Scott Benner 11/26/24 Scott Benner 11/26/24

#1368 All Kinds of Diabetes

Gestational, LADA, Type 2; you name it and this episode has it.

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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
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Gonna talk to Brittany today. 30 years old, diagnosed with LADA in 2022 she's also got a mother with diabetes. There's a lot going on here in this little I don't want to explain all this to explain all this to you. Looks like I got some denial, some gestational you're gonna like it. Just jump right in. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com when you place your first order for ag one, with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink, AG, one.com/juice, box. Are you an adult living with type one or the caregiver of someone who is and a US resident? If you are, I'd love it if you would go to T 1d, exchange.org/juice box and take the survey. That's it. Just do that, please. Okay, let's a little more music, and then we'll get right in. We'll get right into

it. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 that's a CGM that lasts a full year, ever since cgm.com/juice cgm.com/juice, box. One year one CGM, this episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by us. Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get your supplies the same way we do from us. Med. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries, G VO, hypo pen. Find out more at G VO, glucagon, com, forward slash juice box.

Brittany 2:12
My name is Britney. I'm from British Columbia, Canada, and I was diagnosed with type one diabetes, or ladder, if you will, in 2022

Scott Benner 2:22
2022 with LADA? Did they tell you Lada that day? No, what they tell you,

Brittany 2:29
I actually had gestational diabetes with my second pregnancy, and then 18 months I had all the classic symptoms. I kind of let it get a little far.

Scott Benner 2:41
You were ignoring it. Yeah,

Brittany 2:44
was it something denial? I think I knew so. Like, my mom has had diabetes for a long time, like since I was two.

Scott Benner 2:54
What Brittany your mom has? I'm sorry, Your mom has type one.

Brittany 2:59
Well, she was diagnosed with type two two years after I was born. When I was diagnosed, I was kind of like she had always really struggled with her management to the point where, like, they wanted to commit her to, like a psych word, because she just gave up at one point, like she burned out so hard, because nothing she was doing was working, and she was so frustrated. And that was, like, a huge thing in our family. I was just like, my mom's diabetes was like, out of control a lot of the times, and so when I got diagnosed, I was like, you know, something isn't right here, because, you know, knowing that my mom had diabetes, I kind of tried to do everything in my lifestyle to avoid, even when they told me I had gestational diabetes, I was like, in a grocery store, my husband and I, we were checking out, and on my midwife phone, and she was like, yeah, like, you know, have the results of your gestational diabetes test, and you know, you know, you have gestational diabetes. And I started sobbing, okay? My husband was like, What is going on? You know, uncontrollably

Scott Benner 4:04
right there in the Tim Hortons. You

Brittany 4:05
were just, it was in the grocery store. Yeah, we were checking out in checkout line. I just lost it. Like, what's

Scott Benner 4:11
that grocery store called? Is it a chain? It was, it

Brittany 4:15
was called a, it's a called wholesale. It's like, I think it's a Canadian it's like, a smaller Costco, type of deal

Scott Benner 4:21
smaller.

Brittany 4:22
They have, like, bulk items and

Scott Benner 4:25
everything. That's a good way to describe Canada, a smaller Costco, smaller, yeah, everything on a smaller scale. So your mom, so let's go back for a second. Your mom has type two diagnosed after you're, like, about two years old, and she struggles with type two diabetes so greatly. What about 36 years ago? Something like that.

Brittany 4:47
I'm 30 so I'm sorry. So 28 years I guess. Where did

Scott Benner 4:51
I get 38 from that? We'll never know. So, so for for a quarter of a century, your mom's had type two diabetes, and she struggled with its. So hard that she burned out so much. They they wanted to institutionalize her. Yeah,

Brittany 5:05
so she told me, like, she just got so fed up that she's like, I'm not even taking my meds. Like she was on, you know, obviously all the oral stuff and then insulin and everything like that. And she was just like, I'm not taking into this anymore, like it's not working. And, you know, I think they just assumed, like, well, you're not doing it right, and, you know?

Scott Benner 5:25
And so that back and forth, can I ask you a question? Is your mom's stability in question? Now that her type two diabetes is okay,

Brittany 5:33
so she actually has, she has type one. Oh, so what? But, like, it's kind of a hard timeline. So, like, it's not, but it's like, you know, diabetes. I was diagnosed in 2022 but like, you know, and when I was a kid, when, like, my mom was diagnosed, she struggled. I struggled because I was, like, holy, like this, you know, diabetes sucks. Like, I don't want to end up like my mom and like, have this massive struggle with my health, like, I'm gonna, you know, to the extreme, take really good care of my body, watch what I eat, you know.

Scott Benner 6:11
And how long did your mom live? Misdiagnosed

Brittany 6:14
that entire time. So until 2022 Wait, what

Scott Benner 6:18
the Are you serious? That's not is that I don't listen. Wouldn't she be dead? I don't understand any of this. Hold on a second. She's

Brittany 6:26
gotten close. You know what? I mean, like, I don't So,

Scott Benner 6:29
so what oral meds did they have her on?

Brittany 6:32
I know Metformin for sure. Like, I don't know too much. Like, honestly, it's just one of those things where, like, I don't really know the details entirely. Like, I know Metformin was one of them for a long, long time, or is she even up into the point where they re diagnosed her at my clinic that I started going to, you know, she was still on Metformin, and then I think she was on something else. I don't remember the name. If

Scott Benner 6:58
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Brittany 8:19
Yeah, but she was on insulin as well. Ah, Brittany.

Scott Benner 8:23
Brittany, I need the whole story. Okay, all right, so you're like,

Brittany 8:28
a gradual like, and the way shakes made it to me, because a lot of it, I kind of have, like, walked out of my memory because it was so bad, like, really, yeah, yeah. She's been through a lot,

Scott Benner 8:39
okay, and it was hard on you as a child as well. Yeah,

Brittany 8:42
yeah, she and, like, now even, like, she has gastroparesis and, yeah, neuropathy, she has, like, the, you know, laundry list of all that kind of stuff. What?

Scott Benner 8:53
What province don't I want to live in? What'd you say

Brittany 8:57
it was Ontario? I grew up in Ontario.

Scott Benner 9:00
Oh, my God. They don't even give you guys a hockey team. They know

Brittany 9:05
they have it. The maple eases Ontario. That's Toronto.

Scott Benner 9:08
I know Ontario is the bigger picture, but you know, Toronto Canada,

Brittany 9:13
that's what they think of as Toronto. Toronto is Canada.

Scott Benner 9:16
Toronto is Canada. I think of it as the Yukon just so, okay, I don't even know what to say. That's not a Canadian thing. I've heard people from America and other places around the world have similar situations. So yeah, they told her she was type two, gave her metformin and and then said, Oh, you're really insulin. You're really resistant. Here's some insulin. Yeah, and so, but she's living as a type two with type one diabetes as an insulin insulin dependent type two and is it your diagnosis that helps her figure out she doesn't have type two diabetes? Yeah,

Brittany 9:51
so at the point of my diagnosis, which was 18 months after I had given birth to my son, you know? And. The crazy thing for me is, like, I went from like, my first pregnancy was totally fine, postpartum with that, I was totally fine, and then, like, bam, the second I got pregnant with my second child, I had gestational diabetes. But not only that, I was they put me on insulin when I was gestational like, it was to the point where, like, you know, normally you can just manage with diet and exercise enough, but they told me, and so that's what I tried desperately. Like, I was like, you know, talking to the endocrinologist during my pregnancy, like, often, because I was like, Hey, I'm trying. I'm trying to have a snack here, because my fasting blood sugars were the issue, yeah, during pregnancy, and I would get up at like midnight to eat a snack, because that's what they suggested. And, you know, I was trying everything with cynics, and they're just like, You know what? We're sorry, but like, you have to go on insulin, and that's just how it is. And, like, I was devastated, but they were like, insulin is a tool, like, you know, and obviously, you know, but I'm they don't understand my background, you know, like with my what I've seen my mom go through, and why being insulin independent was so right, yeah,

Scott Benner 11:11
did you feel like, oh my god, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have her existence now? Or did you think I tried so hard and it still didn't work out for me?

Brittany 11:20
I think both, both, yeah, both of those things I didn't understand. Because I was just like, You know what I mean? Like I said, I've lived a lifestyle with the literal whole purpose of not getting diabetes or having to worry about it at all on any level. So, you know, then I had my son, and I was like, okay, bam. And wipe my hands of this throughout all my stuff, my meter, my pens, I was just like, like, this is I'm good now. Like, because, you know, that's what everybody says, right? You got gestational like, there is a chance that you can develop it later on. But like, everyone was like, you know, you're healthy and active and like, Hey, you're good to go now, you know, like, so I was like, perfect. I'm done with this. I never have any other kids. Like, I don't want to deal with that ever again.

Scott Benner 12:05
And then, yeah, did that experience that you have two kids? So when you had your decide, I mean, did you decide to have a second kid, or did it happen?

Brittany 12:14
We wanted to, yeah, okay, okay,

Scott Benner 12:17
so when you're making that decision, do you think yourself, I'm gonna need to use insulin again, probably during that time.

Brittany 12:22
Well, so I didn't have it with my first. I only had it with my

Scott Benner 12:25
second. Sorry, yeah, okay, okay,

Brittany 12:29
I apologize. I definitely, like I said, we don't really want a third. We have a pretty busy lifestyle, and our two boys are enough, and they're busy too. So, but the also, like, even if I did have that sort of, like, Oh, really nice, there's no way I just was too much for me.

Scott Benner 12:49
Is your mom doing better now? Like, management wise, day to day, she told me that her ANC is, like, the best it's been in like, a decade or more. Do you know what that means? Like,

Brittany 13:00
I don't know, six or seven, then like, oh, wow, good for her.

Scott Benner 13:07
I've just, you know, for everyone, she was always in the twelves, and now it's in the nines, and she's like, it's the best it's ever been. Even,

Brittany 13:13
no, yeah, no, I think when she told me, I believe it was six or seven, and I was even, I was like, What do you still have struggles? I think it's hard for her to learn the new concept of like, I tried to explain to her, like, insulin to car ratio and correction factor. Then, like, I feel like, and like, how to treat a low. Because sometimes she's like, Oh, I'm gonna eat some chocolate. And I'm like, You can't do that. Like, you know, you know you shouldn't do that. That's not really what's gonna help you get your blood sugar up. It's just gonna like you later. And sometimes she, I don't know if she doesn't care, or, you know what I mean, like, how old is she? 5151 Yeah. Oh

Scott Benner 14:00
my gosh. Do you think she'll figure it out? I

Brittany 14:03
hope so. I try to lead by example for her. I give her a hard time sometimes. I try not to, like, I'll be like, you know, we've talked about this. Like, you know, things that are high and fat are going to maybe I'll trigger you up later. Or, like, you know, when you treat like, I don't, you know, I get on her case about it sometimes, but I hope she does. I think it's, you know, at least she has better providers now that can tell her that kind of stuff too. Like, it

Scott Benner 14:27
would be hard to have worse ones. So, yeah,

what's your, what's your level of competency right now? Like, how, how are you managing?

Brittany 14:36
I felt pretty okay. Well, I mean, it's been kind of Rocky, because when, when I was diagnosed, my ANC was 14.5 and I am like a type A, like perfectionist type of personality, so I did a lot of over correcting. Did

Scott Benner 14:55
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Brittany 17:06
Oh, yeah. I, you know, I hate seeing my numbers out of range. It drives me nuts. I've tried to kind of ease off a little bit because now I kind of hypo anxiety. It kind of has the one the other direction. I feel like I honeymoon for a long time. I even still, you know, just feel like my ratio changes a lot. Yeah, I know like variables are a factor, but it just feels like sometimes I never know how much to take, or for the first little while, I definitely struggled with like, aggressively being like, I don't want to be high.

Scott Benner 17:48
Do you think you were honeymooning at all? I must have

Brittany 17:51
been for a while. And so I'll just give you the timeline, like I was diagnosed with the diabetes. What happened was I went to my family doctor and I said, you know, I had gestational diabetes, diabetes in my family, and I have all these symptoms. And she was like, I think you're stressed. Okay, sounds good.

Scott Benner 18:16
So you wait, so you came with symptoms, and they said, We think you're stressed. They said,

Brittany 18:23
What? What? Yeah, and like, and in hindsight, I, you know, I should have been like, No, you're wrong. But I was so tired, and I was so like, I didn't want to face the music either. So I was like, whatever. She's like, what's on you for blood work? And at the time, I was like, well, when can I get the blood work? Because I think I knew it was bad, right? I couldn't sleep. I kept getting woken up by, like, my hands would start tingling, like, every night, and I'd be going to the bathroom all the time, and, like, I saw a low parent pretty often. So I kept being like, well, what if something happens to me? And, you know, my husband's not home or whatever, so I'm like, in the doctor's office, I'm like, Okay, well, when can I get the blood work? And she was like, well, just lie and say that it's urgent, because at the time, we had to make appointment to get blood was done. You couldn't just go up there and get it done.

How long was this going on? For a while,

I had lost a ton of weight, and, like, I started losing my hair, and doctor

Scott Benner 19:20
didn't think it was

Unknown Speaker 19:22
urgent. No, what

Scott Benner 19:25
was this doctor? Bombay from the old bewitch TV show. We

Brittany 19:29
have a an issue with a lot of doctors in our town that, you know, they come here because they have to, and they, you know, they don't. They do, like severe, minimum kind of and I'm okay to say that is

Scott Benner 19:42
it like a penal colony. What's going on? Like, we either they're sending you, like, reject doctors from other places.

Brittany 19:49
Well, they're, they're like, from out of the country, and so there's, like, a certain they, I think my understanding is like they have to go to certain locations before they can kind of move around to the. Rest of Canada, that's my understanding.

Scott Benner 20:01
Brittany, why? Why are you in a place that gets the the tester doctors? I

Brittany 20:06
don't know how I got here. I wish I bought that though.

Scott Benner 20:11
Are you can I ask a Can I ask a tough question? Are you financially disenfranchised?

Brittany 20:18
No, um, our jobs just kind of rely on We live near the ocean, so my husband's a fisherman, and I work for the Coast Guard, so we kind of need to be on the coast. Okay, yeah, our jobs are here pretty much. I can't

Scott Benner 20:35
believe what's happened to the world. I just said financially disenfranchised when I met I was like, I'm like, I'm like, Brittany, are you broke? Are you tied to something? Do you need help? Scott, I live in a place where they send, uh, new tester doctors out to see if they're any good or not, like Jesus Christ, and they're not like, God,

Brittany 21:03
it's unfortun because I feel like a lot of people think of care, and they're like, oh, yeah, free health care. Like, it must be you got it made, you know? Like, everything is so good there. And I'm like,

Scott Benner 21:14
Yeah, I'm American. I don't think most things that are free are good. I think if something's worth something, somebody's charging you for it. Wow, that's I

Brittany 21:25
did go get my blood work done a couple days later, and that, I think it was like a Thursday or Friday when I got it done, and then Monday afternoon, at like, 4pm she phoned me and was like, either they made a mistake on your blood work, or you have diabetes, I'm telling you right now, it's not the first one. Like I was just like, it didn't shock me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 21:52
there's been a mistake made, but it's you and me being together. Yeah, I'm trying to get out of that right now. If I can, were you able to find a different doctor, by the way, or is that your doctor? No, because we're

Brittany 22:04
so limited here. She was very confused. You could tell because she saw me and how thin I was and like, how, you know, and she was very confused by the numbers, because she wouldn't say, like, you have type one or type two. She was just like, You should go back to the hospital and get your blood work done again. And I was

Scott Benner 22:24
like, No, oh, she really thought this isn't right. Do something else.

Brittany 22:29
Yeah,

Scott Benner 22:30
so clearly,

Brittany 22:31
I'm painting you the picture.

Speaker 1 22:36
I went to medical school in a trash heap, and I'm here to tell you, this is stress. I see it on you. Yeah, by the way, not how much weight had you lost? Oh, gosh, probably, like, at least 20 pounds. Were you trying to lose weight? Like, could you at least know? So I was eating

Brittany 22:52
everything at insight, I was on, you know, it I was hungry. Yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 22:58
not a doctor, but if I saw you, I'd be like, hey, you've got cancer or diabetes. Let's find out which it is. And, yeah, something's wrong. She

Brittany 23:04
didn't give me the time of day and but it happens so often here, like it's not, I'm not the first person and probably won't be the last,

Scott Benner 23:12
but vote people wait, what's going on?

Brittany 23:16
They just don't know. They just don't know, I guess is

Scott Benner 23:20
the area you live in? Not very, like, suburban,

Brittany 23:24
I guess you could say that, like, you know, I'm in northern DC, so yeah, we're kind of goofy, well, isolated,

Scott Benner 23:33
yeah, how many moose do you see in a week? Uh,

Brittany 23:36
lots of deer. No, not really very many moose. But yeah, the deer, and they pretty much are my pets, like, they

Scott Benner 23:42
live in the backyard, so they wander around everywhere. This

Brittany 23:45
town's like an hour and 20 minute drive with, like, nothing there's it's just scenery, just there's no gas station. There's no other towns in between. It's just straight highway. Is

Scott Benner 23:55
your jacket made out of a beaver or otter pelt? You would think, No, I definitely would think, yeah. I mean, being that I've never been there, and I'm just making this all in my head, I'm predisposed to believe that you're wearing what I'm going to call penguin shoes. But apparently, some little girl told me one time there's no penguins in Canada. No, I mean, I don't believe that either. So whatever. All right, so you get you, you get a diagnosis, and you're and so what do you I have to understand, like, what's your a 1c right now,

Brittany 24:31
my last one was 5.5 I think it's gone up a little bit just because I was on steroids for, like, an illness that I had. So that was a that was fun, tough

Scott Benner 24:47
time. Yeah, needs a lot more basal and yeah, like, my Yeah, here's the reason I'm asking, like, so it's only been not even two years, right? And you've got an A, 1c, in the fives. You're not honeymooning. Anymore, is that correct?

Brittany 25:00
I don't believe so. So okay, let me get to that. Because so she's like, I don't know. She's like, you have diabetes. I'm going to but because it was summertime and we live, you know, somewhere where it's not like, they're not very suburban, she was like, You need to talk to the diabetes there we have. I guess there's two different things. There was a diabetes nurse and a diabetes educator. So then diabetes nurse was away on vacation, so she's like, I'll give you over to the diabetes educator until that other person is back. And in the time being, here it's a Metformin. And boy, did the Metformin make me feel really sick. And I think there was a combination of, like, my blood sugar is kind of coming down, yeah? And like, just the Metformin in general, where you were in DKA, right? Probably, I mean, that's the thing I was she was never like, oh, you should go to the hospital and get insulin and this. And, like, she never said that. She just wanted everybody. I never, ever, yeah. So actually, the funny part is, like, when she called me, yeah, like, I said it was like, four o'clock in the afternoon, and I was actually just about to, like, my son was going to have his birthday party, and we were hopping on a ferry to go to, like, an even more remote place. She's like, you need to go to the hospital, like, they need to redo your blood work. And I was just like, Um, no, I can't. I'm going on vacation well. And so she's like, if you start feeling sick, I think that's the part where she was concerned about DK, but she didn't want to say, she didn't say that, you know, like, she was like, if you start feeling sick while you're in this place, like, go to the hospital. And like, don't eat any sugar or carbs. We were going to, like, our First Nations, like, reserve, my husband is First Nations, and we were going there for a feast in a pool raising. And I'm like, Okay, so, like, what can I eat? Like, you know what I mean? I'm like, I'm gonna be, you know, there's not gonna be keto snacks on the menu, you know, like, so I lived off of, like, salad

Scott Benner 27:04
and, like, you know, fish and vegetables that entire week. It was miserable. You were there for a week pretty much. Yeah, I don't know. I'm irritated that a doctor just can't be direct with you. It's ridiculous.

Brittany 27:18
I am too, yeah? Like, I mean, I still am processing it, you know, like, I know there was a girl in the podcast a little while ago where, you know, her doctor, kind of, or, you know, she didn't get the proper diagnosis right away, and she was totally at peace with it, but like, I'm, it's not me. Like, I'm ready to go to war every

Scott Benner 27:32
day. Or you're pissed about it, yeah? Hey, I'm sorry. First, First Nations. Can you, like, define that for me?

Brittany 27:38
Yeah, so my husband is Haida. So where in? BC, there's a lot of, like, different First Nation communities and so, yeah, that's just where he's from.

Scott Benner 27:51
Okay, alright, and they're having this event. You go off for a week, yeah? You eat, like, fish and salad. Yeah, looking dust off tables. I imagine stuff like that. You're how close to dead are you by the time you get back?

Brittany 28:09
I mean, I probably pretty close. I mean, at the time I was, I couldn't enjoy myself, obviously, because I was like, should I go to the hospital or here? Like, should I not, like, what did I do? I feel like, even if I did, if I had gone to the hospital at the time, they would have been like, they wouldn't have known what to do. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like, even if they recognize DK, they would have, you don't, yeah, I don't know what they would

Scott Benner 28:32
have done. Is this confusion around medicine, beyond diabetes, where you are,

Brittany 28:36
probably, I think so it's from what I've heard, you know, like, I don't think it's diabetes specific, I think, but I mean, it definitely is, like, really prevalent with diabetes. Like, I just feel like the understanding is so bare minimum. Like a lot of people in the North Don't be an endocrinologist for their diabetes. And I am like, that's not okay. So my she was like, Okay, go see the diabetes educator, until you can see the nurse. When I finally got home for my trip, I do that. And then the diabetes educator tried to tell me I was type two. And she was like, you can eat this many carbs per meal, and blah, blah, this and that try that out. And I was like, This is crazy. Like, sitting there, I was like, Are you sure not that? Like, you know, I went home, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna try this now. And, yeah, we went through the whole like, oh, no, sugar in the house, blah, blah. And I remember eating a meal, and still, my blood sugars were not great, obviously, and I was very frustrated. And had a therapist at the time, because during my 18 months postpartum, I was I just remember saying, like, my I felt like my nerves were shot, like I felt so dysregulated all the time. I'm sure, obviously, my blood sugar is. Are playing a part in that. And so my autonomy therapist all this stuff about how, you know, all of a sudden I've typed two diabetes. I'm like, I'm taking this medication, but I feel like it's not working, like they're saying I can eat carbs, but when I do, like, I don't feel great and everything. And so she was like, I think you need a second opinion. And then I finally did see the diabetes nurse, and that's when she was like, You need to go to this specific clinic. It's in Vancouver. And she's like, I think you have. She called it louder, like type one and a half, where she explained the whole thing. And I was like, Oh, that made more sense to me. You know, I was like, I was like, Okay, we're on the right track. Now, did

Scott Benner 30:45
that, Brittany, did that feel better for you because you were trying so hard not to get what you thought was type two diabetes? Did it feel better that this wasn't something that you could have gotten in the way of it

Brittany 30:56
made a lot of sense, okay? Like, it just kind of it was like a puzzle piece I was missing in that moment when, when I finally, she put me on the track with this clinic. And she was like, You should talk to them. And they, they were like, Okay, I went there and they did tests for antibodies. And they were like, Oh, we have a clinical trial for people who are newly diagnosed donor honeymoon period. Yeah, it's that the drug is called use map.

Scott Benner 31:34
You stuck in a lab.

Brittany 31:38
You stuck a new Mab. That's how you pronounce it, at it, yeah? Hold on a second. I can't remember. It's also used for Crohn's. I can't remember the like over the counter. Are you googling? Yeah?

Scott Benner 31:56
By get any Oh, wow, Stella,

Brittany 31:58
yeah, that's it. You went with the

Scott Benner 32:01
instead of the brand name you went with, you stuck in a nap that you remembered, you know, immunosuppressive drug. Hey, I have a question. Your doctors can't figure out if someone has diabetes, but they're aware of this.

Brittany 32:21
So this was a new this was a new doc. So finally, after I had seen the diabetes nurse, that was the one who was like, Okay, I think you're type one and a half, there's a clinic in Vancouver who does research, clinical trials, and they do like, they'll take you on as a patient for like, endocrinology, and you know, you need to get in with them. And at the time, yeah, anyways, my doctor had given me a hard time about getting a referral to there, and I know kind of why in hindsight, but so I did get one, and I got in there, and, yeah, my first appointment, they were like, Yep, it sounds like you have type one or ladder. You know, this is what you need to do. You need to take insulin. Now, explain the whole scenario. And then they're like, and also, you know, we have this clinical trial, would you be interested? And I was like, You know what? Yeah, because at this point, like, I've, you know, seen the wrath of diabetes my entire life, essentially. And like, if I can do something to, you know, make it go away, or, you know, help, you know, be a part of some sort of solution, like, count me and kind of thing, tell me about the trial, yeah. So the idea is that it preserves what beta cells you have less, is my understanding. So unfortunately, I don't actually know if I got the drug or not, because two thirds of the participants get it and 1/3 gets a placebo. I actually just got home on Monday from doing like my final appointment, yeah, and I was asking her, like, do you think I got the drug or not? Or like, can you even say and so she they had to wait for my blood work to come back. So like, next week, she's like, just send me a text message and kind of ask me where your beta cell levels are at. Because that was part of, like, the criteria, you had to have a certain amount of cells still remaining. So that's why, like, being honeymoon, being like, you had to be within three months of diagnosis, and you still had to have, like, a certain amount of beta cells. Because the idea is, like, they want to see if it the drug, like, preserved those beta cells. Wow. So I don't actually know if I got it or not. It's hard to say.

Scott Benner 34:37
Will they ever tell you it

Brittany 34:39
was a blind study. So like I said, the only way I could maybe Guess, guess if I got it or not was if my beta cells, like stayed the same or like

Scott Benner 34:52
as my understanding, which I don't know yet. So gotcha Well, I hope you got it, and I hope it has helped. Full, yeah, me too, yeah. So this is sort of like T Z old here in the US. Okay, I think although yours is a monoclonal antibody, I don't know if T z is or not interesting. Well, I mean, it's fascinating that it went from like no information to this information.

Brittany 35:19
Yeah, it was like, zero to 60 for sure, like, but I feel like, by the time I got diagnosed, I was just like, Okay, let's just do it, you know, like I was just like, understand how diabetes worked. I've been around it. And you know what I mean, like, by the point that they were like, hey, you need insulin. I was like, give it to me. Like I wanted it yesterday, you know, like I was about to when I was just thinking, I was like, keep that for keep that away from me. Like, I don't want that, you know, whatever. Like, like you said, it was kind of almost a relief, like that light bulb moment, or like that puzzle piece where it was like, Okay, this makes sense. You know, I feel like pregnancy maybe triggered it potentially, I'm not sure, but yeah. I

Scott Benner 36:00
mean, your mom's got, your mom's got type one so, yeah. So,

Brittany 36:04
like, I went to my clinic and they offered, like, the antibody testing and everything like that. They were like, yep, you have antibodies. Like, that was a another criteria for this study. And then I said to my mom, like, you know what, you should really get tested for antibodies too. Like, they were the thing with type one diabetes, that's clinical diagnosis, right? So, or that's what they say here, okay? But like, you know, my understanding is, like, if you the C peptide is what tells you, like, would it not? Isn't there a test you can do to

Scott Benner 36:40
outside, I like, your mom getting the antibody testing, obviously. I mean, at this point now, it's 20 some years, like, I mean, she's managing the way she's managing, but, yeah, I mean, here you would do it. I mean, to know, or to have, like, better insurance coverage for self or that kind of thing. But, like, you know, for your peace of mind even. But I mean, so once she finds out, does she shift? Because, correct me, if I'm wrong. But like, the the use for insulin for your mom, for type two, was what they gave her basal, was it, did she have a meal insulin? Like, a meal time? Insulin? Yeah,

Brittany 37:13
but I'm not really sure what, how she was using it like, because I, you know, I, when I say insulin to car ratio to her, I don't think she knows. Like, I don't think she had a clue what I was

Scott Benner 37:23
talking about. Also, was she testing her blood sugar. She wearing a glucose monitor.

Brittany 37:27
She had the libre. She had a Libra for a long time, okay, but, like, obviously something she was doing wasn't working. Like, yeah. So, yeah. So then she gets referred to the clinic that I'm at, and they take her on as a patient, and we went down there for a trip, and she got the test, and they were like, you have the antibodies like, you know, this whole time you've actually been type one and you you know, but you've been trying to manage, like, a type two, and that's why you're

Scott Benner 37:56
having so much trouble. What was her, what was her emotional response to that,

Brittany 38:00
I think she was also kind of relieved. Or, you know, she was like, Okay. Like, because she, I know she had been frustrated with her diabetes care team slash management for a long time, yeah. So I think she was just like, Oh my God. Like, finally, it makes sense as well. Kind of like, similar to me. I don't know if there was more to it, yeah.

Scott Benner 38:21
Also probably feels like he didn't do anything wrong. And then there's Yeah,

Brittany 38:25
because, I mean, that was, like, a theme, right for her, like, I feel like a lot of people were like, Oh, you just aren't doing it right for years. You know what? I mean, I can imagine.

Scott Benner 38:33
I want to be clear, that's what I meant. I meant the management, not the type one versus type two, like, the actual management of it, like, Oh, I didn't try to know that maybe we would have done something different. She's, does she have a pump now? No,

Brittany 38:45
so I am starting the process of getting a pump this month, okay, and I'm hoping and encourages her, which I know she's, like, really hesitant to press technology and like, I understand that completely. Like, the clinic that we go to now is very, like, technology oriented, but it really like, obviously, like, they're into clinical trials, into research. Like, I feel like my so, like, it wants to be the first man on the moon with he wants to find the cure. Like, he's very like, boom, boom, boom. Like, clinical trial. Like, I just finished that one, and then he was like, you know, there's the other one. I was like, No, that's great, but I need a break. It.

Scott Benner 39:21
How did you find a better clinic?

Brittany 39:23
I honestly look because, to be honest with you, like that, when I went and saw the diabetes nurse, she for some reason, like and she works in the same building as a diabetes educator. She knew about this clinic, and the other person didn't mention to me whatsoever. And she was like, this is where you need to go. And I was like, okay, like, done. I almost canceled my appointment with that diabetes nurse after having my one with the diabetes educator, because I when she told me I was type two, I was like, you're out to lunch. You know what I mean? Like, I was like, so I was like, I'm sure the diabetes nurse is just going to be the same, you know what I mean. So I was like, very just frustrated and discouraged. And I. So the last person I wanted to see was another diabetes person telling me that, you know, I was type two and this and that one, it just didn't make sense. No, okay, so, like, yeah, I almost canceled that appointment, and I didn't. And I went there, and she was like, oh, no, I think you're Lata. I think that. No, you need to see this clinic. And I think she even knew about the trial. And so I was like, how, like, you need to go talk to your friend.

Scott Benner 40:26
It makes me wonder how many people in that area are walking around with a misdiagnosis. A lot,

Brittany 40:31
I'll tell you right now. I bet you there's a lot, because I've encountered, like, I speak pretty vocally about my diagnosis because, like, there's so many people that don't realize you can get type one as an adult, and physicians, including, obviously, really, yeah, and Oh, so many. And since my diagnosis, I've talked to, well, at least one other person, but someone actually just messaged me, like, recently a family friend, and was like, hey, like, you know, I'm pre diabetic, and I'm like, Whoa, I would look into that if I were you. Like, I was like, you should ask for a C peptide test.

Scott Benner 41:07
Getting that test is not difficult once you ask for it. No,

Brittany 41:10
no. Because what I don't understand is, I'm pretty sure I had one done, you know, like, I don't know if that's after the fact. My like, my family doctor requested one after the fact maybe once she realized, like, what my parents do was, she thinks she did one then. And I was like, Well, if you're asking for one, then don't you know what the COVID is? Like, I was very confusing. But I yeah, I feel like it happened a lot where, like, the physician here don't realize you can get it as an adult, and they because, like, the even my clinic, I voice my frustration every time I go there. I'm like, You guys rely on catching people on their honeymoon phase and being diagnosed properly and on time. Like, how are you going to finish your study? If that's just not happening, it's like, just, you know, they're like, Yeah, we know that's our frustration. And I was like, somebody gonna do it. How does this just keep going, you know, my thing was, like, what really opened my eyes? I was like, Okay, this happened to my mom, you know, 28 years ago, when I, I'm assuming there wasn't very much of an understanding about type one diabetes and like that, there was adult onset, and they thought it was just juvenile. But I'm like, it's, you know, almost three decades later, and nothing has changed. And you guys, you know, like, some people know and some people don't. And like, the you know what I mean, like, I was just very like, how did this almost happen again? How did history almost repeat itself? I was like, no. I mean,

Scott Benner 42:32
it sounds like it's happening a lot, yeah. So you're looking into a pump, hoping your mom's going to get a pump. You use a CGM now I imagine, yeah, yeah. Are there other autoimmune issues in your family, line with your mom, with you, with your husband, anybody else?

Brittany 42:50
I think my mom has arthritis. I

Scott Benner 42:52
don't know if that's I mean, Ra is, but not just arthritis.

Brittany 42:57
I'm not entirely sure about anything else that I don't think there is

Scott Benner 43:02
thyroid, celiac,

Brittany 43:06
no, no, no, no. Diabetes is just like pretty much rampant through my mom's side of the family. I don't actually know my medical history on my dad's part of the family, because my parents use a sperm donor. So I don't know who my daddy is okay. I don't know that whole side of the medical Sure thing for me is just like, unknown completely, which is kind of sucky, but I'm pretty sure all of my, you know, health things don't want to say all, but like my type one diabetes and, you know, comfort my mom obviously Okay,

Scott Benner 43:40
her at the very least, you know? Well, you know about that, and she has it, and there was a lot of diabetes on your mom's side,

Brittany 43:47
yeah, like, I'm pretty sure my grandmother had it. I don't know if my grandfather did or not. I'm pretty sure he did. You know, what Titan my uncle, I'm assuming they were both just type two or, like, that's what they said they were, right, you know, right, yeah, my biggest concern is, like, my grandmother had really bad dementia, Alzheimer's, dementia, all that kind of stuff. I worry about that for my mom, just because I know how bad her blood sugars have been for a long time, because, like I said, she's got everything else, you know, like she's got the neuropathy, she's got gastroparesis, like she has a just a long time, yeah, things that have come from her diabetes, diabetes management just not being what it should be. What made

Scott Benner 44:32
you want to come on the show, like, what prompted you to reach out

Brittany 44:36
for me? Like, I, I like, you know, I just it makes me so frustrated and emotional, like I watched my mom's life pretty much just be ruined, in my mind, by diabetes, because because of one misdiagnosis, and because nobody took the time to be like, You know what? Maybe we should like, listen and reassess the situation. Conversation instead of like, Hey, we should lock it up because you don't want to, you know what? I mean, you don't want to take your meds anymore because you're so burnt out. Yeah, that's fascinating that, you know, like there needs to be a change. Like, I'm It baffles me, because it's like, I'm just a regular person, and I had to understand all this in, you know, like, at the drop of the hat because of my diagnosis. Like, why can't medical professionals do the same? Like, it's, you know what I mean? Like, I just feel like, it's not that hard to understand. People need to know, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like, especially now, because I think COVID, I triggered a lot of autoimmune things. And like, I said, my my family friend that I've known for a long time, again, really healthy lifestyle. And they are like, Oh, you're you have pre diabetes. Like, I'm sure they probably try to tell them he was type two. I think that he mentioned that to me in the in the message that he sent me, and I was like, you should ask for a second opinion, but it's like a lot of people go to their doctor and they just take their word for everything. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not that type of person because of my experiences. Yeah,

Scott Benner 46:05
you have to be. I mean, you just, you just genuinely have to. And I, I shudder to even call it like advocating for yourself at this point. Like, I don't think it's advocating. I think you just have to wonder if, if the person that you're dealing with has you know, your best interest at heart, or if they're just following a plan, or, you know, if, even if they were educated well, or, you know, having a good day, or whatever. Like, I mean, even, like, a great doctor has a bad day, I don't what if? What if? That's the day they see me. And so forget the idea of advocating. Advocating to me feels like forcing somebody to do what they're supposed to do for you. Like, I think you have to take, I mean, I'm looking for another word, but I don't know why. Like, I think you need to take this responsibility. Yeah,

Brittany 46:49
you know, I am. I just remember my mom being the type of person who would be like, Well, the doctor said, and I'm like, it doesn't matter if what you're experiencing is not lining up with what the doctor is saying. Then even

Scott Benner 47:00
if it is you should, you should have more than a cursory understanding of something that's happening to

Brittany 47:05
you. Yeah, yeah. You know, I feel like that's just not, not the case. And like, especially where we live right now, you know, like I said, the doctors are, they don't give you the time of day, and they just want to Band Aid things. And they, yeah, you know what? I mean, they're going to tell you that you're stressed.

Scott Benner 47:19
I was like, you live on the Dark Side of the Moon. It feels like it honestly

Brittany 47:23
does. And it's really stressful. Like, you know, we have kids and I worry about their health, and, you know, our ER, like, closes because we're short staffed for doctors and stuff. So it's like, a very stressful place to live, because, like you said, the closest town is, like, an hour and 20 minute drive away from here. So like, you

Scott Benner 47:40
have an emergency room that shuts down because of staffing.

Brittany 47:45
It's like a recently new development that it's been like that, but it's very stressful. Jesus, can you move? I want to, I do. I really do.

Scott Benner 47:56
But you're there for work, right? Tell me again, what is it you do?

Brittany 48:00
So I work for the Coast Guard. I'm marine communications and Traffic Services Officer. So like we answer mayday call, we regulate marine traffic, like we talk to all the cargo ships and cruise ships and anybody who's of size to transit Canadian waters. Will we give them, like their we process their clearance requests and everything like we're talking to mariners all day long. So very stressful job, but there's only two centers on this coast, and the other center is very it's a very expensive place to live, and it's just not where we want to be. And then my husband is a commercial crab fisherman, so he gone for days at a time. He fishes in the local area. So it's hard to, like, find another it's, yeah, the jobs

Scott Benner 48:45
holding you to the coast and the coast, yeah, doesn't have a ton of people living there, so you get spotty services. Is that about how it works?

Brittany 48:53
Yeah? It's just not a very Yeah. It's not very desirable place to live in some cases. I mean, some people really love it here. You

Scott Benner 48:59
know that people who don't have diabetes, yeah,

Brittany 49:03
oh, yeah, oh. I had a woman message me a couple weeks ago saying, like, I have she has, like, hypoglycemic episodes, but they wouldn't give her, you know, her insurance wouldn't cover CGM because she's not insulin dependent, and so she was really struggling. And so a lot of the doctors here don't like to refer people to endocrinologist. They like to try and manage people with diabetes themselves, which I don't know why. I don't know if it's like, a financial reason, like, they won't, yeah, give referrals. It's like, they gate keeps like crazy. And she was like, you know, my family doctor is leaving. So I saw your post about the clinic that you go to from a little while ago. Like, could you give me some information on that and want to get a referral? And I was like, absolutely. And I had happened to have some extra g6 is that I don't feel like I switched to the g7 and I was just kind of keeping them as backups. I didn't really need them. I was like, you can have these, you know, until you can get what you need. That's ridiculous, that you can't, you know? She was like, I have a son, like, and, you know, I wake up in the middle of night because I have hypoglycemic episodes. I'm like, my doctors don't listen to me, or believe me, or whatever. But it happens so often, like,

Scott Benner 50:22
that's so defeating. Honestly, the entire, the entirety of of this story is defeating. It's just, I mean, you want to think that people have equal opportunities, but it just isn't the case. And I mean, not not that, not that we all don't know that, but it's interesting to hear someone actually say it, you know, and tell a story of living through it, which is, you

Brittany 50:43
know, Jesus, like, it's frustrating, and that's why, like, I any opportunity again, I'm telling people about, like, the clinic that I go to, because they're always taking referrals. And I'm like, you know, I, you know, I have a couple of co workers who have type two and and they were mentioning their frustration with seeing their family doctors about it, and I was like, ask for referral. And one of them did, and it was the same thing, like, Oh, you don't need to blah blah. And I'm like, but they, but they would like to do, you know what I mean? Like, it's not, you know, they, they just don't feel like it's necessary. They don't want to lose the patient or whatever. I'm like, but at the same time, they complain about being overworked and whatever. But it's like, I don't know, like, I feel like they're just trying to line their pockets. They don't really care about people's quality of life, is what it feels like. And, yeah, how do they get paid? Is my question. I'm not sure. Like, they work for our health department, so it's crazy, because they they do, like, they have their practices, right? And then they also work in the ER. So like, they're doing both. They're, they're not getting, you know, they're getting paid pretty well, and they're, you know what I mean. So it's not like they can't afford to outsource someone's at least diabetes management, like you're still going to be their family practitioner for other things. But like, let them see a specialist for their diabetes management. I just feel like, you know, they don't think it's necessary. Like, I think they're just like, Oh, it's just diabetes. So why would you need to see a specialist?

Scott Benner 52:12
You also think it's about keeping you siloed with them. I

Brittany 52:17
think so, part of it. And like, I said, like, I think anytime that I've tried to get a referral from my doctor, it's like, pulling teeth. I'm like, you, you pay out of your pocket when that, when you submit a referral for me, or like, you get, did someone like, take you outside and beat you because you put in a referral? Like, I don't, I don't understand it. I really put

Scott Benner 52:33
in a referral to someone kick your kid. What's happening? That's

Brittany 52:37
honestly how it feels every time I make an appointment. I like, I just dread it because I know I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna have to fight for this and interesting and like, I'm gonna have to make my case, and I'm gonna have to, you know what I mean, like, yeah, like, you said. It's very defeating. No, I

Scott Benner 52:53
hear you. That sucks. It really does. Yeah.

Brittany 52:56
I just feel like, yeah. Like I said. I feel like, misdiagnosed happens so often. I'm in a lot of, like, Facebook groups for like, Lata and stuff, and people like, Oh, hey, I'm new here, but I was misdiagnosed for the last five years. I'm just like, damn. Like, when is this going to end? You know?

Scott Benner 53:11
Oh no, it happens all the time. Yeah, your stories, your misdiagnosis story, is incredibly common. Yeah,

Brittany 53:17
it really is frustrating for me, because, like I said, you can you're running someone's life. No, their health is kind of greatly tougher. Well,

Scott Benner 53:26
you know, I try to make this point all the time, and I imagine that at times I sound like I'm sounding some alarm, but, but it really happened to your mom, yeah, like she lost 20 plus years of her life to this, this diagnosis. It really does happen like that, yeah, and, you know, like, it just takes bad circumstance with a bad doctor, and then you fall into a rhythm and you're sick all the time, or you're unhappy, or, you know, God knows what was happening to your mom, like, her blood sugars were probably all over the place. And then, you know, like, and, and then 20 years goes by, and now she has, she has problems from it on top of all that. So

Brittany 54:05
it's like, now even you know, you're not going to reverse those either. So it's like, now, okay, finally, she has the proper diagnosis. And like, maybe her ANC is coming down, but like, it problems, the you know, I mean, the damage, yeah, yeah. I just remember she was always very, like, you know, not angry, but she would definitely have a temper and like, I'm like, I can you know your blood sugar is high, you're irritable. Like, that's just how it is. But, you know, yeah,

Scott Benner 54:37
why can you just tell because my blood sugar is 425, that's why, yeah, and my brain's not working correctly. Like

Brittany 54:44
I said, my whole childhood, it was just like diabetes was like that dark cloud for my mom, because, you know, over our whole family too, because she had so many health problems as a result. And, like, you know, an emotional like mental, mental health. Almost done it, like I said, to the point where I desperately was like, I'm not going to have diabetes. And I get, well, like, you know, I was like, I'm going to do that complete opposite of everything my mom does. And, like, when I was a teenager, I developed an eating disorder because I was like, I'm just going to eat so healthy. But then I obviously was obsessive and like, I was like, I'm just gonna eat nothing.

Scott Benner 55:25
Well, Brittany weren't, wow, that didn't,

Brittany 55:29
you know, like, so it's this huge, like, intersection for me when, when I get diagnosed, because I'm just kind of like, yeah, I don't know. It's like, all these things that make sense. But now it's like, I don't know, just very hard kind of listen almost, where it's like, I gave my mom a hard time also, because I was like, Damn, I can't just manage her diabetes. Why can't you just be happy? Why can't you just, you know, I mean, like, it's, you know, you

Scott Benner 55:54
were like, you were like, I handle your mom person. And yeah,

Brittany 55:58
I was like, why are you, you know what? I mean, like, I understood she had diabetes. I was like, it can't be that hard. Like, I don't understand. I never understood as a kid why she couldn't just manage it. You know what I mean? It's like, why can't you just get your blood sugar under control? And I was so frustrated with her, like, you know, respect for

Unknown Speaker 56:14
her because of that.

Brittany 56:15
I was like, why can't you just take care of yourself, you know, which I obviously feel bad for that now, because I'm like, it wasn't your fault.

Scott Benner 56:24
Have you said anything to her about it? No, oh, Brittany, come on, you could go tell her

Brittany 56:30
you're sorry. That's a tough conversation

Unknown Speaker 56:33
to have come I don't know.

Brittany 56:35
I don't know. It's just there's a lot, like, I said, we've been through so much, and I give her heart like, obviously, like, so my user story got really bad when I was in high school, to the point where I was admitted to the Children's Hospital in Toronto hospital, and my mom, like, she already was dealing with so much, and then she's going to deal with my BS, like, you know, and I'm not going to say that diabetes was the reason, you know, I was in dance and body image was a thing, and, you know, a very anxious kid, and, like, there was just so many things that triggered me to, like, go down that road, obviously. But like I said, there's a lot of times where, like, flaming, obviously, and being like, well, you eat this food, so obviously that's why you have diabetes. I'm like, you know, you can't manage your blood sugar, so Well, whatever. And, like, I Yeah, give her so much lack and, but that's what I that was the narrative, right? So okay, like, it still is. I'm not

Scott Benner 57:38
going to let you off the hook, though. Hold on a second. Yeah. Why can't you just apologize to her?

Brittany 57:43
Oh, no, I, I definitely understand that, but I we just don't have those conversations like, that's a deep conversation.

Scott Benner 57:53
It's Mom, I'm sorry, Brittany, what else is going on?

Brittany 57:56
It just it feels like there's just so much like that, it would unravel almost, you know what I mean? Like, oh,

Scott Benner 58:04
you're not hold on. You're not afraid of telling her. You're sorry. You're afraid of what happens if you start being honest with your mom.

Brittany 58:11
I think she knows. I mean,

Scott Benner 58:15
you keep the flag.

Brittany 58:18
Just feels like a lot.

Scott Benner 58:20
You go like, Hey, Mom, I want to tell you something. I feel badly about how I treated you back when you thought you had type two diabetes, and I kept telling you to take care of it. And now we learn you have type one and you were really at a disadvantage. And I just wanted to let you know I apologize there. I did it for you. Now I'm just gonna

Brittany 58:36
be like, You know what, Mom, you should listen to this god apologizes on my dad. Is

Scott Benner 58:42
this too deep? Do you not want to talk about this? No, I mean it. It is. What happens next? What do you imagine happens next? All right, ready? Listen, we'll play act. I'll be you. You be your mom. Watch this. Oh, hey mom. It's me. Brittany, hey. And then right. And then I hold on, hey. Thanks. I feel bad. I feel

Brittany 59:05
Brittany bitch. But anyways, continue. Oh

Scott Benner 59:07
yeah, it's like that. And and I brought over, I wrote over here on a moose to tell you that that I just I've been thinking about it lately, and you spent so many years living with type one diabetes, thinking it was type two, and not having the right tools or right direction. And there were times, I know, you know, there were times that I was hard on you about your management, and I just wanted to say, I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and I'm sorry. I hope you accept my apology. Now you be your mom.

Brittany 59:41
I don't know what she can say.

Scott Benner 59:42
What are you afraid she's gonna say? Nothing.

Brittany 59:46
I just think it would be so emotional. I don't think I'm Did you know? Why would that be a problem? Because we're not good at that. We're

not good, you know, we're not like you think she would cry. Crying.

I think there would be, I would cry. I don't think I'm able to get through I'm like, kind of tearing up right now, when you say that, when you made that, like, little speech, like, for me to say that I would cry, I would when's the last time you cried? I cried the other day. I finished a half marathon and I cried. But like, it's not like, it's like a superficial like, I was like, Okay, I'm proud of myself, but like, when it comes to, like, really digging into because it feels like it was a trauma, like dealing with all of that kind of stuff, like for both of us, you know, like medical trauma or whatever, plus, like, so many other things that we went through together that just talking about it like it's gonna turn into,

Scott Benner 1:00:41
like, catching salmon with your teeth. What are we talking about? Like, like,

Brittany 1:00:45
things that we went through, yeah, like I said, the eating disorder was a whole thing. And then, like, my dad, like my parents relationships, like they separated when I was three. But then, you know, nobody told me until I was 16 that, you know, my dad wasn't my dad, like the person who I thought was entirely, I don't know, there was a lot of turmoil, and my mom and I, you know, we have a good relationship, but we don't talk about the things that weren't good.

Scott Benner 1:01:10
Brittany, can I? Can I make an assertion? It's hard to say I have a good relationship with your mom, if you can't tell her a basic thing, like, I apologize, yeah. So I don't like

Brittany 1:01:24
spoken kind of

Scott Benner 1:01:28
that's what people say. You don't want to apologize. She knows it's all right. So let's say she does know. Let's say she does know you guys have a good relationship. She loves you. She's not holding any animosity towards you or anything like that. She knows. What would it hurt? Don't you think she'd just love it if you told her? Would you like it if she apologized to you for things she hurt you for? Yeah, would you hurt your kids and not for her? Well, I don't care about that. Would you hurt your children and then not apologize to them. No, okay, I

Brittany 1:02:03
wouldn't. I wouldn't do that. What

Scott Benner 1:02:05
are we? What have we been talking about? Then, Brittany, just go tell your tell your mom, yourself, write it down.

Brittany 1:02:09
Okay, oh, you know what Mother's Day is coming up. I

Scott Benner 1:02:11
will, Brittany, now you're thinking, in a Mother's Day car, in a Mother's Day card, in a Mother's Day card. I want? Do you want me? You want to write this down, or I think what you say is, I wish I could say this to you in person, and at the moment, I'm not sure why I can't, but I hope that one day I could, boom. I've been thinking a lot lately about your life with diabetes and how you were misdiagnosed, and how difficult it was for you to try to help yourself. I realized how frustrating that must have been, and I've looked back and seen that there were times that I gave you crap about how you took care of yourself, and I am really sorry to have added to your frustration, and I want to apologize. Yeah, there are you crying. Brittany, we're making a podcast. What are you doing? Just cry on a podcast. Poke yourself in the face or something till it hurts. All right? So anyway, you don't have to do any of these stuff. Yeah? You can cheat with the Mother's Day card and she'll think it's great, because you guys are walled off emotionally.

Brittany 1:03:18
Yeah, you want your it's true. Unfortunately, when I moved out, because I was moving to a different province, and, like, I think that was tough for her, because I was always like, stay home forever. And like, I was just like, see you later.

Scott Benner 1:03:32
I'm going a and she's like, Alright, hey, I'll see you later. It was

Brittany 1:03:36
hard for her. So she wrote me a letter she to read at the airport, and it was kind of similar to what you just said, but it was about some other things that I was like, I was crying in the airport, and I was like, okay, so I think that's it. We're just like, we're a letter. What we're gonna write it down? Okay,

Scott Benner 1:03:51
well, then there we go. How's your handwriting?

Brittany 1:03:56
Yeah, type it out. Well, that,

Scott Benner 1:03:58
I tell you right now, we'll take out all of the personal attachment. Good. So emojis. If you put a emoji in that note, I'm gonna go all the way down rather how you are and smack you in the head. Okay, like, so like, I'd love to meet you, though. Well, not like that, because the first thing I'm just saying is, Brittany, did you put a fcking smiley face in a heart in your mom's Mother's Day so just, I would write it out. First you can type it out, but then, like, I'm a big fan of them sitting down and writing it out by hand. Yeah, yeah. I think putting a typed note in someone's Mother's Day card is, is anti what we're trying to accomplish here. Yeah, okay. Are you really gonna do this? Are you just, like, placating me? No, I

Brittany 1:04:44
feel like I should like, so my problem is like, I I feel like I've been so worried about myself for the past, you know, since my diagnosis, because it's been overwhelming for me, you know, like, I don't know. I just feel like I haven't really gotten and I. I I try not to. I want to help her with her diabetes. And I think she realizes, like, you know why it's kind of, like, like I said, because she's I watched her struggle so much. I'm like, okay, mom, like, this is what you gotta do. Like, it makes so much sense now. Like, I don't know if that bothers her or not, because, like I said, I was hounding her about the insulin pump. I was like, you know, man, that'll help you so much.

Scott Benner 1:05:19
And maybe that's the the end of your note. The post script your note is now that we both have this going on, I really think it would be beneficial for both of us if we teamed up and learned as much about this as we could so we can take really great care of ourselves and spend as much time together as we possibly can. That's Look at me. Yeah, I should write this for a living. Yeah, you know, Brit, when I was in my 20s, I thought I was going to start a greeting card company. Oh, it's never too late. I don't think no, because you're no, because then I won't make the podcast. Yeah, I'll be, I'll be busy, but I wanted to start a greeting card company, but with, like, really adult themed, racy, terrible messages,

Brittany 1:06:04
oh, I would love that. I

Scott Benner 1:06:06
thought it was amazing. That's

Brittany 1:06:08
my kind of humor, see, that's the, see, that's if I could be like, you know, kind of make it a dark humor, like, apology to my mom, then, like, that's kind of the level that we're at. Yeah, we don't really get to, like, like, sensitive, emotional. We don't go to those places, really. So that's why I'm like, Oh, I don't even know how to start that conversation. Like, I thought, I mean, like, I feel like, it's just, she sees me,

Scott Benner 1:06:37
that's it. So

Brittany 1:06:38
she's, she's like, Oh, okay. She knows now,

Scott Benner 1:06:41
talking to each other is, is very important. Yeah,

Brittany 1:06:45
yeah. My mom does a lot for me. And, you know, like, like I said, Because I work 12 hour shift so and my whenever my husband's away, like she's here helping with the kids, and we do, like I said, I know it sounds crazy to say we have, like, a close relationship, but you can be close.

Scott Benner 1:07:03
Yeah, no, you can be close without having, like, intimate emotional connection. Like there's close, like physically close, and there's being there for each other and all that stuff. There's nothing wrong with any of that's all lovely. But you know, like to be able to look someone in the eye and say, hey, you know, I did something bad to you, and I feel bad about it. I wanted to tell you, yeah, yeah. And I'm not just here to relieve myself. I'm here to, I'm here to just to validate her, almost, yeah, to validate what you've been through, and to open myself up and be be naked right here in front of you, and tell you, I this up, and I'm so sorry. You know, let me give you a piece of advice. My wife taught me this over 20 years after you apologize, you don't then explain why you did the bad thing, that's that's wrong, not supposed to do that. You don't go but you don't understand. Here's what happened,

Brittany 1:07:59
yeah, like, explain what you're apologizing for, but not like,

Scott Benner 1:08:02
yeah, yeah, but not, but don't start making up excuses for why you did the thing in the first place. Yeah. Well, you are a girl. You know not to do that, but I'm a boy. I don't, I don't know not to do. I'm like, It's not my fault.

Brittany 1:08:15
But, yeah, you don't understand what was

Scott Benner 1:08:17
happening to me at the time. You know, I was having a lot of trouble, all right, yeah, okay. I

Brittany 1:08:22
don't ever want my mom to feel like, like I say that, you know, it affects my childhood or whatever. But I don't want her to feel like that's her fault or like, you know, it's not, it's obviously not like that's kind of,

Scott Benner 1:08:34
let me ask you this last question I'm going to leave you with this lingering thought to torment you. Do you want your kids to grow up and not feel comfortable talking to you like that? No, I would. I would want them to you think that happens magically? Brittany, how do you think that happens? No,

Brittany 1:08:50
I know, and we definitely like, I think feel like I have a different relationship with my kids. Hopefully, like, you know, I just Well, they're little, they're like little people,

Scott Benner 1:09:00
but when they're adults, though, how it gets once you're an adult, is it? It doesn't always go the way you are with them when they were little, because sometimes people just have trouble being open like that with somebody who can really, I guess, understand the conversation, like, when you're like, when you're being really sweet to a kid, it's easy. They're not judging you, right? But once, once you, and I don't even mean judging in a bad way, but you're not being judged and and you know that they're not looking at you and really thinking, like, why is she saying this? Like, what is what is she? What does she mean by this? Like, they, they not having those thoughts yet. So it's easy to be nice to little kids. I'm just saying, if you want that with your kids, you're gonna have to figure out how to do that with your mom, and time is of the essence.

Brittany 1:09:47
Yeah, yeah. I think part of me was just kind of like, you know, the communication wasn't great between my mom and I, and like, I felt like it was kind of a loss, like, not, you know, a. Lost cause. But like, you know, anytime that I've tried to have those conversations with my mom, I feel like she kind of goes into like, defense mode,

Scott Benner 1:10:07
and so you can't have an expectation of her response. No, yeah.

Brittany 1:10:12
I mean, like, I haven't, yeah. I just feel like the communication thing, I try to have different forms of communication with my kids, like I but it's like, you know, a console try again with my mom as well, too.

Scott Benner 1:10:27
This is so nice. Hey, listen, if you guys get into a fight and stab each other, please don't blame me. I had nothing to

Brittany 1:10:32
do. I know that you already made that disclaimer about, like, you know, nothing I say,

Scott Benner 1:10:36
Oh yeah, nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast. Should you try to expect that I'm responsible for? Yeah, you know we're just talking, but no, I mean, I know you Canadians get stabby, so like, if somebody gets I don't want to, it's not my fault. Okay,

Brittany 1:10:51
I know I think that I would rather get stabbed than get emotional. But

Scott Benner 1:11:01
could you just stab me instead of me having to apologize to my mom? Please? That would be better and hit me while you're at it. It's fine, just don't. I don't want to tell that woman I'm sorry. I really don't. Yeah, well,

Brittany 1:11:14
Happy Mother's Day. Here's a nice like,

Scott Benner 1:11:17
Happy Mother's Day. This is my mother's day. This is my mother's day. Uh, episode. It'll come out like, six months after Mother's Day, but still. Well, yeah, so while you guys are listening to this right now, think back six months ago, what did you get your mom for Mother's Day? Should have apologized. I listen. I thought the other day, I thought to just tell my wife I was sorry randomly. And when she asked for why I'd go I don't know, I must have done something,

Brittany 1:11:41
blanket apology. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:43
I should maybe do it every week. You know what I mean? Like, hey, I'm really sorry for what I'm like, I don't know whatever I did. I honestly I didn't mean it. Yeah, so

Brittany 1:11:52
it doesn't count if you don't know what you're sorry for. All right,

Scott Benner 1:11:54
Brittany, I don't understand why you won't get a job that's not near the water, but that's for another day. I'm gonna let you go. I appreciate you doing this with me very much. Thank

you. I'd like to thank the ever since 365 for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and remind you that if you want the only sensor that gets inserted once a year and not every 14 days, you want the ever sense CGM, ever since cgm.com/juice box, one year, one CGM. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, gevok glucagon. Find out more about G vo hypo pen at gevok glucagon.com, forward slash juice box. You spell that, G, V, O, k, e, g, l, U, C, A, G, o, n.com, forward slash juice box. This episode of the juice box podcast was sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juice box, or call 888-721-1514, 87211514, get started today with us. Med links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast com, if you or a loved one was just diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're looking for some fresh perspective, the bold beginning series from the Juicebox podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player, or you can go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed or following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. Hey, what's up, everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better, and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way, recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way, recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You

Brittany 1:14:14
want rob you.

#1367 Glucagon Story: Laura

Laura saved a man with her glucagon!

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox podcast.

Laura is a returning guest. She was originally on episode 982 which is called from a small rock. She's 24 years old, she has type one diabetes, and about a year after she had trained to be a lifeguard, she happened upon a man on the street who was having a low blood sugar emergency, and she saved him with her glucagon. 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, don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com if you are the caregiver of someone with type one diabetes or have type one yourself, please go to T 1d exchange.org/juice, box and complete the survey. This should take you about 10 minutes and will really help type one diabetes research. You can help right from your house at T 1d exchange, org slash juice box. When you place your first order for ag one with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink, ag one.com/juicebox

today's podcast is sponsored by touched by type one. Check them out on Facebook, Instagram and at touched by type one.org. If you're looking for an organization who's helping people with type one diabetes. You're looking for touch by type one. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Dexcom. Dexcom.com/juice box. Get the brand new Dexcom g7 with my link and get started today. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company who's working to make the invisible visible through their blue balloon challenge, life with diabetes is like doing everything in life while trying to keep a balloon in the air. The blue balloon is a powerful metaphor for the daily struggles that those living with diabetes go through. Medtronic invites you to join the challenge by taking a video of yourself balancing a balloon while doing something in your everyday life. Post your challenge on social media with the hashtag blue balloon challenge and follow at Medtronic diabetes on Instagram to see other blue balloon challenge videos.

Laura 2:33
Good morning. I'm Laura. I am about what 24 now. I do believe and I live now in Utah. Pretty nice Utah, and I'm from, not from Utah. I'm from a Caribbean island.

Scott Benner 2:48
Yeah, you don't sound like you're from Utah. No, not from Utah at all.

Speaker 1 2:52
Just moved here, actually, what? What brought you? I do have a nice, good ending story about, uh, glucagon, and the use of glucagon in the middle of just the street. So,

Scott Benner 3:04
oh, okay, we'll get to that. Then. Hey, you've been on the podcast before. Yes,

Speaker 1 3:09
I have it. Was thing we recorded about two years ago, and it came out last year in August. Do

Scott Benner 3:14
you know the number of it?

Speaker 1 3:15
Eight? 862 I believe you have to double check on that. Do you remember what I called it? Yes, from a small rock.

Scott Benner 3:25
From a small rock. It's not 862, then hold on a second,

Speaker 1 3:29
though I don't remember, then I'll find it

Scott Benner 3:32
982,

Unknown Speaker 3:34
982 isn't

Scott Benner 3:36
that something from a small rock? Laura has type one diabetes, and was diagnosed well in school. Yep, that was me, look at you, and now you're back, but you're back because you have a glucagon experience that you're going to share

Speaker 1 3:49
with me. Yes, I heard another episode a few months ago, and you were saying that you were wanting to hear more stories about how or when people use glucagon. So good. I'm glad I

Scott Benner 4:01
definitely did an appointment. Excellent. Thank you. Well, I appreciate you taking the time. So let's remind people a little bit about you. How old are you when you were diagnosed that kind of

Speaker 1 4:12
stuff? So I was 17 minus two days, so I spent my 17th birthday in the hospital. That was fun. I was in high school. I was a big swimmer, swimming about 20 to 25 hours a week. No family history at all, nothing. And yeah, I was diagnosed basically by my high school nurse who decided to just do a random blood test when my mom told her that I was not feeling too well, and I was at 457 so she told me that I was not going into math class. I was actually going to the ER, so that was fun.

Scott Benner 4:45
Your school nurse was just like, here, I'm gonna poke your finger and check you with a meter you

Speaker 1 4:50
had. Yeah, we were, it was a huge High School. We were about 1200 students, so she had a few type ones already in a school. And my mom, my mom's actually a. A physical therapist, and my high school nurse was one of her patient prior to that, so she just called her and said, Hey, like, does something wrong with Laura? And it's like, well, have her come by the office before lunch and we'll check her sugar. And I never left. So went straight to the year after that. So they're just

Scott Benner 5:18
kind of friendly, and they have a little bit of professional courtesy with each other, and she just helped her

Speaker 1 5:22
out, yeah, basically, well, she kind of saved my life, because two days before I saw my primary care and she's like, Yeah, well, it's fine. You're young and you're swimming a lot, so we'll just do a sugar free diet for a month when my blood sugar was already 322, after a fortnight, just, and she did not even,

Scott Benner 5:44
that's a significant misunderstanding of the situation, yeah, yeah. Oh, it was, it

Speaker 1 5:47
was pretty bad, yes, but yeah. So that nurse saved my life at some point.

Scott Benner 5:53
Isn't that great, really? That's really lovely, huh? Yeah, this is kind of, I don't know, fun is the wrong word, but you have a glucagon story that involves your glucagon, but it doesn't involve you having all the blood sugar,

Speaker 1 6:06
no, okay, it doesn't. So it was back in 2018 so that was exactly one year after I got diagnosed. I so I'm from a Caribbean island, and there is a sailing race that goes that leaves France and that arrives on that island in Guadeloupe called the root of the rum. And I was doing an internship at the marina, so that's exactly where all of the boats were parked at the end of the race. And it was for what a week or 10 days, it was a lot of people and just having fun looking at boats and stuff and yeah, so I was there for a few weeks for my internship. Everything was doing well, and at the same time, I was also practicing or taking tests to become a lifeguard. And five days prior to that day that I had to use my glucagon, I actually finished all of my lifeguard courses. So everything was fresh in my mind what to do when helping someone that we don't know in the middle of the street. So that was actually very helpful,

Scott Benner 7:15
helpful because you had to kind of jump into action when you saw something. Tell me what you saw. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, and this is Aaron. My name

Aaron 7:27
is Aaron Suchi Tori. I'm from Honolulu, Hawaii. I was first diagnosed with type one diabetes when I was about one and a half years old, and I'm 25 years old today. Who helps you keep your balloon in the air? Gone through this journey together with my mom, who's been type one diabetic for most of her life as well. What else have you found supportive having really great friends and support systems in school, I was very lucky. I had some great roommates, especially my freshman year. We talked for like three hours. I was explaining every little thing you hear this beep. It means this, there would be times where he would wake me up in the middle of the night to make sure I was okay.

Scott Benner 8:03
How did it feel when people knew how to use your Medtronic technology?

Aaron 8:06
Great to know that I had people that had my back.

Scott Benner 8:09
Medtronic diabetes is making the invisible visible through their blue balloon. Challenge. Life with diabetes is, of course, like doing everything in life while trying to keep a balloon in the air. The blue balloon is a powerful metaphor for the daily struggles that those living with diabetes go through. Medtronic invites you to join the challenge by taking a video of yourself balancing a balloon while doing something in your everyday life. Post your video on social media with the hashtag blue balloon challenge and follow at Medtronic diabetes on Instagram to see other blue balloon challenge videos, you can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes. The Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends, and the app will also provide you with a projected a 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juice box. When you use my link, you're supporting the podcast dexcom.com/juice box. Head over there now.

Speaker 1 9:44
Yeah. So I was supposed to just give out flyers to different restaurants and like buildings around the marina, just to let them know of what to expect for the next couple weeks. And on my way to the first restaurant, there was someone just. Laying on the on the sidewalk. His friend was right next to him, and he had a Coke, an open Coke, in his hand. I was like, what's what's going on? Can I help? Like, I'm a trained life guard. Like, can I help you? And he's like, Well, my friend here, like he wasn't feeling well. He asked me to go grab him some sugar. And when I came back, he was passed out. Was like, Oh, do you know anything about him? Was like, Well, yeah, he's got diabetes. Like, okay, so if he's passed out, he's got to have type one. And the friend really didn't have much knowledge of anything, he just said, Well, he's got the diabetes. He's got the diabetes. And I came back, he was passed out. So my office was only, I don't know, maybe 200 yards away, and so I was while talking to the guy, a few people came over and just asked for their help. One of them was also a first responder, but he was just, he didn't have anything on him, no materials or anything. He just had his knowledge in himself, basically. So I asked him to put the that guy on its side, so he would be safe by the so I could run back to my office, grab my meter, grab my glucagon for my bag and run back to him. I checked his blood sugar, and he was at zero, 49 oh, which is not that low, okay. I mean, two nights ago, I was at zero, 38 and I was fine, but it's not an example. Don't do that. It's not safe. Oh, zero, 49 I was not really shocked. It was just yeah, he was low. But he Well, he was he was passed out. So the first responder that was here right next to me. He was like, Okay, what? What do you want to do? I was like, Well, I've got the glucagon here. Gotta get that going. I remember that guy had very thick jeans on. He was pretty on the heavier side, and I couldn't go through his jeans with the needle, yeah. So I was like, well, just lift his shirts up. I'll just do it right in the belly, because that's the easiest spot I can access right now. So I had that big orange needle at that point. I didn't have, I'm not even sure the nasal spray was a thing at that point. So just, yeah, I

Scott Benner 12:14
don't think the nasal spray for sure, or the G VO, or G VO, K hypo, yeah,

Speaker 1 12:18
right, no, especially not in France. At that point, it was, I had the old school couple inches long needle. So I did that was the first time I used it was push the liquid in the powder, mix it up, put it back in the needle, and just stabbed him right in the belly and injected everything. And in the meantime, we have like 50 people around wondering what I'm doing to this guy. And

Scott Benner 12:45
remind everybody, too, you've only had diabetes for a year. At that point, you're basically you're 18 years old.

Speaker 1 12:50
I was, I was just 18, and, yeah, I had type one for a year. But with all of the knowledge that had gotten for the past weeks prior with my live call training, I was able to basically assess the situation, move people around, ask for help, like you do this, you do that, you make sure that he doesn't move. You make sure to call 911, and because we were in a spot with a lot of pedestrians, we could hear the sirens, but they were not getting any closer. We knew they were coming, but they were still way too far away to do and like do nothing. So I had to to act Yeah. So yeah, I did the glucagon shot in his belly and just waited for him to wake up. And it took a while. I was gonna

Scott Benner 13:36
say, How long did it take for him to respond?

Speaker 1 13:39
It took a good, I don't remember, but it was definitely not within seconds. It took a good, like, 10, maybe 15 minutes for him to fully, like, start waking up. Because he started waking up when the first responders got to

Scott Benner 13:55
me. He's not seizing or anything, right? He's just out. No, yeah, he

Speaker 1 13:59
was completely out, okay, not seizing anything. So I would just, yeah, he was still on his side. And what, what I had learned was just to basically have him, like, squeeze their hands and say, Hey, come on, wake up. Squeeze my hands and wake up. Come on, you'll be here. It's okay. And just keep talking to him to start waking him up. But it took a while. He was still out, when the firefighters got to us, and they took over from here, but the crazy thing was that they didn't have a meter, they got to the guy, and he was passed out. I had told them exactly what happened when I took the blood sugar. What was the blood sugar? And he just like, Okay, can you check his sugar again? Because we don't have anything, like, really, like, you're waiting on me a little nobody to just check his blood sugar.

Scott Benner 14:50
I've made Laura, apparently the savior of the town. Yeah, pretty much. Did you test his blood sugar again after you gave him the glucagon? Yeah,

Speaker 1 14:59
I did. He. Didn't know 100 at that point. So so it had gotten better, but he was still out, and he stopped, really slowly, started coming out of it with the firefighter, firefighter next to him, and yeah, he it. It took a good half hour, 45 minutes, of him just waking up before he could just come back to his senses and be able to talk to us. Did

Scott Benner 15:23
you get to speak to him? Yeah, I

Speaker 1 15:25
did. He came back, actually a few days later to look for me, but I was off that day, so I didn't get to actually meet him afterwards. But he came back and he wanted to just thank me for what I did, so it was pretty nice. But Yeah, unfortunately, I wasn't there. When he came back, what

Scott Benner 15:41
was the conversation like after he woke up? I mean, was he actually able to converse, or was he he

Speaker 1 15:46
was pretty out of it, but yeah, he was like, Oh, I wasn't feeling good. He remembered asking him his friend for some coke or whatnot, and but after that, he was like, I don't know. I just, I just fell Yeah, that's crazy. But yeah, so yeah, the firefighters asked me to check his blood sugar. He was completely fine. And the the firefighters asked his or someone around us to go grab a plate of pasta from the first restaurant we could, just to give him some calms.

Scott Benner 16:14
Did they take him with or did he stay on the street? He

Speaker 1 16:18
stayed well. We had brought some like, Sun covers and chairs and stuff for him to just sit down and relax for a minute. I do believe he did leave with the firefighters to go to the hospital afterwards. It's

Scott Benner 16:29
interesting. It's really something. Now you were, you feel like your lifeguard training because it had happened so close to this incident. You feel like you had a ton of, like, self confidence around this. Do you think you would have, yeah, do you think it would have been different for you had you not had the

Speaker 1 16:45
training? Oh, definitely. The part of the Hey, like, squeeze my hands. It's gonna be okay. Keep talking to me, and then just keep squeezing hands, like I kept just telling his name. Was like, Come on, let's go. It's time to wake up. Come on, we're here. Like we're helping you. Your friend is here, everything's gonna be okay, all of that, I would not have the confidence to to say that, or just even to act. I'm not sure I would be able to actually just jump in action in the middle of nowhere and just not knowing that person

Scott Benner 17:14
back then. How did you get your supplies, like, through private insurance.

Speaker 1 17:19
So France is nice. It's, everything's covered. So I just, I just go to my Endo. She writes me a prescription, and then, yeah, we have, we have a supplier. At that point, she was coming, just dropping everything off at my house every month.

Scott Benner 17:32
Okay, so you didn't have to explain. I used my glucagon on a stranger. No,

Speaker 1 17:37
I had, I think I, at that point, I had at least three or four in my house. And always one on me, always one in a fridge at home. And just yeah, one at my mom's, one at my dad's, and just travel with one at a time, every time. So

Scott Benner 17:52
I mean, obviously you're a person who has glucagon around. And, I mean, those kits aren't available anymore, but you still have some more modern glucagon now. Um,

Speaker 1 18:00
now, yes, I actually got the nasal spray. So I got my third one, so I now have one in my backpack, one at home, and one that's always like with my husband or whatnot. But now I switched to the nasal spray, and I've only used the big glucagon once, the big needle that was the one and only time I've used it.

Scott Benner 18:22
Did the incident that you just explained? Did it impact how you think about anything? Like, did it change your overall understanding of even your own health? Or, like, I'm trying to find out if it had any lasting impact on you, other than the kind of craziness of the moment? No,

Speaker 1 18:37
not really. It's just the fact that he was at zero 49 and out. And like, some people like, it's just how the body reacts, depending on the blood sugar, depending on, like, two different people can have two completely different reaction at zero 49 I could be completely okay. I'm like, Well, I'm just low. Let's just grab some candy and be good to go. But obviously, for him, that was way too low. So I'm thinking he was completely like not managing it correctly. And sometimes when you just run high for too long and get back into range, like I felt low if I was in orange, because my body was not used to having that much sugar anymore. So I think that may have happened for him. It's just It got a bit too low, and his body was not used to that at all.

Scott Benner 19:26
I mean, people have explained to me that I could pass out or have a seizure, but I didn't, like, really think it was gonna happen. But like, when you actually see it happen to somebody, does it make it, like, more real?

Speaker 1 19:37
Not really. No. You see I've, I've gotten very, very low. A couple years ago, down to zero 21 and three weeks later, I was at zero 20, and I was still functioning.

Scott Benner 19:50
How does that translate to to American standards, the zero 49

Speaker 1 19:57
trying to think, well, it's 49 or 20. Well, in minimals,

Scott Benner 20:01
yeah, in so you're saying that he was, he was 49 milliliters per deciliter. Yes, okay, okay, so I wanted to do it for people. So for other people, that'd be 2.7 in millimoles, just so people know, like I was trying to, like, be just and that's not, listen, 5049, I take your point like it's low, but it's interesting. I wonder how maybe accurate your test even was. I think

Speaker 1 20:27
it was pretty accurate, because, well, so the firefighters asked me to check again. So I had to check a second time, and, well, he had had some pasta and and I checked again, and he was a third time, and he was climbing up very quickly. He was in the 180s yeah, by the time, like, he was basically completely out of it, and just like, completely woken up and passed the low phase, yeah. But it was that that was the the meter I was using every single day, so I trusted it. So, yeah,

Scott Benner 21:02
it's just, it's very, it's just very, it's crazy, like that you were there and not somebody else who couldn't help Yeah, I know, yeah, especially if EMS was going to eventually arrive and say they didn't have a blood glucose meter. You got a thing like, what all

Speaker 1 21:16
you have done? Yeah. And so I still have a picture on my phone of just the day, of how it happened, and I have a picture of the firefighter chief that was there. And once we knew that the guy was going to be okay, he came to me, and he was like, Hey, thank you for what you did. Have you ever thought about becoming a firefighter? I was like, Yeah, but do I need to remind you, I have type one, and you're not allowing me to be an EMT? And he was like, oh,

Scott Benner 21:45
right, they wouldn't let you there. And we were living at the time. So

Speaker 1 21:50
I was the year I got diagnosed. I was in senior year of high school, and I wanted to become, I wanted to go into the Navy, the French Navy, and I got rejected because of type one, and it was exactly the same for them, like they wouldn't like physically speaking, they would not have been able to allow me to do that because of diabetes. Okay, now the laws have changed, so it's a bit different, but yeah, in 2017 2018 I would not have been able to become a firefighter and go in the navy or some kind of military in France or even become a cop. World Champion a few years ago in judo, like the martial art, was French type one world champion. She couldn't become a cop like that. There's something that's not that's not okay here, yeah,

Scott Benner 22:43
you would think that. I mean, it's pretty modern, especially with CGM now, right? Like, yeah, interesting decision, I guess. But

Speaker 1 22:50
yeah, I think the law has changed a few years ago, so now it's not a definite, no. It's more of a case by case basis, which is

Scott Benner 22:58
better, at least they're paying attention to it and letting some people through. Yeah, what did you end up doing for a living?

Speaker 1 23:04
When I finished high school, I did one month of university in Guadeloupe, and I said that was not for me. So I moved to Toronto, Canada for six months to learn English. After that, I went back home, and I was like, hmm, kind of bored. And so I moved to California to be an au pair, and that was in March of 2019, and I have not left since. But now you're in Utah. Did the family move? No. So I did one year in California, one year in Texas as an au pair. Then I got married. Well, went to university, got married, finished university late last December, and then we moved to Utah with my husband, and now we just bought a house a week ago. Congratulations.

Unknown Speaker 23:53
Oh yeah,

Scott Benner 23:55
what made you decide that going back to university was actually the right thing now you just feel more mature, ready? Or did you have

Speaker 1 24:02
any No, not at all. It's just I needed a visa to stay in the US. You got a degree so you could stay. Well, it mainly I needed a visa to stay then, yeah, eventually I got a degree from it. But I, yeah, I needed a visa, and I was not ready to get married at that point. So told him, I really like you, buddy, but I'm not gonna marry you right now. So let's find another way to stay here. So yeah, I gotta got another visa. And within that, those three and a half years I was in university, I we got married.

Scott Benner 24:32
Interesting. Do you use the degree now or no? Yeah, kind of

Speaker 1 24:35
it's I have a bachelor's in geography and French. I completely cheated my way through French. I'm not gonna

Scott Benner 24:41
lie, is it because you're a new French, you didn't really need to pay attention?

Speaker 1 24:45
Oh yeah, I was fully every single day. Uh, correcting my French professor, you

Scott Benner 24:52
must have been a lot of fun. Oh, gosh,

Unknown Speaker 24:53
she hated me.

Scott Benner 24:54
How about because you were an au pair for so long. You know, when you work in a bakery, you stop eating sweets like. When you're an au pair, does that make you want kids or not want kids?

Speaker 1 25:04
If you ask me, no, if you ask somebody else, they may say yes,

Scott Benner 25:07
but, but for you, no. Thank you.

Speaker 1 25:09
No. Thank you. I'm good. I like, I like the freedom of just being able to do what you want on a whim.

Scott Benner 25:17
Yeah, it doesn't really exist when you're raising kids. That's for

Unknown Speaker 25:20
sure. You would know something about that. No, no, there's

Scott Benner 25:22
a lot of just sitting here going, all right, well, let's all stay alive another day. Yeah, at

Speaker 1 25:26
that point, it's not just kids. It's kids with diabetes that is mainly scaring me right now. Oh, really, it's just I would hate myself if I had a kid with type one. Well, some at some point, would that develop type one, because I know it comes from me. So if I were to adopt a kid with type one, completely fine, because the kids are already here, and someone needs to take care of that kid, so I would be 100% for that. But having a kid on my own, and

Scott Benner 25:59
I know it's on me. If the kid has type, you don't want the guilt, the guilt that would come with it. Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 26:04
I would. I would really hate myself for that. What about this

Scott Benner 26:07
guy that stuck with you through the whole university thing and married you eventually? Does he want kids? He

Speaker 1 26:14
does, yes. So we gave ourselves five years since we got married to not think about it, because we just think we're too young, and honestly, we don't have the money for that. So yeah, we gave ourselves five years, and then reassess the situation in five years. Good, good for you.

Scott Benner 26:32
That's very adult. Because, I

Speaker 1 26:33
mean, I moved here in 2019, I was like, There's no way I'll get married. And five, four years later, I got married. So I know things change. It's just, I cannot think about that right now. You don't

Scott Benner 26:43
want to rush it. You're still, you're very young. Yeah, that's,

Unknown Speaker 26:47
that's what I think, too. So

Unknown Speaker 26:48
is he your

Speaker 1 26:49
age? He's, uh, two years older than he's definitely older

Scott Benner 26:53
because he was respond, he gives a mature when you told him to wait five years.

Speaker 1 26:58
Yeah, well, it's not like he really had a choice. Oh,

Scott Benner 27:02
I see. Well, it's no. I mean, you're so in sorcering, he couldn't possibly say no to you. Is that, right? No, we,

Speaker 1 27:10
he'd known since day one that I had told him I was not looking for kids. So he he's, he knows that, but yeah, we just, it's like there's no way it would happen right now, and we need to be in different situations. So if the situation arrives at some point where we have, well, now we just got a house, and once we have the financials in order, things will change and might be getting better at some point. And I don't know, genetics is going to be better, health insurance is going to be better, hopefully. Knock on wood. So that would

Scott Benner 27:44
be, well, good for you. I like that. You're taking your time. I listen. I just talked to some younger people, younger people. Oh, my God, I sound like I'm 95 years old. I spoke to some young folks the other day, what am I running for office? I was standing around with some people who were in their 20s, and they were asking questions about being a parent. And I was like, You will never be, like, ready for how much it costs? Like, it's a massive amount of money. It never stops, and you're gonna think about it 24/7 so and college is, like, if you're gonna send your kids to college one day, like, I mean, hopefully it's different 18 years from now, but right now, it's massively expensive. That even for the most, most inexpensive education, it's still incredibly expensive. You know?

Speaker 1 28:29
Yeah, I know I went through that not so long ago. So yeah, I remember making these payments in August and January of just well now I gotta eat rice and beans for a couple weeks because I ain't gonna buy anything else.

Scott Benner 28:41
Yeah, all the money's gone. I just sent it off to the French and geography degree that I got. Jesus, yeah, yeah, that's not

Speaker 1 28:51
I do use my geography degree a bit now, because I am working for no solar panel company and I'm doing a lot of scheduling, so it's a lot of, where do you live, and where is the crew around you, and how to make them get to your house on time. A little helpful, kind of nice,

Scott Benner 29:12
yeah, hey, do should I be getting solar panels? Should we be getting solar panels, or is it only financially viable for some people?

Speaker 1 29:19
Well, there are multiple, honestly, I'm part of the end of the process on the chain for solar panels. But once it gets to me, it is fully 100% useful, unless you cannot pay for it. Which would make it should have been, yeah? Well,

Scott Benner 29:37
what about earlier you just bought a house? Are you gonna put solar panels on

Speaker 1 29:41
it, that's the plan. Yeah, we have, we have a house and a detached garage, and the goal would be to put it on the detached garage, because it's not visible from the street, so it's less of an eyesore. But first we need to get a new roof on it. So that's another, like, few $1,000 to spend. And before we can get the panels on,

Scott Benner 30:01
what's the cost to put the panels up?

Speaker 1 30:04
It depends on how many panels you want on, if your roof may need some structural upgrades, if what type of panels you're getting, if you paying cash, or if you'll need financing. It depends on a lot of different things, but I've seen, I've seen some like this week you have a crew well down in Orlando, Florida, installing 76 panels on the roof. And that's a big one. Yeah, that's a big week long job.

Scott Benner 30:34
Will they make their money back? And how long does it take people to recoup their investment?

Speaker 1 30:39
That's a good idea. I have no idea, like we saw, some people have only a power bill of, I don't know, 80, $90 a month, right? So that the panels would cover 100% or even more. Sometimes, sometimes the family or the owners make more money than they spend, yeah, which is nice for them, but I've seen one today. The power bill was almost $1,500 a month, and I'm wondering what they're running in the house, because that's a lot of money.

Scott Benner 31:10
Yeah, they're growing weed in the basement, for sure, and those lights are just running and running. I hear what you're saying. So or a big, a big property perhaps,

Speaker 1 31:18
I just got a screenshot of the electric electricity bill. And I was like, whoa. Like, I need to Google that house, give me the address. And I was not able to get to that, but

Scott Benner 31:28
wow, $1,500 a month for electricity in a home.

Speaker 1 31:33
One of my crews has installed panels on a Holz barn, and it was, yeah, about 60 panels, I think, but it was just a flat roof that was just waiting to create power because it was here already. So it's just for some people, it's useful, especially if they live in a state that has pretty like a lot of sun. Some others decide to get panels. I'm like, yo. I don't know if that would make sense in your situation, but because

Scott Benner 32:01
on if you're having cloudy days, then you're not going to

Speaker 1 32:06
designers at the beginning of the process to get panels. Will they have a specific site, I guess that will give them the annual sun exposure form the the house in itself, and basically each side of the roof has a different exposure to the sun, so they are able to determine where would the panels be to get the most sunlight, and how many panels they would need in order to have closer to 100% offset. Yes, so it's kind of shitty fun. It's a fun process that

Scott Benner 32:39
sounds like it, but could it? Could solar panels cost somebody $10,000 could they cost them 50? Like, how does it fall?

Speaker 1 32:46
It goes, it goes from Yeah, 1015 for, like, a normal sized house, to Yeah, I've seen one $120,000 and it was just crazy. Like, why?

Scott Benner 32:59
Why are you doing that? Yeah, pretty

Unknown Speaker 33:01
much. Because, I

Scott Benner 33:02
mean, listen, if I'm paying $1,500 a month for electricity and I gotta pay $20,000 for the panels, then I say, I get my money back pretty fast. But if I gotta pay 60 and my electric Bill's $400 I mean, that it's gonna take,

Speaker 1 33:18
I know, and most people through financing, they have, well, they finance it for closer to 25 years, really. So in the end, per month, it's, I don't know, it could be $120 a month. So it's cheaper per month than their electricity bill, oh, but, but they still have to pay that for 20 years, 20 years, 25 years,

Scott Benner 33:42
I see, oh, I do see. So they stretch it out so far that it doesn't cost anything in the moment. And you the hope is that you save so much money that you cover the interest when it's over. Yep. Oh, so, okay, so if I was paying $200 a month for it, and I was paying and I was paying for 25 years. Is that what you just

Speaker 1 34:02
said? Yeah, most of them are 25 years, 300

Scott Benner 34:06
payments at $200 a piece is $60,000 Oh, no, I never thought so they can you get low interest loans for solar panels?

Speaker 1 34:15
Our company uses different loaners, basically that they have different like some have basically an 18 months delay. So the first 18 months they don't pay for their panels. They only start paying it after the 18th month after the institution. So that just gives them some time to recuperate from the whole thing interesting. And then they start paying in 18 months later. But some, it really depends on the on the financing that they decide, decide to use. But some pay cash, and then they're good to go.

Scott Benner 34:47
Okay, I'm gonna listen. I'm old, so you just said a loan term that I don't know that I'll outlive. It's like, I was like, so I'll be 83 when I pay for my solar panels. I don't, okay, I'll. So I think we're gonna move. So I wouldn't want to do it here.

Speaker 1 35:04
I know where you live, I think the state. I know the state where you live, and we are not in that state. So depending where you move, we might, if it's a new state, we might be in there. All

Scott Benner 35:13
right, I'll let you know I'm gonna move somewhere that doesn't have harsh state taxes, like those that I live in right now.

Speaker 1 35:18
Ah, that's actually getting better. Trust

Scott Benner 35:22
me, I'll save more money leaving this state than I will by getting solar panels ever in my life. My electric Bill's been going up and up and up over the last like 18 months,

Speaker 1 35:31
but you're having less and less people at home. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 35:35
did buy a chameleon, though it has a light on it. Do you think that's Do you think that's worth $100 a month in electricity? I don't think so, right?

Unknown Speaker 35:41
Were you able to find a name to you? I

Scott Benner 35:44
ended up calling. Yes, I did name them. I named so there's two. And I named the male Durbin, which is after the guy who bred him. And because that man, this is very boring for people, but that man bred a type of chameleon that is very difficult to breed. He did it for years, and he's stopping. And I thought it was, like, kind of respectful to name it after him, because I don't think he's going to breed anymore after that. Oh, that's nice. And then the other one, I called Big Mama.

Speaker 1 36:13
So I remember when you were asking people on on the Facebook group, or some names, and everything was type one related, and in the end, you just didn't even go that route.

Scott Benner 36:23
What am I gonna do? I'm gonna call a chameleon Bolus, like, age. I don't know. Why not? Can I be clear? Or I don't think a chameleon needs a name. I mean, I'm not talking to them. They're not like, They're not answering me. They certainly don't hear the name and go, Oh, I think he's talking to me. Like, so, you know, it's just so that you can refer to them as something. And so, you know, refer to them as, like, the kind of chameleon they are. Or one's a male, one's a female, say, the girl or the boy. Like, sometimes, but like, you know, I don't know, it's not like a dog. We yell his name. He's like, Oh, my God, the guy wants me, and it comes

Speaker 1 37:03
over. Oh, I know my husband's very good high school friend moved to U turn out so long ago, too. And he has, I don't even know, honestly, what it is. It's a big, very big lizard that has a blue tongue, but it's about like a foot long, okay? And his name is Jabba, from Jabba the Hutt,

Unknown Speaker 37:19
okay? Star

Unknown Speaker 37:20
Wars. Hold on a

Scott Benner 37:21
second. Let's see if we can figure out what kind of a lizard is a foot long and it has a blue tongue. Do we have any other diabetes stuff to talk about? Um,

Unknown Speaker 37:28
I don't, I don't know. Hold

Scott Benner 37:30
on a second. What type of lizard is about a foot long, it has a blue tongue.

Speaker 2 37:34
The lizard you're describing sounds like a blue tongued Skink. They are known for their distinctive blue tongues and can grow to about a foot in length. They are common in Australia and are popular as pets.

Scott Benner 37:46
All right, there it goes. Seems to be the answer. That's chat. GPT four. Oh, my new best friend. Yeah,

Speaker 1 37:51
I think that's what it is. I just Google it too, and it looks pretty much the same, yeah.

Scott Benner 37:55
No kidding. All right. Well, then we got it. Mine is not a blue tongue Skink, but I do have chameleons. I just, I really do like them. They're very relaxing, like, I don't know another way to say it. They move so slowly and so specifically and particularly that I find, I just find looking at them to be relaxing. So they're in here with me. And every once in a while, I turn around and I'm like, Oh, look, they are so chill. And like, it's gonna walk from there to there. It's gonna take, like, 20 minutes. And it doesn't care. It doesn't feel like, Oh, I haven't posted an episode today, or I didn't send out the newsletter, or I have to put up an Instagram post. It's just like, I'm gonna walk over there now it'll take about a half an hour. And I love being nice, huh? Oh, man, I want that so badly. My life is very frantic. So, yeah, anyway, I appreciate you coming on and giving me this glucagon story. Listen, between me and you and everyone listening, I started doing this is a two fold reason, right? Like, the first reason was I was doing these in person events, and the more I spoke to people, the more I realized people don't not just carry glucagon. They don't know what it is. And that freaked me out. And then, you know, I started working with jivo hypo pen, and you know, you're in a meeting with them. They buy ads for me. You talk to them, you ask them what their goals are, that kind of stuff, you know, and, and I was like, What's your biggest hurdle? And then they said the same thing. People don't know about glucagon. And I'm like, Get out of here. I'm like, That's what I think, too. I was like, you know, I talked to a lot of people, and I keep seeing that. So one day I said to them, I'm like, I'm gonna start doing like, you know, very well. May not be involved with you, like, you know, with with jivo. But I'm like, I'm gonna start doing these, like, glucagon stories. I want to hear about people using glucagon so that other people can hear the stories and think, yeah, you know, maybe I ought to get one of them.

Speaker 1 39:52
Because, well, actually, I met you in Austin last year, and at that point I didn't know what the name. Spray woods. Okay, so I was like, I did ask a question, like, what do you think would be good now? Because the glucagon I'm carrying right now is expired and I have no idea what to get. Yeah, that's what you told me about the nasal spray. So now that's what I

Scott Benner 40:16
have. It's perfect. There's the there's the back, back, send me the nasal spray. There's jivo glucagon, which is the the injection. And like, my daughter uses gvoke, you know, carries it. She's never actually used one, but she carries it, and it's everywhere, you know, like you said, there's one at home, there's one on your person, you know, she goes to school. There's one at school, like, you know, because, I mean, listen, it sucks, right? It sucks to buy something and then just throw it away. But I also think maybe it's like the greatest day of the year when you take your glucagon and toss it in the trash and open up a new one and think to yourself, Well, I'm so happy I didn't have to use that, you know. But if you get to the point like, imagine the guy in your story is walking along with his buddy, he gets woozy, and instead of going, Hey, go find a Coke, says to me, says to the guy, like, look, here's, you know, a pen like you need to hit me with, or maybe he could have done it himself. Even I just got done interviewing a woman, she's got a glucagon story that's crazy, like her, her co worker helped her. You know what? I mean, like she had set up, basically a delegate that she worked with explained it to her. She had an emergency. Somebody came over and helped her. And, you know, nice. You're not planning for something bad to happen. You're planning for if something happens. And I just makes a lot of sense to me. So yeah,

Speaker 1 41:28
I'm glad also now that on social media, people are not even not scared or ashamed to just be like, hey, look, I've got type one. That's, that's what my life is and a lot of people are just happy to see that they're not alone. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 41:46
I agree. I think, you know, I think that sharing, you know, we're doing this thing. I don't know when this will come out, so this might mess everything up. But, like, I announced a cruise, right? Like, you know, I'm gonna go on a cruise, and you guys can all come. It's in June of 2025 it might be too late to buy tickets by the time you hear this. I have no idea. But point is, is that when I did it, I was like, oh, you know, it's like everything else I set out to do. I'm like, I think there's enough people who would be interested in coming. And, you know, we'll give talks on the cruise on like the sailing days and stuff, and people can vacation and meet each other and etc, and it'll be nice, but then you actually say it out into the world and watch people talk about it. And what they talk about, overwhelmingly, is getting to meet other people with type one diabetes. Oh, yeah. Like, that's really, the really exciting thing for them. Like, my kids can meet other kids. You know, I'm an adult. I want to meet other adults. Parents can meet adults who have been living with type one forever. And that's the thing that they are overwhelmingly excited about when I hear them talking about it. Well,

Speaker 1 42:46
that's exactly what happened to me. So I moved to Utah, what, six months ago now, and I met a girl whose twin sisters, Beyonce is type one, got diagnosed at 17, just like me. We're the exact same age now in the police force, and started so I got to meet him, and I was actually very nice to meet an adult with type one and also my age, because the only people that known were usually younger kids. He started sweat school, and on day one he had a very awful pump malfunction. Ended up in the ER with liver and heart condition due to the high blood sugar, and he was not able to treat it on time because he was getting himself incident, but the pump was just not giving it to him, and he didn't know. And so that's when I talked to him about the Omnipod, and he really wanted to now his insurance rejected it, so he switched his pump, and now he went from the libre to the Dexcom. And every time I get to talk to him, I kept see him now every week or so, and I just like we were laughing yesterday on Fourth of July. I was like, Hey, we're eating some very crappy food. How much insulin did you get? And I kind of just bother him, because he's just, it's actually fun. Like, he will bother me too. Like, hey, I hope you get enough incident for that, because your diabetes is not going to help you. Like, well, yeah, so it's actually nice to be able to just share, like, those little fun moments that would not be fun for my husband to hear that every single day, but it's actually nice to be able to share that, yeah, that's awesome. I even told him about podcast insulin. Please just

Scott Benner 44:23
talk about the podcast I did. All right, what else did you tell him about? It's fine.

Speaker 1 44:28
No, he had no idea that insulin could be like the I get. We both have the human log u1 100, but there's the u2 100 that exists because he uses about eight or 300 units every two days, okay, in his pump. And he was like, I cannot get the Omnipod because I I need more insulin, because the omnipot is only 200 units in each and I was like, Well, if you ask for the u2 100, it's it's more concentrated, so you need. Less incident to have the same effect. And he was like, what great idea blew his mind, yeah. But again, the insurance said no. So now that's another side of the problem,

Scott Benner 45:09
yeah, no different issue. Also, a GLP medication could maybe lower his needs too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 45:14
So he's well, he's doing much better. Like, when the first time I met him, he was very skinny and not using a lot of or not enough insulin, and was running very, very high, and since I've met him, yeah, he put on a lot of weight and looks way more healthy,

Scott Benner 45:32
well, healthier now, and he's using the right amount of insulin that he needs, yeah, but he

Speaker 1 45:37
had some other things running around with on top of diabetes, which was making his figuring things out a bit more complicated. But now, yeah, I think he's, I'm pretty sure he's also very happy to be able to just ask questions that he's not just asking his wife.

Scott Benner 45:53
No, I It's that's exactly what I take away from that, is that you meet this, you have a chance meeting with somebody, and look at how it benefited him just to be able to talk to somebody else about it and hear ideas that he hadn't heard before.

Speaker 1 46:07
We were on the actually, in the parade for Fourth of July, and he was like, Hey, I hope you have enough juice boxes for the both of us, because I don't have any. I'm like, Don't worry, I've got you like, if you need something, just tell me, I'll throw you one to you. And

Scott Benner 46:20
also bring Juicebox. Do you think maybe two little kids with diabetes on my cruise will end up married one day? I need to know the story. Then, when I have to keep this podcast going for like, 20 more years, because I'm going to want to hear those stories, can you imagine if I'm like, I'm like, 70, and I'm like, another episode is just my point, and I can barely get the words out because I'm old, and then I have two people come on and they're like, We met on your cruise in 2025 and I'll be like, That's crazy. That's what I want. I just want people to meet each other and to like, I'm just trying to imagine the comfort that would come from looking up and seeing a sea of people who have diabetes, right? Like, you get that real diabetes camp feeling, but in this cruise setting where you're just like, wow, like, everybody's just running around having a good time. They're swimming, they're dealing with what people are gonna their stuff's gonna fall off, and they're gonna have problems, then they're all gonna deal with it, and they're all gonna know how to like note. They're not gonna have to once explain themselves to anybody. I think that's really cool. That's

Speaker 1 47:20
That's what I like about this group of friends I've made here. It's just because they knew that one guy was type one. They didn't even have to just like, Yeah, another one. What? What now? So, yeah, we do. We do some games and stuff. And they're like, Well, we are not gonna put that drink for everybody, because two of them might not end up in the right piece of vibe at the end of the night if they drink it. So they just, they know that whenever we have a cookout at home, they Well, we're not gonna have just pure sugar. We're gonna have, yeah, sugar free juice. That's excellent.

Scott Benner 47:54
Hey, there's the guy you met. Does he carry glucagon?

Speaker 1 47:58
I showed him the nasal spray, and he had no idea what it was, so I do believe he has some. Now I don't know what it is, but because he's in the police force, like basically he was told, and he has very thorough checkups every so often to make sure that he still takes care of himself, which is pretty nice, good. But I also showed him those little test strips that we can put in the drink that turns brown if it has sugar. And his mind was completely blown away. And I love that thing. It saved me a few times. Just

Scott Benner 48:28
great. It's just great to be able to share things we see that's the kind of stuff like, you know, somebody said, like, what are some of the talks going to be like? And I said, it'll be like, there's going to be a talk for kids. Like, where you can, I'll be able to speak with kids and talk to them about questions they have, and, you know, make them understand where their parents are coming from, that kind of thing, which I think is important. But I even love this idea of sharing things that other people know about, that maybe everyone wouldn't know about, like, you're making me think that I should get like everyone to like I don't know, like, submit, like, here's, here's a I don't know a thing I use that's fantastic, or an overlay patch, or, like, a tip, or a trick, or something like that, and then let people talk about it in front of each other. Because what a quick way to dump a whole bunch of information on a lot of minds all at once. Actually, I'm going to make a note about that. That's such a nice idea.

Speaker 1 49:19
Okay? And when you do that, just give everybody a mic, or whoever talks, get it, get them, gets it, and make a podcast out of it. Well, listen, that seems like a lot of work,

Scott Benner 49:30
but I'll figure out a way to make it a podcast. Don't worry. Okay, all right. Well, Laura, I really appreciate you doing this and coming back again and sharing that story with me. It's, it's an exhilarating story of you just wandering down the street, all jacked up on like, I'm a lifeguard, I'm gonna save somebody, and then all of a sudden, you're like, oh my god, there's a person here to save, and no water, pretty

Speaker 1 49:47
much. The funny thing is, during that lifetime, lifestyle, not lifestyle, life guard training, we were obviously in the pool, and there was already a lifeguard at the pool, because. Is that was the requirements, I guess. And as soon as the guy saw that I had some kind of weird stuff on my skin that would potentially keep me alive, he was basically following me, like next to the pool, walking next to the pool, next to me, to make sure that if I would where to pass out, he could jump and save me. And I was like, buddy, I was training. I went to the friends championship in swimming. Like, I'm pretty sure if you follow the other guy next to me, you may have more chance in saving him than just walking next to me, because I'll be fine. It's not because I've got type one diabetes that I will pass out in the pool. So somebody

Scott Benner 50:40
saw that, and then you think they just sort of became like your guardian angel in their own

Speaker 1 50:45
Yeah, no. They were scared that I would pass out. Oh, and as soon as they saw me swimming like 100 yards or whatnot, they're like, Yeah, we should be good. So

Scott Benner 50:55
interesting. Why is that? Everybody's everyone's so interesting. Somebody said to me the other day, like, don't you run out of things to talk about? I'm like, Oh my God, no, are you not like, fascinated endlessly by people? And they're like, No. And I'm like, Oh, I am. I was like, I

Speaker 1 51:07
think in that situation, it's just that they didn't know, they didn't know much about diabetes. You can just know that. Yes, you can figure it out even if you swim in the water like it will be fine,

Scott Benner 51:18
but that's interesting. Oh, my God, all right. Well, thank you. How long were you a life card for? By the way,

Speaker 1 51:23
I actually never got to use my diploma because I moved to the US, and it's something that I would need to renew every year, but it was a fun experience. I have the knowledge. I don't have the actual like certificate because I have not renewed it, but I have the knowledge so

Scott Benner 51:40
always be useful. Maybe you can come on the cruise and be the lifeguard at the pool.

Unknown Speaker 51:44
Hey, there you go. Send me the details. All right.

Scott Benner 51:47
Thank you so much. I appreciate doing this absolutely. Take care.

The conversation you just heard was sponsored by Dexcom and the Dexcom g7 learn more and get started today at dexcom.com/juicebox, today, we heard from Aaron who will be participating in his own blue balloon challenge. Follow at Medtronic diabetes on Instagram and use the hashtag blue balloon challenge on social to see inspiring videos from Aaron Leah and other people like yourself living with diabetes. You can also join the challenge, make your own video, or get your support squad together and show how you're keeping your balloon in the air on top of everything else in life. Touched by type one sponsored this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Check them out at touched by type one.org on Instagram and Facebook. Give them a follow. Go check out what they're doing. They are helping people with type one diabetes in ways you just can't imagine. The Diabetes variable series from the Juicebox podcast goes over all the little things that affect your diabetes that you might not think about, travel and exercise to hydration and even trampolines. Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on diabetes variables. Hey kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know what else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the Juicebox podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook, of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in, but make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed, you're following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com, you.

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