Scott Benner 1/14/25 Scott Benner 1/14/25

#1405 Needle Phobia

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Erika and Scott discuss needle phobia.

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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
Whether it's shots, pens or an infusion, needles are part of life with diabetes, but what if just the thought of them makes your heart race today, Erica Forsyth and I are going to talk about the fear that's more common than you think, needle phobia. You

if you'd like to reach out to Erica, she's available at Erica. Forsyth.com 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, if you're a US resident who has type one or is the caregiver of someone with type one, visit T 1d exchange.org/juicebox right now and complete that survey. It will take you 10 minutes to complete the survey, and that effort alone will help to move type one diabetes research forward. It will cost you nothing to help 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, 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 dehydration and even trampolines. Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on diabetes variables.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by cozy Earth. Use the offer code juice box at checkout at cozy earth.com and you will save 40% off of your entire order. Today's podcast is sponsored by us med. Usmed.com/juice box. You can get your diabetes supplies from the same place that we do, and I'm talking about Dexcom, libre, Omnipod, tandem and so much more us, med.com/juice box, or call 888-721-1514, Erica, welcome back. It's good to see you.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 2:17
Thank you. It's good to see you too. We

Scott Benner 2:21
just finished up our our short series on caregiver burnout, and we're jumping right into another, another sizzling topic, needle anxiety and needle phobia. You were nice enough to pull together some some notes and thoughts. I've been doing the same. I've also put up a post in the private Facebook group. It's been up now for about a month. It got back about 50 comments, people sharing their needle phobias and stories and some things that helped them. So we're going to weave that into this conversation. But overall, I think that people with diabetes can get, I can't believe I'm going to say marginalized, but I think they can get marginalized around this because people just say, Oh, you have diabetes. You must be fine with needles. That's it, as if having a needle phobia goes away if you have type one or type two, which is just kind of silly, but definitely what I've seen in the world with Arden over and over again, dentists, blood draws anywhere where you intersect a needle. People just assume, like, Oh, you must be like, totally cool with this, because you have diabetes. But I don't think that's the case, absolutely.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:25
And I think one of the interesting research facts that I learned is that it's really common to have a needle a fear of needles, needle anxiety, or actual needle phobia, which the technical term I also learned is trypanophobia, okay, which is the intense fear or aversion to needles injections or medical procedures involving needles. And if you have kind of the diagnosed trypanophobia That is a specific phobia, meaning it's you have this irrational and overwhelming fear that goes beyond the normal discomfort most people feel about needles, but from this research, this is 25% of adults, 50% of teens and 63% of kids are freaked out by needles, And that's from the make Foundation website, which I'll reference throughout our conversation, which is a great practical tool, but I just think, Wow, that's a lot of us out there in the world, whether you're living with with diabetes or not, that most of us, when we go and get our blood drawn, aren't like, feeling great about

Scott Benner 4:37
it. People aren't just like, oh, this is gonna be awesome, right, right? And why would you I don't have a phobia. Like I have a procedure, I realize, like, if I get a blood draw, I've learned to breathe in during the needle being inserted. That was my thing. Like, you inhale as that's happening, and something, it lightens the pain. But in the end, you're at the you're at the mercy how good you're full of. Omnis is a lot of times too. You know, that's

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 5:02
so interesting. I do the opposite, Scott i I've learned to breathe in, and then as soon as I feel the needle going in, I breathe it out. Oh, okay, right in that moment. Anyway, whatever works Right, exactly, right.

Scott Benner 5:16
And it just, it's tough, because I was getting blood draws a lot for a stretch, back around my low iron problem, which I thankfully don't have to do anymore, but I was found myself there a lot, and you really do learn it is a crapshoot. The person who's helping you is either sometimes magical at it, yes, or it just feels like they're just like, just hoping the blood comes out, you know. So I can see that being a problem. But anyway, this is a much larger issue than you would think, and I learned that reaching out through the Facebook group, but also to be candid, and I'm not going to share over share, but Arden has a pretty significant phobia, and I'm confident calling it a phobia, based on her reactions to to injections. So anyway, where do you want to start? Yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 6:01
so I think just having an understanding that it is really common, and there's nothing wrong if you have a needle, a fear of needles. And I also think it's important to note that while we're going to be speaking about this for the person getting injected, whether we're talking about IVs for a procedure or blood draws or site changes or injections or insulin. I also want to just note that parents who are having to inject or chase their child around or hold them down, you can also have a real traumatic experience as you're trying to save your child, right, keep them alive, but in so doing, you are feeling like you're instilling this traumatic experience on them. And so we want to walk through some of these experiences and tools, but just that that is so painful and so hard emotionally for you as the parents. So I just want to address that, and what we will speak to that as we work through these topics? Yeah,

Scott Benner 7:01
that's awesome. I concur. I've have had the experience. So I know it's I know what it's like. Can I read this thing that you have here from the MEG foundation? Yes, pain is a biological, psychological and social experience. On the biological side, the body's way of telling us something is wrong to check it out. A nervous system sends messages to your brain. Our physical state impacts how painful something can be, like hunger, sick or tired. So, yes, okay, and then psychological here it says, pain may be worse depending on our mood. I didn't know that. And socially, how we react or view others around us impacts how we experience the pain. Wait, what does that mean?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 7:42
Yes, so, okay, so, for example, I think as we talk about pain from this framework that it's a biological, psychological and social experience with the social part when your child is running down the street and they trip and fall and they skin their knee, and they look at you as the parent, and if you are, we've talked about this even in the parenting series, overreacting and oh my goodness, do we need to go run home and like, over, over, over, dramatize the situation that child is then learning, oh my gosh. This is really scary. I really hurt myself. This pain is really bad. And I certainly we're not encouraging you to like, to be like, you're fine. Get up, you're fine. You know, it's finding that sweet spot of enough validation without over dramatizing the moment. Okay,

Scott Benner 8:30
that makes sense, and I've tried that while Arden is upset about an actual injection, and truth be told, like they doesn't get us to the finish line, but it does, I don't know. I mean, the reason I brought this up to do is because, after having this experience with Arden for so long, and then I was like, let me reach out and see how other people are feeling about this, and then getting so much feedback back from people, I thought like, I mean, I know you have to do it to stay alive, but the minute that it doesn't become to stay alive, Arden will do anything to avoid it. She becomes the bad guy in a bad movie when he's caught. Like, you know what I mean? She would do or say anything to avoid the injection, like it and she doesn't. She knows it's not making sense while she's doing it, it doesn't matter. Like, it's irrational, oh, she's begging for her life in that moment. Is how it feels really. It's really sad, but interesting too. Yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 9:22
it's so intense. And when we're gonna talk through that, that fear that feels so consuming, but yet you can, you can have an out of body moment and say, Gosh, I know this is I know I'm gonna be okay. I know it's gonna hurt for a second, and then I'm it's gonna be over. But in that space of anticipation and fear can become so overwhelming and paralyzing. Yeah,

Scott Benner 9:47
and it doesn't seem to make any sense, because the second it's over, like laughter will come sometimes just like, from abject fear to like, just, I can't believe I was that upset. She will tell me that part. Of the consternation in the process is that she understands how ridiculous it is that she's scared and she's almost scared and mad at or embarrassed with herself at the same time. Yeah, yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 10:15
there's, there can be so much shame attached to this experience, and I think it's important to understand as we talk about the pain, it's not just about the needle or the pinch or the site change pain, right? So, and I think also the physical state impacts how painful something can be in the biological realm. So if you are hungry, tired, sick, you're going to experience your brain is going to send in the nervous system that message like this hurts way more now because I'm sick and tired or hungry, that if you are not those things, just something to remember. Do you want to

Scott Benner 10:54
go through the causes of needle phobia? Yes, yes. So

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 10:57
and what we ultimately want to get to is when you are stressed, it's going to feel more painful. When you don't have any support or validation, it's going to feel more painful. And again, I'm talking about psychologically and physically. And so we want to get to a place of having more coping skills, and you will feel more in control of the situation, so that the causes could be a variety of things post traumatic experiences. For example, you might have a painful or negative medical experience from a procedure and and someone referenced this actually in the Facebook group where they had a procedure and they couldn't find their vein with the IV and they were poked 32 times. Yeah,

Scott Benner 11:42
that'll stick with you. Yeah, that's a real

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 11:44
trauma. Yeah, you are then probably going to have to work through that experience every time you go in for, you know, any needle blood draw or IV learned behavior, observing someone else's fear of needles, or hearing stories about expat bad experiences. So even now as you're listening to this, just be mindful if this is becoming overwhelming for you, as we talk about needles or hear us reference various stories and you already are in that space, maybe pause. Take some deep breaths. Come back to this episode. You might just have a biological predisposition. You might just have a genetic tendency to develop intense fears, and it's being played out with the needles. Interesting, the basal vagal response, and some people also reference this experience in the Facebook group, that even the site or anticipation of the needle causes a drop in blood pressure and heart rate, which is then going to lead you to faint and possibly vomit. And then when you have those experiences connecting to needles, that's going to reinforce, oh my gosh, this is a really scary thing. I don't want to I'm going to avoid at all possible in engagement with the needle. Yeah, so those are some possible causes of needle fear or needle phobia.

Scott Benner 13:02
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Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 17:33
It's makes so much sense, right? It's so connected to all the different systems

Scott Benner 17:37
go through the symptoms of what happens when it when it strikes you, okay,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 17:41
and so these and these symptoms can be, as you said, you know, for days in advance, she's thinking about that injection. So this could be occurring for you or your child, seconds, minutes. You know, we site change every three days, 10 days, right? That you anticipate the physical symptoms could be increased, heart rate, sweating, nausea, dizziness or fainting. Someone in the Facebook group said it feels like a low, like you're having a low blood sugar episode. The emotional symptoms could be intense, fear, panic, feeling of dread at the site, or even the thought of the needles, and then behavioral, you know, avoid avoidance of the medical procedures, maybe skipping vaccinations, refusing blood tests, despite knowing that perhaps it's going to help you in the long run, or for your health. And it's important, you will avoid being, you know, interaction with the needle. And then what happens as a result? Right? If you do have needle phobia, you might delay the treatment or the or the blood test, or even, you know, a surgery, possibly some people shared very vulnerably about that experience of wanting to avoid the needles that were so it was so scary that you you risked other components of your of your health?

Scott Benner 19:02
Yeah, they're gonna let other aspects of their health fall apart to avoid this needle thing, yes, yeah, it's very real. Yeah. I didn't realize how big of a deal it was people when Dexcom, I don't know what people are gonna remember, they used to have that inserter that was kind of like the clear tube, almost, it sat on an angle, and you had to plunge it yourself, and you could kind of see it all happening. And when, when they went to a self inserter, like, is on this the g7 a lot of people like, well, that's way better, because you can't see the needle. It's such a big deal for me, they would say not to be able to see the needle first. Yes, I guess it's just another one of those things. If you don't go through it. It's not going to make a ton of sense to you know what I mean, like, just, unless it's the way it hits you, you just pick out just it hurts for a second, or it pinches. Or sometimes you hear people say, sometimes doesn't hurt at all, depends on where it goes in. Or sometimes it's things. I take an injection once a week, and I mean, I'm like, like, I the other day I realized I didn't do it. I. I was sitting on my desk, I was getting ready to go out, and I went, Oh, I should have done that. And I just yanked my shirt up and went, click, boom. And I and I just left. I didn't think twice about it. And then later I looked back on it, I thought, Oh, gosh. Like, you know, Arden's like, oh, let's do it. And then the needle comes out, and then it's like, this, slowly I turn thing, and then she's just going in a different direction. Anyway, I just, I want to say, like, if people are having these kinds of reactions, I know, like some of you are like, you know, some some people are using needles to dose insulin, like a lot of them are. But if you're having this reaction, it's, it's tough call, because you got to do it. You can't not do it right and but at the same time, I don't think, I don't think that ignoring it or just acting like, Oh, come on, it's not that big of a deal. I don't know it's tough because I also, I also take your point about like, not making a big deal out of it. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like, you don't want to start like, because somebody's like, I don't want to do that. Of course, they don't want to be like, no one wants to do that. But if you just go, Okay, well, you don't have to, like, are you setting a precedence where it's not that, you know, oh, we'll skip this correction. Your blood sugar is only 180 we'll just let it sit like this for a few more hours because you don't want to do this. I'm sorry. It's just, it's just another thing. We talk you and I talk about that. I'm just like, seeing both sides of it, and neither side feels exciting. But I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go Yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 21:17
No, you're good. I think just the validation of like this is really complicated, and definitely in seasons of your life, living with with diabetes or with your child, it might feel like it's never going to get better. You're never going to get over it, right? And if you have a needle phobia, it's not necessarily. We're not saying hey, we're going to give you the steps to get over it. We are here hoping to to validate your experience, but then also to provide some tools to help you manage your emotions, your physical pain, through it. Shall we move into some some tools and coping? Yeah, yeah, please. That'd be awesome. Okay, okay, I know I've heard and seen a lot of people use the buzzy bee product, and on their website, they actually had a really great thing that I loved, of making kind of addressing pain and the needle moment in a three prong way. One is to make a plan to address the anticipation or fear, and we're going to talk about that. And then two, manage, have a plan to manage the actual pain during the injection. And then three, have something to focus on during the injection. So I'm saying injection for all the all needle examples that we've mentioned. Yeah, one of the things, the reason why we want to focus on that it's a psychological experience, because what we are telling ourselves beforehand is so important, and obviously one of one of the treatments that if you are in a really needle phobia would be cognitive behavioral therapy, in addition to all the things we're also going to mention, but that would be really important to address. Do you have post traumatic experiences from needles. And then how can we work through that trauma, by also understanding how your thoughts and feelings are affecting your behaviors? That would be kind of on the more, perhaps not necessarily extreme, but more intense or severe, needle phobia, as well as exposure therapy. I was just thinking about, you know, the picture that you posted with when you asked for,

Scott Benner 23:21
oh yeah, that's threw people off, even then someone

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 23:25
said, Oh my gosh. That makes me scared. And, I mean, it was an intense picture, but it did grab people's attention. And, you know, exposure therapy would be beneficial, like, if you had a visceral response experience or response to seeing that picture, that could be a cue to say, you know, maybe, maybe exposure therapy could be helpful for you to, not to. Basically, you learn the coping skills as you are exposed to that trigger. Yeah, so perhaps you're talking about needles, and then you're working through the coping skills, and then you're envisioning it, and then you see a picture of the needle. Then maybe you're holding the needle and then you're giving yourself the shot. Those are kind of the therapeutic approaches. So the rest of the things we're going to talk through are things that a lot of you already probably do, but we wanted to kind of leave them all here in one, one space, a lot of these things you guys referenced in the Facebook group, and things that I do myself, and then Scott does so just not looking when it's happening. I know that seems really simple, but what you want to do is give your child or yourself that option, all of these things. We want to give yourself and your child the control, and one of the things from the MEG foundation for pain.org, website, they have great you can have an app, have kind of a whole little plan, a printout. So as we go through all these things, you get to engage with your child or yourself. What is helpful for me? What? So we're making a plan. Mm, hmm. To reduce the fear. So do you want to look or not look when it's happening? And you have this discussion, but way before, and a lot of you probably already do this, right? Do you want to hold this stuffy or that stuffy? Do you want to do it in 10 minutes or 20 minutes? Do you the shop. These are more kind of the actual tangible things, the shot blockers, which I've seen some pictures of. I've never used them myself, but apparently they are really effective. And they have, like, the little raised, yeah,

Scott Benner 25:33
they kind of seen them. They kind of conf you. It's like a plastic thing you pinch with a little bit, I guess it's got little, like, pokey plastic things that kind of confuse your your nerve endings, right?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 25:42
Yes, yeah, yeah, blunt skin contact points is what they call them, okay? And so you push it down. I don't know, I so I apparently though they're really effective. The buzzy bee is the vibration. It has vibration with a cold pack. I know a lot of people use that the numbing cream, specifically Alma cream is been referenced a lot. I port from Medtronic, yes, as helpful for people for injections. Dia Spider was a new product that I discovered upon researching for this chat. Apparently, I think it's for insulin pens, and it kind of looks like it combines elements of the shot blocker, yeah, basically I'm like, the shot blocker, and just a total distraction, have you? Are you looking at?

Scott Benner 26:33
Looking at a picture of it now, yeah, oh, I see. So it goes around an insulin pen to kind of like, give you the the shot blocker, feeling like something touching and giving you that that confusion, plus it makes it look a little more, little less like an insulin pen might be good for kids like visually as well, yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 26:51
and also has you know, you choose your color again, this is really To instill control and coping and choice reduces that anticipation and fear, and then hopefully also simultaneously reduces that pain in the moment. Well, apparently, being hydrated or not is really important for pain of the actual injection. Plus, if

Scott Benner 27:17
you're doing a blood draw, so that your yes, the blood volumes up and your veins are easier to get to. That that can also be really helpful. Yes, I read about that too. Even just the having someone drink 16 ounces of water before the injection, it almost like takes their mind off of it, because you're, like, trying to get down 16 ounces of water. Like, yeah, right, it just sort of, it takes your attention away a little bit. That's what I never thought of. What else you got on this list? That's so

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 27:42
that's so good, because what you have, you have a goal, and you're focused on that drinking, and it has a kind of a two prong positive outcome, play, have a calm music playlist. These are a lot of things that people mentioned in the Facebook group, laying down, or laying down with your knees up, having peppermints in your mouth ice pack on the back of your neck. You know, we talked, we already talked about, you know, inhaling or exhaling, breathing is really important. Oftentimes, we hold our breath when we're scared. One story that the founder of Meg foundation, I wrote her name down here. I'm just looking

Scott Benner 28:18
here. By the way, cool flavor a room of peppermint can redirect attention from the needle to the sensation in the mouth. Gives the brain something else to focus on, helping reduce the intensity of anxious thoughts. No kidding, I love Yes. Could also be grounding. Sucking on the mint can be grounding. Peppermint has calming effects to some people. Anxiety causes dry mouth. The peppermint can stimulate saliva production, making the person feel more physically comfortable. How about that? And because when you said that, when I was like, what peppermint? I'm sorry, I got you off.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 28:52
No, that's good. No, peppermint is well, also peppermint is good with, like, nausea too. You might have already just said that.

Scott Benner 28:58
Oh, listen, I went to school in the 80s. If you went to the nurse and you didn't feel well, they gave you a peppermint water to drink and then sent your ass right back to class you don't feel good, drink this now. Get out of here. That was childcare in the 80s. Yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 29:13
peppermint cure it all. So, so Dr Jody Thomas is the one who created the make Foundation, and she shared this story as she was in training about breathing. And I just thought it was so great. I wanted to share it here, also with and some of these coping skills will work for you or your child for a couple months, and then, just like anything else, you might need to switch, but the breathing, she asked the child, and you can do this for yourself as you're about to get the blood draw, envisioning a color that feels calming or comforting, and then think of a color that is like painful and uncomfortable. And so the child said green, so they and black, green for comfort and black for pain. And then so she, you know, had her close her eyes and invited her to think about inhaling the green and images of green and then exhaling black, the color and feelings around it. And so I just thought that I liked that we've talked about different breathing techniques, but I liked that one to share here. It is

Scott Benner 30:17
important too, because I think when people tense up, they do stop breathing right away, which, you know, a bunch of physiological reasons not to do that. But this is, it's a nice idea. Like, take the good stuff in, let the bad stuff out. Be visual about that. Like, in the end, I'm going to tell you something. I've tried a lot of this stuff with Arden, and usually what she says is, and we'll probably have to bleep this out, Q, that's not going to help, right? But in fairness, I didn't have a lot of luck getting her to do the things. And so I did say, I'm like, I do think we should do some breathing stuff. I do think you should look away for she's like, I have to see it. I'm like, Why are you torturing yourself like she stares at it while it's happening. One time she said, I just want you to just do it, but I'm gonna defend it if it happens. So somebody's gonna have to hold my hands. My son came into the room and literally, like, held her wrists out in front of her while I did the injection. It was horrible, honestly, for all three off, all of us, all three of us, had a different, horrible experience. But as I and it's a self injector, Erica, it's like, click and over. Like, it's that fast, right? And while it's happening, I hear, like, in kind of an amused tone for my son, She's biting me. Then it ended, she cracks up laughing, and she's like, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean I thought I was biting my own hand. I couldn't even tell it wasn't me. Like, she was just looking for some like, I don't know, release, release, yeah, yeah, something. And I'm telling you that all of this took, I mean, it took like, 10 seconds, and it felt like, it felt like we were fighting a war. When it was over, everybody was just like, we did it. But five minutes later it was, it was just like it had never happened, like she and I went out to do the next thing we were going to do, and was just over. It was I looked at her for an hour after that, being fascinated at where we were an hour previously, you know, just really something anxiety and and that adrenaline and the fear mixed together. It's just, it's bad stuff, you know,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 32:18
yes, well, but I love that she like part of, you know, if you wanted to use the plan maker resource, it's beforehand going through like because, you know, she likes to look at it. And now you know, like physical touch. You know your body, your brain, can only focus on so many points of physical touch. And so you know, as little as often times with parents, you might hold your child on their lap as they get their, you know, immunizations or their injections, holding asking like, do you want? Do you want me to hold your wrist? Do you want me to give you a tight hug? You know, research shows that, you know, laying your child down on their back and holding their arms down is actually pretty negative, yeah, in terms of their medical trauma? Yeah, they will probably have some medical trauma around that, because it's you're so vulnerable and pinned down. But I also know we have sometimes you have to hold your child to make it happen. So just if you can holding them on your lap, Wrapping Arms Around like you're giving them a big hug, but they're sitting up. I wish

Scott Benner 33:17
that this would have been talked about when Arden was younger, because she was like a chaser around the house kid, you know. And I do wonder how much of what's happening to her now is from back then, because all I knew to do was, like, grab her and do it. You know what I mean? Like, it's, I mean, Erica, it's, you know, you were injecting insulin. It was happening a number of times a day. And yes, you know, sometimes she was cool with it, sometimes she wasn't. But I do wonder how much of the process that we went through led to where we are now, and I'll never know. I I'll tell you that before she went off to college, Arden hasn't had a correction with a pen ever. Arden's never used an insulin pen once. So she went right from syringes to pump to Omnipod. Yeah, me too, yeah. And you've never used the endocrine and so she stopped injecting when she was four. That's when she got an insulin pump. And I've told this story before, but that a couple of years later, I wasn't sure if she had a bad site or something, but I wanted to inject insulin to check. And we got the syringe out, and she didn't remember it, which, at the time, I took really well. Like it was a couple of years she was maybe six, seven years old. At this point, she hadn't had a syringe in a few years. She's like, what is that? And I was like, Oh, we're gonna have to inject the insulin. And I just acted like, you know, this, I've done this to you 10,000 times, you know? And she had no memory of it, which I thought was great. And it was for a long while, but then all of a sudden, I don't remember exactly how old, but maybe a couple of years later, we were just at a blood draw one time, and she, like, climbed the wall, almost in the room, to get away from it. And then suddenly she had her it felt like she overcame it, but she tells me, in retrospect, she didn't overcome it. She was just like willing herself through it. She was having the same feeling every time it. Wasn't until we got to this send her off to college, situation where I said, Look, I can't send you off to college, not knowing if you can give yourself an injection. If something goes wrong, I'm like so your next bowl is today. Let's just draw it up in a syringe, and you do it. She took that syringe and stared at it for 20 minutes, and then eventually left the room. She locked herself in the bathroom with it, and she came out 45 minutes or an hour later, and she's like, I did it. But she looked like she just ran a marathon coming out of that room, like, I don't know what she went through. She wouldn't let us in, she wouldn't let us help. She's like, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. It was an hour and I swear to God, she came out. She looked like she just been through three rounds with a heavy weight. She was sweaty and disheveled and like she looked half crazy. She's like, alright, I did it, and that was the end of it. And I don't think she's done another one since then. It's been, like, three years. But anyway, and then people say, but there's a needle in the Omnipod, the one great, one of the great things about that Omnipod is, you put it on, you pinch, you push the button and it's, it's between you and Jesus at that point, like, it's just gonna happen. You know what I mean? So you like, you click, and you just kind of wait. And she doesn't have any problem with the with the Dexcom inserter for the g7 either she doesn't like it and she flinches every time, as if it's never happened to her before, which I've always found interesting. Like, like, it never stops being what it is. If that makes sense, yes, we're not through all your tools, though. I apologize, yeah, but you

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 36:26
know, but she does so well. That's, I think that's really common, though, for those of us who are on devices, CGM pumps, but to also, as you said in the beginning, to have an aversion to needles or blood draws or IVs insertions, because it's out of our control. Yeah. And so there's something, you know, and I think however you can set up, like, for example, going into a blood draw when she, you know, said she's just crawling up the walls. I think the more you are able to understand what you need, even if you feel like it might not even help, but to then advocate for yourself in that way. Some of these, I thought these were really great examples of if you're able to get an appointment, a lot of people are not able to get appointments for blood draws, but to prevent the time in the waiting room while you're watching everyone else feel nervous, maybe you're hearing kids scream like so if you can get get a blood appointment or ask to be outside and get a text when you're there, your numbers up, yeah, for some people, some people, you can schedule it with the same, you know, Nurse phlebotomist, and develop that relationship. I actually just learned recently I've I my veins are hard to to access for whatever reason. They just, they like to hide. And so I know on my left arm, I know the vein that works. So for years, I go in, I don't look, I point to the vein that works. And they say, Are you sure? I'm like, yep, just this vein. Just do that one, yeah. And I look away, and I do my inhale, I exhale when I breathe, but just this last blood draw, the nurse said, you know, I I'm noticing some scar tissue here. And I said, Oh, why? No one's ever told me that. I just know that's the vein that's easy to find. So anyway, something I said, is that problematic? She said, No, we just might need to use a smaller needle, whatever.

Scott Benner 38:16
I guess, like, I need the spot to last at least, like, 4050, more years.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 38:21
So, you know. And also to say, when you get walk in to sit down, if you know your plan, you can tell the person, hey, I'm not going to talk to you. I'm going to look away. This is the arm that I like. I need to lay down. So you're not in your head worrying, yeah, you're not worrying about, oh, do they think I'm rude? Or do they? You know, it doesn't matter,

Scott Benner 38:42
right? Just give yourself less to worry about, yeah, by being prepared ahead of time.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 38:46
Yes, yeah, um, one, 1% person said this in the Facebook group, which I think is great if you're an adult and you have children, but you're the one who's having to get the needle blood draw, have your child come with you, because oftentimes that their presence might either calm you, or you might have to stay more calm because you don't want them to see your fear. That I know that can be helpful. Sometimes this

Scott Benner 39:11
person in the group said that I used to pass out when I was going to get a flu shot, and I'd feel kind of woozy. My dad would pass out as a kid from getting it, and and so prior to having to get my first COVID shot, my mom took me to a therapist to do EMDR therapy, and I think that helped that interesting, like, that's the pre planning we're talking about. Also, the lady that did my COVID Shot said to me, this is my first one. I'm a volunteer, and then stabbed me like we were in the middle of World War Two, and she's trying to kill me on the battlefield. And I was like, Oh, wow. It's supposed to go on your arm, but down a little bit, I think she stuck it into my shoulder, my shoulder. I was like, what is happening? She got done. I went over to my wife, and I was like, oh, oh god. What happened? She goes, what happened? I said she hit me in my shoulder. Should have known, because five minutes before, she shouldn't figure out how to use the iPad. And I'm like, You're right. And she goes, this is my first one. We're all volunteers. And I was like, oh, okay, I thought that meant she'd be more careful, not that she'd just swing like Jason in the Friday the 13th movies at me. It was not pleasant, but again, I lived through it, yes, yeah. And I also don't have a needle phobia. So in the end, I just had an unpleasant experience. I was like, yeah, that hurt. Like, what'd you do that for? And then, like, I was done with it. But if, but if I was predisposed to this, that one experience could have put me down a bad path, for sure, because it was a, it was a really crappy experience, to be perfectly honest with you,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 40:37
absolutely may perhaps had you been in a real, you know, anxious space or fearful space, you maybe have the plan to say, I'm going to ask for what I need, and I need someone who's with experience. Yeah, I think we get, we get nervous when we when we are nervous, we often feel fearful to say, You know what I'm going to pass I'm going to wait for this person over here who says they have five years experience, whatever. I wouldn't wait

Scott Benner 41:02
for the lady who knows, though, how to open the iPad that might have been like, like, at least she's been here a day. I would think, usually what I tell people in these situations, they're like, Oh, this is gonna hurt, or I'm sorry. I go, I'm married. It's okay. I'm trying to make light. But you know, humor, I've been through a few things. This isn't gonna be the worst thing that's happened to me today. You should be around with my wife yelling at me about something, this is nothing, or else, something like that, which not even true, but fun to say. I don't but I do wonder, in a real, in a real way, like, it's just like the other stuff that we talk about, where you have something, you don't have something. It's like, when you're talking about somebody with anxiety, I'm like, It's so strange for me to listen to somebody speak with anxiety, because I'm like, I just don't feel that way, and I feel lucky not to feel that way. But this is the same idea. Like, I know the needle is gonna suck, but like, I just don't care. Like, it's gonna hurt, and then it's over. I don't even have trouble the dentist. And I hear some people talk about going to the dentist, like, like, it's the worst thing that's ever happened to them, you know, anyway, I'm sorry. What? Keep going. No,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 41:57
well, and speaking of the dentist, I think the I was going to share an example recently with my my daughter, who had two she had two cavities, and the first time we went, we didn't give the we didn't give her the laughing gas. And it was, she was highly anxious. She said it was really painful. So we didn't do the second one. We went back a couple weeks later, did the laughing gas. It still was, it still was painful for her, but her anxiety and her pain scale was a lot lower. Same procedure, same steps, except she had the laughing gas. And I think just our emotional state is so important to acknowledge in conjunction with the actual perceived level of pain. Yeah, right. And I joked with our pain, yeah. I

Scott Benner 42:43
was like, You want us to try to find you some weed or something before we have to do this again? It's like, well, I'm starting to think, like, what's going to help her relax before she has to do this? And I don't know if that would help or hurt her, not, but my brain went there. I thought, Is there something we should do to, like, get her a little loopy first? You know what I mean, like, so I don't know, we didn't end up trying that. But anyway,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 43:06
medication, yeah, you know pain medication, or anti anxiety, you know Xanax in the moment. Some people need that, and that's totally okay. I mean, that's your situation. Get something done, right? Like you need to do the thing to keep yourself healthy and to help find a way that works best for you. Is, is great, whatever that, whatever that may be, I'm imagining

Scott Benner 43:29
people showing up the dentist a little, a little half in the bag, going like I was listening to a podcast. They said, sorry if I chilled out a little before this. But I do wonder, how many people do that, self medicate stuff like that. I bet you more than you think,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 43:43
yes, and it's okay to ask, right? Like, ask your doctor. Hey, I have, I have needle anxiety, and I have this blood draw. Can you prescribe me one Xanax? I think that's totally probably more common. It's something that people don't talk about. Yeah, this at last one is the the kind of correct term is applied Tension Technique. But basically, if you are if you feel like you're going to faint, just squeeze your muscles, your leg muscles, your butt muscles, your abdominal muscles, repeatedly while the needle is going in, it's keeping your blood circulating through your body okay, and will prevent you from, hopefully from from fainting. So knowing like and you can pre you practice that with yourself or your child. Okay, I'm going to squeeze my butt or my legs or my stomach, and we're okay. We're doing 123, we're going to press the button, any tool or tip to do beforehand, to talk through, to practice, gives both yourself or your child that confidence, that you know what to do when the fear starts and when the pain starts, the physical pain.

Scott Benner 44:51
What is this here? If you're for adults, if you have kids, have them present to watch, and that may be Oh, because parents feel like they got to hold it together. In front of their children? Yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 45:01
yeah. So I was, I think someone wrote that in the Facebook group and, yeah. So like, if you're this is for someone as the adult, if to try, if that helps, right? Because you want to be calm for your child. You're trying to model for your child, and having your child present as you're having the needle inserted, you're thinking about them. You're not thinking about what's happening. You're staying calm. That could be another tool. I mean, I don't know if you want to intentionally do that, but if it happens, that has worked for some people.

Scott Benner 45:31
I mean, that makes sense to me. I mean, all these things you got to pick and figure out what's going to help you, for sure, yes, but that makes sense to me,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 45:38
you know, and having the actual distraction when it's happening. We've talked about the medication, the mindfulness breathing, I think we've covered most of the tools. And just honestly, if you if you're hearing this in your experience needle phobia, your child is I really encourage you to to not shame yourself or your child, particularly as maybe your child's getting older, you know, you don't want to say, Oh, you used to do this when you were a baby. You know, it's time to grow up. Or, yeah, get over this. Get over it. Telling this to yourself like that is that is not helpful for yourself or for your for your child. And so to validate the fear that you're experiencing or your child's experiencing, and then to make a plan, I think is really, really helpful to help you get through this, the experience. Yeah,

Scott Benner 46:32
I'm just going through everybody's feedback on the Facebook group, which I can't say enough thank yous for, because these are really, these people really being honest here, you know, I mean, I've locked myself in rooms. I've have I've had irrational fears about needles my whole life. A lot of people do say like they passed eventually for them, which is, as they got older, I've had minor panic attacks. One person says their kid passes out when they do it. That just happens every time the kid, boom, just goes under. That's crazy. I've had needle phobias as a child. Back in the 1960s like this, this brought in people of all ages, you know, shapes and sizes, to make the to say that this has happened to them. I just think it's very important what you said before, just to not act like, oh, this doesn't really exist. You know, just because you don't feel that way doesn't mean somebody else doesn't.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 47:22
Yes, and to this is emphasized from the MEG foundation for pain website that medical providers, they may only get seven to 10 hours of pain management training in their schooling. And so while they want to help you, and, you know, treat you the best you can, for you to feel comfortable, knowledgeable and empowered to ask for what you need. Now again, that says we're talking about, you know, when you're going into into the hospital or labs and then at home, for you or your child to feel the same way, to be educated, to know what's actually going through, to make sure they know what's helpful for them, I think is just is so important and was helpful for me to kind of refresh, to go through my memory, yeah, go through this like, okay, yeah, what is helpful for me and what is helpful for my children? You know, as we, as we face these different experiences with needles, the

Scott Benner 48:20
one thing that even I found like staggering, is the person in the group that said, like, I have tattoos all over me, but I can't give myself an injection. It's fascinating, really. You know, just the way some people react to things and others don't. I'm super happy we did this because you found Meg foundation for pain.org, which is a great resource people should go check out if they're struggling with this. I think whether you're an adult or a person trying to help a child, this would be a good website for you to look at,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 48:45
yes, and you're so you're just, you're not alone. It is. It is so common. And I hope that, yeah, that you find some help in this or the other resources. Listen,

Scott Benner 48:57
I can just tell you from personal experience, it ain't no joke, some of Arden's reactions, I can't believe they're happening while they're happening. Like, like, really I I'm standing there, like, what is and it's so you brought it up earlier, like, I don't want to make this about me, but it's hard to be in the room trying to facilitate this thing. Like, you know what I mean? Like, when somebody says to you, no, I guess it's why I can't understand hurting another person, like, because when she's begging, like, begging for this not to happen, and I'm like, Oh no, I'm gonna do it not harshly, like that. Like, in your mind, you're like, No, we are going to get to the end where you are going to get this, and when it ends, you're not even going to care, which is, like, it's even hard to wrap your head around, because, like I said, five seconds after it's over, it's just over, but you're standing there, I feel like I'm gonna hurt somebody. I'm causing somebody distress. I mean, you're not, but it feels like you are. You know, you're having to do it for another health reason, but I don't know, but it's just of all the you know, diabetes sucks. I guess that's really what we should just say. Anything that makes you do this sucks because, but I hope you find a way through it. Like, I don't know how. Valuable we were we weren't the last hour, but I wanted to do this because I just don't hear anybody else talking about it, and I knew a lot of people had to be struggling with it. So here it is. I hope it's helpful. You can go find some resources to to get through it, or use Erica's idea, where you just take a Zanny and then everything's okay. People are gonna be like, hey, this lady, Erica, told me, and I just I took some wine. Now I don't have any trouble with anything anymore, being serious, like, if this was happening to you, like, this badly. What do you think the steps are like after you've heard all this and been through all this stuff? Like, what do you think the steps are that you would take for yourself if this happened

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 50:39
to you? So if I knew that I had trauma like, you know, severe medical trauma, I would definitely be really intentional in therapy, whether it was EMDR or CPT, to work through and reduce my association with that trauma, and then I would be really clear with what I needed to get through each site change or IV insertion. So if it was that level, right, I was just thinking about, you know, like claustrophobia, for people who are claustrophobic, I am for one, and I know if I were in a small if I had to take an MRI or something like that, or you're in, I can do elevators, but their treatment whether it's medication or coping skills. So I think to think about needle phobia like another really, we probably hear claustrophobia more often than needle phobia, but it's okay. It's okay to take medication, it's okay to go to therapy for this. It's okay to know what you need, and it's okay to advocate, so I would probably start with therapy. Know what my coping like tools are, and feel confident that I could use those. And if that didn't work, then you know, maybe it is taking a Xanax for a blood draw, but maybe you're okay with your site changes, but I think it's really practicing and trying out different tools and knowing what works, going

Scott Benner 52:04
back in my experiences, and looking back over the last however, many years, I do wish that we would have taken Arden to somebody to talk about I didn't realize that it was going to stick to her like this or that, and I think it maybe would have helped her to have, like, talk therapy around it when she was younger, even if it was just specifically for the needle thing, I think it would have been time, well, spent, you know, looking in the rear view mirror. It seems that way to me, at least. Well,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 52:29
no, no shame or blame on you as the parent. You know, this is part of, part of the journey as a lot of parents have to go through. And it's never too late, right? Like, it's not too late, if she were open to that, yeah,

Scott Benner 52:41
sure. You go tell her. I mean, that's always the problem with getting people help on something like this is that you have to explain. They have to agree to do it, and it's not always that easy. Like I tried to I'm like, Hey, let's try grounding stuff. She's like, that's not gonna work. I'm like, Let's do breathing. That's not gonna work. I'm like, Arden, the stuff. People say this works for them all the time. She's like, Ah, just do it. But then at one point she's just like, she was almost begging. She's like, I we need to find a different way. And I'm like, Well, I don't want you to feel then there's the other side of it, like you're having a ton of medical, like, benefit coming from this thing too. So like you're trying to find the balance. So anyway, we called it, basically called it off for a couple of weeks. Now we're trying the pills that actually starts today, and then we'll see how that goes. And if that goes well, then great. And if it doesn't, then hopefully, maybe, just like I said, Maybe her situation overall in her life, feeling better might lead her to go, oh, okay, I could try this again. So but one way or the other, we got to figure it out, because she's not going to stop having diabetes anytime soon. So to me, this is just, it's the thing we have to figure out. So hopefully we can get her into a more accepting place. And then I'll bring up again, maybe going and talking to somebody about this, see if I can get her to the joke. I'm not going to give up, but it's a long process, is all I'm going to say, a journey. Yeah, they're sorry, yes, okay, well, thank you again for doing this with me. I appreciate it. You're welcome.

I'd like to thank cozy Earth for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast and remind you that using my offer code Juicebox at checkout will save you 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com. That's the sheets, the towels, the clothing, anything available on the website, the conversation you just enjoyed was brought to you by us. Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get started today and get your supplies from us. Med, I want to thank you so much for listening and remind you please subscribe and follow to the podcast wherever you're listening right now, if it's YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify, or any other audio app, go hit follow or subscribe, whichever your app allows for and set up those downloads so you. Never miss an episode, especially an apple podcast. Go into your settings and choose, download all new episodes. Are you starting to see patterns, but you can't quite make sense of them? You're like, Oh, if I Bolus here, this happens, but I don't know what to do. Should I put in a little less, a little more? If you're starting to have those thoughts, if you're starting to think this isn't going the way the doctor said it would I think I see something here, but I can't be sure. Once you're having those thoughts, you're ready for the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast. It begins at Episode 1000 you can also find it at Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu, and you can find a list in the private Facebook group. Just check right under the featured tab at the top, it'll show you lists of a ton of stuff, including the Pro Tip series, which runs from episode 1000 to 1025 so.

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Scott Benner 1/13/25 Scott Benner 1/13/25

#1404 Kevin Costner

Melissa initially planned to share a glucagon story, but she recently learned she may have cancer, so the conversation shifted to that.

Melissa is generally healthy but currently facing a cancer scare.
Her mother, a nurse, quickly recognized her diabetes symptoms and got her tested.
In high school, Melissa experienced seizures, treated with glucagon.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Melissa was set to share a wild glucagon story, but life had other plans. Diagnosed with type one diabetes in 1984 she survived three seizures that all happened on Friday the 13th, and now she's facing something even bigger.

Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. 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 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. 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 juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com. If you're newly diagnosed, check out the bold beginnings series. Find it at Juicebox podcast.com, up in the menu in the feature tab of the private Facebook group, or go into the audio app you're listening in right now and search for Juicebox Podcast. Bold beginnings. Juicebox is one word. Juicebox Podcast bold beginnings. This series is perfect for newly diagnosed people.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juice, box. Today's podcast is sponsored by the insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing since she was four years old, Omnipod. Omnipod.com/juice, box. You too can have the same insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing every day for 16 years.

Melissa 2:05
Hi. My name is Melissa. I was diagnosed in 1984 with type one diabetes, and excited to speak with you all on my experiences so far.

Scott Benner 2:16
Wow. 1984 Yes. Now when people here in 1984 they immediately think the book, right? Yeah, right. It's the it's the only thing that jumps into people's heads. But the book was written much earlier. Isn't that fascinating? Oh, much earlier. Yeah, yes. Now, how old were you in 1984 I was nine when you were diagnosed. Was it a shock to your family? Do you remember anything? Did they ever share any stories with you?

Melissa 2:42
It was a fairly big shock. Luckily, Mom was a nurse, so she recognized some of the signs and

Scott Benner 2:51
got me into be tested pretty quickly. Did you never go to a hospital? I did.

Melissa 2:57
I was tested through the primary care physician just with a quick urine test where mom worked, and then he immediately sent me to the pediatrician, who sent me to the hospital pretty

Scott Benner 3:09
quick, especially for the 80s. Now, here you are, 1984 type one diabetes. The people who are helping right? Doctors are like, Oh, things are so modern now. Oh, yeah, right. But you look back on that time and you think, oh my gosh, like, I don't usually ask this so soon, but how is your health now? Today,

Melissa 3:29
it's fairly good, no major complications, just like some proliferative retinopathy, non prolif, sorry, non proliferative. So it's been staying pretty stable. Other than that, going through a cancer scare right now, had a biopsy done yesterday. Oh,

Scott Benner 3:50
that's what you meant. So when we okay? So when we were, I don't know that, Melissa, we have to let people know that I didn't know that, because it sounds like I'm like, Oh, how about a book and everything? And they're like, oh, ladies, got cancer, and you're over here dicking around about a book. So you signed up for one completely different idea. But then, as we got on, you said, Look, I signed up to tell a glucagon story. But you know, I think you said the fan since then, and I'm willing to talk about anything, I didn't know what that meant. Usually. I figured that means you kicked a bum out of your house who was pretending to be your kid's father or something like that, but, but, oh my gosh, so Well, let me ask my questions, then I'll get back to this. Okay, okay, through your I mean, God, 94 2004 14 to 40 years diabetes, yep, in October, Wow, congratulations. Through those 40 years. Do you know what your a one Cs were like, is that how you track your health?

Melissa 4:42
Not really. I did track a one CS from the beginning, I don't know, probably eights or nines the first couple of years, then I got into that teenage rebellion stage and got up to thirteens at some point. But by the time I graduated high school. I was back down to high sevens. Okay, had my first seven zero as a freshman in college. Were

Scott Benner 5:08
you trying harder? Did care change? I didn't like the food. Was the food terrible? Food Not terrible? What was your first insulin? You weren't were you regular? NPH, I

Melissa 5:21
was regular. NPH, okay, and I was regular. NPH, up until I was on a

Scott Benner 5:25
pump, which was how much after your diagnosis I was put on a pump in 93 you were regular mph for nine years, yes. So even when faster acting insulins were available, you didn't change to them. Do you know why?

Melissa 5:42
I do not know. It was just never suggested

Scott Benner 5:45
that simple, Yep, yeah, and an eight or nine, A, 1c, for you, then wasn't terrible, right, correct, right? You're doing great. That kind of you got that stuff? Yeah, exactly. Here's Melissa. She's She's one of our star one of our star patients. She's so consistent in the eights and Bo and what was their goal back then? I wonder if I can find that out. ADA goal for a 1c in, let's say, 1987 see if our chat GPT knows that was still it was less than seven back then for most adults with diabetes, right? Okay, I

Melissa 6:28
think my doctors were just don't die.

Scott Benner 6:32
Well, lovely. Do you ever remember getting any actionable advice from them?

Melissa 6:38
No, I don't honestly think that my PD, I my pediatric indo, reminded me of a mad scientist when I went in to see him. So,

Scott Benner 6:46
oh, I had a English teacher like that. Tell me how

Melissa 6:50
he just had the hair that was white, hair that was all over the place, standing straight up, and I just never really connected with him. Interesting.

Scott Benner 7:00
Do you remember him trying? I remember

Melissa 7:03
as a 1011, year old, getting questions of, do you drink? Do you smoke? Are you sexually active?

Scott Benner 7:09
Oh, a playbook. Gotcha. Yeah. How about your parents? Were they involved?

Melissa 7:15
They were involved in that. They gave me the support I need it, but I was always the kid who I got it. Don't worry about it. So when it came to I want, I want to try something like, as far as ice cream sundae or something it was, you can try it, see how it goes. If you don't like your reply checkers, we'll know, do something different next time,

Scott Benner 7:39
what would you have really changed different, like, what did adjustments? What did adjustments? Oh, it wasn't like we would try insulin differently. It was we would try a different ice cream, or a different amount of ice cream, or something like that, right? Exactly I see. But they weren't like any they weren't mad scientists. They weren't like, trying to figure things out. No,

Melissa 7:59
Mom was a general nurse. I mean, she she did med surge for years, and then went into an Office, Office nursing. So she really just dealt with type twos at work. The type one kid was a little out of her wheelhouse.

Scott Benner 8:16
Interesting. Okay, so you keep these, you know, your a one. CS, the way you said you get to college, you don't like the food. It's great. Like, I don't like the food, by the way, where did where along this line? Did you need glucagon in high school? Okay, I think I can blend these two stories together. When I ask you about this, you had to use it a number of times. Is that correct?

Melissa 8:37
Yes, in high school, I used there were like between sophomore and senior year. There were four or five Friday the 13th, and of those, I went to school, one of them, that was the last one, and one of them was due I was out due to a car accident. Everything else was glucagon related.

Scott Benner 8:59
Are you trying to tell me, Melissa, that you had seizures only on Friday the 13th in high school. Yes. How is that possible? I have no idea. That's insane. All right. Now, look, you're an adult. Now I'm going to ask you to look back, right? You weren't like leaning into the Friday the 13th

Melissa 9:17
thing? No, it never occurred to me beforehand. It was after high school all finished, and actually the neighbor sent over a stuffed animal that Friday, like the day after the Friday the 13th that the ambulance didn't come to the

Scott Benner 9:32
house. Wait, wait, wait, wait, oh, oh, because they were like, congratulations on not calling an ambulance on Friday the 13th, exactly. Oh, my God.

Melissa 9:43
We lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, so the neighbors were very observant.

Scott Benner 9:49
That's hilarious. I feel like they had to go to the store to buy the doll, like there was a whole thing that happened. They were like, oh, so for years in a row, you'd have an like, a god that's on a seizure. Or what would happen? I. My daughter is 20 years old. I can't even believe it. She was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was two, and she put her first insulin pump on when she was four. That insulin pump was an Omnipod, and it's been an Omnipod every day since then. That's 16 straight years of wearing Omnipod. It's been a friend to us, and I believe it could be a friend to you, omnipod.com/juicebox, whether you get the Omnipod dash or the automation that's available with the Omnipod five, you are going to enjoy tubeless insulin pumping. You're going to be able to jump into a shower or a pool or a bathtub without taking off your pump. That's right, you will not have to disconnect to bathe with an Omnipod. You also won't have to disconnect to play a sport or to do anything where a regular tube pump has to come off. Arden has been wearing an Omnipod for 16 years. She knows other people that wear different pumps, and she has never once asked the question, should I be trying a different pump? Never once. Omnipod.com/juice box. Get a pump that you'll be happy with forever. You can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juice box. 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/juicebox, when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juice, box. Head over there. Now,

Melissa 12:09
a seizure. The first one was, I was what 15 so sophomore year, and apparently I got up from bed, sat at the kitchen table for breakfast and went into a seizure,

Scott Benner 12:21
no different than any other day, as far as you know, as far as I know, no. All right, well, hold on a second. In the Christian tradition, both Friday and the number 13 have separate negative connotations. Friday is considered unlucky because it's believed that Jesus Christ was crucified on a Friday. That's pretty hard on Fridays, but okay, a day no now known as Good Friday. Additionally, the number 13 is Hold on a second senior Inquisition. Wait, what else do you know? Hold on, number 13 is seen as unlucky because there were 13 people present at the Last Supper.

Melissa 12:56
Oh, okay. Well, there's also like the Spanish Inquisition all the

Scott Benner 13:01
like beheadings and stuff from so you've looked into this too. I'm guessing, well, my husband is

Melissa 13:09
a fanatic around crazy stuff that

Scott Benner 13:13
you're gonna say flake when you started, when you were like, I'm like,

Melissa 13:16
give me a hard time about being Christian. That's

Scott Benner 13:20
fun. So the last supper with Judas, of course, the betrayer of Jesus, being the 13th member to sit at the table. Now, another historical event often associated with superstition is the arrest of the Knights temple on Friday, October 13, 13 107 that's what you were talking

Melissa 13:37
about. That's what I was talking about. Sorry, wrong, thing. King Philip

Scott Benner 13:41
the you know, I'm not very good with Roman numerals, but it's an I and a V, which either means four or six. I don't know of France ordered the arrest of the Knights Templar, leading to their torture and execution. This event further cemented the day's association with misfortune. I mean, it associates with me, people's desire to do something unfortunate on a day that people already think about like that, but you can't make yourself have a seizure walk into breakfast. No, there, yeah, okay, all right. Did you think about it like it was a superstitious kind of, like vibe thing after the second time or the third time? No, not

Melissa 14:18
really. Because, like I said, there was the Friday the 13th in there that I missed that was due to a car accident. It was like two days before. So it wasn't actually on Friday the 13th. It was December 11 or something. So so that that

Scott Benner 14:33
one broke you free. You're like, Huh? If there was something to this Friday the 13th thing, I would have had my accident on Friday. That's all I like the way you think seizure happens. Somebody pulls out. I mean, what are we talking about? Like that? Is it even mom

Melissa 14:48
ran to the fridge. Actually, she tilted the head, made sure I didn't hit my head too hard, make sure I didn't choke on the tongue, and had dad get the glucagon out of the fridge. And. And went through the craziness of those old glucagon kits to inject

Scott Benner 15:04
me. Yeah, they bring you out of it. No,

Melissa 15:06
I don't remember anything until I woke up at the hospital, okay,

Scott Benner 15:10
while you were alive. So, yeah, good enough. Then, do you stay in the hospital long? Do you recall I was out by that night. Like, how did they talk about it back then? Because, like, if that happened now, you'd be like, Oh, okay, I see what happened here. I Bolus here for this, and that happened, and then maybe I had some extra but did they talk to you about it like that? Oh,

Melissa 15:31
I guess you're along at your NPH is, is acting too, too much. So we they, I think they backed off my nighttime NPH, after that a little

Scott Benner 15:40
bit. Do you recall if that was unsettling to you not to have an answer

Melissa 15:44
at the time? Now, I was just like, make it stop. How old are you at that point? The first one was in 15

Scott Benner 15:53
and then you had one the next year. I probably had

Melissa 15:56
two that year, and then one the following year, and won my senior year,

Scott Benner 16:01
and they used glucagon for you every time. Yes, did you have a different outcome from the glucagon? Did you ever not have to go to the hospital? For example?

Melissa 16:10
No, I always ended up in the emergency room. I just

Scott Benner 16:14
did an interview with somebody who used G, VO, hypo, pen at work for a seizure, and I said my follow up question was about, like, you know, going for medical care. And she was, now, I went back to work. She's like, she just went back to her desk and kept working. I was like, wow. Well,

Melissa 16:29
you know, when you're in your teens, I guess your parents are a little more cautious.

Scott Benner 16:34
Yeah, the first time it happened to Arden, she's a baby. She was like, two, and we obviously went to the hospital afterwards, but even while we were sitting in the emergency room, I remember my wife and I talking and saying, I don't feel like we need to be here well, but you didn't know any better. You know, I

Melissa 16:49
didn't know any better. But the time post college that I had a seizure, my parents did call the used glucagon, called the 911, and I refused the hospital because I didn't like the outcome. So okay, I didn't like the way I felt after I was talking to my mom about it last night, and she said, yeah, you just refused because you knew what happened, and you told them you knew what happened, and you just didn't want

Scott Benner 17:16
to go. When you say you knew what happened, what do you mean by that?

Melissa 17:18
That last one, it was after college graduation I was I worked a second, third shift, double with the job I was at, and I obviously didn't have the insulin down correctly before I went to bed. Okay?

Scott Benner 17:34
And then what happened when you got to the hospital that you didn't enjoy?

Melissa 17:38
I don't know for sure, because I don't remember testing for ketones. But I'm thinking I because I didn't have they weren't giving me any insulin because my blood sugar was so low. Oh, they I think I may have tipped over to DKA at some point because they had the nausea, the vomiting, the super bad headache.

Scott Benner 17:57
So you think that the the hospital gave you eka by restricting your insulin, correct, and that's why you don't want to go back. I got you Okay? Gosh, I don't want to, like, tease this out at all, like, what is your current health situation?

Melissa 18:13
I felt some lumps in my neck a few months ago, so they've actually been looking at my thyroid over the last few years because I have a couple of nodules, and my dad actually passed away from medullary thyroid cancer.

Scott Benner 18:32
So how long ago? 1617,

Melissa 18:35
years ago.

Scott Benner 18:35
Okay. How old was he? He was 64 and you are how old I'll be 49 okay, and you have Hashimotos. Like, diagnosed?

Melissa 18:44
No, no. They just, they felt something in my thyroid. So they did a ultrasound, they found some the nodules. Yeah, they found nodules, but they were too small to to

Scott Benner 18:55
biopsy. But then, so

Melissa 18:59
I've been going, like every one to two years for follow ups on that, and about a month before my primary care annual exam, I felt some lumps on the right side of my neck, up over around the jaw line. So I brought that up to her, just because those that's actually where they found how they diagnosed dad's thyroid cancer was the lymph nodes,

Scott Benner 19:28
so she did a basic

Melissa 19:31
ultrasound of the of the lumps in the neck, and that those came back un confirmed as to what They were. So they recommended the CT scan. So I don't recommend going for a CT scan on the day, after a holiday and before, before a weekend, because when the results come back odd, you start getting crazy messages and you can't do anything on them. Last Monday, we. Got the referral to go to the ENT, got the went to the ENT yesterday, had my neck biopsied for

Scott Benner 20:06
three lymph nodes. Okay,

Melissa 20:09
so no idea what they are. It may be cancer. It may not. It's still in the craziness, but obviously it's playing some havoc with the stress and blood

Scott Benner 20:18
sugar. Oh, holy hell, Melissa, this is last week. Yeah,

Melissa 20:23
oh, this has all been in the last couple weeks, and the biopsy was yesterday. Oh,

Scott Benner 20:28
my God. So right now you are waiting for the results of a biopsy. Yes, oh, I'm sorry. Oh, well, I didn't know

Melissa 20:37
there's nothing you can do. It's just a waiting game.

Scott Benner 20:39
And oh, Melissa, listen, I'm sorry. Like, you know, in the in the human way, like I didn't actually do anything wrong. Are you freaking out?

Melissa 20:47
I'm freaking out, and I'm seeing it in my blood sugars. Obviously, how much the day after the the CT scan was probably the worst, because my endo actually got results before I got them in my chart. And she's not even in the system where the the where the CT scan was done, and she called me that Friday saying, Oh yeah, you're going to have to go for a fine needle aspiration on the lymph node, and she's not in the system. So how did she get the results? She wasn't the doctor who ordered it. So then I had to wait until Saturday before I got something in my chart saying what the results were, and the first thing they sent was a note saying, contact your PCP as soon as possible, because we found abnormalities, and our radiologists are trained to look for things that aren't necessarily what you were expecting to for them to look for. And then about an hour and a half later, the CT results came into my chart, so I got to read all the craziness of what they were thinking.

Scott Benner 21:53
Oh my gosh. And what did they make? Any pronouncements they said

Melissa 21:58
that the lymph nodes were not a focal point. So if it is cancer, probably metastatic from something either skin or head and neck.

Scott Benner 22:09
Okay, my God, how much other if any cancer is in your family line.

Melissa 22:14
My maternal grandfather had lung cancer, but he smoked

Scott Benner 22:20
up until he was probably 60 years old. Did he smoke through the cancer? No, he was, he was 85 when he passed away. Oh, I see. Okay. Well, he's not a bad run for having lung cancer, that's right. So, oh, my God. So wait, do you have kids? I do not you have you got that? The boy that likes to make fun of you, right? Yes, okay, no kids on purpose. No kids on purpose. Okay, because you hate children. Tell people,

Melissa 22:49
I do not hate children. My husband hates children. Okay,

Scott Benner 22:53
I was expecting you to say no, to go to that completely upsetting for you. The no kids, yeah, that he hates Yeah.

Melissa 23:00
We I went into I went we came into the marriage knowing that there were no expectations for children.

Scott Benner 23:05
Okay, all right, fair enough. I also

Melissa 23:09
had the history of seizures, so I was kind of scared for the diabetes. I wasn't sure what was in the future.

Scott Benner 23:16
When's the last time you had a seizure from your blood sugar? Though, probably when I was working second and third shifts, but years ago, how many years? 20? Oh, okay, you have a more modern glucagon now I imagine I do have G, VO, thank you.

Melissa 23:32
And I am now on a pump. I've been on a pump since, oh, my top story, that pump story, I got Wait, hold

Scott Benner 23:39
on a second, Melissa, you just distracted yourself. That was fascinating. Just let's get to this part first. If there's any truth to this next statement, please just agree with a lot of jubilation. I'm the reason you have jivo. Kaipo pen, absolutely. Okay. Good. Thank you. I just want them

Melissa 24:01
to hear that now. Um, Dexcom, oh,

Scott Benner 24:03
really, please list all the other sponsors who should stay with me.

Melissa 24:09
Sorry, I'm not on Omnipod. I'm on tandem. That's

Scott Benner 24:13
all right. Well, maybe we could get tandem. Do I have anything to do with that? My Facebook,

Melissa 24:18
Medtronic, Medtronic forced my hand into tandem.

Scott Benner 24:22
Oh, Medtronic guys. Okay, well, Medtronic the sponsor, so I know, yeah,

Melissa 24:27
I did stay with Medtronic for 25

Scott Benner 24:31
plus years. That's a long time. Were you happy with it through that time? Yeah, I

Melissa 24:36
think the biggest reason I switched from Medtronic was my reaction to their sensor.

Scott Benner 24:42
What was the reaction? Oh, my God, don't stab me with that.

Melissa 24:46
No, it was. It was only a seven day sensor, and I was lucky to get five days out of it and and massive skin irritation pulling off of skin when you removed the sensor. Holy,

Scott Benner 24:57
hell, like in a horror movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they're about to release their new sensor, which I

Melissa 25:03
know I my doctor wants me to switch over from tandem to Medtronic when, but I'm re I'm holding off until that newest sensor comes out.

Scott Benner 25:14
So that's super interesting. I know people are like, Scott, you're in the middle of asking her about cancer, but you know, usually I get away from the diabetes stuff to talk about other stuff. And this time you're like, let me talk about my possibilities for cancer. And I'm like, wait a minute. What about this pump

Melissa 25:29
situation? I started it because I said I have a pump story. Oh,

Scott Benner 25:32
yo. You distracted me and yourself. Why does your doctor want you just I mean, are you not having success with tandem? And what is that? G7 or g6 actually,

Melissa 25:41
I'm on my first g7 right now. Okay, I am having success my last a 1c, was a

Scott Benner 25:49
six, two. What the hell are we switching for?

Melissa 25:51
She thinks that I put too much energy into some corrections. So she likes the idea of the lower target rate on the Medtronic at 100 for me, so that I have less mental

Scott Benner 26:04
distraction. Do you feel distracted at times? You do. I mean, did you bring this up to her, or did she tell you this is how you felt?

Melissa 26:13
I had gone to a JDRF thing.

Scott Benner 26:18
I think it's called Breakthrough. Wait, what do they call it now? Break

Melissa 26:21
break through. T, 1d Yeah, or T, 1d break through. They might

Scott Benner 26:24
have wanted to workshop that another five minutes, but okay, yeah, I can't remember it. I said JDRF to somebody in a recording yesterday, and they were like, break through. T, 1d, and I was like, Don't look for me to understand that anytime soon. Okay, so you went to an event. I'm sorry.

Melissa 26:37
And I, I was just kind of going through the vendors, and talked to somebody from from Medtronic, and we were talking about the new sensor and how it was going to look a little similar to the g7 and what the results were in Europe, and also with the Medtronic, with the lower target target, she went and gave me the information, and then I was going to, like, a week later, I had an endo appointment, and she's like, What do you think? I'm like, actually, I was just going to talk to you about that. I have another couple six to nine months on tandem before my warranty is up, but I'm thinking about it. She's like, okay, like, I'd like to try the sensor when it comes out and gets FDA approval before I commit. And that, I think that's going to be the biggest sticking point is, how is, how I react to the sensor?

Scott Benner 27:35
Yeah, well, yeah, but you're gonna give it a try. Yeah. You have any idea? I'm trying to find out if they have approval yet for their new

Melissa 27:45
I think they're forecasting like November, December.

Scott Benner 27:50
Medtronic has received FDA approval for their latest continuous glucose monitor system, the mini med seven, ADG. We know that that was 2023, this is not what I wanted to know. I've been let down by our by our overlords. Should I say, No, Overlord, that's not what I'm asking you. Do you think it would I don't know. Let's try that real quick. No, Overlord, I want to know about the newest CGM.

Melissa 28:18
I know it has European approval, but hasn't been approved in the US yet. Oh,

Scott Benner 28:23
it found it. It doesn't mention that. I called it an overlord though. Metronics latest CGM system is the sim player sync trademark, which is designed to work with the MiniMed 780 G, which I do hear good things about from people. The simplara Sync trademark is a disposable all in one CGM that eliminates the need for finger sticks and over tapes, really offering a simpler and faster, two step insertion process that takes less than 10 seconds. Okay, it's received its CE mark approval in Europe and expected to be available in Europe, blah, blah, which it is, we know in the summer of 2024 however, it has not yet received FDA approval for the use, and I guess it's in the in the works right now. As far as, yes, yeah, this is concerned, okay, also, what you told me, so didn't really need that at all. But you like the Medtronic, you'd like to go back to it. I

Melissa 29:16
wouldn't have an especially if it targets 100 I would be ecstatic to go back.

Scott Benner 29:21
Is it that simple? I don't mean to cut you off, but like, Jenny, always when I asked Jenny, like, if you could change the world, Jenny, what would you change? She was always like, I never understand why someone doesn't make an insulin pump that has the best features from all of the insulin pumps. I

Melissa 29:35
don't like the touch screen on the tandem. I my fingers get clumsy. I'm getting older, I find it somewhat cumbersome, actually, sometimes, because you get out of the shower, and I don't mean to, I take it off pause after I get out of the shower, but I don't mean to initiate a Bolus, and next thing I know, I'm getting a Bolus incomplete. Alert. That's annoying. So Okay. And I also missed the old just fill up the syringe and throw it in the pump, as opposed to fill out the syringe, insert it into the cartridge, and then it's less cumbersome than me.

Scott Benner 30:11
Hey, listen, what's good for you is what's best, obviously, but I love that you're like, it's my big, dumb old fingers. And so I have to tell you I was running behind for this today with you, and I wanted to send you a text to let you know I was running behind. I hope you got that.

Melissa 30:29
I did about 30 seconds before you hopped on. I sent you a thumbs up. Okay,

Scott Benner 30:35
cool. Just for everyone to know, if you've ever received a text from me, it's from a Benner phone, and please, I don't ever look at it. I had to unlock the phone and and I only have like, a four number, like code on it, but I was, I didn't my glasses on because I'm old, and I'm like, I don't know if you've ever had this before, like, you type too many numbers, but you got a wrong one in there. So it's like, not only did you get the code wrong, but now there's an inserted number already, uh huh, and then I go back to the beginning and start over, and so, um, I get it wrong three times in a row or whatever, and the phone's like, I'm sorry. Like, you know, try again in one minute. I was like, what the and I felt, I felt exactly the way you described. Like, Oh my god, I'm so dumb and big and lumpy and old. I couldn't put numbers into the front of a phone. It's exactly how I felt. I just put it down. I styled my hair and said while I waited for the minute, I could feel myself getting irritated. But you know, if I'm messing with a pump every day and I'm having that experience, I'd switch to listen Medtronic again. I think, you know this stuff is all. It runs in a big cycle, right? So Medtronic, Medtronic comes out first with their algorithm. And fair enough, it was on that old CGM people don't seem to enjoy and the algorithm itself was like a first shot. And people are like, Ah, it's not great. And then, you know what happens next? Is it like, is it basal IQ? Maybe comes next. And then, you know, like, people are like, Oh, okay, it shuts off your basal. If you're gonna get low, that's nice. And, you know, then all of a sudden they have control IQ. And now there's Omnipod five, and then there's islet and, like, all this stuff starts piling up. Meanwhile, Medtronic has been working on a new CGM, and they obviously heard people say things like, Don't stab me with that, please. And like, you know, like, try to get that worked out. But I don't know that we ever take the time to and I break Medtronic balls all the time here. Like, even though they're a sponsor, I still will talk about this stuff. They know that it's, you know, I don't think it's a big secret to them, and it's not a big secret to anybody's used it. But they went back and said, Hey, let's fix this. Yeah, now they're going to be a little ahead again, because they're listening to what people don't like about other systems. And they probably said, it seems important to have a lower target. We should probably work on that.

Melissa 32:53
Well, you know, I can't, I can't bad math too much, because they did send me to California for a couple days. Well, that

Scott Benner 32:59
is not, that's not okay. That's that shouldn't be like that. Why didn't you say you don't speak well about people because they're paying you.

Melissa 33:09
But I got to, I got the toy there facility. They actually interviewed me, and I showed them what, what their sensor did to me.

Scott Benner 33:14
Oh, oh. They brought you out to be of like, to show you something that you didn't What did it do to you? They're like, right now, the people who pay me are like, don't ask her what it did. But I'm asking, what did it do?

Melissa 33:27
Just, just the the pulling off of the skin and the actually, like, quarter size bumps under the CGM site.

Scott Benner 33:33
They actually wanted to see it in person. No, it wasn't

Melissa 33:37
so much that they wanted to see that in person. They had some contest going with their first with their first algorithm pump, which I was on, I just kept entering all my blood sugars and putting in the information, and I'm thinking, I'll never win a win a prize. And I got the grand prize for for us, it was a all expenses trip to California for a few days and a fishing trip. And

Scott Benner 34:05
finally, this diabetes thing is paying off. I hear you Exactly, exactly. Well, okay, well, lovely, very nice Medtronic. I know no one's ever taken me fishing, but that's neither here nor there, by the way, if someone offers to take me fishing, like if they heard that just now, like we could take, please, don't I don't want to go. Leave me alone. They

Melissa 34:23
had a couple of different excursions. We picked the one that would fit my husband best, so he would go happily. This

Scott Benner 34:29
guy, he gets to pick the kids. And the excursion he does puts up with my butt. Wait, what's wrong with your butt? Nothing. He just puts up with me. Oh, you. I thought you. I thought you were gonna tell me, look, I have a very strange but, and he puts up with it. But that was not what you were saying. Gotcha.

Melissa 34:47
He just puts up with me. Oh, my God,

Scott Benner 34:49
well please, by the way, I don't want you thinking about yourself that way. What are you doing that needs to be put up with

Melissa 34:56
like I said, I we, we've been married for a while, and. He was around when I did have some of my seizures on second and third shift. So he saved my my life a couple times. And, well, it's lovely, yeah, but

Scott Benner 35:09
you feel like you owe him. He stopped me alive. Hey, listen, if my wife's listening, it'd be nice if you acted like you owed me once in a while. You know what I mean? Just like, I'm not saying every day or anything like that, but maybe, like, once a year, my birthday or something to be, you know, take Melissa's attitude.

Melissa 35:24
We don't do birthdays. We don't do Christmas. We just, we give each other a hand up when we can. Oh, very

Scott Benner 35:29
nice. Okay, well, and I don't need it on a certain day. Kelly, if you're listening, just, you know, hear what Melissa's saying. See how nice it sounds. I'm just, I'm, well, I'm not teasing I probably would like that. I don't expect it is what I'm getting at. Oh, my God. All right, so wait a minute, so you might change back to I confused myself too. You might change back to Medtronic, but what's your insulin pump story? Okay, so

Melissa 35:54
way back in 93 when I was put on an insulin pump, it was like three days in the hospital to get me regulated.

Scott Benner 36:00
That's how they used to do it, right? They'd put you in the hospital to get your pump set up. No kidding, okay,

Melissa 36:05
and my roommate was also being put on an insulin pump,

Scott Benner 36:08
and you're still best friends. I, actually,

Melissa 36:11
I, I have no idea who she is.

Speaker 1 36:15
That was the pump story. Sorry, 17 year old.

Scott Benner 36:21
All right, I thought that was the pop story. Okay, go ahead. So

Melissa 36:24
yeah, you know, just the craziness of how things have changed, where now you maybe have, okay, you get a two hour training with a trainer, and that's it. This was three days off and on with a trainer in a hospital where you don't have your normal activity, so they have no idea what's going on. Which is better? I like the more current.

Scott Benner 36:45
Yeah, makes sense to me. First, the thing they do is they make you sedentary. Yeah, exactly, yeah. What if you're an active person, and now they're setting up your insulin for you sitting around, then you go back to being active again, and boom, drop through the floor low. Yeah.

Melissa 36:59
What do you expect for a 17 year old to be sitting around in bed?

Scott Benner 37:04
Is that not so obvious when they said to themselves, when the first person was like, You know what? There's a lot to train here. Well, bring him into the hospital for a couple days, because this is where the staff is. Because I'm assuming that's what happened. How come the next thought wasn't, uh, what if they're track stars and we're bringing them in and stopping them from running for three days. Do they not know how insulin works?

Melissa 37:24
I don't know if the stuff, if knowledge has changed so much in the past 25 years or what, but

Scott Benner 37:30
I don't know interesting. I mean, it's very interesting. If that your whole story, that they put you in the hospital,

Melissa 37:36
yeah, they, I've never heard anybody else say that they've been in the hospital for being put on a pump.

Scott Benner 37:41
All right, Melissa, listen, I don't love that story. I mean, I felt like something exciting was gonna happen, kind of boring, but nothing happened. Oh, geez, you didn't like you were 17. You didn't break out and steal drugs or anything in the hospital or find a boy your age, and nothing like this at all.

Melissa 37:57
Nah, I got to watch my first pay per view while I was in there.

Scott Benner 38:00
Damn year old. God, damn year old. I know

Melissa 38:05
there wasn't much going on on New Year's Eve.

Scott Benner 38:08
Jesus Christ, wait, they put you in there on New Year's Eve.

Melissa 38:11
A couple I got out on New Year's Day. What a

Scott Benner 38:15
bummer. No, yeah, jeez, that's that. That's the worst part of the story to me. Hey, what was the pay per view? What did you watch JFK with Kevin Costner, yep. Hmm. Why you were 17? Why did you pick that one?

Melissa 38:35
There was nothing else that looked like it was good and it was something my parents would approve of. Were

Scott Benner 38:40
they there for it? Oh, you had to, like, you had to call your parents at home and say, I'd like to pay for a movie on the television. Is it okay if I watch JFK? Yeah, no kidding,

Melissa 38:54
to visit, and I asked them, but yeah,

Scott Benner 38:57
my kid called me an asshole the other day. That's incredible. It was playful and loving and all. And I believe my other kids said to me the other day, well, that's when I'm talking to you idiots. You're like dialing the phone the ring and like the mother, Mama, hello. I was wondering, can I spend some of the family's gold coins on. JFK, do you want to watch? JFK, no, I just thought it would be something you would agree to about that. Well,

Melissa 39:29
nothing else really appealed to me. I don't even remember what else was on, but all right,

Scott Benner 39:34
are you a big Kevin Costner fan to this day? Depends

Melissa 39:37
on what it is, Skippy Field of Dreams, and I'll sit down and watch it. JFK, I'll sit down and watch it. But some of the other stuff, not necessarily. You didn't like Yellowstone. I've never watched yellow stone.

Scott Benner 39:47
What in the hell, Melissa? What have you been doing? It's too late now. He's off the show. I don't know how they're gonna get rid of him, but he's not

Melissa 39:54
there anymore. I can always stream from the beginning. Wait a minute,

Scott Benner 39:57
very quickly, and I'm sorry to do this to other people. What Kevin Costner, movies are no go. I mean, water world. I Yeah, that that was a man, the postman. No, right? Yeah, garbage. Let's say it's just, let's say garbage. What else like do you have, like, a did you go see her? I

Melissa 40:15
don't have a list. You name them. I can tell you Yay or Nay, but really, definitely, I will watch Field of Dreams, hands down and and JFK,

Scott Benner 40:24
are these movies that you've all you've seen, and now you know what you think of or you've you've dismissed some of them because you're like, No, no,

Melissa 40:33
dismiss some of them just based on on description. Okay,

Scott Benner 40:37
really. I like, yeah, okay, all right. I want to remind people that when I was a child, the cable company gave us a box that went on top of our television that we would change channels with. It was revolutionary at the time. It just had a dial on the front and you just clicked it, and it had these, like, never ending numbers, and you could click around. Now, my father paid the cable guy to go climb up the pole and take out the blocker that blocked all the pay channels. So he literally found a guy to climb a pole. And back then, there was, like, a physical thing in the line that stopped you from getting certain signals. So he paid a guy to climb the pole, take the block route. So we got, like, HBO and like all this stuff, we were very poor, so this was pretty fantastic for us. But if you took a credit card size thing, I'm not lying to you, and slid it through the top, between the face of the box and the top of the box, there was a gap, and you slid that credit card thing in there, you could get soft core porn. Remember, I was a child, you had to go to a certain number and then go halfway between that number and the other one and pause it there, and then slide the thing in, and then you would see blurry boobs moving around. They weren't clear pictures. I want you to be 100% clear. And we thought that was like the greatest thing that ever

Melissa 41:58
happened. Well, at least you had cable.

Scott Benner 42:01
That's your response. I love that. All right, ready? We're gonna go rapid fire. Kevin Costner, movies, you just go yes or no, I'm going all the way back to the beginning. Sizzle Beach, USA. Never heard of it. Chasing dreams, never heard he was a night shift. Never heard of it. Francis, never heard of it. Stacy's nights. Never heard of it. All right, let's do three in a row, table for five testament. Shadows run black, nah. Never heard of them. Fandango, American Flyer, Fandango is okay, okay. Silverado, okay. Untouchables, that one was pretty good. No way out, no bull dorm, that was good. Field of Dreams. Absolutely revenge. Never heard of it. Dances with Wolves. I like that one. Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Like that one. JFK, absolutely the bodyguard. And everyone's iffy. A perfect world to what was the bodyguard to what? Too mushy. Okay, a perfect world. Never heard of it. Wyatt, Earp, that was good. The war. Never heard of it. Water World, no tin cup. The postman message in a bottle. Say no to all three, right now, go ahead.

Melissa 43:18
No, no, no, no, for

Scott Benner 43:20
love of the game. Haven't seen it? 13 days. No 3000 miles to Graceland or dragonfly. 3000 miles to Graceland. You liked open range? Never heard of it. I am a big fan of open range. The Upside of Anger. Rumor has it, The Guardian, Mr. Brooks, swing votes, no to all of them. I agree. All right, now we're getting to the end. Now, the company Man, Man of Steel. Oh, the company man. I haven't heard of that one, me either. Man of Steel. He was Superman's dad, right? I do like Superman. I didn't like that one. Okay, all right. Jack Ryan shadow recruit. He's pretty good in Jack Ryan movies, three days to kill, Draft Day, black or white. Never heard of him? McFarland, USA criminal, no. All right, here's a movie I really enjoyed, Hidden Figures. That was good. Molly's game. They haven't heard of it. It's a good movie. All right, let's say, let him go. We don't know. All right, okay, I stopped there, and then horizon just came out. But apparently, from what I read, he and his wife and three other people went and saw it. But I wanted to see it, but I don't know what to tell you. All right. So, so, Kevin Costner, you're saying, yeah, so it didn't turn you into a Kevin Costner fan. No, but it didn't turn you off of Kevin Costner Exactly. The reason I went all through this is because when Arden was diagnosed, we had this portable DVD player, and she watched the same movie over and over again on the portable DVD player. Or in the hospital sky high. Do you know the film? I do not. It's a, like a Disney kind of superhero thing. Okay, I don't think it was a Disney movie, though, but it had that vibe. Kurt Russell, oh. Kelly Preston, the departed Kelly Preston was in it anyway. She watched it over and over and over again. She loves the movie. My wife hates it. My wife has this like visceral reaction to the movie, like it takes her back to the hospital, and she really doesn't like it.

Melissa 45:31
Well, you know, it wasn't a diagnosis thing. It was just something to kill time for something that I wanted anyway. So I guess there's no bad memories with it. I didn't watch it over and over and over again. It was a one time three hours. Well, yeah,

Scott Benner 45:45
you had to pay for it. If you wanted to start it over, you had to pay again. All right, just to fill out this part, what is your favorite movie? Oh, gosh, what's a great watch? Many movies really, do you watch television? I watch television, but it's if you and what I watch, what do you do with your free time? I'll read, reading. Oh, books. Yes, so much reading. I don't enjoy it. I'll tell you that I don't like the sitting around part. I don't know why I don't like reading. I'm just I'm such a bad reader. When I was doing when I was doing press for my book that I wrote, The PR guy pulled me aside, and he goes, Stop mentioning that you don't read. And I was like, okay, like, but I don't I'm like, isn't it more impressive that I don't read and I wrote a book. And he's like, I see how you're thinking, but that is not what people are going to hear. And I was like, Okay, fine. Nevertheless,

Speaker 2 46:39
I did audio books, right? Yeah, that makes

Scott Benner 46:43
more sense. Let somebody talk it to me into my ears. So tell me right now, like I feel like I'm almost distracting you today, like I feel like I'm part of like the good work that is you not having to pay attention to the fact that you're waiting for results on something. How long is it going to take to get the results? Like, when do you get everything they

Melissa 47:01
said, up

Scott Benner 47:02
to a week a week. Yeah, holy, you and your husband have spoken about this. Yeah. What's our level of concern? Is he like, doing crunches trying to get back into dating weight? Or like, is like, are you guys, like, it'll be okay? Or like, dating, wait, wait, what'd you say

Melissa 47:20
he's too lazy to try doing crunches to get back into late dating week? I got, I got some insurance premiums yesterday, and I looked at him and said, Oh, I guess I should definitely play pay these today, huh? Or before they're due. But is that working? I don't let it lapse, yeah.

Scott Benner 47:35
Is that where you're I mean, I guess I'm being serious. And I want to ask you, like, what's this, like, this spot right here. What does it feel like?

Melissa 47:43
I think the fact that they were jumping so much this week or last week, when the results came in, like I had, I saw I got the results from my chart. So Monday afternoon, I called an ENT to get a biopsy, and it was originally scheduled for August, so that was really because they pushed crazy. Yeah, so my doctor actually called the next on Tuesday. She called me on Tuesday and was trying to go over everything, and she's like, I'm gonna send an urgent referral for ENT and oncology. And if you don't need oncology, we can cancel, but I you definitely need the ENT. So I told her I had it in August, and she's like, I'm glad you got it within a month, but let's see if we can get something sooner. And yeah, it was a month sooner. Or so, so

Scott Benner 48:41
that that startles you a little bit, because whatever they saw, they were like, yeah, we can. We'll squeeze her in. Yeah, no, that makes sense. But

Melissa 48:48
the EMT yesterday said, Well, it's only three nodules, so it's not terrible. So I don't know. I guess I'm just kind of, did

Scott Benner 48:57
they give you any idea about what steps are like if it's not cancer, what is it? If it is cancer, what do you do? No, no, just hey, go home and

Melissa 49:06
they can't. They said, Yeah, they can't tell me prognosis or what treatment will be until they type it. The ENT yesterday mentioned lymphoma, which kind of scared me a little more than some of the skin cancer type stuff, yeah, but

Scott Benner 49:22
I don't know, we'll see, wow, this such just a, it's like an, what is the word I'm looking for? Like, it's, there's nothing to do, yeah? And so what are you doing? Are you keeping yourself busy, or are you actually, like thinking about it and making yourself upset?

Melissa 49:39
Fourth of July weekend, I was really getting myself upset, but since I you know, today is the first work day that I've had off since everything started, so I'm probably going to be a little more uptight, but I do have a meeting this afternoon, so that'll take my mind off. It a little bit. Yeah, so we'll see you've

Scott Benner 50:01
been talking to family. I heard you say you were speaking to your mom. Do you usually speak to your mom? Oh,

Melissa 50:05
yeah, I my mom knows everything that's going on. I let one of my brothers know because I kind of nervous around my nieces. I don't I've got a trip coming up to see them next month, and I don't want to say something wrong in front of them, so kind of

Scott Benner 50:22
talk it through with your brother first. Yeah, what was his reaction? He's

Melissa 50:27
concerned. He's like, let me know what I can do. We may be making it. We may be making the trip instead of you, but he's like, we'll we'll deal with the kids and what happens? Happens?

Scott Benner 50:39
What about your mother? How old is she now? She let's see. Sorry, you have to do the mental math. You're fine. 77 and she lost her husband like 15 years ago to something that's scarily sounding like what's happening to you. So how did she respond?

Melissa 50:58
She's nervous. She's let me know if I need to make a fight up. That's her response to everything. Let me know if you need me to fly up.

Scott Benner 51:06
Can she fly 77

Melissa 51:09
she can is she? She chooses to fly as since dad passed, she's been a world traveler. She's been to on an African safari to Greece,

Scott Benner 51:19
all over. Oh, my. She's like, Oh, this guy's finally gone. I can go do some stuff.

Melissa 51:25
They did some trips together.

Scott Benner 51:27
Okay, good, yeah. So right now, it's a lot about, like, what can I do for you? Tell me what to do, yeah? I mean, it's a feeling of of helplessness for everybody, right? Yeah, you're the only one who has to lay on the other layer of like, you know the rest of it, although it's not true, I guess people who love you start to imagine the world you know, with and without you, and that's terrible, because you're thinking about the same thing. Great. How about your husband? Is he like being goofy? Is he doing like, Boy stuff and like, acting silly, like it's a big or is he very serious about it?

Melissa 52:05
He's kind of take it as it comes. Type guy. Since we've been married, both of our fathers have passed away. His mom's passed away, his sisters passed away, his brothers passed away, so we've dealt with loss. So he's just kind of, we'll see. We'll take it as it comes. I'm so sorry.

Scott Benner 52:22
First of all, I don't know if I've said this yet, but I'm sorry you're going through this. It's, you know, obviously horrible. And I hope you get a fantastic outcome. I hope they're like, Oh my God, you have bumps. Those are just bumps. Yeah, well, just, well, just, do you like them? Or you can keep them if you want them. But my real question about this is because you've a couple of times talked about living in a smaller place, right? Like, I don't know where you are geographically. I'm not really asking you to tell me, but are you in the best place to have cancer dealt with?

Melissa 52:52
I am near a very good hospital system, excellent. I'm

Scott Benner 52:57
glad. Like, I'm a bit of a snob. I live on the east coast, like, so I live around some of the, like, best cancer centers and, like, you know, like that exist. Like, so is it good for your area, or is it good it's nationally ranked? That's what I want to hear. Okay, great. And then we're gonna go in there and get a plan together and enact the plan and go correct so your life could, like be a whirlwind in a week. Yeah. What happens if treatment impacts your employment? Are you looking at how to take medical leave and stuff like that?

Melissa 53:35
I have spoken with our company nurse. Our company is amazing because, well, our site of the company is amazing because we have like, four or five type ones on site, and the company nurse is aware of everything that's going on, as far as that goes. And I spoke with her, and here's what we offer. We offer FMLA concurrent with a short term disability, and the short term disability goes up to six months, and then after that, you long term disability kicks in for another six months. So

Scott Benner 54:10
you could possibly have a year covered where you can get some side of an income. That's that's good to know. I mean, as soon you know the company nurse because of type one, you've probably had interactions with her. You literally have to walk into an office and say, Hey, Becky. I'm finding out right now, but it's possible I might have cancer.

Melissa 54:31
Yeah, yeah, just because I know personally, they've gone she's gone through

Scott Benner 54:36
it with other people, some other people, right? But I mean, for you, you're having to tell your brother and your mother and your husband and the nurse and like, I'm trying to figure out what it's like to walk into a room and have to say something kind of so, you know, heavy to

Melissa 54:55
somebody I started it with. Can I make an appointment to talk to you about. FMLA, it was an email. FMLA, they're looking at a possible cancer diagnosis. Everything's still in in testing stages. They know it's all in testing. They they know nothing. So she came in, she I walked into the appointment, and she was just there as a ear to listen.

More than anything. How about for you, though it was

nice just to get it off my chest, because there's some things you don't want to say to people. So I was a little less guarded, I

Scott Benner 55:31
guess, okay, that was kind of the thing I was wondering, like, is it cathartic just to say it out loud? It is it is okay, because it feels less insane every time you say it, yeah, okay to Don't bottle it up. Exactly, okay. That's what I was wondering. Because almost like, you know, do you remember being like, I don't know, like you're young, and something happens to you and you just, you feel weird, but you like, you ever have a friend who, like, breaks up and they're like, with somebody, and then they run around telling everybody their sad breakup story? I thought, story 1000 times, and then you realize they're just trying to, like, work through it, yeah, yeah. It almost felt like, and I feel like I'm doing that honestly. That's kind of what it felt like to me, and that's what I was wondering about. Like, are you basically, like, on a like, hey, Melissa, may or may not have Tor, but so that you can make yourself not right with it, but maybe you know, right. Wow, yep. Did you ever have anything as this series happened to you? Personally? To me? Personally? No, no, this is your first time. Well, oh,

Melissa 56:37
I guess there was the crazy head scare when I was having the migraines a year after my dad passed away, and they came back with an MRI. And while I was in the MRI, saw the technicians jump up and sent me to the neurosurgeon

Scott Benner 56:51
from that and what was that? It was just

Melissa 56:55
ended up being that my genes mutated so that the bone doesn't reform correctly in the base of my skull.

Scott Benner 57:04
Oh, okay, but it looked odd on the MRI. Yeah, I gotcha. Well, that was good news. You're like, oh, is it just, is it just my mutation? That's fantastic. Thank you. Yeah. Are you growing something like a, like a reverse horn, or anything like that. Or did they not say actually,

Melissa 57:24
it was a lack of growing bone.

Scott Benner 57:26
Oh, oh, like a gap. No kidding,

Melissa 57:29
yeah, it looks like my skull has osteoporosis. Basically, I have a lump

Scott Benner 57:33
on the back of my head, like on my skull that I've had my entire life. And now this is crazy, but now that I've lost weight, my head has gotten smaller, and it's now obvious where it wasn't before. And I was sitting with Arden the other day, and she just kind of like, she was like, scratching the back of my head, and she goes, what is on your head? And I was like, I was like, Oh, that's my skull. It's always been there. I said. I told her. I said, my brain got bigger and it needed to go somewhere. So it had to make, like, a little bubble for it to go for it to go into. But it's so crazy that, like, of all the weird things, like, I wonder how many people's skulls have weird little malformations, I guess is what I was wondering. But all right, okay, so what do I do for you? I mean, we're like, at the end of our thing, like, I'll ask you, like, did we talk about everything you want to talk about? I want to make sure I didn't skip anything for you. But like, is there something like, I know there's something great content. Scott, that's it. I just have to make a podcast. Oh, okay, I can do this.

Melissa 58:33
There are so many days I end up really and I'll be at work listening on my earbuds, and just enjoy the stories, or I'll be running a test, and I have tears forming in my eyes and I can't look at anybody based on the story, but the content is great. You you always have the great personality. Go with it. And I love the community. I'm glad

Scott Benner 58:57
you're in the private Facebook group. I am good. Good. Well, if you need any support, that might be a place to go. Yeah, I know it'd be a weird thing, though, to tell would it be a weird thing to tell a bunch of strangers I don't know like part of me thinks Yes, and part of me thinks no, but I guess that's a very personal decision. My

Melissa 59:17
Facebook postings on it have been very minimal. I told my workout group on Facebook, we're all type ones, and we work out together. But other than that, nobody else on Facebook knows you

Scott Benner 59:30
have a digital workout group. Yeah,

Melissa 59:33
that's cool. We do our own thing, but we kind of throw Hey, hints, tips, how to control the blood sugars with the

Scott Benner 59:41
workout. You know, one of the most rewarding things that happens to me that I never expected was, like, people will send me pictures of they're like, Hey, this is my friend. You know, we both have type one. We met because we listened to the podcast. It's so nice, like when people meet each other like that in real life, or even. You know, can form a group online, and, yeah, it's really wonderful. Yeah,

Melissa 1:00:04
no kidding. Well, I told him that we have like, four or five type ones on site at work, and I work in a lab, that there are currently two people on at one point, there was three, and the third person had type one, and we were both on the same pump. And

Scott Benner 1:00:19
that feels good, right to meet somebody in that situation. Yeah, you can bounce things off of if it ends up that you have cancer, do you think you'll look for community around that as well? I don't know, because

Melissa 1:00:33
to me, cancer, diabetes is something that I have control over. I can control how much insulin I give. I can control how I work out. I can control what I eat. I don't know if I have the control over the cancer. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:00:46
no, I understand. I'm gonna ask one last question. Is that okay? Do you ever have any feelings of like, Why me like diabetes now this other stuff, like, do you ever think

Melissa 1:00:58
I was young, but and I did when my dad was passing away, but as of right now, no, okay,

Scott Benner 1:01:05
would you, oh, that was too morbid. I actually thought of a question I'm not asking you. Never mind. Okay, well, that's even weirder not to say it. Yeah, okay, sorry, sorry, all right, I'm sorry. Then I'm sorry to say I should just ask it. Is that? Is he there? No, he's not. Oh, okay. If you were to pass away at any point, do you look back and say, life well lived. Feel good about it. Do you have things you think, oh, I should have done that? Are those things popping into your head right now? There

Melissa 1:01:38
are things that I wonder if I would have been better suited at like as far as career wise goes, because college was pre med but I chose not to go to med school. I decided to do lab work instead of dealing with people, because

Scott Benner 1:01:55
when you say dealing with people, it makes it sound like you've made the right choice.

Melissa 1:02:01
Well, not in a bad sense. I enjoy people. I enjoy making, giving them a little bit of a ray. But I still, you know, I, I guess, in order to do that, to do stuff like that, I'll just, like when I go to the gas station and I'll hold the door for somebody. Doesn't matter who they are. They may be younger or older, I don't care. I'll just hold the door. Maybe it'll give them a smile.

Scott Benner 1:02:26
When you think about that question, you went right to like, who I am in my working life,

Melissa 1:02:32
that's all I really have. I mean, I've got my nieces, and unfortunately, I don't get to see them as much as I'd like.

Scott Benner 1:02:38
And like I said,

Melissa 1:02:41
I still wonder if I would have been better being a doctor, being a doctor, going into nursing, something like that. You think you could have accomplished it? Definitely nursing. I'm not sure about med school, right? Well, that was still I was in all in the ups and downs of learning the pump. And

Scott Benner 1:02:59
do you think that this is a thing where you'll, like, a month from now be like, Wow, I can't believe I had a cancer scare and I don't have cancer. I'm gonna go to nursing school or a year from now, like, I can't believe I had cancer and I I beat cancer. Like, I'm going to nursing Do you think you'll make a big change?

Melissa 1:03:15
Probably not, just because there's always the cost of nursing school,

Scott Benner 1:03:20
the financial aspects of it, yeah, I understand. Okay, well, I mean, it's fair to say, I hope you send me an email and tell me how you're doing and anything you want me to add into this recording. You have months and months to send me an email first. So if you have something that you want to add at least six, at least, what? At least six months? Oh, for me, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. No, no, you have at least six months until, like, your thing will come out. So if the if you have any new information you want to send, send it to me. And literally, this will stop. People will hear ads, and then I'll, I'll read your information at the end of this. Okay, thank you. Can you hold for me for a second? Stay on the line, sure. Thank you.

The conversation you just heard was sponsored by Dexcom and the Dexcom g7 learn more and get started today at dexcom.com/juicebox, a huge thanks to Omnipod, not just my longest sponsor, but my first one, omnipod.com/juice box. If you love the podcast and you love two plus insulin pumps, this link is for you. Omnipod.com/juice box. Are you starting to see patterns but you can't quite make sense of them? You're like, Oh, if I Bolus here, this happens, but I don't know what to do. Should I put in a little less, a little more if you're starting to have those thoughts, if you're starting to think this isn't going the way the doctor said it would, I think I see something here, but I can't be sure. Once you're having those thoughts, you're ready for the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast. It begins at Episode One. 1000 you can also find it at Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu, and you can find a list in the private Facebook group. Just check right under the featured tab at the top, it'll show you lists of a ton of stuff, including the Pro Tip series, which runs from episode 1000 to 1025 so I've received two follow up emails since I've recorded with Melissa, the first one says, Scott, thank you for letting me share my C word scare story as I'm going through it. I realized after we ended the recording that when you asked about my current health, I immediately jumped into my current drama. Here are the answers to some of your normal autoimmune questions. As far as I know, there were no other autoimmune issues in my family. However, as I hear more and more about Lada, I wonder if my grandmother on dad's side had Lada instead of type two. She was diagnosed type two around the same time I was type one, and I remember her taking insulin soon after, and excuse me, soon after, I started on insulin. However, I hit the jackpot with the auto immune issues among along with type one diabetes, I have Raynauds, PCOS, unconfirmed celiac. I have the genetic markers, but I refuse to the gluten challenge endoscopy, because of how ill I will get if I eat gluten. The update on my biopsy says no cancer cells detected. She's very excited. Thank you again for a great podcast. Let me share my drama with you and the listeners. She then follows up again. I wanted to give you another update to this. Besides no cancer cells were detected, what I didn't comprehend at first was that there weren't any cancer cells detected because only about 500 cells were gathered, and a definitive result requires approximately 100,000 to one to 1 million cells. So I opted for a full lymph node removal of the affected lymph nodes, and in office procedure using lidocaine that came back without lymphoma detected, but it was noted that lymph nodes showed extensive necrotizing gram, oh, gosh, granuloma, itis a lotus granuloma. Bo, okay, inflammation with no detected microorganisms, without the microorganisms detected. The thought was to send me to a rheumatologist to test for additional autoimmune conditions. Testing for these came back inconclusive. So the next step is infectious disease specialist in January of 2025 which is when this is coming out. And so the craziness continues. Melissa says, but I am not as high strung as the day we spoke in July. 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. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com, you.

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Scott Benner 1/10/25 Scott Benner 1/10/25

#1403 Grain Elevator

Katie's daughter has type 1 and uses Omnipod 5

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
We are all together again friends for the next episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Katie is a returning guest. She was initially in the episode called Meet the Flintstones. She's the mother of a child with type one diabetes. Today, we're going to talk a lot about Omnipod five, gonna talk about community and where she's been and what she's done. 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 health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. 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/juicebox, and take the survey. When you complete that survey, your answers are used to move type one diabetes research of all kinds. So if you'd like to help with type one research, but don't have time to go to a doctor or an investigation and you want to do something right there from your sofa, this is the way t 1d exchange.org/juicebox it should not take you more than about 10 minutes. 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 Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Eversense 365 you can experience the ever since 365 CGM system for as low as $199 for a full year. Visit Eversense cgm.com/juicebox for more details and eligibility. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's dressing hyperglycemia head on a topic that often gets overshadowed by the focus on hypoglycemia. Learn more at Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper

Katie 2:08
Hi. I am Katie. I have a daughter with type one diabetes, and I also have an older daughter. I was interviewed by you Scott, about two years ago, and during that interview, you had asked if I would come back and be interviewed about two years down the road, and here we are. Katie,

Scott Benner 2:26
this is fantastic. I'll tell you why in a minute. Not right now, first, I want to say you have an older daughter who doesn't have type one. How old is she? 1313? The t1 is 1111, when was she diagnosed? 2021? Oh, gosh, so for three years she was eight, yeah, around Correct. Okay, you've been married a long time.

Katie 2:51
Oh, we're to the point where we start doing the math, and we're at a wedding this last weekend. So I think we're at like, 17 years. Oh,

Scott Benner 2:58
you're the mid level aged people at the wedding now. Oh yeah, yep, yeah. You're not the old people, but you're not the young people anymore. Yeah,

Katie 3:06
we're definitely in that middle group, the older people, the baby boomers, all have their phones recording like the first dance. And we're like, we're not in that group, and then we had the young people and that we're all enjoying themselves, and we're not part of that group either. But yes, definitely in the middle

Scott Benner 3:21
group. You're like, I don't need to watch your dance again ever on my phone. So no to that. And I don't care how many tequila flutes I can get down. So no to that. And I don't want to be real old. It's a it's a depressing time, isn't it? At least when you're really old, you're just like, I made it, you know? I

Katie 3:38
don't know. I didn't mind just sitting there and observing. I'm totally okay with that.

Scott Benner 3:41
Yeah, that's nice. Actually, you just were happy to get away from your kids for

Katie 3:45
a day. Well, yeah, we did leave them back. So that was

Scott Benner 3:47
kind of nice. Will you do closet with a bowl of water? Or how do you handle that?

Katie 3:52
Pretty much a cell phone and food. How

Scott Benner 3:55
does your 11 year old do with the diabetes on their own? She's

Katie 3:58
good. She one of the things that has changed is, and since she was diagnosed, is she does her own, all her own Bolus thing and lunches and everything like that. During the school year, she takes on that full management. She does all for breakfast on her own. She does her lunches on her own. And that was something before our interview, I did a little bit of reflecting, and it's gotten she's gotten so good at it. Like, one day at school, somebody had bought donuts for a birthday that they had in the morning, and at like, two o'clock in the afternoon, I was helping a friend move, and I saw her numbers climb and like, oh my gosh, do we have a bad pump site? Did it she get bumped? And Jim, what's going on here? And finally, when I got to talk to her, she's like, well, I did eat a donut this morning. I'm like, Oh, it's a fat rise, you know. And so she has stopped texting me when treats are coming in the classroom, and she just kind of has taken control of bolusing for food, all of it when she's away from me. And she does a really good job at it too.

Scott Benner 4:57
She knew it was from the donut, but she. Doesn't understand the whole mechanism of it, right? Yeah,

Katie 5:02
she does. Oh, really cool. Well, she doesn't correct, like, she Noah's like, the fat she'll be like, Oh, we're gonna go eat Mexican tonight. Who is it? Your dad that's not sleeping tonight? So she understands that this comes, but she isn't the one dealing with it at this point, but I think at 11 years old, I don't think she needs to be dealing with it. She has plenty of years to take on that responsibility.

Scott Benner 5:27
No, I agree. Okay, so I said, this is really interesting. I'll tell you in a second, and now we're gonna go through this. So Katie, I'm gonna tell you and everybody listening that I record the podcast at least five times a week. And as a matter of fact, when someone hears this conversation, it will be at least six months old. It doesn't end up mattering, because we're not talking about like, you know, an election, or something topical, or something like that. So it really doesn't matter. Katie tells me her story, if it goes up on Thursday or it goes up a month from now or two months from now, it kind of doesn't matter. As a matter of fact, what matters most is that the interviews go up in the order that I make them in, because you can hear me grow and change through the podcast, right? You don't want to, like, you know, I try very hard not to get too out of order, so that you don't hear me say something that wildly is, you know, disconnected from what I said a week ago in your ears, you know, because of the fact that that's the way I work. I don't fundamentally, and I mean, in any way that is tangible, remember you. And I think that's going to be great. I know that most people will be like, Oh my God. He asked her to come back on. She went through all this whole thing, and now he's like, who are you? But I like that because I don't have any preconceived notions about the conversation we're about to have. So why do you think I asked you to come back? Because I really, really, sincerely do not ask a lot of people to come back

Katie 6:53
on. I think part of it was we were I talked to you when we were about nine months into our diagnosis. The interview started off with, like, if it wasn't water aspirin, I'm totally clueless to helping my kids with medical things, and I think you were probably more curious to see who you turned into,

Scott Benner 7:12
yeah, okay, well, that's excellent. So back then, in a couple of sentences, like, yeah, I wasn't comfortable beyond water and aspirin. That's fine. But around diabetes, where were you?

Katie 7:22
I think we were, and you take a swing stage and you might miss or you might hit it out of the park, just in that point of management where you have to just say, this takes time. And I think that was frustrating for me, because I like to be able to do things and do things well right away, you have to live life in all these different variables for so long before you it just becomes part of your life and not like now we're doing life with diabetes versus it's just life now at this point.

Scott Benner 7:55
So you are a perfectionist,

Katie 8:00
but yeah, in some things, but not all the things

Scott Benner 8:03
it bothered you around the diabetes,

Katie 8:06
yes, well, just because I listened, I did the equivalent of like a Netflix binge on your podcast within the first three months of being diagnosed. And I think you had, like, maybe 800 or 900 episodes up at the time, and I listened to you at double speed so I could get through it quicker. Okay,

Scott Benner 8:24
I hear people say that that freaks me out, because I already think I speak pretty quickly, but I understand the reasoning, and now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion Terry. How long have you had diabetes? June 2025

Terry 8:38
it'll be 50 years. I'm very much involved in the diabetic community in a lot of areas, and I helped start the walk here in Lincoln, Nebraska,

Scott Benner 8:47
when you were first diagnosed, what was management like? I started out

Terry 8:51
on beef, pork insulin, and I tell people jokingly that I used to smell like a bacon cheeseburger. Tell me about the impact of Medtronic technology. Finger stick is only a point in time, and that first 20 years for me was extremely difficult because I had high blood sugars all over the place. The CGM, to me, was the life saver.

Scott Benner 9:16
Prolonged hyperglycemia can lead to serious health problems and long term complications. Early and consistent management of hyperglycemia is critical. Learn more at Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper

Katie 9:29
every once in a while, when you get somebody from over in Europe, I do have to slow it down some, because it's their accent that catches me up a little bit. But okay, that was the first interview. Was a little bit weird for me, because I was like, Oh my gosh, it really was hard for me to do because you were talking so slow, because I was so used to you being like, double fast.

Scott Benner 9:49
So when we spoke, you're like, Why won't this guy speed up a little bit?

Katie 9:53
Yeah, like, everything just seemed like, this is going awful. It's so slow, but then I'm have different expectations. Conversations this go around, so it's good,

Scott Benner 10:01
excellent. So you have a diagnosis, you find the podcast briefly. How do you find it?

Katie 10:07
France suggested it within, I'd say, two weeks of diagnosis, and I was so tired, and I'm like, I don't do podcasts. And then one night, this is we were still finger pricking at two o'clock in the morning, and I wasn't sleeping, and like the light bulb went off, like somebody with diabetes suggested this. Why am I not utilizing that resource? And that's when I started listening, okay? And so it was just a local person that had suggested it to me. You're

Scott Benner 10:33
describing how my wife agreed to go out with me one day. She's like, Fine, okay, I guess so, nothing else is happening. So you find the podcast you did? You really binge eight, 900 episodes?

Katie 10:46
Yeah, I did. Thank you. And then I had my a friend that just would walk with me every day before school pickup, and she's like, talk to me anything if you want to talk nothing, diabetes, all diabetes, whatever. So sometimes she got a rehash of what I was listening to. And also my husband and I would just go for walks too, and that's where I'm like, This is what I learned today. And then I tell him these things, and he'd be like, well, I thought it was just about the carbs and the insulin, like our diabetes educator told us. And then I tell him these things, he'd see him happen. And he's like, Oh no, this is such good information. And so he got doesn't quite have the same time listen, and so he did select one side pass on to him. And otherwise I'd be like, This is what I learned about today. And just he has done an excellent job learning how to manage her to and so we are equally competent, but I'm the one making the changes, and but he's great at knowing, like, if something isn't going right, we usually list like it could be this, this, or that we don't have enough more insulin is kind of our management mindset.

Scott Benner 11:51
Well, can I tell you? I'll share with you that I missed the IDE now, because I put so much effort into this, to hear that it worked that well for you, and sort of in the way that I imagined it could, you know, is very gratifying, is really the only word. Like, I feel really happy for you. I feel more happy for your daughter, and I feel gratified personally, like, just from you sharing that. But that's not why I had you back on to tell you that, like, I didn't have you back on so you could say, like, nice stuff, I had a feeling about you back then, is what I'm gonna guess. And I'm gonna tell you right now. I didn't know, but as I'm listening to you now, I think you're a very clear storyteller. You're not wordy, you don't bounce around, you get your point across very clearly. And I must have thought at the time she's gonna do well, and she'll be a good reporter of how this worked out. So that's the vibe I'm getting right now from you. Tell me what episode you were in originally. Do you know? I

Katie 12:51
guess I don't know the episode number, but I think you labeled it meet the flint stones. Oh, is

Scott Benner 12:56
that what I called it? I love that title. It's fantastic. I don't even care. Why do you know? Why did it make any sense to you that that's what I called it? Yes.

Katie 13:05
Originally reached out to you was because we live in a rural state, and just we drive 90 miles for nearest care, and at that time, we had one PD after endocrinologist in our entire state. And so I was just, that's my initial reason why I reached out to you. Was just like, it's just a different dynamic of being so rural, but your podcast eliminates that barrier of getting good help, even though we're not in, like, a big city or next to great hospitals and

Scott Benner 13:36
stuff like that. It's not because you use a brontosaurus at work as a crane. That's not why. Exactly remember when Fred used to slide down the Brontosaurus neck at the end of the day, all happy to go home? Yes. Do you really remember that?

Katie 13:50
I do. I'm older. My kids watched. They called it the bam, bam show. So I did get the reference.

Scott Benner 13:57
I love the Flintstones. It basically was the honeymooners in a cartoon, right? I don't remember the honeymooners. Nobody remembers the honeymooners. Now that's alive still, but like that, that's people are like, I'm not gonna go watch the honeymooners. Scott. Never mind. Okay, so you get the diagnosis. Catch me up very quickly. At diagnosis, they give you what. They give you a pump. They give you what do you get right out the door. They

Katie 14:20
would have given us a CGM right away, but I was absolutely clueless as to what was going on, and I would have taken one if I would have known what it meant. But we went about one week with using glucose meter, had another appointment, got the CGM about a week in, and then we got the Omnipod about a month into our diagnosis,

Scott Benner 14:43
okay, all right, and a one sees in the first year about where at

Katie 14:49
diagnosis, we were 12.3 and her blood glucose was at 705 when I received the phone call, and then at my next three months. Appointment, we were at 5.4 and we're 5.1 and 5.2 and then we then transitioned into the Omnipod five, and our agencies have gone up a little from that. We've been anywhere from 5.5 to 5.8 once we switch to the OP

Scott Benner 15:20
five. Wow. What is your level of interaction now modern time, like you know today, how often are you interacting with diabetes?

Katie 15:29
Her insulin needs are so little. When we first went on Omnipod five, we were kind of at that minimum requirement needed, and I think that made it harder for the algorithm to cover the changes with the less insulin for it to work with. That makes sense. And so we started labeling our pods as the good, the weak and the strong. So if we had pump where we just ate out or did more things, our next one would be more strong, because we had such an increase of insulin to cover food, and we were honeymooning. And then other times, if she just had a few days where she didn't eat, and always on one pump, or kind of like, the next pump is weak. And so we started labeling the pot so when the pods were good, or just everything was kind of average, very minimal interaction. We still did corrections at night. Hormone rises that happened at night were like clockwork for her. When we were on the dash, we would have two hour time period at the evening where we would just have a set amount of units spread out over that time frame, and it just kept her smooth and level. And that is just something that we haven't been able to achieve with the Omnipod five, if we leave it in automated mode, but then at that time, at night, we just know what to put a pile of insulin on her and call it good. When

Scott Benner 16:48
you think of a CGM and all the good that it brings in your life, it's the first thing you think about. I love that I have to change it all the time. I love the warm up period every time I have to change it. I love that when I bump into a door frame. Sometimes it gets ripped off. I love that the adhesive kind of gets mushy. Sometimes when I sweat and falls off. No, these are not the things that you love about a CGM. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Eversense 365 the only CGM that you only have to put on once a year, and the only CGM that won't give you any of those problems. The Eversense 365 is the only one year CGM designed to minimize device frustration. It has exceptional accuracy for one year with almost no false alarms from compression lows while you're sleeping, you can manage your diabetes instead of your CGM with the Eversense 365 learn more and get started today at Eversense cgm.com/juicebox, one year, one CGM, you figured out how the pod works, and then you reapplied what you knew about diabetes to what you knew you were going to get from the

Katie 17:57
pod. Yes, because we had about nine months of being on the dash, and that was very in like our lines were smooth. It was great. But it also meant that at school, I would text her before a snack, like only bowls half your carbs, or if you're not going to eat your snack, cut back your basal or increase your basal. And so I bet I was texting her anywhere to three to four times a day when we were on the old dash pods in in manual mode all the time, and when we switched to Omnipod five and then she went to school, there'd be days where I wouldn't have to text her at school at all. She would just take her insulin for her snacks and her meals. And I mean, every once in a while we'd have a really strong pump where we'd be like, get some juice in you, and every once while, we'd have some weak pumps after every meal or snack. Could be like, You need to go and do a correction here. But for the most part, I hardly had the text her at school. And so that was a really big plus. It really freed up me to at the same time, not having to know that the pump will start taking away that basal when, when she starts coming down, really opened up my time for sure. Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:11
and if I'm overstating this, you'll stop me, please. But are you saying that the stuff that you learned from the podcast on a manual pump had as much, if not better, stability than automation does.

Katie 19:23
Yes, and it really, I really learned how to use insulin well by being forced into manual pumping for nine months, which I know people did way longer than we had to. Yeah, but I really understood the insulin super well. So when things weren't going so ideal, on the Omnipod five, I started doing my own things to make up the differences. For example, like she is growing when we started on the Omnipod five would be like point three an hour, and she was honeymooning. And obviously we're going to go out of the honeymoon phase. Is. And so I started doing something I called Morning math, because with the algorithm, I really don't know what her basal rate is, sure, because if you do a correction during the day, I'm like, part of that correction should have been in the basal. So you can't just look at a 24 hour period in my mind. But what I had started doing is we had typical food the night before. Like we didn't go up to eat every morning, I'd wake up not every morning, but I would wake up in the morning and do the math for midnight, till whenever I'm looking at this, seven o'clock in the morning, I take what it gave for basal and divided by the number of hours, and it just gave me an idea. And I could see like, you know what? Now, instead of point three an hour basal at night, it looks like we're averaging about point five. So then I would go into her manual settings and readjust her manual basal rate and her car ratios and stuff as and that was the only way on this automated system that I keep kind of keep up, because occasionally we do go in manual mode, and it's nice to have good settings and manual mode, even though we're in auto mode like most of the time, and that's kind of how I've managed that transition out of out of honeymoon and just increasing needs. And I mean, she's growing, her needs are always going to be changing. And that's kind of my way of, kind of keeping up with the algorithm and having just a clue of what it thinks she needs. That's awesome.

Scott Benner 21:19
You know, it feels like I drew something and then you built it, because the things that you're doing right now, the way that you decided, or the way your brain thinks about diabetes, is not the same as mine. It feels like you took an idea and you expanded on it, like in a way that I could not have. And it's just super interesting to listen to you talk about it.

Katie 21:40
Really another thing with the Omnipod five is it's, I call it the red light add on. And so we've we discovered pretty quickly that we'd wake up on a nice, consistent, like, about 110 ish mark, but with her insular needs that often bent, like you'd wake up and you click on that graph and see this huge red line. And part of the way we compensated for that was making her breakfast carb ratio stronger. But it just seemed like I was tired of getting the rise. I didn't like going into, like, the 100 and 60s after breakfast. So what I started doing was I would use the stronger car ratio for breakfast, and then I click on that graph, and if I if she's steady, and now I don't even click on the graph. She's been study hours before she gets up, we add in her basal rate into that Bolus too. So it's like, right now she's about a point eight per hour. If she's been steady, I'm just at a point eight to that breakfast Bolus, and it's we back fill our missing basal in my mind, and that way we have way more smooth breakfast experience, and we don't go as high, and we don't stay up there as long. So I felt like the red line add on. So anytime she studied before food, we always look like, how long has this been going? Okay? We'll add in half an hour worth of basal, or an hour basal into our Bolus with that food.

Scott Benner 22:58
I want to go over that again to make sure I understand if you think that the algorithm has been cutting basal away prior to a meal, you add half of it back in during the Bolus for the meal,

Katie 23:07
or all of it. If it's been, like, an hour, hour and a half, two hours, I'm like, for sure, I'm going to need a whole unit, because it we would just rock it after food. And it's like, because we have this full of basal insulin, it's just lacking and hasn't consistently been there. And when we're in manual mode, we always had a con. I always knew what basal was there to back it up.

Scott Benner 23:27
And did you get that idea out of me in the Pro Tip series, saying, if your basal should really be a unit an hour, but it's a half unit an hour, then every hour you're awake, you're deficient point five basal, so you're up for five hours in the morning. Then you decide to eat. You make a Bolus. That's three units for food. But the truth is, you're already maybe two and a half units deficient in basal, because your settings aren't right. Is that that conversation took you to that idea? Is that right? Yes.

Katie 23:58
And you experience it twice, and you're like, yep, there it is. Like, let's make a correction for that. What do you do for a living? Well, I work at a grain elevator part time. I manage a commercial property in our small town. I teach a cooking class at our small school that my kids go to, and I just, I do a variety of things.

Scott Benner 24:25
Do you go to college? Yes, for what Business Administration

Katie 24:28
with an emphasis in management, which is ridiculous, because I the thought of, like, managing people makes me want to, like, puke, and I'm a really good paper pusher, is what I like to

Scott Benner 24:40
say, Wait, do you have a really high IQ?

Katie 24:43
I don't think so. Don't you just

Scott Benner 24:45
really understand this? Well, I think it's

Katie 24:48
like a I love problem solving, and I think it's more of like a problem solving than a high IQ. If I have to say, I like problems,

Scott Benner 24:55
you have good focus. Though. Are you good at being focused on something you.

Katie 24:59
Yes, and and I go through phases of what I'm focused on. Like, it was photography for a while. Obviously it was diabetes management once we were diagnosed. And through, like, a bread phase, like, I learned how to make all sorts of different types of bread and how yeast works. And I love learning, I guess is the other part of

Scott Benner 25:17
it too. Yeah, because my brain doesn't work the way yours does. So, like, everything that I understand about diabetes is, like, it's stuff I learned by watching it. But I know people think I know that you could possibly listen to the podcast and think, Oh, he's so good at kind of, like, colloquially, like, simply, like, bare bones, saying what he's doing. But I want you all to know it's the only way I know how to talk to talk about it. I'm not dumbing it down for anybody. Like this is how it occurs to me, and I couldn't be as specific about it as you are. If you paid, yeah, like, like, I wouldn't know how to talk about it the way you talk about it. My brain won't work that way. It's super interesting. Interesting. Yeah, it is really cool. You're

Katie 26:00
the only source of information that I've had. So we had three hours of diabetes training the day after she was diagnosed, the next appointment we went to, I think we got like a half an hour of sick day training. And that is all the diabetes education that I have received from our health care system here. Otherwise, everything I've learned is from you. I think I read a book or two, but that's it's just boring reading.

Scott Benner 26:23
They say fundamental, but I find it boring, so

Katie 26:29
I will listen to audiobooks all day long. I love it, but yes, reading is not my ideal way of doing that. But even like you and Jenny, had an episode of determining your carb ratio that rule of 500 and that is the other tool that I really picked up from your podcast and helping make adjustments to what her insulin needs are as she does change otherwise. How do you begin to know where to start to change those settings in your pump? And so when we started on the Omnipod five I think we are like a one to 40 carb ratio. And I just did your little carb ratio math that you should shared with us, and now she's about one to 10 for carb ratios at this point.

Scott Benner 27:09
That's even Awesome. Can I? Can I make an admission right now? I would have to go look at that episode to understand that, like Jenny knows it off the top of her head, and I knew it was important to tell you guys, but if you pressed me right now for the 500 rule, I'd be like, I gotta go look at my podcast. I'm not sure

Katie 27:28
well, and I'm that way too. I just know it's there, okay? And then when I need it, I go back and find it. And so, like, every time I've done it, I've had to look it up, and so just to make sure I was doing it right. But that's where you take to get a ballpark of what carb ratio you want, you just take 500 divided by your total daily insulin. And so we just went on vacation, and I'm like, her part, she's been going high after every time we're eating. Let's make a change. And all I did for the week was go back and take her total daily insulin, write it out for seven days divided by seven. I'm like, here's my new average carb ratio, if we're going with this. And I changed it the day before we left on vacation, you know, and I didn't feel bad about it. And

Scott Benner 28:07
that makes me really happy, because I think the reason I worry about those three episodes the math behind because I did it, and still I don't know it by heart. But to hear that, you don't need to know it by heart, that you just refer back to it, that really is that's good for me to know, because I've actually already built calculators, online calculators to do that stuff. And I'm super, super nervous to put it online, because it's not exact, you know what I mean? Like, it gives you a these things give you a starting place. And I'm so worried about putting it online, I think I could probably, like, you know, put a bunch of language on top that says, like, look, this might not be right. It's for, you know, called entertainment purposes only, or something like that. I think you can kind of cover yourself that way, but you should see how well they work. Anybody

Katie 28:57
that's done diabetes management for more than a month will know, like, none of this is exact. If you think there should be a this, then here's the outcome. You're delusional. Like, it just be able to be like, this is a ballpark. Much too little. Let's move forward, change some things. And I don't want

Scott Benner 29:14
to be responsible for delusional people, though, so, but I but I swear to you, I look at I have the web pages. They're built, they're done. The calculators work, and I don't have the nerve to put them online. But maybe I'll get there one day, I don't know, because I think it's a really big deal. What you just described how you were able to just go back and look at total daily insulin and make bigger decisions just like that. You know, in a week, because people don't think about that, they don't think about, hey, I have an 11 year old. They're going to be 12, and when they're 12, they're going to weigh four more pounds than when they were 11. Or they're, you know, it's winter time now, so they don't move around as much, or it's summertime now, so they're running around more. No one thinks about that stuff. And I know that because that's what happened to me when my kid was growing up. Like I try to tell that story where. Or I've always ballparked insulin like I don't really count carbs. I look at food and think about insulin. And for anybody who doesn't understand that, I think you had to go back and listen somewhere. But I don't count carbs, and I never have so because I didn't Arden's insulin to carb ratio before automation was unimportant to me. And one day, we were in the the endos office, what is this? And she's going through Arden's PDM on her, on her Omnipod, and she goes, her insulin to carb ratio is one unit moves her. It covers 300 carbs. And I was like, Oh, that's not right. And she goes, but that's what the pump says. I was like, Oh, that was from, like, when she was like, four, and she goes, Well, how are you bolusing? I was like, Oh, you just look at the plate. You go, 123, half, that's five units. And she goes, that's how you do it. And I'm like, yeah, 100% I was like, that not how you do it. And she goes, No, I count the carbs. And I let the thing decide. I was like, well, not me. But the takeaway from that for me was that people settings can get away from them as things

Katie 31:08
change. Oh, definitely. And especially the summer, like, we would just start, we call it padding. We just be like, well, that's what it says. It just hasn't been enough. I'll add a unit to it, you know, like, and that's I have to take the time to pause and be like, I need to update these settings so that when my daughter does do the things, it's closer because she doesn't see all the things going on in my head. And so that's kind of how I know when it's time to make changes. And like, I've been adjusting all the things it says for me to do. I'm like, not enough, not enough, and not and I'm like, Well, it's time for me to actually make some changes inside the pump itself. We're going

Scott Benner 31:41
to pause on diabetes for half a second, because I need to understand what managing a grain silo means

Katie 31:47
a grain elevator. Elevator, excuse me, I don't manage it, but I go down the grain elevator that I work at is smaller. It's still farmer owned, and they are not located on a real line, and so their ability is, is they're going to remain small. And so the software system they have, I used to work at another local elevator that had three different locations, and we had amazing software, so you're counting and your green inventory were all handled within one software system. But that is not the cost of that is not feasible for the smaller one that I work at. So I reconcile their systems and say, like we have a discrepancy here. Let's make these two systems match. And so I help write contracts when grain is contracted, and I just kind of keep the guys in line. And then I go away for two weeks and I come back and say, what happened here? And I just make sure what happened is actually recorded, and I pay them on I do their payroll for them too, and that's kind of my role down there.

Scott Benner 32:48
We're going to do a very strange juxtaposition between your actual description of what you do and me letting everyone tell you that chat. GPT 4.0 says a grain elevator is a facility designed for the storage and handling of bulk grain. Grain elevators store large quantities of grain, such as wheat, corn, soybeans and other crops. The grains are kept in large bins or silos. The term elevator comes from the mechanism that lifts the grain from the ground level to the top of the storage bins or the silo. This is typically done using a vertical conveyor belt with buckets attached grain elevators receive grain from farmers and then store it until it can be shipped to markets. They can load and unload grain from trucks, trains and ships. That's all right, correct? Yep, no kidding. And those grains go out to like, as as other I mean, I guess it gets shipped to people use them as ingredients and other things, right? Yes.

Katie 33:43
And so for us, we ship to more local elevators that have contracts with bigger companies, like 80 MBQ, they loaded on trains, and those trains go to ports on east and west coast and get you know, some of it stays within United States, but otherwise it gets shipped off seeds

Scott Benner 34:00
so you work for a smaller farmer who doesn't have the ability to put that grain onto an a train, for example, and get it somewhere else. So they sell it to a another farmer who has that. Oh, wow. They're a subcontractor for a larger farmer with a better distribution situation. Yeah,

Katie 34:16
I don't work for a farmer. It's a cooperative, so it's a group of farmers that have the business. Oh, okay, and then there's a manager and there and workers and stuff. But yes, so we're kind of like the first go between, between, go betweens. That's

Scott Benner 34:32
kind of awesome. Do me a favor when we're done recording, because this is no one's business. I'm going to ask you, like, a completely personal question that has you have no reason to answer, but I'm literally going to ask you how much you make to do that. And if you don't want to tell me, you don't have to. But don't let me forget to ask you when the recording is over, because I'm fascinated by all this, so I want to, I want to understand, like the whole process. Tell me, please, if you would, about the process of binging a podcast with so many episodes so you. You said that you'd listen to an episode, there'd be takeaways, and then you'd share them, either on your your buddy, walk with your friend, or with your husband, if you thought he needed to know. But the way I make the podcast is purposeful, meaning. I don't think anybody just blurts out the thing you need to know. Like, you know what I mean? Like it, it's not tick tock. You don't get 30 seconds. And there's the idea, like, you have to have conversations. I think they have to be interesting. But am I right? Because you did it? Did you actually listen? Because you were like, all right, I'm getting good information out of this, but I'm bored by this person's story. Or were you entertained by it at the same time? Do you hate listen? Do you hate me, but you like the information? Like, can you tell me your experience?

Katie 35:44
I would say it's a mitt. As far as if it was, I hate to admit this, but if it was something more technical, I would jot it down on a piece of paper or more of like, the meat and potatoes of your like, half an hour podcast. They were shorter in the beginning. And I would just like, This is the main idea. And so just even rewriting for me the main idea. And then sometimes I'd be like, what's what's keep going. I need more information. But I think part of the reason why I could remember it because it wasn't the meat and potatoes, like the good information constantly, but built into other things that gives your mind more space to be able to tuck that information away, because it is an overload, okay? And then I the interviews. Of course, I started out with, like the pro tips and just gaining and defining, getting the right words for what was going on. I left listen to those, but then I saw the value very quickly. And just listening to people, even if you interviewed them, and only 10 minutes of the hour was actually about diabetes, it just helped you realize, like, this isn't my entire life, which it kind of felt like that when you're binge listening to something Sure, sure, but the nuggets of information that people share, and I think it's just Arden sharing when she had that low, when you guys were away, and like, You guys are great at managing diabetes, and it's just a really good reality, a check of like, even if we think we're doing well, just know that things can go wrong. And just to keep that in the back of your mind, and not like, in a doom and gloom way, but just in a reality way. And there was somebody else that was, it was a mother and daughter that you had interviewed, which was really interesting to me. And the daughter had a severe though too, and it was just because her mom was involved in it sounded like she had good management. And it's just good to hear all these different scenarios of people continuing on, but yet knowing like, don't completely disregard the things that can go wrong. I don't know if that makes sense. No,

Scott Benner 37:45
it does. And actually really valuable for you to say I can't believe of all the things you picked out, because generally speaking, I'm a public person, but a limited public person. Do you know what I mean? Like, the way I could explain it to you is that if we went to a diabetes conference right now, I'd be George Clooney, and if I walked outside, no one would know who I was. And so I'm I'm limitedly public, and there are people who don't like me, which I don't think would you know, come to any surprise to anybody, and the thing that they've more recently been attacking me on, I mean, they tell it as a lie, but they say you shouldn't listen to that podcast, because his daughter has seizures all the time, which is which is not true. Yep, she's had one as a baby, and she's had one as a as a high schooler, Arden's had three seizures since she's had diabetes. She's also had diabetes since she was two, and she's 20 now, so in 18 years, the first one was in the first couple months, we didn't know what we were doing. She, you know, we gave her the insulin that the doctor told us to give her. She took a nap. She was two years old, and she had a seizure while she was sleeping. You know, we stopped it with glucose gel, and that was that she had another one. When we went to we took the kids to Disney. I've told this story already, but it's the end of the night a long day out in the heat, walking around, we intersected a popsicle salesman on the way back to the hotel. The kids wanted a popsicle, and I know now that that thing was like simple sugar and, you know, like she'd walked around all day, she probably needed five of those popsicles, but I gave her the insulin for the popsicle, and we went home later down we heard, you know, we knew what it sounded like at that point. It happened. We got her out of it in like two seconds with some glucose gel. The next one, of course, is, you know, some 15 years later, almost. And you know, this happens to her after her her prom, and she comes on and shares it, and in my heart, when she shares it, I think that's good, because people should know that this they should know exactly what you just said, like your takeaway from her telling that story is exactly what I was hoping someone would take from it. By us sharing it, it's not a fun thing to tell people. Yeah, and it's not, you know what I mean, like, it's not super exciting to get on a podcast and tell a story about how something went wrong for you, but it's where people learn. And you sharing that with me just now really helped me feel better about it, because I was so sure that was the right thing to share. And then, you know, you jump online and there's five or six keyboard heroes out there, you know, making up big lies about, like, literally, like, literally using the words his daughter has seizures all of the time. You shouldn't listen to that podcast, and that's just them trying to keep members or listeners in their thing. I think they realize that if somebody makes it to this podcast, they're not getting back to their thing. You know what I mean, does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. It's nice you to share, because I it's one of the things that I I'm not sure about. Actually, you bringing up a lot of things today that I struggle with, like, privately that I'm like, oh, Katie says that was a good thing to do, and she's doing really well, so I probably should stop worrying about

Katie 40:56
that well. And I find people's lives fascinating, like the experiences that some people are just so hard for me to fathom. Some of them are so sad that they lack, like a stable home. But I just, I do find it all very interesting. Me

Scott Benner 41:12
too. Yeah, that's really cool. I appreciate that because so I have a bigger idea around the podcast. And I know I've been, you know, people will hear and like Scott's like, you know, letting chat, GPT answer questions and stuff like that. But I believe in how good these large language some of these large language models, are at absorbing information and then regurgitating it in more succinct ways. And so it's kind of my long term goal to feed every ounce of the podcast into an AI model and keep asking it the questions like, you know, today is a conversation, you know, if you know, I don't know, it's say it's an after dark and it's the one where the girls talking about, like being diagnosed while she was on a heroin Benner. So if you tell the large language model, if you tell chat, GPT read this transcript, at first glance, it's gonna sound like a story about a parent addict, but I need you to go through it and pick out any key takeaways about diabetes management. It will actually be able to do that the way you did it while you were walking and listening and so kind of my The last thing I'd like to do before I get out of this space, which I'm not saying I'm doing that now, but before I do that, I would like very much to put all of those things together, like bind them all together. I think

Katie 42:32
that's really valuable. I've told other people about the podcast. We have a couple different scenarios that have come up from my daughter's diagnosis. My husband's area leader was diabetic, and we knew he was diabetic before my daughter's diagnosis, and when he found out that she was type one, he called us and he was just finger pricking and using insulin pens, and told us it made him a better person for all these different reasons. We got the technology, and we told him, like, why don't you have Dexcom or an Omnipod? He's like, I don't want things attached to me. And just through re one Cs that we've been able to achieve. It was like, nine months later, he was like, What are you guys doing? And he got Dexcom because of us, and then once he had seen what the Dexcom did, the first time, he had to wait two hours, he's like, I can't believe that I used to fingerprint. Like it's driving me nuts not to have information for two hours. And so that was, like, a big change for him. But like we told him at the beginning, like we don't understand, but at that point, we don't push it any farther, and then we're under the same insurance too, because the same employer, and we had wrote an insurance letter, and we're self funded insurance, and so he also wrote a letter to get Omnipod five covered under our insurance before the formulary was due. And he was like, Why you after this pump? And then when I explained it, then he decided to try that. And so, like, it's neat to see, not that I'd want other people to have diabetes, but because of your podcast, what we've listened to, what choices we have, like, it's starting to like, flow out to other people too. And he texted us, I'd say, within the last year, and said he had his best a 1c ever in his whole life, because of changing to this different technology that is out there. You became

Scott Benner 44:22
like a thought leader for him, like he looked at you and he was like, wow, they know something I don't know. Like,

Katie 44:29
he texts us, like, what's going he sends us graphs, what's going on with this. And my husband's like, Katie, like he reaches out to us and like, ideally, I would love for him to start listening to your podcast, but I don't know that he has the same amount of time that I do, but it gets fed out that way. And then I also had an acquaintance in our town, like reach out to me, and it was through a voicemail, and she had said, just wondering, how do you calculate carbs and recipes? Because I make a lot of food from scratch, and you. Then she kind of left this long voice mail, and at the very end of it, she told me that her son was diagnosed with type one in the last two days. For her, they have like six different kids, and I'm like, we're just a family of four, and it was overwhelming to us. And so I just called her back and gave her the information that she was looking for, and I said, don't ever hesitate to ask me any questions. But I purposely waited for about two or three weeks after the diagnosis to even bring up your podcast, because I think one of the reasons why first didn't listen to you was just because I was so overwhelmed by everything else. Sure, she has started listening to but at the same time, when you have that many kids you don't have as many times to have your earbuds in to be able to listen to you. I

Scott Benner 45:46
thought you were gonna say she's having sex, because there's a lot of kids

Katie 45:50
that too. It's a whole village, but just her reaching out to me, and then she'd call me, and we're very similar personalities and proud. Husband actually said, I don't know if you two should like talk to each other, because you might make her obsessive about the diabetes management, and

Scott Benner 46:07
if it leads to good, stable blood sugars, then that's okay to put some effort into it, you know, yes,

Katie 46:12
and but just to be able to come along them and not dump it on her all the time. And she would call me like, this is going on? Why? And I would say, well, sometimes if they're doing a physical activity, it'll like sports. And I kind of like, this is what I've heard in for our Emma, this is what happens. But know that other people have a different reaction than just us. And so I think, like, the value of your podcast is, not only am I able to share this is what works for our experience, but I've also heard all these other people say these things. So keep an eye open. It might be a B or C, and use that information going forward.

Scott Benner 46:49
Excellent. I have to tell you, it's, it's just gratifying to hear you talk about it because, you know, I kind of alluded to it earlier, but it, you know, if you're listening, you don't realize, right? Like, though this pops up once a day, and there's, like, some content there, and sometimes I listen and sometimes I don't. Some people dig right into pro tip stuff and never come back. Some people become fans, like the whole thing. But the bigger point is that I am so busy making the podcast, I don't know what it is, and I know that's a weird disconnect for people, but like, it does everything Katie's explaining for her. And maybe it wouldn't work for you. Maybe it does, like, you know, maybe people get to it at the wrong time in their life, or they come back to it, or you don't jive with me, or whatever. Like, there's a million different ways you might intersect the the content, right? But I'm so busy making it and thinking about out in the future and building on what happened yesterday. That I'm not lying to you, it is Thursday I have had. You're the fourth conversation I've had this week. I've had three really wonderful conversations this week. And if you offered me money right now, I couldn't tell you what they were about. Oh, it's all moving too quickly. And like when I put this down. When you and I get done recording, I'm gonna do some back room stuff to make sure that it's saved, and it gets off to the editor and everything. And then I'm gonna go have an egg and come right back up here and work for the next seven hours, like, doing websites, and I have to re record new ads, and, you know, I'm trying to set up a speaking engagement. And like, you know, like, there's so much stuff happening, like, right? I found myself while I was talking to you, thinking if someone just gave me $50,000 a year, I'd go hire somebody to do that thing that I just said about the podcast. I would literally tell I would get someone, and I'd say, look, it's your job to feed this podcast into this AI model, get back key takeaways, write them, you know, in ways that are very like bullet pointy and understandable for people, and turn this into a book, and we'll sell it online, digitally and like, we don't need to bound it or anything like that. And then I would like that information back again, and then I'd like to read it back into the podcast right. To give you, like, what would end up being is, like, the Ultimate Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast. Like, here are all the key takeaways from 1000s of episodes. They just sit down and hear them. You can decide to listen in 15 minute chunks or 30 minute chunks, or maybe we could break it up into like, you know, tick tock type stuff like that. All would be really helpful, except I'm just me and I don't have a budget, but I know that would all help. And anyway, I'm busy doing all of that. I can sometimes lose sight of what I'm doing. I don't do it poorly because of that, because I'm I don't know how to explain this. I know exactly what the podcast is, and I am willfully and meaningfully building on it. I guess I can't know how it's intersecting with other people until I get feedback like yours. And so I just, I put it out there with this intention and hopefulness, but then I don't get feedback. So I don't know my the only feedback I get are numbers. Did people listen today? Did they listen through the episode? Like you know, did we grow? Are people coming into the Facebook group? Because if those things are happening, then the podcast must be working. Does that make sense?

Katie 50:07
And I'm astonished by the number of people in your Facebook group that don't listen. But

Scott Benner 50:11
let's not call it Astonish, because if you were me, you'd be something different. You'd be irritated, because that's what I am. Okay?

Katie 50:17
I can, I can be irritated with you too. Thank you. They're missing out on a valuable resource, and they're just choosing not to utilize something that's there. That would be the irritating part to

Scott Benner 50:27
me. Well, so for me, the irritating part is, Listen, this is the thing that used to happen to people, and you're immediately, you go back into the 80s, you know, or go back farther than that, you get diabetes. Your doctor is half looking at you like, oh, sorry buddy, tough call. You know what I mean? Like, it's not going to be, not going to be what you thought this life. And if you drop dead when you were 50 of a heart attack, then they'd be like, yeah, diabetes, you know, if they would tell you things like, you know, you still hear in the ether like, Oh, if it goes up to 300 but it comes back down, that's okay. No, it's not, you know, like, can people live their lives like that? And, I mean, you done all these series to try to pick through why? Like, the Grand Rounds having doctors come on and talk about how they talk to people, the cold wind stuff, so you get back room understandings of how people happen, so that you can hear like, how does it get to this point? Like, how come healthcare works this way? And I think we've laid it out pretty well that it's, it's a limitation of human beings, right? And time and money and all these different things. But in the end, what it means is you're going to get the like, well, here's the pump and here's the CGM, and if you figure it out, good on you. But we're not going to tell you a whole lot about this. What is the B is going to be like? It's faded complete. I got diabetes, and it's just not going to go as well for me as it goes for other people. And in that inside of that system, inside of that world, when all that happened was that cell phones got unlimited cell service. That's why you are all doing better with your diabetes, by the way, because I had a message, and I finally found a way to deliver it to people. And I know that sounds crazy, but cell phones used to be limited. You couldn't listen to a podcast on a cell phone. It would have made you poor Yes, and now you can. You can download and stream, and it doesn't cost you any more money than it already cost you to hold your phone. This cell phone is why people can get my podcast, and it's why they can do better with their diabetes, and why I was able to find a distribution channel for it, right? And so you make it all through that, the history of diabetes, the fact that I don't have diabetes, you know, that's a pretty big thing I had to overcome, like I had a message, and I know how to deliver it, and it works. But some people hear me and go, Why am I listening to a guy who doesn't have diabetes? Tell me about how to take care of my diabetes. And you know what fair, fair statement, it seems like, you know, on its face. So you get past that and you say, okay, they wanted a Facebook group. So you put a Facebook group together. It's not just a Facebook group. It's 51,000 active members, and it adds 150 new members, like every three days, it's an astonishing monument to helping people. And you get them there, and then they go, what's this podcast people are talking about? And you're like, Oh my God. Like, what do I gotta come to your house and whisper it into your ear, because it's like, kind of how it feels sometimes, you know, and and you say, like, please just listen to this. Just it's not all of it. You don't have to listen to 1200 I mean, if you do, thank you. I broke them up into into series. Here's a series just listen to. It's 20 goddamn episodes. You can't find 20 hours to save your life. That doesn't make sense to me. And then you start realizing, well, what I've started to realize is, is that I can't believe I'm gonna go all the way back to probably like 1850 but you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink. And so, like, that's the end of my job. The end of my job is to go here. Here it is. I hope you try it, and then I'm done. I can't really do anything else, and that is frustrating, because you're right there. If I could just stick if I could just stick your face in the water, damn it. Katie, go drink it. Drink it. I think your a 1c would be in the high fives or low sixes. Yeah, you know.

Katie 54:07
So I was, I don't like reading, but I listen to a lot of books, and there is one book that I found super interesting, and I think it kind of covers what you were just talking about, too. It's called Four tendencies, and it lumps people into some very broad categories of upholders, questioners, obligers or rebels. And that book was so interesting to me, and when I read it, I'm like, This is why everybody has a different ability to cons, like grasp the concept of how the best manage your diabetes. I think it's just who you are as a person is just a big part of it too. Because I'm a person that I just make the best choices for myself, and I don't care what other people think. It's kind of my personality where other people will only do things if other people expected of them, where i i. It's super interesting. But it, I think it does boil down to, like, are you going to be a person that somebody has to dunk your head in the water? Are you going to go drink that water yourself?

Scott Benner 55:07
I'm not actually frustrated by it. Like, if you get to the if I get you to the information, and you're just like, you start listening like, I don't like his voice, or I don't like the way it speaks, or I don't want to listen to a whole story to get to one idea. Like, that's completely legitimate. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not telling you, although I have, like, some of my favorite reviews are like, I hate that guy, but that podcast really teaches me a lot. Like, I swear to God, that makes me feel happier than anything else. I'm like, oh my god, they hate me, and they're making it through it. That's how valuable the podcast is. Like, that actually seems like a triumph to me. I don't know if my brain's weird, but, like, that's one of the things I'm most proud of, but, but most proud of it, because not everybody can like everybody, not everybody's for everybody else. Even you don't have to dislike me. I just, it might, just might not be your cup of tea, but I know the information is there. I know how to diabetes. You know? I mean, like, I swear to you, I could come to someone's house today, watch them for two hours and fix their blood sugar like I just know I could. And I wish that people knew that that was possible, because I think that so many people think that, like, this is my lot in life, or I have the sugars, there's nothing I can do about it. Or, you know, oh well, you were diagnosed with this, you're not going to live as long as everybody else, or you won't get to be as healthy or as happy because you dumb, lucked into diabetes. And I just don't feel like that's actually true. So

Katie 56:32
do you feel like that is less now with the technology and devices that are becoming more prevalent for more people that are managing. Oh, of course. Oh,

Scott Benner 56:41
yeah, yeah. The more technology that comes, the easier it is for more people. But if you look back to 1970 and talk to some of these people who've had diabetes for 50 years, who are, like, super, super, like healthy and don't have any you know issues at all, if you listen to their stories, they were people who just back then when they didn't know what they were doing, they were heavy handed with their insulin. That was pretty much it is that they were not high all the time. That's the end of it. Their blood sugars weren't high all of them, they didn't know what they were doing. They were shooting once in the morning and maybe once at dinner, you know. And that's it. But they were aggressive about it, and now they don't have complications 50 years later. And not because being aggressive keeps complications away, but because using the right amount of insulin keeps your complications away. That's my takeaway from talking to the older heads about diabetes, is that they were just the ones that ended up doing well, were just kind of aggressive about it. So it would just be so lovely if everybody could have your experience with with what I made. Because I think everybody would be doing terrific if they, if their brain picked it up the way yours does. I want to thank you for listening and and doing the thing it makes me a lady had a baby the other day. Did she name it? Scott, no, she didn't, which I was very disappointed about, and took the time to explain to her, but she put up a post in the Facebook group, and she's like, look, this is my second kid. I'm paraphrasing, basically, she said, I, look, I took what I learned in that podcast, and I held an A, 1c, in the fours and the low fives during my pregnancy. And here's my incredibly healthy baby, you know. And I saw that it was so a baby was adorable. I was very happy for her. She made a family and everything. And then I took five seconds and very quietly in my own head, said to myself, like I did that, like I made, I helped make that baby healthy, you know, like that really is. That's very cool. Like to think about your daughter rolling around, you know, understanding her stuff already at 11 years old, having good outcomes. She has a real opportunity to live a long, healthy life and and if, if you I'm not taking, I genuinely don't want to sound pompous, because I don't feel that way about it, but it's just undeniable, like, like, I did that, and we could keep doing it, and we could do it for more people. That's the way I think about it, not like, Oh, I get the credit, and I get to run around going, Look what I did. Like, I don't do that. And I don't feel that way. What I feel like is, there's another healthy kid, there's another happy family. There's two parents that might not get divorced, you know what I mean, because they're arguing about diabetes all the time. There's a little girl who might go to college and not give up on herself for four years and just hope she doesn't drop dead, you know what I mean, and hopefully she'll pick it back up when she's 28 and start taking care of herself again, like there's another person who recognizes their hypothyroid symptoms and doesn't back down when the doctor says, Oh, you're able. Your TSH is only five. We're not going to medicate that. Like, like, that kind of stuff. Like, all the people who have come to me and said that by sharing my low iron stories, they've got their iron back up, and their lives have changed. That stuff is all gratifying, is a nice word, and it. Keeps me working, like it helps me get up every day and do the thing. And you know, on the days when it can feel long, or when there's some assho online saying about my kid, that's not true, like it helps you get through all that. But my my driving force is like, I want to find another person who makes another healthy baby, or another kid, or another adult who's had diabetes for 40 I just got a lovely note from a woman in her 60s who's like, I've had diabetes my whole life. I've been listening to this podcast for six months. I have the best day one season I've ever had in my life. That's my goal every day. And anyway, listening to you makes me feel very comfortable that I'm moving in a good direction, if that makes sense well, and

Katie 1:00:41
it's not just the ability to understand the insulin and make changes and run the numbers, but also, like the emotional side of that is also fed. And the community aspect of that too, I think is really important just to I mean, in our community now, I think I know two other people type one diabetes, but it is just nice not to feel like you're on your loan Island as you're navigating changes and everything like that and having resources available. There's a couple people that I had listened to on podcast that I like personally seek doubt afterwards, and one of them was like, somebody really seemed to understand the Omnipod five. And some like tell me he seemed like he knew how the algorithm worked. And so I picked his brain and learned of another resource there that was excellent. And then there was another interview that you did of a guy out in Montana, and his main thing was, you might remember this episode. It was about the house that it's never, I'm going to say it wrong.

Scott Benner 1:01:45
It's never, it's never. Sarcoidosis,

Katie 1:01:47
yes. Okay. And his episode, he had said like he had started a nonprofit, like it was such a small part of his interview, which was just such an interesting interview there, but he said he had a nonprofit in Montana, and my daughter and I got in the one with type one got invited to go backpacking out in Montana. And I'm like, yeah, we can do this, but it he was just such an amazing resource. I ended up contacting his nonprofit, and you helped me, like, tell me about your mountain experiences, and what do we do we do with our low snacks at night? Because it is bear country, and would you trust any sugar in your tent? What would you do? And like this, that community of going out and doing another adventure, and I'm sure I could come up with everything that he suggested, if I spent enough time thinking through it, but it was just nice to like I reach out to a resource. He knows what he's doing. I don't have to put any more mind space towards that and just go with what he tells me, Wow,

Scott Benner 1:02:45
that direction. You got that from the podcast too. That's crazy.

Katie 1:02:48
Yeah, yes, yeah. And it was amazing. She backpacked, and I went with a friend who lived in the same town as us and moved away about six months after her diagnosis, and she invited us to go along with her and her son. And I don't think she realized what it meant to ask along my diabetic child and tell us, like, Okay, so we're going to hang the bear bag, but you're the one at night if we go low, because we had all this extra activity hiking up the mountain. Like I'm not sure how this is going to play out. So just know if I come to your tent in the middle of the night, we need to go get this. And everything was great. She had wonderful numbers, and we were able to set up a plan that it was so enjoyable. It was an amazing experience. But she at one point like, well, we don't have to backpack up into the mountains. We can just stay at a campground, if you think that would be better, and then there's less variables. I'm like, No, we're going to backpack. This is something we're completely capable of. I just need to plan more, carry more, and it'll be fine. And it was lovely. Fewer

Scott Benner 1:03:47
variables, let's say because, I mean, I don't want to get low, but I also don't want a bear to eat me. That'll probably be worse. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I don't, I don't not feel the community side of it, but it was the part of, you know, when you make something and then you learn a thing by mistake. Like, I knew it was important. I knew the connection part was important. I didn't realize how important. And I'll say all the time that it's the people who listen to the podcast who are like, Hey, you should make a private Facebook group where we could talk about the podcast. And I've said before, I'll be happy to reiterate, when that was suggested to me, I was like, Oh God, I don't want to do that. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't want to be in charge of a Facebook group that sounds bad to me. And in the end, it's become, like, it's become one of the most enriching parts of my life like to watch all these people continue to come together and watch it grow and grow and grow it just it non stop, grows. And then these people go in there, like you and others who've listened to the podcast and understand things, and they answer each other's questions. I know it seems obvious people like, Yes, I understand what a Facebook group is. It's the way it. Happens, and how little drama there is, and how overall kind people are. All I see when I see them talking to each other and helping each other is, oh, they found people I wasn't going to be able to get to. I don't have I can't my group does 125 new posts every day. Like, I can't keep up with that, you know. So like, now you guys are all out there, sort of like emissaries, like taking care of it for me and helping each other, which brings in more people. And it builds and builds and builds, really, it's the whole thing's lovely. It really is. So okay, all right. Well, Katie, if there's nothing else, I'm gonna let you go, because you mentioned earlier that some of my podcasts have gotten longer, and it's been in my head now to get out of this early because of that, you screwed yourself out of a longer interview, is what I'm saying. Yeah, me too. This is really wonderful. I swear to God, you should come back on five years from now, but not not a year like, not five years like, when you're like your kids, like heading off to college time. Keep me in mind around that. Okay, okay, all right, if I'm still interesting, if I'm still you're like, Oh God, I don't want to go to college. Not yet. I'm not ready for that. Yeah, I'll try. I'll do my best to keep it going for like, five or six more years. And you get that kid off to college and then come back and and tell me what else you figured out you're really good at this. I know you. I don't feel like you know that, but you really are. So thank you. Oh, thank you. Do you know? Know what that you're good at, what you're doing, like explaining it and being really thoughtful about it? I

Katie 1:06:28
hope that I can. Katie,

Scott Benner 1:06:31
do you know? I

Katie 1:06:32
want to help other people, you know, and if you can't understand it well enough to explain it to other people, I hope so. I hope it's helpful and not confusing or

Scott Benner 1:06:42
overwhelming. I guess I'm not gonna get you to say anything nice about yourself. Okay, all right, hold on one second for me. Thank you so much.

Can you name the only CGM that has only one sensor placement and one warm up period every year. Think about it. It doesn't matter if you can I can ever sense 365 is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast ever since cgm.com/juice box a year is a long time. The episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by Medtronic diabetes. Learn more about hyperglycemia and what you can do about it at Medtronic diabetes.com/hyper Hey, you listened all the way to the end. You might want to know more about the Juicebox Podcast. If you do, go to Juicebox podcast.com, scroll down to the bottom and subscribe to the Juicebox Podcast newsletter. If you're living with type one diabetes, the after dark collection from the Juicebox Podcast is the only place to hear the stories that no one else talks about, from drugs to depression, self harm, trauma, addiction and so much more. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and click on after dark there you'll see a full list of all of the after dark episodes. 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. 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 want rob you.

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