#624 Defining Thyroid: TSH Testing

Scott and Jenny Smith, CDE share insights on thyroid disorder.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to episode 624 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today's episode is the third in the defining thyroid series. And today Jenny Smith and I will be talking about TSH testing. The defining thyroid series will be a short but important series of information about living with thyroid disease, also about how to identify it, test it, get your doctor to take you seriously how to get the medication, right, and all kinds of other stuff. It's possible that thyroid is going to come up in your life with type one. And knowing what to do if it happens is a big deal. Wasted diagnosis time is wasted lifetime. Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin.

If you're a US resident who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver for someone who has type one, you could take the survey AT T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox in fewer than 10 minutes. When you do this, it will be completely anonymous. They will be HIPAA compliant. You will be helping people with type one diabetes, and you will be supporting the podcast T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. If you're looking for the defining diabetes series, they're available in your podcast player or at Juicebox Podcast calm. At that website you'll also find the diabetes Pro Tip series. Ask Scott and Jenny. The diabetes variables episodes after dark episodes algorithm pumping based episodes, how we eat series. It's all right there. It's either in your podcast player or at juicebox podcast.com. At the end of this episode, and at the end of every defining thyroid episode, I will list the symptoms of hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, and Graves disease. Start here just TSH testing right is this is described here is the first line of testing for hypothyroidism. Your doctor will measure your thyroid stimulating hormone, which is TSH levels with a blood test. TSH is secreted by the pituitary gland to stimulate thyroid hormone. If Ts, if TSH levels are too high, you will likely be diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Now, this is where people get confused. Yeah, and they get screwed a little too, because, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna drop this story here a little real quickly. After my wife had Arden, she started having a ton of symptoms of hypothyroidism,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:24
and pretty common post pregnancy. And it got

Scott Benner 3:27
worse and worse. And she'd go to doctors. And as it was happening to her, she was also gaining weight. And so she'd go to a doctor, the doctor would hear her, you know, I have, you know, trouble sleeping, I'm not rested, I feel you know, my hair's falling out like this stuff. I'm gaining a bunch of weight. And the doctors would tell her, I feel terrible, but they would over and over again they go, we'll lose weight, and we'll see what happens. So she'd go home and kill herself trying to lose weight, but she couldn't because her thyroid wasn't working. Now, her tests would come back elevated, but not out of range, quote unquote, like not out of range. And so no doctor ever would offer her the medication. Now we're, you know, we were smart enough to figure out that this is what Kelly had. But we're younger, and we just couldn't get someone to do it. Right. So one day we were in the we just started doctor shopping at that point. Yeah. And we're in an office one day, and the guy looks at her and says you should try losing weight. And I looked him in the face and she punched you know, I know I honest that she was still calm. One of the one of the symptoms that that Kelly had when she was untreated was that she was kind of nasty. Like, I don't know another way to put it. And I looked at the doctor and I said listen, I don't know anything about this, but this medication that treats hypothyroidism can it hurt her if she doesn't have hypothyroidism. And he goes, and not really. And I was like, well then give it to her. And let's see what happens. Right? Like, I mean, we'll just use it for a month, you know, and just find out, right? Two weeks later, I've said, you know, privately to my wife, like, she was like the person I remembered again. Yeah. And it was bad. Like, I had dug a hole out back in case I had to, you know, get rid of her. She was she was becoming really, really

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:28
know that we joke all the time. So clearly,

Scott Benner 5:31
there's no real hole. But I mean, like it was, it was to the point where I was like, I don't know, like what to do for this person? Yeah, like, she was just unreasonable. She wasn't

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:41
herself. Really, the attitude that was there was relative to a hormone that was,

Scott Benner 5:46
yeah. Yeah, you know, and this is an aside, but we, at that time, knew, you know, our kids were younger, and Arden used to, like play, like some sport where we'd all to get, you know, parents would get together on the weekends. And I'm, you know, I'm not making this up. There was one mom, who was just known around town to be, like, nasty, and it was nasty. Like, she was a mean, lady, you know. And years later, we bumped into her somewhere, and she just wasn't. And my was so obvious that someone said, hey, you know, you look great. What's going on? And she said, I'll I found out, I had hypothyroidism, and I'm treating it now. And I'm telling you, different person, and we got in the car, and I was like, that's what happened to you.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:39
You are a mean person.

Scott Benner 6:41
And not all the time and sometimes just out of nowhere, and I don't, you know, I mean, listen, I don't understand everything that the thyroid controls, but

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:50
that was mood is definitely one of them. Yeah,

Scott Benner 6:53
no kidding. Because it struck my son the same way when he got Hashimotos to, like, he was like, we were like, What is that's what God has to test them was just his personality seemed to shift them anyway. So okay, so the TSH Test is super simple, right? You get a blood test, you're going to come back, but the next step is when your TSH which we'll let's talk about here, thyroid stimulating hormone, the hormone produced by the pituitary gland that stimulates the thyroid gland to inhibit or release hormones, you're going to get that back in a range? Correct? Under two, they're going to call normal. Correct. Right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:34
And in some cases under two and a half, they're considering that normal? Yes, I misspoke. Okay. Yeah, usually above like, point 4.5. Potentially all the way up to like a four or a five range may be considered normal. There are some ages and some timeframes like pregnancy, first trimester under 2.5. Second and third trimester under three years, kind of what's looked at in terms of, you know, management goals for those age can make a difference, because as you age, TSH increases with age. So there are some different says in, I guess what it brings in is the need to individualize as we're already used to doing with diabetes. So thyroid needs to be individualized to

Scott Benner 8:30
Yeah, I listen, I'm clearly not a doctor. But if you asked me privately, I will tell you that if you have symptoms of hypothyroidism, I don't care if that test comes back. 345678 like you make someone give you, you know, the, I mean, I mean, it is a drug, but it's a little hormone replacement. It's like not a big deal. It's the tiniest little pill, and make somebody give it to you because because these problems become cumulative. And they can get they can get heavier on your on your body after time. You know what I mean? It's not It's no joke, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:08
Yes. And some, as you mentioned, in terms of that range, and you went forward, especially with your symptoms, you know, with your wife. If your TSH looks normal, but you have symptoms, you're not crazy, right? Your range may very well not be what is preferred by your body. So it's always important to like always step out and say, Hey, I am feeling this way, despite these levels looking this way. And you know, then another step could definitely be things like the antibody testing and things like looking at T four T three, three, T four, three, T T three, all of those can be additional steps in looking further

Scott Benner 9:53
and if you have if you have Hashimotos and they can, they can, you know, look at your thoughts roid or touch your thyroid and see that, then the number they're not going to argue so much about it usually just happens to those people who just have hypothyroidism. And you know, I'm just gonna say this here, and I don't mean for it to be, you know, I don't want to be harsh, but I think it's pretty, pretty well known that doctors can ignore women's health concerns. A lot of time. Absolutely. Yeah. So,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:27
I mean, it's a big reason that even in type one, diabetes is considered management strategy, whether you're male or female, and that we know that that's not the case. Yeah, females have different management needs they do. So

Scott Benner 10:42
I just think that it's simple. I mean, you see, even with, you know, it's a bias you see with with diabetes, too, right? If an adult goes in to an endos office and has elevated blood sugars, they look them up and down. And if you look thin and fit, then you're type one, you know, if you if you look heavy, oh, then you're type two, these things have nothing to do with whether you're type one or type two.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:06
Right? Yeah. And sometimes often, it's even the opposite. Regardless of how you look, they don't even look at you. It's just you got elevated levels, your type two, because you're an adult,

Scott Benner 11:16
yeah, you're certain age. And that's it, you're certain age, there's a lot of human biases that exist. And I think that my, my wife, by way of an example was, was hit with them when she was trying to because she's taller, and curvy to begin with. And so Oh, you're gaining weight, eat less, exercise more, you know, like, and then you start thinking, why did you start a new job? I sit at a desk a lot, maybe it is, and that's the thing, we you said, like, don't think you're crazy. Because like, you start thinking, like, well, maybe I'm wrong. But, you know, my wife had a ton of symptoms, like it was obvious to anybody what was wrong with her right. And, you know, just nobody did anything for

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:59
you. I think the bigger picture there too, is while you bring in some of the things like oh, I sit at a desk, and, you know, maybe it is that I'm not very active. But if that hasn't changed, and you have these symptoms, your body has changed. You haven't changed your eating habits. It's not like you're going, you know, to some donut shop every single day and you weren't doing it before, and now you're gaining weight will clearly stop eating the donuts then. But, you know, if you haven't, and you've got all these symptoms, there's a problem that needs to be addressed. Because you haven't shifted anything.

Scott Benner 12:30
I'll tell you right now, with hindsight, I look back, Kelly had Arden and then suddenly got skinny, like, which just was not her vibe ever. Like she was just always kind of like she kind of like a classic American Girl look like if that makes sense. And suddenly, she was thin in places. And now I realized, I mean, as we talk about these, you know, these episodes, she probably it came on, she got hyper first, then then the inflammation took over and she got hypo and that

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:01
is exactly what happened to my mom, right after my brother was born. Really? Yes, she had all of those. I mean, she had the like, she had the like goiter she had the like, eyes were like, you know, much more pronounced. And they did. I mean, they did a what was at that point, it was like an iodine burnout. It was like a thyroid burnout. And now she has, she takes a typical levothyroxine. And so she's technically got hypo thyroid now, because of earlier, what was hyper? So

Scott Benner 13:36
just for kicks, does your brother have any autoimmune diseases?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:42
So interestingly, he has the same issue with his parathyroid that my dad's sister has. And so that's the autoimmune disorder that he drew the straw for, I guess, in which, you know, they, they manage that very interestingly and very differently, and he's got to take interest, just he doesn't have diabetes and doesn't take an injection for anything like that. But he takes a daily injection of a medication that helps to manage the problems with his parathyroid hormone. So

Scott Benner 14:24
in another episode, we will go over this parathyroid gland because that was the first like, when when Cole was diagnosed with as he was being diagnosed with Hashimotos. The doctor thought they saw something on his parathyroid. And we were starting to talk about having his parathyroid removed. And it was very scary for a minute, like, you know, yes.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:47
And they try really hard not to remove the whole parathyroid. My brother actually had that done and that's the reason he's on this really expensive medication. When he got a second opinion to the Mayo Clinic, they're like, I don't know why this was done, blah, blah, blah. There's a whole bunch of mess of management for that. So

Scott Benner 15:08
yeah, okay, so we'll get into that. We'll dig into that in another episode. Okay, so I'm dizzy now about thyroid stuff. So we so the TSH testing is a simple blood test. I'll tell you that once you're, once you know that you have hypo hyperthyroidism, Graves' disease, whatever. The next thing to really be clear about is to keep up with the testing, you should get blood work done. I mean, in the beginning, it's pretty frequently like until that so they can dial the medication. And But afterwards, I don't know how, how frequently do you think somebody who's well maintained should still be checking those levels,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:44
I would expect every six to at least six months to at least a year should be checked. I mean, I because of my family history of thyroid disorder, and also having type one myself, I get them checked just once a year myself. My mom typically gets them checked about every six months, but she's also you know, over 65. So she does a lot of other type of but if you're managed well, the dose is working for you. And you don't have a return of symptoms. Right? Then testing at least once a year I would expect is probably the baseline.

Scott Benner 16:20
It's also important like my son actually just yesterday, it's so weird how things line up when I'm recording this podcast, he came to me and he said, Hey, I have to send an email to the doctor. He goes, I'm grinding my teeth, which could be a side effect of some of the medication. Oh, so he's think is so it's what he's saying is I think I got to get a blood test to see if my TSH is too low. And we have to back this medicine off a little bit.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:43
Yeah. And how adult of him to make that decision on his own.

Scott Benner 16:49
Good job. I was actually gonna, like, tell him again, I'm proud of him for paying attention. Because yeah, that's the next thing is very much like diabetes. I'm sad to say you're not going to get a thyroid problem. Take a pill one day and just forever. Never think of the fact that you're gonna write. I mean, it doesn't

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:08
involve the micromanagement day to day considerations that diabetes does. But it is always something that in the background again. You should be paying attention to your body awareness.

Scott Benner 17:22
Yeah. Alright, so we did TSH testing, thyroid stimulating hormone, TSH, which is a word you're going to hear a lot if you have it. You want to do t 43. Next. Sure. All right.

Thanks so much for listening today. Please stop back frequently for more episodes of The Juicebox Podcast and to continue with the defining thyroid series. If you like Jenny, she's for hire. You can find her at integrated diabetes.com. She helps people with their type one diabetes, she's really good at it. So if you're enjoying the Juicebox Podcast, and you're listening in an app, but you're not subscribed or following, please hit subscribe and follow on that app. And don't forget to tell a friend. Hey, if you find the podcast on YouTube, we started putting up animated versions of the defining diabetes series. They're really cute, great for kids. Very visual. Go find it. Alright, now let's go through the symptoms. We will start with hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism signs and symptoms may include fatigue, increased sensitivity to cold, constipation, dry skin, weight gain, puffy face, hoarseness, muscle weakness, elevated blood cholesterol level, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, pain stiffness or swelling and your joints heavier than normal or irregular menstrual periods. thinning hair slow heart rate depression impaired memory in large thyroid gland. In infants you're looking for a yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes which is commonly called jaundice. In most cases this occurs when a baby's liver can't metabolize a substance called bilirubin, which normally forms when the body recycles old or damaged red blood cells. You also might see a larger protruding tongue, difficulty breathing, hoarse crying, or an umbilical hernia. As progression happens in infants, you may move on to constipation poor muscle tone, where excessive sleepiness hypothyroidism in children and teens may indicate with poor growth resulting in a short stature, delayed development of permanent teeth, delayed puberty, poor mental development. That list is from the Mayo Clinic. Let's move on now to hyperthyroidism. This list is from the Cleveland Clinic. Hyperthyroidism may present with rapid heartbeat or palpitations, feeling shaky and or nervous weight loss increased appetite diarrhea and more frequent bowel movements, vision changes, thin warm and moist skin menstrual changes, intolerance to heat and excessive sweating, sleep issues, swelling and enlargement of the neck from an enlarged thyroid gland, hair loss and change in hair texture, it would get brittle bulging of the eyes as seen with Graves disease and muscle weakness. Okay, back to the Mayo Clinic for Graves disease, you're looking for anxiety and irritability. A fine tremor of the hands or fingers, heat sensitivity and an increase in perspiration, or warm or moist skin. Weight loss despite normal eating habits, enlarged thyroid gland change and menstrual cycle erectile dysfunction or reduced libido, frequent bowel movements, bulging eyes, fatigue, thick red skin, usually on the shins or tops of the feet. Rapid or irregular heartbeat palpitations, sleep disturbance. If you your child or someone you love has any of these symptoms, please seek medical attention. I want to thank you so much for listening and remind you again to please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. If you're a US resident who has type one, or you're a US resident who is the caregiver of someone with type one, your quick and easy answers that are HIPAA compliant and completely anonymous will be of great value to people living with type one diabetes. It will take you fewer than 10 minutes at T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox to make a huge difference in someone else's life. And you'll be supporting the podcast. Thanks so much again for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast

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#623 Josh Has Even More Feels

Josh (from ep 435) and some of his children have type 1 diabetes. Today he shares more about the impacts of autoimmune disease on his family.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

---

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 623 of the Juicebox Podcast.

I posted an episode on February 1 2021, called Josh has all the fields and without any planning whatsoever, on February 2 2022, Josh is back to talk more about how he feels. If you haven't heard Josh's first episode, it won't really matter if you hear it first or second. So you could listen to this and decide you want to hear more and then go find episode 435. Where you can go to for 35 right now listen to that, and then come back to this any way you decide to do it, just 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. Please remember, also, if you're a US resident who has type one or is the caregiver of a type one, I would love it if you took the survey AT T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Dexcom. Head over to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox and say hello to Dexcom. The podcast is also sponsored by arm the pod makers of the Omni pod dash and the recently announced Omni pod five. To get started on that Omni pod dash right now go to Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box, you may be eligible for a free 30 day supply of the Omni pod dash.

Josh 2:10
Hi there. My name is Josh Taube. And I am not good to introduce myself apparently. I am Josh Tabi. And I was on an episode previously and I'm coming back to do an update. I have type one diabetes and I have children with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 2:32
Ah, Josh, your episode was called Josh has Josh's all the fields all the fields. Josh has all the fields. Yes, you. You certainly did that day. Do you? Generally speaking? Yes.

Josh 2:43
Yeah. And I'm really, um, I was. I was very nervous on that episode. And this episode, I am just scared of what I'm going to say. So I just don't know what I'm going to say.

Scott Benner 2:57
So the first time nervous, but then you got through that. Okay. Now this time, because you're more comfortable. You feel like you might say things you don't mean to say?

Josh 3:06
I definitely. I definitely. I didn't hold back or anything in that first episode. It's just life has gotten even more complicated and even more feely that, you know, it doesn't do the first episode title doesn't do a certain good service to me because I have even more fields now.

Scott Benner 3:28
Alright, well, perfect. Everybody get your tissues out. We're gonna talk.

Josh 3:32
And maybe that's the title. Josh has even more fields. Josh found

Scott Benner 3:35
more fields. But that sounds creepy. So we'll probably not go that way. But anyway, so real quick, your background, your professional background.

Josh 3:44
I am a licensed professional counselor, here in Texas. I enjoy my job, but to VA that I guess that's my professional background. I work with

Scott Benner 3:58
mental health. Perfect. And you've had type one for

Josh 4:01
since I was in kindergarten. And so I think I'm actually coming up on 30 years now. Wow. Roughly, that's a big number. I want to say next Mother's Day will be 30 years.

Scott Benner 4:15
You got type one on Mother's Day.

Josh 4:18
I got at least I got diagnosed on Mother's Day. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 4:20
Right. Well, you probably got it sooner. And yeah, yeah. I did you say that the last time?

Josh 4:26
I think so i There's a story of of a baseball game. My dad wanted me to go or I was at a baseball game. And after the baseball game, we were going to go to the hospital because you know, I was urinating in the middle of night and all that sort of stuff. My mom's a nurse and she she knew the signs and symptoms had called my pediatrician pediatrician said Yeah, bring him in. And it ended up being a Mother's Day. Wow.

Scott Benner 4:50
We just got my mom at TV on Mother's Day. But you were really, you're really on the edge of the of the cutting edge right there with that. Absolutely. Now over how many children you have.

Josh 5:02
I got three kiddos. I've got Jack who's 10 Lily, who's seven. And Olivia, who just turned three. We just turned in June.

Scott Benner 5:12
Wow. Happy birthday, when? When you were on last time, which wasn't all that long ago.

Josh 5:18
And I was gonna say it was actually Arden 16th birthday.

Scott Benner 5:22
You were on 16th birthday. Oh, so it's about a little over a year, a tiny bit over a year since you recorded the last time. And we're still in the midst of COVID Yeah, it's just here. It just lives here. Now. It's, it's not I, my son's like three weeks away from going back to college. And I will tell you, and not that this maybe is a surprise to you or anybody listening. But if people didn't believe it at the beginning, my children need to go back to some sort of a an existence that mirrors what they expect, very, very badly. The the boredom is we've gone somehow around boredom and come back around the other side of it again. It's just it's it's absolutely impactful on them in ways that I don't think I understand yet.

Josh 6:12
It's I mean, in terms of development, kids and adults, it's just stunted development and in life.

Scott Benner 6:19
Yeah, we're just literally standing still waiting for somebody to say it's okay. Go back again. And it's terrible. When I spoke to you last time, how many if any of your children had diabetes?

Josh 6:33
Is that a question you ask everybody? Jeez, no, um, I, my seven year old was diagnosed. And I think we were we were worried about my, my 10 year old and I think I even gave an update, right before you posted the episode. But um, but now my 10 year old as a of three or four months ago, maybe a little bit more time. Time is another thing that COVID has messed up. He has been diagnosed with type one. And he very quickly went from thank yous within a couple of weeks went from just doing a long acting Joseba into doing a Novolog

Scott Benner 7:21
for me allowance on he said he didn't have much of a honeymoon at all.

Josh 7:24
Well, he's still honeymooning and like, you know, it almost felt like for a few weeks there a couple weeks ago that we could even pull back all of them the Nova log and he would be alright. But um, but it just kind of comes and goes,

Scott Benner 7:38
yeah, it comes it goes diabetes, it comes and goes. And which ends up being worse than Yeah, it just being consistent. Because, you know, as everyone can imagine, you you come out in the morning doing what you think is right. And suddenly your body's like, oh, I can help to today. And you're like, No, I already put insulin in there. And then you're fighting lows all day long. Yeah, so now your 10 year old your seven year old. You anybody else dog have diabetes parakeet or anything like that?

Josh 8:07
No, not that I know of. Yeah, we we ended up getting my my three year old tested through trial. What's that? trauma? Yeah. And, and she does not have the any of the genes or whatever it is. So we're hoping that sticks?

Scott Benner 8:28
No antibodies are markers for her. Okay, well,

Josh 8:32
she's only three. And there's research, you know, out there that, that, uh, you know, three is kind of the young point in in testing. So,

Scott Benner 8:41
you go do it again, at some point.

Josh 8:43
Probably not just gonna it was it was it was kind of a, you know, one of those personal ethical things of like, do we even want to do this right now? Yeah. So

Scott Benner 8:55
was getting the test like a drunk dial? Almost we like just

Josh 9:02
No, no, hey, I mean, it was it was a concerted, you know, yeah, we should just because, I mean, obviously something some sort of gene something is against us. And so we got a we got to get tested just to kind of see, so we can at least prepare.

Scott Benner 9:21
Yeah, well, I'm glad you got the news you did. I guess I'm just gonna outright ask you like, what's the impact when a second child's diagnosed?

Josh 9:33
Well, it was interesting, because the seven year old, she took it really, you know, really pretty well. Like her biggest memory of that time of going to the hospital. She just stayed one night was finally getting to have her first insulin shot because she got a really, really good hot dog at the hospital. So that's kind of her personality and She takes the both the kids take the shots, just, you know, easy, but my seven year old lives in the moment and my 10 year old has a little bit bigger perspective. So, you know, he's thinking about school because he hasn't been to school with diabetes yet. And so he's thinking about school and friends and you know, having to leave the classroom, whether he wants to do that or not, and all this sort of stuff. So the emotional impact has been bigger with him. But when it comes to, you know, just making more room in the, in the diabetes closet and more room in the refrigerator for insulin. It hasn't been that big

Scott Benner 10:43
of a deal. Yeah. So your son has a, like a wider view. And so he's planning for things and that means worrying about things that he can't quite see completely yet, where your daughter's more like a fruit fly. No offense, like, she's just Yeah, yeah.

Josh 10:57
Absolutely. You know, she understands and like she'll, even if she, you know, is on her phone. So both the kids now have phones, because with Dexcom, we got to, so they, you know, they, they have their phones, and she'll bring it to us and say, Hey, we're, I'm getting higher, I'm getting low. Usually it's low so that she can have some candy. But, uh, other than that, she's kind of just take every moment as it is.

Scott Benner 11:25
She like, Oh, bad news, low blood sugar, I'll go to no worry. I figured this one right out. There personalities like this prior to diabetes.

Josh 11:37
Yeah, yeah. You know, if if Jack was on an episode with you, it would be Jack has all the fields as well. So he, um, he's, he's a lot like me. And it's one of those sorts of things where it's, you know, 111 bad thing will kind of mess up his day. He'll let one bad thing kind of make it make it all bad. And he really has to work hard to, for his mind to change his heart. But his heart does the does the talking. Yeah, it's interesting. I might be a little like that. So I'm definitely like, yeah,

Scott Benner 12:16
I don't know that it'll ruin my whole day. But I can, I can start having fairly existential conversations with myself where I'm like, there's no answer to any of this. And I don't even know why I'm bothering to think about it. But sometimes it seems. I guess to me, as an adult, it seems like if I can use this opportunity to think about what happened, like maybe I'll make a different or better decision. In the future. If something like this comes up, I try to think of it more pragmatically like that. But there are times where if I just, if I was, it happened to me when I was a kid, like as an adult, now I'm better at it. But if I just like when my heart starts pulling me if I let it go, like, it's gonna definitely end up with me crying somewhere. Like, I might not be for long, but I'm gonna be upset by the time it's over. I can remember, even the planning for the future stuff that you talked about when I was little, eight, 910 I would sometimes make up scenarios of things to happen so that I could figure out how to handle them in case they happened.

Josh 13:20
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And when you're eight, 910, sometimes those things are are nice and fun and fanciful. But then when you get to be a grown up, you know, I, you know, sometimes go to bed thinking okay, if someone were to break in my house right now, what would I do? You know, where's my nearest safety point? And it's just stuff like that. That, uh, I guess maybe, maybe it's just me, but my adult brain starts to do at night.

Scott Benner 13:48
Oh, Josh, I don't understand people who don't think for most of us. I don't I don't what would I pick up? What can I hit them with what I tell the kids which way to go to get out, like, you know, this whole thing. And that's just on like, one little idea. I once had this conversation with my brother in law and I was like, you've never thought about what to do if your house catches on fire. And he goes, No, I was like, Oh God, I have like multiple plants. case the fires on one side and cases on the other side. I was like, why I can't that's interesting to me, but I sometimes feel very jealous of those people because my house probably isn't going to catch fire. And it's fairly likely that no one's ever going to break into my home. Although I do have a plan I also know what I'm going to do if I find a genie bottle so I don't understand all you who don't have that thought out either because you know you're gonna get in the moment screw it up and end up with a giant penis and no money and it's gonna be so big you're not gonna be able to walk off the beach and I know that's where you're gonna find it on the beach because that's how it wasn't a cartoon when I was little so yeah, I don't I don't get any I don't get they're not thinking things through. Now. I'm not I'm There's a word, there's a technical word that I don't know, like obsessive, I'm not obsessive about it. I don't really think through what's going to happen if someone breaks him. But I've had the conversation with myself, like, what am I going to do here? How far would I be willing to go to help people? Like, I don't? Yeah, you know what I mean? That kind of thing.

Josh 15:18
I tend to I can, I can usually shut myself off after long enough in and being able to say, you know, is there any? Is there any good to this line of thinking? You know, that's, it's a counseling. Trick. Not really a trick, but you know, something, just to be mindful. It's like, is this line of thinking? Helpful? No,

Scott Benner 15:43
it's not? Are you at least not? Are you able to use that with your son?

Josh 15:49
We have broached it. He doesn't hate. We've We've certainly broached it in, in a sense of like, don't let this ruin your day. Is this is focusing on this helpful for having a good rest of your day. But I don't think he I don't think his his worries would be so chronic. That he would, that it would benefit that much. But yeah, in terms of letting something ruin his day, or, or even. It was actually last night, it was about, about all the school stuff and being like, look, you know, history has shown that your worries are always worse than things that actually happen. So you know, it doesn't, it doesn't help to worry about it right now. We still got, you know, how long we had until school starts. So

Scott Benner 16:56
yeah, that's the, the when I when I try to tell people like I've worries a waste of your imagination, because you just start making things up that may or may not ever happen, and now you're stressed or anxious about things that very likely will never occur.

Josh 17:12
And like that, worry, worry is a waste of your imagination.

Scott Benner 17:16
I mean, you really are just making up things in your head at that point. I mean, let's don't get me wrong, if you know, seven days in a row, someone hits you in the head with a stick, that you go to bed on the seventh day, you're like, Yeah, I think that guy's gonna hit me again, with a sick tomorrow. Like, that's, that's a different thing. But when you have no reason to think this other than your own, you know, made up concerns and it's hard to to explain to a child, but you're, you're making things up, you know, that that may or may not ever happen, like wait to see if they happen, then be upset if you want to be or, or come up with a plan. That something is good, I'm sorry, you're gonna say something.

Josh 17:56
But to think about, you know, kind of going back and looking at it in a bigger perspective, right. We were actually also talking yesterday, there's, there's a lot of deep conversations yesterday, about, you know, people don't usually live through a pandemic, this is not a usual thing. You know, and, and so everybody has had to deal with these, these things thrust upon them. And, and, and having to relinquish control of certain aspects of life. And, and for that's what, that's kind of what being diagnosed with diabetes. And lots of other chronic illnesses. Is, is, you know, where you you relinquish that control you? You no longer get to? I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say there. But it's it. The week, the COVID thing has affected everybody like it's a chronic illness.

Scott Benner 19:03
Yeah. So there's, I don't know if it's a saying or something. It's an idea or concept. I don't really know. But the idea of that the worst thing that's ever happened to you, is the worst thing that's ever happened to you. And so if you've lived through I mean, listen, I'm 50 right? If I look back over my life right now, what do I remember? Cuban Missile Crisis? Nope. That was before me. Really. I remember gas shortage. I remember the space shuttle blowing up. I remember Reagan getting shot. You know, like, these are things that never really touched me. I grew up in a part of the country. I didn't see bad weather. That was frightening. So for me the world was a place that was about getting up, taking a shower, going to school or playing with my friends. Trying to keep my parents off my back. Trying to find a Playboy magazine in the woods somewhere like this was pretty much my existence, right like it was that 1980s version of standby me for the most part, like nothing too terrible was happening. And now all the sudden, not only is that been our existence, that's now the vibe I laid on my kids when they were little. And then they got computers and cell phones and the internet like I had the internet a little bit when I was younger, I'm talking about the real internet, you don't I mean, like, yeah, I can get like, I could send my desk through my my internet connection. At this point, it's so fast, and it's a different world, everything feels possible. Everything feels like you can get to it. I grew up thinking that I could never write a book, because I didn't know someone that wrote a book. But when my son wanted to play baseball, he immediately had contact with a number of people who had played baseball, in college and professionally and all of a sudden, this feels real. And that makes the world feel at your fingertips, it makes you it gives you a feeling of control. That is not true. It's not really true. And I hate to say something like we're all on a rock that's hurling through space. But we're all on a rock that's hurling through space. And so once things got so like that, once, people's lives, could even get segmented. Like there are plenty of people who don't live the life I've described, right? But because of the way society set up, I don't see them. So they're a story, or an idea, right? There's a town somewhere where nobody has money, or nobody works, or drugs are really huge problem. That's not where I live. And it suddenly feels like I can bring the parts of life to me that I need. And the parts that I don't want to see, I don't have to see. And then this thing happened. And you're like, Oh, I'm not in control of anything. This could have happened at any time. And it's, it's, I have to say it's a huge adjustment is an understatement. People are still adjusting to the idea. And you and by the time a generation of people realize that sometimes I have a mask in my pocket, and I need it and sometimes have a mask in my pocket, I don't need it. And that there's times of year when things ebb and flow and rules change. Once that becomes so normal, you know, it's gonna stop. And then you'll have a generation of people who are just like, constantly thinking, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. And then one day, it won't come we'll get through a whole nother generation and those children will be like, Oh, it's not gonna happen. And then, I mean, then who knows? It could happen again in five minutes. Or it could be a distance of time, like between now and the Black Plague. So, yeah, yeah. It's an overwhelming that lack of the fallacy of control is now suddenly tangible for for literally, for everybody. That's how I That's how I see it anyway. And now I see. And I see your son's situation as, like a micro cosmos of that issue.

Josh 23:03
If that makes it 100% is I mean, about I would think about six weeks ago. Maybe Okay, yeah, about six weeks to go on Antiques take a step back. So when they diagnosed my son, you know, he didn't do any hospitalization, he didn't do anything like that, because we kind of knew it was coming they did run a test for that celiac. And come to find out, he has celiac. We had to we did the endoscopy to to verify and that was the at that point, the most frightening thing in my in my in my life, have you seen my son, you know, go under and that sort of thing so life, but like that feeling of Okay. Okay. He has type one, we got this. And, and that control being ripped again? Or that feeling like okay, I have things under control being ripped again. It's kind of you, you led me right into that turn that that celiac has has really messed with with any sort of security that we had been building because it's so recent. We're still you know, adjusting our kitchen and, and all that sort of stuff to dealing with that.

Scott Benner 24:49
It's almost like it's almost like you're being attacked by multiple sides. And you start fortifying like First you come to the conclusion that I met this happy person who We live in a house in the middle of the woods and everything's great. I smell flowers and sunshine. And then somebody comes from the east. And you're like, oh, no, we're being attacked by the east, you know, from the east and then you fortify, fortify, fortify. And then you get to the point where you're like, Okay, we can withstand this onslaught. Great. And before you can breathe again, somebody is coming from the west. And you're just like, oh, okay, okay. Okay. Except it's that added level of it's happening to your kid, which is contextually something that no one who doesn't have children can understand. Like, I, I tried to I was telling my wife the other day, my son has an an injury, right now, it could end up being pretty impactful on his baseball life. And I was talking to my wife about it. And I said, I can't decide if I'm more upset that his, his path has been diverted. And the all this effort he's put into something could have could end up feeling wasted, which would be a shame. Or if I'm more upset that he's actually physically hurt, or if I'm more upset, that of the things that won't happen for him, or just that my son's having a problem. I was like, it is so confusing inside of me. But all I can tell you is that I'm always worried about all of you. Like, I'm worried about him, I'm worried about you, I'm worried about my daughter, I said I think about my brother, I think about my mom, like my mom is 78. And I don't think a day goes by where I don't think like, I should call my mom or go visit my mom. And I can't most of the time, like most of the time, I can't do that. And then I think of her being by herself. And that makes me think about that, you know, when she had an opportunity, she didn't leave us. And I know all of this is fairly unreasonable, and that people grow up and get older and that children don't have as much time to talk to their parents. But I still think about it fairly regularly. Not for long. It's doesn't hurt me, it doesn't crush me. But I'm always aware of it. I'm always aware that I could have done something else. Or maybe I should have said a thing here or zigged and zagged. And I again, I think them as it was growing ideas. But I realized as I was talking to my wife, like she does not think like that at all. And I think she looked at me for five minutes. Like I was unwell. And I was like, no, no, I'm like, I think you're, you're seeing it too harshly. I'm just saying, I, you guys seem to be the most important thing in the world to me. And I take that job. I fortified my, my my flanks all the time, I'm always trying to help them or put somebody in a good position, or something like that. And I realized as we were sitting in the doctor's office waiting for my son to talk to this person, that it was the third most scared I've ever been in a medical situation in my life. One of them was Kelly, they thought Kelly might have a blood clot in her lung when she was pregnant the first time which she ended up not having, but just the time where we thought she did was the was the most scared I've ever been until somebody told me Arden had diabetes. And then as I sat with my son just waiting to hear about the health of his elbow, I realized that I was more frightened than than I was when a doctor kind of said out loud. I my iron had gone way down. Yeah, and the doctor said this is a sign of cancer. And I of course don't have cancer and that didn't end up being like thankfully what it was but I can tell you that when he said that, to me, was not as frightening as sitting in waiting to find out about my son's elbow.

Josh 28:53
There's certainly a you know, a parenting aspect of that and a personality aspect of that. And I think you know, I share that same thing. When you know we're we're sitting there in the waiting room during this endoscopy we're kind of I'm you know, I'm kind of worried about the, the the immediate thing of you know, what is what is this going to happen to him today like how is he going to take this today? What are we going to all those things of what are we going to do? And I know my wife was worried about that as well but then she she sometimes can have an even bigger you know perspective of like, you know, he he's not going to be able to in like going to to someone's wedding and if they don't have you know, a gluten free cake then these these little things in life that that continue to remind, remind us of these illnesses and. And it took me back to when I was diagnosed. So well, for last last episode I had, it took me about two weeks from my, my, my daughter's the very first in the type of diagnosis that we had for the kids to realize, Oh, um, at first, I was really scared that my daughter was going to have the same sort of upbringing with diabetes that I did. But it took me a little bit to realize on the way things have changed a lot. You know, thank goodness, for Dexcom and, and things like and, and carb counting. So, things have changed a lot and really nothing in her, like we talked about, you know, in her day to day life has, has affected her, you know, I get less sleep, because I'm constantly monitoring blood sugar's my wife gets less sleep. But um, it was, it was nice to kind of have that peace. Okay, this is what it's going to be like, you know, there's, there's future worries about, you know, having children and, or, you know, for her and, and all that sort of stuff. But then now, celiac comes, and celiac pretty much does exactly what it changes exactly, that part of life that I had to change whenever I was young with type one, and that's that diet. And so it's like, it's okay, sense of comfort, and then the carpet pulled out again. And you're right, that, that I I am infinitely more upset that it's my son. And not me. We, we, you know, we were told by his Endo, nice endo his gastro doctor to, you know, have everybody in the family tested just because it's genetic, and that sort of stuff happens. And so I got tested. And if you want me to go on a long rant about the state of health care again, I'm pretty sure I did the last time I can, because it was trouble enough to get me to get a doctor to approve my test. But, um, so I got tested for celiac. And when I got tested, I was wishing that I had it. I wanted to, I wanted him to not be alone. Because that's what I felt when I was younger of this. Because I didn't know any type ones. I, you know, all this diet stuff was was new and changed for me. And I wanted to be, I wanted him to have someone just to that, that he wouldn't be the only one. But I guess fortunately, I'm negative for for celiac. Unfortunately, my youngest, my three year old is positive for celiac. So we have to, we have all three of our kids have chronic illnesses, and then split up. So

Scott Benner 33:34
I forget does your wife have anything?

Josh 33:36
No, she hasn't been able to get the test yet. But she she'll be hopefully getting that ordered in the next few months to see John, but she she doesn't have any celiac symptoms right now. But she doesn't she doesn't have any sort of chronic illnesses or anything like that. You know, you get success. She has scoliosis, but that has not affected her.

Scott Benner 34:00
I feel like that's something you would all trade for right now. Like I'll take that and that's fine. You know, it's funny, you're you're so sincere when you're talking that I thought of a weird joke to make a second ago that I held in because I

Josh 34:17
felt in so many jokes so far. Yeah. Because because I want to know what sort of woods up there and it was Pennsylvania or Pittsburgh that you grew up. Pennsylvania near Philly, Pennsylvania. What sort of woods in Pennsylvania grows play playboys?

Scott Benner 34:30
I don't know, but but people just leave them in piles. I mean, they did back before the internet at least. So you know, I spoken to a little bit on off off the show as well. So I know you're you're a well natured, like funny person. And when I asked if your wife had anything I was gonna say besides horrible taste in men.

Josh 34:53
I mean, for sure. I mean, it's it that was that was that it was and continues to kind of, to irk my, my own mental health of, of that these are all, you know, genetic things and you know, I'm pretty, I'm pretty stable in the it wouldn't have changed probably anything that we would have done or anything like that. And, you know, it doesn't change how we interact with the children except for probably probably increases our patients in some other aspects of life. But um it it. Yeah, I mean, I don't

Scott Benner 35:38
mean this, like you should feel this way or that you should even do it. I'm just asking the question. Have you ever apologized to her?

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Have you ever apologized to her?

Josh 39:58
To to my wife Yes, yeah. Yeah. Oh, and you know, and I guess in my, my deeper into the that spiral that, that well, you know, just kind of said, you know, you should have married somebody else.

Scott Benner 40:17
But that's I didn't talk about with my son though you can't really know what to do or what not to do in I mean, honestly, before the even though you had type one, did you really when you were in your 20s think that any of what's happening to you right now is going to happen? No, no, he would have no way to believe that this was gonna happen. Right. So

Josh 40:38
when I was in my 20s, um, let's see. I mean, it was it was still early 20s. Um, so we would have been, you know, 10 years ago, right after we had my oldest that we went to a geneticist. And I guess, you know, I don't know, the timeline of of research and how they have the education that has evolved with how type one comes about. But they told us that, because I don't have I don't have anybody in my family. I don't know, I don't know, anybody, at least at that time, that has type one diabetes. That there was some sort of some sort of fluke, and that we shouldn't worry that the the, the, the chances for type one in our kids is much less because I don't have any genetic link. Huh?

Scott Benner 41:33
Yeah. Well, I didn't work out. I know.

Josh 41:37
Because this is like the internet. It's like giving us false control of your life. Yeah.

Scott Benner 41:43
Oh, it's Oh, I I think that all the time, that when someone tells you like, Oh, your one kid has diabetes, that's only a 10% greater risk for someone else to in your family. I always think like, that's something they tell you. It's almost like the there'll be a cure in like five years. Don't worry. Like it's there's there's like hope nuggets that people like to try to sprinkle on you. I like how people will come on here and say, like, my doctor doesn't seem to meaningfully understand diabetes at all. But I do really believe this thing that they said it I was like, Yeah, cuz it's confirmation bias. You're like, you want to hear that you want to hear that you're not, you know, at any greater risk. I'll tell you that. Prior to us having kids, you know, I remember my wife saying people in my family are in the bathroom a lot. Right? But okay, who knows what that means? Well, it takes you know, then suddenly, the grandmother gets a celiac diagnosis. When that happens, I don't think Oh, geez, we shouldn't have children, because one of our kids might have an autoimmune disease. Like, that's not where your brain goes, you're just like, Oh, grandma can eat bread. And you know, and like, that's sort of how it is like you. We understand celiac now, much, much better than we did even 20 years ago. And so you're just like, okay, whatever. And no one else in our family has any real history of anything like that. I'm adopted, of course. So who knows? Right? My irons probably been an issue my entire adult life. I didn't know about that. And Kelly, you know, gets thyroid issue after having Arden. But we didn't even understand the connections then back then either it took Arden's nurse practitioner years and years ago to say, because we couldn't get anybody to give Kelly a diagnosis on her thyroid. And so I was talking about it one day, so that so then that's me, like, this podcast shouldn't be any surprise that people who really know me like I have a problem. If I can't figure it out, I start talking to other people. Yeah, until somebody just goes, Oh, I know what that is. Like, to me. That's like the human internet. Like you just keep pinging people until they have a response. It's valuable. And so we find out for that. And now, Cole has Hashimotos you know, which isn't diagnosed, he's 21 years old. And I don't know what's coming next or isn't coming. But I can tell you that yesterday, I spent a number of hours meeting with people from prevention bio, which if you listen to the podcast is the company that came on here and talked about Ms. A blob, if I'm saying it wrong to Ms. A blob, I don't know how they maybe should have picked a different name for that truck. But and I and so I had to sit down with them about how maybe they you know how maybe the podcast could help them get the word out about what they're doing or something. And it was a very preliminary conversation. And at the end of it, I said, Listen, I think what you guys are doing involves science we understand. Which means that you don't need to invent something for the next thing to happen. This thing's either going to work or it isn't right. And you're going to while you're trying to prove it out and get it rolling. If I can be helpful with that, I will be because I think it's valuable. whether it works or not, the Endeavor is very valuable. And then I said words I've never said before I said, because, you know, my children's kids could have diabetes. And I never thought that out loud before my life. But it's completely true. It's completely true that my children might have children who have celiac or a thyroid problem, or diabetes, or any number of issues like that. And there are times when Arden's like, I think I might just adopt if I have kids. And it seems like a very, it's not a scared statement, it seems like a mature statement. Like, you know, she's never said, I don't want to keep this train going. But I think right now, because she's young, it's more like I do not want to have to help a kid with diabetes might be her, I'm sure that will change as she gets older, like her feelings around it. I'm never going to really know until she's older. What this is about, when she can maybe more fully contextualize it for me. But I just found myself at that meeting, thinking maybe I could do something today that might help family members. I never know, you know what I mean? And so let's see what that does. But let me because what's the other option, you just stop living? And that doesn't seem valuable, either. You know,

Josh 46:25
you know, I guess my my thoughts had never gone. I guess they don't they don't stay on, you know, the health of grandkids. But certainly we have talked about and thought about, you know, the the genetic joining of any of our kids in someone else. And how, you know, letting, letting any any of my kids future partners know about me being a alpha one antitrypsin deficiency, I don't know if you remember that from the episode. But um, and that causing can cause more acute issues. Early on in life. So that idea of passing it on, it's, it's scary, and it but you're right, in that it can't, it can't stop us, when you said that what Arden said, you know, the first thing that came to my head was you know that that usual, I say usual, but oftentimes with chronic illnesses, you have this lower self esteem, you have this, you know, mild depression can happen. And so it was kind of screaming of that, but if she is, if she is thinking of it in in a different way, then then yeah, that can be a very mature aspect of her personality.

Scott Benner 48:03
Who knows, she doesn't seem depressed to me, and she doesn't seem burdened by diabetes to me. But, you know, I don't know, like, you know, we'll see, I'm just trying to be aware of things I can tell you that, even though I said it out loud for the first time yesterday, privately in my mind, and this is way pre planning but we talked about pre planning in the beginning. I've won I've often thought that if one day one of my children has a baby, the first time I hold it, I don't want to think please don't have diabetes one day when I when I hold the baby for the first time. And I'm wondering if I'll be able to, like consciously not have that thought. Because I feel like that's gonna be the first thing I think when my skin touches their skin, you know, and you feel the first connection of it. I feel I feel like please just don't have to deal with this. But I don't know You

Josh 49:00
know, you think you think Arden you know when it when it comes to taking care of a kid or diabetes? Do you think Arden thinks you have to start a podcast and you have to interview people daily and, and all that sort of stuff?

Scott Benner 49:13
She's like, I don't have the stamina for that. I don't think she thinks that at all. Actually. I said to her one day I was like, Would you like to take like say I get too old one day do you? Would you like to try to just take the podcast over and she goes that's your thing. I'm okay. I was like, Okay, fine. I don't think she sees it like that at all. Actually, she's if you haven't heard the episode with her yet? It's eye opening.

Josh 49:37
i i You know, Josh has even more fields. I have not not just your podcast, but honestly I have not listened to any podcasts in probably three months.

Scott Benner 49:49
Yeah, your life upside down.

Josh 49:52
moments that I have earbuds in I'm usually listening to. Either really sad me music or heavy metal? So just kind of keeping going. That makes

Scott Benner 50:05
sense to me. Maybe I should just have a whole episode of sad music and heavy metal maybe people like that a little bit.

Josh 50:12
I mean, it could be sad heavy metal. So most, most of it is probably sad. So

Scott Benner 50:19
Well, yeah. Wait, hold on. We're not getting past that without finding out like, what are some of your favorite metal bands?

Josh 50:25
Oh, man. So I go back to this, go back to a comfort area of whenever I was younger, and definitely listening to, to corn to some, some Metallica that sort of era of things. Something like if I'm in the car, and I'm really having all the fields, you know, I used to be big into car audio until I realized it was a waste of money. And and so I'll just you know, belted out and and scream and annoy everybody on the road. But then, when I get home I can be, you know, the call, Mr. Dad? Yeah. Yeah,

Scott Benner 51:11
do that a little bit. I might have a couple of playlists that fit that. That feeling. When I missed my son, I listened to rap music, which I don't predict which I don't particularly love. Although some of it I do.

Josh 51:25
I'm guessing it's his rap music.

Scott Benner 51:26
It's a listening to music that so we drive to so much baseball together. I am because we are the kind of parents which if you listen to this episode, you'll see like we don't stifle the kids really. So, you know, when it's his turn to put music on. And it's, you know, pop smoke Meek Mill Davies, like stuff like that. I just, I tried to find something that I like, it turns out the things about it, I like he doesn't even know I'm like, I like the guy's like, the guy's got, like a really great resonance in his voice. And he's like, What are you listening to?

Josh 51:56
I wonder what microphone he's using.

Scott Benner 51:59
I just, I'm like, It's comforting. Like, I show me a picture of him. He's like, why do you need to see him? I was like, is he his biggest his voice and he's like, who cares? Like, alright, but you know, once he's off at school for a while, if I find myself missing him, I put his music on. i I'll go through, like rolls through like old Metallica. And stuff like that. I'm not a person who puts on music, like from when I was a kid too much. Like, I remember how much I love Guns and Roses, but I don't really need to hear it anymore. Feeling if I get I'm trying to calm down, I listened to the cello. And I've started to like more 70s I mean, which stuff that I would have thought was oldies when I was in the 90s. But now you realize how good it was like Crosby, Stills and Nash and stuff like that, like he didn't, you know, I mean, like so there's always a place in my heart for Crosby, Stills and Nash and Ted Stevens and Paul Simon and Neil Diamond, all that sort of stuff. So I'm so glad that radio is not really a thing anymore, because the last time it was, they were playing Guns and Roses on on an oldies station one time and I was like, Alright, I'm done paying attention to the lineage of this now I'm like, I do not need to feel badly about this. But yeah, just that all makes sense to me. You know?

Josh 53:19
Slightly, not really off topic. What genre do you think ABA is? What would you consider ABA?

Scott Benner 53:27
I mean, ABA is pop, isn't it?

Josh 53:31
My wife and I were discussing it so I didn't really know. I didn't know what I was kind of putting it into where did you have it? You know, in between like a disco rock sort of thing?

Scott Benner 53:45
Yeah, I guess that it had that flavor. So if you just Google it, it comes up rock rock pop. I don't think I would not see it as rock

Josh 53:57
by sounds like the categories that BestBuy used to put their CDs in

Scott Benner 54:01
exactly. There's a picture of them on stage here in these white robes and the be honest they look like a Christian band it this is this they really do look like they're gonna tell me the I should listen to Jesus in this in this one here. And then they get a little more hippyish at times in their photos. It's interesting. I only know the one song so although I have seen the musical. I can't believe I just said that. What was it called? Was that Mamma Mia? No, yeah, no, there was an album. Oh god.

Josh 54:44
I'm gonna Nia is a musical bound think it was

Scott Benner 54:47
it wasn't the album. They did like a stage thing was just Abba music. I really don't remember my wife took me to it. I will be 100% honest about that. And Oh my god, that, wow, here's a weird memory. Okay, I don't want to bum everybody out, but you're on so it's okay. It was. We had tickets. And the night before my father passed away. I spent the whole night in the hospital, I came home, I got a few hours of sleep, woke up, gotten a shower, got on a train and went to Manhattan. And I remember sitting in that musical like, numb and exhausted. And but I didn't want to let people down that you know, we had this thing and we went anyway. Maybe that's why I didn't enjoy it. I guess now that I'm looking back,

Josh 55:40
certainly can have some repercussions of what you what you're doing around such a dramatic time. Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:47
I couldn't even believe that. I. I didn't remember that until just now. Actually, I wish I could remember the name of that damn musical because it wasn't Mamma Mia. Was it? Dammit, I'll find out. But anyway, musics incredibly helpful at different times. And you don't like see, I actually like to hear people talk when I'm upset, though. But but I like to hear them talk about something that has nothing to do with me.

Josh 56:13
Now, I think I probably am usually the same way. And then that's, I mean, I love podcasts. But something I don't know, something just kind of shook me out of that. Yeah. That, I guess, that need at that time. And just needing to just needing to be more ever present.

Scott Benner 56:38
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. You don't want to disappear too, right? Like you don't wanna you don't want to have a situation where you find yourself, like retracting from the family either. Which that would be, I guess, kind of understandable. And at the same time, it's hard to reverse once you start doing stuff like that. So I guess he got to kind of stay in it. I mean, the truth of it is to like to unpack it a different way. You've had diabetes for 30 years. You okay.

Josh 57:12
Yeah, I mean, yeah.

Scott Benner 57:13
Yeah. I mean, honestly, you're okay. Right. Like, get up and work. You have a car, you listen to music, you buy food you eat like, the truth is, is it's a disappointment, and shaking of expectation, but it's not really the end of anything. It's just the change of, of, from what you expected to what you got, like, that's how I was thinking about my son the other day, I was like, If this ends up, like sidelining him for a long time or stopping him. He's still a really bright, happy, energetic person who's smart and like, it's, it's gonna be this one little aspect of his life that's going to be different. And I I'm not minimizing diabetes, certainly I'm as impacted by it as anybody else in my situation. But it mean, Arden got up this morning, she got in the shower, she got dressed, she went off to her high school to do some community service and, and she'll spend four or five hours there by herself. She come home. I haven't heard from her. I mean, I could pick up her thing right now. And I don't even know what her blood sugar is. But I'll look for you. It's like 97 It hasn't been over 110 In the last three hours. She's been out of here for quite some time. I don't know if she's eaten, or she hasn't eaten today.

Josh 58:41
Her life she's still doing the the Why am I blanking on it? I'm doing it as

Scott Benner 58:48
well. You want to say loop? Yeah,

Josh 58:50
she's still doing the loop.

Scott Benner 58:51
She is doing the loop right now. I am. We're, I think we're so close to Omnipod five right now, but I don't know. And so we are going to try it. And we're very hopeful for it. Just because it's less, you know, it's more off the shelf and less, you know, DIY for certain. But, uh, yeah, I mean, that's what she's doing. It's, you know, I had a long meeting yesterday, I was out of the house for four hours in the afternoon. I met them for dinner when I got there. She was having nachos like you know, they had water ice afterwards. I mean, her life doesn't look me with the exception of picking up her cell phone and pushing a couple of buttons last night. I mean, I don't see that her life looks any different than anybody else's.

Josh 59:36
And when you said he said something where it doesn't you know take anything

away you know that that's that's where that that that thing of pulling me back to when I was six and and stuff like that happens because It's been six weeks since my son has had a happy meal. Right? You know, and, and it's just those, those double Whammies, my, my, my seven year old who, you know, might guess I'm not saying she started all this, but her diagnosis started all this she's she's living the repercussions of, you know, a family member with celiac. So her diet, I'm changing some too, and just kind of learning how to appropriately deal with my own guilt of, of, you know, going and, and wanting raising gains or something like that, you know, and, and my son not being able to. So it's been those there has been a lot of day to day changes that we still have not we still haven't figured out. Let me I'm really hopeful that there might be people that might listen to this out there that can help. Because I we've talked to people or adults with celiac, but it has never been how we I haven't really found anything good about how to deal with I guess what I was just kind of talking about some of that guilt in some of the, you know, the day to day changes.

Scott Benner 1:01:32
So if if, excuse me one second. If I was you, I put myself in your shoes now. And I have all your credentials and your backgrounds, and now you're the people you help. Explain to me why. Explain to me why I can't just say to you, Josh, stop it. I know that's a weird thing. Because I understand bigger, why can't Why can't I just say, Josh, stop? isn't your fault? You didn't do this? This is the situation? Are you telling me the worst thing in the world as your kids not going to eat McDonald's? That might even be a good thing. Like, like, like, you know what I mean? Like, like, let's move on man. Like, is there something wrong with that approach?

Josh 1:02:21
That approach is a is much more of a confrontational approach. It's a reality therapy approach. It's what? I hate saying his name, but it's what Dr. Phil does. You know, and, and there's there There isn't anything wrong with that, especially if when if if someone is is stuck, you know, if it's been a long time, and they're stuck at that, yeah, that feeling that, uh, that there hasn't been any sort of change any sort of, of movement in, in, you know, their behaviors, their, their, their emotions.

Scott Benner 1:03:02
So how long? How long? Would you as a professional, how long would you say if you were treating yourself? I know, that's not how this works. But if you were seeing somebody with your situation, how long do you let them stay in this situation before you say hey, it's time to start moving?

Josh 1:03:17
That's a really good question. And I was, as I was talking, I was asking myself that because that's like, man, that's the next that's the next thing to say. Okay, how long is is is too long? And I wonder, you know, I think a very clear example would be that, if if I noticed that minor my wife's mental health is, is preventing the kids from from moving on. You know, we, we definitely, I feel like are taking it harder than doing the kids but we, you know, again, are having that longer perspective.

So, if, if we are if we're really dragging the house down, I would say that, it can be, it can be too long, but certainly like, you know,

I can tell you though, with with with depression, that when when, when individual symptoms start becoming even more of an issue, you know, like, for me, it really became sleep. Sleep has been an issue lately that you know that okay, your body is not going to be I can't handle this much longer. I need to find I need to find a way out emotionally. Yeah, so that's why I listen to corn. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:57
no, I listen. I I don't think I mean, I guess there's to contextualize it in a completely farcical way. In every zombie show. The people who stand around and go, Oh my God, they're eating Katy get eaten, too. So it's the people who go up Katie's down, let's get the hell out of here. Those people are always okay. Like the people who move forward, don't stop. And don't get me wrong. Eventually, in later episodes, they're very sad. But it's just like, maybe this is a moment in your life that will feel differently in a year. Like, I think from listening to you, and from understanding your background. And from having spoken to you in the past, you have a firm grasp of what has happened here, you understand the impacts of it for your son, for your wife, for your children, for yourself. So cognitively, you have it. Now staying here is just torture after that, and are you making that decision? To feel badly a little longer? Because it feels like it's your fault? And is it because you're connecting? Having diabetes 30 years ago with having it today, which it's not like but then all of a sudden becomes like because of the celiac diagnosis? Except I don't know, man, like what are you missing with a celiac diagnosis really, like bread and pasta and like, I don't know, like, I've never looked into it. I do know, by the way for people listening that episode. 439 is part of the how we eat series, which is about being gluten free. I just want to throw a plug in there for the podcast. I'm actually really proud of the how you eat series. There's God, maybe 10 of them now. Plant based gluten free low carb, vegan carnivore flexitarian intermittent fasting keto FODMAP people who eat the Bernstein way. I'm enjoying talking to people about how they eat. But what I can tell you about every one of them is that every one of them is doing something that is in some way restrictive. And no one feels that way. Yeah. And that's, that's one of the things that's been the most fascinating about talking to them, is that from an outsider's perspective, or from a perspective of someone whose son was just diagnosed, it feels like it's all about the things you can't have. But the people who've been living it for a while, don't feel that way. And that would make me feel better. If I was you.

Josh 1:07:32
I wonder, you know, going back to control and choice, you know, and I don't know, I have not listened to those episodes. I know that my wife Listen, went back and listened to particular episodes and annuals in your, in your series of, of different things that might be helpful for the celiac diagnosis, but I want you know, I would like for I would like for me and my son, because there's, there's times just kind of seeing him to have, you know, that option.

Scott Benner 1:08:10
Does he look like you Josh?

Josh 1:08:13
Because my son look like me. Yeah, I'm a little I would say so. I think my mom would probably say so in some ways.

Scott Benner 1:08:21
I wonder if that bothers you, too. I feel like you're looking at yourself sometimes.

Josh 1:08:26
He he likes Legos. He like he likes video games. I don't think he likes corn. I don't think he's listened to it. But you know, he we are very, very similar, you know, and also it's it's one of those things where it's like you know, where the where the two boys here.

Scott Benner 1:08:47
So if your son came to you in a moment of clarity and maturity and said Dad, are you happy with your life, you will start

Josh 1:08:54
crying immediately because he asked me that.

Scott Benner 1:08:59
But what's the forget? I'll ask you overall, like, is it a good life?

Josh 1:09:12
It's been

Scott Benner 1:09:15
Yes. Okay.

Josh 1:09:17
But I don't know how long it took me to answer that question. Right and how many seconds that was because I've been in a bubble. You know, I've been I've been very, I've been very deep in that in that spiral.

For for a while. And in terms of depression, I think it's interesting that you kind of think of you know what hopeless means I have no hope. But sometimes it feels like there can be something beyond even hopeless where it's just where I guess it's almost like a like a, like a giving up any sort of idea that I have control over good or bad outcomes that are that are happening to me and my family,

Scott Benner 1:10:24
you don't have any control over it at all. It's all random. It's nothing, miss. It's just what it is. And if you are, if you're listening, I'm on a completely different level. I, you know, in the similar situation, I was telling my son last night, there were two Hallmark moments where I said, I think I should have said this too. And maybe this wouldn't have happened. And he's like, nod, but he was gonna happen anyway. And he started laying out why he thought it would happen anyway. And I think he was right. And yet, my clinician was to say, Yeah, but what if I would, and then I'm what effing. And then I'm like, this is just ridiculous. It's, it's, it's meaningless. It's fruitless. You'll never if I can't go backwards, like, I cannot go backwards. I cannot take him backwards. All I have is what we do next. And I'm either going to take him in the back, I told my wife, I said, while we were sitting there waiting for the doctor to read the MRI. I thought to myself, I know what kind of parent I am. But let me just double check in a second. Am I about to be very upset? Or am I going to be stoic and pick the best path? Because there was like a child inside of me that wanted to just cry, and just just give up? Like, he's like, just give up? You know what I mean? Like, there was a voice in my head, it was like, This is it. Get Scott, like, just let's cry and wallow and tell the kid how sorry we are, and tell him his life's changed, and it sucks. And let's really dive into it together. And then when the doctor said it, I put my hand on his shoulder, and I was like, we're gonna work this out. Like, we'll do everything we can. We'll do everything that medicine understands. And we will get you as far along this process as we can. But I wanted to just be like, Man, I'm sorry, like, and just fall into it. But I don't think we lost yet. And I don't know that. I don't know that short of dying, there is any losing. Right. There's just recalibrations and changing paths and living with the zombies. And you know, just just keep going like because there's no alternative, Josh, like, there's literally no alternative, like you're either going to like, look yourself in the mirror one day and be like, Dude, that's it man pulled together, let's go, right, or you're going to be in this space. And the longer you stay in the space, the more likely it is that your son will find this space. So if you can't do it for yourself, fake it till you make it and do it for him. Like, I don't know that. I don't know that I've ever thought about it this much before. But like that's how it occurs to me in the moment. And if that makes any sense. Also, your Texas came out a minute ago. You refer to the podcast episodes as yours. I never heard it out of you before that was the first time I heard it.

Josh 1:13:31
Yeah, yeah, my my phone now doesn't care if I type out y'all or not it. lets me do it. So I I'm in that fake it till I make it zone. Yeah. But um, you know, I was I was actually is I was realizing this the other day that when when I was younger with type one diabetes, we did not have the continuous glucose monitor. And I did not want to check my blood sugar. But you know, I kind of taught myself or, or was tight in some ways to continuously monitor how I felt. Do I feel low? Do I feel high? Am I going low? Am I going high? What do I think? What's happening to try to stave off any, you know, ups and downs that probably came, you know, even even more so, when doing carb counting but still without the continuous glucose monitor. And so I think unfortunately, that has continued on in my life when instead of instead of knowing how I'm I'm feeling I can just look and say okay, see what my blood sugar is. I'm 157 I'm actually coming and down a little bit. And And okay, so I'm still having I'm still doing that. How do I feel? How do I feel? How do I feel? How do I feel? And, you know, yeah. And I kind of realized it's it. It's it developed this anxiety feedback loop. Yeah. And before and you know, I want I want to shut it off. But it's, it made me realize that like, you know, in the morning you know, depending on how I slept, I can I feel energized Let's go, I've got these things to do. I'm going to take care of the day. And then you know, around 11 I you know, if I'm checking in myself again, it's like, oh, man, I'm not really feeling that good. Okay, maybe I need something to eat. Maybe I'm, you know, have too much caffeine. My me. I'm not proud of caffeine, all these sorts of things are going through my head to try to I guess, maybe fake it till I make it.

Scott Benner 1:16:06
You're not using an algorithm though. Right? I am. You are using a loop. Using control kill.

Josh 1:16:15
Loop. Okay. loop with the auto Bolus.

Scott Benner 1:16:20
Your children using the same thing?

Josh 1:16:22
No, no, none of them want the want the pump on?

Scott Benner 1:16:27
Okay. So they're just doing MDI those? Yeah. Okay.

Josh 1:16:31
I would love to I would love to give them the pump. But then if want to get mad

Scott Benner 1:16:36
one day, they'll ask about it. Yeah.

Josh 1:16:40
Yeah, so that takes a lot off of me until like, you know, the the cannulas, cannula or whatever, you know, comes out or whatever and then I have to come back to my own. My own health but like, also the I don't remember I was gonna go with that feedback. It just it. It keeps me I don't know what it it kind of keeps me in that probably in that what we were talking about that.

Scott Benner 1:17:19
You're in, like an anxiety feedback loop where you're like, I wonder if I'm okay, I am okay. Oh, good. I wonder if I'm okay. I'm not okay. Oh, good. But are you really but, but let's just talk like, like, there's by the way, before I ask you this question. I have thought for the last 15 minutes. I wonder how a job change would impact your personal life. I wonder if you're just too involved in how people feel.

Josh 1:17:44
I would love to make furniture and bass guitars and work with wood. For the for the rest of my life. I say that but then I'd probably get annoyed and you know, a little bit too much of a perfectionist and wouldn't be able to produce anything or something.

Scott Benner 1:18:05
You know, I mean, listen there. I know men who in in their entire life haven't had as many deep thoughts as you had in the last 25 minutes. And they just move along like a train. You know what I mean? I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just saying like maybe like you don't have an escape because then when you go to work you're going to delve into somebody else's thoughts and issues and then you see I'm assuming you see parallels between your personal life and how other people feel and you probably mix and match and and hold things up for assessment and there's no downtime then for that it would seem to me but anyway What the hell was my question? That was stupid of me to cut myself off everything you just said about the anxiety the feedback Oh, okay yeah I'm sorry. What's your anyone say

Josh 1:19:00
You know, that's something I again, because of of our lovely health insurance conundrum, I keep on missing this gap of getting my I have to order my labs to quest diagnostic rather than do it at the hospital and then I keep messing up and not getting it done. You know, honestly, because I value the the Dexcom information even more. Yeah. And let me pull up my clear what

Scott Benner 1:19:29
is that what is clarity? And clarity is not going to show you anyone see there? They call it something else. Now let's say yeah, I forget what it is.

Josh 1:19:50
Do GMI

Scott Benner 1:19:52
whatever that stands for cost management indicator

Josh 1:19:55
is a 6.9. Okay. The average glucose 148 standard daeviation 57, which is a little bit on the high side, but

Scott Benner 1:20:03
yeah, so do you are you forget the numbers? Are you happy with the numbers? Or do you want them to be different?

Josh 1:20:10
I'm happy with my numbers. Okay. I'm happy with my children's numbers too for the most part. Yeah, we have this really late night slash early morning rise that we are trying to, to figure out with my daughter, but the thing with their their numbers is that it's constantly changing, like we talked about with honeymooning. You know, I, I fluctuate, you know, at a plus or minus three, with their, with their receiver, you know, kind of making adjustments as we go.

Scott Benner 1:20:42
Well, well, I, my point of asking was, is if you're comfortable with where you are, why do you care about? Like, why is it an anxious thing? Like it's going the way you want to go? Like, where's the anxiety from? You see, I'm saying like, if I wanted to paint a wall blue, and I was painting it, it was blue, I wouldn't be like, Oh, my God, I'm very worried about the painting of this wall. It's working out exactly the way I thought it was going to. So your diabetes is going exactly how you thought it was going to end exactly how you want it to go. Why was it why is it upsetting to you? Or is that just your general state? And it applies to everything?

Josh 1:21:24
I think it's, I think, in the past two months, it's been the celiac part of it.

Scott Benner 1:21:32
Okay, so you're having like, you're literally having like trauma from your childhood? Around the eating, because it's been brought up to you because of your son's eating change? Yeah, yeah. All right. I don't need to charge you a copay for to make this legal die.

Josh 1:21:53
But do you? I mean, if we tried to make it legal, I think there'd be issues in terms of the the cross state boundaries. And

Scott Benner 1:21:59
I also barely got out of high school. So there might be some issues with like, regulatory commissions and things like that, too. But that's not the point. The point is that, do you think you don't need me to tell you that like, you know, this already, right. Okay. Right. So then the question is, and you haven't been listening recently, but I have a couple of different like, people coming on with with similar backgrounds to yours. And we're just talking things through diabetes wise. And one of them, Erica, I said to her, you know, we always do this stuff, right, like magazines put out lists of like, the top 10 things you're supposed to look for. And you know, we get together on podcasts and tell people what the, you know, what they should be concerned about what they should change. And so but in the end, like, can anybody really take that advice? Like, is that is that the secret part of all this, that we don't say out loud, that it doesn't matter if you know, that you're being controlled by a force that's bigger than your knowledge? Like, if you can't figure it out? Who the Who the hell can? And like, what do you say to people in this situation? Like, if you were if you were helping you, like, forget, it's you for a second, like, what do you do next?

Josh 1:23:23
There is part part of the grief process is acceptance. Right? And grief doesn't necessarily have to be someone dying. It can literally be losing your ability to go and have happy meal. Yeah, I'm using that as an example. A funny example, because called a happy meal, I didn't think about that part. So, by the

Scott Benner 1:23:55
way, if he eats it, it'll be an unhappy meal because I'm in the bathroom.

Josh 1:24:00
I didn't even add that but that's the other thing is like, he he doesn't have symptoms.

Scott Benner 1:24:04
He doesn't have you eating gluten free thing. Right?

Josh 1:24:07
So we're eating gluten free because there was there was damage to his intestine, okay, okay. In the vacancy in the endoscopy? They did they did the biopsy. But he he doesn't have at least strong you know, sick symptoms, you know? And so, instead of being like, okay, stop eating pizza and you're gonna feel better. It's just like, Nah, stop eating pizza.

Scott Benner 1:24:35
So nothing's changed for him.

Josh 1:24:37
Correct. Besides him not being able to have pizza meals. There's there's a whole bunch more, you know, like just going to Olive Garden. Granted, we don't, we wouldn't go to Olive Garden because of COVID but like getting Olive Garden to go, right? There's just things like that where How to we found our stance? But the question is like, how do you even weigh? Like? The idea of okay, my son's at a birthday party? He doesn't even have celiac symptoms. Can you just have the cake? Oh, but wait, my adult perspective is thinking, Okay, well that could put, you know, damage on his intestine, which, you know, maybe it takes him up from a 30% to a 31% chance of colon cancer at some point, you know, just

Scott Benner 1:25:32
birthday parties, this kid going to? Man not

Josh 1:25:35
not very many No, no, I should think I should think of another example.

Scott Benner 1:25:40
Like this kid's birthday party every other day. Just let them have the cake.

Josh 1:25:48
I think that's, that's what our GI doctor would also say, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:25:53
I don't want to tell you, I don't have any other thoughts that aren't fairly common sense. I don't know a lot about anything. So. I mean, that just makes sense to me. I, I would just try that if I wish you I, you know, like, I mean, listen, if if the kids 65 years old one day and ends up with some, you know, colon cells growing in a stomach, and he gets something I'm like, that's really going to be terrible. But I only got to kind of something that happens to him now. And I hate to say this, but something's got to kill him. So you know, like, like, Why ruin everything to avoid something that you might not be able to avoid anyway? Or that might not even be a concern? Because that's the I have the thing. I don't even know what it's, I don't know what it's called. I got an endoscopy. And it's this thing that can be pre cancerous, but isn't necessarily and if you know, I'll go back every three or five years or something. And if they find the cells, they'll just like, scrape them out and keep going. And, like that kind of thing. Like, I don't know, man, like, what am I gonna do? You know what I mean? Like, like, something's got to give somewhere, you can't, you can't be fortifying every direction, including up down and coming from the center constantly. Because you guys might as well just go in the garage and start the car and, you know, go to sleep like, what's the point of this? Unless you've got a mad you have an Eevee? And like, three hours later, you're like, it's just not working? I would feel I would feel really dumb. Yeah, you'd be like, God, I'm I'm distraught and stupid. What a man and

Josh 1:27:37
and I just ruined the environment, a little bit more

Scott Benner 1:27:41
electricity. Anyway, I don't think we should joke about suicide. Just want to say that right now.

Josh 1:27:48
I have a mental health condition choking him. So

Scott Benner 1:27:51
it's probably not the right thing to do is what I'm getting at. But I'm just I'm just trying to make the bigger like argument that it's possible that if you ship me, your kids, they'll have a view on them. No, I don't want my own. That's not that. Let's not be ridiculous. Okay, I just can I tell you that as we were logging onto this, my son's tuition, hit my credit card, and it popped up on my screen. So I put my son's tuition through a credit card, so I get points. So it's not like I'm not charging his college education. But I'm doing it so that I can, you know, so I get points. And it popped up. And I was mortified. Because, oh, oh, god knows, like, right before you came on. I was like, Oh, my God, this is horrible. I don't want your children I barely want my own. Don't say that. What I'm saying is, is unless your kids a big dummy, you don't think he's gonna need any secondary education after high school and then maybe handle him for a little while, but you got to send diabetes supplies. But But my point is, you know what, I've been thinking while we were talking. Listen to one podcast today, listen to art and talk about diabetes. I think it will be so incredibly 180 degrees from how you think about it, that it might help you a little bit. She doesn't think about it at all. Like ever. It's almost stunning to hear her talk about it. And I wondered if you took me those two kids and shipped them up here and lived here for a month? If you would notice that? I don't feel the way you feel. I'm a little I can be dispassionate. They're not my children. But I also I don't think about diabetes the way you do. And I understand why you think about it the way you do, like, don't get me wrong. You have a history with it. That I don't have, but also it's a personal history. I don't not have a history when you think of my friend Mike I, I literally know that diabetes can kill you if you don't manage it well. And so I have that in the back of my head constantly, and I still don't feel the way you feel. And so you could just I don't know, like maybe you can't like, don't get me wrong, but but if it's within you, you could just shift your paradigm, you could just be like, This isn't how we think about this anymore, we're gonna do this, you're gonna have a cupcake at a birthday party. And we're not going to worry about that ever. Once ever again, that is just going to happen. Some things are beyond control. And I'm going to be happy with my a one, see where it is. And I'm not going to spend every day going, how do I feel? How do I feel? How do I feel? Because you're running an algorithm, just set alarms, set alarms on your Dexcom. And if the alarms aren't going off, promise yourself not to think about your diabetes. I mean, that to me, like I don't know if that's doable, but that's the only answer. If it's gonna work. That's the only answer. Because you're not gonna. You're not gonna talk yourself out of this. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, there's always going to be a reason to sit next year kid in office and cry and go, man, we got screwed. We really got screwed. Like, Josh, I don't know how meaningful this is the other people, but my son was throwing a baseball 92 miles an hour off the mound, five weeks before this happened. And now, he's not supposed to move his arm in a forward motion for the next eight weeks. So I don't know if it's gonna, it might work out fine. And it might not be a big deal to people who don't understand. But my kid's been playing baseball, since he's foreign. He's 21. And it's a big chunk of his life. If it goes away, he'll have to meaningfully redefine who he is.

Josh 1:31:35
And it's it's like it. It is him not having a happy meal again.

Scott Benner 1:31:42
Oh, yes. Except, except if your son ate Happy Meals, 24 hours. And when he did well, let's say,

Josh 1:31:49
you know, like, in a way, celiac, if you if you think about the foods that we have, I know that there's lots of gluten free foods out there. But if you also get into the nitty gritty, you know, with restaurants and with how gluten free foods are packaged, there's the contaminant levels and stuff like that, but that's much more than the nitty gritty. And I know there's lots of gluten free stuff, but my we live in a a wheat based society. You know, it would be an interesting idea if, you know, if we went back, you know, 1000s of years and kind of encouraged rice more than we there's so much stuff,

Scott Benner 1:32:37
or you can just put him in front of a deer and let him not like a weed man. Yeah. Listen, I'm going to give you some advice from a classic film, The Lost World Jurassic Park, where they said don't go into the long grass. So you got to stay out of the weeds a little bit. Yeah, you know, stay out of the wheat. Yeah, stay out of the wheat because the kid doesn't even have any symptoms. So, I mean, you found out because he has diabetes and because people tested which I don't think is bad information to have, but I don't know that it feels actionable at this moment. You know, like, I mean, if you want to avoid, listen, if I'm you, based on my experiences, I'd avoid processed foods. Listen, forget Josh. All you listening. You want some great advice? Eat as few processed foods as you can. Try not to take in too many processed oils either. Your life will be better. That that's all like you're you're focused on one thing cupcake, it's what it's not the food. Like if you if your son never ate a cupcake in his entire life, it wouldn't matter and he wouldn't care it's it's your it's the meaning that you're attaching to the food wow, I didn't realize this. This should be a whole episode about food. It's the meaning that you're attaching to the food that's the problem not the food. Right? Yeah, yeah. It's It's meaningless like it's literally just a it's a false idol like the cupcakes a false idol for you. It's something that you're you're ascribing more meaning to than it exists. And I mean, people will be like, oh, there's great celiac you know, friendly cupcakes and I'm sure there is by the way, but who cares? Like never eat a cupcake again? Like what is it? Like why would that matter even you're not thinking about this right? You need more context you need a zombie chase you you really do what you need something where you're just like, oh, hell I don't give let's get out of here.

Josh 1:34:37
You're right yeah, um, it but it's, it's tell a seminar that I guess a three year old and a 10 year old. Never eat a cupcake

Scott Benner 1:34:48
again. I tell you something, let me write down the time here because off to go back and delete this out. I wouldn't tell him I grew up in this 70s My father never one time explained anything that was happening to me. He didn't even he didn't even care how I felt the tiniest little bit. Is that right? It is not. But it's just it's also not wrong. Sometimes make some time. He's 10 Man, stand in front of them and be like, Listen, brother. No more sucks, right? We're not doing it. Three weeks from now, you will never remember. Let it go. We're out here. Let's move on to something else and get out of here. And don't ever Don't tell him anything. Like I this is probably completely backwards to your training. But oh, yeah.

Josh 1:35:32
Oh, yeah, totally. And to all the in, in antithetical to our parenting style, and who he is as a person. I can do that to my three year old. Yeah, cuz she's not gonna remember. She's not gonna remember good times and gluten. So, yeah, well, while

Scott Benner 1:35:49
I was lamenting with my wife the other night about how I worry about everybody. I told her, I was like, I'm less. It's funny. I'm less worried about the children than I am about you. And she goes, why? And I said, Well, I met you as an adult, I never got to tell you what to do. And she's like, what I'm like, so I backed up. And I said, parenting to me is a little bit like bumping and nudging with insulin, like so. To me, it's you, you have control of people when they're younger. And so you can point them in a general direction, like, and you can pick the direction, this is a good direction for them. And then if they start veering away, you can kind of just like, stand behind them, and just kind of nudge him back a little bit. Oh, head back that way. Don't talk to Katie, I think she's gonna do heroin one day, like, you know what I mean, like a little bit of that stuff, and you just kind of Oh, not that boy over here, you know, and you just you do that a little bit a little nudging a little bumping, and you don't do it like that. It's not out loud. It's sort of, you know, I mean, if you don't see yourself a little bit like a puppet master is apparent. I don't I don't know what you're thinking. But you've got a little bit of a little bit of control over what they think about what they care about. And so you nudge them around. And I said, with you, I said, there are things like not that this wouldn't be true of everybody, or that somebody couldn't do it for me. But I said for my wife, I was like, there have been times, where if you would have taken my advice, you'd be better off now. And she goes, Well, I agree with that. I was like, okay, cool. I was like, but I can't help you. Like, you're beyond help. Like you're an adult, you have your own thoughts, and I can't bump and nudge you. Every time I bump you you swap my handle, I guess your son's only 10. Man. You could just point him in the right direction and be like, This is it man, this is the world in front of us like that other stuff over there. That doesn't exist. So we're not going to look at that anymore. And before you know it, he wouldn't care. But he wouldn't think about it anymore. I just don't think there's people on the walking dead or missing cupcakes. As I'm saying. And I know that's a completely made up thing. But it's it's also if I took you guys out in the woods and left you there and you couldn't find your way back. I mean, you'd have about 1000 thoughts before. Can you believe there's no cupcake today? Like and maybe the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to

Josh 1:38:04
you. I guess these are the same boys that grew up playboys.

Scott Benner 1:38:07
Well, playboys and dinosaurs apparently. Listen, I gotta just ask you a question. How old are you?

Josh 1:38:16
36 about 3036.

Scott Benner 1:38:18
So you were 1620 years ago in 1981? No, 1991 Yeah, when I was like 10 years old, it was 1981. And the biggest mistake we ever made in my life. We found those 30 books in the in the woods, is I gave them to my dad. I was like, We found these and I don't think we should keep them. You know, after we left them, we gave them to him. And now I realized as an adult, he was probably like, ah, free nudie books. Cool. I don't know whatever happened to them. But apparently there were like, you know how kids drink in the woods? Hmm, I guess they I'm gonna have to write the time down again. Hold on a second. 33 I guess they off in the woods. I don't know. I never did. But I mean, I couldn't think of any other reason now. Looking back while they were there. Aren't you happy with the internet as a child?

Josh 1:39:25
That's, that's an interesting thought. I never really thought about that. I know. How pregnant is this? But my friend said he had a naked picnic in the woods once with somebody not by himself. So I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:39:39
We'd like a friend or like a. It was a female friend a sexual acquaintance. Okay.

Josh 1:39:46
I don't I don't think anything happened. They just closed off and ate lunch? I guess so. I don't I don't know. Honestly, I

Scott Benner 1:39:53
don't think it was gluten free. I want your son to be able to do it. Sure. Oh my god. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Josh 1:40:07
I was gonna I was gonna start thinking about like the price of gluten free food and, and all that sort

Scott Benner 1:40:12
of stuff so expensive. My goodness. And when I had to eat gluten free for a month so the doctors could check something. I gained weight too. Because but this was different. Because I in my mind, I commingled gluten free with healthier. Yeah, I was like I can eat as much as I wanted this is gluten free. Turns out that was not the that's not the case.

Josh 1:40:35
It certainly can be because it's interesting. So it really kind of pushes things out to the edges because gluten free can be met Mediterranean style, fresh vegetable, you know, sort of food. Or it could be a super processed foods that Oh, you have to add this and this and this weird thing and this weird thing to make it chewy, kind of like there would be gluten in it. Right? So

Scott Benner 1:41:03
yeah, do Jake I just want you to get the kid a bunch of barbecue and be done with it.

Josh 1:41:08
I mean, we certainly do that. And and things would be a whole heck of a lot easier if we lived in Austin. We're about an hour away from Austin. Because, you know, Austin is the land of trendy eating.

Scott Benner 1:41:23
Yeah, no kidding. There would be more options, I guess. Well, how about this? I thought of this earlier. Like, maybe you guys should learn to cook.

Josh 1:41:32
I've got great beans and rice going right now. So it's my wife's recipe.

Scott Benner 1:41:36
Nice. Yeah, I mean, I just listen, man. Here's the truth. Is is gonna be okay. And if it's not, you're stopping it from being okay. That's it. I don't see any I don't see any way around. That being the truth. Do you?

Josh 1:41:53
I mean, it's going to be okay. Because it has to be okay.

Scott Benner 1:41:55
Yeah. Right. It is just going to be okay. I listen. I I'm I'm adopted. Someone had me and gave me a way. And then I was adopted by people who got divorced. And my father left on my 13th birthday. We lived on $70 worth of food a week. It was me and my two brothers. And my mom. At one point it got so bad the State offered to take her children off her hands for her. She declined. I thought I was going to live you've heard me talk a lot, right? I thought I was going to work in a sheetmetal shop my entire life. Like that was no one educated me. No one had any hope. For me. The idea was go to school because the state makes you and then go get a job with your uncle and pay attention. And maybe I'll let you run a machine one day and pay us some extra money. Like that was my whole life. That was the entirety of my expectations. I had to teach myself to drive when I was 13 because we couldn't go get food. And my mom didn't drive. So we took in a border to make an extra $50 a month. And this guy had a car which I am certain was not registered or insured that I taught myself how to drive when I was 13. I lived through my mom deciding one night that drinking would be her way out. And I stopped her. My mom went bankrupt when I was a kid and I facilitated the bankruptcy. I was like 15 years old. I never thought I would have two nickels to rub together. Never. And then I met a girl who saw me and not my situation. And that allowed me to dream about more stuff. And then today, as crazy as it sounds, because we've said a lot of stupid things on here. I make the most popular diabetes podcast in the world. And it helps so many people that if I told you how many people it helps, it would embarrass me. And if I look back on my life prior to that, how could I have expected any of this to happen? And the only thing I can tell you the only thing I can believe that got me from where I was to where I am, is that I wake up every day incredibly hopeful, even when is really, really going wrong. And there have been times in my life where it has been going really really wrong. And so I don't know another way where if my way helps anybody else. But to me, we're all running from zombies. And if you stopped to see what happened to Katie, it's gonna happen to you next. And they're very well maybe something better over the ridge. So you're either gonna die here or keep going might as well keep going. Got nothing else to do. That just to me like life feels like that. It just feels like walking forward. And sometimes you're, you know, you're walking into a field of flowers. And sometimes you walk into a, a bunch of weeds and you start thinking about the calorie counts of celiac items in the grocery store. And I just think that you can't stand still. Like, that's it. And you're such a smart, thoughtful person, like I am. In the two times that we've spoken, I have found myself equally, very much liking you, finding you incredibly affable, and smart and feeling. And then there's part of me that feels badly that you you're stuck in your own head. And that that's it, and you don't deserve to be felt badly for. Like, that isn't who you are. In my estimation, of course, a person has known you for three hours. But

Josh 1:45:57
I like the way that you just put in you know, I don't because I don't want I don't want people to feel you know, badly for me. And I don't I don't want to feel badly for me. So why would why would I feel badly for me if I didn't want people to feel badly for me? And I think that take away of that thinking about okay, how long is too long? To to sit and stew before the zombies get me? Which by the way, do you have something against Katie's? is like the third Katie. The name

Scott Benner 1:46:38
that popped up the first time and I just wanted consistency.

Josh 1:46:43
That's all and me too. Yeah, no. More of a more of like a chat or a cooper. They get eaten.

Scott Benner 1:46:51
Yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't I don't like the pretty boys in the monster movies aren't aren't really my style. So I in my mind, by the way, Katie is in a tied up top. It's plaid and she's wearing cut off shorts, just so everybody knows where I'm at.

Josh 1:47:05
Gotcha. So, and just kind of, you know, sometimes that hope part where you like you said you, I would imagine that. You know, in the past 20 years, there's been mornings that you haven't you woke up, you've woken up without the hope that you're talking about. And I guess, remembering that there are days that feel like that. But keep the scales tipped towards hope. Yeah. towards towards thinking about, you know, that my son will have the, you know, the most popular something. diabetes and celiac podcast, right? Conjoined together, or something like that?

Scott Benner 1:47:57
Something? I mean, he's going to have something you don't I mean, listen, on those days, when I wake up, I think to myself, Yo, man, you gotta go. Like, it's time, like, you made babies. You promised that girl, like, go do it. You know, go do it right now. And I get up. I just don't, I don't know one other way. But I grew like, but my existence right now around diabetes, and you know, thyroid and these other issues that people in my family have my my iron thing, like all of that. Compared to how I lived when I was a child, this is a fairy tale. So I have something worse to imagine. And I wonder if you just don't have something worse to imagine. I feel like I do. Do you. But your thing is so connected to your kid though? Yeah. Like, it would be hard for me to like, this is gonna be an extreme thing. But like, you know, I have I'd have a hard time thinking that a Holocaust survivor would be held down by a celiac diagnosis. Yeah, like that kind of a feeling. They'd be like, you just can't have bread. But, like, they have context that I mean, I think of them as people who have contacts more than anybody really on the planet. But even as they are getting older, and there's fewer of them. But I mean, that's a thing. Like I said to somebody the other day, like how can we be a country of people who won World War Two. And so few decades later, be genuinely oppressed by a person we barely know, on Facebook saying something that may or may not be focused at us that we think is focused at us. Like how did that happen? Like how did we go from and I just think that it's it's, it's experiences and and what your what you know, is the bottom and when what you know is the bottom is that your iPhone battery drains faster than you wished it would. Then suddenly, you know someone on Facebook, it's like, I hate it when my friends are not supportive of me and you go, Oh God, I think she means me. She means me. I feel badly, I should call it like, like, I just go back to somebody who lived through the Depression. I was like, you know, your neighbor doesn't like you. And they be like, what? I don't care. No time for that. I'm considering eating a cat today. You don't I mean, like, that's just, we, we don't have that anymore. Our ceiling is so over our head with our expectations. And we don't know anything, nothing bad happens. And not that I'm not minimizing it. Celiac is terrible. diabetes is terrible. Thyroid is terrible. But there's a woman in the community right now that just found out she has brain cancer. And I bet she takes some celiac over that you don't mean and like, but being able to hear that and then making making that meaningful to you. That's the piece about mental health, that I have been fascinated by why I've been making this podcast the entire time, because you are not stopping yourself on purpose. I know that. And me explaining the common sense side of it is valueless to you, I know that tau is a very it's such a confusing problem, like, like anything to do with your brain and how it kind of gets in your own way. Sometimes it's an incredibly confusing problem. And I have nothing but like the greatest amount of empathy for people who are impacted by it in any way at all. I don't know if talking about it helps people or not, I really don't. But there's part of me that thinks that this is a an immense waste of time. And I don't like feeling that way.

Josh 1:51:55
I think. And it's definitely my profession. But I think talking about it is the is always at least the the start of, of helping the problem.

Scott Benner 1:52:09
Yeah, I hope so. I've just, I'm up to have interviewed, I think I've interviewed three people with bipolar disorder now and type one diabetes, or people who have been addicted to hard drugs, people who've been abused. I've gone through real, like real issues in their life. And you get to the end of those conversations, and just like, Where's the light here? You know? What is it that what is the best they can hope for and for you, like the best seems really great. It's the getting you to hope for part that seems like the impediment. But I mean, the best I can say to you, and maybe this will end up being backfiring is like you don't want to be the reason why your son feels like this one day. And that'll that'll crush him. Like, you look back and you see this feeling in him when he's 25. And you're going to blame yourself. And whether that's fair or not, you don't deserve to go through that. So I hope you can do something now that stops you from feeling that way in the future. You know, I don't know what my hope does for you. But I'm hopeful for you. So yeah, you know,

Josh 1:53:22
that's an that's a, I guess, a consistent standard that I tried to keep going, where I don't want to be the I don't want to be the hurdle that my kid has to jump over.

Scott Benner 1:53:39
Yeah. Me either. And I, I struggled for the first, probably 10 years of being a parent with like, my reactions to like how to handle things were so rooted in how my dad treated me. And I would stop myself but it was still like there all the time. Like, you know, you just like, you know, for the first couple of, you know, years like they did something wrong. Like in my mind, I was like smack them. That's the right thing to do. That's what I would have got somebody would have smacked me. And then I'm like, No, that's not right. But it still popped in my head. And I'm proud to tell you that there was a day where it stopped popping into my head. I was like, wow, I broke like I broke a circle. You know, I mean, I was really proud of myself. I was like I can't believe that's not it doesn't come to me anymore. Like I wasn't doing it but I am also not a person who's never like black their kid on the button. You know, like I've I've definitely done that and it was to the such lesser degree that it was done to me but just I think breaking those circles as possible. Just takes a lot of help like a lot of practice and you can't give up and it's also helpful if somebody there for you. Like if you're if you tell your wife to look for things and you know, say a code word when she sees you going down a path or something like that and like anything like that, you know, they can kind of because you're really just trying to reprogram your mind Right. What about that, um, I'm gonna let you go after this. We've been doing this forever. But what is that? I therapy that people keep telling me about?

Josh 1:55:08
EMDR Yeah, I'm motor desensitization something or other, it's for PTSD. Typically, I wonder if they've been trying to do research into other sorts of things where it really is kind of like that reprogramming your mind and, you know, finding ways of accessing. I guess that more internal automatic thoughts sort of part of your brain by using these eye movements to kind of go make you go from left brain derived brain? I think that's my understanding of it. I, I would love to have training on it, but it's expensive. And I don't I would not have any use for it in my current position. So. I don't know. But, but that's but retraining your mind, like you said, is, is you know, is kind of a key tenet of cognitive behavioral therapy is something that a lot of people have heard of, and just doing, you know, reframing those automatic thoughts, you know, today is not going to be a day, today is going to be an OK Day. And, and giving yourself reasons of why that is, you know, and, and making those reasons, more forthright than the reasons why it might be the day.

Scott Benner 1:56:42
Yeah, I gotcha. Well, listen, I love talking to you. I hope you have a ton of success. I hope you come back on a year from now and you're like Sky

Josh 1:56:52
is great. Let's make this a weekly thing. I mean, I'm getting a lot out of it. Yeah, no, no,

Scott Benner 1:56:58
I can't do this for you. I'm very busy. A lot going on. But I don't I don't. I don't not agree. Like I think the Talking is super healthy and, and important for people listening or for yourself even. And, you know, I'm glad you were willing to do this. You're very open minded. I know I say things that fly in the face of your professional training sometimes. And you're just so affable and, and lovely to talk to. So I appreciate your time.

Josh 1:57:28
I appreciate your time. Yeah, good

Scott Benner 1:57:30
luck with your kids, man. And, and everything else. I seriously, if you're if your wife like hits you in your sleep or something, just let her do it. It's probably you probably

Josh 1:57:40
our I'm gonna go hug my kids and apologize to my wife right now. Are you really thinking about it? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:57:46
yeah. I could use good, Josh. Not that you're, you're not here. But I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't want to have a naked picnic or anything like that. But I if you were here, I would definitely hug you when we were done.

Josh 1:57:59
Maybe, you know, maybe there's a neighbor over some, you know, that I could pick with? No, I was thinking just a hug. If you wanted to ask them to that you

Scott Benner 1:58:09
could Kelly's downstairs. I'll hug her. And she'll be like, Oh, God, what did you guys talk about? I actually have a neighbor who is and I don't want to use clinical terms and correctly but batshit crazy. It's no, it's a, I don't think hugging them would be a great idea

Josh 1:58:26
to get a BSc. It's not in the DSM maybe it should be

Scott Benner 1:58:31
at when I run out of diabetes, things to talk about one day, I will talk for an hour about the people who live across the street from my house. Let me just leave you with this teaser in case that ever does happen. 3am trimming the grass with kitchen chairs. That's all just let it let it resonate.

Josh 1:58:49
I'm not a horticulturist, or any sort of lawn care professional, but I can't imagine any reasons of being out in the line at 3am.

Scott Benner 1:58:57
I think and I don't mean to make light of it, honestly. But I think that might be something we're quieting some voices or something's going on. But they've done so many, like Addams Family level things since I've lived here that it's actually not funny. If I made them a character in a sitcom. You'd be like, Oh, it's over the top. They overrode that. And I wouldn't have to. I wouldn't have to gild the lily at all. telling them stories and you just be like, That's not believable. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, I'll stop this recording. And I'll tell you something that will make you laugh before you go. Okay. Thank you for doing.

First, a huge thanks to Josh for him. First, a huge thanks to Josh for coming back on the show and continuing to tell his story. Again, so bravely and honestly, I really appreciate it. Thank you, Josh. Thanks also to Dexcom makers of the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor, go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to learn more get started, or to get your hands on that Hello Dexcom kit that gives you a free 10 day trial of the Dexcom G six go find out if you're eligible. And to learn more about the Omni pod dash and to see if you're eligible for that 30 day trial, go to omnipod.com forward slash juicebox. I'm going to run out of music. I'll be ready. I just did it. Why don't I just talk right over now I feel silly. Don't forget also to learn more about on the pod five, which was just cleared by the FDA the other day. To learn more about it right to the to find out more about on the pods. Newest system, their automated delivery system. They call it an AI D automated insulin delivery. I mean, it's it's magical, and you should go check it out. Episode 620. We talk about it front to back top to bottom, you're going to understand everything about it when you're done. Well worth your time if you haven't heard it. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. This may have been the longest episode ever. If you're actually still listening at two hours in one minute, let me tell you that I think you would really enjoy the private Facebook group for the podcast Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes has over 20,000 members

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#622 Pam Gets Me

Pam is an adult living with type 1 diabetes for decades... and she gets me.

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.

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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 622 of the Juicebox Podcast

Okay, guys, my schedule is all messed up, it is really, really late at night. I have to do this right now. So you can get this podcast in the morning and I'm completely exhausted. So my apologies upfront to the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and touched by type one because your ads may make very little sense. We're about to find out. First, let me tell you that we're about to speak with Pam, who is an adult who's been living with type one for many decades. She really does get me and it's a fun episode with a lot of chatting and chatting. Today in chatting, I'm not going to read edit anything I say here. So whatever comes out of my mouth is it I'm so tired. Oh, I just need one good night's sleep. But then I just want to start over again. Please remember that nothing you're here on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. And if you're a resident of the United States, and you have type one diabetes, or are the loved one caregiver, they call that of child with type one, P one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box, fill out the survey. Alright, here we go. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one, learn more about them at touched by type one.org. Or find them on Facebook and Instagram. The podcast is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Go to contour next one.com Ford slash juice box to get started today with the same blood glucose meter that my daughter uses. I'm going to tell you more about them in the ad break. But for now, just know that they and by they I mean contour and touched by type one. I'm going to start rambling. There's links to them in the show notes of your podcast player. And at juicebox podcast.com. I'm going to fall asleep sitting here

Pam 2:25
they're new. I bought them just for this.

Scott Benner 2:27
Why are they giving you a headache?

Unknown Speaker 2:29
They're a little tight.

Scott Benner 2:31
Are they pinching your head? Yeah. Take them off and stretch them.

Pam 2:35
Oh, all right. Hold on. Oh, much better. Thank you.

Scott Benner 2:47
This is all staying in the episode just so you know.

Pam 2:52
Great headbands 101

Scott Benner 2:55
Well, not even that just you know, having the nerve to try something 101. So I guess since we're already going just introduce yourself.

Pam 3:05
All right. I am Pam Moscow. I've had type one. Since 1975. I was diagnosed at the age of 12. So I've had diabetes for 46 years.

Scott Benner 3:19
Wow. Are you 58 years old?

Pam 3:23
Yes, sir. You're quick. So quick. I'm

Scott Benner 3:25
really not I took a number you gave me an added 12. And luckily, there were some whole numbers. So they came together pretty simply.

Pam 3:34
I love it when that happens.

Scott Benner 3:36
Okay. I'm just going to start by saying that you are one of the more exuberant, people who contact me. Hmm, I don't know if that's something you know about yourself. Or not?

Pam 3:53
Really, especially when it comes to type one. I'm usually pretty under the radar.

Scott Benner 3:58
It's funny what made you or initially ever say hello to me, like behind the scenes?

Pam 4:05
I think the first time actually I'm not sure I can even say this. But the first time I've contacted you I want to do to have Dr. Jody Stanislaw on the show.

Scott Benner 4:16
He asked me to have somebody on. Okay. Yes, that's 100%. Right. I remember that. Exactly. Right. So people send me suggestions all the time of who to have on. And I've been, Oh, I remember all this. I'm excited that you're on. I'm going to explain this to you and everyone else at the same time. So I have a theory about podcasts. And I might be right. And I might be wrong. But I think that one of the reasons why some podcasts fail is because they're so I almost use the word that I'm not 100% sure of its meaning, but I think I have it right. It's masturbatory, but it's not in a sexual way. It's us There's a lot of people out here I go, I don't have enough words for what I need. There are a lot of people trying to make a thing in the world, and some of them are really legitimately great. And some of them are not, and, you know, etc, doesn't matter. But they all try to feed each other. So they saw a lot of things that I don't know how to put this. And I might not be talking about your person, I actually am not, I don't, I don't know enough about them. But it's a lot of like empty shirts, trying to make themselves look like a suit, if that makes sense. And so these people create these little podcasts or, you know, whatever, like YouTube channels or things, no one's listening to them, they don't they have no real, like, you know, I don't know, listenership I guess, or viewers, or whatever. And then they kind of set each other up as experts, and then try to, they kind of fake it till they make it kind of feeling and it doesn't work for most of them. And it's a real tried and true. situation, you're going to see if you pay attention to these things, they all do it. Like everyone does it. Like there's a guy from this podcast on that podcast, there's a lady from this YouTube channel, who was on that YouTube channel, they're all trying to drag their viewers back and forth to each other. Interesting. And I think that what that what that makes happen is you get practiced voices, over and over again, people who have a spiel, and then they come on and give it and I don't find that interesting. And then from there, my next concern is that many of these people are trying to build a business. And I do not have the time or wherewithal to look into each and every one of them to make sure that they're a person, I'm willing to throw my listenership behind. Ah, gotcha. Okay. And that, and that is, and I have a significant amount of people listening to me, so that feels like a real responsibility to me. Right. Okay. And anyway, I think the shows built really well off of just people who, like you.

Pam 7:12
I completely agree.

Scott Benner 7:14
Thank you. So anyway, when sometimes when people send suggestions, and you don't ever hear the person on the show, it could be because of that. It could just be because I don't think they fit somewhere. Sometimes it's because people don't answer me back there. Sometimes I I'm like, Yeah, I would love you to be on. But in I think in the case of yours, I think she has a business. And I think she also is a is a common face in the space. And those are things that I avoid. But not to say she's not a lovely person, or wouldn't be an amazing addition to the podcast very well could be. I just can't. I can't make those decisions because they come at me too fast and too furiously. And I would eventually end up making a mistake and have a snake oil salesman on here. And by mistake.

Pam 7:59
Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. I hope I can use her name throughout the episode on occasion, if that were a few times when I feel like I needed to bring her up because she's helped me so much.

Scott Benner 8:08
No, I would I would love that. i Yeah, absolutely. There's an episode out last week where people were being named checked, that I've turned down for the show, and I have no trouble for that being on at all. So I just, I just can't be the one saying hey, and then take the risk that, you know, a numbers of 1000s of people go give them money or something like that, like, it's a scam. So I would be and because there are a lot of and again, I am not talking about your person. But I am seeing too much of this on Instagram lately. Like I'm a therapist about diabetes, Rive abs, you know what I mean? So I can tell you how to work out like that I just give me a 600 it just be $600 or, you know, or there's this one person is like, I'm going to teach you how to be more sexual. And I was like, I gotta pay you for that. Like, you know, like, so? I don't know. Anyway, Pam, you know, you've had diabetes for a hell a long time. Yes,

Pam 9:04
I have, indeed.

Scott Benner 9:06
What's it been like? retrospectively?

Pam 9:11
You know, it's so interesting. Now, I think I was a little late to the table as far as taking advantage of all the things that are out there. For one thing, I was busy raising my family, I maybe blame a little bit of it on that. And another thing, I'm very private about it starting to come full circle and some on the podcast. But I it's almost like it was a different disease back then. Well, I mean, it's the same disease, but you treated it completely differently. You know, I had a friend asked me recently, you know, why didn't your parents help you more than it really took me aback because my parents are great, and they, they helped me as much as they could, but there wasn't anything for them to do. I mean, occasionally, my parents would say You're supposed to be eating that. But it's not like they could check my blood sugar and then say, Let's dose for it. I mean, I wasn't told to dose for food for an individual meal or snack until I was probably out of college. Yeah. I mean, you woke up in the morning when I started out on one, one mix shot a day, you know, regular an MPH. And that carried me till the next morning. And they also, I had a decent endocrinologist, but was never told, I was told that I couldn't eat sugar. But I was never told that the insulin was to carry me through all of my meals. I mean, I was on the exchange diet, all I did was follow the rules. I had, you know, two starches and a fat or whatever, I ate what they told me to eat, and I weighed it. But it never clicked. It never clicked for me that dang, I could have been taking a little extra. You know, once the, once the fast acting insulins came out, I started to put it all together. But I mean, maybe you couldn't do that with regular insulin. I don't know. But I just can't imagine how high I was probably by the end of the day. You every after every meal, especially every dinner. So

Scott Benner 11:16
is it similar to if, say you take two pills a day, and the pills interact with each other poorly. So the doctor says to you, hey, here's pill a, take this in the morning. But now here's pill B, don't take this within three hours of pill a and don't eat any acity foods near pill B and then you just go Okay, those are the rules around taking these pills. I'll make sure I don't do those things. However, I don't in any way understand why I've been told this.

Pam 11:46
Yeah, I mean, I understood that my insulin, you know, I didn't have any insulin production. I mean, I ended up going to nursing school. I'm an RN BSN. I mean, you know, so I knew stuff, but it just never. Plus I never went to an endocrinologist who who told me I could add live any of it. I was never told anything like that. Even locally. I've been in this town 33 years. And I was never want to say aloud. But it wasn't until I started to figure things out on my own and met Dr. Jody Stanislaw and then started listening to you. And a few other things that I put it all together. That's amazing. I mean, by the grace of God that I'm here and still doing well. I mean, I I think I I don't even know what my Awan sees were back in the day. I don't ever remember that being something my parents discussed. Um, I don't know how long I don't know when they started doing a onesies. That's the one thing I meant to look up. I'm sure they did. But

Scott Benner 12:46
is is it impactful to you that you're not certain while you're alive?

Pam 12:52
I'm a little bit mainly because in college, you know, there was no blood glucose meter available for home use, at least to me until I left for college. I remember being in the endocrinologist office, I had went and had labs done before I left for school. And the little lab tech came up to me all excited. And she said we have this for you. We're giving this to you. It was like a demo or something. And we want you to take this to college. And it was you know that one that's the size of a brick. And it beeped really loud and it would beep when you put the blood sample on. It would be for the last 10 or five seconds that it was counting down. And then it beeped when the sample number was ready. And I was mortified. There's no way and I lived in a suite and college where when you went into that big communal bathroom, there were always other people in there. And the few times that I did it in there. Somebody always said what is that? Well, why I couldn't just answer them and tell them what it was. I have no idea but at the time, I couldn't do it. And I didn't want to do it in my room where my roommate was, why didn't wait for her to leave and then do it. I don't know. I was busy. So I didn't check my blood sugar much at all in college, which is amazing to me. Yeah.

Scott Benner 14:07
I just know other people with stories similar to yours, who are having issues now. And I just wondered if maybe sometimes it feels like you're in the middle of 100 car pile up and you're the only one that walks away and there's no rhyme or reason to it.

Pam 14:22
Could be I've thought about it some I mean, I don't know if I was 200 all the time. I don't know if I was 140 all the time. You think if I was 140 I would have sometimes dipped low. I don't ever remember going low maybe once or twice but it certainly wasn't a thing. You know, and then when we became engaged, got married, we moved to the town we're in now. I was working as a nurse and again still following all the rules that I had been given. And every time I'd go to the doctor, they told me I was doing great. Well you know as well as I do, I could easily have had When season two eights, and they were telling me I was doing great. But then we wanted to start thinking about having children. And they told me I don't remember what it was because our oldest child is 31. But they told me to get my a one C within this range. And I worked really hard to do that. And I did that. And we had ended up having four children, all healthy. My agencies were all pretty much the same for all four pregnancies. But I didn't have a CGM for any of them. And I didn't have a pump for either of them. Any of those pregnancies and that's a lot of work. A lot of work. Yeah. Worth it.

Scott Benner 15:37
No, why would imagine. Yeah. But isn't it funny, you're like you're a one sees are great. I'm thinking of having a baby. Oh, yeah. You're gonna want to make your agency's better. Did you? I know. It's such a long time ago. Yeah. I imagine the moment you must have been like, so not great.

Pam 15:52
Yeah. Oh, I do read. I do remember them. And I remember thinking, which was discussed on this podcast fairly frequently. I remember thinking, Hmm, wonder why the rules. I mean, I get it. It's a baby, you want the baby to stay in a healthy environment. But I thought it was awfully strange that they had such a different set of rules for pregnancy and not for the rest of your life.

Scott Benner 16:12
Well, they've they've rules for the baby to be healthy, but apparently rules for you to be healthy ish. Exactly. Fine, if she just, you know, is okay. But we don't want to do it to the baby. more fascinating. Like, I'm never not fascinated with with any idea like that. The it's crazy.

Pam 16:32
And the shame, that was the other thing I wanted to discuss. You know, they would, if I guess I had had some, maybe an agency that wasn't great at some point, because I remember one time, my endocrinologist giving me grief. And they didn't tell you. Again, it was before you could check your blood sugar. And it was before you could really do anything about it. So they would scold you and send you on your way, but not tell you how to how to do it better. The first time we came to this town, 33 years ago, I set up an endocrinology appointment went and that was back when you had this three pieces of paper each of them was for a month, and you had to manually log in your your number for when you woke up in the morning before each meal, and then at bedtime. So you take these the stack of papers to them. And they would go through it and see what your numbers were. And they would circle the ones that were over. I don't know, whatever they thought was bad, maybe over 200 and the nurse that I had to meet with, she looked at me and she said Do you think your your do you think you're controlled? Do you think you're a controlled diabetic? And I said well, yes, I think I am I mean I all those boxes were filled in and they weren't filled in the day, the morning I walked in, I mean, I legitimately did it at the time. And she looked at me and she said you are not in control. And I wanted to I just remember being so defeated by that it hurt my feelings so badly. You know, for one thing, of course, I thought of so many things to say later. And I still see her on occasion. She has retired but she still comes into their office to help them on occasion. Like her, she bugs me. But she just and again, she was taught I guess to treat people that way she didn't. She doesn't know half of what I know now. And I'm positive that it just amazes me how I went through so many years of feeling ashamed because my numbers weren't maybe what I had hoped they would be or I so I guess around the time I met Dr. Stanislaw that's when I was getting tired of all that. And ended up going to that diabetes training camp in in Maryland that Dr. Matt Corcoran runs or not Maryland in Pennsylvania. I don't know if you've heard about that. But it's it's basically for people who are athletic and they want to exercise more without going low. That's and that's where I heard about your podcast. Actually, Jody Stanislaw with my roommate. I already knew her. We planned to be roommates up there. But it was at that that event that we that I heard about you. And so we started started paying attention to everything everyone was saying. And I just like the light switch went on for me that I don't need to feel ashamed anymore. Just so I guess I say that because I want I don't know that families nowadays. parents with young children. I know there's some shame still involved. I know that there are a lot of people go to the doctor and they don't. They maybe get the wrist slapped, but they don't receive the proper help. That's one of the things you've given our community. Dr. Jody's given that to our community and maybe a few other people Jenny certainly has. And I thank you for that so much because it just I mean, I'm better now than ever.

Scott Benner 19:59
That's amazing. I'm stunned that like, you want to think that because time moved on and tools got better and technology got better, that it wouldn't be the same story. Like I almost understand it when you're young, those, you know, decades ago, and someone's just like, look, eat a fat here eat a protein here, inject this here, we don't you know, I get it right the insulin didn't work very well, they didn't really know what they were doing. They were still learning. I mean, it's crazy to think, right. But in the 70s, insulin was only even around for about 50 years. So, you know, people it's, it's in its infancy, people are understanding it, I can almost write it off, I can almost understand how it happened today. I don't understand. Yeah, you know, like, I don't I don't get how someone could still and I know they do still get that kind of limited information. It's, it's, it's fascinating. And for a nurse to try to I mean, in my opinion, right, try to boost their own self worth by taking yours away. I mean, because you can say that people are in a professional setting. And there's an expectation of them. But if you don't think that shitty person isn't still a shady person, when they go to work, you're out of your mind. You know what I mean? So it's right, right? Right. So if I'm standing in front of a nurse, who, who has a bad upbringing, let's not even put it on that, right? They have a bad upbringing, they don't feel good about themselves. And a couple of times a day, they need to put a heel on someone else's neck so they can feel better. If you don't think that happens. You're not seeing people clearly. So I mean, it sucks that you ran into that, and that for you. So you're a really, listen, I've corresponded with you in email a ton, right? And so you're a bright person, it's incredibly obvious over the last 20 minutes. And in through the emails, I'm comfortable saying that, and you are, you know, a mother of four kids, and you're a survivor, you're a lot of things, but you weren't a person till recently who could like, shed that. So that, to me, says that it's incredibly impactful. And, and probably difficult for most people to wiggle out from under Do you remember what did it for you?

Pam 22:20
Um, I think it was age for me, I had just, I mean, I didn't get my first pump until my daughter or oldest was in college. And that was probably 10 years ago. I did MDI, prior to that, and I, you know, in my adult years, was doing quite well with that. But no, I think I just, I just got tired. I got worn down from the shame of it all the the frustration, and also started hearing on on social media, and you know, through the podcast, your podcast, and a few other things that there was actually some help out there that made sense to me. Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:01
No idea that oh, wow, there is there is a city on the hill. I didn't realize. Yeah, yeah.

Pam 23:07
I mean, for instance, two more things. ragging on the endocrinology practice here in town and the endocrinologist at that group that I who I see now actually don't really see him, he has allowed me to just come in for bloodwork lab work when necessary, and he keeps my scripts up to date. He's happens to be a good friend of our family. So it's a nice, a nice thing I have going there. But um, when our daughter was born 31 years ago, I took her in for my first post endo post pregnancy or, you know, no appointment. And of course, I'm so proud. I've got my baby. She was a 10 pound baby. But they were pleased with my care with my blood sugar numbers and everything. So everybody was very happy. She was healthy. I tootle, on into the appointment, and that same nurse sees the baby. And she says, Oh, let me take her back and show her to the doctors. And of course, I'm beaming as a new mother. And I said, Sure, take her on back. She was gone for a few minutes comes back out with the baby. And she says, You know what, doctor, so and so said, I was like what she said he looked took one look at her and he said typical baby. Typical IDM, which stands for infant of a diabetic mother. And typically they're large and puppy. Because she was a big baby.

Scott Benner 24:23
She was this thing, nurse from the earlier story. It's the same nurse. May I say something? Please? Your lady?

Pam 24:36
She is indeed. And yeah. I mean, she's, like I said she's been retired and I had to go into that lab their lab a few weeks ago. Just to get blood work drawn. And she was volunteering or working out front helping people with the COVID screening. I'm like, Good grief. They have not gotten rid of her yet.

Scott Benner 24:56
Wow. But that's terrible. Yeah, you know, I don't Listen, I put up an episode the other day. This is gonna be yours will come out months and months a month after this, but I put up an episode the other day with Arden it's the first time Arden's ever been on the podcast. I've already listened to it. Thank you. Oh, good, you have context. Okay, so Arden did not want to be on the podcast. She's literally just turned 17 A week ago. She's doing it for community service. I you know, and I don't mean she didn't want to be on it. Like she doesn't want to help. I mean, it's not her thing. She's not part of this. I know, it might seem odd to all of you. But she even says in the episode, like, she's like, this is your world I don't like I'm not involved in this, okay. And she also she's me and a smaller person, whether she'll say it out loud or not, she's sarcastic and dry and funny and witty, and she wants to be entertaining when she knows it's appropriate. And, and so I like let her come on introduce herself, because she's going to come back on we're going to talk about some management stuff about you know, for when she, you know, starts taking more control of herself, not that she doesn't now and and go off to college. You know, I, I don't know if I was clear enough in that episode that Arden does. Generally 80% of the time take care of her blood sugar's like that I'm not very involved in it anymore. And that's been pretty new over the last year, where I think I've gone more from like, 5050, to more like 8020. And we didn't really say that in there, because I was going to say it in the upcoming episodes. Now, I'm going to tell you that 99.9% of the people who have reached out about this episode, really enjoyed it, they can see Arden sarcasm they get they get font, they know she's funny, and she's quick and one person was left such a rude and horrid comment about her. You know, and and when I read it, I thought, oh, this person doesn't hear sarcasm, like it's it's almost like reading a transcript of comedy. You know what I mean? Like, you're, you'd be like, I don't understand what this like, why this doesn't make any sense. This is bad. So this person took it completely the wrong way. And you know, not that they can't have their own reaction, and that I expected everyone to like art. And she's really, I mean, I could even imagine that that would be not the case. But I don't get going somewhere where you know, other people are going to see it and saying it. Like if you really think something poor about a child, then think it that's fine. And in the same tone. I don't care if they took that baby in the back. And they were like, That's the ugliest baby I've ever seen in my entire life. Is that a horn growing out of the side of its head? Oh my god, a monster if that's what they thought, when they bring your baby back to you. You go, congratulations. Everyone loves seeing the baby. Like, who would do that? Yeah, what kind of a person would what? What is the? What is the like, what do you get out of that? Like, really ask yourself like, what do you get out of handing a new mother her baby back and saying, Oh, this looks like one of those babies that came out of an unhealthy diabetes lady. Congratulations. Even the doctor solid. Like, you know, oh, gosh, that's terrible. hateful. I really don't understand. And and you might have gotten me a little more with that story. Because I just saw this thing happen to our now I saw it pop up. And I want you to know the way I handled it for everyone listening as I just deleted their comment. So yeah, because it's what am I gonna do? I mean, what would you have done in that moment, had a thoughtful conversation with this person who's hell bent on making a problem? You know, so it's not we're not in the UN trying to figure out the world like this. We don't need a spirited back and forth here. It's my baby. gave her your baby to I bet you that pissed you off the most afterwards.

Pam 28:45
So pissed. She was touching. Oh, so piss. Yeah, I bet. Yep. Oh, yeah. And clearly, it's been 31 years. I'm still bothered by it.

Scott Benner 28:53
It's good to say your daughter's probably got her own kids now and you're, you're like,

Pam 28:58
happens to Betsy.

Scott Benner 29:08
Before I tell you about the ads, let me tell you that I came within a hair's breadth of calling this episode heavens, the Betty. Because I don't remember the last time I heard anybody say that. Okay, you're ready. Here I go. I'm gonna reach down deep into my soul. The part of me that remembers things that I've done in the past, just going to work off a memory here. The Contour Next One blood glucose meter is highly accurate. In fact, it is the most accurate blood glucose meter that I've ever used. It's also incredibly easy to handle, to hold, to carry to use it at night to use in the dark to use during winter solstice. That's true, actually, by the way, it's the easiest blood glucose meter I've ever used during the winter solstice. You can't dispute that Here's what you're gonna do, you're gonna go to contour next one.com Ford slash juice box and check it out. It's possible. Possible you hear that the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, and the test strips that go along with it maybe cheaper cash, like you know, hot money out of your pocket, then it is through your insurance. Now, that may also not be true, but it also may just be covered by your insurance one way or the other. You deserve to have a blood glucose meter that is simple makes your life easier is easy to read. And is accurate. Just think about it right now. Are you making decisions with a blood glucose meter? That's not accurate? How would you know? Did you just take the meter when your doctor gave it to you? Did you get your meter out of a bubblegum machine? Or do you find that on the floor of the hospital? Like you know what I mean? Like, are you sure you got a good one? If you get the contour, oh, my voice is breaking. I was doing okay, they're so tired. If you get the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, you will have an accurate meter. It's easy to use, has Second Chance test strips and so much more. Go to contour next one.com Ford slash juice box to get started today. Alright, I did it. Now just let me remind you that touched by type one is my favorite diabetes organization. They're out there doing good things in the world, for people living with type one diabetes, and all they want from you is for you to check out their Facebook page, their Instagram account, or find them on the web. At touched by type one.org. I did it, I'm very comfortable saying I did a good job. I'm just gonna put my head down on the desk now take nappy, and then I'm gonna do the outro and button this thing up. Alright, if I don't pass out, I'll be back in a second. If I do pass out, you're gonna get about 17 minutes of silence before the show picks back up again. But I can't even afford board. I said button that I couldn't take one other thing to say, That's how tired I am. And if your children have autoimmune issues,

Pam 32:15
they do not think goodness, I haven't done trial net with any of them. When trial net became a thing, I talked to them about it. Actually traveling had probably been a thing for a while before I found out about it. But I also joined our local JDRF board. And that also helped me learn about a lot of things. They all decided that they'd rather just have a healthy lifestyle and eat low ish carb plus beer. Some of my boys like beer. But they would rather just keep on keeping on. And if it happens, it happens. Hopefully it won't be the youngest is just about he's almost 21. So it hasn't happened yet. Thank goodness, I'm gonna knock on some wood right now.

Scott Benner 33:04
Well, I think it's, you know, I think anybody's decision is right. I wonder for you? Was it difficult that they wouldn't look?

Pam 33:11
No, it's fine. You're okay with it. I really was because I had gone through so many years not knowing well, trial net didn't exist. It's almost like no, you're gonna find out you can do some genetic counseling and find out if you have, you're going to get cancer sometime in your life. And like I'd much rather not know, I kind of in that school of thought that may change eventually, we'll see if they ever wanted to be tested. I'd be all for it. But I'm also not pushing them.

Scott Benner 33:38
Well, yeah. I mean, you know, if the day ever comes, we're knowing that you're going to get it statistically. And by the way, we have a pill you can take that'll stop that from happening, then suddenly, they'll be they'll be a run on that testing, then, you know, I'll take it to I mean, I'm 50. And I, I would tell you that if I didn't make this podcast, that I would 1,000,000% Never think maybe I could get type one diabetes. Like I would just think I would I would think I made it to 50 Like, that's not going to happen. And but having spoken to so many people, I don't imagine that I couldn't just wake up one morning and be paying a lot. You know what I mean? Like so it seems reasonable to me. Alright, well, Pam. So the first part wasn't great. But it was so somehow you you lived a great life. And you're you have no no ill effects right now that you can speak of?

Pam 34:36
Not that I know of no. Wow. That's pretty cool.

Scott Benner 34:39
And how long ago did you start making a meaningful change and how you thought about your diabetes?

Pam 34:46
I'm probably after college. Had a meaningful I mean, worked probably harder after college but really didn't start to put the pieces together until we got married, but then there weren't. We didn't have the tools. I just worked really hard. I pricked my fingers all the time. And that was 33 years ago. Again, it wasn't anything. Like what we have now, things really started to cruise for me with the CGM, and I had, oh, gosh, I don't think I've ever heard you mentioned this one. I don't know that you even are aware of it. But there was a thing. I don't know who made it called the gluco. Watch.

Scott Benner 35:28
I don't know that. No.

Pam 35:30
It looked like a great big chunky man's watch, and you wore it on your wrist. But the sensor was beneath the face of the watch. So it made contact with your wrist. And it basically burned a little hole in you. And it gave you a blood sugar reading on it. It may have also told time I don't know that it did that. But it did not work with beans. But I tried that for a while and then eventually switched to the enlight sensor, which was the one that Medtronic made that came with

Scott Benner 36:02
the heart. Is that the one they call the harpoon?

Pam 36:06
Yes, yes, it was hard to insert hurt like a mother. And it also gave you decent readings about 50% of the time 25% of the time it was spot on and the other 20 to 25% of the time it was 100 Points off this. Um,

Scott Benner 36:23
let me ask you real quick about the gluco watch. Was it around the early 2000s? The start of the 2000s?

Pam 36:29
Yes, because our last child was born in 2000. And I was I haven't had a horse at the time and I would go to the barn with this thing on my hand. So yes, it was okay. Early 2000.

Scott Benner 36:40
Like a wow, I think I found that online. It did it look like a big pager with a screen in the middle two buttons on the left two buttons on the right. And like a big like, cloth the strap?

Pam 36:52
Yeah, it was brown. It looked like a like a diving watch like a scuba diving watch. Okay, but what I had was round and clunky. And it had a rubber band.

Scott Benner 37:01
I'm finding a different couple. A few different, but not too many different pictures online. And, and you're telling me that it, it made it, how did it get to your

Pam 37:13
it had some sort of sensor on the back of it that really just sensed right through your skin, it was like a photo eye or something, but it really burned your skin and gave you so you had to the next time you changed it took it off and put it back on, you had to rearrange it a little on your back of your wrist. So you would have you take it off, you know all these little red circles all over the back of your arm that were burned. They're basically like little burns,

Scott Benner 37:35
and it didn't work. Oh, and it hurt, didn't work and it hurt. There's there's a sales pitch. The gluco watch, it won't work. And it hurts.

Pam 37:46
But what I will say and rather than I just stuck my nose up at it. So this piece of garbage, I'm not using this anymore. It did that for a few times. Same with the enlight sensor, the thing hurts I hate it doesn't work well. In retrospect, I am so thankful for those companies for trying because the next company that came along, you know, use them as a little they were up the up the ladder a little higher. And they everybody ended up learning from all the mistakes and all the crazy stuff that was out there. So I now can take a step back and be thankful. Of course, I have the G six an omni pod that works so great. And I'm looping. So it's, it's great now that I have some stuff that works. And I'm glad that everybody else tried to get us here. Well, yeah,

Scott Benner 38:31
and that isn't set enough. And I, I honestly, so I'll joke about the old Medtronic stuff, right? Because I mean, not because I have any knowledge of it, because everyone who comes on is like, oh, yeah, that thing you know. But I do try to and I have a number of times said in fairness to them. They're out of the gate real early with the technology. And somebody's got to do it wrong. So somebody can do it. Right. And that's ballsy to to go first. And, and very, very valuable to people. So yeah, so thank you gluco watch back, like for burning a hole in Pam's arm. And giving people the idea that it would be nice to know what their blood sugar is. But did it would need to be done differently? Well, well, yeah, I agree with you. 100%. And not only that, but stuff that we think of right now as being just cutting edge. Those companies will need to keep innovating, or someone else swooping under them too. Right. So let's, let's all applaud the the fact that these companies exist and that they're all trying to make money because that's what keeps them innovating and what keeps them innovating keeps you healthier, and whatever today's version of a burn on your wrist is will be gone one day because of that. And that's a that's wonderful, and less, fewer people will have your story. You know exactly. Yeah. Do you ever think about that if you were born now, you'd have a completely different experience with diabetes.

Pam 40:00
I would Yeah, yeah, I don't think about it, though.

Scott Benner 40:03
Good when you see other people. And I'm not trying to get you to bad mouth people, but when you see people complain nowadays about diabetes, what's the like, in the back of your head thought?

Pam 40:18
Yeah, that's that's how I can't even shake my head at them or think, Oh, good grief. What are you kidding me? Because if I were in their shoes, I'd be doing the same thing. It just makes me thankful that, you know, by the grace of God, here I am. And I'm, I'm fine. Is that was one of the reasons I really wanted to come on this show was to, to tell people. And again, not to not to talk about Dr. Jody Stanislaw so much. But she, she saved she went to her mother's recently, mother had a stroke. And she had to go back to her mother's house and help. And she found all of her logs that from when she was a child, the logs I was telling you about that we would have to take the doctor to the doctor's office, and she saved them for whatever reason. And they were all the blocks are filled with 200 302 50 per like page after page after page, and she's fine. And granted, we're not saying you should be doing that. But I guess I offer that to people because it is inspirational to know that these parents are worrying about their kid having 100 150 blood sugar on occasion, or 200 Here and there. I mean, that's we likely were walking around with those numbers for

Scott Benner 41:28
years is that that's regular an MPH though for her as well.

Pam 41:32
Right? Correct.

Scott Benner 41:33
There's something about it's funny, because I take your point, and I do and I know what you're saying. You're saying to people, like look, if you've had bad go of it, don't give up because it doesn't mean you're done. You don't mean keep going. And then there's the part of me that wants to say, Please don't forget all the people who come on this podcast who have serious problems, who grew up through that same time period with that same sliding scale with that same insulin, and it did not work out well for them. And yeah, you know, it really is a it's a crapshoot, maybe maybe there's a little bit of just genetic lock involved or randomness that you that we'll never be able to put our fingers on. But I just saw someone on Facebook the other day, talking about their doctor saying something, the doctor basically said, Look, you can put all this effort in, if you want, you can keep crate a one sees if you want great blood sugars, and that doesn't mean your kids not going to have problems down the road. And honestly, it's a it's a realistic statement. But you know, it to me falls a little more into the category of you know, if you take my baby, bring it back and say something nice, you know, like, like, there's a person doing a great job for their kid out there. And then you're telling them I don't even bother. Because even if you do well, it might still go bad. That's the wrong way to think about it. And people were having a long conversation about it. And it really the original poster was thrown by it like, well, what am I? What am I trying so hard for if this is what's going to happen? Sure. And I just came in, and I said one thing and I laughed, I said, Look, you could wear your seatbelt and look both ways, and still get hurt in an accident. But that doesn't mean you take the belt off and close your eyes. Like right like this is the best you can do. You should be doing the best you can do. Like your silly Doctor Who told you this was trying to give you the probably the idea of and I don't even know why you would do it. But my inference is, is what the doctor wanted to say to her is like, look, you know, sometimes things happen. And you might not be able to stop them. But I don't know why you would say that to somebody with a small child who's having a lot of success. True, you know, I guess Yeah, because maybe that person had a bad day. I don't or just thought they were doing the right thing. And maybe their execution was poor. I don't know. But it seemed different. This

Pam 43:55
is where you come in. I mean, this is why your podcast is blown up. Because number one, you have fabulous knowledge of type one, my husband's My husband's a surgeon and he we listen whenever we go to our place in the country, which is two hours from here. I always make him listen. I don't have to make him listen anymore because he loves your podcast. And he said to me one day, he said I wish i I wish I knew as much as he did. Of course that was so kind to the other part of me was like Well, I'm on what stop and yeah. But you're you. I think the other thing that makes you so credible is that you're not medically trained and you of course, precede all of your podcasts with that you know saying so and so that takes you off the hook for people getting ugly with you about anything that might not work for them but worked for Arden and you're you just have a wet you're funny as hell, which I have love your personality and your sense of humor, I just can, I'd love to talk to you for another two hours about all that. But the thing that really is wonderful. In addition to your knowledge and your humor is sorry, you. You're so kind and you take into account the person you're talking to, um, you've talked to little kids that little 10 or 11 year old, that was so articulate, and then you talk to 100 year old somebody on to the audit, she didn't have type one, but one of her maybe a grandchild or somebody who had rific. Yeah, oh, my gosh, but you were so appropriate with both of them. And, and everybody in between age wise. And to Wendy, knowledge wise, the other thing you're really good at, which I think people learn from is, you'll have somebody on, I just listened to one recently, who has had type one for a long time, they, they feel like they have it down. They're pretty good. Their agencies are pretty good, or maybe not so good. But they're adamant about what they do. And they do it all the time, care wise. But they're clearly missing a couple of things. And you'll very gently work into the conversation. Hey, how about we, you know, did you ever think about doing such and such? Or, you know, maybe the Pre-Bolus comment, or, Oh, I know the one lady who was going low? And you said, How about, would you ever I don't know that you would want to right now. But maybe you see if the finger just stick looks like and, you know, you just have a good way of not telling people things, but suggesting things and it's, you're very kind about it. And I just think that makes your podcast and your help. So, so useful.

Scott Benner 46:38
That is very kind. Thank you. I completely agree. I'm wonderful. I would say to you that I don't think people learn by being told things. And that it's helpful to keep in your head, that while you're speaking to a person, there are countless other people in their situation listening. So true. The one real gift that people who come on the show give when they're so honest, and allow a back and forth like that, is that they become an example for the other people. And so it's not, it's my goal, to use your story as an example of someone else. But to not rob you of the experience, just because you're the example. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely.

Pam 47:27
100%? Yeah,

Scott Benner 47:28
I would feel badly. If you said something on this podcast today, that ended up being incredibly impactful for other people, but I somehow hurt you in the process of getting it. I don't see that is an equitable trade. So there needs to be a way for you to be serviced. And for the people listening to be serviced at the same time.

Pam 47:51
Love it. Well, you're succeeding. So keep on doing what you're doing.

Scott Benner 47:55
Thank you. All I'm doing is whatever makes sense to me. Just so you know. I mean, there's no masterplan. There's a couple of things I do on purpose, you know, and about growing the show, I'm very thoughtful about growing the show. I just had a conversation with one of the advertisers yesterday, and we were talking about it. And I said, Look, this is a weird, it's always a weird conversation, right? Because the bigger the show gets, the more money the advertiser has to pay me to be on the show. But the bigger the show gets, the more people the advertiser reaches, so they're okay with that. And I like getting more money. So I want to be honest about that. However, my focus is reaching more people to help more people or potentially help more people. So as long as I can get up in the morning, say these words, and they're true. I'm making the podcast to help as many people as I can.

Pam 48:56
Yeah. 100%. Thanks. Thank you. And I hope I'm not cutting you off. But I, I know for a fact there aren't enough of you out there helping. I want your podcast to be number one. I'm great with that. But I mean, Dr. Jody doesn't have a podcast, but she's reaching people another way. And you know, she's got some online courses and stuff that are free. And she does take people private, private help if you pay for that, obviously, like Jenny does, but there aren't enough of them. I mean, not everybody knows about Jenny, not everybody knows about you. Not everybody knows about Dr. Jodi that I'm sure there are maybe a handful of other good folks out there helping. Just I wish they were more.

Scott Benner 49:42
Well there. What about God? I'm

Pam 49:44
sorry. No, you had that one gentleman on one time who his his goal was to help people with diabetes who who don't have access to internet, maybe? I can't remember his name, but he has. He does have a website. I looked him up afterwards. But his goal was to like third world country folks, and just all the other people out there who are struggling, who are never going to learn all the things we're talking about. That was another whole thing that was sad for me like, Oh, God, I didn't even think about those people.

Scott Benner 50:15
Well, first, I feel badly, I don't remember that episode. But there, I've made a lot of them. So you'll have to forgive me for that. If you guys are, I think there's 520 out now. But I but if I could put every episode out that's recorded right now, there'd be like 620. So I'm already, I'm very far ahead in my mind of where we are in reality, which is sometimes difficult to when I edit the shows, it's almost like I've heard them for the first time, and I'm the one on the recording, you know, so it's a bigger thing, access, access to information. For people outside of people who are online, I think everyone's online at this point, you know, are many more people than were 10 years ago. And I know, it's not everybody, you're not going to, you can't reach everybody. So you have to, in my opinion, make the draw the line in your head that says, We can't reach everybody. But let's do the best for the people we can find. And then let's look for ways to find more people where these things fall short. And this is gonna sound pompous. It will listen, that's not true. This could sound pompous to you. If it does, you're not hearing me the way I mean it. But the reason the podcast needs to be big, the reason it needs to reach more people is because whether those people are on the internet or not, they are unreachable. Because no one knows to look for the information. They're all caught in some version of what you've described, since you've been on, right? They just think this is what this is, or the doctor knows or whatever they're not. They don't get up in the morning and think, Oh, my average blood sugar's 223. I should be looking for another option. They think my blood sugar's average, blood sugar's 223. This is my life, right? This is what's going to happen. So you have to find a person, impact them positively. So much so that they're willing to go find another person to tell them about it. Yeah, that's a slow growth process. You and there is no other way to do it.

Pam 52:22
Well, and it's frustrating, there are actually two people that you just like you described in my hometown that I have found out about, and I've met with each of them a number of times, and I'm a 100% positive that I can help them both, but they just won't let me help them.

Scott Benner 52:39
They don't care more, they

Pam 52:40
don't take both they care. That's the weird thing. They're they care and they're always scratching their heads. And like, this one guy has a G six for crying out loud. And a pump. Like, you know, his I went over to meet with him his uses the PDM and his phone, his phone had lost charge. So he didn't have any spine was dead, couldn't tell what his blood sugar was on. Like, let's go in and get a charger. Let's charge that thing up. And then we were eating his PDMS in the car. And he I'm like, Are you going to dose for this? It's in the cup, we'll go get it go try it right out there and get it. Come on. You know, I tried to. And this was probably our third meeting. But I just, you know, now my texts to him have gone unanswered. So I've taken a step back. But that just amazes me.

Scott Benner 53:25
Yeah, that story is very common for me to hear from people. I'm thinking of a number of people right now who contact me and say my friends killing themselves. They won't listen to me. And the best I can tell you is that you can't save everybody. Yeah. And and and by the way, that the episode that came out this morning, you're going to love Oh, good. It's called sunk cost fallacy. You're going to like it based on what you just said just now. I can't wait. Yeah, but so. So the idea of growing the show is, it's it's twofold. For me, it's reaching more people with the potential to help more people. And it's to reach more people so that I can turn back to the advertisers and go, Hey, this is more valuable than it was yesterday. Give me to give me more money. And then I get to send my children to school. I get to pay my bills, I get to wake up in the morning and think about the podcast. And I know that that's a might be a weird thing for people who don't do stuff like this. But if I'm not financially able to think about this podcast, then this podcast wouldn't be what it is right now. And it would lose the opportunity to be something else in the future.

Pam 54:33
You need to get over that and I know you had a rough growing up time y'all didn't have a lot of money but time is money buddy. Your your your value of yourself for these podcasts. I know you're so understated and I do love that about you. But do you deserve every bit of any kind of change that comes your way and then some and that's not a bad thing. I mean, you don't think that way about Jenny you don't I think it's bad that Jenny gets paid for what she's doing. I don't know. I don't think it's bad and the direct Dexcom guys are getting paid for what they're doing. Right? I don't

Scott Benner 55:07
know, I don't think it's bad that anybody gets paid for what they're doing. I might cut off is when people take money in ways that is not above board.

Pam 55:18
Yeah, well, what you're doing is above board. Oh, no, I

Scott Benner 55:20
appreciate you saying that. I trust me, I believe in what I'm doing. And I and I believe in my heart that I'm doing it for the right reason. I don't question that. I just think that if, you know, I'm gonna pick an outlandish number. So I can make this point, right? If I was making $10 million a year making this podcast and let's all laugh together, because that's not happening. Okay. But if that was happening, and I was reaching, I don't know, half of the population of people with type one that I would tell you, like, that's probably right compensation for that. Right. But I still would never feel comfortable telling anyone that I would, I would think that would be insulting to people who work hard at their jobs and don't have the opportunity to make an excessive amount of money. I get that. Yeah, I just don't I just that doesn't sit right with me. And and it's a very popular thing to do online right now. And I can't wrap my head around that there are YouTube people who have very popular YouTube videos, telling people how they made so much money. Oh, and I think that all seems wrong to me, for some reason. Like, I don't understand it. I don't, I don't think they should stop doing it. And I don't have a judgment about them doing it. I guess I feel very strange about the fact that it's a popular thing to tell other people, this is how I got rich.

Pam 56:42
Right? Well, it's certainly not a traditional form of making money. And maybe that's part of it.

Scott Benner 56:47
I don't know, right? I also, for context, don't believe that I will ever make a million dollars a year or a half a million dollars a year doing this. But it does. You know, it does, it needs you need to understand the business function of it. If you believe that the podcast is helping people and that by reaching more people, it will help more people, you need to understand the reality of the business behind it, which is that if I don't have advertisers, this doesn't exist like this. Yeah. And so it just won't happen.

Pam 57:17
Which brings me to one of my favorite things that you said one time, I'm sorry, if I'm changing the direction of where you're trying to go. But I can't remember exactly how you said it. But it was something to the effect of surely if I started an online ministry and ripped people off. I know, I could do it and be really good at it.

Scott Benner 57:36
I do. And half jokingly believe I could do that. Yeah.

Pam 57:41
Oh, good. Um, no. I mean, I

Scott Benner 57:43
was great. But I grew up in a time where there were like four guys on television, who were, you know, pushing on people's foreheads knocking them over and then putting an 800 number up on the screen and asking for money at the same time, you know, so yeah. And in the fact that that works on somebody I feel badly about, but I if I was a bad person, if you tapped me on the head with, like, you know, what was that thing in that first Avengers movie where they made Hawkeye a bad guy, this is probably not a reference, you know. But if you if Loki made me into a bad guy, I know immediately, I can talk. So I would probably lean into that at some point. It's, um, it's a lovely skill, like people love like storytelling, as human as it comes. And it is how people learn. And I just think that there are a lot of well meaning people in the world with flow charts and graphs, who think they're going to help people and I'm telling you, you're not going to help anybody like that. It just it that is not how people learn. And especially in this society, when I could click on a link and hear about how a 19 year old girls live in a $3 million house because of a video she made about curling her hair. Well, let me tell you something, I'm gonna watch that first. Okay, because that's crazy. I just cursed I gotta write down the time right there. So I can remember to think about. So. That to me, I just think you you need to understand where people are. So you can go there and meet them. And you also can't be childish about the idea of growth. Because people come and go out of spaces. You know, like, I have it use Instagram as an example. I have no real impact on Instagram. But I have 12,000 followers. If you think those 12,000 people are all on Instagram all day, they're not most of them are gone. So you know, for you a person who has 300 followers on Instagram, you're probably talking to 30 people. Yeah, and I'm probably talking to the rule of 10 always applies. It always applies if you get I'll give you a great example. I think everyone who lives in the United States who has type one diabetes, or care gives for someone that that does, would if they wanted to make a nice impact with a very little amount of effort. Go to the T one D exchange and fill out their survey. Now, I get paid every time somebody does that. All right. But at the same time, I really genuinely believe in it. And you guys are gonna have to take my word for the fact that that he won the exchange is about the 50th company that came to me and asked me about something like this, and only the first one I said yes to. So I could have sold you guys any number of crappy things over the years? And I say, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm waiting for the thing that helps people with diabetes, and helps the podcast to one day exchange, in my opinion, is that thing? Yeah, if I drive. So the people who come through my through my link, they, they complete the survey at a much more frequent rate than people who come from other places, which is lovely. And I thank everybody for that.

Pam 1:00:56
Yeah, no, I mean, I definitely did it. You make it abundantly clear on your, the little precursor on all of your podcasts. What a legitimate organization. That is, it is interesting to me, you had a lady on recently, you mentioned it too. And she clearly thought it was some sort of other, you know, thing, we had to go have your blood drawn and actually show up in person and wear a gadget or something. She clearly didn't know anything about it. Which is surprising to me that somebody by the time they get on your show, haven't figured out that but I'm glad you talk about it, because it is totally legit.

Scott Benner 1:01:32
Yeah. And it's it's one of those things, but to my point, or my earlier point, the rule of 10s Apply for everybody for but for people who come through me, apparently, but you have to drive, you'd have to drive 100 You'd have to get 100 people interested, just to get 10 people to click Yeah, to get one person to complete the survey. And that's, that's how this works. So even when, when you share the podcast with somebody, if you find, if you personally, Pam went out and found 10 people and said, Look, this podcast is amazing. You have diabetes, listen to it, you still might only get one or two people of the 10 to actually listen to the show. And so that so the that's what people don't understand. They see their numbers, and they get impressed by them. They're like, I have 50,000 people following me on Facebook. I'm like, Huh, you got about 5000? Right. So it's always that sort of that 10% rule. It's never what it seems to be, you know, you see somebody with 45,000 Instagram followers, why do they have 200 likes on their picture, and they'll say like, I'm being throttled by Instagram, they're, they're hiding my posts. And that's not what's happening is that people come and go out of these spaces so quickly. And if you really want to help them, and if you really want to impact them so well, that they will go out and tell someone else so that you have the opportunity to impact another person again, then you have to give them great content. And it has to be interesting and entertaining. Not just good. It can't just be a perfect flowchart for how to get your blood sugar. Right? Because that that's not how people think. And so if you're gonna give me credit for something, you can give me credit for understanding that. It because that is that backroom thought is why the podcast is doing so well. Because I understand the space.

Pam 1:03:26
Yeah, so yeah, no, we you do total totally see the whole picture. Yeah, love it,

Scott Benner 1:03:31
man. And this is all I'm good at, by the way.

Pam 1:03:34
Just pick me up find that hard to believe

Scott Benner 1:03:37
you pick me up out of this room and give me a lot of other things do you like, huh, we should got somebody else except for Scott for this. I just things just came together here. And worked out like this. I I didn't really realize it until I wrote a book one time. And when I was talking to the publisher, after I handed the manuscript, we were having this conversation. I'm not going to remember her words, like but her. Her tone was, you took this really complicated thing and made it so accessible. How did you do that? And I laughed, and I said, if you think I did that on purpose, you're out of your mind. Like I was like, this is just the only way I know how to explain this. So she said, You took a very complicated thing, and it made it very easy to understand. And I said, okay, and I took that as a compliment. And I held on to it. I'm like, maybe that is the thing I'm good at. And then when I started writing more about diabetes management stuff. I was like, oh, people are understanding what I'm saying. And if you really go back and look at there's nothing technical about what I've said, and then they're having results, so it's not just good enough for them to understand it. They have to be able to replicate it and put it into practice. So anyway, that's a long way off the topic.

Pam 1:05:00
No, I mean, I just think you capture so many different types of people. And that's a beautiful thing. Because even though we have the common denominator of type one, we're all different. We have different backgrounds, we, we have different medical coverage of insurance coverage, if we have it at all. And they're just so many of your tips can be used by all of us, one way or the other, even if we're not all doing it the same way. It's just great. You know, our healthcare system has such as a illness focus, which drives me bananas, you know, they'll pay for you to have surgery are or pay for you to have dialysis, but they won't pay for a CGM or for insulin.

Scott Benner 1:05:41
Okay. Yeah, they won't tell you how to stop you from getting sick. They'll only tell you how to like, slow it down once it happens. So that hopefully you don't die as quickly from it. Yeah, yay. Thanks.

Pam 1:05:52
Yeah, I know it. But I do think we can change that. I don't know exactly how to change that.

Scott Benner 1:05:57
Do you think so? Because COVID should have made people think I have to be as healthy as I can be? I don't know. I don't know that. Like, I don't know that you can change the nature of people. And I don't mean people, one person timing the nature of man in the bigger way. Like, I think that everyone thinks they're okay, until they're not. Okay, I think that's how,

Pam 1:06:22
I mean, maybe, but it started at the school system, level it start, you know, if I could take a magic wand and completely redo what insurance companies would cover not cover. Oh, I could fix it. I'm telling you, you could take worse people into thinking about differently. I would get rid of sorry, for any thing, anyone who's going to be offended by this, but I would get rid of probably motorcycles, I would get rid of tobacco, there are a lot of things I'd get rid of. Oh, no, I think I switched it around a little bit. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:06:55
But you know, I can I could make the argument with you right now that, you know, if you can take some of these motorcycle away, and they wouldn't die in a motorcycle accident, but they might be, I don't know, depressed for 20 years, then like, yeah, motorcycles the way they let go? Or, like so there's there's that the bigger question. I see what you're saying. Like, if you just took people's free will of the mix for a second. And and, and laid the world out differently that things would likely go better for people? I think so. Yeah. No, I mean, that's probably not incorrect. It's just not going to happen. Is my point. Yeah. So anything you tried to if you if you stood up today, obviously, this is not you making a pronouncement. But if you've got a bunch of money behind you, and you know, you're gonna like make a push to, I don't know, get rid of motorcycles, then that would turn into you know, that would turn into something as big as the gun debate right away.

Pam 1:07:48
Yeah, yeah. Oh, no doubt. I just yeah, I'm not talking about any debating. I'm just talking about in a perfect world.

Scott Benner 1:07:54
Yeah. world situation. Yeah. Listen, a perfect world situation. I'm a little taller. You know?

Pam 1:08:00
Oh, me, too. I'm about 10 pounds lighter, no doubt.

Scott Benner 1:08:04
Yeah, I don't even Pam, I wouldn't even have time to get that magic wand all the rest of the world, I'd be like, first, let me just get myself a little taller. And then I'm gonna do this. I also would like to tap on my stomach and make my stomach a little more amenable to like a couple of foods doesn't like and then I'm going to try this. And yeah, I don't know if I'd get around everybody else ever. But I guess I would I take your point. I really do. But on the the here and now question of it. I just think that there's something psychologically appropriate about people believing that they're indestructible? I think, no doubt. If your brain allows you every day to realize that you're a soft bag of goo. That could easily pop or break. We might have trouble getting through this life.

Pam 1:08:56
Yeah, no, I was. I was indestructible in my own mind until I started having children. No doubt.

Scott Benner 1:09:01
Yeah. What about that changed it for you?

Pam 1:09:04
Oh, not realizing I had to be here every day to to like to feed her

Scott Benner 1:09:11
closet and come pick her up.

Pam 1:09:13
And yet, remember driving the first time pulling out onto the little busy four lane highway out of our neighborhood and thinking oh my gosh, I wish there was a stoplight here. Like I'm never gonna be able to pull out safely. Yeah, having be responsible for somebody else really turned the switch on for me as a younger person.

Scott Benner 1:09:32
Yeah, I was talking to my son the other day about injuries. And I said, you know, there was a time, you know, for most of time and not too long ago, where if you broke your leg, you were dead. You know, like your leg breaks, you're done. The pack moves on without you. You can't move you're in incredible pain. An animal comes along and eats you. And that's that like, like like that that's a broken leg. And then at some point, you know, somebody tries to figure out It hurts so much. They push it back together, and maybe they wrap it up, put some sticks on the side to hold it straight, and it heals. And then somebody's like, huh, the bone healed. That's crazy. And then somebody thinks about it. And you know, then you learn if you don't heal it exactly perfectly, you end up with pain or a limp or, you know, something like, that was like this process, you know, took a long, long time. And we're still in the very beginning of it. Like, I mean, how many how long ago? Were horses transportation,

Pam 1:10:28
like, everyday transportation, right, like early 1900s. Sure,

Scott Benner 1:10:31
not that long ago. And so we're standing in a place now, where my daughter's cell phone, which I'm telling you as much as it's part of the life right now. wasn't really a thing. I mean, when did the iPhone come out? 2007?

Pam 1:10:51
Probably Sure. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:10:53
I like how you're just willing to like, believe me, I

Pam 1:10:54
have no idea. I'm gonna walk.

Scott Benner 1:10:58
First generation iPhone. Just put, oh, 2007 Oh, there you go. I'll be damn like, you were right to agree with me. 2007, the first iPhone comes out, it basically didn't do anything. And And now look what it does. And it's unbelievable. And in 2016 year before a cell phone was like, it was like this little hunk of plastic that made a phone call and did nothing else. And so, you know, when you start putting all those ideas together, my daughter is wearing a thing right now you're wearing a thing right now, that has a wire going under your skin that's measuring the interstitial fluid in your body and reporting back to a cell phone wirelessly that your blood sugar is this level moving at this speed in this direction. And still people will be like, Yo, sometimes I get a Bluetooth outage. This thing sucks.

Pam 1:11:55
Yeah, I know. Is that not amazing? And incredible all at the same time. I mean, I do I scratch my head. Of course, I do have a little freakout when, when something goes amiss, or I have to rebuild loop or whatever. I do have to talk myself off the ledge because you know, I still have pens and pen needles and I know how to do it. I know how to do it without any kind of gadgetry. But it's not as seamless. Yeah, no, it's, it's crazy.

Scott Benner 1:12:22
Well, I I was just in this episode that went up today that I mentioned earlier about sunk cost fallacy I mentioned to the person about, you know, how we seem to like, freak out by such simple things now, where I think the I think the example I used in the episode was, you know, like, we're, we're a nation of people who, you know, won World War Two. And now if my friends has something a little side, I'd on Facebook, and I think it's, it's, it's aimed at me, I'm upset for a week, you know, like, like, how did this happen? But the truth is, is that it's because things get so much better so quickly, that people grow up with better and better expectations for what success looks like. And so smaller and smaller things look like tragedies. And, and that can be bad for us psychologically. But it does answer why people are like, you know, I don't understand this thing. Suppose the last 10 days of mine only last six days, only last seven days, or, you know, my favorite one, which I completely understand is my medical adhesive gives me a rash, they should fix it. And I want to I always want to say like, you think you're the rule, not the exception. Yeah. Because the internet, you found other people on the internet who have the same problem. They're delivering this product to millions of like, like millions of these products, like you know, to countless people. If most people were having your problem, then you don't understand you're an outlier in this. And but then you get your confirmation bias by going online and find three other people are like that happens to me too. And you're like, this happens to everybody. Like okay, yeah, yes, you and 50 other people is not everybody, but okay. The way our minds work is, I find fascinating, so

Pam 1:14:07
it really is, but Yeah, crazy crazy.

Scott Benner 1:14:11
Tell me about this house that you are allowed to go to on vacation? Should I have married a surgeon? Is this is this my biggest mistake?

Pam 1:14:20
You are welcome to come we'd love to have you come visit.

Scott Benner 1:14:24
You're gonna break my legs and keep me in bed. I saw that movie. I know exactly what's gonna happen. You're picking the wrong guy, cuz I can't rebuild your loop app either.

Pam 1:14:32
Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh, I have blessed with this. Let me tell you a quick story. If you have time, please. Um, so speaking of a loop app, when i i built Loop Two years ago, August two years ago, and I say I built it. I built it on the weekend I followed I had been reading the whole stack of loop docs, which are incredible and I'm I can't believe how many smarty pants people there are out there that can do stuff like that. Anyhow, I follow the rules. followed all the directions, I built it at the end is that I had an error, tried to do all the things to fix the error, couldn't fix it. And so I said, If all else fails, let it you know, let it rest for a few hours come back to it. After a few hours, this was at night. So I came back to it the next morning and rebuilt the loop again. And by this time, I had like seven errors, and I'm about to throw it out the window. And because it's not my bailiwick. And so a friend of mine had just built it for her daughter, and she had it on her laptop. So bless her, she brought her laptop over here, and I got it working that way. So this was probably on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Well, that that Friday, I was leaving to drive to Atlanta to see one of our children and I was going by myself. So I drove down there took a car load of stuff to him. And I get down there and my CGM stops working. I mean, it just went Capote like on day four. And I had, I always pack a ton of things, a ton of supplies, extra supplies, I had forgotten to pack, a CGM, a new sensor. So I'm out of luck. So I get on the little loop Facebook page thing. And I connected with the sweet guy in South Carolina, who was anyway, he didn't even know that Apple Health, you could enter your C, your glucose numbers into Apple Health and have loops still work? Yeah, I didn't know that was a thing. So he told me about that. And then he says I am really five minutes from the interstate, when you're driving back to Virginia was an eight hour drive, pull off on exit, whatever. And I will give you a sensor so you can have it for the ride home. So I did it. And on the way home, I'm texting with my children thing if I if I go missing, this is the exit where I'm getting meeting this guy to McDonald's on exit whatever, off of the interstate. And he sat with me, not only did he mess with my loot thing and fix some things on it that I had not correct, done correctly, gave me a sensor. I got him of course, I sent him a new one, send them a gift card, but he stayed in touch with me. And he has he's rebuilt loot for me twice when it was time to do so. And like he does the screen share with me which I'm so I just want somebody to take it over for me. And so I guess my point in selling telling that is that the community for helping in addition to you is it's so full of great people.

Scott Benner 1:17:27
Oh, it is,

Pam 1:17:28
if I can loop Good lord, anybody can loop because I don't know how to do that stuff.

Scott Benner 1:17:33
Part of part of what I imagined my job to be is to be sort of a central place like a hub, so that everybody can, like, at least hear the same thing. So that everyone knows that there are people like that guy out there. And that you can imagine that there might be somebody out there like that for you or that you could be vulnerable. And I mean, maybe not in a McDonald's parking lot. But, but But you know, like, and allow someone to be friendly to you that it might make your situation better. I love that that happen. That's absolutely fantastic. And and what a lovely story that you didn't it didn't turn into a situation where you were fighting for your life.

Pam 1:18:15
Didn't even get slit to tell about it?

Scott Benner 1:18:17
No, I think I think that your expectation, it's interesting, right? Your expectation should be that most people are kind. And I think that most people are kind. You know, it's the unknown is tough, and there are certainly people who would take advantage of people in situations like that. But I mean, that's a great story, that that then I've seen it and I've seen it reenacted, you know, countless times online where people make those mistakes, like they go somewhere, forget something and someone's like, Oh, I'm nearby, I can get it to you. And so nice. Yeah, it's it's a, it's more common than uncommon. You just need to you got everyone needs to be connected. So they can know like, so there's this really, there you go. There's this really lovely man somewhere, right? He doesn't have a podcast, you don't know he's a great person. He doesn't have access, like there has to be coming together places for people. So because everyone doesn't have the can't broadcast their voice as widely as I can. And so you know, Sue, it is nice to give those people a place to talk. And that's, I mean, I appreciate you coming here and doing that today as well. It's exactly what you did, in my opinion. Yeah. And even though I don't imagine she'll ever be on let's say Jodi's name one more time.

Pam 1:19:32
Dr. Jody Stanislaw she's great. Three free courses online that really dovetail in with what you do.

Scott Benner 1:19:39
Okay, that's on you, Pam. Because if the free course is turned into a paid program, I don't want to be associated but sending somebody to that and because I well know Jody, that's all

Pam 1:19:49
well, and she she does have a paid program too. But you don't have to do that. You can do the free site. She's got great info out there. Okay.

Scott Benner 1:19:55
So, I believe you. I want to say that okay. I have no reason to disbelieve. You're not absolutely believe you and let's, let's say for the sake of argument, she's 100%. Legit. That is also the business plan that not legit people use. Got it? Yeah, I'll give you a little bit of free and then then the bill, start comment, and then just give me your credit card. And it's just $60 a month is $600. For five months, it's just this. And I'm driven by the knowledge that some of those people are actually getting their information from a clinician and then selling it to you. They don't it's not their ideas. So look

Pam 1:20:33
like losers. Yeah, I know, they're out there. I believe me,

Scott Benner 1:20:36
I could be right or wrong, Pam. But this is what I think. And it's derived directly out of the middle of my brain. So I didn't, I didn't go read a book, and then decide to talk about it differently. I didn't, like that's not what I did. Like, I yeah, I put this together by writing on a blog. And then one day, I was like, Ooh, this works. It's like a thing. It's almost a system. And then I taught myself how to talk about it in a play in a way that people could understand. And now it's here and you can do whatever you want with it. Like if you don't want it, like, cool. I don't care, you know, and I'm not selling it to you. I'm just more of a I'm just more of a capitalist, I think that you should get it for free, and that I will get my money somewhere else.

Pam 1:21:20
Well, I think I need to make that. So abundantly clear. And I think that's part of the reason that you're so believable. Well, number one, everything you say works, but the fact that you blogged at the beginning and before you had figured out how to manage Arden, you know, I mean, we saw you from the very beginning. I didn't know you when you had your blog, but I think it's so cool that you were honest and open. And I know you were initially doing it so that you could communicate with family. But the fact that you've let all that be out there, and people have seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and now they see that you've flipped it and you've made it all work. Partially due to gadgetry and pre dosing and things like that. But Arden eats regular food, which the other thing that really drew me in I'm like, I don't I don't eat pizza or sandwiches or any of that stuff. But doggone it, he's made that work. Let's see if we can't do the same thing over here. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:22:15
I just think if you can do it with a really difficult stuff, then the easier stuff is it just gets easier. You know? So and I don't know another way to do that thing. Like you can say like, it's like I've made myself like I've put it out there for people. But even when, like when you said you heard Arden's episode the other day, right? Yeah. Oh, good. I recorded that. And we edited out nothing. Okay, and at when I listened back to it, to clean it up for noise and stuff like that, where I could and put in ads and do the other things that I do. There were moments where I was like, you know, it's her age, and she's trying to be funny and everything, but I shouldn't like, like, I think a lot of people would take that part out. But then all of a sudden, it becomes this practice thing, and it's not real anymore. And then you listen to it, and don't hear yourself in it, or you don't hear your kid in it. And then what value is it. And then once it's valueless, then you stop listening. And then when you stop listening, then new people don't find the pro tip episodes, and then those people don't get help. And then there's just like, I'm just it's self preservation. Like, like, there are going to be people who hear that and think Arden's like a snotty kid. And all I can tell you is she's not. And so I know that to be true. And I don't care what other people think. And I also don't think the internet is the the end all be all of people's opinions. I think that there are far more people who are not on social media than who are. I think that some of the things we pretend are the biggest problems in the world are the biggest problems online. And that doesn't make them the biggest problems in the world. So if somebody doesn't like my daughter, a I can tell you, she don't care. And I don't care. What I care about is whatever valuable things came out of her being so candid. And when you Yeah, no. And lastly, I care that she made it entertaining enough that you listen through to the end

Pam 1:24:08
of it. Oh my gosh. And but she she also I was laughing your ass or something about the G bow type of pen and response was, what the what even know what you're talking about? And, and when you got it out, and we're showing her what it looked like. And she's like, Yeah, yeah, I've done that. I don't really know if I could remember how to do it. I mean, I don't know if I could remember how to use one. I mean, I have that same pen. Anyway, but I thought it was interesting that that you are also thinking well, there are probably a lot of other parents out there who have shown their child how to do this, that or the other. Maybe it's time for a little refresher course for all of us. Yeah, which was very useful and helpful. Um,

Scott Benner 1:24:45
you see the big picture. Thank you.

Pam 1:24:48
Absolutely.

Scott Benner 1:24:49
I appreciate that. Yeah, I will tell you I was stunned when when I was like you know that evoke hypotension was the what? And I'm like, so I stopped like, I know you're carrying glucagon, right? She says, Oh, that thing I moved from my purse the purse? Like yes. And then but what? You know, so what most people heard, I believe is what I heard, which is she does move it from purse the purse. She does know it's important and she does know it's you know, it's it she needs to keep it with her. So, okay, good. Now, luckily for her, and even for the conversation, I have a trainer pen on my desk. I don't even know why I still have it. And so I'm like, it looks just like this. I'm like, This is how it works. And I showed her and she goes, Oh, okay, I don't remember that. I was like, but I've showed you this before. And she was I believe you. So that's the value. Like when she told me she didn't know what generation of the Dexcom she used or that she for years when she was younger thought it was, um, ami pod.

Pam 1:25:48
That's so funny.

Scott Benner 1:25:50
I was like, that's what I bet it is. For most people. It's the thing I get my insulin from. Yeah, like we all can get wrapped up in. Especially if you're in marketing. If you imagine you're the person at Omnipod, who hears that a child who's been wearing Omnipod for I mean, I'm doing the math in my head, but I think Ahrens been wearing Omnipod for like 13 years, right? Getting yours. And she's like I thought it was AMI pod. And if you're in marketing, you might be like, Oh my god, like what are we doing? Like you don't even aren't doesn't see the box that comes in? Yeah, right. She doesn't order them online. You know, she hears me and we don't talk about diabetes incessantly in our house. So we're not always yelling on the pot on the pot on the pot. And apparently, my bad accent when she was younger sounded like something else. And here we are. But I thought it was valuable for people to hear that. And absolutely, absolutely. It was funny. I thought I was laughing.

Pam 1:26:49
Oh my gosh, I loved your banter back and forth that she really is a little you. And you've always said that. So it didn't come to me. It didn't come as a surprise to me.

Scott Benner 1:26:58
It would come to a surprise to her though. She she really she believes she's an autonomous thing, which is great. She's just turned 17 And that's how she's

Pam 1:27:05
Yeah, she needs to keep thinking that Yeah, she'll come back she'll she'll be so glad she's a chip off the old block when she's a little older.

Scott Benner 1:27:12
I'll be dead when she figures it out and I won't get any I won't get any satisfaction out of it. I know where I'll be too old to care like I want it right now when I can really relish in it you know they mean oh funny Pam I appreciate that you get me and that you want to come on the show thank you for

Pam 1:27:29
oh my gosh I totally get you

Scott Benner 1:27:41
well Heavens to Betsy I want to thank that doesn't even fit there. I don't care Heavens to Betsy I want to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter go to contour next one.com forward slash juice box to get started today with the bestest blood glucose meter that I've ever used. And I'm I mean that actually Contour Next One comm forward slash juice box. Don't forget to check out touch by type one at touched by type one.org or on Facebook, or Instagram. Thanks so much to Pam for coming on the show and chatting me up. I had a very nice time talking to her. Pam really does get me. And that's why that's the episode title. Plus, I'm exhausted I cannot think of anything else. I'm really wiped out. I'm going to go to sleep now. I'm going to wake up in the morning. I'm going to record a podcast episode and then I'm going to edit podcasts all day long. Like think about my schedule. I'll tell you right now. I need to do three tomorrow. So my best guess I'm going to edit podcast like five or six hours tomorrow. And then I'm going to button up the one that you'll hear the next day. Put it up online. I think I got about eight or nine hours on the podcast tomorrow. But that's okay. I love the podcast. I just am very tired right now. I told you my schedule got. It got FUBAR a little bit and I'm running off schedule. You know what I mean? Like the clock you and I are not lined up. We're not simpatico at the moment Me in time. I think I can find it. I think tomorrow is my day.

I'm supposed to say other stuff here. Hold on. If you want to check out the diabetes Pro Tip series, go to Juicebox Podcast comm diabetes pro tip calm or look right there in your podcast player. The diabetes Pro Tip series begins at episode 210. If you're newly diagnosed and looking for some understanding, check out the defining diabetes episodes. They're also available in the places I just told you. And in your podcast player podcast. podcast is not a word and I don't care I push on. Are you subscribed right now? Like are you listening in listening listening in a podcast player? If you are and you're not subscribed Like if you're manually downloading episodes, it hurts my feelings. So hit subscribe or follow. That's pretty much that. And boy, oh no, I'm a little busy. I'm going to thank you and I'm going to leave. And that's it. Bye

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