was never uncomfortable. And she wasn't uncomfortable. And that is a just a gift. Because I have spent a lot of my life feeling uncomfortable in situations like that, as I'm probably sure that you have also. But it turns out that while we've been texting back and forth, and she's been slowly, you know, her her care, her responsibility, the onus of that has been slowly shifting to her. My anxiety has been slowly shifting away at the same time. And it's always unplanned moments, moments that are not within anyone's control, and certainly not how I plan these moments are the ones that teach me to just mellow out a little bit. And a great example is that Arne and I have alarm set up throughout the day, you know, talk at this time, you know, before snack or before lunch, these are the to our texting times because the day gets, you know, out of hand I sometimes forget. And she sometimes forget. So these alarms keep us in sync with each other. But I do have a couple of alarms that I think of as being maybe not completely necessary. And so if my alarm sounds and it's one of those unnecessary times, and Arden never texts me say she never texts me. I'll throw one text Hey, what's your CGM say?

Unknown Speaker 29:15
But if she doesn't get back to me, I just imagine that she's in her classroom,

Scott Benner 29:21
you know, taking a test or you know, in their group study talking with people. My mind doesn't jump to like Arden's not texting me back because she's dead. But the first couple times it did. The first time she didn't text me back. I was like, I have to call the school. She's not answering me. This is a problem. Obviously she's died or laying on the floor behind a water fountain having a seizure. You know, every bad thought runs through your head. And the best thing I was able to do for myself the biggest gift I've ever given myself in my life is that when those things ran through my head, I told myself just to shut up, just stop. She's in a building with an adult. They're aware that she has type one diabetes, she's got a monitor on for God's sakes, the beeps like crazy, if she's getting too low, the odds of something happening to her, it is dire are so much less than the odds that she's just not hearing her text message. Or the alarm went off, and she didn't hear it. That's what common sense tells me is probably happening. So it was anxiety ridden for me the first couple times, the first couple times she didn't answer, but every time she does an answer in one of those very non critical times, takes away more and more of my anxiety to the point yesterday were when I went to that basketball game, I realized, you know, I am as I am just about as, okay with this as I could possibly be. And I don't mean, we're not paying attention to the details, I don't mean that, you know, we're just gonna throw our hands up in the air and be like, Hey, we're wild and free, and nobody's paying attention anymore, we're still paying attention to it. But in those gaps of time, there's one of my there's an alarm right now that's Arden's pre bus alarm. But of course, today, she's out on a school trip. So I've already spoken to her that one doesn't kind of count today. My point is, very simply, diabetes doesn't get easier. The concept, the very real concept that too much insulin could kill a person, that doesn't stop being true. But when you live through the situations over and over and over and over again, and build a database for yourself of, of experiences that you can draw on, you can learn to let go of your anxiety, and you can raise a child who doesn't have that anxiety. And without that anxiety, they make much better decisions about their care. Now, you know, very soon, and by very soon, I mean, in the next few weeks, Dexcom is going to release that new, a new receiver that's going to have the share built right into it. So Ardens Dexcom receiver, you know, by the end of March 2015, is going to send a little Bluetooth signal to her phone, there's going to be an app on her phone that's going to send her blood sugar to the cloud. And I by then I'm going to be able to look at it on my cell phone, or an iPad, or, you know, the Apple Watch will come out the month later if I don't have one of them. But I mean, these are the possibilities. And I keep thinking, I keep thinking, Okay, I do want that, I want that. But I only want that for the alarm. Like I want that. I don't want to look at it all the time. And I don't want to micromanage her type one diabetes, because me constantly telling her, Hey, your blood sugar is going up, or your blood sugar is going down, do something about it, is just going to do the opposite of what I want to know, in my mind, it's going to do the opposite of what I want, what I want is for her to go and no one's here to change my pot, I'll do it myself, hey, my blood sugar is going up, I'll take care of it myself. I'll be proactive, I want proactive. That's what I'm hoping for. Now, having said that, if there's this little gadget that'll throw me an alarm that says, Hey, your kid's blood sugar is 50. And it's going down. I'll take that I think that's great. I mean, I guess in the same way, if there was a magic, you know, a magic siren that would go off. If my son was about to be hit by a car five minutes from now, I would like that too. But there's no value in me walking around behind my son for the rest of his life going, don't get hit by a car, don't buy a car, don't get hit by a car that he's not going to grow up to be or he's not going to grow up to be a rational person. If I'm up his ass like that. Trust me, I get as well as anybody what the, you know, what the concerns are? I know how dangerous insulin can be. And I know how sometimes things just happen that you don't plan for you don't expect and have no way of seeing coming. But you know, my experience is telling me that those those moments aren't that frequent. And we have the technology I mean, make no mistake using an Omnipod insulin pump. And moreover, probably the Dexcom you know, continuous glucose monitor these items make everything that I'm saying a reality without a CGM. I, I'm not nearly as good at this. I'm not making all these boastful statements about I just sent it to my friend to her friends asked to play in the snow. If she didn't have a glucose monitor. I'm not sending my kids at somebody's house to go play in the snow. I would go and hang out and be there or I would be nearby or it would be a much more regimented schedule of when we were going to talk. It wouldn't all be like loosey goosey like it is now that I completely completely want to be clear about and honest about but we do we're lucky enough to have the glucose monitor and so I'm lucky enough to be able to make these decisions. Okay, hey, episode four. Right? I got four episodes going. You know, I hope you're enjoying it. I mean, I guess if you're listening still you must be enjoying it. I did see that. in its category on iTunes Juicebox Podcast is rising in its category, which is very exciting. It would help the podcast immensely if you could go to iTunes and give it a review either, you know, five stars or actually write a review. iTunes takes that very seriously and it helps the podcast quite a little bit. So if you can do that, that would be fantastic. The Juicebox Podcast is online at juicebox podcast.com on social media at Juicebox Podcast, my type one diabetes parenting blog Ardens. De is at Ardens de.com and on social media at Ardens. De you know, come find us. Check us out Facebook and Twitter is a great way to find out when new episodes go up. But you know, subscribing at iTunes or Soundcloud or Stitcher is another great way to to find out when episodes arrive. New episodes are on Tuesdays. And what else I know what else music for the Juicebox Podcast composed and performed by Sydney Mueller, Sydney. I continue to be in all of your town. Thank you very much. This is Juicebox Podcast. I'm Scott Benner. Thank you very much for listening.

Well, I bet you wish Scott in 2015 had this microphone, because he would have sounded way better. Anyway, thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. And don't forget to head to cozy earth.com and use that offer code juicebox to save 35% on bedding loungewear sheets, my sheets are super comfortable. Check them out cozy earth.com. And don't forget to use that offer code juice box to save 35%. If you're looking for support around diabetes, look no farther than the Juicebox Podcast, private Facebook group, answer a couple of quick questions to get in proved unless you're a real person. Because it's a private group. We want you to feel comfortable there. So just a couple of questions, you know, just kind of shows the algorithm you're real. And once you're in there, 35,000 members strong support, advice, conversation, camaraderie, Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. And it's not it's for everybody. That's diabetes, you know? So head on over. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Did you hear me earlier? I was like there are new episodes on Tuesdays buys. On Tuesdays, there'll be a new episode of the podcast. That was a long time ago. I got more content for you now. Don't you worry. What a terrible microphone to and so like their recordings noisy and but I have really upgraded for you folks, don't you think? Ah. You're welcome. I was just kidding. Why would you thank me for that, like make a podcast you can understand. I didn't know what I was doing back then. I mean, that was 2015 and February. I had been at it for like four weeks. I mean, you gotta admit contents rock solid, but I mean, it sounds like I'm on a rail car going through the Midwest hoping that a hobo doesn't steal my can of beans or something. It's very noisy. Anyway fixed all that. And I'm not sure what purpose this serves. Probably not. Quite me giddy at the end of the day. Alright guys. I don't know. I'll be back. There'll be more. Please listen. Thanks for subscribing, downloading telling people about the podcast. That's all very important and very much appreciated. Anyway, seriously, I'll be back soon. I'll talk to you later.


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