The Trip

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Craig: I'm Craig and this is Thicker Than Water. On our last episode, my Aunt Laura, was preparing to go to Arizona on a family vacation for a week. This was her first trip after being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. She was understandably anxious. From the day of her diagnosis, she's been trying to get a Dexcom Continuous Glucose Monitor that would check her blood sugar every five minutes and alarm if her blood sugar started to go low.

Obviously, this would help tremendously in her day-to-day life, but traveling presents its own challenges and fears that the Dexcom could ease. Unfortunately, after over a month of trying, she still wasn't able to get one. Naturally, I flew to Arizona to help. You had your first night with Dexcom?

Aunt Laura: Yes, I did and it went very well.

Craig: Were you nervous?

Laura: I wasn't nervous. I think I thought about not rolling on to it, but that's not the site I sleep on anyway, so that was good. I still set an alarm to check at like 4:30 in the morning, which I've been doing while we're here. Then I woke up at 2:00 feeling weird, so I checked it and it was like 90. I thought, "I'm going to eat a little something, go back to bed, and I'm going to cancel the 4:30 alarm." Then I went back to sleep and I thought, "I'm okay that it's working and I'm just going to go to sleep." At that point, I think I thought, "Okay, it's up to the device to tell me if I'm at 80."

Craig: We're walking to breakfast right now. It says, "Coco's Bakery Restaurant."

Waitress: Would everybody like coffee right now?

Sarah: Yes.

Craig: Yes.

Laura: Do you bring water for everybody?

Waitress: Sure.

Laura: Okay.

Waitress: How many is there?

Sarah: Seven.

Craig: Seven.

Waitress: Seven people? Okay.

Laura: Seven adults and a baby.

I think it's going to make me so much more compliant. For example, I ate pancakes a few weeks ago and then it shot really high. I think if I'm doing it with the Dexcom, I'll be more able to say, "Okay, I can see why that happened with other things that I may not think will raise my blood sugar so high in relationship to food." I know there's other reasons my blood sugar will go up and down, but at least with food, I can look at it a little easier.

Craig: Now, let's eat.

Laura: Woohoo.

Craig: Bring me your pancakes?

Laura: No pancake. [laughs]

Craig: I flew down to Phoenix. I reset one of my transmitters, we put the Dexcom on your arm. You were all ready for it. No hesitation, I feel like--

Laura: No. I thought, "Well, you know what? I should just go ahead and do it because I have an expert to show me how to put it on," which, of course, I probably won't remember, but I can watch videos. At least to know that it was put on and then to see how it worked. I do like it.

Craig: What was it like getting all that information all of a sudden?

Laura: I don't-- It was great. On vacation I didn't have time to be obsessed with it. We were moving around a lot. I would check it whenever we get in the car for a ride, I would look at it. Whenever I felt like I did a lot of walking, I would look at it because I'd think, "Well, let's see what happened." I just think it was nice to know when you go to bed at night, that there is something that'll set off an alarm.

Craig: You did have a real low. I think it was the night I left.

Laura: Well, first it scared me. My daughter and I, we both jumped [laughs] because it was like, "Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang." I'm like, "What the heck is that?" Then we looked and I said, "Wow." I said, "Megan, I'm really low." I said, "Go get me some orange juice and let me test." I never would have been testing at that time. We were sitting on the couch. It's great I had somebody there so she could help me out.

Craig: For weeks, you've always been saying, "I haven't had my first low. I don't know what that feel like." Then you had it.

Laura: I didn't feel anything, so that's weird. Now I wonder if I'm one of those people that don't feel the lows? I don't know. [laughs] I don't know.

Craig: When I first got to Phoenix, you showed me your logbook. All of your blood sugars, what you ate, and all of your numbers were perfect. Then when we put the Dexcom on you, now it's following you, it was actually a lot more variable than the numbers suggested.

Laura: I still think I'm learning. I've had a couple of days where it's been really up and down, but then I also look at, "Is it my food, or is it me being frustrated still trying to get this Dexcom?"

Craig: The stress, you mean?

Laura: Yes, the stress of, "When am I going to be done with this?" [laughs] It's going to be two months. It shouldn't be this hard. That's the only thing Dexcom can tell me is I can look at it and say, "Oh. This is the period I was making phone calls and I can see I'm probably a little higher because--"

Craig: The medical system is actually hurting your control.

Laura: It's good because then I can look at it and say, "I need to just zone out of it now." I need to just say, "I'm done for the day and go do some needlework."

Craig: Needlework being embroidery, not playing around with your needles.

Laura: [laughs] Yes. I do cross-stitch embroidery and needlepoint. All those things are like mindfulness, you center yourself. Yesterday, this was a big deal, I've only baked a few times since I was diagnosed. Mainly because I didn't feel like I had the time because I was trying to figure out how to live as a diabetic. Yesterday, I went ahead and baked some cookies, your uncle's favorite cookies. That was good. I was wondering how I would feel, because sometimes I would eat a cookie when I bake. Usually, hot, warm cookies out of the oven are pretty darn good, but I was like, "No, I'm not doing that yet."

Craig: Do you feel sad that you couldn't just have that fresh cookie right out of the oven?

Laura: A tiny bit, yes, because there are things now when I think, "I just can't do that." We went to the ball games. I can't just not think about how many fries I'm eating. It makes me a little sad, but it also isn't horrible-depression sad because I know that, eventually, I'll work my way up to where I'll be able to cover so I can do some of those things. I just can't do it anymore without thinking about it.

Craig: I think that's what it is. That's the hard part about Type 1. You have to be mindful of everything you're doing.

Laura: Even when I can do it, I'm still going to have to think about it. I want to have two cookies, I have to think about, "How many carbs are in those two cookies? How many units of insulin do I need for that? Am I going to eat the cookies with my meal, am I going to have them later, that I take the insulin later?" Those are all things that I still have to learn.

Craig: One of the funny things that happened in Phoenix that I miss was you actually met another Type 1 in the wild.

Laura: This waitress comes up to me and she says, "I have to ask you, how do you like the Dexcom?" I said, "Well, I've only had it on like three or four days, but it's really, really nice." She said, "I have a really nice purse." She goes, "Just wait a minute." She ran to her locker to bring me her purse. It was this cute little black purse and it had a gold chain, but she showed me inside there was a place for her phone, all her money and credit cards, and then the whole section for all her diabetic supplies.

She said, "This purse is expensive," she goes, "but I cannot live without this purse." It was really a cute purse. I thought it was so lovely that she wanted to help me find something to carry my supplies and use as a purse without having to carry around a whole bunch of stuff. I noticed she had a tattoo. [laughs] I looked at her tattoo and it's like the one I would probably get. It was written in script at her forearm and it would have little roses and it just said, "Type 1 diabetic." It was just all these things coming together and I just thought it was just lovely of her to come up to me and talk to me.

Craig: How was your family?

Laura: This was an extended family trip. This was all of us. This was my two daughters, my two son-in-laws, and my grandson, and us. Everybody was great. I have to say that all my Type 3s are excellent Type 3s. They just have always been there. They have to listen to my endless self-analysis about what I'm eating and what I'm doing. They're all very calm and they're all very supportive. They just are willing to do things like I want them to keep some low supplies in each of their houses and then they do just tell me to stop apologizing.

When I say, "I'm sorry," they're like, "No, just do it." Shout-out to Sarah, Craig, Megan, Alex, and Kale who also sits there my little, almost 11-month-old grandson. When I say grandma's got to take her shot, he sits in his high chair and looks at me and lets me take my shot. It's an adjustment for everybody, as you know. It just makes life a little different, but then you realize how lucky you are.

Craig: On the next episode of Thicker Than Water, Aunt Laura becomes a hacker.

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Craig: Thicker Than Water is a production of Beta Cell that's produced by me, Craig Stubing. As always, a very special thanks to my Aunt Laura. This beautiful cover of Lean On Me is by the amazing Nina Ragonese. If you haven't yet subscribed to Beta Cell wherever you listen to podcasts to get all of our shows download on your listening device as soon as they're available. If you love Thicker Than Water or any of the Beta Cells shows, you can support us on Patreon. Not only will you get the satisfaction of helping the show, but you'll get access to our exclusive supporter-only podcast out of range after dark. There's a link to that in the show notes.

I'm Craig and this is Thicker Than Water.

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