Diabetics Doing Things 2018 in review with Rob Howe

[00:00:07] Rob Howe: Welcome to the Diabetics Doing Things podcast. We've been telling the amazing stories of type 1 diabetics all across the world since 2015, and we have over a thousand years of living with T1D on the podcast. The interviews range from incredible feats to everyday victories, and we celebrate them all just the same. Thanks for listening. And if you want to get involved even further, just send me an email at rob at diabeticsdoingthings.com. What's up, everybody? Just wanted to say thank you for listening to this podcast. It's been an amazing journey thus far, and I have a lot of really great stuff coming up in the future. so I'm going to do something that I haven't asked before if you're listening to this podcast a I would love it if you would subscribe to the podcast just so you get the notifications whenever we publish new episodes because if you've been listening for a while you know I don't always publish them consistently sometimes I'll publish five in a week sometimes it'll be only a couple in a month and you need to know when these episodes drop so be sure to subscribe and if you like the podcast, be sure to go to your preferred platform like iTunes and leave a review. I would love to boost my reviews and I've never asked you guys to do that before. So I figured you don't ASK, you don't GET. I would love a review from you. So I want to hear from you there. Also, we are now available on Spotify. Turns out I was just submitting it to Spotify incorrectly, but I corrected that. So now we're on Spotify. So if that's your preferred listening platform, be sure to subscribe on there. Also just want to let you know that in 2019, we have an awesome new program coming called Tools of Type 1s. It's going to be on this podcast, so you don't have to subscribe anywhere new, but it's going to be an entirely new form of programming with some of your favorite type 1 personalities. So they're going to be two a week starting January 8th. Be sure to tune in, and I'm going to blast all the messaging I can all around. So be sure to listen to Tools of Type 1s launching January 8th, and thank you for continuing to listen to this podcast. Welcome back to another episode of the Diabetics Doing Things podcast. It's me, it's Rob. I am solo today recording the first ever, I guess it's not the first ever out-of-state podcast, but the first ever podcast I've recorded in Arizona. I'm in Sedona, Arizona with my girlfriend's family for Christmas. It's Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas, happy holidays from me and everyone at Diabetics Doing Things, which is mostly me, but also Sarah and Mitch and various others who help out throughout the internet realm. This is a very special episode of the podcast. Last year, I did a 2017 in review episode, and I'm just going to continue that trend because for as long as I can remember on New Year's times at the end of the year during the holidays, I would sort of reflect on what happened during the year, how much ground we covered, what we accomplished, you know, looking forward to the future, et cetera, et cetera. It's a very cliche thing, but something that I've continued to do for most of my life. So because I can't get out of the habit, you guys are along for the ride. So let's talk about 2018. Going into 2018, I had a few goals that we covered on the 2017 podcast. First of which being to interact more face-to-face in the diabetes community. So we're going to talk a little bit about how I did that in the various ways I did that over this past year. I also wanted to go over the counter, so I wanted to go off of my prescriptions and off of my pump and live as someone who didn't have insurance for 30 days and see what that was like, which we did, so we'll talk about that too. And then obviously continue the work on diabetics doing things because obviously this is my passion and fills my cup is one of my favorite things. and we published 55 episodes of the podcast in 2018. So I'm going to talk through a little bit of that as well and also what's to come. So let's talk about overarching themes for the year. We traveled a lot this year. As I was looking back on my 2018 travel, it sort of looked like this. Los Angeles, St. Louis, Detroit, San Antonio, Little Rock, Orlando, Tampa, Hershey, Pennsylvania, Orlando again, New York, Cincinnati, L.A. again, Baltimore, Las Cruces, Cincinnati again, Geneva, Cancun, Chicago, Des Moines, Cincinnati again, Atlanta, and now Sedona, before going back to Dallas on New Year's Eve. So it's a lot of trips, a lot of miles. My American Airlines end of the year email that I got from them, so I spent 66 hours on American Airlines flights. So getting in my miles. Got a lot of in-flight movies. Highly recommend Mission Impossible. I've watched it three times. All right, so let's talk about 2018. Overall, 2018 represented a year of both tremendous growth for me as an individual, for diabetics doing things, for my other business, Recreation Dallas, but as well as a year of tremendous loss. I almost can't really characterize it in any other way, but I'm sort of just learning to exist in the balance in between both. Obviously, For those who don't know, I lost my father in 2018 to stage four colon cancer. So that was something that sort of sprouted up earlier in the year and then in the summer sort of manifested itself. And then, you know, dealing with losing a parent and, you know, that feeling of loss while the world keeps spinning. You know, not being able to totally be down for any amount of time and just understanding a little bit more about our time here on this earth. and how we think everything is so important day to day. Me, myself especially, chase immortality and want to hang banners in the rafters. And the reality is that their entire civilizations, like the Assyrians, the Persians, the Romans, who in most history books are just a couple lines or a couple chapters, and we're just one person on a planet. So even though our immediate people around us feel very important, in a flicker of an eye, in the blink of an eye, in a flash, everything can be gone. And, you know, the rest of us are left here and the world will keep spinning. So really focusing on being present and enjoying each and every moment and being grateful for those because you're not promised them. So I think, you know, other than that, 2018 was an awesome year. So let's, let's start it. Let's just go month by month. We're going to go to January 1st. On January 8th, I started the over-the-counter T1D challenge, which I chronicled on the YouTube channel for diabetics doing things, which I started in January as well. It was pretty awesome, pretty exciting. I had to do a lot of interviews, a couple of podcast interviews about it. In the recap video, you can learn that, yes, it was tough. No, it's not a suitable solution for people without insurance in that it's very difficult and is very volatile and chaotic, but you can live that way. So, you know, I did that challenge to show that I don't want to see any more headlines about people rationing insulin or dying because there are, albeit lesser options, there are still options over the counter that can keep you alive in a pinch. So if you know someone who's going through that, or if you yourself are going through that, please go to my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Diabetics Doing Things. Please check it out. You can learn a whole lot from some of the resources I provide in the initial interview or the initial video. And then in the post video, you can learn what I went through. And then I also, in the middle of the over-the-counter T1D challenge, I was in the Medtronic Inspired by You 670G TV commercial. And you'll see me doing comedy at the beginning of the video, as well as dunking in that video, dunking a basketball. That was a pretty stressful shoot because I was, again, on over-the-counter R and NPH insulin. So I was, like, giving myself the NPH on set. My blood sugar was super high. I was a little bit insulin resistant, and I was nervous kind of right before the basketball scene, so my blood sugar was high. But I finally got it to come down, and throughout, like, I hadn't really dunked a basketball a ton up to that point. I was still sort of recovering. I played in one city league where I, you know, on my ankles that I had surgery on in 2016. So I was really, really nervous, but I dunked it like 20 times. I only missed once. Um, and we got a really great take and had a really fun day starting out there. And then, uh, the joke among my comedy friends is that I was doing standup comedy and I've literally never done that in my life. So, uh, because I do mostly improv and occasionally do some sketch comedy. So it was really funny for them to all see me holding a microphone, doing some bits of which were really silly. And shout out to all the actors in the studio who laughed at my really funny, dumb jokes. Later in January, after I got back from LA, we had type 1 Nation in Dallas, where I hosted the first social media panel that I'd ever put together. So I had Libby Russell, Lauren Bongiorno, Laura Pavlakovich, and Gretchen Oddy, Austin Fuerst. They were all in town for Type 1 Nation and got to meet them for the first time and hang out with them. And what a cool day that was to sort of meet my internet friends in person and just get to hang out and interact with them in the community. We had an awesome turnout and just a really, really engaged group during that panel. And I just want to thank them for coming out and also thank JDRF Dallas for believing in me and putting together that really awesome panel. And we're going to talk a little bit more about meeting more internet friends kind of as we go through this interview so to february i started i guess it was february 13th is like the day before valentine's day i started auto mode so after i got done with the over-the-counter t1d challenge i had my 670g pump and i started it and it takes like two midnights where like the pump has to cross midnight twice because that's when it adjusts the calibration for the sensor so that you can go to auto mode. So I started auto mode the day we found out my dad had cancer, a very, very stressful day. Spent inside the hospital most of the day, my mom and I, and I kept checking my pump because I had been the last previous 30 days on RNN pH. So my blood sugar had been like up and down, up and down all the time. And I hadn't had anything to eat and it was really stressful. And I kept checking the pump and I was looking at the blue shield and my number was just flat all day. I had like a one 30 all day long. And I thought, you know, if the six 70 G is going to work on today, a day where nothing went right and everything was super stressful, then I feel like I can probably handle it. And for the most part, I was, that was right. Um, you know, I certainly had in that first six weeks, I think when I talked to people, I feel like six weeks is a good number for you to get the hang of it because it took me about four weeks to learn it on my own. And then a friend sent me to a Facebook group with some tips on it. Um, that kind of helped the way, you know, when certain things happen, uh, learning how to speak the pumps language. And once I learned to speak the pumps language and all of my technology started working correctly, it was awesome. It was all downhill from there. And, um, I think last time I checked my time in range, uh, which is the metric that the pump uses for whenever your blood sugar is within range, which it defines as like 90 to 180, I believe. And over the course of a month, over a 30 day rolling average, I had been out of range for two hours total. So when I'm on auto mode, I am almost never out of range. So two hours total over 30 days, pretty awesome. So really looking forward to continuing to get better at my management through the 670G. I also in February had my first time, it was the weekend after my dad got diagnosed and he had kind of been stabilized after surgery and I had to fly to St. Louis for the day to speak at their St. Louis type 1 nation. And I was the opening keynote and they didn't know this, but it was my first time speaking at a type 1 nation somewhere other than my home chapter of Dallas, which I had spoken at, I think the previous three years, but it was just the start of what I wanted to do, which this year, which was to interact more face-to-face with the diabetes community. I got to meet, um, at least one person who was on the podcast, uh, later on, um, the letter B, which is the, on the, uh, it's Beatriz Estee. She and her boyfriend came to the summit and we talked and it was just a really good chance to connect with her. And then I also met some other people who were starting blogs and some families. And it was just a really cool opportunity for me to see the faces of diabetes outside of my own area, which I hadn't gotten a chance to do just yet. And really set the tone for, you know, an awesome year going around and talking at JDRF summits. Right after that, like immediately in the next month, I got to go to San Antonio where I had recently actually just had a dinner. Eric Dowds and the Diabadass crew had come to Dallas and had hosted a dinner. And so I got to meet him and some other people in Dallas who I hadn't met just yet. Jordan and Matt McGee and Sarah Haldeman. We had a really nice dinner all together. And then the next weekend I was down in San Antonio. We had a meetup at the Rustic San Antonio and met a lot of the local San Antonio folks. And got to hang out with Eric and Marie Diaz during the Type 1 Nation in San Antonio. we're also got to link up with dr nicole johnson which will come up again later as we talk about what's coming the rest of 2019 as well as in the student diet with students with diabetes conference so right after that right after we got back from san antonio we were kind of talking about you know what's the next thing for the diabetes crew to do we have all this momentum eric's a guy that really thrives on momentum i can just tell and so he's like okay let's all go skydiving so he had gotten a couple other people with type 1 and Marie created this group and we have the Texas T1D Diabetes group on Facebook and so we decided to go skydiving so we drive up to like McKinney or north of McKinney which is like an hour north of Dallas and it's March it's really cold we like sign up and they're like I don't know guys the weather doesn't look great but we're holding out hope and the weather's really bad so it's like too windy for us to skydive so we're all going skydiving. We're all super happy and we ended up just getting lunch. So some of them drove like four hours, shout out Marie Diaz. She drove like four and a half hours, I think to get brunch with us. So kind of a bummer. Um, so we all got our rain checks and just carried on. We're like, okay, we're going to stay friends, but this is, uh, this is not happening today. Uh, and then in April I kind of had a break from some diabetes events, but, uh, the most notable thing I think was my dad and I went on a road trip to pick up, uh, Erica and I's new puppy Enzo who turned out to be the devil, but he was super cute right off the bat. Um, and my dad and I just went and drove to like just North of little rock, Arkansas, spent the day on the road, just like listening to podcasts and talking. And, uh, it was our last trip together. So it was really nice. And, uh, you know, because of that, I wish Enzo like understood the gravity of that situation and how important it was to me. But no, he just decides that he's too cute to follow rules and just does whatever he wants. So shortly after that in May, my dad got really sick and I had to cancel my next trip to Detroit for their Type 1 Nation. But I will be back in 2019. I'm going to be in Detroit in, I believe, May or June for their Type 1 Nation. So thanks to them for having me back. And I'm really looking forward to, I think it's the largest or second largest type 1 nation in the U S so I'm really excited to go and experience that. And then May 24th, uh, 2018, uh, my dad passed away. Uh, like I said, it was stage four cancer and, uh, you know, obviously we miss him and we love him and, uh, you know, it sucks that he's not here cause I, you know, I know he, especially during the holidays, uh, that was one of his favorite things was just to hang out with the family and also like cook a bunch of turkeys and show off what a great cook he was and how he carved turkeys and things. So, um, definitely feeling, uh, the void and missing him now. Um, and he, uh, you know, passed on, on, on May 24th, uh, 2018. So then, uh, in June, uh, really right shortly after that, uh, flew to Tampa for the students with diabetes conference. It was my first time attending that conference. And when I met with Dr. Nicole Johnson in San Antonio in March, she invited me to the conference and invited me to speak. So I gave my living in the T1D Renaissance talk, which is something that actually stemmed from this podcast, just talking about what a great time it is to live with type 1 and in terms of like both community and technology. So not only do we have like great access to community via the internet and our phones and Instagram and Facebook groups and things like that. But also all of those amazing things like CGM and closed loop and suspend before low technology are all coming out now, kind of like they said they would whenever we were all diagnosed. So shortly after that, Dr. Nicole Johnson asked me again, she's like, hey, JDRF is going to start throwing a young adults conference. We're going to try it out for the first year. Where should we have it? And I was like, well, I'm biased, but we should do it in Dallas. So we are actually doing that conference in Dallas, March 30th and 31st at the, I believe the Marriott in Addison. And you can learn about that at jdrf.org and I will be there. So I'm helping put on the students with the young adult conference, not the students with diabetes conference, the young adults conference from JDRF, the first ever in Dallas, Texas, March 30th and 31st. So if you're listening to this podcast, please come. We would love to have you and I would love to see you there. The next event that I went to was, I got introduced. It's a two-part event. It's both a crazy luxury car show and a GDRF gala. And they have a type 1 diabetes speaker every year. And it's called the Elegance at Hershey. And it's in Hershey, Pennsylvania. And it was the craziest, coolest event that I really went to all year from a diabetes perspective. I got to be a guest judge of all these cool cars. So I was nerding out over these cool Aston Martins and Ferraris and Mercedes. And, uh, this one Mercedes like belonged to Fidel Castro. It was insane. Super cool. Um, and Hershey, Pennsylvania literally smells like chocolate. They like pump chocolate smell into the hotel air conditioning. It's unbelievable. Uh, so shout out to the elegance at Hershey. We raised a ton of money for JDRF and, um, you know, overall it was just a really good weekend to kind of get away. In July, I got to go kind of last minute to the ADA conference, the American Diabetes Association conference, which is, I didn't even know existed, first of all. But it's like CES, which is the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas for diabetes. It's a huge trade show. So there's like a giant hall. It was at the Orlando Convention Center, which is very large. And there were giant booths from all the big pharma companies and all the big pump companies and all the big CGM companies and all the big foundations. And there's research presented and it was mostly for clinicians. So I was one of very few patients that were there, but I got to speak as a patient advocate in the Medtronic booth for three different days. So we presented sort of the inspired by you perspective. It was really cool to see like a giant banner of myself from a previous Medtronic shoot in the booth and having my name all over things. It was kind of surreal. I was joking about it, but it really meant a lot to me to be, um, you know, being able to be a face and a voice for people living with type 1, got to answer some really cool questions and have some really meaningful conversations with providers as well as media and journalists who are at the event, uh, covering things. And, um, Overall, just a really cool experience for me to see how important patient stories are in terms of the overall diabetes landscape. So a lot of these people who are at these conferences don't interface with patients. These are salespeople that work with clinicians or researchers, and I guess researchers interface with patients. But these are also providers who need to hear successful stories of patients using new technology. because a lot of their patients are just, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. They're on the same treatments that they've used for many years. So, you know, giving them confidence and hearing from a patient's perspective, what the challenges are, what the benefits are, I think was really helpful. And I got to answer some really, really, really specific questions and really, really good questions from providers that I actually hadn't even thought of before. So that was really cool. And also it was just really fun to, uh, you know, be a patient, uh, first and not necessarily be, uh, not in like a celebrity aspect, but it was just like, I felt like a normal person and, you know, being able to talk to people who knew intimately what I was going through and address different, uh, emotions and decisions around that was really neat. Um, later in July, I think I'm trying to think of the exact date, but I couldn't necessarily find it. We tried to skydive again for the second time. Again, the weather rained us out. We were super, it was super rainy and stormy in Dallas. So again, we just had brunch. I think Eric even flew in. He flew to Houston, flew up with the Brzozowski family. Jerry Brzozowski flew him up to Dallas for brunch and then they turned around and flew him home. So a lot of effort going into the skydiving thing. More to come on that later. We did not make it though in July. In August, I went back to LA for another Medtronic video shoot. Um, so I spent the week there working on some videos for some of their patient transitions for some of their animus customers who got migrated over to Medtronic, trying to answer some of the questions they might have and interview some of the Medtronic staff got to interview Dr. Fran Kaufman, who was super dope. And many of you know, uh, or have heard at conferences, uh, she is a super caring person, been an endo for like 45 years is the chief medical officer of Medtronic, but you would just think she's a totally normal, uh, super cool mom because she won't let you hold her. Dr. Kaufman. She makes you call her Fran. And so Fran and I are buds now. We're, we're tight. We're homies. Shout out Fran. She's not going to listen to this podcast. She doesn't have the time. Uh, and then, so, uh, something that Fran and I were joking about was that I was in LA and Medtronic had booked both of us at the, American Association of Diabetes, American Association of Diabetes Educators Conference, which was that same week in Baltimore. So we were joking about who had the worst flight. I think it was me. I had to fly. I left LA at like 8 PM, got to Baltimore at 5 30 AM and was an absolute train wreck that entire day. So it was just a miracle that I made it to the panel that I was on that night. She had the, she left LA at like 7 AM, got in at like 5 PM. She clearly wins this round. Fran, you'll never listen to this. It's okay. I just know that you have scored one more on the flights scoreboard than I have. It's you one, me zero, but better luck next time. Hopefully I can write the scoreboard a little bit on my side. So I got to go speak to diabetes educators, CDEs in Baltimore, which is really, really cool. I got to tell my story about how this story really hits hard with diabetes educators. I talk about, I used to go and have, I had two quarts of orange juice that I bought every week at Trader Joe's to treat my lows. When I got on 670G, I stopped needing the orange juice because it was going bad in my fridge. So I don't even buy it anymore. And I just make the joke that my Trader Joe's is probably wondering like what happened to their orange juice? Why is their orange juice not selling like it used to? that always gets a big laugh from CDs. So if you're a CD and listening to this, I know you're laughing. Don't lie to me. Um, at the end of August, uh, took a trip to white sands, New Mexico. That was really fun. Just a vacation trip. I shut off my social media for the first time ever. I never thought that that was something that I would need to do, but I just turned off all my notifications, um, and hit all my apps and like the very last screen on my phone and decided not to open them for like four days. And it was awesome. Everybody that doesn't open their social media or doesn't have social media. Now I know how much time you guys have. Pretty insane. What do you guys do with all your time? Tell me somehow. Send me a, send me a note or a letter. I need to know. In September, I also joined the Global Ambassador Council for Beyond Type 1. That was something that when I started this podcast and I started this outreach in the community, something that I saw as something that I wanted, a goal of mine, not necessarily that I put in writing, but I saw it as something that was really important and would kind of give me a position that I really wanted and ability to help more people. So I was super excited when they invited me to do that and really looking forward to my first full year on the Beyond Type 1 Global Ambassador Council, the GAC, being one of the guys of GAC. So keep on the lookout for awesome guys of GAC content that we're going to be putting out every month. Just to make it a little bit more accessible for dudes with diabetes, because we all know dudes, if you're listening, you're good at listening, not so good at talking about diabetes. So we want you to know that there's other dudes out there going through the exact same thing you are. So it's okay to use your voice. Speak up. I'm here for you dudes. in October I got the amazing opportunity to go on my first international trip for diabetes which was also one of my sort of unspoken goals or metrics for success when I started this podcast and outreach I got to go to Switzerland Lausanne Switzerland which is just outside of Geneva for the launch of the Medtronic 670g in Europe so I was invited to a blogger summit where I did a panel and Q and a and a Facebook live to talk about my experience with 670g spoiler alert. I told the trader Joe's story again. They liked it too. It's good with, it's good with clinicians. It's good with bloggers. It's good with CDs. You know, it might be good with patients. We'll see. Um, it was cool to meet some of my blogger friends from all over Europe. Um, I actually got to see Sarah Mobak was there. She was on the podcast in the early days, uh, from Sweden and a couple of my other, uh, you know, people that I knew of, but I'd never met or really interacted with. Uh, so it was, it was cool to be there. It was really awesome to see the Medtronic headquarters in Europe and just meet all the good people and talk to and answer the specific questions around 670 and even tell them, you know, the truth. It's not necessarily all rose colored glasses. 670G is certainly not for everyone. Uh, everybody has their own route to management that they prefer, but it's the one that I use and it's the one that I like. So they like when I talk about it. I also in October turned 30. So that was pretty sweet. Um, I managed to make it to 30, uh, in the same pant size that I wore when I was 18. So I feel good about that too. That's huge. We're going to keep that going. Definitely going to keep, uh, the same pant size throughout the rest of my life. That's just how things are going to work. I'm a 36 guys. If If you want to buy me pants, make sure that they're fly pants and they're a size 36. In November, I went to the Xeris Pharmaceuticals Keyholder Collaboration, which was in Chicago. The coolest thing about this was it was the first ever full diabetes influencer event. So there were some of the most OG diabetes bloggers like Scott Johnson and Carrie Sparling. Cherise Shockley was there. uh she like invented like the twitter chat for diabetes dsma i believe and uh and then also all of my friends who like most of them have been on the podcast and i think almost there's a plan in place and i'll talk about a little bit later to have almost everyone who was there on the podcast in 2019 so um very cool to see all those people in person interact with them see how alike we are and also just hang out, have dinner. We did a Chicago diabetes meetup with like almost all of us who were able to stay and had like 60 people come out from Chicago. It was a super, super, super just supportive and fun day we spent in the city. And I don't know, I can't say enough good things about that weekend. Go hang out with your diabetes friends from the internet. If there's one thing I learned from 2018, it's that. Be sure to go meet people in person. It's so much more rewarding than the internet. I also spoke in Des Moines, Iowa. So back on the JDRF speaking train after a few months off, I worked with Real Good Foods for the National Diabetes Awareness Month campaign, which I'm sure anyone with diabetes who has Instagram saw, which is awesome. And they also raised like $25,000 for Beyond Type 1. They are a proud sponsor of this podcast. And I just love their pizza, bottom line. It's super good. We even bought some today in Sedona because Erica needed some macro friendly pizza. Boom. Love real good foods. And then I also worked with the American Diabetes Association on the everyday reality campaign. So hashtag everyday reality is their campaign to talk about what it's really like for people with diabetes type 1 and type 2 living every day. I learned that the new CEO of American Diabetes Association has type 2 diabetes. She's the first CEO of ADA to have the disease. So I think that's super important that they've got representation on their executive team. And, you know, I'm really looking forward to continuing to work together. That was my first project with the ADA, even though I went to their conference. But glad I'm starting to have infiltrated that organization as well, because I think that they do a great job for people with type 2 diabetes. And, you know, I want to be able to continue to add another face and voice to their type 1 diabetes outreach. And now to December, uh, which is this month. Um, I ran my first half marathon somewhere in the middle of the year. I decided that that was something I was going to do, spoke it into existence. I think the first time I said it, I was jogging with, uh, Sarah Haldeman on a, my first beyond type run event that I went on. I had never even run in a group before. Um, shout out to Jordan and her type 1 run group here in Dallas. And it was, it was one of those things where I knew I could do it, but I just had to speak it into existence. I probably should have trained maybe twice as much as I did, but definitely finished my marathon just a little bit slower than I had planned on. Had really steady blood sugars all the way through mile 11. And then my blood sugars kind of fell out the bottom floor fell out, but I was right by a seven 11. So popped into that seven 11, got myself a Gatorade and then kept on trucking. And then even as recently as what last week, we, and by we, I mean the few, the proud only, if only like half of the first group that was going to go skydiving, finally jumped out of the plane. Uh, we finally jumped out of the plane. It was good, uh, nice weather in Dallas. Jerry flew his plane back up. He literally landed his plane on the airfield that we took off to land or to, uh, to skydive from and Scriven and Marie and Jerry and I jumped out of the plane. And then we got brunch after because, you know, you can't mess with tradition. So all in all 2018, I flew to speak at 11 diabetes events throughout the year. So on top of everything else that I was doing, 11 diabetes events throughout the year I was speaking at. It was pretty awesome. I worked with all three of the power diabetes nonprofits which is a thing that I made up. JDRF, ADA, and Beyond Type 1. And something that even surprised me, we published 55 episodes of this podcast. 55. So this will be episode 115. We've got a few more of this podcast left, and then I'm about to announce, I guess, now's a good time because we're shifting into the what's coming, what's next, what's coming in 2019 for diabetics doing things. The first thing is tools of type ones. That's where my favorite type ones answer the questions that I want to know the answers to the most. So we've got at least 45 episodes in the queue already. I'm going to edit them sometime this week. That's just to hold me accountable, nothing for you necessarily. Edit them this week, Rob. I've got 45 episodes of people answering the same question so that I know my favorite diabetics answers to the questions that I want to know the most. In just Q1 of next year, I'll be speaking in Nashville, Raleigh, North Carolina, Dallas at Type 1 Nation, and Denver at their Type 1 Nation. So JDRF Type 1 Nation's in Q1, Nashville, Raleigh, Dallas, and Denver. And then I've also got the Young Adults Conference, which I already talked about, in Dallas, March 30th and 31st. So in Dallas Type 1 Nation, if you're in the Dallas area in the Texas region. We're going to have glitter glucose. We're going to have, uh, Paloma chemic, uh, chemic and, uh, Jill Rip alone type with T1D chick, as well as Chris Ruden, who just got back from Africa and Austin Fuerst are going to be on our, uh, as well as Ariel Lawrence are going to be on our social media panel. So the panel is back. We've got all new faces, uh, all your favorites. Uh, we're going to talk everything, social media, diabetes, and everything in between. At the Young Adults Conference, pending a few things, we've got Laura Pavlakovich coming to Dallas. We've got Ariel Lawrence will be back, and then we will have one TBD. Chris Ruden will also be there, and then one TBD. I can't release it just yet because I don't have confirmation, but they will be joining us at the conference. So if you want to meet any of them, this is your chance. Come to Dallas. we will also in 2019 cross the 1 million downloads threshold for diabetics doing things which is stupid absurd i can't believe that we've done that that's nuts i'm going to continue to publish episodes so i guess we'll just keep growing but i don't know anytime you throw a million after something it sounds like you're doing something cool sounds like a lot so i'm really excited to get over the 1 million downloads mark for diabetics doing things. Wow. Nuts. And then I'm also going to start to bring in some more lifestyle tips from my life, my morning routines, why I turn the shower on cold right before I get out, what I eat, and then more YouTube videos on 670G tips. I got my tricks, got my hacks on how to speak the 670G's language, how to play a basketball game with it on, all those things that I do. I'm going to let you guys in a little bit. Spoiler alert, they're not all perfect, but that's part of just what we're doing. So if you want a perfect life, I don't have that. So you got to go find somebody else. If you want to know what I do, I'm going to be letting you in on that more this year. So if you have subscribed to my email newsletter on my website and hoped that you would maybe get an email from me on that and I have not sent you one, don't give up hope. I will be using that next year. So just stay tuned. Good stuff on the way. And then a big goal for myself, again, speaking into existence, I'm going to be creating more resources for the community outside of just content. So outside of Instagram, outside of podcasts, working on ways to connect type 1 owned businesses to empower type 1 entrepreneurs and even provide medicine products and support for people with diabetes who want to start a business, but are concerned with losing their insurance coverage, which was something that I dealt with when I was starting my businesses, quitting my job, because I always thought I wanted my own business, but I really liked the safety net of having insurance. So I'm going to be working on giving back to those people in a way that's super fair and allows them to get the support and care they need and really focus on their business. Because if you're not focusing on your business 100%, you're not going to be able to succeed. You're not going to meet the goals that you have. And you got to have extra headspace. So I want to try to find a way to provide that for people with diabetes who are wanting to start their own businesses who have the itch to go off on their own, but, um, you know, diabetes is preventing them from doing that. Um, so I'm going to give you more opportunities to banish fear, uh, not just in 2018, but in 2019 and beyond, uh, we are banishing fear in 2018. That was my big sort of headline for the year. Uh, I know I had no idea how much I would need it, even down to this month. Like I went to the dentist, which was one of my new year's resolutions that I finally got crossed off the list. No cavities though, but don't go seven years between dentist visits. You'll have some issues. And also your dentist will look at you like you're absolute savage, but no cavities shout out brushing your teeth. Yeah. So that's, that's really 2018 in review, a little bit of 2019. you know, I'm still, still the same guy. I'm going to still be posting a mixture between diabetes related content and height beast content because I love sweatpants. So if you catch me out in the office, I'm probably in a t-shirt and jeans or a hoodie and jeans or t-shirt and sweats. So that's who I am. I'm not going to hide that currently in sweats right now. that's all I brought on this trip. So, uh, I'm closing out the new year in style. Uh, I want to wish you guys all a Merry Christmas, a happy holidays, a happy new year. Uh, this won't be published until after Christmas. So I guess the joke's on me for wishing you a happy Merry Christmas. Um, remember that, you know, the reason we started this podcast was to help one person. I'm grateful that we've been able to help at least one person throughout this entire process and that you guys have been so wildly cool in your support of anything that I do, that I get to keep doing more of it. So I'm going to continue to do the things so that I can continue to bring you guys as much perspective from my end, help, support, encouragement, and community as possible. So thank you guys again. I have immense gratitude for just being here, just being sitting here in this kitchen, recording this podcast by myself, knowing that there's someone out there who could benefit from it. You guys are the coolest. Looking forward to meeting more of you in person in 2019 and beyond. And this isn't the last that you'll hear of us. We've got awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome episodes coming. January 8th starts Tools of Type 1s. So just be ready for two podcast episodes a week of your favorite type 1 diabetics. We got sweet new branding, really awesome new images and graphics that my designer friend Ken Cow has taken on and really knocked out of the park. So I'm super excited to share all those all with you. In the meantime, I'll see you guys later. I'm looking forward to experiencing the next year with you. All right, guys, talk to you soon. Thank you for listening to this podcast. It's been an amazing journey thus far and I have a lot of really great stuff coming up in the future. So I'm going to do something that I haven't asked before. If you're listening to this podcast, A, I would love it if you would subscribe to the podcast just so you get the notifications whenever we publish new episodes because if you've been listening for a while, you know I don't always publish them consistently. Sometimes I'll publish five in a week, sometimes it'll be only a couple in a month, and you need to know when these episodes drop. So be sure to subscribe. And if you like the podcast, be sure to go to your preferred platform like iTunes and leave a review. I would love to boost my reviews and I've never asked you guys to do that before. So I figured you don't ASK, you don't G E T. I would love a review from you. So I want to hear from you there. Also, we are now available on Spotify. Turns out I was just submitting it to Spotify incorrectly, but I corrected that. So now or on Spotify. So if that's your preferred listening platform, be sure to subscribe on there. Also just want to let you know that in 2019, we have an awesome new program coming called Tools of Type 1s. It's going to be on this podcast, so you don't have to subscribe anywhere new, but it's going to be an entirely new form of programming with some of your favorite Type 1 personalities. So they're going to be two a week starting January 8th. Be sure to tune in and I'm going to blast all the messaging I can all around. So be sure to listen to Tools of Type 1's launching January 8th. And thank you for continuing to listen to this podcast.