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"Challenging and Humbling" - Raising Teens with Diabetes: Moira McCarthy (Classic Episode)

Diabetes Connections | Type 1 Diabetes

Release Date: 03/04/2021

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More Episodes

Raising teens with diabetes can be very difficult, but there's a lot parents can do to make it less stressful. This week's guest has advice because she's been there. Moira McCarthy is the author of Raising Teens with Diabetes and she shares how a very tough time with her daughter, Lauren, taught her what these kids really need.

The secret? You might think it's better technology or a certain diet or even discipline, but as Moira explains, it's compassion.  Lauren is all grown up now, with a great job and a life far from home. She and Moira have a terrific relationship and she very generously shares her story to help others.

This episode originally aired in July of 2015.

Book: Raising Teens with Diabetes 

Moira's post: Freedom is their secret drug

The follow up: When your teen with type 1 becomes an adult

 

Check out Stacey's book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom!

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Episode Transcription

Stacey Simms  0:00

This episode of Diabetes Connections is brought to you by inside the breakthrough, a new history of science podcast full of Did you know stuff?

 

Announcer  0:13

This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.

 

Stacey Simms  0:18

Welcome to a classic episode of Diabetes Connections as always glad to have you along, we aim to educate and inspire about type one by sharing stories of connection with a focus on people who use insulin. And with these classic episodes, I am bringing back interviews we did years ago, they are evergreen interviews that can still help people and you can really benefit from hearing these stories. But they are interviews that were done in 2015 and 2016, before the show had found all the listeners that it has now maybe that's you if you are newer, and with more than 350 episodes, you are sure to have missed a few. So this has been a fun way for me to go back and revisit some of the cool guests and great stories that we have shared.

You know, it's funny to think about, but when I started the show, I was really concerned with Benny, my son becoming a quote, teen with diabetes. He was 10 when I launched in 2015. And you can hear that 10 year old voice at the end of every show when Benny reads my tagline. It is funny looking back because for us at least Middle School, you know ages 11 to 13 were actually much more difficult for diabetes stuff than the true teen years have been so far. As most of you know Ben, he was diagnosed right before he turned two. And as you'll hear in this episode, and in pretty much every episode from that first year, I'm terrified. I'm trying to figure out a way to make sure bad teen stuff doesn't happen to us and looking back it really makes me smile because what I was actually afraid of shows how much I misunderstood the teen years with type one my guest and now my dear friend Moira McCarthy has probably done more than anybody to educate me about this and she continues to do so to this day. A longtime listeners know more I became a frequent guest we even started an ask the demon segment we are due for another one of those pretty soon.

If you're not familiar, Moira’s daughter Lauren was diagnosed with type one at age six. She's all grown up now living a very independent life with a great job in Washington DC and Moira , by the way lives in New England. They're not in the same town. They're hundreds of miles apart. But their path together with diabetes wasn't always smooth. Moira wrote one of the most widely read blog posts about diabetes parenting back in 2010. called freedom is their secret drug. I remember reading that boy. And just last month, she wrote a follow up to it. I will link them both up at the episode homepage at Diabetes connections.com. I am so grateful to Moira  and her whole family really Lauren, their other daughter Leigh, Moira’s  husband, Sean, for being open and honest about not just the good times with type one right not about the easy stuff not about when it was going well and about their community support and all the great things that they've done their accomplishments, being honest about their struggles more his interview from July of 2015 in just a moment for this is one of my first episodes. So I hope it sounds okay, I'm still doing radio stuff like introducing the guest a few times during the interview, you'll hear that

but first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by insight the breakthrough a new history of science podcast, its historical wisdom, mixed with modern insight and insight. The breakthrough was created by SciMar. SciMar is a group of Canadian researchers dedicated to changing the way we detect treat and even reverse type two diabetes. 2021, as you know, is the 100 year anniversary of the discovery of insulin. It's arguably the biggest scientific discovery in Canadian history. This series examines that moment and many others through the lens of Canadian researchers trying to find what's next for the fight against diabetes. You can find inside the breakthrough wherever you find this podcast. And you should also know that Diabetes Connections is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider.

 

Moira  McCarthy, welcome to Diabetes Connections. I'm so glad you could join me.

 

Moira McCarthy  4:16

Oh, it's great to be here.

 

Stacey Simms  4:17

So much to talk about with you today. We met at a jdrf event in St. Louis last year. After which I read your book. You know, I don't have a team with diabetes

 

Unknown Speaker  4:28

yet.

 

Stacey Simms  4:29

It's kind of like looking into a time machine. And if you haven't seen raising teens with diabetes that's got the best cover. There's a teenage girl just rolling her eyes. As we've all seen. I have a teenage daughter but it's my son who has diabetes and he's 10. So more what do we have to look forward to?

 

Moira McCarthy  4:48

Oh, it's just a snap. You know, agers all they want to do is please their parents. So I like to say we need the walk to cure adolescent. I think the good news Is that it really is temporary. When you're in it, it feels like it's not. But it really is a passing phase. And I think that when I hear like someone like you has read the book already, it makes me really happy. Because my hope is to be proactive and help people be proactive and kind of think ahead of the challenges you're gonna face and ways that you're going to try to work through them with your teenager.

 

Stacey Simms  5:25

I think there are things that you can do, looking forward, to figure out maybe some things to do now when your kids are younger. But take us back and tell us a little bit if you don't mind about your story and your family's story with diabetes. How old was your daughter when she was diagnosed?

 

Moira McCarthy  5:41

Sure, Lauren was diagnosed right at the start of kindergarten, right around actually at her sixth birthday. I knew nothing about type 1 diabetes and children before that. Once she was diagnosed, I realized that every single sign and symptom was right in front of my face, but she diagnosed

 

Stacey Simms  5:59

on her birthday.

 

Moira McCarthy  6:01

Well, she was diagnosed at her checkup, which was just shortly and wow. Which is very common, you know, yes, people go for checkups, then. So we were I say this with all the arrogance that that shouldn't be attached to it. We were the model patient family for a very long time. Lauren was extremely willing to just do what she had to do. I threw myself into becoming educated. She was actually the first young child in Massachusetts to go on an insulin pump in 1999, which seems crazy now because everybody can. We were progressive. And I really thought that I was the smarter mom who had it all figured out. And I would hear story about parents, with their teenagers and think, Well, I'm glad that's not us. And then I realized that I hadn't raised a teenager yet. And that no matter how hard you work, and how vigilant you are, and how wonderful your child is, the teen years can be extremely challenging and humbling. And so I learned a lot about, you know, the fact that you can't necessarily outsmart all of the challenges of diabetes all the time.

 

Stacey Simms  7:17

And as a teenager with diabetes, let's talk a little bit about that. Because my understanding is it is not just the attitude, it is the physical as well, right?

 

Moira McCarthy  7:26

There's a lot going on. It's just so unfair. I mean, think back to when you were a middle school, or an early high school kid, it's just such an awkward, uncomfortable time in your life without something like diabetes on top of it. And that's not just because of social reasons. That's because of hormonal reasons, too. And so you put diabetes on top of it, and you, you know, add to it, that it can make your blood sugar go crazy because of hormones. But you don't want to do what you have to do anyway. So who knows what it is in it. It's just a big old mess. It's a It's a challenging time, I really feel strongly that one of the reasons that I really support better technology is even if all we can do is just get this better technology to kids in their teen years. We're going to make life with diabetes so much better. I now that I've watched my daughter go through it, I totally get it. And I have so much respect for all teens, no matter how much they're struggling. I really do. That's great. And

 

Stacey Simms  8:27

you and your daughter have been very open about your story. Do you mind if I asked you a little bit more about and I don't want to put it in terms of what went wrong. But what was difficult for her as a teenager? And how is she doing now? Oh, I

 

Moira McCarthy  8:38

think it's fine to say what went wrong. Um, so what went wrong is is multifold first of all, I mentioned my arrogance, I really, really, really thought that I had it all figured out and that she had it all figured out. I trusted her so much at such a young age and put so much on her that I set her up to fail if that makes sense. Um, she actually came to me once and said you shouldn't trust me so much. And I think I just laughed at her.

 

Stacey Simms  9:09

You'd be like just trust her to check at school or things like that

 

Moira McCarthy  9:12

way. Um, you know, the old you yell into the next room, what's your blood sugar and they yell back a number. So what happened with Lauren is she she actually just wrote about this for a sweet life, I believe, where she explained when it all started. And she was at the pool at our beach club and I yelled across the pool, check your blood sugar and she went to get her meter out and just went huh. And waited a minute fiddled with it and yelled, you know, 118 or whatever, she yelled, okay, and I put it into my color coded Excel spreadsheet chart. And that was the beginning of it for her. She realized that she was trying to break free of diabetes. Ironically, she was feeling worse but in a in an adolescent mind that made sense to her. And I was I was letting her because I was burnt out. And it was pretty easy to just, you know, actually literally and metaphorically be in my lounge chair, letting her run the show because I was sick of it, when what she really needed at that time was me to at least check in on her. And by that I mean see things happen from beginning to end, at least once or twice a day instead of just trusting her to go off on her own and report in to me. And that's a funny thing, because she's a trustworthy child. She's honest, she's open. She was honest about everything in her life, except her diabetes and her blood sugar's and so under my nose, under my nose, and on my guard, my daughter went into real life true, not a joke. ICU DK. Wow. And that was when even her doctors were shocked. You know, that was when I knew I had to fix me so that I could help her get through this time.

 

Stacey Simms  11:09

That's such a hard thing to hear knowing how on top of it, you thought you were in and she was, what happened? How did she do?

 

Moira McCarthy  11:17

So at first, she dove back into doing everything great, and everything was fine. And then the struggles continued. And what I realized was, I needed to find a new acceptance or a new level of what was acceptable in her diabetes care at this point in her life. Was she scared?

 

Stacey Simms  11:42

Was she upset? I mean, what was her reaction?

 

Moira McCarthy  11:44

Well, you know, she said to me, once, someone asked me years later, I'll be honest, I went through anger, I, I wanted to shake her it's really, really frustrating. When you just want your child to feel good, and and, and do what they have to do. But what do I know, I'm not the person who was inside her head as a teen. So a couple years ago, someone said to me, ask Lauren, what the best tool is I can use with my teenager with diabetes, you know, is it is it a CGM, and I should watch everything? Is it a pump? Is it a meter? What is it? So we're driving the car and I asked her, and she thought about it for a while. And she said, I've got it, mom, I know what it is. It's compassion. And I'm like, but she said, you know, that whole time, I was beating myself up more than anyone could ever possibly beat me up. I felt like a failure. I couldn't face that I wasn't doing the right thing. I was letting myself down. I was worried about my health. So pointing any of that up to me was pointless. I already was doing that at a level you could never do. And so that really spoke to me about that makes you think about the struggles teens have that all that was going on in her head. I don't know how she was, you know, she was through all this. She was her student body president. She was homecoming court. She was star, the tennis team with all that going on physically and emotionally. It's pretty remarkable.

 

Stacey Simms  13:21

And this is a, I guess I can say a bit of an overachieving family. She's now she's now in a good way. And she is now a college graduate has a great job doing very well. How did you get from DK a to that?

 

Moira McCarthy  13:36

It was a process. I think that I had to realize and parents listening to this whose children are younger, I can't stress enough how you have to start doing this earlier is you have got to stop nagging them. Because when our voices fill their heads, there's no room for their own rational voice. And so it took me a really long time to stop nagging her and in fact, this morning, I kind of sort of wanted to nag her from 500 miles away to hurt work, but you just can't. And what happens when you stop that nagging is their own internal nag kicks in and they will listen to their own internal nag more than they will listen to ours. So I had to let go a little bit. But on the converse, I also had to make sure she was safe. But I had to have a new definition of safe while we went through this time. safe for us was not an A one C of 6.5 safe for us was not a log sheet with tons of checks in it every day safe for us was not now it would be the straight line across the CGM safe was knowing that she was never going to go into DK And all I had to do to make sure of that. And this will be confusing for parents of younger children, because they haven't experienced freedom in teens yet, all I had to do was check in and see her, do a blood check and put insulin into her body, at least one time a day. And if that's all you can manage for a period of time, they're going to be safe. And then you can work through the other things. And what worked for Lauren, she moved to a new endocrinologist, I loved our old endocrinology team, but she made a change. And her new under chronologist is very intuitive. And he treated her as a human being and not labs while working on the labs, if that makes sense. And he was the one who really cut back on what his expectations of her were. And by cutting back on the expectations, she was able to experience success and stop beating herself up as much. And then do more. Does that make sense?

 

Stacey Simms  16:04

It makes perfect sense. And another piece of advice that I've tried to incorporate that I've heard you talk about is when your child comes home from school, and again, my son is 10. You know, we all want to say first, hey, how was your day? What's your blood sugar? Or, you know, how was your day? What do you do for lunch? And how did you bolus? And I have tried,

 

Moira McCarthy  16:20

I don't really succeed,

 

Stacey Simms  16:21

I have tried to stop doing that and say, how was your day? What were your friends like, and then either later on, ask them about it or say, hey, just give me your meter. And then you know, and we don't talk about it as much as we used to, I find that to be pretty helpful.

 

Moira McCarthy  16:35

It really is I just got off the phone with a mom who reached out to me and asked if she could talk to me on the phone because she has a struggling teen, and she has an older child with diabetes. And she said that that action actually damaged their relationship to the point that she's still trying to rebuild it

 

Stacey Simms  16:54

by just simply asking about it all the time.

 

Moira McCarthy  16:56

All the time, the minute he walked in the door after school, it's such a natural thing for us to do as parents, but and I found when I first started working my way past that I was faking it. And that was obvious to my daughter because she said, you know, Mom, I know that you're asking exactly three questions about other things and just counting them until you ask about diabetes. So the answer is, and this sounds wacky, don't ask and what you said in there makes sense. You can look at their meter and get your answers, you know, and then whatever those answers are, you move on from there, don't go backwards, you know, so. But it's really hard because we care so much about this. And I think a way to try to work around it. And I talked about this in the team book is to remember that we're not raising an agency or a blood sugar, we're raising a human being. And their diabetes seems really important to us because it's such a responsibility medically and every other way. But the rest of who they are is just as important for us to nurture too. And if you can try to remember that it can help you pull that in. But it's what parent doesn't have that problem, you know, wanting to say what was your blood sugar. It's just what we do. So

 

Stacey Simms  18:20

one of the things that you and I have talked about before is this remarkable advancement that's happened in technology. I my son has used a CGM for the last year and a half. He's had a pump since he was two and a half. But using a CGM has really changed the way I look at his blood sugar. And the way it appears throughout the day, and you mentioned a concert I want to talk about is the success is success, a flat line on the Dexcom. And that is something that I have to steal myself against going for because we all want to see those super steady, wonderful numbers. But that's just not how diabetes operates, at least not my kid. And he still does very well. Can you speak a little bit to this, I don't want to call it an obsession, but this it's almost this fear of letting kids kind of go in and out of range. Because at any moment, something terrible could happen when that's really not the case.

 

Moira McCarthy  19:14

Yeah, so first of all, I want to premise that with if my daughter was newly diagnosed, and I was using these tools, I would absolutely fall into the category of wanting a straight line and worrying every time she went up and down. So I totally get it. Even though I started out this journey in a different time. And before those things, I can totally see how it could happen. But I have this wish and I just said it. I was lucky enough a week or two ago to be at a meeting with all kinds of the CEOs of all the technical diabetes technology companies. I was one of the only patient people you know, I'm a patient parent in the room. And what I said to them is we're developing these amazing tools to solve See more. But we're way behind on tools, ie faster insulins, better infusion sites, things to make things work better on treatment of them. And so parents particularly, and I would think newly diagnosed adult patients, too, are trapped in this period of time now, where they have, they can see everything, but they can't do anything about it. And they think they need to do something about it. So Lauren was diagnosed back in the days of mph and regular when you had a chart of spikes and dips, and you match those throughout the day. In other words, we knew there were going to be three mph spikes and two regular spikes, and then dips along and we matched them. So that helps you understand the ebbs and flows of blood sugars in a person. And I think that parents now who are going right on CGM, with their children are so afraid when that arrow goes up, and when an arrow goes down, that they never fully experienced those ebbs and flows. And the thing about that is, Jeff Hitchcock said it beautifully, we can raise a child with a perfect agency forever, all we have to do is lay them in a hospital bed with an IV of glucose in one arm and an IV of insulin the other arm and check them every 15 minutes and tweak it. But that's not a life. That's not a life. So I look at my daughter, and I look at what she's doing and how she's living in our life. And I look at her success, and she loves her career, and she's in her apartment in Washington, DC and she has a million friends. Well, if I match that with her line across the CGM for the past 18 years, if you only looked at that CGM line, you might be like, Oh, my God, this has been a nightmare. But if you look at her, and frankly, she's perfectly healthy, and everything's fine. I like that side of it. So as far as the fear goes, this breaks my heart. I like to call fear. Now, the newest, most frequent and most frightening and devastating complication there is in type 1 diabetes today. And I think that it is partially because the way we all communicate and are linked with one another, and you see things and hear things like you never did before. And frankly, you don't know the whole story behind everything you're hearing. And also, these tools that are making people think that you know, because your child's blood sugar is going down, if you hadn't done something, they were going to die. And I really, really, really am struggling to help find a way to change that. Because we parents have an obligation to our children to help them live a life that they embrace without fear, diabetes or not. And no matter how many times you say you're not passing that fear on to your child, you're passing that fear on to your child. So it would be nice to change it.

 

Stacey Simms  23:09

My mother always said that kids take their cues from us. So what we do and what we feel, we may not think we're modeling, but they're getting it, they're picking up on it. Yeah.

 

Moira McCarthy  23:18

And a lot of it is in language. Like, I don't think you should say, I saved my child's life again last night. Giving your child glucose is not saving their life, any more than feeding them dinner every night and saving their life because they would starve to death. It's a little more urgent. And, and, and yes, it's scary, but lows are lows and you treat them and you move on. And it's all going to be okay. And the same with highs, you know, even my daughter and the decay, thank goodness, she got to a point where she was so sick, actually, her friends intervened and said, you're going to tell your mother what's going on right now. And we're bringing you to tell her and we went right to the hospital. But there are ways to fix things and it's better. I think it's better to have your language just be okay. It's a high, it's a low. It's not good. It's not bad. It is what it is. And that way you're not passing that on to your kids. I camps have a huge problem now that they never had before that children go into diabetes camp are petrified to go to sleep at night because their parents aren't there. That didn't happen before. Wow. Yeah.

 

Stacey Simms  24:38

My guest is Moira  McCarthy, author, travel writer, speaker, diabetes mom as well. I want to talk to you about the jdrf ride to cure diabetes because my friend, I think you're crazy. You went through Death Valley on this thing. What possessed you? Why do people do this? How far is it?

 

Moira McCarthy  24:58

105 miles My friend, and not a motorcycle. And it's funny because I actually said the words out loud at jdrf national meetings, you will never get me on a bike and I will never do that ride. But I did. And the reason that I did for me, we were a big walk family, we had a big walk team like you do. We loved walk every year, we were one of the highest fundraising families in the country. And when Lauren went away to college that dissipated, which is quite normal, the culture of walk is getting people together and families and stuff and when your kids go off to college, people move on from that. And so that first year, I felt, I felt a responsibility that all this money that was coming into jdrf wasn't coming in, and that some researcher somewhere wasn't going to be able to do what they needed to do. And I had to find a way. So I thought, well, I'll try this ride thing. So I bought a bike, I hadn't owned a bike in 25 years, I had no idea how much bikes cost, Holy moly. But I started training. And I put the word out and I thought, Oh my gosh, I hope I make the minimum I chose the gold minimum, which would be $4,000 raised and I held my breath and cross my fingers and had a little faith and put the word out to my friends. And not only did I do the ride, but I raised $40,000 my first year. Wow. So what that said to me was a I guess I should have done the ride. My friends probably felt just as guilty about not having a way to support our dream, too. And see, taking that kind of action that requires tons of training and tons of work and tons of effort, on my behalf showed my friends that I respected their donations, and that I understood that after all these years, it was amazing that they would do something so I needed to do something possibly amazing for them. What is it like?

 

Really, really, really

 

good experience?

 

Stacey Simms  27:12

What was it like, though on the bike? I mean, it's just hard. It's not that's not an easy thing. You know, you have to train for a long time. You can't just jump on the bike and pedal away. No,

 

Moira McCarthy  27:19

the first time I rode, I wrote about seven miles. And I got back and I called my friend Katie Clark, who got me to ride and I'm like, I think I have allergies. And she said, Yeah, you're allergic to cycling more. Love I was and now I can tell you. It's really wonderful. You still have to train and build up. But if someone said to me on any day, do you want to go on a 50 mile bike ride? I could say Sure, sure. And I'm not like an Olympian. You know, I'm, I'm just an average person. And I found that I love being on a bike. So I got something out of it for myself, you know, you don't wear music in your ears when you cycle because it's not safe. And even though if you're with people, you're still in your own space. So it's very meditative. I can think through things. I see the world in a different way. Even my town I cycle by things that I drive by every day, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's really pretty. You know, I never noticed that little paths. So I feel like it's been a real gift that said ride day. You have a lot of adrenaline. It's really special because you're riding with all people who care about the same thing you care about. When I get done, the last thing I want to do is ever get on a bike again. But I do maybe not the next day, but

 

Stacey Simms  28:42

Wednesday, when is this ride?

 

Moira McCarthy  28:45

I'm doing to this year, August 13 through three states through the Midwest, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa and then Death Valley is October something teen whatever that Saturday is, so I'm doing too.

 

Stacey Simms  28:59

Yep. Well, hats off to you. That's, you know, maybe I'm the person who will say now you'll never see me on a ride. And then Mike, he'll go to college.

 

Unknown Speaker  29:07

I'm gonna remind you, Oh,

 

Stacey Simms  29:10

I love it more. Thank you so much for talking to me today. And again, the book is raising teens with diabetes. And she is you can find more publications, but more writes for many publications. And we'll have links you can find out more and where to catch your columns more. Thanks so much for joining me. Absolutely. Thanks

 

Moira McCarthy  29:30

for what you do.

 

Announcer  29:36

You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.

 

Stacey Simms  29:42

More information about more of the blog posts I mentioned, you know the one from 2010. And the follow up that was just published last month on health line. I'll put those both at the episode homepage which also has the transcription and it's interesting to me listening back because I don't feel that the teen years quote. You know, our Behind us by any stretch of the imagination, Benny is 16. He just started driving and there's new challenges and with diabetes and kids, you're facing new challenges every year anyway. So I'm still listening to Moira  and calling her up and asking her my questions. But it is remarkable to look back and think how scared I was when what I really needed to be thinking about was less about me, and how can I make this right for Benny? And how can I make sure he doesn't rebel? And you know, and does what he's supposed to do? And instead, look at it through the lens of how can I support him? How can I give him more empathy? How can I give him more compassion? How can I talk to him about the tools that he needs? And it sounds very woowoo Brady Bunch, whatever you want to call it. But I can tell you having these conversations with Benny over the years, even many conversations where he rolls his eyes and doesn't want to talk about it. I mean, he's not he's far from a perfect diabetic is far from a perfect kid. But I feel like all the time I talked to him and told him, you know, we're here for you. It's your decision, we'll support you. It's not about a perfect agency. It's not about this. It's not about that. He listened. He heard us. It's absolutely amazing. And I'll say one more thing about teenagers with type one. I think sometimes it is a bit easier if you're a younger child is the one with diabetes. There's not some weird genetic thing going on there. It's just that once you see and I'll give my example here I have a daughter who is three years older than Benny, but four years older in school, because the way they their birthdays ran, when she entered her teen years, I had this wonderful, nice, rule abiding kid who started forgetting in quotes, forgetting to do homework, slamming doors, yelling at us being unhappy, changing her clothes, changing her hairstyle, doing all the things that normal teens do. But when you're first kid, your older kid is the one with type one, and you're entering those teen years, and you're seeing all those changes. I have a dear friend and this is her situation, the older kid is the one with type one. You don't know if it's diabetes, or teen nonsense, because you haven't been through it before. And I think it's really helpful to understand that the transformation is kind of a strong word. But the wackiness that happens in the teen years isn't all about diabetes. And that helped me an awful lot, because sometimes it's just nonsense. Moira  is definitely the authority on this, we are still feeling our way through the remaining teen years, maybe I'll write a world's worst teen mom in 10 years from now, when I'm looking back, I can tell you everything we did do wrong during this time. But there's lots of good stuff coming up on Diabetes Connections. We're gonna be sharing stories about mutual aid diabetes, have you seen this on social media? Who are these people? What are they trying to do? How can we help? How can we trust that the money that we're using to help in the community is going where it's supposed to go without a big organization behind it? These are some really interesting people. And we're going to talk about the City of Hope. This is a big research facility. They do a lot more than diabetes, but they have some very interesting studies. They talked about their reverse vaccine a couple of weeks ago, and they're going to jump on and give us an update. Thank you, as always to my editor john Kenneth from audio editing solutions. thank you as always for listening. I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here in just a couple of days until then, be kind to yourself.

 

Benny   33:14

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