Eric Dutcher is one of the super athletes of the diabetes world. He even calls himself Chronic Superhuman on social media! But he spent years years thinking diabetes meant that he shouldn't be active, and he admits he got pretty low. Eric shares how he found his way to a brighter - and incredibly active - future.
He's now a big part of the Diabetes Sports Project and is training for an Ironman race later this year.
More in this episode on Spare a Rose - marking 8 years of saving lives around the world.
Check out Stacey's book: The World's Worst Diabetes Mom!
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Episode Transcription (beta)
Stacey Simms 0:00
Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dario Health manage your blood glucose levels, increase your possibilities 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 0:22
This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.
Stacey Simms 0:28
This week talking to one of the super athletes of the diabetes world. He even calls himself chronic superhuman on social media. But Eric Dutcher spent years thinking diabetes and activity couldn't go together. So much so that when he decided to finally try something new, he was surprised to see it had been done.
Eric Dutcher 0:49
I searched around and I found one person who had blogged about doing a tough mudder and how he prepared to it. And I kind of said, Well, I guess if he did it, I can't. And as it turns out, it ended up being a super exciting experience, because also on my team was another type one diabetic who had done tough mudders before.
Stacey Simms 1:12
Eric explains what changed how he went from more than a decade of really struggling with type one to now inspiring others. We talk about his involvement in the diabetes sports project
In innovations. This week, spare arose marking eight years of saving lives around the world. 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 always so glad to have you. Here I am your host, Stacey Simms. And we aim to educate and inspire by sharing stories of connection with a focus on people who use insulin. My son Benny was diagnosed 14 years ago, just before he turned to my husband lives with type two diabetes. I don't have any kind of diabetes, but I have a background in broadcasting. And that's how you get this podcast.
You know, this year, I had talked a lot about a focus on technology, not to the expense of stories like the one today and talking to people in the community. But I had planned on sharing a few more technology interviews by this point, it just turned out that a few of the companies needed to reschedule we've moved things around. So I am keeping that promise you will hear from the folks at beta bionics, I have an interview setup with tide pool, we're going to talk about a new vaccine study, I have also reached out to several other companies, you'd be familiar with their names. And we're just in the process of setting things up. So I will make good on that promise. There is so much technology that frankly got pushed off because of COVID clinical trials were delayed, FDA approvals were delayed. So this is going to be a really big year for a lot of new possibilities. And I want to make sure we are on top of them. So just a little follow up to know that I have not forgotten. I also want to share with you.
And this has nothing to do with diabetes. I have another big project that's been going on. I've talked about this at the end of a couple of episodes recently. And if you follow me on social media, you've certainly seen it that I have added a brand new project. I am helping people with their podcasts. And it's a wonderful new project. But I gotta tell you setting all this up. It's been like having a full time job while also doing this podcast. And I never want this podcast to suffer. I love doing it so much. And I want to deliver great quality to you as you listen. But just an acknowledgement that if I haven't been on social media quite as much, man setting up I have webinars this week as you listen as this episode goes live, lots of stuff going on so you can follow me. I'll be posting about it on social media trying not to let it take over everything. But it is kicking my butt and I want to be honest about but I'm really excited about that. It's been so much fun. Don't you love trying something new every once in a while.
All right. We're going to talk to Eric Dutcher in just a moment. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Gvoke Hypopen, and almost everyone who takes insulin has experienced a low blood sugar and that can be scary. A very low blood sugar is really scary. That's where Gvoke Hypopen comes in. Gvoke is the first auto injector to treat a very low blood sugar Gvoke Hypopen is pre mixed, it's ready to go with no visible needle and that means it's easy to use. How easy is it you pull off the red cap, push the yellow end onto bare skin and hold it for five seconds. That's it. Find out more go to Diabetes connections.com and click on the Gvoke logo. gvoke shouldn't be used in patients with pheochromocytoma or insulinoma. Visit gvoke glucagon.com slash risk.
My guest this week is an extremely accomplished athlete who is always on the lookout for what he can do next. He's currently training for an Ironman race COVID permitting later this spring and as you will hear he really enjoys the extreme stuff, but it wasn't always that way. When Eric Dutcher was diagnosed with type one at age 26 he basically stopped all activity. Now he hadn't been an extreme athlete before diabetes, but he really had the idea somehow that any activity was off the books. It's hard to believe that's the same guy now calling himself chronic superhuman on social media, and who is now a big part of the diabetes sports project. I am so glad he decided to share his story, the good and the not so good with all of us. Eric, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate you making the time to talk to me and the listeners today.
Eric Dutcher 5:28
Thanks, Stacey. I'm so excited to be here.
Stacey Simms 5:30
Let's just start out by laying it out there, you had a very difficult diagnosis story, you were in your mid 20s.
Eric Dutcher 5:37
Yeah, I was 26. And early on in my career, really kind of chasing life through work, and a new marriage that was not healthy. And added to this a very, very difficult diagnosis of diabetes, something I had never been exposed to and never even heard of.
Stacey Simms 6:02
Did your diagnosis go? Okay. In other words, did the doctor know what you have? Did they send you home knowing you had type one? Or was there misunderstanding because I talked to so many people as adults who are told that they have type two?
Eric Dutcher 6:14
Yeah, no, it was a pretty clear type one diagnosis. Back then I probably weighed in at close to 140, which is about 20 pounds less than where I am today. I had really become a macerated. You know, I had the frequent urination, I had the constant hunger, and honestly, that I can remember these moments of just intense pain where I was at a place that I just needed to either eat or drink or Kopi. And I just couldn't at that moment. And it there was physical pain associated with it. But I didn't really understand why
Stacey Simms 6:59
when I said your diagnosis was difficult, I probably should have been more clear. It doesn't sound like your doctor appointment was all that tough. But it does sound like from what I've read and heard you speak about that afterward, your life really took a turn. Can you talk about what happened after?
Eric Dutcher 7:15
Yeah, I think what gets missed a lot, I think with a diabetes diagnosis is that there is a huge loss. And for me, I didn't recognize it. I knew something major had happened to me. And I didn't understand it. But I really started going inward. And in a dark way. I felt like now I wasn't sure what I could do anymore. I already felt belittled, and where I was, and so this made me feel even weaker. And it really spent about a decade just kind of almost afraid to get off the couch. Anything athletic was completely out of the question, connecting with others I didn't know who to connect to I was really isolated. And I do remember, I mean, this was early days of the internet, but one of the first things that I did was, you know, I thought I was gonna die. And I thought I was gonna die soon. And so I was googling to see, you know, how long do you live with diabetes? It was a major concern for me.
Stacey Simms 8:22
I can't imagine you found anything encouraging at that time. I've had Carrie Sparling famously talks about googling diabetes in the early 2000s. And seen nothing but terrifying numbers and awful stories.
Eric Dutcher 8:34
Yeah, I think it was funny that the one thing that I did find that I really kind of took solace in, even though you know, I trust me 10 years of being in a low mood situation, and my father passing away shortly after my diagnosis, and not really being able to be with the family mentally for that whole process. It was really, really hard. But the one solace that I did take was, you know, I found an article about Mary Tyler Moore, and really just, you know, this story that she shared of her driving around in our car with a box of glazed donuts and just crying her eyes out. And that, I guess, sincerity and knowing it from a celebrity and really being able to recognize that, hey, this is painful for other people, too, was the little comfort that I had in that time.
Stacey Simms 9:31
You never know when you tell your story, who's gonna find it when they need it.
Eric Dutcher 9:36
That's great. That's very true. And I think that's, for me, that's one of the most important messages I put out there today is like, I really encourage anyone that is diabetic or goes through a diabetes diagnosis, to just spend a moment to write your story down because your story matters. And a lot of people think, well, what's going to be good about my story, but the thing is we now know, what about our story is going to connect with someone, and it's going to be important to somebody. So we all should share our story.
Unknown Speaker 10:08
When did things start getting better for you? What changed?
Eric Dutcher 10:11
Well, I kind of had to hit rock bottom. And I did. And through that rock bottom process, I really decided that in what rock bottom for me was, I finally realized that I wasn't who I had been before, you know, I was always described as Tigger by my parents, you know, I bounced around, I couldn't sit still in my chair at school, I was always full of joy and energy. And, you know, I was the type of person that had friends that really didn't seem like they would go together. But I enjoyed being with all of them. And I was a crazy kid that would try to get people that had nothing in common all together for one big party. And I woke up one day, and I realized that my ability to see that beauty and everyone around me was no longer there. And I was defaulting to what I was hearing a lot from the toxic relationship that I was in. And I was starting to be really critical of others. And I just kind of said, you know, this is not me. And I wanted to go running back to who I was. So I started reconnecting more with my family, I started reconnecting with my faith, and specifically looking for people that shared my faith. And through that process, I had a co worker years back that I always admired and thought, you know, this person is really strong in their faith and probably is connected into a good church and reconnected with her and, and that's now my wife, Heather, and choose a big part of really pulling me out of that darkness, but not in a way that I was forced out of it. But really, by just sitting with me and helping me see the light that drew me for
Stacey Simms 12:12
you. It's interesting. When I and you mentioned rock bottom, I assumed you're going to say you were hospitalized with you know, DK or something, you know, you wanted to do something and couldn't make the event or Oh, yeah, it was interesting. And maybe I misinterpreted. But it's interesting to hear you speak about it more in you realized that things were just missing from your life. Am I correct? And kind of how I'm interpreting what you mean by rock bottom?
Right back to Eric answering that question. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dario And you know, over the years, I find we manage diabetes better when we're thinking less about all the stuff of diabetes tasks, you know what I mean? That's why I love partnering with people who take the load off on things like ordering supplies, so I can really focus on Benny, the Daario diabetes success plan is all about you. All the strips and lancets you need delivered to your door, one on one coaching so you can meet your milestones, weekly insights into your trends with suggestions for how to succeed, get the diabetes management plan that works with you and for you. Dario has published Studies demonstrate high impact clinical results, find out more go to my dario.com forward slash Diabetes Connections. Now back to Eric talking about what hitting rock bottom with diabetes meant for him.
Eric Dutcher 13:35
Yeah, no. And it's funny people think of rock bottom as being something that has to be something physical or it has to be a specific point in time. And to me rock bottom is really just where you hit your lowest and you finally realize, wow, I'm no longer who I was.
Stacey Simms 13:53
You mentioned in one of the pieces that I've read that you spent a decade afraid of athletic events, as you've mentioned, until you caught the obstacle course running fever. Now I gotta tell you, I'm a mildly active person. I have never caught any kind of activity fever in my life. Tell me what that means to you. Why did you get excited and interested in what led to extreme sports from somebody who said you know, basically pickup basketball level?
Eric Dutcher 14:24
Yeah, well, I guess I could go back to my roots and preschool we used to have a mud day and you would make mud pies and you know, you would get your clothes all muddy. And I've just discovered that I'm an adult that believes other adults should play in the mud every once in a while. And you know, my wife and I took on a it was a race called a survivor race and it was a very small I think it may have been a five k may have been a three K and I'm not quite sure and you know, the fire jumped She had to do on it was basically a log that somebody had pulled out of a fireplace it kind of looked like
Stacey Simms 15:05
this race. I should I should find out what they do in this area I could I could train for three k with a jump over a log
Eric Dutcher 15:11
that's like an array. Yes, yes, it's a perfect gateway drug obstacle course racing. Yeah, so it was a small race. But by the end of it, and every time you went through a certain obstacle, when you get to the end of it, you feel like you've accomplished something, it's tangible. You've had parts in there that were more difficult. And that's really kind of the bug that got me was, you know, I'm a Dewar, I'm an accomplished her to a fault. And at the end of this, I felt like I had really accomplished something. And so once I'd done something small, I immediately took the opportunity to step in and do a tough mudder, which was much more difficult. And really going through that journey. Like, the first tough mudder. I did, I went back to Google, and I searched around and I found one person who had blogged about doing a tough mudder and how he prepared to it. And I kind of said, Well, I guess if he did it, I can't and as it turns out, it ended up being a super exciting experience, because also on my team was another type one diabetic who had done tough matters before, and a guy that had had a heart transplant. So you know, the joke is that, you know, we were the the medically special team, and we had the the medic crew all hanging around behind us just waiting for us to drop. And probably the funniest moment is a tough mudder has this thing called electroshock therapy at the end of it, which sounds completely awful. But it's basically you run through some dangling wires, and some of them are live and some of them are not. And it's just enough to where it's like ow that hurt and can cause you to trip. But wait, we had, you're making
Stacey Simms 17:08
that up, that you go from the little fireplace log to like a live wire zap. And this is fun. This happens.
Eric Dutcher 17:16
Yeah. And it is great, because you'll see, you know, there's tons of different tactics, people, I could kind of geek out about this, just because it is very unique in the obstacle racing space that you know, you got people that kind of go try to go under the wires or try to go around the wires and then tough mudder is really smart. And they make the wires a little bit longer at the end. So when you if you have been knocked down and you're in the muddy water down at the end crawling through, you're going to get zapped a couple more times. But what was funny about that first experience was we get to the end, you're between electroshock therapy and the finish line. And every with tough mudder. It's all about teamwork and challenging yourself so you can skip any obstacle that you want. But we literally had to talk the guy with the heart transplant off of going through electroshock therapy, but it was just kind of this bonding moment where you know, we had gone through everything together. And so Gosh, darn it, we were gonna go through this one too.
Stacey Simms 18:18
He didn't know did he? Did he do it? No. All right. Another dumb question. Because now I'm fascinated. Does anything like that mess with diabetes stuff like could it mess with a pump or Dexcom or you know, CGM,
Eric Dutcher 18:32
I have never had a device failure because of my crazy electroshock therapy. And actually, world's toughest mudder, the 24 hour event, there were three electrically related obstacles. And I chose to go that path rather than the non electrical path. But the equipment, I've never had a issue, and I haven't heard of anyone that can I think, theoretically, it could if it hit just right. But I always just carry backups to the events. And most of the time, anything with electrical stuff is is at the end of the race. And so you can adjust out for it.
Stacey Simms 19:16
I'm going to put a note in next time I speak to Dexcom. Maybe we can hook you guys up. And you can do some FDA clinical testing for the g7. As you go through the course.
Eric Dutcher 19:26
I'm always happy to be the lab rat. And as you can tell, I like mazes. Oh my goodness,
Stacey Simms 19:32
I probably should ask you let me I was going to move on. But with diabetes in these races, I know everybody is different. And we're going to talk about the diabetes sports project and how you want to help other people. But can you share anything that you have learned that has helped you because I have to imagine you spent a decade as you said thinking diabetes was going to stop you from being active. So when you started, that'd be a little fear there. I mean, how did you adjust in terms of figuring out how to manage while you did all this?
Eric Dutcher 20:00
It's a good question. So I actually spent, you know, 2019, I created something called Project mud. And it was more unstoppable diabetics. And it was really around, I flew around the country and to various cities and gathered up diabetics and showed them exactly what you need to do to get race ready. And a lot of it is just remembering first that, you know, we're human. And just like any other human, you just need to be able to, you know, get ready with some sort of training. And it doesn't have to be extensive, I think people overthink and think they've got to be trained up and ready to go, rather than just sign up for the race and let that be the reason for you to exercise. But when you think about whether you're diabetic or not diabetic, if you leave your house to go do a run, you need to make sure that you have the things with you to adjust to any changing situations. So even as a non diabetic, it's probably a good idea to carry a credit card or an ID with you, or cash in case you need, you know, you run too far. And you need to call an Uber home, you know, some sort of phone device. And really, once you realize that all doing something athletically with diabetes is making sure that you're ready to address things that might go wrong, then you can actually give yourself permission to step out and do pretty amazing things. And what amazing is is different for different people, I don't expect everyone to go out and want to run a marathon, some people just want to be able to run around the block. And I think you can do that. I think you just need to have a plan in place of Okay, do I have something that can bring my blood sugar up? Do I have something that can bring my blood sugar down? Do I have something that can test my blood sugar so that I know where I am in case being active? makes it hard for me to internally tell where my blood sugar is? Do I have water to stay hydrated? It's really it's funny, we I think we overcomplicate it. And it's because diabetes is complicated. But in the end, all we're trying to do is nudge ourselves back one way or another. And all you need to do is know how to nudge
Stacey Simms 22:34
you mentioned, project mud and the diabetes sports project. Let's talk about that. I was looking back through my notes. And I spoke to Casey porin from the diabetes sports project about a year after he founded it. I mean, we talked to him, I think in 2006, I want to say So tell me about your involvement, and what the diabetes sports project is hoping to do.
Eric Dutcher 22:55
Yeah, I ran into the diabetes sports project when I was just starting to get a little bit more involved athletically and I wanted to dive deeper with athletes that knew how to manage their blood sugars. And I saw a post about the diabetes sports project running the California international marathon in Sacramento. And I had not run a marathon at this point. But I thought why not. And I signed up and went to the event and met Casey and Eric Tozer. You know, the founders. And if you look at the diabetes forks project Foundation, what they're trying to do is really inspire people, those living with diabetes, to live an active lifestyle and encouraging and providing resources and also events where you can do that. And so the California international marathon was an example of one of these events where we ended up having 20 diabetics that were either running all or part of the marathon and they had set it up to where, you know, if you wanted to just do a half marathon you could or if you wanted to be part of a team, you could. So it was a very friendly environment. And around that. They also set up an event with the jdrf where families with kids can come and talk to diabetic athletes about how to be active with diabetes, as well as they were visiting some hospital or awards with children with diabetes. And so it's this great community resource of professional and really strong athletes that is really around educating and inspiring people to an active lifestyle. And I've been very excited to be a champion. They welcomed me in as a champion shortly Thereafter, probably the only mud runner champion that we have. I think there's others that like reading, mud runs for sure there's some on the books. But that being my primary passion, and I've enjoyed working with them, and I look forward to doing more with them.
Stacey Simms 25:18
And your role at the diabetes sports project is changing or has changed, you're going to be part of the leadership. Now, tell me about that. Yeah, I'm
Eric Dutcher 25:25
really excited. You know, Eric, and Casey, as well as Amy and Bradford, it's 100% volunteer leadership team, which is not something you'll always find in nonprofits. And because of that, there's been a limited amount of time that people can dedicate to it. And so they've invited me to come on as the Chief Operating Officer for the diabetes sports project. And I'm really excited about it, because I'm going to be able to add, you know, more time into that volunteer leadership team. And we've got some great things that we're going to put together this year, there's the group that is going to be cycling around Manhattan called the rebellion with with a cause that was set up by crag diabetes sports champion, and then we're working on getting together a camping trip for the Grand Canyon, that would also be a hiking event. So community plus exercise, which is typically what we like to do. And then I hear on the horizon, that we're going to have some members running the New York City Marathon in November. So really excited about what I can do just adding some additional time and dedication with the leadership team there. And we've got an exciting year coming up.
Stacey Simms 26:50
That's great. You know, I asked earlier, I mentioned earlier, everybody is so different in terms of how they manage diabetes during endurance, athletic events, or even during sports. I wonder though, if you might share a tip or two that has helped you personally. Do you have a way that you carry gels? Or do you prefer gels to I don't even know what y'all use? But is there anything you can share about kind of while you're doing these? What's made it easier for you, if that makes sense?
Eric Dutcher 27:21
Sure. I think the first thing that I always encourage everyone is start small. I think everyone some time ago, a lot of people they try to go big and they try to run you know a mile or 10 miles their first time out. So if you start small with a go a mile, remember that all your insulin action time typically is two hours out. So if you're going to reduce your insulin, make sure you're doing it two hours in advance. If you're doing like cardio, you need to reduce your insulin more than if you're doing intense cardio, which sometimes is counterintuitive. My gear that I carry, I tend to vary it based on how stable my sugars feel before I leave, but there's nothing wrong. Don't hate on the old glucose tabs. The glucose tabs are great because you can kind of break them up in your mouth and let them absorb through your cheeks and tongue. And probably my favorite tip is if you want to have a slow drip of glucose into your bloodstream, then pack a few gummy bears in your cheek and just run like a chip pump.
Stacey Simms 28:33
I love it. I have to ask. I've read somewhere that you have. Have you auditioned for survivor on CBS? Is that something you wanted to or something you did?
Eric Dutcher 28:41
Very accurate I have. So I first started training for American Ninja Warrior. And I did apply and put my video together and it actually featured some friends in London that were also type one diabetic, diabetic comedian and diabetic runner in London. I was not chosen for the show there. And I have yes I have applied three times now to be on. CBS is survivor and survivor. If you're listening, the time still is now you need to let a type one diabetic take on the greatest adventure show ever.
Stacey Simms 29:22
Have you heard anything from survivor? Do they have a policy against people with diabetes? Or is it by omission? I mean any idea?
Eric Dutcher 29:29
I have not? And that's actually a really good question. So I have not had a direct conversation with them. And I think that's really where this starts. I have been pushing for just the opportunity to have a conversation with them because it doesn't have to be like I just want a diabetic on the show. I would love to be the diabetic but I really want to open that door. Because I think if people saw that there would be a new level of appreciation for how far we can actually stretch. But there hasn't been a conversation yet. I'm looking to have that conversation. And there at one time, there was a very specific, you cannot do this with it. But I have not been able to read anything in the roles that specifically prevents a type one diabetic from being on the show.
Stacey Simms 30:25
I mean, come on, we've had people all over the Amazing Race and winners of The Amazing Race. I know survivors at different ages. But come on. All right, I'm, I'm pushing for that, too. Now, before I let you go, one of the things I wanted to ask you about, and I hope it's okay to ask, but this is your email, and I won't give out your email address. But it has wolf pack in it. And being in North Carolina, the first thing I thought of was NC State and you know, Wolf Pack. But that's not what it's about for you. Can you tell us about your wolf pack?
Eric Dutcher 30:53
Yeah, so we'll pack is a special way that we refer to our family, when my wife and I got married, I had three children, and she had two from a previous marriage. And we were blending our family. And in addition, she over the years had come close to and informally adopted another son. And so there were six of us, three boys, three girls, we were The Brady Bunch minus Alice nomade. But we really wanted something that was for all of us. And so many times people turned their last name as a domain name or an email address. And we had multiple last names in our family. And we didn't want to, we didn't want to lose that. We didn't want to single out one family over the other. And so we described ourselves and said, We are our Wolf Pack. And our Wolf Pack still exists as a website for us.
Stacey Simms 32:04
Oh, that's great. Eric, thank you so much for joining me come back on. We'll talk more about the sports project. And we'll talk more about survivor. And you know, let us know what wild long range athletic events you're doing. I'd really appreciate it
Eric Dutcher 32:19
sounds great. Maybe I can come on sometime after I complete the Iron Man and April.
Stacey Simms 32:24
Oh my gosh, absolutely.
Eric Dutcher 32:25
Thanks so much.
Announcer 32:32
You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.
Stacey Simms 32:37
More information, of course, at Diabetes connections.com. I'll link up the diabetes sports project. I'll link up Eric's social so you can watch him in that Ironman training that he's doing just a phenomenal guy to talk to. Although I'm inspired by him, I am not. I gotta tell you, I am not motivated to electrocute myself while running. That's not gonna happen. And if you haven't seen that picture, I will post it in the Facebook group. As I'm recording this, I think it's gonna be the cover. You know, I always have something for each episode that turns out to be the cover of the featured photo. That was fun, the website and it may just be that oh my goodness, but but good for him. Whatever makes you happy. Eric, thanks so much for sharing that.
We're gonna talk about spare a rose in just a moment. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. And you know, we started with Basal IQ. That's the G6 Tandem pump software program that came out a couple of years ago, and we really loved it. But I got to tell you control IQ has been absolutely amazing. Benny is 16 he's had diabetes, as you know, for 14 years and I gotta say, we have never done less work for better results. And I hesitate to say we anymore because really is almost all him at this point. I mean, I'm the mom, I nag and I remind but he's doing less work and getting the best results diabetes wise, his last A1Cs have been his lowest ever. His time in range is so great. It's hard for me to talk about sometimes, and I'm a superstitious person, I want to be careful, but this is the real deal. And I'm thrilled that we are able to use control IQ with the Dexcom G6 and the Tandem pump. Of course, individual results may vary. To learn more, go to Diabetes, Connections comm and click on the Dexcom logo.
I started releasing classic episodes this year. These are episodes of the podcast that aired in 2015 or 2016. And you may have missed the first time around. So last week we released one on spare a rose, but I just wanted to talk about it for a moment in case you missed that or you feel like you know what it's all about just for a moment here in the innovations segment. Because Spare A Rose is marking eight years which is pretty incredible for a small program. I think many people thought might be a one and done when it launched back in 2013.
So real quick, a spare rose is a program from the life for a child program, the International diabetes Federation basically helps kids around the world in under resourced countries get meters and strips and insulin and even education for their family. It's an incredibly needed resource and organization and sparrows is one of the ways that they raise money now, year after here. And the idea behind the name spear Rose is that on Valentine's Day, you would buy one less rose, one fewer rose out of a dozen roses, you would buy 11 and then donate the cost of that last rose that you spared to the charity.
If you want to learn more, I would definitely urge you to listen to last week's episode. In addition to the info, it's a lot of fun. We played a game and we were very silly, but I looked up spare arose. And my old blog, I used to write a blog and think about three people read it. But I looked up what I was writing about in 2013. And it First of all, this blog is heinous. I mean, it's just terrible. The picture is totally out of focus. You know, I'll link it up. But I don't, I don't know that I really want you to go back and look at it. But it was so fun. Because apparently, you know, Benny is in second grade in 2013. And we were writing out his Valentine cards. And that's what I wrote about Star Wars and Avengers Valentine cards. And I talked to him about this just tonight at dinner. And I was joking about it. And he said yes, it still very much matters, who would get Iron Man or Yoda as I wrote the book. And if you'd like to learn more about spear rose, of course, I'll link it up in the show notes, what I usually do is just give a couple of dollars every month and make it automatic.
I know this year, because we have said many, many times, you know, this past year has been very difficult for so many people. So if this is not something that you can currently donate to maybe just spread the word, you know, retweet, or share an image and tell your community about it, whatever you do, will definitely help. And I will link it all up at Diabetes connections.com, including some really good more current blogs and pieces about Spare a Rose in 2021.
Before I let you go, I have an event on the books. I'm so excited when this happens, because you know, most of us were traveling here and there and everywhere before COVID. And now when I have like a new zoom in a new place, it's very exciting. And big thanks to JDRF Tampa, who asked me to participate in their walk kickoff. So I'm going to be doing that on March 3, I will be linking up more information on social media and in the Diabetes Connections group on Facebook. So please check that out. And I love to speak to groups. I'm happy to help with kickoffs, if you'd like to learn more, you know where to find me reach out Stacy at Diabetes connections.com. We did not have a book tour in 2020. I would love to do that one of these days. But but certainly I'm available virtually to talk about the world's worst diabetes Mom.
I had a great talk. It was a very casual. And I just want to mention this here to kind of get the wheels turning within a closed Facebook group about camp and I'm trying to get this into an episode or a blog post. But it was about non diabetes camp. And you know, what do you do about sending your child assuming that camps are going to happen this summer, now is the time that people are signing their kids up. So I did an hour q&a with a bunch of moms mostly from New York, one of them was sending their kid to the camp I went to I went to camp French Woods as a child, which is a performing arts camp. Shocking. I know that I went to a performing arts camp for two summers, but I went away to camp, you know, my entire childhood. And I'm thrilled that my kids are able to do that as well. Benny is kind of aged out of his camp. And if they do it this summer, he'll be in Israel for a month, which makes me nervous, but he's going so you know, COVID permitting, but it was a really great hour of conversation. And so if that's something that you'd like to discuss, you know, we can always set up a call. It's mom to mom advice or Parent to Parent, you know, I'm not a doctor, but I'm happy to share her experience. So just putting that out there.
All right, don't forget we have another classic episode coming up this Thursday. Oh, we're talking to Sam Fuld. This is so great. So this is an interview from a couple of years ago with the Major League Baseball player now turned General Manager Sam Fuld. And if you didn't hear that interview the first time around. I'm going to bring it back out in just a couple of days.
Thank you to my editor John Bukenas from audio editing solutions and thank you as always for listening. I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here in a couple of days until then, be kind to yourself.
Benny 39:19
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