Podcasts about sixuntilme

At Moms' Night Out Providence, I was part of an Ask Us Anything panel that included Moira McCarthy and Kerri Sparling. We had a lot of fun on this panel and a lot of fun at MNO period. If you're wondering what this event is all about, I think this panel will give you a lot of insight. It's serious, and humorous, I hope helpful, and it's all peer to peer – we're not doctors. Moira McCarthy's daughter, Lauren, was marking 26 years with T1D during this event! Moira is a ski, adventure and travel writer. A JDRF International Volunteer of the Year and author of six books including, “Raising Teens with Diabetes.” Her blog Despite Diabetes helped me a lot and she's left it up as a resource. Kerri Sparling is a writer, poet and speaker who has dedicated her life to the power of the patient narrative. Best known for the blog and book, “SixUntilMe,” she is the author of “Balancing Diabetes” and “Rage Bolus and other poems.” Kerri has lived with type 1 for 37 years. Our next MNO is in Charlotte in February This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider.   Find out more about Moms' Night Out  Please visit our Sponsors & Partners - they help make the show possible! Take Control with Afrezza  Omnipod - Simplify Life Learn about Dexcom  Edgepark Medical Supplies Check out VIVI Cap to protect your insulin from extreme temperatures Learn more about AG1 from Athletic Greens  Drive research that matters through the T1D Exchange The best way to keep up with Stacey and the show is by signing up for our weekly newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter here Here's where to find us: Facebook (Group) Facebook (Page) Instagram Twitter Check out Stacey's books! Learn more about everything at our home page www.diabetes-connections.com  Reach out with questions or comments: info@diabetes-connections.com  

At Moms' Night Out Providence, I was part of an Ask Us Anything panel that included Moira McCarthy and Kerri Sparling. We had a lot of fun on this panel and a lot of fun at MNO period. If you're wondering what this event is all about, I think this panel will give you a lot of insight. It's serious, and humorous, I hope helpful, and it's all peer to peer – we're not doctors. Moira McCarthy's daughter, Lauren, was marking 26 years with T1D during this event! Moira is a ski, adventure and travel writer. A JDRF International Volunteer of the Year and author of six books including, “Raising Teens with Diabetes.” Her blog Despite Diabetes helped me a lot and she's left it up as a resource. Kerri Sparling is a writer, poet and speaker who has dedicated her life to the power of the patient narrative. Best known for the blog and book, “SixUntilMe,” she is the author of “Balancing Diabetes” and “Rage Bolus and other poems.” Kerri has lived with type 1 for 37 years. Our next MNO is in Charlotte in February This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider.   Find out more about Moms' Night Out  Please visit our Sponsors & Partners - they help make the show possible! Take Control with Afrezza  Omnipod - Simplify Life Learn about Dexcom  Edgepark Medical Supplies Check out VIVI Cap to protect your insulin from extreme temperatures Learn more about AG1 from Athletic Greens  Drive research that matters through the T1D Exchange The best way to keep up with Stacey and the show is by signing up for our weekly newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter here Here's where to find us: Facebook (Group) Facebook (Page) Instagram Twitter Check out Stacey's books! Learn more about everything at our home page www.diabetes-connections.com  Reach out with questions or comments: info@diabetes-connections.com  

I first joined the diabetes online community in 2016 after graduating college and wanting to learn more about actually living with this diagnosis. What I didn't know? This community had been being built for years - even before Instagram and TikTok made their way as platforms. Meet Kerri Sparling, the author of Six Until Me: Essays from a life with diabetes. Kerri created her blog after being diagnosed with diabetes in 1986 and wanting to share connections throughout the T1D community. She has now inspired others to do the same. Inside this episode, we discuss our diagnoses in different generations and how we get to choose how we engage and share in the online space. SHOW NOTES ⏰ (1:20): Introductions ⏰ (3:34): Different diagnosis stories ⏰ (7:15): The Pee Alarm ⏰ (9:27): Technological advances ⏰ (13:05): How did “Six Until Me” get started? ⏰ (16:35): Feelings around the numbers ⏰ (20:25): What experiences came with sharing so much of your journey online? ⏰ (27:52): Rage Bolusing ⏰ (31:03): Best and worst things of sharing online ⏰ (34:50): Best piece of advice ⏰ (37:15): Where can everybody find you? Resources for this episode: Hang out with Kerri on IG: @sixuntilme https://www.instagram.com/sixuntilme/ Buy her books: https://kerrisparling.com/ Grab your pack of Skin Grip using code "LISSIE" at www.skingrip.com Join us inside the Keeping it 100 Diabetes Coaching Experience: https://needlesandspoons.kartra.com/page/keepingit100 Grab the Keeping it 100 Diabetes Journal: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BB5ZL6R8?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860 Check out our blog: https://www.needlesandspoons.com/blog Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ki100official_/ Check out our free resource hub: https://needlesandspoons.com/free-resources/

The author of Six Until Me, Kerri Sparling, isn't blogging any more, but she's still looking for stories of connection and community built around conversation For 14 years Kerri wrote a daily blog about her experience with type 1. She put aside SixUntilMe in 2019. We're going to talk about her new book, what she thinks about the online community these days and what's next. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Check out Stacey's book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! Sign up for our newsletter here Episode Transcription Below (or coming soon!) Please visit our Sponsors & Partners - they help make the show possible! *Click here to learn more about OMNIPOD* *Click here to learn more about AFREZZA* *Click here to learn more about DEXCOM*

The new big-budget disaster movie Greenland comes out on streaming this week. It starts Gerard Butler as the central character, trying to save his family including his son who lives with type 1. Award winning screenwriter Chris Sparling had never put diabetes into one of his movies, but he knows all about T1D. His wife is Kerri Sparling, writer of the very popular, and now archived, blog SixUntilMe. Stacey & Chris talk about writing something personal into a movie and then handing over control to a different director and producer, as well as what it's like to try to make movies during COVID restrictions. Check out Stacey's book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! Kerri Sparling interviews Chris for Children with Diabetes  In innovations –JDRF begins at-home early T1D detection. More on the new JDRF T1Detect program  This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android Episode Transcription (rough transcript, computer only - check back for proofed version) Stacey Simms  0:00 Diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop, created for people with diabetes by people who have diabetes by Gvoke HypoPen, the first premixed auto injector for very low blood sugar, and by Dexcom take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with Dexcom.   Announcer  0:21 This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  0:27 This week, there's a new movie all about a big global disaster and it features a main character with type one. award winning screenwriter Chris Sparling had never put diabetes into one of his movies. And he was a bit concerned about how it would all turn out.   Chris Sparling  0:41 I became so in a way overprotective of getting it right. And it being portrayed right because the last thing I wanted to do was to finally incorporate diabetes into a movie of mine and for it to end up being portrayed wrong.   Stacey Simms  0:55 Many of you already know Chris, sort of his wife Kerri Sparling wrote the very popular blog six until me for almost 15 years. We talk about diabetes in the movie and at home and about the entertainment business during this time of COVID in innovations JDRF begins at home early T1D detection. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider. Welcome to another week of the show. I am so glad to have you here. I am your host Stacey Simms and we aim to educate and inspire about diabetes by sharing stories of connection. Something different This week, we're going to talk about Greenland. This is a movie it's releasing in the US on video on demand it stars Gerard Butler and Marina Bakkerin who you probably know from the Deadpool movies. I put the trailer in the Facebook group and Diabetes Connections of the group. But the basic plot is that these are estranged parents, maybe they'll get back together, but they are working on their marriage just as a world ending cosmic disaster happens. And wouldn't you know it, their son has type one diabetes, so diabetes, type one insulin, this all becomes a plot point. Now we've talked about this a lot before so many films and TV shows have gotten diabetes exactly wrong. But Greenland has a big advantage. And that is as you heard in that opening tease, and that screenwriter Chris Sparling, whose wife lives with type one, we will get to Chris in just a moment. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by one drop and getting diabetes supplies is a pain. Not only the ordering and the picking up but the arguing with insurance about over what they say you need and what you really need. Make it easy with one drop. They offer personalized test strip plans plus you get a Bluetooth a glucose meter test strips lancets and your very own certified diabetes coach. Subscribe today to get test strips for less than $20 a month delivered right to your door no prescription or co pays required. One less thing to worry about not that surprising when you learn that the founder of one drop lips with type one, they get it one drop gorgeous gear supplies delivered to your door 24 seven access to your certified diabetes coach, learn more, go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the one drop logo. My guest this week is an award-winning screenwriter. He is someone that I've never met, but I feel like I kind of know because for many years I and many of you read about him in Kerry Sparling’s blog SixUntilMe. Kerri spent more than 14 years writing about her life with type 1 diabetes which included meeting and marrying Chris, who has been featured in blog posts about kids and family and everything you would expect. Kerri has stepped back from the blog to pursue other projects in her own writing. And Chris has a big movie coming out this week as this episode airs, Greenland, which debuts on American streaming this week. Chris, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the show.   Chris Sparling  3:53 Thank you. Thank you for having me.   Stacey Simms  3:55 It's great to have you. I feel it. As I said, I feel like I kind of know you. So I appreciate you kind of taking the leap and coming on not a movie or writing podcast, but a diabetes podcast. So this should be really fun. What made you decide I mean, you've been writing movies for an awfully long time. What made you decide to put diabetes?   Chris Sparling  4:14 You know, it's something I've been wanting to do for a while this movie presented a pretty unique opportunity for me to do it for a couple of reasons. One, the movie is the first of what's called Greenland. And it's about an incoming asteroid that's going to hit Earth or comet, it's going to hit Earth. It's this existential threat that everyone on earth faces. So kind of by nature of that alone, there's a ticking clock built into the movie, right? It's just when this thing's going to hit you're trying to get to the bunkers in Greenland. I tried to get there safely and survive. And so on the macro level there is that that large ticking clock at play, but the movie itself is different than say, deep impact or Armageddon in that it operates more on a personal level than those two movies do. You know it's not a movie checking in with what the government's doing to try to up the asteroid or anything like that, it's really more like the movie, the impossible if anyone listening ever saw that it's a great movie. And it's all to do with seeing it through this one particular family's lens, how they're going to survive this, this Cataclysm. So built into that I wanted to have a more personal, it's a more personal story. And I'd like the idea of having a more personal ticking clock as well. And so the son in the movie has type one. And now that's not to say the only reason why I gave him type one is to say, oh, that'd be a cool narrative device is to add yet another ticking clock. But it also quite honestly, it just, as I said, at the beginning of this long winded answer is that it gave me You know, I've been wanting to do it for a while, you know, Kerri and I have been together for a very long time. So I've seen type one up close and personal for a very long time. And, you know, I think it's kind of, it's somewhat misunderstood, if not even known condition by a lot of people. So it was, you know, I'm kind of hesitant to use the word educate, because I'm not really trying to do that, but maybe just shine a light on it a little bit. And, you know, this was a, an opportunity to do that on a, I guess, a large screen, or one of your house.   Stacey Simms  6:08 But I'm really curious, as you said, This isn't a movie where you're going to take time to actually do a formal education about type one, just as I wouldn't expect a formal education about a comment hitting the earth, and you know, what would happen, but you do have to explain these things. And I'm curious, you know, how do you work that in, you know, I assume we'll see things like injections or a pump or something like that. But was it difficult to kind of write it into the fabric of the story without, you know, Hey, everybody, we're gonna talk about diabetes.   Chris Sparling  6:34 Now, it was, to a certain extent, because, you know, as you will know, it's diabetes, you know, it's sometimes can fly a bit under the radar. You know, I recently, it was kind of bizarre to do it. But it's fun, I did it, I did an interview with Kerri. And so we were talking like you and I are talking now. And as I told her, then, and I don't always know when she's low, I don't always know when she's high, you know, things are beeping and everything else. And sometimes she takes on a certain characteristics, when that's going on. And I do know, or if I see you're sweeping a bunch of juice or whatever, but like, but sometimes I just don't know. And so to kind of to represent that on screen is difficult, because if you try to go too far in one direction, or the other, it may start to feel very false and forced, and almost cartoonish. And I say 100%, didn't want to do that. But if you go too subtle with it, which diabetes can sometimes be a rather subtle condition, you know, at times, and, you know, if you do that, then it just, it doesn't register for the audience at all. So to kind of dramatize that, what I did was I had the boy, the young boy in the in the movie, let's take one, I gave him a pump. And, you know, to kind of develop a shorthand with the audience, right out of the gate, there's a scene early on in the movie, where Gerard Butler who started in the movie, he's seeing that basically, he's been away, he, his wife had marital problems, and he's kind of they're trying to work it out, he and his wife now and he's coming back, he hasn't seen his son in a little while. And you see, there's a nice tender scene between him and his son, where he notices the pump, the insulin pump, and he says, you know, you know, basically, there's something to the effect of I do like that better than the shots. And you know, just kind of getting it across to the audience, someone who may not be as familiar with it as you are. Or I might be what's like, oh, okay, I get, you know, I can understand that you're certain things, I have a certain amount of knowledge about diabetes. So yeah, it's not, it's small things like that along the way, I've no doubt there will still be things that some people watching, it won't fully kind of hook on to, and they won't fully get. But at the same time, I think there might be elements of it that people watching might be like, Oh, I had no idea. I had no idea that having diabetes would require something like that. Or even to say, the immediacy and the importance of insulin, it kind of where I spoke earlier about this massive macro level existential threat that they're facing. But they still have to get to these bunkers in Greenland, if they're going to survive. And there becomes a situation where this boy get he needs his insulin, because he gets separated from it. And it's like, well, yeah, the large scale goal here remains, but if we don't get you there safely, and again, I mean, just maybe telling maybe to a certain degree, informing the audience who might not know that insulin is not just something like, again, you take it whenever you don't know, I don't know what some people might think, like, you just take it once in a while you take it as you feel like it or I don't know, whatever the misconception might be,   Stacey Simms  9:09 that we eat a cupcake, you need your insulin, right? (laughs)   Chris Sparling  9:12 Yeah, yeah. I think if nothing else, maybe it'll open, not open people's eyes. That's actually wrong, especially maybe just kind of illuminate the topic a bit for some people.   Stacey Simms  9:19 You know, again, I said at the beginning, I'll probably say a few times. I know very little about the industry, the movie industry and and what it takes to write a movie and produce and get, but I would imagine that and you've done projects before, where you've been involved in every step, right, you've written and then you've produced it, or you've been more involved. But with this, you you wrote it as my understanding, and what happens after you kind of hand off your baby because the director can change things, right. The actors have to change things. I guess I'll ask it both ways. First about the diabetes. Did they get it right the way you had hoped? And then we can talk about the movie?   Chris Sparling  9:53 Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, I mean, first, even before diabetes, yes, that always happens. I mean, I've directed movies, I produce movies, all of which have been ones that I've written. So, you know, in those instances, I have obviously quite a bit of control over what the final movies gonna look like in this instance, having just written it. In other movies I've only written, you know, there's always an understanding that when you hand it off, essentially, you know, your depends on the project, quite honestly. I mean, sometimes just as the screenwriter, I am still very much involved with the production because the director or the producer probably see the value of having the person conceived it but but with this, I was involved but not see, like, on a day to day level, that's for sure. Look for the diabetes of it all. You know, I was happy with it. And I was, there were a couple days when I was on set. And, you know, there was I just happened to be there. One of the days they're shooting a scene in in the grocery store and use the sons, they're shopping with his dad, and he's like, Hey, can I get some juice in the dad's like, yeah, sure, go get some. And I remember talking to the directors like Rick, listen, he's like, I was like, you know, my wife generally doesn't drink juice for fun. I'm not I mean, again, I know. She perfectly well, I should be no problem. She could if she wanted to just you know, but I was just I became so in a way over protective of getting it right. And it being portrayed, right, because the last thing I wanted to do was to finally incorporate diabetes into a move your mind and for it to end up being portrayed wrong. But in talking with Rick, he was like, No, no, it's cool. You know, I guess he was, meanwhile, he had his friend on speed dial who was the parent of a child of type one. He's like, No, no, I talked to them. I've consulted with them over and over again. And they said they get no, they let their child have juice if they want it and everything else I was like, and like, on an intellectual level, it made perfect sense to me. But I was I mean, I was kind of like waiting that we hold on a second rate bumps, you know, so to fully answer the question, I think the director, the producer was I think they did a really good job. I think people watching the movie and will it be 100%? Right? I don't know. I mean, people might see it and say, Hey, I don't know if I agree with that. Or not. But everyone's situation in their approach is different. But I could say if you kind of widen the aperture a bit and take a look at it, I think people are gonna I think it does it handles it accurately. For the most part.   Stacey Simms  12:02 I would have been like Gatorade zero, and then he can get a juice box for later.   Chris Sparling  12:08 Yeah, I mean, that's I'm saying like, everyone's situation is different. Right?   Stacey Simms  12:11 So let's talk about movies for a little bit. Was this your dream job? Was this something you always wanted to do?   Right back to Chris in just a moment. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. And you know, I've talked about this before, but it's still striking to me when Benny was a little, you know, you give your kid a bath almost every single day or he goes swimming all summer long. And I always noticed his fingertips, you know, they were poked so much, that they were full of these little holes up and they just looked really awful. Especially when they got wet. It was almost 16 I'm not looking at his hands very much anymore. But man, when we go to the endocrinologist and Dr. V looks at his fingertips, they are normal. We've been using the Dexcom for so long. Now it was seven years. And with every new iteration, we have done fewer and fewer finger sticks. The latest generation the Dexcom g six eliminates finger sticks for calibration and diabetes treatment decisions. Just thinking about doing the 10 finger six a day we used to do chasing my toddler around, it makes me so glad that Dexcom has helped us come so far. It's an incredible tool. If your glucose alerts and readings from the G six do not match your symptoms or expectations. Use a blood glucose meter to make diabetes treatment decisions. learn more, go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the Dexcom logo. Now back to Chris and he's talking about whether this is still his dream job. Does he still love working in the movies?   Chris Sparling  13:38 Yeah, 100% I mean, I started like eons ago, I started as an actor. And I lived in Los Angeles for several years doing that. And while I liked that, and sure, it would have been great to have ultimately done that it just wasn't really it's a really, really tough racket, trying to be doing the struggling actor thing. You know, it's fine when you're really young doing it. But at a certain point, you just feel like, wow, I have like no agency, I've almost no control over my future. You know, it's just really, really tough. So I just kind of felt I needed a little more control over my career. And so yeah, so to be involved in this industry in any capacity was was always my goal.   Stacey Simms  14:16 How does it work these days? I mean, people will say, well, you can write from anywhere. But I've got to imagine that the whole industry, if not moving slower, shut down. I mean, 2020 it's been a mess for everybody. But from a filmmaking standpoint, how did this even get done? When was I guess we'll talk about Greenland, but in general, like, how are things getting made right now?   Chris Sparling  14:36 I mean, yeah, Greenland was all written, shot well before the pandemic, but at the same time post production, it got shut down for a while in post production. So it didn't get completed, completed until in the midst of the pandemic, you know, and then as far as the release of it, yeah, I mean, it's supposed to be in theaters two or three different times, then take a push back and push back. But separate from that, you know, as 2020 is going on. I've actually had two other movies shoot during the pandemic, I just had one that wrapped two days ago in Albuquerque. And so for me personally, it's been a, you know, again, I mentioned earlier, but I can't complain people have like real, you know, things there, especially during 2020 people have had really awful things that they've kind of faced, I'm not certainly gonna, I'm not going to complain about having a movie pushback or not being able to visit set because of COVID. But yeah, I mean, it's been a bit of a bummer. That's, you know, I'm still human, like, it was a bit of a bummer to, to have two movies that, you know, I wrote and produced, and I was basically producing from, you know, one was an Ontario as a movie called Lakewood that I did with Naomi Watts. And then a movie that I just did born in Albuquerque that wrapped two days ago. And it's like, I was watching real feed, like real time feeds from the camera, in my house, in my home office. And my situation of you know, being very protective in particular carry, you know, having type one, and so we are, we're very, very locked down here and the COVID of it all. And so me going to set me being on set just wasn't really an option for me. So   Stacey Simms  15:58 that's interesting, though, I had no idea that you know, things, I guess a few we've seen TV shows, we've seen things being filmed a little bit here and there. But it didn't occur to me that full scale production or partial scale production, because you were in your house looking at things was going on. I don't even know what to ask, are they putting their masks on until they like jump in front of the camera? Is it locked down? Is it just a free for all? Because?   Chris Sparling  16:18 No, no, definitely not? No, it's it is I mean, I really wish, you know, for other industries that are still out there, and people are working, you know, maybe it's just not feasible, but the film industry to its credit, and television industry, they really have some great protocols in place. I mean, it's their zones that I like, I'm not going to get into like all the like, they were really, really strict measures. Because again, I mean, there are a lot of unions involved to this screen actors, guild writers, Guild, Directors Guild Producers Guild, so they're very protective of their membership for, you know, in the first place. And there's regular testing and everything else. And again, that's a luxury not I mean, not a lot of people have that. And then it depends on the size of the production. I mean, if you're talking about a big, let's say, Marvel movie, I mean, you could, in that instance, they're going to probably create a massive bubble, wherever and like they rent out an entire hotel, or like they do a Mission Impossible, where they literally rented out an entire cruise ship. And just everyone lived on the cruise ship off the coast of Norway while they were shooting there. So like, I mean, that that wasn't   Unknown Speaker  17:16 like that. But that makes sense. If you can afford Yeah, but   Chris Sparling  17:18 if you can afford it, yeah, I mean, it's budget plays a big role. But it's really, really difficult as it should be. Because it's there are people at risk. And yeah, the actors in particular, because, you know, when you're rolling the cameras, you can't have masks on anymore. So you have to be really, really strict and in how you go about your productions.   Stacey Simms  17:36 What do you think is going to happen with entertainment? In the next few years, I was having this conversation with a friend in terms of are we going to see COVID and people in masks and kind of that real life reflection in the next couple of years in sitcoms, where people are trying to reflect back to us what we've been through this year? Or do you think we just need a couple of years away from it? Before we can start seeing?   Chris Sparling  17:57 It's interesting, I've had that exact conversation with a lot of people, where is it going to be in stories? Is it going to be that you pretend COVID just never happened? Or do you incorporate it, even if it's not just like a major part of your story, it's just an element of life that everyone is familiar with it. So it's not if you just mentioned all they get someone gets sick during COVID, a couple years ago, you just off handed say it and there's no explanation because everyone in the world is going to know what that is. So it's either, you know, in I'm of the mind where, when we're out of this, I want to be out like I don't I don't want to look back on this and try to make it I certainly don't want to make it part of other people or right now. It's you see people trying to make pandemic movies and everything else. And I'm like, I want no part of that. I want no part of that at all. And that's fine. I'm not judging them for maybe wanting to I'm just saying for myself. Yeah, I'm hopefully looking to the future here and want to get past this and move on.   Stacey Simms  18:51 I'm with you. I think we'll know for sure if like a rom com next Christmas makes money and they're able to do like a meet cute with COVID. emasculate that takes off, then we'll know but I don't think it's going to.   Chris Sparling  19:03 Yeah, and I know like I my wife watches this is awesome. You know, I I saw a couple times where they're wearing masks on the show sort of there now, and that's fine. I mean, I'm not judging it. I'm just saying for myself,   Stacey Simms  19:15 I would but I'm with you. I want to be entertained right now. I'm not maybe as we get past it, we can reflect for but I could be meant, you know, it'll be interesting to see because there are different opinions about it for sure. Looking back to Greenland, I wanted to ask you, why did you give diabetes to the kid in the movie, and not the wife character? Was there? Was there a thought process there?   Chris Sparling  19:38 It's tough to say I mean, don't really recall. I mean, probably wrote this movie by now maybe four years ago, years ago. I don't know. If I decided at this moment. I'm going to make a movie and give a character in a family that type of diabetes would I make? I don't know. I mean, maybe, maybe again, just kind of speaking to this. Again, I'm hesitancy an opportunity to make some seemed like I was on a crusade and it wasn't I'm not on it at all. But like, I think there are a lot of people I'm gonna be frank, I don't think a lot of people know that kids can get diabetes. I just don't think that they, I think a lot of people, I think when they just hear the term diabetes, I think they mean type, they just assume it means type two, they don't even think that there is a type one or type two, they just think there was diabetes, and to maybe see a child, the 78 year old child with diabetes, maybe that kind of will at least, I don't know, in a waste stop some, someone long enough to say, Well, wait a minute, I never knew that. Little kids can have diabetes. For example,   Stacey Simms  20:35 I mentioned in the intro this interview that, you know, I kind of knew of you knew you a little bit from Kerry's blog, my son said he was 14 years ago. So she'd been writing the blog for a while when he was diagnosed and was one of the first things I found and like many people, because very, very popular blog, you know, I read everything she wrote, I feel like I knew so much about Kerri. And it was a huge help to me, even though I have a son. And it was something my spouse who has type one, what was that like for you? Was that like a different world kind of like, okay, Kerry's writing her blog, but you were mentioned it we knew about your family we do about things that are going on? I'm curious what your perspective on six and told me is,   Chris Sparling  21:11 I mean, I've always tried to be as supportive as I could with everything that she's doing in the community and elsewhere and on the blog. Yeah, that was no different. I think it speaks more to just how the internet itself has changed. Overall, we're, I mean, she started blogging when people didn't even, like, I want to say she was one of maybe two or three bloggers who were blogging about diabetes at the time. And this was, you know, that's at a time when the internet, like blogs were pretty new, and people weren't generally sharing, they weren't comfortable sharing personal information online, so much. And nowadays, that's all the internet is. And so like, so it's kind of a different space. And it was, it was a much more. You know, it wasn't it wasn't the juggernaut it is now I don't mean her blog, I mean, just like any kind of blog, or social media account, or anything else like that. So her writing personal details about, say, our relationship, and then our, you know, our marriage, and then our then our daughter at first, it just seemed we were okay with it for a while. And then just again, speaking for us, this is no comment on anyone else who might be doing this now, currently, but it's just for us, we just kind of decided that, you know, just wanted to be a little more closed off with the personal stuff in that way. So that's why if you go back, I'm sure in her blog, maybe when you started. I mean, there was a I remember a lot of stuff we she would talk about the stuff she and I were doing is kind of like a young couple going into New York City and hanging out. And, you know, so because it was kind of it was just kind of fun, and had almost like, you know, almost had like an early Facebook field where you just felt like, Hey, I'm writing this to my friends and family. Right? You know, as opposed to, you know, you write this stuff, and then all of a sudden, it's just, it's fodder for anyone to comment on or anything, I don't know. And it just became, I don't know, if it's a conscious decision or not, it just became more of like a Yeah, just to kind of pull back a little bit in that way on her on her blog and stuff.   Stacey Simms  22:57 Yeah, for me, it was almost like a teachable thing in terms of not just diabetes and learning about what an adult perspective was, but really did help me a lot gain perspective. And even when my son was two, it was also a really good kind of template almost in terms of sharing, because it did educate a lot of us along the way. Because that was before Facebook and social media. Really, I know, you're probably not gonna think about Facebook in college, and that was it. But I mean, for you know, in 2006 when I think she started as a five there was no social media really so right. It was a really good lesson in protecting your privacy, especially as it went on. But you know, it's it's a different world. People can't share enough some people. So isn't Greenland has been released, I believe in Europe and some other parts of the world because that's, I've seen it in some of the parenting Facebook groups. People have been chit chatting over it. Yeah. I asked if anybody had any questions for you. And most people just said, I loved it. But it scared me or like, Oh, my gosh, I didn't want to think about those kinds of things. But I did get a great comment from Sarah, who said, Stacy, can you tell Chris how much my nine year old son and I appreciate it? how accurate it was? Yeah, she has a question for you. She wants to know how difficult it was for you emotionally, to write something like this with so much personal experience from this disease that you've said it's been about four years, or maybe more since you actually wrote the script. But seeing as this really is something scary in terms of end of the world, and like a lot of parents I have like, Oh my gosh, if he's stranded or you know, it's even just like, it could be forgetting his diabetes back at the movies. It doesn't have to be a comet hitting the earth or plane crashes. Terrible. Yeah, we're all scared. Did you get emotional kind of writing this and thinking about carry? Yeah,   Chris Sparling  24:38 I mean, it's emotional. Now even watching again. For that reason. I think it's it. There's another and this is kind of what I was driving at with incorporating diabetes, where again, I didn't want it to seem like just some plot device. Like you said, it doesn't have to be a comet hitting the earth. It doesn't have to be a pandemic that we're all dealing with. But those things there's no Another whole layer for people living with diabetes or any chronic condition for that matter, any medical condition for that matter, it's it there is an another ongoing in a way unrelenting element to your life into the life of the people who care about you. You know, and that's, I think what I wanted to really portray is that it's like, again, even though these people are selected, and that's, you know, not giving away much they are among the very, very few people selected to go to these bunkers in Greenland. You know, someone made the joke recently, it's like, you know, Gerard Butler has saved the president so many times, it's only it's only fair that he's selected. But anyway, so they were and it's like, okay, that's, that's great. But like, that doesn't nothing changes it for at least as of current standards of medicine, nothing changes, the fact that this kid still needs his insulin, and it was emotional in that way. Because we've been there, you know, we've been in those instances, and I'm sure so many people listening have where sometimes stuff can get scary. You know, I talked about the subtlety of it before. And sometimes things can go from subtle or zero to 60 pretty fast. And that by itself, those moments are emotional when they're happening. And so to kind of to try to incorporate them into even something fake. I mean, you try your best to just make it feel real and realistic and kind of pour yourself into it as much as you can. So yeah, it's, it was a you know, so yes, sir.   Stacey Simms  26:19 I promise I will not get too nosy. And ask you lots of personal questions about Kerri. But I am curious, I don't talk to a lot of partners, spouses of partners and spouses of people with type 1 diabetes. And that's a different experience than being a parent or being a person with type one. I'm not gonna ask you to make a grand statement, you know, what have you learned? or What advice do you have? But I am curious, when you met Kerri. And this is a long time ago, as you said, I'm, I don't know if you can remember. What did you think about diabetes at the time? Were you really worried about dating and then getting very serious with someone who had something like this? Do you remember?   Chris Sparling  26:55 Yeah, I do. I had a very limited, very limited exposure to type one, only because a good buddy of mine, he had been for a little while dating a girl with type one, prior to me meeting Kerri. And the standout thing was that she was low one time, and she threw a pumpkin at him. So like, that was my introduction to type 1 diabetes, that sometimes when you're low, like you can kind of like your behavior can be you know, not like, I don't know, something you come out of here, we'd like you to depending and, and she just happened to get like, very aggressive for some reason that that is, and I was like, Wow, so that was a completely rough and probably ill informed introduction to diabetes. And then I met Kerri. And, you know, thankfully, she never threw a pumpkin at me. But But yeah, I mean, it's so I learned it a lot from just being with her and being around her and see how she manages the disease. But I mean, this, the thing is that I met her God, I mean, she must have had it for about 18 years, 15 years, some anywhere from 15 to 1819, whatever it was, before I met her, so she was very accustomed, you know, to dealing with this as an adult, because naturally got as a child, and then I should say, naturally, she got it as a child. So naturally, her mom and her dad, were helping her as a child, but then she, I met her as an adult. So she has several years of managing this disease on her own. And so it was kind of like I had to, you know, again, this is just specific to my relationship with Gary, I'm not trying to map this onto how other people do their thing. But like, I learned the boundaries in a way of like, what is the best way for me to be helpful in these situations. And even something simple, like I learned very early into this day, know that if carry is low, you have an instinct, when someone's not feeling well, for any reason. You're like, Oh, just sit down, sit out, you know, if you're feeling if you're feeling dizzy, whatever, she's the opposite. And then this is just her. She's the opposite. She doesn't want to she doesn't want to sit down. Because sitting down in a way, mentally allows it to settle in more for her. She, you know, she can't fully explain what she's saying. She's, like, I can't resist it, if I'm accepting it. And that, you know, again, it's not some woowoo thing. It just for her. That's it. So, like little things like that. Over the years, I've kind of and then bigger things over the years that I've come to say, all right, well, this is my role in this, I guess.   Stacey Simms  29:07 Getting back to screenwriting for just a moment. You know, there's a lot of I think a lot of people think that any job in the movies is super glamorous. And it's not as difficult as it is screenwriting has to be so difficult to me to think about. Because you're you're pretty much by yourself writing. But I'm curious. Do you have any advice? I mean, for anybody listening who would love to do what you were doing?   Chris Sparling  29:29 Yeah. Um, read screenplays. It's the best education you could possibly get. I mean, there are entire screenwriting programs. You could go spend a couple $100,000 on right now. And I'm not taking away the value of that but at the same time, I would put it right up there with just reading the screenplay a week.   Stacey Simms  29:46 How do you get a screenplay? Pardon my ignorance?   Chris Sparling  29:48 No, it's fine. I mean, just go online. Just Just go to Google and type movie screenplays and I'm sure like the vast majority of movies you've seen in like are you can read screenplays for   Stacey Simms  29:58 Is it still fun for you?   Chris Sparling  30:01 Yes, I this, I've been doing this for, like professionally for over 10 years now it's been my, my job. You know, just like anything else, things start to get a little old. I think for the next 10 years, I think I look forward more to writing and directing more as opposed to just writing. You know, I've directed a couple movies so far, but I want to do more of that I think in the next 10 years will say, yeah, I mean, I still love it. I love what I do. I feel very fortunate that I, you know, I tried for a very long time to break into this industry. And so like, I never lose sight of that. Yeah, I mean, there's certainly days that you just, it's just not happening. You're just trying and you're like, wow, I'm really awful at this. And so no, and, and other days, you're kind of like, Yeah, maybe. I think it's interesting, during, in the COVID of it all, like I've been, I remember, especially, you know, early early on in it, where everyone was on lockdown, and everyone's like, Oh, you must be getting so much done, you must be in so much writing done having all this time. And I was like, I can nothing done. I'm like, I can't get my head in the game at all. And that went on for a while, like creatively, I just couldn't get there. I guess, understandably, given the circumstance. But over time I was. It's gotten easier. I think more than anything. Now. It's just a time thing i'm sure Kerri would agree with this is that because of how we're doing things with, you know, with with us and our kids being you know, home from school, and that's just how we're doing it. It's just, there's a lot of us being here and having to having to kind of shuffle responsibilities back and forth. And so, you know, the amount of time I actually have, and that she has to take it worked on is that's pretty valuable commodity these days.   Stacey Simms  31:36 Yeah, no doubt. So before I let you go, is there anything that you can share with us that you're working on now, in terms of writing or things that haven't started yet?   Unknown Speaker  31:45 Yeah.   Chris Sparling  31:49 You can tell I, you know, I have a long gestating project. Basically, it's an adaptation of Stephen King's the talisman. I don't know if that one's ever going to happen, quite honestly. It's just I mean, it's something that it's it's Steven, not the name drop, but it's a Steven Spielberg project that he has been trying to do for like 35 years, there have been like, I don't know how many iterations of it that just just kind of come together, then he changes his mind or it doesn't happen. And then he moves on and then tries again, and like 510 years later, so who knows if that this one will follow that same trajectory. But that's one that I've been working on for a while, and then and a couple other projects. And then I'm just I just started a new script of my own. So in other words, not like a writing a script or adapting a script for somebody else. Right. You know, it's one that I'm hoping is going to be my next directing project. So,   Stacey Simms  32:34 so yeah. Okay, so we will look for greenlit, I will put all the information in the show notes where people can find it. Anything that we should look for that might be like a diabetes community, in thing I mean, now I have to look for the juice in the grocery store.   Chris Sparling  32:47 Yeah, there's that scene. I mean, there's the pump scene. You know, there's the scene where, um, there's a lot of them. It's not like it doesn't it's not like some small facet of the movie. I mean, it's so   Stacey Simms  32:56 cool. The mom isn't trying to read six until me like the panel there's no like   Chris Sparling  33:01 easter egg thrown in. Right? Um, you know, it's interesting though, because the the LED with this there's Kari asked me this question when choosing interpretive me which again, which is kind of bizarre. She was like, Why? Why does she's even curious. In the movie, the boys wearing an old like Medtronic pump in? She's like, why that old pump? Why not like a more modern pump even more modern Medtronic, but I don't know, I mean, quite honestly, I mean, it's probably the props department that chose that one. And the director approved it. And then they're also clearance issues where you can't just use a product, right? You'd have to get approval from the company. And so I could find out, I'm sure, but still, what I do wonder, and I might have done the same thing had I directed movie is that old model is older model PUMPS LOOK more medical, they look like medical devices where a lot of the more you know, more modern pumps will say they look sleek, they look like cell phones, they look like you know, and so I think for an audience, if the if part of the effort here is to kind of maybe shine a light on this on this condition, this disease, you certainly don't want them to be confused, where they see something like well, what is that? I don't know, it's a phone or what is that? That and, and I think, you know, that's, I don't know what that is. I don't know if that's a fun fact, I don't know how you classify.   Stacey Simms  34:15 Now, that's exactly what I meant that sorry. When because when we look at the screen now we're all gonna be thinking like, wait a minute, because I know my audience, they're gonna pause it, they're gonna look at it, they're gonna zoom in if they can, and you know what pump is that? And that's, that's a really good reason why?   Chris Sparling  34:30 I don't think it's a fun fact, because I don't know if that's the right way. Right? It's like a fun speculation. There you go.   Stacey Simms  34:37 You know, we're bonkers that way we'd like to know. So we'll see what happens. Chris, thank you so much for joining me and you know, for for speculating and for sharing so much of your time. I really appreciate it. Oh, thank you.   Unknown Speaker  34:54 You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.   Stacey Simms  35:00 For more information about the movie, the trailer where you can watch it, all of that at the episode homepage at Diabetes connections.com, wherever you are listening, if you're listening on a podcast app, you can always come back to the homepage and find out all of the info. Not every app has a great way to see the show notes. You know, we're on Pandora and Spotify and apple and everyone's just slightly different. So I like to keep it at home base. We also have transcriptions for every episode this year. And we're starting to go back and add them for every episode. So I'm very excited about that. I will also link up the carry and Chris interview that he mentioned, because Kerri scooped me she got the interview first. It was really fun. I interviewed my husband before for this show, and it's a little bit of a weird feeling. But it was a lot of fun to watch them and I recommend that especially if you're a big fan like I am of six until me and of Kerri. Up next we're going to talk about this new at home test kit from jdrf. First Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Jeevan hypo pin, almost everyone who takes insulin has experienced a low blood sugar and that can be scary. A very low blood sugar is really scary. And that's where evoko pen comes in. It's the first auto injector to treat very low blood sugar gvl caple pen is pre mixed and ready to go with no visible needle. That means it's easy to use in usability studies. 99% of people were able to give g vo correctly. I'm so glad to have something new, find out more go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the G Volk logo g book shouldn't be used in patients with pheochromocytoma or insulinoma. Visit chivo glucagon.com slash risk.   In innovations this week, where we talk about the latest and greatest in the technology sectors and new stuff in our community, I want to tell you about jdrf new T one detect this just came out last week as you're listening to this episode, if you're listening to it when it first airs, and T one detect is jdrf snoo screening education and awareness program. So basically, it's screening you for type 1 diabetes auto antibodies, I'm going to read a little bit from the jdrf website. They say until now t Wendy symptoms and a diagnosis often come out of the blue. Today, families can use testing to detect t Wendy early so they can plan and prepare with one blood test anyone at any age can find out before symptoms even occur. If they are at risk for developing to end, the test is easy, simple and can help save lives. So this sounds great. This sounds a lot like trial net, who we've talked to before, my understanding is that it's different. It's not quite the extensive test. And by that I mean, it looks like a different test, it's a finger prick, and you send the blood samples back to the lab. And then you get your results back. And they say you get next steps as to what they mean and what to do. So I'm hoping that that also means counseling of I haven't seen anything about that yet. Because, you know, that's the only that's one thing about doing these tests, any health tests by mail, right, you want to get the results. And then you want to have somebody sitting next to you telling you what you do with those results. So you're not feeling alone. You know what, if you have these antibodies, you don't know what they mean, you know what I mean? When you click through the website, it actually takes you to enable bio sciences, T one D auto antibody testing, and that's from whom you actually order the kit, you make an account with the company, you can check through your options on privacy, you can decide if you want to make your results available to jdrf. You can say Do I want bio sciences to have my personal health information, there's a lot you can do here. The tests are not free is my understanding. But I didn't see anything about cost anywhere on the website. However, I didn't get far enough through it to actually order the tests. And what's interesting here is that T one detect will be available to people whether or not they have a family member who has type one diabetes, and that's different from most of the other screenings, including trial net. So a lot of questions here. I have reached out to jdrf they have said that they're you know more than willing to come on. So now it's just a question of scheduling. So I'll be putting in the Facebook group Diabetes Connections of the group when we are ready to go with that, and I will certainly solicit your questions and we will get them answered. My biggest question is, why make this separate? jdrf I believe already helps fund trialnet. So why now fund something different when trauma needs money? So I'm going to find out I'm sure we'll learn much more. I am definitely in favor of more research and more testing because boy, if we could test everybody for type one, we could learn so much more about possible prevention and treatment and all that good stuff. So don't misunderstand my questions here for doubter cynicism. I'm just really curious about this new program and of course, we will find out more programming note for the rest of the year. I'll be honest, I'm not really sure we have about two weeks left to go for 2020 and I do have the shows planned out. We're going to do wait wait, don't poke me the Game Show that I aired at friends for life. If you didn't go to that winter conference, you'll be able to hear the show and you'll actually be able to watch it, I'll put it on YouTube the same time the podcast goes live. That's always a lot of fun. And then I have another panel that we taped earlier this year about the type one and type two community with some familiar faces to many of you. And that will be the last episode of 2020. However, as I've said before, there's always some interesting stuff at the end of the year. And if we're able to jump in with some more breaking news, or something really interesting, comes up, you know, it's not like I'm traveling This year, we're all sitting around on zoom. So we will bring you you know, any breaking news that happens in our community, and I basically just reserve the right to throw a new show in here or there. But we are almost done. Holy cow this year, and not much for reflection. I'm not quite sure that I'll do a lot on 2020 I think I need to get a little further away from it and further toward Good Stuff and Being with you all the view more in person before I can really properly reflect but I gotta tell you, I am glad to see 2021 on the horizon. thank you as always to my editor jump you can. It's from audio editing solutions. And thank you so much for listening. I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here next week. Until then, be kind to yourself.   Benny  41:18 Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Simms Media. All rights reserved. All rounds avenged   Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The tables are turned this week as Stacey gets on the other side of the microphone. Kerri Sparling, writer of the long-running and popular blog SixUntilMe and now Children with Diabetes board member, interviews Stacey about her experience raising a child with type 1, what led her to claim "The World's Worst" title and much more. This is part of Children With Diabetes Celebrating Storyteller series. "There are some amazing storytellers in the diabetes community, and many of those folks have spent years honing their craft through blogs, books, and videos. Their stories of life with diabetes bring our community closer. Sharing stories helps make the journey with diabetes less isolated and instead paved with hope and camaraderie. (text from the CWD website) Stacey was excited to be selected to be part of this storyteller series, and even happier to be interviewed by Kerri. You can watch the video here, read the transcript below or, of course, listen to the audio on this episode. Check out Stacey's new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom! you can win a copy from CWD - must enter by March 20th. ----- Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group! ----- Sign up for our newsletter here ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners! ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android   Episode Transcript: This episode of diabetes Connections is brought to you by the world's worst diabetes mom real life stories of parenting a child with Type One Diabetes available as a paperback ebook and audiobook at Amazon and at diabetes connections.com. This is diabetes connections with Stacey Simms. Welcome to another week of the show. I am so glad to have you along. As always, I'm your host Stacey Sims. This is a little bit of a different week around here because we released our regular Tuesday interview episode early. If you haven't listened to that yet, it was all about the corona virus and basic information that people with diabetes need to know. Thanks very much to Gary Scheiner CDE and the director, founder of integrated diabetes services. He is always a very calm and informative presidents. He also has a great sense of humor, but I wanted to get that show out. pretty quickly, because you know, of course, as the situation is changing, podcasting is tough to get breaking news out. But we wanted to make sure to get basic information from a good source out to the diabetes community, because I've been seeing and I'm sure it's only gotten worse, a lot of rumors and the beginnings of some panic. So I hope you listened to Gary or read the interview as well, because I put it out as a blog post with just that interview, as well as a transcript with the entire episode. And I hope you've been able to share that a lot of people picked up on it and I really hope it's helped give you some good information. We'll do more as the situation changes if we need to get more information out there. And then this week is a little different because I usually do a mini episode here, where I'm just talking about one topic kind of an editorial, but I'm going to be bringing you an interview that Carrie Sperling did with me now carry most of you know, wrote the long running blog six until me she retired that last year. She's doing a lot of great work with children with diabetes. This is the group that among many other things, puts on those great friends for life conferences, the big one in July every year, smaller regional conferences throughout the year. And they do a lot of really good work in terms of information, and community outreach. So Carrie is doing some of these interviews and I was so excited to be able to talk to her. You may have seen it, they put it out as a YouTube video and I will link that right up. You want to stop right here and go to the video instead of listening. It's the exact same interview except to get to see us and it made me realize I need to work on the lighting in my office. But the information I hope is good. We talked about what led me to write the world's worst diabetes mom a lot about you know, parenting Benny, my son diagnosed right before he turned to 13 plus years ago now, privacy issues Carrie has shared this in her own life. You know, how much do you share online? How much do you not? How do you decide that? And it was really a fun conversation. It's always a A little weird to be on the other side of the microphone.   Unknown Speaker  3:02 It's not   Stacey Simms  3:02 my comfort zone. But here we go. Anyway, here is the interview that Carrie Sparling did with me.   Kerri Sparling  3:09 I am here today to talk to Stacey Simms   Stacey Simms  3:12 about this, oh my goodness,   Kerri Sparling  3:14 I had to climb on my bookshelf to get it down because I accidentally put it on the shelf that I couldn't reach without a stool. So thank you for giving me morning exercise for that. I appreciate it. But um, I Okay, let me make this more formal. I am very appreciative that you've taken the time to talk to me, and then we're going to broadcast this to the children with diabetes community and then share it through our different channels. So thank you for making yourself available. I know this has been chaotic, getting them on the line.   Stacey Simms  3:38 This is what I get out of TV, when really we just need to stick to radio, but I really appreciate it Carrie. Thank you.   Kerri Sparling  3:43 My pleasure. And so I want to jump right in because I've already kept so much of your morning already. So just if you could for a minute just introduce yourself to the community that may not know you already so they can get a sense of who you are, and then we'll get into the book.   Stacey Simms  3:54 Oh, sure. So my name is Stacy. My son Ben. He was diagnosed more than 13 years ago, which is bananas, time just flies, but he was not yet two years old. He was diagnosed with type one when he was 23 months. I have an older daughter Her name is Leah. She is three years older than him over there four years apart in school and I say that cuz she's a freshman in college now and he's a freshman in high school. I started a blog about a month after Ben he was diagnosed at the time I was working as a morning radio show host I had been a TV anchor and reporter that's the I hate pictures. Because it's all the makeup and the hair and the you know, I'm looking at myself like my headphones are so big on this is not good. I distract myself. Um, but then I started the blog and then four years ago, I started a podcast and then last year I wrote the   Kerri Sparling  4:39 book. That's that is awesome. And so so you've been sharing a lot of your family's experience and your personal experience with centered around diabetes, but going right into Stacey Simms, the world's worst diabetes mom. So this title obviously feels a little tongue in cheek because you are clearly very involved, clearly clever and also on top of things that are going on in your kids. In your family's health, so why did you call it this?   Stacey Simms  5:03 The book title came about because I had actually been working on a parenting advice book about raising a child with type one for a couple of years. And it was really boring. And it was really like had been done before. There are so many great books, especially, you know, from a layperson perspective, there are so many great books by medical professionals that can really tell you how to better manage, and I didn't want to just say, here's our story, and here's what I think. And I was writing that book, but I wasn't, I wasn't jazzed by it. It was kind of just writing, you know, old blogs and my publisher and said, Oh, put your old blogs together. We'll just put those out. You know, that just didn't sound right. To me. No friends really resonates like old blogs like it. So I was in a Facebook group, having a discussion like I still do, I foolishly still go into Facebook groups because I want to help people and I get help to still and we had a disagreement and it got heated. I really I felt strongly that this was an okay way to manage and the person was so mean and said, you're gonna you're gonna kill your child you're you're terrible parent, you know really went there. And I just said, Well, I must be the world's worst diabetes Mom, you and I slammed the computer shut and I walked away and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is it not not even think about the book but this is who I am I want to talk about making mistakes. I want to talk about living with less fear. I want to talk about not always being a slave to your beats. Are you okay? Do you need a juice box?   Unknown Speaker  6:33 Sorry, and beeping, then one of those days, but everything is fine. Thank you for asking.   Stacey Simms  6:36 But I just wanted to, I realized in that moment that I did have something to say. And it wasn't just about the old blogs. And I went back I screenshot of the conversation because I thought well, maybe this guy is bananas. It's gonna come after me. But I also deleted it. Because we didn't need my anger out there either. It wasn't just Hey, I was ugly too. So I got past that and I thought let's talk about all the mistakes I've made because we Made a ton of mistakes. And it's not a question about being a bad parent or a good parent, sure, you're gonna make mistakes with your kids, whether they have diabetes or not. And let's use those examples of mistakes to talk about resiliency and confidence and, and I think my son is better off for all the mistakes I made.   Kerri Sparling  7:16 I hope that applies to parenting outside of the realm of diabetes, because I'm not a perfect mom myself. And so it's reassuring to hear that stumbling leads to success, even if it's a modified version of the success you thought you were going towards. So I really appreciate that. And I also like the fact that it's not like here's how to be perfect by Stacey Simms, because that really puts people on their heels like you can't take advice from someone that you have on a pedestal it's always a lot easier to have a peer to peer conversation and that's why I feel like your book reads through it very a resonated for me and I'm an adult the diabetes not raising a child with diabetes but reading your perspectives gave me a lot of insight on maybe conversations that my mom and I never had or my email just think the cross Can you see that when it comes across You know, you're supporting the note cuz he's just some weird emails. But I just have a couple notes. I just wanted to look through this. But when I was reading through the book, there's the story of the first night that you guys are home with, with Benny. And, and it hit me really hard because I was thinking about my own two kids. And like I said, they don't have diabetes, but I was putting myself in your position. And it's so easy to be the person with diabetes from my perspective, but it is very, very different to be the person who carries just as much, but it's like 10,000 feet away for so much of the experience. And so do you think that it's important to have those stories shared like stories like yours and stories from adults with type one, so that we can kind of create a, an amalgam story sort of thing, like, why is that important?   Stacey Simms  8:37 I think it's a great question, because it's it's so important to recognize that the two experiences run in tandem, but they are so separate, as well. Right? We're never really going to separate them. We can't pretend they're the same. So a person with diabetes is having one experience a parent of a child with diabetes is having a totally different experience, obviously tied to By diabetes, and I, you've already said, Oh, I think it's you know, it's worse to be the parent, you've implied that by something you said, which is fine. I mean, I almost every adult with type one I know, says all my mom, it was so much harder on her.   Kerri Sparling  9:10 We're not saying it to make you feel better. We're saying, we believe that fun. Yeah,   Stacey Simms  9:14 I understand. But I disagree, because I'm not beeping, and I can walk away from it. But at the same time, it's not a question of comparing, right. And I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I'm not saying that you're doing that. But I think it's really important that we see these experiences as equally important, but very different, but then tied together. So telling all of these stories. I'm hopeful that Benny, when he gets a little older, we'll look back and read it. And he knows what he knows the stories we actually shared that ahead of time. We talked about what I could put in the book, but I'm hoping that he'll see it and kind of think, Oh, well, that was not my experience, but I'm glad to know it.   Kerri Sparling  9:50 Well, of course and you were saying it's not it's it's not about comparing them. I think it's about making a cohesive story around them like my low felt like this, but it looked and felt to my mother like this and meshing those two stories together together gives us a broader experience touch point. And I think that's so important, especially for like a teenage kid who might pick up your book and read it. And when they're in that angsty, angry part of diabetes, and they might be so furious with their parents to get your perspective on that might help segue a good conversation with their own parents. That's why I don't think this book is just for parents of kids with diabetes at cross collateralize is the whole community you know? I don't know. I think that's accurate. I'm gonna toot your horn for you that way.   Stacey Simms  10:28 One thing I think it's really interesting to talk about is you mentioned like the not perfect parenting thing. And I think it's we're under pressure, regardless of diabetes is parents right? You can't win you really can't. But I also think it's funny when you look at a lot of parenting blogs and parenting writings. It's either I'm a perfect parent and you should aspire to look like this. It's perfect Instagram photos or whatever, you know, look like us do like us eat like us. Or you have the oh I don't know what I'm doing.   Unknown Speaker  10:54 I'm so crazy on motherhood is that you know, I'm a man I look at my and I really that doesn't speak to Neither,   Kerri Sparling  11:00 right we are middle lane.   Stacey Simms  11:02 We are smart, we are strong. We are sometimes a mess. We are sometimes perfect. And I really I'm not. I know that sound like I was making fun. You know what I mean? If these archetypes, especially women we get put into, right. I'm a hard driving success story or I'm so clumsy. I fell into my man, you know, I mean, I hate that. So I tried to really in this book, kind of encapsulate, you know who I am, but who I think a lot of other moms are too, right. competent, confident,   Kerri Sparling  11:29 but not having it all together. Now might be an important part to bring up the fact that I'm wearing normal clothes from the waist up, but sweat tears from the waist down. So like I think that sort of is the it's the template for that. They need you there we go. Wait, you you would actually skipped ahead to something I wanted to ask you about. Sorry. Should No no, that's fine. This is good, though. When you're using the questions, I know and I don't normally write my stuff down. But I'm organized today. Um, but yeah, we talked about when you first started sharing your stories, and Benny was home that first night That sort of stuff. And you used to write about Benny's personal experiences and yours. And as he's gotten older, and his experiences become more his, you've said that you've stepped away a little bit from telling his stories and have embraced. I can't describe it for you. But like, what, what's it like to decide to share x in the beginning, and what makes you transition to the y?   Stacey Simms  12:19 I think it's such an important conversation. It was interesting in the beginning, and I do wish that I'd given my kids just a little bit more privacy by changing their names, or giving them nicknames. The problem for me was I was already on the radio. And we had a show where it was mostly political news. But we did talk about our personal lives a little bit. So my listeners knew when I started at that station, I had a one year old daughter. And then when I was working at that station, I was pregnant and then I had a baby and here's Benny in the hospital, you know, it was a different experience than just blogging. So it didn't really occur to me at the time and social media. Certainly what it is now isn't wasn't then what it is now. It was a different experience. But when you have a toddler, you have a baby, I mean, even going back, I was Careful at the time not to overshare I but as he got older you realize, you know people are reading this people are looking at this. There were there were only some experiences that I felt comfortable sharing and it wasn't just the good stuff, right? We shared things that things went wrong. I thought that was important. But I'm I'm on the record. I sound like a broken record. You know, I don't share my Sunday one. See, I don't have that. I don't like you know, do not share photos of your child in distress. You know, no hospital pictures. I wish I had pictures of him in the hospital and he was diagnosed for me. Sure. But you know, we didn't have our phones with us. 24 seven at that point, especially didn't have cameras on them, which sounds so ancient.   Kerri Sparling  13:43 I mean, this is what it is right? Like when I was diagnosed with diabetes, I had to pee in a bucket to test it. So like things had to not a bucket. I mean, let's be realistic about this. But you know, things have progressed and with it the the conversation about what to share and not to share and so, I mean, you talked already about not sharing his anyone see? And I think personally, I am on the same page with you about that no one needs my personal data points because their mind in their personal, but that there's a broad spectrum of decision making processes around that sort of stuff. So what made you decide not to do that?   Stacey Simms  14:14 Well, I think I'll just put a caveat in there, I think, to not mindlessly share, right? Sometimes it makes sense if you're trying to talk through something or get advice or share a situation or, or say, hey, look at this difficult situation we worked through and now we're celebrating I mean, just mindlessly is the word I tried to use about it. But what changed was when he was about seven, I think I read something by Moore McCarthy, who is a mentor of mine, and she's longtime blogger, author, I mean, yeah, faculty, you know, I probably saw her speak there and got this information, but she really encouraged me and others to think about it. And once I stopped to think about it, I realized there's no reason for my seven year olds health information to be on the internet. I'm not posting my weight and my cholesterol. And you know, my blood pressure. It's the same thing. We don't see it that way, right? But it really is. And that once I thought about it, it changed everything for me and I started sharing more, you know, great endo visit no changes, everything's on track or great endo visit. We had a whole conversation about changes we have to make sure sometimes like bad, you know, bad can be good when you get the information. Yeah, I love the finger quotes.   Kerri Sparling  15:27 But I feel like that's an important part of it too, because it's not truly bad or truly good. There's a right   Stacey Simms  15:32 dial up stations get better when you get away from the numbers. I agree. You know, you can you can have more in depth about how you're feeling and what advice you're looking for. And that sort of thing. So I've shared with friends when I've said old I'm upset about this, or can you help me with that? That's different.   Kerri Sparling  15:46 Yeah, no, of course because that's your actual personal life but broadcasting it to the broader internet as a different person retired. As a kid who grew up with Type One Diabetes, that's my perspective. And yours is parenting a kid who's growing up with Type One Diabetes. How How do you feel about I mean, you see a lot of memes from parents about parenting in general where they have like the curlers, half in their hair, and the bathrobe and the coffee cup dangling off of one arm, and they're like, parenting is so exhausting. And that feels universally haha. But when I see that same sort of meme applied to diabetes, like, this is what a parent of a kid with diabetes looks like. And they just look bedraggled and rotten and exhausted and as an adult with type one that applies a guilt to my experience that I didn't see coming. And so I'm just curious what you think about things that paint diabetes in a light that maybe they don't realize is shining directly on their kid. When parents tell those sorts of stories? Yeah, it is a great question because the reality is, maybe you didn't sleep that great last night, right? Maybe you were up three times treating a low. But are you talking about me because that was my nightlight?   Stacey Simms  16:49 Well, I do have Do you have a baby can still because there was a signal in my house. No, I   Unknown Speaker  16:52 do.   Stacey Simms  16:55 It No, I'm talking about the parent, right. So if a parent has to do that, and then wants to go on from But the next day and start talking about how hard it was. I can understand that. But I do think and my favorite meme about this and I don't think it started as a diabetes parenting meme. I think it's just a parenting meme. But it's like, you know, an 87 year old woman, and that it says like, well, parenting is hard. You know, my I'm celebrating my 23rd birthday tomorrow. Money. But I do think that you've hit it on the head, that's going to be my would share about diabetes. I think it's difficult to know where to draw that line. And we don't, we don't think because what we're doing not to get all psychological. But in doing some research for a recent podcast I was doing I found a great article about this and I can send you the link but when we're sharing things like that we're looking for likes, right because our brain As humans, we need support. We're looking for community. We actually like to get the good Brain Stuff going the dopamine or whatever, when you get the right weights real and physical and social hosting, something like that, you know, is going to bring in more of that. And it's not made up. It's not fake. Oh, yeah.   Kerri Sparling  18:09 Feeling it all   Stacey Simms  18:10 really happens. But there are better ways of doing it. I think and as you were alluding to, if we, as parents of kids with type one, don't listen to adults with type one, we miss out on this kind of conversation, because no seven or eight year old is going to say, you know, it kind of hurt my feelings or I, I really processed some guilt when you posted that, right? They're not gonna say that they may not even realize it, but we need to be mindful of that kind of stuff. And I think it's fine to have fun and you know, maybe share that privately. But um, you know, I I'm really try hard not to make diabetes, the focus of everything and not show that guilt because that's just parenting anyway.   Unknown Speaker  18:48 Right? It's just an added thing.   Stacey Simms  18:50 It is just an added thing. It's like not to get too far off topic, but when people are freaking out about sending their kids to sleep overs, sure, right, because something might happen when I was in second grade Jennifer Look, it's like At my house, we had a babysitter. We didn't eat that my parents and she put her leg on my bed. It was the 70s. It was like some metal crazy trundle bed. She cut her leg bad enough that we had to go to the ER and get stitches.   Unknown Speaker  19:10 Oh, wow. How do you prepare for that? I don't think you do.   Stacey Simms  19:15 Things happen on sleep overs. emergencies happen. Parents who say I'm gonna have sleep over have to be prepared for weirdness. And to me diabetes falls under that category. But that's a decision you have to make. And I think it's the same thing with that kind of a mean, you kind of have to make the decision of, there's a difference between, everything's fine, everything's fine. Everything's fine, which I've been guilty of for a long time. It's fine. It's fine. I'm not gonna worry about it. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I don't need any help. I'm fine. And there's a difference between that and what was me everything's terrible. Like, like sucks and you know, oh, my God, diabetes is the worst. You gotta you gotta find that medium and you've got to, at least to your children, I think it's important to fake it, but be careful about stuff like I might.   Kerri Sparling  19:57 I like what you said earlier because I read a lot about my fulness and being mindful and making sure that you're mindful, but the fact that you've cited mindlessness as a potential alternative to that, like, don't be mindless, don't share mindlessly consider the you know, the course of your actions that you're taking and how it might influence your kid. That is a huge takeaway already. For me from this conversation. It doesn't apply just to parenting diabetes, I think it applies to the whole mess being Don't be mindless about the things that you're sharing. I think that's a really, really good tip.   Stacey Simms  20:26 It's funny because I stink at being mind. Right? You're like, Oh, no, take your time when you eat and drink your tea and fever and, you know, take them home. I really don't think I can do that. But I can take an extra 10 seconds and think do I want to post this photo?   Kerri Sparling  20:39 Of course, not. In a mindfulness exercise once I was asked to spend one minute eating one m&m, and it was really strange experience and I'm sure it was really effective, but for me, it made me feel very stressed out. We can get into that later, but because we've talked a lot about parenting, and I'm sorry to be going back to my notes here. You You talked about it experience where you and your family are you at least and Benny and Leah met Nick Jonas, and how this was truly more of a thing for Leah, your daughter than it was for your son who is the one who has diabetes. And there's something that you wrote that really stuck with me because I feel like parenting a kid with diabetes, that parent is acknowledged a lot, which is fantastic. The child with diabetes is acknowledged quite a bit because they become the focal point of that narrative. But the siblings of kids with diabetes end up on this weird purgatory peripheral area, and they're not often acknowledged. And you wrote that at the end of meeting with Nick Jonas, that you had said the diabetes was in our lives. But she Leah knew we wouldn't let it take over she knew she wasn't going to be left behind and reading that now gives me goosebumps for reading it then also did too because it acknowledges a group of people that need just as much support as I do as a kid, as you do as a parent. And when I think about children with diabetes in the organization, the programming really speaks to that as well. It's not just for parents, it's not just for adults with type one is for the siblings. It really embraces the whole family. So because your wrote that awesome line. Could you say a little bit more about supporting a sibling   Stacey Simms  22:04 and, and the children's diabetes? I mean that friends for life Leah has come. And Mr. Summer schedules are always crazy. So it's rare that either one of my kids can come and like I still go, but I had a I had a blast, and she didn't really think she would. She kind of came as a favor to me.   Kerri Sparling  22:21 But she was when she was I   Stacey Simms  22:23 think she was 14 or 13. She was a teen. So she was in the teen programming. And you know, Benny was still too young to be in that programming. So they were separate. Yep. And she knew she was gonna get to go to a Disney park, which was amazing, you know, when state of fancy hotel with me and it was great. And she I don't think I saw her much. You know, she thought, Well, I'm not gonna do this. You know, we'll see how it goes. And it was wonderful, but it's really hard. You know, that's one of the few programs that there is for siblings. When when he was diagnosed, we got this reminder really off the bat and it did help us set the tone he was in high But on the Saturday, and on Sunday, I had an event that I had planned. And I do talk about this in the book. But it was an ice skating event uptown. So uptown from my house is about 45 minutes. Okay. And I was the only link between these two groups. It was a group from near my house and a group from your my work. Well, the skating rink was my work. They sponsored the rink. I didn't. I was working at a radio station that sponsored the rig. And I knew that somebody could take care of it, but it was going to be difficult. And Leah reminded me like we're still gonna go ice skating, right. We're still gonna go ice skating because I live in the south. Ice skating is exotic. No, it really is. I grew up in New York. I'm like, oh, there's never been she likes frozen ice that you walk on. Amazing, right? Magic. So I said to my husband, I'm like, We're going he's like heck yeah, go take her and he stayed the hospital and that was the day after my not your two year old was diagnosed and I'm thinking is this the right decision? Is this this is a terrible This is the world's worst diabetes mom because here I am leaving the hospital. But as soon as I I got outside I knew was the right thing. And that was the day that we said we can't let this take over our lives. So you have to be careful. Like, I don't I don't I say this not to judge but just again with that mindlessness and that mindfulness or you know, if you signs in your house that are like in this house, we're blood sugar fighting, you know, ketone, chicken, whatever it is, look, the science we will have in their kitchen. Nobody, I mean, if they're all diabetes related, of course, yeah. You know, have to be kind of careful unless you also have ice skating, hockey playing, you know, unless you want to have a litany of everything your family does. You know, I'm mindful of like, how many t shirts do I actually wear that say diabetes stuff on them all the time. And making sure like, I have stuff from my daughter's programming, and frankly, from Benny's programming that's not diabetes related. It's that kind of little thing I think that siblings really pick up on, like, if you name your dog or your cat or your goldfish after diabetes stuff, you know, it's a family pad. I mean, if it's a diabetes alert doc that might be different. I just think these are things that as simple We kind of forget, you know, they're always they're always watching and they're tallying. And you have to be honest with them that diabetes gets more attention. But with Leah, just having the conversation over and over again really helped. I mean, when she was 15, she and I had a great conversation about it. She said, I was really upset about it. And now I get it. Oh, it was amazing. I mean, he probably is back to being upset about it now.   Kerri Sparling  25:22 But it was great. You guys can talk about it is really nice, because a lot of times that animosity isn't voiced, and nobody has areas to sort of air their concerns. And so it's good that you give her space and like we mentioned in friends for life, people have that space to get that stuff out there. Oh, yeah.   Stacey Simms  25:35 I'm the over communicating Mom, you're like enough.   Unknown Speaker  25:39 Talking to me.   Kerri Sparling  25:42 We've talked about community, we've talked about sharing, we've talked about Facebook and the pluses and minuses of that sort of stuff. And it and it led me to the story that you had written about Benny losing his insulin pump. And then after that, you would, which I think is an amazing discussion about the cost of supplies, and how even small Children are mindful of the cost of things. And we'll get back to that in a second. But after that story you had mentioned, places to find support for when you have gaps like that, or you have issues like that. And I would love some perspective from you on as a parent whittling down this massive diabetes online community that we have access to, to a manageable size that kind of caters to what people might be looking for, like, advice for someone who's just jumping in and saying, there's so much how do I find what's best suited for me?   Stacey Simms  26:26 Yeah, absolutely. I think the best thing to do is if you're already online where where do you like to be? Right? Do you like Twitter? Do you like Facebook? You like Instagram, Pinterest? You got to find your house, like where do you like to live? And then once you're there, find your people. And let's have a Facebook cuz that's probably the biggest for parents. I know Instagram is a lot bigger than the last couple of years. But Facebook groups are still really really active for parents. And my advice there is be careful again, not to turn your Facebook into diabetes book which is what happened to me. I am in I am in 50 Five Facebook groups about diabetes. Now granted, I joined Facebook in 2008. So I had around for a while.   Kerri Sparling  27:07 Well, I'm just it was the look on your face. It wasn't like I'm so proud to be in 55 horrified to be in 55 it was a real mashup of the both   Stacey Simms  27:15 emotions. And that's exactly how I feel. So, because I'm like, I want to be here. And I like the vibe of this group. I like the information in this group. And I like to put my podcast in this group. But what I did was I muted the majority of this groups and that has been phenomenal. If you're not familiar as you're watching or listening. It's very easy to do, you can just mute the group. I think you unfollow the group might be the technical term, but you don't leave the group. So that way, when you want to dip into those waters, it's up your time. And my Facebook feed went back to being my real life, which is my friends, the stuff does the dumb things. I follow in a little bit of diabetes, and then I can jump back in whenever I want to. And Facebook Of course will find you you know if there's something interesting, put it right in your face, on Twitter if you're there, which is Just a crazy place to be the best, just all the politics and mess but DSM a is still your diabetes, social media advocacy is still the best hashtag on Twitter. They still do the Wednesday night chats. Those are wonderful. Instagram I'm struggling with just a little bit only because I like the realness of the stories and things that people I know that out. But I've been trying to follow more people and I'm not knocking anybody, you're all wonderful and beautiful. But I have talked to two influencer type people and I complimented one of them. That was such a beautiful shot in your hair looks so good. And you know, she said, Stacy, I have a hair person and a photographer.   Unknown Speaker  28:40 Diabetes person. What   Stacey Simms  28:43 if I had if I had a hair person and photographer I could change the world. I do wear pants. I'd be wearing pants. I would have better headphones because wearing Benny's beats I thought these would be smaller. You have cute little earbuds I don't know I haven't no here but I studio cans that are like this big I thought would be even more Your cancer headphones in the biz. But I just, you know, I can't do the influencer thing. So you but you as you listen, you might love that that might be your thing, go for it. But I think you have to find where you live where you where you feel comfortable, where's your vibe, and then you'll find your people but don't let it get overwhelming. And if you find somebody that wants to call you the world's worth diabetes. You walk away walk away unless you have a book. But I mean, really, it's not worth the argument. If someone tells me I'm wrong, I'm not going to change their life probably. Maybe I can help. I've got a good discussion going in my local group right now about finding babysitters. There are people locally I run a face for parents in the Charlotte area. Okay, started a few years back and it's been amazing. And there's a discussion right now people like I will never be able to leave my children alone. Yes, you will. And here's how. And so we're trying to help each other kind of get past that right. So   Kerri Sparling  29:59 that's See, I feel like the internet is fantastic. And it's done such a great job of connecting people who don't live anywhere near one another. But when it comes right down to human connection that people really crave in those moments of need, that hyper local stuff is huge. You can recommend a babysitter to me, but they're of no use to me in Rhode Island. But for the people who live down the street from you, they can go and call that person and they can actually hire them out. And that's, that says a lot to about the diabetes community how willing people are to give those really harder and resources and to share it with their,   Stacey Simms  30:28 with their people. That's beautiful. It is absolutely amazing. And you think I mean, I know this is a CWT interview, but the first thing that comes to my mind is going to that conference or any of the conferences that they put on. I don't even worry about what I'm packing my pack everything Ben he needs but you know if he's anything, somebody's got it, and they'll have you a 2am you know, it's just an amazing community. And I don't know, I think especially locally, knowing that we might see each other at the grocery store. Like that Facebook group is probably one of the nicest groups. I'm in   Unknown Speaker  30:59 You'll have to own what they say, right? Because they may see you over avocados.   Stacey Simms  31:02 I know who you are, right?   Kerri Sparling  31:06 We've run through the questions that I had structured for the book and my preparation. But is there anything else that you feel like it would be really pertinent to share with the specifically the CW, the audience,   Stacey Simms  31:14 one of the things I've learned just doing the podcast and now on this book tour that I've been on this year, it's just fascinating as the technology gets better and better, and you know, Benny's on the newest software from tandem, and, you know, there's all sorts of great stuff coming out. It's interesting how the change from 13 years ago seems to be almost more fearful. And it's not that it's not so much that people are afraid to let their kids do things. It's that they're afraid to let their kids get out of range. I think I'm seeing that a little bit among adults as well. Now my adult view is skewed to a lot of the influencers and people that you know, sometimes I see in person, but there's this that's another thing with the the world's worst is, you know, talking about staying in range was never part of my repertoire was like go play football, and we'll figure out how to put diabetes in the picture. I'm learning that a lot of people have. We have amazing technology. It's changed so much just in the last few years. And we need to encourage each other to use that technology to live fuller lives, rather than use the technology to post graphs. And it's just remarkable to even say that to a parent who was diagnosed, compared who was diagnosed, I mean, I've gotta watch language. No, I   Kerri Sparling  32:23 will go back to that in a second. You're right. You are right. My mommy got me it was a wee thing. Just, it was a different version of wheat. So that's a very fair statement.   Stacey Simms  32:31 I think with a 15 year old to I'm really trying to change my language over it's hard   Kerri Sparling  32:35 so of him. So I mean, his health is is your mental well being right. I mean, there's, there's no separation there. It's sorry to go on a tangent.   Stacey Simms  32:43 Well, this is a great discussion. This could be for another time too. And we'll talk more in person, but I think it's his diabetes. And I'm it's the family is affected, but it's his. So that's what I mean. And I completely lost Richard.   Kerri Sparling  32:56 Oh, wait. I was waiting to with that. I started ranges range, using technology to your benefit. I sorry,   Stacey Simms  33:06 I got all I get crazy bad language right now it's it's really hard for me to change over. But I just feel like we're finding that this the state of the art. I mean, I know what I'm saying in my community, we have a pilot program where your child is diagnosed, and they give you a dexcom in hospital when you go home. So it sounds great. But the problem is that there unfortunately, I don't know there's enough education and I'm not slamming the CDs and dexcom here has nothing to do with that. It's just the diabetes is hard. And so see everything from the beginning. Maybe you get used to that, but then the dexcom comes off and they don't wanna go to school, or they don't want to go to the waterpark, or they don't want to go on that that field trip or that overnight because they've never been without the depth causeway. And we're more and more and more of that, where I would be like, Oh, I hope your inset still on, you know, an hour but you learn resiliency, you learn stuff like that. Yes, the worst. And that's the story. When he was three, we were at a waterpark. That's in here. Instead came off and his blood sugar went really high because he was terrified of shots in sets at the time. And I thought, you know what this is going to be an hour to he's going to be fine. The long term, my indices stuff like this is okay, as long as we don't do it a lot. And maybe the running around will bring him down. It didn't, you know, so he got with Ari was 400 we change this instead, we got him home, he was fine. No ketones, blah, blah. But in my local group, someone had posted my kids dexcom came off, I'm not sending her the waterpark. I'm like, come on. Yeah, I got it. Right, we got to use this stuff to live better not let it restrict us long way of getting to that point. And that's really where I think I am right now. Because, you know, the technology is fantastic, but your stuffs gonna fall off. Things are going to fail. You know,   Kerri Sparling  34:44 you know, you have to continue on several life after diagnosis thing.   Stacey Simms  34:50 So it's been a long time. Permit this year, I can't believe it. Oh, and then you get to write about driving with diabetes, which is a Book unto itself, start, the book pretty much stops in sixth or seventh grade. So I'm not going to say that I'm an expert at high school yet, because I've only had one kid go through and she didn't have diabetes. So   Kerri Sparling  35:12 Nick Jonas at one time, so there is that there is that kind of coasting through. But um, but and so you have just been so generous with your time and your perspectives, I really, really appreciate it. And if you could just do me one solid real quick and let people know where they can find you online and where they'd be able to pick up a copy of your book. And obviously, we'll be including links to that, you know, and all the notes that are around this video, but hearing it from you is great.   Stacey Simms  35:34 Oh, thank you so much. I think the best place to go is the podcast website, which is diabetes dash connections.com. And then from there, it'll link to every place else the book, the podcast, the blog, blah, blah, blah. And   Kerri Sparling  35:45 so what's the actual URL for that   Stacey Simms  35:48 diabetes dash connections. com. Perfect. And I would love to do a book giveaway.   Kerri Sparling  35:55 Oh, we would love to have a book giveaway so   Stacey Simms  35:57 I can give away. Let's do this. Let's do a paperback And let's do an audio book. Because the audio book was really fun and interesting to do. If you ever do an audio book, it's quite the experience, like reading a dramatic play. It was very strange, very strange, totally different experience than writing it. But we can do a paperback giveaway. And then the audio book, that would be my pleasure, thank you.   Kerri Sparling  36:18 That would be amazing. And I will put a link to the giveaway page in this video and on the web page. But Stacey, thank you so much for your time for your perspectives for what you've given to the diabetes community and just being my friend, I appreciate that.   Stacey Simms  36:30 Thank you for giving me an excuse to put lipstick on today. The giveaway is open until March 20. I will link up all of the information you need. It is at children with diabetes at their giveaway page. You have to go there you can't do it on social media. We're giving away a copy of the book in paperback and an audio book as well. I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody from friends for life and children with diabetes at their conference coming up at the end of this month in Indianapolis. I'm hoping the travel plans you know stay the way we hope we are watching The virus situation I'm really not sure what's going to happen with travel. But Fingers crossed right now that we are able to do this. And I really appreciate partnering with them on this giveaway and being selected for one of their storyteller interviews. So it's really fun. Okay, our next episode next week, we should be back to normal around here minimum normal being a relative term with me. But our next episode is going to be focusing on Lilly, Eli Lilly announced almost two years ago now that they the makers of human log are getting into the pump and pen business. So we will talk to them about how they're progressing on this connected system. It's a smart system and they are partnering recently announced with dex calm, so we will be talking to them about the progress they've made and what it means for the industry. That will be next Tuesday. Okay, I'm Stacey Simms. Until then, be kind to yourself.   Diabetes connections is a production of Stacey Sims media. Benny  38:02 All Rights Reserved all wrongs avenged   Transcribed by https://otter.aid by https://otter.ai  

For 14 years, Kerri Sparling has shared her story on the very popular blog, SixUntilMe. This month, she published her last post. We take a look back with Kerri and go beyond the blog. We also asked her mom, Debbe, to join us! Debbe shares what she thinks of Kerri's accomplishments and influence and we talk about raising a child with type 1 in a time with very different technology and tools.  Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group!  In our Community Connection – help for people with diabetes who have insurance but still can't afford all of their supplies. We catch up with Diabetes Will's Way as they celebrate 5 years! Sign up for our newsletter here And Tell Me Something Good – meeting your people for the first time. How diabetes conferences are good for the body and the mind. Listeners share their stories and Stacey talks about a recent TCOYD conference. ----- 00:00 Show Open - What's going on this week?! 1:46 Stacey Welcome - She shares a great mother's day present: Benny was Rufus at their local JDRF walk and Lea worked a food truck at the walk. Proud mama moment! Some info about the website - it's still under construction - you can listen to shows there but lots of good new stuff is coming! 5:15 Interview with Kerri Sparling and her mom, Debbe 40:00 Catching up with Lisa Oberndorfer, the founder of Diabetes Will's Way - she's Will's mom - as she marks 5 years of helping people with health insurance who still can't afford what they need. Will was diagnosed at 13 and just graduated high school this year. He was the valedictorian of his class! We also hear from Kathy who received a grant for her daughter's Dexcom CGM. 55:15 Tell me something good: Sarah is 26 just recently diagnosed and met her first T1D people at the EPIC conference in Denver. Stacey talks about the TCOYD conference and a specific session with Dr. William Polonsky of the Behavioral Diabetes Institute  Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners!  ----- Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android  

Steel Magnolias is getting reissued in a lot of theaters across the country to celebrate 30 years since the movie’s release. The movie has become a touchstone and a bit of a hot spot for  women, pregnancy and type 1 diabetes. This round table first ran last year as Stacey's local theater was putting on the show; Steele Magnolias was first a play by Robert Harling – based on the true story of his sister’s death then the blockbuster movie. Join the Diabetes Connections Facebook Group!  Melissa Lee, Kerri Sparling & Kyrra Richards are all moms who live with type 1 joined Stacey for this talk about the movie, their experiences in pregnancy and now with their kids. Melissa is the director of community relations for Bigfoot Biomedical, the mother of two children and was diagnosed with type 1 in elementary school. She blogs at Sweetly Voiced. Kerri is an author, advocate and until recently, she wrote SixUntilMe, the wonderful blog that she wrapped up this month. Kerri was diagnosed at age 7 and has two children. Kyyra created and heads up Myabetic – which makes beautiful fashionable bags with diabetes in mind – she was diagnosed as a adult and when we taped this interview last year she had one baby and another on the way. She now has two young children. This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider.   Last year's episode here (includes some stories about Benny at summer camp - but the Steel Magnolias round table is the same) ----- Use this link to get one free download and one free month of Audible, available to Diabetes Connections listeners!  ----- Sign up for our newsletter here Get the App and listen to Diabetes Connections wherever you go! Click here for iPhone      Click here for Android    

The essentials to having a successful diabetes blog featuring the host of Sixuntilme! Kerri Sparling. The diabetes community. Follow Kerri's site!https://sixuntilme.com/wp/2019/03/01/diabetes-dance/Welcome to the Pardon My Pancreas podcast!! This show is all about the REAL life with diabetes. Your two host are Matt Vande Vegte & Ali Abdulkareem. Both type 1 diabetics, both diabetes advocates, both diabetes content creators. Matt is the man behind the brand at FTF Warrior which is an tribe dedicated to helping people living with diabetes achieve a healthier life through online coaching while Ali is the creator of the Diabetes Daily Hustle from the Youtube vlogs and podcast show! This episode is sponsored by FTF Warrior. An online community for diabetics dedicated to helping people live a healthier life! https://www.ftfwarrior.comFollow Matt here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ftfwarrior/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ftfwarrior/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCCzwLc-MTNk9636tQyXuwQ---------------------------Follow Ali here:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ali.abdlkareem/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOgPM9FFVTOX5gN_qnVHRNA---------------------------Disclaimer: While we share our experiences with diabetes, nothing we discuss should be taken as medical advice. Please consult your doctor or medical professional for your health and diabetes managementMusic: https://soundcloud.com/joakimkarud*I do not own copyrights to this music, all rights reserved to the respected labels.

Stacey talks to blogger, author and speaker Kerri Sparling, of Six Until Me. Kerri talks about the power of ordinary success with diabetes, how she decides what to keep private and the Spare a Rose charitable campaign. We'll also hear about a connection at theater camp and Stacey has some advice if you're looking to connect with other people with diabetes in real life.

One step closer to One Hundred, Episode 74 of Just Talking has arrived. Sixuntilme.com's Editorial Assistant Abby Bayer joins me for the latest entry into to archives. Our time is spent talking about her work on Sixuntilme, her experiences at Diabetes Camp, and the time and energy required to become a Registered Nurse. Side conversations include the extreme pain felt when you break a bone in your body, why Lucky Charms is the best cereal and the New York Yankees. Enjoy. You can find Abby, her words, and her feline doppleganger at sixuntilme.com. Send your feedback to feedback@justtalkingpodcast.com Run Time - 48:17

Continuing American Diabetes Month, this week I'm joined by Kerri Sparling. She writes a blog called Six Until Me at http://sixuntilme.com and loves her cats. Personally, I consider Kerri to be a super-mega-huge inspiration behind all of my doings on the Internet. Join us for the next hour as we talk about different facets of the blogging lifestyle, wearing a pump on the Red Carpet, the 25-letter alphabet native to the Boston Area and elaborate on the Your Diabetes May Vary slogan.   If you have any comments, questions, or general feedback send them to feedback@justtalkingpodcast.com Run Time - 1:02:46

Thanks so much to Kerri Sparling from SixUntilMe.com for calling in to chat a little bit about the upcoming MedBlog Track at BlogWorld Expo. Did you know that it's only 2 weeks away now? I addition to this, I shared a little about my week and talked about some news stories.

On today's show, Chris, Theresa, and Chris welcome, on the phone, a very special guest, Kerri Morrone.Kerri has type 1 diabetes, and dedicates much of her energy to diabetic causes. She is a columnist for "Generation D" for D-Life, and has an entertaining writing style, as she shares her insights on her very popular website and blog, sixuntilme.com.If you have any questions or comments for any of our team or would like to hear your voice on one of our upcoming shows, call our special voicemail line or email us. You might soon be a podcast star. Comment Line: (206) 888-0444 email: feedback @diabetespowershow.com