Scott Benner 9/15/20 Scott Benner 9/15/20

#381 Brent has a Story

Husband and father of three

Brent shares his 20-year journey as a person with Type 1 diabetes, a husband and father to three young children. After 15 years of manual daily injections and multiple daily finger sticks, Brent switched to a T1D physician in 2015 which has made all the difference in his daily management and overall health. He now uses a continuous glucose monitor and insulin pump and talks about the success he's had using technology for the past five years. Brent offers a laid-back personal perspective on why it's so important to take care of yourself and practice patience when living with T1D.

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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 0:09
Hello, everyone, welcome to Episode 381 of the Juicebox Podcast. On today's show, we're gonna be speaking with Brent. Brent has had Type One Diabetes for 20 years. He's been married for a long time and he's got three kids. Brent's progression with Type One Diabetes has been steady but slow. And it's really coming together for him. So he's here to tell you his story. In fact, this is brandstory.

Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin. If you're looking for a terrific endocrinologist, or have one that you'd like to share with people, please go to juicebox docs.com. And if you're enjoying the pro tip series of the podcast and like to share that with someone, or if you're looking to see the episodes all in one place, without using your podcast app, you're looking for diabetes pro tip.com.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, please visit Contour Next one.com Ford slash juice box to learn more about the Contour Next One. There's so much information at this link. I don't even know where you'll begin. But where I'm going to start by telling you about Arden's blood glucose meter, the Contour Next One blood glucose meter is incredibly accurate and cheaply priced. It's actually possible that the test trips purchased directly with cash could be cheaper than what you're paying through your copay with your insurance company, when that'd be interesting. Check it out. While you're there, you're gonna see all of the contour products listed right at the top. There's resources, such as downloadable log books, and the contour diabetes app that works in conjunction with the meter that's available for Apple or Android, it's even possible that you could be eligible for a free Contour Next One meter seriously, you got to go click around on those links. There's a test trip savings card there, it's worth picking around and learning about everything, not just about ardens meter. But if you're in the market for a new meter, I can't say enough good things about the Contour. Next One. It's absolutely been the most accurate meter My daughter has ever used. I'd also like to direct your attention to touched by type one.org. It's a great diabetes organization doing wonderful things with people living with type one diabetes, and they'd love it if you check them out on Facebook, Instagram. We're at touched by type one.org.

Brent 3:30
My name is Brent. I live in Payson, Utah. It's a town about an hour south of Salt Lake. I have had Type One Diabetes for just a tad over 20 years. I've been married for a little over 10 years. As three kids, two boys and a girl. My oldest son is eight. My daughter is four and my youngest son is one almost too

Scott Benner 3:59
bright. Do me a favor that cord with the with the microphone. I try not to brush spider, let it touch your clothes. Okay. Okay, that's all otherwise sounds terrific. And I appreciate you telling us about yourself. How old were you when you were diagnosed?

Brent 4:15
So I was 17 happened over Christmas break of all times. And I believe that was the Christmas break of 1999 to 2000. So I always just go off of 2000 since that's kind of an easy time to remember how long I've had it.

Scott Benner 4:39
Brent, you know what? It's funny. We all put so much effort into being worried about y2k and what would happen to computers and we should have been worried about what was going to happen to your pancreas.

Brent 4:49
Yeah, I had no worries about y2k either, didn't bother me at all.

Scott Benner 4:55
I do remember being in a number of meetings at my job and I just kept thinking I feel like we're making a big deal out of this. And the computers just gonna say it's January 1 2000. Here we go. But such an odd thing. Anyway, tell me about your diagnosis a little bit.

Brent 5:12
Yeah. So, um, you know, my memory is kind of fade a little bit, you know, the other. Yeah. I remember it being a Sunday morning. pretty typical Sunday morning, I'm a, I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints growing up here in Utah. But anyways, you know, did my regular thing and getting ready for church and going to church, and I was over there at church, I remember a couple people saying, it looks like you a little thin, and I, I just brushed that comment kind of off, I didn't really think anything of it. And after coming home from church that day, I was not feeling good at all, I just want to lay down and do nothing. Yeah. I was the kind of kid that, you know, wanted to be playing video games all the time, or watching TV or something. But for some reason, I just wanted to lay down and do nothing. I was using the bathroom a ton during the night, I think I got up at least once an hour. But anyways, after church, my parents had noticed that I was just doing nothing. And we had a friend that lived pretty close by who was a doctor. So he came over and kind of checked me out. And he had told my parents that I need go to the hospital. So we went to the hospital. I don't remember other much than checking into the hospital. And, you know, they ran some more tests. And, you know, told me I had diabetes, I had really no idea what that meant. I think I spent the course of the next couple days or three days in the hospital, learning about all I could and how to kind of manage it from there.

Scott Benner 7:20
They won't ever tell you what your blood sugar was, at your time of diagnosis.

Brent 7:24
I don't remember the exact number. But I remember it was over 600. So it was pretty high.

Scott Benner 7:30
That's why you weren't playing video games. Whenever.

Brent 7:33
Yeah, take it right out. I was

Scott Benner 7:36
our bread. Listen, we got it. We've got to dig down on something for a second here. Because since you listened through the entire show, you said in like a month and a half. So you're aware. And I've never been able to put my finger on this yet. But I asked every time to try to get closer to the answer. Why is the show so popular with Mormons? And why do they come on all the time? And like you have to be the sixth? or seventh perhaps? Like you do? Have you heard them as they're as they're talking? Sometimes people don't identify themselves right away. Sometimes I out them for having like, 43 kids or something like that. And I'm like, hey, so, but um, is there anything about the community? That's is diabetes? more prevalent? That doesn't make any sense? But is that possible?

Brent 8:27
I don't think it's any more prevalent around here anyways, I mean, I just I found the podcast, and it seemed really interesting, you know, listening to you and how you talked about your daughter, you know, finding out she had diabetes, and it was just really interesting in it. It hit me because you know, I've had it for at the time, it was only 19 and a half years when I had started listening, but you know, I've had it for 20 years ago. I've really not connected with a lot of other type one diabetics,

Scott Benner 9:01
so maybe it's the opposite maybe. Maybe there's just nobody in Utah. So everybody there needs to find Am I might be the Mitt Romney of type one. Diabetes, podcasting. It's possible. Is this not true? If you were to say that maybe.

Brent 9:14
And I really haven't listened to any other.

Scott Benner 9:19
Just found this one.

Brent 9:20
Yeah, I found this one. And you know, it just

clicked right off and I listened. I really liked it.

Scott Benner 9:26
I would like people of all religions to listen, I'm just telling you that, you know, it just comes up. So frequently. I'm not wondering how many people I've interviewed. Who, who did not tell me? It's possible. I've interviewed 306 people from the church. I don't know. Anyway,

Brent 9:45
I suppose.

Scott Benner 9:47
So how did you find how did you find growing up? And 20 years ago, what kind of technology they started with?

Brent 9:55
Um, so I remember, just syringes and vials. Well, what it was. I've used human log for most of my diabetes life. That's what I used. And I think it was humulin was what the other was called the long acting one.

Scott Benner 10:19
Yeah. What's your most dear? I'm sorry to cut you off? Did your parents jump in and help? Because that's a weird age, it's 17? Or did they do the like, he's a man, he'll handle it. Like, where? Where did that fall? And how did that impact you how, however it went.

Brent 10:34
So I do remember me handling most of it. I mean, my parents, you know, were they were there in the hospital learning about it just as much as I was. But, you know, I'm, I was practically an adult. So, you know, I just pretty much handled everything on my own, you know, short of, you know, setting up doctor's appointments and insurance and that kind of thing. But, you know, managing the diabetes, I pretty much handled it on my own, from what I remember,

Scott Benner 11:07
where you're out where your outcomes, what you were looking for, like, I'm interested how a 17 year old, you know, 20 years ago with some syringes, and some, you know, insulin we don't use anymore. Like, was your health where you wanted it to be? Or was that constant struggle? Or did was it not thought of that way at the time?

Brent 11:27
I honestly don't remember too much about how I did. Way back then I will tell you this. So later that summer later

2000

I got an early graduation gift and my sister also, there's this, I think it's kind of a high school program national throughout the country. It's called people to people, student ambassadors. Have you heard of that?

Scott Benner 11:56
I have not. No. But it was, um, so what it is.

Brent 12:01
Yeah. So what that is, it's a program that's available to youth, basically. And they go on a big trip somewhere around the world and experience

other cultures, okay.

And anyways, so that summer, my parents had bought my sister and I, well, we actually, you know, helped pay for it ourselves to we went into this program, I think our particular group, there was about 30 or 40 youth and, you know, five or six adult leaders. And we went to Scandinavia for three weeks. So here I am, I'm only six months newly diagnosed, I don't remember having any, or not very many worries about my diabetes and taking, you know, all the supplies that needed to go with me. Yeah. They had us keep a journal as part of the kind of the program. And I don't remember writing anything about my diabetes, rather than just everything I was experiencing. Right?

Scott Benner 13:19
Well, is that because the insulin back back then what you were doing is you were shooting insulin a couple times a day at certain times, then making sure to eat at certain times. Is that about it?

Brent 13:29
Yeah. So you know, I was doing my normal meal time. boluses, if you will, you know, take the insulin for meals. And then I was doing the human, I believe, a shot in the morning and then shot at night.

Scott Benner 13:42
And how do you find, like, how you manage now, compared to that. So how do you manage now?

Brent 13:49
I have been using a pub since 2015, a tandem pump. And I'm actually just got started on my second tandem pump. Just this past November,

Scott Benner 14:01
so you were 1616 years on in on MDI.

Brent 14:05
Yes, yes, that is. That is correct. I did. Okay. I won't say I did gray. And this might have been around maybe 2005. My blood sugar's were or my Avon See, I would say was probably between 10 and 13. So I mean, it wasn't the greatest right. And I wonder, I mean, I was also the doctor I was seeing was just a family physician. So it wasn't anybody specialized in diabetes. But it eventually turned to a point where he recommended me to diabetes doctor and I was able to reduce my agency a bit with I think I got it down between nine and 10%. So I mean, that was a pretty significant increase.

Scott Benner 15:00
Yeah, I mean, you moved it from what? Like more like, and was it swinging around like 10 1112? Like, or did you not? Check? How often were you checking it? I guess it's my question.

Brent 15:12
I was probably the only checking three times a day, I would guess

Scott Benner 15:15
your blood sugar three times a day. And did you go to an endo appointment quarterly? Or was it not that frequent?

Unknown Speaker 15:21
Um,

Brent 15:23
I mean, with the family physician, I think it might have been

maybe every three to six months. So maybe quarterly

Scott Benner 15:31
sees now you've listened to the podcast straight through, as you're listening. Do you think wow, the way people are doing it now is no, it's just not close to what I was doing growing up. Did you have that thought ever while you were listening?

Brent 15:43
I've had it a few times. I mean, it's understandable to me. No, that was 20 years ago. So I mean, things were a lot different back 20 years ago.

Scott Benner 15:54
Yeah. million percent.

Brent 15:56
Definitely blood sugar machines. I, when I was first started, I used a lot of one touch machines. And the first one I had thing was huge. And test trip was huge. And it required tons of blood compared to blood sugar machines today.

Scott Benner 16:17
Do you think that was that part of the impediment around testing more? Or was there just not an onus on testing more? Nobody was like you were testing enough for your doctor?

Brent 16:26
I think I was testing enough for my doctor.

Scott Benner 16:28
Friend. What about for you though? Like, were you? Like, how did you feel with a onesies that were that high? Was it an impediment? Did your body adjust to it? Is it something you look back on now and worry about?

Brent 16:43
I mean, yeah, I do worry about it. I mean, obviously, that's not a great a one C and, and whatnot. But I mean,

I'm still alive today,

Scott Benner 16:54
I really appreciate you being on because I mean, the podcast is five years old. So you're talking to people who are mostly brought up around faster acting insulin, you know, their carb counting, covering meals, you know, testing more frequently, we're in glucose monitors. That's the kind of stuff. And I think that people sometimes make the mistake of believing that that's just how it's how it is how it's always been. And, you know, like, that's it. And even today, there are more people in the world with diabetes, who have a story, it's like yours, then a story like theirs. But then those people who are listening going, Oh my gosh, like, you know, my one sees in the sevens and I'm always wanting to get it down. And, you know, like, I know what my blood sugar is all the time, etc. I think we all need to really remember that most people don't have access to good information, tools, and sometimes, you know, even, you know, the meters and the glucose monitors and the pumps and etc. Even smartphones, you know, it's easy to like, get caught in a bubble and think that this is how it is. But I think it's more the way you're describing honestly.

Brent 18:05
Yeah, most certainly as I mean.

Yeah, sorry. I lost my train of thought.

Scott Benner 18:15
up early in the morning. What time is it there?

Brent 18:17
It's a

it's just after seven. I get up at 530 here because I actually start work normally at

Scott Benner 18:25
seven o'clock. Oh, no kidding. You work from home or you.

Brent 18:28
I actually work I commute. I've got about a half an hour

Scott Benner 18:32
ish commute. I appreciate you making time for this. I really do.

Brent 18:36
Yeah. I felt this was pretty important. So I

Scott Benner 18:40
Well, what did you ask? You asked you asked for time off for this.

Brent 18:45
I just told him I was gonna come in later. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 18:47
thank you very much.

Brent 18:48
Look at this, this and I still work my normal time is the level of

Scott Benner 18:52
dedication. Brian, I expect from everyone listening to the show, just you know, Brent, listen to all of the episodes. He didn't say, Oh, I didn't think that one would be interesting. I don't want to hear that from you. People listen all the way through. And if I need you to get up early to be on the podcast, that's just what you have to do. Just kidding, from what what made it feel important to be on the podcast.

Brent 19:13
I just, you know, I just wanted to share my story, you know, hear, you know, let the listeners hear kind of another. Another story. I mean, that's what got me into this podcast, was hearing your daughter's story. And you know, to change in yours, your life, her life, your whole family's life. Just you know, having another point of view, basically. Yeah.

Scott Benner 19:40
So did it help you more like spiritually, like psychologically or was it helpful management wise or what did you what what's happened after hearing all those experiences,

Brent 19:51
I would say all the above. I mean, it's, you know, I think I've tried to get myself more involved with Other type one diabetics, and it's kind of even listening to this podcast. And you know, it's just kind of helped me even reflect on myself and how I manage my own diabetes.

Scott Benner 20:14
Were you meeting people? Is it online? or in person?

Brent 20:18
Yeah, it's mainly through Facebook groups and stuff.

Yeah, that's kind of the the main part.

I have some family that's got type one diabetes, and some pretty close friends that has it. But you know, aside from that, it's mainly been just online.

Scott Benner 20:40
Yeah. Do you find yourself talking about it more since you've listened? Or have you always been kind of open and conversational about it?

Brent 20:49
I've been pretty open about talking about it. But I think I, I do feel like I have been more open to talking about my diabetes to people since I have been listening to the podcast.

Scott Benner 21:01
Okay. That's excellent. Well, one second, Arden is asking me a question.

Unknown Speaker 21:08
Let's see,

Scott Benner 21:10
the blood sugar got a little low. And she's in class. She's trying to treat it already. But her blood sugar hasn't popped back up yet. And she's just like, my phone won't shut up. So she's had this very interesting, this is ridiculous. Solar people, you know, what, most likely? And then all the everything I gave her as you know, hey, try this or this. She is not right now. So why are you telling me about the phone? If you're not willing to Alright, listen, let's not try to make sense of children, I guess. So, her blood sugars have just required less insulin for the last over a week now. And at first, I know everybody's gonna laugh at me. But our What is this? What is this?

Unknown Speaker 22:05
What? Oh,

Scott Benner 22:08
I don't have a January electric statement. That's not why they're calling they're lying to me. Sorry about that. So her blood sugar's have been lower. And everyone's gonna laugh, because, you know, I always say like, don't just say they're sick. I think they're getting a cold. But when Arden has certain kinds of illnesses, her blood sugar just is easier to control. She needs less insulin. It's always been that way. So when this happened, we just assumed that's what was happening. We started cutting insulin back, you know, the way we normally do, but it still wasn't helping. And she was, you know, still just lower, lower, lower, lower, but she'd also kind of lost her appetite. So we thought, all right, we've made it even worse, you know, you couldn't, you know, she doesn't want to eat a whole lot. You know, you're trying to Bolus you don't really know how much to do. So her blood sugar's been a little up and down for the last few days. And finally, last night, I thought, what if so Arden just recently got an infusion of iron. And her her ferritin level was very low, which happens to me too, and it happened to her. So she'd been tired and rundown and is going on for a long time. And through the process of trying to diagnose this. We went through a lot of different things, one of them being thinking it was her hypothyroid medication, because the symptoms of low iron and hypothyroidism, so perfectly match each other that that made sense. So, yes, you know what I mean? So we lost a lot of time and art and spent a lot of time feeling rundown. And now she's had the iron for a month or so. And you can see her changing, like, she's got more energy, she's not as tired, she looks better, you know, like all the stuffs happening. Right? But she doesn't feel perfect yet, which we didn't expect and even the doctor that she saw, who was the hematologist told her Listen, it's going to take two to three months for you to feel the complete effects of this iron transfusion. Or infusion, excuse me. And you know, so in you know, he told her like two more months from now, however good you feel, then that's how good you're gonna feel from this. But I started wondering out loud yesterday with Kelly. Is it possible that as her cells are dying off and regenerating, but regenerating now being built from building blocks that have the correct amount of iron and ferritin in them? That's how she's feeling better, but could that be why her insulin needs have been higher? Because Arden's bazel rate is significantly higher than I would expect it to be. And it's not just like around food, like you're a grown man. What's your base rate?

Brent 24:46
Um, varies.

I mean, I have a schedule but I think it's anywhere between point nine an hour to 1.3 an hour

Scott Benner 24:57
right? So my hundred and 40 pounds daughter who's 15 her basal rate during the day has been 2.6. Wow. Right. And so that's just a lot.

Unknown Speaker 25:09
And now that is Yeah.

Scott Benner 25:10
So all of a sudden, yesterday, I was like, Oh my gosh, this isn't a thing, maybe that's going to go away. Like, we're gonna have to adjust to this. Maybe forever. And let's try. So I paired all of her settings down pretty significantly, had a lot of success overnight. But of course, this was my first day time with it. And she got the school and it's just, you know, it was doing great, doing great. And then all of a sudden, it dropped down. And now it just does not seem to want to move again. So that is, yeah, that's

Brent 25:44
interesting. Hold on a second.

Scott Benner 25:55
So I'm gonna get her to test and we're gonna check it out. not know, who knows, I could end up being wrong about this. And three days from now, her blood sugar's might go right back to the way they were, I don't know. But it's a significant difference in the amount of insulin she needs, like significant.

Brent 26:14
Yeah, well, hopefully she gets her numbers back to where they should be. And hopefully to get that figured out.

Scott Benner 26:20
Yeah, I appreciate that. I do. So first, so how do you find pumping versus how you were doing it for so long, because I'm it's very, it's very much interesting to talk to somebody who basically lived a lifetime not using an insulin pump, and now uses one.

Brent 26:36
I love it. I will say that right off, it's great. I don't know how I lived without it.

Unknown Speaker 26:42
Um,

Brent 26:43
so back in 2015, that's when my daughter was born. Okay. And she had some complications with being born that year, and she ended up being in the Nikki for 18 or 19 days, which, you know, that's traumatic in itself. But, you know, towards the end of the year, I had started researching pumps, what pumps I want to use, which one I think is going to be the best for me. I should say, a few years before that. I ended up switching doctors to a another one up in Salt Lake who has type one diabetes himself. And I actually still see him to this day. He's the best. I think it's, you know, if you can find a doctor that has type one diabetes themselves, I don't know if you're gonna get any better than that. Because they have. They understand everything. They have a different perspective than somebody who doesn't, if that makes sense. Oh, of course.

But anyways, so 2015.

I had researched a few different pumps, I didn't even considered Omni pod. And I think I was considering another Medtronic one. But I finally emailed my doctor and saying, here's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at this Medtronic pump. I think I will really like it because it talked with my glucose meter. I think it was the Contour. Next One link or something. had talked Bluetooth with it anyways, anyways, I emailed him, he actually recommended that I also look into CGM. And I actually hadn't even heard of it, which was

quite interesting, I guess.

Scott Benner 28:49
Well, you had no contact with people with diabetes. Right. So yeah, I wouldn't have heard.

Brent 28:54
I mean, I didn't really know anything. I mean, I knew what an insulin pump was. But he recommended two pumps for me. He had first mentioned the Animas five, which I don't think is even available anymore. Because it integrated with dexcom CGM. Oh, and the first thing he had told me is, he wouldn't recommend me doing the Medtronic team because they're CGM, he says wasn't very good. He outright said the dexcom is the best. And, you know, his opinion kind of kind of changed my mind pretty quickly, just because I trusted him and I knew him pretty well. Um, the other pump he recommended was the tandem t slim g4 at the time is what it was, and it was going to be integrating with Dexcom soon and that's the font that I chose. ended up using So I've been with Dexcom since g4.

Scott Benner 30:03
Yeah, cuz that animus vibe, how did that work with the g4 back then? Did they act? They didn't actually speak to each other? Did they? Or they did it. Oh, you know what it was, you could see your CGM data on your pump. Is that right? Yes.

Brent 30:15
But it was

Scott Benner 30:16
That's correct. It wasn't telling it what to do like a closed loop or like, no algorithm or anything like that right now.

Brent 30:21
Nothing like that. Um, I believe you were required to calibrate every

Scott Benner 30:28
12 hours, I believe how I remember it. So.

Brent 30:31
Um, yeah, the pump didn't do anything based off any other readings other than just showing you constantly what your blood sugar was, which was huge. I mean, poking my fingers for 15 years, 16 years, or whatever it was got a little. Yeah, I mean, my fingers. Were pretty callous. So you were

Scott Benner 30:56
you're like, you probably had those fingers, like you saw like people see sometimes online, which, you know, more newly diagnosed, people don't know from but those hard bumps all like everywhere, because you're constantly looking for space on your fingers. And eventually, after years, years, years, they just don't heal as quickly. And it's, it's Stark, right, like you can see it when you're looking.

Brent 31:17
Yeah.

Scott Benner 31:18
Can I ask how that? How did that affect tactilely? like touching things and lifting things? Did it have an

Brent 31:23
impact on that? I didn't seem to notice too much.

I don't know if this was the right thing to do. But I would sometimes take fingernail clippers and try and kind of cut away the callus a little bit. Take

Scott Benner 31:40
them away. You're doing your own landscaping there on your on your

Brent 31:45
Yeah, I did that every once in a while? I don't know.

Scott Benner 31:48
Don't worry, Brent, we will cover that with nothing on the Juicebox Podcast is considered advice. So that's funny, it worked, right? Hey, I guess whatever works, right? diabetes is a lot about, you know, making adjustments on the go and sort of, you know, being your own MacGyver and figuring things out, you know, for you. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 32:08
Yeah, and

Scott Benner 32:09
I mean, two more things that you made up during this episode, you're gonna be the Mormon MacGyver Just so you know, on the

Unknown Speaker 32:15
on the episode.

Scott Benner 32:18
So, hey, listen, tell me a little bit about having kids when you have type one,

Brent 32:21
it didn't really bother me at all. I mean, I didn't really think of it much. I mean, I know the symptoms, I know what to do with, you know, we we find out things. Luckily, all three of my kids are, are not type one diabetics. But you know, what, if they were, I'm not going to love them any less, and I'm going to know how to help them. And you know, I'm going to be able to basically coach them through it. That kind of thing. If they were,

Scott Benner 32:56
you'd have a leg up, you're kind of if your children ended up with diabetes, it would sort of be like what you were saying about seeing a doctor who has type one, it's just an extra level of understanding.

Brent 33:06
Yeah, it's an extra level of care.

Scott Benner 33:09
Yeah. That's excellent. That's wonderful. Well, what are your goals? Now that you're pumping? And you have a glucose monitor? What do you like? Do you have goals with your agency? Or how do you think of it? Because you are coming from an old school idea of this? So I'm interested in, in what you're doing now?

Brent 33:26
Absolutely. I mean, I see my endocrinologist every quarter, still every three months. And we have a goal of keeping it well below 7%. I usually do that pretty good. My last day when see. I was 6.7. I have been as low as 6.3. before. But you know, just basically under 7% is kind of the the goal with that.

Scott Benner 34:03
Does it fluctuate greatly? quarter to quarter?

Brent 34:07
Ah, not usually. It's usually pretty close between I'd say it's usually between six five and six, eight. Okay. You know, that's that's pretty good. And definitely a huge improvement over when I first started,

Scott Benner 34:23
right? Oh, no.

Brent 34:26
Yeah, I stay pretty consistently. Pretty close to that. The only exception was last year when I was in between jobs. I didn't have a month of Dexcom Okay. And it was just interesting to see how much it affected my pay one see and bloods here without having that for a month. I think my name once he got to 7.5 not horrible. But I mean, I haven't hadn't been over seven for

years.

Scott Benner 34:59
So you You moved anywhere from a half to a full point just from losing your glucose monitor for one month. Yeah, the CGM, the Dexcom. What did that change for you not having it? Like, do you remember that feeling of like, what what's gonna happen to me? I'm losing my CGM. How do I go back to what I was doing before?

Brent 35:19
Yeah, I was part of some groups on Facebook and an app called help around which, you know, it's type one diabetics, you know, trying to help each other giving them supplies and that kind of thing. I was almost in a panic to try and find some supplies that somebody can give me. Yeah, just because, you know, I hadn't been without a CGM for years. Right. And, you know, I didn't end up finding anything, unfortunately. I mean, I got some supplies, but they didn't end up working. I even went back as far as trying to find some GE for supplies, just so I could see my graph you were just gonna see right, it's going on.

Scott Benner 36:04
Listen, your your, your unemployment story is much better than most people's, you're only out of work for a month.

Brent 36:11
Um, so I wasn't out of work. So what happened was, I had switched jobs. February last year, and insurance would kick in until I had been there 90 days, I think. And I had enough of my leftover CGM supply to last for for two months. But then I had that third month where I wasn't gonna go pay out of pocket for the supplies, either. I had plenty of pump supplies. So I didn't have to get off of that. Luckily,

Scott Benner 36:44
can I ask you a question now that you've been through it and not asking, you know, for your your financial situation, but now having done it? Do you wish you would have paid cash for the month?

Brent 36:59
I wish I would have had the cash to pay for

Scott Benner 37:01
it. Right. Right.

Brent 37:04
But I mean, you know, what? Living a month without it. I, you know, came down to I lived 15 years without it. What's a bond can make it 30 days, right?

Scott Benner 37:17
So, can you tell me a little bit about like your health and your your how you physically feel? Do you? Do you have a comparison how you are living now versus how you were living then? And the impact that has on you? Um,

Brent 37:34
I'm not sure that I really notice a whole lot of difference. I mean, I'm not very active than the first

place, which, you know, it's

just something I never get around to running a

Scott Benner 37:48
marathon. But no, so you so it's likely that you began at a higher a one C and kept it steady. So you then your body adapts, and you don't feel the higher blood sugar. Did you feel it when it was coming down when you made the changes?

Brent 38:04
Yeah, I mean, I've I definitely feel my highs and I mean, I, I think I started feeling groggy, you know, 200 and above. And I can tell when I'm high without even having to look at my CGM. I do because that's what I do. Because I look at it pretty often. And I can, yeah, there's a big difference between high and low. I can definitely feel feel that.

Scott Benner 38:38
You just said something I want to ask you about you said you look at your CGM. Often, I was just speaking somewhere this weekend. And someone said to me, how do I stop myself from looking at this data? And I said, I said lower your high alarm? Because then you won't have to wonder if your blood sugar is getting high. It will tell you and then when you're not getting high, you won't think the look. So it made me wonder what your high alarm setup.

Brent 39:05
I have my high alarm set at 180. So anything above 180

Unknown Speaker 39:11
you get a good alarm.

Scott Benner 39:12
But prior to the alarms you find yourself checking.

Brent 39:15
I mean, I look at it fairly often. So I looked at it a few different ways. I have it I have the app on my phone. I have an iPhone. I also use sugar mate. I don't know if you've heard of that. I know

Scott Benner 39:28
sugar mate.

Brent 39:30
I use a Mac app on my work computer computers at home so I can up in the top I can see what my blood sugar is what it's doing

Scott Benner 39:41
Luca gram Is that what it's called? Yeah,

Brent 39:43
yep. I think it's a

sugar may glance or something.

Scott Benner 39:49
Okay. Okay. Oh, I know that one too. All right.

Brent 39:53
But I mean, I just have it everywhere. I have it on my palms. I just see Ever I mean, I'm not sitting there staring at it.

Scott Benner 40:04
No, I understand you're not No, I get that. But what do you see my point, though, that if you, if you know, the alarms going to sound prior to it becoming a problem than it, then you just realize I'll hear the alarm, I don't need to look at it, it'll tell me when it gets there. And that, I think that takes away a level of involvement. And there's also terrific research that says that the lower you bring down your high Dexcom alarm, the lower your a one C will go, because I'm gonna say it here just so other people can hear. But I know you've listened to the podcast already. But the sooner you react to a high or an impending high, the less insulin you need to stop it, most of the time, when you use less insulin, you're less likely to have a low later, and you can bring a 120 for instance, back to a 90 quicker with less insulin, then you can affect the 180. And so it's sort of like a little effort up front to lose all that other stuff. And it just it's a it's a matter of putting your effort in what I think of is a better place, but I'm not telling you how to live your life. But just that's how I do it. I don't know if you see any sense in that or not?

Brent 41:18
Yeah, no, no, I definitely do. It does make sense and whatnot. I know, one eight is just kind of weird. My doctor and I have figured is a good spot to know to have the alerts or not. I keep my phone on silent at work. So it's not

Unknown Speaker 41:39
blaring off vibrates for you.

Brent 41:41
And that kind of thing. And even at home sometimes. But I with my pump, I also get vibrates on my bump when it you know, tire blow as well. So I mean, I have another alert for you? Well,

Scott Benner 41:57
well, let me add one more thought to it is that if you if you as you bring the alert down, you sort of will start using insulin differently in a way that you don't recognize. Exactly. Right. And so eventually you don't find one at anymore, I would tell you for certain that what most people consider a 302 B. That's what I consider 180. Like that feeling you have when you see 300 is what I see. That's how I feel at one ad because we so infrequently see one ad? Oh, yeah, like a high blood sugar here would be like 160. And it's not because we're more involved. I actually think in a weird way, it's because we're less involved. But when we're involved, we're using more of the what you might consider to be the correct amount of insulin for the situation. And you only learn that through experience after experience. So I'm just here's what I'm telling you. Right. I think if you move your low alarm to 150 for a month, and then move it to 130. After that the next time you get your a one c check, there'll be a point lower. Right, I would definitely think that and I would think you wouldn't look at your CGM as much a month or two after that. But that's just that. That's my guess out loud.

Brent 43:14
Yeah, so. So I got my new tendon pump this last November. Okay. And it had it came with the bass like you I'm sure you hadn't

Scott Benner 43:26
heard that shut the bezel off yet. Well,

Brent 43:29
yep. And so actually, I just upgraded or updated my software to control IQ just last week, actually,

Scott Benner 43:38
five days ago. And this is a closed loop system. Not Not really. It doesn't have glucagon in it, but it's it's an algorithm.

Brent 43:45
Yes, yeah. So you know, if my blood sugar gets too high, it increases basal and can even deliver an automatic correction automatic correction bolus.

Scott Benner 43:55
Yeah. How are you finding? Um,

Brent 43:58
it's going pretty well. I mean, is it perfect? Of course not. Nothing's perfect. I mean, my blood sugar still gets high a little bit sometimes. And I'm still still learning it. You know, I'm only five days into it

Scott Benner 44:12
is a big adjustment. So yeah, yeah, you're not gonna have it in five days? That's for certain.

Brent 44:16
Yeah, you know, I, I would say, you know, give it at least a month to Ghana. Start, you know, to learn

Scott Benner 44:23
on Friday this, it's funny, because you and I are recording this and what February. And in all honesty, this might be out in August. But tomorrow, I'm interviewing somebody who's going to talk about control IQ to, and he's actually been using it longer. I think she was part of a study. So she might have a little more insight about it. But I think that, you know, I can tell you that from the algorithm stuff that we've done is that it's you know, so much about the settings being correct, so that the algorithm can can make good decisions, right? Yeah, I'm sure you'll find your way with it. Do you Do you have an expectation that it will bring your a one seat down? Is that your hope? Or are you just looking to be less involved?

Brent 45:06
Um, I'm hoping that's going to help with my agency. I'm kind of hoping that down, I mean, not that I've been in a horrible a one seat position. But you know, I've also looked forward to not having to manage it as well. And it's kind of nice that it's got a little bit of automatic

kind of control with it.

I believe it states on their website, you know, that control IQ is helping to lessen the burden on man engine diabetes. Yeah, but it does not replace an active role in taking care of it.

Scott Benner 45:52
It's 100% true, but it's my experience. And from everyone I've spoken to so far. If you're, if anyone is expecting an algorithm pump to just make diabetes disappear out of your life, I'm afraid that's not what's gonna happen. But it should, for people with higher like, imagine, you know, past, you know, Brent, from five years ago, having this thing slapped on him with a 12, a one C. And all the sudden, without really understanding anything else about diabetes, or a one c dropping, you know, five points into the sevens, that would be a absolute, you know, miracle for you. And yeah, and so it's going to be for so many of those people that we talked about, you know, at the beginning, people who just not as involved with management, and understanding, you know, the kind of the tools that that help your blood sugar be lower and stable. And the other thing is, and I'm wondering, even in five days, if you've seen this, is it helping your variability? Are you staying more stable?

Brent 46:45
I yes, I have been seeing more stability and less spiking and that kind of stuff. The last 24 hours within the exception of the last tool, any 30 minutes.

My blood sugar

has been pretty flat.

Scott Benner 47:08
Lovely, flat, where where's it flat? At? What number?

Brent 47:11
Um, so just in range, basically. So I have two ranges during the day. I'm 70 to 180. And then at night, I'm 80 to 150.

Scott Benner 47:24
Okay. Yeah. overnights. easier because you're not eating I guess. Yeah.

Brent 47:30
You mean, boosted shouldn't be

Scott Benner 47:33
erratically, right?

Brent 47:35
Yes, theoretically. But yeah, it. I mean, the last 24 hours on my pump here looks really good. I mean, there was only one time where it went high for about 10 minutes, and then it came right back down.

Scott Benner 47:54
So went over went over 184 unit got it back under again.

Brent 47:58
Yeah, yeah. And I think that was also some help with Bolus to that I did on my part, to say

Scott Benner 48:04
this thing's only manipulating your basal insulin right? It's not sending boluses through.

Brent 48:09
It can send an automatic correction bolus

of what it calculates it only I think it can remember from the training video, I think it says it does up to a 60% of the calculated needed bolus. Okay, but it can only do that once every hour.

Scott Benner 48:28
Okay, that doesn't sound bad at all to me.

Brent 48:32
No, no, it's actually really great. But it does mainly adjust the basal rate. Yeah, increase it or decrease it or completely stop it. Have you

Scott Benner 48:43
had any lows in the last five days?

Brent 48:46
I have had some lows. They haven't been horrible.

I think I've only gotten down to

55 the lowest right?

Scott Benner 48:58
So did you in the beginning think oh control? Like he was never gonna let me get low. I'll let me see what it does. And then you got low. Are you gonna intervene in the future, I guess is what I'm asking.

Brent 49:09
I mean, I know it won't prevent everything. And you know, he can only do so much. For instance, if I take way too much of a bolus of my blood sugar is dropping fast. It can only prevent so much. I mean, if there's way too much insulin on board, it's not going to be able to stop it all the way. The hard thing for me and this has actually been true with basal IQ two is not eating well. It's not true. Just basal IQ it's just been most of my life actually not eating one too many glucose tablets or, or that kind of thing to, you know, shoot you up higher than what you were hoping for. Yeah, kind of thing. But I mean the biggest adjustment with control IQ and basal IQ as well is you know that it It's also working to bring to help your blood sugar get up to that to the area that you need to be, and it's hard to not want to just chomp chomp chomp down on stuff, or,

you know, juice box or whatever.

So you don't go get too low.

Scott Benner 50:23
Is that feeling? Or is that a physical feeling when you when you can't stop?

Brent 50:29
It's been both. I mean, you know, when you start getting below 50, you start kind of getting that panic almost that it's like, I just need to eat sugar and sugar and sugar and sugar. And so I can get that right up in that pan thing. And then you know, it goes the other way. And then you kind of start taking more insulin to bring it back down into range.

Scott Benner 50:52
Yeah, but you feel like a physical need to eat. Is that correct?

Brent 50:57
Yes. I mean,

when I go low, you know, I feel First of all, I feel just different. I don't know how to explain it to somebody that's not a diabetic. Um,

Scott Benner 51:15
I had, let me ask you a question I had, I put up an episode just today with a girl named Aggie, and she's from hungry. And she said, she said that, when she gets low, her thoughts make sense in her head. But when she speaks them, they don't make sense to other people. It's like she like she's not saying what she thinks she's saying. But, but in her mind. She's right. So she can't get her thoughts that come out of her mouth. Has that ever happened to you?

Brent 51:44
Um, I don't think it's ever happened to me. I mean, I'm not saying that it won't ever happen.

But I mean, it's just I kind of

I know and I, I keep glucose tablets on me in my pocket all the time. So I always just

had popcorn out, put some in my mouth. And

it's, it's hard waiting for your blood sugar to go up to and not to continue just chomping down on the glucose tablets or whatever.

Scott Benner 52:16
Yeah, it's hard to wait. It's hard to wait I, I actually said in a in my talk this weekend. I was like, sometimes you just have to have the balls to wait. Like, you just have to be able to just wait a little bit. Because if you do, and you're you know, working off of you're like, don't get me wrong, not the first time you're, you're low. But once you've got a historical knowledge of how this works, and you've done the right things, and you're looking at your data, and your data is suggesting to you that this is going the way you expect it to that's the moment when you have to be able to say okay, let me just stop for a second. Let this Let this be and see what happens for a moment. Yeah, you know, it's a tough it's a tough decision to make, but it keeps you off the roller coaster. And there's nothing more true than you know, the thing that causes lows more than anything are highs. So if you you know, if you don't get high, it's sometimes it's it keeps you from getting low later. I don't think people think of it that way. Sometimes. I hear your kids are milling around. Are they all up? Or just yeah,

Brent 53:17
I'm

on my boys. My eight year olds come down a couple of times.

Scott Benner 53:22
He wasn't gonna make it much longer.

Brent 53:26
Yeah, he's got schooling a little while too. So I hope he's got enough.

Scott Benner 53:31
Listen, it's not your fault. You're busy. Hey, listen, any more plans for more kids?

Unknown Speaker 53:37
Um,

Brent 53:39
I think we're kind of hoping to still have one more. One more. Sure.

Unknown Speaker 53:41
Yeah.

Scott Benner 53:44
Four Sounds Sounds like a lot of work.

Brent 53:47
threes a lot of work.

Scott Benner 53:50
would better be worth it? Cuz if it's not worth it? What are you gonna Imagine if you said to me, Scott, I have three. It's a lot of work. And to be honest with you. I don't think it's worth it. I mean, that would be sad. Now, I think

Brent 54:03
yes, it would be sad. Yeah. No,

Scott Benner 54:05
I I agree with you. I there are definitely days where I wish I had more kids. Last night, I went into Arden's room where she was collecting her clothing she's grown out of and she's got a plan to sell it online. Mostly because I don't think she worked very often. And you know, she's she's telling me about her plan to make money. I said, so you're gonna take the clothes I bought and sell them for less money than I paid for him. I said, Why don't you just not buy clothes and steal out of my wallet? Wouldn't that go quicker? But But uh, but but she's I was looking at her and I thought that is, Oh, that's a woman standing in front of me a young woman, right, like, and I said, Come here, give me a hug. And I hugged her and she's like, why are you hugging me? I said, you look older. And I just want to hug you for a second before you look older again. So you're in a really sweet spot with your kids. eight, four and one. I hope you I hope you enjoy all that because There's no no no bullshit, man, it goes fast.

Brent 55:04
I tried to enjoy it. I'm not, you know,

I have ups and downs.

Scott Benner 55:09
Yeah, please. I had little kids, I know the downs. That's amazing. I They're so adorable in the background, you're gonna make people get pregnant. Right? If you if you keep hearing that they can't see what a pain your kids are they just think they're adorable because they're listening. Well, did we not? Did we? Is there anything we didn't say that you were hoping we were talking about?

Brent 55:31
Um, it's funny, I actually, like wrote out my whole story and tried to kind of figure out what I should talk about. Um,

let me just look over some things real quick.

Scott Benner 55:46
I can't wait to hear what you wrote down that we missed. Um, but Brent, honestly, I'm not bad at this, we probably got the most of it. Right.

Brent 55:55
Yeah, no, we definitely have.

I do want to say, you know,

taking care of yourself is very important. You know, especially if you have a family and kids, you know, you want to be around as long as possible. It's important to kind of, you know, take care of yourself, you know, do your best don't beat yourself up for not being perfect, because nobody's perfect. Even with the technology that's out there. Yeah, that's a

Scott Benner 56:29
damn good life lesson. And then it's, I think, 100% true. I mean, I can't speak to it from personal experience, obviously. But from talking to so many people, it feels like that. It wouldn't be difficult for diabetes to overwhelm you, and get the better of you and start feeling like, this is just my life. I can't do any better than this. And it's what's going to be is going to be but I, I really do think you can affect it. So and being positive about it is a is a good first step.

Brent 56:59
Yes, definitely. And and another thing is Be patient. things take time to learn. And that kind of thing I see on Facebook groups all the time, people complaining about everything that goes wrong and whatnot. Both with you know, Dexcom and tandem stuff. Things happen. But a lot of the time they don't happen as much as

Scott Benner 57:23
it looks like it does on Facebook. Yeah, no, Facebook is not to complain. It's not. People don't pop on to go, Oh, my God, everything's going so great. Let me tell you about it.

Brent 57:31
Yeah, yeah, I can tell you was quite an interesting time on Facebook. When Dexcom had their outage a month or two ago, whenever

Scott Benner 57:40
I spoke about it, too. It was interesting.

Brent 57:42
It was just so sad to see all the negativity

out there.

Scott Benner 57:50
Right away, you're thinking, yeah, this thing that's doing this amazing thing for me, you know, and not that you don't want it to do better, and not that the company doesn't want to, you know, fill in gaps when it has them. But yeah, it's it's interesting to see how quickly someone can turn on you. Yes. It really does give you that feeling like, wow, you know, watch my back. Because five seconds ago, I saw this little avatar with this name next to it saying, Next comes the greatest thing that ever happened to me. And three hours into the share not working correctly, which by the way, didn't mean the Dexcom wasn't working. The Dexcom was working fine. It was just, it was the sheer function. And you might have thought that Well, you know what, I heard less people upset when Australia was on fire. So seriously, you would think that would make people upset? No.

Unknown Speaker 58:36
Yeah.

Scott Benner 58:38
Now that's this is where this is where everybody gets upset. But now I hear you. So to just really do your best. Now you're not gonna think about having four kids. And so, but yeah, do your best, right. And it takes time yet sometimes you have to experience things going wrong. So you know what it looks like when they go right. You know how to make them go that way? It just takes time. Like it really does. Yes, it does. Yeah. Not being dramatic and getting frustrated. If you can help. It is a big hump. All right. Listen, you go make those kids smarter by sending them to school. I will you be very happy. I didn't have time to ask you about your magic underwear because I still want to understand it better than I do. And is that an insulting phrase magic underwear. I'm assuming you call it something different.

Brent 59:25
Yes, we do tell something different, but I'm not insulted.

Scott Benner 59:30
Listen, apparently it's not insulting because Mormons continue to come on this podcast. So I feel like I'm doing the right thing here. I really appreciate you doing this. Brent. Thank you.

Brent 59:41
Yeah, no, I really appreciate you taking the time to let me talk to you and share my story.

Scott Benner 59:47
Hundred percent is my pleasure. I hope you have a great day and I'll let you know as soon as this is going to come out. All right

Brent 59:54
now I hope you have a good day as well and I will look forward to when this comes out. I appreciate that.

Scott Benner 59:59
Thank you. family for me, thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:01
I will.

Scott Benner 1:00:03
Huge thanks to Brent for coming on and sharing his story. And of course the the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and touched by type one.org. for their support of the Juicebox Podcast, there's a list of all of the advertisers in the show notes of your podcast app, and at Juicebox podcast.com. But you can go to Contour Next one.com Ford slash juice box to find out more about this meter or touched by type one.org. To learn about that great organization. Last thing, if you go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box, you can add your voice to some wonderful Type One Diabetes Research and it's super simple to do. Right there on your phone, your tablet, your PC from your home, you never have to visit a doctor. You never have to visit a site. It's completely HIPAA compliant. You can back out at any time if you change your mind and it is 1,000,000% anonymous. The answers you provide help people make good decisions about how to help people with type one diabetes. That's what your answers can do. Super simple. The ADA has made adjustments to their a one c recommendations for children because of T one D exchange. Test trips are covered by more insurance companies because of D one D exchange. The list goes on and on. This research does great stuff. You can support T one D exchange support people with type one diabetes and support the podcast T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. The survey didn't take me more than 10 minutes to complete. Thanks to everyone for listening to the podcast and for sharing it with someone else. Two days ago, the show had its most popular day in the history of the show. It was it was a day that I will not soon forget the downloads were astonishing. And I very much thank you all for being ardent listeners and for sharing the show so freely means a lot and you're helping the show to grow. So thank you very much. I'll see you soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast.

#377 Chainsaw Antelope

Justin has had type 1 for most of his life

40 year old Justin was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 6 months old. He's here to talk about his life, retinopathy, neuropathy and his new path.

Dexcom 20 Rule

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:02
Hello friends, welcome to Episode 377 of the Juicebox Podcast. On today's show, we're gonna be speaking with Justin, he's 40 years old, and he's had Type One Diabetes for 40 years. Justin's here to talk about his life, but type one that includes some retinopathy and neuropathy. His message is uplifting, and his path is much improved. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. are becoming bold with insulin. Hey, do you have a great endocrinologist for Are you looking for one check out juice box docs.com. My website where listeners to the podcast share their great practitioners and it's also the same website where they sent me they're great practitioners. So if you have one, check it out and send it over. If you're looking for one the list grows every day so we might just have something for you juicebox Doc's calm of course is a free service to the podcast as is diabetes pro tip calm. Are you looking for all of the diabetes pro tip episodes in one place? diabetes pro tip.com. They're also here in your podcast app, and they started Episode 210.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter meter murderer murderer. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Please go to Contour Next one.com Ford slash juice box to learn more about the Contour Next One. The show is also brought to you by touched by type one.org. Head over to touched by type one.org. There are a great diabetes organization doing wonderful things. They have a ton of programs. One of them might be right for you touched by type one.org.

Justin 2:05
My name is Justin lemon. I am 40 years diabetic type one currently on the Omni pod and the Dexcom system. My hometown is right in the middle of Wyoming a little town called lander has about 1000 people in it. I'm currently down in the capital, Cheyenne, Wyoming. So

do work down here and

Scott Benner 2:37
that's me. How old are you, Justin? Oh, I'm 40 years old. You said you were diagnosed four years ago?

Justin 2:44
No, I've been I've been type one diabetic since I was six months old. Oh my gosh. You said 40 years ago? Yes. Yes.

Scott Benner 2:52
My gosh. All right. So you've had diabetes? Pretty much your entire life. My whole life? Yes. And you live Have you lived in Wyoming that entire time.

Justin 3:02
I moved from I was born in Phoenix, Arizona. I was diagnosed down there. And then my mom moved us back home to lander and I've been there ever since. Yes.

Scott Benner 3:14
Do you have any idea how old you were when you move back?

Justin 3:16
I was five years old. So I've been here. 35 years.

Scott Benner 3:19
This is perfect. Justin, I am thrilled to speak with you.

Justin 3:22
Well, it's great to speak with you to Ivor I've listened to almost every one of your podcasts. So this is an honor. No,

Scott Benner 3:29
please the honors mine. Thank you. I really appreciate you doing this especially because you're gonna come from, you know, a bit of a different perspective than a lot of people have in a lot of ways, you know. Right. I guess my first question for you is when were you first aware that you had diabetes? What's your earliest remembrance of it?

Justin 3:49
I knew I was diabetic. I mean, about the time I was five. I used to run away from my mom as she'd come and try to give me my shots for the day. So I was really horrified of needles back then. So that's that's a memory that sticks in my head.

Scott Benner 4:07
It's a she's she'd been doing it for a long time. But once you got mobile and a little more aware of what was happening, you tried to escape.

Justin 4:14
Yeah, once I could once I could once I was mobile, I could run

Scott Benner 4:21
that. I'm assuming you said your daily shot to where you were probably getting something in the daytime and maybe at mealtime.

Justin 4:29
Yes, I was at that point. I was getting two shots a day morning and evening. I was on Helio in our in human

Unknown Speaker 4:39
and in our um, at the time,

Justin 4:41
so fast acting and slower. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:45
You ever speak to your mom about what it was like the ratio with the diabetes?

Justin 4:50
Um, yeah, the early part of my life was a struggle. When I was diagnosed, my glucose levels were about 100 and something so A lot of headaches, a lot of screaming and crying as a kid. She couldn't take me out to eat dinner that out in public like, because all I do is scream and holler and cry a lot. So it was a difficult time for her for sure.

Scott Benner 5:17
Do you think that your blood sugar's were like crazy out of whack?

Justin 5:23
I think so with the technology back then, you know, the shots and maybe checking glucose four or five times a day, I really didn't have her she didn't have control over it, but it was just, you know, technology at that point hadn't caught up

Scott Benner 5:40
was what it was. Do you have? Um, have you ever gone back and looked at looked at old medical records?

Justin 5:47
Um, I have not actually, that would be a good thing to do. It's interesting. Like,

Scott Benner 5:51
I just wondered, like, what was? What was the goal back then? And does your mom feel like she was meeting a goal? or was she just doing what she could do? like trying to, like, hold water back with her hands? kind of a thing?

Justin 6:02
Yeah, I think she was just trying to maintain because I mean, she was a single mother with two boys. She had to deal with both of us. I think she did what she could to. Yeah, try to make life as normal as possible for me.

Scott Benner 6:20
I'm sure she did. It's just it's fascinating to have this perspective now, like 2020. Looking back 40 years? Oh, yeah, you know, and being able to talk to somebody who's also young enough to be able to articulate it old enough to have had the experience. It's just, it's really interesting. How involved was your mother throughout the process? Like, she was an age where you were just on your own.

Justin 6:47
Uh, let's see, I started about eight or nine years old, I started giving my own shots. So I dropped my insulin, and I'd have her look at my insulin to make sure or look at my needle to make sure everything was correct. And then I just gave my own shots at that point.

Scott Benner 7:05
Okay. And did you do it pretty faithfully? Or were there times that you kind of abandoned it? Or do you remember?

Justin 7:14
No, at that point, you know, being diabetic my whole life, I really didn't see it as a different lifestyle. It's the only thing I grew up with. So the only thing I really knew, so I just knew it had to be done and just kind of took over at that point,

Scott Benner 7:29
no rebellion against it at all, at any point.

Justin 7:33
No, and I'm still not that way. Even today, you know, how you can get like, diabetes, burnout and stuff like that. It's just, it's really not there for me. I just try to find ways to solve the problem instead of let it get to me. So

Scott Benner 7:50
I'm, I'm I'm looking at residential property in Cheyenne, Wyoming right now. And it's more expensive than I thought it was going to be. I was very snobby, I guess when I looked.

Justin 8:03
Right. It's it's very expensive. We have a military base around here. And everybody knows what the military housing stipend is. So that

increases prices around here.

Scott Benner 8:17
Okay. Oh, they can price the houses to how much money they know you have.

Unknown Speaker 8:21
Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 8:21
yes. Interesting. Yeah, I'm sure everybody tries that, but that's really interesting. Anyway, I'm currently we're like,

Unknown Speaker 8:28
oops, sorry. No, no place.

Justin 8:30
We're currently like, an hour and a half out of Denver. So, I mean, we're right next to the city for the most part.

Scott Benner 8:38
Gotcha. Oh, so you're getting rural without being too far from the city. I am looking at a $500,000 house. That's only one level. And that is kind of small. Actually. That's interesting. All right. I'll stop doing that now. When I have a lot of questions, I guess how was dating in high school?

Justin 9:01
Um, well, I mean, even even past high school datings It's a challenge at times. A lot of educating my girlfriends or they they didn't understand some of the issues that I was going through like when my glucose would go low or if they were high and I'd have a change in personality so as we get more angry or stuff like that, I think the A lot of my girlfriend's just couldn't wrap their head around it.

Scott Benner 9:36
It's got to be difficult. I mean, honestly, I did you spend time educating them about it or did that sort of not exist that ability?

Justin 9:44
Oh, yeah, that's something my mom and put into my head my whole life like let everybody know you're diabetic, everybody you work with as you're diabetic. That way if something does go wrong, at least they know that I am diabetic and into Go down those avenues first instead of fine.

Scott Benner 10:04
and wondering why? Why is Justin not standing up anymore? At least he has. So your mom's playing basically was at least to a 911 comes, there'll be 50 people yelling, he has diabetes.

Justin 10:15
That's right. Yeah. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 10:17
probably pretty good.

Unknown Speaker 10:20
So

Scott Benner 10:22
is it? Did you find somebody eventually? Who jived with you having diabetes? I guess I'm asking if you're married, or you haven't?

Justin 10:32
No, no, currently single. And that's, it's kind of in the later part of my life. Now, it's, it's a little bit scary to be alone, you know, with diabetes, because I'd like to have that backing of knowing that someone was there if something was to happen, but I'm pretty self sufficient. So I try to do things to where I'm always around a group of people or I'm with people that know what's going on to where, if something were to happen, then they could help out.

Scott Benner 11:04
So now being honest, Justin, would you say that diabetes has interfered with romantic relationships? Or do you think that your situation would be similar without it?

Justin 11:15
Well, it's Yeah, it's a good question. Because some of the stuff I wanted to talk about today, like diabetic neuropathy and stuff, Yes, it does. cause some issues in relationships today. But I think with with open dialogue and stuff with with my partners, then we can work around anything, you know. Okay, so

Scott Benner 11:39
yeah, that's the goal, right? Um, when did you begin to pump?

Unknown Speaker 11:45
Yes, yes.

Justin 11:48
So I got on my first insulin pump in 1998. And I've been on one ever since I went for tube pumps at first. And the Dexcom system wasn't out at that point. So or at least wasn't available to me at that point. So I don't know the early years on the pump. I really don't count just because the decks calm has really brought it full circle for me to be able to track everything. Yeah.

Scott Benner 12:18
So that time probably wasn't much better than injecting I'm assuming you were doing MDI at some point, right? You got off the nnr. And you were using the the newer insulins?

Justin 12:31
Yep. At that point, I searched in 98. I switched to human log, and then novolog, depending on my insurance, of course, but

Scott Benner 12:42
you did that first insulin for 19 years, then? Yes. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 12:46
Yes. All right.

Scott Benner 12:48
And how did you did it feel like starting over? When you change, just the insulin change? I'm wondering about

Justin 12:56
the insulin change. It took a minute to shift over to have my body get used to it. Yeah, I was, I can't tell you that the timeframe in there. I don't really remember. But the hardest part for me was the counting carbs. So when you when you go out to eat or whatever, when I was in college, and I went out to eat and you just kind of didn't know by looking at it, what kind of insulin you needed or, or that kind of stuff. So that was that was a bit of a challenge. But dialing that in? That was my saving grace for the most part.

Scott Benner 13:38
Yeah. Did you have? I guess, did you start off aggressively or more cautiously when you switch to the rapid acting's did like, I'm wondering if you had a bunch of lows, or if you took your time learning about it.

Justin 13:51
I did have a bunch of lows, but it wasn't because I was aggressive. It was just because of the switch and insulin. So I mean, I would hit 80. And, and then it go from 80 to like 46 in a matter of 15 minutes, you know, so I was just it was a real hard transition. And it pretty much wiped my body out for a minute. But after I got used to it. That's right. After I got used to it, it was

a blessing in disguise, I guess you'd say?

Scott Benner 14:25
Would you say that you weren't thrilled about it at first or you were excited for it?

Justin 14:30
I was excited to go on a pump. I was giving so many shots that it was deteriorating my muscle. So like the back of my arms look like craters on the moon because my muscle was deteriorating, and it just looked awful.

Scott Benner 14:46
Is that cleared up?

Yes, definitely. It's exciting. Good for you. All right. So you're putting insulin in and you don't really know what you're doing still, like you're testing with meters, which is you know, what you Had. Right? And you're in a college age at that point, is that right? Yes. Okay, so how long did that? How long was that your life?

Justin 15:13
Um, let's see, I got I got on the Dexcom for about four years ago now. So I'd spent from my 98 till 2016 without adex calm. And at that point I and I realized that I needed to check my glucose more, so I was giving probably 1415 finger sticks a day to test my glucose levels. And once I found the dex calm, I was like, Oh, no more finger pricks. All right, this is great.

Scott Benner 15:48
And even with those that many sticks, you were still having issues. So what was your What was your agency as an adult? during that time? Ah,

Justin 15:59
that's a good question I was sitting in the mid to upper six is 6.5 to 6.8,

Scott Benner 16:08
which is really very good. And were you experiencing a lot of lows along with that, or?

Justin 16:13
I do. And that's I had listened to in one of your podcasts, you know, you're a one C is the average of the, you know, three months or whatever. And it was hard, because I, I'd have a lot of highs, and I'd have a lot of lows, but it was averaging out and making my look good. And that wasn't really what I was looking for. I wanted the happy medium,

Scott Benner 16:37
but you need the stability for certain. But I'm just I'm interested in hearing the story about you coming to that conclusion. I'm wondering how your Well, I guess I don't know how frequently you see an endocrinologist?

Justin 16:49
Oh, you're a great question. I've got my first endocrinologist now. appointment in April, and I haven't had one for 20 years, my mom had taken me to the Barbara Davis center in Denver when I was a teenager. But after that, I really just learned everything I could off the internet.

Scott Benner 17:11
Where did you get your prescriptions from?

Justin 17:14
Just our local doctor in town.

Scott Benner 17:16
And he was completely comfortable doing that? Yes, yes. Thing is what I'm getting at.

Justin 17:22
Right. And they they don't know. I mean, at this point, I know more about diabetes, and most of them dead. So they're just kind of go off what I would say talk to them about, like, I'm getting highs and lows and not being able to figure it out. None of the none of my doctors could answer any of those questions. That's why I turned to the internet. Mainly, it's because I wanted answers to the questions. I couldn't find answers for

Scott Benner 17:50
this. Partly so I'm a little stuck, like it's my inclination to say Is this because of where you live, but you're also close to Denver. So you're not completely rural, but are there just not a ton of endocrinologist clamoring to be endocrinologist in Wyoming or?

Justin 18:04
Well, the orange, there are in Cheyenne down here, and I've been down here about a year now. But in lander, it was when I was growing up, there's 6000 people in my town. And now there's only about 8000 people, and there's no endocrinologist there at all, I have to drive two and a half hours to see an endocrinologist. So

it just didn't happen.

Scott Benner 18:28
That makes a lot of sense. I'm just trying to, you know, it's funny, because some people listen, you know, I see the map where people listen, and people listen in every state in the country and all over the world, actually. But it's it's more ever, it's more concentrated on the coasts a little bit. And I know there's more people there. But there's still it's this proportion that that there's more in some places, and I'm always talking behind the scenes with people about, you know, we have to go to places where they don't have care like this to talk to them. So, you know, it was funny when I'm, like, I'm trying to get something together in Iowa right now. And I was just in Oklahoma recently. And it's funny, because these more these smaller places that think of themselves as I don't know, I guess I can't put myself in their shoes, but a lot of them start the conversations with, like, I'm really, we're grateful you're considering coming here. And the first couple times it was said to me, it threw me off. And I was like, Why? Why are you grateful? Like, what does that mean? You know, like, what's, and then I realized that, you know, even like speakers or stuff, like they don't get people coming there. And, and I and I just said to my wife, I'm like, I think that what the podcast has taught me is that this information in people's hands is valuable. And the sooner they have it, the better. But some of them are disconnected from I mean, listen, it's hard to find people who understand podcasts, though. There's a lot of them but right you know, to find a person who says, Oh, I know what to do. I'll get a podcast app and I'll do this tonight. It's, it's not that well understood. Still, it's growing, but not that well understood. My idea is to go to places like Iowa or Wyoming or those kinds of places have a conversation with a few hundred people and light a fire. So that maybe then they start talking to each other or speaking back to their doctors. And that the idea that you don't have to be at the, at the will, of your, you know, your blood sugar is, you know, is real. My daughter sending me a text that I don't understand, oh,

Justin 20:35
this is gonna be our glucose, all right?

Scott Benner 20:37
No, no, no. She says, Are you here? And I said, Why? And I have a horrible feeling. She's about to tell me she has a half day and I didn't know it.

Justin, I probably shouldn't be in charge of humans. Oh, when it was over? Oh, get a ride. Let's see what happens.

Justin 21:01
Tell her to get her an Uber.

Scott Benner 21:04
It's, it's not a far walk. It's just a little too far away. Right?

Justin 21:10
Do you need to hang up? We can we can get back at it. And are you after you grab your daughter?

Scott Benner 21:15
Do you have like, if this went over 10 minutes from what we were thinking about? Would that be okay?

Justin 21:21
Oh, yeah, no, you're fine. Hold on a

Scott Benner 21:23
second. Let me see if she can get a ride first. And then we'll do this people are like, I can't believe I listened to this guy about insulin. He can't he doesn't even Doris,

Justin 21:31
I love it. This has been I mean, your podcast has been my golden nuggets for me. I mean, it's changed my life, because it's finally someone that talks about insulin pumps and, you know, a day in the life of someone on an insulin pump. So it's been really helpful for me.

Scott Benner 21:51
And so is that the first thing that it helped you with is just like an idea of community, people speaking about the things you want to talk about that you just can't find in your personal life.

Justin 22:03
That's exactly and you know, because I was still seeing when the earlier is on, or that when I had the Dexcom family and I was on the Omni pod. You guys talking about you talking about what you did to help your daughter out and put like stuff like Pre-Bolus in before you eat and letting your glucose go down before you actually starting to eat like I would have never known had I not listened to your podcast. I mean, there's only so much you can really find on the internet. So.

Scott Benner 22:35
So just let me ask you something, because you had it happen to you for so very long. When you watch the same thing happen over and over again every day. And it didn't occur to you to just try something different. Like I'm not it's not a admonishment of you, I'm trying to figure out like, do you just feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. And what's happening is what's supposed to happen.

Justin 22:55
I really wasn't happy with the outcomes I was seeing. So I wanted to do something to change that outcome. And I didn't want to do the same repetitive, like, let's just continue doing the same thing. And then hearing you say be bold with insulin that was just okay, well, let's try it. You know, like, I'll keep extra food on hand just in case I go low. But let's, let's see what I can do here. And let's actually test the parameters of the insulin and and see what I can see what the insulin does and how it works. And what I need to do to adjust that to fit my lifestyle. That makes

Scott Benner 23:33
me happy, Justin, I appreciate that, that struck you that way and that you gave it a chance that's a big, did it feel like a big leap to just use a bunch more insulin?

Justin 23:44
It did because I was at that point. I was like, Okay, so that's one unit of insulin for every 15 grams of carbs. And so I was following the protocol and things weren't working out. So I was like, Well, let me try this or let me adjust basal rates a little bit or when we increase my basal rate for that the next hour or two hours or decrease it so just trying to tailor it to my body because you know, when you go high or go low, you just don't feel right. So I was sick and tired of not feeling good. Yeah.

Scott Benner 24:22
I'm interested about how your doctors reacted when you or was there not? Did they not notice because I guess you're a one sees not bad, but your variability is probably much better now.

Justin 24:32
Yes, it is definitely better, um, with the doctors that I have in town. They really weren't that in depth on diabetes. So I didn't I really couldn't talk to them about that. So

Scott Benner 24:48
you really haven't had the ability to like celebrate this with anybody then right?

Justin 24:53
No, no, this is like, this is great for me. pat on the back like you did a good job. Let's continue to move forward.

Scott Benner 25:00
Austin's diabetes coming out party we're having today. Yeah. Oh, that's really boy. I'll tell you what, that's super interesting, isn't it? Because people who live in more metropolitan areas are surrounded by doctors, your people all the time, say I didn't like my endo. So I went and found another one, which I think is great, except there's actually another one for them to go find. And, but but many people in the country and around the world, they don't have that same opportunity to just pile up to go doctor shopping, I guess.

Justin 25:26
Right? I mean, and for me, I mean, like I said, it's been 20 years since I've had an endo and I'm, I'm excited. I don't even know what to expect. Like, when I go in, I really don't know what to what to expect from an endo anymore. So

Scott Benner 25:43
what is your data tell you a one says,

Justin 25:46
As of right now, I'm sitting at a 6.1. And that's from IPS. From the charts that I've seen, but off of my clarity,

Scott Benner 25:58
Yeah, I'm fine. I'm assuming the endo is just gonna look at you and treat you like you're a great guy and give you your prescription send you on your way, he's probably not gonna feel like he is a he or she's gonna have a thing in the world to tell you.

Justin 26:10
Well, there is there's a lot of stuff like I mean, I have diabetic retinopathy. So I've been getting the PRP laser and the injections in my eyes. Okay. So I have questions for him on that and different things that I want to talk about that and then the diabetic neuropathy stuff

Scott Benner 26:31
will get out of them for sure.

Justin 26:33
Yeah, definitely.

Scott Benner 26:35
So you have vision issues? Yes, I do. Okay, and then you're about to say there's something else as well.

Justin 26:43
Um, the last few years, I've noticed that diabetic neuropathy. So I'm, I'm losing like, sensation, like, I took a chainsaw to the knee a couple years ago. And I didn't even feel it. I hiked out of the back country and took myself to the hospital. And they were floored that I could walk into the hospital and actually tell him that I needed help. So it's that stuff. It's really scary, because I spend a lot of time in the backcountry snowboarding in the winter and whatnot. So I don't want to have it to where, you know, I think it's just me being cold. And my glucose is just plummet editor, and I really can't feel stuff. And do you

Scott Benner 27:27
attribute these things to? Basically the care you had in the beginning of your life?

Justin 27:33
Yeah, I think that since technology wasn't there, and you know, my mom did everything she could to keep me on an arm. So yeah, I think it's just I mean, modern technology is the key to diabetes right now. I think

Scott Benner 27:46
so too. Hey, let's take a detour for a second. What kind of work I do.

Justin 27:52
Right now I'm, I'm an auditor for the state of Wyoming. I contract for the federal government to do royalty audits for oil and natural gas. So I've got an office job now.

Scott Benner 28:07
I was just like, trying to wonder why you were chainsawing. Somewhere near nothing. But that's just Oh, I can't understand why. In my head.

Justin 28:15
Well, that was that was a little side hustle. I guess you'd say. Everyone's doing it to make a little bit of extra income back then.

Scott Benner 28:24
Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Just like snowboarding with a chainsaw. I don't know. Yeah. So Wyoming thing I don't get.

Justin 28:31
You know, we're not that we're not that up kill.

Scott Benner 28:35
I'm telling you, my wife and I sat around last night for about an hour. Just searching out. rural land with a house on it. We didn't even know what state to look at. We were just looking all over the country. We're like, this one's nice. This one's nice. Trying to imagine getting away from weather so many people.

Justin 28:58
But I can't even imagine, you

Scott Benner 29:00
know, have you do you leave Wyoming much or have you ever?

Justin 29:04
Um, I do I like to travel. I mean, I've been all around the world, but I really haven't been to the east coast much. There's so many and I know that's where most of the population is that is on the east coast. Right?

Scott Benner 29:15
Right. Now if I could, I can step into my backyard and with a baseball, I could probably hit on 234 or five. My son My son could my son could probably hit about eight houses with a baseball for my backyard. Like in all different directions. That probably sounds crazy to you that

Justin 29:36
too. So I do live in town but my My home is right in town but I'm 10 minutes away from National Forest. By at that point, you barely see anybody out there.

Scott Benner 29:48
What are the winters like they're they really rough.

Justin 29:52
They can be down in Cheyenne, we've got the wind it's it's the wind tunnel on Interstate 80. So they There's a lot of wind down here. There's probably three or four inches of snow on the ground right now. That happened last night. But for the most part, I mean, decent winters. We don't see in my hometown. I mean, there'll be maybe a week during the winter that it's below zeros for the most part, but I have seen 40 below. Oh my god air.

Scott Benner 30:26
In it, I guess Denver's your airport. Right from where? Where you live? Yes. Okay. Yep. All right. So So, I want to hear a little more about how the retinopathy affects your life like day to day. Especially, is it tactile in your hands, your feet like, is it everywhere? Let's head over to Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box together. It pops up. What do I see first, the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, hyper accuracy, hypo price, see what they did. They're hyper hypo, like the accuracy is high, and the price is low. You get it, you can get the number one branded over the counter test strip at an affordable price, cacher copay. Remarkable accuracy and an affordable price for the contour next test strips may be less expensive than your insurance copay. And it's worth comparing. Head over to Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. To find out more, when you get there, you're going to see that this meter is let's Arden's meter, you're gonna look right out and go, that's the meter Arden uses, I find it to be incredibly accurate, have a bright, strong light for nighttime viewing, it fits well in my hand and in art. And it has that second chance tester, right you can touch the blood not good enough, go back, get what you need. without ruining the test strip, you still get an accurate reading. This meter is the bee's knees to understand. That's a thing from like the 20s I think, but yet it holds true. There's even an app if you want to use to help you make sense of those blood glucose numbers. And that app of course is available for free for Android or iPhone. I'm gonna spend just a second seeing what the heck Bee's Knees means. A highly admired person or thing. The cat's meow even? Well, I don't like that. I like bee's knees. Okay. While you're on that internet, check out touched by type one.org. Because they may have programs that you're interested in, touched by type one.org actually find them on Facebook or Instagram because the founder is super pregnant. And she's adorable. Check out her pictures, Elizabeth is about ready to have her first baby. So maybe you'll find that on Instagram, or Facebook touched by type one. No pressure, Elizabeth but Scott is a terrific name for a baby. Last thing, T one D exchange, right? If you're looking to support Type One Diabetes Research in an anonymous way. It's 100%. HIPAA compliant will not take more than 10 minutes of your time. And it's not asking deeply probing questions, but the information will be taken to do something amazing with this is what you're looking for. And it supports the podcast, T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. I took the survey in about 10 minutes, seven to 10 minutes, I think I took it as the parent of a child with type one. You do have to be a US resident. But it can be for you the adult with type one or if you're the parent of a child, either or can do it. Then once a year, they'll come back ask you a few other kind of update questions. But other than that, that's it and you're going to do good. This research has been used to change ADA requirements for a one sake. It's been used to get CGM for Medicare patients. It's been used for really cool stuff. So if you want to improve the lives of type ones, and you want to support the podcast, p one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box like I said, super anonymous, HIPAA compliant. You'll never have to go to a doctor's office or visit a site. Just an easy way to give back. You know, before we get back to the show, I have to admit something. This is the first time I've lived in an ad. Scott is not a great name for a baby.

I want to hear a little more about how the retinopathy affects your life.

Justin 34:51
Um, well, the the retinopathy

it affected my peripheral vision so the laser that I can see About 2020 through the main focal point of my eye, but as you get off into the peripheral, I'm not able to see very well anymore. Of course, like night driving and glares from lights and stuff like that affect my eyes quite a bit. Has there

Scott Benner 35:17
been any improvement with any of your symptoms? Since you've got your stability better, and, and the variability of your blood sugar has lessened? It has Well, not that you could reverse. Yeah,

Justin 35:32
but I think that's

right. Well, I think that I mean, I've, I've kind of hit that plateau to where everything's like, starting to come into a norm and my vision is getting better. But I mean, even last year, I spent, oh, a month, month and a half without vision in my left eye, all I could see was a blood clot. So I had those capillaries bursting and bleeding in my eye. So

Unknown Speaker 36:02
he's the only

Justin 36:04
the laser helps. It affects my vision, but the laser helps and the shots, let the swelling go down from the laser. So then, I mean, it takes a round of shots in my eyes after that, to be able to actually see really well again.

Scott Benner 36:23
Thank you, for the person Justin I've ever spoken to who's gotten the shot in their eye? Can you tell me what it feels like?

Justin 36:29
Um, for the most part, you don't feel it, because they know me pretty good when it drops, and then they'll give you a numbing shot. Um, it's weird, though, because a couple of times, you know, it feels like it pops. Like you're poking a needle into a ball, you can feel that later got through.

Scott Benner 36:46
So just you just said a tingle right up my, my spine. We're pop is what got me in case you're wondering.

Justin 36:54
Well, I'd rather have the shots than laser because the laser treatment is just, it's frightening. It really is when you're going through how so I'm the bright light flashing when the laser hits your eyes. In the beginning, I felt it. I mean, they strap your head into a machine, to where sometimes it feels like the laser hits the back of your head and it yanked your head back. And this is I'm all numb. Yeah. And from shots and everything. So I'm not feeling it. But the laser like in my head is causing my body to move in ways that I didn't like want it to. So that's right.

Scott Benner 37:37
I am sorry, that that's part of your, your reality that that is, that's terrible, I hope very much that that story becomes less and less as the technology becomes more and more available for people. You know, right? I think the next stage really is cost, right? Like it has to get to a place where anybody can afford to have it.

Justin 37:59
You got to hit that equilibrium cost and what Pearson's will be able to afford Yeah, well, it's, I mean,

Scott Benner 38:11
is it one of those things, like if I went back in time, and I found you in your 30s, and I said, Listen, you're probably gonna have side effects, Miss diabetes, but I can give you this thing, but you're gonna have to pay cash for it like you think back then you would have been able to make the leap for that.

Justin 38:26
I would have made it happen. I mean, I worked on the drilling rigs, I was making enough money at that point to where I can afford

these,

Scott Benner 38:37
you could have done it. Yeah. Sort of what I'm getting at is like, there are people now I mean, listen, it's very expensive, there's gonna be plenty of people who can't afford it out of pocket one way or the other. But right now someone's listening who could do it out of pocket. And isn't. And I'm wondering if I talk to those people 20 years from now, they're gonna say, I wish I would have dug into my pocket and bought this thing. Like I'm trying to figure out, you know,

Justin 39:02
it's one of those things, especially with your eyes, like, if I will do whatever it takes to not go blind. So whether that be finding the money to pay for the treatment, or finding ways to better control my glucose or anything, whatever it takes I would do to to have a better lifestyle.

Scott Benner 39:27
Yeah, no, I mean, visions just, it's, it's one of those things, right? Yeah,

Justin 39:31
it's scary. Yeah. When when you have capillaries burst in your eye and you can't see anything but a red splotch. That's when you realize like, I need to. I need to do whatever it takes to make this better.

Scott Benner 39:45
Yeah. Um, geez, I think Arden's actually home by the way.

Justin 39:50
Oh, good.

Unknown Speaker 39:52
Look at her.

Justin 39:53
I was gonna ask her co founder. I'm sorry.

Scott Benner 39:55
I was wondering. I actually just did Find My iPhone to see where she was. And it says she's here. Yeah, she's Home, Oh, cool. Um, my son at that age would have had a stroke. If I was like, just find your own way home was a different kind of person who would have been like, I can't believe you've abandoned me here. I will not embarrass him and tell you a story about once when I asked him to cross the street, because you probably fought a grizzly bear. And you would find this story very embarrassing. Sorry, I won't do that. I got

Justin 40:22
good. I did things to that, that are like, way outside of what my norm would be, you know, I get scared during times. But do you think that's because your daughter had diabetes? Do you think that's why she's a little more,

Scott Benner 40:35
he's a little more like me, my son's a little more like my daughter, or like my wife. But that was a Freudian slip, I'm imagining. And, and he just does a little more reserved, and things he hadn't done before. He wouldn't. He wouldn't just jump into he's so much different. Now. He's going to be 20 in a couple of days. And I've seen him do a half a dozen things in the last six months that Oh, wow. Never would have done before. So he grew out of it. But there was a time when he was younger. Wow, this, this story actually has to do with me not understanding his schedule. There's a time when he was younger, when after school, he went with a bunch of friends to a restaurant. And they won't they walk to it. And while they were there, I realized that he had an orthodontist appointment that I'd forgotten about. And right when I remembered it, there was still time for him to get there. And the ortho appointment was quite literally across the street from where he was. Now. It's a traffic light with, you know, two lanes of traffic. So I said to him, I'll meet you at the doctor's office. But I can't get to you in time to get to the doctor's office, but you can get to the doctor's office. As like I said, so just go and he goes, how am I going to do that I'm like, go to the traffic light, wait for to turn green wait for there's no cars that come and go across the street. And I got a text from him five minutes later. And it just said, I can't do it. Like he could not bring himself to cross that street. So I picked him up and we went and he was a little late, and he's not that person anymore. But back then Arjun would have just been like, Yeah, okay. And then she would have ardent would have wandered into traffic, if she thought it was like what she needed to do. She's different. And is that her or her diabetes? You know, just there's no way to know, I've seen her be extraordinarily tough for her age a number of times. And there is times when I think it's because she's been through things that are just difficult. And difficult things just seem like something new to her, you know? So yeah, I think it's one of the I think it's one of the benefits of diabetes, which I'm sure that's not a sentence. It's spoken often, you know, the benefits of diabetes. But anyway, yeah, I think to your to your question, I think it I think it has something to do with that, honestly.

Justin 42:51
Well, because I'm, I mean, I view my life as being like more going to tell me to do something, I'll do it, or I'll figure out a way to do it. And it's just like, that's just kind of how I grew up. So I don't know, I can't honestly say it's diabetes, either. But diabetes is my whole life. So I can say it's not diabetes, either. So

Scott Benner 43:15
sometimes when someone's harsh with me, they're like, Oh, I'm sorry. I'm like, Listen, I've been married for 23 years. You can't scare me, like you think scares me. You're out here, right? Absolutely out of your mind. And I add to that, you know, my daughter has type one diabetes, like, there's not a lot that like we you know, you see people get flustered about things, sometimes you're like, This is nothing. And it's the worst thing happening to them. But they just they lack perspective

Justin 43:42
on it. Right? And just how calm you. I mean, from your podcast, how calm you are, when you're on your daughter's glucose would go low and stuff like that. I was just like, wow, okay. Well, you know, when you're dealing with this year's self, like I was, I wake up in the middle of mine in the middle of the night, and my glucose was like, 40. And I would freak out, you know, you kind of get scared and you want to eat the refrigerator at that point. So

Scott Benner 44:09
Well, listen, I also had the perspective of seeing or have a seizure twice. So Oh, really? Yeah. So I have the, you know, I have a little more perspective on that than people who haven't seen that. And do I want my daughter to have had a seizure? I don't, but I am calmer now with a 45 blood sugar than I was before I saw seizure. Now I'm like, Oh, she's not seizing, let's fix it. You know, I think everything's like that, to some degree. You just got to keep having experiences that you can kind of build on top of Of course, with diabetes, some of the experiences you have to have are frightening and scary. But, but, you know, once you have them, you're better off I think. I just Oh, go ahead. I was just gonna say I'm having more fun chatting with you. And we're not getting to why you why you wanted to be on the show. So why, you know, you you were very direct and you wanted to be on so I was I'm excited to hear what you have to share with people?

Justin 45:02
Well, I mean, a lot of this a

lot of this is finding from like my diabetic retinopathy and this this new neuropathy thing, stuff that's happening to me it just, I don't know, I feel like I'm losing control. So I want to gain that control back by getting this new info and stuff like that. But it's, I don't know, it's a flood of emotions. Because when you when you've got it, right, you feel like you're on top of the world. But when you don't have it, right, you feel like your life's crumbling around you.

Scott Benner 45:39
And you're saying, so when you see a blood sugar, that isn't what you're hoping for. It feels like it's hurting you. Like, like, well, it's psychologically,

Justin 45:49
Sunday is when

glucose is high, and say, like, right around to hundreds. And it doesn't matter how much influence you give, it doesn't matter what you do, it just doesn't seem to come down Did you can't get it to annoy him. So sometimes that stuff can be really frustrating. But you got to realize that it's going to kick in, you're going to give enough insulin, things are gonna happen and things will finally start moving. Once you know everything gets. Everything gets going, now you your insulin starts to work and everything like that. So.

Scott Benner 46:28
So it's hard, it's hard to trust that that's gonna happen, or it's hard to live in that space while it's happening. Yeah,

Justin 46:35
it's hard to live in the space while it's happening, because I mean, me, I won, I won 110 100 glucose all the time. And I'm not willing to accept it any other way. I guess. So. When it does it go outside and you feel like you're losing that control? It's, it's hard to control those emotions. Yeah,

Scott Benner 46:55
I hear that. I, I gained a little more perspective by using an algorithm, because we're in the teaching time of that. Arden's blood sugar's weren't where I was hoping they'd be either. And, you know, you come I came to the realization that this this numbers not good with me. I don't want it to be like this. But I think I can get to a point where it'll hardly ever be like this. So it's okay for a minute while we figure it out. Right, and I gotta raise that. Yeah, right. I think day to day, that idea would help you that more days than not your 110. Right.

Justin 47:35
Yeah. Yeah, for the most part. I mean, I'm sitting as of right now. Let me check my watch real quick. As of right, now, I'm sitting right at 101. So

Scott Benner 47:47
listen, Arden's blood sugar 70 right now,

Justin 47:50
that's even better in my opinion. So she

Scott Benner 47:53
she headed home this day. Um, you know, she heads into school. There. Her French class made different foods, French foods today, right? There's a lot of baked stuff and powdered sugar and stuff like that. And I, you know, I, I knew they were taking it in. And for some reason, it never correlated with them eating it. In my mind. I was like, I didn't think of that. So she texted me this morning. So she gets up in the morning, her blood sugar tried to go up and we stopped at around 120 and, and it was holding at 120 and getting ready to go back down again. When she texted me a picture of like baked goods. And I don't I'm looking at it now. I don't know what the heck any of this is. And there's like a dollop of chocolate on the plate of Ben. Yeah, he was, you know, you know, powdered sugar, that's something else. It's got like icing on top of

Justin 48:45
it's like a ton of carbs.

Scott Benner 48:48
Right. I don't know how much it is. And the other thing is Arden's not a sweets person. So I don't know if she's gonna take one bite of it and go, I don't want this. So I just said, I don't know, Bolus, 45 carbs. And we'll like, you know, for 45 carbs, and we'll see what we'll do. So we did five minutes. And a little while later. I mean, it's not like she texted me back and said, Wow, that stuff was amazing. I ate it all, you know, so I just a little while later, a blood sugar started to jump. And I got a I got an alert and I looked and she was like 159 with an arrow straight up. And so we just crushed it with a bunch of insulin. You know, like we just, like threw like four more units on it. And and I thought to myself, this will work. And we need to be ready in the future to take bazel away or stop it with food. And so far we've been able to stop the drop with just reducing bazel and it looks like we've got it. I mean, she's right at 70. So I sent her a text while I was talking to so if you want to eat something, eat if you're not, don't worry about it right now. But that whole process took I don't know two and a half hours maybe like she went from you No 122 it got the 190 at one point. And and now it's back to 70. So I, to me, the comfort, listen, I can't tell you how to feel. But I think you have to save yourself most of the time on 110. I don't want this spike. But I also don't want the psychological damage that comes to me from wringing my hands over it. So I'll just address it the way I know is gonna work and I'll move forward, I never look back with diabetes, you always have to kind of be moving forward. You know,

Justin 50:29
right. And and that's the thing you can't have. Without you don't get instantaneous results. I mean, a lot of it takes time. And I got to learn to like, accept the fact that it's going to take more time to get some of these sugars under control.

Scott Benner 50:46
Well, how did you get how did you get to the 110? And the stability? What what from the podcast or from having the technology helped you?

Justin 50:54
Oh, it was right from your podcast, because I had my low parameter set at 80. And my high parameter set at 180. So then you're like, well drop it. So I went to 150. And I got more alerts for a while, but then I dialed that in, and that dropped it to 130. And then that started working. And I was like, okay, is it takes the change, to actually prepare yourself and train yourself how to stay at these glucose levels. So I'm about to switch my upper parameter. This week, I think to go to 110. I'm gonna try 110, maybe 120. If I need to the 110

Scott Benner 51:39
and you're a baller, Justin, you understand me? That's amazing.

Justin 51:42
I'm gonna get it

Scott Benner 51:43
for you. I'm at 120 on my phone Arlen gets alerted at 130. That seems to work for us pretty well. But I like I like 110. I like to your goal is to be between 80 and 110. Most of the time?

Justin 51:57
Yeah, good

Scott Benner 51:58
for you, man. I'm happy for you. That's excellent. And you're not finding it difficult to do.

Justin 52:03
I mean, it takes about a week or two. I mean, cuz for the most part, I'm used to 130 now. So by the time I'm alerted at 130, I feel like I could use a little bit more time. So that's why I want to drop it back down. So I don't have the fluctuation as much. But do you feel though going

Scott Benner 52:25
at that, number one, do you feel low at that number?

Justin 52:29
No, I don't. And actually,

I mean, I'll get to 70. I just started feeling it. Once I got on the Dexcom I started feeling my lows, again, I used to not feel them at all, not even now. I mean, I was walking around at a glucose level of 10. Before I went into a coma for three and a half hours. So

Scott Benner 52:49
never knew you were low. Never knew as that was in 98. So that's the bouncing around of the blood sugar bit taking away that feeling from you the up and down up and down constantly, your body probably just finds a way to ignore it eventually.

Justin 53:04
Yes, it does well, and once I got this stability back, I mean, that's where everything started opening up again, like, Oh, you've got a sweet smell on your breath that I never even would have known Besides, you know, one of my friends saying that when I was little

different things like that. It's

it's just a learning process, you know?

Scott Benner 53:26
Yeah. And it's, it's a, you're a great indicator for what we say about, you know, keeping the stability, you know, as stable as possible, right? No bouncing around blood sugar. You know, I think it's silly when people argue like, it's, it's worse if it bounces up and down than if it's just high. Like, why don't we just both? Why don't we all agree that neither of those things are what we're looking for. Right? Right, everybody? Isn't it interesting how people's minds work? It's always either or. Nobody's Exactly. It couldn't just be both. How about I want I need stability. And I need a lower number. Like, why is that a problem to say, but, but I mean, you have real things going wrong with you that aren't going wrong anymore. Like the fact that you feel your lows again, I think it's pretty astonishing.

Justin 54:11
Yeah, that's my glucose levels get to like 180 I actually started to get a headache. And there were times when I was 400. And can feel a headache. So

it's a blessing in disguise. Really,

Scott Benner 54:24
no, it really is interesting. And now and you don't want the headache now. So so you make the you make the alarm lower, so you have more time to react. And I mean, just in case people are hearing it for the first time in 30 seconds. The lower you make your Dexcom alarm, the sooner you find out that your blood sugar is right. The sooner you find out it's rising, the less insulin you need to stop that rise.

Justin 54:47
Exactly. Because you get for me when you get over 200 it's gonna take double the amount of insulin to get you down so you may as well like attack this when when you have a stronger accent. To say,

Scott Benner 55:01
Justin, when you're using less insulin to stop a high, what is less likely to happen later? Hello, right. That's it. Yeah, you're like, well,

Justin 55:10
and I don't want your listeners to think that I'm perfect. I mean, because by all means I'm not I still have crazy glucose sometimes but it's just managing that it's it's knowing that you need to react to your your arrows going up or your arrows going down. That makes mean, that's the key to the whole thing is just it just tracking it. I think

Scott Benner 55:35
that it also since we're disclaimer in the statements. The other thing is that if your basal insulins not right, a lot of this won't work. So you you really do have to get your bazel is that the first step you you took,

Justin 55:49
um, when I first got on upon paper, they did me my standard basal rates. It took me a long time to figure out bagels without an endocrinologist there. I got it down, though. And I'm looking to go even smaller increments to where I can I can dial dial my head bazel down perfect. But once you get it to where you think it's perfect, yeah, that it's like changing season you go in from winter to spring, and your glucose changes a little while back. So

Scott Benner 56:22
I don't I perfect for bazel it's tough, like I'm more around like just stable, like stable. You don't I mean, like if you're working consistently, when you're you don't have food or bolus insulin and you that your blood sugar is thing. You know, it's not bouncing around, like the bouncing around is an indication, you know, your basal is probably too high or too low, or, you know, you're you're maybe you're making up for your bazel deficiency with meal insulin, you don't even realize that. There's that, but but you took it It took you a while to dial it in. But is that because you were going making a change? Like, every three months?

Justin 57:00
And no, no, I noticed, like, over 10 year periods, like about every 10 years, I'm going to change your body changes. I mean, for me, this is what I've noticed, my body changes a little bit, and I'm gonna have to change my baby's lifestyle changes. So you move from one house to another and you got a different schedule, so you're on a different thing. So you have to adjust a little bit or you go from summer to winter and Nagar you move from pedaling a road bike to snowboarding in the back country. And like it's it's the lifestyle change correlates with the basal rate change for me.

Scott Benner 57:45
Hey, good, I think everybody has that sometimes they don't see it, you know, like, sometimes you get, you get a little busy looking within these few days that you don't see that a bigger thing has happened.

Justin 57:57
Right, you got to look at the micro and the macro at that point hundred percent.

Scott Benner 58:00
Yeah, if you ignore one or the other, you're just gonna make an assumption that might be might be wrong.

Justin 58:07
Or just or even worse, you know, you start cheap chasing glucose levels. So you pump a bunch of insulin for your glucose levels rising, then you go low and then going low, then you compensate for that. And then all of a sudden, you have these spikes and dips that you're like, Okay, I can't even control this at the moment. So

Scott Benner 58:25
yeah, once you're behind, you're the only unless you get lucky once you're behind and you're chasing, the only thing to do is to just take food out, get yourself level again, start over that right, I think is some great, that's a great tip that we don't talk about enough is it you know, when you're chasing, just

Unknown Speaker 58:43
bail, like, stop, yeah,

Scott Benner 58:45
stop and let it find its level and then bring it down and, or crush it and stop it with juice, but don't over treat it, you have to stop the rollercoaster to so you can get off. You know? That's some pretty Yes,

Justin 59:00
exactly. And if it's

if it makes for higher glucose readings for 24 hour, hours, it doesn't matter what it takes, just get back to normal,

Scott Benner 59:09
you have to find some stability and get out now if your blood sugar is high all the time. See, it's tough, Justin when you talk about it, because you understand more about it now than you did. Like, you know, some people like oh, my blood sugar is always high. Well, that's, you know, there's a way for that not to be like none of you, you know, with the exception of people who have gastroparesis, or, you know, some other fairly uncommon problems. You know, most of you your your blood sugar is high because you don't have enough insulin at the right time. So it's not you don't have the special kind of diabetes that nobody can tame. And thinking that way is it's sort of it's it's like a double edged sword for people. It takes away their guilt, because they're like, Oh, this is just what it is. I can't do anything about it. But it also makes them complacent about it. And they don't try to fix it because they think this is what it

Unknown Speaker 1:00:01
Yeah, yeah, you got

Justin 1:00:02
it, you got to take control. You gotta, I mean, you got to be proactive in your diabetes, you can't just sit back and let things happen. Or she'll end up with diabetic retinopathy or losing a foot because of circulation or something, something like that. And you really don't want to go to those extremes. So,

Scott Benner 1:00:21
Justin, even if something that horrible doesn't happen, even if something that horrible doesn't happen, you're still stuck in a life where you're always messing with the diabetes. It's always there poking you in the ass. You know what I mean? Like, Hey, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. I mean, like, you're always like, bothered by it, it takes that upfront effort to find the kind of balance and stability that doesn't require a ton of upkeep all the time.

Justin 1:00:45
Right. And I think for me, it was like, realizing that I'm gonna have diabetes for the rest of my life. There's, there's nothing I can do about that. So let's fix what I can fix and not worry about the things that I can't fix

Unknown Speaker 1:00:59
for you.

Scott Benner 1:01:00
Good for you. What else? Is there anything else you did that? That was, you know, key to this for you.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:07
Uh,

Justin 1:01:09
a lot of it was being in a rural place to where nobody had the answers. So it pushed me forward to try to find answers. And I think that that's what's helped push me so far. And then finding your podcast. And then there's having all the all these different, like, day to day things that are happening. I was just like, this is great, because I really had no place to go. I was trying to search for something for answers. And for people who had the answers, and it was kind of leading nowhere at times. So to get your podcasts and it's great.

Scott Benner 1:01:45
How long did you find it again?

Justin 1:01:47
Oh, let's say this was

for I listened. I probably found it three years ago. Well, somewhere in there, but I listen, I've listened to every episode from year beginning till now. So

Scott Benner 1:02:04
I just do recommend that everybody does that.

Justin 1:02:08
I think so. And I've recommended it to a lot of people around here because this lady I work with she's a type two diabetic, but she just ordered her first set Omni pods. So I was just like, Oh, this is this is great. If you need any help, there's a great podcast out there. And then I told her that she can come downstairs and talk to me anytime she wants. So very

Scott Benner 1:02:29
nice. If you could feel Yeah, more more and more type twos are using insulin through pumps. So it is yeah.

Justin 1:02:39
It's it's like making type one and type two almost the same.

Scott Benner 1:02:44
The tools, right, at least that you're using are are similar, which is good for type twos, because then there are now more people to talk to about it. You know, before there's a disconnect between the two, and they don't really crossover. And type twos do struggle with community. I mean, and and wanting to tell people they don't come out as much. I guess this type ones, though.

Justin 1:03:08
Yeah. Yeah, it appears as though like, type one, people are more bold about it, I guess it's a,

Scott Benner 1:03:15
you know, you get to say, I mean, think about it from a, from a human standpoint, if you have type one, you get to say, Hey, this is a genetic thing. I didn't do this. And people with type two are in the same situation. But they're really led to believe that they did it to themselves. And so it's an embarrassment, you don't want to say, oh, gosh, look what I did. I gave myself type two diabetes. Like, that's not something you want to run out and tell everybody you know, and some people have the clarity to talk about it, but most don't. It's just not. It's a very underserved group of people. It really is.

Justin 1:03:45
Well, it's one of those things, I've had it my whole life. So I don't know anything different. But I'm the people who get it at like 16 or something like that. I can just only imagine what they're thinking and inside their head about, did I do this to myself?

Scott Benner 1:04:02
Right, like, like the unfair which 100% is, yeah, everybody needs. I think you need like a super amount of support in the beginning. Whether it's you and your, you know, a little kid, maybe it's your parents or if it's an adult or you know, a 16 year old, you need you need to have people around you. Right, almost like bubble wrap to protect you from your, from your own thoughts until you can become adept. And I am assuming accepting, you know,

Justin 1:04:33
right, or if you're people like me and don't have people around you that that's where this podcast is coming great because that I mean, I didn't have anyone to talk to in my hometown growing up. There was one other person that I knew that had diabetes, so

Scott Benner 1:04:49
I appreciate you telling me that I really do because it's still it's strange to me still when I when I go speak somewhere and people come up to me and I They, they have a real feeling of like, I know you. And, you know, I'm I'm just, you know, it's it's, it's it's lovely, I really mean that. But it's not not so strange,

Justin 1:05:12
right? You change lives for people you really do. And I don't think you understand that really, you know, maybe it's just a diabetes podcast that you do you know, your daughter has it, so you talk about it. But for people like me, it's really altered my view of my disease and how I need to work at it to control it. So

Scott Benner 1:05:36
that makes me feel good. It really does. Thank you

Justin 1:05:38
know, I really do appreciate it. And I don't I don't think I can put it into words to have you understand fully, but, um, yeah, he changed my life. You really did. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:05:49
I'm happy that it was here for you. I tried to say to my wife the other day, that I, I separate in my mind myself from the podcast, somehow, like the podcast is a thing. I me, and my wife's like, you're the podcast, and I was like, maybe, but it's weird. It's hard to think of it that way. You know, like, if I if I leave joking aside, which we do sometimes if I if I start feeling in my soul that I'm the reason that's a weird ego thing. You know, like, I don't I don't want that to feel that way. Like I know, intellectually, what you said is 100%. True. I just don't want to. I don't know. I don't want it to let

Justin 1:06:31
go. Just don't let it go to your head.

Scott Benner 1:06:32
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't want to affect who I am. So I don't know if I could listen, it's really it's wonderful. 100% you've said it to me in person. I've gotten three Instagram messages and three emails this morning already. And it's really not even one o'clock in the afternoon yet. And if I read every one of them gone. Look what I did again, here. You know what I mean? Like it would? It would just It's weird. So I don't know if it's, I don't know, I can't I take it to heart. And I believe you. I just don't know how to. I don't know how to respond other than to say, That's very nice of you. Thank you. You know what I mean?

Justin 1:07:09
Well, and from my perspective, I'm glad you you segregate those because then you don't let it go to your head. I mean, this podcast would be over in a year, if you let it get to your head, you know, just come

Scott Benner 1:07:21
on. Every week. I was like, hey, Scott's back again, to tell you the magic about diabetes. You're gonna hear it because I know what I'm talking about. And you don't like yeah, you don't think that we go over big? You know, well, I'm good. I'm sorry.

Justin 1:07:38
But then you'd be like, Well, here's the Omni pie commercial.

Scott Benner 1:07:40
Yeah. Buy yourself an insulin pump and get out of here. Your silly kids? No, I, um, I think that that doesn't work. Because it wouldn't resonate with anybody, but also wouldn't work because it wouldn't genuinely be how I feel. You know, they mean, like, I don't feel like a huckster who talked you into using insulin. I'm just talking about what we do and, and that I realized one day that it's not just diabetes, and this will really work for most people. So

Justin 1:08:08
you know, well, and you let everybody in on your life, you and your daughter's life, you know, And that, to me is big. Because it's not just something you do and talk about, because this is what you know about or what you've been trained to do. This is something you're doing, because it's part of your lifestyle. So I think that's where it shines to is because these are real world scenarios, real people, and this is really working for your daughter. So that to me is great. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:08:39
Yeah, I listened. I'll feel good all day from talking to you. So you've done you said, You've done as much for me as I've done for you. Seriously, I really read all the people listening. I it might sound weird, but I've said it a million times this podcast helps me in a bunch of ways, probably more so than it helps the people listening. So I'm, I'm chatty, it gives me a chance to chat. I like that. It helps me think about diabetes, so that I can help so that I can come up with new ideas for my daughter. It lets me get out sometimes anxiety and stress. I did an email or an episode The other day and like I I cried while I was saying something, and that's got to be good for you. You know, just get like that out. All right.

Justin 1:09:25
And you know, it touches your emotions like that you're drawing the audience to to believe and trust you as well. And it takes a lot for diabetes to be able to trust somebody else. So

Scott Benner 1:09:36
Justin, tell us what you're doing. I hear the smacking in the background.

Justin 1:09:39
Oh, I've got a little plastic egg that I was playing with. Are you nervous? No. I just always keep active gotcha. Excellent. I in my desk at work. I stand all day. So

Scott Benner 1:09:53
my desk goes up and down. I've still done the podcast a couple of times. I can't like you know, you have to stay Near the microphone. So sometimes you'll hear episodes where I'm I started having too good of a time. And then all of a sudden my voice goes over here, like this thing comes back again. So, but it's hard to know what to look at. Because I'm trying in like you're telling me your thing, right? But I'm listening to your thing, and then also thinking about how to direct the show. And so sure if something catches my eye, and I miss 10 words, I'm in trouble. You know what I mean? So I tried my best to take my attention away.

Justin 1:10:28
Well, in that, I mean, the little egg thing for me is kind of funny, because I remember the podcast where your dog was in the background making noises. And it just made me laugh. I mean,

Scott Benner 1:10:39
I moved the set up. I couldn't like I was like, I can't keep this. And by the way, for the same reason, like I'd hear the dog, and then I think, oh, they're gonna hear that on the recording. And I think I don't want that to be on the recording. And then before you know it, you've said eight more words, and I don't know what the heck you said. And I was like, I have to go somewhere where I can, I can concentrate a little better is as you can tell from this episode, I don't even know when my kids are at school. So many little bright light, I'll probably just catch my attention. Anyway, Justin, I got it. I'm sorry.

Justin 1:11:11
No, I just like sometimes I mean,

diversion of attention. It's gonna happen. So

Scott Benner 1:11:19
no, I listen. I'm not trying to be perfect here. I think that's obvious. I want to thank you. We've been talking for over an hour. I really appreciate the fact that you came on.

Justin 1:11:29
Oh, wow. It has been an hour. So cool. Yeah. Appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:33
Good. You have a good time.

Justin 1:11:35
Yes, it was great. Thank you. It's

Scott Benner 1:11:37
not I I really, I swear, I'm very appreciative what you said. And I'm glad that there's somebody in Wyoming who knows about this. Now who might tell somebody else one day like, I mean, I don't know, you probably only see a human being every couple of days, but eventually you'll bump into one that has diabetes.

Justin 1:11:52
Well, there's been, there's been more than I can count now. People that I've diabetics that I've told to check out your podcast, so I appreciate that. There's gonna be more of us, Wyoming and people listening to you.

Scott Benner 1:12:06
Thank you. Eventually, I'll get all 50 of you. I'm just

Unknown Speaker 1:12:11
joking. But

Justin 1:12:12
hey, there's more pronghorn antelope in Wyoming than there are people. So

Scott Benner 1:12:17
I didn't even know that was a real thing. No, it's true. Wait a minute. Now you're not getting away prong. horned antelope. Google agrees that exists on a second.

Justin 1:12:30
There's, there's more people in Denver than there are in Wyoming. It's interesting.

Scott Benner 1:12:35
It looks like a furry deer. But it's taller. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It's huge. Do they hunt those?

Justin 1:12:44
Oh, yeah, there's a hunting season out here for them.

Scott Benner 1:12:46
Before they before they overtake you guys. I guess you'd

Justin 1:12:51
well and every year they do the pronghorn antelope hunt. So you'll get all the celebrities that come in and pay high prices for out of state tags and licenses and stuff. So maybe

Scott Benner 1:13:01
Yeah, name a celebrity and hunted a pronghorn antelope to your knowledge.

Justin 1:13:07
Oh, gosh, you had to ask me that question. Don't put this on the podcast because I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:13:13
antlers dealership beautiful.

Justin 1:13:16
I'm glad like when they're fully developed, they almost look like a heart.

Scott Benner 1:13:21
Yeah, I'm looking at that. But that's really Oh, come together at the top. The left to the right.

Justin 1:13:28
Yep. All right. Well, let's have a look at it. They go over the back of it looks like a heart almost when they're fully developed.

Scott Benner 1:13:34
So go support the sponsors and then go check out a pronghorn antelope they're really kind of beautiful. Exactly Yeah, but not before you order your no obligation please do that first. So I keep doing the podcast

Justin 1:13:48
on new pods index cards and I

Scott Benner 1:13:51
also also touched by type one.org Contour Next one.com listen the ads the ads are a good sign it means that you guys are listening and and that people know you're here so that's a that's really great actually I swear I could not do it without the ads I my wife would look at me and say go get a job buddy right now

Justin 1:14:15
it's time for you to leave the house for one

Scott Benner 1:14:17
yeah either move out or make money i think is what is another way the podcast helps me I get to stay I get to do my my stay at home dad thing more often, you know because I don't have to have your house to work so I appreciate you guys a ton I there's probably no way for me to to adequately, adequately say that but um but I

Justin 1:14:37
really do. We appreciate you as well. I just

Scott Benner 1:14:40
and that's enough of you saying nice stuff to me. It's making me uncomfortable. You know, build a teepee or whatever it is you're going to do and I will. I will go downstairs and make sure Arden's not mad at me. First things first, let's thank Justin for being terrific on the show. Secondly, Thank you to the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, which you can find out more about at Contour Next One com forward slash juice box. Thirdly, touched by type one.org. Fourthly, T one d exchange.com. forward slash juice box. And fifthly. Justin said the most adorable thing when the recording stuff, and I'm so sorry the rest of you didn't hear it. He's like, how will I know if this is gonna be on? Like if it'll make it to air? I think he was worried that it wouldn't be good enough. Justin, I've never made a bad podcast in my life. My been been bing, bing, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, juicebox docs.com diabetes pro tip.com. These are just some offerings from the podcast that you can have for the free. Check it out by the by the private Facebook group, just for Juicebox Podcast listeners has skyrocketed to like well over 5000 members, and it is still as homey and kind and lovely as a place as it was with 1000 members. it very well may be the nicest place on Facebook. I'm not making that up. The page adds 40 new members a day. I'd love it if you were one of them. Okay, that's it for today. Kids. hope you had a good time on the podcast. There's gonna be more coming up, don't you worry.

#376 Zoe and Roxy's Wild Ride

A siblings perspective of type 1 diabetes

Zoe is the adult sibling of a person with type 1 diabetes.

Dexcom 20 Rule

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends Hello, how are you? Welcome to Episode 376 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, and on the pod would love to send you a an absolutely free, no obligation demo of their product, they'd like to send it right to your house, so you can try it on and see what you think. Go to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box to get that pod experience kit sent out to you right away. To learn more about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, you're going to want to go to dexcom.com Ford slash juicebox. There are links to all of the advertisers in the show notes of this episode. And at Juicebox podcast.com. Use the links and support the show.

For the first five years of my life, I was an only child and then it happened. My parents had more kids. And then I had siblings. Well, today we're going to talk to Roxy sister Zoe. Zoe does not have type one diabetes, but she did grow up with Roxy. And Roxy does. So for all of you are always like, I want to hear from someone. Sorry, I heard you. Here it is okay. But this is only going to be one perspective. Zoe's an adult, so as Roxy and they had their experience, if you've had a different experience, we would like to shine a different light on the subject. Reach out and let me know, you might just be able to get on the podcast and tell your story. When you get on the podcast and people are listening, I'll ask them to remember that nothing they hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And I'll further ask them to consult a physician before making any changes to their health care plan. or becoming bold with insulin. Zoe and Roxy's wild ride. Eric comes.

I think this is very nice of you to do. Thank you.

Zoey 2:16
Oh, sure. Why not?

Scott Benner 2:19
Hold on one second, let me help my daughter with insulin real quick.

Unknown Speaker 2:24
Okay.

Scott Benner 2:26
Her pump is at the very end of its insulin. We sort of we sort of noticed that in the car driving to school this morning. So the minute I'm done speaking to you, I'm gonna take her some insulin in a new pod. Okay, but we're good. We're gonna make it through this.

Unknown Speaker 2:41
Okay, don't you worry. Do whatever you have to do. Please. Are you kidding me?

Scott Benner 2:45
Alright, so you've probably don't listen to this podcast. I don't know. My sister does, which makes 100% sense. Yeah. So let me just tell you before we start, it's pretty laid back and conversational. I'm not gonna ask you anything you don't already know the answer to if I do. Just be like, I don't want to answer that or whatever. You know, it's not about Sure.

Zoey 3:09
Yeah. No, it's fine.

Scott Benner 3:10
If you and I end up getting along really well and a half an hour from now I say something and you're like, that's more like we've known each other for six months got cruise past? I'm

Zoey 3:18
usually that person. So are you really? Yeah, I am freakishly open.

Scott Benner 3:24
I am too. So I'll get into a setting with Pete. By the way. We're recording. I'll get into a setting with people who I don't know. And 15 minutes into it. They're looking at me like is there anything left about your life? You haven't?

Zoey 3:38
Yeah, I pretty much offer it all up in the beginning.

Scott Benner 3:41
Why? Do you know why? First of all, who are you tell people who you are?

Zoey 3:44
Oh, my name is Zoey. I am the sister of a diabetic. I have a younger sister. My sister Roxie got diabetes when she was nine. I believe. Okay, play. She was eight she turned nine in the hospital.

Scott Benner 3:59
No kidding. Good for her happy birthday. Yeah. How old is she out? You know? Do you remember?

Zoey 4:03
Ah, she's gonna be she's gonna kill me if I get this wrong. She's gonna be 33 I think on March 18. How old are you? 32 I'm 28 so we're four and a half four and a little bit years apart.

Scott Benner 4:14
Okay. So when she was diagnosed you were not even in school yet.

Zoey 4:18
Ah, no, I must have been like, I don't know kindergarten maybe you're like preschool or something. Yeah, right.

I was like around four so yeah, somewhere around there. But let's find out a little about you

Scott Benner 4:30
before we find out a little bit about Roxy. Okay, and you for whatever it is Roxy Did you Roxy and Zoey? Yeah, parents hippies.

Zoey 4:44
So funny. Um, they sound like hippies when I described them. But they're not really. We they're from Vermont. Actually. They're from like Long Island and New Jersey, but they have taken on their Vermont personas very seriously. They look like in the middle of nowhere. My dad was all Carhart, when I was an artist, my dad is a woodworker. So yes, they sound like hippies, but without the drugs

Scott Benner 5:08
would they have been? I didn't expect hippies are always high, but I hear what you're saying. Okay, what would they have been if they stayed on the island? Do you think? Oh over they run

Zoey 5:18
on happy, unhappy for sure. Yeah, just like development all over the place. I think my mom when she goes back to Long Island is just like, so sad to see

that it's just like mcmansions everywhere and stuff. She was

Scott Benner 5:33
looking for more open space.

Zoey 5:35
Yeah, for sure. My dad constantly says sitting on the front porch looking out at the beautiful piece of land on makes you want to live in Manhattan. He really doesn't. doesn't care for the city.

Scott Benner 5:48
You dead sarcasm was grown in Vermont. I can tell.

Unknown Speaker 5:51
Definitely.

Scott Benner 5:52
Vermont once. Here's what I know about Vermont. They don't like air conditioning for some reason.

Zoey 5:56
Yeah, we don't have air conditioning. I was living in Phoenix, Arizona this past summer, and I had to get used to it cuz it's everywhere is air conditioned. Yeah, we just have open air. Yeah,

Scott Benner 6:06
no, I know. I was there for a week. Yeah, maybe. I was near a big mountain. I remember being here. So here was my my experience. We wanted to go on a end of summer vacation. So we sort of picked somewhere close by where we wouldn't have to fly. But it would still be far enough away. rented this really beautiful house up on a mountain, you know, like and had a pool there. Like this is it right here. My son was playing a baseball game in the afternoon. So my wife left for Vermont with my daughter. And I went to my son's baseball game. And when the baseball game was over, he and I headed up. We were probably a couple of hours behind them. It was like a six. No, it's got four and a half hour drive. So I don't know where that puts us. Right. And where are you from? New Jersey. Okay, so no, no. Are you kidding? I'm actually from Philadelphia. I just live in New Jersey.

Zoey 7:05
Okay, I say hi. Just

Unknown Speaker 7:08
my wife got a really good job.

Zoey 7:11
Fair enough. Fair enough.

Scott Benner 7:14
One day, we hope to be able to afford a ton of carne heart and a place where nobody can get to us. Live in the dream. See how long we can stand each other before we murders the other one?

Zoey 7:25
Yeah, surprise. They're still perfectly happy shopping.

Scott Benner 7:29
No kidding. It does start it is starting to surprise. We're jumping around. So I the game ends and I'm on my way to Vermont with my son. And my daughter calls. My daughter's name is Arden. And she says mom says there's no air conditioning in this house. And I said that's impossible. I know how much I paid for this house. It's a vacation home. Look around harder. Maybe it's on a separate system. And

Zoey 7:56
you just open the doors. And that's your air conditioning.

Scott Benner 7:59
Yeah. Well, we didn't figure that out right away. So then we figured it out. And then everybody and by everybody. I mean the other three people in my family were so mad at me.

Zoey 8:11
Is it? I feel like I don't know. I used to just put fans in my room I guess. I don't know people are it's funny though. People bring that up often like oh, yeah, there's no, sir air conditioner. My house is always somewhere between 68 and 70 degrees here around. Minus 68. And I've been getting a lot of like, heat for that lately. Because apparently I had no people who keep their house at 55 and I was like you're a psychopath. That's ridiculous.

Scott Benner 8:39
Listen, I want the world to thrive but not bad enough to be cold. Yeah. So my highlights from my Vermont trip where was this? This is exactly the highlight. This is the thing about Vermont I will never in my entire life forget on our way to do some sightseeing. We're gonna go drive up a mountain and walk around have some Ben and Jerry's. That kind of a thing. Well, on the way to that event. We passed a what I'm going to call about a 25 foot travel trailer that looked like it was 50 years old. It was on the front yard of a home. It had a chicken wire fence around it. The doors were ripped off of it and it was being used as a giant Do you want to guess or should I say

Zoey 9:27
um I feel like it could have been definitely for some period of animal Okay, I want to say cows but I don't know if they'd fit in comfortably although they often keep cows pretty uncomfortable so I guess either chickens or goats

Scott Benner 9:44
my god you got it. It was a giant chicken coop This is

Zoey 9:48
my parents had chickens for a while.

I'm no stranger to a chicken coop.

Scott Benner 9:53
That was those My favorite part of the trip. My second sounds about right. My second favorite part was finding this little tiny movie theater. That was like privately owned and had these little digital theaters that that. Yeah, pretty much it. Yeah, I would go back if it was closer to something and had air conditioning.

Zoey 10:12
Yeah. Well, you can go in the winter and then it's like really cozy You know? So yeah,

Scott Benner 10:18
please. So you guys grew up in Vermont together. You and your sister?

Zoey 10:22
Yes, we did. Yeah, my sister. Yeah, I was born in Vermont. She was technically born in Jersey. But um, yeah, we grew up in Bennington, Vermont.

Scott Benner 10:31
Okay. What is your, like, earliest remembrance of her having type one.

Zoey 10:39
I remember her getting it, which I'm realizing now I think are probably some of my earliest memories, like at all. Because, um, yeah, I was about four. She, we like realized where I didn't realize anything. But my mom realized something was wrong, because we were skiing. And I think we had like the little kid. It was like the 90s. So we had those like one z suits, which is like impossible to go to the bathroom. And my sister had to pee, like every single run. And my mom was like, What the hell is going on here? And that's like, I remember being on the chairlift and my mom being like, concerned about that. And then I remember being in the hospital because it was her birthday. I was having a grand old time. I loved hospital pudding. So that was a highlight for me. Not for

Scott Benner 11:29
your child, aren't you?

Zoey 11:32
Good times. Um, yeah, I was like, four. So I remember that. I remember like, my family crying. I never seen my dad cry before I've ever seen him cry. Um, yeah, that was I mean, yes. I remember when she got it. And then like, you know, I, she's, like, so responsible. And I don't know if it's because she had diabetes. Like she could she got it so young, or if she always would have been like that, but um, I remember like my mom giving us like, going to like this chocolate shop and Manchester, Vermont. And what is the store getting like one chocolate and like savoring it for, like, hours on end, like unbelievable self control. And I had eaten like, 17 of them by that time or something like that?

Scott Benner 12:17
Well, I'm doing the math over here. I got eight minus three minus eight. I gotta carry the one. That's 13 sit on five. And then that makes the three a two. So your sister got diabetes, like 25 years ago?

Zoey 12:31
Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure.

Not good at mad. Yeah, yes.

Scott Benner 12:37
Why do you need math in Vermont?

Zoey 12:39
I'm well, I'm in law school. So I really don't need math. But yeah, yeah, me. My dad must use a lot of math building furniture and such.

Scott Benner 12:48
I'll tell you took it took no math to rip the door off that trailer.

Zoey 12:51
Yeah, exactly. Only to count your chickens. That's all you need to do.

I really, I must have had it for like, 20 Yeah,

Scott Benner 12:59
something like that. Don't like that. Okay, so a really long time. And how long did you guys live together out of those 25 some years?

Zoey 13:06
Oh, um, let's see, uh, until she was, well, you know, I'm, you know, counting when she'd come back in the summer for college, or, you know, I don't know, up until she was 18. Okay, we always lived together.

Scott Benner 13:21
So for about a decade, you you existed together while you were aging from four or five to 14 or 15? Yeah, gotcha. All right now. Initially, I wonder when you started really being aware of impact on you, I guess I should ask is, was there impact on you that you're aware of?

Zoey 13:44
Um, I don't. I don't think so. Really. I mean, other than like, there was a phase where my mom, like, I remember having to get like a shot or I don't know, I remember like being at the doctor for them to I must have been getting like vaccinations anyway or something. But I remember being told that they were like, checking to see if I if I could also have diabetes. And realistically, like, up until, I don't know, a couple of years ago, my mom if I ever said like, I have to pee all the time or something. My mom would be like, maybe have diabetes. Like that was that's always her initial reaction to anything. Yeah, to anything. Like, oh, I'm thirsty. You have diabetes. Like, I don't really feel like I got there was that much impact? I remember like feeling. Yeah, I was the younger one too. So. I think if anything, like Rob's you just became like more and more responsible, like an older sister would anyway. Yeah, I don't remember feeling like, like definitely not jealous or anything. I don't know.

Scott Benner 14:48
Did they spend more time with her than you? Because of the diabetes?

Zoey 14:54
No, I don't think so. My um, my mom like, we're At home, she's artists, so she was like at home with us mostly. So at that point, I think when she first got it, I was still young enough that I probably was only in school like half a day or something. So I was home with her more than more than my sister was.

Scott Benner 15:12
Do you have a appreciation for how your parents felt away from your sister? Did they ever say or do or act in a way that made you realize the diabetes was concerning to them?

Zoey 15:24
Yeah, I think I remember my dad getting a beeper, because it was the 90s like I said, Yeah. And that was like a big thing. Because he needed to, like constantly be being contact. I remember, I think she had like, a couple seizures in the beginning, um, at some point that I think we're, I don't know, you could probably tell me if they were related to diabetes or not. But I remember my sister, like, pretending she had one when we were like, really young, and freaking my mom out and like, see, it's horrible. Now that I think about it. like seeing my mom's reaction really, like, kind of instilled in me like how much she was, like, constantly worried. I don't think she really expressed it. Outwardly as much as I now realize that she probably had like a constant fear filled you're already nervous when you have kids anyway. But I would know but and then, on top of that, getting diabetes is like, makes you paranoid. Probably.

Scott Benner 16:26
It does a little bit and by the way, if it helps you I feel comfort. I mean, not that you need my approval, but not having children until after your 30 huge win for you.

Zoey 16:36
Yeah, seriously. I am so not ready. So that's good to hear. You

Scott Benner 16:40
probably don't even know yourself yet. So your parents, I guess we should go back for a second. Maybe walk me through a little more your sister pretending to have a seizure to freak your mom out. So this is just a prank, right? Let's do these quick today, shall we? You want to get the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump you can you want to try it before you buy it? You can my Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox Omni pod will send you a free no obligation, pod experience kit a demo, it will come to you right in the mail. You can put it on yourself or a loved one whomever it's for, wear it live with it. frolic about take a shower, take a bath skydive if you're a skydiver, you know, I'm saying do what you do in it and see what you think. If you want to keep moving after that, I'm the pod would be thrilled to help you. If you don't, it's fine. No pressure, no harm in trying. My Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box takes about three minutes. And that thing will be on its way here. Now the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, can't get your free demo with that. But I can send you to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. to really look through the details. When you get there, you're going to find out about rise and fall alerts right find out if your blood sugar's going up or going down. If it's going up fast or going down fast, it can tell you that you can set the alarms to tell you when you want to know it's not like it always tells you at one number it tells you when you want to know. It'll also tell up to 10 of your followers, you can choose 10 people to follow your blood glucose, their phone can get alarms as well. So you have a backup, where if you're a parent, you know, it's easier to manage if everybody's seeing what's going on in real time. When we're Pre-Bolus thing with ardens Omni pod, we always use the data from the Dexcom g six to tell us how far in advance we need insulin, right? Do we have a little bit of a high blood sugar we need to get down before lunch. That's easy to do. And it's not as scary you can correct the high that's just how I do it, you correct the high and then you can still do your Pre-Bolus It's amazing. Just having that information in front of you opens up your possibilities. And it allows you to make really fine decisions or bold decisions with your art and spin around wearing it on the pod since she was four and a dexcom. Since like, I don't know so many generations index calm ago I've lost track years and years. These two tools are at the core of how Arden manages her blood sugar and be clear what that means. Arden has no diet restrictions. As a matter of fact, about three minutes ago she Pre-Bolus for macaroni and cheese and her eight one C has been between five two and six two for over six years. All that is accomplished with the Omni pod and the Dexcom can't be more precise because that's all there is to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox my Omni pod comm forward slash juice box links right there in the show notes for your podcast player. At Juicebox podcast.com have a couple seconds today and you'd like to support the show and add your voice to type one diabetes research that matters. T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box. Check it out.

This is just a prank right?

Zoey 20:27
I'm not sure the timeline, but I remember her like not being in school because we were in the same elementary school I think briefly maybe or, but there's nothing more like gone to school that day or something like that. And people knew that like my friend My parents friends knew that because we come from like a really small town and everyone's a doctor. And so I think she had had a seizure or something. And then we were like, we're in bed. My mom would read to us before bed, and we're in my parents bed like reading and my sister. Yeah, like, I think she told me what she was gonna do. Because I wasn't freaked out. I you know, not remembering quite clearly. But she I remember her like kind of like pretending she was having like convulsions and she like roll their eyes back. And my mom was like, screaming and like jumping up and down. She called

Scott Benner 21:25
me she What did she call your dad's beeper?

Zoey 21:28
No, there wasn't enough time before my sister like started laughing. My mom was like, she was so mad. And I don't blame her

Scott Benner 21:34
mentally. When you saw Miami Vice. Did you think your dad was like a cocaine drug lord. Oh, okay.

Zoey 21:42
But that's funny. I remember thinking his beeper was like, super cool. Because cell phones weren't really a thing yet. Definitely. Yeah, I mean that, you know, people had them but not like, I remember him getting a cell phone too. That's a big deal.

Scott Benner 21:58
So your sister was in. As you, as you recall, was she the manager of her insulin and things like that? Did she basically take care of herself?

Zoey 22:07
Yeah, well, she was pretty young. First. And I remember she had a pen, like a, that you had to like, step into her thigh every time. And that was I remember her, like, crying and being really upset that she had to do it in the earlier times, because she was only nine. So but then yeah, I don't she had a pump. She got a pump. Pretty quick, maybe? I don't know. I want to say when she was like 12 or 13, but I'm not sure. And it was like the mini med. I think, is that right? And then you got like a pumps, diesel tronic. Is that something like that? Or do

that she got a mini med one verse. I remember that one. What was the second?

Like? decent tronic or something? I don't know.

Scott Benner 22:59
Hold on a second. You're really close. It just made me laugh. That's how I wouldn't have been Medtronic maybe.

Zoey 23:06
Oh, I remember starting with a D. But now she has a different med one. So okay. Well, she had this one that I thought it started with a D? I don't know. But it had everything clear. So it looked like robotic and it was cool. And she pretty much yeah, I handled all that. Remember her like watching her like putting her say I used to want her to test my blood sugar.

Scott Benner 23:25
Do you remember why you wanted your blood sugar shocked or just cuz she was

Zoey 23:30
I think my mom wanted to do it to like, see that? Probably her like, wondering if I had diabetes. Um, but I just thought it was cool. And I want I think I want it to be like, it doesn't hurt like, you know, because you always had like little calluses all over her fingers from doing it.

Scott Benner 23:48
And you were like, I won't have calluses. Yeah. I wonder time. I'm trying to imagine if I if your mom didn't maybe pull you aside and try to be like, wouldn't it be cool to check your blood sugar? Like your sister tried to talk you into it? So she could see if you're?

Zoey 24:02
I don't know. Yeah, I remember like changing the needle and stuff. But it's funny.

Scott Benner 24:08
So this is really I know, you probably don't feel like it. But I think it's very interesting to hear that you have memories, but they're not. Like it's not horror stories or getting me like, yeah, it's interesting. It's definitely interesting. So I think your sister contacted me and said, Hey, I know you want to have on some siblings. And I think my sister Zoe would do it. Like, that's great. And then there was something about us, she's like, make sure you tell Is there a story or was that the seizure story is the story.

Zoey 24:36
Oh, no, there's another story. Okay. Um, this is probably the closest become to a horror story, but it wasn't. Roxy was just like always so cool about everything, which is funny because she's kind of a hypochondriac, and by her own admission, but I guess once you get diabetes, you're like, I can't suspect I have it. I already have it. She thought that she was always like, pretty independent and very like responsible, which I was not. So the only way in which she screwed me over is that I was a younger child and she never did anything bad. So when I did anything, as like a high schooler, it was like the end of the world. But she was in college and she had come home. I guess probably I was a sophomore in high school, I think it was like spring of my sophomore year. And she had come home for, I guess, summer break, because they get out early. And she had her wisdom teeth out, and I can't. Now remember, if it was something to do with like the medication they gave her after her wisdom teeth, or if something just like malfunction with her pump. But it her pumps stopped working. My parents were out of town. They had gone to sell North Carolina or something for my cousin's graduation. And my grandmother was still alive at that point. But she was like, practically blind. I was 15. Like I said, we live on now like a backside of a mountain. And we're about 25 minutes from town. And my sister's like, something's wrong. I don't like I can't really see very well, either. She was like, I think her trouble. something's not working in her blood sugar. Something happened was really high. Maybe or Is that right? No,

Scott Benner 26:28
no, I think really high if it's not working.

Zoey 26:30
Yeah. You know. And so I had my permit at the time, I guess, but you can't get your license at your 16. So I was I was probably like, 15 and a half. My grandmother's you only one there. She can't see anything. I only have my permit. My sister's like about to pass out. And I had to drive down into town and take her to the hospital. Because I was the only one who was like, able to drive physically. And we figured if I got pulled over, it'd be a pretty good excuse. My grandma, I guess it was fine. She was in the car. But she couldn't say anything. So it was no.

Unknown Speaker 27:07
Yes. Yeah, exactly.

Zoey 27:09
Yeah, so I yeah, that was that was. That's kind of cool, though. kind of funny. Sounds like

Unknown Speaker 27:16
diabetes brought you like a fun. Did you

Scott Benner 27:18
tell your parents afterwards?

Zoey 27:20
Yeah. Well, that later that night. Obviously, I was never neglected by Mr. Diabetes, because what I remember more is that I got sprayed by a skunk that night. Coming home. I got sprayed on like my bare leg, just like point blank got sprayed by a skunk and was home alone because Roxy wasn't there. And my grandma was with her was this and I was like,

Scott Benner 27:43
oh my god. Was the skunk at home. Biggest memory. Was the skunk at home or did you take Roxy to an animal hospital when our bugs are really?

Zoey 27:51
Nope, the skunk was at home eating cat food from our porch.

Unknown Speaker 27:55
As you do,

Zoey 27:57
yeah, sure. Makes the cat and the skunk word buddies. But skunk did not like me. Yeah, I remember. And also Rodney had to go. Apparently there was like no room, in the hospital and the normal places. So she was in the ICU, but not because she was in intensive care. And I didn't really know what ICU stood for. And so people were calling me and I was telling them she was in the ICU. And that was shocking to some people. But yeah, she was fine.

Scott Benner 28:30
almost a perfect story. I here's where here's what I thought I was so excited for half is that because you're like my grandmother was really old and almost and in the pause between almost and when you said blind I thought you're gonna say and almost dead. That's just like, I was always thinking ahead. And then you're like, blind. I'm like, that's even better. Like how are they going to like, fix this? Like the sisters losing her eyesight because her blood sugar is so high. Your child? grandma's blind? You live on a mountain?

Zoey 29:03
Yeah, it's like the perfect storm.

Scott Benner 29:06
Right to go to the hospital.

Zoey 29:08
That would have been epic. borrow the the neighbors like a horse and buggy.

Unknown Speaker 29:15
Put your

Scott Benner 29:16
grandma and your sister on. lit by what I'm assuming it's like a frayed rope. Ah,

Zoey 29:21
yeah, maybe I could have driven the john deere, we have one of those. I have to tell you again.

Scott Benner 29:26
Going into Vermont the first time because we're making some fun of it, but we shouldn't be my wife and my wife and I said to each other if there was a way to make money here, we'd move here immediately.

Zoey 29:35
Yeah, it's Yeah. And it's gorgeous. I went Yeah. What I yeah, I'm probably not gonna be able to move back there for a long time. But that's my goal.

Scott Benner 29:45
Doesn't bother you with a winter.

Zoey 29:47
No, I think I mean, sometimes it gets you know, like really bad if it's windy and like below zero, but I grew up like because there was nothing else to do. The winter we would if you got like, you know, I don't know if you're like an honor student or something you got Really cheap ski pass to not like the nicest mountain but a pretty nice mountain. And so we just go skiing every weekend pretty much for snowboarding,

Scott Benner 30:08
good students would get a cheaper pass the ski.

Zoey 30:11
Yeah.

Scott Benner 30:12
That's kind of brilliant, isn't it?

Zoey 30:14
Yeah, encouraging kids to do well, so they can, you know, pay for cheaper,

Scott Benner 30:19
you know, more suburban setting. How would you incentivize children for good grades? I'm trying to think around here. Could you give them? Yeah, I don't know. Like nothing, I don't think Yeah, I don't know what you can do. Gotcha. All right. Listen, what kind of an attorney Do you want to be?

Zoey 30:35
I'm going to be an immigration attorney.

Scott Benner 30:38
nice person.

Unknown Speaker 30:40
I try.

Scott Benner 30:41
I don't think you have to try. So it sounds like it's happening.

Zoey 30:43
Oh, yeah. It's important to me. So.

Scott Benner 30:48
Where do you live right now? Are you in Vermont?

Zoey 30:51
I know, I go to school in Rhode Island. But I'm moving to Arizona in September. Ah,

Scott Benner 30:57
okay. How did you become interested in immigration law? Because there certainly aren't a lot of people from outside of the United States trying to get into Vermont, and having

Zoey 31:06
no not at all, I will probably never, probably won't be able to end up back there for a long time. I used to live in South America for about three years, I learned Spanish became fluent in Spanish, and I kind of like fell in love with the the Chilean culture. I think when you live in a different country, you kind of get, you know, a sense that like, while every culture is different, and you know, you have a better appreciation for the fact that everyone's human and, you know, ultimately wants the same thing. And human rights are important.

Scott Benner 31:40
Yeah, I said to my wife the other day, I forget what political thing we were talking about. But I said, I think everyone should have to live somewhere else for five minutes, just so they can Yeah, cuz there's, there's a world out there. That if you haven't seen it, you imagine what it's like, and you're probably pretty wrong.

Zoey 31:57
Yeah, I think so. Definitely. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of I'll probably be working with a lot of kids seeking asylum. I'm gonna be working with the

organization called the Florence project in

Unknown Speaker 32:09
Arizona.

Zoey 32:13
So they have a children's team that I'll be working on.

Scott Benner 32:15
So before I ask you a couple of serious questions, I want to ask you one more silly question that's gonna alienate another tire state of people. Are people from Rhode Island weird?

Zoey 32:25
Um, they love Rhode Island a lot. So kind of they they're just like, like, if they never left Rhode Island, they don't think they'd care really much.

Scott Benner 32:39
What is it about there? Because it My question is a is a based on the calls coming from inside the house. This is from what I hear from people who are in Rhode Island that there's like, there's something particular about them, they fit well together. And then they seem like you can as soon as you move them out of Rhode Island for five seconds, you can look at them and go, you know, I think that person was from Rhode Island. No, yeah. Why is that? What is it about? I don't

Zoey 33:03
know. Well, their accent first of all is pretty intense.

I don't know. It's so unique, I think would like that. Even the geography of it. They're like super proud of very strange things like stuffies they call them are basically just like stuffed po hogs, but they're more breading than anything else. So I don't really understand what the big to do is.

Scott Benner 33:26
I'm googling what you just said, cuz that stuff

is I think that Yeah, I do not want to end up on a website where guys are dressed like cartoon characters on

Zoey 33:38
tread lightly tried to be really careful here. Rhode Island

stuffy.

There, yeah, they're just like really, really proud of brown. But also I mean, because I've been kind of involved in the Rhode Island legal community. It's like, you have to be so careful because it's such a tiny state and everyone knows everything about everyone. It's basically like, like, high school for states. It's like very quickie

Scott Benner 34:07
stuffies stuffed. claw hugs. Ko hugs ko hugs. Yeah, hold on. Stuff co hog or stuffies are popular elsewhere in New England, but only in Rhode Island are their annual kohan festivals in Warren in a fictional town called ko hog in a popular TV show called Family Guy. No hogs, of course, are the large. Of course. I'm still wondering What in God's name is this thing and I'm looking at it and the plan and the text says Of course. Cool. Hugs, of course, are the large hard shelled clams native to this area. The ones used in the chapters and clam cakes. kohan comes from the Indian name. Wow pop up blocker chalky. And there's a lot of words here I can't pronounce cultivated and clams for food and ornaments the introduction of them the area's first European settlers. For this dish, let's finish this up. The clam meat gets chopped up and mixed with bread crumbs, herbs and finely diced onions, bell peppers and celery. The whole savory mess is then baked in the clamshell. Yeah, right then. Mm hmm. And you say they love them and they're a little too proud of them. Is that what you're getting?

Zoey 35:21
I think they're just like a little too proud of everything, maybe. Like their beaches and like, I don't know. Their beaches are like kind of crowded and have a lot of red seaweed in them.

Scott Benner 35:35
But they love it. look good. I live in

Zoey 35:38
Bristol, Rhode Island. And it's really cute. Kind of like a sweet little Harbor Town. But in the summer Yeah, it gets kind of like unbearable. There's I usually leave but there's just like people everywhere. I sound like my parents.

Scott Benner 35:53
This Long Island, it's overwrought. We got to get out of here.

Zoey 35:57
Exactly. You want to live in Manhattan.

Scott Benner 36:00
Alright, so it makes you want to live in man that easily be the title of this episode. So have you ever and I'm sorry, if I'm the one putting this into your head? Are you aware that? You know people get Type One Diabetes at all ages?

Zoey 36:17
Yes. So it seems like people. I don't think this is scientific at all. But in my experience, it's like, either got it when you're like, you're three, like nine. It's like everyone I've ever talked to has always gotten in these weird times. Or like, early teens or like early 20s. I know. I know, a girl in college who when I went to college there shouldn't have diabetes. And she got it when she was like 22 movies.

Scott Benner 36:46
I have met somebody who's been diagnosed at every age, you can imagine right up to

Zoey 36:51
six. So Wow, type one. Yes. Oh, my time is so

Scott Benner 36:58
don't lose faith.

Zoey 37:00
Yeah, I do could have diabetes. One day,

Scott Benner 37:03
of course. See, aspirational is the way to go. My question was, of course this Did you ever think about it, but your experience was that it's for younger? You feel like you You enjoy a second ago felt like you had? Sorry. It felt like you would live past the age where this could happen to you?

Zoey 37:22
Um, yeah, I guess I like don't I? Yeah, I don't worry about it. I'm like, honestly never worried about it, though. I mean, that would suck. But I guess, you know, at least I'd have an older sister who knew everything about everything to tell me. It's weird, because in our family, there's no one else in our family who has it like that we knew of ever. Hmm. So I don't know, I thought, isn't it possible to like, when you get it as like you get a virus as a kid or something like that is

Scott Benner 37:53
that? Well, my my best understanding of the medical idea is that you have genetic markers that make you more or less likely to have it. And oftentimes, something happens that sort of sparks off that solar flare in your body. And, you know, for my daughter, I think she got hand foot Mouth Disease, which is just a simple thing kids get and Yeah, probably in that moment, her immune system got confused and attacked her pancreas instead of the hand foot mouth. Uh huh. Yes, you can get it. Yeah,

Zoey 38:25
I don't remember.

Unknown Speaker 38:28
I don't know if Roxy,

Zoey 38:30
Roxy getting like a sickness or something. But she probably did. Because I remember like them talking about that being a possible way. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm still not really. I always tell her that. Like, it's, it's good that she got to know me because I would probably be dead because I'm so irresponsible with that kind of stuff. And she's just like, unbelievably on it. So yeah, I don't think about it that much. I mean, maybe I will now have to call you back in a month and tell you if I'm like losing sleep over? Well, there's

Scott Benner 39:01
babies for your there is something you could do called trial net, where they would test you for the markers and tell you if you have any. Your interest.

Zoey 39:10
What do you think they would have done? Is that something that's new?

Scott Benner 39:14
I'm not new as in like today, but newer than 25 years ago.

Zoey 39:19
Oh, God. Yeah. So they probably wouldn't have done that. Because I do remember. I don't know. They probably just like tested by blood sugar or something when I was young to figure it out. But yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll do it. So while we're heading

Scott Benner 39:31
down this road before we get off of it onto another idea ever considered what it would be like? Do you ever worry that your children might get type one?

Unknown Speaker 39:42
Um,

Zoey 39:44
no, mainly because I haven't really fun.

Scott Benner 39:49
Have you ever have you ever worried Zoey that one day you'd come on a podcast to do a favor for your sister and the host would make you freak out about your future?

Zoey 39:57
about whether or not I'm late. To the party of motherhood, Roxy and I talked about like kittens a lot and being like, we kind of go back and forth. Like I used to really, really want kids. And now I don't really do because mainly not diabetes, but I do think like, Oh my god, I would never stop worrying. And that's part of it. I think I would worry more about like, I don't know, like autism maybe or something like that

Scott Benner 40:26
getting some some money or something like that. Yeah, baby growing up in a chicken coop inside of a trailer on some guys.

Zoey 40:36
Get bucked off a horse. I don't know, run over by a tractor.

Scott Benner 40:39
I think obviously, if you if you don't have type one, there's, there's plenty of other things in the world to worry about. If you're, if you're gonna run around worrying. I don't, you know, I think to sit and think that you're going to get, you know, have some malady in the future or diseases is not a good use of your time. But I was just wondering, like, you know, if you, you would consider that. But it's interesting. You've gotten to the age, where you realize about yourself that if that baby comes out of you, you're That's it? That's the rest of your life. Like you said, Your mom. Still like, right? If you're like, I peed today, she's like, and how old your mom?

Zoey 41:19
6667?

Scott Benner 41:21
Do you really want to be worrying about a 28 year old when you're 67?

Unknown Speaker 41:24
No. But you will if you have one.

Zoey 41:28
I know I will just pretty much the the turnoff at this point. It's so funny. I every time I say that, like my aunt, I have a lot of moms. And they're always like, take it personally. They they're like very offended. Like, oh, you you want to have kids like I'm like have insulted them because they had kids. My cousins too. Like it's not something personal. I give in hard.

Scott Benner 41:50
My aunt and uncle didn't have children, one of my aunts and uncles and people were always hard on them. And I always just thought like, they don't seem like they want to leave him alone.

Zoey 41:59
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, my I'm not engaged or anything My boyfriend is I think he would be like a really lovely father. But I think he also, you know, we'd like to travel. I have a dog. She's sitting right here. That's a big

Scott Benner 42:13
enough mistake, in my opinion.

Zoey 42:15
Very, very committed to her fuzzy little face. But

Scott Benner 42:19
did your boyfriend is your boyfriend gonna find out on this podcast that he's not having kids? Is that what? No.

Zoey 42:26
We've talked about that a lot. I think it would be such a good dad, which is like the only reason I'm like, not 100%. But I'm like, but what if I'm just like a really bad mom. And then I'm like, oh, man, you know, a kid with diabetes. That'd be really hard. Especially like worrying all the time. I would imagine. I think my parents like played it really cool. But I think my mom was always probably, but Roxy was just like such a responsible teenager. I think having a kid with diabetes, I would really worry about like drinking and stuff because that would really like make your blood sugar go haywire, I guess especially if you're like, really drunk and don't know what's going on to make

Scott Benner 43:00
it lower could put you in a situation where you might misuse the insulin or something we have Yeah, episode about drinking heavily on with diabetes.

Zoey 43:08
I remember being in high school and there was a kid in my high school who had diabetes and his parents were like, very, like helicopter, always, like really, really worried. And I remember him getting a he was always just like, very sweet and kind of innocent. And I remember just getting like really, really drunk one night. And everyone was like, he was like, passed out and everyone was like, oh, what do we do like asking me we should like to I was like, literally like test his blood sugar on ours tester is like, it was scary for me. And I'm not I'm not his mom. I don't know. So this

Scott Benner 43:39
is interesting, right? And I By the way, I'm really very much enjoying this. It's not going anywhere the way I expected. But I like what you're saying. So in a highschool drinking situation, when a child who has type one passes out, you become the de facto doctor because your sister had diabetes. But in truth, you don't know what the hell you're doing.

Zoey 44:01
I have no idea. Like, this is not good. Yes.

Scott Benner 44:05
Yeah. You should never put your life in the hands of drunk people.

Zoey 44:08
No, definitely not. 100%. No.

Unknown Speaker 44:15
Oh my gosh, hey, listen, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to. But is the boyfriend coming to Arizona?

Scott Benner 44:23
Am I about to break you up? I'm sorry. Does he not know you're going to Arizona? Did you hang up? What just happened?

Zoey 44:28
Can you hear me? Okay. Sorry, um, anyway, wants to get his LLM in tax law. So the schools in Arizona don't offer that program. So we'll be we'll be doing long distance for

Scott Benner 44:43
a year or so. No kidding. That's interesting. Yeah. Listen, I'm gonna tell you this right now. This might come as a sad, horrifying shock to you. But if you do a long distance relationship for a year, you're gonna end up having a baby Why? Because that's a ton of commitment to somebody, you're gonna do a long distance relationship for a year and then not marry a girl and make her pregnant.

Zoey 45:10
Can I just marry him and not get pregnant? I mean, you could try

Unknown Speaker 45:15
doing my best.

Scott Benner 45:18
I can promise you that you can try if you want to, huh? What are you going to do? If your internal lady parts start telling you you have to make a baby, will you be able to fight them off?

Zoey 45:28
Yeah, well, I think that already happened. Like when I was like, 22. And I was like, had baby fever. And now I'm like, oh, they're so sticky. Every time they touch everything that's sticky. That's how I feel about kids. So it's very sticky. It's very interesting to hear you say that, because

Scott Benner 45:42
I'm a, a firm believer in that idea of there's like, certain times when you just, you know, the women who around you are like, now would be a great time to have a baby. And you're like, why? Yeah, I don't understand, like, what was confusing, you know, cuz your bits are really fun. And then it gets confusing. So you're like in a med tear, and we have no ability to defend that. And then you end up with a baby. That's how

Zoey 46:07
Yeah, I don't know. I just, I don't know if it's worth it for me.

Scott Benner 46:12
A lot. I have two children that I love immensely, and I'm not certain it's worth it for me. Just so you know.

Zoey 46:18
Well, that is definitely something to think about. And they're

Scott Benner 46:22
actually lovely kids, like bright and thoughtful. And not, they're not a problem. They don't create, like extra problems in my life. Just them human creates a lot of problems in my life.

Zoey 46:33
It's hard. I mean, like, like, my dog has recently decided she will not sleep on the floor, like always has to sleep in the bed in between me and my boyfriend. I'm like, this is rough. I mean, like, heart and and she's too cute. I don't want to move. I personally think she's cuter than a kid. But, you know, I might think differently if I created a human Hey, just for just so people know, when you just said this is rough. And you were talking about your dog that wasn't upon, right? No, I did make a point earlier with getting heat for keeping my thermostat at 68. But that was unintentional. Oh, no. He will be proud though. She loves buttons.

Scott Benner 47:08
What? So? Okay, so you've never really, here's what I'm learning. And this is, and by the way, I know you're gonna think oh, this is a mate, you're gonna probably think this was a waste of time after I say this. But I think the opposite. You don't know anything about type one diabetes, you weren't really impacted by it at all. You're not a different person because of it. Your sister's not unhappy because of it. You know, that's gonna be a really wonderful thing for people to hear. Because what I hear from people is that, oh, we spend more time with Billy and I know for sure that Joey's upset about it. But I think people are just projecting their, onto their younger kids. He looks upset their kids like

Zoey 47:46
oh, like their parent. The parents are worried that they're

Scott Benner 47:49
Yeah, they're worrying that they're screwing something up. See, this is interesting, because you were you were raised in a time where people didn't, I hope I hope this doesn't come to a shock to younger people. People didn't really care that much about their kids. Do you hear what I'm saying?

Zoey 48:06
Yeah, I was like, way more chill. Just like Well, no, go put in the neighborhood. Like, you're gonna get kidnapped like,

Scott Benner 48:14
nothing. Listen, growing up. I was like a little fat kid growing up. And there was a boy at the pool where I lived who tried to kill me and every other boy like every summer, he would drown us, right?

Zoey 48:27
Oh, yeah, they're like, no one gets worse

Scott Benner 48:30
round. No one said a word. My parents are watching me be drugged out, like looking at making friends. You know. And, by the way, that experience and many others, led me to figure out how to stop that kid from trying to drown me. Like I developed a personality around keeping a larger, stronger person from trying to kill me. Because I couldn't run away. Like, you know, cuz I'd had too many candies. So I had to, um, so I had to, I had to, like, talk my way. I had to be a person who he least wanted to drown. Yeah, right. And I came up with that. Because my guess what my parents looked at me and they're like, whatever, like good luck, you know. But looking back, I honestly think that's because they did. Just like, Look, we made the baby. We're paying close. Make sure it goes to school. What else do you want from me? Exactly. And you know, and so I think maybe that lack of that lack of overt concern constantly is good for a kid and it would be great for parents if they weren't burdened with it constantly. But in this sort of last generation, they really got swallowed up by everything needs to be perfect for these kids. You know, I can't let anything bad happened to them. That's a, you know, a bit of a misnomer in some things. Like Don't get me wrong, like you shouldn't want a bus hit them. But no, you might be right. Yeah, there's some things you're gonna have to defend them against. But there's some things you just let them try and Yeah, exactly. So, like, you should just, you know, chill out a little bit of heroin.

Zoey 50:10
Okay. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think. I think my parents did a really good job. And I think like I said, looking back on it, they were probably my mom was probably like, constantly freaking out, but she didn't let I don't know. Do let me know that.

Scott Benner 50:31
She probably didn't let your sister know either.

Zoey 50:34
Yeah, I don't think she I think actually I talked about this recently, but like, you know how hard it must have been to be already you're a worried parent. And then on top of that, your tickets ivds. Like, that's a lot. But,

Scott Benner 50:47
um, because Roxy in Vermont still.

Zoey 50:49
No, she lives in Indiana.

Scott Benner 50:52
All right, that's good, because I'm gonna have to ask her to be on the show. And the internet's

Unknown Speaker 50:56
terrible. Yeah,

Scott Benner 50:58
it really is. It's just, there's a person I love who I want to be on the show more, but they live in Vermont, so they can't come on. Because, yeah, it's like

Zoey 51:07
a local local cybercafe. Well

Scott Benner 51:09
dial up like basically, I need Yeah,

Zoey 51:11
we have. We had dial up all through high school and our parents just got rid of it altogether.

Like DSL, I think, I don't know. Fancy.

Scott Benner 51:19
Right from 87. out of it, do you think Roxy would come on?

Zoey 51:26
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That's

cute. Well, I love the name of this podcast, by the way, because like, some of my earliest memories are just like, juice boxes everywhere. So many juice boxes. And I think also just like glucose tablets, like rolling around in the back of the car.

Scott Benner 51:46
Always, oh, there's a juice box in the door of my car right now. And they're Yeah, they're pretty much always is. Yeah, as my daughter.

Zoey 51:56
I think in terms of being jealous, at any point, it was mainly just because like, I wanted to try her like Weird, Gross gel, like sugar packet. That was like the biggest, the biggest way in which she was favored. She had to eat gross glucose.

Scott Benner 52:13
You know, I'm gonna have to first of all, if that Roxie on to like, tell us the rest of the story. I'm also gonna have to someone's gonna reach out and be like, Yo, I was this, you know, my sibling had a terrible time. And I'm going to want to talk to them too. And, but it's interesting, because your parents are, are made for this Really? Like they're, like, seriously, look at them. They're on Long Island. Plenty of people live very happily on Long Island, not them. They're like, we need more relaxed. And so they move to a, you know, probably the most isn't the most. Come on. It's got to be the chillest place in America right for mine.

Zoey 52:48
I would. I wouldn't think so. Yeah. To be clear, my mom. Well, this current political climate is very high strung, but I think it would be way worse if she was in a city definitely would be exacerbated.

Unknown Speaker 53:03
Your mom is high strung because of the current political climate.

Zoey 53:06
Yeah, she's very angry. I don't blame her. I am too but you know, preaching to the choir.

Scott Benner 53:11
Real quick, just so that we so that we can be sure you were joking about children using heroin. Can you tell everybody for a second just in case

Zoey 53:20
definitely a joke, do not condone children and drug use. Not the coolest,

Scott Benner 53:26
because your sarcasm was really smooth air and I was like, we're gonna have to double back to that for a second.

Zoey 53:30
Because you just I mean arrow and you know, most things I say are sarcastic. My mom also doesn't get my sense of humor, which I think is frustrating for her.

Scott Benner 53:38
Art it My daughter has it. My daughter has it. My wife can't follow it sometimes my son Yeah, my son figured it out. And he's using it now. But he's a little more like my wife. So it took him longer. But yeah, the other night. I said something about so this, there's a movie called the intern with Robert De Niro. And oh,

Zoey 53:59
yeah, I saw that. What's

Scott Benner 54:00
the what's the girl's name? She's got like alabaster skin and dark hair. And

Zoey 54:06
I don't remember I don't like I can't even picture her right now. But I remember Robert DeNiro. Isn't

Scott Benner 54:11
that terrible Les Mis movie recently in Hathaway and Oh, yes. Who's so Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro are in this movie. That's, I mean, it's not a good movie, right? Yeah. No, but I really like it. So it and I've watched it like five times when it's been on cable. And it comes on while we were helping art and get ready for she was going to a thing where she was like doing her hair and everything and it comes on. Oh my god. I love this movie is my favorite movie. And a minute later Arden goes, are you kidding about the movie? I can't know. And when she can't read my sarcasm. I'm so thrilled. Yeah, because she's so good at it. I'm like, Oh, yeah, so then I pressed it. And so I was telling the truth, but in a sarcastic tone. I'm like, I've seen this movie like five times. It's great. Right. And she and I said, I magic. Oh my god, she's freaked out because I'm telling the truth in a tone that she reads the sarcasm. And then I said this Anne Hathaway right. I said, let me tell you something. If it was 15 years ago, you know who this Hannah Hathaway would be? And my wife goes, I know. And I said, Who are you thinking, Kelly? And she goes, Julia Roberts, and I was like, that's exactly what exactly what I was gonna say, this is in the in the heyday of the 90s films, and Hathaway would have been Julia Roberts. And Arden just looks at me and goes, I cannot tell if you were telling the truth or not. And it freaked me out. I was like, thank you.

Zoey 55:40
Oh, oh, yeah, I had I had very

mature sarcasm at 15. I'm pretty sure it was fully developed. Yeah.

Scott Benner 55:49
Anyway. Yeah, I read it in you immediately. I was concerned, everyone else didn't. Because sometimes I get notes from people. Disclaimer, yeah, I once in a while, get a note from people that it's like, you're so full of yourself. And I'm like, you really have to find a sarcastic person. stay around for a couple of seconds. So you can hear that.

Zoey 56:06
You're doing a podcast on type one diabetes, like, and making it interesting.

Unknown Speaker 56:12
Yeah, just say thank you. Is that what you're saying?

Zoey 56:16
I don't know. I feel like it's just like a weird, a weird dig to someone who's doing something like this. I don't know.

Scott Benner 56:24
You know, it happens very infrequently. Right. But once in a while, and it's funny. You don't realize this, though, because you have no idea. This is an incredibly popular podcast.

Zoey 56:33
Yeah. Rocky, Rocky does a listening so.

Scott Benner 56:36
So I find a way to make this, like, I make diabetes fun should be my T shirt. Or funner, which is not a word, but really would be more like, you know, correct for people's feelings, I guess. Uh huh.

Zoey 56:51
Yeah, I don't know. I guess I because of like, how I can see how this would be incredibly interesting and helpful. I mean, you know, my sisters are listening to it. But I guess because of how responsible Roxy was. And like her, you know, aside from the, you know, almost dying, going to the ICU and having her half blind to grandma. Forever. Like, that was the biggest, you know, and you know, but to me, I also actually remember one time having to, like, go out, like, I don't know, I think her blood sugar was at like, 38 or something like that. And my dad being like, we have to go find juice, like driving around at like, 1230 at night, and some like town when we're on vacation. I only again, every time I remember something, it's because there was something about me in there, too. So if you want to talk about being self centered,

Scott Benner 57:39
no, but that, but you're a little kid, you probably you should be. So yeah, you're a little kid. And so I just think that as much as you're not gonna really feel this right now. Because you don't have diabetes, and you don't have a child who has diabetes, the people who do, we're going to be incredibly comforted by your story. And your story really? Seriously. Your story really is, I grew up with a spouse with a sibling that had type one diabetes, and it didn't hurt my life. And no, not at all. Do you think it made you in any way? Did it elevate you? That you could tell?

Zoey 58:13
Um, I, I mean, you

Scott Benner 58:15
are, I hope so.

Zoey 58:16
I guess they're being like, more compassionate, or, you know, patient, I guess. But, I mean, it's really funny. There's like a running joke in my family. Because this one time I wrote this essay that was supposed to write an essay about someone I looked up to, and I wrote it about Roxy, and I talked about how she had diabetes. And she'd, like, you know, overcome all this stuff. And of course, like every one of my family was like, That's hilarious that you're using Roxy's diabetes to get good grades. And ever since then, it's been like this running joke that I like, use her diabetes when it is.

Unknown Speaker 58:50
But

Scott Benner 58:50
officer Listen, I know I'm only 15 and a half, but my sister's got diabetes in my old grandmother's almost blind, so not a lot of options here.

Zoey 59:00
That would have been fine. Yeah, there's, um, they, like still laugh about that. And I'm like I was writing about

Scott Benner 59:07
do you? Did you really look up to her? Are you like, hey, this guy is gonna get me this internship or something like that?

Zoey 59:13
No, I think I know, oh, my God, I was so young. I don't think I was even looking for an internship. But she I think I was probably in like, sixth grade or something. No, I definitely. I mean, we're, you know, we're, we've gotten a lot closer, and we're more you know, I think we look to each other for different things now as both, you know, adults, but as a kid, especially, I think I you know, did I definitely looked up to her a lot. And I think, I mean, she's also like, she was like the valedictorian of our high school and then graduated and I came in as a freshman. Like, I think I was like a disappointment.

Unknown Speaker 59:50
Yeah,

Zoey 59:50
yeah. I'll tell you responsible, but I don't I mean, I, I guess just being like more aware, but I really I will I'd love to say that it like affected me more, but maybe I just was being you know, self centered and little kid and didn't

Scott Benner 1:00:07
seem so interested to talk to her now because I bet you she didn't think of herself as very responsible. Maybe that's how you saw it. Do we definitely need the other side of this now?

Zoey 1:00:15
Yeah, yes.

Scott Benner 1:00:18
No, no, not at the same time I need. My brain needs time to ferment and as an adult, do you guys talk about diabetes? Because you said your close now? Does it come up ever? Does she not speak about it that much. Um,

Zoey 1:00:36
it comes up just because like, you know, but I mean, like, just for like logistics, like, show um, I actually recently for Christmas, I bought her a pair of nice leggings that have these really nice some pockets on the sides that are built in and I was like, Oh, this would be perfect for Roxy's pump. But, you know, other than that, I don't think she really, there were moments, I think when she would be frustrated with you know, implications of having it like, you know, you have to eat sometimes you don't want to things like that. But we don't, I don't know. I it could just be because she's like, you know, she's 32 now and has it so down, Pat, but there's other stuff. I mean, it's always changing too. And, you know, like that she has that patched thing now that like, senses your blood sugar wall like so you don't have to like test all the time. Yeah. But kind of like adjusting to those things. Like, you know, she'll mention in passing like, Oh, so frustrating. You know, my agency went up because the patch thing wasn't working. And I'm like getting used to it. But I think it's just normal for me now. So I don't really think about it as being like, Ah, yes. Today she complained about

Scott Benner 1:01:49
No, I wouldn't expect that. I'm just interested.

Zoey 1:01:52
Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.

Scott Benner 1:01:55
Were you ever aware of like, Did you go to her appointments when she was a little? Her doctor?

Zoey 1:01:59
Um, yes. Her doctor was named Jill Abel, Seth and I really liked that. And we would get to go to Albany, which is a CD. So that's why I remember that. But again, I'm like, Oh, I get to go get like I think we like went out to dinner in. We went to the pawn blossom. This was a Chinese restaurant that was better than the one that was in our town. So that's like, why I remember going to her doctor's. So two

Scott Benner 1:02:23
things able sac are Abel, Abel Seth,

Zoey 1:02:27
chill. Abel Seth, I believe was her name burger. I don't know if I'm supposed to be a broadcast. I'm looking

Unknown Speaker 1:02:33
here. How do you find it will seem to basically like her. She's actually

Zoey 1:02:37
really liked her. I remember that. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:39
she's it all day. Um,

Zoey 1:02:41
oh, she's still there.

Scott Benner 1:02:43
She's still doing her thing and opening.

Zoey 1:02:45
Yeah, well, she was great. I don't know I Roxy was especially for like when kiddos get diabetes. I think it's probably like a hard transition. I can imagine it would be even harder the older you get. So maybe getting in at nine was a blessing in disguise. But yeah, she always seemed like, very, like, understanding and helpful as far as I remember.

Scott Benner 1:03:08
Yeah. Well, people um, you know, I think if they when they find a good doctor, or one that they get along with, they stick to it. And you obviously travel that's really far to travel, isn't it?

Zoey 1:03:21
From betting town, it was like an hour

Scott Benner 1:03:22
an hour. Okay, so for so to you. You got to see the doctor who had Did you just like her name?

Zoey 1:03:30
I remember being really nice. I think, like, Yeah, I don't know, because we'd always go in. I mean, yeah, they weren't gonna like leave me at home. Because I think so. I think I'd had no choice but I made it work. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:03:42
And honestly, you're the bad seed. Something was gonna go wrong. Exactly.

Zoey 1:03:44
Yeah, for sure. I probably gonna burn the house down if they left me alone.

Scott Benner 1:03:48
But you're but your sister's endocrinologist visits? were basically the The doctor was nice. And I got Chinese food that was better than I had at home.

Zoey 1:03:57
Yeah, that is it. I think

Scott Benner 1:03:59
that's great. I think that's exactly how I expect it. So people ask me all the time, like, how does your son take this? And I was like, take what? Yeah, like, What are you talking about? This is just this is our This is how it goes? This is our life. Right? Like if, if Jordan was a lacrosse player instead of had diabetes, there'd be things we'd have to do for lacrosse. And it would impact Cole's life. And that would be our life, too. But yeah, I don't really see it as much different that I've tried asking him he doesn't have any He's like, you know, he actually sounds like he was like, I don't know. So I remember this one time we went to a restaurant we couldn't eat right away.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:33
Yeah, like,

Scott Benner 1:04:34
it wasn't a complaint. It was just a memory, you know? Yeah. But but he's like, other than that, like, whatever. I don't, I don't care. I don't think he I don't think he sees her like diabetes at all. Like he'll ask sometimes about her overall health, and we'll keep him filled in if something's going on with her. But no more or less than we keep her filled in if something's going on with him or Yeah, that's good. doesn't have anything to do with diabetes. Really?

Zoey 1:04:59
Yeah, I think that's I mean, that's a great, that's great that you're able to, you know, maintain that equilibrium. That's nice. Yeah, like I remember having to, like Roxy would have to order diet soda, and they'd bring them in sometimes, you know, waiters mix them up. So I would be like the guinea pig to have to taste both of them to make like, see which ones which before she drank it. I hate diet soda now, like, I think it's so because of that.

It is for us anyway. But yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:27
it seems like your life is okay. Yeah.

Zoey 1:05:31
I got sprayed by a skunk. Thanks to Roxy's diabetes drive before you were illegal. Uh huh. I was doing that. Anyway, I hit a hay bale one time, though. And I was 13. So I was

Scott Benner 1:05:42
driving.

Zoey 1:05:43
Yeah, I was in that field. I was with like, my dad's. I was like, we called My uncle. But yeah. Yeah, he was like, I'll back up and I was like, okay, and I backed around a hay bale. And then he was like, get closer to it. And I was like, Okay, and then I hit it. So I dented the door of my grandmother's car.

Scott Benner 1:06:05
So this probation was put on you by your parents.

Zoey 1:06:09
Yeah, I mean, I was 13. So I couldn't

add it was just in the field like firehouse These are what this would you do in Vermont, you got to keep yourself occupied.

Scott Benner 1:06:18
Let me tell you, let me just tell you this is before we say goodbye, I I hundred percent certain I've never told this on the podcast before. I have been a daily driver since I was 13 years old. And I did not get my driver's license until I was 16. So we had circumstances that required it. And I alluded the law for three years to help my family and trust me, I was not growing up on a mountain and there was no fields anywhere near me.

Zoey 1:06:48
Yeah. Well in like North Dakota, you can get your license when you're like 14 to drive a tractor. You know, sometimes extenuating circumstances.

Scott Benner 1:06:56
Oh, by the way, I know because I actually tried as a 13 year old tried to get an attorney to get me a farmer's license out of state. I was Wow, I wasn't a dedicated industrious young man. I'm

Zoey 1:07:11
a chubby little industrious young man. I 13.

Scott Benner 1:07:12
I was thinning out a little bit. Yeah. I hear what you're saying. Good for you by the run away from your enemies. Well, finally, and then I didn't have as many. But they were all like this kids funny. We don't have to kill him. Like, you know what I mean? So because children have very basic ideas about how other people are treated. So I'm using guy gets to live. Yeah. Yeah, that's all. But yeah, I boy, this isn't. I'm not gonna bother you with it. But it's a good story. Maybe one day, it'll come out of here. Anyway, when I got when I got to my, my test, I took my driver's test on the day of my 16th birthday. Oh, well, because I did not want to risk one more day of driving without a license. And I had, because I was also I was a pragmatic criminal. So I didn't want to, I didn't want to be breaking the law. I just wanted to, you know, I had to mean, the grocery store was not close to our house. And my mom didn't drive. So anyway, I say, where do I get the car. That's another story now. So I go on my, on my birthday morning to get my driver's license, I talk a friend of mines older brother into letting me use this car. I had never driven this car before. So basically, he pulled it into the line for the test. And I got in the driver's seat. And I remember and this is gonna be something for you. Older people remember, but you get it. And the guy's like, you know, blow the horn. You know, dude, like, you have to do all that stuff. Put the turn signal on left, right, they make sure your hands kind of like fluidly go to these things. Yeah. Put on the high beams. And that was right at the time cars. were changing over from a button on the floor for high beams. Oh two pulling your like your turn signal back? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, so now many people have now heard that and thought I did not know there was ever a button on the floor that I also did not know, right? But there was a big metal button. Right? So I when he said high beams I simultaneously reached for the turn signal and stomp my foot and just thought one of these is gonna be running. And one of it was the turn signal. And so I did that.

Zoey 1:09:27
Yeah, I don't know that he would have been able to tell the daytime if your high beams.

Scott Benner 1:09:31
He knew he was very, very studious. I whipped through that test. I swear to God, and we pulled up in front of the building and he looks at me. He goes well, congratulations, you passed. It's like you've been driving forever.

Zoey 1:09:45
You're like ha ha I said

Scott Benner 1:09:47
thank you. And I reached out and took the paper from I got out of the car. I felt like I stole something. I was like, thank you very much. I had to like, consciously keep both of my hands on the wheel. Like I was just shy of like Putting my arm out on the window to get a little sun. You know? I've been driving a really long time. Yeah, we needed groceries. What are you gonna do?

Zoey 1:10:09
Yeah, I mean, you're gonna drive you're gonna do and your sister needs to go to hospital. You

Unknown Speaker 1:10:14
got to get to it.

Scott Benner 1:10:15
That's right. I hope we've all learned something here. From Zoey. I know we I have and I think the one thing I've definitely learned is please tell Roxie when she asked how this went that I want her to be on the show and ask her she'll send me another email. Okay.

Zoey 1:10:28
I'm sure she will. Yes. Well, good luck

Scott Benner 1:10:30
being an attorney. And I hope you help a lot of people. I hope that I hope that boy is nice when you go to Arizona.

Zoey 1:10:40
He's pretty nice. Yeah, it'll be good. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:10:43
I mean, in Rhode Island, who's he gonna mess with?

Zoey 1:10:45
Oh, yeah. Well, he's from Connecticut.

Scott Benner 1:10:48
Oh, my goodness. People can't drive at all.

Zoey 1:10:50
Not at all. No.

Scott Benner 1:10:53
People in Connecticut. No, you can't drive. Are you just finding out now? You terrible Really? Like you other than that, but

Zoey 1:11:00
honestly, actually a really bad driver. So that makes a lot of sense. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:11:03
100%? Yeah. Oh, no, no, that would not surprise me at all. The I took three years off of my life with stress driving through Connecticut one time.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:14
I will go to Massachusetts. Oh, that's where I was driving to.

Scott Benner 1:11:17
But by then, my brain exploded. So I couldn't tell anymore. But anyway, if I the day I die. Everyone who lives in Connecticut, just know that you stole yours from me. Mm hmm. Yeah. Your inability to speed up or change lanes? Absolutely maddening. Room. Sure you think it's safer, but it was give me a stroke. So anyway, I thank you so much for doing this. This is very kind of you. I really appreciate it.

Zoey 1:11:43
Yeah, no problem. My pleasure. I'll tell my sister, she's got to get on. Did you

Unknown Speaker 1:11:47
get your time? Yes, definitely.

Zoey 1:11:50
So funny to talk about things that I like didn't even you know, I don't know, I just didn't think about think about other people's perceptions of, you know, my experiences or any how it could have been any different than me and my sister,

Scott Benner 1:12:03
though. The truth is, by the way, anybody could have this conversation about anything in life. Like we're always impacting each other in ways we don't realize like, right, you're just living your life. You don't realize that, you know, you living your life is is is impacting someone else. Listen, yesterday. I didn't take my mom, my mom 77 I had to take her to a doctor's appointment. Right? So we don't live in the same state. Now. Don't get me wrong. We're, you know, bordering each other. We're not too long. But I'm at half an hour ride to my mom. So I get up in the morning. I take my kid to school. I'm making breakfast for I'm doing all this stuff. I got to get a shower. I gotta run out the door. I got to drive this 45 minute drive to get them my mom to drive for another half an hour to a doctor's appointment. It isn't going well for me already. Yeah. So we, you know, I get her to the appointment. Everything's fine. You know, she's great. And we're driving home. She says to me, I need Cole's address five days before his birthday. Now my son, his colon, his birthday is in February. And I was like what mom, and he shows his address at college. I need it five days before his birthday. So I can't help myself. So yeah, go, could I get it to you six days before his birthday. And she's like, what? And I said, What? Can I just give it to you? And now she goes, why don't have a pencil. And I said, Well, I was gonna email it to you. Because she had said, and I left that other story because I need you to email me his address. So I said, Mom, I'm like, I could just give it to you now and I swear she goes, I don't have a pencil. I said, Well, Mom, you won't need a pencil to receive an email. So this will be fine. She was Oh, okay, now we're driving. And I'm just like, Mom, listen, and then it gets confusing. She's like, Well, what I want to do is I'm like, Mommy, you're trying to send Cole a card for his birthday? And she's like, Yes, I was like, What is the five days have to do with it? And I couldn't like wrap my head around it and she's. But what I figured out after a painful conversation, was that five days in her mind gave her enough time to mail the card to him before his birthday. But didn't pressure me to have to come through on the ask of can you get Cole's addressed to me? Like she was? Ah, and so I'm like, Mom, you can't think about me like I'm okay. Just say I need Kohl's dress. So I said, Listen, these phones are magical. Ma'am. Let me show you something. I opened up my contacts, not while I'm driving. But you know, between me and us, oh, I've been driving since I'm 13. So pretty good. Right. And so, um, I afford my mom through a text message. My son's contact, said Mom, you'll touch that in it, do it now. Open up your your, you know, text, touch that and it's going to open it up and you're going to save it as a contact. And I said oh look here it already says that you have coals of contact. So just merge them together and you know, you'll have to address them. So then we go into our contacts, and there's a bunch of writing that doesn't make any sense in there. She's got Kohl's address twice. And I go, mom, you already had Kohl's address. No, I didn't. I was like, Yes, it look and I'm showing her and she's like, oh, okay, so I'm deleting her contacts and doing all this stuff. This process took 15 minutes. My mom doesn't realize that by her asking me for my son's address, which by the way, she already had. She put, by the time I got home, my wife goes, Hey, how'd it go? And I went, my mom. Oh, my I couldn't stop. Like, I was just like, I'm telling her the story. I'm all jacked up and everything I'm like, and she's like, what happened? I don't know. It's about close like she my mom took Can you please send me Cole's address at school? and turned it into a nightmare. And trust me, all of you are doing that to everyone around you. I'm doing it to people too. We don't realize it. There's a great story everywhere. We can have everybody sister call up and you know,

Zoey 1:16:00
just talk about growing up.

Scott Benner 1:16:01
Yeah, their side of the story. I'll be good. I will. I won't bother you with it. She asked me how to crash your apps. That was a painful 10 minutes. Oh my god.

Zoey 1:16:11
No. Oh my gosh, my aunt. This is Yeah, my my aunt is so so so sweet. My parents got her an iPad. Or maybe she got enough. My my dad taught her how to use it. But not really, because I came downstairs and I am in law school. So my life is kind of a hellscape a lot of the time. And when I'm home in Vermont, it's like, you know, very relaxing. And I try and take advantage of that. I come down and it's like, I deleted all my messages. And I'm like, and she had deleted somebody deleted her messages on her iPad. And she was like, I need to get them back. And I was like, I don't can and

I was like you

deleted them like and I was like here don't do this again. She's like, I didn't do that. And I was like, well, either way they could have disappeared. So I don't know to tell

Scott Benner 1:17:02
you. As I tried to teach my mom to swipe up to open the absolute she's stabbing at the phone. I'm like, Mom, stop stabbing it up, up. And then I'm showing her I'm like, here I close three. I'm like See that? She's like, yeah, I'm like you tried, boom. Your God. I called my brother. I called my brother with the other car. And I was like, why didn't you buy her that phone? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:25
Oh, man.

Scott Benner 1:17:26
By the way. My mom's lovely too. She just Yeah,

Zoey 1:17:28
yeah, people. It's hard.

Scott Benner 1:17:31
And during that good.

Zoey 1:17:33
Dad is like way more tech savvy than I am. Oh, he's got a lot of time. And my mom is like, yeah, my mom is like, I send it to my iPad. And I'm like, do you mean your email?

Unknown Speaker 1:17:47
That's really fine.

Scott Benner 1:17:49
Yeah, terrific. I love this. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate this. Hey, huge thanks to Omni pod and dex comm for supporting the show, please go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box and dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Don't forget to check out T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box if you'd like to add your voice to some very meaningful Type One Diabetes Research. Thanks so much to Zoey for coming on and sharing her recollections of growing up with Roxy. And if you think your sibling might like to come on the show and has had a different experience than the ones that we described, reach out. Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

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