Diabetics Doing Photo Journalism with Laura Pavlakovich

[00:00:00] Rob Howe: Welcome to the Diabetics Doing Things podcast. We're back with new episodes in 2017 telling the amazing stories of type 1 diabetics across the world. I'm your host, Rob Howe, and if you'd like to get involved with Diabetics Doing Things, all you have to do is shoot me an email or reach out via Instagram. Hey everyone, before we get started, I just wanted to say thank you for listening. We had a great first year of the podcast, but none of it would have been possible without you and your support. I love getting messages, emails, and comments from type 1 diabetics all over the world. It really makes my day. So keep sharing, searching, and commenting, and I'll keep tracking down the people behind the amazing type 1 stories out there. Now, let's get back to the episode. Hello and welcome back again to Diabetics Doing Things. We're back with new episodes in 2017 and continuing the trend of very interesting and very awesome guests. My guest today is Laura Pavlakovich from LA. Laura, how are you?

[00:01:00] Laura Pavlakovich: I'm good. How are you doing?

[00:01:01] Rob Howe: I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for coming on the show today. Really appreciate it.

[00:01:05] Laura Pavlakovich: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:07] Rob Howe: And Laura, you and I have been chatting really for a while now, back and forth via Instagram. And your Instagram, I believe, is you're just my type, right?

[00:01:16] Laura Pavlakovich: You're just my type 1.

[00:01:17] Rob Howe: Just my type 1. Fantastic. and uh specifically laura i mean i don't want to spoil everyone a spoiler but laura is a fantastic photographer um and i want to just uh get to know you and the projects that you're getting to work

[00:01:33] Laura Pavlakovich: on and uh kind of clue everybody in perfect shall i be shall i start yeah you should just tell us

[00:01:40] Rob Howe: all about uh all about laura and then we'll get into it okay i guess we'll start from the beginning

[00:01:46] Laura Pavlakovich: I grew up in Redondo Beach and I was diagnosed with type 1 at a very young age. I was only four years old. So I think I consider myself very lucky. I don't remember any befores, before diagnosis stories. I had a really good childhood. My mom started a support group for kids with diabetes in the South Bay called the South Bay Hot Shots. I grew up going to Children's Hospital. I went to Camp Conrad-Chinnock. I had a great support group. And then after high school, I decided to do this photojournalism program. It was this life experience program. And it was based in Germany. And we lived in this castle and did all film photography. And it was focused on injustice and poverty. And I left when I was 17 years old. And I had no idea what I was getting myself into in the best way possible. um it was based in Germany like I said we got to live in Egypt and I lived in Paris I worked at an orphanage in China I fought against human trafficking in Thailand we traveled to over eight countries in under a year and it was all just literally folk we were just spreading awareness through photography which is all I've ever wanted to do and I came home and I was 18 and I got all my friends together and I'm like, you guys, we need to change the world. There's so much happening that we didn't know about. And I didn't really get the response that I was looking for. So I...

[00:03:24] Rob Howe: And I want to focus on that for a second. So you came home after this incredible, impactful experience and then you pitched it to your friends and didn't get the response you were looking for. What kind of response did you get?

[00:03:38] Laura Pavlakovich: I kind of got... Well, like I said, where we grew up was a very nice neighborhood. I went to a private school. We're not really taught what's going on in the world. I came home and I had changed so drastically. And it wasn't very fair for me to think this, but I kind of just assumed that everyone else had changed too. And obviously they hadn't. So I came back and my friends were like sitting in the same seats at the same restaurants that they had been going to. and I tried to get them excited and they all just, not all, some of them looked at me like they didn't know other countries existed. And I got very unjustifiably angry where I had so many situations to inform them and educate them about what I saw and instead I just got frustrated and felt the need to kind of start over.

[00:04:34] Rob Howe: Definitely.

[00:04:37] Laura Pavlakovich: But I see now, I mean, yeah, yeah, I should have educated them. But they just kind of were not on board with my big, big plans that I now had for my life to help make the world a better place, you know?

[00:04:50] Rob Howe: So from there, you know, with that realization, being 18 years old, obviously, and having seen a great deal of the world that most of us will never be, you know, directly exposed to, what did you do? What path did you take next?

[00:05:06] Laura Pavlakovich: okay so i moved to denver colorado you're from are you're not from denver you're not from colorado

[00:05:13] Rob Howe: i'm not from colorado i uh i was graciously adopted into colorado as my second home i went to college uh in colorado springs um shout out university of colorado colorado springs um and i lived in colorado for about six years so i my home is dallas but colorado was my gracious

[00:05:31] Laura Pavlakovich: second home for a little while. It's an amazing place. I moved there just for about a year. I had an older brother that was living out there. He went to college out there. And, you know, I got, I got really stuck in being a young kid living in a new city. And we fast forward a little bit, I ended up moving back to California to go back to school. I was going to go to San Francisco State. My dad got remarried and my stepmother is in the Air Force. And so that comes with a lot of benefits, including college. And so I came back with all intentions to go to school. And I ended up moving back to the place I am from, Redondo Beach. I got a job on the beach. I got an apartment on the beach. and I ended up staying there for four years and got completely sidetracked by the daily routine of life.

[00:06:30] Rob Howe: Isn't that funny how like, you know, one thing leads to another and I was even thinking about this and discussing it with a previous interviewer that I did earlier this week and, you know, sometimes you just get busy with your day-to-day and like I, we did diabetics doing things through the first six months of 2016 was pretty strong. Uh, and then I, I hadn't, haven't released an episode, uh, didn't really release an episode for the rest of the year. Um, and so, yeah, I totally get it. Like, you know, sometimes you just pick one thing and then it leads to another. And then all of a sudden all those hopes and dreams and goals that you had were just are still right where you left them.

[00:07:07] Laura Pavlakovich: Right. And it's sad. It's really sad. However, I mean, so I, I've lived a lot. I ended up moving. I felt very stuck and I knew I was stuck and I knew that this wasn't the life that I wanted to be living as nice and convenient as it had become for me. And so I put myself in an uncomfortable situation, which I needed. And I moved out and got a place of my own in Long Beach and decided to become very independent. But I still did not know. Like I still had this like hovering feeling of what am I going to do? Like I don't like to settle. my dream has been to take photos that are going to make a difference. And I just didn't know how I was going to do that for way too long. And then I went to a wedding with with a friend of mine. And I started talking to this woman there who had two kids, and she did not know that I was diabetic. It was never something I never talked about being diabetic ever. Like my, my important friends knew my, obviously my family, like family members knew it was never something that I educated people about. It was so much, it is so much a part of me. And I had never really embraced the community that we are given up until this, this point in my life. So I, I met this mother, she was talking to me. She said that she had to leave the wedding early because she had a type 1 son who was four years old, the age that I was when I was diagnosed. And she mentioned that he just felt so alone and would spend nights crying, thinking that he was the only one living with this disease. And I'm not even kidding, like, my entire universe stopped right there. Like, everything got quiet. And I just knew, like, even talking about it now, like, gives me goosebumps. I just knew exactly what I needed to do. And I think I was even so shocked to realize this is what I needed to do, because I never saw a future that revolves around type 1 diabetes but from that very conversation I decided that I was going to do whatever it takes to end the feeling of isolation that comes with this disease that I was so lucky enough to not have to feel and I knew that I could do that through my photography and so right then and there I knew that I wanted to photograph as many diabetics as I possibly could all over the world and kind of create this like visual to this invisible disease.

[00:09:40] Rob Howe: And isn't it funny how those moments when you sort of least expect them creep up and you find that moment of inspiration sort of capture that lightning in a bottle feeling because it wasn't the first time that you'd thought of it right or had thought of you know taking photos has always

[00:09:57] Laura Pavlakovich: been your dream but take it right but but anything to do with diabetes had not was never part of my future i thought i had never put two and two together well and i i had i was very similar

[00:10:11] Rob Howe: really till about a year and a half ago um with my diabetes and it wasn't because i was embarrassed it was it was just like you said it becomes a part of your day-to-day life you don't really notice it you're not exposed to the community just because you haven't allowed yourself to be maybe and so then all of a sudden it sort of comes into perspective for you for me i i thought of i was having this i was in columbia i think i've told this story before but i'll spare everybody the the long details and just say i was i was in columbia for work and i had a lot more time to spend by myself because i was in a part of the city where you can't go really out at night and i don't speak spanish so um there were times where i was just kind of hanging out by myself And so I was doing a lot of thinking and planning on what I wanted to do with my life. And I've always known I've always been happiest when I'm helping people. And that's just what fills me up. And so I thought, OK, well, where do I start? And I thought, oh, I have diabetes. I am not going to ever be the best marketing person, the best athlete, the best whatever. But maybe I could find a voice within the diabetes community. and at that moment I was like yeah that's it that's where it is those are these are my people I should try to give back because like you said the first time I ever helped someone like just by giving them advice or telling them about what I had done with diabetes the first time that they got back to me and the first email I read was just like a photo of a kid with a participation medal from a triathlon that he had been afraid to commit to before and then he just did it and that just made it made me feel so good um to know that now he's gonna have that and if someone ever asks him he'll do the same thing um yeah that's just that's an amazing feeling and you

[00:11:57] Laura Pavlakovich: get like the biggest rush from it and I think what's so special is that like like you said like I don't have to be the best photographer and I don't have to know everything about diabetes it's it's so easy to do what we're doing because all you have to do is talk about your personal experiences. And like you said, like these emails that I receive from people are like so life changing. And I'll just be I'll just be having the most stressful week and be so caught up with daily life. And I'll receive an email like thanking me for what I do. And it puts everything

[00:12:30] Rob Howe: back in perspective so quickly. And that's important, right? I mean, it's important to have those grounding things because, yeah, it's easy to tell the story because it's our experience. but it's also honest and I think earnest. So those are, those are also really important factors of it. I think there's a really big stigma for being honest, not, you know, just in, in today's, you know, world of all of our lives are very curated. We only share the good stuff. And I think it's very, it's important to show the good stuff along with the, the hard, the challenges, because, you know, diabetes can be a challenge. Every day can be a challenge.

[00:13:10] Laura Pavlakovich: and it is not easy and that's that's the thing too so like the under like my whole message I'm I want to get across is that like it is okay to admit that this sucks and it sucks for all of us and I meet these kids well let me can I rewind a little bit of course okay so I once I like realize that this was like my one true calling. I had, I was so stoked. I was so excited. I told everyone about this idea. They were so excited for me. And then I got lazy again. I mean, I don't know if I got lazy. I just got, I mean, I just was still, I was working three jobs. I was so busy and it took about six months where I would just get by off of telling people that I had this idea to like photograph diabetics from around the world and they would get so excited and I'd go to bed so excited and then I'd wake up and realize nothing has happened like I have not done anything yet and that like I truly needed to start it took an entire six months I think before I ever did anything about it and then finally I woke up and I'm like if you don't do this today when are you ever going to do this and I wrote this I guess kind of like a cover letter explaining what I wanted to do and my idea. And it's so crazy how much my, like how more focused I am on what I want. I had no idea what I wanted to come from this, but I wrote this letter just saying like, hey guys, this is my story. I'm not asking for money. I'm just asking for people to photograph. And I got on Google and I typed in like diabetes organizations and charities and nonprofits. And I just sent it out to probably over 60 websites. and I didn't know if anyone was going to receive them. And I got a message a few days later. This is a huge shout out to the Padre Foundation, which is in Orange County, California, and they work with diabetic youth. And I had actually gone to camp my entire life with the board director, which I didn't even know that's what he did for a living, and he wrote me back saying, I got your message. We're having a parent night this week. I would love it if you come, like, talk about what you want to do, bring a signup sheet. And I got there and I was so nervous and I'm not a good public speaker. And he was like, do you not want to come up? And I'm like, no, I don't think I can. And he did it. He explained what I wanted to do for me. And I stood at the door and I had over 100 signatures from families that wanted their kids to be involved with what I wanted to do and once that night happened I was like okay no excuses like you now have promised these people what you're going to do like you are now being held accountable and I think I needed that to happen so badly and ever since then it has been non-stop every day three photo shoots a week minimum I think the most amazing overwhelming feeling you could possibly feel so that's three

[00:16:16] Rob Howe: three photo shoots a week for specifically just capturing diabetics right so the process is so I

[00:16:24] Laura Pavlakovich: just started like this was such a tiny little idea I had and I started an Instagram and I made a Facebook page and I have a website a very simple website where I just post the photos and share the stories um I had to figure out how to get organized very quickly with doing this because of the amount of people that wanted to be involved that I was just not expecting. And so people reach out to me if they want to be featured. And I send them like this little questionnaire that kind of just like gives them some guidelines for their story. But really, I truly encourage people to write whatever they want to write. Like, I don't encourage like sugar coating, no pun intended. I want people to know like how how hard it is but how we're all literally all in this together and so I'll send them the questionnaire and as soon as I get it back I have to schedule a time to meet them the most frustrating part right now which is a good thing is that so many people are from around the world contacting me so right now it's just figuring out how to get to those people but I I think I have over 100 portraits up as of right now. And the list just keeps getting longer and longer.

[00:17:37] Rob Howe: And for those of us online who want to see those portraits, where do we find them?

[00:17:42] Laura Pavlakovich: So the website is yourejustmytype.com, Y-O-U-R-E. And everything that I post on there, I also post on the Instagram, which is yourejustmytype1. And the Facebook page is under yourejustmytype as well.

[00:18:00] Rob Howe: Fantastic. So that's an interesting comment as well about, you know, diabetes is so global, right? There's so it's not it's easy to just look at ourselves here in the US, like 1.25 million type ones as the latest research shows. But I think the, you know, looking at it internationally, I've interviewed people from New Zealand, from Australia, from the UK, you know, from all over the world. people reach out, especially via Instagram, I think is such a huge, crucial part of it. Because like hashtag diabetes is the same in every language, right? And so it's really easy to get connected with people, you know, via that, that sort of hashtag research type channel. What are some of the people, you know, when they reach out to you, and obviously, like, how is this might be a, you know, kind of a audacious question, I guess, but like, How are you going to go take their photos? What's the dream vision for that?

[00:19:01] Laura Pavlakovich: Right, and I'll tell you, and let me just say this too, about people being from all over the place. You know what I just realized as we're talking is that diabetes is also, we can view it as this common language that we share because it's been so exciting. I've been getting all of these followers on Instagram from all over the Middle East, and I'll click on their profile, and I obviously don't speak or read the language, but as soon as you see like a photo of like an infusion set or like a bottle of test strips like everything kind of just makes sense to you and you don't need to be able to like understand each other's language when you we share this like such a big part of our lives together like everything is so symbolic like from all over the world and the plan right now um i'm raising money to be able to travel to everyone. Like my small goal, it's a lot of work. This is a lot of work. And it's just me kind of doing it right now. And I have a lot of people telling me like, why don't you hire other photographers around the world or even around the country so that when someone contacts you, you can set them up with the photographer that's closest. But the thing is like, this is my baby. And this might sound like super selfish, but I get so much out of meeting every single individual. And like, I always walk away a changed person for the better after these photo sessions. And so right now I'm working on kind of like a you're just my type university ambassadors. And I want to find kids in colleges, I guess they don't have to be in college, but kids across the world who are looking for leadership roles. and I want them to kind of represent you're just my type and they're going to be in charge of doing bi-monthly meetups and like starting the support group that we all need so badly and their own Facebook group page and giving like they will be in charge of sending out the questionnaires to all these people that want to be involved in their city and then once I get the list back I hope to be able to just like take these trips and fly to every place that I'm wanted and go make a bigger just my type trip, take as many photos as I can while I'm there and then come back here and keep doing that. I really have to go back to my passion, which is like these small, like being able, when I lived in Egypt, like we were in these villages where they had never seen people from the United States before. And I would love to really like, my goal, I want to do these, I want to do these like beautiful coffee table books full of my portraits. And I just want to show that like the extreme different human conditions we all live in even though we all share this common thread. So I would love to photograph like a little boy in Egypt with type 1 diabetes and put him on an opposing page of like a man that works on Wall Street in New York and just really like have it be this huge eye-opener of how alike we all are.

[00:21:59] Rob Howe: Yeah, and it's always that one thing we all instantly have in common, right?

[00:22:04] Laura Pavlakovich: It really is this like instant family. the second you meet someone, it's just you, you will never run out of things to talk about.

[00:22:12] Rob Howe: Yeah. And I think like, that's, that's so apropos, I think, you know, to, especially like diabetics doing things, right? Like it's all the things that we are outside of that, but at the root, we all are connected through, um, through our daily struggle to, you know, through our, you know, the challenges that we overcome on a daily basis. And I think it's cool to see the same struggles that you have if you're a guy on wall street or the same struggles that you have as a, as a kid in, you know, in a country like Egypt where, you know, your medical coverages are different and, uh, maybe it might be difficult to get supplies. I know there's a great organization, T1 international. Uh, we had Elizabeth on our podcast last year, they're doing amazing work fighting for insulin reform. Um, and then, um, and, you know, they were talking about people in Syria. You know, obviously, like, the conflict in Syria is very publicized, and there's a lot of awareness of going on during the war over there. But something that's going undocumented are the amount of diabetics that are affected by the conflict and how they can't get the supplies they need to survive. And so they end up being war casualties instead of really a health care crisis. And so, you know, it's really important. and the work that T1 International is doing fighting for insulin reform is just really, really, really positive. And I think that message needs to be spread as well, just that there are the faces behind those stories. Those are real people being affected by it. And I think I'd love to see the human condition, like you said, affected by where you are on earth, but by the same disease.

[00:23:51] Laura Pavlakovich: Exactly, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's the main goal. It's like only I'm just really like it's so sorry. It's so overwhelming. Like you you just don't realize how big this is. And like to be a part of something so much bigger than like who we are has just been so incredible. And like like say even like just say like I didn't the whole plan wasn't even to spread awareness. It was just to do this photo book and share these stories. Like, of course, it's going to spread awareness. Like, of course, it's going to break stigmas. It's going to do everything good by just posting these stories. And so I definitely, I mean, yeah, sorry. I'm like totally lost in my sentence. Like you're out what I was trying to say.

[00:24:38] Rob Howe: I got to, I'm going to put you on the spot here, but I want to hear maybe not your favorite, but the most impactful story, something that touched you the most of someone that you've taken photos of.

[00:24:51] Laura Pavlakovich: Oh my God, easy. be. I recently did a photo shoot with a young woman and she had me meet her at a college campus and I showed up and I said so you did you go to the school and she was like no I didn't you're probably wondering why I wanted you to meet me here and I was like yeah and she said that she was working at the college campus when she was just recently diagnosed and that they gave her so many issues. And I mean, to the point where they were pushing her to quit her job before they fired her and just making her feel like a complete liability, not doing anything they should have been doing to make sure she was safe and still able to do her job, really broke this girl down in a time where she had just been diagnosed. And she thought that this is what it meant to have diabetes, was not being accepted anywhere. And she said she wanted this place to be in the background of her photos so that she could see how much she had overcome in the past year since she left working there. And she is now doing amazing things. She's working on a book right now. And we went back to the campus that she had to leave because of the way they were treating her, like the actual building. And you could feel like, I mean, I know I was in tears. It was like we I was there with her, like seeing her finally like give them like a huge like screw you. Look at what I have done. It was I can't like even now I'm like getting it was very emotional. It was one of the most emotional shoots I've ever done.

[00:26:34] Rob Howe: And that's I think that that's it's amazing, right? Like that's and you and you couldn't have known that that's what you were walking into.

[00:26:42] Laura Pavlakovich: No, I never know. And I'll be having like, you know, we all have our bad days. I'll be having a bad day. That doesn't mean I cancel my shoot. Like I show up and I, I, I meet them. And I was just so like, I was so shaken up from it. Like on my way home, I just could not believe what had just happened. I did not know my day was going to go like that. I don't think she knew her day was going to impact me in that way. But it was so it was such a powerful experience. I didn't want to leave. Sometimes I do these shoots, they ask me how long they're going to take and I'm like oh you know I just need like 30 minutes to an hour and sometimes I have to some it's like I'll leave four hours later and it's like hold like this connection like yeah you it was incredible it was incredible by far the the most impactful shoot I've done yet

[00:27:29] Rob Howe: that's amazing and I'm sure that's only scratching the surface of the you know the stories that um that you've heard give me another one I I'm dying I'm putting you on the spot again but you know maybe not most impactful I mean that one I'm I was I'm still sort of like in disbelief at that at all of it but what's another one that just you know another surprise what another

[00:27:53] Laura Pavlakovich: you know judge a book by its cover moment okay I'll tell this story let me see so I post this is when I was first starting out and I was really in need for people to photograph and I posted this thing on Facebook, like diabetics in the South Bay. And I said, I said what I was doing, if anyone was interested. And this guy reached out to me, he had me meet him at this like very beautiful secluded beach in, in Newport. And I get down there, there's, there's probably like four other people on this beach. And I came down there with the intent of photographing him. and then I had one after him who ended up canceling on me while I was down there. And I was like really bummed. I was like, I wish I could do two shoots today just because I had the time. So I'm photographing him not paying attention to the other two people on the beach. And I'm walking back and I was talking to him about how I had just been featured on Diabetes Daily. And I asked him if he knew any other diabetics in the area that I could like possibly get to that day. And then I even asked him, I said, is the beach always this empty? And he said no. And I'm like, it's so weird that there's nobody here right now. I remember this very clearly. And then there were two people that I mentioned, these two other people on the sand. One of them looks up at me and goes, are you a type 1 diabetic? And I said, yes. Why? And he said, so am I. We went to diabetes camp together. you probably don't remember me he said you looked so familiar when you were walking down the ramp and I couldn't I couldn't figure out how I knew you and then I saw your insulin pump and like I that it clicked I knew I knew you from camp and I was like you've got to be kidding me so I'm like okay he must like live down here and I'm like where do you live and he told me Pasadena which is like 10 minutes from where I live now and I was like what are you doing all the way down here that's not it that's probably about an hour and a half drive away from where he lives and he was working on photography stuff for his job and I asked if I could photograph him then and there and I did and I sent him everything after and now him and I I see him every day he has been the most help with you're just my type he never surrounded himself with other diabetics and I think now that we have each other like we're the people like I text him anytime I need to vent about it he thinks he he thanks me all the time for like giving them his him this like purpose he had never embraced the community either and it's turned into this like really amazing friendship all because we were in the same place on the same beach that day that's unbelievable that's so

[00:30:37] Rob Howe: that's just serendipitous right you're doing the right things it's just the it's just momentum right positive momentum doing the right things leads you to the right places it was nuts yeah

[00:30:47] Laura Pavlakovich: and then my yeah i guess the only other like i i think i get so surprised when i go to shoots and like mid-shoot they're like by the way you're the first diabetic i've ever met and i think that is

[00:30:57] Rob Howe: pretty crazy yeah isn't it i think i i want to i want i want to like focus on that feeling for a minute because i i know obviously what the what the community gives and provides people online especially especially on instagram because i love instagram and there's so many diabetics doing amazing stuff uh there and there's so many conversations happening on a daily basis the community is so open and so welcoming um i want you to i want you to put yourself back like dial yourself back to when you didn't get involved in the community when you didn't either know it was out there or weren't really looking for it um and some of the feelings that you were going through And then tell us what it means to be a part of this community. For a diabetic out there that might just be passively listening or somebody that's not involved or kind of wants to get involved, what's waiting for them on the other side of this awesome community?

[00:31:51] Laura Pavlakovich: You know, your family can try to understand what you're going through. like they eat the closest people in your life your girlfriend your boyfriend your husband like they can love you so much and want to understand everything you're saying when you're trying to describe a low blood sugar and a high blood sugar but truth be told like in all reality somebody without this disease will never ever understand what it feels like and what we have to go through every day and why we don't sleep through the night and you can't describe it enough for them to understand and I think finally meeting someone even if it's one person if you describe the way you're feeling when you're at lower high they will know exactly what you're talking about and I think that is one of the most powerful connections we can make with each other it's even if you need someone to vent like it is so refreshing it is so I mean I know that my friend my non-diabetic friends probably get annoyed all the time and I might too and it's like finally when you're talking. I have friends now that will just text me like their blood sugar number if it's bad and I'll like send back you're like oh my god I'm so sorry. It is so powerful when you are talking to someone like I mean we only have each other. We only have each other that really gets it. Our doctors who aren't diabetic don't know what it feels like but we we all do and that's

[00:33:13] Rob Howe: what we have. That's what we have to work with. It is and you know what it's enough. It's what we have to work with and we we as a community are enough and i think uh more than enough most of the time uh it's amazing to talk to people who are not your doctor and not your family not your friends not your girlfriend who are living and thriving with the same disease and know the same stuff you're going through uh you don't have to over explain i think sometimes we get caught in over explaining diabetes and it's really nice to not have to do that right i agree yeah it is more it's amazing it's really amazing what we have so laura thank you so much for coming on the show today i think uh you know you and i could probably talk for another two or three hours uh on this on on this topic and really you know explore all of the different pieces but um i i really love the work that you're doing i think that um you know you and i have talked about uh when i come out to LA to get some time on the books to shoot with you. And I would love that. Uh, and to do maybe, uh, an in-person interview as well to talk about sort of how your journey is progressing. Um, you know, you, you and your, and your community have been big, uh, in my community as well. And I think, you know, it's, uh, it's really important that we all build each other up. So thanks so

[00:34:29] Laura Pavlakovich: much for, uh, for taking the time. Oh my God. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

[00:34:34] Rob Howe: Thanks for listening to Diabetics Doing Things. Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly emails and behind the scenes content. And if you or someone you know has an amazing story to share, send an email to rob at diabeticsdoingthings.com.