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The US healthcare system makes it difficult, expensive, and often impossible for people with T1D to access the care, education, and support they need to live. Around the Circle: Living Well with T1D brings together voices from across the type 1 diabetes community to share real stories, expert insight, and practical support for living well with T1D.
Hosted by the team at Blue Circle Health, a U.S.-based program transforming type 1 care, this podcast helps people go from just surviving to truly living well with type 1 diabetes.
Learn more at BlueCircleHealth.org
Living with type one diabetes means
carrying a lot of responsibilities every
day, all of the decisions, the numbers,
the alarms, and the constant need to stay.
At least one step ahead and for
the people around us, our parents,
partners, family members and caregivers,
there's a different kind of weight
they want to help and understand,
but don't always know what to do.
My name is Scott Johnson, and today
I am joined by David Panzirer.
David is the father of two adult
children with type one diabetes, and
that experience as a parent pushed
him into action advocating and
driving real change in the T 1D space.
David is a trustee of the Helmsley
Charitable Trust where he directs
significant investments in type
one diabetes, including initiatives
such as Blue Circle Health.
You may not realize it, but David
and the Helmsley Charitable Trust
have likely played a role in the
tools and therapies you use today.
Before we continue, I need to remind you
that we're not providing medical advice.
For personalized guidance,
we'll always encourage you to
consult your healthcare team.
Additionally, Blue Circle Health does not
endorse any specific product brands and
encourages you to discuss those details
with your personal healthcare team.
I am excited to welcome David
Panzirer to the show today.
David, thank you so much for joining me.
I'm really looking forward
to this conversation.
Hey Scott.
Thanks for having me.
I'm looking forward to it as well.
Wonderful.
first of all, I don't want to assume
that our listeners are familiar with
you and Helmsley Charitable Trust.
Can you start by giving us a quick
introduction and telling us what
the Helmsley Charitable Trust is?
Sure.
So the Helmsley Charitable Trust is a
private foundation, a hundred percent
focused on health and medical research.
started in 2007 upon the
death of Leona Helmsley.
Now a seven and a half billion
dollar entity and type one diabetes
is one of the major causes.
It's actually the largest program
of the trust, mainly because, I'm a
parent of two of my three children
of type one, and that's been at least
a driving force for starting it.
I wouldn't say it's a driving
force for things that we do.
Yeah.
I'd love to focus in a little bit
more on your experience as a, parent.
Start back at the beginning
when your family first
encountered type one diabetes.
Can you share a little bit more
about what that experience was like
for you and your wife as parents?
Yeah.
It was, so I knew, March 23rd, 2007.
I can tell you I knew absolutely
nothing about type one diabetes until
about 4:33 that afternoon when we got
a call from our pediatrician, my wife
had suspected something was wrong
and dropped off a urine analysis for
my pediatrician to do an analysis.
Long story short, they called the next
day and they're like, we're really sorry
to tell you this, but your daughter
has type one diabetes prepared to go
to the city tomorrow and spend the day.
We were like, what?
We, I knew absolutely
nothing about diabetes.
My wife knew a little bit because
she's a nutritionist by training.
And we had a 3-year-old and a
three month old in addition to
Morgan, who was six at the time.
So to say we were, deer caught
in headlights would probably
be a huge understatement
As you guys are rushing into the,
city, into the hospital and, all that.
, tell me a little bit more about what you
were feeling, what you were experiencing,
what were you worried about at that point?
I didn't even know enough to be worried.
I just knew enough that this was
scary because it was unknown.
I went on Dr. Google like everybody else.
Yeah.
And I read all night and I went
in there with a lot of questions,
not understanding anything.
and I didn't fully understand
that we were in for, a new life of
literally finger pricks at that time.
And shots CGM did not exist.
And, we were.
We were sent home, we, I guess we
were fortunate that my wife caught
it early, so Morgan was not in DKA,
but we were also, it was a Friday
that we got sent into the city.
We spent the day there and we were
sent home and I was like, oh my gosh.
Like we, we barely knew what to do.
Went home that evening and we're
like, I think we were on the
phone with the on-call physician
like four times that first night.
Yeah,
you're like.
My hands are like this as I'm
preparing to give Morgan a shot and
she's screaming and crying because
she's six and doesn't understand it.
I'm like, oh my God, this is horrible.
And it took a little while, but I
would say after probably about 10,
maybe there's a couple weeks, Morgan
had shared a room with her younger
sister, Caroline, who has since been
diagnosed with type one as well.
but she was sharing a room.
We took her out, we brought
her into the bathroom.
I was like, Morgan, I kneeled down in
front of her because she was screaming,
crying, and I'm looking at my hand and
my hand is shaking with the pen in it.
Morgan, we really have to do this or
I have to bring it to the hospital.
Yeah.
And she looked me dead in the eye,
it was probably a month into it.
And she said, give it to me, I'm doing.
And I'm like, what?
And it took her 45 minutes of
screaming, crying and all that stuff.
But she gave herself
a shot in the stomach.
And I'd say from that point on.
She picked up, my wife and I
put us on her back and said,
I'm done with this nonsense.
We're moving forward.
I think in some respects, all of
the Panzirers we're all a little
bit of control freaks, and I'm
pretty sure this was Morgan's way
of grabbing a little bit of control
and saying, I'm going to do this.
And she really hasn't looked
back since he's now 25 and been
living with this disease 19 years.
Yeah.
It's such a, it's such a great
story of, of bravery and, it
always strikes me that we.
So easily compartmentalize all the
medical aspects and the tasks, right?
poking our fingers and giving
shots and things like that.
But there's really nothing
normal about it, and it takes
immense bravery to, to do that.
We're going to lean more into some of
those stories and learn more about your,
what you were feeling and experiencing.
But I want to bring people through how
that brought you into your advocacy.
So at some point, all of that personal
experience started pulling you deeper.
Into advocacy, really leading to
real change for many of us with T 1D.
But at that point in time, you
were not, you didn't have anything
to do with diabetes or advocacy?
Can you take us through the process
of, that, transformation for you?
Yeah.
literally Morgan was
diagnosed in March of 2007.
Five months later, I became
a trustee of the trust.
I barely knew how to care for my daughter,
let alone understand what, how to deploy
the amount of resources that we had.
So I started traveling and learning
and fear is a very good motivator.
Yeah.
And I was scared.
I, literally was scared and I made
a very simple promise to Morgan at
six years old, and that was that I
would help her in any way that I can.
So here I was, these two events happening
five months apart except I had no clue.
I started traveling and
learning, and here I am now.
Oh gosh, it's 18 years later and I'm now
amassed almost a million miles on United,
and I'm still traveling, learning, but I
have a pretty good feel for the ecosystem.
I have a really good team that we've
built here at the truck, so I have 19
folks here that do nothing but diabetes.
Everybody from.
I have PhD scientists, I have an engineer.
I have folks with their masters in
public health because I needed people
to help me dissect and interpret
what science was telling me, which
I had zero clue on how to do.
So the one thing I'll take
credit for is hiring really smart
people in getting out of the way.
And I've got a very excellent team here
that does unbelievable work and is.
Just about as passionate as I am about
it, even though they don't have the
personal, impact that I do in my family.
So it's been a, it's been an amazing
group of people to work with.
Yeah.
That's, very clear in
everything that comes through.
You mentioned, seeing and experiencing
a lot of the, diabetes ecosystem.
So from research to technology to
care models, from where you sit,
why has it been important for you to
step into that, that advocate role
and get a finger on the pulse of all
those different ecosystems when, you
really just wanted to be a parent.
I did just want to be a parent, but I
also, and it took me a while to understand
not only the opportunity I had in front
of me, but the responsibility to lean in.
And I didn't fully
understand that at first.
It took me some time to realize that,
but at the end of the day, we have a very
broken healthcare system here in the us.
I would actually argue there's
absolutely nothing redeemable about it.
It is horrible.
If you were trying to design a system
that would make life really difficult
for people with a chronic disease, you'd
have exactly what we have here in the us.
so there was that piece of it.
Then there was, as I learned and
traveled around, you really saw the
disparities between those who are seen
by an endocrinologist and those who
are not, and that really correlates
to geography because most diabetes centers
are associated with larger urban areas
or larger academic centers, which means
if you live by and large in the middle
of the country, you don't have access.
And when I began to see some of those
disparities, and my team traveling
around, seeing them, it became pretty
clear that something had to change.
And when we first started, I don't
know what the statistics are up to
now, but, less than 35% of people
were hitting their a DA recommended
targets for glucose management, and
that to me is pretty abysmal, so
I felt like we had to do better.
How would you say your advocacy has
changed over the years as you've learned
and experienced many different things?
I would say in a nutshell, I started
out like every other parent, right?
I was like, I want a cure for my child.
without understanding how
incredibly naive that was.
that was my mindset and, my mindset
was, JDRF at the time now breakthrough,
they've been around since 1976 ish
and they must be doing something
wrong because this should be solved.
And of course that's not fair.
It's incredibly naive and I had no
clue what I was talking about, but that
was my mindset as I began to learn and
travel and see things and then, I really
became this voice of the under-resourced
or underserved or bringing those.
I've learned that over the years in
our community, and I think this is like
this in a lot of disease communities, we
are very in tune to the vocal minority,
which is not really, the, majority
of folks living with this disease.
So we started traveling around.
Learning and doing these focus groups
on, for instance, when we were doing
diligence on how to impact people from
lower socioeconomic status areas, we
went and talked to them and I was blown
away because I just thought they needed
access to the same tools that we had.
And until you go and talk and understand
their lived experience, you recognize, or
at least I did, that diabetes, in a lot
of cases, is the least of their problems.
And they've got whatever,
all sorts of issues.
And it became very clear to me that
voice was never, ever at the table.
And I felt a very strong
sense of obligation to bring
that voice to the table.
And I think that is continues
to be our role today.
We try and bring and make sure that
the voice of everybody is at the
table and it's incredibly hard to do.
but.
I don't know.
I, feel like that's my calling
At the center of all this is, really
your own family's experience and,
because of your role today, that's,
not something we hear enough about.
There's always a focus on what
you're doing with Helmsley Charitable
Trust, which is also important too.
But I'd love to spend a few more
minutes, just talking more about you
and your family and your experience.
Was there a moment when you realized just
how much responsibility your kids would
eventually have to take on themselves
and what was that like for you and Karen?
Oh yeah, I think Karen had a little
bit more of a clue than I did.
but recognizing that insulin is a hormone,
that allows you to metabolize carbs.
And if you get it really wrong, you can
get yourself in big trouble pretty quick.
And that always made me really nervous.
What I think changed, and I'm a worrier to
begin with, like I, I worry about a lot,
and I think what really changed things
for me was the follow app in Dexcom.
Because it went from waking up
in the middle of the night two
to three times a night, digging
Morgan's hands out, pricking her
finger, hoping I don't wake her up.
If she's low, shoving a juice box,
straw in her mouth and telling her to
drink and it was every single night.
And then, being able to roll over and
look at the CGM on my phone and even
when Morgan was in college, being
able to know she's at least safe.
Morgan would tell you, and
Caroline would also tell you.
They needed to come up rules of,
with rules of engagement as to when
I was allowed to reach out to them.
because at the beginning I'm a,
perfectionist, so diabetes is a really
bad disease for me to be involved with.
So at the beginning, I'd be reaching
out to Morgan or Caroline and be
like, oh, you're high or you're low.
And I would get some
obnoxious text back, duh.
Or Morgan used to love
to say, thanks, captain
obvious, what else you got?
stuff like that.
And, eventually after a couple weeks,
Morgan came home and she said dad, we need
to talk because you're driving me nuts.
And I said, okay.
very long story short, we came
up with rules of engagement.
So when I'm allowed to reach out
something, if you're high for three
or more hours, and I don't see it
reversing if you're below a certain
number and I don't see it flattening
out or starting to go up after.
20 minutes you're going to hear from
me, and if you're super low, you're
going to hear from me right away.
And we came up with those kind of
rules of engagement as we called it.
And I would say that probably
saved my relationship with my
daughters, because all I wanted to
do was make sure they were safe.
But I was also, I was a bit of a
helicopter parent, so I'm sure that,
and my wife told me that she gave me
the greatest piece of advice that I
probably ever have, my wife gave to me.
Morgan was probably 10 or 12 or something
like that, and she said, look, at the
end of the day, this is her disease
and Caroline's disease, they're going
to leave our home and they're going
to make a decision to engage or not.
But if you keep harassing them and keep
being a pain in their butt, they're going
to resent you and resent the disease.
And that really hit home for me.
I backed off a lot.
Especially for me, Morgan and,
Caroline would probably say not
so much, but it felt like I did.
the having the data on my phone so that I
can make sure they're safe and recognizing
that, if there's not an imminent danger
from a severe low or a really severe high
going on for a while, I could back off.
The highs and the lows are
part of diabetes management.
It took me a really long
time to accept that.
My fear was I wanted to mimic normal
blood sugars as much as possible.
What I did though was allow that to
strain my relationship with my children.
that's a natural, that's
a natural thing, right?
As parents, we worry about our children.
I'll never forget when, when similar
experience, when, the Dexcom follow
first hit, the hit the scene, and, at
that point, my mom had already passed.
So my dad was really, I was an adult.
My dad was excited to have
this opportunity to, have
access to my blood sugars.
But after.
After a couple weeks, he actually,
he shared that it was completely
overwhelming to him because he had,
come up in a world where we were
checking my blood sugar maybe six
to eight times a day, which in those
days, that was a lot to do even then.
But all of a sudden he's got access to
hundreds and hundreds of, data points and.
And it really overwhelmed him.
and just, I find that really striking.
but parents are always going to worry.
I'm always going to worry about my
kids, but I love the, I love that
you and Morgan and Caroline were able
to find a, balancing point there.
Yeah.
Thankfully, my kids didn't banish
me and kick me off of share
once we came up with the, rules.
They, let me stay on board as
long as I played by the rules.
So it's been good.
Living with type one diabetes often
teaches people a lot about themselves
over time, and as you've watched your
kids grow up with this condition.
What are some things that
maybe they've taught you?
Yeah, so I've said this so many different
times, but when Morgan was first
diagnosed, I had a 6-year-old, because
Morgan was six at the time, who was
my teacher in life, and she taught me
about resilience, she taught me how to
persevere, leadership, bravery, courage.
After a few weeks she was
like, I'm done with this crap.
I'm going on.
Caroline, when she was diagnosed,
she had a great role model in Morgan.
Caroline is, was playing lacrosse
at a high school level, or that
might have been junior high school.
She's now a D1 lacrosse player
doing really well and has learned,
through a lot of trial and
error how to manage her disease.
And it's, perseverance.
It's, I'm not going to let this disease
define who and what I can do, and I think
that's an incredibly powerful message.
And I can honestly say that having
my children with a chronic disease
has made me a better person.
I'd cut my right arm off
to take it away from them.
But there's no doubt that watching these
kids and now adults do what they do,
has absolutely inspired me and taught
me so many different life lessons.
It also taught me perspective, right?
what's really important in life, like we.
Probably like every other set of parents
worried about, in hindsight, what
was incredibly trivial, stupid stuff.
And then you deal with a disease
like this, or god forbid something
worse, you get your perspective
adjusted pretty darn fast.
And we were no different.
As you started hearing more and
more stories from people living
with type one diabetes, is there
anything that maybe surprised you
about their day-to-day experience?
Yeah, honestly I didn't under, I didn't
know anything about healthcare until
my kids got diagnosed and, you get
a quick lesson or 10 really quickly.
And I came to realize, even with
having decent insurance, it's a battle.
And I had no idea how broken the
healthcare system is and how.
If you look at the large majority
of healthcare, the goal is to treat
symptoms do so as cheaply as possible
and they don't solve anything.
When you hear about some of these
challenges from people living
with diabetes, how does that shape
the way you think about where
energy and resources should go
to, to try and make things better?
As I said, I have a team of 19
folks and our job at the end of the
day is understand the ecosystem.
because you cannot.
Have an impact unless you understand
what the players are doing.
We have folks that keep up on the science.
We have folks that keep
up with the regulators.
I spend a lot of time with industry.
So those companies playing in this
field so that I can understand
what's in their pipeline.
More importantly, what's falling out
of their pipeline, and is there things
that we may be able to advance to give.
Be the tide to raise all boats.
So there's definitely that piece
of understand the ecosystem so that
you know what levers are available
for you to pull to change things.
And I hate to say it Scott, but there's
so much incredibly low hanging fruit
that, there's so many things that I would
change if I were to, if I were king of
the world, I would start with an insurance
company that actually cares about people.
Value-based healthcare and all
of that kind of personalized
medicine, those are buzzwords.
That's not real.
And I would love to see that be real here
in the United States, that you actually
get rewarded for taking care of people
instead of trying to save a buck for
the bottom line while people suffer.
Yeah.
And that's what we have
today, unfortunately.
Yeah.
How did all of this lead to the
formation of Blue Circle Health and
where does that fit into the bigger
picture of Helmsley's grant portfolio?
Yeah, so Blue Circle Health really
started with an idea that I had
in 2017, and you'll laugh at this.
I don't know if I've told you this
story, Scott, but I wanted to create the
Geek Squad for type one diabetes, and
I even went so far as I reached out to
the founder of Best Buy, Dick Schultz.
I wrote him a letter, literally a
handwritten letter, and I sent it to
his foundation and the head of his
foundation sent me an email back saying,
please send me a brief email as to why
Dick Schultz should take your call.
So I wrote a brief email.
Bullet number one was,
I don't want your money.
Bullet number two was, I just want 10
minutes of your time to talk to you about
a Geek Squad idea for type one diabetes.
Little did I know Dick Schultz
has a daughter with type one.
And I had met her and I didn't even
put two and two together because
she was under a married name.
So it never occurred to me.
But he said to me back in 2017, so
understanding, this is pre COVID,
he said to me, listened to my idea.
He said, David, you are not going to need
boots on the ground the way we do the
Geek Squad, because you're going to be
able to do almost all of this virtually.
So I started thinking to myself,
and by the way, it wasn't just me.
I got together a group of KOLs together,
my team had a lot of input, on could
we create a virtual specialty clinic so
if you live in rural America, you would
have the same access to the same care
that I can receive here in New York City
or pick your any other major clinic.
And that was really the
beginning of Blue Circle Health.
We had funded a project called
Project Echo out of New Mexico.
They were doing part of it in at the
University of Florida in Gainesville.
So we decided to use that infrastructure
of those folks who were already
working in Florida and decided
Florida was going to be our first
date to do Blue Circle Health.
In turned out, that was probably a
really crappy decision because Florida's
incredibly difficult to work with.
But if you could do it in Florida,
you could do it almost anywhere.
So that was really the beginning
of Blue Circle Health, and there's
been a lot of people now, including
yourself, who now work at Blue Circle
that are having input and expertise in
helping to shape how we move forward.
I think, you have shaped the way that,
that the team has come together and
also the fact that listening is really
one of the core things that we do.
We don't assume that
we know the best way to do
things, and it's also different
in every place that we go.
And so listening is a big key.
Alright, this is a great place to take
a quick break and when we come back,
I want to talk about what parents,
partners and allies can do to better
support the people in their lives who
are living with type one diabetes.
We'll be right back.
One of our favorite things is
sharing stories from people who've
participated in the program.
I have one here from Lindsay in
Florida who's been living with
type one diabetes since 1989.
My name is Lindsay Teeter, and I have
been diabetic for most of my life.
I was diagnosed in 1989.
Going to the gym, that
was always my struggle.
All I wanted to do was go in there and
kick some bags, and then I couldn't, or
even starting the workout and being a
few minutes in and then having to stop.
And go sit down somewhere and
drink a juice or Skittles or
whatever I had on me while I just
watched other people work out.
It'd make me a little bitter.
I wouldn't pick back up and go work
out because I was just, I don't
know, felt defeated at that point.
Dr. Wise, I had one great endocrinologist,
but she ended up moving to Texas and I've
never really had another endocrinologist
that, that I felt comfortable with.
I don't think they're giving
me bad information, but it's
just a doctor's appointment.
Go and do what you need to do.
Go over some numbers.
Get a lecture because
their numbers aren't great.
And move on.
Then when I joined Blue Circle and
would talk to people who were like,
all right, so your numbers, and I
would be ready, okay, I'm ready.
Yell at me.
I know it got high yesterday at
this time, but it's because of this.
And they were always so understanding
and they were like, but look at the
rest of the day how amazing this was.
You're killing it.
And they always were so positive.
There was never any negatives.
I never had any, anything negative
said to me and that meant a lot.
I'm better, a lot better about
looking at my reports to see.
If I'm noticing any trends to
try and troubleshoot if I can.
And I definitely never did that before.
I never trusted myself to, but
I'll make a little bit, a little
adjustments here and there.
That's not something I ever had the
confidence to do before that they gave me.
So yeah, I think that for sure,
just paying more attention and being
confident in myself to make changes.
I put it off for a long time and I should
have started sooner because it really
was life changing for me, for the better.
Thank you Lindsay.
We really appreciate you sharing
your story with us today.
Now, before we dive back in, I
want to share something I found
really helpful and again, this
isn't an ad or anything like that.
It's just a resource that I
think is worth knowing about.
There's a community called Children
with Diabetes that's been bringing
families together around type one
diabetes for a very long time.
They're probably best known for their
Friends for Life conferences, where people
living with T 1D and their families come
together to learn from each other, share
experiences, and build real connections.
And honestly, it's one of the places
where that kind of listening that we've
been talking about today really comes
to life where parents, kids and adults
and grandparents and the whole support
system, with T 1D are all learning
from each other, not just from experts,
but also from real lived experience.
If you've never checked it out,
it's definitely worth exploring.
Learn more at childrenwithdiabetes.com.
And honestly, it's a great example
of what support can actually look
like in real life, which is exactly
what I want to dig into next.
All right, welcome back.
We've been talking about your
experience as a parent and what, what
you've learned from listening across
the type one diabetes community.
But I'd love to spend the rest of
our time together talking about what
some of those lessons might mean for
the people around us, the parents and
partners, and others who want to support
someone living with type one diabetes.
And let's start with parents who maybe are
still relatively new to type one diabetes.
What's something you wish someone
had told you earlier in your journey?
No one blood sugar, if it's not too
high or too low is going to hurt, right?
You're going to have crappy days,
you're going to have better days, and
it's just part of the deal, right?
And I really struggled with
handling the volatility because
I really wanted things to be as
quote unquote, normal as possible.
so I would say, allow yourself some grace.
Allow your child some grace
who may be dealing with this.
And job one as a parent
is keep your kids safe.
And at the end of the day, allowing
them to own as much of the disease
management as possible at any age.
As Morgan really started to three weeks
or a month in, and we were just like, wow.
and we let her do it.
And then she wanted to program her
own pump when she got her pump.
We let her do it.
Obviously we watched, we
supervised, but we let her grab
as much ownership as possible.
And as I said earlier, my wife's advice
to me of backing off and letting Morgan
own it was really, great advice because it
is her disease and she is going to leave,
and, I'm not always going to be
there to, be the safety in that.
I hope I will.
Odds are I probably won't.
So I'd say being able to back off a
little and allow them to spread their
wings and own it was, is a really.
I wish somebody would've told me that.
Yeah, I'm not sure I would've been
capable of doing it, but I wish
somebody would've told me that.
Yeah.
it's really hard too, because I think
back to, I think about the kind of the
fire drill of learning, the things we
can manage in type one diabetes, right?
You go through this fire drill of
learning all of this very, quickly and.
it's very overwhelming, but I think
that I, for a long time growing
up often came out of my doctor's
appointments with pretty unrealistic
expectations that if I do what they
say, I will see results that match what
I'm expecting.
And we all know that type one diabetes
just doesn't work quite like that.
A lot of people living with type one
diabetes, they have parents partners,
family members who they want to help,
but they really aren't sure what
helpful support actually looks like.
From your perspective, what
does good support look like?
It's funny because we've talked to
so many people over the years and,
honestly, there was somebody, a,
parent set of parents that were.
We were introduced to when
Morgan was first diagnosed.
that was so incredibly helpful.
And I would say the one thing that
we've really struggled with is
you really don't understand the
mental burden or the constant worry
or the grind unless you live it.
And I don't know how to make that
more tangible or more real, but I
would say, as with today's tools.
We used to, when my wife and I finally
went out to our first dinner, which
was probably two years after Morgan
was diagnosed, I remember we, we
would call in every half hour or an
hour just to see what's going on.
And by the way, there wasn't really a
lot of cell phones back then either.
it'd be, so we'd be at the restaurant
and the whole conversation would
be about, Who's watching our
daughter, do they know what to do?
You teach them how to
use glucagon and Sure.
It, it was really nerve wracking.
So I would say try and get
professionally educated.
There are a lot of clinics now that do
online classes for parents and caregivers,
and I think to the extent that people
can really just dig in a little bit.
So you can give folks, who can now
leave their child with a caregiver.
And honestly, the
the Dexcom share gives you really peace
of mind that enables things to happen.
But, for us we really struggled because
people wanted to help, but we didn't
even know how to help them, right?
We were deer in headlights ourselves.
Like we didn't know what to tell them.
So I'd say education is
probably the biggest one.
At least understand what to
do, how insulin works, and.
What to do in an emergency.
You shared earlier how your advocacy has
changed over time and something I want to
touch on before we start to wrap things
up here is that not everyone has the
ability to advocate on such a large scale.
For people who simply want to
make life a little easier for
someone living with diabetes,
where do you think they can start?
Yeah, so look, I've been afforded
an amazing platform at which to
advocate from and actually have
an impact on people's lives.
And I don't take that lightly.
But there are vehicles to be able
to use that anybody can lean into.
So pick your public charity, Breakthrough
T1D has a big advocacy arm, ADA I
think is a little more state by state
where Breakthrough is more federal.
You've got awareness campaigns that
Beyond Type 1 and many others do too.
Just lean into a local chapter
there or a different organization,
contact your congressman, make a
call, say, look, this is not okay.
Advocate and teach your children
how to advocate for what they
need, because in healthcare, the
squeaky wheel gets the oil, and I
hate to say that, but it's true.
So you often have to be persistent and
continually ask for what you need to get
around some of the quote unquote speed
bumps that are in our healthcare system.
And if you persevere, you
can get what you need.
It just, it takes time, it takes energy.
It's incredibly frustrating, but it
can absolutely be done at any level.
Very well said.
As we wrap up here.
What's your hope for the next 5,
10, 15 years in the T1D space?
I have quite a few, Scott.
but I'll start with, I really would
hope to see further advancements in
some of the things that we've done.
So look, there are great tools
now where I would argue nobody
should be walking around with a
double digit A1C anymore, right?
If you use the automated insulin
delivery systems, you change it out
and pay just a little bit of attention.
You should be able to get down to an
8, 8.5 almost with your eyes closed.
And I don't mean to belittle it, but
it has gotten that good from there.
I would love to see the disparities
between the haves and the
have nots narrow quite a bit.
And lastly, I'd love to see
folks lean into helping to
support Blue Circle Health.
the, right now it's pretty much
a hundred percent supported by
Helmsley, and we did that by Design.
Blue Circle is now, I
believe, in 20 states.
I should know this, and you're not.
Nope, that's
it.
Yep.
20 states.
Thank you, Scott.
We're trying to get as
widespread as possible, but we
also are limited to a budget.
And money, unfortunately
is the gating factor.
So at some point, Blue Circle will
begin a campaign to raise money.
For now, it's supported by Helmsley.
And we understand at the end of the day,
it's a long haul to change healthcare.
Helmsley is committed to the long haul.
We can't do it by ourselves though.
If we're going to go nationwide, we just,
there are too many competing priorities.
So I would say that, and I would say
no matter what your area of means is,
there's always a way to give back.
And it could be just supporting somebody.
It could be simple as that.
But there's always a way to give back,
and we were extremely grateful for folks
who helped us early on, and we vowed
to pay that forward a hundred fold.
Thankfully we've been able to do that.
Yeah, very well said again, David.
And, the mission is to, be
available for every adult living
with type one diabetes in, America.
we're, working on it, and we're
working to get to where you are
out there, listener who needs help.
David, thank you so much
for talking with us today.
we really, appreciate it.
And, thank you so much for your time.
Hey, Scott, it was my pleasure.
I appreciate you having me on.
Thanks for listening today.
If you found this conversation helpful,
consider sharing it with someone in your
life who supports you in your diabetes
journey, or someone who wants to just
understand a little better what it's
like to live with type one diabetes.
And then please be sure to
tune in for our next episode.
Until then, keep living well with T 1D.