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The T1D news show you've been waiting for! Long-time broadcaster, blogger and diabetes mom Stacey Simms interviews prominent advocates, authors and speakers. Stacey asks hard questions of healthcare companies and tech developers and brings on "everyday' people living with type 1. Great for parents of T1D kids, adults with type 1 and anyone who loves a person with diabetes.
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Now displaying: Page 1
Oct 13, 2020

Linda Franklin is one of the strongest people we know - and we mean that literally! She holds world records for power lifting and has ranked at an elite national level for cross fit. Linda was diagnosed with type 1 at age 26 and reveals she struggled with management until she found her community. You may know Linda from the amazing Facebook group, Type 1 Diabetic Athletes 

In Tell Me Something Good, the dedication of a dad.

Innovations this week has an update on the longest wear CGM yet.

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 new book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom!

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Episode Transcription 

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 hypo pen, 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  0:22

This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.

 

Stacey Simms  0:27

This week, Linda Franklin is a world record holder for powerlifting diagnosed with type one at age 26. She's in her early 60s and at an elite level, but she says she really struggled with management until she finally met somebody else with T1D, who shared her passions.

 

Linda Franklin  0:46

And I was trying to do CrossFit and coping with the crazy blood sugars. And I was really having a difficult time when I met him. It was really an eye opener for him and meat. We were just so excited to talk to each other about things,

 

Stacey Simms  1:00

Linda and that friend Daniel went on to create a now well respected and very large Facebook group for athletes with diabetes. We'll hear more of Linda's story and get some great advice about fitness and type one

in tell me something good. The dedication of a dad and in Innovations an update on the longest wear CGM yet

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 Diabetes Connections. I'm your host, Stacey Simms, and I'm really glad to have you along. We aim to educate and inspire about type 1 diabetes by sharing stories of connection.

I don't know about you, I am on the edge. What a stressful time. I mean, this year has already been bonkers. I find myself, as they say, Doom-scrolling through Twitter, I was already on my phone way too much before this year. And it's just multiplied to the nth degree. Now, don't worry, I'm not going to talk politics here. This is not the place for that you do not come here. I am sure to talk politics. And if we were going to have a show about that, because let's face it, sometimes there are issues you would know before you heard me start talking. This is not that. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that politics is exhausting us.

Everything is exhausting us right now. And I thought it would just take a minute to share with something that is really helping me. And maybe you have your own version of this. Maybe I'll put this in the Facebook group when this episode comes out. And it's Diabetes Connections of the group. I really hope you can join us on Facebook. It's such a great group of super smart, wonderful people. But what's helping me is another podcast. It is pop culture, happy hour. It's an NPR podcast. It's been going on for years and years. I think they just celebrated their 10 year anniversary. And they just talk about pop culture for 20 or 30 minutes. It's fun, it's distracting. And what I have been doing lately because I just found this podcast this year. So there's a huge back catalogue to me. I'm going back and listening to podcasts from 2016 2018. You know, I'm listening to them talk about movies, and TV shows and things that were popular in the news a long time ago. And you know what? It's a great distraction, and it gives my brain a break. So I know you come here for diabetes news and not necessarily weird podcast recommendations. But man that is really helping me right now. Along with walking my dog.

Maybe I should give a little nod to fitness since that was what we're talking about. Actually this episode. You know, I live in the Carolinas. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. We're so lucky. We live near a Greenway and the weather is generally pretty nice. So I have been able to walk my dog almost every single day. She's actually right here under the table as I tape. She's usually pretty quiet and when she's not, We edit that out. But my dog's name is Freckles. She's not very friendly. She likes us but she hasn't met anybody else that she likes yet. Except maybe my dad. He does like when grandpa comes to visit because he also walks her every single day. But man, she's an interesting character.

Anyway, we will get to Linda Franklin. That's why you're here. Linda Franklin, who is an amazing, amazing story, not just for her dedication to fitness and her passion for it her world records in powerlifting but her diagnosis story and what she found inspiring early on, and a teenage Bret Michaels how he makes an appearance. So we got a lot to talk about. But first diabetes Connections is brought to you by One Drop.

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Like many of you, when I have question about sports and diabetes, mostly about my son, I head over to the type one diabetic athletes group. It is one of the biggest Facebook groups there is. But it's also largely drama free and full of support. My guest this week is a big reason why she didn't start the group. You'll hear more about that in our interview. But she is an inspiring and I think larger than life personality, who challenges us each week with flex Friday and other fun posts. Linda Franklin is a world record holder in powerlifting. And before that, she placed 14th Worldwide in the 2014 CrossFit open this interview was conducted live in that Facebook group, you can watch it there it's recorded and then playback in the group. Or you can see it on our YouTube channel Diabetes Connections over on YouTube, I will link all of that up in the episode homepage as usual, at Diabetes connections.com It was great to talk to Linda here is our interview.

We don't normally take like this and who the heck knows how it's gonna go. But she's been such a great sport. And I'm so excited to welcome my guest someone a lot of you know quite a bit about but some of you may not and boy but a story. Linda Franklin, thank you very much for letting me in the group and agreeing to do this and fingers crossed, it all works out.

 

Linda Franklin  6:22

Yeah, it will.

 

Stacey Simms  6:23

 

Let's jump right in. Because this is a group for and about athletes. And I joined this group because of my son, who was a type one. And he's played a billion different sports. Most recently, he's more interested in wrestling. But I'm just so impressed with the amount of knowledge in this group. Do you mind just sharing how the group itself came to be? Sure.

 

Linda Franklin  6:46

So Daniel Borba, who has been a lot a little inactive lately, because he's expecting his second child, which is super exciting. But I met him back in 2013, my brother said called me and said, hey, there's a type one diabetic in my gym, my brother on the CrossFit box. And we were both so excited because he knew I didn't know anybody. And so I met Daniel, we did a little tiny podcast that just disappeared, you know, was wasn't much of anything, but it was so great to get to know him. And he'd been thinking about exercising and not there just wasn't much knowledge out there for how to control blood sugars, exercise, being type one, taking insulin, it's very complicated. So he just got decided to start this group and invited me and here we are. This was seven years ago from June, and it's blown up. Well, unfortunately.

 

Stacey Simms  7:44

Yeah. Well, I mean, there's good and bad, right?

 

Linda Franklin  7:47

Yes, yes.

Well, let's

 

Stacey Simms  7:48

talk about the good and a little bit. I mean, we're gonna talk about your story and all of your incredible accomplishments. But I'm really curious seven years ago, and that's about when I started my local Facebook group to the diabetes community was interested in in kind of different things. The technology has changed. Now the knowledge has changed. Do you remember the first kind of questions people had I imagined it was just how do I work out without crashing?

 

Linda Franklin  8:11

It was very small. We were like 300. To begin with, I would say for the first year, three to 500 people. So it got to be very intimate. And as the group grows, larger, questions become more voluminous. And you can start categorizing everything. But at first it was Yes, that was a big, big problem, or spike, what a really big problem was because it was really based around CrossFit to begin with was the spike after exercise. That was a huge, huge problem. And for me, too, because I was doing CrossFit at the time. And it was a that crashing and spiking after exercise was a big, big issue in the group, how to eat before you get started and when and how much and how much protein and I could go on?

 

Stacey Simms  8:57

Well, I'm gonna ask you to so I made a note of that, because I think it would be great to get some of your advice a little bit later on. But you said CrossFit, now I'm looking at your bio, and I don't even know where to start your soccer CrossFit world record holder now powerlifting let's go all the way back before you were diagnosed in your 20s What's your sport in high school? Like Were you always athletic?

 

Linda Franklin  9:24

I was a cheerleader. Okay, this was the 70s, early 70s back in what was cheerleading,

 

Stacey Simms  9:30

the sport that it is now because the leader in high school in the 80s and it was not an athletic sport.

 

Linda Franklin  9:36

No, it wasn't then, but I grew up with a bunch of boys and I climbed trees. I've always been a tomboy. And when I did sports in school and high school classes, I set the standing broad jump record in high school and you know, just stuff like that. I kind of excelled at every sport that I did. Except for basketball. I can't run in triple vault. So that was like, but I think my whole family's pretty athletic.

 

Stacey Simms  10:04

So when you were diagnosed, first of all, what was the process? Were you given an answer immediately or at age 26?

 

Linda Franklin  10:12

Was it? We don't know what it was strange. Like I've told someone before, or many people that women, it's typical when you have a lot of high blood sugars for a long time, or even a short period, yeast infections are a really big problem. And it was for me, and I was actually in the midst of bodybuilding, starting lifting weights. And this is what introduced me to weights which I found a real love for. And I started just eating a lot drinking a lot up on my ping and the yeast infections got super bad. I look like I walked like I'd been riding horse for. So I went to the doctor, gynecologist beat into a company says you need to go to the lab, like today. So I went the next day because I'm 26 living by myself and my back. Yeah, whatever. Okay, right. Yeah. And I drink in syrup all day at the lab. And by the time I was done, I was like, almost 800. So they said, we'll come back in a few days. And you're going to go see your doctor on Monday. And you know, but they let me go home. And it was really casual. I mean, they knew, obviously, I was diabetic, but they didn't put me in the hospital right away like they would normally now. And that's pretty much how it all got started.

Stacey Simms  12:07

Did you immediately think? Did someone tell you you can go right back to the gym? Or were you told don't work out? Do you remember anything different?

Linda Franklin  10:12

 

No, I just remember sitting in the doctor's office with a diagnosis on Monday morning. And he just literally went into a fog. He just said you know you're gonna, this is gonna cut your life short. And just all the old 70s routine. And he wasn't trained. I mean, it was an internist, or whatever you call them and wasn't really trained in depth about diabetes, treated mostly type two. So he did tell me not to do activity. But I didn't go back to bodybuilding because I wasn't feeling good.

 

Stacey Simms  12:07

What led you back to your activities at all, though? Because you didn't ultimately wind up not exercising?

 

Linda Franklin  12:14

Yeah, absolutely. So what happened though, is I got really active only to control my blood sugar. I refused insulin, I freaked out. Well, I didn't have parents looking over me gone for doing this. I didn't have

 

Stacey Simms  12:28

an endocrinologist either. As you said, You know, I didn't. It was

 

Linda Franklin  12:31

just pretty, pretty basic. And I just decided, Okay, well, after I eat, I'm just gonna I gotta jump rope. I jumped rope, or walked or ran after every meal for about three months, until I was down to eating out of a jar peanut butter and decided, I think I need insulin. I just couldn't do it anymore. But that's I just, it was ingrained in me to exercise anyway, before that. So I decided, Okay, I kind of laid off for a little bit. And then I got back into snow skiing and doing normal things. But I wasn't in great control or anything. But I still did stuff.

 

Stacey Simms  13:10

Yeah. I mean, you couldn't have felt that great. But you also don't want to sit home and not

 

Linda Franklin  13:13

feel great. No, I'm not wanting to sit behind and watch everybody do stuff when I know. So when did things start to get better? Actually, I would say right before my first pregnancy, I knew that I needed to get my ducks in a row before this happened. That was when I was 33. And I went to the sweet Success Program. But they were both my pregnancies were planned. And I decided I got my a one c under six and got pregnant, had my first baby. And then two years later, did the same thing. And then after that it got a little bit crazy again, you know, with kids and was hard to keep in control. But that's when I realized I need to do better. I didn't have a blood sugar meter, the first two years, I cut my strips into quarters to save money because the meters then would take cut strips, they won't know. So I did that. And I did all these things to save money. But I did a lot of injections to I was stacking insulin a lot up and down, up and down get really low get really high. And it was I was a mess. Before we move on,

 

Stacey Simms  14:21

you mentioned something called Sweet success. Is that a local program to you is that a hospital program actually

 

Linda Franklin  14:27

was a nationwide program, I believe for women type ones that get pregnant and they just start this program suitesuccess. I don't know if it's California based or if it is nationwide. I'm not really sure but it is I do know here in California and it was wonderful. He said he was at a more it was at a UC hospital. I was there every two weeks but they both went fairly well.

 

Stacey Simms  14:54

It's such a different time I think it's hard to understand is

 

Unknown Speaker  14:57

that

 

Unknown Speaker  14:58

not only the insulins were different But as you said the blood sugar meters were new in the mid 80s. It's not like it is now at all.

 

Stacey Simms  15:11

Right back to Linda answering that question and taking a look back. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. And we have been using the Dexcom G6 since it came out more than two years ago. And it's amazing. The Dexcom G6 is now FDA permitted for no finger sticks for calibration and diabetes treatment decisions. You do that to our warmup, and the number just pops up. I mean, do you remember back before where you had to wait in a two hour warmup, and then you calibrate then it would start populating? It's just a great advancement. We've been using a Dexcom for seven years in December, and it just keeps getting better. The G6 has longer sensor were now 10 days, and the new sensor applicator is so easy to use. Benny does this all by himself. Now. We love the alerts and alarms, and that we can set them how we want if your glucose alerts and readings from the G6 do not match symptoms or expectations use a blood glucose meter to make diabetes treatment decisions. To learn more, go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the Dexcom logo.

Now back to Linda. And she's talking about what technology was like when she was first diagnosed.

 

Linda Franklin  16:20

No, there were no cgms there were no cell phones. I mean. So it was Harry Caray. You know, I especially being diagnosed in my mid 20s. I know some people that were diagnosis, children, their parents kind of monitored them and got them through high school into adulthood with a lot of success, but also got them real regimented. Whereas me, I'm 26 I've already got my routine and this gets in the way. And here I am gone. Uh, well, I'm just going to make do till whenever until you know more good stuff comes along. And I I suck at technology. But I sure do love it. I'm telling you.

 

Stacey Simms  17:00

Well, unless I'm laughing technology, I can't even get my your phone good wired things to behave. And you know when my lighting is insane, so we're in good company, sister. Don't worry about that. But let's talk about you said you started to turn things around a couple years after your second child was born. I'm curious, like, Did you meet somebody? Did you just say to yourself, Linda, I'm not feeling great. I want to do more. I got the CrossFit stuff going like

 

Linda Franklin  17:21

I'm actually no, I never did know anybody until the dots started. So I didn't really know anybody that was type one, until I was probably well, until I met Daniel Borba the founder of the group. That's why my brother called me said I met a type one because I really didn't know anybody than other. I worked in endocrinology office, and there was another girl there that was, but it wasn't the same as meeting and talking about

 

Stacey Simms  17:49

was it until you met him that you've got things. I don't see more under control. But you're such a success story. Um,

 

Linda Franklin  17:57

it did help because it, it made me pay attention to it more, I was kind of brushing it under the rug for a lot of years, like, Okay, I'm just gonna just shoot myself through my chains and just keep doing what I'm doing. And he put it in my face. And I was trying to do CrossFit and coping with the crazy blood sugars. And I was really having a difficult time. So when I met him, it was really an eye opener for him and me to talk about, we were just so excited to talk to each other about things. But before that, my whole connection with type one, and any type of anybody else out there with it. What were diabetes forecast magazines, and I'll never forget when I was in my mid to late 20s. I got one with Bret Michaels on the cover on my porch. I had it I have a T shirt, but it was so cool. I'm like, Oh my God, he's a teenager with type one. Wow. Yeah, it was it was weird. But I had stacks of diabetes forecasts and I would read them. And that's how I connected to it. There was nothing else to connect to really for me.

 

Stacey Simms  19:02

So tell me about CrossFit. This is not for the faint of heart. I don't even sure where to begin. I just think of people flipping tires. Right and to be ranked 14th in the world

 

Linda Franklin  19:13

at one point. Well, that was 2014 CrossFit open. Yeah. What goes into that? I got in. Okay, well, it's at that point in time, I was training five days a week. And in between all that I was riding up and down to the CrossFit box on a bike that had no gears up and down hills, like so, you know, I'm a nut. So that's what I did. And I just trained five days a week and did everything I could I mostly trained with it was all younger people in the box. So you know, at my age I started like I was like 57. So there just aren't weren't that many people who were that age in my box. So all these younger people in there and I'm going I gotta keep up.

 

Cuz that's my, that's how I think.

 

Stacey Simms  20:03

So take us through a little bit of how you manage diabetes, though, for something like CrossFit, when it is it's cardio with strength. There's just so much going on.

 

Linda Franklin  20:10

Right? Yeah. And there's a lot of variables and you don't know from day to day, and I actually had to talk to the owner there to give me the workouts the day before, which she doesn't know, CrossFit box likes to do that, because they don't want you to cherry pick their workouts, they want you to just come and do whatever is on the schedule that day. But I had told her, I can't keep doing this without knowing because I have to plan. And so she was kind enough to work with me and what I would do, I knew that what time the classes were, and after talking to Ronnie, my coach, back then he wasn't my coach, but he knew I was doing CrossFit. And he was actually an admin in the athletes group and said, you know, do some insulin and eat some protein and a small amount of carbs, but do half the insulin for it, and then go and take some Gatorade, put it in a bottle and have something to sip on, which is what I started doing, and it started to get better. But still, it was never perfect. It was really difficult. The ups and downs. And it mostly was the adrenaline afterwards kicked in. And I kicked in while I was working out. But afterwards, the blood sugar's were high for like 24 hours. And it was ongoing, you know, until I had to stop. Some days were different depending on the workout, but just some workouts just hit me really hard. So it was never stable.

 

Stacey Simms  21:30

Did you ever figure out how to handle this? I gotta tell you and I'm only dealing with a teenager. Yeah. Isn't CrossFit that much? Like he hasn't workout like that is what I mean. But we definitely have those adrenaline highs after certain sports.

 

Linda Franklin  21:42

Yeah, they're really tough alone. Yeah, soccer, I have really big problem with that, too. And my bigger problem, I think was all of it was that I would not eat. Like when I did soccer tournaments, I wouldn't, because I couldn't eat when I was out there running because I played striker. And it was, you know, a lot of sprinting, and I just can't eat and do that. So I wouldn't eat. And I think that is part of the problem was that I wasn't consuming enough food and taking insulin for it to get my blood sugar's down into a normal range. I think it's really important that people don't starve themselves around activities, just try to put your food in at a, you're not to stuff yourself, but eat the right things and take insulin for it, and you will get through it. It may not be perfect, but it will be better than if you don't eat at all, because your liver will raise its ugly head.

 

Stacey Simms  22:37

How then did you go to powerlifting, because that's just a natural progression, it's something happened to just see something or set a goal.

 

Linda Franklin  22:43

It was not a natural progression. I CrossFit, well, long term diabetes complications actually probably caused it I did with CrossFit, you do a lot of excessive gripping exercises, a lot of things are like do 100 days and then 50,000 level bar and you do the pull up thing. And with all the gripping that I was doing my overtime, your tendons thicken with diabetes when it's out of range. And so that's what happened and my fingers started to trigger all all of them all. But what happened for people who weren't familiar,

Linda, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Can you explain what that is? When you say okay, triggered?

Yeah, so trigger finger is you have tendons and all of your fingers. And there are two that go up to side. And there are little if you can imagine a fishing pole with a line on it with a little I don't fish but me there's, you know, there's a little you know, the little things that you thread the, the wire the line through, okay, so those are on your knuckles, and those of your tendons sliding up and down. So the line so when you when they get thick, and like weedy and stuff, then they don't slide as well, they get caught. So with the thickening tendon, it can't slide through the little shields that are on the side there on your knuckles, so they get caught and they get stuck, and then you pop your finger open. But it's a it's a really common problem with diabetes and in women that are my age.

So I went to UCLA doctor, he said, No, all your fingers are involved, and we're gonna have to do surgery. So I had a lot of hand surgery. And so I recovered and then I had shoulder surgery several weeks later, so I was just a mess for about a year. But I knew that I needed to get back to lifting I just I missed it so much and I just couldn't sit still my blood sugar's were starting to was gaining weight. I'm like, Oh, I just don't like feeling like this. So I talked to my brother who's a CrossFit expert. He's been in the games four times, and he told me you know, you could possibly power left and went back to the gym, started working on it, put a video in the Athletes group and I said, Okay, I've kind of reached a point where I don't know where to go from here. What do I do? And Rodney saw my video and he's like, let's talk. So we talked. And that's how I got started. Wow. What

 

Stacey Simms  25:11

is appealing to you? About powerlifting? I can think of a lot of things. But I'm curious, like, why do you do it? What do you get from it?

 

Linda Franklin  25:21

Oh, man, that's a really tough question to answer. I think it's a rush of, and there's obviously adrenaline involved, too, but just lifting heavy, it's mental. You know, obviously, there's a physical benefit for it. But the mental part of it for me is that I like feeling strong. I just love the feeling of being strong, or getting stronger. And I don't care about, you know, records are great and everything. But to me, it's just the feeling of being strong is wonderful.

 

Stacey Simms  25:54

What was it like, though? I mean, I know it's not about the records. There's a tremendous picture of you. I think you're breaking a record. And there's a crowd of people. I don't know if it's a video screen. I couldn't tell from the photo that I was looking at. And everybody's kind of cheering and robbed me, especially as cheering. Oh, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, just Philadelphia

 

Linda Franklin  26:13

meet that. I went to, I believe, yeah. And in fact, that was me. And Roz, such who is in our group and does the daily workouts on the weekends, we did a meet together, Rodney coached six or seven of us out with a group, but there were seven type ones that did that. Wow, that meet in Philadelphia. So I flew out there from California, never flown that far in my life. But I did it. And we It was a blast. And it was a huge type. One thing was so awesome.

 

Stacey Simms  26:46

I'll come back to the other questions and about the records. But what was that like for you? I mean, as you said, You've never flown that far, you came all the way east to be with a group of type ones power lifting. I mean, that must have been an incredible situation just to be around everybody.

 

Linda Franklin  27:00

Yeah. Well, and, and in fact, I hadn't met half of them. But we had talked, you know, over social media and stuff for some length. And although Roz, I knew before that she had come out and handled me for a meet in California, which was amazing. Another one of us flew out from Portland. And it was just, I can't even explain how crazy it was with the blood sugars and all the beeps. And it was just insane. But we were all there cheering each other on. And you know, Rodney had his hands full. Let me tell you. That's awesome. It was pretty incredible.

 

Stacey Simms  27:35

What's different about managing blood sugar's when you're powerlifting? Then CrossFit, do you mind if is like a little bit of advice, maybe to for people who are looking to get into it.

 

Linda Franklin  27:43

What I found is consistency is key. And it doesn't have to be every day. Because when I first when I first started getting really back into exercise, after being diagnosed, I tried to do something every single day. And I don't do that now. And I don't feel that I really have to other than I don't sit down all day long. But what I find with it is, it's more of a weekly pattern, versus a daily pattern. And if you do, train over time, you'll start to see changes in your blood sugar's at first when I first started, it wasn't great, but I started to learn how to treat. I knew what my weak plan was. And I could say, Okay, today, I'm gonna have a little snack before I go. But typically, I know how to combat highs better because it's not random stuff. I know what I'm getting into. Because it's just easier for me. It's more predictable. And now my body feels that it is to

 

Stacey Simms  28:45

Is it a matter of keeping track and logs or looking at your CGM data?

 

Linda Franklin  28:50

A CGM data is important. I used to keep logs ridiculously back before anything was around, so I can't do that anymore. I tried it last two days, and I'm done. But I do keep a workout book. I don't record my blood sugar's though. But I do know that when I go out there, I'm in a range. I either put my exercise mode on, I take my pop off if I see it start to fall, but I typically run fairly flat. Unless I just for some odd reason. Something goes awry. And that happens.

 

Stacey Simms  29:23

You mentioned exercise mode. Do you use control iQ? Is that what Yes,

 

Linda Franklin  29:27

I do.

 

Stacey Simms  29:28

Tandem Dexcom. And it works pretty well for powerlifting.

 

Linda Franklin  29:32

It does when you're doing high reps. When I do heavier weight, lower reps. I don't mess with it. I just leave it alone. But I do. You know I have an exercise bike in the garage. I get on every once in a great while. I do it

 

Stacey Simms  29:47

a couple of minutes ago, you mentioned complications. And I feel like sometimes especially we as parents, we're so afraid to talk about that kind of stuff. Right? And the only way we want to talk about it is did you do it Right, with what did you do? What was your a win? See? How did you eat? Or did you at hell? You know, we were so narrow minded on that, that I just want to ask you, and I guess I'm, I'm trying to figure how to ask you. But first, let me say thank you for talking about complications in the first place, because it is something that happens. It's not something obviously, you have always taken great care of yourself, even when you were saying earlier that you didn't, you're active, healthy person. Is it hard, though, to share those experiences with the diabetes community?

 

Linda Franklin  30:29

Actually, it isn't. And I feel that I'm being helpful when I do that. Because it could be diabetes, it could be anything else. To me, it's part of living life. And I look at it as I've done the best that I can, I don't look at it as a bad thing. I just try to let people know as not to be afraid of it, I do as I get older, I do have some anxiety around it now like seeing my blood work. When I go to the doctor i get i get real anxiety around lab work and stuff like that, I it's just part of getting older. It's not just part of being diabetic. You know, my mother died from type two kidney disease. And I helped her go through the process. And it was really, it left a real whole, you know, and I but it also made me aware that I need to, I really need to be careful. And so when I wait for my labs to come, I'm always like, how are my kidneys, you know, that's the first thing I worry about, because of what she went through. I saw what she went through. But you can only be the best you can from day to day. And I just hate to see people beat themselves up day after day. And I have adapted to what my hands are now they're not pretty and they're not, you know, my palms are strong, my fingertips are weak, but I found something I could do to keep me healthy. So you just adapt around these things. It's what we have to do as human beings, regardless of what we're dealing with. And I think it's good to know.

I mean, I had someone reach out to me the other day about trigger fingers. She's been diabetic for almost 20 years, maybe I feel so good that people can reach out to me and talk to me about it. Because it's it's a real thing, just like frozen shoulder and all that other stuff in the end being type one diabetic. And I just think that it's okay. There are ways to handle it. I had a great surgeon, he fixed me up not perfect, but it's another chink in my armor. Now, and now I've got stories to tell right? down

 

Stacey Simms  32:22

it's life with or without diabetes. Yes. You had mentioned before we got started that your daughter had learned a lot from you, in terms of being able to spot diabetes. Can you share that story?

 

Linda Franklin  32:35

Yeah. So you know, with my kids, obviously, I've had two kids while being pregnant at 33 and 35. And both of them have had to give me glucagon. Unfortunately, I know, there's a lot of people that have lived as long with diabetes as I have and have never had to use it. But here I am. And they recognize signs just from being around me. Are you low? All the typical questions, but she worked at a daycare center and in a gym, and the couple brought their daughter there. She was 18 months old, and they dropped her off and she was not well, and my daughter was holding her and said, I think she's diabetic. I don't know what clued her in but there was some symptoms that this little girl was having that, you know, she recognized. I can't really tell you but I'm so thankful in a weird way that she did.

 

Stacey Simms  33:25

And and the 18 month old did wind up getting diagnosed.

 

Linda Franklin  33:28

Yes, she was the youngest in the county. Yeah, at that time. And actually she was it was in the hospital for quite some time and we ended up nannying her after that first my daughter, and then I did and I gotta tell you, kudos to you because I nannied her for six months, and I was a wreck. Oh, the literal wreck. I'm like, I can't do this anymore.

 

Stacey Simms  33:52

There is truly I mean, every there's no good. There's no bad he didn't do the type one right? It all stinks. But there is truly something unique about toddlers and very little ones. It is a it's a circus. Yeah. It's just it you have to laugh.

 

Linda Franklin  34:07

Because thank God, I know. Well, you know, the parents were super cool. And they just wanted her to be they loved having us there. And they knew that I handle it. But the thing is, and they were regimented, but not to the they want her to live a normal life. And it was so great to know that not to restrict her so much that she couldn't have fun. That's great. That's, that's funny.

 

Stacey Simms  34:30

So a world record holder, all this wonderful stuff. You are in your early 60s. Now what do you have any any other goal or is there anything you're working on now? I mean, you've done enough You don't have to.

 

Linda Franklin  34:44

Actually I am signed up for me to November, but it's November 7, in LA there's COVID there's the election. I think I may just pass on this. I'm really giving it some serious thought and I think it might just I might just do a mock meet at home. You know, I'm a little scared about the COVID thing, because I've had diabetes for so long and, and my age, even though I'm healthy, I don't know how much vascular disease I have. And they do say that that's an issue with it. So I just want to be careful. And there's no point in me really stressing out about something like that right now. It's not that important to me to go do so I figured I could just do a fake one in my garage. Hey,

 

Stacey Simms  35:24

I've seen some pictures of your garage, though.

 

Linda Franklin  35:26

I'm not what I was

 

Stacey Simms  35:28

gonna say you. Did you put that together this year?

 

Linda Franklin  35:31

Yeah, actually, some young kids here at the gym locally, the gym shut down. They had it at the gym, back up, and they sold it. And I bought it. Oh, I was very blessed in that regard. But yeah, so it's little tiny, single car garage. But I got it all in there. Just what I need. And it's working great.

 

Stacey Simms  35:49

I'm curious. After all this time, it must be just such a part of your life. But do you still have to get psyched up to work out as often as you do? Are there days where you're just like, I'm laying in bed on none of this nonsense?

 

Linda Franklin  36:00

And not very many? Yeah. I have them every now and then I had one just I think it was Sunday. Actually. It was like, yeah, I'll just put it off to tomorrow. But no, I have to set goals. Oh, to stay motivated, you know, but I I'm always looking for a goal. I can't not have one. And I think it's really important for people to have goals, but not to get so hung up on it. It's not a failure. If you don't meet it, it's the fact that you're working on something is the success.

 

Stacey Simms  36:30

Before I do let you go here. I'm curious. There's so many people in the group here for support here for advice. If somebody is just kind of dipping their toe in the water as an adult with type one or a parent of a kid who's you know, playing high school sports, any advice for them? I mean, I would assume that with the technology that we have, things are easier, but there's still some basics that you have to think about.

 

Linda Franklin  36:50

Yeah, well, there's always a couple things I preach about. And one is when I did have that really bad, low blood sugar, my daughter's boyfriend's a firefighter. And he said, Hey, you need to get up a box of and put on their low blood sugar type ones, snacks, or whatever you want to put on there. But make it bold and let everybody know where it's at. So when you go to sleep at night, and you start to have a low, it's always so important to have something on you or near you all the time. It doesn't have to be like if you're in the house, big deal. It could be across the room. But when you're in bed, and you're sleeping, you should have something by your bed, it gives your parents peace of mind. Or if you go play sports, you need to let everybody know that you're diabetic. I when I first joined a soccer team, that's the very first thing I did. I'm actually proud to be diabetic. Not that I like having it. But I'm proud to tell people look at this is me, this is what I'm going to do. And I want you to support me because I'm going to do this. So I think it's important to embrace it. Just let people know, don't hide it from anybody. And because they'll feel guilty if something happens. It's not fair to them, either.

 

Stacey Simms  38:00

It's a good point. Yeah, it makes it easier for everybody. I always feel bad when people or kids are shy.

 

Linda Franklin  38:04

And it's an educational point to you know, you bring it up and didn't tell people I had a guy asked me the other day goes home. You got it bad.

 

Unknown Speaker  38:12

Yeah, you had the bad kind.

 

Linda Franklin  38:15

Okay, so we sat for about a half an hour after about the night school.

 

Stacey Simms  38:20

I just curious too, is anything ever happened? Where like it's popped off? Or somebody hit it with something? You know, My son has all sorts of crazy stories. Oh,

 

Linda Franklin  38:28

actually, no, I've been pretty lucky. I'll just you know, knock it off on a door jamb or something. But you know, that's happened a couple times. But other than that, I'm pretty careful

 

Stacey Simms  38:37

with a thanks so much. This was so fun. Thank you.

 

Linda Franklin  38:39

You've asked questions I've never been asked before. I love it.

 

Unknown Speaker  38:48

You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.

 

Stacey Simms  38:54

You can find more information on Linda and articles on her and find that picture that I mentioned with Rodney Miller and I will put that in the Facebook group as well. But you can find everything at Diabetes connections.com. Every episode has its own little little almost like a blog post. But every episode has its own page with a transcript as well. You can listen you could download the episodes. You can listen on any podcast player. I mean, at this point wherever there is audio on Stitcher, Pandora, Amazon, we're all over the place. You can find Diabetes Connections. Up next Tell me something good with a very devoted diabetes dad.

But first diabetes Connections is brought to you by Gvoke Hypopen. 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 the Gvoke Hypopen comes in. It is the first auto injector to treat very low blood sugar. Gvoke Hypopen 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 Gvoke correctly. I am so glad to have something new find More go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the G voke e shouldn't be used in patients with pheochromocytoma or insulinoma. Visit gvokeglucagon.com slash risk.

 

In Tell me something good This week I want to share with you this story. This is so adorable. I found this on Facebook and I think it do need to see the photo. So I'll link that up in the group as well. But I will describe it the best that I can. Let me read the caption first from Andrea and she says yesterday we went to Mayci's endocrinology office for our first of three pump training classes. Mayci was given the opportunity to put a trial failing pump on to get the feel of it and become used to it. She was a bit afraid and apprehensive at first. Now looking at this photo, I want to say Mayci is maybe three, maybe four. She is a preschooler, I know that much. And the pump that they're talking about is the Omni pod here. Andrea goes on to say, Daddy stepped up and volunteer to also get a trial sailing pump. He's not type one to help support and show me see it is no big deal.

And this is the cutest photo of the dad right next to me see, and they're both showing off Omnipod on their arm. And she looks a little nervous. Still, you know, preschoolers are doing that smile, and they're a little nervous. But then it's got to be great to have her dad next to her doing that. Kudos. I think by the time this photo has posted the time has gone by maybe two weeks, and she may have already been live with the Omni pond pump. And I hope things are working out great.

I tell the story in my book, the world's worst diabetes mom. But one of the things that made me the world's worst diabetes mom is that I never tried on any of the technology. I never, you know, I never tried to make Vinny feel less alone. It sounds terrible when I put it that way. But I never put on a pump instead, I never put on Dexcom several reasons why. First of all, we're so lucky Benny has been surrounded by friends with diabetes, since he was diagnosed. No, we didn't have anybody close to us. We didn't have any people in our town or our school until at the end of first grade. And he was diagnosed at two. But we didn't know people through jdrf. And we didn't know people that we could hang out with and see one of my best friends started a little diet buddies thing for little kids. So we always knew people who had the same tech on that he had. And the other reason I never did it is because I was so afraid that if it hurt me that I would never be able to put it on Benny again. And that's true. I was terrified that if a pump in set hurt or a shot hurt or late by the time I had Dexcom he was he was nine years old, it didn't really matter anymore. But if that hurt, I had hardened my heart in the way that you do in this terrible way that you have to do when you are doing medical things necessary things to your child. And boy that sounds so dramatic when I put it that way but I think a lot of you understand what I mean. And we had caregivers who did it for themselves just because they wanted to experience it and said oh it's no big deal. It'll be fine. I was never sure it would be no big deal. Is that interesting how we as parents do things so differently?

But back to this fabulous dad if you have a Tell me something good story, you can always email me Stacey at Diabetes connections.com or just drop it in the Facebook group I every so often, and they are always such great story. So thank you so much.

quick look at innovations this week a segment I added this year Sensionic holdings which is the company behind the eversense implantable CGM, they have announced they are filing for a supplement application to extend the wearable life to 180 days. What does that mean? It means Hey, the FDA is now considering letting the eversense CGM system expand 280 days in the US that is quick math six months. And that is up from the three months that it is currently allowed for, you probably haven't heard too much about ever since recently. And that's because honestly earlier this year, wasn't clear that they were going to make it with COVID. Everything else that had happened, it really seemed like the future of the company was in doubt. But they cut a deal with asensia diabetes care, which used to be part of Bayer diabetes. So very, very big company here, which I think is a good move for the ever since we've looked into it because with many wrestling and who knows what will happen with wrestling with COVID. But workouts are starting again pretty soon as I can't imagine they're doing actual wrestling. I'm guessing this is more just fitness workouts. But wrestling is a really tough sport for diabetes technology as you can imagine, because everything's fair game, so somebody could put their hands pretty much on you almost anywhere that you could put a Dexcom or a pump in set. So we've got a lot of great advice from people who've been there. And we've got lots of good methods but we are looking into ever since as a possible backup plan. It's weird to think about because you know, full disclosure here you know, we use the Tandem X to with control IQ which means we need the Dexcom G6 right now. So that kid could have the ever since under his skin and then the Dexcom has Well, not during wrestling season, I don't know what we're going to do. But as always, I will keep you posted on that. But if you have any news for innovations, and that does not have to be a big technology news story, it can be your hack your tip your trick for diabetes, please let me know as well.

 

I said a couple of weeks ago, this was going to be a very busy time in terms of news stories in the diabetes community always seems like fall has a lot going on. And that is definitely the case. podcasting is really hard for breaking news. But I do my best when something happens to kind of go more in depth and give you a perspective on it by talking to the actual players involved. So I hope you're in the Facebook group or follow me on social media, because that really is the best way to stay on top of what we're doing here. I don't mean to be cagey. But in terms of the timing of the podcast, there are a few things that I have that I've taped that I hope to release in the next two weeks. And as I'm talking to you here, as I'm taping this episode, I've got like three different news stories that I'm working on that I don't know, maybe they'll be old news by next week. So got to do the best we can with the weird time shiftiness of podcast, or maybe someday somebody will pay me to do a daily diabetes news show. If that's you, let me know. Ah, thank you, as always to my editor John Bukenas from audio editing solutions. 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  46:28

Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacey Simms Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged

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