Summer '23 Events, Merch and the Future of Diabetes Care

[00:00:01] Rob Howe: Good morning and welcome back to another episode of Diabetics Doing Things. We're telling the amazing stories of people with diabetes from all over the world. And today I'm going to do a solo pod because it's been a pretty busy summer. At the time of recording, it's July 2nd, so July 4th weekend. Just past the halfway mark of the year. And man, 2023 is flying by. Pretty incredible amount of episodes that we've done already this year and lots more to come. But I wanted to jump on this podcast just to kind of give you an update of what we've been up to lately and what I've specifically have been up to lately. So this will be a quick 20 minute or so diatribe here for us to go through. So let's do this. Events and conferences. So I feel like for the first time since really 2019, the diabetes event rhythm is fully back. And what I mean by that, obviously, like pandemic caused everything to be virtual and to be totally disrupted. And then when things came back, I think there were still hesitations or difficulties getting from one place to another. But this was in June was the 83rd ADA scientific sessions, American Diabetes Association scientific sessions. And it was my third ADA, my third scientific sessions. My first one I went to was the 78th. So I went to the 78th, 79th, and then the 80th, 81st and 82nd. I did not go to and then I was back for the 83rd. And it really did feel like it was fully back. Medtronic Diabetes took me there. I was part of their Medtronic Champions. who were in attendance, and it was really cool to be a part of that and be back behind the scenes. So I want to give you some context of what I'm looking at at these events today versus the first time a few years ago. I would say the most important thing is that there are way more patients there now. My first event, I think there were probably maybe five or six patients that I ran into the entire time, And there were 12 just with Medtronic this time. So it was quite a big difference. So looking at some of the other diabetes brands, they also had some patient ambassadors. But organizations like DDoC, which is the Deutschland Diabetes Online Community, DEDOC, and their DDoC Voices Scholarship are bringing people from not just all over the U.S., but also all over the globe. And I highly recommend if you are a diabetes creator or a patient advocate and you want to get to these conferences and you want to see what's going on there, I would apply. I'd encourage you to apply to the DDoC Voices scholarship. You do not have to be a big diabetes blogger, podcaster, influencer. You can just be a patient advocate and you can just be curious about what goes on at these conferences. And I think that we're still on the cusp of the patient being invited to these at scale. but what we're seeing and what the clinicians and healthcare providers are saying is that they want to hear more from patients. So if you have a story to tell, I would highly encourage you to apply to DDoC Voices. There are, I think, two more events in Europe this fall that you can apply for scholarships for today, I think, through the end of this month. So if you're curious, you want to see what goes on at these events, you want to go, you want to meet other people with diabetes from across the world, I highly encourage you to apply to the DDoC Voices scholarship. ADA is kind of the biggest sort of who's who of the diabetes world. And it's not just US-based, it's very much global. And it's the biggest, I would say, US-based diabetes conference. And it's really interesting because it's not so much, a lot of what we talk about on this podcast are real patient advocacy stories about talking about cost and price of medical devices and insulin and just the sort of cost and burden of living with diabetes. And this is sort of that doesn't really happen at ADA outside of the poster sessions or outside of the actual talks about potentially access, about access talks. On the event floor, it's all about the future, the future of diabetes. And I think that's really interesting. I'm going to talk a little bit about that later, but I think it can also be uncomfortable for patients because you're sort of not addressing what's going on in the now. You're thinking down the road in the future. And so So that's something that I think more patients at the events through programs like the DDOC Voices Scholarship will allow you to have those conversations and sort of be the change that you want to see in that regard. So again, highly encourage you guys to apply for those. We are also as a company, as Diabetics and Things, we're going to Friends for Life, the Children with Diabetes Conference. At the time of publishing, we will be there on site. and we're going to have branded new handmade in Dallas, hand assembled in Dallas by myself and Erica and Erica's mom. We have branded Diabetics Doing Things bags to sell and we'll also have Skin Grip patches to give away with every purchase. So thanks to Skin Grip for supplying us with some Skin Grip patches just to bring a little bit of joy in those bags. So you'll get a Diabetics Doing Things bag and you'll get your preferred skin grip patches, colors, and device patches with every purchase at Friends for Life. We're also gonna do an online pre-order. So don't worry if you're not going to Friends for Life, we still will do more bags. So Diabetics Too Many Things merch is back. Baby, we haven't done an official merch launch since the diabetic hoodie. And that was, you know, at the end of this year, will be seven years ago. So been quite some time. Okay, after Friends for Life in August, it's a busy month of diabetes in Texas. We've got the AADE conference, which is, or I guess it's now ADCES, which is the CDCES conference, which is in Houston. I will be there. Diabetics Doing Things will also have a booth at the JDRF Dallas Summit. And then I'm also doing an event with JDRF Austin for the first time. So Houston, Dallas, Austin, we are hitting the Texas corridor, the Texas Diabetes Corridor as I'm calling it we are back on the road so I hope to see you at one of those events if you are local to Texas come up say hi we'll also have some bags at at least the JDRF summits so for sure we'll be there and in Austin I'm going to be speaking in Dallas I will not be speaking but in Austin I'm going to be giving the Dichotomy of Diabetes talk to for that event so really excited more details on that to come just keep it locked to the drip. I would like to go to an international conference this fall if time allows, but at this point, it's to be determined. So we've got a lot going on behind the scenes with programs that we're trying to build. And I would love to go to one of those conferences if it makes sense, but I also don't want it to be a distraction. So again, you guys should take my spot if I apply to DDoc and get those Voices scholarships. I've talked about that a lot. I just think it's important that I let you know that there are programs that can take you to those conferences, and I would like to take advantage of those if I were in your shoes. So just trying to, again, be the connector to those things that I wanted to do when I first got involved in the diabetes community. Then for Diabetics Doing Things events, I'm going to be announcing officially our two remaining signature events that will take place this fall. I'll announce those on July 15th. So just after we get back from our first company offsite while we're at Friends for Life, we'll lock down those dates and we'll have much more information for you guys by the 15th of July. And again, we're recording this July 2nd. It'll go live right after July 4th. So July 5th, actually. So 10 days after this episode goes live, I will do that events announcement and that will be in the drip on social media and at DiabeticsDoingThings.com. Again, if you want to get plugged into our events, our Eventbrite is diabeticsdoingthings.com slash events. It will link you to our Eventbrite page and you'll be able to follow, subscribe or whatever you do there on Eventbrite. Okay, so let's talk about the podcast. We just had Brec Bassinger on. What a great episode. That was a long time coming. We recorded it initially before the holidays in 2022. So it's been over six months in reviews and it really was a journey, but we made it. It's done. I really love that interview. Brec was so generous with her time. So please go comment if you really liked her episode or want to know more. from Brec Bassinger. Follow her and comment on her posts that you liked our podcast. Okay, so what's coming up next? We have an incredible video episode, which will be releasing the week after I post this. So that will be July 12th with the amazing professional basketball player, Lauren Cox. We also have some time with her sister on the episode, Whitney, who also lives with type 1. We recorded the episode in Dallas on our Diabetics Doing Things production day. It just worked out that we were all in town at the same time and could make the time. So really excited to up our production quality. We had three cameras in. We were in the Recreation Dallas offices all day a few Saturdays ago. And I'm really excited to share with you the final product of that. It's just going to be a really good example of where we can go with our interviews going forward and how we really want to maximize the high quality and really important impactful stories of guests that we have when we're able to meet in person. And I think if you want to hear somebody in person, you want me to go above and beyond and like bring the whole kit and rig and make this a super cool episode, let me know. I want to know who you want me to do that with because we have the ability to do that now every now and then is to really go above and beyond and dig deep into those interviews. And this Lauren Cox interview is the first iteration of what that could look like. I also, when I was at ADA, reconnected with a lot of people who are friends of the pod, who have been on the podcast in the past or have new exciting upcoming news or announcements to make. So we're going to be having some people back. Greta from Greta's Diabetes Boards is going to come back on the podcast here very soon. So she's got a lot of really cool stuff going on in her diabetes professional life that I want to share with you guys that you could take advantage of. And while I was at ADA, I was having a conversation with another diabetes podcaster who I've known and have been friends with for many years. I just realized that we at Diabetics and Many Things are the longest running patient podcast. So there's other diabetes podcasts who have been going longer than us or have done more episodes than we have in our time, but they are caregivers. They're not patients. So we are number one on the patient scale. I felt pretty good about that. And I think that there really is something to longevity. I was talking to a friend of mine about the journey of diabetics doing things and what started off as a side project, side hustle, turned into a real company. And even though I still don't, I'm still not able to dedicate the percentage of my brain and heart and work to it that I would like to. We're getting closer and I'm learning more as a manager as well. So we're going to be continuing to do this for a long time. And I just love the position that we're in. And we can kind of call our own shot and do what we want and work with who we want. And I'm hoping very soon that we'll be in a position to support other diabetes creator projects and diabetes creator ideas and allow people to do what they love and connect with their community and actually make that be worth their time from a money standpoint and from a passion standpoint and from an impact standpoint. So feeling really good about where we're at and all up from here, still getting started. Recently, you might have seen on my Instagram, I posted that I got to go speak to the intern class at Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs company. They are based here in Deep Ellum. I connected because our name is Diabetics Doing Things, and they were reaching out to blogs and patient podcasts and patient resources. Last winter, one of their staffers found me because I was in Dallas, and he said, hey, well, we should definitely link up. And so I got to meet him and get connected with Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs last fall. Well, I got to go speak and tell the story of diabetics doing things and tell them how important it is for people with chronic illnesses that they have access to the drugs that they need and the supplies that they need. And it's really cool to see passionate people who are working in their career to try to make medicine more accessible for people with diabetes and for people with other illnesses and people with chronic illnesses. So it's a really cool company. I'm excited to see what they do. They have a manufacturing facility here in Dallas, which is kind of right in my own backyard, right in our little stomping grounds, a stone's throw from my recreation Dallas office. And they have a pharmaceutical production facility where they can make medicine when it's limited. So sometimes there are shortages of medicine in the supply chain. This little tiny facility in Dallas, tiny by comparison to a big pharmaceutical manufacturer, can within 48 hours be making new drugs that are in demand or there are shortages of even here in the Dallas area. they can support all of the DFW and most of the Texas hospitals within a really short time, which I thought was really cool and I didn't know about. And it's a stone's throw for my own office. So really cool to see what's going on behind the scenes of the Cost Plus Drugs company here in Dallas. And thank you to the Cost Plus team for being cool community partners and for welcoming diabetics doing things into their fold. Speaking of Texas, speaking of our own backyard, North Texas Food Bank, I want to update you guys on that collaboration. So we recently did our first virtual event and it kind of uncovered a lot of things for what we're going to be doing and where we're going as a company. We put together a virtual event called Getting Started with Diabetes and I felt like it was the best diabetes webinar I had been to. Certainly I am biased, but the relationships that I have built in the diabetes community and the giving heart of people with diabetes to help others culminated in this amazing hour spent with some of my best friends from the diabetes community, people who inspire me daily. And it was amazing to see them give of themselves to help those less fortunate. And the North Texas Food Bank feedback was that we have to get this to more people as quickly as possible. So you guys have heard me say this on the podcast or on social media. We are going to revolutionize diabetes education in every Feeding America chapter by the end of 2025. So holler at me at the end of 2025 is a long way to go, but we are gaining momentum behind the scenes of one of the bigger nonprofits who is actively impacting a lot, a lot lot of people, not just in North Texas, but across the U.S. with Feeding America. And I heard this stat earlier this week. It was in a presentation at the agency, actually, and I couldn't believe it. I didn't know it was correct. I had to confirm it, but I did confirm it that 70% of Americans currently in 2023, I just talked about the future of, you know, we talked about ADA, we talked about all this technology, 70% of Americans struggle with their grocery bills. They wonder, they are worried about where they're going to get the money to pay their grocery bills. 70%, so more than two out of every three people. And I just found that astounding. I know that there are big problems to solve in this world, but that to me sounded like one that we should absolutely have figured out sooner than later. in the United States. We are a first world country. We have been a leader in the world. We are a military superpower, but our people are wondering where they're going to pay for their food. And that just breaks my heart. So we're going to continue to work with the North Texas Food Bank and Feeding America, because obviously that is extremely important. And so much of diabetes is around food. And when you're food insecure, everything else comes second. And so So food insecure people with diabetes, I know, are putting off important treatment decisions and important healthcare decisions because they're worried about where they're going to get their next meal. And whatever we can do to be a part of trying to help that, trying to offset that, I'm willing to do. So revolutionizing diabetes education at Feeding America chapters, all Feeding America chapters by the end of 2025. Holler at me then. I'm excited to see where we go between now and then. Okay, so closing thoughts. I updated my Medtronic Minimed 770G to the Medtronic Minimed 780G. And wow, at this point, I have only been on the pump for just over a week. My time and range has been around 90%. I'm using the Guardian 4 sensor. It's a huge step forward from the Guardian 3. And my personal unbridled opinion is that you should do whatever you can to be on this system. I'm going to be making a lot more sponsored content, But my unsponsored, unsolicited advice is that this system has made me totally not integral to the process. I have had better numbers and I have thought about diabetes less in the past 10 days than maybe in my entire life. So more to come on that, but huge improvements in diabetes technology. And that was a theme across the board at American Diabetes Association. There are wild improvements in diabetes technology that are happening. And all the research that they told me sort of when I was diagnosed that we've seen in research updates over the years is really finally coming to the market. when you look at what has been released over the past six years, it really makes me excited and bullish on what's to come in the next seven, in the next six years. I don't know why I'm working with these six and seven year increments, but still I stand by it. What's happening in the future of diabetes technology is incredible. And it's kind of wild to me because as we're talking and I got to see these new technologies, and that's why it's important to go to these conferences as a patient because you get to see what's coming in a way that you don't outside of that forum. But what was interesting to me is that there was this dialogue that I had with a couple of the product folks who were at the conference. And I saw what they were showing us from a technological perspective. And I put myself in the shoes of somebody who's going to be newly diagnosed five years from now. And it's not outside the realm of possibility to think that a person who is newly diagnosed with diabetes in 2030, say, may not even ever need to know how to count carbs unless they're in an emergency situation, unless the grid goes down or unless their devices fail, that they could potentially live a life with diabetes that is mostly just changing pump sites or changing patches and integrating into their automated insulin delivery system. It's incredible the improvements in diabetes technology that are coming. But I think what it really reinforces for me is that there's a continued need for more access. It's not just insulin. It's also med tech and devices and insurance coverage. It's going to continue to be a hurdle for people with diabetes to afford the best in class care. And so that's kind of what I always look like. It's not like an Apple address where you see this new technology on stage and everybody's going to be able to have access to it for the same amount of money. It's very different. But at the same time, I'm putting myself in that newly diagnosed patient position. Five years from now, 10 years from now, the information and the products that you're given on day one with diabetes are going to be dramatically different than they were 18 years ago, 19 years ago when I was diagnosed. So there is hope. I think you should be hopeful for the future of diabetes. And that's my line on it. It doesn't mean diabetes is good. It doesn't mean I like it. But what I see is that for the person who is going to be diagnosed down the road, life is going to be better for them than it was for us. And that is progress, baby. We need more patients advocating for patients. We need more forced conversations about access at these events. We need the real patient voice. So be the change that you want to see. And have a great summer. If you're going to be at Friends for Life, come holler at me. If you have an idea, pitch it to me. Mailbag at diabeticsdoingthings.com. Erica and I are going to do a live Rob and Erica show from the Friends for Life floor. So please, if you're there, come say hi, come see us. And I'm looking forward to connecting with you guys here in person at a host of whatever these events are coming up very soon. And as always, have an awesome, awesome summer. I'm thinking of you guys and keep it locked for other amazing content and exciting developments from diabetics doing things. Bye guys.