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Podcast Episodes

The Juicebox Podcast is from the writer of the popular diabetes parenting blog Arden's Day and the award winning parenting memoir, 'Life Is Short, Laundry Is Eternal: Confessions of a Stay-At-Home Dad'. Hosted by Scott Benner, the show features intimate conversations of living and parenting with type I diabetes.

Filtering by Category: Pre Bolus

#331 Shirley’s Birthday Wish

Scott Benner

A Grandmother's Love

A long time type advocate, Shirley has two grandchildren living with type 1 diabetes and she has a birthday wish!

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You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - PandoraSpotify - Amazon AlexaGoogle Podcasts - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

To make a donation to Shirley’s JDRF click here

+ 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 0:05
Hello, everybody, welcome to Episode 331 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is as unique as I can make them. Today I'm going to be speaking with a grandmother of two children who have type one diabetes. Now you might think that doesn't sound that unique, Scott. Well, it's because you don't know all the details, surely is the grandmother and I spoke with her, only a few days removed from her 100th birthday. That's right. The grandchildren that she's been trying to help. Those grandchildren are adults with children of their own, but surely is still out there banging the drum for type one diabetes. Awareness. Surely we'll share with you why she's so passionate about type one diabetes. What she thinks of this lockdown for the Coronavirus. She'll actually talk about a lot of different things. Want to find out how refrigerators worked before electricity, or what it was like to hear a radio for the first time surely knows when we chatted about it. When this is all over if you're so inclined, please take a look at the fundraiser Shirley is doing for her 100th birthday celebration. It benefits the jdrf

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod Dexcom. The Contour Next One blood glucose meter and touched by type one to get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod sent directly to your home. Your home was weird. directly to your home, please go to my Omni pod.com forward slash Juicebox Podcast To find out more about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. By the way, you may be eligible for an absolutely free Contour Next One blood glucose meter you'll find out if you are at Contour Next one.com. And of course my favorite diabetes organization touched by type one, check them out at touched by type one.org. You'll find links to all the sponsors as well as Shirley's fundraiser in the show notes of your podcast player and at Juicebox podcast.com.

Shirley 2:25
My name is Shirley Bornstein, but I actually that's my third lesson. That's your third last name. My first name when I was born is surely blondes thing. Then it was surely Murtha's when I married Stanley Murphy. And then after he died, I married Herman Bornstein. So like my first name, and my present name are just a few letters apart. And I understand from Sarah, that you are in New Jersey.

Unknown Speaker 3:14
I am Yes.

Shirley 3:16
It just, it just so happened. I was born in New Jersey, we're about in de Valle de Leon. And then I when I was three years old, we moved down south. My wife's

Scott Benner 3:30
first professional boss. Oh is the her favorite person she's ever worked for. His name was john and he is from Bayonne still lives there. Now he absolutely loves it there. So when you say you were born in Bayonne, you mean in 1928. Wow. And so in 1923 your family left New Jersey and went to the south. Right? Wow, no kidding. Okay, I'm gonna ask you a lot of questions. I hope you don't mind. You are Have you already celebrated your birthday? Or is it coming up?

Shirley 4:05
No, it was April 25. Last Saturday.

Scott Benner 4:08
Congratulations. It's lovely. tell people how old you are.

Shirley 4:12
And 100 Okay,

Scott Benner 4:14
now does everyone you meet ask you the secret to living to be 100 years old?

Shirley 4:20
Not necessarily. No, surely I'm

Scott Benner 4:22
going to okay. So do you feel like you lived in a way that created longevity or do you not think anything special about your life like that?

Shirley 4:32
No, like, is a friend of mine but pastor The only different thing I did is I didn't

Unknown Speaker 4:44
keep doing it. You're doing great.

Unknown Speaker 4:47
You're you had another friend who lived past 100

Shirley 4:51
No, my family all.

They really didn't live very long. My father died. 65 my mother's 72 my two sisters were in their 70s. And I don't know why I'm living so long. But I may I think it's because I so desperately want to see a cure for type one diabetes. How? How are you connected

Scott Benner 5:23
to type one?

Shirley 5:25
I have two grandchildren.

Scott Benner 5:28
And they both have diabetes.

Shirley 5:30
Type One type one. I have a lot of grandchildren. great grandchildren. I have 24 great grandchildren. But these two have type one. Diabetes, right?

Scott Benner 5:48
Are they both on this? Because you've had, I'm assuming, let me ask you had two husbands. Were you married to both of them for a long enough time to have a family with each of them?

Shirley 5:58
No, no. My first family was with Stanley mirvis. And we got married in 1945. During the war, and he died in 1979. And I had three children. The fam

Scott Benner 6:19
you guys, you guys were married? They're almost 35 years. Yeah, yeah.

Shirley 6:26
And then

when I remarried to Herman Bornstein, have three stepchildren Okay. Wow. Well, I really have six children all together.

Scott Benner 6:39
And so the the grandchildren with a type one diabetes are from your first marriage?

Shirley 6:45
Yes. And from his older I in my oldest son.

Scott Benner 6:53
Okay. And and So tell me a little bit about your grandkids. How, how old are they? Do we? Will we say their names on here? Do you keep that private? No. What do you want to know? Let's start with how old they are.

Shirley 7:05
Oh, Bruce, my oldest

child is 72. And he's a pediatrician. And in the front line on this virus right now, and he's married to a nurse who goes into the hospital every day. And they're the two I worry about the most course. They had three children have three children. Kirsten Sarah, who has the Type One Diabetes. And then the youngest, his name is Stanley after his grandfather. And he is really a hero. I have to mention him. Because when Gus needed a kidney, and his failed due to diabetes, got a family stepped up to the plate and gave him a kidney. That's amazing.

Scott Benner 8:07
That is a very selfless thing. Have you ever thought about that? I have, like, could you give an organ to someone if they asked for it? It's a big decision.

Shirley 8:16
He made the decision. Yeah. Well, they were looking for a donor. He stepped up and said test me. And he was a good match. That's amazing.

Scott Benner 8:27
How old is Gus and Sarah and Stanley.

Shirley 8:31
He's about 42 or 43. In his 40s Okay. Yeah. And danly was born in 81.

Scott Benner 8:43
Anyone? 2001 so he's about 30. Yes. 30. Did your son Bruce have an oops baby. And was it Stanley?

Unknown Speaker 8:53
No, no, no, not an extra one. At the end. I got just Well,

Shirley 8:56
listen, I've been married for

a number of years. Sarah was the old.

Scott Benner 9:03
Okay. Sarah is older. So Sarah is older than Gus.

Shirley 9:07
Oh, yes.

Scott Benner 9:08
Did they all live nearby with you? In the south?

Shirley 9:10
No. They live in Columbus, Ohio. And I live in Atlanta, Georgia.

Scott Benner 9:16
How long have you been working to help raise awareness for type one diabetes?

Shirley 9:24
Since 1985, my goodness. That's when I retired. I was working for Emory University Medical School with a very prominent cardiologist. And then at one go, and then I retired in 1985 when I was 65. And went to work. Oh, almost immediately. jdrf

Scott Benner 9:56
No kidding. What surely What did you do for 35 years.

Shirley 10:00
25 years I've worked. I did research. I was a research coordinator on cardiac research. Wow.

Scott Benner 10:09
That's amazing. Do you ever feel like you've had four lives?

Shirley 10:16
Well, I've done a lot of different

Unknown Speaker 10:19
have. I mean, you?

Shirley 10:23
I graduated from Temple University with a degree in medical technology.

Scott Benner 10:29
Okay. I grew up just outside of Philadelphia. You came up here from Atlanta to go to school? Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. That's so yeah, because they offered a great, huh? Okay, now he was that something? Was that uncommon for women? Or no? Were you like leading the way being a woman in that industry?

Shirley 10:52
No, no, there were other women. I have really wanted to be a doctor. But in the 1930s, it wasn't considered proper for a woman to be a doctor, including my father, who was very opposed to it. So I found another Korea.

Scott Benner 11:18
I'm sorry, do you think you would have made a good doctor?

Shirley 11:25
I don't have a crystal ball. But I probably would have gone into research.

Scott Benner 11:31
Yeah. That's amazing. You know, it. You said that happened? Yeah, I guess at the end of the 1930s, when my wife went into college, and told her parents, she wanted to be a doctor. They said, Well, what about a nurse? You know, I don't think that ever hasn't gone away too much. For some reason for some people, the idea that women shouldn't do that, but obviously they can and should. So you had to, you know, married two different men love two men, raised a family, worked a full career, retired at a good age, and then went on to spend 35 years, right To this day, still trying to, you know, hold up the jdrf, which is really amazing. Do you have any idea how much money you've raised over the years for them?

Shirley 12:14
Oh, no idea. But never stop.

Scott Benner 12:19
Just keep going. How do you do that? How do you? How do you talk to people about diabetes?

Shirley 12:25
I tell them, it's a terrible disease. And the biggest robber of childhood, I can imagine, because I know, most of the children that I raised, and that I know, had very carefree childhoods, who thought about shots, and cash and blood sugars? Yeah. But then they came my grandchildren who had to cope with this.

Scott Benner 12:56
Yeah, and it goes since he was three years old. And Gus needed a kidney. And you're saying that was from diabetes? How old? Was he about when that happened? Do you remember?

Shirley 13:09
He might have been in his 20s.

Unknown Speaker 13:12
Do you

Scott Benner 13:13
know much about how your grandchildren manage their diabetes? And how's it changed over the years for them?

Shirley 13:19
Oh, what changed completely? I think in the beginning, you did urine test to figure out how much with insulin you needed. And since then, there have been tremendous advances.

Scott Benner 13:37
Yeah, there really are. My daughter's wearing an insulin pump right now. And glucose monitor right. We'll do. Oh, Sarah and Gus. Well, enough now to

Unknown Speaker 13:51
Oh, yeah. Yeah,

Scott Benner 13:52
that's excellent.

Shirley 13:53
And glasses. biggest problem from the diabetes is his eyesight. He's legally blind. I'm sorry. And he has we have gotten him a diabetic dog who lets him know when his blood sugar's are up or down. And that's a tremendous help. Cuz it's hard for him to read a small sensor.

Scott Benner 14:22
Yeah, yeah. I think about that, you know, when I think about it, I'm I'm I'm only 48 I By the way, thank you. You make me feel young today. I don't get that feeling too often. But when I'm now feeling like I've only lived like two of my four lives, so I'm doing okay. But at night when I go into help my daughter in the last five or so years, I need glasses now to look at the meter. And it made me right away. Think of all the people who need glasses who were by themselves and wake up in the middle of night need to look at these things and can't see them is Gus I'm married or is he alone? What's his situation?

Shirley 14:59
Oh, he's mad. Lily has a little girl who's fun.

Scott Benner 15:04
Good. That's amazing. Do you think they worry about his daughter perhaps getting diabetes one day? Do you ever talk about that? Well, of course.

Shirley 15:11
And Sarah has two little girls. So I have three great grandchildren that I keep hoping will avoid. Type One Diabetes. Yeah.

Scott Benner 15:27
How is your health in general? I know that you're I know your age. But do you? Have you been through things in your life that you've battled past?

Shirley 15:35
Oh, sure. Hasn't everybody?

Scott Benner 15:38
Oh, yeah. my list is starting to build up. No, but but you know, it's just interesting. Like, I kind of imagined that if somebody sees you, at 100, they might think you were just, you know, you were so lucky. You just didn't get sick. nothing ever happened. But you've had surgeries and gone through hard times.

Shirley 15:55
I've had I

think I can't go back to the doctor right now with this being isolated. Yeah. But I have battled breast cancer. And I'm taking a pill letrozole. That last examination is shrunk. And I'm just hoping it continues to shrink. Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:25
No, that's. So if you've not had breast cancer for long, when were you diagnosed with that?

Unknown Speaker 16:31
Oh,

Shirley 16:34
just two or three years ago, okay.

Scott Benner 16:37
And you're using medication to treat it right now.

Shirley 16:40
I take pills left herself. Yeah. And I've also had surgery on for a hernia, um, that the colon came through and was very painful. And I guess I had all the childhood things.

Scott Benner 17:03
Right. How much can I ask you how much activity you get in the course of a day? What do you do to stay? I don't mobile like my, my mom who I tease all the time about being older. 76. And now I feel like I owe her an apology. But she you know, she I know what she does to stay. You know, active. What do you do?

Shirley 17:23
Well, for years, I did Thai tea. And then I had a very bad fall. And I have to use a walker. Okay. Um, I'm not as steady as I used to be. And I try to keep active. Yeah. But it's limited right now. I use this Walker Walker slows down. Hey,

Scott Benner 17:54
I can't imagine you like it now. But I guess it helps you. So in the end.

Shirley 18:00
I had a very bad fall. Last year, I was 19 when I had this bad fall. And I haven't been as mobile since.

Scott Benner 18:12
Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. I

Shirley 18:14
I stay at

work on the computer. I read a lot. And I try to stay active.

Scott Benner 18:27
Do you watch Netflix? Do you have a favorite show?

Shirley 18:31
Just the news in the evening news.

Scott Benner 18:33
Yeah.

Shirley 18:34
And then find that depressing? Well, no, I can't listen. I hear you. Can

Scott Benner 18:40
I ask you how? Because you have a lot of, you know, historical knowledge. You've I mean, you've saw, I guess you saw a couple of pandemics throughout the years how

Shirley 18:52
I was born.

After the end of the last pandemic, no kidding on the Spanish flu. Okay, which I guess 1917 1819 it was. But then I was born in 19 2020.

Scott Benner 19:12
trying to think what? When was legionnaires in Philly?

Shirley 19:16
Oh, it was a few years back. Yeah, I bet you started on a cruise ship. And they contributed it to air conditioning

Scott Benner 19:27
in a hotel in Philadelphia, right?

Unknown Speaker 19:31
Yes,

Scott Benner 19:31
yeah. I yeah. I wonder when that was. I'm gonna find out Hold on one second. 1976

Unknown Speaker 19:41
Okay. Wow.

Scott Benner 19:42
8696 2016 Wow, that was a long time ago. Okay, and so and so how are you finding this idea of? I mean, what's the most limiting aspect for you being an older person? Is it not being able to go to the doctor is it the idea Have you know you can't really be in contact with people? How does it affect

Shirley 20:04
in contact with people all the time? Oh, we've done this through email through telephone. No. And, and on my birthday, we had a zoom of about 100 people. That's

Scott Benner 20:21
amazing. And I know you We won't meet her but you have a health health worker who lives with you she there 24 seven with you.

Shirley 20:28
Yes, that's nice. He doesn't wait. She was here when we began to hear how bad it was. And she's been here ever since. A takes care of their high school daughter. They're isolated. And he comes over and brings things in, they wave through the window. What they do not see each other. Oh, my goodness. And she's doing I mean, they see each other they do not have any personal contact.

Scott Benner 20:58
Right. And is that to keep you safe? Yeah, that's wonderful. It's very lovely of them to do.

Shirley 21:04
Oh, she is wonderful person. I don't know why she walked out.

Scott Benner 21:09
Oh, yeah. We tried to get her to stay on the camera. The beginning. She said this isn't for me. Well, that's really amazing that How long has she been with you?

Shirley 21:20
Since the beginning of March.

Scott Benner 21:22
No kidding. That's really wonderful ever. That's lovely. And so you're not able to go to your doctor's right now. What do you think about? I have to ask you, because you're in Atlanta and Georgia's talking about opening up restrictions.

Shirley 21:35
Oh, they all they'll opening up all kinds of things. I think our governor Bruce completely stoked.

Scott Benner 21:43
Surely, I was wondering what you're gonna say, but I appreciate you being honest.

Shirley 21:47
Very young. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's an idiot. And I think we're gonna have an upswing of this stupid virus.

Scott Benner 21:57
Yeah. I don't see how opening up

Shirley 22:01
nail salons.

Scott Benner 22:01
tattoo portals. Can you think that anything worse? No, no, I I'm trying to understand why. Those are the first things that we're we're getting to I guess I know.

Shirley 22:14
You don't I mean, I think he

probably owns a strip mall.

I think he's thinking your money is more important than health.

Scott Benner 22:26
might be. I think you're I think you're right. I think you know, it's a short lesson, we obviously have to get the the economy going at some point, you know, eventually will cause such a problem financially will kill people in a different way. But in the moment, it is really difficult not to feel like that. Like it's a it's a you're putting, you know, money in front of health. I just pulled up your, your type one diabetes fundraiser that you have set up for your birthday for your birthday. And my goodness, you're, you're up to $29,000.

Shirley 22:58
Okay, and let's give them

Unknown Speaker 23:02
the link the link Well,

Scott Benner 23:03
the links a little it's long, right? So what I'll do to You don't think so? Hold on What? I can

Shirley 23:10
tell it to you in those few seconds. Don't maybe

Scott Benner 23:13
I'm looking at the wrong one. Go ahead.

Shirley 23:15
www to jdrf.org slash go to slash cheryle be 100

Scott Benner 23:29
surely be 100. So www.jdrf.org slash go to slash surely be 100. Why I did it. Okay, so I'm going to put that show. You don't need to know about this. But when I post your video and your audio, I'll put that link right where people can click on it. And I hope that people from the podcast Shirley's trying to get the $35,000 and she's a little over 29,000. So if anybody can kick in, that would be really, really nice.

Shirley 24:01
Okay, and I think they do the s in surely capital. Okay.

Capital B's rest in lowercase.

Scott Benner 24:11
Don't worry, I'll get I'll make sure I have it right when I share it. And people can click on it. Alright, listen, I get to talk to you a little more about the virus. So is it when you first You said you're listening to the news. So a number of weeks ago when it's all becoming kind of obvious What's happening? How do you prepare just to protect yourself or immediately

Shirley 24:33
to stay home? Just stay isolated? Yeah.

Scott Benner 24:38
Just is there's nothing more to it right. Just keep yourself for a little while and let people pass let let medicines

Shirley 24:45
not have any contract. And God bless Valencia. She was here listening to the news with me, because I had a group of caretakers that took turns Because my son's all thought I should never be left alone, right? After that bad fall, I had worse. And I said, I think we should be isolated. And she said, I think so too. And we agreed we'd stayed together. She talked to her husband. And they agreed to he'd stay isolated with their daughter. And she'd stay isolated with me.

Scott Benner 25:32
It just it makes sense. My family has been, you know, we've been all together in this house for my gosh, it's coming up on. It's gonna be two months in a couple of weeks. So we're over six weeks already. And

Shirley 25:45
tell me what your family consists of?

Scott Benner 25:48
Well, I've been married to my wife, Kelly since 1996. And we have two children. My son is 20 years old. His name is Cole. He's a college student. But you know, they they sent him home, obviously. So he's finishing up his sophomore year, this week, online. And my daughter is also a sophomore, but in high school, so she's 15. And she's the one who has type one diabetes. She was diagnosed when she was two years old.

Shirley 26:15
Anyone else in your family have tried?

Scott Benner 26:19
So surely, I'm adopted? So I don't have any history beyond me on my bloodline. But on my wife's side of the family, there is a fair amount of other autoimmune issues, but not type one diabetes. Do you see that in your family? Do you see other autoimmune stuff like hypothyroidism or celiac?

Shirley 26:42
Yes. And strangely enough, it's one of my grandson's on my step. family that has silly acts. So our immune diseases, so Alright,

Scott Benner 26:59
yeah. Now they're more prevalent, it seems to me over the last couple of decades and they have been prior or maybe there were just things that we didn't know about? I'm not sure.

Shirley 27:07
Well, I think there's two reasons for that. One is climate change, and a lot of pollutants in the air. And also better testing and diagnosing right

Scott Benner 27:25
now. Yeah, I think so too. I it's hard to argue with. I mean, you're seeing it over the last couple of weeks, right? We're all in our homes. So we're not driving our cars and factories aren't running. And even my son who doesn't pay attention to stuff like this at all said to me the other day, have you noticed that the air feels fresher? It's it's just he's like, it's almost neutral. Like there's no odor to it whatsoever. And you're getting those reports from all over the country that smog and pollution are lifting. And all these things are, look how quickly they changed. You know, in a few weeks

Shirley 27:58
that we learned stop factors,

Scott Benner 28:01
there's got to be a way to do things that we have to do that are better, there is a more safe way for everyone. Because, you know, it's not gonna matter how cheaply we can make a cell phone if we're all hiding in our house for the rest of our lives, right. The Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor will give you invaluable data. How would you like to know the speed and direction that your blood sugar is moving? Is it climbing at one point per minute, two points? How fast is it falling? How would you like to know if you're going to be under 5520 minutes from now, the dexcom g six can tell you that Dexcom also offers a share and follow feature, meaning that a loved one with type one diabetes can be anywhere. And their information will go up into the cloud and down to a follower. It almost is magical. But honestly, it's just the cloud. I guess that's not that magical. It is however available for iPhone and Android. For instance, right now, I'll pick up my phone, I will unlock my phone and tell you that my daughter's blood sugar is 148. Actually, I'd like her to do a little bit of a bolus. So I'm just gonna send her a text and say one unit. My daughter happens to be downstairs right now. But that's exactly the way we handle our blood sugar when she's at school, or at a friend's house or at a sporting event. And you could to find out more@dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. You can also use the same insulin pump that RJ has been wearing since she was four years old. It's not hard to do. You go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box and ask on the pod to send you a free, no obligation demo, which they will do. It'll arrive at your home and you or your child or loved one can wear the army pod to see how fields to see how it looks to see how it would integrate into your life, then you're going to get a real feeling for what it means when I say a tubeless insult, I'm not connected to anything, nothing to clip to your belt, really small, you can kind of hide it if you want to, or were proud. Doesn't matter. Whatever makes you feel right. My omnipod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box links in the show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. Five second dance party and then back to Shirley.

Tommy over the years, what have you done for the jdrf?

Shirley 30:49
Well, I used to work in the office too. We got paid staff. And I also started, I figured that education was the most important thing. And children should know and understand what's happening to them. So I started a children's educational project program. And we called it sugar show where kids learn. We did all kinds of things that asking about type one diabetes, so children could understand. And now I think everyone understands how important education is. And we have the type one nations summit. That's education for everybody. For the children, for parents, for caregivers, for teachers, everyone needs to understand this.

Scott Benner 31:56
Do you? Do you know that I just gave a talk in Atlanta at your type one diabetes nation summit. That's what I understand. I come to the summit's. I done about eight or nine of them in the last year. So and I come and I explain how we use insulin, I'd seems overly simple, but we talk about how we use insulin to stop spikes and to stop low blood sugars so that you can have more stability and spend less time thinking about your blood sugar. And I I love those events, those type one nation events are wonderful. They bring in

Shirley 32:27
all kinds of great, I'm sorry, I didn't know about you out have been in Utah and to listen to you.

Scott Benner 32:35
Were you there that day?

Shirley 32:38
Probably. I know this many things.

Scott Benner 32:41
I was excellent. You really missed it. Man. Hopefully I can come back. When all of this you know goes get becomes less common and do it again. I would love to meet you in person. That would be wonderful. So you worked right. So you were a volunteer until they got an office staff. You help build programs. I guess you make phone calls for donations and all that stuff. Have you ever Oh, yes.

Shirley 33:05
And I also started with grandparents.

grandparents.

Scott Benner 33:12
That's lovely. You know, I have a lot of so I don't know how much you understand about what I do. But usually I don't record video, I just record audio. And it's available for people to listen to, through a podcast. And it's it's incredibly popular. And now what is your podcast? It's called the Juicebox Podcast. So I interview people who have type one diabetes, or the parents of type ones. A lot of CEOs of companies that do things around diabetes, and we just talk either conversationally like this hearing people's stories. Sometimes we talk about real management stuff, the way to use insulin. We talk about technology and where it's going. It's been on the podcast is it's six years old. There's 330 episodes of this. So

Shirley 34:02
what's the name of the juice?

Scott Benner 34:05
Yeah, it's called the Juicebox Podcast, because you know, people use juice boxes to bring their blood sugars up. So yeah, so yeah, that's, that's what it's called. And I've had it for a long time, I started to write about diabetes in 2007. And then in 2014, I started thinking about making this into an audio show. It took me about six months to figure out all the technical stuff and then I started the show in January of 2015.

Shirley 34:34
No, if I wanted to listen to it. What do I do? Well,

Scott Benner 34:39
you could do you have an iPhone? Do you have a phone? Yeah, there's a if you have an iPhone, there's an app on the iPhone where you can listen. You can

Shirley 34:49
juice box,

Scott Benner 34:50
it's called it's called Juicebox Podcast. I will send you a link so you can see you can Valencia can help you get on it. Good. Okay, so you'll at least be able to listen to yourself. No, no, every you know, everyone thinks they're not going to be good. And then everyone ends up doing a wonderful job. It's very interesting. No one thinks they have anything interesting to say. But they always do. I have to ask you a little bit about the cost of diabetes now versus before. And I guess just the cost of things in general and how you've seen them change over your life. Do you remember things like what you paid for your house, your first home and things like that?

Shirley 35:32
Oh, I certainly do. I'd love them. gone up. Amazingly.

Unknown Speaker 35:38
Low bed, right.

Scott Benner 35:40
Yeah. What did you pay for your first home?

Shirley 35:44
My First Home or this home?

Scott Benner 35:46
Well, do you remember your very first home and when you got married? What you pay?

Shirley 35:52
Well, we weren't. We win. And then I'm talking right. But then the first house we bought was $23,000.

Scott Benner 36:00
No kidding. Isn't that something? And now, real estate in Atlanta is incredibly expensive. I do I wonder what that house is worth now?

Shirley 36:11
Oh, I probably cook way up. And the house I live in now. And I'm still in my own house. I bought in 1964. Okay, so I have been here quite a while.

Scott Benner 36:27
What did you pay for that?

Shirley 36:30
Can you hear me? I can't

Scott Benner 36:31
I'm sorry. I was wondering what you paid for the this house that you're in now?

Shirley 36:35
$50,000 50,000?

Scott Benner 36:39
Is it paid off? Oh, it's all yours, I guess.

Shirley 36:42
Oh, sure.

Scott Benner 36:44
That's thunder.

Shirley 36:45
pay that off ages ago. And I have been offered amazing amounts of money for it. But I have no intention of selling it moving. I would hate to live in one of those retirement places and be with old people. I have neighbors. I have children that have moved in. And I enjoy children. Yeah,

Scott Benner 37:16
no, I don't think there's any reason for you to go. Especially if you're able and you have good help. I listen, I think for people who have to go to a home if they have to. They have to but your situation is it's too poor.

Shirley 37:28
I love my house. Yeah. And I have very good hell.

Scott Benner 37:33
Yeah. Good for you. That's why me you've lived in that house over 50 years. Is that right?

Shirley 37:37
Oh, fifth day? Um, well, we now in 20. So 56 years. Okay. That's amazing.

Scott Benner 37:48
You bought that house? Eight years before I was born. And I've owned and I've owned this house for 20 years. So that's pretty great. It really is an exception to ever think about how kind of exceptional it is for you to be very independent at your age and doing all that it really is uncommon, isn't it?

Shirley 38:15
Well, I don't know anyone my age. All my friend's dad.

Scott Benner 38:21
What is that? Like? Is it is it hard to see people go over and over? Do you?

Shirley 38:27
Yeah, it would be nice to see your dear friend.

Scott Benner 38:32
Oh, right. No, I just wondered if it got easier over the years if you came to expect it. But I don't imagine it's

Shirley 38:39
never easy.

Scott Benner 38:41
Do you have an idea of how old you think you're going to be like, Do you ever wonder about that?

Shirley 38:47
Well tell your story with my 99th birthday. One of my sons gave a party and one of my grandson Stanley, in fact,

Bruce's youngest son

called me and said he was sorry, he couldn't be there. It was too busy. He's been made the head of the history department at our zona state. And he had so much to do and curriculum and lectures and he didn't have time. But he said you probably have some time, about 10 years. So he'll promise he'll give me my heart. He'll take care of my hundred and 10th birthday party. I don't have to worry about it. So I'll be around for Stanley to do my 10th birthday party imagine

Scott Benner 39:47
you will be by the way. I really do. That's something else. I was just thinking and I and it the your story was delightful and the thought went out of my head. Oh, what? When you think back on your life, if you were to share some thing with someone a regret or something you've learned that you think is really important to know is do you have a nugget like that like something you'd want people to know about? About living?

Shirley 40:18
I have been asked, What do I think is the greatest advance I've seen in my lifetime? Number one, I'd say dryers. I hated going outside hanging up clothes to dry. And the second thing I think, is the most important, most rewarding advance of cell phones. when my kids were teenagers. I didn't have we didn't have cell phones, right. And I used to worry about too late got at home, too. I heard that door open.

Scott Benner 41:00
And especially after they started to drive, and it's so good. Now. If you have a teenager, out in the call, you can call and let us know where they are. And when they're coming home. That's not so convenient. I have to tell you show you don't know this about me. But a while ago now. I think it's been more than seven years. I wrote a book. And the the title of the book is life is short laundry is eternal. Because I've been a stay at home dad for over 20 years. And the only thing I hate about it is doing the laundry. But I've never had to hang clothes up to dry them. I guess if I had that I'd really hate it.

Shirley 41:41
Well, if you had we got a washing machine. But then I had to take the clothes outside to drive.

Unknown Speaker 41:49
Yeah, you've said

Scott Benner 41:52
you've seen refrigerators that

Unknown Speaker 41:54
you had ice though I remember

Shirley 41:56
the ice man coming with the ice.

Scott Benner 41:58
That's something my grandmother used to talk about that about a block of ice that went in the bottom of the refrigerator to keep the food cold. And the man would come every so often with a new block of ice.

Shirley 42:10
And I can remember though, wonderful, fresh vegetables. We used to have a farmer that came with his I guess it was a horse and buggy. And he brought vegetables to us every day that he picked in the morning, and a mama would go out and pick the ones we'd have for dinner. Yeah. And we had really fresh that nothing tastes as good as it used to

Scott Benner 42:45
Eve you know even stuff you're not supposed to eat like cereal in a box. It I don't know what happened. But when they stopped using sugar it doesn't it doesn't work right anymore. Like every I that's interesting. I said this is not the same thing because you said Doritos, or you said vegetables but I said to my wife the other night. Doritos don't taste the way they did when we were kids. And I don't eat them because of that. And and it is interesting how the production of food changes the flavor, but we don't know just because it happens sort of slowly. And we don't have people like you who remembered from a different time. That's interesting. That is really interesting. You know, it told

Shirley 43:23
me that butter tasted so much better. We got butter from a farmer who churned and we never got sticks. We got a clone. And then buttermilk was just the milk left after the butter formed. It didn't taste like that sour stuff they called buttermilk today, right?

Unknown Speaker 43:48
You know, delicious. Yeah, no kidding. And

Scott Benner 43:51
fresh and just organic. There was not much to it other than the than what it was, you know, I just realized I was very close with my my grandmother growing up. And she passed away when I was 16. And she was 72 then, so I just did the math while you were talking about butter. So she'd be 104 today. And I can remember so vividly that she got a microwave when microwaves came out. But she was so scared of it. She'd only ever heat water up at it. She would never do anything else with she wouldn't cook with it. And I'm wondering did that seem very foreign to you? When those came out?

Shirley 44:25
I think I have a microwave. I use. I have used it. I think it ruins food. And more more. I would much rather use a real oven. I agree. I think it ruins the taste of food. Right?

Scott Benner 44:44
What is your favorite meal? What do you enjoy eating still?

Shirley 44:48
lamb chops.

Unknown Speaker 44:50
How do you like them made?

Shirley 44:52
Oh, I love them with

Scott Benner 44:57
the little man. Now. You've been down south for a while. I guess Huh?

Shirley 45:01
Yeah. since I was three years old,

Scott Benner 45:05
except for college and then you came back right away again. Where? Yeah. Where did you meet your first husband?

Shirley 45:12
Right here in Atlanta. He was from New York. got a job in Atlanta. And

he was great. Yeah.

Scott Benner 45:25
That's interesting.

Shirley 45:26
He was a wonderful guy. And we wrote all during the war. He was overseas. We wrote every day. I have every letter he ever wrote me in Cedar chest downstairs. I yeah. And he only came home on r&r. It's near the end of the war. And we got married. And he went back overseas again. Okay,

Scott Benner 46:00
so you almost made me cry when you said you have all the letters. Just so you know, I got all. I got all emotional when you said that. That's so wonderful. Do you ever go back and look at them? I cry. Yeah, I would too. I have to tell you.

Shirley 46:15
And they make me cry. Yeah, I can't I keep saying I'm gonna go through a mall. But I just can't.

Unknown Speaker 46:24
Do your children know that they exist? Oh, yes.

Scott Benner 46:27
Oh, that's lovely. That really is something else. You must you must have just seen so many strange things. You know, I mean, honestly,

Unknown Speaker 46:39
like technology. Remember,

Shirley 46:41
I remember the first time I heard a radio, my father brought one home. And we all sat down on the couch. And he turned it on. And lo and behold, lo Thomas came.

Remember that distinctly?

Scott Benner 47:03
You know, the only story I have like that is that my father bought a VCR home one day. And then we went to a local pharmacy that rented movies in the back. And they had like 20 different movies on those videotapes. And we felt like we were wealthy because no one had them at that point. And I don't know what made my dad do that, because we grew up so poor. I don't know what what made him spend a bunch of money on something like that. But it was it was crazy that that was that and now, you know, now you watch movies on your phone or on your computer. It's just so simple. But I was gonna say Is that you? You live through so many big leaps in technology. And now the technology that we use every day, it doesn't grow as fast anymore. It's just amazing. All the things that you've that you've seen, and I mean, even just air travel, did you do a lot of flying as a as a younger person?

Shirley 47:54
Yes, I love flying.

Scott Benner 47:57
Where are some places you've been?

Shirley 48:00
lots of places. I have my children or where my butterfly? buttercups that you blow dandelions all over. So I have one son in Oregon. I have one son in from another son in

Unknown Speaker 48:23
Ohio. Oh, my.

Scott Benner 48:26
It's hard. My wife and I talk about that a lot. We we were trying to imagine like letting the kids settle somewhere and then trying to find a central place where we can be reasonably close to them. But I know I

Shirley 48:39
went around to all mine. Yeah.

Cuz then if I go to them, I can see all the children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. Whereas if they came here, just one came. But now that's what happens. Right. And I've been to a lot of countries in Europe.

I have been to Israel.

Unknown Speaker 49:07
I'm

Shirley 49:09
done on cruises in the Caribbean.

You've been around quite a few places. Yeah.

When you feel good. Come back to it. While

right

Scott Benner 49:22
now. It's a lovely place. I've been to Atlanta a number of times, not just to speak but my son used to go there a lot to play baseball. And I would go with him. But it gets super It's so hot there in the summertime. Do you can you even go outside in the heat of the summer? How do you handle that?

Unknown Speaker 49:38
I love it, do you?

Scott Benner 49:41
You would laugh at me when I'm in Atlanta then I we were in a baseball field one day. And my son played two games. So it was the second game and I had been outside all day. And I found myself I found a telephone pole and I stood next to it. And as the sun moved, I just kept shimmying around the telephone pole trying to stay in the little shadow there. It was making I thought it was gonna fry me. I really did. But you it's it you get used to

Shirley 50:06
remember before we had air conditioning? Oh my goodness, just

Scott Benner 50:12
yeah, I guess you body really does become accustomed to it right?

Unknown Speaker 50:16
Yeah,

Scott Benner 50:17
that's amazing. Good for you. Oh, I've kept you very long. I did not mean to keep you this long. I'm so sorry. Are you okay for time?

Shirley 50:25
Oh, I'm fine. No.

Scott Benner 50:28
So then I have nowhere to go. None of us do right? I don't have anywhere to go either. I do. I am God speaking of time, maybe this won't resonate with you. But let me know if it does. as I've gotten older. In the beginning, when I was younger, the days felt like they took forever.

Shirley 50:46
And then now they will.

Scott Benner 50:48
Now they feel like they go by much more quickly. And I've lost track of the idea of a day a week seemed to go by quickly. I sometimes I watch my feet go on the floor in the morning and I just think, Wow, I'm just I'm on a hamster wheel here. It just keeps happening over and over again. Does that feeling ever go away where you're cognizant of time?

Shirley 51:08
Because time goes by faster and faster. Every day?

Scott Benner 51:15
Do you ever find yourself not worrying about it? Or is it still something you think about?

Shirley 51:21
can think about I can't worry about it?

Unknown Speaker 51:26
Yeah,

Scott Benner 51:27
I don't worry. I don't worry about it. I just I'm aware of it. I guess.

Shirley 51:32
I don't know if that means and time goes faster and faster. And it used to go real slow when you were young.

Scott Benner 51:42
Yeah. Cuz you're busy you think or because you're not aware of an end. Do you know? I can't give you the race. Yeah, I don't know either. I just I think about it a lot. And I just wondered if it was something that that maybe one day I would just be alive for so long that I'd stop. I'd stop noticing it because there's other things you know, they mean that I don't notice anymore. But yeah, I don't know. It feels like that movie Groundhog Day. You ever see that one with with Bill Murray?

Unknown Speaker 52:09
Sure.

Scott Benner 52:12
Oh my gosh. What do you when you do get out when we're not like what's the first thing you're gonna go do when you're able to get out of your house again for enjoyment?

Shirley 52:23
I guess just drive around.

Scott Benner 52:28
See everything again?

Shirley 52:30
They go see? Go see money You know I love my step grandchildren. will be great to go

Scott Benner 52:38
see them feel like you're not gonna get sick for being there and everything. Have you in Valencia gone for a ride? Have you broken out and just?

Shirley 52:45
No, no most I've done is on my birthday. I went to the end of my driveway. And they had a big parade. Led by fire orange 20 car. It was while

Unknown Speaker 53:01
that's lovely. Did you

Scott Benner 53:03
guys get some

Unknown Speaker 53:04
video of it? You have a little video?

Scott Benner 53:06
Yeah, do you? Oh, that's wonderful. That's that's a very nice memory to have. Your town got together and did that.

Shirley 53:14
My stepchildren got that

Scott Benner 53:16
all set up for you. That's very nice. It's lovely.

Shirley 53:20
And they had quite big they did it in the middle of the night. A great big fans all across my front yard. That said Happy 100th birthday, grandma Shirley.

Scott Benner 53:36
Nice. Listen, I have to say I when I was looking at your your jdrf page, the people making large donations on your behalf they that you must have a lot of good friends that know how hard you've worked on this because there are 5000 2000 there are big donations here.

Shirley 53:52
Well, don't let up. Yeah, right. Like wanting to raise money for jdrf and find a cure. Yeah.

Scott Benner 54:00
Well, I hope I hope we can i and i think i want to thank you for this talk. This was really lovely. I appreciate the time that you said.

Shirley 54:06
Thank you. Very interesting, man. Thank you. What is your name again? Scott. Scott. Yep. And you do love Juicebox

Scott Benner 54:16
Podcast? That's 100% right? Yep. Okay, I'm gonna make sure you have a link to this so that you can hear it and see it if you want to. Oh, I do. And I find and it was nice to just say interesting. I would have liked if you said handsome but

Shirley 54:33
yeah.

Scott Benner 54:35
Thank you and humble to I would say

Shirley 54:40
Well, I think you're out there, pushing your foot. A cure to for type one.

Scott Benner 54:45
I'll tell you this. Surely What I love most about the jdrf is how hard they work in Washington for people with type one diabetes, their rights. You know that stuff that they do is incredibly important. I am incredibly hopeful. About a cure. But I also know that day to day advancements that have been made in pumping and glucose monitors are all they make people's lives better today for diabetes. I

Shirley 55:11
also did mention that I work with the advocacy committee,

Scott Benner 55:17
you do you do with them as well? Have you ever been up to that big thing in Washington that they do? The Children's Congress?

Shirley 55:24
No, I never went to that.

But I have been to Washington on behalf of the jdrf.

Well, I'm always on.

Scott Benner 55:35
That's nice. So you'll probably you'll tell anybody who sits still long enough about diabetes and the need for this support. Right?

Unknown Speaker 55:43
Right. Yeah.

Scott Benner 55:44
It's very, it's, it's just very kind of you to spend your time that way. I really appreciate it. And I'm sure everybody else does, too. I'm gonna say thank you. And, and, and, and go by but this has been really genuinely a nice way to spend my Friday afternoon. Thank you very much.

Shirley 56:00
Okay. And I hope I get to talk with you again.

Scott Benner 56:03
That would be nice. We'll do it. We'll definitely do it on your hundred and 10th birthday for sure. But But know that the next time you have something to share you let me know. I would love to do this again. Take care. Thank you. Yep, have a great day. You too. Thank you. Bye bye. Huge thanks to Shirley for coming on and sharing with us 100 years of perspective and her passion for Type One Diabetes awareness. Please don't forget to support Shirley's campaign to raise money for the jdrf there are links in your show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. Thank you also to Omni pod Dexcom the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and touched by type one for sponsoring the show. You can go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box with the links in your show notes are the ones you'll find at Juicebox podcast.com. To find out more.

Shirley 57:06
w w w www to jdrf.org slash go to slash Shirley be 100


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#330 T1D Exchange

Scott Benner

David Walton (T1D 24 years) is the CEO of T1D Exchange

David (T1D 24 years) is the CEO of T1D Exchange, a population health organization focused on improving care for people living with type 1 diabetes, primarily through the creation and use of real world evidence.

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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, everyone, welcome to Episode 330 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is incredibly conversational, I don't want to break it up. So I'm going to put the ads right up front here. Today's guest is David Walton. He's the CEO of T1DExchange. And I expected to have a more technical conversation with my guests about what T one D exchange did. But instead, we ended up having a multifaceted conversation around Type One Diabetes that I enjoyed so much that by the time I got to an hour and a half, I realized I had to let him go. David and I are going to speak today about the research that T Wendy exchange is doing with the COVID-19 virus. And then we get into his diabetes, his life, his management style, concepts about how to help people with type one. I just really enjoy talking to David, I think you'll enjoy listening to him talking to me, and me enjoying talking to him. And I guess hopefully him enjoying talking to me. But that's an assumption on my part because I didn't ask him anyway. ads are up front. podcast in the back. Was that party? What is it? What was that thing he used to say about mullets, business up front party in the back. That doesn't apply to this. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and touched by type one. It's also sponsored by Omni pod and Dexcom. Everyone's got a blood glucose meter. And since you have to have one, you should probably have a great one. And you will, if you go to Contour Next one.com and find out more. The Contour Next One meter is multifaceted just like this episode. And not just because it can speak to a contour app on your phone, iPhone or Android By the way, and help you make sense of the data that's coming back from your meter. But because it's easy to use, easy to handle has a terrific test strip that will allow Second Chance testing like if you touch the blood, don't get it right, you can go back in without wasting a test trip. But the accuracy of this thing is just otherworldly. Arden has been using it for well over a year now. maybe longer, and it's absolutely the best meter she's ever had. As far as accuracy goes, and portability. I just love it. Anyway, if you go to Contour Next one.com there's a button at the top where you can find out if you're eligible to get the meter for free. And if you're not, you can still have your doctor write your script for it or pick it up at a anywhere Honestly, I guess pharmacy once people are allowed to go to pharmacies again. Anyway, this meter is worth looking into Contour Next one.com. After that, please check out touched by type one.org. The people that touched by type one are dedicated to helping those living with Type One Diabetes to excel. And they have a dance program for children actually have a dance studio, you got to go check it out touched by type one.org. If you're interested in finding out more about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, you're going to want to go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box. And to get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump sent directly to your home. My Omni pod comm forward slash juice box there are links to all the advertisers in your show notes. And they're also available at Juicebox podcast.com.

Not gonna argue with you You went to Princeton? Is that a burden, but by the way we're recording? And by the way, is that a burden?

David Walton 3:52
No, it's not a burden.

Scott Benner 3:55
But does everybody say it to you at some point?

David Walton 3:58
I definitely get it once in a while. You know, interestingly, I have a I have a twin brother and he went to a good school Gettysburg College. But every time I would go visit him there. It would just be nonstop comments from his friends about you know, why didn't he go to Princeton and you know, various jokes and things like that and but I you know, once I acted stupid and silly, he they realized I was just like, everyone took care of that. Hey,

Scott Benner 4:26
you know, you might be the first person I say this to who genuinely understands what I'm saying. My son goes to Dickinson.

David Walton 4:33
Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, I have a friend whose daughter plays basketball there.

Scott Benner 4:38
Oh, no kidding. Yeah, I am probably a 10 minute ride from Princeton University. So, you and I overlap a little bit but that's gonna be where that ends educationally. Because my son's the bright one, not me. And I think our our overlap around education will probably end right around there.

David Walton 4:56
I actually live about 25 minutes from print. In right now, I'm in Pennsylvania.

Scott Benner 5:02
Oh, no kidding. I grew up in Bucks County.

David Walton 5:05
In bucks. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I'm in New Town.

Scott Benner 5:08
Oh, okay. Oh, so let's start over. I was born in New Town. My parents moved into lower Southampton, we lived there for quite some time. My wife got a job in Manhattan soon after we got married, put us into the Princeton area just to be near the train. And we've kind of kind of stayed since then. But not right. in Princeton. If you don't mind walking over some water, you've walked over before, how old were you when you were diagnosed?

David Walton 5:39
I was older. I was 24 years old. I had, I was in business school at Penn. And notice the symptoms that ironically, I knew about because I had, in my very first job at a college, I worked in a consulting company that did work for pharmaceutical companies and the diabetes, the dcct, the diabetes control and complications trial had just findings have just been released. And everybody was talking about, oh, we need to do tighter glycemic control. And one of these pharmaceutical companies hired us to help them come up with a program. And we essentially designed like a

kind of a

patient compliance program, it was discovered a reward system for people if they did the things that were beneficial, like testing your blood sugar, and exercise and so forth that it was for type one and type two, okay, this program, but that they would get points and we developed like a point system and worked with lifescan, who had the blood glucose monitoring, they were one of the partners, we were talking to gyms, etc. So anyway, I did market research and heard from doctors talking about both type one and type two and the symptoms for newly diagnosed. And so I learned a little bit about it. And then fast forward. Two years from then, you know, I'm in, I come back for the second semester, my first year, and I'm going to the bathroom more frequently, I can't quench my thirst, I started losing some weight. And I just started dating my now wife, like a week prior. And I'm telling her that this isn't normal. This isn't how I normally AM. And ironically, she had worked for Eli Lilly as a sales rep and a managed care rep and sold insulin. So she knew a bit about it. And she didn't come out and say it sounded like it. But I asked some doctors who are also in this Healthcare Management MBA program about the symptoms. And I said, it sounds like type one, doesn't it? They said no, you're too old for type one. And you're not really a candidate for type two. So then my vision got blurry. And I went into the student center that day, and read off the symptoms to them. And they kind of looked at me and said, well, let's just test your, your blood sugar. We sure and then I was put in the hospital for a couple days. And you know, off we go. There was no family history. Although subsequently, I have a my sister son, at three years old was diagnosed with type one that more recently that that was more recently and

fortunately, my twin brother and I are adopted.

But we met our biological family when we were 18. So we were adopted at birth. Our parents were teenagers, biological parents. They ended up getting married and then had a son and daughter that our full fledged, you know biological brother and sister. And it's my biological sister whose son got developed type one. So I think we have that that genetic predisposition runs

Scott Benner 9:03
through there. You've brought a lot of things up I have to ask you about so a and this is just gonna be odd. I'm adopted. B are your biological brothers and sisters. I don't know how to say this. Maybe you're not going to answer I did. They go to great schools to

David Walton 9:21
my twin brother biological and grew up with me, Brad. So he went to Gettysburg. My both my brother and sister went to Florida State. They grew up in Tallahassee, and my sister still lives in Tallahassee. My my younger brother, ironically moved up to Boston. And so he and his wife and his two kids, they they live now out west work again to end exchanges up in Boston. So I go up to Boston almost every week for a few days. And every once in a while I get to see him because he's out in the suburbs. But there's no other family history there had there was none private My diagnosis, right? And since my diagnosis, just my my nephew again at age three. Yeah. So I joke if you add us together our ages, you're pretty close to the median age of diagnosis for type one. But I was a little bit older and he was a little on the younger side. And I know you've you've got experience with a young young child. I really do.

Scott Benner 10:24
Let me ask you one thing real quick before we move forward if you're on an Apple Computer, right?

David Walton 10:29
Yeah, I turn notifications off on Outlook, but I guess my yahoo email, don't worry,

Scott Benner 10:34
I know what to do. You're in luck, the apple in the top left corner System Preferences, System Preferences. Okay. The speaker that says sound. And then under the sound effects, tab, alert volume play sound effects through drag the alert volume all the way to the left. But leave it open. So you remember to drag it back to the right when you're done.

David Walton 10:59
You're saying on the output volume?

Scott Benner 11:02
Sound Effects? Not output. So there's sound effects out?

David Walton 11:06
Yeah, I'm on sound.

Scott Benner 11:09
No sound effects sound effects at the top. Yep. And then alert volume. There's a slider bar you run all the way. And then that one,

David Walton 11:16
I'll just keep it off. I don't need to be alerted.

Scott Benner 11:19
Like, wow, I wish I would have known that years ago.

David Walton 11:23
I thought I saw this with turning I look off that.

But I my Yahoo emails. Okay, now that email

Scott Benner 11:28
really wants you to know that you're there. While we're taking a break, I'm gonna have my daughter bolus something she's downstairs

Unknown Speaker 11:39
for school.

Scott Benner 11:42
There. Okay, cool. Well, that's interesting, has nothing to do with what you're on. But it is really incredibly interesting. And I just picture you in, you know, in business school trying to impress a new girl and you're just running to the bathroom constantly. That must have been a that must have been a big a big rock the drag up the hill, like I'm cool. I swear I am I gotta pee again. I'll be right back.

David Walton 12:02
Yeah, yeah, no, I don't normally go 20 times a day. This I'm telling you, this is an aberration, I swear. But thankfully, again, we were in a health care program. And I'm I was, you know, as casual as you could be about, you know, it happening in the diagnosis after I mean, I didn't freak out. I kind of tried to attack it rationally. But I, I was pretty fortunate that I had a little background and I was older. And you know, I was a college wrestler. So you know, I was thinking, wow, what if this had happened earlier, like it would have totally changed probably what I did or how I did it. But ironically, in the in the Penn hospital, I received a call the first day from a woman who I dated prior to dating my now wife. And she said, Hey, I just wanted to let you know, I heard about the diabetes. And if you ever want to talk to someone about it, you know, you can always call me I know what it's like to live with it. I said, What are you talking about? I've never saw you check your blood sugar or given injection, you have type one? And she said, Yeah, I'm pretty private about it. So often would go to the bathroom. And that's where she tested and, you know, right from the get go I it kind of gave me an appreciation for the fact that there's a spectrum of how people kind of deal manage their diabetes, how they think about it. I was diagnosed in a very kind of,

Unknown Speaker 13:35
let's say,

David Walton 13:37
out front manner, people people knew, like, why is Dave in the hospital here? So and I was older, and it was just a different thing versus you know, if someone's a teenager or someone's younger, you also

Scott Benner 13:49
you also did like a group thing. thing to figure out if you had it, you were talking to people and ask

David Walton 13:54
people they could and they knew about it, and there were physicians that kind of thought but maybe not and then just in general I that's often you know, I that's often the way I you know, think through things that I don't know, it's like, let me talk to other people who may know information that will be helpful.

Scott Benner 14:10
Yeah, well, that's a smart way to figure anything out. I'm now fascinated that you dated a person who had type one and you didn't know it, how long were you together?

David Walton 14:19
Less than two months? Okay, like

Unknown Speaker 14:21
totally

David Walton 14:22
as you're as you're being interrogated in the hospital and I think I was I had every resident intern med student, you know, come through because it's an academic, you know, Medical Center teaching hospital. I got asked the same question you know, any relatives this out of the other? I had several people asked me to knowledge Have you been exposed to a virus in the past six months, and I said, I don't really have a virus meter. I don't I don't know if I if I have been or not, but there was one incident with Taco Bell where I was violent. sick with a stomach virus that happened a few months ago that I guess it's, it's possible. I was just attributing it to bad a bad burrito, but perhaps that was a stomach virus. But then I said, Well, is it possible that this this woman I dated, had a virus and I caught it, I had the same reaction she did, like, Oh, that's crazy. You can't catch diabetes, right? Like, well, I'm not necessarily saying I can catch diabetes, I'm saying, could I catch a virus and we both had a reaction to a virus that was, you know, this autoimmune thing. And they, they kind of treated me like I was the dumbest idea they'd ever heard. And granted, it could have had nothing to do with it. But there weren't a lot of other great theories they were proposing. So I just figured I'd throw that out. I want

Scott Benner 15:45
to tell them I went to Princeton. So David, you're it's only April. But if we give an award this year, for the most organic and natural segue, you're going to win. Just so you know. What? Okay, yeah. Why don't we tell people a little bit about what the T one D exchange is doing? By the way? I don't know. Did we even say that you're the CEO of T one, the exchange, it's not important. It'll be in the title. Anyway, you are? And what are you guys doing right now? based around COVID-19? Sure.

David Walton 16:18
So first of all, it is a very, very high level, we do a lot of kind of what we call real world evidence, doing research and gathering data from things like electronic medical records, for people with type one diabetes. And the goal is to help improve care to work collaboratively with hcps, and researchers on that. So we have diabetes centers across the country that participate. Yeah, through that effort, this quality improvement collaborative we have with different centers, this topic came up regarding COVID, from some of the researchers to our team, that, you know, there's just not a lot known out there, you know, people are, you know, the early information that was coming in, you know, a couple months ago, was, oh, diabetes as a risk factor people, people with diabetes are getting COVID-19. And, as, you know, some of these researchers were looking into what data was really available about type one versus just type two, or overall, just having a diabetes diagnosis, there really wasn't much known. And a couple of things came from China and Italy that we saw that suggested it type one was not a risk factor in and of itself. But that later, we, you know, it seems some indications that poor blood sugar management are probably more indicative of or have more of a causal role in getting infected or having a severe reaction to the infection. So we said, well, we are set up to gather information from different centers on, we're not going to be able to do this automatic kind of poll of data from the electronic medical records of different hospitals. What if we set up a different system to gather data on this from like a survey Type Tool and have a point person at each one of these centers? Just document the cases of COVID that have come in? and answered about we have about 30 questions in the survey, that will give us some idea about the symptoms they had about what their blood sugar control had been previously. What type were they using an insulin pump or CGM? If they were using a BGM? How often were they testing? what medications were they on? and gathering this information? We, you know, had a few goals of trying to characterize does it appear people are being diagnosed in any different rate than either people with type two diabetes or just in the general population? If they are when they are being diagnosed? What is it? How is it presenting? Is there any pattern to the symptoms? And how is it progressing our people? What type of outcomes are they having? It is our are there more instances of DK for these, these people. And so the goal was let's get as many centers as possible. We started with the ones that we work with, which was a about 15. But quickly, other centers were interested and we were started talking to people at other diabetes centers and we saw what was going through on Ada websites and newsletters and things. So we've gotten it up now to about 65 centers. Wow. And and the goal is to get up to 150 to 200 cases documented so that we'll have some ability to draw some insights and conclusions that we can disseminate out spread to the to the medical community and to the patient community, about you know, understanding it better Who knows what some of it is going to be? Interesting, what do we find, and then others we might try to, you know, confirm some of the thinking that we do have, which is that just having a type one diagnosis is not, does not put you at higher risk for getting a covid infection,

Scott Benner 20:19
have to tell you, I'm thrilled to hear that because a friend of mine, who is a physician, by the way, went to Penn, really you and I might be friends, we don't know it. And he's been on a couple of times, through the first six weeks of you know, Cronin, we talked very much at the beginning. And then about three weeks later, and he'll come back on again, as things continue to morph and change. But that really was the consensus, you know, that the best defense for a type one against you know, COVID-19 is being healthy, as healthy as you can be. And in all the ways that that means. And that, you know, he couldn't, you know, early on, figure out how someone with Type One Diabetes, just just by virtue of having Type One Diabetes would be more susceptible to it. Anyway, so since you said that it makes me feel comfortable that about what we talked about?

David Walton 21:13
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there are some, you know, some other I've heard Dr. Peters talk, and Dr. Mark Clements, who's at a children's hospital in Kansas City and involved with us. And they've essentially said, that's what the research at this point indicates. Right. And again, it is possible that as you get more information, maybe we will learn something about a certain segment or slice. Sure, you know, we're gathering some other information that could characterize this, but from all the, you know, what we've seen so far, and we're still early, we haven't, you know, analyzed all that, you know, we have about 60 cases documented in the system, by clinicians, but we haven't analyzed all that yet. We just started to do the first 25. And there's a manuscript being written as we speak, because, again, some of its doing the work and some of its getting it out there, yes, and helping to disseminate it and provide it so that other people that are looking for it, you know, have access to that knowledge. And a lot of I've had a lot of parents that I'm in touch with just in the community where I live, who know that I work in the arena. I've reached out to some proactively and a couple of others had, I had some inbound questions, you're wondering, you know what the situation is. And that's basically what I've, I've told them, it's like, we'll learn more. But at this point, we don't believe there's a high risk, but the best, the best thing to do is to keep your blood sugar. And it's tightly controlled as possible, because we know infections, like sugar, right? And if you keep your blood sugar controlled, and to the lower side, it likely will will help about a medical provider. So no, but

Scott Benner 22:56
I have some questions that I don't know if you can tell me from what you've learned so far, maybe you haven't. But first thing is about 60 people from about that many locations was where their hot zones are, was it fairly well spread across the 60?

David Walton 23:11
Yeah, so you know, there's a bit of when you look at the the data coming in, we still have some places with a lot of cases in New York as an example that haven't pulled there. They joined later to the effort. So they're just going through their administrative process, that they're that they're center before they submit the cases, but that should be coming within a week or two. Within two weeks, we should have 100 cases, I believe. We know that there's one one hospital in New York, you know, said that they have about 15 cases. Mount Sinai. Mm hmm. But we haven't seen that yet. That was very got that that. But but they're looking to to put that in, but someone had done someone had quickly looked to see through their systems. And so they haven't entered that in but they told us that they think they have 15 cases. Another another one? I believe NYU said they may have eight cases, or there's some

Scott Benner 24:08
hospitals that are on your list that have not reported back at type on case.

David Walton 24:14
Yes, there are some that said we went through and we had no cases. Gotcha. So yeah, so that's what we need to get more of the information. We can draw conclusions about prevalence from what the numbers that we have, but it is interesting we've seen and our centers may have 1000 type one people in that come to their center routinely. So some of them are decent size, we even have some that are bigger than that, that are 2000 or one that's 5000. So we expect to see some cases just if you think about general population and whatnot, you know, one in 200 people has type one diabetes in the us so

Scott Benner 24:55
well, you know what I find doing the podcast and maybe you know a lot of people with type one as well. I see, there's two, you know, listen, everything's not black and white, but you meet people with diabetes who are either very just micro about it, they're very on top of it, they're a onesies are in the fives. If they get into the sixes, they're, you know, they feel like they've done something extraordinarily wrong, which of course, it's a little silly, but that's what they're that's what they're thinking. They're always well within control. And then you'll see other people who, you know, just having this conversation with someone last night, who asked me, could you interview more people who don't have technology, but who are doing well? And I said, Well, that's, you know, subjective, like what is? Well, first of all, and so the person said, you know, I'm looking for somebody, you know, like you who, you know, whose daughter has a one C and the fives very consistently, I wanted to hear from someone who doesn't have a CGM, you know, doesn't have a pump and is doing that too. And I said, Well, I, you know, I can try to find someone like that. I said, but you'll never know if they're achieving that a one see through protracted lows, you know, they don't have that data. And also, when I've interviewed a lot of people who don't have, you know, any kind of technology that's moment to moment, and I asked, How are you doing, they always say, Oh, I'm doing great. But then they'll very frequently Tell me about an agency that's in the high sevens or in the low eights. And then I realized that their threshold for what great means, you know, is subjective. And for them, I don't pass out during the day and I'm not dead. My doctor says I'm okay. So I'm great. And and it's, you know, there's, there's an interesting swing between, you know, how people manage, and I'm not saying one's better than the other. I'm saying that all those people exist, and then they end up in the hospital. It's funny, because I think that people who are in tighter control lose some of their control in the hospital. And I think people who are in looser control probably gain better control in the hospital. And I'm wondering if there's, if that's being tracked, as you said, we know what were your blood sugar's like prior to being in the hospital? And gap? Do you know what I'm getting at?

David Walton 27:03
Yeah, now a couple of interesting points that you brought up that I could maybe expand on, please. Because here we are, we are collecting the most recent a one see the date and what that was prior to them coming in. So that will give us an indication of where their blood sugar has been, and what their control has been. So that that is part of what we endeavor to look at. You know, we'll get something around that if that, that that role that you mentioned, you know, in terms of the technology, it's, it's funny, I, you know, I came along this, this trajectory, like anyone else, I mean, I feel like I was in a healthcare MBA program. I was very educated.

And I had very good insurance.

I worked at j&j for 11 years. And yet, in my early part of j&j in the early 2000s, my blood sugar control was not that good. And I was only testing with a blood glucose meter, one and a half times a day. I would test every morning, and then either at lunch or dinner, and it was almost, yeah, I've never had an endo say anything different. My Awan sees would go between mid sevens to low eights. But I never broke seven. And, you know, I had moved in a new job, new house, kid, you know, you're busy with life, I was just doing injections and using a blood glucose meter. You know, I decided I'd learned a little more. And I'm like, I really should be doing a little better. My Yo, my endo might say you should test more. But they never said my ANC was a problem was a problem or that I could be doing better. Yeah. It kind of suggested if you tested more, it'll be easier to to stay in tighter control, which is absolutely true. All the data shows that but i was i was a little lackadaisical about it, then that I you know, I decided I want to go on a pump and see because I had a friend who was on a pump. And, and her ex husband worked for a pump company. So I got on the pump. And I saw a little bit of improvement. still didn't break seven on day one. See. Then I joined an insulin pump company in 2006. Right. I was at j&j, they acquired animals. So I went over, and I had to, I was leading strategic marketing, which was looking at new products and what was going on with competitors and all the emerging technology and clinical data. It was a great, very interesting job. And I I, to orient myself, I read through some presentations on advanced pumping by john Walsh on San Diego. And it was a great PowerPoint that went through all the ins and outs of using it and but through that I realized, wait a minute, they have these formulas for how you dose insulin based on your weight and your total daily dose and these rules of 1800 and 500 You divide your total daily dose into those numbers to get your correction factor and your carb, insulin to carb. And I realized mine were seemed really out of whack. I was taking one unit of insulin for 25 milligrams per deciliter to correct and I was taking one unit of insulin for 15 grams of carbs. That's what the educators put me on when I was diagnosed. Nobody ever looked at that no one ever suggested that might not be optimal. What have you, yeah, I start reading this presentation and realize that those numbers don't seem to fit with the way Big Data Analysis would ever suggest, or these formulas and clinical studies that were out there with suggest would be in a kind of a stable adult kind of ratio of those factors. So I just changed them on the fly. I looked at my total daily dose, which is like 53 units of insulin that was in my pump. And I divided it in I just instantly changed my my correction factor to one to 35, I think and my insulin, the carb to one to 10. And next day, when c 6.8. First time I cracked said, Yeah, so I didn't need necessarily the pump to deliver the insulin, but the pump tracked my total daily dose for me accurately. And all I had to do was go through the little cap the history in the pump, and I was able to calculate it. Yeah. And that little formula that had been derived from some people, I think, down in Atlanta, and but it was all over the education and diabetes sources. So for 10 years, I was on the wrong dosing. And it's easier to find issues like that if you're using technology and you're collecting data and then even have have, you know, analytics run without you having to do it, like download reporting now and tools that are out there will do this automatically. But I had a you know, I saw great endos one worked at Stanford, one worked at Novo Nordisk that they didn't. I had no hypose to speak of. So they weren't really acutely concerned about anything, and they wouldn't see a 7.6 for someone with no lows and seems to be doing okay, he's busy. That wasn't, you know, they've got other more problematic situations to deal with. But yeah, that wasn't hitting the target. And I had every other thing at my disposal, great insurance, j&j covered all of our supplies for diabetes. So I, I had no excuse. Once I got in better control. I'm like, Wow, it was positive, that positive reinforcement of, well, now I'm taking the right amount of insulin. And, you know, and I was frustrated, it wasn't brought up sooner. But I was pleased that I finally figured out one of the things that was frustrating me, yeah,

Scott Benner 32:35
no, I'm glad. I'm glad you had that feeling. And you didn't just you weren't angry about it. Because I've I've met people who are so angry after they find out that it's hard for them to get past. You know, I've lived my whole life like this, you know. And I heard, I heard a podcast and my agency went from, you know, 8.9 to 6.9. In three months, how could nobody have told me that? It's sometimes it's hard to get past? Yeah,

David Walton 32:59
no, absolutely. And I also benefited from being around a lot of people with type one, I picked up some tips that after that, so then it was like sustaining that my agencies just got a little bit better. And then we're consistently at those, you know, positive levels. And because of that, that education, and then the technology, and then certainly CGM coming out. And I think I first tried it 2007. And it didn't work very well. It was the first gen of Dexcom. But then 2008 when I tried the next one, this the seven Yep. And that that worked better still had some issues. But you know, wow, the insight of seeing how you spike after breakfast, and you know, all the all the various things that come with CGM. One last point on what you just talked about the hospital though, cuz I think that's a very interesting point that it should be pointed out from some of the data that's coming out. And there was a study done by glide tech on just anybody with diabetes, or any high blood sugar they saw in the hospital, a pure hospital study, that it's clear if you manage blood sugar, and if the healthcare team manages blood sugar, more tightly in the hospital, people do better. In a lot of scenarios, after surgery, getting out sooner, and if they're dying, they have diabetes, and and, you know, they were in for some other condition. If you keep their blood sugar and control, they have better outcomes with that other scenario. That's not what's happening right now. Because of COVID. There are healthcare teams that understandably, are trying to minimize contact with patient and blood sampling and they're busy and, you know, being tapped, you know, the bandwidth is being challenged. Yeah. And what that this One study showed is that, you know, David Kahn off was the author that that People aren't doing as well, there, there are a lot of people. And again, this was a lot of type two diabetes. But you know, we're certainly interested in the type one angle, and we are going to be looking at that potentially with with them. And this is data that comes in from all these 300 hospitals that that they work with. And it's, it's fair to say that there are people that get frustrated when they go to the hospital, if they've been managing their diabetes, well type one. And then they're told they can't use their pump, you know, they can't be doing it themselves. And I know the number of hot there are hospitals that will defer to the patient preference, if they've been self managing all this time. And if what they're in for the hospital for is such that they can be lucid and clear their decision making, then let them keep doing it because they have been doing a great job of 24. Seven outside. So why are we going to change that because we're a healthcare team that doesn't know their body as well as they do and so forth. But that's a, you know, if you can see, it's a challenging problem to know, what's that threshold for a hospital say, No, we've got protocols for our quality, and we don't want to get sued. If something happens, we have to follow certain rules. And, you know, there's it, I can understand both sides of that equation. But clearly, I know people that have gone in to the hospital and said, I'm keeping my pump, you're gonna have to rip it off me, I do a good job with this. I don't want this being mismanaged. And I your point. Some people might be a little over the top with that, but you understand where they're coming from, because you know, they're a little anxious about what's going on. And they know they can do it. But if they pass out, or if they're given, you know, medications that change their thinking that, you know, you've you've got concerns there on the other side. So

Scott Benner 36:50
yeah, we we do a, we do a series inside the podcast called diabetes pro tip. And I do it with Jenny Smith, who works at integrated diabetes. She says, Oh, yeah, she has a CD, she's had type one for over 30 years. And there's, I don't even know, at this point, there's probably like, 20 episodes of it. But we very recently went over emergency room protocols, and how to handle yourself during an illness and injury or surgery. Because it's just so it just it, it's not something that would occur to you, you get into a hospital in a position of thinking, well, these people know better than I do. And you just kind of hand yourself over to it. And it's very infrequently with diabetes, the case, you're often you know, the best arbiter of what's going on. And so I think that's, I think that's incredibly important. Also, I want you to know that when you reached for the word lucid, and I did it exactly the same time, it made me feel like I should have tried harder in school.

David Walton 37:48
One thing my mom, who I grew up with, right, as I mentioned, I was adopted, she was a voracious reader, and a stickler for grammar and vocabulary, right. And just because she read so much the words that she would use around the house, some of it I just picked up, because I didn't like to read that much. Certainly, I, like twin brother, and I played sports constantly, in a way with typical boys. And sitting down and reading was sometimes you know, like, just couldn't be done. But I read in school, certainly, and all that, but she's responsible in part for sometimes I would, you know, use use the dsat words, and then I did some sap tutoring after college, on the side, right, make much more money. And I had to learn extra vocabulary so that I could make sure I knew what I was talking about when I tutored some of these kids when vocabulary was a bigger deal on the LSAT. So yeah, it's it's purely there. The circumstances that exist sometimes explain, you know, explain things more than any other, you know, innate as my grasp of vocabulary is probably the same as anyone else.

Scott Benner 38:59
I got my vocabulary from Howard Stern. So

David Walton 39:01
I got into the radio interviewing

Scott Benner 39:06
podcast, there are times when I think I'm probably only halfway good at this, because of how much of that show I've listened to. There's just a, I have a timer in my head. And when my timer gets bored, I just, I move it along. And I think that's a helpful thing. Okay, so interesting. I want to kind of just hit one thing, and then I want to ask some more questions. But, you know, I don't know that people think about it, because you get diagnosed, and then you're sort of frozen in that time period, right? That happened to you, you were diagnosed, this was the level of care and then that just became what was and as the world moves forward around you, your care doesn't always move forward with you. And that makes sense. If you're with the same doctor for too long or you're not around other people with type one and you don't say to yourself, like how come that guy gives himself insulin before we go to the cafeteria and I'm doing it after I eat, you know, like, like those small idea. And we also all sort of sit back, traditionally, and we wait for the a DA to tell us what our agency should be. Right? That happens historically, over time. The a DA says, this is your goal. And then technology gets a little better than the a DA says, you know, we've done some research. And the problem is, is the research started 10 years ago. And now they're rolling up in 2020. And telling you, here's what you're able to see should be. But you know, I did some research to it was called, I took care of my daughter and figured out how to use insulin, it turns out, you can keep your Ebensee lower, if you have a handful of, you know, tricks in the bag that you can, that you can use for the lack of a better term. I call them tools on the podcast, usually, but they're just simple ideas around using insulin to keep your blood sugar in a more stable and lower place. And so I understand completely the need for the diligence, you know, looking at that over time to come to a conclusion and tell somebody something, don't get me wrong. I'm not, you know, I shouldn't be listened to like the a DA should be their, their their information is vetted. But that vetting process takes time where my vetting process is faster, right. It's it's Yes, anecdotal at first, but then eventually, it's experiential, and then it then it's provable. And I'm a firm believer that I think it's nice when people in the diabetes community say things like, you know, your diabetes may vary. And, you know, your, your experiences with diabetes may vary. I don't argue with that. But the way insulin works, that doesn't really vary. That's pretty scientific, you know. And so the way you use it, or what you eat, or your activity level, or all number of other variables, variables could be different. But at its core, and I say it constantly, I don't think I'll ever stop saying it. type one. diabetes management is about using the right amount of insulin at the right time.

David Walton 41:49
Absolutely. Like I couldn't I couldn't agree more. I the, and again, I worked at an insulin delivery company, animus I mean, what was the point of wearing this, this pump 24. Seven, it's to give the insulin in a better way. Because if you give insulin and and the optimal fashion, you will have great results. It's just very hard to do. But if you pick up all of these, all of these little tips that you're in scenarios about the you know, the first thing people discovered was CGM. I heard Dr. Bruce Buckingham mentioned this, it's Stanford a lot was

Oh, if you

once you put CGM on someone, the first thing they realize is how much that oatmeal causes them to spike. And they don't, their blood sugar's high for three hours afterwards. So people start switching the bacon and eggs, you know, like the carbs in the morning when you're insulin resistant. That that that hyperglycemia contributes, you know, a decent amount to people's kind of above target glucose throughout the day. That dosing formulas that I mentioned, I mean, those Yeah, not everybody is going to fall, right, exactly the formula, it just so happens, I do. I'm like, literally, it worked out. Right on those that it just it fits and my weight, you know, the amount of insulin I use a day is almost exactly half of my weight in kilograms, which is what one and Joe had mentioned to me that that's a good rule of thumb. And it turns out, I get pretty good control, you know, in the sixes, mid sixes to high sixes, depending. And now with control IQ that I use, it's, you know, I'm more in the mids. And I'm not having to, you know, I love that, and we can talk about that later. But, but that aspect of the of the dosing. I fall Exactly. on that. And so I know there are people that have that don't fall right on that, you know, and that average comes from, you know, distribution, a number of people, but when you're way off of that average for no good reason. Or you're doing a number of things like it certainly should give someone pause to think maybe there are some things that aren't tailored to me that maybe I do need more Now, a lot of people don't take enough bazel insulin and so they're putting a lot of insulin to correct for these excursions they have these highs that because, you know, if you're if you're not taking a bazel it's like you've already kind of lost the battle so hard to recover, to, you know, given how long it takes insulin to work. So,

Scott Benner 44:24
David, you would like this podcast?

David Walton 44:26
Yeah, I definitely agree. But one thing I do want to say about who can who's able to figure that out on their own? You know, there is this, it's no

Unknown Speaker 44:34
one

Scott Benner 44:34
it's because the life man because you're busy living here's how I was able to figure it out, right? I don't have type one. It's for my daughter. And because it's for her I feel an incredible responsibility. Right. And I was and continue to be to some degree, a stay at home dad while she was diagnosed, so I had nothing to do but stare at her and and figure it out and and and go through the the Real defeating moments and realize, like, I can't let this be her life, like, I have to figure this out. Like, it must be doable. Some people are doing it, but nobody could explain it. You know, on a side, I got a note yesterday from someone that said, hey, there's someone with an Instagram account ripping off your ideas for the podcast, but trying to put it in their own words. And it's, it's funny. And so I went and looked, and sure enough, there, it's ripped right out of the podcast, and that's fine, you know, whatever. But my point is, is that they said it in their words, and it doesn't work that way. And so there's something about my specific experience and who I am and how I communicate with people. I'm telling you, those those pro tips, it, you know, the other day, I put a website up for, because people were asking, so I made diabetes, pro tip calm, just so people wouldn't have to, you know, go through the entire podcast podcasts if they were just looking for management, because it's interesting. Some people are very interested in community. And some people are very interested in management, the community, you know, just regular interviews with people with type one, and not even like hooked in people, like, people you don't know, they don't have a podcast, they're not online. They're just people with type one, I try really hard to keep those interviews to people like that, right? Those are the most popular podcast episodes. But the people who care about management are fervent about the management. It's It's interesting how some people want the community and some people want the management. But anyway, I put up this thing just yesterday, I said, hey, I've got this diabetes, pro tip calm now. Here's the link, if you could help me in the comments below, just if the podcast has been valuable to you, could you share here, and you know, so people who are coming on new kid could you know, figure out what to expect. And I didn't even believe some of this, this, there's I'm just looking now, my four year olds, a one C is down from 97259. From the diabetes protests, my husband's is down to five, six. And it just it goes on and on. It's it's fascinating. And so I'm proud that I found a way to talk to people about it, because once I could do it, I thought, well, now how do I replicate it for everyone? You know, like, how do I make it as mass market appeal as possible, the idea of, you know, how we manage, and I just broke it down and kept breaking it down and distilling it until it's just the simplest ideas. So that while you're busy living your life, and you know, you're worried about getting COVID-19 and whether or not you can afford your groceries and how you're going to do it your job. And you know, all the other things that people worry about when they start noticing a trend up in their blood sugar that they don't have to go back to a book or go to a doctor's visit, like what what one sentence, can you kind of say to yourself, that'll bring it back for you. And I tried to do that with all the tools. And I think I have. And and, and it's interesting when I used to wonder out loud, like, why can't doctors do that. But now I realized that my whole life's been about communicating with people. That's not what a doctor's life is about. Like, they know the idea, and some of them are terrific at it, don't get me wrong, but a lot of them aren't. And, you know, like, you know, or a lot of them are just like, oh, David's fine, he doesn't pass out. Because they once he's not too high. There's bigger problems here in the practice. So

David Walton 48:26
I'll go I think on the adult side, you know, you find this more, I mean, think about, you know, an adult endocrinologist. How many people with type two is he seeing and, you know, in general, people with type two diabetes are not as engaged and don't spend as much of their mindshare on their diabetes as those with type one do right. Now, it's obvious with kids, I mean, usually people don't have another condition. If they do, it might be asthma, or it might be something else. But diabetes, and with their parents also there, the amount of collective, you know, mindshare, that's focused on that and the importance of that and so forth. Different so you can imagine these endocrinologist who are just beating their head against the wall because they've got type two diabetes patients with multiple chronic diseases, they're not taking their insulin for getting to take their insulin, they're not taking enough insulin, their numbers aren't getting any better. And then if they're worried about a low because of it, I, my endocrinologist mentioned this to me that, you know, when he's had low blood sugars, and some of his older patients, it's when he has their adult child, ensure that they take their insulin every night. And then they get a low because he's been adjusting their insulin up based on the based on that hazard way they use it the way they use it. And so that's part of their skittishness or like, because they don't want to, you know, do no harm they're afraid to, yeah, give them something where an older person who's not used to hypo, that's the thing that happens with tattoos. That they have many more cardiovascular issues. Heart attacks occur when they're not accustomed to having a low blood sugar, and they end up having it at, you know, when they're 65 to 75 years old, it can be, that can be very dangerous. So having spent some time also in the type two space and looking at smart insulin pen caps to try and track that data, so we could try to attack that problem. It's a huge problem. And it's, it's overwhelming, and certainly for primary care, that's taking care of those. Yeah. You know, it certainly can be that well, the percentages,

Scott Benner 50:32
I see them here, because there's, there is no more popular type one podcast than this one. And I know how many people listen to it, versus how many people have type one diabetes. And the percentage of people who, you know, are looking for this kind of information is still small compared to how many people have diabetes, there's, there's far more people who fall through cracks, for you know, the reasons you mentioned, and many, many more than then who are going to have the wherewithal and the and the drive to figure the rest of it out?

David Walton 51:04
Yeah. Well, you know, interestingly, throughout, you know, I've worked in health care for 25 years. And before I was in the diabetes field, you know, I was a consultant, working with health plans, and with pharmaceutical companies. And I remember looking at a segmentation, consumer segmentation, and what are the different kinds of types of behaviors and a couple of these different analyses show that there's like this 15 to 20% of the population, that are the proactive segment, they're the ones that are going to go research, they're going to go take control of things. And if you ask them, How do you approach care? Do you? Do you research it and then go ask your doctor? Or do you wait for your doctor to tell you because they're the trusted health care professional, or somewhere in between. And when you look at that, it's, you know, 20%, maybe 25, depending, are in that proactive kind of thing. And I saw it in oncology, they saw another company had done this, and the people who are the passengers and people who are the drivers, and then people that are, you know, something else. And that unfortunately, like a lot of the digital health tools, and a lot of things they get built, get built for the proactive segment. But we only address that only that kind of population takes full advantage, it's very hard to get to some of the other people, or you have to do more to, to, you know, bring them along that journey to educate them, you know, etc. And this, this is one of the the challenges in healthcare across a number of different conditions. But Type One Diabetes is certainly in that, you know, in that same in that same vein, yeah, that there, you know, you can go online and look at influencers and so forth, and you see certain profile of people, and they're, they're the ones that are have this, they want to share with what they know, because they've seen it work. And they're like, why aren't more people doing this, right. But there are a lot of other people just living their life who don't aren't connected to people, they don't know about things. So awareness is some of these things. You know, it's tough, like I've been at dinner tables at a restaurant. And I'm adjusting my pomp and telling someone where my friends about it, like they're asking what I'm doing. And the table next to me, a woman leans over and says, I'm sorry to butt in, but my boyfriend has type one, and he just doesn't want to listen to me. Could you talk, literally

Scott Benner 53:29
asking me to tell him why you should test more and all this. So I, I understand that and I, I try to massage the situation. I mean, this guy does not want to be told by a stranger what to do in a public place. That's not the way to handle it, but she cares about them. And she and she's frustrated, she can't make an impact and, but people are all over the place. And that's because I did a lot of market research at atomists and surveyed thousands and thousands of people at a time and, um, you know, it's, it gave me a real appreciation for that spectrum, just like when I was diagnosed. And I mentioned, you know, the previous ex ex girlfriend who took a different approach to her Type One Diabetes than I did once I was diagnosed. And that's perfectly fine, that people are different. And you know, the way people these different personality types and so forth. It transcends the Type One Diabetes diagnosis, it's not naturally going to change someone. So understanding that people are different and that different approaches are needed to get people into the education circle. For me, I realized that everyone's life is gonna take a different trajectory, and their level of you know, how much they want to put into their health on many different fronts is is personal. And I'm okay with people making those decisions for themselves, as long as they know what their decisions are, are going to bring, like, as long as they understand, it's okay with me. I don't know if that makes sense or not. But if you want to get your car and drive it into a wall as long as you understand the car is going to you know crushing the law and you're gonna die right on you, you've got free will, you can do whatever you want. You know, and so I just want them to know how insulin works. I think once you understand how insulin works, then the rest of the things that, you know, quote unquote, are happening to you, you can start to see causality for and then you can make your own decision, like, do I want to Pre-Bolus? You know, I think Pre-Bolus thing knocks a point off of a one say,

David Walton 55:24
yeah, it's absolutely. And again, I mentioned that Buckingham comment he made in 2007, at an at a conference, it just struck me, you know, at the time, and if, if you were to think about and we actually came up with a list of these for insulin pumping, when I was at atomists, I remember, you know, this concept of so many people say if they just could share what they know, or they wish they knew this earlier, right. So the idea is, let's get more people to understand these things. And so, the basics of Pre-Bolus, the basics of how much it should be roughly for the carbs are to correct based off your weight. And based off, you know, trial and error sometimes helps you but you have to get that right. If you're if you're you know, and I was I was, again, I was taking too little insulin for what I ate, and then I was taking too much to correct it, I had this little yo yo thing going on. But you know, given that it takes insulin a while to work. And I don't know, four hours is probably an average duration. We know some people go five or six, and some might be within three, three and a half. But that's about as fast as the rapid acting's go. Now you have ultra rap backing, I guess that can be a little faster. A frenzy, you know, inhaled insulin, that could be certainly faster to bring down high spikes, but that gets, you know, that's a that's like the Masters level, like the introductory level, you're talking about. Having just, hey, if you if you did a handful of things, like the Pre-Bolus, that right amount, to avoid Lowe's, you know, you did what's necessary, whether that's if you have a pump, you can do something if you don't, you're on injections, you do something else by eating right. But the timing of your when you take your long acting insulin, and there certainly are better ones now than there used to be. So if they're more forgiving, but they used to be that you needed to get that right, you know, you couldn't miss the time window too much. So that would be a problem. So you go through, it's not a list of 50 things. No, right? Here it

Scott Benner 57:25
is, your Basal has to be right, that's First, if your Basal is wrong, nothing else works. And the things you're seeing are ghosts, because they're not real. And you don't you don't know if that low what that's from, you know, when I do a talk in person. And I explained to people that if they're bazel should be, you know, two units an hour, but it's a unit an hour, then they're a unit deficient every hour, then all of a sudden they come along, see a meal. And I said I always say like, let's say that God himself has come down or herself has come down and told you that this is absolutely 60 carbs, and that your carb ratio is 100%. Right, you can definitely trust that you count the carbs, you put the insulin in your blood sugar shoots up. That's because most of your bolus is really just making up for the job that the bazel was supposed to be doing. When you say something like that to people the look of all on their face is is fascinating. Like, why would no one tell me that? And it's because no one knows how to tell you how to adjust your basal insulin. And so I figured, you know, I figured out a way to talk about that. I was like, look I talked about based on some like volume, I'm like, you turn it up until it's as loud as you as you can stand it. And then if that makes you a little too low, then just turn it down a little bit. If you had a pump David, and your anybody and your basal insulin was wrong, I could spend a half a day with you and fix your basal insulin. Yeah, it's not hard.

David Walton 58:48
I, I absolutely believe that. And we, again, design these download reports for clinicians to download the pumps, and then with CGM data as well. I mean, that's often You're the ones who are really good and used to doing data interpretation to help patients out. That's the first thing. The first thing they look for is, are they having a bunch of they're having lows. If they're not having the lows, then it's let's, let's go. And even if you're having lunch, it could be the bezels wrong. But usually people are under bazel. That's fine. So that's your point. It's the number one thing from a percentage of the time it's wrong. Like that's where you go first. You have to get that right. Because then, like you said, Why worry about your attempts at trying to fix your bolusing and all that the timing and the amount are futile, because you're you've got the wrong background that you can't operate. And so I I totally agree.

Scott Benner 59:41
I practice, not on purpose, but I practice for this podcast by talking to people privately. So try to imagine never meeting someone before having a phone call with them that lasts less than an hour and figuring out their issue and pointing them in the right direction. Not being able to see anything except for what they're telling you. So you have to learn how to ask the right questions. And then you have to learn how like what the path is for them, like, where do they start? And eventually, during that conversation, they'll feel a little emboldened and say, okay, so around my meal, and I always say, No, your meal is all wrong. It's not even work. I know, it's frustrating, but everything you've been staring at trying to figure out around your meal. It's all meaningless data. It's not real, because your bazel so far off, and I said, so you're gonna have to forget everything you've seen before and start over again. It's just, you know, I don't know, man, is it frustrating and not uplifting?

David Walton 1:00:36
What you just mentioned it brings up to two thoughts first, I you know, I just was talking to some people at at t Wendy exchange about this, you know, we have new people come in, I've started giving a diabetes one on one presentation that kind of updated an older one we had and put additional content in there for my experiences in industry and so forth. And

you know, it's it's interesting

Unknown Speaker 1:01:03
that

David Walton 1:01:05
Oh, God, I just lost my train of thought, because someone's banging outside my door. You don't hear the banging. I don't hear the banging. You need to

Scott Benner 1:01:11
get out of the building. First.

David Walton 1:01:13
decks getting prepared. Oh, okay.

Scott Benner 1:01:16
You said you redid the diabetes 101 that you guys had?

David Walton 1:01:20
Yeah. So so we we give that education everybody about? Yeah. So they have some some, you know, baseline understanding about, you know, what's taking place and one of the things we were talking about, and I mentioned was, you know, people counting carbs incorrectly. And Bolus Bolus calculations. So it turns out there are lots of studies that show that people consistently under dose their bolus insulin Yeah. And and the thought and Howard Wolpert when he was a Joslin did a nice study with a 30 gram apple and showed, most people guessed it was 10, or 20, or 15. And that correlated with having a higher agency, and the people that saw it 30 or 35, or 40, which were fewer, their agency was better. And so the idea was, if you're better at carb count, you're more accurate at carb counting, you're going to have a bit it correlated with a better agency, is it? Is it causal? Or is it Who knows? But certainly, it makes logical sense that if you're better at that, but the reason people are consistently under is because they have a fear of hypoglycemia. So are they really? Do they really think it's only 10? Or 20? Or are they nervous about giving too much insulin and getting a low blood sugar. And so we did some research with with a, an insulin maker, about this fear of hypo issue to try to understand some of the aspects of it, and the severity and so forth. And we were going to be doing a broader survey, and there's some things that we're going to be teasing out, but it does, you know, brings up that interesting point about you know, there are there are reasons, sometimes you can think the answer is we just got to hammer people with carb counting, let's give them apps, let's give them flashcards, let's, let's get a picture of the the food they eat and send it to a reference database and tell them what it is, you know, I've seen a couple of these apps that you can scan the photo and or scan the food plate, and it will give a reasonable estimate of the carbs. But it turns out, people may actually have some intuition about what the number is, but they're downvote out adjusting because they're nervous. And so that's the first point. Yep, the second would be the potential and promise of Finally, good closed loop systems, or hybrid closed loop systems in the market. And, and, you know, I'm, I'm a little biased, because I used the tandem with the control IQ. But, you know, this promise that we've been hearing about for at least 15 years since I've been working in the diabetes industry, it's right there talking about closing the loop. And now, some of these issues that do exist, where you can say, Is it an education? You know, can we help people understand this better and train them better on these things? Or can we use technology to handle some of the challenges that just only some people have been able to master themselves? Right? Some people just won't. And there's a spectrum there. And, you know, the power of this with the time and range that, you know, we're seeing with people, and that's the thing I'd point out is my agencies haven't improved that much since going on this, but I have no lows. So you know, I like zero will be my top my time and range will have zero sometimes you'll have 1% I used to be at seven or 8% consistently. And that's that to your point in the beginning about there are some people that keep a when C's down in the fives, but you know, but they've got some real significant blood sugar, low blood sugars at times. I used to have more I never, I've never passed out. I've never had something bad bad but I certainly had a lot more lows and I'd have to, you know, go run, get something to drink and whatnot. That just is much less and that's because of the technology. You know, nighttimes being much better. So that whole issue of what are some of those tips, there are tips that you still would need to do even with these kind of systems. But then there are things like, overnight control can be drastically improved. Because I can't think and do things at 3am when I'm asleep when the system can

Scott Benner 1:05:20
Yeah, I started off all my talks by talking about fear, first, you have to get rid of your fear of insulin First, it just, it has to be, you know, if you're going to be afraid of this, it's not going to work out. I talked about, you know, when you're asleep, it's a third of every 24 hours, basically, right? So it's free a one seat time, think of it that way, you know, and, you know, and then, you know, the Pre-Bolus thing and readdressing blood sugar's when they don't go the way you want. My daughter's not, you know, low, you know, a scary amount. I mean, everybody has a scary low once in a while, but it's not not a monthly occurrence or anything like that. Her a one seat is just cemented at five and a half. And she has no diet restrictions, and only we had Chinese food for dinner last night. And you know, and then she worked out afterwards, like, it's not like, you know, it's a regular life. And her a one C has been between five, two and six to for six years. And it's just doing the things that I talked about on the podcast, and it's being it's understanding them, and they don't get me wrong, like after you have some experience with it, it does become second nature, you know, I don't look at an elevated blood sugar for an hour and a half trying to figure out if this is the right one to put another unit on or not, you know, like, it comes to me pretty quickly. I'm still teaching it to her. But the other part of me believes that closed loop systems are going to keep her from really needing to understand all of the things I understand. And you alluded to it, I'm happy about that as a parent, like if my daughter can, my daughter is not the, you know, she's not the sounding board for the rest of the world. She's a person who's going to try to live her life. And if she can live her life without the burden of knowledge about how insulin works that I have, that would make me happy. You generally mean and and I see it too, like, you know, it's it's obviously here, no control, like who's here, horizons gonna be here. Before you know it. I'm assuming Medtronic will figure out how to make that other thing work better at you know, you know,

David Walton 1:07:24
no, absolutely. The next version of a tronic will be better. You mentioned that those are three closed loop systems. And there are four other ones that are in development, right, and will be out within a couple of years. So that's correct, you know, super excited separation of these different systems. But you I think, the point you made, like, even when you're using the systems they'll handle they'll help take over certain issues or problems or, and make certain things better. But you have to have a base understanding of how it's working, and what to do when, oh, wait a sec. I ran out of a supply or my cartridge, something malfunction, I'm getting an alarm here. And they have they have some technical support, you can call it but there are times where some things have happened where I had to improvise, and not understanding what to do, you know, understanding how insulin work when I was traveling five years ago, and I had an empty vial of insulin in my carry case, and I went to go fill up my cartridge in my pump into Oh, I don't have any insulin. Yeah, this is that you know, what midnight, and places are closed, what am I going to do, and I found a 24 hour pharmacy, and then I go and they can't get the prescriptions not on file. So they could give me regular insulin. And so I got a premix. And I just kind of guesstimate of what I should do based off of what I knew and how much I knew I took for long acting and short acting, I divided it up and turns out it worked reasonably well. But like, if I couldn't have done that, what a scary thought if you were by yourself traveling somewhere in a different city, and you don't have anything like what are you gonna do? These these things happen. I mean, I, everyone's gonna have a moment of absent mindedness or forgetfulness, or, you know, unexpected, you know, something came in and took change your plans and you weren't preparing for that. And, you know, I joke to my wife, you know, going for a walk right after I took a lot of insulin, it's just a walk. But it's amazing how that my blood sugar will go down and I just, It surprises me every time and it shouldn't. It's like I'm just walking. But it's insulin, and I play basketball on the weekends and I you know, lift and workout. I'm relatively active, walking right after insulin. It's amazing how my blood sugar drops. And certainly when I you know, I've ran a couple marathons a way back when I learned how my how to balance the insulin. I take any insulin on board relative to how long I'm running for how hot it is. I'm a big guy. So like, you know, I think it's even more drastic, so I would have to drastically cut back my insulin. Yeah. You know that that was trial error that there wasn't a simple formula I could follow. I talked to people who also ran and but I was a little different and you know, you learn these things, how to tips from other people. So I do think that other people with die with type one can be the best source of information, provided you can kind of take it in the right context. So you'll learn a tip or two from somebody But no, they're like, someone else responds differently to oatmeal or to steak than I do.

Scott Benner 1:10:39
Oh, yeah. Hundred percent or younger people like coffee, half the balls for coffee and other people don't have to for the Exactly. I'm

David Walton 1:10:44
wanting to ask the Bolus, right. I don't drink Starbucks often. But my kids love it. And I get the sugar free. I get you know, and do it that caffeine and why? I have to take four and a half units. If I get a venti

Scott Benner 1:11:01
macchiato. Yeah, we've been we've been doing a great

David Walton 1:11:03
Diet Coke with caffeine, you know, nothing, not profitable, in fact, so it's,

Scott Benner 1:11:07
yeah, sometimes sodas make my daughter's blood sugar go up. And I

David Walton 1:11:11
yeah, and I've heard people talk about that. And like, I drink so much diet soda. And like a lot of people with a one and zero impact like I've, I've looked at this I've watched and see because people will tell me, oh, your body treats diet just like regular nice. Well, your mind doesn't?

Scott Benner 1:11:26
Yeah, you're different, right? Your stuff. We've been doing it, we probably have a half a dozen podcast episodes now about algorithm based pumping. And there's more and more coming because I have to tell you, from my perspective, it's my belief that for the great many people who will never find a podcast like this or find community or talk to somebody or live with another person who has type one diabetes and get a tip from them, you're gonna slap this algorithm on them. And with a, you know, hopefully a little bit of guidance there a one C is going to improve their lows are going to improve, it's going to make their life better. Absolutely. You know, and that that for and there and then there'll be people like me and others that will manipulate the algorithms at times and get it to do more of what we want. And that to me is that's the future. Honestly, I I would give everyone a dexcom if I had the power to do it. Yeah, yeah. Well,

David Walton 1:12:13
I certainly I've heard more and more examples now of endocrinologist putting CGM on right away. Yep. to people and after a diagnosis. And it's it's interesting, because I remember this discussion coming up years ago, and people saying, you know what, you know, pumps are put on sooner than CGM a lot of the time, just because they've been around longer. And there's more familiarity with them. But as the familiarity has increased, and they've gotten simpler and more accurate, that has shifted over the last few years now. So I think if if given a choice, and you told people, you had to have either CGM or a pump one or the other, you have to choose Yeah, I think most people are going CGM. Now,

Scott Benner 1:12:58
my daughter has been using wearing on the pod every day since she was four. And she'll be 16 this summer. And they are sponsors of the show. And I am a huge fan of Omni pod in a million different ways. I know people there and I know good people who are working behind the scenes. And same with Dexcom. And if you held a gun to my head, I'd give my daughter's pumped back if you made me you know if you put me in an either worse situation. I right. I'd rather have a seat. Yeah,

David Walton 1:13:22
no, absolutely. I think, you know, you do have studies like the diamond study that showed you can do very well CGM and injections. Similarly, as you could with a pump. I do think you know, the pump has certain advantages. And then there are certain drawbacks to wearing wine. Well listen, once you see

Scott Benner 1:13:41
the data, in my opinion, then you're gonna want a pump. You're gonna just be like, Oh, I would love to use an extended Bolus here or Temp Basal.

David Walton 1:13:47
Yeah. So like there's that. Absolutely. But you mentioned earlier about some of your listeners being interested in those that technology is funny, because so there are three people, you know, that I know from high school that we all have type one, only one did at the time, two of us got diagnosed as adults. And you know, I won't name her but you know, she has done very well. She was diagnosed in her mid 30s. Very well, just on when she was on a blood glucose meter and injections, okay. They wouldn't see in the low sixes. She's very athletic. But she did. I talked to her a couple times. And you know, I showed up told him what I did, but I'm like, hey, you're doing great man. I you know, enjoy, enjoy that like you're you've got good results. There's not necessarily need to do anything. But then you know, I think some things changed a little and she got out of the habit Libra and think, Wow, this is so much easier than I thought it would be. And I didn't realize like it's kind of cool seeing my body the way it reacts to certain foods. Like Yeah, let's that's the benefit of CGM. And now you know, she's like an advocate. But she was she, not everyone needs the technology at that point in time, but there There's no doubt that a technology like CGM can absolutely give you insights and help make things easier and more and help you do a better job of controlling. Right. You know, and and she's now a convert. So that's why we're getting up into this. I think the estimates are about 4035 to 40% of type ones might be on CGM.

Scott Benner 1:15:26
It's getting there. You know, it really

David Walton 1:15:28
worth that level. Yeah, depends. Depends on what denominator use, I use 1.6 million. But some people use different numbers. I think that's pretty close. That's what CDC came out with recently. So

Scott Benner 1:15:42
yeah, I hear you, I think it's, uh, I mean, honestly, you'd be hard pressed to see the data coming back, like the, when I make an ad for Dexcom, it makes itself data comes back, you get to see what the insulin impacted what it didn't, how you can next time, do a little sooner, a little later, a little more, a little less, you know, do things like I talked about, you know, there's, there's, some times people have meals, they're like, no matter what I do, if I put too much insulin up front, I just get low later. And so we start talking about bigger ideas like getting the insulin up front through a bolus and extended bolus, you know, even attempt bazel increased it to really force the insulin on the place you need it and then create a I call it a black hole of bazel later, just make a void of bazel later, so that when the the harsh bolus you made tails, it tails right into a black hole where there's no bazel. And then that tail just acts as the bazel instead of a catalyst to drop your blood sugar. Yes, it's Yes. It's not as hard as it sounds. Don't even say if you talk if you have a cup, if you talk it through a couple times and understand the timing that your insulin hits, and you can create those sort of, you know, those really kind of what feel like advanced ideas. And you know, I couldn't do that without a CGM. You think I figured that out before Arden had a dexcom? You're out of your mind. So

David Walton 1:17:04
yeah, yeah. Now that that whole concept of like, you know, the Super Bolus, right, that was the concept of pumping A while ago, that much better now, when you have CGM combined with it that, you know, if you're, if you're high right now, you could take even more Bolus and turn your bazel off and get that to get to, you know, try to really bring this thing down faster, right. And like I said, when it's coming down, it's some of it's replacing the bazel deficit. And so you get that softer landing. And so these different ideas, it, you know, because there's a danger element to it, it's not something you enter into lightly, because if you overdo it, you could have a, you know, a bad low. But how nice to have a warning system and alarms go off, if you are coming down fast, and you are cutting below a threshold. Yeah, I mean, that's, that was the early stage of CGM just having that alarm. Like, and yeah, I'm one of those people that doesn't wake up all the time when my alarm goes off the middle the night, which is why control IQ has has helped on the overnight. But that early experience of finally having something it's an early warning system, immensely helpful. And so if people are fear of hypo, I'd say, you know, CGM can be unbelievable in that regard. Now, you have to be okay, and realize you're gonna have some alarms. And those alarms can be annoying at times. But it's kind of a necessary evil I'd much rather have an alarm than wake up in an you know, profusely sweating you know, and, and anxious, you know, in a panic, not know what's going on. And

Scott Benner 1:18:35
I'm hoping you do the right thing that you don't fall back asleep before you figure out if you're okay, and yeah, all the

David Walton 1:18:41
trip down the stairs as you're going because you're a little a little off balance. And, you know, just all those things like, you realize the way we were acting when the technology wasn't as advanced that let's let's take advantage of technology making my life better and simpler. Oh, you only

Scott Benner 1:18:55
you only have to find one person who's had diabetes for 20 years to tell you a story about the time they woke up in the morning and it looked like a bear attack their kitchen and they don't have any record. no recollection of it whatsoever. You start thinking you're gonna call the cops, somebody's broken into your house, but that was just you looking for frosting. You know? It's it's an interesting, it's a really interesting, David, I have to tell you, I mean, this genuinely. You would love this podcast. It hearing you talk. It was interesting for me because I don't come through academia and I don't have type one diabetes, right. I I had a daughter. She got she got diabetes when she was two. I was immediately the person who was you know, with her constantly. Two years into it. I was just still a wreck and everything wasn't going right. And I really felt like I was killing her most of the time. I'd started a blog in 2007, the very beginning of 2007, which sounds cute now but there were only maybe three diabetes blogs. Then, and I wrote about diabetes for such a long time. And then, kind of Luckily, I guess, I wrote a book about something different. And during my PR tour of all people, Katie Couric told me I was good at communicating with people verbally. And I just assumed that everyone was good at that. But she stopped me and told me, no, she's like, you're really interactive. You're moving these people like, Don't you see like your, the way you're talking? They're following along with you. And it was such a nice thing she said to me, about a year later, when blogging seemed to kind of tail away. And it wasn't the thing any more people didn't like to read, I guess. I didn't want to lose the impact of that I was seeing myself have on other people's lives with type one through the blog. And so I started this podcast, which is now 240 episodes, or 340 episodes deep.

Wow. It's crazy, right. And so

when I start talking about what I was blogging about, I realized I could explain it. And then I was getting feedback from people. And they're like, hey, my agency's dropping from listening to the podcast, and it built and built. And then suddenly, I realized that I had a system that I developed an actual system for managing diabetes that I didn't even realize was a system. So I kept distilling it down into t shirt slogans, like more insulin, be bold, Pre-Bolus, like just little stuff, you know, like, just right down to the basic concepts. And what used to be an email or two a month through the blog, like, hey, this blog is really helpful to me, it's now become about a half a dozen notes through different like emails and social media a day, Hey, I just wanted to share with you, my agency came down a point, my agency is down two points, you know, my variabilities, like, I just had a guy the other day show me his, um, his standard deviation was like, 22, from the podcast, which is just crazy, right? Like, I can't get my daughter to 22. I don't know how he did it. It's amazing. And seeing that this was the way that it's repetition, even though it's not your repetition, someone comes in talks about diabetes, I interject a little bit with what I would do there, they tell a story that makes you more comfortable that diabetes is normal. You hear different ways of managing ideas, suddenly, you start seeing, you know, reflections of your own life in these conversations, you make little adjustments, and before you know it, your life suffer. And that was not my intention, I just didn't want to lose my blog. Like that was really it, and that it's turned into what it is. It fascinates me. Because the truth is, is that it's elevated my understanding of diabetes, it's this podcast is much more helpful to me than it is to the people listening to it, I guess, is my is my point. And I've gotten to the point where I've spoken about it so much and broken down so many people's lives with type one, that, you know, I have experiences where I go to, you know, jdrf events and speak and three days later, someone's sending me a 24 hour graph that's never over 120 and never under 70. And they're like there's, you know, there's ice cream in here. Can you find it? I'm like, No, I don't. You know, and, and not that everyone needs to live like that. And I don't mean to say that my daughter's blood sugar is always at five. Because it's not. We're just very reactive to spikes. And we're able to get them down without creating a low. And but but the point is, is that it's there for people and it and it works and to have you come on I mean this with with the with reverence, I really do have you come on and you don't know me, I don't prep for these things. So five minutes before you and I started talking. I had no idea about you, I jumped onto your bio real quick. I was like I went to Princeton, and Penn Oh, this will be fun. And and for you to say things that so closely mimic the stuff that we talked about on the podcast, it made me feel good. It really did. Like it made goods not the right word it It made me comfortable. You know, because there are times where you're saying like, anecdotally I saw this thing, and you're saying it out loud. And you know, when you're blogging to a couple hundred people or 1000 people, which you know, at some point, it became a million people, you know, the stakes are higher, and you realize your responsibility in this podcast has almost 2 million downloads. And so, you know, like, you start realizing like I'm saying something, I better say it right. And it better be universal, you know?

David Walton 1:24:26
Yeah. And so anyway, you know, interestingly, I mean, I'm proud of my Ivy League degrees, but they really don't help with this nothing to do with my diabetes knowledge. And I would tell people, when I got to enemas I didn't know that much. I knew basics of type one diabetes and you know, someone I'd read articles about new products coming out and whatnot. But you know, I, I had to do research to get up to speed and like, I would go to these conferences and just go to the poster sections where all the clinical research are outlined. It's like mean, ridiculous, hundreds and hundreds of yards of posters, you know, on different aspects of diabetes, and you could spend all day in there reading them. And I immersed myself to understand things because I wanted to feel like I was very knowledgeable since I was making decisions about what product we go with next, and what features should be in that product. But I learned so much from talking to people who've been dealing with it, and the the power of experience, and cause and effect, and like being able to figure out what you can use from what someone did. And you know, some people, like you said, with coffee have different, different experiences and reactions to it. And that's something just knowing that that's the case, and that you can't just jump on something because one person told you that's, that's also an important thing. But when someone has gone and talked to a bunch of people, and then curated that and given you a perspective, that's where it's valuable. So that's the role I would play. I used to get frustrated, like people would say, oh, what do people with diabetes? Think about this, Dave? What do they think? As if not asking me because I surveyed 1500 enemas users? Because you haven't been asking me because I was Dave Walton, the type one right, you know, and that type of thing. You know, happened a fair amount.

Scott Benner 1:26:19
Yeah, no, I hear I don't like I don't pretend that everyone's life is the same. I don't think that I just think there are basic tenants about how insulin works. And I think that there are a lot of similarities to people's lives. Like, for instance, one thing I tell people all the time, like, well, how am I ever going to know how to bolster all these meals because we don't count carbs. So we Bolus historically? And how do you learn how to do that? Well, some of the truth of that is you don't really eat that many different things. You don't I mean, like you maybe have 10 favorite meals or, you know, there, it's not like one day you're having, you know, truffles, and the next day, you're having chicken and the third day, you're gonna like give me like, you just eat what you eat. And so I started telling people, like, Look, you can look at that plate, and say, I don't care what the carb count says, this serving is, you know, the outcome of this meal taught me that while my pump said this was five units, it was really seven. If I come around and make this meal next week, and don't put seven units in, I'm an idiot, you know, like, like, I don't just why would I count the carbs? Gonna go five units, just like last time? Like it didn't work

David Walton 1:27:22
last time? Yeah, absolutely. My my diabetes educator in, you know, at the Pet Hospital, when I was diagnosed, said, after the carb counting lesson, eventually, you'll probably get to a point where you don't do the calculation, you just immediately gravitate to the end, you go to the end result, which is this food means, you know, this granola bar means 2.5 units, right? or what have you. It's not that you're, you're just going to jump to that know that association and not go through the math directly. And so like I see pepperoni pizza, which I don't eat that often. But when I do it's three and a half units a slice with a combo bolus, which is what you know, or extended bolus 60% up front 40% later done over about two and a half to three hours. Right. And that's how pepperoni pizza works for me if it's the right size, the right not to thicker crust, whatever. What when it deviates from that, yeah, I'll be a little bit off. But generally speaking, I go right into it. Let's pepperoni pizza. Here's what I do.

Scott Benner 1:28:22
And if it goes wrong, you're not flummoxed.

David Walton 1:28:25
know exactly how you'll spend the next six hours. Okay, right. I'll monitor and say, wait with my insulin. Do I need to give a little extra was a little under was just a little heavier in carb than I thought. Yeah, absolutely. All the time. Chinese food. You mentioned pizza and Chinese food were two of the problem. foods for a lot of people to usual suspects. And the Chinese I never eat the rice, but manage the sauces and any kind of you know, reading they put it on certain things. But I try to be mindful that I swear I still always get it wrong.

Scott Benner 1:28:57
Yeah. Oh, it gets in there with the fat man. And it just stretches out over hours and

David Walton 1:29:01
hours. Now you see that stuff in the refrigerator and the next day you realize how much fat is in the corn starch or this whatever is in there to make it taste good? Is this big jello? It just congeals in the refrigerator, you realize that's what the chicken egg carry on was?

Scott Benner 1:29:19
I have to tell you last night, my we were finished. And my wife's like here put this away. And I'm like, throw it away. And she goes, What am I gonna keep that? And I was like, Yeah, I mean, I'm not eating it again. Just so you know, like the heat was the only thing making it palatable.

Yeah. Anyway, David, I've learned I can talk to you forever. And I've kept you much longer than you. Then I told you, you're gonna be on. Here's the funny thing. Did we finish what you want to say about what's he when the exchange is doing for people with COVID-19.

David Walton 1:29:47
We know we talked about COVID. I think the last thing I'll wrap it up with is that so we are going to be presenting results along the way. So think of it as the cases come in. We analyze them so Yeah, the first 25 cases, we started to do some analysis, draw some, just just to characterize here's kind of what we're seeing. But you can't really draw too many conclusions from the first 25. But we'll be communicating this information out on a regular basis. So I think, by the end of the first week, in May, well, probably the first time we just talked about that. But we've got 60 cases, and now we'll have 102 weeks. And then there's going to be a lot more and it'll be growing. And we're working with the researchers, these clinicians, you know, Todd Alonzo, at the Barbara Davis center in Colorado. So it's a, you know, a big, one of the biggest in the in the country in terms of taking care of people with type one. And Mary Pat Gallagher at NYU, that they're kind of leading the research along with this Dr. asagi, the cozy and who's at t Wendy exchange. And he has a wife with type one. He's got a lot of great experience working in the type two diabetes and HIV arenas before he came to us as a consultant, and then as a full time doctor, clinical researcher, so those results will be coming forth. We are talking about additional studies, there's a lot of interest. And I talked about the hospital, we may do something looking at just hospitalizations because of some data that this other company has. They want to work with us potentially. But there are other aspects of the what we've done. So that's our big focus now with COVID. But in general, this collaborative we have, we're focused on improving care. And we work collaboratively with leading diabetes centers. And we're growing that and so we'll be at over 20 centers that do this regularly with us picking out topics like how do you drive CGM uptake? How do you screen for depression more consistently, right? Because these things impact care. And the are collaborative, we help do the data analysis and share it with them and work with them hand in hand on how can we get us all to a better spot. And we're all collectively focused on let's get people in better outcomes with Type One Diabetes. That's our that's our mission. That's that's their, their mission. They just happen to be providers of care at diabetes centers, and we happen to be a not for profit in Boston that works with them and does a lot of data and research as part of it. So I love working at that T Wendy exchange. And, you know, I think we have gotten more focused on near term impact and near term, how can we help other organizations and whether that's a healthcare system or another, not for profit, improve the situation for people living with type one. And, you know, I think we're we've had some, some good progresses here, and more people are interested in joining this collaborative, more centers, and we want to get that bigger, so the knowledge is shared amongst all of them. We don't have situations where like I was describing, I'm on the wrong insulin dosing ratios for 10 years. And that was such a simple fix to take off, you know, at least half a percent, if maybe pi more like point 7% off my agency, right? That those kind of things should be done more routinely. And again, we work with some great centers that do a lot of great things consistently. But part of their interest in the collaborative is they're learning from the others. And so they may have a lot of people using CGM, but they may not be screening people for depression and realizing Wow, so that's how you guys are doing it with your, with your medical record system, and how you're getting counselors and social workers connected with patients so that they can deal with these tough problems and challenges like oh, okay, and so it's a it's witnessing it is it's awesome.

Scott Benner 1:33:40
How do you take once you learn something from, you know, you gather the data, and you you sit down and you make sense of it? And you find a, you know, something that that's fallen through the cracks? How do you? How do you put it into practice? Because that's, that's, that's really, you know, great question. Yeah.

David Walton 1:33:59
And I'll tell you what, so this is I won't go deep into quality improvement methodology, because that'll cause some snoozing potentially with some listeners. But there are things called change packages that we helped create working with the Diabetes Center. So it's kind of like an implementation plan. And here's how you do this now. So like we know with CGM usage, look, there are things you can do to make it easier to start someone on CGM. There are also things you can do to make sure that the reimbursement exists. So in Texas, the Texas Children's Center that we work with, they've done a lot of great things to drive up CGM use, but Medicaid wasn't paying for reimbursing CGM for people with type one, right. And they've actually I think, been pretty successful in working with Medicaid to get one off approvals and maybe get a system wide kind of change for that reimbursement well by sharing some information and approaches used by others, centers and other states that helped their cause. But they took a kind of a leadership thing, like they recognize the importance of it, and we help support them with data. You know, we have a portal that we provide that they can do some reporting themselves and look at things. But we also do analysis and provide them with with things so. But the idea is, there are these change packages that we help roll out that's like the implementation plan to do it. And then there's measurement. And every month, you can see how things are going. So are you seeing the CGM usage going up, just like we they look at a one C, we have several years worth of a one c values for all type one patients at these centers, they can see what's happening there, they can see what's happening in their high risk group of people without a one C of nine or above. And so by tracking it, and really, it, you can't manage what you don't measure. And unfortunately, we've lived through that as a country with with COVID. Diabetes is the perfect example of that, when you do a good job of measuring it, it really helps to manage it. And that's something that we're kind of, we help drive that change with these centers working kind of hand in hand, and we're lucky to have a great starting set of centers, and we're looking to add a lot more so we can have a bigger impact. So you know, 1.6 million people, you know, we've only got about 25,000 patients so far in our, in our system, the data from from those EMR, those centers, we're hoping to, you know, drive that number up over the next couple of years. So we have a much bigger sample to work with. And it's, and we're touching more people at those centers. And then other people can learn from that we'll put publications out, a lot of the researchers that work with us at the Centers are putting abstracts out at the ADA conference, European conferences, trying to even share it learn from people, you know, in Europe and elsewhere. So there's so much that can be done on that knowledge sharing and getting it into the hands of gay I'm working with organizations like ADA, and at CES, the new diabetes educator name. And then patient organizations to like, we'd like to get the word out there. And so we've had good work with jdrf and beyond type one and TCL ID and children with diabetes. You know, a lot of great organizations there. We're all trying to figure out how to help each other kind of just complement each other not overlap too much. And that's a big part of what we're

Scott Benner 1:37:25
doing. Well, I'm really pleased that you came here to share it with me so I appreciate it. Thank you for coming on. I know I kept you long. You know to find out more about T one D exchange you can go to T one d exchange.org. Huge thanks to David for coming on and sharing I'm pretty confident he's going to be back at some point I really enjoyed speaking with him. I want to thank also the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Of course more information about that can be found at Contour Next one.com there's links in the show notes touched by type one is that touched by type one.org please go check them out. dexcom.com forward slash juice box for more information and how to get started with the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. And of course, a absolutely free no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump can be sent directly to your door by going to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Have a great day.


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#329 Denying Diabetes

Scott Benner

Julie is Abigail's Mom and this is their type 1 diabetes story

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello everybody, welcome to Episode 329 of the Juicebox Podcast Today Show sponsored by Dexcom. And on the pod, you can get an absolutely free no obligation demo of the Omni pod sent directly to your door by going to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. And to find out up to date information about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, you just go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box.

Today's show features Julie now Julia's Abigail's mom, Abigail has type one diabetes. Julie is a 911 operator, and Abigail was diagnosed at the same hospital that Arden was. And that's not even the tip of the iceberg about today's show.

Hey, there's some new stuff in the Juicebox Podcast merge store. For those of you who have been bugging me, I think literally for two years about the tug of war graphic with the insolence having the tug of war with the apple and the hamburger and the milk. I finally found a way to make that image printable. So there's a coffee mug, a neck Gator. If you don't know what that is, you should go check it out. That has that and a white t shirt with it on the front it is adorbs as the girls would say in 1987. A couple other items are on sale. Anyway. Juicebox podcast.com you'll find the link at the top saysmarch. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise please always consult a physician before making any changes to your medical plan or becoming bolder than I made it.

Julie 1:49
Hi, my name is Julie. I'm Abigail's mom, she's 11 year old, he one day diagnosed. It's been a little over two years now. And we've been working with it ever since.

Scott Benner 2:02
All right, Julie. So Abigail is 11. So she was diagnosed at nine. That's two weeks or her birthday. Two weeks I'm sorry. Prior or before.

Julie 2:13
After, after after,

Scott Benner 2:14
okay. Two weeks after her birthday, two weeks after her ninth birthday. That must have been unpleasant. And we're the were the decorations still up somewhere in the corner.

Julie 2:26
I'm pretty sure but yeah,

Scott Benner 2:28
we just like Oh, good. Now I can go clean both streamers up. And now you're it's funny. You're I don't want to say exactly where you live, but because that wouldn't be right. But I believe you may live somewhere near where my daughter was diagnosed?

Julie 2:45
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm fine with it. We I mean, we live in Franklin, Virginia, but close to Norfolk. Okay, where she was taken to ch Katie.

Scott Benner 2:55
And that's the tell me the name of that hospital. Children's Hospital King's Daughters of the king's daughters. That is where my daughter was diagnosed as well. We were on vacation at the time. And okay, at the beach. And it was, it was interesting, because I woke up my friend who is also my kids pediatrician. You know, like one in the morning, I said, we're taking you to the hospital. And he said, Where are you going? And I told him, he's like, that might not be right. And I was like, what he goes, there's some hospitals that are more, you know, they have like children's I didn't know back then they have like children's wings for diabetes. And some people have like specific diabetes care, the other hospitals don't say. So my pediatrician who is also a friend ran to his computer, because this is before, you know, phones that did great things. phones, it did anything. I wonder if young people are like wait, phones didn't always do things, but no phones used to just make phone calls. And so there's my my friend, my pediatrician in his underwear, booting up his computer? And he said, No, no, I'm gonna let me give you an address. I think you should go to this hospital instead. And it turned out to be the hospital that you were, you were diagnosed that as well. So that's interesting. And we have that in common among a lot of other things. I think So tell me a little bit about that time. Was it a surprise or do you have diabetes or in the family?

Julie 4:25
No diabetes? Well, I mean, we have type two, but not type one at all. A lot of intercurrent issues in the family, thyroid issues celiacs but there was no symptoms from her whatsoever. I mean, nothing. I tried to look back on it and see if I missed anything. But absolutely nothing she she had been complaining I guess for maybe a day, maybe two days of lower right abdominal pain. So for me doing what I do for a living emergency number one dispatcher I immediately Went to appendicitis. That's what I was thinking. Sure. And you know, I even touched her right there and she like almost came out of her skin. And so I immediately said, Okay, this, this is what we've got. We've got to take her somewhere. I can literally walk across my backyard to a hospital. So we took her to the closest hospital we've got, and we walked in the emergency room, and it was wall to wall with the flu and a stomach virus. And I was like, this is not going to work because she just got off two rounds, steroids because she has asthma. And I was, yep. I don't want her to get whatever they've got. So my husband took her to oversee hospital and Suffolk with third grade hospital. And she got right in because they know me by name because I work for the police department, the fire department down there. And they took her right in. And they did all the lab work. They thought she had appendicitis. They did all the lab work CT scans, and it came back and they said, we're gonna transport you ch Katie, her bloodwork her blood sugar's 480.

Scott Benner 6:08
Well, okay, so first of all, I love you throwing your weight around getting right in. I am completely amused at the idea that you walk into the emergency room saw sick people, and we're like, this is not the place for us.

Unknown Speaker 6:21
Not getting near these sick. Yeah, now.

Julie 6:24
I'm a germaphobe. Really, really hard. I'm bad.

Scott Benner 6:29
I'm delighted by that idea. Like, this is an emergency who not that much of an emergency.

Unknown Speaker 6:36
I saw sick people blow

Unknown Speaker 6:36
their nose. And we're out of here.

Scott Benner 6:38
That's that's, that's very nice. And see. Interesting. So as soon as they see her blood sugar, this hospital you're at? doesn't excuse me that doesn't mess around just moves right over to the next hospital.

Julie 6:53
Yeah, I'd say it was maybe 45 minutes, the time she got their blood work came back how to transport it.

Scott Benner 6:58
Okay. And so you are really the first person it's one of the things that sort of attracted me to the email that you sent me was that I've never heard someone say there was a symptom. But it wasn't one of the classic. I think I might have diabetes symptoms. Did you ever find out what the pain was?

Julie 7:19
Nope. And she had it for months afterwards. Like it was always one of her complaints.

And then never figured it out?

Scott Benner 7:27
Is it possible that the pain had nothing to do with the diabetes and you just got lucky?

Julie 7:34
I guess possible. We had her pediatrician actually put her on a acid reflux medication after the fact thinking maybe that was the cause. And maybe like a month or two later, it went away. So we're thinking maybe it was just something coincidental.

Scott Benner 7:49
That's really interesting. A little Good luck, bad luck. Right? Mix up. I know, people who have gone in for one thing and, you know, left thinking something very different. And it's saved their lives sometimes. You know, and this is this is a really interesting situation because I, it feels to me, like especially 498 or what was her blood blood work like 480. That's not incredibly high. And it's possible that if she would have got that blood work done, three hours later, she might have been lower, like, Did she honeymoon much afterwards?

Julie 8:22
her honeymoon or denial phase? I call it? Yeah. Because she wasn't even today only on insulin. She was only on levemir for a month, and then she was taken completely off insulin for a year.

Scott Benner 8:35
You did find it by mistake too early. Oh, yeah. That's That's interesting. This is mistaken. Diabetes.

Julie 8:43
Denial phase with the husband and everybody. Oh, yeah. It was awful. So I only have that. IBD

Scott Benner 8:49
Yeah. So my denial only lasted about a day. And it happened fairly far into Arden's time with diabetes. And by far, I mean, you know, months. But there was a day where we just got up and she didn't need insulin all day. And it was all day and it was with meals, it didn't matter. Like everything was just back to normal. And so the pediatrician who sat in his underwear and found me a hospital to go to in Virginia, is also the same person I called later, in that afternoon, and I I knew I was being I knew I was being hopeful and ridiculous. So I started my sentence to him. I said, Look, I'm about to say something. I know I'm wrong. Just stop mean, get me off the phone. And he was like, okay, and I said, I don't think Arden has diabetes. She hasn't needed insulin all day. And he's like, yeah, I get off the phone. Scott. She has diabetes, and I was like, Okay, thanks. That was it. But did you have I mean, a year, you told me a year she didn't need insulin,

Julie 9:56
not for full. It was a year in two months, actually to the day.

Scott Benner 10:00
Did she have high blood sugars during that year in two months?

Julie 10:03
Not Not when we checked my blood now.

Scott Benner 10:06
So what? How does when that goes on for days into weeks into months, tell me about, like how that struck you.

Julie 10:15
Um, my denial only lasted until the blood work came back, you know, those tests that they send off for all the antibodies? Because once I did enough research into it to know what those should look like, so once those came back and they were off the charts, I knew, you know, this is exactly the she definitely has it. There's no way. My husband and my mom, they were absolutely in denial. They're like, nope, those tests are wrong. There's no way she's not insulin, there's no way she doesn't have this. They're wrong. Let's get a second opinion. Let's get a third opinion. When you're seeing I mean, the doctor we were seeing in the practice, he was number two in the country. pd, a pediatric endocrinologist. I was like, how do you get better than that? I mean, who's gonna be your second opinion? Right? Right. There we go from here. So yeah, where do you go from here? And we have since but that's a whole nother story. But anyways, um, so but it lasted and it was a big fight in the house. I was like, I need everybody on board. This is not helping. This is not helping her. This is not helping me. I need everybody on board. But then you go to Disney, we went to Disney for seven days, she ate whatever she wanted, it didn't matter. And she still had phenomenal blood sugar's but something in the background was going off. Because when we every three months, she would go back to the endocrinologist, her Awan see was still, you know, at eight. Yeah, there was still something we weren't saying.

Scott Benner 11:41
And you weren't testing that frequently, I'm imagining.

Julie 11:44
Now, if they still only want us testing three times a day,

Scott Benner 11:46
right? So if you test that they're correct three times every day, you're not going to see elevated blood sugar, if our pancreas is intermittently working, or right, we're working at, you know, at a half power situation or something like that. I'm very interested, I don't want to get you into more of a I mean, I know it's been two years, I don't I don't want this podcast to lead to you and your husband. Having to call you at 911. So, but, but um, gosh, I guess you can't really get into a fight like that. When you're nine one off, you're like, Look, you can call you want, they're not gonna believe you. But, but but so. So how does that manifest in real life? Like when somebody is on one side saying, Look, I don't care, you know, took a test. And sure the test said one thing, but what we're seeing is clearly opposite of that. And you're saying no, don't is Abigail hearing that too? Is she part of that conversation? You you have diabetes, you don't have diabetes?

Julie 12:41
Um, you know, Tim and I have been together for 16 years, married for 16 years, and together for 18 years. So we learned a long time ago, we don't fight in front of the kids. We don't argue in front of the kids. So no, we tried to maintain a united front together. But she kind of believed that Hey, Mom, if I'm not insolent Do I really have this? And I tried to explain to her the honeymoon phase. I was like, look, I think we're just having a really good honeymoon phase. Which to me, I don't know if I'd rather have this one or the other one.

Scott Benner 13:14
Yeah, it's like, I know people who are who go through honeymoons that are you know, drastic, where they need insulin, then all of a sudden, they don't, then they need it again. And then they don't. And it's tiring. Because you're always about to put insulin and thinking like, is this the time? I won't need it? Or the time? I do need it? That's Yeah, it's difficult. I want to sort of keep going for a second with with Abigail, thinking one way I understand the way she was hoping I would have, you know, certainly hope the same way I understand the way your husband thought of it. I understand the way you thought of it, you know, like everybody, you're trying to be pragmatic. He's trying to be hopeful. But did. And she trended to that to sort of his his side? Which opinion Do you present to her? Because it's funny, as you're talking about this, it strikes me like, two parents with two, like, really differing ideas about religion, for instance, like, you know, let's say you're let's say you're Catholic, and he's agnostic. Which one do we say to the kids? Right, right, you know, or do we say both, but and you didn't say, but you didn't say, you know, I think there's a God and he doesn't or vice versa. You said, What did you say? How did you present it to her together?

Julie 14:25
Basically, it was a let's let's live in the now Hey, this is what we're this. I'm not gonna tell you don't have it. Because I know I know that you do. And I was very upset and very honored to there from the beginning, which my husband tells me the fault you tell them too much truth, Julie. But it's, but look, this is what you have. However, right now, you get to be how you were before we don't we don't have to worry about it right now. So let's just enjoy it while we can. You know, we know at some point the other shoe is gonna drop so to speak. But let's just enjoy it while we can. I mean, we got it. Disney, we got in a trip to the beach, we got in the full cruise without ever having to worry about it. And she got to have the best year and a half ever, without having to worry about it.

Scott Benner 15:09
She just embarked on a pancreas goodbye tour.

Julie 15:12
And absolutely, like when an athlete

Scott Benner 15:14
retires, they stop at every stadium and they're like, go ahead, clap for me one more time. And I'm leaving. And yeah, you said your daughter's pancreas is sort of like, I don't know, LeBron James in the last year he'll play

Julie 15:25
Absolutely.

Scott Benner 15:28
So I like that idea. I think because there's no perfect way to handle a situation that says you're about to feel the effects of a lifelong incurable disease, but it's not here today. But it's definitely coming. I don't I mean, it must have been maddening for you. I really, did you find I'm imagining how you've described it. You found relief when her pancreas probably like gave up? How did your husband handle it though?

Julie 15:57
I think it was like a funeral. It was like a death.

Scott Benner 16:01
Yeah, because I mean, it was he really sincerely hoping right?

Julie 16:06
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't think he ever had that grief period. Like I had, there was a whole lot of tears and everything in the beginning for me. Because I remember thinking I did something I remember as I broke down to the doctor and ask them, What did I do to make this happen? Because I knew nothing about type one, nothing. But him. He never went through that grief. He didn't go through that mourning period, because he had that phenomenal honeymoon period. And so when it finally happened, now, this statistic turn,

Scott Benner 16:35
Julie, I just realized it's possible. You and I have cried in the same room at a hospital in Virginia.

Julie 16:41
Probably

Scott Benner 16:44
just thinking, huh, I think I grabbed that room too. So yeah, I got you. I really do. I'm just I, you know, I'm gonna move on. But I that's just a fascinating conundrum to be in, you know, I get that I get him wanting to be hopeful. And then I started thinking, gosh, he got to be hopeful for 14 months. When it actually happened. It had to be it just had to be crushing. Get You know, sorry, feel for I feel for you guys. That's that's really something. So when it happens, and you know, for 14 months after your daughter's diagnosed and she gets diabetes, because she had a pain in their side. I do wonder like, when would you have actually found out? Like, like without that pain in her side? Would you have been diagnosed 14 months later? I know. You'll never know. But that's just really interesting.

Julie 17:31
Yeah, so now like my other daughter, I'm like, everything freaks me out. Like, are you okay? Why did you pee seven times today? Like what's going on? Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 17:41
Did you ever test Do you ever test her blood sugar when she's not looking? Like when she's asleep?

Julie 17:45
It was she loves me. And we've done trialnet on her too. Okay. Yeah.

Scott Benner 17:49
And you? Did she have any other markers, or do you not talk about?

Julie 17:52
Gosh, she has one. She's one of them.

Scott Benner 17:55
How about you guys? Did you guys do with it

Unknown Speaker 17:57
as well? Your? We did? Yeah, we're negative.

Scott Benner 18:00
Interesting. Who's got the thyroid issue? Is it in your immediate family?

Julie 18:05
Yeah, my mom. My dad had thyroid cancer my grandmother.

Scott Benner 18:11
So so just a you. Abigail wasn't dodging this one. This was this was coming in here. It did it. Did it all skip you.

Julie 18:19
It all skipped me so far.

Scott Benner 18:21
so far? Yeah. Yeah. You don't want the thyroid thing. It's a small thing. And it's manageable. But it's also not always manageable. 100% and it's sort of sucks. So I know Arden since she's been diagnosed as hypothyroid Geez, just she can never quite even though her medication is we think really well measured. She can never ever feel completely rested. Like she just doesn't can't accomplish that. And to be perfectly honest, my wife has it too. And she always has that. She always looks tired. To some degree. I think she's learned to live with it. But she's always tired to some degree. It's, it really sucks. It's such a small little thing, but it has a big impact on you. Okay, so too interesting. You've had so you count yourself as having diabetes for two years from the day you went to the hospital. But in reality, you've been living with insulin for about 10 months. Is that right?

Julie 19:21
In reality, I've really only been living with the two types of influence and June of last year.

Scott Benner 19:29
Okay. All right. Yeah. Gotcha. So how does it start? They You know, it finally kind of kicks in. Do you just have this moment where you're like this? Is it her blood sugar's not coming back down anymore?

Julie 19:41
Yeah, it's kind of gradual. In April of last year, she started going back up slightly, so they put her back on 1111 mere half a unit. That's all we were taken, which is incredibly difficult to get my syringe. As you as you know, I've heard with Arden when she was little Yeah, I think credibly difficult. But, and then we did that from April to June, she was only on a half a unit 11 year, did beautifully. And she never went back up. We didn't have to do a unit. We never had to go to full units on it. And then we'll It was like, over a course of two days, she gradually went back up, you know, she was at 150 and 160 and 180. And it was Friday. In June, it was a Friday. And she started she went back up to 300. And I was like, okay, I've never seen this number, like on a like I've never seen it. So I called it I forgot they closed half a day, the doctor's office. And I was get ready to go to work. I work nights, I work 60 to six day. And I called the doctor on call and I said, Look, I don't know what to do. Because we weren't trained on anything in the hospital, except the long lasting, we weren't trained to do carbs. We weren't trained to do any type of rapid acting insulin, nothing. We were only trained on the left mirror. And I didn't have any at home. So I didn't know how to bring her down. So our doctor was on call another doctor was on call. He said, Well, you got two options. I can give you a crash course on how to do this. And I can call you an insolent or you can bring her in and they can get her in the emergency room and they can bring her down. And I said oh, I said let's do the Crash Course Tell me. I said I can do it.

Scott Benner 21:24
Yeah. Especially if it's sniffle season. You're not going back in that emergency room. I know that for sure.

Julie 21:28
Yeah, absolutely not.

Scott Benner 21:31
So he called me in in one and we got the crash course. And I'm I mean, I did it. And I she didn't get in to be seen probably I think it was almost six days. So we we handled it for six days. Yeah, you basically just had a like a little stick and you beat the blood sugar back with the with your needles and your new insulin and your lack of any kind of real knowledge. And they worked out. I mean, it's Yeah, that's excellent. Good for you. Well, by then, you must have been pretty ramped up for it. You must have. I mean, I can't imagine what even back in the beginning when you say to yourself, look, this is diabetes, she just doesn't need insulin yet. I can't imagine you thought it was gonna go 14 months, there had to have been a time where you forgot about it.

Julie 22:10
Like I knew it was coming.

Scott Benner 22:12
Yeah. But prior to that when the blood sugar started creeping up, was there ever moments where you just didn't think about it? Or was it always sort of in the back of your head?

Julie 22:21
Not for me, I'm a realist. Like, I'm one of those that I hope for the best. But I prepare for the worst. So I knew.

Scott Benner 22:28
Yeah, no, I understand. I also would imagine being a 911 operator doesn't leave you a ton of latitude to believe things go? Well. I mean, it's a well, it's a weird situation, isn't it? Because I know I, I mean, I'm incredibly close with a police officer and who's been, you know, a police officer for decades. I think the one harsh reality of his life is that everyone he comes in contact with while he's working is either breaking a law or had something horrible done to them. And that starts to become your expectation for the world, you know, that? I just had happen to you with your job.

Julie 23:06
I mean, yeah, I mean, there's there's certain things I guess we we all deal with there. You know, everything like I'll go into a restaurant, my back doesn't face the door. There's just there's certain things that because of what we've dealt with, I mean, I know I don't see the front lines. I don't see it in person, but I've heard things on the phone that just completely freaked me out. And so I don't I don't take it for granted at home.

Scott Benner 23:29
Yeah, that's interesting. Just just isn't it something to because you do it every day. And maybe I'm assuming you're saying, you know, what, if there's a an invasion at the, at the restaurant, the place gets robbed or something like that happens, like I want to see what's happening. And maybe you've heard maybe you've heard that, uh, I don't know making up a number. Maybe you've heard that a dozen times in your life, but it's enough to think, you know, it's going to happen because it does happen. So you You are a pragmatic person then because of that.

Julie 23:59
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Makes a lot of sense.

Scott Benner 24:03
You did not I'm going to skip in a second skip forward, but you did not ever drag your husband into a room and look at him in the face and go I told you no, you never Did you or did you not do that? Did you did you in my

Julie 24:14
head? I wanted to I wanted to but I did it in my head.

Scott Benner 24:18
It's like the one thing in the world you don't want to be right about. You're like, oh, like nailed this one. I was so right about this. So today, you know, 11 years old does she use a pump or glucose monitor or anything like that? Are you still doing injections? Well, with any luck your brain is not as broken as mine. And during this episode, every time you realize that Julie works for 911 a voice in your head doesn't yell. Somebody call 911 shorty fire burning on the dance floor a whoo as my brain does. Anyway dexcom.com forward slash juice box there you're gonna find out about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Now what are you gonna find out when you get there? Let me save you a little bit of reading. The dexcom g six is FDA approved for no finger sticks means you can make dosing decisions based on the information coming back from the G six, that's a big deal, save you some finger sticks. Here's the next thing, share and follow. That means someone with type one diabetes can have the dexcom on them, share their information up into the magic of the cloud, and it will come back down. Like magic on your phone, or a loved one's phone, or a school nurse or whoever you choose. up to 10 followers can see that information. Huge, right? that's available for Android and iPhone. By the way, you can wear a dexcom sensor for 10 days. That's pretty cool, right? put a new one on every 10 days get a long wear time. It's discreet and small. And it's magical. The decisions that we make every day to keep my daughter's blood sugar where it is, or a one c stable, her variability comfortably smooth. That all comes from the dexcom g six. And that could be that way for you as well. dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Check it out. Because when you get that information back, you'll be able to just switch right over to your on the pod tubeless insulin pump and make insulin decisions that are reflective of what's really happening. Not a wild gas, or a hope or a prayer. But seeing the direction and speed that your blood sugar is moving in then you just pick up your Omni pod Okay, blood sugar's 84. And little man we're gonna have 35 carbs up on the pod says it's this much insulin, push the button, little beep. And the insulins on its way of having pizza want to stretch out your insulin with an extended bolus, no problem. This is 70 carbs. But I'd like 50% of those carbs to go in now when I push the button and the other 50% can be stretched out over the next two hours. Want to do that? No problem on the pod does that. Now all the pumps do that I'm not gonna lie to you. But those other pumps, you can't get into the swimming pool with no no you can't. Those other pumps have big piece of tubing off of them. And then there's a controller on the end that you have to clip to your belt or your pants. You imagine a little four year old you know with a something hanging from their pants just pulled pants right down and probably by pulls down pants my four year old. That's not right. What if you're a nice lady and you were in a cooler? Is that clothing? You have to stick your pump in your bra then? Not good. That's busting up your head. You know what I mean? What did they say that the the lines right of the clothing you don't want that either. Here's the coolest thing about on the pod on the pod lets you try the pound. absolutely free with no obligation. You go to my on the pod.com forward slash juicebox. There's links in the show notes right here in your podcast player or available Juicebox podcast.com. If you can't find your way through your podcast player, it's no big deal. When you go to that link on the pod send you an absolutely free, no obligation pump that you can try on and wear and decide for yourself. You don't even have to believe me, all you have to do is get the demo and see for yourself. So whether you want the Omni pod the Dexcom or both. But on my on the pod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box. You can hit those links at Juicebox Podcast com right there in the show notes of your podcast player. I've made it as easy as I possibly can to support the podcast and to get great gear to help you with your type one.

Julie 28:37
She was on the MDI from June until October. She got a T swim in October. I loved it when she originally got it. And then it hit summertime. And you know what? I don't like being plugged in. I don't want to have to unplug and so we just paid out of pocket for the Omni pod. So we have posts and she has the deck comm to size

Scott Benner 28:59
the file. So not to I'm not making this into an ad at all. But it was the being connected that she didn't like about the tea sign. Just the tubing.

Julie 29:09
Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to argue with.

Scott Benner 29:13
And it's funny so when she was around the house and a little more sedentary it wasn't such a big deal. But you're saying that once she got up tried to run around outside do that kind of stuff. It felt in the way towards that point.

Julie 29:24
Yeah. And that the infusion sets honestly for me. The T slim she had so much anxiety with the infusions that it took us an hour to get them infusion sets on her. I don't have that with the Omni pod. She doesn't. I mean, I've posted on Instagram like she's so adventurous with these Omni pod. She puts them on her forearm. She puts them on their calf that has no issues. Try them anywhere. I just trade.

Scott Benner 29:49
It's I was about to say it's early in the morning. It's 1030 but it's summertime so my kids asleep. It's early

Julie 29:57
for me.

Scott Benner 29:58
Yeah, it's early for you. My children are Sleep. I believe last night at something like three in the morning I remember texting my son just saying like, would you please give up and just go to bed. And I you know, Arden was up late talking to friends and cleaning her room. She likes to clean a room at like 130 in the morning. It's a thing for her. But her pump is you and I were getting you know, the hour before I was getting set up before we were going to start recording. I'm watching her on the pod slowly dwindle down. It's out it's running out of insulin. And I'm like, oh, it'll make it till I'm done with Julie. It will it will and then about 45 minutes before I got on with you. I was like I don't think it's gonna make it. So I I went downstairs, I got insulin, I filled the pod. I walked up into a room. I put the pod down next to boom, I push the button it primed. I I whispered in her ear are not going to change your pump. I took off her old pod cleaned her site, dried it, put the new pot on insert it put the blanket back over top of her and left the room.

Julie 30:59
Yeah, that's it.

Scott Benner 31:00
She's done. She never woke up. It didn't take more than a few minutes. You know, it didn't throw I didn't have to call you and say Julia it's gonna be a you know, I'm gonna be late because we have to switch a pump. It just it just took a couple of minutes. And it's it's fantastic. And I'm looking at her blood sugar right now. And everything's good to go. So her blood sugar's at eight at the moment. Anyway, I mean, 86 Yeah, we're doing good. Seriously, same hospital, same blood sugar we're doing You and I are we're simpatico here. Right. Does Abigail play any sports? Or what kind of activities does she do?

Julie 31:34
She did gymnastics for a while. I'm hoping to get her back into it when she was on the teeth limb is a little bit embarrassed. Still, I think I think it's because it's so new. So she didn't like that and asking questions. Like they would ask about the G five and they would they would touch and she didn't like it. I was like, You know what? Just explain it to them. Tell them what it is. We're punch one of them. Or that? Yeah, I'm all for that. Like, the one that you? Yeah,

Scott Benner 31:58
kidding. We can't hit people. I'm just saying though, in a big place. If you really just lay one person out, the rest of them probably will leave you alone. Okay, let's not hit people. I think we all know I'm not saying that. But now I hear what you're saying. So she did not like the attention. And now was it? Like, was it Okay the first time but not the 50th time? Or did she just not like it at all. She doesn't

Julie 32:18
like it at all.

So, but she loves to skateboard. So she does that quite often likes to ride her bike. So we've been taking her to the skate park quite often. Except now they're flocking to her. They see the devices. And they're like, Oh, that's that's, you know, pretty awesome. They use different words there. But anyway, I won't use them on your show, because I know it's clean. So, but they see those and they flocked to her and there wouldn't help her. Because they're older kids. And they're like, hey, let me show you how to do this. And so we're trying to see how long that's gonna last before she doesn't like it either. Yeah,

Scott Benner 32:54
that's, that's interesting. You know, Arden, he has played softball her entire life, but she hurt her shoulder. Gosh, nine months ago or so. And the rehabbing of the shoulder took forever and she's having some like tight like muscle tightness and her shoulder still, it's just can't really, she can't really throw. And so she hasn't played softball in a really long time. And it's at, I think, a pivotal, a pivotal moment in her life, where she went off and found other things to do. And I think there's a sincere possibility that one day when she can throw a softball again, the way she's used to that she just might not want to. And we're actually looking right now because you know, sometimes when you let go of activity, you got to replay You know, it doesn't just get replaced with other activity. So I think she's considering yoga. I think that's actually one of the things we're going to do later today is look for a place for her to like, kind of get some yoga lessons and see if she can she's just looking for a way to stay, you know, limber and active and strong. That maybe doesn't involve running around in a pile of dirt for the entire weekend. She's fine. I if people were listening are probably Oh, Scott's probably so disappointed. I'm genuinely not I just you know, I told her I was like, you should just do whatever you think will make you happy. I'm not up for to be honest. Like not playing softball for the last nine months has made a ton of time in my life. So I sort of happy about it to be honest. It's it's very nice not to you know, get up at six o'clock in the morning and drive an hour and a half to some dirty hot place and stand in the weeds. swatting, you know, mosquitoes away from your leg. I'm pretty good with that. Plus, I thought my son to watch so I'm okay. Yeah, but But yeah, so it but her her her conflict is more around people's attention. Now. Would you say that outside of diabetes? Does she struggle with that as well? Does she not like attention?

Julie 34:56
Yeah, she doesn't like it at all. Yeah.

Scott Benner 34:59
Yeah. I think See that? We don't know if we've really talked about it here. My wife has a fairly like introverted personality. But she can, you know, she can deal in the real world. Really well, you wouldn't know you wouldn't meet my wife. I think I've just met an introvert. But if you got to see her, the hour after she got home from a large gathering, you'd see an exhausted person from, like, creating that, that energy, you need to be around people, you know, like, I'm, it just works for me. I get around people, and I'm like, ooh, I'll stay stuff and we'll all laugh and it's fun. And you know, like I can that is energizing to me, like, I, I feel pumped up by that even just talking to you. Like, you know, sometimes I think you can probably hear on the podcast, like, I get carried away when I'm talking. I love talking what is happening. My wife, not so much the exact opposite. And if Abigail does not want to be, you know, intersecting with people to begin with, it's got to be incredibly difficult when they start saying what's this and then touching her and she's so new to it still. And that just it sucks that people feel comfortable reaching out and touching people, you know, like, like that, instead of just stepping back? Is it mostly kids? It's not is it adults, too?

Julie 36:15
Um, the older kids. Okay, it's um, you know, 1617 because that's usually who hangs out at the skate

Scott Benner 36:23
park a park. Yeah. And they're not it's not a judgmental thing. You don't think it's just it's intro

Julie 36:28
now? Yeah, it's interest and and they liked it. She skateboarding? I don't think they've ever seen somebody her age. Like a girl especially. Yeah.

Scott Benner 36:38
And you're not having any luck talking her into being like, Look, they like you. This is fun. And she's like, No, tell them not to touch me.

Julie 36:46
And I'm like, Abby, I'm like, I just explained like, she went to water country. And apparently, she put it on Instagram Live the other day. She's like, has anybody ever had people stare at their devices? And I'm like, Eddie, if they're staring. Look at me be like, hey, if you want to look, ask me questions. That's the type of mom I am. I'm like, Dude, don't don't let people bully you. You know, look at them and be like, okay, what's your problem? Right? are you staring at?

Scott Benner 37:10
Yeah, it's, it's, it's and it is so personal, though, too. Because, you know, I'm just lucky on the other end of this because Arden doesn't care. Right? She'll, if you ask her, she'll show you her friends joke around about it all the time. There's the newest thing that they're doing now is when we get in the car somewhere. So I didn't recognize this was happening. So this happened about a half a dozen times before. I was like, why is this happening? But we'd get together with some of her friends for a movie, or they go shopping or something. And I'm always there, because I'm basically a lady. And, you know, I'm with the kids all the time. And, and we're driving somewhere. And I'd be like, hey, Arden, can you you know, you know, I need you to do some insulin. And she'll sometimes she'll say how much or I'll just blurt out a number or something like that. And I and the kids are all like, 783. And I'm like, Wait, what? And so I'm not paying attention. The first couple times. I'm like, Why are these children randomly saying numbers? But I think it's part of whatever they're doing, right? So the other day, we're on our way to Spider Man far from home, me and the girls. And we're all driving in a car. And I said, Hey, Arden, let's you know, let's get ready. Like what are you thinking about? You know, what are you thinking about eating at the movie? Are you thinking of getting anything? And she's like, yeah, I really want one of those icees. And I was like, oh, great sugar and water will. That'll work. And so I was like, okay, that's let's get some insulin going now then. And her friend goes three, and then I hear six. I went, Oh my god, they're guessing the Bolus, like I finally hit me like what they were doing, you know? And I turned around, I was like, you guys are trying to guess how much insulin we're gonna use? And she's like, Oh my god, Mr. Benner, we've been doing that for so long. It's so much fun. We're never right. And I look back, like in the mirror and they're all laughing and smiling. And that's sort of the level of comfort Arden has with it. Yeah, you know, if her, you know, if if she gets low and doesn't do something about it. I can, you can, like hear her friends like art and Come on, don't die. We got to go. Like let's say you're trying to go out like just drink a juice. So we can leave like that. Everyone's very loose about it. But maybe that's just because she was diagnosed at such a young age. She doesn't know any different and your daughter does, like nines are real, like a real person age. You know what I mean? Like she had a life that she understood before she was diagnosed.

Julie 39:30
Yeah, I think I think so. I think it was that awkwardness. And she was already going into that awkward age anyways. So I hope she'll get there at some point. Yeah, um, can we try to help her as much as we can? Of course.

Scott Benner 39:43
How involved is your like, what's the division of labor like on diabetes in your house? Is it because you have a weird schedule is your husband I would imagine just as involved as you are?

Julie 39:53
Absolutely. Yeah. Now, numbers wise, no. But he has involved, like he, he could change the pump, he can change his XCOM. But it's funny because when I listen to your podcast, and I'm only on episode 101, by the way, I'm just letting you know that right off the bat. I started at the beginning. But we, it's funny when you talk about how you when you look at stuff, you're like, Oh, that's going to be about three units. That's how I am. Yeah. So, like, he went to go get them a Slurpee the other day. And he sends me they have a, like a sugar free Slurpee, although it's not really sugar free. I don't know if you've seen it. Sounds. Yeah, it's based off of Powerade. Okay, if you read the fine print under it, it tells you like, it's, it's like six grams of carbs per eight ounces. And so he sent me a picture of what it looks like. And he's like, so it's sugar free. So she doesn't give anything, right. And I'm like, I'm on a zoom in on the phone, you know, really tight. And I'm like eating. I'm like, No, I'm like, so that's like 48 grams. And for eight ounces. And like, Okay, I'm gonna need you to give her 66 per 60 grams of carbs. And he's like, but it's only 48. I'm like, do it for 60. He's like, how did you come up with that? I'm like, just do it. Because I know, because it's liquid and it's gonna hit way different.

Scott Benner 41:17
Right? And so quickly, so you need to be a little a little stronger up front to catch that that initial slam. And then Oh, yeah. Did you have to adjust out of it later, did that number end up working for you?

Julie 41:29
I'm still learning a lot. So it that one hit really good. I'm still learning how to eat out. Things like a pancreas has helped me a lot with that. Actually. That book, we actually had like a we went out to Applebee's and had like a is almost 100 grams of carbs. And we went out to eat which is rare for us. We don't usually have that many grams of carbs. But she never went over 100 but that meal.

Scott Benner 41:51
That's excellent. Fantastic. Yeah, and that's fantastic. And some of those chain restaurants especially are are hard getting any meal like they really are hard on on you know, you can't it's it's difficult to just guess it's not the same as it would be in your house I guess is what I'm saying is you know that you look at a cheeseburger like oh, that's probably like this, but I don't know they have like magic elixir. They put on food in those restaurants so that it tastes extra foodie. You know, it's hard. It's funny. You said think like a pancreas, which is a terrific book. The author of think like a pancreas is the owner of integrated diabetes where Jenny Smith works. So Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So when you add because you're listening in order, which by the way, also, Julie, I'd like to say to everyone listening, when you find the podcast and you love it, you should absolutely start at the beginning, I listen to every episode, because it makes it much easier for me to you know, have those contract conversations with the advertisers later when you guys really download all the episodes. So thank you very much joy. But, but But yeah, Gary, Gary is the owner and the operator of integrated diabetes. And when you'll hear Jenny Smith come on and do the pro tip series, as you're listening through, and Jenny works for Gary at his company. So it was very interesting that you just said that it's a great book.

Julie 43:13
Yeah, it is. It is. And it helped a lot discussion during that meal. I did I think his book he said, you know, for high fat meals, you know, do a extended our Temp Basal for like 50% for like six hours and then wait to Bolus after the meal. And I was like, Dude, this is not gonna work. It worked beautifully.

Scott Benner 43:31
It's great. Yeah, it's really something I I've said before, but I had lunch with a person doing like a very low carb diet. And they had a lot of there was a fair amount of meat and you know, fat in this thing that they ate. And they didn't like Bolus for I think like 45 minutes after they ate. It was really but they put in insulin. I was like, this is fascinating. Yeah, it's it's, it's all really but what you just said honestly, is the right amount of insulin at the right time. Like just have to get it in the where it belongs. You know, where when, when there's a need, you need to meet it with insulin, that's all. Yeah, very cool. Okay, so how are things going overall? Are you feeling good? Are you feeling lost? Is it a slow progression? You know, what would you tell people? You know, if I said to you just Hey, how's this diabetes thing going?

Julie 44:24
Um, you know, once you got on the pump, we learned a lot with the Dexcom has been fantastic. I learned how everything works, how food works for her. We learned the doctor we were originally with, he wanted her to have anywhere between 50 and 60. And he wanted to have 60 plus grams of carbs every meal. Unfortunately for Abby, that didn't work for her, that would shoot her straight up and drop crashed her it didn't matter what kind of carbs they were, how we Pre-Bolus how we extended anything. We learned real quick that did work. So at home, we very low carb, very low. I just don't bring it in the house. We splurge when we go out. And so that's worked beautifully, you know, at this point? Well, I don't know about right now because we have to go back in July. But you know, right now we have her down to right about a 681. c. And it's, you know, it's been great. She averages right about 110, hundred and 20. At night, I keep her around 85 to 100. We're doing amazing. I had to get comfortable. And I think I put my email to you that now my husband knows I'm not insane. Because I'm not I'm aggressive with insulin, and I'm not scared of it. He was scared of it. I'm not.

Scott Benner 45:47
Totally let's say that he thinks you're insane about one less thing. Like, let's not get crazy and say that he thinks it's true.

Julie 45:52
Yeah.

I am insane. And it's cool. So am

Scott Benner 45:57
I but I'm just saying that if my wife decided oh my god Scott's actually right about that one thing. She would not make a blanket statement out loud that everything I've ever said about him wasn't right.

Julie 46:09
That's probably true. I'm crazy. In a good way, though. I think,

Unknown Speaker 46:13
Oh, I believe it too.

Julie 46:14
And I think that's because of the scare tactics that they give you in the hospital, which is probably rightfully so that, you know, hey, here's this kid, they have this insulin can save them. However, insulin can also kill them. Yeah. So he was definitely afraid of it. Where I wasn't because I read what 180 and 200 blood sugars can do to them in the long run. And that was an acceptable to me.

Scott Benner 46:37
You guys just chose a different thing to be scared of. That's all like you picked one thing he picked the other thing he picked, actually his brain picked now over later, your brain picked later over now. And and not necessarily over. You know, you didn't say, I don't want this to happen one day. So I'm going to be dangerous about it. Now, you just said, I think this needs more attention right now. So that later doesn't happen. I listen, is in most married situations, there's someone who you would look to for an illness, you know, just a regular illness. And there's someone who, you know, sometimes does the other stuff. It just happens that way. Sometimes, those things inform no differently than you're having a job as a 911 operator, those things inform how you feel about things. And the guy who's not in the room during the flow, might think, Oh, this will pass or it won't be that bad. And you were a mom, so you have that extra gear. You know, I believe there's a, you know, an extra an extra gear in every every mother, that that just is protective in a way that's difficult to you know, put into words. And you didn't just see now you saw the entirety of it, you know, and that's excellent. I think we all need to see that to be perfectly honest.

Julie 47:57
Yeah. Oh, I just I don't know. So hopefully that you know, that would be I think that would be my only advice is to just definitely not have out of continuous glucose monitor though. I don't think I would have done it. I don't think I would. Yeah, yeah. If I couldn't have seen what it would have done to her. You know, at night, they wanted her before the CGM. They want her around 180 I still didn't keep her there. We would put her to bed around 120. And she would wake up around 120 now what she did in between there, I don't know. But she always woke up. I didn't check her at night. They didn't tell me to Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 48:39
I hear you. Um, so

Scott Benner 48:42
I do agree with you. I sat with a teenager, two nights ago, you know, 20 1920 year old guy. And he is just pins and a meter. and has been for like seven years since he's been diagnosed. And he I was at I was with him at a meal where we were going to talk about, you know, I was basically going to give him a crash course in the podcast because we know them personally. And when he took out his meter and tested his blood, and then made this, you know, injection bolus for his meal. My brain was like, Oh my god, I wonder what's happening now. Like, how does this wasn't enough for too much or? And I got I got transported right back to what that felt like. And I because I hadn't been around that in a really long time. You know, that idea of something's going on right now. It's either right or wrong or indifferent maybe. And we have no idea and I said I was like when will you check again? Next thing is like before bed. I was like, it was like seven o'clock. And I was like, oh my god. No, no, no. And and it's so but he's completely comfortable that it's his life and it's how it works for him. is a one He's not where he wants it. It's not bad and it's not good. And, you know, he came into that restaurant with a blood sugar that was almost 200. And that seemed incredibly normal to him. And I just thought, wow, like this is, this is how people feel, you know, when they they don't know any better. And they don't have this technology. It's it's just it's very, it was just very normal for him. Yeah. I just I guess I have to I guess I'm looking for it from you, because you're so new to this still? Is it? Like, how would you describe the difference between before you could see and now?

Julie 50:40
Night and day? I mean, once she was on the two different insolence, I checked her more regularly, not at night, I still I don't, I guess it comes from the mentality when I had babies. You don't wake a sleeping child. I never woke her at night ever. But during the day, I wasn't one to just check her before a meal. And never check her until the next meal, we would check before we would check you know, roughly 30 minutes after and then we would check her an hour after and probably two hours after I wanted to know what was happening. So her poor little finger tips were brutal until we got the G five.

Scott Benner 51:20
Wait, I want to stop you about the overnight thing for a second. Because that's fascinating to me. Because I I can't it's hard to wrap your head around I and why does it matter what your blood sugar is when you're awake, but not when you're asleep? And I'm not coming down on you. I see a lot of people do that. And it's fascinating like the this simple idea that just stops you from looking like well, she's asleep. So that's it, you know, but but those things you were incredibly worried about during the day you just were you magically not worried about them when she was asleep? Or did you just not think about it that way? Or can you describe that because I've never asked anybody right out and you brought it up. So I'm interested in to kind of dig I don't think

Julie 52:01
it's further that I wasn't worried about it. I think it's that there was always a cut off that I didn't give her insulin. So I knew it wasn't active in her body. I knew it wasn't working. So there wasn't really anything that could cause her to go incredibly low. I knew what I was sending her to bed with. And if say she was 110 I knew I was going to give her some chocolate milk or I was going to give her something to bring her slightly up was less of a chance. I knew I just knew how our body worked. There was less of a chance that she was going to go low. And she never did. I mean, let me even rephrase. I'm not gonna say she never did. Because I didn't know. Right. But she never went to a point that she didn't wake up. And I know that's horrible to say. But I was. I mean, I work. You know, between 60 and 80 hours a week, my husband worked 40 hours a week, I go to school full time. So waking up every hour to two hours. And I know it sounds horrible. I love my kids with everything in me. We just we just can't.

Scott Benner 53:05
Yeah, no, so you just use a little bit of chocolate milk or something like that. And and we're gonna kind of err on the side of caution now. Now that you have gear that was very honest of you. By the way. Thank you so much. When now that you have a CGM, would you let her be 150 all night?

Julie 53:23
Absolutely not that interesting.

Now she stays it's like I said between 85 and 100. And she's pretty steady. Right? It's a very rare occasion. She goes well at night.

Scott Benner 53:34
My point is, is if you see a 150 at two o'clock in the morning, are you getting up and correcting it?

Julie 53:41
Yes, yeah.

Yeah. Usually, usually I'm at work. And I'm waking my husband up, like get up and fix that. You must love that. Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:51
you must love waking up to do that. I my wife looks delighted. Even in her sleep. She's like, Scott, that thing's going on. That CGM is going off? I'm like, oh, I'll get it.

Julie 54:01
Yeah, he doesn't hear it. He sleeps like the dead it can be going off right next to him. And I still have to call to wake him up.

Scott Benner 54:07
Oh, I believe that I I have trouble hearing it sometimes. And it gets different more difficult as you you know, like anything else. I sometimes like in a time when I when I was growing up, I lived on a major roadway, like my parents were broken. You know, our house was like on a four lane street that constantly had traffic. And you could invite somebody over to the house that had never been there before. And you could see the look on their face was they could just hear the traffic going by the entire time and those of us who live there, we didn't even hear it. Like it just became background noise, you know. So it's just what, you know what you just said, but like I said, was incredibly honest about like, Look, I needed to sleep, there's no way around it. So we make our blood sugar a little higher so that everybody can do that. And then the minute you saw what that really meant, like in real terms, like looking at it on a graph. He said, oh god, I can't let this happen. I'm gonna push it Down here and find a way to do this. But you couldn't have done it blindly. Because because it just would have seemed too dangerous. And it very well may have been to put her blood sugar at 80 and hope that it like stayed there all night without being able to check it. It's a very unfair disease. It sucks that we're standing here saying that like without this technology, I've got to err on the side of caution. And what that means is a raise blood sugar and everything that comes with it. It's not fair. It's just it's I feel like I just felt incredibly sad for you as you were saying it and yet I did the same thing years ago. And at the time, I did not feel sad for myself. I just thought I was doing the best I could, you know?

Julie 55:42
Yeah, Dexcom should be standard issue or some type of CGM should be standard issue when you leave a hospital.

Scott Benner 55:48
On this podcast, we don't talk about other CGM. But I hear what you're saying. And I'm just kidding.

Julie 55:54
Yeah, but it's, I mean, they should it should be standard issue. Um, oh,

Scott Benner 55:59
no, I've said it before. Like, if you had a heart issue, they'd put you on a heart monitor, they wouldn't go, let's just hope your heart's Okay. Go ahead home. And we'll just hope, you know, like, it's, now this stuff exists. And you see what it does. And you can also see what happens if someone lives so long without it. And all of a sudden, you give them the information, it can be overwhelming. You don't I mean, so just like diabetes itself, and all the other things that come with it. I say get it early. It's everything's uncomfortable in the beginning Anyway, you get accustomed to it, you'll learn as you grow, and then it just becomes a, you know, a simple part of your life. To me, that's the best way. I mean, obviously, anybody can do whatever they want. If you're listening right now, you're like, I don't want to see gentlemen, I'm doing fine. Like, right on, I don't care. You know what I mean? Like, do what I need to do. I'm my experience. So. But I agree with you. I really do. I just, I don't see, I know for certain that the things we talked about on this podcast management wise become much more difficult and intensive. Without a glucose monitor, then you're testing more frequently, you're probably not being as aggressive as you want to be, which I'm assuming leads to more like misses on insulin and higher blood sugars and things like that. And how do you correct that blood sugar when you don't know? You know, like, like, when you don't have that information? Like how do you make this like, like bold decision to put in a bunch of insulin? To get a head of a Slurpee get on a man? Something like that?

Julie 57:27
Absolutely. Yeah.

Scott Benner 57:29
So when you guys make insulin, you don't when you're not at home? Does he always contact your husband always contact you and say, Hey, this is dinner. What should I do here? Or does he get it? Get it sometimes on his own? Or do you guys talk about it

Julie 57:42
every time? Not always know. He's gotten much better at it. Especially since we've gotten the pump. He's I don't want to talk bad, but he would agree he's bad at math. So when we were on MDI, he doesn't, he doesn't like math at all. But once we've gotten the pump, and it kind of does for him, he's he's fine with it. But if he's eating out, and it's not that standard meal, because I cook every day, like we have a two week menu, I cook meals every day. So he's got the carb counts. He knows what they are. That he's fine with that if he's at taking the girls out to dinner like they're going to Busch Gardens this weekend. I'm sure I'll get phone calls. Yeah, like Hey, hey, we're,

Scott Benner 58:28
yeah, that's activity and heat. And then I'm assuming some weird soft pretzel. It's probably not even flour because it was made six years ago and it's for sale at Busch Gardens. And you know, like all that other stuff. Ya know, there you need a little bit of a I don't know little Zen little ninja little judges, whatever you gonna call it? Right? Yeah, just that kind of feeling where you can just go out. I know what that is. I in this situation. That's very cool. And texting I would imagine is like a huge part of it.

Julie 58:55
Oh, yeah. We're hoping to get that in the school next year. We'll see how that goes.

Scott Benner 59:00
Oh, you're gonna you're trying to manage the way we do like, just with the kind of direct contact? Is she going to the nurse right now?

Julie 59:07
Um, yeah. And that was that was mostly on the it wasn't anything with the school. The schools actually phenomenal. The doctor was the problem. So we've since changed doctors.

Scott Benner 59:19
Gotcha.

Julie 59:20
Oh, yeah. We like our new

Scott Benner 59:22
doctor a lot. A wonderful note from a person last night. That said, that thing we talked about all the time happened to them. They were like, I would just heard you talking about this in an episode yesterday. I it happened to me, I have my great agency and my doctor yelled at me and told me to make it higher. And then the rest of it said so you know i? I have another appointment three months from now, but with a different doctor. I was like, Wow, good for you. Like that was just that person did not take that crap for one second. Like I've been working at this so hard. I randomly bumped into a podcast like you can't take this from me like I'm an adult with diabetes. Like I just got this right and you're gonna come along Don't say no, I'm not doing this with you and didn't even didn't argue with them just was like, Yeah, okay, thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Got their prescriptions left change doctors.

Julie 1:00:10
Yeah, I think that's the only thing I would you know, advise any, is stick up for your kids. But if your kid you know, I think are the doctor we had, he was fantastic. Please don't get me wrong he's a fantastic doctor, but he thinks every kid is the same. And it came down to our fork in the road was during sLl to shear I don't know if you're familiar with sLl in school that standardized testing that Virginia has tried

Scott Benner 1:00:36
to get out of luck. Now I have to put a beep in dammit.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:42
That's what I thought.

Julie 1:00:45
It is kind of what else me but it's standardized testing in Virginia. And it's a massive test that they prepare for all year. And Abby has horrible anxiety with tests. And her blood sugar's go through the roof. It happened last year. And and I tried to get them to manage it in the test, like having have her cell phone with the proctor where I could text and say, Hey, she needs to do this. So she wouldn't have to leave the test because the way it works, they have to stop the test for everybody. She has to leave. And they keep the test stop until she comes back. That's her she was ridiculous. Yeah, that's not right.

Scott Benner 1:01:25
That's what Arden does. Arden has the has the phone in the test. I will say this. It took a meeting. It took me getting a person in the on you know, at the school level on my side for the idea that person had to go to the state and advocate for me the state actually listened. And now in New Jersey, if you live in New Jersey, guys, you can press now for that because we did it now they're okay with it. So you can do it too. But yeah, Arden's phone stays with the proctor and I'll text and be like, you know, just point six, the proctor season walks over to where holds the phone up, and she gives herself insulin and you know, she does the point six or whatever it is, and she's on her way.

Julie 1:02:09
Well, the school had no problem with it. It was it was her medical plan. And so I had to have the medical plan change. And when I called him and asked, I was like, Hey, can we get this change? Because you guys were planning on making her independent next year anyways, that middle school, he was like, I'm not making her independent Middle School, probably not in high school. I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. What? Wait,

Scott Benner 1:02:32
what somebody's gonna end in this situation is gonna be me from you.

Julie 1:02:36
Right? And I was like, I was like, Okay, I was like, well handle that the next deployment when I'm face to face with you. However, at this moment, I was like, she goes up to three and 400. And he's like three and 400 for a 30 minute test isn't a problem. I was like, it's not a 30 minute test. It's a four hour test for the next four days, four times in a month. And he's like, that won't hurt her. I was like, Oh, no, I was like, this is a problem. I was like, this is a serious problem, it will hurt her.

Scott Benner 1:03:05
I don't understand if your doctor doesn't know that. Or if your doctor just is trying to comfort you and thinks there's no way to fix it. But I would just say to anybody, if you if you're not involved with a medical professional, who's willing to sit down and figure something out that fits your life, you're with the wrong person. Like whatever it is, like, forget diabetes for a second, just you need to be able to say, look, I have a specific situation. This is it. Let's all put our heads together for a half a second come up with an idea, especially you who came up with an idea. You're like, Look, this will work. I know for sure. Because there's a guy on the internet that told me it worked. And so you know, I get that part. Maybe you don't tell him that part. Right. But but like I had this great idea. And this is gonna work, all I need to do is like change this sentence here in her medical order that and then the school will go with it. And that's it. And and to tell you that maybe I won't let her be independent, even into high school. Who is he? I don't like that at all. That may I guess, is this doctor over? 50 years old? Yeah, yeah, you need younger, younger, more agile thinkers. Not people who have been doing lacks the same way for decades. You know?

Julie 1:04:14
I think the problem is, is he thinks that he's the only doctor in the area and probably for people that way he is but we live so far. West that I drive an hour and a half because that office is it is so I go an hour and a half the other way I hit Richmond. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 1:04:30
So he doesn't have a monopoly on you. You're already you're already making a day of it. So right. I might as well make a day of it and go talk to somebody else. Boy, that's just that's terrible. I hope that person is listening. And if they are, I don't like what you do. But for everybody else, stick up for yourselves. do what's right. When somebody won't let you do what's right. Find somebody who will there always will be someone out there. And I mean, listen, Joey's driving an hour and a half, which by the way, oh my god. I'm so sorry. I think our endo is like eight minutes from the house as I'm driving all the way over here, you know, so

Julie 1:05:08
you probably have more traffic than I do too, though, so I don't have much traffic.

Scott Benner 1:05:11
Oh, there's something here. Yeah, I hear you. So is that did Abigail make it through the whole hour in that room watching you do this?

Julie 1:05:21
Yeah, she's still there.

Oh, no, no, no, she left the board. She bailed on.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:27
How long did she make it?

Julie 1:05:31
About 40 minutes. She did pretty well. She's on her phone.

Scott Benner 1:05:33
Nice. That's nice. I was gonna try to say goodbye to her if she was still there. But she's gone. We've done a terrific hour together. Thank you very much. Are you still nervous now? Or has it passed?

Julie 1:05:44
No, no, I'm good. I'm good.

Scott Benner 1:05:47
Should we start over? You can really jump into it right now. Trust me, that doesn't go well. I had a technical problem once and we I literally interviewed a person and then had to interview them right away again right afterwards. And it's tiring in the second hour. I'll tell you that much. Joy, just I really appreciate coming on. You were incredibly honest about some difficult things that I think people will be will find a lot of commonality. And I think he helps some people today. So thank you very much for doing this.

Julie 1:06:17
Oh, good. Thanks for having me. Absolutely.

Scott Benner 1:06:21
Huge thanks to Julie for coming on and telling her family story around type one diabetes. She was incredibly honest number of times. And I really think that's why the podcast is, is what it is. It's pretty cool that people are willing to come on and do that. So thank you, Julie. Thank you all so Dexcom and Omni pod for sponsoring this show. I appreciate it greatly. dexcom.com forward slash juice box, my Omni pod comm forward slash juice box. There's also links in your show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. Check out the sponsors. Click the links, please. And thank you. Alright, guys, it's the end of April. I don't know about you. We've now been inside for 123456 weeks, three days, six weeks and three days. Quick. Math tells me six times seven is 4242 plus 345. By the time you hear this, it'll be tomorrow. Let's call it 4646 days in my home 46 days in your home. Hope you're not getting stir crazy. I found myself actually bored the other day, just bored. And I sat down. I was just like, Alright, I'm gonna stop, like, ignore the feeling that I'm always supposed to be doing something. sat down. Kelly sat down. Cole sat down, Arden sat down. We're all sitting around the table doing nothing. We're there for 10 minutes, I swear to you, people are quiet. Some people are looking at videos working on homework, just sitting I was reading something. I'm thinking about getting a new grill, I was reading about a grill and art and goes, Hey, this is really weird. What are we doing? It shouldn't be weird that we were all just sort of sitting together for a couple of minutes. So you know, interesting. Anyway, hopefully we'll all be out and about soon, but not before it's safe and right to do. But definitely before I give in to the odd impulse to buy a drone. Now, keep in mind, I could never fly a drone. I know for 100% certainty that if I had a drone, it would go up in the air and turn upside down and crash right into the ground. I have no spatial awareness around things when they get out of sync with me. Like I can drive and I mean, but that's because I'm looking through the car. The minute you point the car the other way and keep me in control of it. Not going to go well. So I have to fight off the urge to look into buying a drone about every three days during our shut in period. I don't know why it is I think it's something in me that thinks it would be amazing to fly it away and be able to see things which maybe it would be but the the intelligence side of my brain that knows that I would just crash the damn thing in five seconds. Plus, I don't want to buy it. It's very expensive. There is I can tell. Anyway, that is one of the urges I'm fighting off during the during our time of incarceration. I wonder if you're not doing the same if there's not something that every day you're stopping yourself from buying just like I don't want this I don't need this but so bored. But then you know, I realized it would come in a box and then what would I do and have to redo the expert What do you people do do you spray the box with Lysol or wipe it down with wipes or something and then did like a special place open boxes in the house that then gets like completely wiped down in the box gets you know incinerated right away. You'll laid on fire and wash your hands like up to your elbows like you're gonna do surgery. That's that's the get the mail, right? That's the meat the Amazon guy. So anyway, that's how I talked myself out of it. I'm like, I don't wanna have to unbox it. But the truth is, I would crush it tree. Okay, guys, I really appreciate that you're listening. podcasts are down. Some say 17%. during April, do the Coronavirus This podcast is not down nearly that much. I do miss you guys commuting a little bit. There's a couple of shows in there. You're not catching because you're at home. But uh, you know, I respect you. I respect that you're, you've got a different situation right now. We'll get back into the car one day and start listening. I'm good. But I don't have a 17% drop is what I'm saying. And that is in large part due to you I so I really appreciate it. Please continue to share the show if you're enjoying it. And I just really appreciate you all. Please stay safe. Wash your hands.


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