#1424 Para-Cyclist, Type 1 Warrior, Paralympian

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Kate Brim is back with another compelling story of living with type 1 diabetes as a person with quadriplegia.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Kate brim is back sharing her story of what's happened to her since we saw her last. It's uplifting and a portrait of how to not give up. 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 to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com if you'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. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast. Private Facebook group, Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome. Type one, type two, gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox Podcast. Type one diabetes on Facebook. Us. Med is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from us. Med, for years. You can as well us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, use the link or the number, get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med, today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is the meter that my daughter has on her person right now. It is incredibly accurate and waiting for you at contour next.com/juice

Kate Brim 2:15
box. Hi. My name is Kate brim. I have been a type one diabetes Since 2021 I was a pretty late diagnosis, and a lot has happened between now and then, and even before then, Kate,

Scott Benner 2:30
you were on episode 819, January, 2, 2023 Yes, and you're back. What made you want to come

Kate Brim 2:41
back? You know, a lot has happened since then. I've been to the Paralympic Games. I, you know, had some pretty crazy, crazy things happen in lead up to the games and stuff. And you know, when I was first on with you, back in 2023 I for sure, was still so so new to the diagnosis, and little did I know there was going to be so much more learning and discovery and challenge and triumph and stuff. No, it's been an absolute whirlwind of the last couple years.

Scott Benner 3:17
So if people want to get the because we really dug through it in your first episode, but if they want to go back to check, I think it's incredibly interesting. You were very open, but you're a quadriplegic. Do I have that? Right? Yep, yeah. So we discussed a lot about how you, like, you know, live your life, get through your days, stuff like that. If you really want to know more about that, 819, is the place to go, because I don't feel like we're going to get too far into that this time. So let's just give people a high level overview. Though you're an athlete, tell people what you do. Yeah.

Kate Brim 3:47
So I'll give like a very dumb down intro to myself. December of 2017, I underwent a pretty routine surgery for her needed disc that ended up leaving me a quadriplegic, so I was living a very stereotypical life. I was at university, going to school for construction management, was super proud of myself, thought I had my life set. Career was figured out. I knew what I was going to do the rest of my life. And then this injury happened, and it completely flipped my life upside down. I define new a new path of life, which is very hard the first couple of years, just rediscovering myself. And you know, what does my abilities look like? What am I capable of? And thankfully, I was sent to an amazing rehab hospital whose whole mission was getting people back to doing the things they love, whether that be the community or through sport. And for me, it ended up being through sport, doing cycling and hand cycling and wheelchair rugby. Yeah, I became very in love with hand cycling and wheelchair rugby. Hand cycling in particular, because it was the one thing that I felt like. Like, you know, I got into the bike, and in many ways, I just, I felt normal, you know, I could go out on the road and just go, go super fast and have the wind going through me. Feel good, feel powerful, like I'm capable of stuff. And was doing group rides and stuff with others who are in very similar situations, and it was kind of the intro and just the beginning of rediscovering myself. And so, yeah, I fell in love with it. Eventually, a few years into hand cycling, I finally decided to take up racing, and did my first race, absolutely fell in love with it, hired a coach and went to my first para cycling specific race, which qualified me for the final World Cup and World Championships. Everything happened very quickly, you know, I I went from okay, this is a race where I'm going to figure out what hard looks like to now you're going to go to one of the biggest stages in the world and race at the international level. And it was absolutely incredible, a very quick start to an amazing, amazing journey. And so, yeah, I went to that first World World Cup and World Championships. Ended up getting gold in all the races that I did, which was just unheard of, and it was absolutely huge. And then after that, I moved out to Colorado Springs, to the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center, you know, have just been fully taking on what being an elite, elite level athlete

Scott Benner 6:42
takes. How long have you been at that piece of it now?

Kate Brim 6:45
So I've been out here at the training center about two and a half years now. Wow, getting ready for, getting ready for the Paralympic Games. Yeah, you know, at the when is that is my question. So it just happened this past September, it was in Paris, France, yeah, so I moved out to Colorado Springs, and then shortly after moving out to Colorado Springs, as many know, there are anti doping rules within elite level sport, and we have To follow under what's called the water guidelines and stuff going into racing. I had thought that all my duction were in a row and all the paperwork that was needed, I thought it was all there. It happened to not be there, so I got put into the testing pool on the US side, and they came, come to my door, common drug test me. I disclose all the medications that I'm taking, one of them, Which of was human log. And they come back to me a month or so later and say, Hey, we see you're taking. We see you declared use of human log. You do not have a therapeutic use exemption. And I was very shocked. I didn't even know what to say. I and they, they had said, okay, we can apply for what's called a retroactive TV and in this situation, all should be good, give a letter of explanation, make sure all the medical documentation is there, and we should be good. So I do exactly that. Write my my statement, you know, just explaining, hey, I thought all the ducks were in a row, and I really don't know what happened, and they granted me a retroactive tea I raced the whole next year for them to then reverse their decision of the retroactive T, U, E, oh, gosh, yeah, at this point, I'm in Europe at our final World Cup, when I get this notification that they have reversed the decision of the TV and I am just chatter to pieces, because I I know The consequences of this, and I know the severity. Mind you, we were little less than two years out from the games. And fast forward, they disclose to me what the consequences are going to be and how we're going to have to go about this. I had two options. I could appeal it, but appealing couldn't take up to four years to do, or I could serve a one year backdated sanction from when it was initially granted.

Scott Benner 9:31
Can I ask a question here on this one? So obviously you have type one diabetes, so yeah, the problem isn't that you don't require insulin, it's that you didn't have the exemption for the requirement of insulin Correct, yes. And how were you supposed to know that?

Kate Brim 9:46
You know, I still, still have wonderance To this day, because, like I said, I went into this thinking I had all my paperwork, and I did that whole first year of racing, letting everyone know, hey, I'm type one diabetes. Vedic, this is what needs to be done if this happens. You know, especially around low blood sugars when racing and stuff, they can be very, very severe. I was very open, very public to every single person I came across on the international stage and within my team, on us prayer, cycling around my diabetes and the precautions that we need to take. So I thought all the ducks were in a row, and they very clearly were not, and because of the time frame we were looking at, I just had to bite the bullet and take the sanction, knowing and it was very hard for me to swallow, because I took that sanction was stripped of all the points that I had earned that previous year and not allowed to compete for the next six months.

Scott Benner 10:46
Did you lose your any your medals, or your wins, or anything like that? I lost

Kate Brim 10:50
all my points. Yep, exactly. So all the earnings that I had had made, I lost them. You know, I looked at this, you know, I was very fortunate in that we were able to keep me afloat for the time being, that I could not race. But the thing that really hurt me was I looked at this as, look, this is not someone who is trying to go out and dope up and get some benefit. This was there was some logistical errors and stuff that happened. Right? Mistakes happen, and I was very fortunate here in the US, we were able to keep me afloat. But for some other countries and some other people, this could literally mean the end of them, yeah, ever competing

Scott Benner 11:33
afloat, meaning that you have to make money somehow while you're not racing.

Kate Brim 11:38
Yeah? Yep, you know, thankfully, I was still able to have a roof over my head and, you know, health insurance and stuff, because in a lot of situations, that would all be stripped, because that is the one thing is my health insurance is dependent on my performance. If I'm not on national team, I don't have health insurance. And so, you know, I was very fortunate to be able to still at least have health insurance and a roof over my head. How did

Scott Benner 12:06
you work that out? Who stepped up for you? The usopc, okay, yeah, if you can't say I understand. But is this targeted? Like this was somebody coming for you? Because what a weird thing, like insulin, yeah, a type one,

Kate Brim 12:19
yeah, no, it's exactly there's been, you know, lots of doubt around that. And like I said, it's just it shattered me in so many ways, that we have such a fraud system that they're going to pick a bone over a logistical error for someone who is using a medication to keep them alive. But then we have people within our system, who you can see a violation for using performance Hansen drug. It be the same violation, the the same violation, but their penalty every single one is different. One you'll see is three months. One you'll see is just a little slap on the wrist warning. One you'll see is a year. One you'll see is four years, all for the same violation. And so there's just this lack of consistency and this picking and choosing, and how do we go about, you know, these violations and stuff

Scott Benner 13:09
you got screwed for winning too much, huh? Yeah, yeah, you think so,

Kate Brim 13:13
that's what it felt, felt like at at times. It's interesting. Do you have any, like,

Scott Benner 13:17
is there any proof that that happened, or is it just a feeling? It's just the thing. It's hard to get rid of. It's just

Kate Brim 13:22
a feeling. And it's, you know, one of those things I in the moment because, you know, I wanted to make the Paralympic Games. I had to bite the bullet and now live with this label on me. Of okay, I had to serve a sanction. And, you know, I'm very fortunate in that, like everyone I've come across, both on the international stage, UCI, usopc, everyone that I have talked to, and even USADA, our anti doping agency here, has been, this is absolutely insane and just completely ludicrous. Does

Scott Benner 13:56
insulin have a performance benefit? Like, why can't somebody, like, why is it on some list somewhere? What does it do?

Kate Brim 14:03
I haven't completely looked into it, but there's some talk about it being enhancing and like, track and field and weight lifting. And I just look at it, and I am like, no, never in a million years would I ever see this, like it's a drug that if you take your body doesn't need, you're going to bottom your blood sugar out like it's absolutely mind blowing to me. And you know, from day one of me being diagnosed, I was very unique case in that, like I my life didn't stop. I kept riding my bike and I went into the deep end, as far as figuring out management. Saw some really scary highs, saw some really scary lows, like I from day one, have fully understood the dangers of insulin, even when you have good management. Yeah, it's absolutely ludicrous. It's very sad, but yeah, so I serve that sanction. So

Scott Benner 15:00
can I tell you? Like, what I'm getting here is that a non diabetic athlete can misuse insulin as a performance enhancing drug to increase glucogen storage and improve endurance. However, this is dangerous, because without diabetes, additional insulin can cause severe hypoglycemia, coma, death. That's the whole bit of it, I guess. Yeah, yeah. And so it's in your system, and so it's on a so it's on a list somewhere, because at some point somebody did this and cheated, and they're like, Okay, well, we'll put this on the exemption list, but without a plan for what do we do? Well, I guess the plan is you have to get your exemption far too often. We accept the blood glucose meter that someone hands to us. The Doctor reaches into a drawer and goes, Here, take this one. That is, that is that the one you want, is it accurate? You have no way of knowing. But if you want accuracy, and you want to be confident in the blood glucose readings that you're getting from your meter, you want the contour next gen. It's incredibly easy to get the same meter that Arden uses. Just go to contour next.com/juice box, that's all you have to do. The contour next gen is easy to use and highly accurate. It features a smart light that provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels, and, of course, Second Chance sampling technology that can help you to save money with fewer wasted strips. Contour, next.com/juice box. I have always disliked ordering diabetes supplies. I'm guessing you have as well. It hasn't been a problem for us for the last few years, though, because we began using us Med, you can too us med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, to get your free benefits. Check us med has served over 1 million people living with diabetes since 1996 they carry everything you need, from CGM to insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies and more. I'm talking about all the good ones, all your favorites, libre three, Dexcom, g7 and pumps like Omnipod five, Omnipod tandem, and most recently, the I let pump from beta bionics, the stuff you're looking for, they have it at us. Med, 88887211514, or go to us. Med.com/juicebox, to get started now use my link to support the podcast. That's us, med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514,

Kate Brim 17:28
exactly. Yep. You have to have A, A, T, U, E, on file. And

Scott Benner 17:32
now that all that's happened, and I'm assuming you put it on file correctly now, is that right? Yep,

Kate Brim 17:37
yeah. Now it's on file, and every four years you have to reapply, which is awful. Another absolutely ludicrous thing. I'm like, It's type one diabetes. You know, the pancreas checked out. It ain't, I ain't miraculously getting cured.

Scott Benner 17:51
If it goes away, we'll all know, don't worry. Exactly, yeah, I want to point out here for people that doping with insulin for performance reasons is insanely risky and like, please don't even look into it or do it. I mean, I'm looking here. I've asked our little friend online, and he's telling me or she I guess it doesn't matter, telling me about it, suppressing cortisol, faster post workout recovery, increased glucogen storage for endurance, enhanced muscle growth and recovery. How about that? I'm so sorry that sucks, especially because you got off to such a nice start you were doing so well, you know, yeah, how did you find the management of type one while you were competing with, like, you know, you see people online talking about exercise and type one all the time. And you know, how hard some people find it. So, like, how did you find it to be

Kate Brim 18:40
at first, it was very hard. I really struggled with it. There was times where I would be riding and I'm like, Man, why is my blood sugar just stuck here in the three hundreds, even despite me, you know, increasing my basal rates and stuff. And, you know, it was figuring out a fine balance of like, okay, because when I'm on the bike, I'm taking in carbs while I am biking to reduce the effects of post ride, essentially crash or glycogen burnout, you want to keep the carbs coming in. And so figuring out how to be able to take carbs in while on the bike and also managing the blood sugar was is a huge challenge. It's something, yeah, I struggled with greatly at first. And at first I was like, Oh no, I'm I'm burning calories, so I should need less insulin. And for me, a lot of the times it actually is, I need more insulin. I have to increase my basal rate while I'm taking in these cars. Now, this is something that, as we all know, it's very different for everyone as far as management, when it comes to activity and not not activity and stuff. And for me, even it, it ebbs and flows and stuff. But it was a lot of trial and error. It was a lot of, you know, comparing my CG. Am data to real life data, sitting on the trainer and testing my blood sugar several times throughout the ride manually and stuff to see what what is happening, figuring out what's happening when I'm doing efforts and stuff, and how I need to to react to it. I feel like, for the most part, failed fairly dialed in my first probably two, two and a half years, there were times where I had some really scary lows, and, you know, I saw the number and I was like, Holy crap, this is not good. And also, I do not feel my low blood sugars. I've been damn near close to single digits and still fully conscious. And just looking at the numbers like, this is not good. All

Scott Benner 20:41
right, before we move forward, I'm gonna ask you a question. I don't want you to be shocked by it, but I'm gonna ask it because I think people are listening, and it might be incumbent upon me to ask, did you ever use insulin to cheat? No, okay, I just wanted to put that out there on the record that's all because, I mean, you're explaining what happened to you, but there's somebody hearing it going, you know what I mean, like, so I just want to, if you're comfortable saying that, I yeah, I just wanted to ask you, that's all I appreciate, just such a situation, honestly, no,

Kate Brim 21:10
it really was because I, like, when I first served, accepted that sanction. You know, I for many days, just one, I was just angry over the situation and hate, like had a lot of resent and just frustration towards diabetes and stuff because I was sitting over there like, look, I'm going in, day in and day out, busting my butt to have remotely good management and be able to ride my bike and live a fulfilling life and live a healthy, safe life with this diagnosis and with my spinal cord injury and stuff, and now here I am being punished for using the drug that's keeping me alive is essentially how how it was looked at for me, and it was really, really, really hard bullet to to bite. But, you know, like I said, thankfully I had amazing support to get me through it. And coming back to racing, it felt really, really good, and I was happy to be able to come back to racing. It was definitely hard, and it still is very hard at times. You know, it crosses my mind a lot of like, you know, I just want to see change around this type of situation where logistical errors happen. People make mistakes all the time, as far as paperwork or forgetting to do something all of us do that. Every single one of us do that. Were

Scott Benner 22:36
you mistreated based on how they treat other people who also try but get it wrong, trying to do the right thing. Were you hit more harshly than other people have been in that situation? Or do you not know it

Kate Brim 22:49
feels like I was hit more harshly, especially because, you know, I did. I did go down that rabbit hole of pulling up the published sanctions and stuff, and I'm looking at some of these violations, and I'm just like, What in the world? This is a little slap to the wrist for a true violation of using a substance that someone shouldn't use. And then I'm over here, you know, with with the medication that I need to keep me alive, how much

Scott Benner 23:14
time did you actually have to serve? Because some of it was time served already, right? Yep,

Kate Brim 23:18
yeah, it was a backdated one year sanction, and I had to serve an additional six months with no racing. And so

Scott Benner 23:25
did it put you behind, like athletically or in competition? No,

Kate Brim 23:31
I Well, it did points wise, because, like I said, all my points were stripped, so when I came back to racing, all my competitors had had a year and a half worth of points into the quad. And when I say quad, so each Paralympic Games, there's typically four years where people are earning points to get slots to make the Paralympic Games. So my competitors had about a year and a half's worth of points, whereas when I started, I had zero points. So there was a lot of pressure when it came to that, as far as knowing, hey, I'm starting from ground zero and way behind everyone else. So it was a lot of having to work really, really hard and be very diligent on my training and stuff and racing and really, really just being on top of, you know, performance management. When the sanction happened, I still continued to train. I was more so taking those six months, I went a bit looser on the structure. As far as training, I was not very strict. As far as you know, making sure to get intervals in. I just I took that time to, like, okay, look, the sanction sucks, but like, go back to square one of why I ride the bike. I love the bike and everything it's provided me the independence that it's shown me, what it's shown me I'm able to do, you know, with my disability and stuff. Yeah, that's what I turned to. And. Was very, very helpful, and I saw a lot of growth just naturally happen doing that. And so, yeah, that was definitely what, what got me through. I

Scott Benner 25:10
was wondering, because you hadn't been doing it that long, but you did have great success, and you did, I mean, you called it freeing, you know, so I didn't imagine you just walk away from it, but it had to be difficult to find something that was helping you, that you were good at, etc, and then have it taken from you, and then to keep up the momentum to get through the six months, I was wondering how that was, yeah,

Kate Brim 25:31
yeah, it's it was solely just turning back to riding the bike like I did those first couple years before I started riding, which was writing, because I love riding, and that's been, like my biggest message within racing on the big stage is great, but for me, it's not the metals and the glory and the podium and stuff. It's like I said, it's the message that it's brought to me, and the message that I've been able to bring to others, as far as showing like, what is truly possible, even despite really challenging circumstances. That's been the reason, reason I ride, and the reason I race, and why I, you know, continue to continue to race, even despite all the challenges I've had. Yeah, your

Scott Benner 26:13
situation is so specific. Are those accomplishments something that you want to share with the world, or is it just something you need to get through.

Kate Brim 26:21
I have never been a big one for, like, gloating my success. Every single race I go into, I've always gone on it with, like, a learner's cap. Like I still feel like it's day one so many times. And every single race I've done, we're going on three years of racing under my belt, I still feel like I'm going into the race saying, okay, what can I take away from this race and learn to better, improve myself for next time and strategy and stuff? And there was a lot of that, especially this last year, leading into into the Paralympic Games. This last year was the year, the most important year of the quad, as far as making the Paralympic Games, and it was very stressful, but it was also very, very fulfilling and just incredible. Like everything that I learned throughout, you know, I told, told myself, leading up to the games, you've got the performance, you've got the drive, you have all the training under your belt right now. It's, it's staying consistent, staying on top of training, but most of all, staying healthy. I did that and got through our world cup season. Did amazing. Was loving where I was seeing my performance, the one thing that I was chasing so the Paralympic level, the UCI level. We all have classifications based upon our disability. So for the hand bikes, it goes h1 through h5 h1 being the most disabled and h5 being the least disabled. I'm an h2 athlete at the U, C i level. We all race our own individual classifications. I'm racing other h2 is h3 is a racing h3 is H fours are raising H fours. But at the Paralympic level, there is only a certain amount of metals that can be dispensed amongst all the sports and so what ends up happening is categories get combined. So for me, I was racing against h2 h3 and h4 when people like, look at it, you're thinking, well, how, how is that even remotely fair racing against people who have a lot more ability than you like, I had that thought, and I had that frustration, definitely, but it was just my driver to work that much harder. I looked up to the h3 and the h4 girls as the girls that I needed to chase, and I started working towards that. And you know, when it came to our road races, we have two big events, the time trial and the road race. The time trial is a race against the clock. We all have our own start time, and whoever has the fastest time at the end is the winner, and it goes down from there as far as times, whereas the road race, think of it like a marathon. We all start at the same time. Whoever crosses the finish line first is the winner. Time Trial is the the race of strength, whereas the road race is the race of strategy. You know, I was looking at the age three and age four girls times being like, Okay, I want to, I want to work towards this, and I want to do all that I can to get as close to those girls as I possibly can at the Paralympic level. Our Time Trial, we had what was called a factor. Think of it like a golf handicapped card. So the lower the classification, the higher the factor percentage you got. And so we were going, based off of that, to kind of look at my training and stuff and the goals to chase. And like I said, I was just put my head down. Did the training worked as hard as possible? And. And the three World Cups, I was getting closer and closer to those girls the road races. We pushed for me to start with the age three and age four girls, because typically they stagger at the starts. And I was able to, you know, keep up with the girls. And I was loving seeing where things were going. It felt absolutely amazing. And I left that final World Cup feeling really, really strong and really, really confident in you know what I was going to be able to be able to do if I make the Paralympic Games? Mind you, I left that World Cup, the World Cup season, still not even knowing if I was going to make the Paralympic Games, just because of how our point system worked. It was absolutely crazy how the points were dispensed, and very stressful. So the World Cup season is over. Now we have the very final event on the US side, which is our Paralympic trials open event that was held in Loma Linda, California. That was the last event to get ready for before they announced the team. The weeks leading up to that I was training, everything was going great. It was about two weeks before we were supposed to be going to the event that I discovered my bike that was barely a year old, the whole back end of it, the carbon fiber was cracked. I was very stressed in the moment, because I was like, we have two weeks, and the whole back end of my bike is cracked, making it not race legal. So I was calling around all of Colorado as far as places that could potentially repair it, and nobody wanted to touch it, because they were afraid that it was essentially where the crack was, was going to impact the structure of the bike. It was a special essentially, if this cracks anymore, you're going to break the spine of the bike and it's going to crumble underneath you. So nobody wanted to touch it and like have the liability of

Scott Benner 31:58
that take replacing it is how much for the whole bike? Four grand.

Kate Brim 32:02
Okay, so I last minute find a prosthetics company who does a very quick just on the spot job. He epoxies the whole end of it, and we got it so that the draft bar would stay in, which is the bar that protects the back wheels, so in case someone hits you, they're not hitting you, they're hitting this bar. We got that in place. It's very shortly, epoxied together. I'm like, okay, the bike is at least temporarily fixed. You know, if I make the team, I'm going to have to figure out a permanent repair as far as this. And so get ready to go. Let our director know and our mechanic know, hey, this is the repair job that we got. And then I'm let know your bike could potentially not pass inspection. Come race day, be prepared for that. Mind you, I'm hearing this news as I'm on the plane to Loma Linda, California with my mom, and you know, she's very excited for the trials, very anxious. We're all, you know, like, Okay, this is the final event. This is the last, last chance to get get the points needed in order to make the team. And I get that call, and I'm just sitting in there on the plane, reminiscing over the fact, holy crap, I have a bike that could not be race legal. I may not get to start, and like we all had to do that race in order to even be considered for the team, regardless of how many points you have, we land. My mom and I happen to not be sitting next to each other, I kind of stay silent at first, and I'm just trying to, like, be as calm as I can. Just all I can do is show up, show up, race day, and whatever happens, happens. I let my mom know of the situation, and it kind of just like, really set in. That set in, then the severity of the situation of like, wow, this is actually a really big deal. Again, she and I both agree it's out of our control. At this point. We got the repair that we could get. I just have to show up race day and be ready. So to say I was nervous was a huge understatement. Performance and numbers that was all out the window. Me, it was, am I going to be able to even race or not? And so time trial day is there. I show up to the start line, the bikes inspection starts, and it's the most nerve wracking moment I had in my life. They typically biking inspection is very fast. They do a couple measurements to make sure that we're within the specs and you're on it's done within 15 seconds. They start banging around on my draft bar and stuff, saying it's too close to the wheels, the heights wrong and stuff. And then they let me know, hey, we're going to let you race today, but in order for you to continue racing, a better repair job. Up. Needs to be done. This is this is not safe. So I get into that star pen knowing, okay, I'm going to be let race, but I have a bike that's not race legal. I tell myself, okay, it's out of my control. All I can do right now is just get the race done and we'll take it from there. So the race starts. I get it done, I complete the race. It goes very well. We finish after that. They do the podiums and all the awards and stuff. And then is the dreaded everyone has to wait the whole next day to receive the call on whether or not they made the team or not made the team. So my mom and I and her friend, we go out to lunch. We're just trying to, you know, stay calm in the situation. Just enjoy the time that we're having in California. Find some nice restaurants. And I get the call from Ian, our director, and he lets me know, hey, congratulations, Cate, you made the Paralympic team. Gives me some logistical stuff, as far as, like, what to expect over the next couple of days. And I just froze. I couldn't even express excitement, because I was so stressed in the moment, and I just went straight to business mode. And I said, I need a bike. No, that's literally what I said you did. Yeah. I said, Okay, I'm very excited, but my bike is not race legal. What do we what do we do? We have less than a month and a half to figure out a race legal bike. And so, yeah, we go immediately to business mode. He's like, Okay, I'm gonna contact carbon bike, the maker of my bike, and we're gonna get this, get this figured out. Can

Scott Benner 36:39
I ask a question? Do you wear any devices like an omnipot or a libre or a Dexcom or an eyelet or any of that stuff?

Kate Brim 36:47
So I'm on the tandem Tesla next to, okay, they haven't

Scott Benner 36:51
talked about maybe throwing you 10 grand a year to sponsor your bike or something like that. Yeah.

Kate Brim 36:56
No, I so my one big sponsorship is Novo Nordisk, actually. Okay, so, yeah, they've been a huge support. As far as, just like helping me with my diabetes management, you know, just helping me with my mission of, you know, showing people what's possible and stuff. Absolutely Are you allowed

Scott Benner 37:15
to have two sponsors? Yeah, right. You want me to introduce you to somebody?

Kate Brim 37:19
No, it was absolutely insane. So yeah, like I said, Ian contacts carbon bike, they get back to us initially tell us, okay, this is what it's going to cost for a new frame. They originally told me they wanted me to pay the full price, which was close to eight grand. And I said it's four grand to replace it. That's the original price was eight grand. And I said, Look, this is my situation. This bike is not even a year old. Has never seen damage, has been taken care of, like, miraculously, I didn't run into a wall or anything. Exactly, yeah, yep, the bike should not be cracked in barely a year's worthy. Is there a warranty or something, you know? So that's what we initially had tried going for. It was like, hey, a warranty route, but it didn't happen. So we had to dump four grand on a new frame. Originally, they had told us. So my bike is very customized to my disability. To shift the gear system, I shift with two blip buttons that sit right behind my ears that are attached to the frame of the bike, and then I break with my elbow. So it's a very unique system. It's not something that you can just go to a run in the middle bike shop and and fix. They initially tell us, hey, this is when we can get you to the frame by which was, like, a couple days before we were supposed to be leaving for my Orca, our training camp. And I, I just looked at Ian and Steve, I was like, No, we need the bike sooner than that. We have to completely move all the components over to a new frame. And so thankfully they they got it to us quicker. We got everything figured out. I have a new frame. All is good, and then I end up getting sick.

Scott Benner 39:04
Kate, listen to me. Have you been cursed by a witch? Like, what's happening? The quadriplegic thing should have been it like the the universe should have went like, all right, you know what? She got her whole load right there in the one thing, we don't have to do anything else. Like, no kidding, does anything go right? I'm not even I'm not being funny. Like, have you had a moment where you're like, oh, that worked out. Yeah,

Kate Brim 39:25
it was. It was two days after Loma Linda, not even two days actually got back from Loma Linda had the whole stress of the bike and stuff, and we were getting that figured out. I rode the first day that I got back. Notice my heart rate was little higher, but I was like, it's just stress, getting back to altitude, not going to sweat. It still felt fine, riding on the bike easy. It didn't feel feel terrible. And then about two o'clock in the morning, I woke up with a really high fever and the worst pain in my life ever. And it was just that light switch where, you know. If something is seriously wrong, there's no if ands or buts about it. It's code critical, like you need help, and so I end up going to the hospital. At first they tell me, Oh, it's just a bad UTI. We're gonna keep you a couple nights, do some IV antibiotics, and you should be good. Well, it ended up being two weeks later that I got out of the hospital because I ended up going to my kidneys. So here I am, you know, just having finished the trials and get this serious infection, I lost a ton of weight, got down to 97 pounds, being almost six foot tall, and had been stuck in a bed, unable to do anything for myself for nearly two weeks, and now I have to, you know, be ready to race in a matter of a few weeks,

Scott Benner 40:51
a common quad problem

Kate Brim 40:53
within spinal cord injuries, they can be Now, the thing that was Very shocking for me is I fortunately have not had many UTIs at all I did when I was first diagnosed with the spinal cord injury and stuff. I had issues with it, but it was just figuring out a regimen that worked for me, and then I didn't have UTIs for a super long time. Up until this recent one ended up in the hospital for two two weeks, it affected so much. It was more than just my kidneys. It completely destroyed my gut. Ended up being on a feeding tube and stuff to try to get food into me, because I was just throwing up constantly and couldn't keep anything down. Was sent to rehab for a couple days and then discharged. My body just got completely depleted from this infection, and now I have to go be ready to race on the biggest stage in the world. It turned into me just having to essentially trust that I have spent the last two and a half years working my butt off in training, and I was sick for two weeks. But it doesn't mean that I am completely destroyed. And I didn't want to count myself out. I said all I can do is the best that I can do. And that was the mentality I went into it. We went to our my orca camp. I rode very well. You know? It felt good to be getting back on the bike. Was definitely rough the first couple of days. The one thing that I was still dealing with, and still am to this day, was GI issues, as far as, like, what I couldn't, couldn't eat and stuff. I was having a lot of dead like, just digestion issues and things not

Scott Benner 42:31
was that after the antibiotics, yeah, yep,

Kate Brim 42:35
it was. So it started when the infection happened in the hospital, and has just persisted. That was, like, a really big challenge, was getting, like, fuel in me and stuff, and refiguring out just the whole eating aspect. And so, yeah, training camp happened. Felt good. We're now in the the Paralympic village in Paris, and it's, it's setting in, like, holy cow, I'm here on the biggest stage in the world, and you know it's gonna be go time in a matter of a few days. You're not your best self at that point. No, I'm definitely not. And but like I said, all I could keep reminding myself was, look, all you can do is the best that you can do. And I had to just go back to the roots of like there's something that we try to use a lot, a lot within racing, which is relative perceived effort, which is just when you're riding, listening to your body as far as how you're feeling. And that's exactly what I did come that race day was very challenging. Believe the days leading up to it, you know, there wasn't for me. I felt like I did not have the true, you know, village experience of like mingling with others and meeting a lot of people is lots of days in Sports Med and really keeping training controlled and checking in all the time and just making sure I'm feeling all right and things are going okay. And then, yeah, race day is here, and I'm now on the biggest stage in the world. And I mean that start pen and you know, very similar to Loma Linda, I said, I have to just put everything behind me, all the stress, all the worries, all the concerns, and I just have to go out there and give it my all the time trial is a unique a unique race. And we, when we're racing, we get a headset and we have what's called a follow car, which is essentially a coach who is following behind you, letting you know, hey, yep, you're doing good. Effort wise. Is your time? This is how far you are from the person behind you or in front of you. They they're able to, like, let you know all that information. And that was one of the biggest helpers that time in getting me through that. Race was just having that voice of like, you're doing awesome. Keep pushing, keep pushing. You're doing great. And just like that one time hearing those words was never like, more beneficial, yeah. So I did that race, and I was like, Okay, I did everything I could. You know, the numbers, the numbers were lower than they typically had been, but I still was able to go out there and do an amazing performance, and I crossed the finish line. And the unique thing about the time trial is when you cross the finish line, you typically have to wait for everyone else to finish before you know your result. Cross the finish line say, Okay, I did as good as I could, and then it probably wasn't even a minute later, my director, who was also in my ear piece, comes running out of the car and lets me know, Kate, you did it. You got first place. You're a Paralympic gold medalist. And I just froze like in the moment to think everything that had just happened over that last month, between the bike falling apart, having to get a new bike, ending up in the hospital for two weeks, I did it. I got Paralympic gold by nine seconds. And it just felt so surreal. I just froze in the moment. I was just so proud of myself for like, pushing through everything that had been thrown at me, and it was just that huge reminder of like, through the tough battles we can accomplish. So freaking much so so freaking much if you just, like, believe in yourself and you trust in the support that you have and lean on those that are helping you and stuff that was exactly what happened that race. Kate,

Scott Benner 46:47
what's the secret, though? What is it about your experiences that allows you to stop and say, I'm just not going to think about all those other things. You know?

Kate Brim 47:01
That's a good question.

Scott Benner 47:03
Everything you've said, I don't know that. It's not common sense. It's the doing it that's hard. You know what I mean, like? And so there's so many people listening, and they're like, Yeah, I I was upset. Like, I was upset this morning, Kate, because the company that cleans my gutters missed a part of it. And I was like, What now, I gotta call them and, like, and you're out there, like, Oh, my bike broke, and then I got a UTI. And, by the way, my legs, you know, they don't really do a whole lot. And, like, this is happening, and that's happening and, you know, and I got, I got kicked out over here, and I had to sit for six months, and, you know, I get into the shoot, and I'm like, Okay, I'll leave that all behind me, and I'll race this race, yeah, as a metaphor for life and day to day activity. And, you know, hardships and how come some people can get in that shoot and it just eats them alive, and they can't race. And some people get in and and just start with a fresh slate. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm trying to figure out where you get that slate, that clean slate, from. I think

Kate Brim 47:59
for me, especially this last year, it's been the support that I've had. You know, the team that's been around me continue to tell me, like between my coach and all the usopc staff, from sports medicine to sports physiology, strength conditioning, like, if people believe in me, believing in me, and just that reassurance of like, you are capable of doing this immediately after that was like, one of the first things that came out of my mouth is it would not have been doable had it not been for the team behind me. You know, cycling, so often in the public light, is viewed as an individual sport. It's the work that that athlete puts in, how much they're doing on the bike, what they're eating, but at the same time, I looked at my situation and I said that, yeah, there's definitely the self performance and self drive portion of it, but it is also that team behind me that helped me be able to do that and push my limits and find the strength and stuff to, like, get me through that race, like I explained, you know, having having our director in my ear just reassuring me, like, you're doing amazing. Keep going. Keep going. You've got this far left, and next, you know, I cross the finish line, and I've done it. It's definitely the team behind the

Scott Benner 49:21
team. Were you this person before your spinal cord injury? Or do you think this cascade of problems would have hit that Cate? Would you have just been like everybody else and like that sucks, and I'm getting screwed all over the place and I give up.

Kate Brim 49:33
No, I definitely, I definitely was not that way before. I was a lot less confident in life. I was very much, so I keep my feet planted on the ground. Didn't really try new things, but my injury happened, and it just the one thing it taught me is like we just have so much to be grateful for, and we take so much for granted. Getting outside of my comfort zone and you're pressing the limits and. And doing things that make me uncomfortable is just taught me so much and just continued to, you know, fuel that fire, as far as, like, pressing the limits and just showing myself and allowing me to be able to show others even what is truly, truly capable in life.

Scott Benner 50:17
So you had to lose something to gain that. Or do you think you could have found it through a different Pro, like, I'm trying to find out, did you get look? I'm not saying, You know what, I mean, like, your spinal cord injury was, like, lucky, or anything like that, but I'm saying, Is there, like, did you have to go through so much to give yourself that perspective? Do you think that you gained two lifetimes worth of perspective and one injury? Or, like, how do you feel, like you made the leap?

Kate Brim 50:42
I think it was me getting knocked on my, quite frankly, knocked on my ass, that showed me that perspective. And, you know, it's one of those things I have asked. I'd like, Why does it take some of us having absolutely detrimental things happen to us for us to learn, you know, what is truly, truly possible, or, you know, what greatness we we have and don't even realize. But for me, yeah, it, it took getting knocked on my knocked on my ass, to really realize what is out there and what I'm capable of, and the limits, and, you had the benefit of trying new things and getting myself out there. It's

Scott Benner 51:25
not that you're not impacted by bad luck, like it hits you still, like we heard that through your whole story, right? Like, it's still like you're like, Oh my God, this happened. This is happening, and that's happening this step, but it's when the rubber hits the road. Oh my god, literally, when the rubber hits the road. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. I wasn't trying to make a pun, but when that happens, then it's time to give it away and just go exactly right, yep, huh? Well, you ought to bottle that and sell it. I think you could buy like, 1000 bikes. Yeah, wow, that's really crazy. Good for you, not, awesome, yeah, when you wake up from that surgery, you didn't know you're going to be this person. You know what? I mean? Oh,

Kate Brim 52:05
100% never in a million years, would I have imagined myself moving out here to the Olympic and Paralympic training center to be an elite level athlete. Yeah, never even being able

Scott Benner 52:14
to tell this story from your perspective now is just new. Yeah. Can I ask you a question that you may or may not have an answer to? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Yeah, you get diagnosed with type one diabetes. Somebody does anybody right? Somebody's kid, they do, etc. It's clear to me, in hindsight, if you're a ship on a course, this is a wind that blows you in a different direction. Then there are some people who say, like, well, I want to get back to normal. And there are some people who say, Well, this is my new normal. I think I'm of the opinion that once you're blown in a different direction, there's different impact, there's now different variables to your life, like you're never getting back to where you are. I think the truth is, is that you wouldn't have stayed on that direction anyway, like other things would have changed in your life, changes constantly, so but it happens very abruptly with type one like you get, boom, there's a diagnosis. Bang, my, you know, my course has been changed. How do you accept that course? Because I don't think that it's so much that the one course or the other is necessarily better or worse than the other one. It's just this one's different than what I expected, and it happened so quickly that I didn't have time to adjust to it. So when, if this is all making sense, so if, when your course is abruptly changed, what's the secret to accepting it? It's

Kate Brim 53:33
a question, especially in the last several months, since the Paralympic games have been over, that I have asked myself a lot. I've had that question a lot of like, you know what? What is it truly that is keeping me, keeping me going, and keeping me dealing with all this just straight up bullshit that many would look at this situation as, like, What

Scott Benner 53:56
stops you from putting a fork in a socket? You know what? I mean? Like, yeah, yep, it's been a

Kate Brim 54:02
question I've had a lot recently because after the Paralympic Games, my team completely shut down my training and said, We've got to get get this gi stuff figured out. Because at the Paralympic Games, I was living off of smoothies and Cape farms Supplemental Nutritional drinks and still throwing up constantly and dealing with nausea and stuff, and I'm still dealing with it to this day, and we've been trying to figure it out. I've been absolutely thrown through the ringer as far as diagnostic testing recently, and it has been a very, very big thought of mine, of like, God, what does keep me driving? Because, you know, like I said, they shut down my training. They said no riding the bike until this is figured out. Just due to because I was dealing with autonomic dysreflex You, which is essentially with a spinal cord injury, the body saying, yo, Code Red, something's wrong. We're going to shoot your blood pressure up super high. And so I was dealing with that and stuff. And. I said, We got to get this figured out. You have to take a take a step back from the bike, which was very hard for me to digest, because, you know, like I explained to you earlier, the bike, for me, it was very freeing. It's very it's been a huge role in showing me what I am capable of, but also on the physical aspects of it. It was a huge part of my specificity and pain management. I deal with neuropathic nerve pain due to my spirit spinal cord injury and specificity due to your signals being sent incorrectly down the spinal canal to the injury. And it also was a huge role in my diabetes management. So having all that taken away, it was a huge bullet to bite because one pain, spasticity, diabetes management all started getting a little worse, and it was very hard for me to eat. And I just, you know, I was, like, really realizing how much, how much the bike has helped me deal with all this. And, yeah,

Scott Benner 56:09
it's purpose, right? Like, the one thing people need. It doesn't matter what the purpose is. People need purpose, yeah, you know, it took me a long time my my mom is gone now, right? But she worked. My mom worked, you know, as a kind of jobs that she tripped into when she was young. She was a stay at home mom for a very long time. Eventually, she had to go back to work. She took a retail job. She was basically just at a cash register in a in a pharmacy. But if you asked her about the job, the job was like helping people. It was talking to people. It was having conversations, and, you know, building communities of people who came in there and being supportive. And like, if you talk to her about her job, she wouldn't have mentioned the the exchange of the of the cash back and forth at the cash register, right? Like that, wasn't it? I think if you take my mom at the end of her life and say, hey, you know, you tell me your impact of your work life on the world. She would have spoken about it really lovingly, yeah, about like, you know, kids that worked there, and she'd help them with stuff and overwhelmed pharmacists that really, you know, were being asked to do too much. So people would pick up the slack and give people their prescriptions on time and, like all this other stuff. But in the end, what my mom had was, and it doesn't matter how you measure, she had some level of purpose and, and, I mean, I do the same thing, and I get up every day and I think, Oh, I'm gonna go try to help people with type one diabetes. Say that's, that's a purpose I have, right? I yeah, I raised my kids. It's a purpose. You know, people buy pets, they take care of them. They feel purposeful, like you lose the ability to walk. And I can see how very quickly your sense of purpose would just turn to self care, and that eventually you'd turn in on yourself, and there wouldn't be anything outside of you. And I think that could be difficult for somebody. So the bike, to me, is it's a hill to conquer.

Kate Brim 57:59
Yeah, yep, 100% it's the bike to me, has definitely been my, my purpose, you know, it's been my, my STI and my diabetes management. And it was very hard for for the few months that I had to completely take off the bike, of just having to sit there and taken the spasticity and really increased nerve pain and also all this gi stuff going on, and not having any outlet, I realized that my me riding the bike and me doing wheelchair rugby was my outlet, as far as managing all that, and it was very, very hard, and like I said, we're still to this day, searching for answers. I just had a colonoscopy the other day that went absolutely haywire. You know, she's been this test after test after test as far as trying to figure out what is going on, but just not having any answers. And so it's been hard to digest because, you know, so often I feel like I felt like I've just been in this big black hole of uncertainty with all this of like, okay, this is a really big issue as far as me being able to, you know, get in the nutritional support that one needs and stuff, but we just don't have any answers. You know, especially in the sports world, someone breaks their ankle, okay? Here's the surgery, here's how long the recovery is going to be, and this is what coming back to training is look like. It's pretty concrete as far as what the Road to Recovery looks like, whereas me, it's just been this big black hole of uncertainty since the infection back in July, and trying to figure out answers which has been, I think, a big reason why I've struggled so much to one step away from the bike, but also just cope with it and accept, like, Okay, this sucks. These are, these are my symptoms. What are the answers? You know? How do we move? Move on with this? And. And if this is my new normal, how do we approach it and how do we deal with it? Because right now, it's definitely I, in many ways, have felt like my life has just been completely shut down, and it's been super, super hard. What a doctor say about the gut stuff, there's kind of wonderance of gastroparesis. We did a gastric county study, but they weren't able to do it like they typically want, because the majority of the stuff had dairy in it.

Scott Benner 1:00:26
Kate, can I make a suggestion? Yeah, yeah. Let me make a suggestion. You haven't had type one very long, right? So the idea that you have gastroparesis because of poor diet, like type one insulin used or controlled, it's pretty unreasonable. So do they think it's because of the injury? Or Has anyone talked to you about the fact that, you know, a lot of type ones just have digestive problems? Yeah.

Kate Brim 1:00:51
So that was something that was looked at. Looked at they looked at like the pancreatic and liver enzymes within blood work and stuff. When I was in the hospital, they did a small bile duct study, they did an endoscopy, and it's just we're in this big black hole of uncertainty. And I'm actually currently awaiting a call today, hopefully to figure out what our next steps are, because I've just gotten to the point of it, of like, you know, there's some things in life we may never have a complete answer to but the one thing that just has not happened for me recently has been okay. I want to search for answers, and I want to figure out what's going on, but I want to address symptom management as well. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:01:33
but wait what? What's happening is your stomach just hurt. Are you just not your meals aren't moving through you as much nausea

Kate Brim 1:01:40
and vomiting, throwing up meals six hours after the fact of eating them, as if I just ate it.

Scott Benner 1:01:46
Okay, listen, I want to be very 100% million percent clear. I barely graduated from high school. Okay, yeah. I'm definitely not a doctor, but I think you should take a couple of minutes just to look into a simple over the counter digestive enzyme, yeah, which helps a lot of people with type one.

Kate Brim 1:02:04
Yeah, it's so that has been mentioned, and that is something that I'm I had brought up with GI and is part of the call that I'm awaiting, yeah, but it's just yeah, figuring out the the right course to go about it and stuff, also, with all the anti doping stuff, because I can't just go pick up a bottle of digestive enzymes and just take

Scott Benner 1:02:26
it. You have to make sure. Don't want to reopen that can of worms. Yeah, exactly. Do you listen to the podcast at all? Yeah? Yeah. 792 episode 792 is called owner of a useless pan grace. It's me and Jenny talking about the other things that your pancreas does, besides, you know, insulin. And in that conversation, you'll hear me talk about how I, at some point had to add digestive enzymes to Arden's diet because she was having the same problems you're having, not the throwing up, but a lot of the other stuff, right? Also, I'm not saying you don't have gastroparesis. I'm just saying that these digestive enzymes are over the counter. If you look at the you know, I obviously would want you to really, really, really look at the ingredients. There's nothing in them that I can imagine off the top of my head. That would be a problem for you. Yeah? Yeah. There's a couple of companies that make really good ones. I'm looking at the label right now for one that I'd be completely comfortable telling you is valuable. Amylase, protease, protease six glyco my lace, lactase, lipase, beta glucanase, invertase, Celia alpha galactosidis, protase three, Fauci and hemo cilia. I don't know, I don't know what any of that is, okay, but, like, I do know that. I've seen it help a lot of people, yeah, yeah, a lot of people. I sometimes they just take them with, like, high fat or meals or like protein, you know, like, like meat. I don't know how you eat even, but if you can go use those without it being a doping issue, yeah, if they work for you, you'll know really quickly, yeah, like, it's not a thing you got to do for months and go like, well, I don't know. Like, you know what I mean, like, in a couple of days, you'll just be like, Oh, this is helping, yeah, and it kind of gives your gut a chance to maybe heal. Then at that point, yeah, I don't know. Like, by taking some of the load off of it, I honestly, I'm just using, I'm using phrasing and words from my experience watching it happen for somebody else. Like, obviously, there's nothing medical about what I'm saying, but I'm telling you, like, it's a really, really strong possibility that this is the only problem you have. So anyway, I would listen to 792 Yeah, before that diet. And if you, if it really, you know, catches your attention, you think, Okay, let me, let me look more into it. There's 767, where I just talk briefly about everything that Arden takes as a supplement. And honestly, if you go to Juicebox Podcast com and just search the word digestive, you'll get a. Lot of episodes where people are talking about it, yeah,

Kate Brim 1:05:02
no. It's, it's something that I have been very familiar with and, like, aware of good and it's, yeah, that's definitely kind of the next route that I am kind of going. I

Scott Benner 1:05:13
think you need an easy answer once in a while. Is what I'm saying? Oh, 100%

Kate Brim 1:05:18
Yeah. No. Like I said, it's especially after this colonoscopy, I just have felt so burnt out, as far as you know, going into these, these tests and just not getting answers and stuff. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:32
no, no, of course. Listen, my my daughter, who's a 1c has been between five two and six two. Now maybe what she went off to college. So five, two and six, five for, like, I don't know, I don't even know, like, a decade, right? Yeah, and she's got, you know, her stomach hurts, and you know, you do all the things I'm sure you've gone through too, and then eventually she ends up at an endoscopy, right? So down there, looking in her stomach, doing a gastric emptying test and everything. And the doctor just comes back to us and says, Arden has gastroparesis. Yeah, that doctor might just mean slow gastric emptying. That's not a thing you say to the parents or a person with type one diabetes, because we have a completely different perspective on what that might mean, right? Yeah. And so I'm like, standing I'm like, that's not possible, but maybe it is, like, who knows? You know? And if I didn't have Jenny to talk to privately, who was like, listen, Arden does not have gastroparesis. Like, let's look into other stuff. And they gave her this gastroparesis diet, which Kate was terrible, and didn't help any. She did it religiously for a month, and it just didn't change a damn thing. And I'm not, I'm not lying to you. Like, this is exactly what happened at the end of the month. She goes, I want a cheeseburger. I don't care if my stomach hurts. I'm done with this stupid diet. It's not helping. Yeah, I remember this, right? And she's just like, My stomach's gonna hurt. And I guess this is my lot in life. And I was like, All right, I'll get you a cheeseburger, but you have to go to the health food store with me first. And we went to the health food store, and all I did was took the crunchiest lady in the place who looked like she was in like, good shape, and I told her what happened, and she gave her a digestive enzyme, and she took two of them and ate the cheeseburger, and she was okay, yeah,

Kate Brim 1:07:13
no, it's definitely something I am wanting to, like, explore, yeah. And have have brought it to the attention of the GI because, like, the thing is, it's been a very good experience. He has done a very good job being very thorough and stuff on the diagnostic side, but where we're lacking is just the symptom management side. And so it's yeah, now I'm to the point where I'm like, Okay, we what can we try and like something

Scott Benner 1:07:41
you can buy on Amazon and have at your house today? Yeah, I mean, keep in mind this, and I'm not bad mouthing anybody, but like the doctor you went to can't make any money if he just gives you a digestive enzyme and says, Oh, your belly hurts. Try this. He's got to do a test. He's got to stick a tube in your butt. He's got a lot of things he's got to do if he wants to charge your money. So, I mean, what I ended up doing was listening to a lady who, in the end, I believe, might have been a wish doctor. That's fine. She's just this lovely hippie. And, you know, she was just very helpful. Now she has said stuff to me too that I've been like, okay, focus, focus. Thank you. Yeah, and I don't listen. But on this one thing just really worked out, you know. So anyway, I wish you a ton of luck. Is there anything we haven't talked about that we should have we're getting

Kate Brim 1:08:26
a little long here. I don't think so. No, awesome. Think we hit the nail on the head.

Scott Benner 1:08:30
I appreciate you doing this again. I love you're such a good shepherd of your own story, which some people aren't. I like this. I like talking to you because I really, genuinely think, and I say this to people once in a while, like I could have said, everybody, this is Cate. She was on the podcast. Kate. She was on the podcast before I could have gotten a sandwich and come back, and I would have been like, are we done, Kate? And you'd been like, yep, told my whole story. And I think, Oh, you're just very good at it. So thank you. I appreciate it. No, I really appreciate it. That's a pleasure. Can people check you out online somewhere?

Kate Brim 1:08:56
Quad Cate on Instagram. Nice. You.

Scott Benner 1:09:05
This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by us med. US med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, US med is where my daughter gets her diabetes supplies from and you could too use the link or number to get your free benefits check and get started today with us, met Ardyn started using a contour meter because of its accuracy, but she continues to use it because it's durable and trustworthy. If you have diabetes you want the contour, next gen blood glucose meter. There's already so many decisions. Let me take this one off your plate. Contour, next.com/juicebox

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, 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 if you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that, it really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com, you.

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#1423 Out on the Island

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The mother of a 17 year old type 1 shares their story.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Let's see who we have here. Jennifer is an audiologist, and her 17 year old son has type one diabetes. Her husband has celiac her and her mother both have PCOS, and her mother and grandmother have type two diabetes. We talk about the onset diagnosis hospital, thyroid issues with her son, and much more, including insurance and dealing with renewals and a little bit about exercise. 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.

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. You

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by cozy earth.com cozy Earth is where I get my clothing, linens and towels from they are incredibly comfortable and temperate. I love them. I really do love them, and I love that I can give you an offer code that will save you 40% off of your entire order. Just use the offer code Juicebox at checkout, and you will save 40% at cozy earth.com the episode you're about to enjoy was brought to you by Dexcom, the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. You can learn more and get started today at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox, friends, touched by type one's walk is coming up quickly on March 8 at the Saturday at Lake Eola Park in Orlando, Florida, go now to touched by type one to sign up and register. It's completely free. You're gonna have a wonderful time touched by type one.org. Go to the Programs tab, click on Steps to a cure.

Jennifer 2:32
I'm Jennifer. I live on Long Island, New York, and my son, Mason, is 17. He was diagnosed three years ago. You know, it's just a journey that we've all been on together. And I appreciate this podcast because it has definitely been life changing for us.

Scott Benner 2:53
Well, I'm so glad. All right, so listen, I'm gonna have to old school do notes on paper today, so sorry, but my whiteboard is filled up with stuff about Arden's college that I can't erase. I just realized I've looked up at my whiteboard to start writing. I'm like, I can't move any of that. Mason is 17, correct. Diagnosed at 1414, and you have other kids or No,

Jennifer 3:18
I have an almost 24 year old son and an almost 20 year old daughter. Okay.

Scott Benner 3:25
Do they have any autoimmune issues? Nope. Okay, and married.

Jennifer 3:32
I am married. My husband has celiac. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 3:37
So you see where I'm getting to. I don't actually care if you're married. I just want to know if your husband has celiac. That's all. Celiac, that's all. How

Jennifer 3:44
about you? I have PCOS. My sister has it. My mother has it. Had it. Well, I mean, she's alive, but I think at some point after menopause, they gave up. Yeah, I'm fairly sure my grandmother had it. So my grandmother had type two. My mom has type two. I can tell you, I No one in my family is typical PCOS like, our only issues are infertility and lack of menstruation. Okay. How about your daughter? My my daughter actually is fine. You know, I was very concerned, and so I did bring her to the gynecologist, you know, in a timely manner, but she is showing no signs of PCOS at all. Wow.

Scott Benner 4:29
No, that's maybe some good luck. Finally, on that front, okay, this is very strange, but can you help me pick a woman to cut my hair before we move on? So I had this the screen up in front of me before we got on and I ran out of time. But I really I'm going on vacation a couple days, and I really need my hair cut. So here are my options. My regular person is not available. I guess she has a life too, or something. I'm between Alyssa and Bailey, but I really don't know the difference between the two of them. Can you just see which? One like grabs you. What do you like better? Alyssa or Bailey?

Jennifer 5:05
Am I just choosing based on your name?

Scott Benner 5:07
I mean, I don't have any other things to say about

Jennifer 5:09
them. I mean, I think if you're just getting a trim, it doesn't really matter, as long as you're not going drastic, I think you'll be okay. All right, why don't you bring a picture of you know, how you like the way your hair looks, and have them cut it. I'm such

Scott Benner 5:23
that I'm they're always like, what do you want to do with your time? I cut it just like,

Jennifer 5:27
well, you could also come visit me here and I'll take you to my girl. Yeah,

Scott Benner 5:31
I don't know that. I don't know if I have that kind of time. There's a guy there that I like, but he's very expensive, and I don't see the need. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, at some point

Jennifer 5:40
doesn't you're probably talking to the wrong person, because I literally get my hair cut twice a year, so I don't know.

Scott Benner 5:46
I'm going with Alyssa. Okay, you know what? I recognize her. That's enough.

Jennifer 5:53
So these are people that are at the place you normally go to, but your person is not available.

Scott Benner 5:57
You're making sense? Yeah, it seems that my person might be on vacation, which, I mean, good for her and all, but I'm trying to go on vacation. I'm gonna take the 330 I gotta log in. Can you believe this is even how you've like, set up a haircut at this point? Well,

Jennifer 6:13
I'm kind of happy. I don't really like talking on the phone much, so I do like the fact that I can use nap or go on the computer.

Scott Benner 6:20
You know, I love talking to people on the phone, but that's phone, but that's probably not like, a big, Oh, I

Jennifer 6:24
love talking. I just don't love talking on the phone. Oh, no, kidding. How come? Yeah, I don't know. It's just it's been an anxiety producing thing since I was a child. How are you going to do with this? Then? Because I don't feel like I'm on the phone, even though I kind of wish I was looking straight at you. I don't feel like I'm on the phone.

Scott Benner 6:42
Okay, okay, so that's the answer. If you were holding the phone to your ear, do you think this would be more upsetting? Yes,

Jennifer 6:49
yeah, I maybe I feel like I don't confidently hear as well, and I felt like I have a hearing problem. I mean, I'm an audiologist, I know all about hearing, but I can hear you really great in the headphones. So to me, it's like, we're in person. You're an audiologist, uh, a non practicing, yes, non, did you practice at some points? I did. I stopped when my second was born. Okay?

Scott Benner 7:14
My wife says that she has something tinnitus. She has no it's like, this delayed. Hold on a second. This is she's going to be so pissed if she ever hears one day that I can't think of this, because I don't want to say we make fun of her, but everybody brings it up all the time. Hold on. I'm texting, what's your hearing? Thing called, sorry. It's very technical. I

Jennifer 7:36
mean, I haven't worked in so long. I hope I recognize what she says.

Scott Benner 7:40
That'd be something if you're like, I don't know what that is. I'm sorry I'm not that kind of audiologist. While I'm waiting for Kelly to get back to me with her hearing issue, I just want to dig a little farther into the phone thing. So, like, what is it about? Is it anxiety? So

Jennifer 7:56
I can tell you a story. I had my own phone line in high school, I inherited my sister's phone line when she left for college. And I would get, you know, solicitors calling. For instance, news day would call to try and, you know, recruit a subscription. And I literally could not say to them, no, thank you. I'm not interested. I just couldn't say those words. So I would go downstairs into my kitchen. I would stand in my kitchen for as long as I could, till the person just hung up. Because I just, I just couldn't say it, and I just have this aversion to talking on the phone. You can ask my husband when I speak on the phone, I speak on the speaker. I don't like holding it to my ear. I just, I don't know, I don't know what it

Scott Benner 8:43
is. So when you get one of those calls, it's like, Hey, I'd like to tell you about solar panels. You spend 10 good minutes listening about solar panels. Oh, no.

Jennifer 8:51
Now I'm like, No, thank you. And I hang up. I don't even give them a chance to try and sell it to me. I just, I just hang up. No, thank you. Hang up.

Scott Benner 8:59
So this kid comes to our door the other day, right? He's like, I don't know. I wouldn't answer the door. 1819, years old. I opened the door, he's standing there with a clipboard, and he goes, Hey, sir. And I went, I'm not interested. Thank you. And he goes, Okay, thanks. And then he starts to take a step backwards that then he it hits him. He never even told me why he was there. And he said, Well, maybe you would be good for him, by the way. He said, maybe you'd be interested if you knew what I was here for. And I said, No, I don't think that would matter. And I walked back,

Jennifer 9:34
well, that was, you know, ballsy of him, that is true, but I could never be, and I would never apply for a job where I had to ask for business, like I worked in my husband's office for a little while, and I would not make phone calls about collecting money. I would make a phone call confirming appointments, but there's no way I would call and ask for money. I just asking people things. I. It's just

Scott Benner 10:01
not one of my first like adult Jobs was collecting debts. Oh, and it was back before computers were what they are now. So you were on a basically on a dialer. You weren't in control of the calls just came right. So you're wearing a headset, and you would be connected with the person before their information was on the screen. So you had to, like, hook them, get them talking while it populated. And there was, like, that anxiety every time, like, am I going to run out of things to say, or am I going to lose this person on the phone call before I can actually say hey, I'm calling from what was it? Advanta bank, maybe, was that? What it was? It was crazy, but I would do that eight hours at a time, and then every time you clicked complete, there was just another person in your ear. It just, do

Jennifer 10:52
you know your stats as to how successful you were collecting those dates, that those debts? I

Scott Benner 10:58
was great at it. I was I was really, really good at it, but eventually I stopped doing it genuinely, because it just broke my heart, like I couldn't. You get someone on the phone and listen, a lot of people are lying, but some of them aren't. And after you've heard about their husband's cancer or their house burning down, or their kid got sick, and then you realize that it is your job to, like, the next thing you say is, I'm very sorry to hear about that. When can I expect you to send a payment? Yeah, yeah. And I just one day, I was like, I can't keep doing this, so I just I stopped, and I went on to do it in a much more low pressure situation, like at a credit union, where it wasn't really collections, it was just friendly reminders that they didn't pay. And oftentimes they were just like, Oh, I'm so sorry. Just move it out of my account, like you were almost just doing it was almost like clerical and but even at some point that got to me, like I one time found myself telling a person, bring three payments, bring it to the branch, have it here by three o'clock, or I am gonna have somebody show up at your house and tell your car away. And I was like, I got off that call, and I was like, What am I doing? Like, what do I give a about this? Like, you know what I mean? Like, it was just soul crushing. Yeah, I went down to the Human Resources Department, and I was like, I need a different job here. I can't keep

Jennifer 12:18
doing this, so, but I think you found your calling. Yeah, this

Scott Benner 12:22
is way better. Seriously, I'm sure. Oh yeah, helping people is much better than making them feel terrible, even though it's not your fault. Like, I didn't tell them to buy the car, I didn't fire them from their job, I didn't give their husband cancer, like, you know what I mean. But still, right? It just sucks. So anyway, all right, what were first signs of Mason having type one? How did you recognize it? The Dexcom g7 is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and it features a lightning fast 30 minute warm up time. That's right from the time you put on the Dexcom g7 till the time you're getting readings. 30 minutes. That's pretty great. It also has a 12 hour grace period, so you can swap your sensor when it's convenient for you. All that on top of it being small, accurate, incredibly wearable and light. These things, in my opinion, make the Dexcom g7 a no brainer. The Dexcom g7 comes with way more than just this, up to 10 people can follow you. You can use it with type one, type two, or gestational diabetes. It's covered by all sorts of insurances. And this might be the best part. It might be the best part alerts and alarms that are customizable, so that you can be alerted at the levels that make sense to you. Dexcom.com/juice, box. Links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com, to Dexcom and all the sponsors. When you use my links, you're supporting the production of the podcast and helping to keep it free and plentiful. Valentine's Day is approaching quickly, and wouldn't it be great if this year you weren't running around the grocery store looking for some like, flowers, you know what I mean, like that thing that thing that you bring in the house, and everybody's like, Oh, they forgot. Don't forget. This year, go to cozy earth.com. And make Valentine's Day Special for everybody while you're at it, use my offer code Juicebox at checkout to save 40% off of your entire order, and that order might include bamboo sheets for your bed. These are so soft and comfortable. They keep me nice and warm. They keep my wife nice and cool. How do they do that? I don't know, but they're temperate, and the quality is unsurpassed. Cozy Earth bamboo pajamas are soft, breathable, high quality, and they wash incredibly well. And if you're listening right now and you need something for your husband, how about something from cozy Earth's men's collection? They have pajamas, polos, joggers, hats. I'm wearing the joggers right now. They are awesome. So surprise your Valentine with cozy Earth and get 40% off at cozy earth.com when you use the offer code Juicebox, and don't forget if you're asked in a post purchase server. How you found out about cozy Earth save Juicebox Podcast. Help me out. Fair is fair spare, I just saved you from coming in the house with wilted flowers. The

Jennifer 15:08
end of April of 2021 I get a phone call from the nurse at school, and she said, Mason's fine. I'm just calling, telling calling to tell you that he got hit in the face with a ball and he has some blood on his clothes. He was in eighth grade. And I'm like, okay. She's like, he's fine. While I have you on the phone, you know, a couple of teachers have expressed concern as to how thin he's been looking, and my heart just thank because there really is, like, a long backstory, but at that moment, I knew something was wrong. I had no idea that it was type one, but I knew something was wrong, so I hung up the phone, I called the doctor, made an appointment, and I couldn't get an appointment until the following week. I guess it was an emergency, but wasn't so whatever we go to the doctor. Now, you know, keep in mind, this is COVID, and you know, going to the doctor was not typical, like you had to go with a mask, you had to cancel if somebody had COVID in your family, and Mason hadn't seen the doctor for an entire year, because His birthday is January. COVID just happened, and so we just he hadn't been seen in a year. Yeah, I want you to know that Mason, in September of 2020, was very heavy. He is not my sporty child, probably not the best eating habits, despite, you know, me eating a salad every single day and working out every day, but he was at his heaviest. But the doctor never saw him at his heaviest. I knew he was heavy, and I'm like, we need to do something about this. So I tried running with him. We got a lot of the sweets out of the house. My husband is a pediatric dentist, and he was, you know, fitting him with some appliances to open his airway, because he was a mouth breather. And, you know, we were trying all sorts of things, and the weight did start coming off, and I was like, This is great. Whatever we're doing is working. He's exercising. He's also growing. And so between September and that April, he lost a lot of weight, but he had never been to the doctor, so I didn't know how much weight he had lost, and I was just pleased that he was looking more like the size he should be for his height. I hear okay, so we go to the doctor and see I have great mommy guilt, but he had lost, like, close to 40 pounds, okay. And so the doctor is like, so he was about five feet 100 pounds, which in my head, like, I'm five feet 100 pounds, and I've always been, you know, on target. So I'm like, All right, you know, this is where he should be. And the doctor said, and I showed him a picture of what he looked like, since the doctor hadn't seen him. And he said, Mason, you know, I'm really proud of you for losing this weight, but you really shouldn't lose much more. So, you know, keep exercising, but let's, you know, let's try not to lose any more weight. Okay, and sends him for blood work. Included in the blood work were celiac stuff, since my husband has it, I guess, because that's like, considered genetic that doesn't come back the next day. So the blood work took about a week to come back, and that was May 13. So may 13, I get the results to my portal. And I mean, I know science a bit, because I'm in the healthcare field, and I saw his thyroid was off, his cholesterol was off. I immediately called the doctor, left a message, please call me so we can discuss these results, because I'm sure I got the results before he did these days. That happens. And Mason comes home from school and he says, I want to join the track team. And I'm like, okay, so we go to the sneaker store, because I still haven't heard from the doctor, pick em up a new pair of sneakers, and as I'm walking out of the door, the doctor calls me, and he says, Everything is going to be fine. We will we will work this out. Now that's his lead. So that's his lead because at the top of the results was a celiac and it was very questionable. So he. He looked at those and saw celiac, and he assumed that he was, you know, having some kind of nutritional deficiency, and that's why he was losing all this weight. And I said, Did you scroll down to the rest of his results? Because his blood sugar was 436 and you saw that? I saw that, okay. And during the day, I called up my friend who's a nurse, and I'm like, oh my god, I think Mason has type one diabetes. And she's like, tell me his results. So I'm reading it. She's like, I don't know. Sometimes when the thyroid is off, it can throw off the blood sugar, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, No, I am telling you this kid has diabetes. So then the doctor called, and I said, I need you to scroll down to the rest of the results, because something's not right.

Scott Benner 20:42
Also, could you read this before you call? I know. Can you imagine if he's like, Hey,

Jennifer 20:48
Jennifer, what's up him? I do love him. I really do nothing to

Scott Benner 20:51
worry about. Your vitamin D is a little low here. Yay. Everything's fine. Oh, wait, what's this? Oh, I'm so sorry. You're a brain tumor. I didn't see that before I called Yeah. Like, what the hell you love him. He

Jennifer 21:05
did right by me. He said, Okay, I need you to come to the office right now. How fast can you get there? And I'm holding the box of the sneakers in my hand with Mason next to me. I'm like, I'll be there in 20 minutes. You

Scott Benner 21:16
should have said we can be there pretty quick, because people move faster in new sneakers. So

Jennifer 21:20
I we go to the office, and all he did was dip his urine, and he's like, You need to go the ER right now. And I just knew it. And again, this is COVID, so only one parent was allowed. And now, granted, I'm in the healthcare field, but my husband is really immersed in the healthcare field, being a pediatric dentist, and so I knew he was going to be like, I'm going to the hospital with him. But I was like, Oh no, I'm the mom. I'm going

Scott Benner 21:49
mom Trump's doctor, right?

Jennifer 21:52
Yeah, I have to say he was taken pretty quickly under the circumstances. He was not in TKA. Amazingly, they tested his a 1c in the hospital, which was 16.7 they tested for antibodies while we were there and and we left with a diagnosis of type one. They did not admit us. They said, You can go home. Please come back at 10 o'clock tomorrow. You have an appointment with the endocrinologist. He can only eat eggs, cheese and bacon. And I'm like, okay, none of what she eats, but that's besides the point. And we went back the next day and spent the entire day at the endocrinologist office. And, you know, he left there with a FreeStyle Libre. We got a Dexcom probably the following week, because I think the doctor would prefer that, but that's they only have the libre in the office. We left doing shots, and it was life changing, as I'm sure, you know, I

Scott Benner 22:50
bet you it was, well, how did he handle it? What was his? Do you remember his initial takeaways?

Jennifer 22:57
You know, I think he was really tired. If you really want to know the truth. I think it really hit him about a week later, because we were in the kitchen, and all of a sudden he was like, oh my god, I cannot see very well. And he was like, freaking out. His vision was all blurry, okay? And my cousin is an optometrist. I called him up, and I'm like, and he knew of Mason's diagnosis. I was like, what's going on? And he's like, don't worry about it. It's his blood sugar regulating. He's had a lot of sugar in his eyes. It's his vision getting back to normal. His vision actually wasn't normal, and now it's getting back to normal. And I think that moment for Mason scared the bejesus out of him. So

Scott Benner 23:43
it's the first thing that was like tangible to him, that he's like, I have a health issue

Jennifer 23:47
totally Yeah, I see. I mean, he, you know, he had, obviously, he had been doing shots for a week at that point, but I think the vision thing really scared him. I remember

Scott Benner 23:58
correctly the shots at the beginning, you don't really have it in you yet, the understanding that this is like every time, forever and ever, like, it still feels like, oh, I went to the doctor and there's a thing I have to do, like, you know what I mean? Like, go home and take this pill twice a day for 10 days, like, that kind of thing. It was my expectation that, well, my expectation wasn't that it was just going to stop, but there's just that part of it that where you're just not, you're not like, Oh, this is really forever. Like, it doesn't hit you right away. I completely agree that sucks. The vision thing gets him and Did he cry? Did he ever have, like, an emotional experience?

Jennifer 24:38
If he did not in front of me. He's a very easy going kid. He is my easiest child. He goes with the flow. I know this is going to sound weird, but of all three of my kids, he's the one who would totally handle this the best. And he just, you know, he has risen to the occasion. I'm sure it doesn't thrill him to be hooked up to all this technology 24/7 and he has to think about every morsel of food he puts in his mouth. And you know, he can't leave the house empty handed or go anywhere empty handed. But so far, knock wood. You know, he he does what he needs to do, you know,

Scott Benner 25:20
Arda and I spent the day out yesterday, and we were driving hour and 15 minutes away from our house. We were going to spend some time, do a thing, go to another place, go shopping for, you know, we're going on vacation. We needed some clothes and stuff like that. We were gone for like, six or seven hours, and we brought so many diabetes supplies and like, you know, like, we had pumps and insulin and a CGM and, like, extra stuff and this little bag in the car, this whole thing, and we never needed one of those things,

Jennifer 25:49
no. But listen, better safe than sorry, 100% right? Like,

Scott Benner 25:53
I would always bring it. I would never not. But there's this moment when you get out of the car and you grab it, you think, all the effort before we left, and, like, keep it cold and put insulin on, you know, it just, just like, Oh, we didn't even need it. And it's

Jennifer 26:07
exhausting, yeah, that it's, it's exhausting. And, you know, like you there probably has been very few nights of a full night of sleep. It's just, you know, unless you live it. You don't understand, right?

Scott Benner 26:22
Well, he did. He end up having celiac.

Jennifer 26:25
No, we did go to a gastroenterologist, and they, they tested him again later on, and he doesn't. So I don't know if it was a false positive. I have no idea. But I mean, it's, I think that's, it's something they're going to test him for regularly. But sure, and no thyroid. So his thyroid, I don't understand thyroid too much. One of his levels has been questionable, on and off. And so at this point, our endocrinologist is testing him every six months for that. But is

Scott Benner 26:54
it? TSH, yes. And is it over two?

Jennifer 26:58
Oh, I don't have results in front of me. I don't know. Let me

Scott Benner 27:02
keep asking questions. Does he have thyroid symptoms? He top tired, a

Jennifer 27:07
little chunkier than I'd like, but

Scott Benner 27:09
that's one of them. No. So Trouble. Trouble regulating his weight. Does his hair fall out?

Jennifer 27:15
No, oh my gosh, no. He's a full head of amazing hair. So let

Scott Benner 27:19
me say this, though, is he still five feet tall? No,

Jennifer 27:23
he is five nine. Okay.

Scott Benner 27:27
Is that the height you expected? Or is your husband like, nine feet tall and you're like, Oh, I can't believe he's only five

Jennifer 27:32
nine. My husband's 511 and my son is like, five nine. My other son is five nine and you're five feet tall, naughty. I'm 411 and a half. Yeah, okay,

Scott Benner 27:45
okay. I'm just wondering, because a mismanaged thyroid during growing could lead to, you know, height issues and size issues.

Jennifer 27:54
Yeah, we are due for blood work in the next two weeks. So that's on the list. I don't ignore it. I do address it with a doctor when it's taken Yeah, well, I'll

Scott Benner 28:07
just say this a TSH over 2.1 that has thyroid symptoms. I would push a doctor to talk about medicating it the number, to get the number under two, if you could, and they're going to tell you it's in range, like, if his TSH is four, they're gonna say that's in range. But there's some really great content in the podcast about thyroid to help you understand that a little better. I know your wife had that issue too. Everyone does, Cole does, Kelly does, Arden does. One of Arden's friends is been talking to me recently. I'm like, is this catchy or something? Because she's like, I think my TSH is high, and I'm like, and she starts going over symptoms, and I'm actually helping her, because she's 20 and sort of, her parent, there's a language issue with their parents. Her parent is not incredibly helpful in this stuff, usually. And so, you know, she's, she's 20 years old, on the phone with a doctor going, like, look, I don't want to afford TSH, I have a lot of symptoms like, and they're like, Yo, that's in range. And so I've been giving her talking points to help her move through the system. And it's amazing. I watched her do it yesterday. She's like, I called and I said this, and they said no. And I said, respond like this. And then she texted me back. She's like, Oh, they gave me an appointment. And I was like, right? She goes, What did I say? That got them to give me the appointment. I said, Oh, I told you to say this. And she was like, right? She goes, Oh, that's what did it? I was like, yeah. So you just sometimes need to know, you know, you need to know for yourself and know how to and people say advocate, but I just think it's, you know, sometimes they just don't even know on the doctor's side, uh, anyway. Uh, a pump now, so he's

Jennifer 29:39
on tandem. So, you know, his four year warranty, or whatever it is with tandem ends like, literally, the week he starts college next year, really. So I'm, I'm a little freaking out about that, but he's doing great with tandem.

Scott Benner 29:53
Good. He loves it, control IQ, using the T slim, yeah, okay, yep. How long has he been automated? Yeah? So

Jennifer 30:00
he was diagnosed in May. He went on the pump in August. Oh, so a few months later,

Scott Benner 30:05
Oh, I see. How does that work for a 1c for variability, that kind of stuff,

Jennifer 30:09
we got his a 1c down initially to 5.8 and I was thrilled, but I was also micromanaging. We were having some major sleep deprivation in our family due to the micromanaging, and so we compromised. The doctor really felt like sleep was super important, and so I've eased up a little. Is a 1c is around six now, maybe 6.1 I'm okay with that. We're sleeping better. I'd like it to be in the fives and and I know we'll get there. But, um, well, first of all, six is a huge, huge deal in my house. Yeah, I told you, I'm a Napper. She said, before

Scott Benner 30:54
we started recording, she's like, after we do this, I'm gonna take a nap. And I was like, Oh, do you think this will make you tired? She goes, No, I just take nap. So listen, a, six, a, six, one, A, five, eight, it's all great. You know what I mean? That's fantastic. Sleep is not just important in your house, it's important for everybody. You know, I don't say this enough anymore, but when you degrade from lack of sleep, you kind of don't see it happening, and your personality changes, and your health changes, and everything drifts away on you, but it happens so slowly that it's like that frog in a, you know, in a pot situation, you just, you don't realize you're boiling to death. It just, it happens so slowly, so it's not just a little important. And I would say a six, one, A, 1c, and you're sleeping through the night is pretty freaking amazing. So I'm okay.

Jennifer 31:39
I really am. Yeah, I'm all about health and fitness. I I listen to tons of podcasts and read stuff and sleep is key.

Scott Benner 31:47
Yeah, no, it very much is. It also helps with insulin regulation, being rested. So does he manage this mostly on his own? Now that you said you loosened the reins, or are you involved?

Jennifer 31:57
He really does, like his range is actually lower than mine. For his alerts, he's 80 to 180 but he doesn't really go 180 mine's 80 to 200 so my alerts don't go off until 200 so if he's at 200 but we text diabetes and we have keywords, so if he's high, he's like, I got it which or I'll text him, text him insulin. And if he's low, I got it and I'll text him eat. And that's it. Yeah, those are our keywords. How

Scott Benner 32:32
is that relationship maturing between the two of you? Is he okay with your involvement still?

Jennifer 32:38
I think he would like me a little less involved. But then there are those nights where his alerts Don't wake him, and I'm doing Find My iPhone to get him up. And I'd like to think when he is an adult and on his own, he will be thankful that I am up his you know what? But I do like, I'm not up his. You know what? You know 24/7, I'm i There are times where it'll alert me, and I, I know that he takes care of it. He doesn't ignore it. He really doesn't. He knows the consequences.

Scott Benner 33:13
I'm always amused. I think by the leave me alone. I don't need your help. Like I'm an adult, blah, blah, blah, and then at two o'clock in the morning, if I would really like your help, please. Like, I don't want to that part for I don't know if you've experienced that or not,

Jennifer 33:30
but the truth is, you know, when I alert him, I have no idea what he's pressing like, he knows how much insulin he needs to give himself if he's high. I don't tell him how much to give him if he doesn't come down in a timely manner that I would like, I'll be like, you need more. Whatever that number is, I don't know. Yeah, I'll just say more. I'm

Scott Benner 33:52
always cracked up when Arden is like, look, I don't need you involved in this. Like, if she'll say something, like, she really does not like me to be involved in her thyroid medication, like, because if she forgets it, she doesn't want to be reminded that she forgot it, and, like, that kind of thing. So I don't talk to her about it, and, you know, etc, like, so it's one of the things where we're not kind of, like, I'm we're not talking about it. But even around the diabetes stuff, like, she'll be like, I know what I'm doing. I don't need you to tell me, I've already Bolus, I've taken care of it, like, you get all that. And then, like, three or four days later, she's like, Hey, I'm really tired, so if my blood sugar gets crazy overnight, could you help me? And I'm like, oh, so I'm a pain in the ass during the day, but at night, you know, I'm like, okay, and I hear like, you know what I mean, like, but to me, it's like, when they have a job, and they're like, I can't handle this. Then one day, they're like, you're gonna pay for this, right? I'm like, Oh, I see anyway.

Jennifer 34:45
I have to say Mason has not asked me for help. But like I said, I'd like to think at some point he'll appreciate that I was there, truthfully. Like, I don't care how old you are if you have diabetes. If I think there should be a backup person, there should just be somebody there to help you, whether it's your parent, your wife, your husband, your partner, there's you should not do this disease on your own, that, and that's just how I feel. Yeah, it's a

Scott Benner 35:15
lot. He'll and he will appreciate it. He'll never tell you, but he'll appreciate it. Yeah, I like, by the way, every parent the clarion call from every parent like, I hope that one day they'll understand. I'm like, Yeah, okay,

Jennifer 35:26
listen, my hope, truthfully, is that down the line, when he's older, that we all as a family can say that we we did our best to minimize any damage from this disease, that just would be my hope. Yeah, and I feel, you know, we are doing the best we can. And you know, I think technology has made this disease much more manageable. I mean, I know things can still happen, but I'd like to think you're

Scott Benner 36:01
minimizing, minimize that possibilities. Yeah, listen, I was, or No, I were like, I said we were in the car a lot yesterday, and I I said to her, I'm like, you know, because she's taking some GLP meds to help with her PCOS, which is, and it, you're getting the added benefit of even greater stability blood sugars, using less insulin, that kind of thing. And I said to her, I was like, you know, I know that when you think of the GLP medication, we're having trouble getting her dose right, because the pen only comes in a certain amount. But the truth is, she just doesn't need that much, because she's not looking for, like, all the satiation and, like not looking not to eat, you know what I mean? So we're trying to find the balance and and we're working on that, right? It's taking time. And she's like, you know, in the past, she's been a little bit like, you know, I know you're very worried about my blood sugars. I was like, I listen, that's not the only thing this medication is doing for you. And I said, you know, there's just a study now that came out that said that they think the studies with ozempic, but, I mean, it's a GLP medication about, like, the lessening of kidney disease, and specifically kidney disease in people with type one diabetes and heart disease. And, like, you have no idea, like, how many people die from a heart attack, but it's a complication of diabetes, you know, like, like, so I'm like, so this medication is helping with, you know, possible kidney. It's helping possibly with your heart. It's helping with your day to day. As far as how much insulin you're using, use less insulin. You're less likely to have a low blood sugar. You know, you know, it's helping with stability. It's helping keep spikes away. Like it's helping with inflammation. It's helping with your PCOS symptoms. Like, it's doing so many things for you. But it's funny, when she stops and thinks about it, all she considers is, oh, I know my blood because the thing that's in her face like, yeah, oh, my blood sugars are easier, better, less volatile, etc, because of it. And it's just hard for kids to hold all that in their head sometime, I think, like all the things that are, all the considerations that you're not exactly speaking about day to day, I guess,

Jennifer 38:08
well, I think sooner or later, all you know, all the GLP medication will be a pill, and it'll be super easy to take it. That's my prediction. My

Scott Benner 38:19
Yeah, my expectation, because they're work. Nova is working on it now, like a daily pill, you know? So we'll see what happens. But dosing is going to be super important, especially for people with type, type one, you're looking for the impact, but not all of the like, Jesus, I can't eat, like, because Arden lost weight. I mean, you kind of can't help, help it. You know what I mean? Truth is, is, she's a few pounds lighter than she wants to be, and she's trying to put it back on, but it's hard to put back on because it makes it hard for you to eat. So, like, you know, so it's like, and I don't want her to have another struggle. Like, we want the benefit, but we don't want this. So we're working with a doctor to try to find ways to, you know, get the good without the bad in her situation. Now, meanwhile, for me, the it's not wanting to eat a whole lot is, is great because I actually had, actually, I had weight that I should have lost and needed to lose. Anyway, hey, 37 minutes, 42 seconds. Why'd you come on the podcast?

Jennifer 39:17
Well, you posted, you know, tell me or tell me why you should be on in 10 words or less. I'm

Scott Benner 39:26
such a dick. Is that what I did? I don't want to read all your thoughts, just like, sell me real quick. So what back then, when you booked, you were very I have your notes here. Hold on a second. It says, I'm actually quite curious why Gad and C peptide testing is not done routinely when diabetes is suspected, supplies mostly to adults, since they're more likely to be diagnosed type two just based on age. How come this got into your head? So

Jennifer 39:53
I'll tell you why. Because, because I have PCOS and my mom has type two, my grandma has type two. Had type two. I am terrified of getting it, and I I work out every day. I eat really well. It is like my biggest fear to get type two. And so one day I'm I'm on Facebook, and I'm scrolling through and all of a sudden this Live platform from a local hospital came on, and they had opened a PCOS center, and so I was listening to all the doctors talk about their intentions with this new facility they were starting, and the endocrinologist came on, and I'm like, I'm gonna make an appointment with her. So I made an appointment, and she's like, I can't believe that you have PCOS. I'm like, I do. I have five frozen embryos. You know that I'm still paying rent on to prove that I was infertile and a very strong family history. And she's like, and this is what she said to me, if you start showing signs of diabetes, I would test you for type one, but only because you have a family history. And I'm like, that is the most ridiculous statement ever. I mean, listen, I know we live in a bubble. I know that type one is, you know, we're consumed with it. We're on a zillion pages. It's all we talk about. It's all we know, but the stories of the people who are type two who are misdiagnosed, it's just a freaking blood test, yeah, why do these doctors just look at someone and based on their age and maybe their weight? Do they make these assumptions when all they have to do is a blood test? Yeah, it's not a big deal. That's how

Scott Benner 41:41
their job works, though. Like I've said this before, but a friend of mine is a pediatrician, and when you come in with an illness, his first consideration is, what does he see other people being sick with in town? That's how he figures out about, you know, which way to look initially, what's common? There's a saying, and what do they say in medicine? The most common, why can't I think of what the hell it do? You know what I'm talking about? Hold on a second. Watch this. Let's let's really check. Let's really test. Chat. GPT doctors have a saying that is like, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. It must be a duck. But that's not the saying. Is that

Jennifer 42:26
how chat GPT works? I've never used it. I

Scott Benner 42:29
am talking about, if it comes up with this, I'm going to make like, a little giddy edge, yeah, this is the one the doctors use when you hear hoof beats. Think horses, not zebras. That's it, because the most common conditions are more like, are more likely than the rare ones. That's literally, I understand, and I

Jennifer 42:49
know type one is, you know, quote, unquote rare. But it's just a blood test, and it can, it can make all the difference in the world. So I hear you. Why not listen?

Scott Benner 42:59
I'm with you. But the answer is, the answer is, what is there 1.8 million people with type one diabetes, and a lot more people than that, and that's, that's why, yeah, and you and you're sensitive to it for the same reason I am, and for the same reason everybody else is. But let us pause for a second and just say the chat GPT four. Oh, holy hell, that was pretty impressive. Wait till this thing leaps a couple more levels, I'm going to be like, Hey, do you know I have full on conversations with it about, like, all kinds of stuff,

Jennifer 43:30
and I don't even know how to access it. Do you just, like, put it in the Google search bar? Is it an app I have? No, I'm telling you, I'm not tech savvy. So

Scott Benner 43:38
I'm paying for chat, GPT four. Oh, I pay for it. I use it for the podcast. I do. I make images with it. I feed it transcripts, and it pulls content out for me so that I if I need a list of things. It's pretty awesome. It does a lot of different stuff. My kids, one of my son, my son, uses it like we didn't work. But, I mean, I said to it, doctors have a saying that is like, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, but that's not the saying I'm talking about. Also, I didn't spell quacks right, and it came back and said the saying you're referring to is, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. This phrase is often used to suggest that the most obvious explanations is usually the correct one. However, there are other sayings used in the medical field that convey similar ideas of common sense or straightforward reasoning, such as, and then it listed the goddamn thing I was thinking of that I couldn't come up with. And that's crazy. That is pretty amazing. Yeah, we should ask it more things. You should see the you should see the breakdown it did for me, for gad antibody testing and for C peptide, in case it came up in our conversation today. Wow, yeah, I know it sounds like I prepped a little bit, don't I? I did. I did. I actually did. I was like, Oh,

Jennifer 44:52
I'm just glad I didn't have to do my hair and makeup. I just don't know

Scott Benner 44:55
enough. I'm not versed well enough in in Gad and C. Peptide to just off the top of my head, talk about it without having a little backup. So I put it there. But yeah, I mean, I take your point, like, you know, there's same people who say, like, why don't they, when you come in with flu, like, symptoms, why don't they just test your blood sugar? And the answer is, Because, 99 out of 100 times the flu, that's why. But then one kid goes into DKA, or, you know, passes away, or something like that. Everybody's like, that. Everybody's like, it would have been so cheap to do the thing. And that's not wrong either. I always have to, like, put myself in the position of the other people who only had the flu, who are probably like, what are you doing? You know what I mean, like, I don't know. Would they appreciate it, or would they would they say, I why? If it's most likely the flu, why did you give me this blood test? Like, there's arguments on both sides of everything. You know,

Jennifer 45:42
I do have to say I am very nervous for Mason to outgrow his pediatric endocrinologist. She said she would keep him until he's 22 and 364 days old. So I'm very happy about that, but I just feel like adult endocrinologists do not know type one the way a pediatric does, certainly, that is a fear of mine.

Scott Benner 46:05
Finding a good one is a it's a Herculean lift. Yeah, it is not easy, yeah, so you need to be good at it yourself so that you can, I agree, common sense, troubleshoot what's being said to you or what's happening to you. And the other thing is, I mean, we talked about it earlier, right? Like, people don't really focus on everything. Like Arden with the GLP, like, she's like, Yeah, it makes my ones. It makes not my one, see, it makes my variability. Like, that's what GLP basically does for us. It uses less, use less insulin. It's a fairly significant amount less, but the variability is so much less. And she doesn't have crazy variability to begin with, and it still helps to squeeze it all out. But if you were to ask her right then and there, what does GLP do for you, she'd say the thing that's obvious to her day to day. And I think that's the same thing with trying to be your own physician is difficult because there's a lot going on that you're not seeing and you have no real reason to think about it, and you may not even know to think about it. So you do count on a doctor to know these things, and then you get to them, and they don't seem to know either. And that's why you see people tumble into trouble and then go out into communities to figure out answers. Then have to come back to the doctor and say, Look, I basically just Dr house myself. Now, you tell me if you think I'm right, and let's get moving right?

Jennifer 47:19
Yeah, no, I do think people have to really be their own advocate and do research for everything.

Scott Benner 47:29
Listen, that's where I love the chat, G, P, T, like, that's where I love the algorithm. Like, because you can sit down and say, I'm having this symptom. You can actually sit with it and say, Hey, I'm this old. I have type one diabetes, I have celiac and I've had a weight issue in the past. Remember that, and it'll apply that to its to your to its memory of you. And then you can say, Can I have a conversation with you about some things that have been going on with me, and I've done that to figure things out. Listen, when my son was diagnosed with Hashimotos, I figured out that he had Hashimotos at three o'clock in the morning, and I was in an NIH article, reading a goddamn NIH article to see one goddamn symptom that he had that was completely uncommon. And I figured out that he had Hashimotos. And I went back to the doctor, and I said, this is said, This is what this is. Start giving him this medication. Gave him the medication cleared up the symptoms. His whole life. Got better, etc, but I got lucky. What if my Google fu wasn't that good, but now I would have gone to this prompt and said, I'm here to talk about my son. He's this old. These are the symptoms he's having. We've tried this, this and this. What else could it be? I guarantee it would have come back and said, Hashimoto in five minutes. It's not just around health like I have a an affiliation with something called Vision AI. They've absorbed, at this point about 100 episodes of the podcast into the AI's understanding of diabetes. It gets its information from other places as well. I'm pretty much ready to tell people for $20 a month, which is what I pay for, you can have a doctor in your pocket that you can sit and have a conversation with, and it's going to come up with the answers. You just have to ask the questions with chat, G, P, T, you can do it with anything like, I didn't have a will and I didn't understand what to do, and I just sat down and started talking to it about that, and then I was like, Oh, this is the here's the things I have to do and here's the people I have to call. I understand now, and that's it. It's five minutes because you're talking to somebody who knows the whole internet and won't sit around and go, Hmm, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, could it be that it doesn't do that? It goes, here's your options. And then you go, Oh, okay, cool. It's super that's interesting. Yeah, listen, unless it launches a missile at Milwaukee, and then, not so great. But I don't think that's gonna happen. I'm choosing to believe that's not gonna happen. Or any other things, like, like, anything else, somebody's gonna use it for good, and somebody's gonna use it for. Bad, but, of course, yeah, but I think people can use it for good. Like, even, like, think about, I don't know, like, saving money for the future. You can say, I make this much money. These are my bills. How much money can I afford to put into a 401, K at standard rates? How much do you think that'll be if I continue to put that much money in for five years, for 10 years, and it just spits it back out at you. You don't have to, like, Guess it big life things, you know what? I mean, I'm gonna buy a car. Here's the interest rate. How much would it cost me overall if I put down this much versus this much? You know what? If this interest rate versus this many years, and in two seconds, the stuff that you think you could figure out on your own that most people don't bother looking into it. They just go buy the car, and they take whatever, and, you know, they go, okay, great, I'll take this one. I can afford that payment. And I'm telling you, I'm sorry I'm going too far into this, but I really see the high side saying I'm getting a lesson. I really I see the high side and all this, and I'm excited about it. Just imagine you're worried about your son going off to college, right? Like, do you think he's going to go far? Yes, he's getting off the island. Oh yeah, he's going down south, for sure. Yeah, listen, once you put the effort into driving off the island, it's hard to want to put the effort into driving back. I hate driving out there. I don't even know how you Yes, how far south Do you think he'll go? My

Jennifer 51:24
older son went to Alabama. My daughter is at Arizona State. I'm putting it out there. He's looking at Tennessee. Everyone you know works at the university. They're

Scott Benner 51:36
looking for a 17 year old kid with diabetes. Reach out. Oh, Arden, just you were very kind to push our recording back an hour today. Oh, no problem, because Arden just transferred out of her school. Oh, yeah, okay. She did not like the South. She loved the weather. She's like, even the people were great. She's like, but the lifestyle was like mad. She found it maddening how slow it was. That's not why she left the school. Ended up having some pretty significant drop off, even from the amount of time from when she was applying in high school till now. Like, you know, there's plenty of websites where you can see colleges graded out, and the scores from students have dropped so significantly that it went from like an A institution to like a C institution in people's eyes, and she was having the same problems. So the low light of this whole thing was during a core class last semester, a core meaning like something she you fundamentally have to master to move on. On day one, the professor said, I guess saying professor is probably me being too kind. Said, I've never taught this before. I've never done it professionally. I don't know anything about it. Oh, here's a YouTube video that explains the thing I'm giving you today. If you have questions, don't ask me. So we were paying for that. In case you're wondering, we were definitely a red flag. Yeah, and so Arden, she humped through it and didn't give up, and ended up with, I think, like a B plus in the thing. But she said, I got through it, but I don't understand it. I don't know what I did, and I can't move on to the next level. And it, she was like, What the hell. So she was a very strange person. I think coming out of high school, she had two ideas of pathways. They were, they're fundamentally, completely opposite. So she really wanted to design clothing, and that is what she ended up going to do. But her other option was psychology, that leads to law that's what she was the other thing she was considering. So Arden just transferred from the Savannah College of Art and Design to Pitt.

Jennifer 53:52
Certainly the weather is different.

Scott Benner 53:54
She's gonna start with a psych major and sprinkle in enough law stuff that she'll be ready for for law school after she gets her her undergrad. So she's a little she just put her behind about a year. But, but, okay, yeah, but, but we're not worried about that very much. Listen, if you want my opinion anybody listening, don't go to the Savannah College of Art and Design there. And if they're listening, you deserve this and a lot more so. Nevertheless, her experiences were insane. For two years. They were insane, and I will probably let some of them out in dribs and drabs over the next year, because I feel like SCAD might owe me, because they have a lot of my

Jennifer 54:32
money anyway. Well, I hope she has a better experience at Pitt. I don't

Scott Benner 54:36
see how she couldn't if someone hits her, but with a car at Pitt, she'll still end up having a better experience than she had at Scott

Jennifer 54:43
Well, you know, it's funny, because not funny. But I think that there is a rumor, and it might be truth amongst the big schools, that if you get hit by one of the school busses on their property, they pay for your college education. I don't know that's that's what I've heard.

Scott Benner 54:58
That's what I wasn't I. Wasn't talking about I was just saying, if something horrific happens to her, it'll still be better than scat. Keep that in mind if you're thinking of sending your kids there, my opinion, of course, anyway, your kids going off to college, try imagining if he had, literally an app on his phone that he could say that he could connect his CGM data to and say to this app, no different than I talked to it about things, my blood sugar has been higher lately. Can you look at my insulin use over the last week and tell me where you think an adjustment might be necessary? Keep in mind that I've been I don't know like not eating as well as I have in the past, I'm not pre bolusing as much as I should, blah, blah, blah. And then it could actually, he could actually have, like, a quick conversation with it, and it could give him ideas about what to do. Like, I mean, crazy. That is crazy. Yeah, that's gonna put me out of business. You understand,

Jennifer 55:56
I don't think so. You don't think so, I don't think so. You

Scott Benner 55:59
don't think the apple will, will tell stories about stuff that you don't think it'll think in the middle of his his going back and forth the apple go, can I tell you something crazy that happened to me? The

Jennifer 56:10
one thing that the app doesn't have is the human dimension, the human emotion part of it. And for myself, when I listen to your podcast. You know, I just like hearing people's experiences, and I don't think chat GBT is giving you someone's human experience.

Scott Benner 56:30
No, no, it certainly won't do that, but it's going to be a heck of a helper, I think, especially in a world that we've just described where you say something to a doctor and they go, I don't really know, you know, also, that's not even a dig on doctors. You can't expect a doctor to have recall of everything that's ever happened to them in med school and life and with every one of their patients. Whereas chat, G, P, T, can recall everything that it knows instantly. So and it is instant, like it's It's insane how fast the information comes back. Nevertheless, so what are you and he doing? Or maybe you're not, but what are you doing? What have you done? What are you worried about, about college? What? How are you prepping for this?

Jennifer 57:10
Well, I used to say I was going to follow him. I have retracted that.

Scott Benner 57:15
You mean literally, going to Tennessee. Yeah, I So,

Jennifer 57:19
like I said, my older son went to Alabama, and at least from Long Island, Alabama is not so easy to get to. So while that is definitely on Mason's list, it wouldn't be my first choice, simply because it's just not easy to get to. He can go as far away as he wants. I'm okay with that. I my i just want there to be an airport, and airports want frequent flights that are reliable, like the flights to Birmingham would get canceled all the time. It drove me crazy. I want a good medical facility nearby. Yeah. I mean, the truth is, you know, at some point we will retire, and I'll have to figure out where all three of my kids are, but, you know, I just would like to be easily accessible to him.

Scott Benner 58:09
Yeah, I understand. Again. Savannah had some of the worst hospitals I'd ever been in my entire life, and I had to be in one one time. It was a horrifyingly bad experience. They did have an airport you could fly into. That was nice, but, yeah, I think those are good considerations, good medical care, accessibility, because you're not listen the driving thing. The truth is, is once you're more than three hours away, you're 100 hours away in an emergency situation, it just doesn't matter. Like, you know, I mean, unless I can drive to you and be there in an hour. I'm not much help in an emergency situation getting to an airport. And what do you fly at a JFK LaGuardia. JFK

Jennifer 58:47
LaGuardia. I also, I live near MacArthur, but you know, the only non stop flights from there to Florida,

Scott Benner 58:54
right? And those are hubs too. So it's probably, you probably have more options leaving there, but still, you got to drive there. You got to get on a plane. You got to fly, you got to get off of like, you're always at least. Listen, it's a 45 minute flight from where I am to Boston, but it still takes five hours to fly to Boston. Of course. Yeah, of course. So yeah, I

Jennifer 59:12
know Mason turns 18 in January. So then there's all, you know, the legal Mambo jumbo we need to take care

Scott Benner 59:18
of, you know? So you can actually talk to people exactly

Jennifer 59:22
which is mind boggling to me, that a vulnerable population, yeah, has to have all this paperwork in order for their parents, who pays for everything, to have a conversation with a doctor.

Scott Benner 59:35
How about they're willing to take two, $300,000 worth of loans out in 18 year olds names for them to do a thing that they they're not even sure if they want to do or not. Like, it's weird the things that it is, yeah, it really is. But putting them in charge of their own health. I mean, come on. Like, you don't

Jennifer 59:56
even under my insurance, so, like, I'm paying the. Bills. I'm paying for college, I'm paying for the bills. And, you know, we have to sign our life away in order to talk to anybody. Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 1:00:06
interesting. Oh, yeah. And by the way, if your kid won't give you that, that access, or he will, yeah, Jennifer's like, if he wants me to pay for college, he's definitely gonna do it. So you'll follow him on a CGM, though you guys will keep up the the thing you're doing right now. Yeah,

Jennifer 1:00:24
no. I mean, I think we have a, we have a good we have a good thing going right now. Yeah, sounds like my husband will not be happy with me if I don't bring up my gripe with insurance companies. Go ahead. Juan, if we have a

Scott Benner 1:00:36
let's finish. Finish strong with your husband bitching at insurance companies through a proxy. Go

Jennifer 1:00:41
ahead. No no, because I'm constantly complaining. He's like, Well, you're going to have a platform, so you better do something about it. He He is convinced that we as a type one community should rise up and have a class action suit against I don't know who, but I have a real problem with the whole 90 day supply. And I know everyone, some people, have 30 day supplies, whatever I have a 90 day supply, right? Of our CGMS and our insulin, I do not understand why the action to start renew, getting your next 90 days starts on the 90th day. Yeah. You mean, like, it drives me crazy, yeah. And, you know, not every month is 30 days. Some are 31 and so you don't necessarily you have less than a 90, you know, less than a 92 day supply. It's just mind boggling to me that the process isn't initiated, like, say, day 75 so that if for some reason you need to renew a prescription, or you need to go the doctor because you haven't been there in more than three months, like there's just not some leeway. And I know it's all about money, I get it, but it happens,

Scott Benner 1:01:57
yeah, when you're out of CGM and you call them up, and you're like, Hey, listen, he's wearing his last CGM right now. I need these in six days, and we don't have extras. And they go, oh, you know what it looks like. We need a pre authorization from the doc. We'll call the doctor for you. And by the way, good luck, right? Yeah. And so then, you know, like, a week later, you're it's one day late. You've got one day left in the CGM you go, Hey, how come the CGMS aren't here? And they go, Oh, your doctor never responded. So you call the doctor, and they go, they never called us. And you're like, Oh, my God, I am. This is the this is what I'm stuck in right now. And then you yell for a while, and then they go, oh, we'll overnight you some you're saying, why don't we have that conversation maybe two, two weeks before that exactly. That makes a lot of sense. It's ridiculous.

Jennifer 1:02:48
And I know I'm not the only person who's in this situation. So if there is some kind of legal expert on the Juicebox Podcast Facebook page that wants to initiate this. I'm all for it.

Scott Benner 1:03:02
Oh my god, do something about it. You know, you're in trouble, and you're like, we got to sue somebody who you're like, I don't know who

Jennifer 1:03:09
I'm not. I'm not a litigious person. I heard what you're saying. I don't want to be desperate, and I also don't want to be ridiculed for hoarding supplies either. Because who's ridiculing you, not me personally. But you know, you've seen the people who are like, well, you're hoarding supplies, therefore you're limiting the availability of supplies for other people, I

Scott Benner 1:03:31
don't see anybody. I don't see any company,

Jennifer 1:03:34
especially with regards to insulin. But well,

Scott Benner 1:03:36
you know it's funny, because there's so many different arguments going on right now. So first of all, like, if you're talking about insulin sets or CGM or stuff like, these companies are thrilled to sell this stuff, trust me, they they'll make as much as they need to make you. Having an extra two weeks of insulin pumps isn't stopping somebody else from having insulin pumps, agreed. Yeah, the insulin thing. You know, everybody's panicking right now, because some of the big companies seem to be prioritizing glps over anything else, like, Forget insulin for a second. And people are like, Oh, this is going to be a problem. There's not going to be insulin. I understand the concern, and I do think you want to keep pressure on the companies to not get lazy about it. But I have a hard time picturing a world where companies who make insulin just go, Oh, we're not going to make insulin anymore. I don't

Jennifer 1:04:24
disagree with you. I don't think they're going to stop making it, but there are definitely people who are having trouble getting it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:32
no, I hear that. I'm not. I also think that if that happened, I imagine the federal government would step up and say you're making insulin, just shut up. You know what I mean? Like, you can't like, could it be harder to get in the moment? Like, for some people? I obviously it is. You're hearing that from people, right? But if you're imagining a world where insulin just is not produced anymore and you die because of it, that's not going to happen. No,

Jennifer 1:04:58
I'm not. Matching that, although I do no but I think I do follow a diabetic prepper page, but I imagine that there are people who are thinking

Scott Benner 1:05:05
that, like, one day they just, they're going to stop making it because it's it's not going to make them enough money. I'm like, no one's going to let them stop making it. They can be compelled to do it if they if they tried to stop, and they know that, and that's why they're not going to try to stop. It's not even my opinion, it's my expectation of the way I would see that going if it went that way.

Jennifer 1:05:24
I think COVID scared a lot of people, like, with regards to, like Clorox wipes, for instance. You know, how hard was it to get Clorox wipes? I mean, I had, there was a patient who brought a container to my husband's office so that I could have some Clorox wipes. And I think that that's kind of what people are imagining, like it just will be, it might be so hard to get well,

Scott Benner 1:05:48
I don't know. I think we might have learned our lesson on the on the micro chip thing from COVID. So we moved a lot of microchip production back to the US. So, I mean, at least that they're paid they paid attention to that. I don't know. Like, listen, I could be 1,000,000% wrong, but if I wake up one day and every company making insulin, it's like, we're not making insulin anymore. You can't have insulin. All you people with diabetes can just die. I'd be like, Huh? I was really wrong about that.

Jennifer 1:06:14
No, I, I don't, I don't think that will happen. But again, I don't think somebody should have to wait until the 90th day? No, I know. I agree with you, for them to get their insulin. It's just such

Scott Benner 1:06:26
an unneeded, unnecessary stress you're right on you, right? Uh huh.

Jennifer 1:06:30
I mean, hours I've spent on the phone with insurance company and the doctor and right? It's like my life taken away, yeah, and

Scott Benner 1:06:39
now not a not everybody's gonna have that time or the fortitude, or both, you know, of course, not to have that fight. And that's how they end up in that situation. And they get beaten by the system and they give up. But Well,

Jennifer 1:06:50
yes, and then when my son turns 18, I will need his permission to do all this, and so like, does he have to be standing next to me when I call the insurance company to get his approval, to talk to me so that I can get his insulin.

Scott Benner 1:07:03
I'll tell you something. My wife's name is Kelly, which can be an androgynous name. So there are times I just call up and I'm like, Hey, this is Kelly. And they go, you're Kelly. And I go, Yep, I'm Kelly. And then there's this, like, long pause where they don't believe you, and I just wait, and they go, okay, Kelly, what's up? But listen, I'm no comp sci genius, okay, but I don't think it would take one to build into the system the ability to talk to people a couple of weeks out, and to create a system between the pharmacy, I mean, the places where you're buying your stuff, either the pharmacy or the distributors or whatever, and the insurance companies, where you could just let them have the conversations, get things shipping in time. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, what's the worst that could happen is you ship out a couple of CGMS and then you don't get paid for them? Like, what do you care? Like, stop it. There's so much money in that industry. Like, what are you talking about? Like, you know what I mean, stuff that's life and death and the cost to you with the end user is so significant. But to the companies that are moving it around, it's not like, when you buy $600 worth of stuff, they're out $600 worth of stuff. It's not how it works. They're making money on it, which is fair and fine all, but like, don't act like it would be such a horrible thing if somebody ended up with an extra 30 insulin pumps pods, you know, like, like, it would ruin the whole system. And if it did, if it got messed up, then fix the system, but make it so that there's a buffer in there, so that people don't have to rush around at the very end.

Jennifer 1:08:36
Yeah, it's, I mean, it's just common sense to me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:08:40
and seems easy to be honest, yeah. It seems like if a group of people wanted to fix that problem, they could Yes.

Jennifer 1:08:46
And I would love to be a part of that movement.

Scott Benner 1:08:50
Go take a nap, and then once you

Jennifer 1:08:53
touch Well, I am a self declared follower. I am not a leader, but I'm definitely a follower, so you'd get off. Somebody wants to initiate that. I'm right on board to help you out. Jennifer will stand behind you and scream, yes, that's right, I'm a cheerleader. I'm a total cheerleader. Fantastic. Is there anything we haven't talked about that we should have? I don't think so. I'm running the New York City Marathon for breakthrough T, 1d, if anyone wants to come cheer me on, so I'll look

Scott Benner 1:09:19
for you in the crowd. Okay. Are you going to be there? No, of course not. I'm not I'm very busy. Then

Jennifer 1:09:24
look for me on TV. When is the marathon? November, 3, 2025, 2024,

Scott Benner 1:09:31
oh, well, you expect people to hear about that on this podcast on a second? July, August, September, October, November, December, January. Yeah. So good luck. I hope it went well, no one's going to be there rooting for you that heard this, unless they have a time machine. And if you have a time machine, please come pick me up. I have some things I'd like to take care of right now. All right. Well, hopefully it'll be a great marathon. Yeah, I'm sure you'll do terrific. How long do you have to train for it? Oh, I've run

Jennifer 1:09:56
many marathons. Oh, constantly training. So it's. No,

Scott Benner 1:10:00
no kidding, I'm gonna walk slowly down the stairs in a couple of minutes when we get done talking. I don't, actually, I don't I run down the stairs usually, but

Jennifer 1:10:06
good, I don't run. I'm sure with your weight loss that you've it would be much easier. Oh, my God, amazing. Oh yeah, you have no idea. So are you like on a workout regimen now I'm

Scott Benner 1:10:17
slowly easing into it. I've come to grips with the fact that I am not in my at my core, a person who's excited to work out. I love working. I like doing my job like and so the idea of breaking out time to do something like that seems like wasted time to me. I know it's not like, don't I understand, like, trust me, I understand the bigger picture, but I have so much to do. Like, I do it. I do the job of many people, and I do it every day, all day long, sometimes all night long, and I really like it. I don't know It's just strange for me to think that people stop working at five o'clock and go to a gym or a walk or, like, do a thing. I'm like, Oh my God, there's like, so much stuff to get done, and it's so, like, invigorating to get it finished. Now I realize I'll drop dead and won't be able to do it anymore, so I'm trying to find the middle ground of that. What about your mornings? I don't even eat breakfast. I just get up and start working. I get up, I take a shower, and I work. And I work until I get hungry, and then I eat something. And normally I eat something while I'm working.

Jennifer 1:11:25
So get up and go for a walk and then take a shower. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:11:29
my God, that sounds horrible. How early do I have to get up to make that all happen? I need to sleep. What time do you wake up? Generally, I wake I open my eyes between seven and 730 Oh, so

Jennifer 1:11:39
like, even in the dead of winter this, you know, the sun is up, I had

Scott Benner 1:11:44
to go outside when it's cold.

Jennifer 1:11:45
Listen, if you want to do treadmill, I am. I'm all about treadmill keeping act. I'm not buying a treadmill. Okay, well, then, yeah, you got to go outside when you're cold.

Scott Benner 1:11:55
Yeah, it's cold, yeah, there's no answer. So what you're saying is just die because I

Jennifer 1:11:59
because I'm saying, find a way to be active so you don't die. I'm

Scott Benner 1:12:03
trying to find a way to do something that is counter intuitive to me, like the actual doing it. I don't mind you understand, like the the exercise part, I'm okay with it's not like I'm doing it. I'm like, oh my god, this is horrible. I'm happy to do it. It's the time to do it that I don't know how to give away. Like, don't you feel like life is so short?

Jennifer 1:12:26
I, you know what? I wake up, I have my coffee, and I work out, and it's like, I don't even think about it. That's just my routine.

Scott Benner 1:12:34
I think about life being so short, and there are so many things that I want to do and doing things that don't add to that feel like an insane waste of my time. I

Jennifer 1:12:46
don't know. I look at it like I'm doing this so that I can do what I want for as long as I want.

Scott Benner 1:12:52
I agree with you, but I bet if I asked chat, G, p, t, if I worked out two hours a day for the rest of my life. How long would it extend my life? And then I asked it, how much time I spent working out I might lose as much time working out as I get in the extension. And now I'm younger and thought more thoughtful.

Jennifer 1:13:13
But what if you looked at working out the way you look at your job, you enjoy your job. You don't like working out. Not everyone likes working out. I just feel personally that it's a necessity. It's just a part of life. It's just a part of my day.

Scott Benner 1:13:31
I agree with you. You're missing my point. Jennifer, I 100,000,000% agree with you on all of the reasons why working out is important. I don't want to be like a person with no muscle tone in my 60s, like, you know what I mean? Like, I know that leads to all kinds of problems. Like, I'm not arguing with any of that. I'm saying that the there's a disconnect in there, because I do so much stuff with my mind and with my voice and and it I see the countless people that it helps constantly, and it seems like when I'm not doing that, it feels like a waste of time, like it just does. And I know the argument, I understand the bigger argument, if you work out longer, you'll be able to do this longer, like that kind of stuff. You'll stay alive longer, etc. But if I'm trading five year, hold on a second, how much do you work out in time? Anywhere from an hour to three hours a day. So if I work out two hours a day for 10 years, how much time did I give to working out? It's giving me I should have said, Don't give me the math. I don't need the math. So if you work out two hours a day for 10 years, you'll spend Do you know how many hours do you want to guess?

Jennifer 1:14:48
No, I mean, I'm not gonna get you can tell 7300

Scott Benner 1:14:51
hours.

Jennifer 1:14:52
I love it.

Scott Benner 1:14:53
And that is 304 it's a year of your life. So in the next 10. Years, you're going to give away a year of it to working out how much I'm

Jennifer 1:15:04
okay with that. I feel like the sacrifice is worth it, and I don't. I think if you worked out like, you know, start a half hour a day, I think that the Juicebox Podcast will be okay with you, with without you for a half hour a day. You

Scott Benner 1:15:24
don't see them. They're coming for me from every direction. You have no idea. I know,

Jennifer 1:15:27
but you have to find a balance, I know, to take time for yourself too, self care. All right,

Scott Benner 1:15:34
so chat. GPD said, I asked it. I said, How much does the work out extend my life if I'm a 53 year old man? Because I'm a 53 year old man, year old man, research indicates that regular physical activity can add several years to one's life. For instance, a study published people who engage in regular, moderate exercise at least 150 minutes a week, oh, lived about three and a half to four years longer than those who didn't. So if I give up three 150 hours. 150 minutes, right? Yeah, it's two. It's two. Okay, listen, that I can make sense of, yeah, that's a lot of time you're adding to your life. Yeah? So for, okay, see, see, this is a good conversation. Just do a half hour. What are you a Nike commercial you led with? Just do it. I'm

Jennifer 1:16:19
definitely not Nike, but, and I'm not going there, but, you know, half hourgate, go out for a walk. It's summer. You have no excuse in terms of cold weather, very humid. I know I ran in it today, but it's a half hour and you're walking, you can handle that humidity,

Scott Benner 1:16:37
right? It says, given the scenario of a 53 year old man working two hours a day, the life expectancy increase could be notable. While it's difficult to quantify precisely, you could potentially add several years to your life. What if I just did

Jennifer 1:16:52
but let's not talk about adding years to your life. How about quality of life? I mean, because, like, you don't want to get into your 80s and just sit there. Now your computer,

Scott Benner 1:17:03
I don't do you, although, I mean, everything I need is right here. I understand that, but

Jennifer 1:17:10
travel with your children and grandchildren for

Scott Benner 1:17:13
sure. Yeah, I think about that stuff all the time. It just doesn't, it doesn't correlate into me getting up and stopped. I'm a hard worker, like I wanted, I want to do this job. Yeah, I know. But, I mean, I'm like, wired that way, is what I'm saying, all right. But this thing here says 150 minutes a week could add 3.4 to four and a half years the life expectancy. I'm willing to do that. And

Jennifer 1:17:34
honestly, if you're on these medications, you should, you really should be doing some sort of exercise. I'm an expert. I know you know

Scott Benner 1:17:43
no for muscle, no, you're, you're 1,000,000% right. But also these the medications also keeping inflammation away. I'm probably gonna live forever, so I'm gonna want more well,

Jennifer 1:17:54
okay, but you, but you want to live well. You don't want to just live forever. You want to live? Well, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:18:01
I didn't really mean forever. I just meant, like, a little older. No, I know it's, it's not just

Jennifer 1:18:06
all about how long you're gonna live. It's just how well you're gonna live. Yeah, like,

Scott Benner 1:18:11
No, I'm with. I'm not, you know, I'm not arguing with you, right? No, no,

Jennifer 1:18:15
you know, like, my, my 81 year old dad was supposed to come in next week to visit. And my step mom just called me up, and she's like, I don't think we can come. And it makes me sad that it's too much for him, yeah, come in.

Scott Benner 1:18:30
No. I mean, listen, my mom passed at 81 but she was fighting issues for since her 60s. Like, my mom had a pacemaker when she was in her 60s, and she eventually had cancer. She was older and like, listen, I think that the one thing that my mom's life kind of told me was you can plan to live till you're 90, but it doesn't mean you're gonna be doing anything Exactly. She didn't have a bad life or anything like, that's not like when she was 79 she was like, I wish I was dead. She was having a grand old time till she had got cancer. You know what I mean? But her life was pretty, you know, contained. She didn't do a lot of things anymore. She did do a lot of traveling earlier in her life, after she retired, but, yeah, I mean, listen, you're 100% right. I'm just I'm not inclined towards it. I don't enjoy it. And a lot of people don't, right, even most people don't. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't do things you don't things you don't enjoy. I do plenty of things I don't enjoy. I'm married, for God's sake. Go ahead, Jennifer, you can laugh if you want. You're married. You understand

Jennifer 1:19:28
I'm not going there.

Scott Benner 1:19:29
So, like, I'm not against doing things I don't want to do, especially if they're beneficial to me and, you know, and my family, etc. I just it's not a thing. Like, if they told me that making awesome podcast content was exercise. I'd be Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 70s, 100%

Jennifer 1:19:48
I know you would. Yeah, no, you would.

Scott Benner 1:19:50
Why won't these motherfuckers let me do that for exercise? Who's in charge of all this? Jennifer, who made these rules though, Arden and I had this conversation. Administration the other day, menstruation, it's gonna sound disconnected for a second, but okay, and then I'll let you go. But I was like, I said, menstruation is my clearest idea, that there can't be a god. And she goes, what? And I said, How is this the plan, if an actual person was sitting and thinking about this, making up the universe they were like. So there'll be eggs in a little sack, and then at two weeks of your life will be miserable. Then a third week of your life, while you're miserable, you'll also be bleeding from the hole you pee from, not exactly the same hole, but close enough. It's gonna be very unpleasant, and it's gonna be cramped, because how will we get the eggs out there in the lining? We don't use, you know what? We'll use cramping. That's a great no one would have planned that like that. And I was and I was like, yeah, great point. Thank you. There's no no thinking that you can't tell me something's omnipotent. And then told me that that's the play it came up with to make a baby. It just doesn't make any sense. Anyway. I think that about exercise and food. Why does good, if somebody was making this up, why is that? Why my body, like, why doesn't sitting make me strong? You see what I'm saying? Yeah, wow, we're being that's what I'm saying.

Jennifer 1:21:22
And I just, I just want you to live your best life. Scott, well, I do too. Jennifer, I appreciate so is it because get out there and take a walk. You want that? Because never in New Jersey. I'll come walk

Scott Benner 1:21:31
with you, yeah? How you're getting over that bridge? Horrifying? Well, yeah. Is it because I've helped your family significantly, and you want me to prosper you

Jennifer 1:21:38
have, and I will tell you the defining moment for me, because I remember it so well, was listening to an episode about Pre Bolus thing, and watching the arrow on the Dexcom go down, and that's when Mason could start eating. And it took me two dinners to get the hang of it, so this really tacos, and we waited like, 45 minutes, and nothing happened. And then the next day, I'm like, you're having the exact same meal again, and we're going to Pre Bolus at this time. And we watched the arrow, and it was a normal Pre Bolus time, and it was life changing for us, for you.

Scott Benner 1:22:17
Oh, that's great. I have to tell you, I'm building a list right now in the Facebook group, which you won't be able to find by the time you're hearing this. But basically I've been feeding all my episodes into an AI and asking it to pull out the colloquialisms that help people. I got a good starting list, and now online, people are adding to it with the things that have been said in the podcast over the years that they found really helpful that I almost wouldn't know to point to. It's turning into a great list. I'm going to turn it into a series for the podcast. And the truth is, this is the first thing I've considered writing down and, like, making available in writing, because I think, I think it really would be helpful for people, like, little things, like stop the arrow, or more more insulin and like, like, little like, just things that stick in your head that make you Scott isms, yeah, isms not me, but yeah, yeah, what you know, the things that help you make decisions like that. So okay, all right, well, I'm gonna go and thank you very much. This was wonderful. I really do appreciate it

Jennifer 1:23:17
was it went in a totally different direction than I thought it would now,

Scott Benner 1:23:22
I never know how this is gonna go, to be perfectly honest, I'm sure you don't. Yeah, that's part of the that's part of the joy of it. I literally, I was just, we're just chatting. So thanks again. Hold on one second for me.

Guys, you want to go for a walk with touch by type one in Orlando, you can do it and you can have a great time. Meet a lot of wonderful people. Touched by type one.org. Go to the Programs tab, click on Steps to a cure and get yourself registered right now for the beautiful walk that's coming up on March 8 in Orlando. Touched by type one.org, I'd like to thank Dexcom for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. And at the same time, I want to remind you that seeing your blood glucose levels in real time, not only the number, but the speed in the direction, is going to help you in ways that you maybe can't imagine right now, you should definitely check it out at dexcom.com/juice. Box, and this is your chance cozy earth.com. What's it your chance to do? It's your chance to get something that's beautiful, lovely, thoughtful, and doesn't say last minute, cozy earth.com use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. 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, 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 that at Juicebox. Cast.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 Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com.

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#1422 Small Sips: The Difference is Your Fear

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

If you can keep your BG stable at 200 you can keep it stable at 80.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to the sips series.

These foundational strategies were nominated by listeners. They told me these are the ideas in the podcast that truly make a difference for them. So I distilled them down into short, actionable insights. There's not going to be any fluff or complex jargon, just practical, real world diabetes management that you can start applying today. And I know your time is valuable, so we'll keep these short. Another small sip will come out once a week for the foreseeable future. If you like what you hear, check out the Pro Tip series or the bowl beginning series for more. These series are available in the menu at Juicebox podcast.com and you can find complete lists of all the series in the feature tab on the private Facebook group. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. The questions you have, I guarantee you, there's answers to them, and they're in the Juicebox Podcast. You

music.

So it says here that in episode 1050 this was with you as well. 105 all about a 1c with Jenny Smith, CDE, that's you and mastering continuous glucose monitors in the Pro Tip series, and actually comes up in Episode 11, bold, with insulin. I talk about the the idea of like, if you can be steady at 150 you can be steady at 80. Yes, like. So this might sound weird, red back. I'm just gonna start talking about anything in a second. But the difference, I've said this a million times, but it's very worth repeating in this episode, the difference between steady at 150 and steady at 180 The only difference between those lines is your fear. So this came to me through Arden's journey, when I realized, and almost another saying came out of it, like, you get what you expect. Like, I realized that Arden's top line on her CGM was set at 200 that's where her alert went off. And generally speaking, when I went back and looked Arden was never over 200 so one day I was like, this sounds crazy, but what if I just set the line to 180 like, what would happen then? And then I learned, like, Arden's blood sugar didn't go over 180 Now, if you're listening to this and thinking, that's not how it works, Scott, obviously it's not how it works, but it made me react sooner, correct, right? And it taught me that if I Bolus at this point, or if I did this thing, or if the setting was like this, that I got in a 180 blood sugar, because it's not like I just heard the beeping. It was like, Oh, this sucks. I was doing things to stop from getting to that line right. So I kept moving the line down and down and down. And now Arden's high alarm is set it on her phone. It's 130 on my phone, it's 120 and I know people would hear that and think, Oh, if I set my high alarm at 130 my thing would be beeping constantly all the time, but it wouldn't be, because eventually you'd learn how to use the insulin. And so people heard that, and then started saying, like, oh my god, this is great. Like, my blood sugars are 150 all the time. They were super excited, because it was way better than what they were getting, sure. And then I expanded it, and I said, Why don't you shoot for lower? And they'd say, Well, no, because I'm gonna get I'll get low if that happens. But

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:43
if there's stability in this, probably what you're gonna say, if there's stability already, then just bringing it down slightly isn't gonna introduce lows, right? It's just gonna bring your average

Scott Benner 3:53
down. And so what I ended up saying to that person that day is, the only difference between steady at 150 and steady at 80 is your fear. So if you make the settings changes, and you make the lifestyle choices, meaning like, paying attention at the right times and using your insulin when necessary and etc, you can be steady at 180 8051, 50, like, you know, pick a number. I don't want you steady at 50, but I guarantee you there's a setting we could do that would put your blood sugar stable, you know, like, you know what I mean, like, so let's not aim for that. No, no, no, we're not aiming for that at all. The point is, is that there are settings that create stability. And if you found 150 it could be a little insulin sensitivity turn, it could be a little basal turn. It could be, I don't know, maybe you got to pre bullish your meals five minutes sooner. Like, I don't know, but like, in that, in that stew somewhere, is the answer to stability at the number you choose. That's all, yeah. I'm not trying to tell people that one number is right or wrong for them. I'm saying you could, by understanding how insulin works, choose that number and create stability. That number

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:00
you could and it takes time to adjust that right. You had a 200 and then you gradually brought that value down, 180 maybe 160 maybe 150 over time you can adjust that finding a comfort level, again, with stability, meaning that you're not having major swings that your standard deviation, your variance is not roller coaster up and down like the Rocky Mountains. Maybe your average looks lower now, but if you don't have stability in that, then you're achieving that average, not the way that we want to

Scott Benner 5:35
that 32nd story I told took a year. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I mean, I didn't know what I was doing. I was figuring it out. I didn't have a podcast to listen to. I didn't know you. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't live any of that myself. I was just like, what's happening? How do I make it stop? That was pretty much my whole life, for many years. Why is this happening? How can I make it stop? But you know, this idea, it's been born out over and over again in conversations. And, you know, once you I just want to say one more time, like, once you have settings that are creating stability, you can make adjustments to those settings that create that stability where you want it to be correct, and you might turn the wrong dial the first time. I don't know, right, you know, I mean, like, you might be like, I know what the problem is. It's basal. And you might make the basal more aggressive and go, that wasn't the problem. Like, right? Like, maybe it's like, you know, we've talked about in other episodes, but you make a meal Bolus, and you're, you're shooting for that bell curve, but sometimes you kind of rise up to the top of the bell and just never come back down again, right? That could have been your insulin to carb ratio. It could have been your understanding of the impact of that certain food, like, maybe your insulin to carb ratio is awesome, but it doesn't work on

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:47
this meal, particular component of your food, right, right?

Scott Benner 6:50
What I'm trying to say to people, and I probably should say this more frequently, is that I know this sounds like 1000 different variables, and like you're like, Well, how the hell am I supposed to figure any of this out, but it's just trial and error. It's you're a little bit of your own science experiment that going on and learning slowly, and then you just pop your head up one day. And if it's a year or two, or I know, you guys listen to this podcast, you're like, you know, Jenny's like, great at this, and Scott seems like he understands it, and blah, blah. But, I mean, Arden was diagnosed when she was two. By the time she was four, I was still crying again. That was two years later, and I was like, now we had a meter. We didn't have CGM, but we added in a CGM. We learned how insulin works differently. I'm trying to say that it might have taken me six, eight years to figure this out, but sure, I hear back from enough people, I'm telling you, go listen to the Pro Tip series you might, six months from now, be like, Oh, I figured this out. Stand on the shoulders of other people who went through it already. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel. Like there's no person that needs to do what I did ever again, not

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:57
with the technology that we have today, thankfully. Yeah, and I would definitely say, if you you said just before, that's all well and good, but like all these variables, and how do I start, and where do I pull the information apart? And for those of you who do have really good clinicians or clinical teams that are willing to sit down with you, really take the time within the data that you're collecting to pull the pieces apart. Please do so, because they're they're very wanting, if you have, again, a team that's willing to take the time use them, because that's a huge value to your being able to not do it all on your own, right? Also.

Scott Benner 8:36
And to give us a plug, by the time I came to you, when I was in like, episode 200 and said, Jenny, I think I have a system. Like, I know if I do these things that Arden say once he just ends up at six, Jenny was so kind and came on. That's how she's here today, like, and we made that Pro Tip series together. And what it ends up being is this blend of, we don't probably talk about this enough, but it's this blend of me, like, bootstrapping those ideas, and then you coming in and being like, Oh yeah, Scott, well, the thing you figured out is called this, and already had a name buddy. We could have told you about it, but there's something about and I hear from people all the time, Jenny, there's something about your experience and my experience blended together that allows people to listen and just go, Oh, I understand what they're saying now, because there are plenty of people who go to a great clinician and walk out and they're like, I don't know what the hell is happening. I don't

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:27
understand anything more. I think it's the reason that when I have the opportunity that I'm so thankful for to work with the people I can, it really is a blending of it's a conversational education, right? And I think that's why, when we put these episodes together, especially the pro tips, right? It's that you can bring in experience. I can bring in experience along with a simpler educational explanation that makes it understandable again, in a clinical. Setting a lot of times the time factor is, is the hard piece. There's so much that has to go into it and it, it makes it difficult to completely give everything that I think most clinicians really want to be able to do. But no, I'm, I'm glad to be able to to put it together in an understandable way with you.

Scott Benner 10:19
I appreciate it very much. I'll talk to you later. Okay, bye.

If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast. Private, Facebook group, Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome type one, type two, gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook, if you or a loved one was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective. The bowl beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player. Or you can go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. Are you starting to see patterns, but you can't quite make sense of them. You're like, Oh, if I bowl this 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, 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 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, wrongway recording.com.

Please support the sponsors

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The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate