#1784 Someone Peed in My Bed

Summary

Juicebox Podcast: Type 1 Diabetes

Episode #1784 – "Someone Peed in My Bed"
Release Date: February 26, 2026
Host: Scott Benner
Guest: Brittany – Mom of 8-year-old Henry, newly diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode centers on the newly diagnosed Type 1 diabetes journey from a caregiver’s perspective. Brittany, a nurse and Vermont mom, shares how her family's life was upended by her son Henry’s diagnosis in late 2024, the confusion and grief that came with it, strategies for becoming “bold with insulin,” and how a flexible, open-minded approach has made all the difference. Scott and Brittany weave humor, candor, and practical wisdom into a rich conversation about diagnosis, learning curves, family dynamics, and the invaluable power of peer-to-peer support for families living with diabetes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Diagnosis Story: The Mystery of Pee on the Carpet

• Early Signs & Misinterpretation
  • Brittany’s husband blamed their cat for urine stains in Henry’s room, only to discover “the cat was innocent” — it was Henry, unknowingly urinating due to undiagnosed diabetes ([09:45–11:05]).
  • Memorable: Henry comes down one night and declares: “Somebody peed on my bed while I was sleeping.” ([11:05], Brittany)
  • The family considered stress, overactive bladder, UTI, but “definitely not diabetes,” despite classic symptoms (excessive thirst/urination) ([11:25–12:52]).
• The Diagnosis Moment
  • As a nurse, Brittany feels guilt for missing the signs.
  • At the pediatrician, Henry’s blood sugar is 538 mg/dL. The doctor says: “There is no differential. He has Type 1 diabetes.” ([13:06], Brittany)

2. Navigating Guilt and Family Dynamics

• Brittany’s husband questions if Henry’s (and Brittany’s) sweet tooth caused diabetes; Brittany pushes back: “This is not my fault. It's not his fault. It's nobody's fault. Maybe it's all the autoimmune on your family side, but whatever.” ([14:15], Brittany)
• Brittany reflects on their family’s robust autoimmune history (celiac, MS, myasthenia gravis, thyroid issues) ([07:01–08:00]).

3. The Emotional Rollercoaster of Diagnosis

• The Grief of 'Forever'
  • Henry, age 8, struggles with understanding the permanence of diabetes. Early on, he thinks, “so I have to do a few shots, and then it's going to go away,” which was “really hard, for both of us” ([20:06–22:31], Brittany).
  • Brittany shares how Henry segmented life into “before and after” diabetes, and how acceptance grows over time ([22:37]).

4. Managing Diabetes – Becoming “Bold With Insulin”

• Transition to CGM and Devices
  • After diagnosis, quick move from fingersticks to Dexcom G7 CGM and later, Omnipod Dash. Henry adapts well: “He does awesome with it.” ([28:09–28:28], Brittany)
• Honeymoon Phase
  • Brief honeymoon, then much higher insulin needs after the flu in February 2025 ([28:49]).
• Practical, Flexible Management
  • Core Strategy: Flexibility and experimentation trump rigid protocol.
  • Example: When ice cream put Henry at 500 mg/dL, “I’m of the mindset, okay, one time we went to 500. Clearly, we need to do more insulin and time it better — and we’ll try again” ([31:59], Brittany).
• Challenging Conservative Medical Advice
  • During illness, Brittany was told to increase insulin by just 10% per week.
    • “The feedback I got was like, ‘Okay, we can increase by 10% every week.’ And if I had listened to that, he would have been in DKA.” She decided instead to “meet the need” right away (i.e., adjust dosing based on results, not just slow increments) ([33:33], Brittany).
    • Scott reflects: “It took one piece of advice from them that didn’t make sense to you, and you trusted yourself more.” ([34:09])
• Peer/Lived Experience is Invaluable
  • Brittany credits the podcast and Facebook groups for real-world approaches and the confidence to be proactive and flexible.
  • “Why would you not ask people with real world experience, like, lived experience?” ([36:19], Brittany)

5. Celiac Testing and Dual Diagnoses

• Ongoing process to confirm if Henry also has celiac (elevated antibodies, upcoming endoscopy). Henry is nervous — the possibility of another “forever” dietary restriction is stressful ([23:05–24:09]).

6. Emotional Isolation and Online Community

• Brittany describes isolation in her small Vermont town; few local T1D connections. Social conversations often fraught, fear of overwhelming people, or son being excluded due to safety worries ([37:26–41:05]).
• She finds “her people” in online diabetes communities and Facebook groups.
• Notable Moment: “I just want another parent to have fruit snacks on them. That would make my day.” ([41:05], Brittany)

7. Personal Growth, Confidence, and Finding Purpose

• Brittany is working on “making myself less small” — becoming more outspoken and confident ([30:10], Brittany).
• Considers a career pivot into diabetes care/education.
• Enjoys helping others in DIY Looping/Trio online communities while balancing the security and flexibility of her current remote job ([48:15–48:40]).

8. Tools, Calculators, and Diabetes “Math”

• Scott previews a new calculator designed to estimate starting insulin settings (TDD, basal, carb ratio, sensitivity) based on weight and sensitivity ([58:00+]).
• Scott and Brittany demonstrate how these tools could be valuable for parents and adults, especially when starting/re-evaluating pump or MDI therapy ([62:43–66:54]).
• Broader point: “If you had your settings somewhere close to right and you understood... at the minimum, the small sip series from the podcast, I think you’d be off on a good way.” ([61:33], Scott)
• Need for better dissemination of these actionable, self-advocacy tools, especially beyond endocrinology offices ([74:33], Brittany).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Diagnosis, Humor, and Family Life

• “‘Somebody peed on my bed while I was sleeping.’...I think that maybe it’s you.” ([11:05], Brittany)
• “Turns out [my husband] has a lot of autoimmune in his family, and I didn’t really think much of that until recently.” ([07:01], Brittany)

Emotions, Flexibility, and Confidence

• “I was willing to keep trying... I wasn’t afraid of insulin. And I learned to use insulin well.” ([49:45], Brittany)
• “It’s not stacking if you need it.” ([52:08], Scott)
• “I think one of my big skills is I’m good at figuring things out, so I’m like, I can figure this out. And I also had the podcast.” ([34:15], Brittany)
• “I don’t know what happened to you in the past that didn’t allow you to trust yourself as much as I trust myself, but I’m sorry for you.” ([77:31], Scott)

On Community and Support

• “Why would you not ask people with real world experience, like, lived experience... Why wouldn’t you use that?” ([36:19], Brittany)
• “It doesn’t matter where they come from. As long as you find the interaction that you need and people you can with, you know, some certainty, trust.” ([38:57], Scott)
• “I just want another parent to have fruit snacks on them. That would make my day.” ([41:05], Brittany)

Humor & Self-Awareness

• “If I decided to start a cult, I’d be having sex with your wives, and you’d be sending money to my account every day.” ([81:23], Scott)
• “You’d be an incredible cult leader.” ([81:24], Brittany)
• “As long as there’s air conditioning. That’s all I’m saying.” ([82:57], Scott, on whether they could be friends)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Diagnosis Journey: The “Cat Pee” Mystery
  [09:45–13:15]
• Dealing with Family Comments & Guilt
  [13:15–14:36]
• First Hospital Stay and Getting Started
  [14:41–20:06]
• Navigating Emotions – Henry & Grief
  [20:06–23:05]
• Celiac & Double Diagnosis Concerns
  [23:05–24:54]
• Device Acceptance & Sport Life
  [28:09–29:14]
• Flexible Management / Challenging Medical Dogma
  [31:59–36:29]
• Isolation & Online Community
  [37:26–44:13]
• Career Reflection – Diabetes Advocacy
  [46:01–48:40]
• Tools, Calculators, & Self-Reliance
  [58:00–66:54]
• Summing Up Bold Approaches – Timing & Amount
  [54:00–56:00]
• Episode Title Selection - “Someone Peed in My Bed”
  [81:54–82:51]

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Episode Takeaways

• Diagnosis can be missed even by medical professionals in their own families; classic symptoms can be rationalized away.
• Relying strictly on slow medical increments doesn’t always meet day-to-day needs. Being “bold with insulin”—proactively adjusting based on real glucose data—can improve outcomes.
• Grief and acceptance run in parallel for children and caregivers; leaning into supportive, like-experienced communities provides invaluable comfort.
• Self-advocacy, experimentation, and flexibility are vital for success in diabetes management.
• New tools (calculators for basal/carb ratios) and bold educational resources can empower families–but dissemination beyond specialists remains a barrier.
• Peer learning and sharing, including about non-diabetes life skills (like not putting out bird feeders until the bears hibernate!), are as crucial as clinical advice.
• Humor, candor, and a willingness to grow—personally and as a community—are central to the show’s spirit and to Brittany’s story.

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Episode in a Quote

“I think that I’ve been successful in diabetes because I’m flexible, and I think that’s a little bit groundbreaking for people to hear. Maybe.”
— Brittany [31:49]

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Listeners come away with practical wisdom, validation for their emotions, and a sense that real-life success with Type 1 diabetes is all about persistent curiosity, support from those who “get it,” and the courage to be bold—with insulin and beyond.

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For resources, support, and calculators, visit juiceboxpodcast.com.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome back friends. You are listening to the Juice Box Podcast.

[B]

Hi, my name is Brittany. I am the mom of an 8 year old who has type 1 diabetes.

[A]

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[B]

[e-mail] hi, my name is Brittany. I am the mom of an 8 year old who has type 1 diabetes.

[A]

Good morning, Brittany. How are you?

[B]

I'm doing well. How are you?

[A]

You know, honestly, fantastic.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Yeah. You know, seriously, I don't know how it gets better, to be perfectly honest with you.

[B]

Well, you don't have Covid, so I

[A]

shook the COVID in like 36 hours. Like it was nothing. Couldn't stick to me. Maybe made my nose a little drippy. That was pretty. Well, that's not true. I had a. I got a little woozy there once, but I was okay. Little. Yeah. Head pressure. You know what I'm talking about?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I got through it pretty fast. What I was talking about more is it's the holidays. I had a nice holiday season. The family was around. I got a nice year coming up planned. Hopefully things go pretty well. I've buttoned up a lot of things with my health, so I'm feeling in tip top shape. And I make a podcast. So my life is not what I would call taxing by standard measurements. So, yeah, I'm doing it.

[B]

That's great. Yeah, that's great.

[A]

Took me a long time to get in this position.

[B]

Now you're here.

[A]

Yeah. For all of you who are like, you know, I work hard. I want to tell you about the time in my life for four years when I got up at 5 o' clock in the morning to drive to my job in a sheet metal shop where I made $4.50 an hour and had to ride a motorcycle because I couldn't afford car insurance. And that was even in the winter. So I put my time in. All right, now Scott's gonna put his feet up and make this podcast. Everyone else, calm down, stop complain. I'm already imagining people complaining to me. Brittany, why? Why you want to come on a podcast and make the chit chat? What's going on?

[B]

Well, I really love the podcast and I would say it's probably the most helpful thing that I've encountered since my son's diagnosis. And not that I have anything groundbreaking to say, I don't think, but I really love listening to everyone else's stories and maybe someone will like listening to Mine is what I'm hopeful for.

[A]

Brittany, that's awesome. Also, I don't know that you won't say something groundbreaking and don't tell them that up front. They might switch off to another one. You know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah. I have some really big news. How about. We'll go with that.

[A]

Yeah. Brittany has the secret to what? Painless periods. Right, Brittany?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, I do. I don't have painful periods, so that's great.

[A]

And we're going to talk about that right after the ads. So how old was. It was your daughter? I'm sorry?

[B]

My son.

[A]

Son.

[B]

So my son. Yep. He's 8 year olds now and he was diagnosed when he was seven and a half. So November of 2024.

[A]

Very fresh.

[B]

Yeah. Just over a year ago and it's been kind of a wild ride.

[A]

Other kids?

[B]

I have an older son who is 11.

[A]

Is there a boy you allowed to live in the house with you?

[B]

Yes, I'm married and have been for, I don't know, like 13 years, I think.

[A]

I don't know, like 13 years, I think, I think.

[B]

I don't know. It's 2013, so I guess we're coming up 13 years.

[A]

You think he hears that and he thinks, awesome, that's awesome.

[B]

He has no idea how long we've been married.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

No, absolutely not.

[A]

Which one of the boys did you get? Did you get the. The sweet ones with the facial hair? Did you get the one that can throw a ball real far and make money? Did you get the one who's dirty all the time but somehow, like, gets everything accomplished? Which one did you get?

[B]

I think the third. He's, like, dirty all the time. He gets things done. He's very tall, so that's kind of great.

[A]

Is that what got you the tall?

[B]

I think so.

[A]

Do you ever look back and think, I had so many more, like, feelings about my. My intellect, what I. What I. What would get me and you, you one day, you just look up and go, boy, that boy's tall.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was going for.

[A]

So I looked at Kelly and I was like, her hip to waist ratio is awesome. Let's go. Oh. Since then, I've learned other stuff about her that I like.

[B]

Yeah. I've learned other things about my husband that I like too, so that's great.

[A]

Is one of them that he makes babies with diabetes?

[B]

Yeah. Turns out he has a lot of autoimmune in his family, and I didn't really think much of that until recently.

[A]

You didn't Bring that up on the first date, I bet.

[B]

No, no, definitely not.

[A]

Can I make a guess? Let me just guess.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Apropos of nothing, let's think. Well, his mom definitely has Hashimoto's.

[B]

I don't know. You know, she had something with her thyroid, but I don't know if it

[A]

was Hashimoto's, so I got thyroid. How can you take that point from me? That was crazy, Brittany.

[B]

Okay, fine. You can have that.

[A]

All right, let's see. We have a cousin once removed with celiac, maybe type one, and a lot of people are anxious.

[B]

There is no type one, but there are a few cousins with celiac, a cousin with ms, and then his dad, before he passed away, was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis.

[A]

What now?

[B]

Myasthenia gravis. I don't really know what it is.

[A]

It makes two of us.

[B]

I know. It's autoimmune.

[A]

All right, well, we'll try to figure that out. Nobody's anxious. We don't have anxiety all over the place.

[B]

I mean, yes, but, like, nothing diagnosed that I'm aware of. But I don't know if everyone's going around letting everyone know they're diagnosed with anxiety.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, but you can see it at Christmas is what you're saying.

[B]

Yeah, a little bit.

[A]

They used to call it type A. Yeah. MG is a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease that causes muscle weakness, that worsens with activity and improves with rest. Though that doesn't set you up for a fun life. What's actually going wrong? Your immune system makes antibodies that interfere with communication between nerves and muscles, specifically at the neuromuscular junction. The signal gets weaker, so muscles tire out quickly. Common symptoms would be drooping eyelids, double vision, slurred or nasal speech, trouble chewing or swallowing, weakness in arms, legs, neck, fatigue. That gets worse as the day goes on. Geez. What makes it better or worse? Exertion, illness, stress, heat. Certain medications make it worse. Better rest, sleep, proper treatment. Huh?

[B]

Right.

[A]

How old was he when he passed?

[B]

Like 75, I think. And I think he was diagnosed at 74, so it wasn't a long run with it. Or maybe it was. He had it going on. It was diagnosed till later. I don't really know.

[A]

Yeah. Do you have any idea if it impacted his life?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know exactly how. We weren't super close with his dad, but. Yeah.

[A]

How could you be the guy who was resting?

[B]

Yes, he was resting a lot.

[A]

Okay, so that's all happening now. You make these babies. Everything's going along pretty well for a while. But then what happens? How do you notice the situation? What steps you take afterwards?

[B]

I guess we started noticing things a month prior to his diagnosis. The first thing was my husband wanted to get rid of our cat because he thought that the cat was peeing on the floor in my son's room. And it was happening a few times throughout a couple different weeks. And we finally came to realize that although he still wanted to get rid of the cat, it wasn't the cat's fault. And my son was waking up in the middle of the night thinking he was going to the bathroom and peeing on the new carpet in his room.

[A]

Here's the question. How big is the cat?

[B]

I mean, he was pretty big. He's since passed away, too, but.

[A]

Oh, are we making air quotes around passed away? Cause it sounds like your husband wanted to get rid of this cat.

[B]

I mean, he really did pass away. It was unfortunate, but the cat was pretty big. And it wasn't always a ton of pee that was on the floor, but there was enough where, like, I would notice it in the morning and run upstairs with the little green machine and clean it before my husband noticed because I didn't want him to get pissed about the cat.

[A]

So you're the lawyer for the cat. You're like, we got to fix this crime scene up so our guy doesn't take the fall here, because who would think that your kid's popping out of bed, whipping it out, and peeing on his rug?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, we're like, there's no way. And then one night, Henry, my son, came down into our bed, and he's like, somebody peed on my bed while I was sleeping.

[A]

That's what I just said, too.

[B]

Oh, okay. I think that maybe it's you. So, you know, this is kind of early in the school year. We're like, maybe he's stressed out. You know, I don't know what's going on. We went down to Boston for a Bruins game, and he was drinking tons of water. My husband said, I think maybe he has diabetes. And I said, like, you, he doesn't have diabetes. And he's like, well, you feed him so many sweets. And I was just really offended.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Jesus Christ.

[A]

Yeah, you guys are all revved up from the game.

[B]

No, it was ridiculous.

[A]

Hitting each other into the metaphorical boards, talking about that. Where did the diabetes thing pop into your husband's head from? Because he went from. Did he say, I think he has diabetes? And we're still getting rid of the cat.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, like, we've moved on from the cat at this point. We're like, okay, he's stressed at school or something, and that's why he's peeing on the floor. I don't know. But when he said that he thinks he has diabetes and kind of, like, said it was because I have a sweet tooth and passed it along to them, I was pretty pissed. And then I remember being in the car on the ride home from Boston, and we stopped, like, eight different times. And so I was using. I was new to ChatGPT, so I started using it, and I'm like, you know, increase urination, increase thirst, but not type 1 diabetes. Because I was like, there's no way he has diabetes. So I'm like, oh, he has overactive bladder or a urinary tract infection, but definitely not diabetes. I should know better because I am a nurse, but I didn't know better. And then we went to the doctor's office because I'm like, okay, well, you know, we'll bring them in and they'll probably give him meds for a uti. And the first thing they did was had a blood sugar. And the tech didn't say anything. I said, oh, well, what was it like? Of course it's going to be normal. He said, oh, 538. And that's when I knew, like, okay, this is diabetes. Although I still wasn't totally sold on that fact. And when the doctor came into the room to say that's what it was, I said, well, what's your differential? Clearly cannot be diabetes. And she's like, there is no differential. He has type 1 diabetes.

[A]

You prefer chocolate or sugary? Sugary candy, which, like, you like a nerd or a M and M? What's your preference?

[B]

I like both all the time.

[A]

He's like, listen, I gotta tell you, one hand has the nerds, the other hand has the M&Ms. We go back and forth.

[B]

Yeah, I really do go back and forth. Like, sometimes I have M&MS. With the side of pretzels because I like to eat them, like, sweet and salty and.

[A]

Oh, I see. Yeah. Tell your husband from me that he's lucky that you're such a lovely person, because if. If my. If. If I would have said that to my wife, she would have said, I. I wonder how you're going to enjoy living above a pizza place and sending us half your money for the rest of your life.

[B]

Right? I mean, I was having those feelings. So, yeah.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. Well, okay. Did he. He didn't rub it in though, right?

[B]

No, not at all.

[A]

He wasn't in the doctor's office, like, looking at you, just putting his finger on his nose and eyeballing you. Right. Like, I knew it.

[B]

No, no, definitely not.

[A]

Does he understand since then that someone's sweet tooth doesn't have anything to do with their type one diagnosis?

[B]

Oh, yeah, without a doubt. Like, I mean, I hammered it home to him and us did the doctors. And, yeah, I was like, this is nothing. This is not my fault. It's not his fault. It's nobody's fault. Like, maybe it's all the autoimmune on your family side, but whatever.

[A]

When you say hammered at home, was it day 87 of no sex where he figured it out or where exactly?

[B]

Yeah, like, right in the hospital. Because we got admitted right to the hospital from there.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

From that doctor's appointment. But, you know, he wasn't in DKA or anything, which was great. So we had, you know, just a quick stay and a lot of somewhat okay education at the time, and then we went home.

[A]

And that's just a handful of months ago.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, a year and three months ago.

[A]

I guess you replaced the carpet or.

[B]

No, no, it was brand new.

[A]

Pragmatic. I like that. You're like, hey, we cleaned it. It's fine.

[B]

We did. I think. I think it is fine.

[A]

All right, I want to find out about the rest of this. But first, if I don't ask this, it's going to stick in my head. What killed the cat? Today's episode is brought to you by Omnipod. Did you know that the majority of Omnipod 5 users pay less than $30 per month at the pharmacy? That's less than $1 a day for tube free automated insulin delivery. And a third of Omnipod 5 users pay $0 per month. You heard that, right? Zero. That's less than your daily coffee. For all of the benefits of tubeless, waterproof, automated insulin delivery, my daughter has been wearing an Omnipod every day since she was 4 years old and she's about to be 21. My family relies on Omnipod, and I think you'll love it. And you can try it for free right now by requesting your free starter kit today at my link omnipod.com Juicebox Omnipod has been an advertiser for a decade. But even if they weren't, I would tell you proudly, my daughter wears an Omnipod omnipod.com Juicebox terms and conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Why don't you get yourself that free starter kit? Full terms and conditions can be found@ omnipod.com juicebox the Dexcom G7 is sponsoring this episode of the Juicebox podcast and it features a lightning fast 30 minute warm up time. That's right from the time you put on the Dexcom G7 till the time you're getting readings. 30 minutes. That's pretty great. It also has a 12 hour grace period so you can swap your sensor when it's convenient for you. All that on top of it being small, accurate, incredibly wearable and light. These things, in my opinion, make the Dexcom G7 a no brainer. The Dexcom G7 comes with way more than just this. Up to 10 people can follow you. You can use it with type 1, type 2, or gestational diabetes. It's covered by all sorts of insurances and ugh. This might be the best part. It might be the best part. Alerts and alarms that are customizable so that you can be alerted at the levels that make sense to you. Dexcom.com juicebox links in the show notes [e-mail] to Dexcom and all the sponsors. When you use my links, you're supporting the production of the podcast and helping to keep it free and plentiful.

[B]

Oh God, I don't know. We brought him into the vet because he wasn't really eating or drinking and he had. It's not constipation, it was called obstipation, I believe. So like super impacted for some reason. And they said that we could do like a big expensive surgery that's 2,000 to $5,000, but he's probably going to need it again in the future. And so we said, what is the cost to put him down?

[A]

Or here's the different question. And for those of you out here, like, I would have done this surgery.

[B]

Yeah. You're better people than me.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations. Right? Brittany's got a sofa she's got her eye on. Okay. Like decisions had to be made. Okay, well, I'm so sorry about that. That is really terrible. Except for your husband, who apparently hated the cat. Anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, he, he kind of loved him, but whatever.

[A]

Look, so you, you know, he's diagnosed, this is all happening. He's not in dk, which is awesome. She's probably not in the hospital too long. But then you said you're a nurse. What kind of nurse are you?

[B]

Well, for the past 10 years, I've just dealt with workers comp. And I've worked from home, so. Like a paperwork nurse, I guess. But prior to that, I was an ICU nurse.

[A]

Okay. How long?

[B]

Yeah, only a few years. Like. Like four years.

[A]

I guess you should have said about as long as people tend to be able to take it, Scott. About four years. And then they get the hell out of there. Yeah. Except for the junkies, right? The. The adrenaline junkies. They stay.

[B]

Yeah. I don't get that.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So, okay, you've got a background, you've got an education, everything. Does that help you? In the beginning, you said you got pretty good direction, but how do you figure out that the direction's not everything you need? What's that whole time look like?

[B]

Well, I would say I wasn't really set up for managing type 1 diabetes. I didn't even know it was autoimmune until we were diagnosed. Which maybe that's embarrassing to say because I'm a nurse, but that's me being honest. I did not know type 1 was autoimmune. My experience with diabetes in the ICU was like doing finger sticks, sliding scale. Insulin. I had a few people on insulin drips, but I didn't have much experience with it at all.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. So, you know, going home. We have the do not die advice, and it was okay. I mean, we. We left the hospital without a cgm, but got one the next day when we came back for an appointment.

[A]

Through research or through the. The hospital suggesting it.

[B]

Through the hospital suggesting it. So I guess it helped that I was a nurse, and they were like, you know how to do an insulin injection? You know how to do a blood sugar? Go home, and tomorrow you're coming back for your first appointment with the endocrinologist. And at that appointment, we got the cgm.

[A]

How did Henry accept what was happening?

[B]

He was really sad about it. Sorry.

[A]

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry.

[B]

No, it's okay.

[A]

You want to talk about the dead cat some more?

[B]

No.

[A]

No. Okay. All right.

[B]

Henry, he was okay with it, but he was like, okay, so I have to do a few shots, and then it's going to go away. And I think the forever thing was really hard.

[A]

Yeah. For him or for you?

[B]

For both of us.

[A]

It's okay. How are you doing? Are you okay? Like, I mean, day to day, or is it still friends? I just placed my [e-mail]. they're today's sponsor, and I'm here to tell you about them. Use my offer code juicebox at checkout when you buy and you'll save 20% off of your entire order. That's everything in your [e-mail] save 20% with the offer code Juicebox. Now. Why am I excited? Well, I just ordered the Cozy Earth blanket. It's the viscose bamboo blanket. I'm super excited about it. It looks comfy as can be, and it's going to go so well with the sheets that we already have from Cozy Earth now. Yeah, I'm a bit of a Cozy Earth convert, I guess. I'm sitting here in my joggers. I used my towels coming out of the shower this morning. I slept on my sheets last night. Slept like a baby. By the way, cozyearth.com they pretty much have everything you want. Use the offer code juicebox to save 20% at checkout on skin care, women's and men's clothing, bath and sleeping accessories. And don't forget, Valentine's Day is coming up quickly. Get those pajamas. Cozyearth.com use the offer code juicebox at checkout to save 20% off of your entire order.

[B]

Yes, I am. I don't know why I'm crying. I guess sometimes I cry really easily, but. Yeah, sorry. All right.

[A]

Don't be sorry.

[B]

I'm good.

[A]

Listen, Brittany, you shouldn't feel sorry about that. It's. I mean, I could tell you any number of a thousand stories and make me start crying right now. Don't worry about it.

[B]

Right. Yeah. I mean, I cry all the time when I listen to the podcast. Like, silly things, happy things. But yes.

[A]

Somebody told me once that the tagline for the podcast should be making women online cry or making women cry online. And I was like, I don't think that sounds good. Apparently, it's one of the byproducts of what I do here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's all like, you know, things happen. You hear stuff that's similar to your story or brings up emotions and you, you know, it's sad. Just. It really is. Do you think he's as sad as you are right now? If he heard that story, would it make him feel the same way?

[B]

I don't think so. I think in the beginning, yes, like, he would look at pictures on my phone and be like, oh, that was before when I didn't have diabetes. And now pictures after that point in time or when I do have diabetes. And he used to get really sad about that. He's, like, fairly accepting of it now sometimes it's harder than other times. Like last week, we had an upper endoscopy to see if we have a celiac diagnosis, and he's pretty stressed out about that now.

[A]

Oh, about the possibility of the diagnosis, yeah.

[B]

Which I think is probably pretty likely, but we don't know yet. So we are eating all the gluten for the time being.

[A]

What is happening that's. That made you get the testing?

[B]

When he was first diagnosed, they drew the labs to test for that, and it was suggestive of it. And then I put off really doing anything about it because he didn't have symptoms until his annual lab screening and the numbers went down, but still suggestive. So they said we have to do an upper endoscopy, and that's what we've done so far. But he doesn't. Yeah, he doesn't have, like, any stomach issues. I guess occasionally he does, but not really.

[A]

Yeah, well, maybe he has something they call silent celiac.

[B]

Yeah, I don't like that, but don't either.

[A]

I don't like it. I don't like any of this.

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay, well, I hope that, that testing comes back positively for him in a way that keeps him from having to eat bread anymore, because how's he going to have a lobster roll when he goes to see the Bruins play? Know what I mean?

[B]

I know, I know. Seriously. But. But then I'm like, if he's. This is probably gonna piss some people off. I'm like, if he has no symptoms, maybe sometimes he will have a lobster roll, but I guess.

[A]

Oh, I. Listen, I've learned my lesson about people with celiac. Yeah, I'm not saying that. That's Brittany. Go find her. Yeah, leave me alone.

[B]

I mean, I've done a lot of reading and it's like, in some countries, if you don't have symptoms, they say it's like, controversial to say, do a gluten free diet.

[A]

So I don't know. I don't know. I just one time suggested that maybe while a man was in the middle of a nervous breakdown about this, he could let his kid have a cupcake at a birthday party until he figures it out. And I got hammered. So I'm not saying that at all.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

I am saying, yeah, go get her. Leave me alone. Yeah, she's in Boston. You can find her. Go, go.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

No, listen, I. I take your point. You're in the middle of this new diagnosis here, and you're. You're trying to figure out, like, am I hurting something? If I Do this. And I'm sure. Listen, I'm sure if someone comes back and says, you look, you're. Whether his belly hurts or not, here's the damage and here's what happens, you know, in the future if you keep doing this, I imagine you'll take that pretty seriously, so I will.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

I hear what you're saying. Again, please do not email me about this. Oh, God, I. Such a passionate group of people. Which, by the way, good for you guys. I like you're out there swinging for each other. Don't swing at me. I didn't say it. How long will it take to get the results?

[B]

I think, like sometime this week. Oh, yeah. I'm just ignoring the. I'm ignoring everything until I get an email or a phone call is how I'm approaching it.

[A]

Do you think you don't have the bandwidth to get more news?

[B]

No, I do. He does. I think my husband would really struggle with it, but I also think maybe my husband has celiac as well, so maybe we can all go gluten free together if we have to.

[A]

Hey, cut down on the toilet paper bill.

[B]

Yeah, why not? There's. There's a positive to look at it that way.

[A]

Why do you think your husband has it, too?

[B]

He has, like, constant stomach problems after he eats, and I just have a feeling that he probably has a touch of something, too.

[A]

Oh, I see. Go out to the restaurant, got to run home afterwards.

[B]

Yeah, something like that.

[A]

All you people out there who can hold your poop in, they don't know how lucky they are. They go to the restaurant, then they go to the movie. Yeah, like fancy people. They just keep moving around the world. They're not looking for a toilet. Yeah, well, listen, maybe because I've seen this with diabetes a lot, maybe you go to your husband and say, look, you know how you're struggling with all this all the time that's going to happen to him? Like, we could present, you know, a better. Better example for him, maybe make his life better. Wouldn't you. Wouldn't you like this not to be happening to you anymore?

[B]

Oh, yeah, he's on board. He told Henry, like, if you do have celiac and have to be gluten free, I'll do it with you.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

He's a very good dad.

[A]

Yeah. That's awesome, Henry. You ever call him Hank?

[B]

No.

[A]

No. Is it a family name?

[B]

No, it's just like. I guess I like little old men names.

[A]

Do you ever see Goodfellas?

[B]

I have not.

[A]

Don't Watch that movie.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Because I think if you do, you're gonna start doing an impression of Joe Pesci saying Henry, and it's gonna ruin your life.

[B]

Yeah, no. Okay, so I won't watch that.

[A]

Don't. You'll just run around going, hendry, Hendry. And it's gonna make you. And the kid's gonna be like, what is happening? I got diabetes. Is this not bad enough? Now the lady's losing her mind and. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, seriously, don't do that. Cause every time I hear Henry, that's all I hear, is Joe Pesci. Sorry. Okay.

[B]

I won't watch that.

[A]

Yeah. Also maybe stop saying the name. You're freaking me out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, gosh, that's a lot. So he's been sad in the past, thinking of himself as before and after. You think that's getting better? What about the other stuff? How is he with the devices, the changes, that kind of thing?

[B]

He's really great about it. I mean, he hates to take off his Dexcom, but we use like, a solution that kind of dissolves the adhesive and it. It'll slide off after a little bit. But he's really good about it. He has the G7 and then he has Omnipod Dash.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And he does awesome with it.

[A]

Excellent. Yeah. Does he play any sports?

[B]

He does. He plays hockey. He plays soccer, lacrosse. He's a really active kid.

[A]

Wow, that's awesome. And not having any trouble with all that.

[B]

No. Yeah. The devices are not in the way or noticeable to him, so it works out really well.

[A]

Do you think he's in any sort of a honeymoon or is.

[B]

He was until, I guess From November of 2024 to February of 2025, he was definitely honeymooning and then he had the flu and then he definitely came out of honeymoon after that is what I believe. He went from using 1.5 units a day to 6 units a day to now upwards of 15 to 20.

[A]

Are you. I'm looking at your notes here. They're really interesting. But let me say this one thing that I'm going to dive into your notes.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I think you should be doing voiceover for a living. What is it? Are you moving? Yeah. My God. You feel like a reassuring, slightly younger mother figure in an 80s movie.

[B]

Wow. I've never liked my voice ever, so that makes me feel pretty good. Yeah.

[A]

That's insane. If you told me right now that I should be nicer to my brother and go clean my room, I feel like I would go do it.

[B]

Be nicer to your brother and go clean your room.

[A]

I'm already so nice to them, though. Yeah.

[B]

Okay, well, be nicer.

[A]

And my room does need cleaning. How did you know? Yeah, seriously, you have, like, such a lovely voice. You don't know that?

[B]

No. No.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

In fact, like, I feel like I'm pretty quiet around people because I don't like my voice so much.

[A]

Brittany, you're making a huge mistake.

[B]

Okay, well, I'm going to talk more then.

[A]

Yeah, no kidding. Do you have things to say that you don't say because you don't like your voice?

[B]

I don't know. I think I'm just quiet overall. But that's because something I'm working on in 2026 is making. I feel like I make myself small a lot, and I'm going to make myself less small and say what I want and say what I feel.

[A]

That's awesome. Do you have any idea why that happens?

[B]

No, I don't. I mean, I have. I have an inkling, and I think, like, it's nothing against my husband by any means, but he's 10 years older than me, so, like, when we started dating, everyone was. You know, his friends that I would interact with were all older, and I always felt like I can't say things when I'm 22 and they're 32.

[A]

And you felt like you didn't have anything to add?

[B]

Yeah, like. Or I was, like, too young to have, like, an opinion worth hearing. I think so.

[A]

But now you're 35?

[B]

Well, now I'm 40, so.

[A]

40. My goodness.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Time's ticking by.

[B]

I know.

[A]

Yeah. And you. You might have to trade him in soon, right?

[B]

I mean, he talks about trading me in soon. He's kidding. He's kidding.

[A]

Sure he is.

[B]

Wonderful.

[A]

Whatever. Yeah, he's wonderful.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, wow, that's interesting. I thought you're for sure going to tell me, like, you had a domineering mom or something like that. No.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

No, just. Just that weird, like, feeling of, like, I don't have a lot to add to the situation.

[B]

Yeah. And, like, coming on the podcast, like, I think I kind of started it with saying I don't have a lot of groundbreaking things, but, like, maybe I do. And I think I do because I think that I've been successful in diabetes because I'm flexible, and I think that's a little bit groundbreaking for people to hear. Maybe.

[A]

I don't know. No, no, don't. Don't say I don't know at the end. Just say and Maybe say. Just say, I'm flexible. And I think that's groundbreaking. Tell me why flexibility around diabe is not the norm?

[B]

I guess people can see, like, oh, when we have ice cream, we go to 500. And so ice cream is off the table for my kid. And I'm of the mindset, like, okay, one time we went to 500. So clearly we need to do more insulin and time it better and we'll try again. And I think that trying again and saying, like, okay, well, my carb ratio is this, but I anticipate this food's gonna hit a lot harder, so I'm gonna give a lot more insulin and have a good outcome. And I think that being willing to try different things has. Has helped us be really successful.

[A]

That's excellent. And are you telling me that the direction you got from medical staff didn't lead to you being flexible or trying again?

[B]

Yeah, Well, I would say that it was the February after his diagnosis when he had the flu. And I called the educators and I said, I feel like this insulin has gone bad. I'm trying a different pen. I'm doing all of these things, and nothing's enough. His blood sugar is staying sky high. And the feedback I got was like, okay, we can increase by 10% every week. And if I had listened to that, he would have been in dka. I feel like he had a significantly increased need, and I decided to not listen to them and just meet the need. And I think. I mean, I got that from the podcast. Like, I just have to meet the need of what his blood sugar is telling me he needs for insulin.

[A]

I'm glad it helped you 10%. How much? Like, what was his total daily insulin during that time?

[B]

Like, like 1.8 units a day, something.

[A]

I was gonna move it up by, like, 0.18 and see if this doesn't tackle it.

[B]

Yeah, like, that was. That was insane to me. And I. And I think during that conversation, I was just kind of smiling and nodding like, okay, okay, that sounds good. And then I'm like, I'm going to hit him with a unit right now, and I'll catch it when it starts to drop. And that's basically what we did. And I'm like, okay, I'll kind of listen to what their guidance is, but I'm not going to call them for what I need. I can figure this out that quickly.

[A]

It took one piece of advice from them that didn't make sense to you, and you trusted yourself more.

[B]

I did. And I think one of my big Skills is I'm good at figuring things out, so I'm like, I can figure this out. And I also had the podcast that I was listening to Bold Beginnings, all the different series, and I'm listening to them on 1.5 speed. So I'm getting through them really fast. And it just all kind of clicked in my head. Like, they're saying one thing that's their guidance is like, we have to tell people to move slowly. And I understand, but it wasn't. It wasn't what we needed at that time.

[A]

You needed actionable, like, real world advice for. For your situation. Not big picture. Not big picture stuff.

[B]

Right, right. Like, yeah, like, maybe if we're noticing some highs, but they're not crazy. Like, let's move it up by 10% and see what it looks like. But I'm calling them saying, like, this isn't working and that's got the flu

[A]

and his blood sugar is this high. You should know that he needs more than 10% here.

[B]

Right. And like, I went to the Facebook group at that point and I said, you know, my son's needs have increased by like 300%. Is this normal? What. What are we doing? And I had great feedback. It was so helpful.

[A]

There's always going to be somebody that just can't wrap their brain around moving drastically off of whatever the norm is. It just. I think it shocks people. It scares them. I. I saw a person the other day, she said, can we please normalize? By the way, if you start a store, if you start a sentence with can we please normalize? I stopped listening to you. But. But it's okay. You keep using your Instagram catchphrases.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Can we please normalize? Not going to Facebook to ask medical questions. And I was like, you just came to a support group with 80,000 people in it. We're all helping with each other constantly and going, you, we shouldn't be doing this. First of all, you're not. And no one's looking for your opinion. Thanks.

[B]

That's insane.

[A]

Yeah. I don't know how you watch so many people helping each other so successfully and then say, we should stop doing this. Especially after hearing your story that you just told.

[B]

Right. Like, why. Why would you not ask people with real world experience, like, lived experience. Hey, are you guys having this problem? What should I do here? Why. Why wouldn't you use that?

[A]

Because there's rules, Brittany. Just the way society work. No, no, no, no. Stop it. Always follow the rules. Always walk right into the volcano if you have to. That's what I was told.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know. But that's. That's a tough perspective if you're a person who can't, like, see blatant things in front of you and adjust off of what somebody taught you one day. I actually feel that sorry is the wrong word. But I. Gosh, I hope you can overcome that, because I'm not saying you should just run around ignoring every, you know, trusted source on everything, but you. You could think about it a little bit, you know, like, you don't have to just yell. That's not what we're supposed to do. Everybody put your head down. We're going to get yelled at. Then again, I don't know how that person grew up.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They might have been getting their head screamed off all the time by somebody who told them, I'm smart and you're stupid and just listen to me.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I have no idea. You talked about feeling isolated around the diagnosis. What was that about?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, we live in a pretty small town in Vermont, and there's not a lot of other type 1 diabetics around. We knew of one girl in high school with type one, but that was it. I would see people like, they're like, oh, how is everything going? And I'm like, oh, you know, it's pretty hard, but we're getting through it. And then the conversation kind of ends because they don't know what else to ask. And I'm not someone who's give a ton of information that maybe someone's not interested in hearing or isn't equipped to hear. And I also didn't want to scare people off. I don't want them to be like, oh, we can't have your son over for a playdate because, you know, he might die in our care. And so I've really struggled with, like, how much information to give. And I learned pretty quickly that too much information is overwhelming and just enough is what people need. But I also feel like I hadn't found people I could really talk about the successes and the failures with. But I've come to terms with my people are the Facebook group. It's your Facebook group. And the Trio Facebook group. Those are people that I can bounce ideas off of, share with successes and failures. And in my real life, I guess it's a little bit isolating, but I'm okay with having an online community.

[A]

Yeah, listen, it doesn't matter where they come from.

[B]

It really doesn't. Yeah.

[A]

As long as you find the interaction that you. That you need and people who you can with, you know, some certainty, trust. And, you know. You know that they have perspectives that are similar to yours, and hopefully that means they understand what you're going through and don't judge it right away. Also, I don't. You're not. I don't know how you're supposed to trust people who don't have air conditioning. The people of Vermont don't make any sense to me at all. Buy an air conditioner. What is wrong with Vermont?

[B]

I feel like a lot of people have them now.

[A]

I was there. I was there one time, and let me tell you something. I know everything about Vermont now. And they didn't have air conditioning.

[B]

Okay, Well, I do.

[A]

Are people getting. Oh, you have. You have fancy air conditioning. Look at you. You have chickens in your front yard in a trailer that's been converted into a cooperation.

[B]

No, I don't. I would love to have chickens, but there's bears around and so we don't.

[A]

Bears, yeah. Why don't you leave?

[B]

I don't know. Vermont's great. Like, I love that my kids can walk around in town and everybody knows them or, you know, it's great. It's wonderful.

[A]

The bears won't follow you. They don't do. I don't understand what a bear does like. But.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know. They eat bird seed, so we don't put bird feeders out until they're hibernating.

[A]

There you go. Fair enough.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Rock solid. See, you said you weren't going to be full of advice. Don't put your bird feeders out to. The bears are sleeping. Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Let's get some really good advice.

[B]

Big, groundbreaking advice.

[A]

Now, listen, I bet you that's not a thing. A lot of people. I bet you a lot of people right now go, I didn't know that. You know. Yeah.

[B]

Just here for the big info.

[A]

I'll be here for the big things. So when you found yourself surrounded by people who didn't understand, the isolated feeling came from not wanting to say too much to somebody who wouldn't understand for fear that there'd be some sort of retribution. Not, I mean, maybe the wrong word, but, like, impacts on your son that you didn't want.

[B]

Yeah, it was mostly that and, like, maybe a little bit of disappointment from people that I thought would show up. Like, people that I thought would be like, let's go to this diabetes walk. And I'm like, okay. But they. They weren't there. They're not. Nobody has said that to me yet. And I'm like, why, why haven't you said it yet? Like, why haven't you? Like, ask me more about what's going on.

[A]

How can I help? They say to you, like, how can I help? Is there something I could understand? You're talking about parents, even extended family. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So I guess I wanted some more from some people. Like, I just want another parent to have fruit snacks on them. Like, that would make my day. If somebody I know is like, oh, is Henry low? I have fruit snacks. Like, I'm just waiting for somebody to. Fruit snacks.

[A]

Do you do that for other people in your life?

[B]

I'm always showing up for people in big ways and maybe when I don't get that in return. Not that I'm transactional in that way, but sometimes I'm just like, when does somebody show up in a big way? For me, I feel like I'm whining a lot and I don't mean to be.

[A]

Well, with your terrific voice, it doesn't sound like whining. So you're fine. I guess what I'm asking is if that's how you are for other people, then there's an expectation that other people. I think we all do that a little bit. Like we. We project how we are onto everyone else. Right, Right. But the truth is these people weren't doing that around anything else. But this thing seems so big that you thought like, this will get them off their.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

It just hasn't.

[B]

It just hasn't. And so that's where I've like come back around being like, okay, the people online in the Facebook group, they can be my people and I can be happy with that. And I do have one friend who I've never met, who I text with a lot of, who is like a friend of a friend. And she has a 15 year old and she's been really great to like bounce ideas off of and text with here and there. So I do have that person. That's awesome.

[A]

It really is. And you don't. I mean, this is my perspective. But I don't think you need the regular walking around people in your life to understand it that much. Like, if you found some. Because I think that fills the need for you. Like someone understands so you can't expect everyone to understand.

[B]

It's so true. So true.

[A]

What do people who think the world's a simulation call the other people non player characters. Is that right? You don't know this. You're out there, you're up there in the woods. You're lucky you have The Internet. Does your still like, go boop, boop, boop when it turns on or.

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay, whatever.

[B]

It's not. I have like, real deal Internet.

[A]

Yeah. Look at you now. You're just bragging. Yeah, I just. I think that those kind of. Those nebulous people that float through your life, it's okay if they don't understand. And I can also understand being disappointed if a parent or your sister or something like that isn't helping. But, I mean, maybe you could go to them and say, I feel alone because of this. I really. It would mean a lot to me if you could just. If you could just learn a couple of little things and. Is there something in your life that you'd feel. Feel good about? If. If I learn more about, like, you know, is there a way we can both be. You know, this experience has made me realize that we need people. And, you know, I'd like to be around for you more. If I'm not. I feel like I'm doing this, but maybe that's not what you need. Is there something you'd prefer that I had knowledge about that would make you feel more comfortable around me and. And vice versa? I don't know. Like, depends on how far you want to get into being a human being, you know?

[B]

That is great advice. I really like that, and I think I would use that with, like, a person I have in mind.

[A]

So that's good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They'll probably tie you to a tree and smear maple syrup on you and let the bears eat you, but yeah, sounds great. And the bees. The bees.

[B]

The bees.

[A]

What is that from? The bees. The bees. It's a Simpsons episode. The bees.

[B]

Is it?

[A]

It's like 25 years old that my reference people are like, the way to reference a cartoon that was. Not that I have not been alive to hear.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

Anyway, find the episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns is yelling, the bees. Is it Mr. Burns or his assistant? I'm not 100% sure, but the bees. The bees. Is definitely worth looking into.

[B]

Okay, I'll find it. My kids got into the Simpsons recently, so I don't know how appropriate it is for my 8 year old to watch it, but he really likes it.

[A]

I watched it and I'm fine. Mostly.

[B]

Yeah, I feel like the same way.

[A]

I think it's like 30 years old now.

[B]

Yeah, I think you're right.

[A]

Is it? The Simpsons celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2019. Oh, my gosh.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So it's 36 years old.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

All right. Brittany, do you know what television show the Simpsons first debuted on? It wasn't its own TV show.

[B]

No, what? What one?

[A]

It was a sketch comedy show, and it was a little sketch that happened on it. I'm giving you that's as. And that's as much as I'll tell you.

[B]

Oh, why don't I get to know?

[A]

Oh, all right, fine. It was the Tracy Ullman Show.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

You don't even know what that is, do you?

[B]

I've heard of it.

[A]

That's awesome. I wish I was younger. Anyway, when you say here in your note that you know. Yes, I didn't know anything about diabetes, even though I was a nurse. Whatever, that's fine. My eyes have been opening up about. Not just about the care, but about a career change. Like, what about diabetes has made you want to change your career?

[B]

I love learning about it. I love all the tech I like. I'm in this kind of silly job with workers compensation that's a little bit boring, but it's really easy. But I think. I mean, I would love to work for Dexcom for Insulet. I don't know. I just feel like I need to go where my interest is. And I love learning about diabetes, and I love being involved in it. And so at first, I was thinking I want to be a diabetic educator, but I don't want to do that. And I'm thinking about nurse practitioner. But I also don't want to take out more student loans. So, I don't know, I just. I want to do something different. And it's just hard to pull me away from, like, a very easy job right now that has a lot of flexibility, that pays me well to take on, you know, loans or a pay cut. But it's just something I was thinking about. I think I gave you a lot of random notes in my notes.

[A]

It's okay. I like your random notes. But is what you're telling me is that your son's diagnosis has maybe made you feel like your work life isn't purposeful enough?

[B]

Oh, yeah. I mean, my work life is not purposeful, so I would love to have more of a purposeful work life, and I think that would be something involved in diabetes.

[A]

What would stop you from looking into that?

[B]

Oh, no, I look into it all the time. I just. I guess, like, student loans, like, more schooling would be the biggest deterrent. Or, like, a pay cut. And so, yeah, just those things.

[A]

Could you not do, like, some. I mean, you have your degree, right? Could you not do some stuff you know, in and around diabetes education and pile up your work hours that way?

[B]

I probably could. I also don't want to go. I like working from home.

[A]

You're like, listen, I'd like to help people, but if I can do it from my house.

[B]

Right. That's what I'm. That's what I'm going for. I mean, for me to drive, like to the nearest hospital would be like a 35 minute drive. And I've already worked there, you know, when I was in the icu. And I don't know, I'm kind of looking for the perfect thing, but for the time being, I will just stay where I am, I guess.

[A]

Do you stretch your legs online with that? Do you try to help people online? Is there a way you. You feed that desire?

[B]

I guess, like, so I got into Trio, I guess, three or four months ago. And even though I'm new to that whole DIY looping, I love to answer questions or comment on things within that group. So I'm stretching my legs that way. I'm interested in computers and helping people navigate if I can. So I'm getting it that way. Yeah.

[A]

How long has your son been using Trio?

[B]

Just three months or I guess November, December, like two and a half months. And it's been the most amazing thing that we've ever encountered with diabetes. Next to your podcast.

[A]

Oh, it's for. I find trio to be awesome.

[B]

Personally.

[A]

You listed as a 1C. Is it okay for me to say, yeah, 5 6. Is that right?

[B]

Yeah, between 56 and 5 9. Since after diagnosis.

[A]

Okay, so what happened? He wasn't in DK when he was diagnosed, and then you kind of quickly figured out what put you in that range so early on, do you think? I mean, you had a little bit of like honeymooning at first. It helped you probably while you were figuring things out. But, like, if you had to say to somebody, this is what I learned that stopped there from ever being confusion or high blood sugars that, you know, so much so that I had an A1C and the seven C8. And I think. What is it you think happened there? I know it's like a magic sauce for everybody, but what do you think it was for you?

[B]

I think that I was willing to keep trying, I guess. What, like what I said about the ice cream before, like, I could have one outcome that I didn't love and then try again in a different way. Like trying differently with timing and amount. And I think that I just wasn't afraid of insulin and that I learned to use insulin. Well, I think that's what it was. I mean, we were MDI for two months and then Omnipod 5 for nine months. And while I really liked Omnipod 5, like, I was putting a lot of work into it, I was overriding the pump constantly. I was seeing the suggested bolus and kind of laughing at it being like, no, thank you, I'll. I'll do a little bit more. And I think just being flexible was, was what allowed us to get these really good results.

[A]

Okay, that's awesome. It really is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you think that information came just out of like, Bold Beginnings in that series or.

[B]

It really did, yeah. I mean, there's a couple things that you said. Like, you described, like blood sugar on a football field maybe. Was that. Does that sound right?

[A]

I mean, I said a lot of Brittany, I'm not sure.

[B]

Or like, maybe, like, if the football player is like running really fast, like, you might have to like, push hard against it maybe, maybe that's a glucose tablet. And if it's like, you know, drifting high, you're going to give it a little bit of insulin, or if it's running full speed high, you're going to give it more insulin to help knock it down a little bit. And I think that was all just conversations that I listened to you have during with Bold Beginnings. And, and it was listening to that that allowed me to not say, okay, well, this is the two hour rule. He's had insulin the last two hours. I need to wait longer. Like, no, if I saw a huge spike, I said, okay, well, he needs more insulin. It's not stacking because he needs it. Like, we didn't give him enough upfront, so let's give him a little bit more.

[A]

Yeah. May I? For me, I'm going to pontificate a little bit for a half a second. Everybody settle in. So I feel like what you're telling me is that basically there's a slew of T shirt slogan ideas that I've kind of like, peppered into that stuff. Like, you know, it's not, it's not stacking if you need it, but the core idea of meet resistance with an equal resistance to keep things from moving away from where you want them to be.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That was foundational for you. So I think if I'm remembering correctly, it's also very interesting, by the way, that you, you heard the story enough to understand it, but you don't have the details of it. Like I think I said, you know, if your quarterback is getting sacked all the time.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You might need to keep in another lineman or a tight end to block a little bit, because there's more force coming from the defense than your offense is able to resist.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so try to think about that number and the insulin and the food as these two forces pushing each other back and forth off of a line, and you're trying to stay on the line.

[B]

So that was definitely not what I

[A]

said, but I think it's beautiful that you didn't remember it exactly the way it was said, because the idea there is is that you don't. I don't even think you live in Vermont. You don't even watch football, do you?

[B]

I mean, I don't. My husband does.

[A]

Your husband does, but what does he watch, the Patriots?

[B]

Yeah. Or something like that. I don't know.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. But that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that, like, something that you didn't have full context for still made enough sense to you. Like, there's a line here. Some stuff is pushing up and some stuff is pushing down. And you know what? Once in a while, when it's pushing up, I got to put more of the down stuff in, even if it's not the right time, because obviously, I need to meet the need. So what stuck to you was meet the need. It's not stacking if you need it. That's bolusing, like, little ideas like that, and then you just synthesized them in your own life and applied them.

[B]

Right. That's exactly what it was. It was like using the technology but not relying on it. So I think Omnipod 5 was great, but I couldn't rely on what it suggested all the time. Sometimes I had to override it or do something a little bit differently. So because of what I learned through

[A]

the podcast, sometimes you needed more blockers, and it wasn't offering them to you, so you changed the play.

[B]

Right. That's it. Exactly.

[A]

All right, Brittany, are you here to say that people should just listen to me?

[B]

Yeah. I think that's what they need to do.

[A]

I'm going to call my wife right now. Would you say that into the microphone, please?

[B]

Listen to Scott. He has all the answers.

[A]

I. By the way, I'm not. I don't care if anyone hears that, except for Kelly, because she will just come in, she'll be like, listen to me. These people, they don't know you. If she lived with you, she wouldn't say that. That's the second thing she would say. She probably. She's probably right. But no, I mean, listen, in the end, I'm gonna bang this drum for as long as people are gonna listen to the podcast. I guess it's all timing and amount. You need the right amount of insulin at the right time. That's it. You need to understand, you know, the impacts of your food. It's not all the same. One carb is not equal to the next. Not all the time. Yes, there are variables, and we're going to want to learn what they are along the way. But truth be told, if you attack most days with put the right amount of insulin in the right place, that pretty much takes care of it.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, that's. That's all that it is. Like, every time I see somebody post a graph online and they're like, what happened here? Like, we went so high, it's like, okay, well, you didn't use enough insulin, or you didn't do it soon enough, or maybe you went low first so it was too late. I don't know. I think you've simplified it with, like, timing and amount. That's what it is. So try again and just do it. Do something differently.

[A]

You even said something earlier about being flexible, and I thought, oh, that's a nice idea. But what she's really saying is, because I even hear your conversation in, like, how could I distill it down more?

[B]

Right.

[A]

But it's great that you understand it that way. I don't care how distilled or not it is for you. You have a thought and it works for you. That's all I want.

[B]

Right.

[A]

People should not listen to exactly what gets said and try to mimic it. They should listen to the bigger ideas and then apply them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

If they get lost, if it doesn't fit in their thinking, if they can't make sense of it, then you might have to, like. Then you might have to just say, like, well, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna believe what's being said here, because I don't. I'm not synthesizing it to my thinking. So let's just use it like this in the end again, timing and amount. That's it. Just use the right amount of insulin at the right time. Does that sound super simple when it's not? It's not super simple, but it is. If you realize that if your basal is right, if your insulin to carb ratios right, if your insulin sensitivity is set up correctly, then guess what? Then that's a great starting place. And then it's a lot easier to bump and Nudge these settings or your usage and get dialed in a little bit. I can't even share this with you yet because I haven't even settled on the URL that it's going to go on. But I think I've decided to share something, and so I'm not a coder. Brittany, there's a lot I don't understand. We can make a very long list of things that we don't. That I don't understand, okay? But I know how I think about diabetes. And, you know, you stop and listen to all these companies, you know, we're going to put out a system one day. You're just going to put your weight in it, and it's going to do the rest, right? That's Eyelet Cell right now, right? You just, you. You turn that thing on and you put your weight in and go. So you think, what the magic box knows from my weight, it's actually not magic at all, right? So I made a calculator, okay, that you put your weight in the top, and it's going to give you starting spots for total daily dose, for basal rate, for insulin to carb ratio, for sensitivity factor, just by plugging in your weight. So I'm just gonna put in. I'm gonna put in a weight of 150 pounds. That's it. It's all. It's all done already. By the way, I typed 150. The whole. The calculator populated. It converts your weight into kilograms. To do other math, okay? There's an episode called. There's three episodes called the Math Behind. The Math Behind Insulin sensitivity, behind correction factor, behind basal would explain all that to you. But this thing says, okay, 150 pounds. That's 68.2 kilograms. Here's what I know from that. Now, your total daily insulin is about 37 and a half units. Now, that's if you choose a factor of 0.55 or a standard or moderate factor, right? But this thing gives you the opportunity to say, you know what? I'm more sensitive. I'm more resistant. I'm highly resistant. You just click on those things and it changes it for you. If you say I'm highly sensitive, it drops that to 30.7 units a day. If you say I'm highly resistant, it puts it up all the way to 61.4 units a day. It isn't telling you that's exactly how much insulin you're going to use. It's telling you that based on your weight, this is what we can maybe expect. You know, Be careful. Also, these are the formulas that your doctor uses when they try to figure out your basal rate in the beginning, when they try to figure out your sensitivity factor in the beginning. So anyway, I choose standard moderate 37 and a half units a day is the estimated total daily dose, which is just 68.2kg times 0.55. That tells you that your calculated basal rate is about 18.75 units a day or about 0.78 units an hour. If you're using a pump, keep scrolling down. Your insulin to carb ratio may be about 13.3. That's using the standard 500 rule. One unit covers 13.3 grams. If you go to the 450 rule, which is more aggressive, it takes it to 12. And there's a little dropdown box there where you can make that decision for yourself. Your sensitivity factor at £150, you know, at the 1800 rule 48, one unit moves you about 48 points. You can, the little slider there, you can slide it a little bit one way or the other way. Change the rule for the math. But. And are these numbers perfect for you? Definitely not going to be, but.

[B]

No, but they're a starting point for people and like a visual for people to see and understand. Yes.

[A]

And then if you have a nice starting point, then you can say to yourself, okay, well, let's see how this works. And you know, if I don't my basil set the wrong way. My, you know, there's a little thing at the bottom here says if your basil set too low, your meal bowls will try to fill that hole of missing basil. And this makes carb ratios look wrong. Like, so it kind of gives you the idea of, like, you know, if one thing's wrong, it's going to make something else look wrong. And then it's very clear. It says the math provides a starting line. You must perform basal testing, fasting periods to verify blood sugar. Hold steady like. And you have to click on a disclaimer to get into it. The thing's disclaimer, out.

[B]

Okay, that's perfect.

[A]

I can't decide if I'm going to put it online. I think I am.

[B]

Well, why wouldn't you?

[A]

I mean, because, like, you know, I, I guess I'm okay. Like, it's, it explains how the tool's built. Also, I want you to understand, it's not like I sat down and said, I know this math. I'm going to make this code do this thing. I just fed common ideas about how basil and everything else is Figured out you can find it anywhere on the Internet from hospital websites to, you know, all kinds of different places. And I don't know how to code it. So I basically built, like, three different calculators through something people call vibe coding, which, again, just understand. You go to, like, a large language model and you say, look, you know, go learn everything you can learn about the, I don't know, the 1800 rule for this and how people with type 1 diabetes would use it to get a starting point for this setting. It goes and looks at, like, a thousand different websites. It comes back and says, this is the math. This is how it works. I understand it now, and I go, okay, can you build me a little embeddable calculator where people could figure that out for themselves? So I made three separate calculators that all worked independently. And then I said, is there not a way that we couldn't combine all these into one calculator and limit people's interactions so they could get this? And they said, yeah, they could just put their weight in and we could figure the whole thing out from that. And I was like, cool, make that. And then I used it and used it and used it and used it till I thought, this is working and I'm not seeing any glitches. Then I sent it to a friend and I said, hey, do you see anything here that doesn't look right? They said, there's one wording mistake right here. We made a little change. Send it out to five or six other people who have been using it. Seems to work for them. Okay, and that's it. But why do I bring all that up? I bring all that up because if you had your settings somewhere close to right and you understood, I'm going to tell you that I think if you had that calculator and at the minimum, the small sip series from the podcast, I think you'd be off on a good way.

[B]

I think you're totally right. And I also think there's a lot of value to people who think they have their settings pretty good to use a calculator like that to see what's the next dial I might want to turn to get things looking a little bit better.

[A]

It may not prove true to you. Like, it might say, oh, your daily basal is this. And you might be like, that's not right. Well, okay, that's good. Use your common sense and say, that doesn't sound right. Or if you know your daily basil right now is five units a day, and the thing's telling you it's 12. I wouldn't go just yakking it up out of nowhere, like. Right. But, like, it might give you the idea of, like, oh, I wonder if my basil's too weak. Like, is that a thing I could be looking at?

[B]

It's just another tool. Yeah.

[A]

Could I go ask my doctor? Hey, you know, I found this calculator, and it says this. How come my base. And where does this all stem from? Because everything I do on the podcast stems from some personal experience I've had. Right? But for this one specifically, when Arden was diagnosed, she was little, and I think her insulin sensitivity was like, 1 to 3:50. Like, one unit moved her 350 points or something like that. And as she's growing and getting older, and I'm figuring out that she needs more insulin, and I'm really making more decisions up front where I'm ignoring the settings and going more with the amount of insulin I see needed. Right? And things are working. So the doctor's like, oh, things are working. You know, they never think about it again. One day, right? One day, I said, I swear to this, this, you know, person who just said all this to you, I go in the doctor's office, it's a couple years into it. I go, what's the insulin sensitivity? And they're like, what? And I'm like, yeah, I don't really understand what that is. So I was a couple of years into it. I didn't. I didn't know what it meant. It was. To me, it was just a setting in her pump. And I was like, I don't understand. Like, this number hasn't moved since she was, like, four.

[B]

Right. But you're moving every other number to try to make up for that.

[A]

But I'm moving numbers all over the place trying to make up for it. But, like, I'm like, what should this be? And I remember the look of horror on the face of the person. They took the pump from me, and they looked in and they went, oh. And their face just said to me, that number is nowhere near correct.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And then I was like, okay. I was like, where do you think it should be? And they're like, I'm not sure. And then they sat down and wrote some numbers on a piece of paper and gazinted a little bit and then moved it to another number. And now I realize that all they did was take the total daily insulin and her weight and a couple of other little ideas and rejiggered the numbers.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, that's. But people. So people need that calculator. I mean, you think about people who start on like Omnipod 5 and they're four months into diagnosis and then six months later they're like, this pump doesn't work. Omnipod 5 is crap. I'm going to go to MOBI instead. It's like, well, you probably need a hard reset of your pump with the right numbers for what you need now. And a calculator like that could be like, hey, let's reset your pump and let's use these numbers and see if you're getting something better.

[A]

Not it's. And it's not crazy. It really. I just had a conversation like that with somebody recently. I think it motivated me more about the calculator. This person reached out and said the same thing. Like, my, you know, this automated system's not working for me and, you know, for my kid and I think something's wrong. And I was like, well, what are the settings? Give me the settings. I was like, that doesn't sound right to me. And then, you know, you realize that, you know, they put those settings in the kid on the pump. Time has passed now and the pump isn't doing what they needed to do. And you know, I said, well, I think you should go back into manual and try to like, you know, re establish some good settings. I said, but you can't just do that. Those settings are way wrong. And that person did not know where to start. And I just said, well, you know, let's take their weight and do this. And they said, oh, that, that one number is way different than what they had. I said, well, don't move it drastically. Like just, yeah, keep it in the back of your head. Start over again. You know, if it makes you more comfortable to call your doctor, call your doctor. Like, I don't care. Like, you know, do. Do whatever makes you happy.

[B]

But like, don't wait three months for your next endo appointment that's going to be 20 minutes long and expect all of these things to happen. Like, this is where people need to take some control of their own.

[A]

And also this person is, is out of their mind. They're not sleeping now, right? If this goes on for two more months, then they go into a doctor's office, they're going to sound like a raving lunatic. I'm not sleeping in the baby. And the doctor's gonna be like, okay, I just trying to make it to lunch, you know. You know, like, relax. They're gonna say, well, well, you're getting low at 3 o' clock. Why don't we turn your blah, blah, blah down it? Like, and that's not gonna help anything, right?

[B]

So, well, anyway, and I think this is also maybe a time when people are like, oh, we have to do low carb. Because, like, the pump doesn't work with what we're eating. And we're told we can eat anything, we just have to dose for it. But that's not true. So we have to do low carb. And low carb people, like, fine, like, whatever works for you. But you don't have to be that. You just have to have better settings.

[A]

You can take low carb out of it. Like, all the misconceptions start flying at you, right? You know, like, oh, the insulin must be bad. My sight's wrong. I, you know, I don't. Is it because I'm, you know, the phase of the moon? Is it, you know, like, I mean, you, you start seeing ghosts everywhere, right? And you can't figure out what's actually happening.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I just think that's a sad thing for people. Like, I'm not saying plug your weight in and these numbers are going to be exactly right. You know, pop them into your device or, you know, use your MDI this way and everything's going to be hunky dory. But what I can tell you is, is that it'll get you a lot closer than you are.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And in that same vein, I don't know if I have access to this one right now through a browser. I do. I also built and I. Jenny and I talked about it in an episode recently, so I guess I'm maybe going to have to put it out in the world. I also built a calculator that once you have those settings, okay, take them and you drop them into this thing here. So insulin to car. Actually, do you know your kid's numbers off the top of your head?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What's his carb ratio?

[B]

In the morning it's 18. And the rest of the day it's like 34 to 36.

[A]

Let's just say 18 and do a breakfast thing. Insulin sensitivity? Ish.

[B]

Ish. Like 120.

[A]

One unit moves them 120. Let's make the target blood sugar 90. I'm just filling in little boxes here. How many carbs are breakfast?

[B]

Like 60.

[A]

Is there any fat in it?

[B]

A little bit.

[A]

Do you know how much?

[B]

A few grams.

[A]

A few grams? Let's say four. Is there protein in this thing?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Do you know how much?

[B]

6 grams.

[A]

What's his current BG? When he eats usually in the morning

[B]

around like 92, 93.

[A]

Okay. Any insulin on board?

[B]

Like 0.4. Probably 0.4.

[A]

And is his arrow, his trend arrow, usually stable, rising or falling at that moment?

[B]

Stable.

[A]

Okay, so click button. Does 3.33 sound like about the bolus you would use in that situation?

[B]

About the bolas? Yeah, like right around there, probably a little bit less. And then like the SMBs from trio would take care of the rest, take care of the rise. Yeah. Because I have my settings at like 80% of the recommended bolus. And then it kicks in over time.

[A]

Okay, so if I gave you that calculator and you didn't know what you were talking about, and it told you at the end, I would use a 3.33 unit bolus and wait about nine minutes to pre bolus, do you think that would go reasonably well for him?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah, that's a calculator I made.

[B]

Yeah. That's so helpful. That's what people need.

[A]

And trust me, something like that exists inside a. Probably inside. Could exist inside of people's pumps. But if you don't know what you're doing, right. If you have no idea what you're doing, and you sat down and said, my kid weighs this much, and then took those numbers and moved it over into the other thing and said, here's a meal I don't understand, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then it spit out 3.3. And you said to yourself, oh, God, I've been bullishing one and a half units for that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Or he gets low all the time and I bolus five units for that. But I don't pre bolus. Like, it would at least maybe like light a candle in your head and make you go, huh, Totally. You know. Yeah. And by the way, we were to add more fat to this. Let's say that there was 15 grams of fat in this meal. I regenerated it. It now tells you to do a 3.33 unit bolus, still wait the nine minutes. But it would like to see you do a 0.88 Warsaw wave. Basically, like to bolus for the fat and the protein in the meal, which would take the. The total dose up to 4.22. It would like to see that. That. So basically it's asking you to make a square wave or extended bolus over 3 hours of 0.88. So 3.33 upfront with a 0.88 over 3 hours to deal with the fat. And it gives you little things at the end, you know, Insulin onboard safety correction only subtracted. There's something called ambiguity guard. The 10 to 70 range was checked and the Warsaw method is using one FPU. It discarded that because it's not touched. It's trying to show you how it's working a little bit. And trust me, as I'm talking here, I don't understand. But what I did do was teach it all about the Warsaw Method and let it go out. I sent it everything we had on the podcast. I sent it to websites that talk about it, three or four different places that talk about the math of the Warsaw Method. I did my best to make the large language model as much of an expert on the Warsaw Method as I could. And then I asked it to combine it into this calculator. Maybe it's not right. I don't know. That's why, again, it has, you know, disclaimers all over it. And it's not. I haven't put it on the. On the web yet. But what I can tell you is that there's a simple fat and protein calculator on the website now under Guides. It's a fat and protein insulin calculator. It explains the Warsaw Method. I mean, it explains it to the point where if you read all that, God bless you, because it's really broken down there. But at the end, it gives you four episodes where we talk about fat and protein that you can listen to if you want, and a simple calculator to figure out the fat and protein and how you might use it. You have no idea how much email I get from educators out in the world who are like, hey, please. I keep sharing that link with people. That's awesome. Thank you very much.

[B]

So, yeah, I feel like the people who are going to that website or using those calculators are people who are pretty proactive. But how do you get that into the hands of somebody who feels so, so lost and isn't proactive about figuring it out? Like, what do you. How do you.

[A]

Brittany, I'm glad you asked. You being Scott, put your lazy ass on an airplane a bunch of times this year and go to a bunch of conferences where professional people are going to be and stand around and banging the drum for telling people about this stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then hopefully it bleeds out into the world a little more, because it does now. I mean, there are a lot of institutions that, you know, suggest the podcast to people.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And maybe my, honestly, my goal is I'm going to stand at a table at a couple of professional conferences and talk to anybody who's willing to talk and tell them, look, this is what I found talking to people. What would be wrong with showing them how to get their settings right and how to figure out maybe the impact of the fat and protein in their food? Because I mean, really, that's what they're missing.

[B]

And do you think that like you could get that to maybe endocrinologist offices are on top of it and the educators that work there are on top of it. But is there a way to get into like primary care with people who are having their pcp, manage their diabetes? Like, how do you get to them?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, listen, the only thing I've figured out about the Internet is that it, it works at its own pace and it, you don't know how it's working. So word of mouth, all you have to do is help somebody and give them the confidence that the thing you told them was valuable and they will hopefully go tell somebody else about it. But other than that, there's no way. You can't. I've watched. I'll tell you what, there's a pretty big organization a few years ago now and they wanted to make a push for, you know, just a finger stick during with kids with flu symptoms. They tried really hard. I mean, they put a massive effort around it, put money and manpower and it didn't work. So, yeah, I don't know how I'm supposed to go do that. So what I can do is I can help people, right, to see the, you know, what the bigger picture might be, hope that they again, take the information, synthesize it for themselves, apply it to their own lives, have some success and then it's been meaningful enough to them that they'll tell somebody else, right? That, yeah, citizens, they call. I saw, I heard somebody call it citizen science recently. Oh, that's all fancy. I don't know what that means.

[B]

Yeah, okay. I like the sound of it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I just, you, you gotta just try to help people and hopefully they'll try to help people. I think that really is it. I mean, you know, unless you want to, you know, I don't know. Can you imagine getting on the phone with a GP's office and saying, hey, do you have a lot of type, you know, ones in there that, you know, should be going to an endo, but they're coming to you instead and they're a one C is 10. I think I could help them and they're going to be like, goodbye, you know, like it's. What are you going to.

[B]

I guess Like, I started listening to the ADA 2026 episode this morning.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

And you were talking a lot about your friend Mike, and I'm thinking, like, how do you get it to his doctor? Like, how do you. How do you infiltrate those people who aren't getting what they need and having. I don't know. I just, like, I wish Mike's doctor had that information and shared it with him.

[A]

Yeah, me too. Yeah, I appreciate that. I don't know the answer to that one. Britney. Yeah, World's not a perfect place. So, no, thank you. I think this is a good place to stop. But I do want to check to see if you have anything else that you want to say or anything I missed that I should have brought up.

[B]

No, I don't think so. I mean, I hope that you can get something helpful out of this podcast or.

[A]

Don't do that, Brittany. Don't do that. Just say I was awesome. And my conversation spurred on other good conversations, Scott. And you're fantastic, and I'm fantastic, and let's be done.

[B]

It's all good. I'm proud of myself for doing this, and I thank you for your time.

[A]

Don't doubt yourself.

[B]

Okay, I won't.

[A]

I said, somewhere recently, somebody called me. What did they call me? I forget what it was. Egotistical. I forget. Does it sound egotistical that I forget what they called me? Whatever. No, no, it does a little. Somebody said something about that, and I said, look, I don't know what happened to you in the past that didn't allow you to trust yourself as much as I trust myself, but I'm sorry for you. Also doesn't make me egotistical.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I explained 17 different ways in this conversation. I don't know what I'm talking about. I might not be right. If you're looking for absolutes, don't look to me. The disclaimer literally says, this tool is for educational purposes only. The results are mathematical estimations that do not constitute medical advice. Please read our full disclaimer. If you click on that full disclaimer, here's what that disclaimer says about 20 different ways. If I was you, I wouldn't listen to me. Okay? But I'm still talking. Do what you want with it. I don't know what happened to me that I say, look, I'm sharing how I feel, and I'm not making any claims about it, but what happened to you that makes you go like, I'm sorry. I hope I shared something today that was maybe valuable. Hopefully you can cobble together eight minutes out of this. That. That if I was you, I'd go figure out what that is.

[B]

Right. Okay. I will.

[A]

Trust yourself. Have you ever hurt anybody on purpose?

[B]

What? I don't know what you mean by that.

[A]

Have you ever, like. Have you ever, like, maliciously hurt someone?

[B]

Like, eavesdropped?

[A]

No. Like, you know, I'm sorry, I'm not following. I think that answer answers my question.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

You lie as a regular, like, part of your life. Are you a big liar?

[B]

No.

[A]

No. Okay. And you don't. You don't. You wouldn't. You wouldn't screw somebody over to get 20 bucks from them?

[B]

Oh, my God, no.

[A]

No, then.

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay, then what do you. What do you think you're not doing then?

[B]

I don't know, but I'm gonna start doing what I'm not doing.

[A]

Do you have an ethos like, how you live?

[B]

Not really. I guess I just try to be kind and do the right thing, and I try to hold space for other people and listen to people and be helpful. I have.

[A]

I have literally two sentences I run my whole life with.

[B]

What's that?

[A]

I try to treat people the way I want to be treated. And I don't lie unless I have to.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's it.

[B]

I agree with both of those things.

[A]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. And what. What would constitute having to lie? I don't know. Maybe the zombies are coming and I got a steak and my kids are hungry, and you ask me if you. If I got a steak, and I go, no, no steak.

[B]

Yeah, I can get on board with that.

[A]

Yeah. But if. If I had a steak and there were no zombies, and you said, hey, can I have some steak? I'd be like, yeah, goddamn right. Let's have some steak together.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Right. So that's pretty much it. Like, I don't screw people over on purpose. I'm sure I've done things in the past that have not been, you know, good for other people. Wasn't on purpose, and it wasn't through ignorance. Like, if it happened, it was. It was completely benign on my part. I don't run around screwing people over. I don't use my powers for evil. I've settled on here a million times. I don't know if you've heard it. If I was a bad person, you'd know it because I'd have a lot more money and I wouldn't be helping people with diabetes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I would be one of those people who looks at the world and goes, what can I Extract out of this from me. And instead I say, based on those two sentences, I'd like to help other people if I can make a reasonable living at it and take care of my kids. So I have found a way to do that. Again, if I was a lawyer or something like that, oh, my God, you people would be in so much trouble. Or if I decided to start a cult, I'd be having sex with your wives, and you'd be sending money to my account every day. What do you think of that?

[B]

You'd be an incredible cult leader.

[A]

Thank you. I would be an incredible cult leader. I take that as a compliment, by the way. I just want to say thank you. I really do.

[B]

You should.

[A]

I'm going to walk around all day thinking that. Listen, I have no inclinations like that. Like, none whatsoever. But there are people who. Do. You know what I mean? And you're not one of them. So don't question yourself when you're. I don't know, purporting who you are. You're a good person.

[B]

I'm not going to question myself.

[A]

Yeah. What should we call this episode?

[B]

Oh, I don't know. Really. We want to get rid of the cat.

[A]

I don't know. Oh,

[B]

the cat's peeing on the floor.

[A]

That was so long ago with the cat peeing on the floor.

[B]

It was.

[A]

It was. Can I tell you something? If it had more to do with it, I love your son's statement. Someone peed on my bed. I know.

[B]

Somebody just peed on my bed.

[A]

Somebody peed on my bed. I don't know what's going on in here. Do you people not lock the door?

[B]

Like, right.

[A]

I'm counting on you guys. And. And I got a guy in here peeing on my bed. Someone peed on my bed is just strong title possibility. I also like the bees for some reason.

[B]

Okay, the bees work, but that's only

[A]

because I know the episode.

[B]

So I'll know the episode later. I'll. I'll watch it.

[A]

I'm going, somebody peed on my bed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because metaphorically, someone peed on your bed.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right. Brittany, you're awesome. I feel like we could be friends.

[B]

Well, thank you. I feel like we could be friends, too.

[A]

As long as there's air conditioning. That's all I'm saying.

[B]

Yeah, there is. There is. I have ac.

[A]

Is it. Wait, is it a real air conditioner? Like, it's outside. It's a big unit. It's hooked to a vent.

[B]

It's not like.

[A]

Is it Jammed in a window.

[B]

Central air.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

No, I don't have that, and I don't have central air. I have, like, a heat pump that also functions for, like, AC and cooling.

[A]

It doesn't sound like air conditioning. Can you get it down to a crisp 67 in that house?

[B]

Yes, I can. It cuts all the humidity.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Actually, it's great.

[A]

The reason most people don't have or haven't in the past had air conditioning in Vermont as well. It is cold there most of the year, and even in the really hot months, it's more about humidity than heat. Right, right. Yeah.

[B]

So if you cut the humidity, it's so comfortable, and it's, like, lovely in here.

[A]

Yeah, but still overnight with the humidity, I don't love it for the sleeping.

[B]

No, no, I don't either. That's why we have the heat pump that gets rid of the humidity.

[A]

You know, there's a lot of problems in the world, and I should probably be focusing on one of those. But I just want to tell you that if I was lucky enough to be born somewhere with air conditioning, I'm not going backwards. So.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair enough.

[A]

My God. All right, Brittany, you're awesome. Hold on one second for me, okay? A huge thank you to Cozy Earth, a longtime sponsor. Cozyearth.com use the offer code juicebox at checkout. You will save 20% off of your entire order when you use that copy code. Don't let me down, kids. Head over there now. Get yourself some joggers, some towels, some sheets. Save yourself some money, support the podcast, make your life beautiful and comfortable all at the same time. Cozyearth.com use the offer code juicebox at checkout. This episode of the Juice Box Podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod 5. And at my link omnipod.com juicebox you can get yourself a free. What'd I just say? A free Omnipod 5 starter kit. Free. Get out of here. Go click on that link omnipod.com juicebox check it out. Terms and conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found@ omnipod.com juicebox links in the show notes [e-mail] Dexcom sponsored this episode of the Juice Box Podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom G7 at my link dexcom.com juicebox thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Please do that now. Seriously, just to hit, follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further further in Apple Podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend. And if you leave a five star review, oh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card? If you're looking for community around type 1 diabetes, check out the Juice Box Podcast. Private Facebook Group juice box podcast type 1 diabetes but everybody is welcome. Type 1 type 2 gestational loved ones it doesn't matter to me. If you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out juicebox podcast type 1 diabetes on Facebook. If you're new to type 1 diabetes, begin with the Bold Beginnings series from the podcast. Don't take my word for it. Listen to what reviewers have said. Bold Beginnings is the best first step. I learned more in those episodes than anywhere else. This is when everything finally clicked. People say it takes the stress out of the early days and replaces it with clarity. They tell me this should come with the diagnosis packet that I got at the hospital. And after they listen, they recommend it to everyone who's struggling. It's straightforward, practical and easy to listen to. Bold Beginnings gives you the basics in a way that actually makes sense. Have a podcast. Want it to sound fantastic? Wrongwayrecording.com.