#606 After Dark: Childhood Trauma

Anonymous Adult Female talks about her childhood trauma and how she's responded. Significant trigger warning.

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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 episode 606 of the Juicebox Podcast.

When I began the after dark series, I thought these episodes would just be topics that don't normally get spoken about in the light of day. But were very important and things that happen to people all the time and should be heard. At some point in the process, I began to hear from people who had experienced their own, sometimes very traumatic situations, and wanted to come on and tell their story. I'm not great at articulating this. But I've heard it told to me so many times that I believe in it truly. So when someone reaches out with a particularly heavy story, I like that they want to come here and tell it on the Juicebox Podcast, I'm glad that they feel like this is a safe place. But you should know when these episodes are going to deal with difficult topics. And this one today is just extremely difficult. I'm going to tell you a little more about it after the music hold on tight.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo Penn, find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. I'm going to tell you a little bit more. But I'm going to tell you a little more about this episode before it starts up. So today's guest will remain anonymous. She is an adult who lives with type one diabetes. And she grew up in a home where she was physically, emotionally and sexually assaulted as a child. Her story is incredible. She wanted to come here and tell it, I hope you listen to it. But if you think it's going to be upsetting to you, I just wanted you to know that these are the topics they're going to be covered today. Although by the time we get to the end, you'll hear how she's doing now. And it may feel more like a story of triumph to you. But you're gonna have to give it a shot and see what you think. I personally think that it was incredibly brave for her to come and do this. I hope you feel the same.

Anonymous Female Speaker 2:33
Hi, everyone. I am a 32 year old woman. I have survived childhood abuse. And I also have diabetes type one.

Scott Benner 2:43
And we're gonna keep you anonymous for this conversation. Is that correct? Okay. Yes, I can You can call me Scott. And I'm just going to talk to you like you don't have a name. So, if I sound rude at some point, you know what I mean? Oh, then to worry about it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let's start. Let's start simple. I guess you are. How old were you when you were diagnosed with type one? I was 1919. Tell me again. You're 3432 32. Okay, well, that's like 13 years ago.

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:17
Yeah, I've been half of Well, almost. I'm almost in the half of my latter point.

Scott Benner 3:23
Yeah. What is that noise in the background?

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:26
It's my dog that was just asleep. He was just asleep like a beautiful angel. And he woke himself up and he's, he should stop now. I'm sorry.

Scott Benner 3:39
Sorry. But we might have to kick him out. Is it a big dog?

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:45
He is a pitbull, but the only thing is that because he's deaf. He doesn't necessarily know how obnoxious he is sometimes because he can't hear

Scott Benner 3:54
why I have to admit I don't think dogs are cognizant of how, like you're Have you ever thought that the dogs walked through the room and thought oh, I'm so sorry for the interruption.

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:06
Like I'm sorry to interrupt sounds like you're in a meeting. I just have a quick eye lick.

Scott Benner 4:10
I felt like it was a bigger dog at least 50 pounds because it sounds like somebody who's just turning a side of beef over on the floor. So

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:18
Wow. Yeah, he touched to one of my absolute sup on the floor and he whipped it with his tail. But he left now I think he he knows he's like too good for us. So we should be.

Scott Benner 4:28
Even a deaf dog knows when he's interrupting a podcast recording. That's excellent. That's right.

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:33
That's how good your podcast is. Oh, he

Scott Benner 4:35
saw the look on your face. He's like this. This lady seems upset. So. Okay, so you were diagnosed at 19 years old? were you living at home or were you in college or where were you in your life?

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:47
I was in college and I had to. I was a full time college student and I had two part time jobs. So one job was in my hometown. One job was in the city where my college was so I would go back and forth. It's kind of like one definite spot. But I grew up in a very small town and I grew up in Brazil. So at least where I grew up, diabetes wasn't a thing at all. I had never heard of diabetes met somebody with diabetes. So I actually had to go to the ER three times until they tested my blood sugar.

Scott Benner 5:22
Wow, hey, listen. I'm sorry, we keep doing this is the dog walking around? Are you shuffling papers? You

Anonymous Female Speaker 5:27
know what? I got this. Okay, I'm just, I'm gonna throw them all out on the street to pay rent in just a sec. Right, so doors closed, dogs have been sent to the shelter. Just kidding.

Scott Benner 5:49
Yesterday, a woman had birds in her garage. Oh, no. Talking, we're talking a little bit and I said, Hey, what's with all the birds? And she goes, those birds aren't in this room. I was like, they are coming through crystal clear on your microphone. She's like, are you serious? They're in the garage. And I was like, Is there a door between you in the garage and stitched up as I could get close up, please? So yeah, it's just microphones are just, they're so good nowadays. You know what I mean? And we're all used to, we're actually all used to the ones that come on our cell phones that have that noise cancelling. And those are not great for this because you don't hear it on a phone call. But when you're recording it, the noise canceling. It stops everything. So you don't how do I put this hold on? How do we talk about microphones in a way that will be so Okay, so I'm speaking right now. And if I were to stop speaking, the background room that's behind me right now is the same when I'm speaking as when I stop. But when a noise cancelling headphones stops, it literally shuts off the transmission. So you get into this kind of like a it's almost like electronic silence, which is different than when the person speaking. And it's, I mean, it's nitpicking. I've lived through it. Okay, sometimes. But anyway, the point is, microphones are good. And they can hear birds near garage.

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:15
Yeah, I'm impressed. I didn't even hear my dog.

Scott Benner 7:18
No, no. And I could hear like their nails going across the floor the second time and like the body like turning over, and you can even hear collars like laying down on the floor and start it's fascinating what you can and I'm, you know, I want to hear your story. So

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:33
and this is not a podcast about dogs.

Scott Benner 7:37
You want 30 More seconds, and I might have to be okay, so you had you got type one, you're 19 you're away at school, you're busy person had a number of jobs in different towns? What are you going to school for?

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:52
Education?

Scott Benner 7:53
Okay, are you a teacher now?

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:55
I was I was a teacher of English as a second language. Okay. That's what I used to do before I moved to the US. Oh,

Scott Benner 8:03
okay. So you're not in Brazil on a log? No,

Anonymous Female Speaker 8:06
I moved here seven years ago. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 8:09
Now, I don't normally do this. But I don't like to ask ham fisted questions to get us into super serious stuff. So I'd prefer just to be honest about it and say that, you know, all kinds of people reach out to be on the show. And, you know, the reasons they want to be on are incredibly varied. But every once in a while, someone sends a note that like, stops me in my tracks. And yours was one of those. So I think I'm just gonna ask you upfront, why is it you wanted to come on the podcast?

Anonymous Female Speaker 8:42
Well, when I reached out at first, I didn't have that in mind. But after I overthought it for quite some time, to reply to my email, I realized that I think I think there's value in my story, not because it is rare, or different, or anything, I think what happened to me is quite common, but it's very rarely talked about, and I'm in a place in my life, after you know, of course, healing is forever in everybody's life. So I'm still in it. But I'm in a moment where I'm able to talk about it, I think in a easy, not so overwhelming way. So I think there's value in if there's a survivor that went through similar things still listens to you, and they feel a little less alone than he was already to work there.

Scott Benner 9:32
Okay, great. Well, I appreciate that. And for reasons, you know, that everyone will understand soon enough, I'm going to do my best. This isn't something I have any first hand knowledge of so I might be a little clunky around it, but I have good intentions and, you know, we're gonna we're gonna get through. Alright, great. So, I mean, where do you want to start? Where do you think the best place to start is

Anonymous Female Speaker 10:00
No, let's try it. Let's start from the beginning. Okay. So I survived sexual, physical and emotional abuse from my parents. There's a lot that I don't remember, there's some that I recovered in therapy after several years. So I try to not speak on what I'm not 100% Sure. But if you out there have gone through trauma, you know that it's not that simple. But what I do know for sure, is that my father was a pedophile, and he started grooming me and touching me inappropriately, since I was very, very little, I remember being maybe three, something like that, like, I'm still the age where you sit on your parents lap. Now remember, he would watch pornography and touch me or just have me sit in there. I have a memory of my mom holding me down when I was a little older, while he was doing similar things. And then, as I got older, it kind of escalated into other types of abuse. He was also an alcoholic. And my mom didn't want to have a kid with it. So I have an older brother who's two years older than me, and she didn't want to have another kid after him. And she used to say she didn't want to have a daughter. So she has said before that she wanted was she had aborted me or that she had had an abortion. So she wasn't very loving. So she was like, she just wasn't a mom that was present at all, even when I was very little very, like neglectful didn't take care of me at all. And then she was always annoyed at me. So I kind of had this dynamic going on. My mom didn't give me any attention at all and kind of was happier if I wasn't around if I was just in my room quiet. Otherwise, he would say all sorts of horrible stuff scream me. And then my dad kind of had the perfect opportunity. Because since I didn't trust my mom, and we weren't close, he could make up all sorts of stuff. You know, he's to say, they I was the one that he really loved and that my mom was jealous. That's why she was mean to me. So to not tell her that type of stuff.

Scott Benner 12:32
Do let me know Don't be sorry. I just have a couple of quick questions. Were they abusive to your brother at all?

Anonymous Female Speaker 12:41
You know, I always say that that's my brother's story to tell. If you ask him, he's going to say no, his childhood was wonderful when everything was perfect. But I do want to note that to this day, he lives he's married has a kid and still lives with my mom. So like, they don't have the most healthiest relationship overall. I remember, my dad was very physically abusive towards my brother used to call him. I don't want to use those slurs, but used to call him all sorts of things and say stuff like, if my mom, this is my brother, being a baby, of course, this is a story that I was told, but that my brother would be crying and he would scream at the baby and say that only gay babies cry like some nonsense like that. And so he was always very strict with my brother. I have some recollection of some abuse involving my brother, but I don't know for sure. I don't remember for sure.

Scott Benner 13:44
I understand. Yeah, I didn't want to talk about him too long. I just wanted to understand if it was specific to you or systematic, you know, throughout the family. Do your mean, I think this is an obvious question with a yes answer, but I'm looking for your opinion, or are your parents mentally unstable?

Anonymous Female Speaker 14:04
Yes, I think so. Okay, I mean, I'm, I know, doctor but

Scott Benner 14:12
but I do have some firsthand knowledge of the people. I don't see right now. Not you know what I mean? Like, I don't mean like, so. Like, I listen, what I know about this fits in a thimble. But there's, there's the idea of like, kind of criminal. thought, like, you know, a criminal way of being, you don't mean like, you know, it's like, I don't know what to take it out of this for a second. You couldn't. I mean, my life is not such that I would be forced into this, but even if it was, I don't think I could bring myself to burst into someone's home and take their things. Like I just I don't have whatever's in my head would not let me do that. I I'm certain I could not sexually assault a child. Right? Like, and so what? What allows a person to do that has got to be some sort of mental disconnect somewhere. Right, right. Like, I mean, do you spend much time thinking about the the nuts and bolts aspect of what let them treat you this way? Or do you talk about it more? In a, an emotional way? Like how do you? How do you get through something like this when you're doing it, I'm assuming talk therapy and probably some pretty deep psychotherapy too, I would imagine, right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 15:36
So what I tried a couple of different therapies throughout my 20s, and nothing really worked. The main reason was because there was a lot I didn't remember. And that at the time, when I say that, I mean, a visual memory. Like when you're, most people think of memories, like we're watching a movie or a scene of a movie. And I found this therapy called EMDR, which is I'm going to butcher it, II I movement, something that the DEA,

Scott Benner 16:03
I gotta tell you, you're about the sixth person to bring that up on this podcast.

Anonymous Female Speaker 16:07
Oh, my God. And let me tell you that that is the most incredible thing I've ever done in my life, completely changed my life. But at the same time, I said this to a friend and kind of pressured her into doing it and she hated. So let's just keep that in mind. It's, I think it's for a certain type of person in the way that you process things. EMDR is a therapy. For those that don't know, it involves, it's kind of like a stick of lights and you're supposed to think of something, it could be just a smell or a sound, whatever it is the thing that triggers you and you keep looking at these lights as they change because you're trying to process both sides of your brain to actually process their memory because when you have a trauma kind of freezes on one side. And I couldn't do the I want thing. So I always use the buzzers under my legs. Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:57
Just for people's edification. It stands for eye movement. desensitization, desensitization, why can I talk? De Jesus? That was terrible. It was hard. It's D sensitive to zation. Geez, oh my God, I feel like an idiot. Alright, I emptied senses, I can't do it descent. On a second descent. I can do it. When I read it. D desensitization and reprocessing? How come when I roll over it, I can't find it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 17:29
So many syllables as well.

Scott Benner 17:33
There, you know, like there are some, you know, e m dr.com tells you that it's a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Wikipedia calls it a controversial form of psychotherapy. So, you know, yeah, Wikipedia, I guess is the thing where everybody can say whatever they want, right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 17:56
Right. And I mean, I'm sure some people dislike it, it's a very, it's a very uncomfortable type of therapy, because all you're doing is just sitting in a memory, I'll give an example without being too specific. I used to have just women's people would raise, start raising their volume when they're talking, I realized that I would get this, this weird feeling in my body, like, I don't know, it just felt so uncomfortable. So I started talking to the therapist about it. And I ended up describing as if I had hands touching more than two hands touching me. And I was trying to, like, shrink and disappear. And that's the, the sensation that I had. And so all you're going to do is just sit on that couch and feel that exact thing as you process it. And sometimes more memories will come up because you're kind of like organizing your brain. And sometimes you just cry, sometimes I would scream, whatever it is, you just take it out of your brain so that it's almost like when trauma happens, your room is all disorganized, it's a mess. And then as you process your memories through whatever therapy really, I just find that EMDR is very fast. You kind of make boxes for stuff and you put items there so I can pick something be like oh, this made me said This happened when I was little and involved my brother and I put it in that box. So it's not constantly affecting my everyday life.

Scott Benner 19:26
Now I mean, listen, whatever works is amazing. You know what I mean? That that something helped you was this absolutely fabulous. It did. I'm gonna do my best to pick through this without like, like you said, like without going unnecessarily deep into it. But did. Would you say that the verbal abuse the sexual abuse or the physical abuse was most frequent or did it all just happen in a hodgepodge?

Anonymous Female Speaker 19:57
It all happen to All, it's always all mixed. Like you couldn't, sometimes my dad would be angry at me. Pretend like I did something wrong when I didn't, and then punish me by abusing me sexually. So it's hard to put hard to separate. It's almost, but maybe the verbal abuse just because how much easier it is to verbally abuse your child. If that makes sense. That's probably the most common, but it's hard to try to say.

Scott Benner 20:33
So. Anything was an excuse. Were there days where you weren't abused? Probably okay. But that would be hard to imagine. Like, like you. You never thought like, wow, May was great. Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 20:51
right, right. Right. And so it must be the summertime. Oh,

Scott Benner 20:54
my gosh, everybody's just, you know, you know, people love the summer. Wow, you're a different life, right? So this starts when you're very, very young. How long does it go for?

Anonymous Female Speaker 21:06
I don't remember exactly when it stopped. But I know for sure. It was before I turned 12. Or around that age only because it's it's in this has always been like that, when I was in sixth grade is when I start being able to access normal. I shouldn't say normal, regular memories, like I remember going to school or remember silly stuff that happened in school stuff that embarrassed me. And before that, I was probably so dissociated all the time just to survive all the different types of violence that I don't you know, if you're not present in the moment, you don't pay attention. It's like when you're driving somewhere, you go all the time you just dissociate, because you know, the way top up logic. So I don't know for sure, but probably around 12.

Scott Benner 21:56
Was that purposeful? Or was it just like the disassociation? Like did you ever think, well, here it comes, I'm just gonna try to do my best to go away in my head, or does it just what happens?

Anonymous Female Speaker 22:13
I want to say it was, it was purposeful, but I don't think it was a logical decision, because I was little, you don't have knowledge of different scales to be like, Oh, I think I'm going to do this. I think he was just what I navigated towards, I used to have the citizens, I used to have this anime that used to play on TV. And when I was like, around eight, or nine, and I used, I started pretending like I was going to go join the Air, they were going to come and get me and I would join the enemy. So I started creating this entire, like series of me as a character in my old say, and what I would do, and I would think about every detail. And I just did that all day, just so you know, because he was better to think about that. And you're so little, you don't necessarily know the difference between reality and fiction. So I did, Scott. So I packed a little bag. And for some reason, I decided that that's when they were going to come and get me. And I just laid in bed and waited for them to come and get me. I was so confident that that was going to happen. And he did not I woke up the next day, I was still in the house. I was so sad. I guess I just remember. Yeah. That's interesting. And so kind of our premise like that. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So either do that you fantasize or you just I don't think the reason why I don't think it's purposeful is because I don't think people usually associate purposefully, it's not a thing that you manually go in. It's kind of just a thing, you you do an audit because your brain is like if we don't go somewhere right now. We are going to lose our mind and you know, survival skills kick in so

Scott Benner 23:56
yeah, and you can't fight back. You're too small. And I mean, people your mom's holding you at times and yes, so you just I guess you have to just give up

Anonymous Female Speaker 24:06
right even but even when I if I scream they would just hurt me more or they would hold me down or they would then hit me in a different way. I tried. I learned that a fighting he was only going to make it way worse. So it was better to just think feel think I was that and that sounds so horrible. But that's what it was just be dead. Okay, because everything else I tried was just worse.

Scott Benner 24:35
I understand. Was there no physical damage? Like why did a doctor never notice or like a loved one outside of the family? How how to how do they keep that invisible?

Anonymous Female Speaker 24:50
That is a great question. So where I grew up, things are very much what happens in your house stays in your house. type of deal. So it wasn't like growing, being going to school in the 90s, where I went, it wasn't very much like modern us now where you talk about good touch, bad touch, and teachers are so involved. We don't even stay in school for that long and we don't have sex education in school. At least we didn't. Well, that was there. Yeah,

Scott Benner 25:24
it did. Did it ever occur to you to tell someone

Anonymous Female Speaker 25:29
I think I'm, I feel like I tried once, because I remember my dad being so angry at me. And like, he hurt me so bad. He, he just, he just hurt me so bad. And they always hurt me in places. Like, it's not like they would pardon my language, it's not like they would punch me in the face, you know, like, my mom would hit me with a belt, for example. And I would get these horrible marks. I have some marks to this day from the belt on my butt. And so it's not like anybody will see my book. And my mom would never let me go to anybody's house, like my classmates houses, I could never go anywhere. I couldn't even play outside. Like I was very much kept in the house. And then we didn't have people around the law. And my parents were very much the stereotype of successful like, we were in a white community, and they were white religious communities. So they were white. They were Roman Catholic, and they were like, upper middle class. So it's not like anybody looked at us. And

Scott Benner 26:36
yeah, no, I, but they didn't want to let you. I would imagine get somewhere where you might get the nerve to say to somebody, hey, they, they hurt me helped me. You know what I mean? So they want to kind of, so did you feel like a person? Or did you feel like I don't I've been, by the way for 10 minutes trying to think about how to ask you this question. I can't come up with a better phrase. But you know, Are you a person to them? Or a sex toy?

Anonymous Female Speaker 27:03
I think I was a thing, not a not a sex toy? Because while there was all the sexual abuse, it wasn't, I mean, I don't know, I guess we would have to ask them. But I feel like I felt like I was a nuisance, and just this ugly, horrible thing, not a person. That's not a person, because that's not Yeah, that's how you treat people?

Scott Benner 27:30
No, of course, like you would have to. I mean, I'm trying my best. It's, it's a difficult. It's hard for you to, it's hard for me. I mean, I can't speak for anybody else to put myself in the position of either of your parents. Right? Like I don't, I'm trying to imagine what they were doing. Were thinking, but I can't like I can't find it in my head. You don't mean like, so you like, are they? Do they? I don't know. hate you for being, you know, a reflection of themselves. Like how deeply into this. Like, there's just there's so many possibilities for why they could be this messed up. It's not even worth guessing. Right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 28:12
Well, I do have a theory because of course, it's I've been for especially during my 20s I was consumed with just understanding what happened. But let me just say something first, so that the other thing makes sense. So that's how they were until about when I was like 12, whatever. And then I don't know what happened, something happened. And then my parents started fighting all the time, and sell the dynamic in my house changed in my mom, the distinct that now my therapist calls it, of course, I can't remember again, dissociative identity disorder, I think it is, which is like you kind of create your own little world. And so my mom, my dad was always present. He was kind of out of the picture. And then my mom started telling me that we were always like best friends. And we used to do this together. And we used to do that together. And I used to tell her everything and what's wrong with me? Why am I mad and being so ungrateful. So then it kind of like, messed? I think that was the worst part to be honest. It just messed up with my head. So then, everything I said wasn't truly never happened. That was crazy. Or she tried to get me diagnosed with stuff.

Scott Benner 29:24
She was trying to rewire you so as you got older, you wouldn't out her?

Anonymous Female Speaker 29:29
Yes. Which works, right worked because what it did is that it made me question everything. And it was only my 20s that I started being sir. And you start talking to people about it, right? Because the reason I think later I wouldn't share it with anybody I never took I didn't tell people until I was 22. I told her one friend and she took me to the police station, but that's a different story. And so you're so I was afraid of telling people hey, I think this happened to me, but I'm not sure Maybe I imagined that because you don't want people to think you're crazy,

Scott Benner 30:04
right? Did you feel crazy? Sorry? Did you feel crazy? Yes. All the time. Okay, all the time. And by that I just mean like unsure of anything.

Anonymous Female Speaker 30:14
Yes, you don't you don't know anything. Like, did you end it impacts me to this day? I'll say something. And I'm like, did I say that? I don't know, if I said that. If I'm having an argument with somebody, I get very worked. I could get worked up and then I can't I have no idea what happened to be like, No, but you said this. So it's very runs deep for sure.

Scott Benner 30:35
Okay. Have we covered this enough for your liking?

Anonymous Female Speaker 30:40
Ah, I think I actually answered, I didn't think I answered your question about why I thought my parents are the way they are. So I think that it's a combination of things. So my mom has this. So my parents are children of immigrants. They migrated from Italy to Brazil. And it is in their culture that like mental health is not a real thing. You're just like depression is being lazy. And if you're crazy, you go to the crazy home and you just die. They're like that traumatic, old school veal. And so they grew up without any awareness of them or any addressing, I think my mom was always weird, because when, when she was little, they sent my mom a weight to stay in other people's houses for a year at a time and, like, help them clean the house and work for them kind of an exchange of a go to school. They only did it to her and she had like, I don't know, 1011 siblings. And so I think my mom went through her own share of trauma. And it kind of broke her to the point that she developed this di D to kind of cope with her life. And the only way she can do it is by making this stuff up. Because she does it to this day, from time to time. She's kind of like, a little different. She will talk about the past different. And if you tell her it doesn't happen, she'll just ignore you like she goes blank. Her eyes just get weird. She doesn't say anything.

Scott Benner 32:13
So do you think they were abused as children?

Anonymous Female Speaker 32:17
I think my mom was for sure. And I think my dad was too because my grandpa, his dad was a horrible man. horrible man. And all his all my dad's brothers are weird. Like they all sexualized me when I was little, it was just very normal in my culture. Like, there's no such thing as a little girl. There are boys. And then there's women, you know. So like, they will talk about my body as I was growing older and what looked like wow, and what grew and what didn't girl and if I looked like this or that I looked sexy, it was just the strangest thing, but because they are all living in this bubble. It was normal. I was the weird one. You know, for them. It's all normal.

Scott Benner 33:02
Wow, that's insane. How do you are you you're married? Yes. Do you have children? No, no. Do you? Would you be afraid to have children? Yes. Okay. Do you think that's a real concern? Or do you just think that's an abundance of caution, just in case you? Like a switch? Like, are you worried that a switch is gonna flip in your head? You're gonna be your parents?

Anonymous Female Speaker 33:28
Yeah. Well, not to the extent that they worry, but I, I can sometimes I get mad at my dogs who I love deeply. Don't get me wrong. I rub their bellies several times a day. But I can see myself getting annoyed or I might make a comment. And to me, I sound like my mom. So I'm like, if I can't handle it, like a dog, I'm not gonna put a child in this world. And I can that's just how I became though I'm not going to do it. Unless I'm sure I can do a good job. Yeah. And we as we've always had so much going on. i We didn't want it that to plus I have diabetes. So then I was worried about being pregnant. My diabetes was always out of control. So then be I couldn't, it was just a mixture of things. But in the root, the root of it. I think I'm just scared.

Scott Benner 34:20
Yeah, no, I listened. There's a, there's an avenue where you could talk about this and say that you're making the same decision in a long line of people making insane decisions. So you got to break the cycle. And if you can't be certain that you can, exactly then staying out of the cycles, the best thing you could probably I mean, it's sad for you, in in 34 minutes of sad things that have happened to you. This is one of them. But still, it may be it's the kindest thing you could do. If you're can't be sure.

Anonymous Female Speaker 34:52
Yeah. And I mean, the thing to some people might think it's selfish. I think it's a beautiful thing to say I did not get to have a normal childhood. I was working through my teenage years, and I was struggling with so much PTSD and just life stress and all the consequences of my undealt trauma during my 20s. Now we are finally in a place where we can enjoy life. And so like my husband taught me how to play something, I hadn't played video games before, it's just something were stupid. He taught me how to play video games. So like will game some nights, or I don't know, I just before I have a kid, I want to give the kid that lives inside of me the time that she deserves. And then maybe who knows? In five years, I might feel different. But you know, I don't want to just keep, like you said, cop making the same mistakes other people

Scott Benner 35:46
do. How do you bring this up with a with us? A spouse or a potential spouse? Like, at what point do you say to your husband? Like, this is my past? And I want you to understand it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 35:59
I usually wouldn't bring up with people. Well, I usually wouldn't date before too long. On purpose, but with my husband, we were going out and then we slept together. And I have I have some scars on my intimate parts. So he, you know, he asked the next day, what the scar? Well, one of these scars was about. And so I told him because that's how I am if you asked me a question, don't ask what to do. I don't know. So I just said, all my parents were really bad people, I think is what I said. And then he had certainly talked to my mom, he was a little confused about that. So he asked me questions. And I was never, I never went to too much detail. Because I don't see a benefit in it. But you know, he, if he is with me, he's my partner he needs. It's important for him to know me and to support me. So throughout my therapy, I would come home and be like, Oh my god, I remembered this that involved this, and it's making me feel like this. And he would just listen and tell me he loves me. And he Okay, and hug me and stuff like that. So he has been there for a big part of my journey and recovery memories. How?

Scott Benner 37:15
How is it being intimate as an adult? Like, are you able to? I don't know what my question is like, it seems like this would be ruined for you. But is it not?

Anonymous Female Speaker 37:29
It is not? I think, Well, I went the other route. The survivors usually go. I was always hypersexual. Since I was a teenager, just always, I couldn't. And he was it's the mean that if you were to unpack this alone is so much because I didn't know this might sound weird to people. I didn't know. I could say no. So if somebody would come and hit on me, then I would, I would just be like, oh, and just have sex with them. Because that's just what I'm supposed to do. And if I liked people, I really wanted to have sex with them. Because that's according to my therapist. That's how I learned to connect with people. So I didn't I never had and I had plenty of complex potassic Like, seeing stuff, feeling stuff, all the end, but it never happened during sex.

Scott Benner 38:22
Okay. What about did you say? Are your parents alive? Yes. Okay. Do you have any contact with them?

Anonymous Female Speaker 38:29
I stopped talking to my dad about 10 years ago when i Something happened. And I could be for sure. I was like, deaf, he for sure that this to me, because of course they deny everything. And I stopped talking to him. And then I went to the police and I did a police report. Of course, he went nowhere. But the point of me doing that was to show them that I remember it and that wasn't the frame anymore. Okay. And then I spent several years not talking to my mom. They are the reason why I moved. I came to the West because I got a scholarship for a master's degree. And the reason why I kept trying scholarships far away was because I wanted to be as far away from them as I could. It was the only way otherwise I was going crazy. My mom just got my mom is so strict in every way was so it just couldn't get away from her. She would like I would move to different towns. Sometimes I would move from city to city twice a year and she would just find out where I was and go there, whatever. So I, my mom and I talk now mostly on a text basis. If you ask her she'll tell you we were best friends and we call each other every night but we just text sometimes.

Scott Benner 39:42
Okay. Do you was my question. Hold on, I might need a second. I'm sorry. Okay, I'll have some tea. Got it. Have something give me a second here. Hold on. Oh, Okay. All right. I'm just gonna switch gears because I'm overwhelmed. And if I'm overwhelmed, and the people listening might be overwhelmed too. Oh, I'm sorry. You feel like oh, no, no, not overwhelmed. Like, no, you don't, you're taking me wrong. Like I, I'm pleased that you're so willing to talk about this. It's just it feels like that there's a million ways to go with this conversation. And I don't I don't know how valuable they all are, or I don't want them to be just, you know, just for the sake of talking. So, I'm just going to go back to my my original I understand how you handled sexuality as a as a young person, that all makes complete sense. How how do you trust somebody enough to get married? Is my question I guess, like how did you make that leap?

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It's my question, I guess like like, how did you make that leap? Did you didn't mean like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 42:03
yes. Well, okay, let's do the true story. Yeah. How about we do that one, okay. Instead of the version that I usually tell people when they ask like how we got married? Well, so the thing with my husband was I before him, I I was always alone and prefer being alone, I would go out, you know, meet people have sex, but I didn't want to see them again. Like I was always like that I never wanted to get married. I thought marriage was a waste of time, blah, blah, blah. When I met my husband, I don't know what it was about him the moment I saw him, and we met online. The moment I saw him, I just felt like I knew him. Already. Like I when we saw each other, we hug as if like we had missed each other. So I just, we will something about the combination of things that he is. And now of course, I understand. You just made me feel so safe. So it was just that that was that. And we started dating and we were like, living together. We were set. We didn't talk about marriage specifically though, but we were together. Now. That doesn't mean I trusted him. Of course, I had several years of shame, some Sorry, I had to deal with because I, of course didn't trust him at all. And I would do the thing I would check where he was check his phone, check his computer, everything about everything all the time. And well, he was always understanding and patient about things. So he and he was I think secret. The key with my husband was that he was only so cool and chill about it. So if I were like, Babe, I'm sorry, I'm crying. It's just that when you said this, I thought you meant that. And I think you're going to live now. So I started packing a bag. And all he would say would be it's all good babe, I love you. I'm not I'm not leaving. But if you want to pack a bag, if it's gonna help your brain, we can pack a bag, you know. So that was the key with him. So he always made me feel very comfortable to just share the craziest stuff, whatever I was thinking and very understanding of it.

Scott Benner 44:10
Does he have a past trauma or some experience with this? Like, why does he understand what to do?

Anonymous Female Speaker 44:20
No, he's just the sweetest little thing is just a very sweet man. He, I have a lot of rage, right, a lot of anger that I've worked on and will forever carry a little and he has a tuber for something different. He was adopted when he was a baby. And it was kind of tough on him on that. And he didn't experience abuse in any way. But he understood my anger, I think so he didn't judge whatever way I was reacting but that's how he is just an example Scott. Yesterday we had a ridiculous argument because I got mad at him because he said I saw a spider. And he just put the spider outside of the house and I'm afraid of spiders. And he just said he doesn't want to kill the spider. It doesn't make him feel good. So he's not gonna kill the spider. So that's just how he is. He's just if anybody came to him with anything, he's just like all love and understanding.

Scott Benner 45:20
No, that's amazing. Well, I'm very happy you found somebody like that. That's how long have you guys been together?

Anonymous Female Speaker 45:28
Six years married five years? Well,

Scott Benner 45:30
good for you. Alright. Can I ask a last question about your parents? I don't mind God. Do? Do other people see them as normal? Or do you think that the people in their social circles are like those people are cracked up? And they just kind of like don't mean like, how do they come off to the world as my question.

Anonymous Female Speaker 45:50
I used to think that they came off as very normal people. And I think they did within the very small circle of people they saw, like, my mom and my dad had their own business. And we only hang out with our uncles and aunts, we didn't have people outside the family. And we barely had people over and they barely left, my dad would leave because he would go out to my mom, stuff like that. Just spent a bunch of money. That wasn't his but my mom was always home working. So it's not like they were out there constantly exposed to people that were different. But later in life, when I started out being open to people about what happened to me, more than once, I had just random kids that I was either a classmate with or friends with, or neighbors. And they told me, you know, your parents were always so weird. I knew there was something wrong because they were so weird. And one of them even told me that the reason why she stopped wanting to play with me and come to the house, chicken once and she didn't ever want to like hang out again was because when she went in the house, she felt like my parents were looking at her funny like, we were 12 or 13. Like objectifying her. Yeah. And you made her so uncomfortable that she remembers it to this day, so probably not. It's fake did not come out as normal.

Scott Benner 47:16
Okay, God that's frightening to think that they might have been like, assessing whether or not she was a good candidate for their insanity. You know what I mean? I know

Anonymous Female Speaker 47:25
because who knows in the problem is because they will not admit to anything, because of course, why would they? Who wants to go to prison? So they it's it's impossible to understand the motive the motives behind some weird thing because they will they will never be like, Oh, well, I was thinking was if I do this, than I do that. Like you mentioned doctors before. I rarely went to the doctor when I was little I can't we only go to the doctor if it's like an ambulance. Like an ER emergency because my mom believes she was a Reiki healer.

Scott Benner 48:04
Okay, I'm sorry, to me the left

Anonymous Female Speaker 48:07
that go ahead. But that was what she did. Now. She's something else okay. But at the time, that's what she was. So then she would just if I was in pain, she would lay me down and frickin do Reiki on me and place them goddamn nature music in the back. Or like they would make I don't know what they're called here. But they're like these little homeopathic drops. And she would just go to this woman and she would make me these drops. And she would just give me these drops. And that was fine. And and you don't complain about pain? Because cuz that's you don't complain. So

Scott Benner 48:42
I might have been like, hey, instead of the drops could just stop helping me. That'd be great. Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 48:47
what's your mind?

Scott Benner 48:48
Could you just like, let's, let's put this in order of importance, shall we? Yeah. Well, okay, so we're pretty far into this. And I don't understand why this is a podcast about diabetes, I guess is what I should say. So what's the what's the intersecting? Do you really mean? Like, why me? Why did you reach to me?

Anonymous Female Speaker 49:14
So because so I my entire life, my should say, my 12 years of diabetes. Whenever I reached out to I had a doctor. And I mentioned that I had a trauma or whatever, that it was never important. It was never talked about it was never addressed. And I don't mean that as like a therapeutical approach to what I'm saying. He was just that that wasn't important. Oh, and nowadays, I can tell you how my diabetes switched from zero to 100 by making some changes that if a doctor had told me years before, I wouldn't have maybe lost years of life later on You know what I mean? Cuz so like what I came to learn. And now again, we should definitely have a doctor explain this. But like when you go through trauma, and in particular, so when people talk about cortisol, right, cortisol increases your blood sugar, because you're stressed out people usually think about, you have a test, you have a job interview, you're mad, whatever. But with complex PTSD, it's, I could be having the greatest day of my life, and you're looking at my Dexcom. And it's shooting up for absolutely no reason. Because there is a part of my brain that is just reliving the, what happened? And I don't even know because it's all the way in the back of my head.

Scott Benner 50:44
Yeah. Like you're like in a constant state of fight or flight? Almost.

Anonymous Female Speaker 50:47
Yes, yes, exactly. So just as an example, I used to have horrible, high blood. Sugar's during the night, even if it was perfect. I would go to sleep the minute I fall asleep, it would start going up. And doctors are always like, Oh, no, will you does that it was always they would try different things. And because he was different every night at different times different quantities, then at some point, they would just be frustrated and just be like, well just do your best. Yeah. But then when I would go for my a one C, they would act like as if I didn't care for pleasure. Even like, so let's say one day, it starts going up at 2am. It goes all the way up to 400. I wake up for no reason at five, and I do correction bowls. And I go back to sleep, and it's still going to be 400. When I wake up, it was like as if insulin didn't make a difference. And so eventually, this year, I reached out to a naturopathic doctor. And she said, Have you ever experienced trauma? And I said, Yeah, why do you ask she was like, well, because usually people who experience severe trauma might have while developing usually have something up with their adrenal glands. So let's test your thyroid. Make sure that's not what it is first. So I got all those tests. And by the way, you can get those online from actual labs. So even if you have a doctor that doesn't believe in anything, then you could you know, if you can, if you have access to that, of course you can, you can do it on your own. And then so my thyroid was perfect. It wasn't that. Then I started taking what's called cortisol regulators. It's just the pill you take at night, and it's like a natural medicine. And Scott, you don't understand, like, I saved the graphs from my ex come forever. I used to have i Hold on, I'm gonna flip. Here. Alright, so like, I saved it. And I sent it to my endocrinologist and she never even replied, but whatever. I'm not remembering that. I'm not holding.

Scott Benner 53:03
She, she doesn't want what rage I assume is inside of you, and that you could let out at any point, appointed her?

Anonymous Female Speaker 53:10
No idea. She, she doesn't understand. It's, it's forever. I might not remember what happened to me. But I now keep track of everything on a spreadsheet. So okay, so this is the thing I sent a sir. So a random night, and this was right before I got my period, which, which you would be usually just out of control blood, you can increase my Basal to 2.5 Doesn't matter, it will always be in out of control. So then he started going up at 12am. He went all the way up to 250. So when I woke up, I was like, Oh, I'm going to get my period. Let me change my Basal profile. So then I did the one that had more, you know, higher insulin. Then that night at 4am. He went all the way up to 400 and then just stayed up there. So it was like, Oh, wow, that's horrible. So then the next morning, I went on my settings and it changed my Basal from 1.4 to 1.9. And then a 2am bed night he went up to 380. So like he barely Yeah, the difference in We tried everything. Trust me, the doctors we tried it. Then that night I took the next time I took a cortisol regulator and my blood sugar was 150 all night straight like straight line. And he eventually got low so then I adjusted it the next day, and eventually after I just did it. I was using only 1.3 units an hour during the night and my blood sugar was about 100 Dean tire night. Like just the perfect line.

Scott Benner 54:50
How long again figure this out.

Anonymous Female Speaker 54:55
To adjust or to try the

Scott Benner 54:56
cortisol the the cortisol idea how long ago did you figure that out?

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:00
This was a couple months back, maybe Wow. Okay. Three, four months back. I haven't done it once. Yeah, I have an appointment in a month. And I can't wait to show it to her.

Scott Benner 55:12
And I imagined two very. I mean, just easier, right? Like, life's just easier.

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:18
Oh my god. I mean, it changed. Everything changed my mood, my motivation levels, just how well I rest at night. Because it would be just my life. I wake up in the morning, and it's Hi. So I always start the day with a huge correction.

Scott Benner 55:36
This boot Did you just appear? Hello? No, no, I'm sorry. I thought you. You said he was crashing. I got so quiet as he's gone.

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:43
I did a dramatic pause. Oh.

Scott Benner 55:47
So weird place to get tired of me saying I've had enough of this Goodbye. What was your a one sees prior to this? I know you don't have a new one since you figured it out. But what were they prior?

Anonymous Female Speaker 56:01
So that he was the last one was 8.1. The one before that was like 7.6. And then I had periods in my life where I was very poor, or I didn't have access to health insurance at all. So I used to do insulin only enough to not go to the ER. And I was working because I had to, you know. So because I was as an immigrant, you know, there's a lot you can do. I had a long period of time I couldn't I wasn't allowed to work because I was on a student visa. So it's not like I can just go work and make money and buy insulin. And so I would go to Walmart buy the cheap insulin they had at the time. And so I would say the highest Scott that my blood my I'm sorry, my ANC has ever been highest ever was 15 point something.

Scott Benner 56:56
So you were really fighting with it just to keep it down in the eights and the sevens. Yeah, you've been a lot of effort into it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 57:03
Yes, when I got a seven, I cried, because I just felt for the first time. And mind you I'm not saying like, I was doing everything right, my diabetes. You know, I was making terrible decisions. I was exhausted. I just wasn't in a mindset that I could take care of my diabetes, the more I process, what happened to me come to terms with it, let go of emotions, it's easier for me to be in the moment and then stop eating when I'm full. Remember to Pre-Bolus into you know, that type of stuff.

Scott Benner 57:36
I think you're it's incredibly mild. The word is I'm looking for, but I'm amazed at how well you continue to take care of yourself. Like, has there ever been any self medicating? Do you drink or do drugs? Or like? How do you know you just woke up every day knew just right? Yeah, do something bad? Did you ever feel depressed? Do you ever think you were clinically depressed?

Anonymous Female Speaker 58:04
Yes, I was. Well, duh. So the reason why I never did drugs, honestly, looking back now was I think it was because nobody offered them to me, I wasn't in a place where

Scott Benner 58:15
I was I was the only thing

Anonymous Female Speaker 58:18
that I had times in my life. Where I was, I'll give an example. I started having these. I don't know what to call them. I'll call them visions just because I can't remember the proper term, where you see people when they're not there. And I would see a men's figure and it was all black. And I would see him everywhere. And I would be working and it would be in the corner of my eye and then that would blink and you would be right in my face. And sometimes I could hear talking in my ear. That was the worst for my for my PTSD. That's when I started going to EMDR. And it completely went away. 100%. But if somebody one of those days, that time I had two jobs, two jobs. My husband was struggling with addiction. So I was just so sick of everything. If somebody had been like, hey, Matthew, let you sleep at night. Do you want to try it? I've been like, sure. Yeah. So I drugs was easy. It was just luck. And then alcohol. My dad was an alcoholic. So I don't like drinking. I would drink socially, but I'm not a big drinker because I don't want to be like he is

Scott Benner 59:27
a kid. Anything that seems similar to him is a no.

Anonymous Female Speaker 59:31
Yes. So what I did was I smoked cigarettes, I would smoke like a pack a pack and a half a day. And it was literally what kept me going and sometimes when I would be really depressed and I would get suicidal, then I would I would call like a 100 Suicide Hotline and just talk to somebody from Ireland calm.

Scott Benner 59:54
You know, I think that one of the things that I liked most about this conversation and the fact that you came on is that while your example of trauma is obviously, you know, I mean, if there's a scale of one to 10, you're obviously at 10. You know what I mean? But still, that everybody suffers through something. Yeah. Right. And to see and, and, you know, yes, it's not to this degree maybe, or maybe it is for some people, but but, you know, you still can see the impact the cause and effect of a problem or stress or anxiety or, you know, and how it can come back and affect your, the rest of your life. The management of your type one, your mindset, even, you know, that allows you to either, you know, put effort or not put effort into your health, because maybe you just don't have any bandwidth left to to make any decisions with. So while your example is, I mean, just, it's over the top, obviously, it's still, I think everybody can take from this, you know, some sort of a connection. And, yeah, I'm just, I'm really pleased that you did this. I'm not done with you. I'm just, I'm just,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:01:12
I still have left of hassles my cup of tea. So yeah,

Scott Benner 1:01:16
we got tea, we're still going. I you know, at one point, I pulled up one point, while you were talking, I had this thought, like, if I went to the mall, and there were 1000s of people at the mall, how many of those seemingly normal people are sexually abusing their children? Like, I just thought that because I can't imagine that that exists. And obviously it does. You're telling me they exist. And and I pulled up some statistics. And there's they're really staggering. You know, I, you know, victims of crime.org says that one in five girls and one in 20. Boys is a victim of child sexual abuse. self report, studies show that 20% of adult females and five to 10% of adult males recall childhood sexual assault or incident. It just, I don't know, like, I guess it's one of those things that if you don't know about you, just imagine it's a one off problem. You know what I mean? Like, it's some random thing that happens to a random person, but

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:02:21
pick a bug. And I understand that to Scott, because it's so heartbreaking to think about that. And then nobody wants to live in a world where that happens so often. So I don't think even people do it on purpose to ignore, I would say, this type of violence, it's just because it's just it's too much. And then he opens up. Like, we were talking about having kids, right. I the thing, you just wondered how many people in the small sexually abused their children. That's, I think about that all the time. I meet a nice man, my dad was very charismatic. Everybody loved him. He was like the life of the party. And when I meet an adult man, a father who's very, has a similar personality, I think I wonder if his sociopath I hope he doesn't abuse? You know,

Scott Benner 1:03:10
yeah, no, I can't see how you don't look at everybody. And just think like, which one of these people is a? is a murderous robot? Yeah, I mean, like, Jesus, I don't know. I, I, what you've accomplished, from where, from where these people put you to where you are now, I think is nothing less than stunning, like, the fortitude that you showed to get to this point, is just on common. And I mean, I, at some point, like, while you were talking is like, When is she going to talk about her heroin addiction? Or, you know what I mean? Like, like her like, like, because I would have, I mean, that that would have made complete sense to me.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:03:51
Right? And if somebody is out there listening to this, and you are a heroin addict, hey, do what you got to do, you know? Well, no, sometimes. Yeah, I got to just survive until the next i for a long time. All I do is just survive until the next moment, and then figure out the next moment. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:04:09
So there's no ability to like, you can't sit down roots or plan for your life until you find some way to deal with this, I guess, deal with it's appropriate. He can't just you can't ignore it. Because it's not going to stop and you can't just eject it right? You can't just give it away. Like you have to do something. I think high level to work through it in a way where it can't be impactful to you day after day. Is that right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:04:39
Yeah, that was my experience. I think people process things different. I am the type of person that I when I'm doing something I like to go in depth. So even if I'm searching, do can cows to bubblegum, I'm going to like go into this deep rabbit hole, purple gums and how they're made. And so that's how I approached my trauma. too, I have a just as an example, I have a friend, she was sexually abused as a child by her stepfather. And she has a very different way to approach it, she thrives the most by, she talked to her mom about it, she did what she had to do. Of course, her story is very different. So in her context, she, she just wants to move on. She wants to like, let go and move on. That's how she does it. And it works really well for her. But if I tried to do that, I would start triggering all sorts of stuff, I had to first go inside of me and figure out who I was, despite of the trauma, so I could slowly like peel off. I used to think I was always so nervous. And that wasn't me. That was just my response to trauma. And just keep understanding and processing and putting stuff away. Because I tried to ignore it for as long as I could. I think I would have done it forever. Really, because who wants to remember? Because when you remember a repressed memory, you remember the sound? You remember the feel the smell? It's a lot? I don't think anybody does it just for funsies. But to me, I had to do it was the only way because it was important for me to know for sure.

Scott Benner 1:06:16
Yeah, that this actually happened to you so that you could then process it and try to move past it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:06:22
Yes, because of all the gaslighting they did in my context. He made sense.

Scott Benner 1:06:28
Right, using some young people hip terms, we got to make sure everybody understands gaslighting. You know, did you know yes, the older people aren't gonna know what you're saying when you

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:06:39
you're sliding is when it could be very minimal, like I fall and hurt my knee. And to me, I feel a lot of pain and you'll go like, That's not that bad. It's not It's barely scratched. That's a PG 13 example. But so gaslighting is when you coerce a person to believe what they went through is less than what they went through. It's very common in domestic violence when you have an abusive partner as well. Parents do it a lot. It's like kind of a manipulation to you tell people your wasn't as bad as they remember or something like that.

Scott Benner 1:07:16
Gotcha. Yeah, it's a it's just a it's a young hip term.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:07:20
What's the old hip term? Oh, no. Line line

Scott Benner 1:07:25
lying. Yeah, be what you just described as someone lying to you and saying that something had that happened to you didn't happen to you. But now it's got like, I make this assertion all the time. The internet has, has made it so that we have to name everything. So because you can't talk about it. And it's not searchable, like if it doesn't have a name. So everything gets a name now, which is kind of nice, because this is a very like, like Wikipedia says gaslighting is a colloquialism loosely defined as making someone question their own reality.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:07:59
Yes, yeah. That's it. That's it.

Scott Benner 1:08:02
So you now this word is in place of the explanation that, you know, I had a had an experience with somebody, and they tried to tell me it didn't happen. And instead, why

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:08:12
didn't they tell you? It wasn't as bad as you remember?

Scott Benner 1:08:16
I listen, I don't know how you play off. What happened to you? Like, how could someone tell you that's not as bad as you remember? You know what I mean? Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:08:25
I'll give you an example. My mom will say, I'm like, Mom, you beat me with a belt. What do you mean, you were always loving? You know, I mean, in my head, so I can say I just say things like that now. But I used to scream at my mom and throw things against the wall. Like, don't be mistaken. Wherever point you are in your journey. That's okay. We've all gonna be there. It's just a spiral of different moments, you know? And so she would be like, What are you talking about? I've only slumped you and I'll say, Mom, what are you talking about? You hit me with a belt. Right? It's that love. And she'll be like, I only did that if you were misbehaving. And that was nothing compared to all the times that I made sure you had a roof over your head and you had food at least I never let you starve. That's also gaslighting.

Scott Benner 1:09:12
Yeah, right. Well, sure. I held you down. But wasn't there dinner afterwards? Like, right? Yeah, yes. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah, that that. Wow, that is a disconnect of reality. That is fascinating.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:09:29
I know. And then it makes sense. If you understand that about her, it's easy to see how she could be so okay with her kids being abused. Yeah. Because you're not if you're not there in your body and you never address your own trauma as a child. If when you were a child, you negated your childhood so you can survive. You can't see it in your kids either. Right? Because if I ignore if she acknowledged my abuse, who knows what's gonna trigger and then she's gonna have to acknowledge her own abuse,

Scott Benner 1:09:57
right? Yeah, I mean, listen, I think It's an astonishing Act of Valor that you don't spray paint the word rapist across the front of their house every three days. I just really like, I'm not kidding. Like, I don't know how you like, I think it's amazing that you're beyond needing to. I don't know, like, like, make sure everyone knows, you don't I mean, like, I know, that would be valueless to you like, don't get me wrong, but that it's not at the tip of your brain is such an accomplishment. You know what I mean? Like, it's really wonderful. Honestly,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:10:34
I had to just give up cuz I that was my five for a long time I needed them, both of them to admit, not everything that something happened admit that anything happened, and they just wouldn't. And I realized at some point, that I don't need them to tell me happened for me to know that it happened. i They don't I was giving them all this power. You know. So then I kind of switched gears for me when I realized that you don't want to admit then screw you, whatever. I know it happened. But you of course, it was a long way to get to that point. A lot of screaming in that way too.

Scott Benner 1:11:11
Right? Well, I just I can't You can't imagine how many people who have been through traumatic things who have just been ruined by it and can't find their way out of it. You know, and how even understandable that is?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:11:24
Yes, I think I had some privilege because I was able to go to college. So it allowed me to leave my hometown, and meet different people, people that were very loving and caring, just good friends. And I always had, you know, I never I didn't experience poverty as well, when I was a kid. So that would have been another layer of trauma. So I think, you know, it was just I had while I went through all this, I also had privilege that I know some survivors don't get to have. So it was just some random combination of things.

Scott Benner 1:12:02
Oddly lucky. Yes. Yeah. I guess that's not a word you use very often. Yeah. I mean, I thought earlier, when you talked about the scholarship, I thought, Oh, well, that's the anime crew coming for, you know, like, somebody got you out of

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:15
there. Oh, it was the sweetest thing to say. How

Scott Benner 1:12:19
it occurred to me when you were saying I was like, Oh, they got together finally and sent her a scholarship.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:26
gonna smile all day thinking about that.

Scott Benner 1:12:30
It was the happiest thing you said this whole hour? wasn't hard to find, you know?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:37
Well, you know, so many good things happen to is just that the episode is about that. So

Scott Benner 1:12:42
yeah. Can you can you? Can you tell people a little bit about that? Like, what do you like day to day now? How do you see your life? Sure.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:52
Um, so um, I like where I am right now I've come to I used to think I was like, into no discipline and expense being spontaneous. And I always wanted a job. Like I wanted to be a un Peacekeeper, I wanted to just travel around the world doing crazy stuff. And the more I did therapy, I learned that that's actually the opposite of what I want. What really brings me joy is peace and safety and routine. And that really helps my diabetes to so I really like where I am right now we bought a house to it's going to be two years ago. And we moved with moved states. So we move closer to some people who care about us because my husband is also very alone in terms of family support. And so he's adopted, he has two sets of parents, right. So I get to have one of his parents pretend they're my parents, and he has the other set of parents. So we have what I understand this family, we rescue these dogs that we love so much. And I've had you know, I've had a career for for a while now. And so I mean, I mean a good spot. For sure. And I mean in this didn't start now but I just I'm able to really feel things what made me start going to decided to face all of this and I was just I wanted to feel good things and I realized you can just shut down the bad things, you shut down all things so for me to feel the good, I had to feel the bad. That's how I saw it. So you know, I've done wonderful things, guys, I mean, I move to a different country. I've traveled around and I have great friends, very dark humoured individuals, and I feel really safe I got with this cortisol regulator and I have the ice you have an Omnipod but I have the I'm the worst I bike I can't remember my pumps name at the moment the one with the control a que tanto sorry tandem I just got

Scott Benner 1:15:02
finally someone brings us up. And it's in an episode about childhood sexual abuse. And she can't remember the name of the pump.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:12
I'm sorry, don't revoke my warranty on the system, please.

Scott Benner 1:15:18
funny idea to call you later. And they'd be like, hello. I know you didn't give your name. But we know it's you.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:24
We've searched through that system, and you're the only one with this and that and that. And my pump just goes off and like never turns back on. I

Scott Benner 1:15:32
don't know why shut it off remotely. They're like, nope. Yeah, well,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:36
they're definitely not hiring me to be a sponsor that we know for sure. Now,

Scott Benner 1:15:40
I think it'd be a terrific sponsor. Well, well, tell me again, the name of like the, are you still taking the medication for the cortisol? Or is it something that you have to take every day? What's it called?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:53
Let me go get it one sec. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:15:55
really do want to know, sir.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:59
Alright, so this one is called integrative therapeutics. And it is a cortisol manager. Now, I know that there are different types of cortisol stabilizers, I would have to be a doctor to tell you, which one would be a good fit, if it even is a good thing. For the first days that are so you only take it one at night. You take it when you go to sleep.

Scott Benner 1:16:30
This is an over the counter thing. It's not a it's not prescribed.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:16:35
It's not prescribed, because she bought it. The doctor got one for me to try as a present. And then

Scott Benner 1:16:42
I think, is there a yellow stripe across the label? Yes, it's

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:16:46
on Amazon.

Scott Benner 1:16:47
I found it. I know the Google look at how it works. And find a bill online. So this is just something your hippie doctor gave you. And it's all things that

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:17:02
really changed my life. Help, it completely changed my life. I fall asleep faster. I had a very hard time falling asleep. I stay asleep. Of course, it's not heavy prescription drugs. So it's like I'm taking Xanax, I wouldn't know. I've never taken it. But it's a little more natural. And I am a little more comfortable. Taking something that's more natural, because with diabetes, you never know what's gonna mess with Well,

Scott Benner 1:17:30
listen, if it helped you like this, I wouldn't. I wouldn't care if you had to buy it anally. That's amazing. Yeah, actually, you brought up something earlier that I was really thought was terrific. And I had no idea about that. I could just somebody could do a thyroid stimulating hormone test online.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:17:47
Yeah, it means it's legit from the actual lab.

Scott Benner 1:17:51
Yeah, maybe Google it like places like quest and LabCorp. Like quest is cheaper. If I'm looking online, I'm understanding it correctly. But it's such an amazing thing. When people have endocrinologist, excuse me to get a drink, that are will say things like, oh, it's not your thyroid, and you were like, well, I have a lot of thyroid symptoms, you know, and then a lot of times, they don't want to help you with it for some reason. I mean, this here is saying 28 bucks, at, you know, at LabCorp or 40 or 20 bucks at Quest $49 at LabCorp. This sounds like something that without insurance is reasonably affordable. If you think you're having thyroid symptoms, and your doctor won't help you. But that's pretty cool. You know what I mean? Just be careful hiring. Yeah, be careful that you don't fall into the your within range answer. I always like to say that because, you know, if you're, you know, I think in range is something like up to eight or 10 for TSH. But you're gonna see symptoms over like to like to point one if you if you if you really have a thyroid issue. So with thyroid, I'm not a doctor either, but treat the symptoms, not the test number is how I think about it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:19:06
Yes, I completely agree. And you could do, you could do the detailed thyroid or the simple one, or you could do cortisol you could do which is hormones overall. And the way I did mine was he came to my house. I checked with the doctor first because I was I couldn't believe it. I could just do it on my own. So she was like, No, this is a legit lab laboratory. Go ahead. So I got the detailed thorough one it came through on the mail, and you have to poke your finger which for us was like you know, whatever. Yeah, exactly. So you just poke it and you kind of like hold your finger up straight in the air and you let the drops. Some drugs fall inside this little file and you seal it up and you send it back and I think mine took about two, three weeks to come back. So it's not if you are like me, and you experience some social anxiety, you could do it in your house and not even less stress about having to go anywhere.

Scott Benner 1:20:07
Everyone can do it. i We had my children's gut biome tested recently, and they had to basically poop in a box, so you can figure it out.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:20:16
Can I ask you a question? Oh, please? Did you then send it over the mail? Or do you drop it off somewhere?

Scott Benner 1:20:21
Interesting question. And I had these very same thoughts. So you mail it? No. So the next time you're, you know, the next time you want to be upset at your FedEx guy, just remember their jobs not as great as you think it is. And I mean, how great did you think their job was to begin with? So? Right? Yeah, no, there, it's so you, there's a collection tray that you put in the toilet. And like, you're not literally just like, although I think with one of them, they just did it that this was a thing in my house, like, we got the collection kits. And the kids were like, we're not doing this. Like, they sat around on the on a shelf for a while. And finally, my wife and I were like, look, we really want to, you know, we want to do this to see if you know if any of your issues, maybe you're coming from this. And so after you put the sample on something dry, then you have to take a spoon, not a spoon from your house, a spoon that comes with it, and get pieces of the sample from different sections of the how do I want to say this? Alright, so why not imagine a log of human feces? You would you want to take this little spoon and go around to different spots on it. Take Okay, and then fill up this little tube that has some liquid in it up to a line and then you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, seal it up. It goes inside of a bag that goes inside of a bag, like by the time you don't I mean, like it's in 1000 bags and boxes. By the time it goes into the FedEx thing, but and then you ship it off. Yeah. And then they send a detailed report of your gut biome.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:22:03
Oh, that's wonderful. Maybe I'll do that. Now. If you don't mind me asking everything. Did you get good? Good news from bad?

Scott Benner 1:22:09
Is it good? They both needed something of an adjustment. Ardennes was more out of whack than coals was. Okay, but little for you. Trying it. I'm gonna do it too. Just because I said to them, I'll do it if you do it. And then I was like, Huh? Yeah. I'll try it. Like, I need the comp. It's a little expensive. So maybe the company will hear this and be like, Sure, Scott, we will send it to you and you can try it.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:37
Tell them to send me one two

Scott Benner 1:22:39
is super interesting. I'm willing to spend the money on my kids. And then when it comes to me, I'm like, that's fine.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:22:46
I'll do it. If it's free. I'll be alright. You know, my body the thing that keeps me going alive and able to do things we ended

Scott Benner 1:22:53
up having to give Arden like these three different kinds of supplements that they're not you know, nothing met. It's a I don't know why I can't think of the word all the sudden. Like, why do people tell you the yogurt? Because it has like live cultures and a culture in it or something? I can't I can't believe I can't think of a really good I just got so upset.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:23:19
Because cuz I'm the foreign so I have a good excuse to not remember.

Scott Benner 1:23:22
Yeah, I'm gonna figure it out. And then we're all gonna be really embarrassed that I couldn't for me that I couldn't think of it. Oh, probiotics. Yeah, Jesus.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:23:36
I did not Google it. I totally know,

Scott Benner 1:23:38
like, different different probiotic pills that they're taking one of them. One of the kids, I think it's Arden is taking one that is somehow like the culture of like, I don't know how to explain it. But I can tell you that when you open the bottle, there are tablets inside of it. And the tablets, when they're all together in the bottle smell like crap. Like Like literally and when you section one of the mountain take it away from the bottle. It just smells like bad cheese. I don't know what's worse. Arden goes I can swallow this. It only smells like bedsheets. And I was like, Okay, so anyway, you take it for like a month or two to just try to help rebalance things, you know, get good, good gut bacteria. At the level of belongs at bad back bad, bad gut bacteria. Remove that kind of stuff. So who knows if it helps them It helps them and it was worth a try.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:24:33
Oh, cool for you for doing that for them. That's really cool. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:24:36
I'm a real I'm a real you are. You get the badge. I have to thank actually Dr. BENITO who came on and did my thyroid episode and and to not joke around, she's my hippie doctor. So you know, and Arden has another issue and we're going to go to another integrative medicine person because sometimes you just have to look outside of the mainstream when you need different answers. Yeah, absolutely recording that, I think.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:25:03
Yeah, and I think that's the thing, big thing with just medical practitioners, I understand they go to school. And I mean, I mean, doctors are wonderful and amazing. First of all, I don't mean anything that would contradict that. But they go to school and focus on this one thing for such a long period of time. But sometimes, it makes sense. Like, if I broke my wrist, you only need to look at my wrist, of course. But when it's a part of your body that is connected to so many other things like your nervous system, your darkened system, like whatever system it is, it's, it's in the now there's so much research on trauma, for example, and the impact on your health and development and all of that, I just wish, I think he would improve their practice if they could incorporate at least the lenses of understanding, not becoming a naturopathic doctor or nothing like that. But just understanding that there's more to it and that he might be worth exploring, just asking a question taking, suggesting a test, telling people to Google like just any guidance, because Kelly's I always was very, I'm sorry, dependence on my doctor, it took me years to become confident that I could just do a Google search and figure something out on my own, I would always wait for my appointment to ask them, and they never knew,

Scott Benner 1:26:25
well, well, not different than diabetes, your situation is just uncommon, right? Like the human body is meant to endure what it's meant to endure. And, you know, yours got way more physical and mental abuse than I think a person is, is expected to be able to, you know, shoulder, and that can have actual physical impacts on you. Right? It could change you. Yes, on a cellular level, obviously. I mean, I don't know what mental illness is to you. But you know, at some point, someone took a perfectly healthy little baby and did what it what they did to you that changed your mind. It changed your your physical responses to things, you know, your, your social and psychological responses, things. They changed you they beat you into a different shape.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:27:12
Yeah, yeah. So I was developing to so when you go through things as children, they impact you in a deeper level, sometimes than when you're an adult, but even a traumatic, sorry,

Scott Benner 1:27:25
I didn't mean to step on you. I'm sorry. Good. No,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:27:27
no, you go first.

Scott Benner 1:27:28
I was just gonna say like to go to a normal doctor and be like, hey, help me. That's not something they're trained for.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:27:34
Exactly. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. But maybe they could be like, Well, I have heard before the sometimes trauma can impact your bottom line, maybe we should just check that. Because if my doctor had, and my doctor refused, if my doctor had prescribed me, the cortisol tests, he would have gone through my insurance, he would have been a lot cheaper. So just even to speak, being open

Scott Benner 1:28:00
and able to afford it, you know, yes. Being able to afford it's not lost on me that poop in the box thing wasn't cheap. So you, you would think it wouldn't cost much to put your own poop in a box. But it was pricey. So you're wrong.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:28:12
Yeah. So it's great that there is this option now that makes us especially if you like, I live in a small town, I don't have a lot of Doctor options. I do have a much better doctor than I had before. But if you're in a situation like me, where you don't really have options, and you cannot afford to take time off from work, and just drive two hours to go see a doctor, and then come back, then at least if you have access to you're able to afford these things online, I did two tests. One is as a birthday present for my husband, because I couldn't afford it. And then the other one, I saved money and then I bought but I understand it's you know, some people just cannot Well, yeah, but that's okay. Still prior

Scott Benner 1:28:57
you prioritized yourself and you saved and you made it happen and that's pretty amazing, too. So you're you're a wonder you really are. I wish I can I'm only sorry. I can't like I'm only sorry, I can't use your name to tell you how amazing I think you are because I feel empty because I'm just talking around who you are. But I think it's really quite unique and special what you have accomplished.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:29:22
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Okay, and you know, just think that who knows how many people you meet that you would never took people talk to me you would have no way because I enjoy I love life i because of all the things I was denied and all the pain I endured I really value the good things so if I if it's a nice day out and I buy an ice cream I'm gonna enjoy it maybe more than somebody that just has that since forever. Yeah. So it's you know, I love life and there's so much about life that I'm in love with and love experiencing and and stuff. So sometimes you might meet people like that you would never tell that they went through stuff but so we should always say Think approach people with like, what's it called a trauma informed approach to just right? You never know what people have been through. So let's just be loving to each other. And just in case, yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:30:09
don't want people to leave this thinking, like, how many people do I know are freaking creepy? Like, I want them, I want them to leave. Like, you know, if you asked me what the connection between your story and diabetes is, to me, your story highlights that there are people who are going through things that you'll never see. And that sometimes, if you get a little lucky, and you get the right support, and you work hard at it, and you don't give up, you can get through things that you don't think you could possibly get through that an onlooker would look at, and just think, but I don't know how you didn't just jump out a window, you know what I mean? And instead, instead, look where you are. And my thought is, if you could do that wrapped around all this, well, then that should be encouraging to someone who just thinks they can't figure out how to get their Basal, right, or to Pre-Bolus pizza or something like this, like you don't mean like there are, I'm not saying that one difficult thing to gates, another difficult thing, I'm saying, Look at what people are capable of. And right everyone listening is capable of something like this to have overcome, overcome, you know,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:31:22
so we so are and just remember, if you've experienced trauma, and I will give an example, I used to my old Renata insulin, and I would just forget to change my sight, like I would just have no insulin for hours sometimes. And it wasn't like I was doing it on purpose, I would look and be like, Oh, I have to change it. But I also overwhelmed all the time, I couldn't, I just would get distracted and forget it. And just be kind to yourself, if you if you're having a hard day and diabetes is not working, just know that some things are not a direct result of you doing something wrong, you are doing the best that you can. And that's going to look different in different ways. But don't like people. And I say that because I experienced that a lot. Don't let people shame you. If you don't have the diabetes results that they wanted to have, and I'm not saying don't do the best you can, of course, take care of your health, but just know, if you've experienced things like that. Remember to love yourself first, you know, be kind to yourself, you're doing your best.

Scott Benner 1:32:23
And the answers that you need are out there somewhere. And yeah, you know, don't give up looking for them. Don't accept people's assertions that maybe this is as good as it gets. You know, it's not always going to present itself immediately. In, you know, I think that this podcast has a lot to do with that idea of really the idea that this isn't how mainstream talks about diabetes, really. But here it is. And if you want it, it's here, it might be difficult to pick through. I mean, I hear people say like, there's so many episodes, I'm like, You're welcome. You know, like I hear, they give it to me. And I'm like, You're welcome. Now you do the hard work of picking through it and getting what you need out of it. Like, I can't come to your house. And and you know, to me, yes, shuffle you along to success. And I Oh, no. My point is, is that if the woman you're listening to right now can do the things that she's done. I can't imagine what everybody can't do you know what I mean? Like there's there should be no end to your there should be no end to what you think you can accomplish. You know, you should just try and don't give up.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:33:38
Yes. And if you're trying it doesn't work, it took me 12 years to figure out how to not wake up with a tie on my Little Reader, you know, just don't it takes time. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:33:50
Yes. How did you? I'm sorry, it seems so terrible to ask this. After the whole thing. I really I I just want to make sure that the connection is obvious to people like how did you find this podcast? And has it been valuable to you? And how?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:34:07
Let me tell you, so I was can you remember I was I do yoga, yoga helps me a lot. I also do intermittent fasting. So I was doing yoga and I realize I love yoga. Why don't I look for a podcast about yoga? And I was looking at wellness podcasts and stuff. And I was like, Wow, I've never thought about the possibility that maybe they're popular podcasts about diabetes out there. So then I picked one I put diabetes, whatever it was a different one was from a guy from I don't know, maybe I think New Zealand or Australia. And he I swear I swear to you, Scott, he said, If you want your blood, if you want to lose weight, your blood sugar's to get lower. Stop being lazy fat. I swear that's what he said on the episode that I hope so. I was like, oh, maybe this isn't for me. And so I was bummed out for a couple of days. And then I was like, Oh, let me try again. And then I found yours. And I saw he had all these categories. So what really, I think in your podcast has improved my life so much, because I started listening only to the after dark episodes. Because whenever people gave me diabetes advice, I never took it into consideration. Because I always felt like, well, but that doesn't apply to me because I have this other stuff going on that you don't know about whatever. And I learned, it was really the thing that made my brain make the connection that most people that have diabetes have something else, like I listened. And I listened to an episode of a girl that was allergic to insulin, and it blew my mind away. I was like, if this girl can do diabetes, I'm going to start spending time and just learning. So then I just started listening to a lot of episodes, and just I've been learning so much. But what made me lower my guard, my defensiveness was just listening to all the after dark episodes in a row.

Scott Benner 1:36:11
No, it's funny, I think I originally thought of the after dark episodes as bringing people into a world that they didn't know about. And over time and years, I've heard from enough people with, you know, you know, uncommon stories like yours, that he did say that the after dark episodes to them are the core of the podcast. It's easy, because it's so uncommon, again, to find these stories, these stories just don't get told very often. I mean, you've done something. Now that I mean, if you would have told me five years ago, that a person with your life experiences would come on here and share them on the podcast, I'd be like, that's never gonna happen. You know what I mean? But it all started with me saying, like, it's so it's so strange. I get started with me saying on the podcast one day, hey, do you drink a lot and have diabetes? Because if you do, I want to talk to you. And then these two people heard that and went to their friend and said, Hey, I think that guy on that podcast is looking for you. And she's like, I don't know how to feel about this. But I am like a pro level drinker. And I have type one. And so she came on, and shared, and I thought there should be more of this. And then I went to a guy that smokes weed. And then before I knew what I was talking to people with bipolar disorder, you know, people, I mean, at this point, now, you're the third person of some sort of sexual assault that's come on. And, and so much more divorced families, an adult of someone who grew up in a, you know, a divorced family. These are the stories that people like you who are more plentiful than we want to think need, like they need to hear themselves reflected weekly, we always talk about, like, reflecting people and, and, you know, I can't think of the word again, because I'm not young. But representation, right? Like, we always talk about representation about like, you have to have more black voices, you have to have more gay voices, you have to have more trans voices you have, nobody ever says we have to have more sexual assault survivor voices, you know, we have to like because it's difficult and uncomfortable to talk about, and I don't think it should be. So that's why it's here. Because that's what I think, the best way the best for doing that Jesus took an hour and 40 minutes for you to say something I was the best. Like, I don't know.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:38:43
You should have started with that question. And then we could just talk about that. And when if you want, we could stop this restart and just do an episode about that. I'm teasing.

Scott Benner 1:38:51
I don't need you to tell me now. Let's let those dogs back in before they run away.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:38:58
They're sleeping in the other. They're just fine. But my husband works from home and so they they live their best life.

Scott Benner 1:39:04
It's 2021 We all work from home. I wish I worked from home do not it's days. I like it. And there's days where I'm like, I gotta get out of here. You know? Yesterday here, we'll finish with something completely frivolous. Love it. Yesterday, I walked downstairs. My wife's working in what we used to be our dining room, but now I think is an office. I'm pretty sure she's gonna get rid of our dining room table. I guess we'll eat in the kitchen. And my daughter's at the countertop in the kitchen. She's doing homework, my wife's working and, and I walked downstairs the middle of the afternoon. I was like, I'm gonna go out. And everyone's like, where are you going? Because that I'm not that guy. Like, I'm like a I'm not like I'm going out guy. And I was like, I'm gonna go get a manicure and a pedicure. And they were like, Why? Because that is not something I do. And I said yeah, As I said, about a week or so ago, I realized that my toe was sore. And it was my nail. And I just have been growing my nails out with the idea that I would reshape them in a way where my toe wouldn't be sore, which seems like a reasonable decision. And I said, now I'm looking at my nails. And I realized I do not possess the qualifications to handle this. And they were like, Why don't like I don't think I know how to cut my nails right? Or this wouldn't have happened to begin with. I'm 50 years old. I'm going to go let somebody else do it. Then I'm going to look at what they did and try to mimic it next time. And so like 10 minutes later, I had my feet in a bath and a gentleman was rubbing my calves while woman was cutting my fingernails. And I have it was lovely.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:40:43
I've done it too. It's the best thing. Oh my God, it is so warm. And then when they scrub your like your ankles off the best,

Scott Benner 1:40:50
I'm not even embarrassed. It was a it was a half an hour that I enjoyed. And you shouldn't be embarrassed

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:40:56
just to be proud of yourself for taking care of yourself trying different things good for you.

Scott Benner 1:41:00
Yeah, I just am. I gotta tell you, too. I'm always embarrassed to my fingernails. And today, I'm not them on top of that desk. Like you know, when you take a picture and you're holding something. I turned my hands so you can't see my nails usually. Ah, I didn't realize that. And then I saw them yesterday. I was like, why is this lady so much better at this than I am?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:41:22
So did you figure it out? Do you think you can do an accent?

Scott Benner 1:41:25
I don't know. I better just make more money and let her do it. But yeah, they look really good. She, by the way, no clear coat or anything. I just was like, you know, I'm like, I don't need a coating. I just cut them for me, please. They're really, I can't believe I'm saying this. They're really so if for people keeping track. Now, if you're still listening to this afterwards, after the person who we spoken to today, has told you all of the sad things. If you're still here an hour and 40 minutes later, and you're keeping track, I'm now getting my eyebrows threaded with my daughter and I got a manicure. So they say I'm on my way. I'm gonna look good. Soon. That's great.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:41:59
It's better posts, you should do an omni pod sponsored thing on your page and take pictures, holding things you don't make up for the last time

Scott Benner 1:42:09
you pick up my hand model now. i Yeah. My hands are huge. And my family constantly makes fun of how big my fingers are. So I don't think I'm a hand model. But

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:42:19
be proud of your hands. Don't let them hand shame you.

Scott Benner 1:42:24
If that becomes a thing, I'm gonna say that you're going to have caused it. Because I can't imagine anyone who said that before.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:42:31
Just stop oppressing your hands. He can't control the size of them. They need to love them the way they are.

Scott Benner 1:42:36
Next time someone mentions how big my fingers are. I'm gonna say stop oppressing my fingers.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:42:42
Yes, yes. And be assertive about it. People need to learn to boundaries, right?

Scott Benner 1:42:45
Damn, well. Well, thank you.

A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Kaipa pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGL. You see ag o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. And I want to thank today's guest for coming on the show and so bravely telling us her story. Thank you so much. I'm sorry that I can't thank you by name. And I'm really glad that you were here. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. You can find more after dark episodes in your podcast app. We're at Juicebox Podcast comm topics like drinking weed smoking, trauma and addiction. Having sex with type one diabetes, depression and self harm, diabetes and co parenting bulimia. Bipolar Disorder, heroin addiction, psychedelic drug use divorce from the perspective of an adult child diabetes complications, other eating disorders. They're all available in your podcast player. Just search Juicebox Podcast after dark. We're at Juicebox Podcast comm you can just scroll down and find them right there on the website.

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#605 Raising NFL Star Mark Andrews

Martha Andrews is the mother of an adult type 1.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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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 season eight of the Juicebox Podcast. This is episode 605.

Welcome again to season eight of the Juicebox Podcast the Juicebox Podcast began in January of 2015. And here we are in January of 2022. Happy New Year to everyone. And thank you for listening to the show. On today's episode, we start the year off with Martha Andrews. Martha is the mother of four grown children, one of whom was diagnosed with type one diabetes when they were nine years old. He's all grown up now, and he's got a pretty cool job. You're going to enjoy this episode, it's going to go in a bunch of different directions. So whether or not you're a sports fan, the parent of a child with type one or an adult living with type one, this one's gonna have something for each and every one of you. 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 health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor, please head over to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to learn more and get started today. The podcast is also sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash, you can find out more and again get started at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. There are links in the show notes to these and all of the sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast. You can even find those links at juicebox podcast.com.

Martha Andrews 2:12
Hi, Martha Andrews, parent of a type one diabetic and live in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Scott Benner 2:18
Hi, Martha. Thank you for doing this. Sure. I really appreciate it. Let's see. Where do we start? Do you how many children do you have?

Martha Andrews 2:26
I have four four.

Scott Benner 2:28
Are they reasonably spaced together?

Martha Andrews 2:31
They're each about two years or less. Between but two grades between each other?

Scott Benner 2:36
That seems reasonable to me enough time to catch your breath. Right?

Martha Andrews 2:40
Yes, but not didn't seem reasonable at the time. But yes, now that I've gotten past all of the hard stuff, it seems reasonable.

Scott Benner 2:48
Did you feel like you're just doing the same thing over and over again, as they were growing up and and getting worse

Martha Andrews 2:52
and worse at it?

Scott Benner 2:54
You were getting? Were you getting worse at it? Or did you just care a little less as it went on?

Martha Andrews 3:00
Well, it's just you know, it's each one had their own individual issues that you have to deal with and, and getting them all through them at the same time and dealing with it. It just became a lot of work. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. But you know, I have three times like, I don't know if I can keep doing it like, Okay,

Scott Benner 3:21
well, of the four children. You have one with type one. Do any of the other kids have other autoimmune issues or type one?

Martha Andrews 3:29
None? Nope. Just mark. Just mark Okay,

Scott Benner 3:33
where does he fall in the line of the four kids?

Martha Andrews 3:36
He's my youngest. He's the baby.

Scott Benner 3:39
How old the oldest?

Martha Andrews 3:41
He just turned 32. Okay,

Scott Benner 3:44
and marks 26. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Are all the kids athletic?

Martha Andrews 3:51
Every one of them. They, they all are very, very competitive. Whether it's getting to bed first brushing their teeth first finishing their plate first. scoring the first goal. It was always a competition.

Scott Benner 4:07
Walking through a doorframe just just absolutely. So did you spend most of your life going to children's sporting events?

Martha Andrews 4:17
All of my life once I started having kids. It was every night, every weekend traveling? It was pretty intense. Actually.

Scott Benner 4:29
Yeah. No, I found it to be more than I expected. I sometimes my son just plays college baseball. And just I Yeah, well, that's impressive. It is but I find myself telling people listen, unless your kids are just like love, love, love it. Just do it for fun inside of the season. There's no reason to travel or, you know, go to another state to play. You just try to enjoy it because there were times where it felt like a job for me. I don't I don't think for him ever but

Martha Andrews 5:00
I think people would say, you know, they're gonna get a scholarship and you're like, some money we've spent on their sports, we could pay for full college tuition.

Scott Benner 5:10
I think I may be broke even. And Mike's son gets a fair amount of money. And he's like, I'm saving you all this money. He's like, Are you forgetting all the sandwiches, we bought it delis and the gasoline in the hotel. So you could learn to be slightly better at this than the next person, you know?

Martha Andrews 5:30
Well, it's a lot of fun to watch him do what they love.

Scott Benner 5:33
Yeah, I have to say that Cole's a senior this year. So the spring coming up is, you know, his last of his undergrad year, because of COVID. He's going to have some NCAA ability to keep playing, you know, Brian gave him back some of their eligibility. So I'm kind of hoping he'll he'll maybe go to grad school or something and play a little more or, or I don't even know what I just I

Martha Andrews 5:58
have plans to maybe go professional. He Well,

Scott Benner 6:01
it's his whole, I'm gonna tell you that. I don't know, I could have gotten him into college if he wasn't playing baseball. And he's a very good student taking a fairly difficult my son's getting a quantitative econ degree. Oh, my gosh, and I still tell you, I'm not sure you would have went to college if you couldn't play baseball. So it is what he thinks about. You know, that's awesome. Yeah. So we'll see. I know, he's gonna try until he fails or his body blows up. I I've come to the conclusion that there's no amount of anything that's going to get him to stop. So we'll see what happens. But he's not what

Martha Andrews 6:36
it takes. You have to be driven for sure. He's got that part.

Scott Benner 6:39
That's for sure. He didn't grow quite like your son. Did though. Did the boy come out that size? Or?

Martha Andrews 6:45
Yes. He was a nice size when he was born. But from shortly after he was standing, it was obvious that he was pretty much taller than everybody else

Scott Benner 6:59
bigger than your husband. Yes. Okay. And you're not a particularly tall person.

Martha Andrews 7:03
I'm 510. I'm the shortest my daughter's six foot. I have a son that six to one at six, four and then mark that six, six.

Scott Benner 7:12
Well, you are tall, then. I mean, I don't you know, 510 Relatively speaking,

Martha Andrews 7:17
I am Yes, I was tall till I got in this family.

Scott Benner 7:21
I always I always kind of I don't laugh, Martha. But sometimes you see the parents, and they have a tiny little kid. And, you know, and the husband's five, six, and the wife's five, two, and they're like he's gonna play in college. And I'm like, no, no, it's not. Something crazy is about to happen. But yeah, so when did he start growing? Like, when did you think wow, this is? I guess we I guess if you had older children, you already knew your kids were kind of bigger to begin with.

Martha Andrews 7:47
They all were tall. And so he in our family, he you know, he stayed he was he was shorter than a sister. And then, I think probably around end of elementary or middle school, he got taller than she was. Um, and and then he just kept going and he was really skinny.

Scott Benner 8:09
Okay, in high school. Yeah. Do you fill out in high school because he went through a legitimate football college too. So?

Martha Andrews 8:17
Yes. You he was pretty thin. I mean, he at six, six, he was probably 200 pounds. Maybe. When he went off to college?

Scott Benner 8:28
No, no kidding. Well, and then that's big for a high schooler and small in high

Martha Andrews 8:33
school. He was definitely tall. And I think he worked out so much that meaning running and doing things like that it was hard for him to keep weight on.

Scott Benner 8:44
Okay. My son talks about that all the time. He said they drag us into a gym to put on weight, and then they take us outside and run it right. I just found it. He's like, it's like the one hands not talking to the other one. So, um, Listen, did he play football, like peewee was it better? No, no,

Martha Andrews 9:02
no, no, no. He was He loved soccer, baseball. Basketball. You didn't start football until ninth grade?

Scott Benner 9:11
No kidding. So as he was kind of going into high school, yes. Sorry. While you were watching him, like when does it first occur to you like when do you and your husband like you're married? Right? I'm sorry. Yes, yeah. When do your husband lean into each other and go? He's gonna do this in college?

Martha Andrews 9:28
Ah, not until like the coaches started calling. Really? Okay. Yeah. You know, we've always been hearing all of our children were talented, they were all great athletes, they could have gone and played a sport in college if they'd wanted to. And you know, that you have to love what you do to be able to get to that point and we just hear about that funnel. And so we just really pushed school and it probably wasn't going to be a reality of getting to play sports in college. Like we didn't even like to talk about

Scott Benner 10:06
it. Okay? So it wasn't something that you've just looked at him and thought this is beta complete this has to happen. He just looks like a perfect because like, for know, when my son started high school, he came home one day and he goes, Yo, there's a kid on our football team. And this high school was not some like, you know, I mean, it's a northeast school. It's not a powerhouse for football or anything like that. And he goes, there's a kid on our high school team. He's like, he's gonna easily play in college. And I was like, really goes, he's an offensive lineman, like you should see him. And before I could even get a chance to see him some private schools scooped him up and took him right away. Oh, really? I believe he started for Penn State. So, you know, you could just like my son could say it, like everybody could see it. But Mark wasn't that person. Right? Well,

Martha Andrews 10:48
I mean, when he started playing football, and he could have played basketball in college. Yeah, he quit soccer just because he was so much bigger than everybody else. He got picked on a lot. He couldn't. He couldn't pick back because he was the biggest person on the field. It was a really frustrating experience for him.

Scott Benner 11:07
And are you saying that they get chippy with him, but he couldn't chip back.

Martha Andrews 11:11
He couldn't get snippy with them, right. And he's like, I'm done. You know, even from when he was little, they'd say, he drove here. He's like, he's 12. He did not drive here.

Scott Benner 11:24
That kid. That kid back that guy's kids are watching the game from the stance. Trust me, we've all made that joke if we'd been involved in youth sports,

Martha Andrews 11:32
absolutely. And so that was frustrating to him. But he had started to compete at basketball at a really high level. And when he started playing football at the same time, he had a coach that he worked with a lot. He was a volunteer football coach, he played for Nebraska. And he said, Mark, how many people are on a football team? And how many people are on a basketball team? And he said, How many people on a basketball team are six, six or are taller? How many on a on a football team? How many how many receivers Do you see that are six, six. And he kind of just got him thinking, you know, if you want to play sports in college, let's start thinking of where you have the best opportunity. And so that kind of was a mind shift. He loved basketball. He loved playing it for this his high school, he loved his coach. But he he just stopped the club version of that and focused on football from that point on. And his very first game was the very first time someone came up to us and said, I mean, he just we were in shock. Our mouth was open, we had no idea he could do what he did and and the other coach from the other side said we're gonna see him on Sunday

Scott Benner 13:06
I think people might imagine it's just the size but there's a fluidity and and athleticism and you know, speed like it. Where it becomes really uncommon is to be all of those things at that size, and have the drive to do it and everything else that comes with it. It's saying it's an uncommon mix. Are your other children magically good at other things? Are you a witch? Like what is it we all know? About? You know, do you sometimes look up and think it's crazy? Word or is it normal to you now? I mean, you and I to have

Martha Andrews 13:41
mark or a to have all all my kids are incredibly successful. Yeah. And I've been very fortunate. I've kind of it's almost not embarrassing, but you know, people ask what do your children do? And I'm like, you know, I kind of played off but I really want to say I mean my kids are amazing. It's really bad say like that, but they are they've made something of each one has just become the best at what they do. And I it it is really heartwarming as a parent to know that they're doing what they love, and they're so good at it.

Scott Benner 14:19
Is it hard to want to talk about the other three? Because, you know, eventually you're gonna have to say in marks at tight end?

Martha Andrews 14:24
I know. It is. Yeah, I say but you know, his brother's a doctor, his sister's a dentist, his other brothers are really successful business in real estate. You know, I want to, I want to tell them that, but they don't really care.

Scott Benner 14:36
Yeah, well, that's what I started wondering. Like, if that's what you meant, that just doesn't matter. Like you could be like, this one's a physicist and an astronaut on the weekends. And they'd be like, could you just tell me about the guy that catches the football players? Exactly.

Martha Andrews 14:49
Yeah. Yeah, that's, well, they're they're really proud of him to oh,

Scott Benner 14:53
I would imagine that's really cool. Do you get to see him play much in person anymore?

Martha Andrews 14:58
Um, you know since COVID, Did we kind of definitely pulled back and him watching on TV is so much nicer than being? Well, first of all, I vowed never to go to an opposing teams, you know, watch him as a visitor. I don't like that. It's, it's uncomfortable. It's not the friendliest place to be. I do like going and watching and in Baltimore and being able to see him and we didn't go this year. I mean, we're still a little COVID leery. We don't want to put him at risk from traveling or anything else like that. So we think his brother's been, and I think both brothers have been this year.

Scott Benner 15:40
Are you saying that it's hard to cheer for him in front of people who are cursing at them? Yes. Is it? Is it just hard for you to hear it?

Martha Andrews 15:48
No, not? Well, maybe a little bit. But as my husband always tell me, don't tell them who your son is. I'm like I have to because I don't want them to be mean about him around me. I kind of just gently tell the people around me Okay, be nice to number 89 I miss mom, I'll be quiet.

Scott Benner 16:07
I promise not sure if you promise not to curse and use his name at the same.

Martha Andrews 16:12
And then for not, you know, when he does something great to not really be able to cheer and scream and the way you know, you got to be a little subtle about it. I don't like that at all. So

Scott Benner 16:20
you screaming yell at home, though, while you're watching? Oh, gosh. Yes. So I want to ask you, I'm gonna ask you one more football thing. And then I want to ask you a bunch of diabetes stuff. So okay, you and I spoke a few days ago to get to know each other to get this all set up. And then like the next day, I think or maybe two days later, I found myself standing in front of a room. It was like we were in a bar having dinner. Every time I say that. I want to remind people

Martha Andrews 16:45
i know i just want listen to a podcast, you were at another bar had dinner with my

Scott Benner 16:48
family. And we're sitting around and there and the Ravens game is on. And I'm watching it go back and forth. And I said to my wife, I said, you know, that lady I talked to on the phone. I said, that's her son right there. And I said this situation is getting down to where I think they're going to go to him to try to win the game. So let's pay attention for a second. And then it happens. And it doesn't go the way you expect. Or hope, I guess. And I found myself sitting there only knowing you for about a 15 minute phone call. I felt terrible for you. Not even for him, by the way. Like like for you. I was like how much she feel right now. And I just I've been, I just want to know, like, if he catches that ball and they win the game, he doesn't catch the ball and they don't win the game, whatever. How does it feel for you? Like is it fleeting? Does it stick with you all day? Are you happy all week after that saddle week? Like how much impact does it have on your life? Well,

Martha Andrews 17:42
I mean, the most important thing, I'm sad for Mark, because I know he's gonna take it hard, right? That, you know, if he makes that play, he's like a hero and everything's fabulous. And I'm always looking. I don't really care if we win or lose. I want him to be healthy. I want him to play well. And I want it to be over. Yeah, right. That's the most important thing for me as a mom, I'm sad for him. I love him. It's not a big deal. It is a football game. It's not, didn't make or break. how good he is how you know, his success or not. I just I'm sad. I know he's not gonna talk to me the next day is gonna avoid discussing it. But you know, so there's just a game. Yeah.

Scott Benner 18:32
But there's no like, here's an example. My son's out recruiting for colleges one day, and I'm standing talking to a coach who kind of came to find me and was chatting about coal and coals out in the outfield. And as he came back, he's running back along the fence line runs past us. And I said, Oh, hey, Cole, this is so and so from blah, blah, college, he was just telling me how bad you are. And, and we just laughed, and my son said hello. And then he kept running by we have a very loose, like, relationship like that, because the man was not standing there telling telling me that.

Martha Andrews 19:03
You know, I mean, he knows his dad has always joked Yes, yes, he's aware

Scott Benner 19:06
of that. Like, I just was like trying to put myself in your position. I was like, I wonder if I would have been like, just stay quiet or so it's interesting to hear your your response to that. And I also think it's interesting because I talked to a number of Steelers fans after the game. And every one of them just because I kind of steadfastly was like, oh, you know, the rusher kind of threw off the quarterback and he's like, I don't think it was that gay. Like it could have been caught maybe but like, it was funny how like they wanted they were on his side, even like, Oh, that's nice. It's very interesting. And then that made me think there's a guy in a grocery store all over this country having a conversation about your kid. Think of it that way. How weird that is.

Martha Andrews 19:52
It is weird. And it's it's kind of funny, like, you know, my husband says I like to tell everybody that marks my son and you know plays and that's not true, but it is amazing. Like I'll go out with other people and I was sitting at I don't know, that place where they cut up your your food Benihana and the chef was there cutting and the people I was sitting with said, you know, this is Marc Andreessen. He goes the mark Andrews, you know, like, this is some random guy, oh my gosh, and then went on and on and on and on and how he's followed his career, blah, blah, blah. And it's, you know, if you take that kind of stuff, if you listen to it and makes you happy, then you got to take the other stuff like he should have caught that ball. He you know, so you have to be careful if you if you want to revel in all the goodness, you got to be able to take the, the not so good as well.

Scott Benner 20:47
Yeah, I definitely. i There is nothing worse than my son is an exceptional outfielder. And, you know, 100 times out of 100 He's gonna catch the ball doesn't matter where it is, you know, there are moments when like the right fielder catches the ball and my son standing behind him waiting for the ball to hit the ground. Like you can catch it. It's your position, you might as well and then the one time something happens and he stumbles or trips or the sun gets in his eyes and everyone looks at you like you as the parent. Like what happened? I'm like, oh, nine out there, man. I was like, you know, but I said if he asked me it looks hard to do and, and but it's amazing that they forget the other 99 times.

Martha Andrews 21:30
Oh, yeah, you just can't go on the internet at all. After your something like that game.

Scott Benner 21:34
I'm like, What about the other ones? Where are you? Alright, nevermind.

Martha Andrews 21:39
Let's see. And that's that's not your tea, Wendy. So like, if Mark drops a catch anything is should he go test you know, there's something is something going on. If he drops to I'm almost on the phone to the trainer he needs to.

Scott Benner 21:54
I don't like the way it looks. Yeah. So he's nine years old when he's diagnosed is that right?

Today I'm gonna start off by telling you about the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor, you can know what your blood sugar is without finger sticks with a Dexcom. That's right without finger sticks or calibrations. The Dexcom G six lets you see your glucose numbers. With a quick glance at your smart device or receiver. You can get alerted when your glucose levels are heading high or low and share your data with up to 10 followers. The Dexcom G six is covered by most insurance plans. And you can learn more about it right now@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. With Dexcom, you can set customizable alerts and alarms to let you know when you're leaving the range that you want. My daughter is set at 70 and 120. But you could choose any numbers that you want 80 and 139, D and 150. It doesn't matter. It's completely up to you. And then when your blood sugar is heading in that direction, getting ready to leave that range, it'll tell you and you can make a decision about insulin or carbohydrates that will benefit your health well being and keep your day steady and balanced. And in range dexcom.com forward slash juicebox my daughter's been wearing a Dexcom for many, many years. So check out the CGM that she prefers. And the one that Mark Andrews uses@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox.

Now if you'd like to check out the insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing, since she is Ooh, and she was how old four? I think so four years old as long time ago, she's like 17. If you want to check out the insulin pump that my daughter has been using for a very long time, you're going to want to check out the Omni pod at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. There you can read all about Omni pod the Omni pod dash and find out if tubeless insulin pumping is right for you or your loved one. It is for my daughter and it may well be for you as well. Now if you find yourself thinking oh Scott, I do want an omni pod but I'm waiting for the next big thing from Omni pod so I'm not going to get started right now. Well, the good news is there's no need to do that. Because of the Omni pod promise. And the Omni pod promise is simple. There is no need to wait for the next big thing with the Omni pod promise you can upgrade to Omni pods latest technologies for no additional cost as soon as they're available to you and covered by your insurance terms and conditions apply. But you'll find out more at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox Stop dragging your feet and get started today use the insulin pump that my daughter's been using since she was four years old. The one that is tubeless that allows you to swim And bave that doesn't make you take it off for activities like sports, and, you know, fun adult activities as well. You can just keep getting your insulin the way you're meant to with the Omni pod. If you need links to Omnipod Dexcom, or any of the sponsors, they're right there in the shownotes of your podcast player. We're at juicebox podcast.com. But you can always just type them into a browser on the pod.com forward slash juice box. dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Alright, let's get back to Martha. Some of my favorite parts of this interview have not even happened yet.

Martha Andrews 25:39
Yes, okay. So

Scott Benner 25:40
that's Robert said he was like this, like 17 years ago. Does that sound right? 2004 ish. Yeah. Okay. But you're pretty impressed with how I did that real quick.

Martha Andrews 25:49
I was just like your bow. That was good. He did it ahead of time.

Scott Benner 25:53
I didn't. Didn't so there must have been a lot of numbers that just worked with the way my brain works, because that all went way too smoothly. So he's nine years old. How does it present?

Martha Andrews 26:04
Okay, and I'm just full disclosure. I may not, but I may I always cry when I tell the story. And I'm gonna start again.

Scott Benner 26:10
If you cry, I'm gonna cry. Martha. Just so you know.

Martha Andrews 26:12
I think it's the hardest thing in the world. I can't believe I do this every friggin time. If it brings it back.

Scott Benner 26:21
Yeah. We'll take your time. And or you don't have to tell me

Martha Andrews 26:25
I'll be fine. I do. I don't. I've done it on national TV. I need to learn, not cry every single time I talk about it. But okay. So it presented itself. He was doing baseball and soccer at the same time. And he was playing a baseball game and his grandparents had taken him. You know, he's a fourth child. Every every one of us is at a different sporting event with one of the children. And she said, my, my mother in law said he had to go to the bathroom a couple times. I said, Oh, okay, fine. Thanks. No, she goes. And then we took him to a soccer game right afterwards. And he left and ran to go to the bathroom at halftime. He has never done that. And my mother in law says, I think he has diabetes. And we look at her like she had grown horns and was so crazy how to like get that that was a stupidest thing anybody could ever say.

Scott Benner 27:18
Yeah. What does she know? Something that that? Does she have any? Like, why would that pop into our head?

Martha Andrews 27:24
I don't know. I mean, we were shocked. And we said absolutely not. You know, he's, he's, he had big circles under his eyes. And he I don't think he may have even maybe wet the bed. I don't know. But it's still just wasn't coming together. We're getting ready to go on a ski trip for spring break. And he came home from school on Monday, and he didn't feel good. And he didn't look good. So the next morning, my my husband said, we better just get him checked, make sure nothing's wrong, before we head out of town. And so we went and did some blood work and took him back to school. And my husband calls me sorry,

Scott Benner 28:14
no, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd get upset or I might not have asked.

Martha Andrews 28:18
It's okay. I'm not. I mean, I talk about it all the time. And he said, Mark has diabetes, you need to go get him protected. I didn't know even I had no idea what it meant. I am one of those people that kind of goes through the world. And if it's bad stuff, I don't really look into it. Um, if someone needs to tell me something, they'll tell me and I kind of go through with rose colored glasses. pretty optimistic about everything. So we go to the doctor's office, I still don't so don't know exactly what it means.

Scott Benner 29:03
Your husband just tells you that it's important. He's, something's wrong. And you hear a word you think of as not being like, healthy. Yeah, yeah. And you're on your way. Yeah.

Martha Andrews 29:12
Yeah. And obviously, he knows exactly what it is. But so the doctor was also a neighbor of ours. And she she tells us and Mark is pretty stoic. We don't have to go the hospital. We go over to an endocrinologist and they start educating us immediately. And I think he was more upset that we didn't go skiing because of it. You know, that that? He just, you know, what do I have to do? Just give me the tools I need. And let's get get over this. Yeah, no.

Scott Benner 29:51
Well, you know, it's funny. My biggest concern would have been that my wife Mother was right about something. And then like, I wouldn't Never heard the end of that. We were pretty shocked. Actually. I just figured when your husband's like we better take him to the to the doctor. He's like, my mom has been bugging me about this. And she said something. But I'm fascinated that that your that your mother in law, just like from being a couple times, just like that's diabetes like wow, Jesus. Yeah, she

Martha Andrews 30:19
was a smart lady. She read a lot. And the fact that she she called it that was pretty impressive. And we really, I mean, my husband's a urologist. He knows about peeing, he knows what it means, you know. But you don't go there. I was listening to one of your podcasts and And the woman said, you know, don't look for zebra, if it's a horse, it's a horse. You don't have to look for the zebra or whatever she said. And that's so true. Yeah, you know,

Scott Benner 30:47
except if you have diabetes, and you don't know it, when now it's a zebra all the sudden, because, yes, because she's, you know, a kid piece a couple of times. For most people, that just means they drank a lot or maybe ate like a fewer carbs and maybe a little more high protein that day. And but yeah, that's really something so he just, he's not DKA, which is great.

Martha Andrews 31:09
No, I think the amount of exercise the sports that he he did, and he was always no, the strongest player, typically on the team. And so you know, he worked he played the whole game of whatever he was doing and then going on to the next one and running up and down the field. So I'm sure that had a lot to do

Scott Benner 31:28
with it kind of kept his blood sugar down. So yeah, 17 years ago, is he did he get fast acting insulin? Was he using Basal on?

Martha Andrews 31:37
He did the human he had Humalog and the the long acting like Lantis

Scott Benner 31:44
or something mantis. Yeah. And you got a meter I imagine, but

Martha Andrews 31:48
was not not for. Yeah, we got a meter for sure. Right? Yes, but we had meters everywhere in the house everywhere. I have probably maybe 15 meters

Scott Benner 31:59
all over the house and probably throw some of them away. Now, Martha if you want to.

Martha Andrews 32:02
I know I need to keep opening another meter.

Scott Benner 32:05
Was he just injecting

Martha Andrews 32:08
he was that his endocrinologist did not want him to look at a pump or a CGM, or maybe a CGM. We didn't discuss it but a pump until he was he had mastered first of all that until he had shown a sign that he needed it. And that he understood if he was controlling it with shots that he was going to stay that way. We even though we kept asking.

Scott Benner 32:34
Okay, I'm trying to think of when Dexcom all they were founded in 99. Did they have a product right away then? I wonder when the first CGM was

Martha Andrews 32:43
Mark was pretty he caught it in high school. He didn't like it. Okay. When he first got it, the CGM and he stopped wearing it for a while.

Scott Benner 32:52
Does he wear one now? Oh, yes. Yeah. The first couple iterations were like they were groundbreaking, but they're not nearly the way they are now. That's no,

Martha Andrews 33:01
and then the needle itself that I mean, that's the insertion portion of the process

Scott Benner 33:09
was awful. Which one was he using? In the beginning? Was it the Medtronic? One Medtronic, oh, yeah, they call that one? The harpoon? Yes. I'm sure Medtronic, they don't call it that. But outside.

Martha Andrews 33:22
But the pump? I mean, that was an amazing. That was an amazing game changer for us.

Scott Benner 33:27
Yeah. Tell me why what did it change for him?

Martha Andrews 33:31
Well, just, he didn't have to carry. I mean, he always had his D bag, as we call it. You know, it's one of those Nike shoe bags that you could wear as a backpack. And he always had his stuff in there, but, but he didn't have to pull out go through all the process of dosing for himself if he could just do it. By pressing a couple of buttons. It gave him a lot of freedom. Wow, wherever he was the people he was with. And I think it helped control. Taking the insulin. You know, I think a teenage kid sometimes. You know, they say they took it and they didn't, or they miss a dose because they said they're gonna do it. And then they forget. Yeah,

Scott Benner 34:17
just the easier to have a pump on what he wears. I don't know what pump he wears. Now, I guess, to slim, if he slim? Is he doing control like you? Or is he? Um,

Martha Andrews 34:26
I think yeah, he is. Well,

Scott Benner 34:28
that's pretty cool. That's great technology.

Martha Andrews 34:31
Yeah, that his problem is he does take his pump off for hours at a time when he's at practice. So he switches up. He doesn't get his he didn't do his he has to take long acting in addition. Okay,

Scott Benner 34:47
so because to his pump, yeah, his his life is pretty specific. So he doesn't I guess that's not that he doesn't want to wear it. I guess he can't. He can't carry that fuselage. He can't carry that around. Yeah, I would imagine by the rules of the game. He's not allowed to if nothing Yeah, I

Martha Andrews 35:01
don't I don't think we've ever tested that there's just no way he's gonna go around with a Yeah. You know that on him?

Scott Benner 35:07
Well, well, you know, it's funny because if you've never met like a professional football player in real life, you don't have because they're also big on television. It's deceiving. Like, like how large they are, and how gigantic and how fast they're running into each other. You might as well just take that T slim out and like, throw it on the ground, hit it with a hammer before trying to take it to a football game. But yeah, they just they're launching themselves at each other in at amazing speeds. And it's just, you just have to meet one guy and stand next to him for five seconds before you think like I'm not even a human being compared to this guy. Like, I'm not a man compared to this. I I've had those moments around baseball players, where I stand there and I'm like, I feel like a little kid, you know?

Martha Andrews 35:53
And imagine taking him up to college for the first time at a pretty big, big time college and seeing the people that were going to try and kill him obviously. It's like as a mother, I'm like, we're turning around and going home.

Scott Benner 36:05
Well, yeah, cuz finally they're all as big as him right? Oh, well,

Martha Andrews 36:09
and they were so mean. They had huge beards. I mean, these were men. These were not like 18 year old Mark. Yeah. Did he play biceps as big as his thighs?

Scott Benner 36:21
Did he redshirted? Did he play right away? He redshirted? Yeah, yeah. They're trying to probably get weighed on him at first, right? Did he play? Did he play for years? Or did he get drafted before

Martha Andrews 36:29
he played he had redshirted one year and was played for three years. So he was there for four years. Gotcha. What is his degree in? Business?

Scott Benner 36:41
Well, hopefully he'll be able to use that when he's done playing a lot. That's the plan. Yeah. Excellent. That's really something like I mean, in Oklahoma, did you get to see him play there? Much?

Martha Andrews 36:50
We went a lot. Yeah, we tried to go as often as we could. You know, they don't let you see him except for after the game like in and professional, you can go out to dinner with them the night before the game, or the only time we could see Mark was after the game. You know, if we had a little time, we could go to dinner. At least sit with him at his house or do whatever, but we didn't see him as often.

Scott Benner 37:16
A lot of people might not know about that. You go to your kids college games and you don't like the last thing in the world you want is a coach to see you talking to or making eye contact with your child like you just just keep it all very just I don't know why you feel i That's the that's when I feel like a little kid the most.

Martha Andrews 37:33
Yeah. You don't let the coach see you want

Scott Benner 37:37
to break a rule? You know, it's ridiculous. We should just all walk up the fence or whatever, and be like, Hey, how are you like a human being and then walk away. But instead everybody's just got their head down. And

Martha Andrews 37:47
you have to remember that they have their their game, you know, rituals? Yeah. And you can't mess with that either.

Scott Benner 37:54
Yeah, no, I know. Trust me. I'm aware. I just, it just feels silly. While you're doing it, and you're an adult and you're paying for that school. You don't I mean, that's. Oh my gosh. So at what point did you not look at him and think he's smaller? Did he get to that point in college?

Martha Andrews 38:14
Um, yeah, I mean, he, he definitely was one of the taller players once he actually started playing on the football field after his first year. I mean, he had put on weight. He was strong. He was definitely was one. You know, one of his good buddies is Orlando Brown, who plays for Kansas City right now. And he was six, eight, you know, he's really the only one that made Mark look small. But other than that, I mean, Mark was, you know, towering in that in that huddle?

Scott Benner 38:50
Yeah, well, that's what makes him special, honestly, is that he's that big and he moves well, you know what immunity he can run? Yeah. Yeah. You know, guys that sighs I mean, for the most part and blocking usually get you know, and being more a lineman or he's just, you know, he moves like, he's not that big. So I

Martha Andrews 39:08
think that soccer and basketball Yeah, yeah. From playing man. I think it's made a big difference in his foot. Foot skills and and his speed.

Scott Benner 39:16
Yeah, that's really interesting, because they try to tell you all the time not to just put your kid in one sport and mostly no one listens. Yeah, but he gets it into their head that they can turn this kid into a thing and but I'll tell you right now, like, I don't think he can I think you just, you know, you can get better and you can work hard and all that stuff. But you got to start with. Gonna start with the right pieces. You can't just put it together from out like, I could not suddenly become a bodybuilder. You know what I mean? Like, I could work as hard as I want. It's just it's never gonna come together for me. And that's not necessarily true, Martha, I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's true. I

Martha Andrews 39:50
mean, you take all the right supplements, you get a good trainer. You work really hard.

Scott Benner 39:54
Who's gonna make you might be able to make this podcast while I'm busy doing all that. Oh my gosh. All right. I'm Sorry, so he gets diabetes. Nine years old. Who how's the management work, then? Is he doing it himself? Are you supplementing him? Or How's it go?

Martha Andrews 40:09
Well, I mean, the whole family steps up, we're all involved in the education portion, including his grandparents who who lived up just down the street from us. We all learned what needed to be done. But bottom line, it was Mark that did it. And he started from the very first shot giving it to himself. Occasionally, he, he needed help, maybe inserting money on a pump. But for the most part, he did it. And and I would say, the details like the numbers, the different things we had to remember that was that was really my responsibility. Just you know, but we always had someone with them. He went from being the fourth child, we dropped off at places that some being the fourth child that always had a brother, sister, mother or father with him. Yeah,

Scott Benner 41:03
no one. Did anyone resent that? Do you think? Or was everybody kind of on board?

Martha Andrews 41:07
Oh, no. Everybody was on board. Good. That's

Scott Benner 41:09
amazing. So he goes, I mean, is his diabetes, a focal point of his life through through high school? Or is it in the background?

Martha Andrews 41:20
I'd have to say it in the background. It was it a focal point of my life with him in high school, probably. But, you know, it was it was something that Mark did and it really had nothing to do with. He tried not to let it affect, you know, schoolwork, or, or sporting things or being with friends. He took good care of it for the most part. I mean, he wasn't. It's a hard. It's a hard disease to be really perfect that because it throws curveballs on a daily basis, but it wasn't, you know, I don't I would say half this. I'd say 90% of the school didn't even know he had diabetes. And it's certainly not something he hid.

Scott Benner 42:04
Right? Yeah, just just something it just didn't come out a lot. No, yeah, I get that. How about was there? Well, I guess I should ask you first because it's before CGM and everything else. Did you sleep much? Or were you know what

Martha Andrews 42:19
I'm at? I'm a terrible mom, I have to tell you. I don't think I woke up one time in the middle of night to test his blood sugar. Unless he was sick. Yeah, but he was okay. So yeah, he was always okay. And I kind of I talked to you I do this coffee with another woman whose son is older and, and we work with JDRF. And have once a month we have a coffee. Mostly it's it's moms with newly diagnosed or younger children with diabetes, and it's for just the moms and you know, they're up several times a night, they've got the the numbers on their phone. And they're constantly doing that I, I probably should have. And I actually feel really guilty, but I guess I just didn't know to do that.

Scott Benner 43:10
I'm gonna say that before the technology exists that where you could see the blood sugar in real time. That's not what they told you. Right? Like, they probably was what go to bed a little high. You test in the morning. If you're not low, it went okay. And don't think about now you see the CGM and you realize how it can fluctuate. And

Martha Andrews 43:26
it goes so high go so low. I mean, you know, you just hope that that their bodies can feel something when it's really not good and that you always had sugar there, whatever. And I was attentive to him. He took care of himself. But that was now there were mornings it would he would wake up. And we Tet, I'd asked him his numbers. And I remember what number it was really high, and he couldn't even walk, right. I mean, his legs crumbled underneath me threw up. I mean, that was probably a night, I should have woken him up in the middle of the night, see what his numbers were?

Scott Benner 43:57
Yeah, but how would you know if that's how it was done that I'll tell you that for those people who you're talking about who are newly diagnosed, or you know, have the technology and can see it, the key to me, and if you keep listening to the podcast, Martha, you're going to hear it like, to me the key is to just really understand how the insulin works to have a rock solid Basal program Pre-Bolus Your meals to stay away from spikes, you know, don't stare at high blood sugars, kind of, you know, correct them. Understand the different impacts of different foods be flexible, like when you do that, you can start to find stability that actually will will, you know, pay you back overnight, and that's suddenly you're not up all the time. And yeah, top of that these algorithms are insane. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah.

Martha Andrews 44:40
Do you did you get up at night?

Scott Benner 44:42
Oh, before the CGM? Yeah, like I was. But my daughter was diagnosed when she was too. Yeah, you had to Yeah. So there was just like, you know, it took me in the beginning. I just thought I was great at it. Like I was, you know, I had this plan. I would get her to like 190. And she'd wake up at like 90 And I thought I was amazing. And then then one night, I just, I found myself wondering like what is happening while she's asleep. And then CGM, like Dexcom became available, and I got the doctor to do this, you know, back then they would give you one blinded for a week to see if your insurance would pay for it used to be like that, you'd have to wear it for a week, then the report would come back. And if you were having Lowe's, and your insurance company would pay for it. So the report comes back, I was putting Arden to bed at 190, she was dropping into the 50s. I'm assuming eventually her liver would kick in and like, give off some glucose. And then she'd drift back up to 90. And when I saw that, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, like, not only am I not good at this, like how was like, I'm lucky, she's okay. You know, and that, that then made me start paying attention to it, but I was not good at it back then. The way I am now, it took me a while to figure out how to create real stability. And to keep blood sugar's at a lower number stable without a risk of like, you know, a quick fall all the time and how to manage karbi or stuff, you know, I'm sure your son must eat like a horse I'm imagining, right, like so like, how do you Bolus for all that stuff, especially as they're growing? Stop a spike without there being a, you know, allow, like, there's, there's episodes of this podcast that are all about just management stuff. And I find that they're not just valuable for me, but for the people listening to.

Martha Andrews 46:31
So I mean, so your daughter doesn't have a lot of highs and lows, she just kind of maintains pretty level.

Scott Benner 46:38
Yeah, the way I draw Yeah, the way we think about it is, I don't want her to be under 70. So we would stop that from happening if it was trying to happen, but it does not try to happen very, very often, probably a time or two a month, you'll get to that 55 or something just goes wonky. You don't know what happened. But on the other side of it. After a meal, I'm okay with like 140 ish 160 I think of as a higher blood sugar, and I think of 180 as a spike. And then when you kind of get yourself in that mindset, and you've got good solid settings, you'd be surprised how infrequently you spike and how infrequently you get low, because it's so much about putting the insulin in at the right times. And that's sort of it. It's, uh, took me a long time to figure all that out and took me even longer to lay it out here in the podcast so people could hear it. Yeah, but it still happens. I mean, I'm not going to tell you that there aren't days where, you know, she's ovulating. And her you know, I can't get her blood sugar to move off to Swanee. And I'm sure you saw growth hormones when Mark was in high school, you probably just didn't even you didn't record it was so

Martha Andrews 47:46
fluctuating. I mean, it's still I mean, he's a meal, it goes up to 300. And you know, then it falls back down to normal number. I just can't, I just can't worry about the highs. Yeah, I can barely worry about the lows. But

Scott Benner 48:04
so you're an interesting position because you came out of a different generation of this, where what you're saying makes complete sense for them. And I I totally understand it, but you tell Mark, if he wants to spend like four days after the season's over, I'll teach him how to Bolus and he won't have highs like that anymore. Okay, it's super time. Yeah, it was how like, you just listen to the podcast if you wanted to. Good luck. Not a podcast guy you don't think? I don't know? You don't know? Is it is that um, is it hard that he still has diabetes, but he's an adult? For you, you worry about him? Do you want to say things? Do you want to ask questions that you don't because you're like, how does that whole relationship work?

Martha Andrews 48:48
Um, well, you know, I knew he was gonna have diabetes as an adult. I mean, I never even thought it was going to be an option. Right? Yeah. So diabetes is the one thing I don't ever hesitate. I'm embarrassing myself. or contacting him when I'm not supposed to. It's It's my job. Even if, you know, I know, he disconnects me sometimes. But I'm not going to keep my mouth shut. I'm gonna you know, I'm always gonna step up if I think you need you know, to treat more or you know, I'll keep calling if he's asleep and his numbers are low and he's not answering. I'll keep calling up keep calling. I'll call a neighbor call, you know, do things he probably is cringing, but um, you know, I have no problem. doing whatever it takes for me to make sure he's healthy and safe. With his diabetes.

Scott Benner 49:55
That's amazing. Also, I think it's hilarious that he does that he takes you off from seeing

Martha Andrews 50:00
Just one time I said, You need to turn me on. I'm like, Oh my God, that didn't sound right.

But yeah, he his brother and I keep keep his numbers. Okay, so he says you call him I said, No, you call? No, you call.

Scott Benner 50:17
I'm imagining a times he's gotten a Texas says, Hey, mom's worried about your blood sugar, you gotta do something. I'm tired. Oh, absolutely.

Martha Andrews 50:22
100% Mom's on my case, will you please take some sugar?

Scott Benner 50:28
It's just kind of like, it's interesting to hear. I mean, listen, we haven't said it directly the entire time we're talking. But the reason I wanted to have you on is because the your relationship and your life. And his accomplishment is, it's so tied to what people worry about when their young children are diagnosed, right? Am I you know, am I or is this disease going to slow my kid down, keep them from accomplishing something. And, you know, people love to hear, I think, from athletes from type one, because it's that it's that thing, we all kind of just, you know, universally agree. Like, you know, it's amazing, like, I listen, I don't know, I love football, but off the top my head on whether they're 30 teams ish in the NFL 3232, they each carry probably one starting tight end, your son is one of the 32 best tight ends in the world, you know what I mean? And I think you could have an argument, he's probably a lot closer than to the top than he is to the bottom. So like that he did that with diabetes, and in a time when they didn't have glucose sensing technology, nearly the way is, is it is today, like, I know, people are gonna hear this and feel good like that maybe my kid has a real shot or I there's things I could be doing that I'm not giving myself credit for being able to do. You know, it's lovely of you to come on and talk about it, because I think it's that important to everybody.

Martha Andrews 52:03
Well, I mean, it is it's important to mark and more importantly, right. So, you know, on his cleats, he said for that my cause my cleats, he he always puts on his cleats, diabetes is a part of me, but I will never let it define me or my dreams. And that's the message he wants to give to people is that I mean, you know, kids, certain kids have a lot of other complications other than just diabetes, it could be a celiac, they could have other autoimmune things going on. So, you know, it's not just as simple as that. And sometimes it's not a sporting thing they want to do it, it's that they want to go and be a fireman, or they want to go to the army. And you think, you know, how do you achieve that? When you're dependent on insulin? I mean, can you know, are you going to be able to do that? Or what if what if you're having a low and you're, you're out in the middle of nowhere? I mean, there's all sorts of things but but it doesn't mean it's impossible. It just means you got to figure out how to make it work. And, and not and you know, you may get a lot of nose. But then there's gonna be someone that might give you that chance. And I think, you know, with Mark, yeah, I personally, this is just coming from me. I thought mark should have been drafted in on the first day, and a higher draft pick in the first round. Yeah, but I think it, it was maybe a little intimidating that he had type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 53:34
Martha. So I'll let me tell you that I had a boy on about six months ago, Patrick wetlander, a pitcher, and he went a lot lower. He was diagnosed as the draft was coming up. And the conversations that people were having with him prior to diabetes, were not the same as they started having after he was diagnosed, he definitely dropped in the draft because of it.

Martha Andrews 53:57
I firmly believe that that is the case. But it only takes one person to believe in you, right? Or to take a risk or whatever it is. You just keep trying and trying until you find that solution. You know, the Raven said it wasn't a factor. So I applaud them. They should have taken him first. But you know, it is what it is. And I think Mark will probably he had probably a pretty good chip on his shoulder because of it. But you know, he just has to go out and do what he needs to do and he needs to take care of himself while he's doing it. I mean, what a diabetic goes through on a daily basis whether you're working in a in a business job, or you're, you're playing baseball or you're as a fireman or a ballerina or a fashion designer. It is so complex for them to get through every single day when everybody else just you know takes it for granted.

Scott Benner 54:58
Yeah, no It's, it's important that you don't give up because you will meet somebody along the way. Right. And you never know who your efforts gonna touch. You know, Sam folds been on here a number of times it Sam played for the Oakland A's and a number of different pro teams for he was in the league for like eight years. It's actually the general manager of the Phillies right now. But because he played baseball, he, you know, he played for a guy who managed him who now knows, you know, it's not a big deal to have a type one on the team. And then that guy goes off and he's a manager somewhere else, then the next kid comes along, and you got to think that in his head, he thinks, Well, you know, Sam did it. Like, right, maybe that's not maybe the next time the draft rolls around. I mean, maybe there are 31 other teams that are like, geez, we skipped this kid because he had diabetes, and we all should have taken him. Right, because by the third, he was taken to the third round, right, third round. Yeah. So I take your point, I would agree with you too. And that means they all passed on him multiple times. Maybe even right, you know, before somebody took him and now they're all I mean, he is legit. I mean, I think you know, that, like your, your kid can really play so good. Let them all let them all I feel bad about the crow. Yeah, no kidding. And, and other things to not just diabetes, like, you know, I mean, I don't know how you look up at him and think this is gonna be a problem. I mean, he played at Oklahoma for, you know, for all three years. Like, he obviously knows how to do it. It's

Martha Andrews 56:27
yeah. And he was he was a Mackey award winner. Was he? For tight ends. No kidding. He was all American, unanimous All American. And you wonder, you know, what do you think in that, that, that it was fake what he did? So I could go on forever about that. I just want to

Scott Benner 56:45
I don't want to get in trouble here. But was it palpable, palpable, palpable, palpable in the house, on when it didn't happen on the first day? Were you like, did anybody did your husband and you go into a closet and be like, this is the diabetes or like, you don't? I mean,

Martha Andrews 57:01
it was uncomfortable on the second day. Okay. After you know, okay, so we didn't go first round their second round. And then that was when it got a little tougher,

Scott Benner 57:12
huh. I imagine when you see other people going at your position that you think skills wise, you're like, oh, yeah, well, yeah. What's happening? Do you have a be honest? Is there a list of tight ends no longer in the league that we're taking ahead of your son hanging in your house anywhere? No, my, my daughter played softball very competitively. When she was younger, she had a she had a list of kids. So my daughter was small, but very, very athletic with an amazing arm. And she was just a really great third baseman. And she had a small list of all the girls, they tried to put in front of her third base that she knocked off a third base over and over again. And that's awesome. Yeah, part of me thought it wasn't healthy. But the other part of me is I really lit a fire for sighs like, she's like, Yeah, come back from practice you'd like now they're trying to put this one there. And I was like, Okay. I got beat her to I was like, All right.

Martha Andrews 58:07
Yeah, whatever they need to do to get through the day.

Scott Benner 58:10
No, no, it's Listen, no one's gonna know how hard it is. Unless they do it. My son puts so much effort and time into sports. It's, you know, it happens in the middle of winter when nobody else would think it's happening. It happens in the dead of summer when he's the only one standing outside. And 105 degree heat trying to get better at something and yeah, it is so true. It is not easy at all.

Martha Andrews 58:34
No. And they don't come home. They're not home for holidays there. Yeah.

Scott Benner 58:39
Oh, God. Spring break is baseball tournament. Yeah,

Martha Andrews 58:42
I Oh, absolutely.

Scott Benner 58:43
I haven't been on a vacation at the time. Most people go on vacation. And I can't even I don't even know when the last time was that go to his games? Yes, much. Yeah, I make almost all of them. That's impressive. Yeah, he's they have a lot of games. Yeah. But he's within driving distance of us. And that's good. I don't make the ones during the week. They make the weekend games usually. And it just it to me. Like this is a conversation probably every parent of a kid who goes off to college to play something has. He's been playing baseball since he's four. And he finally made it like I forget how old he was eight or nine years old when he said to me, like, I'm gonna play baseball in college. I don't even think he knew what college was when he said, you know, and I'm like, Alright, man, like, you know, when they say like, okay, you know, and, and there's still little kids and there's kids on this team at that time that look like they're better than him. And that happens every year. Every year. Somebody looks like they're better than you but they don't work as hard or whatever. And I just said to my buddy, I was like, he's been playing since he's four he made it to college. I'm like, What am I gonna stop going now? Right? Like this is like this is the this is it? Like he probably doesn't go farther than this. I've got four years left to watch him play baseball. And awesome, you know, so yeah, we make as many as we can. Is there anything about all of this but I didn't think to ask you about.

Martha Andrews 1:00:03
Um, yeah, it's pretty much been pretty open. You know, I've been interviewed quite a few times about Mark and, and one of the things that I do know, that is so important is the family is critical, the friends are critical. Making sure that, you know, you're not a T, one D. And nobody else knows about it, that it really does take a village and caring for them. And I know Mark understands that as much as maybe it drives him crazy. He knows that he needs all of us to be on board to support him. And, you know, I'm so thankful that we we've been lucky enough where he went to college, and I walked down the aisle had a meeting with the doctors and the coaches, when we first got there, they probably thought it was crazy. But I told him, I had to meet with them and said, You know, I don't want my son to die here. So we have to have a game plan, and everybody needs to be on board. Yeah. And, and you know, they all stepped up, it was very impressive. And it's been pretty similar. In Baltimore, when I've needed them, they've been there. And his brothers and sister are always there to take care of things they need to take care of. And they look out for him. They go out when he's here, you know, with his buddies, you know, going out enjoying themselves. They like to go with him. Not because you know, they're they're babysitting or anything, they just, you know, it's the right thing to do. And

Scott Benner 1:01:47
you So do you ever wonder or worry about like, if he, if he's dating, I'm not asking you if he's dating. But like that idea of like, you start meeting a partner who understands type one as well. Do you think? Do you ever think about that? Because a lot of parents come on here and talk about that, like, they're worried that their kids are going to end up with somebody who won't support them or understand things like that. I haven't

Martha Andrews 1:02:09
worried about that. I mean, he doesn't he's not dating you by now. He has dated someone, you know, people in the past. And they they have been supportive. I mean, I don't know, if they've been supportive, or I've made them support. It's like this, you will do this. It's not a choice. I do it with his friends, too. I mean, this is this is who he is. This is how we take care of it. And if you're going to be a part of his life, you have to be on board.

Scott Benner 1:02:36
Do you think that people would like, you think that his size makes people think of him as older than he is? Has that always happened through his life?

Martha Andrews 1:02:44
Yes, yeah. Always. Always. And he's a pretty mature kid. I mean, I think diabetes makes you very mature at an early age. Yeah. And I think and he, you know, being the youngest of four, being as tall as he is, I mean, he, he comes across much older than any Yes,

Scott Benner 1:03:02
yeah, it was just as I'm just thinking, like, you know, as he's walking out the door, and you're grabbing one of his friends and you're like, Listen, do you know how the glucagon works? And

Martha Andrews 1:03:11
it but isn't that the truth? No, call me you know, they, his college roommate called when he couldn't get them to wake up his his high school buddies. Bring him home immediately. When he's not acting right. You know, either they test they try and get sugar in it. If they still can't take care of it. They brought him home. Yeah, you know, something's wrong with Mark,

Scott Benner 1:03:29
you need a group of people around you. It makes it much, much easier. Yeah, I percent. Listen, I didn't know if he was dating. But I gotta be honest, if I was his age, and in the shape he was in and just signed the contract he did. I wouldn't be dating anybody either.

Martha Andrews 1:03:42
First of all, he doesn't have time. And he like, likes to meet as many people as possible.

Scott Benner 1:03:49
That's the route I would go to. I think he's handled it just perfectly. Anyway. Well, I just, I can't thank you enough for doing this. It really was. It's lovely speaking with you. Maybe we need to do this again. Actually, I was just thinking you said you have a coffee thing is that like an in person thing you do local. We

Martha Andrews 1:04:10
were doing it in person. And it was great. We once a month we'd have coffee over the other hosts or my house and JDRF would you know they're sponsoring it and people would come and we I mean, we all cried. Sometimes we'd have grandparents there. Sometimes it'd be the dad, sometimes it'd be the mom. And we just you know, we'd have different topics. We have different guest speakers. We went to zoom. I think their numbers increase because it's a little bit easier to be you know, someone that works, can can listen in. And it's it's just been a for me, I need to I need to I don't know represent. I'm someone who was scared to death to send a child to college and I You know, I survived it, I'm scared to death, let him drive, he's driving, you know, all the things that I was scared to death to do. But he did. And we survived it. And he's excelling. So, you know, I feel like it's my duty to help these, these moms who are just in the weeds, when that first diagnosis comes through. And, you know, whatever we can do to support that, and let them know that we we understand what they're going through. And it doesn't it it, it never goes away. But it's just not so intense. Once you understand it a little bit better.

Scott Benner 1:05:40
Yeah, I usually tell people that diabetes doesn't get easier. But at some point, you'll get so good at it that it might feel easy once in a while. Right, you know, and just the idea that it alleviates a little bit once you get your footing, and you really know what you're doing. And you've had some experiences that have led to more knowledge, and all of a sudden you start putting it together. And before you know it, you're like, Oh, we're not bad at this.

Martha Andrews 1:06:02
Right? Yeah. And you know, people need to know, what do you take for sugar? What do you take for? What do you do? How do you travel? How do you do this? How do you do that? I mean, there's so many questions. You can't just sit and call your doctor all the time. And, you know, so I think it's great when we're not moms can talk or they got it one of those diabetes dogs. Yeah. What does that look like? And it's not what you think, you know, it's hard work. And

Scott Benner 1:06:27
just the dog just doesn't sit in the corner, like a superhero. And every time it needs something, yeah,

Martha Andrews 1:06:32
that it is the network kind of thing. It's just going to solve all your problems, but it doesn't, you know, and, and so learning about that is so helpful on it if we can, if we can alleviate some of the questions and concerns or, or give them tools to help it make it easier, then I'm all for that.

Scott Benner 1:06:50
Excellent. Me too. And you are going to reach a lot of people doing this. So you've done that today as well. I really appreciate your time.

Martha Andrews 1:06:57
Well, it's always my pleasure, and you make us You make me feel very comfortable talking to you. So I appreciate that. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:07:04
I It's my goal for you to feel comfortable. Plus, how are you going to say that you think your kids should have gone higher? If you're nervous? I need

Martha Andrews 1:07:13
am I going to get in trouble for that? I don't know

Scott Benner 1:07:15
you're going to but the whole time I was sitting here I was thinking like, like, Mark, I'll just bleep this out later. But like through the entire thing. I'm like, how did that kid go in the third round? Like, that doesn't make any sense to me. And and then you said it, I thought, Well, how did I not think of that? Because I just interviewed a kid who said the same thing happened to him? Just it's just I don't know, I think it's because your son's built like a, like a giant that I don't think of anything. Being serious. Like, I don't think of anything being able to touch him. But like, look how easily this happened. You know, and I mean, listen, it's, you know, I feel like it probably all worked out really well for him in the end. But, you know, it's also a tough game like he could, you know, I mean, he could have snapped his head off nine games into it never, never made any money. And you know, you could be sitting here, it'd be a different story.

Martha Andrews 1:08:06
So I will tell you when he was chosen for the Pro Bowl, which, you know, was a huge, huge, huge, huge accomplishment. Yeah. It was the first time he felt validated in his professional career. And I think he'd always kind of felt like that. Being picked, so many people, so many Titans being chosen before him. Then he wins the starting spot at the ravens and he wasn't the first tied in, and he wins, you know, and then he gets in the Pro Bowl. And for him, it was some validation. And he was actually it's the first time he was able to talk about it with us about his feelings through that process. So I thought that was, you know, that was a, that was a really special moment for all of us.

Scott Benner 1:09:04
I would imagine it feels some I mean, not that it could feel much better. But, you know, he definitely knows nobody handed it to him. Right. And that's absolutely that's got to feel really great. You know, just because you come out of a pedigree College, especially, I mean, if I'm, Listen, I'm not an aficionado, but Oklahoma makes tight ends, right.

Martha Andrews 1:09:25
I have no idea. I don't know football. But they make they make winning football. Yeah, they win football game. I mean, that's for sure. And that's why he went there, you know, and he could have gotten a lot. He could have gone anywhere you wanted. But you know, he went

Scott Benner 1:09:40
there purposely and you Yeah. And I just listen, I listen, I have a different perspective than maybe some people would because I have a child who plays a sport and I know what goes into it. And I also imagine that it could sound silly to somebody else, right? Like, oh, you weren't drafted in the first round draft. Like who cares boohoo It's like big work. Yeah. But you don't you might not know. You know what I mean? Like, there are things that, you know, while the rest of you are sitting around, you know, and you're watching television or doing whatever you're doing, like, I can hear my son in the basement when he's home from school, lifting weights and putting them back down and write him off and putting them down and, and he's the one who goes out and stands on a baseball field and throws a ball over and over and over again. So that the one time in a game that it happens, and it happens at full speed. He makes that throw the way he means to and you know, he'll he'll, for every amazing thing I've ever seen my son do in a baseball game. I saw him do it 1000 times on a practice

Martha Andrews 1:10:39
field. Exactly. So well put, yeah, so well put,

Scott Benner 1:10:43
it really isn't as simple as you know, you could say it's just a game if you want, but you put your whole life into anything. It's not just anything. You know, it's it's what you've been putting your focus into. So, yeah, yeah. And it's so worth it. I'll never forget the first time I saw a kid put a ball into a gap, you know, in the right center field and the largest offense and the kid on the first thought he was gonna make it the third and my son stands up like Superman and puts that ball in the third base. And it is hard not to stand up and go yo, did you all just see what my kid did? That was my son. And I imagine you know how that feels. It's very hard to hold that inside. Just stand up and you're very politely clap at a baseball. Oh, good job. Nice. Throw it inside. You're thinking my son's much better than yours. And there you go. And I'm not trying to get you to say that I just, I really, it is just it's a it's a it's an overwhelming wash of pride. Because you know how much effort he put into it. And not that the other don't put that kind of effort into it. But when it pans out, it's it's just kind of special, you know, and you deserve. You deserve what you deserve after that, so. Alright, well, Martha, I'm glad you had a good time. I did. I will say goodbye to you now. Thank you so much course Hold on one second for me.

I am not afraid to set the bar high by coming out of the gate strong in 2022 with Mark Andrews mom about that right. And NFL football players mommy was on the show. How cool is that? I want to thank Dexcom for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast and remind you to go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to get started today. But the best darn CGM that I've ever seen, held, touched or looked at through the internet. And don't forget about that on the pod promise Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. If you've been wanting to switch to a pump, or get rid of your tubing, there's no better time than right now to make that decision and get started.

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#604 Is Kate Winslet Right?

Linda is the mother of a child with type 1 diabetes.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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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 episode 604 of the Juicebox Podcast.

This one's fun. Linda is the mom of a child with type one diabetes. And she lives like almost exactly where I grew up. And we figured that out very quickly the beginning of the episode. It follows suit. I'd love to tell you what else we talked about. But I edited this program many weeks ago and I no longer remember. That's as honest as I can be. While you're listening, 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 health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. If you're new to the podcast, you should check out the Facebook page Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, it is private and has over 18,000 people in it just like you are all talking about taking care of type one. If you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes or the defining diabetes series, they can be found at Juicebox Podcast comm quorate. Di just forgot what the link Oh, I got it. Boy or a diabetes pro tip.com. It's been a long year, I made a lot of podcasts. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast isn't sponsored by anybody. I made more podcasts than I had ads for. That's okay, though. I do want to take a moment to thank the advertisers. And seriously for you to understand that the podcast just doesn't exist without the advertisers. I know, I'm not kidding. This is the end of December, it's between Christmas and New Year most people have offered at the very least they're not doing stuff like I'm doing right now. I keep putting out the podcast for you because that's what I do. And that's what I do. Because I can afford to do that because I have advertisers. And because you guys support them, you know, you support the show. You listen, you share it. That's why advertisers are interested. That's why I'm sitting here today. And every advertiser we had from 2021 is coming back for 2022. I think we're adding one more. And that's a testament to many things. But a large part of it is due to you and your support. And I really appreciate it because I just I couldn't make the podcast. I mean, I'm just being honest, I'm an adult, I can't make this podcast if I don't make money while I do it. So thank you very much for listening and sharing it with other people and supporting the sponsors. You know, you need an omni pod, you get an omni pod from my link, it's a big deal for me. Same with Dexcom contour, G vote, voc touch by type one, if you support the T one D exchange by taking their survey trial to try this out this year a little bit. Maybe there'll be back next year. Everything I mean, it's just it's common sense. But when you support those things, it allows the podcast to go on. So there are links in your show notes and links at Juicebox Podcast comm to all the sponsors, and if you should need them, I really appreciate it if you use my link.

Linda 3:31
Hi, my name is Linda. And I have a son Dylan, who's six. He was diagnosed almost a year ago now. And we live in Pennsylvania.

Scott Benner 3:41
I was born in Pennsylvania.

Linda 3:44
I live outside of Philadelphia.

Scott Benner 3:49
Alright, hold on a second. Linda will bleep this part out. I'm sorry. No, no, that's not over. No, no, no, no, don't we're not starting over. What do you think this podcast is some like well, like, like edited thing. I'll just think I'm gonna ask you a question. Then I'm gonna bleep out your answer my answer. Okay. Where do you live outside of Philly? I live in. Okay, I grew up in

Linda 4:13
oh my gosh, what a small world. I can throw a stone they're

Scott Benner 4:17
saying you started saying outside of Philly. And I was like, only people in the Northeast say that is like outside the Northeast. Like nobody says they live outside of Philly. If they live out, you know, on another side of the city. It's that it's very, it's a specific colloquialism to.

Linda 4:34
And I'm not originally from here, so I think I picked it up just by being here.

Scott Benner 4:37
Yeah, I have to bleep all that out. But no, don't be Stop saying you're sorry. So I don't sound weird to you do I

Linda 4:45
know not at all.

Scott Benner 4:47
For the rest of you. Suck it. That's amazing. Finally, somebody thinks I sound normal. Excellent. We're gonna have to say water. Oprah Winfrey, and all kinds of things while we're talking so we can hear our accent. better.

Linda 5:00
I see now that's funny. I don't have this accent. I'm from Boston. So I parked my car and I go to the bar and order a beer.

Scott Benner 5:07
Well, fine. We'll just just try really hard for me not to say water. Then while this is happening, my kids are like, it's water. I'm like, I don't think it is.

Linda 5:18
Let's see, when I go back home to Boston, they say I have a Philly accent. But when I'm in Philly every once in a while, they say you've got to Boston. So I don't know what my accent is for Goodman anymore.

Scott Benner 5:27
Anyway. So you were just asking me a second ago? You said the use the term the podcast is blowing up? Yes. And it's funny because it is. And yet I don't think of it that way. Because I've been working so hard on it for so long, like to me, I can see the slow progression of getting to this spot. But when it starts doubling on itself, then I can see where from the outside like, look, it's blowing. It is like I'm not arguing with Thank you. Let me start with that. I'm not arguing with the sentiment. It's just that I see it from, in my mind as an idea in 2014. And I see the first month, getting as many downloads as we going to say that the show is going to get the next hour and a half. Wow, you don't I mean, amazing. Yeah.

Linda 6:19
Well, you're doing great things. And I found you a little bit late. I didn't find you till a couple months into diagnosis.

Scott Benner 6:25
Okay. Well, that's, I mean, that's not I have to say something. So to give you some perspective, that's really early. And I'd be if the podcast is helpful for you, I'd be really grateful about that. Because a couple months in is still enough time. You're not cemented and any of the ideas that anybody's given you. You haven't been, you know, suffering for years or anything like that. So I think for you and your timeline, this is it's great timing. I mean, if it worked out unless you're on the show to tell me how much it sucks. And then No, it's

Linda 6:57
it's been, I found that it just the right time. We were four months in. I mean, I wish I had found it earlier. But we had just the first three months, no one really talked about Pre-Bolus thing.

Scott Benner 7:09
Yeah, no, it's not something commonly gets brought up. I don't think

Linda 7:13
No, on my three month appointment, they're like so have you started to Pre-Bolus and I was like, what? What's that? No one mentioned it.

Scott Benner 7:20
Were you gonna bring it up? Cuz? Yeah.

Linda 7:24
But I just started it like the week before. And then I you know, I started listening to the podcast and everything. So it's yeah, it came at just the right time for me to I had kind of settled into the diagnosis. I know that sounds weird to say, but, you know, just accepted it and said it started sort of getting on solid ground a little bit thick. And we were starting to know what we were doing. But we were still in honeymoon, obviously. So it was easy. And then we found the podcast as things started to change, and we had to adjust and he was still MDI them.

Scott Benner 7:58
What did not What did unsettled mean? Were you online looking for cures were like, what was what did not feeling accepting look like?

Linda 8:10
Um, I wasn't online looking for cures, I'm a type A. So I just want to I want to get in there, get my hands dirty and figure it all out. But because of the pandemic, so that's kind of why we're talking because he was diagnosed during a pandemic. So there aren't a lot of live resources, like somebody that I could go to and ask or see. I mean, our doctor's appointments after we left the hospital were telehealth. The JDRF wasn't hosting any events. There's a local chapter here, near me, of parents that put something together, they're not hosting live events. So it was really, I was looking for a tribe kind of online and didn't know where to go. So I was kind of unsettled that way. There weren't many resources in person that I could go to or someone that I could speak to. And the two tribers moms that I found that were the most help. I just found online through my local on Facebook, my local town, I just kind of posted about how to get rid of sharps and needles in our town does anyone know? And the other mom of a diabetic in our school happen to reach out to me. So and that was pretty neat because my son was diagnosed August 8, which was about two weeks before he started kindergarten. And we already started to meet at first it was crazy. Two weeks.

Scott Benner 9:39
He started virtual kindergarten. Yes. Got in person diabetes. Yeah. And can I ask did you post about the sharps just to find out about the sharps or were you hoping kind of quietly that someone would be like, like it as diabetes to where I have You, did you have any underlying thoughts? When you said that sent out that message?

Linda 10:04
Absolutely. I was looking for, you know, for some help. And I found it. And then the other time I posted online was, I've got a Cricut machine that people talk about, and the overlay patches, I wanted to see if I could, you know, create his favorite characters on them. So I had posted in a group on Facebook for that. And I found a mom out of Florida, believe it or not, which is not where I'm from. And she connected with me. And she actually told me about children with diabetes, and the friends for life conference, and all that. So

Scott Benner 10:41
you learn as you go, you take a little bits from people, okay, I don't want to get too far away without asking what Cricut machine is?

Linda 10:48
Oh, I'm sorry. So I actually have a silhouette, which is similar to a Cricut. So you cut vinyl, you make decals, and T shirts, and all sorts of customized things. So I was looking to make customized overlay patches.

Scott Benner 11:00
Gotcha. I just You said it like, like you were saying my left hand and I was like, she really knows what that thing is. But I don't understand what it is at all. Hey, yeah, I have to tell you, I'm now calling clock. Now setting up need for me to bleep myself more. But you know, my wife went to art.

Linda 11:23
That's in my backyard.

Scott Benner 11:24
That's literally right by where you live. I have a I have a fantastic story about this school that has nothing to do with my wife. I was dating a girl who went there when I was much younger. And they were going away on some senior like trip. And I was a little older than her. So I was out of high school. And I also did not go to that school. And I drove her to the school to drop her off for the trip. So we drove up, the parking was atrocious, he had to park across the street at this shopping center. Right. And I walked her over and spent I don't know, like 15 or 20 minutes milling around and saying goodbye and stuff like that. And I think with that he's saying goodbye means you kiss. And so we're saying goodbye. And you know, she gets on the bus. And I walk back across the property across the street through a parking lot to get to my car, you know, thinking I wonder what I'm gonna do with my one week of not being like a dating person. And then I get to my car and realize my keys are in her pocketbook. So I am now sprinting down the road, waving my hands at Subway. And the bus finally comes to a stop and I just look her in the face. And I go, you have my keys and the windows are shut and she gets this look of like shocked horror surprise on her face and starts rooting around in her stuff. And then I continue to run to the bus until it stops at another light when she puts the window down and Chuck's the keys out the window at me. Without saying anything to the bus driver. Nobody ever knew what was that I couldn't. I couldn't like overtake. I'm not that quick. I couldn't overtake the bus. You're lucky there's so many lights on. Oh 100% I could just keep up and then like, catch my breath and then keep up again. And then I took what ended up being like a 15 minute like sad walk back to my car. Anyway, she cheated on me eventually. Lovely girl, though, in case she's listening. I'm sorry. So I just don't There's nowhere else for me to ever tell anyone that. Yeah, you're the only one that has context for the space and everything like that. Anyway, that's that's kind of stupid. Well, what were some of the signs? Are we saying your son's name? Yes. What's his name has been stolen. All right, Don, what were some of the signs like how did you? I mean, like, did everybody in your family have type one? And you were just like, oh, it's his turn? Or how did you figure it out?

Linda 14:15
No, nobody at all had type one. So he was just going to the bathroom a lot. And he went to bed which he had never done since he was potty trained. Like he was never one to wear pull ups or anything like that. And yeah, and that was it. And so we caught him pretty early is able to see a diagnosis was 8.3. So I think that's coming up super early. But if you don't mind, I'm gonna go a little bit back because we kind of had it in our minds a little bit from, like 10 months before. So 10 months before diagnosis. He was going to the bathroom a lot. He wasn't drinking a lot, but he was going to the bathroom. And we took him to the doctor thinking he may have an infection or something weird for a boy, but let's take them. And they tested and everything was fine. And the doctor said, sometimes this happens. It only lasts, it can last up to six months, but it might only last a month. Let's just keep an eye on it. So they had this big, long, confusing name for whatever the diagnosis was. Said, Okay. So then the that was in an October the following March, so six months before diagnosis, he woke up one morning and he couldn't walk. And he said, his legs really hurt. And I called out of work, it was March 2, and took him to the doctor. And he had a lot of muscle breakdown in his legs. And she we had ended up going to the hospital to get some blood work done. Because if your muscle breaks down too fast, it can damage your kidneys. So they needed to see if he had kidney damage from whatever was going on. And he didn't. So we took him home and she just called follow up the next few days. And he was kind of shuffling around like an old man by the end of the first day that he went to bed and he couldn't walk again the second day. And it was really scary. And they just said it was a virus and we had to just feed him up to water and He'll get over it.

Scott Benner 16:19
Can I ask you right in that space? Do you? Are you thinking there's something seriously wrong with my kid? Or are you hoping it's just the virus? Like which way does your brain take you?

Linda 16:28
I'm an eternal optimist. I'm just thinking it's a virus. Okay. Um, but I do want to say this is two weeks before the Coronavirus was announced.

Scott Benner 16:37
Oh, oh. Oh, so we should play like old timey Dumb Dumb Dumb music like scary music. So go ahead, keep talking. Sorry. Go ahead.

Linda 16:49
That's okay. Um, so that was it. It just lasted two days. And a week later, they checked his numbers again, to make sure that he didn't have kidney damage from it. And we moved on, and everything was fine and great. We had a great summer. And then August came now because COVID Two weeks later, they were saying kids don't get it. So couldn't have been that right. Um, and but then right before diagnosis, they were saying, Oh, no, it's an inflammatory disease that they're seeing in kids that might get corona. So I start sort of thinking, Oh, well, maybe. So when he did get diagnosed, because he was drinking a lot into the bathroom, you broke the bed once. I asked the doctors I said, hey, could this be? And they said, Oh, no, no, definitely not. But I don't know. I kind of think my mom's intuition. So now there's studies coming out that it might be linked. But back when he had the virus in his legs, we didn't know about Corona. There were no tests for antibodies. And by the time six months later, that I tried to put it together. The antibodies would never wouldn't show up on a test if they took it. Okay, so we will never know.

Scott Benner 17:58
Yeah, so Okay, so the atrophy, I guess, in his legs, with was it accompanied by anything else, there are other symptoms. Nothing, nothing else. Just

Linda 18:11
he just couldn't walk. And I noticed that because I thought he just had a charley horse because he woke up in the morning with it. So I carried him down to the couch. And when he sat on the couch, he had his legs like straight out, like kids wrap their legs underneath them and go in all these crazy positions, because he was five. But he had his legs like straight up in front of them and just looked awkward. Uncomfortable. Something's not right.

Scott Benner 18:38
It's just odd that you went to a hospital twice for something that was serious enough that they were like, Let's make sure his kidneys haven't been damaged. But then head home, like and then was there any instruction and head home

Linda 18:51
water? Just give him lots of water. That's it.

Scott Benner 18:57
That's just water. Catchy, doesn't it?

Linda 19:00
Yeah, well, and I got really nervous the second day, cuz he's gonna shuffle it around at the end of the first day. So I'm like, Okay, well, we're gonna get over this. And then the second day when he woke up, he couldn't walk again. And the doctors got nervous, then maybe take them in for a consult for a second time. Just to kind of look them over.

Scott Benner 19:18
Did you ever come close to you going to chop?

Linda 19:21
No, not until diagnosis in August? Well, no, we went to a different hospital to get the blood work done. Okay.

Scott Benner 19:30
Well, that's really weird. Did you you don't have a diagnosis for the leg thing? No, it's a viral spiral. But do you think he was do you think that diabetes was present at that time?

Linda 19:47
I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out. Because like I said six months before that he had been paying a lot for one month. Yeah. So I don't know if it may be just exacerbated it and brought on The diagnosis maybe sooner, maybe? I don't know.

Scott Benner 20:04
Yeah. I mean, so, listen, we all know that. And if you don't know, welcome to the show that you know, you, if you end up with type one diabetes, you have these genetic markers that, that make it predispose you to having type one at some point. And the more of these markers you have, the more likely it is you're going to get it right. I forget the exact number of them. But I think there's five if you've got three, like you're getting it at some point, it's happening. So how it ends up happening, you know, a lot of people have stories about I got sick, my son got sick. And then this thing happened. Arden had coxsackievirus then she had diabetes, like, you know, and I think the confusing thing is in the terminology, where people will say like, oh, I, I had a, I had Coxsackie. And that causes type one diabetes, it's like, well, it didn't, didn't give you diabetes. It's not like, I don't know how to put it. If you're walking down the street, and you have a coin in your pocket, and someone walks up to you and tells you there's a coin in your pocket. They didn't give you the coin, right? They just made it they made it aware you made you made you aware of it, and so that you can get a virus that will then make your body go, oh, geez, I'm super sick. I'm gonna go attack this virus, I got really confused and attacked my pancreas instead. Like there's something in obviously, I'm not a scientist. And but there's something in that I just always want to be sure that people don't talk about it like a made B happen out of thin air, like a might have put things into motion that caused B to happen. It's an important distinction, but

Linda 21:42
I'm sorry. And I believe that because I'm listening to your podcasts. I found out that it's autoimmune. And my mother and my husband. Both have thyroid issues.

Scott Benner 21:52
These bastards. I knew it was someone's fault, Linda, we figured it out. Yes. What else do your pasty family members? Are they from Ireland? or England or something like that? Yes. Do a podcast where everybody's from Ireland or England at some point in their family life and they have like, autoimmune stuff wrong with them. Ah, it's just it's a good bet. You don't have to be from there, obviously. But it's just

Linda 22:20
my grandmother's from Cook County or county coke. I don't know how that's yeah, Ireland.

Scott Benner 22:25
Well, you live in Boston. So you know, it was hard to put together. But, but any other autoimmune stuff for them? Or is it just thyroid? Just die? Right? Do you know if they have Hashimotos? Or if they have hypothyroidism?

Linda 22:42
Find out. I don't know, my husband would know which one he has. But I think it's Hashimotos. But I'm not sure.

Scott Benner 22:48
And that's the auto immune version of it.

Linda 22:51
Not There you go. You can hear my mom actually had half her thyroid removed.

Scott Benner 22:56
Ah, interesting. Any other kids? Linda?

Linda 23:00
My husband has a daughter, who's 20. And but we have no kids. No other kids together. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. And they told me she didn't need to get tested. Because it's not the same parents.

Scott Benner 23:13
People don't know. Talking about. If you do try

Linda 23:16
on it. They I asked if we should test her. They said no.

Scott Benner 23:19
Yeah, trial net needs more funding so that they don't have to say stuff like that. I it just doesn't fall in the parameters of how they do it. I would imagine. There's there's an there's other tests you can use that you'd have to pay for. But you know, it's up to her obviously. Does your husband have any brothers or sisters? He has a brother. Does that brother have an autoimmune issue? Endor children?

Linda 23:46
No, no.

Scott Benner 23:47
Oh, interesting. Yeah, like there's a whole lot. Yeah,

Linda 23:50
well, and here's another interesting fact, when we were at CHOP with the diagnosis, they had told us that the last 30 families that had been through chop in August, there was no genetic link.

Scott Benner 24:06
Yeah, but people always say is their diabetes and your history? They don't. They don't ask about did your great grandmother have celiac? Because you know, or something like that, which in my mind is a genetic link, but I hear what you're saying.

Linda 24:18
Now that you say that I had a cousin who had celiac course,

Scott Benner 24:21
it you shouldn't start a podcast about something you'd become like a like a savant. And I think I'd be an idiot savant, an idiot savant. So right before COVID, like strikes and hits, your kid gets diabetes, everything is virtual. Was this your first experience with virtual like doctoring?

Linda 24:41
Yes. And actually, they did a telehealth to diagnose them and then they said no, I need to come in because they wanted to check his sugars. So wanted to telehealth and it turned into no come into the office park in the parking lot milk amount get you

Scott Benner 24:57
right now. They say he has diabetes. What do they do now? Do you live in your car in the parking?

Unknown Speaker 25:04
They sent me down to chop.

Unknown Speaker 25:04
Okay.

Linda 25:06
They said no, it's a job. I could I tell a kind of a funny story.

Scott Benner 25:09
So we go absolutely not with a don't

Linda 25:12
say test his blood sugar and he had a granola bar for breakfast that morning. I'm just gonna say that, okay, because granola bars spiked us like crazy. We know now. So he went in and they took his blood and it was 536. But too bad. But my eyes got super wide. I didn't know what the right number was supposed to be. But I knew it wasn't supposed to be in the five hundreds. And I had promised myself that he was good because he spied during this appointment, knowing that they would probably participant her. I said, well go to the Lego store and we'll get you some Legos. If you're a good boy. Well, the doctor says you need to go right down to children's hospital right away. And I said, okay, and I get in my car. And I'm like, I promise this kid like, I cannot take him to this big Children's Hospital knowing we're going to be there for days. And like not going to miss Legos and not going to miss Blinky. Literally went to the Lego store, grab something real quick came home, grab his blankie before we went to the hospital, so that's my dad mom moment, but

Scott Benner 26:11
it's not law. Everyone has some sort of story like that, where they're just like, Ah, so we waited till tomorrow, you know, like, I mean, it wasn't that it you don't have context like, let me ask you right now, if in that exact same situation, another child was diagnosed, would you go to the Lego store first?

Linda 26:31
I went, but I had the insulin so I can get an insulin first.

Scott Benner 26:34
I guess I I guess I should ask differently. If you had if you knew about diabetes, what you do now? Right?

Linda 26:39
I would not have absolutely not. You just didn't? Absolutely not. That's all I didn't realize how sick he was. Yeah. And they didn't say anything, either. I mean, they told me to go to the hospital. And they told me to go to the Children's Hospital, not the hospital. That's closer. So that was kind of a you know, but I knew we were going to be staying for days. And my husband actually was working. He works weekends, that happened to be weekend. And he was already down in the city. So there was no way that he would be able to come home and pick everything up. Yeah, I kind of felt like we had one shot. And the doctors like a mile from my house too. And so was the Lego store. I mean, it's all sort of on the way and I'm making excuses for

Scott Benner 27:18
why you are it's I think that's the thing where if you retold that story in five years, you would not feel like you had to defend yourself. You don't mean like it's just one of those things he didn't know. So he did what made sense.

Linda 27:31
And he was back in the 300. So I say that like it's nothing. When we got him to the hospital. It was just that granola bar just really spiked him up. But I know he was sick. And he wasn't a dk, I just ketones for God, I think within five hours.

Scott Benner 27:48
Okay, so he's got some function from his pancreas. They'll work and helping them out at that point. Yes,

Linda 27:54
yes. But we knew he was sick, because obviously we want to take him to the doctor. We didn't think he was sick.

Scott Benner 27:58
What was it like at that point going into a major hospital? I mean, Corona was in effect, at that point, know where it was. They just talked, it was Yeah, we were six months into it. Okay, so what was that like being admitted?

Linda 28:14
Scary, because you hear all these stories about people contracting Corona while they're there. And if I know he's already sick, and I was going along, because my husband was working. I mean, he ended up meeting us there within, you know, an hour or two as soon as he could get someone to cover for him. But it was scary going alone. And my son knows about hospitals. He was a preemie. So he's been. He was born three months early. So he's been followed a lot and Benza hospitals kind of throughout his life. And so it was nerve racking. It was like, here we go again. Take just one more thing.

Scott Benner 28:53
So the virus the Coronavirus thing wasn't at the top of your mind, really?

Linda 28:57
Not at that point. It was just, I was afraid that we could get it if he went there.

Scott Benner 29:03
You're afraid for yourself to

Linda 29:06
you know, I didn't even think about that, then. It's it was all about him. It really was.

Scott Benner 29:12
So now do you see I asked you that question. So you can realize you're not a bad mom, are you? How do you like it? Of course you weren't worried about yourself? Right? You would have gone anywhere. Like if they told you that the the only Children's Hospital that helped people with diabetes was the bottom of an active volcano, you would have been like, Okay, let's go. You know, like, it's just kind of, you keep making you get new information, and then you make the best decision you can make, and then you get new information. You just like he was

Linda 29:38
500 Today, man, you know, I can't even imagine he would be would be on our way to the hospital,

Scott Benner 29:44
where you would think you didn't like something would be really out of whack can absolutely be seen.

Linda 29:49
Yes. So we'd be checking ketones and calling ahead and making sure they had a bed ready.

Scott Benner 29:54
How long did they keep them for days? Okay.

Linda 29:59
And I think That was more of our training for the parents training.

Scott Benner 30:04
Yeah, like the third and fourth day, you're like, we should leave this hotel box. Yeah, no breakfast is dry, and there's nothing to do in the afternoon.

Linda 30:17
That's the other thing while we're in the hospital, and they hand you the menu to order his his meals. And they tell me he can eat whatever he wants. Okay, so I know nothing about diabetes, except for everybody always thinks type two. So like, What do you mean, he can eat? And I thought that they were just going to tell me that like, while we were at the hospital while he was in a controlled environment, and I thought when we went home, that he was going to have to stop eating everything.

Scott Benner 30:42
Oh, really? Yeah,

Linda 30:43
I had no idea. Like, I wasn't believing that when they told me he could eat anything he wants. As I'm looking at the menu that has the carb counts. I thought they were just going to maybe easily back it off. And, you know, slowly make a lifestyle change or something.

Scott Benner 30:56
Later, we're gonna take a detour for a second because you just said home. And I just finished watching the mayor of East town on HBO.

Linda 31:04
Did you watch three C three episodes, and

Scott Benner 31:07
I won't ruin anything for you. But what's the Titanic girl's name? This the lead? Oh my god. I mean, Kate Winslet Kate Winslet. So she's obviously not from around here. And someone gave her some diction, lessons for Philly. And as that thing goes on, you'll realize they they seem to work in a couple of the words so that you can hear the Philly accent except it's way off and it to me to my ear. And she's when she says home she just home. Like it's just she's not even from the United States. No, no, she's from the island I believe. So it's it's whom she has him and you just and I was been making fun of it for seven or six episodes of the movies town, but then you just sort of did a little bit. I was like, Oh my God. I was like, was Kate Winslet right. I told you my exits from all over the place. Yeah, you're a little so that makes more sense. Because there's, anyway, it's a depressing series, but it's well done. And, but it's a big issue just like it's him. And I'm like, whom? I don't think we talk like that. But then again, I don't know. I say water. So what the hell you don't even no idea really. Anyway. I'm sorry. It's okay. Okay, so you're super new at this still then? Like a year?

Linda 32:36
Now? 10 months? Yeah. August will be a one year.

Scott Benner 32:40
Do you feel new at it still?

Linda 32:43
I do. I get really nervous because obviously he's still in honeymoon. But he's, we've had to double his Basal twice. But because they were so small. When we started to me, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I'm doubling. But it's still only small increments. And they still say he's in honeymoon. So when I have to mess with Basal and carbery issues. I get nervous,

Scott Benner 33:05
too. Why? Yeah. You sent me pictures. Oh, yeah. I guess is he 60 pounds.

Linda 33:11
You know what? He's a lot when he's 51. Now, he lost a lot of weight after diagnosis, because he's, he's always been a good eater, but he's not snacking as often. And that's his choice. Not ours. Okay, you know, yeah. eating healthier. So he was I think he was 51 pounds a diagnosis but before that he was close to 60.

Scott Benner 33:33
Is he MDI or pump?

Linda 33:36
We got the Omni pod a couple months back. So we are potting are so excited.

Scott Benner 33:41
Oh, cool. And he, but he's not snacking as much. There's before. Do you think it's a decision about diabetes? Do you think he's trying to not intersect with the diabetes decision? What do you think he's just not hungry?

Linda 33:54
He's just not hungry. Because it is, but it's so kids are funny. So he'll ask for non carb snacks. Like he'll ask for a cheese stick sometimes to like, if he's hungry, then he doesn't really want to deal. I think what the diabetes, he'll ask for a cheese stick. Or he knows we know that's a healthier snacks. And we knows we might say no to cookies, but okay, go ahead. Have a cheese stick. Okay.

Scott Benner 34:18
Um, were you limiting and I don't mean limiting in a bad way. But like were you avoiding foods when he was on MDI? Just so you wouldn't have to inject or was that not happening?

Linda 34:28
No, we didn't avoid anything. The everything is I want to say he was getting a little bit. Wait, just to say this for five years. He was getting a little chunky. Okay. The January before diagnosis. So eight months before diagnosis as a family. We changed the snacks he was eating. So we went from goldfish and things like that to we gave him a drawer in the fridge with his name on it. He was all excited and it would have cheesed x would have pudding was the one thing that he could think that he was getting something you know really good, but it would have fruit cups and applesauce and yogurt, the yogurt, go, go go Gurt sticks. So the January before diagnosis, we started giving him healthier snacks to sort of keep him healthy as a kid. And he's a good eater, like I said, so that's another reason why we didn't notice the weight loss before diagnosis because we were like, Oh, this is working great. You know these healthy snacks. You changed it eight months before diagnosis the way he snack.

Scott Benner 35:36
So you just thought you were a genius.

Unknown Speaker 35:38
You're like,

Scott Benner 35:39
I got this thing other people complain about it. But look how easily I handled this. Rescue suckers don't know what you're doing. I put a name on a Georgia kids out of his mind eaten all kinds of stuff that isn't junky anymore. And I when look at me, you're probably getting ready to buy yourself a crown in the scepter walk around town. I was ready. I was ready. Go let the other ladies know how you've conquered having children. I bet you don't feel like that anymore. Oh my gosh. So what what are 10 months in 10 months in how long? Have you had a pump?

Linda 36:21
Oh, gosh. I wrote it down. So I would know too. We got to march 1, so we've had a pump. Three months.

Scott Benner 36:30
Okay. Alright, so and CGM using any kind of CGM Dexcom. Okay. Had you had that before the pump?

Linda 36:37
Yes, we got that. Three months and, and the Omnipod. They said we could have gotten it five months, but it took two months to get it through, you know,

Scott Benner 36:46
all this. You know, the truth is for people listening, Linda, if you get on the phone about every 48 hours with your insurance company, you'll get a lot faster than that.

Linda 36:57
So even know what the issue was, it was a crazy issue. So in order to get it, we needed notes from two different doctor visits. But because we were at the five month mark, we only had one visit with the actual endocrinologist. So they kept saying we need to we do do and that's what saying, we sent you everything. I had to get on the phone eventually. And you know, tear it up for 48 hours and say he's only seen the endo one time.

Scott Benner 37:24
Two things. I don't know why in this day and age. Medical facilities can't figure out communication, but they're terrible at it still and your phone ringer just made me realize how much I unnaturally love a Devil Wears Prada. The Devil Wears Prada. I love that movie.

Unknown Speaker 37:46
I think I've always seen it like once. Oh my God once a year.

Linda 37:53
Now I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna watch

Scott Benner 37:54
it. I don't know why. Honestly, it's maybe it's something to do with Arden watching it or something. But I've seen that movie like a dozen times, I think. And that ring is her. Is her cell phone ring. In the movie.

Linda 38:08
I'm trying to find the connection. I was like, I don't get it. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 38:10
no, that's what just happened that I was like, oh my god, Miranda. Oh my gosh, I'm this close. I'm holding my fingers about two inches apart. I'm this close from being a lady at this point for being for being a stay at home dad for 20 years. I if I had two ovaries, I could probably make a baby.

Linda 38:32
I'm jealous. I wish I could have ever stayed home.

Scott Benner 38:34
Oh, yeah. It's fantastic. Not working. I mean, being home with your kids is a wonderful thing. I mean, I mean, oddly, both of those things, not having to go to a job every day is wonderful. And I

Linda 38:50
did it for the first couple years. Did you like it? Well, I did it for the first year. And then I went part time for about three years. I did. I loved it.

Scott Benner 38:59
Yeah, I have a, I think I have an understanding of my kids that you can't get from being around them intermittently. So and it's sort of like, this is odd to but maybe not unlike the podcast and having. I mean, I don't even know at this point, you're probably like close to the 600th conversation I've had, right. And just being around other people, and getting to kind of absorb how they feel about things and how they see things and getting to watch them from afar a little bit and have personal conversations with them. You just get a feeling for things that it's not possible another way. And so being with the kids every day and having that same interaction with them, you know, I might know things about them that they don't know and yet the bigger impact is how the way other people see the world changes me. Like that's the that's that's the real value for me. Like I don't think anybody would listen. But everybody should have a podcast, you know, or, or just call people on the phone, I guess you want to record it if you don't want to. But you know, like having those real. And I'm in an interesting situation. Whereas if you were to call a friend on the phone, right, a friend would feel a little guarded. You would feel like contemporaries. Right, you know, and so I'm in a really unique situation right now, where you feel like, on some level, you need to answer my questions, which is, of course not true. You could say no to anything. But you, when people come on, they're very agreeable to having an honest conversation. So then I get to hear more of what they're really thinking and less of what they're willing to tell people, if that makes sense. Yes, yeah. So I mean, you've you've already said a bunch of things that, I don't think you would tell somebody in a regular course of a conversation. Yeah, right. So I when I do, I get to have that, like, I get to have that experience. And you get to share it with a bunch of other people, which is really cool. So what success look like today, what are your like? What are your goals? For like variability? Where do you have your high alarm set your low alarms? What's your a one seagull? How do you think about all that?

Linda 41:19
Sure. So I want to be sub six right now. We're six one and six to what our last two appointments. So I keep telling my diabetes educator, we're going to be sub six. But I feel like we're struggling with that. Because there we go.

Scott Benner 41:37
What's the highlight of that?

Linda 41:40
mindset at 152? So I can do something with it. Right? Yeah. And he had waffles this morning, so yeah, we just hit 158 Geez, I know.

Scott Benner 41:53
Oh, you make the waffle by hand was it from a restaurant? It was a frozen? Was LEGGO

Linda 41:58
my Eggo toffee 20 minutes before I had to jump on with you.

Unknown Speaker 42:04
Later,

Linda 42:06
no. sugar free syrup.

Scott Benner 42:08
Yeah, but those Eggo waffles are hard to Bolus for? Yes, yeah.

Linda 42:13
You got it. He hasn't had one in probably two months. But he was asking me for the special breakfast that I make him on weekends, which happens to be cinnamon rolls. So we're like you, we don't shy away from food just because of diabetes. We just try and stay on top of it.

Scott Benner 42:30
I have a great waffle recipe. But man, it's a lot to make it

Linda 42:33
do not have a waffle maker. You have to send it to me.

Scott Benner 42:36
Yeah, it's a it's a great recipe. But I mean, there's buttermilk in it. And you're you're fluffing egg whites, and but it works out really well. When you're done. You're like I shouldn't be eating this.

Linda 42:47
Feeling everything in moderation. Yeah, well,

Scott Benner 42:49
waffles pretty big. And you went all the trouble taking out the waffle maker. See, then you're like, well, I'll just have a little more. And actually, they freeze Well, oddly, but they're hard to warm back up. You have to microwave them a little and then toast them to get them back to anyway, this is a rabbit hole. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so you're looking for sub six, you're just above it right? Now, when you tell the educator you want sub six? Do they say no, you're doing great? Or do they say Sure go for it.

Linda 43:18
They're kind of funny, because they know on site that they're like, go for it. They said their average is eight. So they told me Don't Don't try and push myself. But they're totally open about it. You know, they said a site an hour for telehealth, and after 20 minutes, they're like, Oh, we looked at all your charts here. Good. You're doing great. So we're really lucky because I hear some other stories. We're lucky.

Scott Benner 43:41
Yeah. Though, sometimes people will start doing better and better and they get yelled at by their doctors, which is fascinating. I also think it's interesting to tell somebody, oh, you have a six one, whatever it is. The average for the practice is eight. So you're doing great. I guess I don't feel that way. I feel like what they should be saying is, oh, you're six one, the average for the practice is eight. We're not doing a very good job. Like why are they using other like, do you mean by that? Like, that's a weird thing. Like if you if we were all running a race together, and the average time to finish the race was an hour and you finished it in 30 minutes, and they were the trainer. Why would they not think hmm, apparently you can finish this race in a lot less time. Like why

Linda 44:23
he was diagnosed in 8.3.

Scott Benner 44:26
Right? Well, and he also probably is you're saying he's still honeymooning Tuesday do you think you're getting but I'm just

Linda 44:32
saying you're telling me where I have to be in the hospital for four days because I'm an 8.3 Your patient tell me Oh, the average is eight.

Scott Benner 44:43
Well, yeah, I mean, listen, there's a lot of people have different financial situations. They have different technology they have different abilities and levels of understanding so I get why I get why people's they want these could be easily like that makes sense to me. I also understand Then like for adults listening, like I guess I was saying that more around children. But for adults listening like I can also get how you could get burned out or just like, go through a number of months really like a, you know, me I'll Pre-Bolus After I eat, we'll call it pretty post Bolus, like you can see where you could get beat up by it. But I'm just saying like from the doctor's point of view, why is the thought not? I wonder how we get everybody closer to six, instead of just treating you like you're special for being at six? I mean, not that you're not I'm just saying I don't know why they don't go deeper into their own. You know, you are special. I don't think you are. Well, also, let me get my pen. I think you might have just named the episode a different kind of special Good job. I leave it up to you guys. to name your episodes. You don't realize it's happening. But it is.

Linda 45:59
Yeah. So the only other thing if you don't mind, the only other thing I wanted to talk about with the whole diagnosis during the pandemic is I told you I found my tribe. You know, I found moms that I can connect with. Through friends for life. They do mom's for life, like every other Monday, they do a zoom so I can talk and ask questions, and they've been absolutely amazing. But Dylan hasn't had anyone really to connect with. Because we've been virtual for school. And that's just been we went virtual to hybrid virtual to hybrid to full time by the end of the year. So that was that's interesting, too, by the way, trying to get sugar's under control. Where school is very different settings than home. I feel. Yeah. To go from home to hybrid to home to full time has just been a crazy roller coaster ride for us to

Scott Benner 46:55
use at home again. So it's just a bonus for me really.

Linda 46:59
Yeah. And now we've got the pool and the neighbor's trampoline, that's always fun.

Scott Benner 47:04
You got a lot of stuff going on. A lot of stuff going

Linda 47:07
on. But but my problem is he doesn't have any other kids that have it that he can, there's 1/4 grader in his school, but it's not really his peer, because she's four years ahead of him. Yeah. Um, so we haven't been able to see anyone his age except we are going to, in two weeks, we're going to go to the friends for life. So that I can meet the moms that I've been talking with online, and he gets to meet kids his age,

Scott Benner 47:33
you're going to go to Florida. Yes. Okay, they're doing it again.

Linda 47:40
And we're gonna do the parks for two days. He's a big Star Wars fan. So he's excited. Sounds great. I mean, I'm just, I just want him to feel like he fits in. And he, he gets involved a little bit with his care. I mean, he can look at a number know if it's good or bad or things like that. But I want him to maybe take a little more independent, I don't want him to be in charge of it at all. But I want him to feel more normalized and sort of maybe be able to ask questions to people other than us. Maybe someone else can explain it to him differently than I could. Yeah,

Scott Benner 48:15
I think it's there's, you're going to see a lot of people who have his experience, at least it'll be a shared experience. And that I would imagine would make them feel part of a group, which

Linda 48:27
I'm hoping maybe if he sees an eight year olds, that he can kind of look up to doing something on his level that he might want to

Scott Benner 48:36
think about how to get that. It's, I have a couple of episodes with younger kids. But not many, although somebody just put up a list yesterday on the are you in my Facebook group? Yes. There's one in there, I put it up with a picture. Somebody made a list of episodes that had people on who are 18 and under. And I was surprised it's 23456. I was like 14 or 15 of them so far on the list. Which i i Even I didn't think I'd spoken to that many kids. But I guess over the years they pile up and I don't I don't realize but I mean a six year olds not listening for a podcast like I mean, if you were listening in the background, and there was a kid on, maybe there'd be like a fleeting moment where he's like, oh, there's a kid who has diabetes, you know, but they're not, you know, he's not looking to listen to some of these conversation I wouldn't imagine.

Linda 49:32
So that's kind of been a little bit of our struggle, I think, not really a big struggle, because he doesn't have to know but I would just like him to have it a little more normalized.

Scott Benner 49:43
Do you think it's not?

Linda 49:47
Well, it's not so much with the PA but when we were MDI he would be embarrassed like out at the restaurant. If we had to, you would want to go to the bathroom. And I would kind of say no, we're just no one's gonna watch. It's okay, we could do it right You know, we'll put you on the inside of the booth and we would kind of work on that. So I think he's a little bit shy about it.

Scott Benner 50:10
It's really helped. You're from Boston and Philly and you said, don't worry. No one's gonna look you didn't say them.

Linda 50:18
But this is a clean podcast.

Scott Benner 50:20
Yeah, I know. But I want to know what you were thinking. When you were talking to that kid. We can bleep out the rest. I was thinking I was speaking slowly. Honey, how about Mommy gets up and kicks everyone's ass and then we'll inject how's that sound? Shot beat it some heads and then we'll do it. Anybody looks your ways getting one right now.

Linda 50:42
Right. I am definitely that kind of mama tell. So I understand. Yeah. I just want he's actually not gonna Vizor right now. Let him say hello. Real quick. Of course. Hold

Scott Benner 50:55
on be great if he said

Unknown Speaker 51:02
we're talking about re diabetes. Can you hear me? Hi, Scott. Hey, Dylan,

Scott Benner 51:07
can you hear me? Alright. Hey, Dylan, how are you? Okay, cool. How old are you man? 16. Wow, I do not remember being that young. That is really cool. Do you enjoy any sports? Or what's your favorite TV show? Oh, golf. Yeah, do you guys don't watch the Eagles? No, no football. That's great. You can see. What about I heard you're going to Florida? What are you going to do while you're there? Oh, one rides. Yeah. There's a really cool ride of the Millennium Falcon. That you should check out in the Star Wars Park. And while you're there, so many characters from the movie are going to be walking around. It's really great. Awesome. Yeah, it sounds fun. Cool. Hey, I heard you have an omni pod and a Dexcom. My daughter has that stuff, too. Oh. Yes. Yeah. My daughter does too. She's older than your she's 17. But she's had diabetes since she was two years old when she was a baby. I heard you just got it recently. Wow. Yeah. How are you doing? Yeah, things are okay. Well, that's cool. I want you to know that I know so many people who have diabetes, and they're all cool people. So you must be cool, too. You think you are? Yeah. I think you are too. Alright, Dylan. Well, thank you for talking. Let me say goodbye to your mom. And then I you can have her okay. Okay, all right, man. Have a good day. I stopped by Dylan. Thanks for being with us. Are you kidding me? Finally getting some people on my intellectual level to speak though? I was tired of feeling like you were smarter than me. He's adorable. Good for you. Congratulations. You're not making more babies. Right. Are you? Are you an older mom? Not like, Yeah, I know everything I can really read through people.

Linda 53:33
Well, I kind of gave a hint when we said you did 20 year olds. But yeah, I'm an older mom.

Scott Benner 53:38
I don't know your husband didn't meet a girl in fourth grade and make a mistake. I don't I wasn't sure. You can't get pregnant when you're in fourth grade right now. That's physiologically impossible. I boy.

Linda 53:51
I think I take things a little bit more in stride, I think.

Scott Benner 53:55
Yeah, right. You have a little more life experience.

Unknown Speaker 53:59
Yeah, just different. Yeah,

Scott Benner 54:01
I know. Right. I mean, I was so young when we had kids. And Kelly was, you know, I basically stole Kelly from her family. So she was like, young. And we didn't know what the hell we were doing ever. Like nothing. We never had any kind of like life experience to draw on for the next life experience. Like you were making everything up as it was happening. The diabetes thing was

Linda 54:26
one of the first things we were an adult a little bit more of a perspective. Like, I think if I were when I was younger, I would it would have been the end of the world for me. You know, I would? I don't know. I think I just would have taken it a lot harder. When I'm when I was older and could say okay, you know what, we'll meet this head on and we can do this and we'll make it work.

Scott Benner 54:50
All right. Well, listen, I don't usually end so abruptly. But Dylan clearly needs you. So sorry. You have apologized to me five times you have way more Life and somebody from where you're at where you live and where you came from should be should just tell me to shut up. I gotta talk to my kid now. But I really do appreciate you doing this and talking about it. It was a it's interesting to hear. I mean, your story's fairly unique. The thing with the legs is I've never heard that before. So that was a, that was really something else.

Linda 55:23
Yeah, it confused the doctor too. Great. That's that's always

Scott Benner 55:27
that's always comforting. All my years I have great. Thanks a lot, buddy. Back to Google. All right. Well, thank

Linda 55:36
you so much for taking the time to talk with me. You have a great

Scott Benner 55:38
day. It's my pleasure. I'll talk to you. I'll let you know when it comes out. I'll do my best to let you know. That'd be great. Thanks. Bye, bye. All right. But I don't

want to thank Linda for coming on the show today in doing such a great job telling your story. And they like to thank you, of course, for all the support and love that I've received from you throughout 2021. There's going to be one short episode coming up before the end of the year. And then we are starting strong strong, my friend. Don't don't even pretend that you don't believe me, because I have got a great week of podcasts coming for you right away, right out of the gate right out of the chute. Right in the beginning. May old acquaintance be forgot. I don't know what that means. Honestly, I mean, what does that mean? Why would you want to forget your old acquaintances? Nevertheless, there's going to be some great episodes coming up for you right away in the new year. So don't drink too much because I need you wide awake on that Monday, downloading some podcasts

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