#1488 The Cat Has Fleas
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27-year-old nurse Cassidy battles T1D, Crohn’s, hypothyroidism, and anxiety while offering a unique perspective on the hospital system.
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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
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.
Cady is a nurse who has type one diabetes, Crohn's hypothyroidism, anxiety and an interesting take on the hospital system. We're going to talk about that and much more on today's episode. 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. I know this is going to sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free, virtual type one diabetes clinical care, education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa or Louisiana, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you. Blue circle, health.org, you know why they had to buy an ad. No one believes it's free. This episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get your supplies the same way we do from us. Med, this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five. Learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juice box. Check it out.
Cassidy 1:55
Hi. My name is Cassidy. I am 27 years old. I currently work as a registered nurse in pediatrics at a major Midwest hospital, and I'm a type one diabetic, and I have been for 15 years. Last month, those are kind of my major points. You
Scott Benner 2:16
were diagnosed when you're 12. Yes, okay, 27th the best age. You think you don't know this, but, yeah, it is okay. Yeah, what were you gonna say? What about it?
Cassidy 2:29
This year has been a little rough, but it's been good, but it's been like a roller coaster of, like, good news, bad news, good news. You know, we'll
Scott Benner 2:37
find out about that, yeah, but I'll give you my thoughts, and you'll tell me why I'm wrong. It sounds good. The best conversations are when I say something and then people are going, I don't know, man, I don't know about Yeah. So my theory on like 27 is this, you're not married, right? I just got engaged last month. I hear the joy in your voice still, so I know you're not married, correct, right? Yeah, there's still time. Oh, yeah, I can tell you don't have kids. I know you're not married, but you're not 24 and, like, confused and trying to figure everything out, and you're not 35 and have a mortgage and are like, right, yeah. And I've had the same argument with somebody, like, 17 times. There's still, like,
Cassidy 3:16
some optimism there. You can hear, Oh, yeah, no, you
Scott Benner 3:19
have, there's a lilt in your voice. It's lovely and so and you know enough words, but not all of them yet. So life's not completely boring, like you still hear things that you're like, Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, exactly, yeah. This is it right here. This is your golden age. You won't recognize it until it's too late. And you look back and you think, Oh, damn. What about 28 How do you feel about 28 you still have time right in here.
Cassidy 3:45
Okay, okay, okay. When does it end? When you're 30, it ends
Scott Benner 3:49
as things pile on top of you, yeah, and then it turns into something else, like so you still haven't like you haven't had an argument yet with your fiance's Mom, where neither of you actually said what you meant, but you're both trying to get something you want at the wedding. And like, you haven't, like, I don't know, like, you know what I mean. Like, you haven't woken up in the morning and been like, Oh, there he is again.
Cassidy 4:16
You didn't go home. Okay? You haven't
Scott Benner 4:19
woken up yet and had him look at you and go, Oh, okay. See it on his face where he's like, Oh, I can't leave. And you're thinking, like, oh, I can't leave either. And then you buy a cat, but the cat gets, like, some like disorder, and there's like, a chunk of your Yeah, right. So weird that
Cassidy 4:39
you say that, because, literally, like a month ago, my fiance's friend, they adopted a cat, or rather, they found a cat behind like a dumpster, and it had fleas. And my fiance went over to his house, didn't know the cat had fleas, came home. Guess whose cat? Has fleas. Now, the
Scott Benner 5:01
cat has fleas is the name of your episode, by the way. Cassidy, oh, that's incredible, unless you say something awesome between now and the end, I'm not kidding, right? Like the cat has fleas is going to take you a month, and you're basing the cat, oh, yeah, right. And
Cassidy 5:19
there's a month. Oh, three months. Yeah,
Scott Benner 5:21
you're gonna have to replace a sofa at some point. And then, like, and it'll be fun, like, there'll be these small memories in it where you and your fiance, uh, you know, bathing the flea cat, and you're laughing. Like, how did this happen? Except you don't realize that the energy you use to bathe the flea cat is the energy you were gonna use to have sex, right? And then you Yeah, and then things drift into different, like, directions, and, you know, then someone gets sick. Doesn't even have to be you. It could be a person in your life. It beats you up a little bit. You're gonna have a friend who gets into a bad relationship. You're gonna end up spending six months helping her. Like, your car is gonna, like, not work, and the dealership is going to screw you and like, and then just one day, you wake up and you go to stand up, and all that weights just like, on you somehow, and you That's it. This is the time. So it's really looking up from here. Is what you're telling me. I'm telling you, no, you're missing the point. The point is, enjoy, yeah, now is then. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yes, I understand what you're saying. All right, get in there. Do something fun. Have you ever wanted a trip somewhere you kind of can't afford it, a little go, like that kind of stuff, yeah? But please be saving money for the future at the same time,
Cassidy 6:38
also that in this economy.
Scott Benner 6:41
Let me ask you a question. Any chance you'll be able to afford a house, you're a nurse, like you have a real job, you get paid, right? Like
Cassidy 6:48
I do have a real job now. So nice. I mean, yes, I think what we're going to be able to buy is going to be like not our
Scott Benner 6:56
dream. Gonna come with its own fleas. It's probably gonna come
Cassidy 7:00
with its own, please, but we already know how to treat it. So, I mean, we have back on for us, right? I mean, I think this is the first time in my life where I felt like, oh, okay, like I'm not completely just like scraping by, where it's like, truly living like paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, because when I was in nursing school, I was working as, like a PCA, so I was a nurse's aide, and they don't get paid a lot. And I was also working part time, and then in full time school, and I was in an accelerated bachelor's program, so I did my full BSN in 18 months. During that time, I had, like, no money at all. And then before that, I was a barista for four years. So
Scott Benner 7:43
you made people coffees for four years? Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay, it
Cassidy 7:49
was honestly, if it paid the bills. I love it. It's so fun to make coffee, I think. But also, I worked at a cafe in Seattle for a little bit, and so it was like, literally, like, the quintessential, like, exactly what the experience that everyone dreams of, right? Like, as a barista, anyway, not everyone dreams. Obviously, you don't dream.
Scott Benner 8:12
I thought everyone dreams to be a barista. In Seattle, that's crazy.
Cassidy 8:16
If you were gonna be a barista, where would you want to be a barista? I
Scott Benner 8:20
mean, I don't know, in my dreams, you all go tell five other people about the podcast. So, okay, fair enough. Yeah, I don't know. My dreams are different than yours. I don't know. Like serving people coffee makes it makes me feel like I wouldn't enjoy that. I
Cassidy 8:36
think so. I mean, you know, you get it's, it's, it's like any other customer service job that I love. What was fun about it just the like, learning about different coffee learning how to make like latte art and like suggest different things to people. Also, it's different than working at like a restaurant, because when people walk into a restaurant, they're like, hungry and maybe hangry and so, but when people come to get coffee, they're like, Oh, this is the best part of my day.
Scott Benner 9:03
Yeah. I can't, you know, cocaine anymore, so I'm gonna do this, like, that thing, yeah, yes, yeah. Also, your generation is like, were you broke growing up? Or was your family comfortable? My daughter is 20 years old. I can't even believe it. She was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was two, and she put her first insulin pump on when she was four. That insulin pump was an Omnipod, and it's been an Omnipod every day since then. That's 16 straight years of wearing Omnipod. It's been a friend to us, and I believe it could be a friend to you, omnipod.com/juicebox whether you get the Omnipod dash or the automation that's available with the Omnipod five, you are going to enjoy tubeless insulin pumping. You're going to be able to jump into a shower or a pool or a bathtub without taking off your pump. That's right, you will not have to disconnect to bathe with an Omnipod. You also won't have to disconnect to play a sport. Or were to do anything where a regular tube pump has to come off. Arden has been wearing an Omnipod for 16 years. She knows other people that wear different pumps, and she has never once asked the question, should I be trying a different pump? Never once omnipod.com/juicebox get a pump that you'll be happy with forever. I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies. I never had a good experience, and it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while, actually, for about three years now, because that's how long we've been using us Med, usmed.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, us, med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omnipod, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor in Dexcom customer satisfaction surveys, they have served over 1 million people with diabetes since 1996 and they always provide 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping us med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies To the latest CGMS like the libre three and Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating with a better business bureau at US med.com/juice box, or just call them at 888-721-1514, get started right now, and you'll be getting your supplies the same way we do. I think
Cassidy 11:47
it depends on who you ask, because if you ask my fiance, he would say that I grew up somewhat comfortable, but my dad had three jobs at one point growing up, so I mean, I wouldn't call that exactly comfortable,
Scott Benner 11:59
but you weren't worried about money personally as a child growing up, right? No,
Cassidy 12:03
no. So I think that's what the argument was like. We didn't have an argument, but we talked about it a little bit, and he was like, Yeah, but you never were like, oh, where's my next meal going to come from? Or, oh, you know, and that's true. I never, never was aware of our financial situation. And I feel like that's the difference,
Scott Benner 12:21
yeah, my point is, that's how you end up being able to be, like, interested in, like, Frappuccino art. You're not thinking like, I have to quickly get out of here and make a bunch of money or I'm gonna die. Oh, yeah,
Cassidy 12:33
Scott, I was a theater major for about a year and a half. So you tell me if I was aware of finances, literally at all. So
Scott Benner 12:43
we'll change the name of this episode too. Cassidy was comfortably Caucasian. Okay, actually, yeah,
Cassidy 12:50
that's great. Let's do that. That's a good one.
Scott Benner 12:53
And I'm not coming down on you for it. I'm just saying, like, no, it's just Yeah, it's true. I just when you were like, Oh, I find this interesting. I thought, I don't know how she had time to find that interesting, like, because there were things I found interesting, but the energy I used to work in my uncle sheet metal shop was used up on that, so I couldn't, like, get an image, sure, yeah, okay, all right, hippie, I got you. I know what's going on. I know.
Cassidy 13:16
I know my fiance would love you. He'd be like Steve.
Scott Benner 13:22
So at what point do you decide to be a nurse? I was only
Cassidy 13:26
a theater major for a year and a half. It was less about like, financial stability and more about like, it took something that I loved so much and turned it into like, this is what it's going to look like when it's a job. And I was just like, I don't think I want to do this. And I'd always been interested in nursing, like it was kind of like a thought that I'd had, but I was so focused on acting, it was never like a top priority or voice. And so I left the school that I was at and went into pre nursing. So I did, like, all of the prerequisite classes that you have to do. And I just talked to probably three different people who are in nursing, who talked me completely out of nursing. And they were like, nursing is the worst career ever. I'm so miserable, I'm so tired, like, I don't get paid anything. Like, people are awful, blah, blah and like, so at the age of I was 20 or 21 I like, really let that dictate what I decided to do. So I was early enough in the degree that I could switch to a social work degree. So I did that, and then I graduated in 2020 met my fiance. We moved to Seattle for his job, and I was like, looking at entry level social work jobs. I went to an interview. They offered me a job, and I just was like, This is not what I want to do at all. And to do what I want to do, I have to get my masters. But I was looking at jobs like with people who are masters prepared, and they were paying them like, $25 an hour. Oh, my goodness. I. And I was like, Okay, well, obviously, financially, this is not a great decision, because your MSW is like, $100,000 so it's, like, it was just not, I was like, okay, the stream is dead. I don't want to do
Scott Benner 15:11
this. That's where my Oh, my goodness came from. Not that $25 an hour is not a, you know, reasonable amount of money, but it's, I'm talking about, like, after I paid for a master's and an undergrad, yeah, yeah,
Cassidy 15:21
yeah. I feel like social work is an incredibly difficult job for a lot of reasons, but it's just like, I think that they see a lot of red tape, like they're like, I see how to help this person, but there's like, seven obstacles in the way, you know, and so I think that would be frustrating, but so I kind of fell back into researching nursing. I did, like, a ton of research. I talked to a few nurses, and then I was like, I that's what I want to do. I really want to be a nurse. And I found a program. Well, actually, my fiance's dad lives in the Midwest, and he was like, if you guys move out here, you can live in my basement while you go to school. So we did that, and then I was able to, like, save a little money, and then I worked part time, and then just, like, commuted to school.
Scott Benner 16:07
So like, Silence of the Lambs, you lived in someone's basement in the
Cassidy 16:12
Midwest. Was it like it wasn't quite as dungeon? Well, it's a little it isn't as bad as it sounds. It
Scott Benner 16:22
rubs the lotion on nothing like that happened. Nothing, nothing,
Cassidy 16:26
nothing like that happened. Yeah, so and then, yeah, I went through 18 grueling months of nursing school.
Scott Benner 16:36
You hammered away like you got it done fast, huh? Yeah, it
Cassidy 16:39
was. It was definitely like, I think that a lot of people that go through nursing school know that it's not necessarily like the difficulty of the content, but it's more the amount of things that you have to learn in a short amount of time, right? Yeah, and I work at an adult hospital for about a year as a PCA or nurses aide. I thought I was going to work with adults, and then I had my pediatric clinical rotation. There's a floor at the hospital that I work at that's like, the diabetes floor. I like, talked to one of the clinical leaders there, and she was like, Well, I really would like you to work here. So that's where I work now, as a nurse. Oh, awesome. The floor that I'm on is, like, if it is the diabetes floor, but also we're like the organ transplant floor. We get a lot of, like, liver and kidney transplants, and then kids that have had transplants, and then kids that are pre transplant. Like almost every auto immune disease you can think of, we see on our floor too. So okay, yeah, cool. Let's find
Scott Benner 17:37
out about this. So yeah, you were diagnosed when you were 12 with type one? Was that your first autoimmune issue? Or No? No.
Cassidy 17:44
So I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism when I was two days old. So I don't know if it was autoimmune or if it was like congenital hypothyroidism, but I've been told both by different providers, so I don't know if that's truly auto immune. I gotta
Scott Benner 17:59
jump in. Somebody just said this to me in the last couple of days while I was recording, like, How was that possible? No one ever said that to me before. And now, in the span of like, seven or 10 days, two people have said, basically, I was born with hypothyroidism. Yeah, uh huh, yeah. I was two days old. Is your little thyroid underdeveloped? Still today? No, no, I don't think so. There's was. That's why I asked, okay, okay, well, I mean, have you had it scanned? You know, I
Cassidy 18:24
haven't had it scanned, but they've, like, palpated it and said it feels normal. Maybe that's not super reliable, though I
Scott Benner 18:30
love that, the way that we had to make up a word so it doesn't sound like your thyroid is being molested by a clinician. We palpated it is that what you
Cassidy 18:39
did? That's a nursing term.
Scott Benner 18:43
Okay, so you've been taking Synthroid your whole life. No, no. So
Cassidy 18:46
here's the interesting thing, the physician that diagnosed my hypothyroid was like, okay, so it's very important that she takes this medication for like the first couple of years of her life. I think I only took Synthroid for like, two years, and then they re checked my levels and determined that I didn't need it anymore. Do I know if that's like, actually what you're supposed to do? No, it sounds wrong to me, but I don't I digress. I feel like because then they I kept telling my mom, like, before diabetes, I'm so tired, I'm so tired, like I'm cold, and I was like, gaining weight, and they would check my thyroid, and I don't know what my TSH was, but I'm sure it was high. And they were like, Nah, she's fine. I didn't get back on Synthroid until I after my diabetes diagnosis. Then they checked my TSH again, and they were like, Oh yeah, you need to be on Synthroid. And we were like, oh,
Scott Benner 19:41
okay, you're a person who lived through this and has a nursing background. Can you, I'm asking, wrap your head around a person coming into a doctor's office with hypothyroid symptoms, having had the story you had at birth, and then someone saying you it's. Definitely not that
Cassidy 20:01
it's crazy. Yeah, I don't know, because I've thought about that too. Like, because I hear people talk like patients talk about it too, right? Like, you know, oh, we've had these symptoms for a long time, and it kind of and we'll talk about this later too, because the same thing happened to me this past year. But I just think, I don't know. I feel like hypothyroidism is not that rare, so I guess that this theory doesn't really track. But, like, I feel with diseases that are quote, unquote more rare, they're just like, Oh, we're gonna, like, make sure that it's not the more common ones first, and we're gonna make you wait, or we'll see if it goes away, or we'll try. You know what? I mean, Cassidy,
Scott Benner 20:34
I'm trying to get you to tell me if everybody is a dummy. I mean, you work with a lot of people, right? Like, so is it just law of numbers? Like, is it just that if I put 100 people together, a certain number of them are just not going to be good at it. What am I dealing with here? I don't know. I plead the fifth. I don't know. Should we make this anonymous? You want me to blur out your name? Can I ask you again?
Cassidy 20:59
No, I don't want it to be anonymous. Okay, I just think healthcare is really messy, and it's coordinating so many different things all together at once, and it's just like, I've just seen miscomm minutes, like miscommunication happens in my everyday life. As hard as you try, it's just like, it's just there's too much going on, you know, like patient care is so multi faceted and complex and nuanced. And it's just like, I think you just have to know as a patient that you have to advocate for yourself. Because I don't think that it's that providers, nurses like, don't care or don't want to take the time, at least in my experience, like, I haven't really ever felt that personally, but I think it's just like, truly, if you feel genuinely something is wrong, you just have to be very honest with your doctor and be like, listen, like, I understand that you want to take the conservative approach to whatever you're addressing, but like, something is really wrong.
Scott Benner 21:53
You know, you're asking people then to understand the foibles of the system, and they don't. I know, yeah, and they don't. I'm going to say this here, because I'd like this to be recorded somewhere. Today is December 18, 2024 I'm saying this to all healthcare providers. You all got to pull your together, or you're going to get replaced by a chat bot in the next five years.
Cassidy 22:13
Oh, oh yeah, it's already, it's already happening, yeah. Like, I feel like we're already, we already have, I guess it's not like a chat bot, but it's like, it's gonna be, it's gonna be, no, I and it's like, I just had this conversation with my dad the other day. I was like, Well, I think we'll be replaced by AI. He was like, nurses, no. And I was like, definitely. I was like, Yeah, eventually, for sure, like, if not completely, then partially, you know.
Scott Benner 22:38
But if I sat just at a prompt right now and said, 11 year old girl complains of tiredness, always cold. Whatever you just said was put on Synthroid at two days old and then taken off of it. What do you think's wrong? The chat bot would come back and say that the kid has hypothyroidism.
Cassidy 22:59
Yeah, I think it's more like, also, I think providers just can't always, like, agree on certain parameters for tests.
Scott Benner 23:07
Oh, I know. I guarantee your TSH came back at like, four, and they were like, No, this is fine, right?
Cassidy 23:13
That's what I mean. I think it's just like, I don't know. I think it's interesting, and it's also devastating, because you're right, like, they don't understand the system. They might not understand what's going on with them. So if a doctor says, like, you're fine, then they go, okay, you know, and and they they move on.
Scott Benner 23:29
Translate that over to diabetes, right? Someone's diagnosed with type one diabetes, they get poor direction. They don't understand how insulin works, you know? They come back to a doctor six months later with an A, 1c, and the eights. And the doctor says, Hey, how's this? Why is this like this? And the person goes, I don't know. And the doctor writes down, non compliant, like, how come the doctor doesn't write down, doesn't seem to understand how insulin works. Didn't understand the, you know, the my question, right? And the reason is, the doctor didn't understand the question either, or if they did, they would have explained insulin to the person. The person will understand it. And their A, 1c, understand it and their a 1c, wouldn't be nine. I'm telling you that the problem is people, yeah, I'm sorry, because you seem like, I bet you're a good nurse.
Cassidy 24:11
Oh, thank you. Yeah, I try. I think I I do understand too. Like, as a person with multiple autoimmune diseases, like I'll sit and talk with patients for if I have time to, you know, just like about my own experience navigating healthcare, and like how it can be really challenging and frustrating, and if you have something that the vast, you know, like, I think that most providers are educated very thoroughly on things that are super, super common that we see, you know, every day in The hospital, right? But like, things that you don't see every single day, it's just like, it's, I don't know, and I don't really even know what the answer is. Or, like, how we fix these issues with people that have diseases that have a little more nuance to them, because it's like, it's hard to understand, like, the intricacies of all of the diseases, yeah. But. We can't just be like, well, we don't understand, so we're just gonna do what we can and then send them
Scott Benner 25:05
home. My expectation is, is that your healthcare system, one day will give you like, I don't know how it'll work, but you'll log into an account where you will log your complaints, like, everything, like, you'll like, you'll keep a diary of your health. Then the system will be able to point out what might be important to look into. That's my expectation about how it should happen. So, yeah, I don't know
Cassidy 25:29
what. And then people can bring it up, I guess.
Scott Benner 25:31
And nurses and doctors will be more like the guardian of that information. They'll look at the information and say, that seems correct to me, will move forward. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. I've been doing this podcast for a long time, and I mean, it's fun sometimes to, you know, or interesting, or whatever word you want to use, to have this conversation and be like, horrified that they took you off Synthroid, then you got like, you know, hypothyroid symptoms, and nobody did anything, and you're like, some little girl dragging her ass through life, yeah, yeah. But at the same time, like you don't have to have this conversation over and over again to realize that this is just how it is, right? And it's not because someone's not trying, it's not because the health care system, it's just because when you involve this many people into this situation, this is the outcome you get. That's all, yep,
Cassidy 26:18
right? And it's just, that's what I mean. It's just like, when it's so multifaceted, and there's so many different people involved, it just, it just gets messy, and it's hard to like, that's why I don't have a good like answer. I'm like, I don't know how to I like, see the problems. I literally see them, like, at my job, right? I'm like, Oh, yep, this is how this happened, you know? And it's like, but do I have, I don't have a clue of how we're supposed to fix it, and I think that's how other people feel too. They're like, yeah, we see the problems. I think the only thing it's like, it's good for me to see it, though, as a nurse, because then I can do what I can to try and advocate for my patients better, because I know what has happened, even in the past, or what has happened to other people. Being aware of it makes you a better provider, and I've seen doctors do that too, like, where they're like, oh yeah, this is what happens all the time. So I want to make sure that this doesn't happen to the people that I'm carrying. There's no
Scott Benner 27:08
actual fix what you know like when you're 10 years from now, when you find yourself Cassidy at a PTA meeting, okay, and then whatever horrible thing is happening to you, and you're in one of those situations, and you recognize that this PTA meeting is going to go just like the last one, as we'll go the next one, because Margaret over there is cheating on her husband with the soccer coach, and that lady's been drunk since noon, and that guy is full of anger and anxiety, and this person is On a power trip and blah and like, you realize that every time you go into that situation, it's not going to be the same people, but you're going to have a lot of different variables like that in the room. They're always going to exist. And you can step back as a reasonable person and say, Well, I know how to fix this situation, but the next step is to make her not a drunk, make her not a cheater, make him not a lunatic like and you can't actually do that. So the PTA meeting always goes the way the PTA meeting goes, and there's always a mom in town having sex with somebody who works at the school. You're never going to get away from 10 out of 10. Yeah, yeah. Always gonna be happening.
Cassidy 28:21
I will say too. I think this is why, like, your podcast is so important and meaningful, because there's something and the Facebook group too. There's something really cool about having another person, multiple other perspectives outside of healthcare, for people that have a lived experience and really understand diabetes. And I mean, I just think it's really awesome. So I feel like, I definitely like mention it to patients. I don't know if I'm supposed to do that, but I'm like, This is not medical advice. But like, if you if you want community, if you want something, you know that's like, real other parents who are walking through this, like, this is great, and I would recommend, like, looking into it, well, I appreciate that.
Scott Benner 29:02
I'm glad that it strikes you that way, and I appreciate you sharing it, and my opinion is that you're supposed to be sharing it. So yeah, I'm sure the hospital was like, Wait, what's happening? She's telling people about a podcast. No, no.
Cassidy 29:14
I think honestly, I asked one of our diabetes educators about it, and she was like, Oh yeah, I tell them that all the time. They said, Oh, okay, well, then
Scott Benner 29:23
awesome. I'm gonna continue to do that. Yeah. How did you get pulled onto that floor? Do you think that you were just bright, clear minded, doing a good job? And she thought, I need more people like that up here. Honestly,
Cassidy 29:34
my clinical instructor really liked me, and then she introduced me to this clinical instructor that worked on the floor that I work on now. And I was like, Yeah, I'm definitely interested in working with kids with diabetes. I think that'd be really cool. And that was really it, I mean. And then, so then I switched, I don't think I said this, but I quit my job working with adults at the adult hospital, and then I started working as a PCA at the hospital I'm at now. So, yeah. I don't even know if it was so much like, what I did or said or I don't know, I just probably was like, I'm really excited to be a nurse, and I have diabetes, and I'd love to work with other people with diabetes. And she was like, perfect.
Scott Benner 30:10
This one doesn't even know yet, we'll just get her up here and we'll just drain the life out of her up here. Perfect. Yes. What's the the lifespan of a nurse? How long do they usually last?
Cassidy 30:21
Oh gosh, what a question. They say that we're at a nursing shortage. I don't know if you've heard this or read this anywhere, but we're not in a nursing shortage. We're in a shortage of people who are tired. They're very tired of working at the hospital and working bedside nursing. So I think that in the past, like lifespan of a nurse, bedside nurse, working in the hospital. I don't know 2025,
Scott Benner 30:44
years, really, but now, yes, I don't
Cassidy 30:47
even know. I feel like it's, it's hard to find people that work on the same floor at a hospital for more than, like, five years. What
Scott Benner 30:54
do you think happens? Do you think the job is harder? Do you think that people just have a more kind of, like, Go get 'em attitude, like, I'm just not gonna sit here forever. I wanna move up. What do you think's gonna happen to you?
Cassidy 31:07
I think it's a combination of things. I think some people go into nursing and don't know what the job is, or they have higher expectations for what their their work life is gonna look like. And a lot of people graduate nursing school at like, 22 or 23 it's an immense amount of responsibility at, I think, at that age. So like, the people that I work with that are like, fresh out of nursing school, and they're just like, killing it. I'm just like, Man, I could never have done this. I was like, I was making lattes. I don't know about you, but, and I think it's that people don't know. I think it's that people have higher expectations for the job. It's a hard job, it's long hours. You're exhausted. And it doesn't sound like, I don't know, when I started working 12 hour shifts, I was like, oh, like, that's fine. Like, I've worked an eight hour shift, like, you know, what's four more hours? But it's like the amount of stuff that happens in four hours in the hospital is actually bonkers. Like, I tried to write down my busiest day, like, I had a really crazy day a couple weeks ago. It was like, I'd get a call, and then I would have to go and and then I went into a room. Oh, you're a patient, you know, their potassium is high. Okay, now I have to call the doctor, okay. Oh, now your your blood sugar is 40. Oh, okay. Well, I gotta go take care of that and re check it and do it. And it was like that, literally for probably eight hours of the day, and it was just non stop. And so it's like, if you think about like your busiest day at work, like a standard person's busiest day at work, nursing is like that almost every day you go there. So I think people just get burnt out and they're tired, and they're like, Oh, this is not what I imagined nursing would be. And then also, like, nursing has just changed a lot. Like, I've talked to nurses who are more seasoned and have worked for like, 10 years or whatever, and they retire, and they're like, Yeah, nursing didn't used to be like this. I'm done like, and I don't know, I can't say, like, exactly what the differences are. I think it's just technology is advanced, and so we're, we're getting better at treating people, and so I think we just have more. I don't know it's just, it's, it's a conglomeration of, like so many things, but it definitely is harder and rougher than it used to be like to work in the hospital, than it was, maybe even pre COVID, honestly, really, because people have said too that COVID changed everything. And I don't even know what that means exactly. They're like, Oh, yeah, I was different before COVID. And I'm like, Well, what do you mean? Like, how? And they're like, I don't know. It's just different. And that's the response I get from everyone. And I'm like, How can no one tell me? Like, what's different about it? Like, so I don't know. I also think a lot of nurses left after COVID or during COVID, because they were just so
Scott Benner 33:39
is it possible that, beyond that, the world is different, that nursing isn't different? How would they know? Do you know what I mean, like, how would they know that nursing magically got different, right, right? And but not be able to, like, quantify it. You know what I mean? Like, does it feel different to you? Does like the world feel different to me? Does the world of nursing feel different to you. I guess I can't really, like speak
Cassidy 34:03
to that, because I so I started working in a hospital in 2022, so, like, I was already post COVID, but I just know that, like, people were pushed beyond their limits in COVID, really unsafe working conditions, no. PPE, no. Like, everything changed every day. It was like, I feel like it was, I can only imagine that it was, like, an average day of nursing, but like, 10 times worse, because you were dealing with something that no one understood, and that was changing literally by the hour, sometimes, like protocol and, you know, and then people were getting really sick really fast, and I don't know, I just think, like, I can't imagine what that was like, like, I just really can't so
Scott Benner 34:41
then, is it possible that COVID added a layer to the job that didn't feel like it existed prior? And so now suddenly, a bunch of people who came into imagine if you became a professional football player under today's rules, and then. In six months or a year into your job being a professional football player, they added bats with spikes in it for tackling, right, right? Like, you'd be, like, I don't know, my football just got harder, right? That you could say, Why? Because, like, before, why before they couldn't tackle me with a bat with a spike, and, like, now they can. So I don't want to do this anymore. Do you think that it just leveled up? I think it probably just leveled up. I do also, I've heard this argument before. I've heard people argue that a lot of people got into health care at a time where it was like, like, not war time, for example, like, almost like joining the military during peace, and then all of a sudden someone's like, No, we need you to go across the country and actually shoot at people. And you're like, Oh, I thought I was just gonna be down here giving a hand and out band aids and hugs like that kind
Cassidy 35:47
of thing, right? So I think that there, and this is like, total, like, full respect to people that maybe didn't expect nursing to look the way that it does, because I don't think that we do a very good job. Like, well, somewhat, I think in nursing school, we don't really do the best job of, like, showing what the job really looks like. I think when you go to, like, your clinical rotations, you're there for not a full shift. You have one patient, you like, can't do all the things for them, like, you know, there's certain things they won't let students do and whatever. And it's like some I had my my friend who didn't work in a hospital prior, was like, I think working in the hospital would be boring. And I was like, Huh? And she was like, Well, yeah. Like, look, we're just, like, sitting around. I was like, Yeah, but, like, imagine this. But like, add four more patients, and then add the doctors calling you, pharmacy calling you, PT calling you. Every call light is for the nurse, you know. And she was like, oh, yeah, I guess I hadn't thought about that. But like, I just think that, like, nursing school doesn't always paint the best picture. And so then it's like, you're shell shocked when you get into your job and you're like, Oh, I had no idea this is what it was going to be. So yeah, I think anyone who wants to go into nursing I highly, highly recommend that you work in a hospital first, because it gives you, not only, like, it makes you more comfortable working with patients, because it's a very different role than anything else in your life. Going up to someone and being like, okay, like, I'm gonna, I don't know you very well, but I'm gonna take your vitals and I'm gonna talk to you and I'm gonna, oh, now we're gonna go, I'm gonna draw your blood and, like, I'm gonna be taking care of you for 12 hours. Is like, kind of nerve wracking, especially when they're sick and they have, like, tubes, lines and all that stuff. So and you get a better idea of what the hospital work is like. Like, when I was working as a PCA with adults, I would walk eight miles a day. Couldn't even tell you, like, why? Like, where I where I went, you know, but I was just running around doing
Scott Benner 37:39
this. So what's the real answer here? When I hear people say there's a nursing shortage, do they mean like, every nurse should have six patients in a 10 hour cycle, or something like that, and if you're helping more than a certain amount of patients, then that's how you get stretched too thin. I
Cassidy 37:56
think it's, yeah, I think it's a lot of things. I think it's the nursing shortage comes from people leaving bedside nursing. We have plenty of nurses, like registered nurses, in the country to supply the hospitals, but working conditions and like, every hospital is different. Like, some hospitals, working conditions are so terrible they can't keep nurses there. And that's just like, you know, that's just kind of the way it is. Yeah. Like, there are some hospitals that are completely staffed by travel nurses who are getting paid double the amount that they normally would, but they're having to work in these conditions that are maybe not so safe, or maybe they're just, like, I don't know, at the, like, the patient ratio, like the, you know, maybe they give them seven patients instead of four, which is really what they should be giving people as, like, four patients. Okay, yeah, I wasn't sure
Scott Benner 38:41
what the number I was getting. Number I was guessing, but okay, yeah, that travel nursing thing still is confusing. Like, why don't they just overpay the people who work there? That's
Cassidy 38:50
a wonderful question. Scott, I don't know. My dad and I have had this conversation. He's like, these hospitals are gonna have to start paying the nurses more. And I was like, I mean, yeah, I guess. But like, I feel like, wouldn't we start seeing that now? Like, I travel nursing has been really, I mean, it started being, like, super popular during COVID. Obviously,
Scott Benner 39:08
I know a travel nurse loves her life, yeah, it's in Hawaii right now,
Cassidy 39:13
yeah? Well, and you get the benefit of, like, going on a vacation, if you want, right?
Scott Benner 39:17
Like, it's been to a lot of cool places, yeah, so I don't know.
Cassidy 39:21
I think it's interesting, though, because then the hospital has to pay whatever company they're traveling with. Wouldn't you rather just pay your I don't know what I know. I don't listen.
Scott Benner 39:30
I don't know anything about anything. But if you dug into it and found out that the large conglomeration that owns the hospital also owns the travel nurse company, and that they're just passing money back and forth to each other, I wouldn't be
Cassidy 39:42
okay. Maybe you're onto something. Because maybe that's maybe that's true. I don't know, right?
Scott Benner 39:47
I mean, I don't listen. I want to be clear. I have no idea. I don't either. I just work there. I know people who own construction companies that use a certain kind of construction material. So then. Go and start like a shell company that sells the construction material to this construction company. So they buy the material at one rate, sell it to themselves, basically at an inflated rate, and then make too much money on the material. Then take a loss on the job, on the construction side, write it off on their blah blah. So there's, like, trust me, there's, I'm not smart enough to figure this out, but there are people who are, and I'm going to assume that things are set up that way, so that we're just trying to hold on to our Money Longer. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's just a boubard system and like, I have no idea, but I'm just saying, if that was what it was, I wouldn't be crazy. It wouldn't, wouldn't shock me. Yeah, yeah. Let's go backwards a little bit, because we've been talking for a while about this. Do you have any other autoimmune besides type one and Hashimotos, or do you have Hashimotos? Or do you not know that? I
Cassidy 40:53
don't know. It depends on who you ask. I'm asking you. I've had a provider tell me that I have Hashimotos. I've had a provider tell me that I have congenital hypothyroidism. I don't know. I just know that I take centroid
Scott Benner 41:05
the way it's treated. It's not it is going to be the same. So,
Cassidy 41:09
right, yeah, what else do you have in April of this year, I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. I mentioned earlier. It's been, like, kind of a rough go, because I was, like, graduating nursing school, and then I got this auto immune disease, and then I started my first nursing job, and then I got engaged. Job, and then I got engaged, and then it's just been, like, kind of
Scott Benner 41:25
a whirlwind. But what a shitty surprise. You should have said, what? Yeah, literally. How does that? How does that? How does that get diagnosed? Like, how does it come on to you? Like, I mean, is it a thing you've always had you just realized? Or did it?
Cassidy 41:37
I've, like, done quite a bit of, like, research on people's experience. Like, I read something that was like, Oh yeah, it takes the people, like, on average, five years to get diagnosed. And I was like, Whoa, that's insane. That's so long. I started having symptoms in January. So it wasn't like that long for me, I guess I don't know. It was longer than I would have liked. I was, like, was finishing my last semester of nursing school, so I was incredibly stressed out. And I do have anxiety. And I had stopped taking my anxiety medication like many months prior. And so I thought that, like, the symptoms that I were experiencing or was experiencing were anxiety related. And so I would kind of lead with that. Like, I I went to the doctor in January, and I was like, here's what's happening. Like, but I have anxiety, so, like, maybe that's what it is. And so, of course, they were like, Oh, yeah. Like, that definitely makes sense. I'm sure you have anxiety. Like, let's put you back on your your medication. And so I went back on. I was just taking Zoloft, so I went back on Zoloft. And if you know anything about SSRIs, like, one of the top side effects, they're gi related, like, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, that kind of thing. I was still having these symptoms, but they were getting worse. I went back to the doctor, and again, I, like, led with but I have anxiety too. And, like, I don't know if this is, like, maybe I'm overreacting, you know. So like, three different times. I was told by three different doctors that, like, this was anxiety. I had one doctor ask me if I had a history of ulcerative colitis or Crohn's. And I said, No, but I have diabetes, type one diabetes. And he was like, Okay. And he was like, I really don't think that's what this is. And I was like, Okay. So then I finished, like, finish the, like, didactic portion of nursing school. And I had, like, a little bit of a waiting period before I started my job, and so I was just, like, just experiencing an immense amount of anxiety because I was getting more symptoms, and the symptoms were getting worse. So now I was having weight loss, fevers, night sweats, sores in my mouth. I like thought I had cancer, because the symptoms for inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer are really like, almost exactly the same. Okay, I went to a, like, a GI doctor, and at this point, I had been to the doctor three times for this. And so, like, and my my family knows that I have, I have, my anxiety is very health related. My fiance was like, Cass, like, I really think that this is your medication. This is anxiety. Like, you're really stressed out. Like, I think, I don't think you need to go to the doctor again. And I was like, I really feel like there's something wrong. So I went to this GI doctor, and he was so nice to me and so kind. And he was like, I really think that this is the medication, but if your symptoms don't get better in three weeks, I want you to come back. I waited for three weeks. The whole time I'm thinking, I'm dying, right? Like, I'm like, I have colon cancer. I'm dying, like, and no one's doing anything about it. I scheduled an appointment with him. I went back to him, and I was like, Could this just be the medication? And he was like, No, this is not the medication. He was like, this is something else. So they did, like, inflammatory test. It's called the calprotectin, and your normal level should be, depends on where you go. But less than 50, and mine was 800 he had me come in, like, emergently. It was like three days later for a scope, he diagnosed me with ulcerative colitis. At first, he. Like, it looks really mild, but it's definitely, you definitely have something going on. And then he was like, I want to start you on prednisone. And I was like, freshly off, like, verse Ed and fentanyl. And I was like, I can't, my blood sugars are going to be so high. I was like, I can't take prednisone. And he was like, Okay, we'll, like, put you on a different steroid. So he put me on budesonide, which is, like another, like, more mild steroid, and it worked. It helped a lot for like, the first two or three weeks, and I had my, like, graduation ceremony during this time. Like, I was, like, relieved, but also I had just been given this diagnosis that, like, I knew basically nothing about. I just felt really angry because I was like, How can I have diabetes? And this, like, I went to an IBD specialist next, and she walked in the room and she was talking to me, and she's like, okay, yeah, like, tell me a little bit about what you've been experiencing. And she was like, Okay, well, I'm looking at your scope results. And this is not ulcerative colitis, this is Crohn's. I was just like, so overwhelmed, because I had kind of come to this, like, I was like, Okay, I have ulcerative colitis, like, I'm accepting it. And then she was like, actually, no, you have Crohn's, which is, like, a similar disease, but also totally different. We have to put you on a biologic medication. And so I'm like, sobbing. I'm like, I don't want to take a biologic medication. I was like, I'm terrified of them. And she was like, I understand. And she's like, trying to talk me down a little bit. Can I
Scott Benner 46:25
ask a question, where do you Where does the medical like anxiety come from? Do you know? No, when did it start? It
Cassidy 46:31
started before I had diabetes got I think it got worse when I was diagnosed with diabetes, because then in my my child brain, I was like, oh, so I can get diagnosed with things, you know. And I even experienced, after my Crohn's diagnosis, I also experienced, like a heightened, you know, what's next, what's next, what's next? I'm gonna have something else. Because, look at me, I have three things wrong with me, and I'm only 27 you know, is your
Scott Benner 46:55
father anxious? Not at all. Your mom, literally, yes, yes, your mom have any other autoimmune stuff, not
Cassidy 47:04
diagnosed. I think she might have, like, the ankle izing ankylosing spondylitis, yeah, because she has back issues. And they initially told her that she might have that, but then she was like, oh, because I brought it up to her, and I was like, do you have that? Because you need to be taking medication for that. And she was like, oh, no, they told me, I don't. But then in the back of my brain, I'm like, You should go see a rheumatologist, because I feel like, maybe you have that.
Scott Benner 47:29
I'm looking at your last name. You're like, European descendants, right? I've
Cassidy 47:34
heard an avian,
Scott Benner 47:37
yeah, right, German, Scandinavian, something like that. Okay, I was just that, like, I was gonna say pure I didn't mean that. Or your mom and dad both from the same it really didn't mean it like that, but your mom and dad from the same damn guy.
Cassidy 47:54
Yes, my my mom is German, so,
Scott Benner 47:57
I mean, I've heard a lot of, like, a lot of auto immune coming out of that part of the world, like with those kind of with those descendants, like, that's not uncommon for my experience. Oh okay. And anxiety, I genuinely think, is probably auto immune as well. So, oh yeah,
Cassidy 48:15
yeah, I could see that, right? I think seeing if your parent has anxiety that's not managed, and you see how they respond to things, you are going to learn that that's the way that you respond to things, especially
Scott Benner 48:26
if you're wired that way already, too, you know, right? And
Cassidy 48:30
like my I remember telling my dad, and my sister is a clinical psychologist, so I've talked to her about this too. I told my dad like, you know, I see these parents in the hospital and their kids are going through, like, really rough, you know, terrifying, like, scary things, and they're so calm. And I was like, I just thought that they would be freaking out, like, and he was like, Yeah, but, like, that's because that's what your mom does. And I was like, oh, right, okay, so that wasn't normal. Like, you're
Scott Benner 48:59
freaking out the way your mom freaked out when you got diabetes or whatever else, right? Yeah. And the reason your mom let your doctor push you off that thyroid medication so easy is because I think she prefers out of sight, out of mind or No, it's okay. They told me. It's not that, my God, it's like, you've met her. Yeah, I know it's good. Yeah, don't worry.
Cassidy 49:16
She's very, yeah, she's very, Everything's fine. Everything's fine, everything's fine. I just need to live 40
Scott Benner 49:21
more years and we'll die any and we'll die anyway. Don't worry about it. Uh huh, yep. So you're following in footsteps, or followed in footsteps already. And so do you really think you have Crohn's, or do you think you're wound up tighter than a top? Oh, I have Crohn's. Okay? All right. Well, that's good. I mean, at least it's real, like, you know what I mean? Like, you're not just, like, having, like, a, like, a psychological implication, psychosomatic, yeah, on your stomach.
Cassidy 49:46
Yeah, they so the way that they diagnose Crohn's, I don't know if you know much about it, so I don't mean to, like, speak to you like you don't know anything, but I don't know you explain it to me. Basically, they do a colonoscopy. Well, first they do like, an inflammatory marker test, which they did. And it was positive. So they knew that one of two things was going on, either I had colon cancer or I had inflammatory bowel disease. And so then they do a colonoscopy, and based on like, the like, obviously, they put a camera in, and they can see, like, the inside of your colon, and when you have Crohn's or you see there's like, visible redness and sores in your colon, and then they can take so then they take biopsies, like all over to see under the microscope which one you have. And some people have indeterminate colitis, they don't know which one it is. For me, I'm actually very thankful I know, because it's just like, nice to have more information. But mine, there was, like, there's a certain, I think it's like granulomas or something. There's like, a very specific cell that is only present if you have Crohn's. And I had that, so they knew immediately. But the IBD specialist that I went to, we didn't even have the biopsy results yet. She just was like, she told me, she's like, I've been doing this for 20 years, like, this is Crohn's, and she knew, and she was right. If you have like anxiety induced, like GI distress, or IBS, or whatever, you won't have any inflammation present. IBS doesn't cause elevated inflammation. And then also your colon will look normal, like endoscopically. So,
Scott Benner 51:14
so what do you do for it? Because they wanted to give you the biologic, and you didn't want that.
Cassidy 51:18
I was terrified to take biologic. I think the reason I was terrified to take the biologic is because, you know those commercials where Side effects may include cancer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it's like all these terrible things, more often than not, that's a biologic drug. Basically, it's like acts on different inflammatory markers in your body. So like, the one that I'm on, I can't remember which one it is. It's very like, it doesn't really matter. Basically, my immune system is overactive and it's attacking my GI tract, so the biologic just brings your immune system back down to where it should be. Okay, some people have to have, like, more aggressive therapy, where they go on multiple drugs, or they go on, like, a biologic that's more immunosuppressive. That's what I'm on now. How long have you been on it? How long have I been on it, since the end of May? Is
Scott Benner 52:07
it helping? Yes, yeah. Is it helping with anything else?
Cassidy 52:12
Do you mean, like other physical I'm saying if you're if
Scott Benner 52:15
your immune system is overactive, are you noticing other things that are not impacted by overactive immune systems, I feel
Cassidy 52:22
a lot less tired. Okay, before I was diagnosed, I, like, could barely walk up the stairs. Having active inflammation in your body like that is just exhausting. Yeah, again, all the symptoms. I was like, I'm dying. Like, I was like, this is the end. I guess, aside from, like, having like, a high blood sugar, diabetes doesn't really give me like, I don't have a lot of fatigue. That's my experience. I don't know if other people feel like they're, you know, they feel more tired than the average person. And maybe we do, and we just don't know like, because we just live with it, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, any of those other autoimmune diseases that cause like, widespread inflammation, that's one of the biggest symptoms. Is fatigue, yeah?
Scott Benner 53:03
But I mean, so you're seeing a lessening of that, a significant lessening, oh, yeah,
Cassidy 53:08
okay, that, and then just other than a near absence of symptoms at all, like, not really anything else. So
Scott Benner 53:16
you're like, the poopy stuff is better? Yes. I don't want to be too technical, but no,
Cassidy 53:24
no, yeah, too technical, Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis. Like, I think people think, and this is, like, understandable, that people think that it's just like, Oh, you just, like, have, like, you just have diarrhea all the time, and that's all it is. It's pain, it's the fatigue, it's fevers, it's like, it's a widespread disease, and it, like, affects so many different things. That affects your appetite, it affects how you absorb nutrients. Or it can, you know, like we, we have kids that come in and their hemoglobin is super low, or their iron is super low, their B, their vitamin B 12, is low, their vitamin D is super low, like, lower than the average person. I mean, I know everyone,
Scott Benner 54:00
you're not absorbing those things that you should be. You just
Cassidy 54:03
don't absorb it. And it just depends too. Like, if you have Crohn's, it can be in your colon, it can be in your small intestine, it can be in your stomach, it can be like, all over. And it just depends on, like, where your body has attacked you. That can kind of change the symptoms too. I've read some stories of people who have Crohn's, and they were, like, I had symptoms for like, three years, like, every doctor told me that, oh, you're just anxious, or, Oh, you have IBS, or whatever, if their disease is in their small intestine, you can't see that on a colonoscopy, and you can't see that on an endoscopy. You literally have to get like, a pill cam study done, because even if you get like a CT scan, sometimes it doesn't show on the CT scan for I'm sure, like, for those people, it's incredibly frustrating, because they're like, I know something's wrong. It just takes them so long to get like, approval to to really look done.
Scott Benner 54:52
Yeah, I'm dying to know, is your anxiety any better? Yes, yeah.
Cassidy 54:56
I also went, I'm on a different SSR. I'm on, like. Pronoun, yeah,
Scott Benner 55:00
I know. But I was wondering about on the biologic, did it touch it? Oh, on
Cassidy 55:04
the biologic. I think that's really hard. Because, like, obviously, when my symptoms got better and I was feeling better, and I knew what was going on, my anxiety was a lot better, because I
Scott Benner 55:13
was like, okay, yeah, see, there's no way for you to measure that, I guess, yeah, there's
Cassidy 55:16
not really a way. I'd be curious, though. I wonder if there are any studies done on that, like, you know, people who are on whatever medication, like, if their mental health is better, the only studies that I've ever seen about that is just like, people with Crohn's are more likely to have anxiety and depression. But they say that about diabetes too. And I feel like any chronic illness, they're like, you're more likely. That
Scott Benner 55:38
makes sense, but I think that's probably just the thing they say too. Like, you know, you have a chronic illness, you're more likely to both. But I'm, I'm trying to say, like, if you have inflammation, and inflammation is impacting you in different ways, yeah, and one of those ways is anxiety, then depression comes along with anxiety, etc, and so on. Like, you know, like, yeah, that all makes sense to me. So, yeah,
Cassidy 55:58
no, absolutely. One of the worst parts about getting this diagnosis was I was like, frantically looking for other people that had diabetes and Crohn's, and I just, like, couldn't find
Scott Benner 56:11
anyone. What anybody was willing to speak up maybe, or that knew,
Cassidy 56:15
I mean, or that knew, yeah, but it's just like, there's one person that I found that I follow on Tik Tok, and I, like, message them immediately when I, like, found out, and we had like, a long back and forth, which was really nice. Yeah. I just don't think those two things, like, coincide very often. Or, like you said, maybe they just aren't diagnosed or what, but I know that type ones, especially on the like Facebook page, like, people have a lot of like, GI issues or, like, it's common,
Scott Benner 56:40
yeah, there's that overlap too, with, like, a lot of people just experience poor digestion after type one as well, which is, yeah, maybe not the same thing, not maybe not the same but wouldn't be the same thing as what we're talking about. But there's overlaps there too. Yeah, it's very frustrating to me, because life is already what life is. And then, like, some people get anxious, like, What the hell, ridiculous. They weed. Didn't help. You tried? I imagine
Cassidy 57:04
I can't smoke weed. I'm a nurse. I'm
Scott Benner 57:08
sorry. I didn't understand. Did you try it? No, okay, no. Nurses can't smoke weed. No. You get drug tested. Really? Where do you what state are you in? Ohio, okay. I mean, in some states, how do they handle that? Like, I always wonder about cops too. Like, if you make weed legal, then can a cop smoke weed?
Cassidy 57:28
No, because even if I were to get a job in Seattle or Colorado, I don't think that healthcare professionals can. I think that they are, because it's on the national level, it's still illegal if they make it legal nationally, then it would be like, you know, because obviously, like, they can't, they don't test you to see if you drink alcohol every day, you know?
Scott Benner 57:49
Yeah, no, I'm assuming you tried that. That didn't work. Yeah,
Cassidy 57:52
yeah, I did try that. That made things worse, actually, yeah, I
Scott Benner 57:56
was gonna say that. That doesn't help, but in 1976 that's definitely what you would have tried, you're like, I feel nervous, is how you would have put it by was just having this conversation with somebody last night, awesome that like, if you go back a number of years, no one's ever like, if you go back 20. I don't know how long it is, but in my lifetime, I never heard a person describe themselves as anxious in my life.
Cassidy 58:17
Yeah, I was diagnosed with anxiety when I was eight, I had certainly never heard the word really used, like, oh, I have anxiety. And I was like, I'm the only one in the whole world that has anxiety, because, you know, and then now, of course, like, everyone is like, I have anxiety. Let me ask you
Scott Benner 58:34
a question, because this conversation I found interesting, and I'm going to end here with this on you, because I want to hear, like, your thoughts about this? Yeah, I'm not saying that people weren't anxious 20 years ago. What I'm saying is, like, you didn't hear anybody, like, running around going, like, I'm anxious, but what you heard was Bill throws things when he gets pissed. Or, like, you know what I mean, like, that one's always crying. Or, like, you know what I mean, like, that kind of stuff. Like, they didn't have like, a word for it. Like, so yeah, and people just pushed through. Now, I'm assuming a lot of them push through with alcohol and drugs, you know, in other ways that they tried to cope. But do you think this is my question that came out of this conversation last night. Do you think it's valuable to be told you have anxiety, or do you think that it's leading when you tell people what's wrong with them all the time? Like, do you know what I mean? Like, instead of just saying like, you know, in high pressure situations, I wouldn't go to Cassidy instead of like that. And then you just being a person who we don't like turn to in high pressure situations, and you don't think of yourself as good in high pressure situations. I'm making up things. But like, instead of like, you walking around going, I have a thing. There's something wrong with me. Is it better? My question is to just think I'm not good in high pressure situations, or is it better to think I'm an anxious person? I have anxiety. Sure, that's my question.
Cassidy 59:49
I think it depends on the person, because I've had some therapists say, like, do you like, identify as a person who has anxiety. I know you have anxiety, but do you not want me to like, say. Like, because of your anxiety, because you because I think for some people, it's kind of empowering in a way. And they're like, okay with it being like, you know, a descriptor of, like, part of who they are. And then some people feel like, oh, it, it makes me more anxious. It the label kind of reinforces the idea that there is something like, going on in my brain that I, like, can't control. I just wonder if we over diagnose anxiety and depression, because anxiety is a normal human emotion. Everyone experiences anxiety. You know, when someone says, Oh, gee, like, I have, I have bad anxiety before I take a test, it's like, okay, well, that's normal, right, right? You just have to manage it. It doesn't mean that you have anxiety disorder, because anxiety disorder is where you are in fight or flight all day, you know. Or you're having panic attacks at random times, and you don't know why. Or, yeah,
Scott Benner 1:00:48
I'm thinking if we stormed the beaches of Normandy in 2024 somebody would have told me that all those guys on the boat had anxiety, but I'm going to assume that what they had was a knowledge that the boat was going to open in there was going to be a lot of shooting. I think it's weird that everybody Yeah, but a lot of people are running around telling you about their diagnosis, about things all the time, almost like, it's like, see, I'm special. I got a thing. I don't know if that's right or not, like, it just feels weird to me. It feels weird to me to meet a person who is 1,000,000% to my eye, completely normal, and to have them tell me I'm autistic, yeah, where I'm in the middle of the most boring thing in the world, and somebody says I can't focus on this if my ADHD won't let me. And I'm like, ADHD, this is just boring. Do you know how many people come on this podcast and tell me before we start recording? Listen, I gotta tell you, ahead of time, I'm gonna be all over the place. I've got ADD, I've got 80 I don't know what they say, and I can't keep a straight thought. I'm gonna be all over the place. I talk to them, there's not one sign of that. And I'm like, Why does everyone think there's something I'm using the word want to be something wrong with them. But like, why are they looking for what's wrong with them? Like, when there's so many things that are right with them? Like, just, you know what I'm saying. I don't know. I agree.
Cassidy 1:02:04
Yeah, you know, as a person who, like, I have anxiety disorder, for sure because, and the reason I know that is because, like, even before I had any symptoms of Crohn's or whatever, I would just be like, Huh, I'm having a panic attack for no reason. I feel really unsafe right now. Why? I don't know it when it's disrupting your life, that's when it's like, I feel like that's when the diagnosis comes at least, that's for me. If anxiety
Scott Benner 1:02:28
is inflammation related, for example, or something like that, then sure, yes, that's happening to you, and I don't want to ignore that. That's happening to you. I'm not, I'm certainly not saying that. And are there more autoimmune issues in the world? Is it possible that there are just more people with anxiety and ADHD, which probably is also inflammation related, or something like, You know what I mean? Like, is that possible? Yes. But in the real world, if it's not stopping you from living your life, I just find it strange that everybody's running around all the time telling me what's wrong with them. Like, I don't know. Like, am I just old?
Cassidy 1:03:01
No, I don't. I agree. I think it's, I think it's fascinating, because, like, and I've talked to my sister about this too, and she agrees that, like, we're seeing it more often, but she has also argued that, like, the criteria has changed, and so it's, like, more inclusive, like, in terms of, like, the diagnosis, like, you know, we can, we can diagnose more people with autism because, like, the spectrum has, like, not grown, but like, I don't know, the diagnostic criteria has changed a little bit. Yeah, when you say, like, you can't, someone tells you, like, oh, I have autism. And you like, can't tell. It's just, it's interesting. But then it's like, it makes me wonder, like, what made them seek out testing? Like, I wonder if it was like, Oh, I feel like I
Scott Benner 1:03:42
Is there a problem and they wanted to get tested, or is it just the world telling them that, oh, I fit into a category. Now I should go find out if I'm really in that category. I just feel like, 20 years from now, we're gonna look at the tight end from the from the New York Giants, and go, he's a giant. He's a real giant. We decided that in the category of giantism, like he instead of just going, there's a big guy. Listen, I'm not making judgments. What I'm saying is, I don't know if there's a value in doing this, like segmenting people down to the last little thing that's wrong with them, or if it's a weird like navel gazing thing that's not needed all the time, that's what I can't figure out. That's all. I don't care. By the way, you'd call yourself whatever you want. I'm already right. Like,
Cassidy 1:04:27
at the end of the day, if you have you know. And also, like, I try to, like, I definitely meet patients. And I'm like, that kid has anxiety, and it's not on their problem list. And I'm like, That is a kid that, like, really could benefit from therapy and or medication, like, you know, just because they're panicking. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's like, looking in the mirror like you, you poor thing, you know. But then there are kids that, like, have a laundry list of mental health diagnoses, and I go and talk to them, and maybe it's just because their medications working really well or whatever. But I'm like, I don't. Know, it's interesting,
Scott Benner 1:05:01
is that person harmed by walking around always thinking there's something wrong with me, there's something wrong with me when they're dealing perfectly fine, dude. He means, like, Can my back hurt? Do I need to be a person with back pain? And is there a difference in there? Like, is that problematic for some, also for some people? Like, I think if you listen to this podcast, you know, I think therapy is great. Like, I think it's a fantastic idea. But yeah, if you asked me if I thought there are some people who get into therapy and stay in it way too long, and it ends up being more of a deterrent in their life than a value, I would say, Yeah, that happens to people too, even
Cassidy 1:05:36
people who, like, the last therapist that I saw was like, I don't want to see you for five months. He was like, we're gonna talk for two months or two or three months, and then we're gonna be done. Because, and he's been doing this a long time, and he was like, there is so much research that suggests that if you hit the whatever problem you're having really hard for a short period of time, it's way more effective. But also, I think some people just, like, want a therapist to vent to, maybe listen if
Scott Benner 1:06:04
you need a part, you want to pay a guy to complain to. That's fine with me, right? Yeah, you know, like, you see, like, like, sometimes super famous people are very germ phobic, and it makes me feel like they just have too much time to think about something. That's how that that occurs to me. Like the guy that works in the sewer. You don't hear him talking about germs, right? By the way, he lives the same life as everyone else, right? I've heard Jason Bateman talk about I've heard Donald Trump talk about it. I've heard like they're germ folks. And like, is it a situation where if you had to get your ass up in the morning and go to work and dig a hole, you wouldn't have time to worry about this? And can that happen in other things, is my question. Like, can you get so focused on something that you turn yourself into the thing you're concerned you might be? I don't know. Yeah, I think
Cassidy 1:06:48
so. But I also do think, like, there are people who genuinely are like, I can't leave my house because I am so scared of XYZ. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:06:58
sure. Like, are there people who are like, agoraphobic, or, like, other, yeah, 1,000,000% but it can't possibly be all of us, can it?
Cassidy 1:07:05
No, I don't think it's all. I agree with you. I think it's a combination of a lot of things. It's just like, but yeah, I definitely think that. I think some people benefit from the label, and I think some people it hinders them a little bit, because then they're like, Oh, well, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I can't wait for
Scott Benner 1:07:20
people to yell at me online for wondering out loud. But
Cassidy 1:07:24
just for the record, we prove of therapy we believe that, you know, I don't know the diagnosis is real. But also, yeah,
Scott Benner 1:07:32
you're not gonna once hear me tell you, like, no, that's not true. You tell me, that's how you are. I believe you like, you know what I mean? Like, I have no trouble there. I'm saying bigger picture. Like, just bigger picture. You're the only one thinking that, though a lot of people I know I'm not, don't worry. Here's what happens to me. Cassidy, I say something, and everyone yells at me about it, and a year later, everyone agrees about it. Scott's just slightly ahead of the curve. That's all like, by the way, I did it this year with this year's Scott gets screwed for caring about you. Was about GLP medications. Yes, we'll find out what 2025 Scott gets screwed for caring about you ends up being. So what you're saying is, you're the real hipster. Actually, I'm a little ahead of the curve on something, yes, not on everything. Is that? What that means? Yeah, I'm gonna grow a mustache and wax it up into a point right now. I think you should. I don't think I could actually, but, my God, listen, I do want to i I'm not covering my ass, but let me cover my ass for a second. You really have an issue or a problem or a concern or whatever, like I'm not sitting here telling you you don't. I'm sitting here telling you that I have met people who have told me they're autistic, who, 20 years ago, would have just been a really smart person that I met, they, by the way, they have a house and a car and a payment and a family, and they're living completely fine. And from the outside, I cannot see any indication that they are struggling in any way, shape or form. And yet, it seems like when they get into a crowd of people, they are drawn to tell me they have autism. Yeah. Okay. Like, I all right. I mean, you say you do you do? Like, I ain't gonna argue with you. I'm like, but what are we doing right now? Like, I have allergies. Sometimes I don't run around telling people all the time I have allergies. Like, I don't know why. Why did you need to tell me that? Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't know if I'm making any sense.
Cassidy 1:09:17
No, I Yeah. I hear what you're saying. And I think it'd be interesting to I'm gonna ask my sister about that, because,
Scott Benner 1:09:22
by the way, beat Cassidy's mom a little bit. Like, just get up and be like, don't worry. We got this. We'll make it.
Cassidy 1:09:29
You were good. Everything's good, everything's fine. God love her. She's great, but she's very anxious.
Scott Benner 1:09:33
We blended wrong. We went from your mom, who would like, be like, That's not cancer, I'll be fine, and then drop dead. That's too much, right? All the way over to I have ADHD, so if we have a conversation, I get off track. It's like, no what? Like, you're pre telling me that you're going to get off track. Like, that's and then I wonder
Cassidy 1:09:52
if it comes from, like, a place of, I think for a long time I was very embarrassed about my anxiety, so I, like, didn't I didn't tell people I. Anxiety, and even now, like, I don't really talk about it unless it's, like, relevant for you to know. Like, I was at work one day and I was like, I'm having a panic attack. And I was like, with my friend, and she's like, Oh, are you okay? I was like, No, but I will be and like, just give me, like, 15 minutes, you know? And it's like, I don't personally, like, love to be like,
Scott Benner 1:10:15
Well, yeah, no, Cassidy, if the gunner on my helicopter is having a panic attack, I'd like to know about it exactly. That's awesome, right, right? I don't know. Like, it's a big idea. I'm not doing a great job of I'm just rambling a little bit, but I just know I get
Cassidy 1:10:29
what you're saying, and I think too, like, it's a, it's a question of whether, because I think I don't know, I can't speak for my sister, I guess. But like, I think she probably would say, like, we just have opened up the criteria more, and we're diagnosing people more accurately or more appropriately. That's why there's like more people with it. But I think it's both, I really do. I think it's that and I think it's also just like people. I think people are getting over diagnosed too. I think
Scott Benner 1:10:53
it's always in the middle. What do I know? I don't know. I don't know. I think everything's always in the middle, like because we see Sal too much. Your mom's generation ignored everything, and now the next generation is paying attention to everything. And then there those people's kids are going to be like, my mom's a lunatic, and then they're going to go back the other way, and it's going to like, see and saw and go back and forth, like, I get we
Cassidy 1:11:15
just got to find a happy
Scott Benner 1:11:15
medium. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, the cat has Crohn's. The cat has Crohn's, is all the cat has
Cassidy 1:11:21
Crohn's. Aw, I really hope not. That would be really terrible. I just want to say this too before I like, forget to say it. The reason I wanted to come on the podcast is because I felt like I was the only person who had type one diabetes and Crohn's. And so if there are other people out there who have both, or their child has both, or whatever, I like, just wanted to be like, Hi, I'm here, and you're not the only person out there. Because it really was like, that was the hardest part. Was being like, oh my gosh, because I see, I work with kids that have Crohn's. I work with kids that have diabetes, I work with kids who have ulcerative colitis. I'm like, but I'm the only one that has both, you know.
Scott Benner 1:11:58
But that's definitely not true. It's not,
Cassidy 1:12:00
but I just think it's isolating. It feels isolating when you're like, it's not that common to have both, and you're like, oh gosh, like, completely alone out here. Oh, I should have mentioned this, because this is connected to diabetes. When I was first having symptoms in January, I had crazy, crazy insulin sensitivity. I would give, like, my carb ratio was like, one to 10, and I would give for 100 carbs, three units of insulin, and I would drop low, wow. And I talked to two different doctors and my endocrinologist about it, and they were just like, oh, no, that's weird. And that was it, which is fair, because it's like, what else are you supposed to say? Like, huh? Well, I had one doctor ask me if I was pregnant, and I said no. And she was like, okay, she's like, hot. That's really weird. I just wonder if, like, your insulin sensitivity changed. I'm like, but this much, it's like, a crazy amount, like, I was, sometimes I was eating and not giving insulin at all, because I was like, I'm just going to drop low. Why would I give insulin? And I don't have confirmation of this, but I genuinely think I wasn't absorbing any carbs, or I wasn't absorbing them as well, because when I would drop low, I also had to drink like, 60 or 70 carbs of juice to get my blood sugar back up. Yeah, and it was, it was terrifying, because I was like, I'm 60, okay, oh, now I'm 50. Oh, why am I still 50? It's been an hour like this was before the symptoms even got really that bad. That was probably the first symptom I had. Actually, I know that people after like, post stomach bug will sometimes have a little bit of that, like increased insulin sensitivity. So that's why I think it just makes sense that, like I was just having inflammation and so
Scott Benner 1:13:41
and now that inflammation is gone and that that impact is gone as well. Yep, that's completely gone. Well, listen, I'm thrilled for you. I'm glad that your anxiety didn't stop you from trying the biologic, because it sounds like it's really helping you. You know, I'm very happy for you. Did they tell you, is there an amount of time that it works for? Like, sometimes you hear people having to switch biologics. Sometimes. Is that a thing? You're on the on the lookout
Cassidy 1:14:03
for nice? Yeah, I so. Was that
Scott Benner 1:14:07
nice? We were like, oh, Scott understands you.
Cassidy 1:14:09
Because you understand there's a lot of people that, I think there's a lot of people that like, are like, Oh yeah, you just taken that, and you're good. Biologics have about a 50% efficacy rate, which is not great. So it depends. Some people, it works for two months and then it's done. Some people, it works for 10 years. I think that that's the hardest part, is that, like with diabetes, there's some predictability, or, I would argue, like there can be a lot of predictability, if you like, have your everything set you know correctly, as it should be, like for your basal and stuff. But with Crohn's, there's and you see, there's not, like, a lot of predictability as to how your body will handle it. Like therapy that you try if you'll respond to, like, one therapy over another, they it's really like a crap shoot. Like they just will, like, start you on a med and see if it works, and then if it doesn't, then they move on to the next one. That was also a stressful thing for me to think about, too, because. It was, like, with diabetes, I was like, okay, insulin will lower my blood sugar, like, 100% it, it will, you know, and this is, like, it might, it might work, I don't know. Yeah, just keep trying things until something hopefully works for you, you know. And that was, I was like, Oh, I don't like that. That's terrifying.
Scott Benner 1:15:16
Well, it's working, though it's awesome that it's working for you, yeah, thank you. I love that. You also don't know the name of it. That was, that was my favorite part of this. You're like, oh, it's
Cassidy 1:15:24
called Stelara. The one I'm on is Solara. They have all of the biologic names are crazy. They sound like furniture from Ikea, like, they really do, if you, like, look up some of them, like, I don't know, there's like, Sky Rizzy and Remicade and humera. There's like, so many now,
Scott Benner 1:15:41
maybe the they just heard you were from a Scandinavian background, and they wanted to make
Cassidy 1:15:45
you comfortable. Yep, they were like, Here you go. Here's here's your IKEA. Med, awesome.
Scott Benner 1:15:50
All right. Well, I really appreciate you doing this with me. Can you hold on one second? Yeah, thank you. This is great.
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#1487 Braving the New World
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Pam was diagnosed with T1D as an adult. Adventures in travel and retirement.
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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.
Today I'm talking to Pam. She wrote a book about traveling with type one diabetes. She was diagnosed with type one later in life, she's retired now. Awesome conversation. Really enjoyed it. You're gonna love it too. That's why we called the podcast what we did today. It's the title of her book. That's just a hint, in case you want to go look for it. 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. I know this is going to sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free virtual type one diabetes clinical care, education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa or Louisiana, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you. Blue circle health.org, you know why they had to buy an ad. No one believes it's free. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juice, box. This episode is sponsored by the tandem Moby system, which is powered by tandems newest algorithm control iq plus technology. Tandem mobi has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox
Pam 2:19
My name is Pam Saylor, I've been a type one diabetic for 12 years, and I was diagnosed when as an adult, when I was 52
Scott Benner 2:29
years old. Wow, you're 64
Pam 2:31
I am almost 64 next month. Yeah,
Scott Benner 2:35
I'm also almost 54 and I know exactly what you mean. You just asked me something before we started to record, and I said, Oh, let me, let me hit record first, and then then you can ask. So ask your question again. I
Pam 2:45
said, if I go down some verbal cul de sac, can you clip it out? You do edits, right? What is your concern? Because sometimes I'll go off on a tangent, and then I reel myself in and go, What was the question? Kind of like I did just now. I want to know if you have editing capabilities. All
Scott Benner 3:03
right, so there's an editor, but reasonably speaking, we don't cut content. Oh, we like cul de sacs. We cut, I don't know if you say something horrifying, we might take that out. I don't know. We probably leave that in. So okay, the editor really does is he kind of takes air out of the conversation a little bit. So if there's like, if there's a super long pause, you won't appear to pause that long. Okay, if you um or click your tongue or something like that, that'll come out. Okay. Other than that, though, we don't really edit things so, but I've been doing this a while. I don't think we're gonna get into that trouble. Yeah.
Pam 3:39
How long have you been doing this since your daughter was tiny, and now she's in college. So
Scott Benner 3:43
I started writing a blog when my daughter had been diagnosed for a year. So that was she was born in 2004 she got diabetes in 2006 I started writing the blog in January, 27 2007 Wow. Then in 2013 I wrote a book about being a stay at home dad. Right while I was out pushing the book, I met Katie Couric. I did her television show. While we were walking off stage, she stopped me to tell me that I was very good at talking to people,
Pam 4:20
and the podcast host was born,
Scott Benner 4:23
well, not for maybe two more years. I think I launched the podcast january 2015, and what happened was, is that blogging just kind of got passe. It was going by the wayside, like people just weren't reading long form blogs anymore, and I was helping people like I was genuinely helping people with diabetes. I knew I was, and they would tell me that I was, and I thought, am I really just gonna, like, let this all go? Is it just gonna disappear? People are gonna stop reading and then all the good that this is done, it's just over. And then, I swear to you, I thought, Okay. Katie Kirk said I was good at talking to people. I started what ended up being pretty much the first diabetes podcast that stuck. So there was, like, some blog talk radio shows before that, but I don't think a podcast. What
Pam 5:12
I found out I volunteer for my Hoa, and I'm the president, so I have to run meetings, and at first that really terrified me a lot. Standing in front of 30 people answering questions, and you never know what the questions are going to be, that was pretty terrifying. But after doing it two or three times, I realized it really was not that difficult, and you could pretty much answer any question or just say, I don't know, and I'll get back to you later. So I think the more you try new things, the easier it gets to do it. I
Scott Benner 5:47
agree. I also think that some people are suited for it and some people aren't. Yeah, that's probably
Pam 5:52
true. My husband is not a talker, so it would it would be harder for him. I'm a talker.
Scott Benner 5:57
I've had people on who aren't naturally chatty, and they do fine, but you have to lead them through it a little bit. I on purpose have people on the podcast that aren't media savvy or don't find themselves doing stuff like this all the time, because I think it leads to more honest conversations. Yeah, interesting, yeah. So the way you have to get on this podcast is such a slog that my assumption is when I turn the microphone on, on your recording time, if you're there, you really want to do this, right? You know that really is kind of how it gets set up. But anyway, Katie Kirk, lovely woman. She's the whole reason I thought to do this. I also loved podcasts back then. I listened religiously to Kevin Smith's podcast called smod cast, and I grew up listening to Howard Stern. So I'm very much like talk radio, and I like listening to people talk to each
Pam 6:51
other. I'm a recent convert to podcasts. We sometimes go on road trips, and if you're in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, sorry, I love Kansas, you have to have something recorded, downloaded, ready to go, or else you lose all signals. So we sometimes listen to hours of podcasts on the road.
Scott Benner 7:08
Yeah, I do the same, not my podcast, but I listen to other people's still. I really do enjoy listening to people interact. I also like once you get to know them, a little bit that feeling you know that ridiculous feeling you have that you know them. I think the
Pam 7:23
most important thing is the voice, because there are some people on a podcast and their voice will just grate, or it puts me to sleep. It's such a smooth, low, deep voice. It pretty soon I'm nodding off
Scott Benner 7:37
a little too old time radio or a little too local news is that what you don't yeah,
Pam 7:44
a good voice will get me hooked almost no matter what the content is.
Scott Benner 7:48
I'm most put off by the that ability to make a high pitched excited comment about the most banal thing, like, you know,
Pam 7:58
yeah, exclamations everywhere in the podcast. We're at the
Scott Benner 8:01
corner of fifth and eighth. Somebody's built a snowman. Oh, my God, Katie, look. Does everyone see? That's why everyone loves Philadelphia. There's snow. Like, just shut up. No one thinks that. You don't think that. Stop trying to make something out of nothing, you know, just talk like a person. But anyway, let's find out a little bit about your diagnosis. So what were your first inklings that something was happening? My
Pam 8:25
first inkling that I had type one diabetes was on a post it note, really, yes, it was my birthday. Coincidentally, I had just turned 52 my husband and I had been on a trip somewhere, and we got back in town, had a stack of mail, and I had a letter of envelope from my doctor, and I had been to see her in December for routine checkup. So I opened this letter from my doctor, and it was the lab results. Right on top was a big yellow post it note, and handwritten on that post it note, it said patient has type one diabetes. Call office for follow up. I wish I had saved that post it note. I didn't save it. I, of course, flipped out. I didn't know what. I had no inkling. I had no to my mind, no symptoms. My daughter was a nurse, so I called her and and went through the test results with her, and she told me later that she knew right away that I had type one diabetes based on the test results, but she didn't want to spin me out further when I couldn't call my doctor for till the next day. So she just was reassuring. So called the doctor, went through more testing, and sure enough, I was type one diabetes.
Scott Benner 9:40
That sucks. Do you use post it notes still, or have you stopped
Pam 9:44
still? Do I have? I have not been traumatized by post it notes. Look
Scott Benner 9:47
at you. Persevering. That's awesome. I mean, initial thoughts. Do you think, Oh, that makes sense. My uncle has it. Or that doesn't make any sense. I don't know anybody with diabetes. Well, my
Pam 9:57
maternal grandmother had diabetes. Eats. And when I was a kid, I saw her give herself shots with needles that to me, looked gigantic. No one ever explained that to me or what she was doing or why. But as an adult, I came to understand that she had type one diabetes, but no one else in my family did. On either side of my family, and I had gone 52 years with no health problems. Basically, I rarely even caught a cold, really. So in hindsight, the weeks leading up to my diagnosis, my vision was really, really, really blurry, but I just thought maybe it was time for new glasses, or I needed eye drops, or I had zero inkling that this was in my future. You
Scott Benner 10:42
know, it's funny, I didn't get sick a lot growing up, either. And with the exception of autoimmun issues, Arden doesn't get sick very often. And, like, you know, it's funny, there must be such a fine line in there between, like, you have a supercharged immune system and you have a way to supercharged immune system. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I hear people say that a lot like, I don't get sick very often, but I have diabetes and I have Hashimotos, and I like that kind of thing. Interesting. I don't know if I'm reading too far into it, but your relation that had it, was it type two or type one? This episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump an algorithm, the tandem Moby system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus, which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, the this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control iq plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head. Now to my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, to check out your benefits and get started today, you can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes, the Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends. And the app will also provide you with a projected a, 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juice box. When you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juice box. Head over there. Now
Pam 13:20
it was type one. It was my maternal my mother's mother. It was type one because she gave herself shots. That's what I'm assuming. No one ever really explained it to me long
Scott Benner 13:30
ago. Yeah, when you look back at extended family now, like your father's side, your mother's side, is there any like celiac or arthritis or thyroid or any other autoimmune stuff?
Pam 13:41
No, I have a hypothyroidism, low thyroid. I've had it for about 30 years. Both my daughters are hypothyroid. As far as I know. No one else in my family has any autoimmune disease at all. No other low thyroid, no no problems in that area at all.
Scott Benner 13:59
Have you ever had the thyroids check to see if they're Hashimotos, which would indicate auto I
Pam 14:03
have not, and I don't really understand the difference. Well, one's
Scott Benner 14:07
autoimmune and one's not. So, oh, okay, yeah. So no,
Pam 14:11
I've never had testing for that. Interesting.
Scott Benner 14:13
Your daughters freak out when you got diabetes. They start doing the math, or they like, I'll be 52 one day. My
Pam 14:19
oldest daughter did freak out, in fact, when I sent her a text or email telling her probably kind of frantically like, Oh, this is so awful. This just happened. She didn't reply to me for weeks, and later, I we were talking about that time, and she said because she was so freaked out that I had type one diabetes, that she was afraid she would get it, and so she just couldn't, couldn't reply to my to my email. That's
Scott Benner 14:47
something, and you guys did eventually talk about it. Yeah, yeah, we eventually talked about it. Can I ask what you thought when you didn't get a reply? Was that common?
Pam 14:55
I think that was about par for the course in our relationship. But it's always been a little bit strained, and so, you know, I didn't know what was going on, but I thought, well, she'll get back to me when she gets back. You
Scott Benner 15:07
don't have to tell me about your whole life unless you want to. No no, no. But that's part i i was not terribly surprised, okay? Because, I mean, I think I would just be very upset, like, if I said, Hey, I've got a really important question about where to go on vacation, and they didn't get back to me. They didn't get back to me like motherfuckers. What is wrong with them? If you had a situation like that, then I understand.
Pam 15:30
I mean, I was in denial for quite a while. I was angry for a while. I was in denial for a while. I ate, well, I ate healthy. I didn't drink soda. I don't have a sweet tooth. I not overweight. I'm all the cliches about diabetes that you can think of thinking this, this can't be me, this can't be true, right? So eventually you get past that, when you realize it really is true, and so you just start to deal with
Scott Benner 15:56
it. And Pam, you don't smoke. I did, but I quit
Pam 15:59
15 years ago. I was gonna
Scott Benner 16:01
say in the 80s or 90s? Yeah, yeah. I mean, everybody smoked, yeah, when you were younger, right? Pretty much. My mother did. My father did, yeah. I mean, everybody smoked when I was a kid, and nowadays. I mean, the truth is, you smell a cigarette outside now you're like, what that's it strikes you as odd. You know, I know you realize how gross it is. I don't know about where you live, but I'm less shocked when I smell weed than when I smell a cigarette at this point. Oh, I know that's
Pam 16:27
really true. Yeah, when I'm in Colorado. So that's really true for me.
Scott Benner 16:33
You float around in Colorado, I imagine. Well, that's an interesting one. You're 64 it's legal, almost. Did you try it?
Pam 16:41
Yes, yes. We do, from time to time, do edibles rather than smoking it, because I don't like to smoke it. It's too harsh. Yeah.
Scott Benner 16:48
Do you use it for recreation or for a purpose? You know, it's
Pam 16:53
just three or four times a year we get out the edibles, put on a movie that we think is going to be good, and just relax. It's more relaxing thing. Nice.
Scott Benner 17:03
Oh, that's awesome. Good for you. Why did you want to come on the podcast? First
Pam 17:07
of all, you don't have a lot of adults on your show, and I wanted to be the adult in the room saying, for anyone like me who is shocked by this diagnosis, you've had your whole you've lived a chunk of your life, and now you think your life is going to have to change. And that was one of the things I was determined. When I got my diagnosis, I wanted to keep keep my life. I wanted to keep skiing. I wanted to keep active. I wanted to keep traveling. I love traveling, and so I don't think there's a whole ton of stuff out there to help type one diabetes or people with any chronic disease. How do you travel for three months? How do you travel for a long period of time? We all know on a short trip, you pack your little suitcase with a pile of supplies and you're good to go. But if you're going to travel for a month or two months or a year, like my husband and I did when we went to Europe, I wanted people to know that's doable. So I wrote a book about how to do it. I learned as we traveled, and I just want to encourage people to keep their life and not let type one diabetes be something that makes you sit on the couch in fear or
Scott Benner 18:12
worry. Well, that's awesome. Had you ever written a book before? Or is that your first? No, that was my first book that says, what's it called?
Pam 18:18
It's called braving the world, adventures in travel and retirement. Oh,
Scott Benner 18:24
it's awesome. What made you think I could write a book? Because I've had, listen, I wrote a book and it's hard. Yeah, I'm gonna just say it's not, it's not a lot of fun. That's the first thing. And it's not like you don't do it for the money. And, you know, I mean, if you're famous, maybe you would write a book for money, or, you know, if you're getting paid off by, you know, because you've been in government, but if you're just a person writing a book, you're not going to make a bunch of money. It's incredibly hard to market them. Yes, the publisher, generally speaking, does not help you with the marketing very much, which is a thing people wouldn't know. Like, I got myself on the Katie Herrick show, and it's time consuming in a way that's hard to put into words, and you really get lost in it. How long did it take you to write it?
Pam 19:04
Oh, it took over a year. And we traveled to Europe for a year from 2017 to 2018 and then we got back, and we all know COVID was in 2020 and I'd already started the book when COVID happened, and really it was great, because I had nowhere to go. There was nothing I could do. So I could work on the book, and I started to pull it together and polish it. I took writing classes, which helped me a lot to polish the book so COVID. If COVID hadn't happened, I might not have had the discipline to sit down in my chair day after day and and put together this story, which I start at the beginning when we land in Rome and we finish up in Venice. So COVID is maybe the reason I wrote the book.
Scott Benner 19:54
Yeah, so you're writing and you realize I have to take a class if I'm going to do this. Well, I. Right?
Pam 20:00
I thought it helped a lot. It helped me figure out the plot and things to leave out, and how to to what things how to build drama, how to build, you know, interests the writing classes. There's a local writing group school here in Colorado, and I went to several classes there as I was writing, and that helped me polish up the book a lot.
Scott Benner 20:23
Did you have an editor? Did you do it all on your own? I did,
Pam 20:26
yes. I had a great editor, and she took out all of the duplicates, and when I went off on a tangent, she would call me down or correct the language. She was wonderful. She was great. I'm gonna
Scott Benner 20:39
ask a question, at the risk of sounding like a thumb, did someone approach you to write Did you write it and then sell it? Did you self publish it? How did you get it into the world?
Pam 20:49
I wrote it and then I self published it and I self promoted it. So I've been on another podcast. I've had reviews from different Oh, indies, it. My book has won a couple of awards, which I can't think of off the top of my head. That's funny. Independent publish, publisher, review awards. So it was well received, and it's for sale on Amazon, so it's out there. I've sold I don't know how many books, but it was a labor of love. It's got a lot of information about traveling. It's awesome.
Scott Benner 21:21
I'm looking at it right now. It's really awesome. I'm on your website. All right. Here's the link where I can buy it. This will get me to Amazon. Will it? Click here? Yes.
Pam 21:30
And there are pictures on my website of our travels, and I talk about the different things about traveling. Little blog posts about how to ski with diabetes. That was a learning curve.
Scott Benner 21:39
Tell me about that, because you were a skier your whole life. Yeah, I was a skier.
Pam 21:44
Well, starting in my 30s, I learned to ski and loved it. You know, when you're doing any sort of exercise and you have type one, you're never sure what to do with your settings, like, should I go into activity mode? Should I lower my insulin? Should I increase it? And it was always, it was always pretty tricky and but I didn't want to quit skiing. I didn't want to sit at home. There was a time period where no one skied, that was during COVID. So when I went back to skiing after that, it was a re learning curve. But it really helps to have the sensor, Dexcom sensor, the insulin pump help a lot.
Scott Benner 22:22
What did you find once you were diagnosed, as far as direction from from medical people? Did you find it to be valuable, or did you find that what they said left you more confused than when you started at the
Pam 22:35
time, we lived in Kansas City, when I was first diagnosed, and my doctor's office, my Endo. Well, first I got rid of my general physician and switched to a new doctor, because I think type one diabetes deserves more than a post it note. But then when I started going to an endocrinologist, they had a team, and they had a diabetes educator who really helped get me going, get me started. Of course, I was doing MDI at the time, she helped a lot, and the only really bad tip she gave me was she told me, If you're when you're ready to eat, don't take a dose. Don't take a shot until the food is in front of you. Oh, and of course, now we know you have to Bolus about 15 minutes or so ahead of time, but at the time, that's what I was doing, is waiting to see the food, try and calculate the carbs, and then I would take my shot, push
Scott Benner 23:27
the plunger, start eating right away, Yep, yeah. And you get high and stay high for a while and not know what was happening. And all that went
Pam 23:34
along. What took me I would say, Well, I've been 12 years, and the first five or six years were very difficult, because I'm organized type a person. So for the first five or six years, I was trying to control diabetes. I was trying to figure it out. I had lists, I had charts, I had graphs. I was trying to figure out why piece of toast on Monday would not affect my blood sugar, and the same piece of toast on Tuesday, and I would go high, and it drove me crazy, so I I'd try and track it, and I would try and keep track of what I ate, when I ate it, and I would take these charts and graphs to my doctor's office, and eventually she just looked at me and said, Do you really think you can control this disease? And I'm like, yes, yes, I do, but she she convinced me that's really not possible. And so for the last five or six years, I still want to figure things out and keep track of things, but I go with the flow a lot more. If I go high, I just try and and deal with the high. If I can look back and figure out why that's good, but if I can't figure out why that's fine too, it doesn't matter. I still have to deal with the high or the low. So I think I've been a lot calmer, a lot happier the last five or six years. I. People on Facebook pages, and they're still in the phase of trying to figure out every little thing, and maybe that's useful for them, but I I find it much more relaxing to let some of that control
Scott Benner 25:11
go. Where does this attitude lead you? For your A, 1c,
Pam 25:16
I'm usually about 6.0 or 6.10 it's awesome.
Scott Benner 25:19
That's really great. You might enjoy the Pro Tip series from the podcast.
Pam 25:23
Oh, I've listened to some of those. Yeah, bump and nudge has been a real really, has helped me out a lot.
Scott Benner 25:28
Oh, awesome. That's great. I like your attitude too. Like, you know, it's funny, because I think people could hear you talking right before I asked your a 1c and they'd be like, Oh, here it comes. This lady's got an eight and a half a 1c you're saying like you were making yourself crazy over the little things I was, yeah, there's no need for that, that's for sure. But I don't agree completely with the doctor that you can't figure out most of it, but I do take your point about the like, you know the Monday toast thing, where you're just like, well, Mun, m o n, what does that mean? But Day, Day is day. The sun's up during the day, this Sun's high in the sky. I'm high because day isn't like, I know. It's like, you know, you start doing that, but it's
Pam 26:05
like trying to read tea leaves. Sometimes you just don't know. And the bottom line is, you still have to take a shot or take a chug of soda or eat a piece of toast to bring it back up so you just have it's better to know how to deal with it. I
Scott Benner 26:23
have to tell you that the reason that I've boiled the idea of diabetes down at its core to timing an amount is because I think it applies to all the situations. You know, if your blood sugar is too high or too low or not, where you want it, you at some point use the wrong amount of insulin, or timed it incorrectly, or maybe a combination of those two things. So now, when you're thinking about it, it can be as easy as well. My blood sugar is high, but I used enough of a Pre Bolus that doesn't make sense, and I didn't get high till 45 minutes after I ate. And, oh, I didn't know that fat could make your blood sugar stay high, like, you know, like, right then, then you learn those things and apply them along the way. And before you know it, I find most people are doing great, but you're also doing awesome.
Pam 27:06
What I do quite often is I'll guesstimate carbs, oh yeah, and take a shot, and then when I go hide later, I'll actually look up the carbs, or I'll look at the box, and I'll go, oh yeah. That wasn't 20 carbs. That was 40 carbs. My
Scott Benner 27:20
daughter's college. I sent her a note yesterday that said, Did you eat a bag of sugar? And she goes, she goes, No. And I responded. I went two bags. She goes, I think I miscalculated. I was like, yeah. I mean, it feels like it to me too, but she got it under control. To your point, I didn't freak out, you know, it wasn't, it was a it was a shitty blood sugar. It went up like over 280 I mean, it really shot up. She just missed the mark completely. And then she gave herself more insulin and got it down without getting low. And you know, the whole process took three hours. But you know, she's not running around beating herself up about it. And I think that's where you're at.
Pam 27:58
I have to remind myself, though, pretty often, not to be reactive, because when I see that arrow going up, it's hard not to jump on your phone and go, insulin, insulin, insulin, yeah. So I have to, like, look at my watch and go, 15 minutes, wait 15 minutes, maybe an hour. I mean, to force myself to wait, because my instinct is that arrow, that up arrow, needs immediate attention. I
Scott Benner 28:24
don't 100% think you're wrong with that. You should listen to the rest of that Pro Tip series, but I know your idea of, like, oh, it just jumped up for a second. Then you go hitting it with a bunch of insulin that was too much. Like, that's obviously not what you want to do either. But if you didn't use enough insulin and it's flying up, you mean, you do need more. And I take your point that's a lot to figure out and and to try to get through. Especially, I think I don't want to say it like this, because I don't think of you as an older person, but like, because it came later in your life, is it a thing? I'm trying to decide if you're like, look, I really just got to make it like, you know, 30 years, you know what I mean. Do you ever think that way about it.
Pam 29:00
I'm encouraged by the fact that there are a lot of type ones out there that have been fighting this disease for decades. To me, I don't think it's going to limit my lifespan, but I am really grateful I did not get this disease as a child. I just feel so sorry for children who have to grow up this way. I'm glad I didn't have to. Yeah, when I see a little two year old, you know, in a photo who has a pod on their back, that's just, that's just sad, yeah, that's
Scott Benner 29:31
tough. It really is. I was just wondering if you were like, I think of myself as in the last third of my life. Like, I think of like, you know what I mean? Like, I think of life like, birth to mid 20s, then mid 20s like to, like, you know, when your kids leave for college, and then, like, you know, the rest, you know, I'm like everybody else I, you know, I overestimate myself and everything else. And I think like, oh, people lived till they're 85 Like, sure. Then I saw my mom in her 70s and her 80s, and I was like, Oh, this is not what I was picturing. I started to say to my wife, my mom passed a year or so ago, and I told my wife, I was like, I am going to treat the next 15 years as if they are my last 15 years. Now I'm not planning on just like shutting off at the end, but like, I'm gonna pack all the things that I thought I was gonna stretch over 30 years into 15, just in case, like, you know, just in case my hip stops working, or I get cancer, or something like that. I'm just gonna be a little more proactive about it. Because, you know, if you're if you're like me, like you. I got married, I had kids, I spend my time trying to make sure they're okay. And you feel like, well, you'll get to a spot where everything will be settled, and then you'll just like, coast. But I mean, doesn't sort of work that way. And you don't realize that till it's a little late.
Pam 30:51
I look at it like, I want to travel more. I want to travel a lot. And probably I figure I have 10 years where I can do that fairly easily, yeah, and then after that, lugging those suitcases around is going to be harder. So I'm like you. I the next 10 years. I want to travel more. I don't want to skip a year. I want to keep going, because I know after that, mid 70s, yeah, it's going to get harder to travel. Now, I know a lot of I have 75 year old friends who are active and busy and but I also have some that are, yeah, sitting on their couch and have breathing problems. You never know what you're going to get when you hit 70 or 75
Scott Benner 31:34
we make the biggest mistake of measuring ourselves against the luckiest people. You know what I mean, like nobody, because we want to be them. Yeah, right. Nobody says, like, you know, it's always it's funny, I said local news twice in this one. But like, you know that, you know, once a year there's just 100 year old woman on the news celebrating her birthday. She's smoking cigarettes, eating pound cake with another hand. And you're like, That's it right there. Like, I'll just live to 100 and smoke cigarettes. She look at it, but she's the one it happened to. It's almost like being upset with Lebron James, like he just got lucky. You know what I mean? Like, it's you don't you don't get to sit around and aspire to that. It just, it's ridiculous.
Pam 32:10
Yeah, cigarette in one hand, a glass of wine in the other hand. How did she do that
Scott Benner 32:14
on the news and she's cursing, and people are like, it's your birthday. She's like, leave me alone. She didn't even kidding. She and you're like, oh god, she's gonna live for 10 more years. But we look at that and we think, and we think, Oh, that's we all live that long. It doesn't work that way. So that's
Pam 32:26
what we think is going to happen. Now, secretly, I think my husband anticipates I will die before him because I have a chronic disease, and so sometimes he's
Scott Benner 32:36
holding on. He's like, I'm gonna get one year by myself. He by the way, you'd be miserable. But go ahead,
Pam 32:41
I joke about that, and it's like, oh, so are you gonna remarry? And he'll be like, No, yeah, definitely
Scott Benner 32:46
not doing that. We do that here. Everyone thinks I'm dying before my wife all the time, that every time it comes up, I think they're just trying to pick at me, but they're like, you'll die before mom. And I'm like, Oh my God. Like, is this how we're talking about this? Men usually do. I know, but I was a stay at home dad. I'm almost a lady. I should get some breaks somewhere along the line. You know what I mean? You know, I have a neighbor who's a decade or so older than me. They said to me recently, I don't want this to be about politics, but they said they were like, politics aside. I was like, yeah, they go, we're very excited for how well those Tesla cars seem to be driving themselves. Yeah? And I thought, well, that's a weird thing for an older person to be paying attention to. And then she said, because we think that might be our only way where we'll be able to travel one day, is if the cars can drive themselves, really? And I thought, Oh, wow, how about that? And these are very mobile people up doing things all the time, but they're closer Ubers
Pam 33:37
a lot when we travel. Uber is all over Europe. It's everywhere, and trains and busses, of course, but yeah, we when we go overseas, we never rent a car, we never drive. We use public transportation or Uber. Yeah,
Scott Benner 33:53
it struck me, because it's a it's a thought I've had before, like I've said to my wife, I hope they really figure out that self driving thing, because it's possible that we'll get to an age where, like, we'll just think, like, oh, the kids are only, you know, 40 miles from here, or, you know, but, or a day, you know, a couple of hours. But we can't do that. Like, imagine if, yeah, imagine if you could just get in a car and be like, Hey, here's the address. Let's go now. By then, you'll be old. You'll push the wrong button, you'll end up in Poughkeepsie. You know, you're like, what happened? But it's funny, because when she said it to me, my response was, Oh, my God. I've never heard anybody say that before. I've had that exact same thought, like, I hope they figure out this self driving thing, so when I get older, I can get around this
Pam 34:36
should be a poll. Like, how many people have ever thought that in their life? I bet you. I
Scott Benner 34:40
mean, if they're not paying attention. First of all, I've seen it work, like in videos and stuff, astonishing. Well, you know, I would imagine another couple of years, the way AI seems to be able to, like, learn and double itself and everything. Like, maybe you'll actually get there where your cars will just be like, hey, where do you want to go? So it's very possible. Yeah, I'm excited. And also. It really does make you feel like, like, maybe I could extend my just that mobility, a
Pam 35:05
little mobility and activity, and keep going. Yeah, just the
Scott Benner 35:09
thing you don't think about when you're younger. Hey, I wanted to ask you, this is gonna seem like a left turn, but did you get any bad reviews? How did you handle them on your book? Like one where you read it, you were like, oh god. Why did they hate me so much. No,
Pam 35:21
I didn't. I get them all the time,
Scott Benner 35:23
that's what I was wondering.
Pam 35:26
Well, you I have 50 or 60 reviews on Amazon. I think they're all pretty good. There might be a stinker in there, but I don't remember reading them. Maybe I skipped over them. Yeah,
Scott Benner 35:35
you're smart. I read mine when I wrote my book. Yeah, there's someone genuinely hated me. And they didn't just hate me. They hated words for existing so that I had access to them. They were very, very upset. It was tough, because my first, like, eight or nine professional reviews, because my publisher sent it out for professional review, first came back really strong, and then reader reviews started coming back really strong. And then I think I must have caught like, a like, Oh, this is just, obviously I wrote a book, and I'm great at it, and I don't think that. I don't think it's some awesome book or anything like that. But then one of the reviews came back and it, I mean, it was just like, it's not really what it said, but what it felt like it said is, I hate him. I hate words for existing so that he could use them. I hate his family for knowing him, the person really didn't like me, and it took me back.
Pam 36:25
Yeah, there are trolls out there. I had some of my friends BETA readers. I had some of my friends read the book before it went out. Yeah, and my friend's mother said that this was a bad review, but she said, this is a trite book that I don't see the point of, or something like
Scott Benner 36:45
that. That's exactly what I'm thinking about. Want
Pam 36:48
to share that with me, because she thought I'd be hurt, and I just thought, well, you know, you don't have to like it. That's fine. Thank you for your input.
Scott Benner 36:55
Not War and Peace. I didn't say it was I know. I think
Pam 36:59
it has a lot of valuable information. People who travel will want to know, but there you
Scott Benner 37:04
go. What I've learned is, is that a book is content just like, you know, just the digital world. We think about it differently now, but it's nothing's ever for anybody. I mean, there are, I promise you, Pam, there are people listening to you and I right now who hate me, and they're doing something called hate listening, which is the thing I cannot wrap my head around at all. But they just listen to see how right they are to not like me. That's awesome. By the way, their downloads count just the same. It just is what it is. What I've learned is, this is me. This is how I think about this. Here it is, you like it, that's great. If it helps you. That's awesome if you don't like it, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not really sorry, but like, you know, like a sorry, it couldn't be for you, but I don't know why you're still here. You know,
Pam 37:47
I was in a book club for 20 years, and every month, we'd meet once a month, and every time, half the people loved the book and half the people hated the book, and it was never the same people, and you would shift allegiances. And so I really understand that you're never going to get 100% of the people to like something you've done. I mean, if half of your book club hates Steinbeck and Hemingway, you're not going to get a rave review from everybody.
Scott Benner 38:14
Yeah, I interviewed a 24 year old girl yesterday, and I was stunned. I was like, you like this podcast. I was You must not understand any of my references. She goes, I don't understand most of them. She's young, yeah, yeah, right. She just doesn't Well, here, this will be funny. She mentioned how bad her doctor was, and I said, Any chance that doctor's name was Dr Bombay? See how you're laughing? Pam, because you've seen bewitched. And she was like, what now?
Pam 38:40
No, that's not his name. But when
Scott Benner 38:42
I pressed her, I was like, Why do you like this? And she's just like, I don't know. Just, I just, like, listening to you do this, I'm like, okay, great. So you can't, like, I would never target a 24 year old, recent grad and be like, you know, like, I think you're gonna love me, but she does. So who cares? Why? Yeah, I can't understand why. Like, I mean, if you're out asking people for their opinion, then you know they're going to give it to you, but I'm not asking you for your opinion. If you don't like it, just stop listening. There's so many things in the world I don't like. I've never once sought the personnel to tell them. But an odd thing, I
Pam 39:13
think maybe I've left one bad review in my life, and it was for a book that was really, really bad, and I hated reading it, and probably quit at page 30. Bad reviews take so much effort. Yes, I'm surprised people do it, but I think you write, there are a lot of haters out there. I can't
Scott Benner 39:30
wrap my head around it, like I don't understand listening to something I'm not enjoying. I don't have that kind of time first of all, but like something I'm not enjoying, there's one podcast I have to listen to for a professional reason, you know, I shouldn't say more, because 19 different people are gonna think I'm talking about them, and I'm not. I don't like one of the announcers, but the information so good. I just lived through it. And I've had people say that about me, by the way, which is, like, I hate that guy. I love what they talk about. So I'm like, hey, whatever. Right on. I'm doing my best over here. So let's talk a little bit about the process. Test like you decide to write the book, but are you writing it in hindsight from experiences you've already had, or do you go out have new experiences with the idea that you're writing a book before we
Pam 40:10
left? I kind of had the idea that I could write a book about this or that I might and so I kept a diary journal, and I took photos and I sent to keep in touch with family. I would send a group family email once a month. It kind of summarized what we had been doing. And those were really valuable when I went to write the book, because they were immediate sensations of what was happening that at the time. So when I came back, I had these notes and an idea, and I started writing. And as soon as you start writing, you start cutting. So it was like, add some, cut some, keep shaping it, I guess is the word, and taking classes along the way, which helped enormously, and send it out for people to read it and give comments, send it out to reviewers online to give comments and reviews. So it took at least a year, and like I say, COVID helped because there was not a lot else to do.
Scott Benner 41:14
Yeah, did you ever get feedback that you were just like, I know that's not right. I'm going to ignore it. Yes.
Pam 41:19
I mean, yeah, there were some things where I didn't want to include it in the book, because I thought it it wasn't part of the theme I wanted to develop. I was developing three themes. One was my husband and I had just retired. So what is it like to now be on top of each other? 24/7 traveling in a foreign country where neither one of you knows the language, if you don't have a good marriage, that could kill you right there in trouble. And then I wanted to talk about diabetes, how I could buy insulin in Italy and Croatia and London for around $50 and that's a month supply just walking into a pharmacy with a paper prescription, and it doesn't cost a fortune. I wanted to write about my experience with diabetes. And the other theme was just traveling in general, and how fun it was to travel and the things we got to see. Yeah, so if something was outside of my free themes, I didn't have to mention it. I could downplay it. I could shift it around. So, yeah, you have to shape it. That's
Scott Benner 42:23
awesome. So what was your finding like traveling? How did you manage the supplies needed for months and months of being away? We planned the
Pam 42:32
trip for about a year, and I started stockpiling supplies right away, and I did that by my doctor would write a prescription a little more than I needed each month, and I would go back every 30 days like clockwork and pick up the extra supplies. And I just kept doing that until I had probably a six month stockpile of insulin vials, pens, test strips, everything I needed, pods. So when we left the country for our year, I had my carry on. Suitcase was full of nothing but diabetes supplies, plus I had a beer cooler with ice in it where all my insulin was. So that got me out of the country. That got me going for about six months. When we got to Rome, the first place we went, I found out that I could go to the Vatican pharmacy with a paper prescription, and they would refill that prescription, and they took the prescription, scratched their heads, and came back with a box of pens. They don't have vials there, so I took the pens, I knew I could fill my pump with those, and that added to my stockpile. And our next stop was Croatia, and all I had to do there was take my paper prescription to the pharmacy, and they filled it again with pens. They didn't have vials, so I left with a stockpile. I added to my stockpile every chance I could, even though I hadn't run out of supplies yet. The only thing I couldn't get were my pods, because Omnipod doesn't mail the pods overseas. Okay, so I had them, mail the pods to my daughter in Colorado, she packaged them up, and by then, we're in Croatia, and she packaged them up, mailed them to me in Croatia, and the Croatian customs office would not deliver them to me. And I got a notice in Croatian, which I got help translating. And it basically said something about you cannot get medical devices in Croatia, they would not deliver it. They sent it back to Colorado. So I went back to MDI, because I was out of pods, flat out and MDI. Then we moved to London, and I had my daughter mail the shipment of pods again, this time disguised as books, and they made it through without problem. And so I went back to to the pods after a couple weeks of MDI,
Scott Benner 44:54
let me ask you a sneaky question. Did they know it was medical supplies? Because. She declared them as medical supplies, or did they
Pam 45:02
in Croatia, she called them medical supplies or devices, and somehow that set off alarm bells.
Scott Benner 45:08
Yeah, I would, I would have said, that's a brick in there. Just relax. I'm mailing bricks to people. Calm down. What do they say? It's easier to ask for, you know, the easier
Pam 45:17
to ask for forgiveness than permission, than
Scott Benner 45:19
permission. That's exactly right. Awesome. So Wow. So you just also, I'm going to assume it's the daughter who did respond immediately to your text about the diabetes, not the other
Pam 45:29
one. It's my daughter, yes, my daughter, the nurse who responded right away. You didn't put
Scott Benner 45:33
the other one in charge of sending it the diabetes supplies.
Pam 45:37
I did not so, but the problem with shifting, I didn't know at the time, when you go from MDI to a pod, it's really easy to overdose on insulin, because there's some residual, I guess, insulin in your system. So first day I've got my new pods, I pop one on my arm, oh yeah, we go out about our day, and get home later that night, and you know, I'm on the couch, my husband goes to the bedroom to read. He comes out an hour or so later, and I'm unconscious on the couch. He does a finger stick and I'm at like 20 or something. He gives me a shot of glucagon, which revives me enough that that we can go to a London emergency room. And waited seemed like forever. Got to see a doctor who didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what was going on. They sent us home, and I kept my insulin really low settings, and was afraid to go to sleep, but eventually went to sleep. And when I finally got back home and explained all this to my doctor, she said, Well, what you should have done, you have to set your pod settings for the first 24 to 48 hours of shifting back to a pod, you have to keep your numbers really low your settings. I didn't know that, and so I had this emergency room experience in London, which cost me nothing. I never got a bill for that. Awesome. And the next day, when we went, we went back to the hospital to refill the glucagon. They didn't charge me for that, because healthcare in Europe, for you know, a lot of people is really even tourists. It's not that expensive about that. Yeah.
Scott Benner 47:13
So basically, you were shooting your basal and then with active injected basal insulin, and you threw your pump on it, and it started running your basal profile to see a double basal. Double basal puts you out. What's your basal
Pam 47:26
rate? Well, I don't know what it was at the time. I don't know off the top of my head, what is it now? What is it now my basal rate? It
Scott Benner 47:32
shifts throughout the day. Are you an Omnipod five?
Pam 47:35
Oh, yeah, I'm an Omnipod five. Okay, and the Dexcom g6 Gotcha?
Scott Benner 47:39
Okay, yeah. I mean, that's great. What kind of injected basal were you using? Was it Nova log, I think at the time, not basal. Levere Lantis, oh. Levemere. Levere, how about that? And that's something we couldn't get levime to last to my daughter for 18 hours even. Well,
Pam 47:57
I was breaking it into two two doses. So I would do a morning and an evening dose. So I had done an evening dose next day, got up and put on a pod.
Scott Benner 48:06
So now that this has happened to you and you have hindsight, you look back and you go, Oh, that's so obvious. How did I miss that? Yeah, sucks. Well, at least your husband didn't do what I thought he was going to do, which is come out and see you unconscious and go, haha, I told you I was going to live longer. Yeah, actually helped you. It's
Pam 48:22
nice. He saved me. He
Scott Benner 48:24
didn't go. I told those suckers I wasn't going first. So weird that you talk about that when you get older, but you do, so get ready if you're getting older at some point, you start looking around. You go, you start joking about it, yeah. How's this gonna happen? Are we all going? We're not. I hope we all don't go at the same time. That'd be horrible. I you know, I don't want the kids to die before me, but I don't want to die, you know, you start doing all the it's terrible, yeah?
Pam 48:50
Anyway, although diabetes, I mean, this is kind of grim, so, yeah, but if you had some terminal disease, which our country doesn't really help you deal with very well. I think a large dose of insulin might be a solution to a long, slow, debilitating, grinding disease.
Scott Benner 49:12
That a thing you've thought about. I'm sorry, have you thought about that? Oh, I have, yeah, a lot of people do. They don't talk about it very often, but, but when you pick through with people and get deep enough with them, they will tell you that they've considered that idea if they should ever get into a bad situation, right? Yeah, sucks. I it all sucked. Listen. Pam, the whole thing is terrible. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not, I'm not gonna sugar coat it. Like, my daughter's doing really well, but there's just no doubt in my mind that if she didn't have diabetes, that a burden that would be lifted off of her would be immense.
Pam 49:44
Well, I'm talking about a chronic cancer diagnosis or or no,
Scott Benner 49:48
oh, I know. I'm just saying that that's not a thing. Like the Alzheimer's or the average person walking down the street doesn't think like, Oh, I hope I don't get Alzheimer's one day. But it doesn't matter, because if I do in my refrigerator, you know, like, that's not a thing. Most. People get to think about, I think,
Pam 50:01
once you have a chronic disease, you think about your health more. And you think about, Yeah, how's this going to end? More? Well, you definitely
Scott Benner 50:09
think about your health more, that's for sure. Is it maybe just the first time in your life, it's actually like the conversations come up in your head, like, I wonder how this ends?
Pam 50:18
Oh, yeah, because I, I've never really had anything. I've never had illnesses. I haven't been sick very much, even now I have diabetes and low thyroid, you know, cholesterol, so I don't have a big stack of pills I have to take every day.
Scott Benner 50:36
Yeah. So still doesn't seem that huge, too, or does it? It doesn't. It doesn't. Now also, you're a 1c you're probably healthier than most of the people walking the planet. So I think that's the thing that you can't it's hard to be excited about. But like, once type one says to you, you have to pay attention to your to yourself, and you do it, you come to realize, like, well, I am now in charge of, you know, gaging a thing, making adjustments to something that other people just walk around, I know, unaware. That's not good for them, until it's too late. So I'll watch
Pam 51:08
some TV show where people are digging into these dishes of potatoes and rice, and I'm going, you can just eat that, can't you? You can just eat it and shove it in your mouth. But some of them can't. But what's happen in an hour? Yeah,
Scott Benner 51:21
but, Pam, some of them have type two diabetes or pre diabetes. They don't realize it. It's true. And they just, I mean, listen, you know, it's a thing you don't hear anymore. You remember people used to say, like, oh, after Thanksgiving dinner, everybody gets sleepy. It's the tryptophan and the turkey, I'm gonna guess. Hindsight, it's the high blood sugars everybody had. Like, I don't doubt that tryptophan is, whatever the hell tryptophan is, but you didn't have eight ounces of Turkey and you passed out for a week because of it, right? Probably so many people living with pre diabetes, you know, for type two, and then drive their blood sugar high after a big meal, and they don't realize how sleepy it makes them, etc, and so on. Like, there is value in getting type one in that it focuses you on your health like that,
Pam 52:04
and what you eat and how much you exercise. If, if you're paying attention, you have to pay more attention. I have a friend who's type two, who does not really do anything to take care of his diabetes and and he's type two, if I had the option of dieting and exercise to make the needles go away, I would be all over that. So to me, it's just mind blowing that you have a type of diabetes where you could take a pill and watch your diet and exercise and you choose not to do that could
Scott Benner 52:38
help. Yeah, I don't get it. Well, there are people who have done that, and it doesn't help but like, true, but he but you gotta try, yeah, yeah, right. If you're saying this person is just like, Ah, I guess this is how I go then, yeah. Listen, I don't think it's a willful I probably sound like a hippie now, but I don't think it's a willful thing where people are just like, I just don't feel like taking care of myself. I think there's a psychological thing going on that freezes them, and I don't it's, I'm sure it's different for a lot of people, but you know something about the way you grow up, or something that happened to you or didn't happen to you when you needed it to and now suddenly you have trouble motivating yourself or caring about yourself enough, or maybe your blood sugars are so high that you're cloudy and you Can't even, like, focus on, like, who knows, you know what I mean. Like, it just, it does suck. But for sure, if somebody told me, like, a, you know, going for a walk around the park would make my daughter's diabetes go away, I'd push her out the door. Yeah,
Pam 53:31
now I'm going to be trying to figure out what his motivation is to not take better care of himself. Yeah,
Scott Benner 53:37
it's interesting, and I guarantee it's not conscious. I spend a lot of my time on this podcast asking people why they do things, and I'm telling it no one knows. No one knows about why they do anything they think they do or they you know, it makes me mad or this or that, but that's not like, why does it make you mad?
Pam 53:55
My off the cuff diagnosis, now that you brought this up, I thought about it a bit, is that he's a person who's always been a take charge, person in charge of the family and the finances and whatnot, and he doesn't see himself as a sick person. And if he doesn't act on it, then he can continue to not see himself as a sick person. I've heard
Scott Benner 54:15
that story from people just, I'm going to pretend it's not happening, because I don't want to look like I'm sick. I've heard that one
Pam 54:20
my image of myself, can't I don't want to change my image of myself as a healthy person, so I'm not going to deal with
Scott Benner 54:27
it. I listen taking a massive amount of crap online and other places for like, I started taking a GLP medication, like, over a year and a half ago, and this morning, I got on the scale, and I am, you know, I lost another two pounds. I've lost 56 pounds in a year and a half. My life is completely different now. I am healthier, happier, I feel better, I sleep better, I breathe, I everything. I do everything better than I did a year and a half ago. And yet, I'll still run into people once in a while that would be like, Whoa. So you just cheated, huh? Yeah, cheated. I took the medicine and I stayed alive. Good for you. Well, how is that? Someone's reaction right there? It's fascinating to me. Like, not, hey, congratulations, or you look great, or this is awesome, or I'm glad to hear you feel better, or whatever. Or just don't say anything.
Pam 55:14
They probably want to lose weight too, and they're they've been slogging through diets their whole life, and it does seem like you've taken a shortcut,
Scott Benner 55:21
yeah, but even when it's not about, wait for them that idea of, like, you did something that I don't have the option to do, or, you know, or they make a moral judgment about it. So they're like, like, even, like, you listen, you earlier said, like, I like, I'll take a gummy a couple times a year and chill out. They're gonna be plenty of people be like, you know, you could have gone for a walk or done some deep breathing exercises. You shouldn't be doing weed or like, but, you know, like, it's just doing weed. Look at
Pam 55:45
me. You're these are just more of the haters we talked about earlier, the people who are going to leave a bad review, the people who are going to make sure that you know that they don't like your book there. There are those people out there. And I've been on a GLP ozempic for about a year and a half have you, I've lost 15 pounds, good for you, and but now it's since it's not prescribed or recommended for type ones after the first of the year, my insurance company is going to look at that, and it's likely they won't renew it, because I'm not in the category of person who should get it for weight loss or weight loss. But it also helps with your numbers, of course, but it's not really prescribed for type ones. No.
Scott Benner 56:25
I know we have an awesome group of episodes about glps from this year, but what I was going to tell you is, is that if your weight is still over, where your insurance company will cover it, just switch to week over. Okay, you'll be getting those em pick and we go via the same exact thing.
Pam 56:39
That'll be my tip for the first of the year. We'll see what they do. Yeah, if
Scott Benner 56:43
they say no to it, just tell your doctor. Like, look, just write me. We go before weight loss. Then also, okay, tons of great episodes on the podcast about GLP. I wish I'd
Pam 56:51
lost more weight you. You said 56 pounds, that's amazing. I've only lost 15 and now I'm stuck. Did you have 56 to lose? No, probably another 10 pounds would be, would put me right in the range of where I want to be.
Scott Benner 57:04
What's your um, dose at two units a week, two milligrams, or you right? Yeah. Is that how it's met? I'm forgetting how the OCP pen is measured.
Pam 57:13
Yeah. I think that's a max dose. Yeah. So when
Scott Benner 57:17
you use it for weight loss, the doctor has the autonomy to continue to push your dose up until you're losing weight. I use zephbound, which is from a different company, but I'm on like, 12 and a half milligrams a week. Oh, okay, I'm telling you right now. Like, let's go. Yeah, I'm almost done. I was talking to a friend yesterday who was like, what's left? And I was like, there's these, used to be three handfuls of fat around my midsection. There's two now, like, there's, like, once they're gone, the rest of my body's actually transformed already. Like, it's, it's just right here,
Pam 57:49
I think you're right about how it changes your life. I feel more active. I go to more exercise classes. I mean, carrying around 10, even 10 or 15 pounds of extra weight. It's it's difficult, it's
Scott Benner 58:03
terrible. Like, my joints are better. My ankles, I used to have planar fasciitis. I don't have that anymore. My back doesn't hurt my my back used to hurt all the goddamn time. My back doesn't hurt anymore. I sleep better. Also, like other things that you should, you should, you might like this podcast, by the way, Pam, but there's other things, for instance, like I used to have to get iron infusions all the time because my body I could, I wouldn't absorb iron for my diet. But now that I'm on a GLP, I get all the iron I need for my diet now, and I haven't had to have an infusion in almost two years, I think
Pam 58:36
eventually most people will be on glps, because they have so many awesome side effects, awesome results. And I don't think they found any bad side effects. Yet, there's
Scott Benner 58:46
people like, have issues like, with everything and and one, there's a couple of reasons why they're, you know, scary about giving it to type ones, one for reasons that they don't completely I don't even know if they completely understand or not, but you are at a higher likelihood to have to go into DKA. Part of how it's going to get prescribed to type ones, if they get the prescribing set up, is going to be that you have to have a ketone meter and check your ketones like, that's going to be one of something I don't do very often at all. One of the things they're going to do the other thing is that it can significantly and change your insulin needs. Like, look at you like, you like, you just tried to switch from MDI to a pump, and you almost killed yourself. Yeah, imagine if you, like, Yak yourself up with GLP, and all of a sudden your insulin needs are down by half, and you don't know that, and you're not, you know, being directed well by a physician, or don't have support, or whatever. Like, those are the things I think they're bigger concerns about that's my expectation, right?
Pam 59:42
There needs to be a lot more education and maybe intervention if you're going to do glps and understand how they
Scott Benner 59:48
work. That education extends to the doctors who, generally speaking, aren't going to understand any of this so
Pam 59:54
well. I and I don't think there are as many diabetes educators anymore. It seems harder. To get help. I've heard
Scott Benner 1:00:02
that, by the way, that they're having trouble, that there's not as many endos, diabetes, educators, stuff like that. I think there's not enough
Pam 1:00:10
information off of Facebook from people who are more experienced than I am. And sometimes a little tip, which you have to think of, you can't just take anything you get off of Facebook at face value. You have to think about it and work through it, but there have been some really valuable tips there, where people who have been doing this for decades longer than I have know more about it than I do, and they help me clarify my thinking and what I need to do.
Scott Benner 1:00:35
Yeah, have you found my private Facebook group?
Pam 1:00:37
I have not. You should it's got 50 in the Juicebox Podcast Facebook group. There's a
Scott Benner 1:00:45
Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. The private group is, I think, at this point, like 56,000 members. It does like 125 new posts every day. There are a lot of people in there.
Pam 1:00:56
You know what I have found that, and a lot of those are younger people. It seems to me just off the thinking back to when I was reading that. And there are a lot of daily posts, you really get buried in that pretty quickly. Pam, may
Scott Benner 1:01:09
I you you've said this twice now, so I'm going to dig into this before I before I let you go. Also, I don't know if you said this while we were recording or not, but it was when we first got together. But you were like, Is this really going to last an hour? I don't imagine I could fill an hour or over an hour now, in case you're wondering, yeah, so twice now, like, once you said, I haven't heard a lot of older people on the podcast and like, so let me tell you something that you probably aren't seeing. So are there more parents of kids than adults with people with diabetes on the podcast? Maybe, but I don't imagine it's more than about 6040, okay. And the Facebook group also might feel that way, but they're there. They just don't talk as much. So it's not as heavy one way as I think you think it is. There are a lot of adults there.
Pam 1:01:58
There are lurking adults on the podcast and Facebook group who are tuned into it, but they don't always speak up or show themselves.
Scott Benner 1:02:08
Yeah, they're not as inclined to be involved. Like, are you like you're 64 like, you didn't grow up with the internet, right? So I did not. Yeah, are you inclined to just jump online and start telling people how you feel? I will
Pam 1:02:20
jump online and ask questions or reply to some people who are asking for information. Yeah, I'll jump online.
Scott Benner 1:02:27
That's awesome. It's not a lot of people. That's not a gear. A lot of people have actually that ability to do they it's more now, obviously, because kids are growing up with it, they have, sure, fewer difficulties with it. But generally speaking, it's not a thing that people easily do. It's interesting. I've seen some really cool studies about how difficult it is for some people to actually just post something online.
Pam 1:02:49
No, I like the internet. There's a lot of information out there. It's, I don't know how we got along without it, but I most people say that nowadays, Yeah, no kidding, we had to actually go to books and encyclopedias to look up facts instead of just Googling damn facts.
Scott Benner 1:03:03
Let me tell you. I'm gonna give you something here, and then I will let you go, because you must have a life. You have to get back to. I do try episode 1212, and 1238, okay, dr, Tom Blevins on GLP medications, Part One, two. I think you'd find those really interesting. Okay, all right, just a really thoughtful guy on glps, and He will answer your questions for sure. Great. Thank you, Pam, thank you. Tell people the name of your book again, please.
Pam 1:03:31
The name of my book is braving the World Adventures in travel and retirement, and I have a website at Pam Saylor, s, a, y, l, O, r.com,
Scott Benner 1:03:41
go check it out. The book's blue. It's got a piece of blue luggage on the front of it, in case you're looking for it and you you can't find it. Pam, thank you for doing this with me. I really, really appreciate it.
Dexcom sponsored this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g7 at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox, earlier you heard me talking about blue circle health, the free virtual type one diabetes care, education and support program for adults. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but I swear it's free thanks to funding from a big T 1d philanthropy group, blue circle health doesn't bill your insurance or charge you a cent. In other words, it's free. They can help you with things like carb counting, insurance navigation, diabetes technology, insulin adjustments, peer support, Prescription Assistance and much more. So if you're tired of waiting nine months to get in with your endo or your educator, you can get an appointment with their team within one to two weeks. This program is showing what T 1d care can and should look like currently, if you live in Florida, Maine Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa or Louisiana, if you live in one of those states, you. Go to blue circle health.org to sign up today. The link is in the show notes, and please help me to spread the word blue circle health had to buy an ad because people don't believe that it's free, but it is. They're trying to give you free care if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. It's ready to go right now. And like I said, they're adding states so quickly in 2025 that you want to follow them on social media at Blue circle health, and you can also keep checking bluecircle health.org to see when your free care is available to you. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast was sponsored by the new tandem Moby system and control iq plus technology. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, check it out. Okay. Well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me. Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Uh, why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review? Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribed in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me or Instagram. Tik, Tok. Oh gosh, here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page you don't want to miss. Please do not know about the private group. You have to join the private group as of this recording. It has 51,000 members in it. They're active talking about diabetes, whatever you need to know. There's a conversation happening in there right now, and I'm there all the time. Tag me. I'll say hi. The Diabetes variable series from the Juicebox Podcast goes over all the little things that affect your diabetes that you might not think about travel and exercise, to hydration and even trampolines. Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on diabetes variables. Hey, what's up, everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way. Recording.com, you got a podcast? You want somebody to edit it? You want rob you?
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#1486 Look to the Western Skies
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.
Grace recounts her raw diabetes journey, mending family bonds, pursuing education, and an unforgettable Wicked theater encounter.
+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.
Grace is 24 years old. She's had type one diabetes for about a year and a half. Grace is a nurse. It's pretty cool. She wants to be a diabetes educator. We also talk about my experience in a movie theater seeing wicked and people who were rude. 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. AG, one is offering my listeners a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of d3, k2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure you check out drink a G, one.com/juice. Box. To get this offer, don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com. All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com. Are you an adult living with type one or the caregiver of someone who is and a US resident? If you are, I'd love it if you would go to T 1d, exchange.org/juice, box. And take the survey. When you complete that survey, your answers are used to move type one diabetes research of all kinds. So if you'd like to help with type one research, but don't have time to go to a doctor or an investigation and you want to do something right there from your sofa, this is the way t 1d exchange.org/juice box. It should not take you more than about 10 minutes. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the twist A I D system powered by tide pool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juice, box. That's twist with two eyes.com/juice. Box, get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juice, box, that's t, w, I, I S, t.com/juice. Box. 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 box. This episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by us Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call, 888-721-1514, get your supplies the same way we do from us. Med, my
Grace 2:51
name is Grace. I'm 24 years old. I was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 23 so about a year and a half ago, I'm a nurse. I've already had multiple nursing jobs, and I experienced all my symptoms when I was in orientation of my first nursing job. And now I've moved to a different state. I live on my own, and all of that is because of diabetes. And now at this point in my career, I want to become a diabetes educator, also working towards that
Scott Benner 3:24
grace, we're going to ask you a bunch of questions. Now, sounds good. So you were diagnosed about a year and a half ago, and you were, like, in nursing school. You had just gotten out of school. Like, where were you in that phase? It was
Grace 3:37
interesting. So I had just graduated from nursing school, like six months ago. But when I think back about my symptoms and everything, it all started the month that I graduated from school, so it was like, graduated from college, immediately, something's not right. I'm sorry this is
Scott Benner 3:54
gonna feel like I'm jumping around a little bit. But how have you had multiple nursing jobs already? So
Grace 3:58
yeah, this is an interesting story. So that first job where I was diagnosed and experiencing all my symptoms and everything, I ended up getting laid off, and I had not even finished my orientation yet because I was just not mentally in a place to be able to go to a hospital and take care of other people. You're a nurse, you need to be basically perfect in order to care for other people, because there's lives at stake. And I was making little mistakes and stuff like that, which, yeah, I understand, but I was in the very beginning of everything. You were making
Scott Benner 4:32
mistakes because you were new or do you think you were making mistakes because you had undiagnosed type one diabetes?
Grace 4:38
I think it was because I had undiagnosed type one diabetes. My brain fog was insane. I needed water every five seconds. I was not able to think clearly and process what I needed to do for my job, and I they just couldn't give me the time that I needed to be able to, you know, get more experience and recover a little bit more. But, yeah, I. Ended up getting laid off.
Scott Benner 5:01
Do you understand their position looking back, I do,
Grace 5:04
but then I look at the job that I have now, and they're so supportive, and they were able to accommodate me in everywhere that every single way that I've needed grace. I'm
Scott Benner 5:15
gonna ask like, in fairness, the people now know you have diabetes back then, yes, they just thought you were probably day drinking. No,
Grace 5:21
I was diagnosed, given three weeks to recover, and then I came back to work.
Scott Benner 5:27
I see, I see, yeah, okay, I'm sorry. Like, I thought they didn't realize. I thought it was before you knew you had diabetes. So you're newly diagnosed, not doing well, got the brain fog, and they just pull you into a room one day and go, Hey, look, you're not cutting it. We're gonna let you off. Yeah. Oh, basically, your first job out of college, yeah. Did you think you were doing a good job? Or what was that time like for you?
Grace 5:50
I thought under the circumstances, I was doing fine. I thought that based on everything, if I just had a little bit more time to kind of get mentally better, then I would have been okay. I could have done that job.
Scott Benner 6:05
Were your blood sugars balancing at that point? Were they did you just not know what you were doing? Like, do you know what you're doing now, I
Grace 6:11
do know what I'm doing now, at that time, it was literally the first month or two of diagnosis, I had no idea what I was doing. Yeah.
Scott Benner 6:19
So what were you seeing? A lot of like, vacillating up and down and, yeah, getting low and eating and getting high. That was all happening.
Grace 6:26
That was all happening as a roller coaster all the time. Gotcha, yeah. All
Scott Benner 6:30
right. So how long did it take you, like, did you go home and say to yourself, like, I gotta figure out diabetes? Or just say, I gotta find another job? Well, once
Grace 6:38
that happened, I decided to take a good amount of time just to figure out diabetes. Yeah, I lived with my parents. I had the time to be able to sit and reflect and figure out what I wanted to do next. And I always knew from probably before college that I wanted to move to a different state and live on my own. I decided that, you know, after good, like, five months of figuring out diabetes, that I was in the space to be able to go out on my own, and I ended up finding another job. Now I'm a oncology nurse, wow, yeah, and I love it, and I live on my own, and yeah, so I used that time to figure out diabetes. And then towards the end, I got laid off in January, and it was around April where I was like, okay, you know, I need to figure out what's next. And then I did that. And then by June, I was working at at my new hospital
Scott Benner 7:36
where you are now. Can you tell me what was the like? Were you always like hot to move out of your parents house, or did that come after the diabetes?
Grace 7:44
So I love being home, and I love my family. I have a great family. I like being home, but I just knew that my personality, I wanted to move out, and that was just further. It was made a little bit more urgent by the diabetes diagnosis, because being at home kind of reminded me of everything that happened and the thought of going back to work and living at my parents house, I hated it so much, and I just wanted to be able to to go out on my own.
Scott Benner 8:13
Oh, that's interesting. I mean, listen, I'm not saying, like, you should have lived at home forever. I was just wondering, like, if it was I just want to move out, because it's my age and my age and my time, and I'm working and I want to do that. Or if you just felt like you were running from something, like, because you got diagnosed, or like, you know, I was just trying to figure out, like, yeah, yeah, where all that came from. But you're saying just time to fly, that's all,
Grace 8:33
yeah, exactly, yeah. It just kind of pushed me to, you know, do what I want, when other people
Scott Benner 8:40
Yeah, Grace. You know, if you're flying solo, you're flying free. I saw wicked this week. Oh yeah, me too. The amount of people that I've said to, if you're looking for me, look to the western sky in the last couple of days is, is it's upsetting and it's embarrassing a little bit. But I texted the people I say it going through my living room. Where are you going? I was like, if you if you can't find me, look to the western sky. What? What's happening anyway? Did you see it on you didn't see it on stage? You're too young, right? My
Grace 9:08
mom and my grandma and I saw it in like, our hometown theater a couple times when I was younger, and then I seen it in the movie twice. I saw it with my best friend, and then I saw it with my mom. Oh, awesome. It was so good.
Scott Benner 9:20
Oh yeah, I listen. I'm just gonna come out and tell you I love I liked it. I thought it was really good. I was like, Oh, I can't wait for the second half. Now also, I was pissed. Broke into two halves. But whatever, that's okay.
Grace 9:29
I know. No, I didn't realize how much backstory there is and how the Wizard of Oz is just like I saw this on, I think it was on Tik Tok, but it was like, The Wizard of Oz is the propaganda version of what you think happened, and then the wicked version is like the documentary. I was like, that's so cool, because there's a whole, I don't know there's a whole backstory behind it. Makes it more interesting. Grace.
Scott Benner 9:52
Let me fry your mind. What if it's backwards? What if the wicked the propaganda? And you know what I mean, who would know? Yeah, you don't know.
Grace 9:59
No, no, that's insane. I didn't think of it like that. That's
Scott Benner 10:03
why it's so much fun to talk about politics, because somebody's lying to you. But is it both of them? Oh, no. What do we do? You're
Grace 10:10
onto something, Scott, you're onto something. I understand the world. Grace,
Scott Benner 10:13
it's ridiculous. Do you want to tell me a little bit about your management? So you've been doing it for a year and a almost at an hour and a half, a year and a half, what did you start with? What do you have? Now, I'd like to know what technology you have or don't have. You've probably heard me talk about us Med and how simple it is to reorder with us med using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works. And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording was like, US med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your order's ready. You want us to send it? Push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait. I think it lets you put it off, like, a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it. Us, med.com/juice, box. Or call 888-721-1514, get your free benefits checked now and get started with us. Med, Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new eyelet pump. Check them out now at us. Med.com/juice, box, or by calling 8887211, 887211514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us Med and to all of the sponsors. The brand new twist insulin pump offers peace of mind with unmatched personalization and allows you to target a glucose level as low as 87 there are more reasons why you might be interested in checking out twist. But just in case, that one got you twist.com/juicebox, that's twist with two eyes.com/juice. Box, you can target glucose levels between 87 and 180 it's completely up to you. In addition to precision insulin delivery that's made possible by twist design. Twist also offers you the ability to edit your carb entries even after you've Bolus. This gives the twist loop algorithm the best information to make its decisions with, and the twist loop algorithm lives on the pump so you don't have to stay next to your phone for it to do its job. Twist is coming very soon. So if you'd like to learn more or get on the wait list, go to twist.com/juice. Box. That's twist with two eyes.com/juice. Box. Links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com. The contour, next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour next.com/juice box, you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger and Meyer, you could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips in meter than you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now, I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juice box. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips doing so through the Juicebox Podcast link will help to support the show.
Grace 14:06
So in the very beginning, the doctors that managed me at first, they said, Oh, you're a nurse, you know. So you know how to give the vial and syringe shots to your patients, so you can do it to yourself. So I have no idea why they started me on that, because I know now that people in my situation, at least should start with a pen, but I had those vials and syringes for two months, I think, no kidding. And then, okay, yeah, I know. And then I went to my primary, I was like, Can I just get an insulin pen and make this a lot easier? And they were like, yeah, no problem. So I did that for another six months, I'd say, and I was very well controlled. I just went low kind of a lot. And I didn't figure that out until I listened to the podcast, and I was like, Oh, my, my basal is definitely way too high based on the amount of activity that I do and stuff like that. And then after that, that was a little bit better. And then I finally got and then. Slim pump in July, I'm on the Omnipod now. Some
Scott Benner 15:02
good for you. You had to figure out that there were pens and then go ask somebody for one. Yeah. Okay, yeah, I did. I was gonna say, how do you rate, like, give a Yelp review to your endocrinology team. Like, do you think that if you didn't come to them and ask for a pen, you'd still be doing just injections from a vial.
Grace 15:21
Well, it's interesting, because it was the hospital that I was working at at the time that I went to for when I first got diagnosed, and it was the doctors there that gave me the vials and the syringes, sure. And then it was, it was my primary. That was like, that, I knew there was pens, so then I just, I just had to ask them, and then they were like, yeah, no problem. But it was my endocrinology team. I didn't get into her until a couple months after, when I was on on the pens.
Scott Benner 15:49
So, so from the hospital to endocrinology took so it took so long that you kind of, like, took a detour and just asked your GP about it. Exactly I see, how did it take so long? Like, so you're saying you called an endocrinology office said, Hey, I've been diagnosed with type one diabetes, and they said, we will see you 77 Tuesdays from now. Is it like? How long? Like, what was the gap of time? I think
Grace 16:13
it ended up being like, two months ish, because one of the doctors that I worked with at that hospital, he was able to get me in to one in Boston just to be able to be seen. So I went there, but then that doctor was like, well, you need to go closer to home. You know, this is an hour and a half two hours away from you. That's not realistic. Then I ended up having to go to one half an hour from my house, okay, which is a lot better, but the waiting list was,
Scott Benner 16:38
I gotcha pretty long, and you find them to be valuable. Now that you're there, well,
Grace 16:42
now that I'm there, I don't know. I feel like I have a really good handle on everything between listening to your podcast, what I knew, you know, kind of baseline from school, which wasn't a lot, but and what I see, I'm exposed to other people who have it daily, and I can kind of like, just make adjustments based on what I do, right? I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I go and she just, you know, kind of goes over my numbers from the last week, when, you know that doesn't reflect everything, and then maybe suggest a thing or two here. But I'm like, Yeah, I kind of know, but I don't know. I don't know. It's nice. It's nice to go still. So
Scott Benner 17:20
you have, you have, you said, a little bit of a background from nursing school. But what do you really like? What do they really teach you in nursing school?
Grace 17:25
In nursing school, they cover basically, like the general, you know, okay, so if somebody has diabetes, that means they can't make insulin because their pancreas isn't functioning anymore. So then when they're in the hospital, you need to give them insulin, but this is like a sliding scale, stuff like that. It's just the basics. And I remember in nursing school thinking like, this is so complicated, and these poor suckers who cannot, who have to deal with this and think about this all the time like that, must suck. Now you're a poor sucker, guys. I know. I know I'm a sucker.
Scott Benner 18:03
Do you have any other auto immune personally,
Grace 18:06
no. Nobody in my family has had any auto immune disorders, except for my cousin, who's the same age as me, she has celiac, and she was diagnosed in sophomore year of college, so a couple of years before my diagnosis, but that's the only autoimmune
Scott Benner 18:22
disease that you know of, okay? That came out of nowhere for you, as far as you're concerned, came out of left field, yeah, what was that time like? Like, how did you notice? I mean, how did it come on? How quickly did you get to a hospital? How'd you figure it out? So
Grace 18:35
it took me longer than it should have to get to a hospital. I started feeling my symptoms in like, May or June. I was studying for my NCLEX. I noticed I was losing a little bit of weight, and I also was just very, very, very anxious all the time, yeah, more than usual. So then I I took, I took my test. I was like, okay, things will be better now. I put on my scrubs to go to work for the first time in August, they fit me perfectly. In May, they were absolutely hanging off with me. I remember telling my mom, I was like, I need new scrubs, like these. I've lost a lot of weight. She's like, No, you know, you've just been stressed out and anxious. You haven't been eating as much. It's fine, you know, it'll go back to normal. I started working so tired. I was so so so tired throughout the day, probably because I was getting up two or three times a night to go to the bathroom. And then during the day, when I was working, I couldn't go more than a couple minutes without having a drink of water. Yeah, I would bring my 40 ounce Stanley water bottle and a couple of extra, like, just regular pull and spring bottles, and I still I would run out of water by the end of the day. Oh,
Scott Benner 19:43
give me a second here. I have two thoughts. Yeah. First of all, this is gonna sound like a sidebar, but this is from my wicked experience. Oh, yeah, because you just said you had your Stanley water bottle, which is metal. Yes, this is like a PSA, a public service announcement to people who might not know. Let me just get a little farther from the microphone so I don't hurt anybody's ears. Do not bring your metal water bottles to the movie theater. You fucking idiots like, what in that? I mean, my God, I'm like this girl in front of me. Oh, if she can hear this, I hate you. Just please make sure. I don't know. She wouldn't know this was me, okay? But you know, the cup holder is plastic, right? She's got a metal cup with her. First of all, I understand. I don't want to pay $15 for a drink either, okay? But that's the world we live in. Don't drink while you're at the theater, or at least, like, sneak in something quiet. Here's what it sounded like, Grace. Listen closely.
Grace 20:36
Oh my god.
Scott Benner 20:38
This is her searching for the cup holder hole. Maybe look over and look where you're putting the cup and go slow like this. Watch, watch me put it down quietly. See it's down. You didn't even hear it happen. It wouldn't be that hard. She must have done that. I don't want to over exaggerate a million times during the movie. Okay, just, oh my god. I'm like, You think she'll find the hole soon? Nope, she's got it, excellent. Oh my Oh,
Grace 21:06
my God, that is so annoying. I'd be bad, too. Three
Scott Benner 21:10
of us. It costs $48 for three of us to go to goddamn movie. And what I heard was that, then Grace, I'm out myself here. Okay, then I swear to God, or whoever you're listening to, if you're listening whoever you think like swearing to would be the biggest thing. Okay, in the middle of the movie, she just turns the flashlight on, her phone on, and starts just like looking at the person next to her. And I don't know what they're looking for, this flashlight. I mean, you know now, Grace, yeah, these things. It's like a halogen bulb in your hand, right? Yeah, exactly. And it's not quick. She didn't turn on and go, Oh, there it is. That's what we're looking for. She just kept searching. She was spelunking. I think she was looking for gold. I don't know what was going on, but after Oh, Grace, now it didn't stop. And so I leaned forward, and I said, Can you please turn the light off? And she turns back to me and says something unpleasant, and it started with F and it ended with you. I don't know if you can guess what she said. Now we're in the dark. We're in the dark gray. I don't know who I'm talking to, okay, what I can tell you is I don't know who she is or the people she's with, because they came into the movie Seven minutes after it began, and then, oh, so they came in in the dark, and they're doing the head shuffle, because they can't just sit down, you know what I mean, like, and then, oh, here's the bag. These the Twizzlers. This is happening. I'm like, You have got to be fucking kidding me. But anyway, I don't know what she looks like. I can't gage her age. Is what I'm telling you, because they came in in the dark. So when she said to me, you, I said, now I'm an adult. Grace, you know, I'm in public. I'm an adult. You know how I handled it, right? I said, I said, you and then I but, I said, but I said, you turn off the light. Now. She shut the light off immediately. God bless okay. And then everyone in the theater. It was one of those theaters where everybody was a little chippy. You know what I mean? There's a little too much talking going on, a little too much. One guy, I wish I could properly explain to you how long it took him to open up his candy, but, but hold on a second. I gotta leave this. I'll be right back. Hold on. I'm back. So he's got to open up his candy, right? But he's trying to be quiet, so he's going slow. So it goes like this.
Grace 23:42
I Oh my God, just rip that. I would be like, Oh my
Scott Benner 23:47
God, just rip, just rip bag open. You're killing me. That's what I was thinking, right? This is just happening, like a band aid, like a band aid, just happening. It just, it won't stop. And very loud, very I'm not doing it justice right now. Okay, and it won't stop. And I start leaning forward, and I can Arden's hand comes over, and she puts her hand on my leg. And I was like, Okay, I must be acting like I'm gonna say something to the bag person. I wasn't gonna say anything to the bag person. I was just watching him. I was watching him as a grown adult. Not understand that a little bit of fast noise would have been better than a lot of really slow noise. So anyway, I know these people. I know COVID ruined movies and that we're trying to get it back, and that there's probably, like a half a generation of people who don't understand, but I don't know how much common sense it takes to realize that you're pissed about how much you spent to get here, so am I shut the fuck up.
Grace 24:44
I know you gotta make it a good experience for everybody involved. If there's that much money at stake, it just needs to go seamlessly based on the amount of money that you
Scott Benner 24:53
spend. Maybe I'm crazy, but making a bunch of noise, banging a metal cup around and shining a flashlight. Don't seem to be like difficult things not to do in a movie theater. No, no, no, no. Okay. Anyway, theater etiquette, well, so anyway, after you turn off the light, Everybody calm down. And I was like, Yeah, I fixed the theater. There
Grace 25:14
you go. Gotta scare them. That's the best way.
Scott Benner 25:18
Grace, I gotta tell you. I don't know where you grew up, but I'm older than you, obviously by a lot. What kept me from doing the wrong thing for a very long time in my young life was I was afraid someone was going to hit
Grace 25:30
me. There you go. Hey, I don't know that is, that is not how I grew up, but it works. I know it works.
Scott Benner 25:36
Grace is like I've seen it work on television. I've seen MMA. I know a lot of things Exactly.
Grace 25:41
Yep, I've seen it all.
Scott Benner 25:43
I don't think we should have to threaten people, but I do want to point out that she said, You first. And there's more I could say, but I don't think you should start yelling, f you in a in a dark theater, at a person gig. You don't know who I am, like, Do you know what I mean? Right?
Grace 25:58
That's very much jumping the gun. Usually you start off with a little, like, all right, no problem. Like, you just go from there, not an immediate you.
Scott Benner 26:09
What if I was like, I know, just heard the story. Now I hear it's possible. I don't sound rational to everybody, like, what if I was not a rational person? Or what if I was a violent person, like, I don't know. Like, you just don't start yelling, like, I don't know what's wrong with you guys out there. Now, okay, but like, you don't know who you're talking to. No.
Grace 26:26
That's why, whenever I drive I never have road rage, because I am so afraid that if I, like, look at somebody and flip them off and they're just gonna whip out a gun and shoot me. Grace, you're a smart person. That's exactly how it is. Yeah,
Scott Benner 26:38
did you see the, um, the court case that just ended between the YouTuber and the guy that shot him. I did not okay, so a young YouTuber who I don't know, I haven't seen one of his videos, okay, maybe he's out there trying to save the world. I couldn't possibly tell you, but he's running at this guy in public who doesn't know him, holding his phone up in his face and saying, crazy. And the guy kind of backs away from him. He tries to move away from the YouTuber. Keeps coming at him with his like, yuck, yuck. Look how fun this is style of being an asshole. And the guy pulls out what looks to me to be a 38 snub nose and shoots him, yeah, and I have to admit, and you can all judge me, if you want, I was like, Huh? I'm all right with that. And now he doesn't kill him, which was nice. I'm glad the guy's not dead for just being dumb and making a YouTube video. That's good. He gets shot. The thing goes to court, you know, because the guy shot him, and, you know, the jury found the guy with a gun not guilty of anything. Wow. And I'm going to tell you again, and you can all judge me one way, though, if you want. I thought good, and that was it. Yeah, I don't think you should be provoked.
Grace 27:41
He is provoked, and he tried at first to just back away. No, I get it. Like, I don't
Scott Benner 27:46
know, I think this is a generational thing. Is what I'm getting at here. I sound like an old person yelling to get off my lawn, but I'm just saying that, like, you can't just run up the people like you don't know who that guy is. You know what I mean, or what his problems are, or if he's got a gun in his pocket, very easy, by the way. It was just a gun in like, his like, sweatshirt pocket. I was like, who carries that gun in the sweatshirt pocket anyway? Not the point. All right, Grace. Let's get back to your diabetes. I'm sorry. Please be quiet in movies. For God's sakes. Just go in the fear.
Grace 28:14
There's movie etiquette,
Scott Benner 28:17
yeah, and look forward. And if you gotta sneeze, that's fine. I'm not an ogre. But if you're gonna sneeze 50 times, get up and leave the theater and go sneeze outside and then come back, yeah, it's not hard, yeah. And if
Grace 28:29
you want to talk to somebody, whisper, but actually whisper, people don't know how to whisper. I gotta
Scott Benner 28:33
tell you that. Can I do one more story from the theater? Yes. So it's me and Kelly and Arden in a movie, and in front of us, a woman and her Kids Next Door, the kids eight, nine years old. I don't know about that age. The boy is doing the like, bouncy thing with his chair, like, bounce, bounce, bounce. When they sit down, I go, okay, you know, he's little kid. He's excited. He's coming to the movie. It's fine. Bounce, bounce, bounce doesn't stop. The movie starts. Bouncing doesn't stop. Now I'm looking at the woman, and I'm like, you're like, you're gonna stop this, right? Like, because, I mean, he's next to her, going back and forth too. She's got to be out of her mind. You would think, yeah, movie starts. This does not stop. It is not stopping. Now, the kid is seated. His seat is kind of split between Kelly's and Arden's, so Kelly and Arden are basically sitting more in front of him. I'm to the left of him. I'm a good parent and a nice person, and I don't want my wife and my kids to deal with this through the whole movie. And I'm also like, Yes, I yelled, You with the other girl, but, like, it's a little kid. Like, you know what I mean? Like, what am I gonna do? Right? Yeah, right, exactly. So I scooch down. I scooch my butt forward in my seat, and I reach out and very slowly, with my right foot, I take control of his seat, and I stop him from bouncing. Now he's a little kid. He doesn't know what's happening to him, so I get him stopped, and I wait, and then I start taking my foot off of it, and I realize that if I take my pressure off of his seat, he starts to bounce. It's a kick. And I'm like, Oh my god. So I'm watching the entire movie strip my right leg stretched out with my foot on his seat. He doesn't know what's happening. I want to be clear his just like, once the seat won't bounce anymore, he just stops bouncing. And, like, a half an hour into it, Arden just leans over to me and she very quietly, she goes, Do you want me to take over for a while?
Grace 30:24
I know I was gonna say, that's a great leg workout for you. And
Scott Benner 30:26
I was like, Sure, to which it was, like, it was like, we were in a movie, like, in a capsule, like, like, switching apart out. But like, you know, you know when, uh, Indiana Jones had to take the the monkey skull, like, it was, like, that, right? And, like, so, yeah, so Arden slides her foot on and I'm like, you have to put a little bit of pressure, not too much. I'm whispering to her, if you push too much, he'll push forward. You don't want that. You just want to stop him from bouncing. And we traded back and forth a number of times during the theater to stop the kid from bouncing. And he never bounced once. So funny. The movie ended, so funny. We took our foot off his seat, and it just started again. He just started bouncing again.
Grace 31:01
It was awesome. Oh my god, anyway, and the mom was just clueless.
Scott Benner 31:05
Oh yeah, no, no. She never once parented that kid through anything that happened in that movie. Oh my god, Grace. If you were bouncing in your seat in the theater, do you think your mom would say something to you? My dad
Grace 31:18
definitely would. Yeah. What do you think he would say he would like, whisper to stop because I was being annoying. And annoying scare me. I'd be like, okay, yeah, exactly. Now, there's
Scott Benner 31:33
people right now. They're like, Oh, the kid probably had ADD he can't help it. Okay, God bless. Don't go to the movie. Exactly. Don't. Don't sit in front of me. But like, how do you not see, oh, god damn it. Do a more
Grace 31:44
energetic activity where you can do all that stuff. No, I understand. It's
Scott Benner 31:48
the day after Christmas. I'm already mad again.
Grace 31:53
So much for that.
Scott Benner 31:55
Okay, so I gotta find out how, like, a 23 year old finds a podcast about
Grace 32:00
diabetes, when I contacted you that was the most uncertain and like alone, that I felt I would say, and I was just reaching out for any kind of support, any other people who knew about what I was going through, right? I knew that there were other diabetes podcasts and, you know, out there, and I just found you on Spotify, and I sent some episodes to my mom. She listens to you too. Oh, hey mom, and yeah, that's pretty much it. I was just out really looking for support.
Scott Benner 32:33
Okay, so you're not necessarily looking for management ideas right away,
Grace 32:37
not right away. Okay, I look mostly to the stories, like interviews that you do, like this, I listen to those, and then I listen to a lot of the kind of mental health podcasts that you do. Like your resilience series with Erica. I loved that, and I sent fourth episode of the four parts to my mom, my dad and my best friend, just so they could understand a little bit like, why I felt so lonely. Because at that point too, that was right when I had moved out on my own, and it was like, okay, my job's new, all right, I go home, and I'm alone in my apartment, and my family's two hours away, and I just was so, you know, uncomfortable. So I've found a lot of solace in your listening to your podcast. Definitely,
Scott Benner 33:26
you just melted my heart. I forgot all about those shitty people the movie theater. I feel better now. Thank you. You've made my day. Glad I could do that. No, no, it's real. It's nice to know that. Like, you know, meet you sit here and you're like, I have an idea about this. And then you're like, can I harangue Erica into helping me? And I'm like, you know, do you want to do this with me? And she's like, Yeah. So we start doing it, and, you know, you put it all together, and it goes off to an editor, and it comes back, and it sits in a pile, and then it goes up. And I know it sounds strange, maybe, but I don't ever think about the part where it's gonna get to somebody. I don't know if that makes Yeah, yeah. That part doesn't occur to me, like, I just, I just put it out into the world, and then it to me, it's gone after that.
Grace 34:05
Oh, yeah, I can see that, since you do so much of it, yeah. And you seem very, very busy, like you, you know, very dedicated. So yeah, I can see where you would just keep going, and not really, but yeah, I'm glad I could remind you
Scott Benner 34:17
that. Yeah, thank you. No, it's really nice talk to me about what it felt like in the beginning being alone in your apartment. And if that made you think I should not have left my parents house.
Grace 34:28
No, I didn't think of it as that. I went into it knowing that it was going to be difficult, especially at first, that was probably the hardest time, because it was just like, Oh my God, when are things gonna get easier? When am I gonna feel more comfortable with everything at that point, still, I was like, six months in with diabetes, so that was still kind of new and new job, and, yeah, living on my own so and then listening to that resilience episode, it just. Clicked in my mind, like, why? I was like, Okay, I should definitely be a lot easier myself. Because, no wonder, no wonder I feel so alone. Because, you know, it's all these different things. And I was like, okay, you know, I just keep doing what I'm doing. I know I'm doing good things for myself. Just keep that up. And then I knew it would get better. So
Scott Benner 35:19
it tumbles on itself, like, once you feel alone, then what you feel bad for feeling alone?
Grace 35:26
Yes, yeah, I would like, I'd be like, Well, no, I'm not alone. I have a wonderful family, and, you know, I have a best friend who I call all the time, and you know, I have people here, and I have this new job, and I'm, I should be proud of myself, but I felt alone. Yeah, it was just like a whole I, yeah,
Scott Benner 35:45
I felt bad. I don't deserve to feel bad because I have good support. Now you feel bad for feeling bad and you're feeling bad for not appreciating the people in your life. That's what it feels like,
Grace 35:57
right? Yeah, I remember, especially in the beginning, my mom was like, she understood, but didn't understand that I was just so I was just angry and sad about everything, and that made me be kind of like a bitch to her. I didn't mean to and it was entirely because of how I felt. And she was like, oh, remember when you used to like me. I was like, Mom, I'm just sad, like, I'm just so sad, and I'm not me right now. Like, it's not, I know you're here, but it's not anything that you're doing. It's anything that you're doing. Like,
Scott Benner 36:30
all the different transitions in life are so difficult, because just as you get accustomed to one thing or one way or how a person is, then forces that have nothing to do with you impact their lives, they start to morph and change, which, you know, it's funny, because when you step back, you say, Oh, this is awesome. That's growing, yeah, you know, like, from a long view, you're like, oh, grace is having experiences and learning how to tough them out and get through them and like, all this stuff. But short term, you're like, Oh, why is grace? Mean, yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah. It sucks. Everything sucks about being alive, except for the alive part. You know, right? You know who seems to be having a great time? The bouncing kid. He doesn't give a about anything.
Grace 37:08
No, exactly. He's He's fine. How old is he? Eight
Scott Benner 37:11
or nine? He was like, eight or nine? Oh, yeah. He has no response. Yeah. He's good grace. I want to point something out that long time listeners of the podcast are going to recognize that when I was a young man and saw Jurassic Park for the first time, that we tormented a woman in the theater for shushing us, and that one of the ways we tormented her was by sitting in front of her and bouncing in our chair, which some people might see as karma. And I realize that now, but I want to point out the difference here is that I was being annoying on purpose. There you go. The kid didn't realize this and how you act. I know this seems like a fine line to walk, but I knew I was doing the wrong thing. Common Sense. People get what I'm saying here exactly this difficulty with your mom and you in a relationship. Does it exist as you're leaving? Or do you get it straight before you it does it because you're it's, you're at the apartment, and this is happening, right?
Grace 38:04
So this happened a couple months before I moved, okay, and my mom is like my best friend, so we, we figured it out, okay, but for that time period, I couldn't go to her about everything. I ended up going to my best friend. And my best friend's mom actually helped me a little bit with that kind of stuff. Oh,
Scott Benner 38:22
I can't wait for your mom to hear that. But why couldn't you go to your mom at that point? What? What did it feel like? The disconnect was I
Grace 38:29
just felt like it hurt her so much, that I was hurting so much, and that she couldn't do anything to help me. Gotcha. And I remember telling her I was like, I, you know, I went to Katie, my best friend, and her mom, and I was like, Are you upset that I went to them instead of you? She was like, no, just whatever, whatever helps you the most. Yeah, she wasn't upset about that. She understood. But yeah, it was just like, it hurt her so much that I was hurting so much, and I wanted to protect her from that at least a little bit. Well, however I could, it was
Scott Benner 39:00
lovely. Seriously, that's really kind of some deep thinking there. Yeah, especially your age. No offense, but that's awesome. Thank you. This turmoil right this time where you're you're going through this, I mean, I'm assuming, like, a grieving process that you're going through, oh, yes, did you have like, other struggles like that in your life prior to this, or is this a new way of you feeling that came on just from the diabetes, I
Grace 39:26
think mostly from just the diabetes, because I had always wondered. I was like, I'm perfectly healthy. I you know, most of the people in my family are healthy. I wonder what my thing is going to be that, like, changes my life forever. Yeah, end up being this because I was like,
Scott Benner 39:42
I think it might be the lottery for a while. Yeah? Like,
Grace 39:47
I'm a little too lucky. I don't know, I don't know what's gonna happen, but something's gonna happen that's gonna change me. And ended up being this that's very thoughtful. I've always been very mature. And do you. Thinking you have other brothers and sisters, I have an older brother. Yes, interesting.
Scott Benner 40:03
What do your parents do for a living? Can I ask just vaguely,
Grace 40:07
my dad's a business owner, and my mom works for him.
Scott Benner 40:12
And you're sitting around thinking something's gonna come for me. What's it gonna be? You were like, maybe I'll be a famous YouTuber. No, maybe I'll win a bunch of money at the church lot. No, it wasn't bingo, and so I get value. Is that how it feels? It feels like one thing's gonna happen to you that's not great, and this is the one.
Grace 40:31
No, that's, that's honestly how I felt. I I had a feeling that something big was gonna happen to me like this, but I just didn't know what it was.
Scott Benner 40:43
Do you have any other feelings now or about stock picks? Anything at all that you could share with me?
Grace 40:49
No, no. Stock Picks. I'm not good with that stuff. If
Scott Benner 40:52
you have any big thoughts about that stuff, please do reach out. It seems like you might. We'll let you know. Yeah, that's really so did you have a conscious thought at some point you're like, Oh, my thing came it's diabetes, kind
Grace 41:02
of yeah, like I said I in school, I was like, Oh, these poor suckers, you know, that's gonna be tough. And then my my pediatric clinical, the one kid that I consistently took care of was a diabetic who's just pretty newly diagnosed. And then I go to work, and one of my patients that I helped take care of. One of the first ones was a type one diabetic with gastroparesis, and I was like, yeah, something, something's brewing. Something's brewing here.
Scott Benner 41:28
Have you listened long enough to hear me say that idea, like, everybody kind of gets something? Yeah, yeah. I do believe that. I believe that too. I don't think it's because, like, you know, Odin gives it to your whatever you believe. Like, I just think that. Like, I mean, I don't want to get too deep here, but, but why not grace? I'll go deep. I don't care. Would you I think we're just like, you know, organisms that, like, weirdly developed and the things that can think, and we're really delicate, and it's just hard to make a perfect one that stays perfect the whole time. That's all, yeah,
Grace 41:58
exactly, because, yeah, we obviously grow the most through our struggles. And if we were all, you know, good and you know, everything was great all the time, then would be a lot less interesting. Well,
Scott Benner 42:11
even physiologically, like, you know that cellular change is where growth, you know, you grow, and things morph and change. And like they, you know, they write and rewrites. What cancer is, right? Like, it's just a cell that rewrote the wrong way. And so, I mean, stuff goes wrong, and then there's outside influences, and, you know, from, I mean, everything, like, there's stuff you put in your body, there's stuff you breathe in, there's, you know, stuff you eat, there's all that stuff changes, things, little bits at a time, and stuff goes wrong. I'm not saying you did something that gave yourself diabetes, but, like,
Grace 42:44
No, you know, yeah, there's things you can control. Definitely, there's a lot of things that you can control, and then there's just some things that you can't Yeah, you have to just take what you get and keep
Scott Benner 42:53
going. And even the stuff you can control, there's an argument for how much you can control it exactly, you know. Like, yeah, you know, when you hear people say things like, you should eat better. I'm like, Well, sure, but what if I don't have access to that food? Yeah, exactly, you know, what if I grew up in a way where people just didn't ever feed that to me and now my palate like, oh, change it. Like, okay, great. You change your thing that's wrong with you. You don't even like, yeah.
Grace 43:15
It's not always that simple. And everybody has their own, their own situation, and you just have to, yeah, as an individual, you have to decide what's best for you
Scott Benner 43:24
exactly. So you have to have trouble dating in 2024 being this smart, right? You can't find a boy you like, am I? Right? So
Grace 43:32
interesting? I actually am in my first, like, serious relationship. We're only a few months in, but I have a good feeling, and you know, I'm good with my feelings. He
Scott Benner 43:43
hasn't said anything or done anything really weird yet. No, nothing worrisome. He hasn't ignored you to play a video game.
Grace 43:51
Nope. Before that, so much struggle, so much struggle.
Scott Benner 43:56
Yeah, no, I know even, how do you meet people like people? I'm gonna use a lot of words I shouldn't be using right now, but like, people, like, swipe up in your stories and, like, try to be like, it's like, right?
Grace 44:06
I know, I know. No, it's so awful. I'm so glad I didn't meet him that way, because, yeah, I was on dating apps for a little while, but then I was like, there's just no way. There's just no way that I'm gonna connect with somebody on the level that I want to through this stupid thing. So he ends up being one of my best friend's friends. So met him through there at a bar. So somebody
Scott Benner 44:27
set you up, yeah, and tell people the dating apps are sex apps, right? They're not really, for the most part. Yeah, right, if you're not just trying to, like, hook up, like that, hook up means sex now, right? Yes, Grace, it used to mean kissing. Did you know that
Grace 44:43
I heard that? I heard that? Or just, like, making out, right? Yeah, maybe,
Scott Benner 44:47
maybe touching things over clothing. Now it means, like, a whole, like, other thing, huh? How many boys did you have to go through, like, the dumb ones before you got through this
Grace 44:56
one? Uh, let's see. Hold on. Let. Like, do a real tally boyfriend. I had a I didn't have anyone in high school, and then in college, I had my first, like, just kind of casual boyfriend for a couple months my sophomore year. And then right before diabetes and everything, I met this guy on a hinge. He was stupid. I I don't know why I would. Just wanted somebody honestly, so just those two before him, yeah.
Scott Benner 45:28
What does that mean? You just wanted somebody to feel alone? Yeah, yep. How does this boy handle the diabetes stuff? He is
Grace 45:36
so supportive, and he doesn't pretend like he knows any more than he does. He just knows that when I go low, I need lemonade or juice, and then when I go high, he needs to get me water. But he's always like, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? And I'll usually like, correct my low. And then I'll be like, you just want to get me lemonade. Fine. You can go. And then I just don't drink it. He just wants to get me it
Scott Benner 45:59
and let him get you something. Oh, wow, you really, yeah, it's possible you're in love grace, maybe. I mean, who knows if you're being if you're being that nice for no reason? You very much. I could say, who knows? Because I just want you to know that my wife would be like, I don't want lemonade stop.
Grace 46:20
Well, we're in the we're in the beginning stages too. So let's, let's take that into account. Yeah, I would never, I would not be mean to him at this point. You're being, like, a year,
Scott Benner 46:33
good something for him to look forward to, awesome. Right about the first time that happens, he's gonna be like, Oh, thank God, I can play Call of Duty again, I didn't realize that,
Grace 46:41
right? No, Minecraft. He's on Minecraft now. Oh,
Scott Benner 46:48
awesome. I hear things. Do you think that the way that it's set up now, like dating, the way you meet people, you think you'll like, hold on to a good guy quicker than you would like, do you mean? Like, like, yeah, right. Because it feels like it was so hard to find one. Like, right where you're gonna find the next one.
Grace 47:07
It's so interesting, because with him too, like, like, I said, it's just a feeling, and it's not, I'm usually pretty realistic and grounded, and I can be like, okay, you know, obviously this is still the very beginning. I don't want to get in too far, too quickly, sure, but with him like I just know I can see his character, and I know that he's good, and I know that nothing's gonna happen. Nothing could make him leave that easily. I don't know. I just know good.
Scott Benner 47:38
Look out for small things online betting. Be careful of that. That often turns into a problem. Good look for that one looking through you while you're talking. You know what I mean, like not really listening. Don't do that. Don't let him do that one. Don't let him pressure you into things you don't want to do. Right? Exactly, right. Yeah. Does he drive too fast? No, awesome, no. And
Grace 47:59
whenever he does, like, a hard stop. It's like, Oh, I'm sorry that was too
Scott Benner 48:02
fast, really. Oh, God, it is really, yeah, how does he look at little kids on our
Grace 48:07
first date? He pointed out a little kid to me and then made faces at him. So he's good
Scott Benner 48:13
grace. Okay, yeah, you have no chance. This will probably end with a marriage. I know. Yeah, I got it all right. Okay. Well, just make sure, like, you know, keep checking in with somebody else, not your mom, who thinks you should be with Prince Andrew or whatever. I don't know is that a good person? Exactly? It's possible that's not a good person. Hey, did you hear that? I heard the I don't follow this at all, but I think the red headed Prince guy and the girl from that USA TV show might be having problems, really? Do you know what I'm talking about when I said that?
Grace 48:44
Yeah, I think so. Can't think of her names. Yeah, I can either, but I know who you're talking
Scott Benner 48:48
about. I moved here and tried to start a podcast that didn't work. Yeah, that's
Grace 48:52
always a telltale sign the podcast goes south.
Scott Benner 48:58
People right now, who know? Who know about, like, the Royal stuff? Are like, I can't believe you can't think of this name. Hold on a second grace. Give me one second, because I'm going to type in red head Prince and see what I get. Oh yeah, there it is. That popped right up. Prince Harry, yes. Prince Harry, yep. And Megan, right? Yes. I don't know if I what I heard is right. Also, do you know why I can't tell if it's right or not. Have you seen like because the click bait social media stuff has gotten it has no soul. Now, like before, it used to start with some sliver of truth, but now they don't even, they don't even care about that anymore. Like they'll do it. No, they don't even try before. They try to craft some sort of lie around the truth to get you in but now, like, they do it with sports teams all the time. Like, it's like, here's the, you know, I don't know, the Red Sox, like fan page, and it's like, the Red Sox cut their most popular player. And then you get to the story, and it's not true. Yeah, they're just lazy. They're lazy. I actually think it's more than that grace. I think. What? Yes, I think that they're trying to get the people who will take the time to correct them and or yell at them or chastise them to jump in and make comments so that the algorithm keeps feeding people the story. Oh, I think they want you to call them out. Yeah,
Grace 50:16
no, I see that. I see where you're coming from. I agree
Scott Benner 50:18
this is a leaning into being a dick situation, and it's working for them because of how the algorithm works.
Grace 50:23
Yes, yeah, yeah, no. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's gotten out of hand.
Scott Benner 50:28
Should I go that way with the podcast? Should I just start saying things I know people will be upset by
Grace 50:31
There you go, so they'll yell at me. Let's add a little spice. Make it fun. I'll try now,
Scott Benner 50:37
Grace. I'm 100% positive that if you would have just taken cinnamon, you could have cured your type one diabetes there. Oh,
Grace 50:45
my God. Oh my god. No
Scott Benner 50:47
people, yeah, one and then I'll get super popular, right? Is that how that'll work? Yeah?
Grace 50:52
Okay, yeah, my God. So people will eat it right up. How do you deal with
Scott Benner 50:56
social media, especially now that you're still young, but you're a professional at the same time. Like, do you stay off of it? I'm still on
Grace 51:03
it, but I haven't really changed much about it with type one diabetes. I don't know. I just kind of keep to myself for the most part. You're not looking to, yeah, yeah, not really looking to. I know I've never had any desire to, because of this, become an influencer for type one diabetes. I never really had that.
Scott Benner 51:21
How about for nursing? That's huge, by the way. Oh yes,
Grace 51:26
yeah, that's why I want to go into diabetes education. Definitely. Yeah,
Scott Benner 51:31
I'd like to hear more about that. Like, that's a shift you're making, like because of your own diagnosis or because of something you're seeing. I
Grace 51:38
honestly was pretty disappointed with the amount of knowledge that healthcare workers have about diabetes for how prevalent it is in that setting. So I take every opportunity I can to teach my co workers whenever they have a patient with that, because I was talking to my charge nurse one day and we were trying to figure out the insulin drip protocol, yeah, and I ended up teaching her a couple things about it that she had absolutely no idea. And then I was like, Well, wait, I could do this to so many more people. I could reach so many more people if I was a diabetes educator. So I kind of put that together, and now I'm working on getting my 150 hours in before I can take my test to get certified, and then hopefully, in like, a year, I'll be able to do that. But, yeah, it's huge. It's huge to be able to have that takes
Scott Benner 52:28
150 hours to be eligible for the test.
Grace 52:31
Yes, of management education. Oh, so
Scott Benner 52:35
they should let me take the test. I don't want to be a diabetes educator, but I would like to take the test.
Grace 52:40
I know I'd like to take the test now, just to see how much I know just from having it. Well, that's,
Scott Benner 52:45
that's what I meant. Yeah, I don't want to be a diabetes educator. Or do I think I should be? I'm just saying, like, I wonder, I wonder how easy the test is. Is I guess what I was wondering? Because that would I know me too, you know what I mean? Because maybe that's why people run into so many people who are like, my diabetes educator doesn't seem to know what they're talking about. Like, is it? Yeah, oh, that's true. Is the barrier of entry not what it should be. And maybe that's on purpose, like, maybe we don't have enough, and you're trying to get people in there and hope they learn on the job. Or, I don't know, but I'd be interested if
Grace 53:14
I equate it to nursing school. So nursing school is basically set up so that we can pass the NCLEX. And then once you actually become a nurse, you learn pretty much everything on the job. Yeah. So I'm assuming that with this test to become a diabetes educator, you study for the test, and then once you get on the job, then that's how you kind of learn when you're exposed to more people and cases. And, yeah, I think that's kind of how it goes. I'm just confused. I don't know how people are diabetes educators without having a personal tie to it, being able to understand it on that level. But it's great. It's great.
Scott Benner 53:53
So you're telling me that when I need a job, Grace, I learn how to take the test so I can get the job. I don't necessarily learn the job so I can do the job. I learn how to pass the test
Grace 54:03
for health care. Yeah,
Scott Benner 54:06
okay, because then you pick a lane, and then you you dig down once you get there, right, and learn the family, all right. But then there's turnover in nursing, so, oh
Grace 54:19
yeah, so maybe that's a whole nother. Yeah, more, yeah, it's short staffing and, yeah, all that stuff sucks.
Scott Benner 54:27
It's just an imperfect system, really.
Grace 54:30
It really is. All right,
Scott Benner 54:32
is there anything we haven't talked to? I want to make sure I'm not missing anything off your list, because
Grace 54:36
I've been all over the place today. Uh, no, I think that's pretty much it. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, well,
Scott Benner 54:41
we're not done. I'm just making sure I didn't, like, I want to make sure I didn't I'm not kicking you off. I just wanted to make sure that, like, I didn't miss anything. We went over dating, we went over going through school. Like, oh, I guess I do have this question, yeah, what did you get from the podcast? So, like, if you start in a place where you're, you know. So having, you know, psychological struggles like, right? You're trying to get through this diagnosis, you get to a point where you can't really look your mom in the face, because you feel like you're letting her down because you're not doing well, and you know, you're off, by the way, it's crazy. You figured all this out. You're all figuring out all this stuff. But when you intersect the podcast, like, you first feel like you're not alone, I'm assuming. But then how does it grow from there, like, how does it turn into stability? And you know, you understanding diabetes and all the other things that you have now
Grace 55:30
from the podcast, from the time that I listened to it, like you said, I felt less alone. And then the information that you gave in the way that you presented, it was in a way that it had never been explained to me before, and it's in a way that is so much more useful in daily life that I can, like, pick from it and take what I need. So I was basically able to through your different episodes, like the Pro Tip series and the ones about mental health stuff like that, I was able to just kind of take those pieces and fill in what I still hadn't figured out, and that turned into just easier management and more compassion on myself for things, for when things did not go the way that I thought they would go. So yeah, I was able to just kind of pick different pieces that I needed from you, and then just kind of helped fill in the blanks.
Scott Benner 56:25
That's awesome. Oh, I'm so glad. Yeah. Can I be petty for a second? Would you mind? Yes, do you ever get Do you ever get petty? Oh, yeah, time to time, I'm not going to be able to find the review where the person I'm not going to find it, but there's a review of the podcast somewhere where a person says, like, you know, I'm done, by the way, if you make content online, eventually somebody's like, I'm done with this. Like, it happens all the time. Oh, yeah. But this person was done with me, because now Scott's pretending to be a mental health something. Now, first of all, I'm not pretending to be anything. I'm me. Okay, yeah. And here are the ways I think about these things. You do whatever you want with that, but the same content that made someone go, this guy's not a therapist. He's pretending he's a therapist. But I'm not pretending I'm a therapist. I'm talking to a therapist, and I'm telling you how I'm intersecting with what she's saying to me. But that's fine. That person, that same content, that they were like, oh, helped you, right? Yeah, that's so wonderful. Like, because, yeah, I was having this thought this morning. It's the end of the year grace, right? I've been doing this for a decade. I've been making this podcast for a decade. So every year, there's this giant whiteboard in the corner of my room with just stuff scribbled all over it, of like, you know, ideas that I have for the podcast and things that I think, you know, will make it interesting, things I think will make it helpful for people, things I think will keep it alive. Like, you know, like, all this stuff you have no idea, probably to somebody who doesn't do this, it probably sounds ridiculous, but trust me, if I put most of you in charge of an already popular podcast, you'd run it into the ground in three months. It's such a big I'm not saying I'm special. I'm saying there's like, there's a big picture, and then there's a big picture, and you kind of have to have your head wrapped around all of it at the same time and then make good decisions along the way and actually pick things that people go like, Oh, when he first said they were going to make, I don't understand episodes. I thought that was stupid, but they're not. He said there's going to be a four part series on resilience. What does he know about resilience, like that kind of thing? Yeah. So I'm looking at my board here, and I know what I want to do in 2025 I've been stuck, not stuck. This is kind of my time off this week, right? So I, you know, I'm just not intersecting with the podcast much for the last couple of days because of Christmas, and I just kind of like, put it aside for a little while just to relax. But now I'm back. Like, I got in the shower this morning and I was like, oh, it's the day after Christmas, and I'm already like, you know, thinking about, like, how do I make content in November next year that, you know? No, it's true. Yeah, just to hear you talk about it, and then I can kind of remember that, that that's one of the reviews that sticks with me this year, is that this person was like, ew, like, stop this. And you're like, oh, you know what really helped me, that resilience series. So, no,
Grace 59:18
it's it's so true. I completely see what you're saying. I could definitely not manage a podcast and be, you know, have the creativity to, you know, come up with content constantly and keep people interested. And, no, it's, it's admirable. I couldn't do it. I definitely couldn't. No,
Scott Benner 59:35
you're nice, but, like, it's not, trust me, it's What a dumb thing to be good at. It's also that, like, the way people want information shifts slowly. You don't see it happening because people tend to look more at the really super popular stuff and say, like, oh, this, this is what I should be doing, whereas I never think that way. Like, if something's already super popular at best, you're trying to co opt it right the. Way to stay popular is to come up with that thing before somebody else, not, not after everyone figures it out already. And and the internet's becoming YouTube, for example, is becoming videos about telling you how to be good at the thing that I'm good at. Have you noticed that? You know what? I mean? No, I've noticed that. Yeah, yeah. And so basically, some person got out ahead of something, became a, you know, I don't know, a figurehead on the thing, and then they got through the content. It's over. Now, there's no more to say, right? And so now they pivot to telling you about how you could be as successful as they are doing the thing they're doing, except that is not true. Yeah, they already did it. You can't do it now, like it's done, yeah? Because
Grace 1:00:51
it's short lived. You can't drag that out, you know, beyond just what it was, right? Just, you know, 100%
Scott Benner 1:00:58
like they've done it already, and the world moving on. You don't realize it. So whereas I think a lot of people make the mistake, if they are going to put something on the internet, they make the mistake of trying to see what's popular, to see if they can mimic it. In my head, I'm 24 months ahead of here, trying to figure out what's going to be popular, and then putting out content, and then waiting to see, like, Oh, what did people intersect with? Well, but they not. And then, you know, having to ignore the noise of the people who just want to be upset. Or, you know,
Grace 1:01:29
right? Yeah, because, yeah, you have to look in the long term picture, like you said, like the big picture, but then the bigger picture, you need to have some longevity in what you're talking about.
Scott Benner 1:01:40
And you gotta guess right once in a while, and get lucky sometimes, and, you know, right? All that other Yeah, just go with it. But anyway, that really the reason I brought all that up. You know, the people who don't like me are right now, like, Oh, good, an example of Scott being great. I'm saying that. I think you have to think about life that way. Yes, the diabetes is so easy to get super focused on about what's happening right now, and what is somebody telling me is the right thing to do, like, I don't think that matters as much as you figuring out what's right for you and figuring out your path to it that works, and even if somebody else says that's not right, if it's right for You, it's perfect. You know,
Grace 1:02:21
that's where a lot changed for me, because me before this I, I mean, I'm still a people pleaser to an extent, but I really just wanted to do things to make other people happy, and what other people saw me as and fit into that. But it truly was this diagnosis that helped me kind of be more aware of what I want and not let those other things kind of dictate what I did. So I agree, and then I was able to actually see like what I thought would be best for me in the long term. And was able to kind of block, you know, other people out, and I had never been able to do that before, until my diagnosis. That's
Scott Benner 1:03:05
awesome. That's really great. I'm happy for you. Yeah, yeah. Thank you, yeah. So you're an oncology nurse right now, but you're going to get your hours to try to take the test to be a diabetes educator. You're going to try to be a CD CES. Is that right? Yeah? CD CES, yeah. It's so long, I think it's a mistake having changed it, but that's between them and and, God, it's not up to me. Like, how do you see yourself working after that in a hospital setting, or in a in a clinic, in a private practice? What do you think is the best way to reach people?
Grace 1:03:35
I will probably be working in a clinic, I'd say, or private practice, yeah, something where, obviously, the hours are more consistent. I've noticed with just how I am the hospital 312 a week doesn't work for me the best. So I'm going to end up going to a doctor's office regular nine to five, and then hopefully I can reach the people who have been newly diagnosed for the most part, but doesn't
Scott Benner 1:04:02
work for you because of diabetes or just how you like to live, little
Grace 1:04:06
bit of both. It just sucks to work back to back days and like, I come home and I have to have dinner at like, nine o'clock, and then my blood sugar is high all night, and then I wake up and I feel all brain foggy and have a headache and stuff like that, and then have to go care for people. It's not ideal, but I'll do it. I'll definitely do it for the time being. Okay, doable. But
Scott Benner 1:04:28
yeah, are you using an algorithm or using Omnipod five, or are you just using dash Omnipod five? You are okay. Do you think? Do you like the algorithms?
Grace 1:04:37
I think so. I've adjusted them a little bit, okay, because I'm usually pretty insulin sensitive, but yeah, with the pens, I noticed that I could control it more and keep it lower. But I wish that algorithm had it so that my average was 90 instead of 110 I think that would help it a lot
Scott Benner 1:04:55
like a lower target, yeah, yeah. Does it make you think of switching pumps or. You like the tubeless nature of it so much. It's not that big of a deal for you. I
Grace 1:05:06
really like the tubeless because I knew that I wanted to, because I'm pretty active, so I liked the idea of that, and that probably won't cause me to change it. I'll just keep I'll just keep going, yeah, right now and then see what else comes up.
Scott Benner 1:05:20
I hope they, I mean, just, not just omnipot, but I hope everybody, like, tries to, you know, tweak their things so that they can have lower targets for people, if that's what they want. Right
Grace 1:05:31
now, me too, because I get that you don't want to make it so that everybody goes super low, because then, obviously, that's sure, more of an issue, but, but I don't know. I feel like the people who have it really under control and manage well, you know, should be have that choice at least, yeah,
Scott Benner 1:05:46
yeah, I agree. So hopefully they can make the adjustments that make that possible. Hopefully they certainly see it on, you know, the DIY systems, there's, you can make much lower targets, and Arden's on trio. And, I mean, I think her Target's 85 so, oh, that's great, yeah. I mean, she's not running around stopping lows constantly, so it must be doable. Get out there and do it. Talking to, oh yeah, get that. Let the people get out there and do it. I really appreciate this. Please say hi to your mom for me. I'm glad she listens. That's awesome. I will. I will. Do you guys ever talk about it? Do you ever like, Have you ever gotten a text from your mom that was like, did you hear the crazy story on the Juicebox Podcast today? Or does that happen in your life? No,
Grace 1:06:29
she usually she doesn't text me. She always just waits to tell me in person. Oh, you do it in person. I was like, yeah. It's always like, oh, you know, because I come home pretty often, I still get to see her, or she sleeps over my apartment, so I still see her. Wait,
Scott Benner 1:06:43
your mom comes to see you, and you guys have sleepovers. Yeah, that's awesome. My wife, my wife, would love to know that. Like, she's so like, Arden just got home, and she's like, Arden's home. And I'm like, I know she's like, super excited, yeah, and then, no, it's great. One night, she's like, she's like, she's like, I'm gonna stay in here with Arden for a while. And I was like, You're gonna sleep with Arden? She's like, maybe we'll have, like, a little sleep. I'm like, okay, yeah, she's super excited. I'm glad you and your mom get along so nicely. It's wonderful. That's sweet. Yeah, we do. I have to ask you, then I'm gonna, I'll finish with this. I think I know the answer to this question already. But are you planning on having kids? Yes, yeah, definitely. You want a lot of them, or a few of them, or what do you want? I've
Grace 1:07:21
always wanted at least two, so a boy and a girl, and then maybe a third, maybe another girl, so they could have they could be sisters, because I always wanted a sister and I never had a sister. You always
Scott Benner 1:07:32
wanted a sister. Okay, do you worry about the diabetes aspect of it? Now,
Grace 1:07:36
I do, but I also feel like, you know, I'll feel a little guilty at first if they do get it, but I'm not going into it thinking like that any because even if they do, I know I'll have kind of a head start on understanding how to deal with it. Yeah. So I yeah, I try not to look at it as like, Oh, they're doomed, and I'm doomed, you know, just kind of take it how it comes.
Scott Benner 1:08:01
You also do have, like, a an expectation that something's gonna happen, right? Yeah, you have that feeling. So if it's that, then it's that. Is that how you feel about it?
Grace 1:08:10
Kind of, yeah, yeah. I just know too that I'll be able to handle it. I don't know. I have faith in myself, yeah. Have you
Scott Benner 1:08:18
always had that faith? Or is that new? That's new.
Grace 1:08:22
That has not been around here for a while, up until this past year. And
Scott Benner 1:08:27
diabetes brought you that faith in yourself, Oh yeah, and
Grace 1:08:31
compassion for myself. I used to think so black and white, like, oh, it has to be like this, or it's wrong, or it's completely, you know, just all messed up. Nope, nope. I have faith in myself. Now,
Scott Benner 1:08:44
that's part of growing up, too. You know that, though, right? Yeah, it's true, yeah, like, like, I mean, I don't know that diabetes didn't, like, speed it up for you, right? Yeah, right. Or bring it into focus for you, which I'm sure it did all that stuff, but yeah, you would have gotten to it eventually. Just probably would have taken longer, exactly, yeah, that's interesting. Wow, you're on like, such a journey. It's nice. I'm jealous. Thank you that you're young. I just want to say that
Grace 1:09:12
I'm getting up there though, 24 Oh yeah, in the mid 20s,
Scott Benner 1:09:16
it's almost over. Grace. All right. Hold on one second. For me, this was really great. I appreciate you doing this. Yeah, thank you
having an easy to use, an accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour next.com/juicebox That's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. The conversation you just enjoyed was brought to you by us. Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get started today and get your supplies from us. Med, you. The episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist A I D system powered by tide pool. If you want a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision or peace of mind, you want Twist, twist.com/juicebox, 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. If you or a loved one was just diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're looking for some fresh perspective, the bold beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player, or you can go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. Hey, what's up? Everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way recording.com. You got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.
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