Can you be an artist with Diabetes? with Taylor Lawrence aka Appleton

[00:00:00] Rob Howe: All right, welcome back to another episode of Diabetics Doing Things. We had to hit record really quick because we were getting into some good stuff before we hit the big button. I'm Rob Howe and you guys know I've been doing this for almost 10 years. And when I joined the diabetes online community, there were a few creators and a few like accounts that I really gravitated to at the beginning. And my guest today, Appleton from Appleton Pictures, you guys know his art from the vials. You've seen them probably all over the web. I've seen them shared on tons of accounts. I've encountered them in the wild. And he's here today to share about his creative life with diabetes. So Appleton, thank you, man. Thank you for being here.

[00:00:41] Taylor Lawrence: Thanks, Rob. Pleasure to be with you for sure. A long time for making.

[00:00:45] Rob Howe: It is. And I think you and I have had a lot of conversations over the years. And I just kind of reflecting back on that journey like we were just talking about. It's amazing how all those paths can lead you back here. and I'm excited to have you share more of your story of the stuff that we don't see behind the art. Because I think when I look at your pieces, I see the exploration of these ideas. I see the pain. I see the vulnerability of highs and lows. And I know that as a person with diabetes, but I also see the appeal for someone who doesn't have diabetes and they can see that passion and see that even pain and that journey through your art. So diabetes awareness, like we were talking about, kind of starts on day one.

[00:01:27] Taylor Lawrence: Starts on day one. It did for me for sure. Coming out of a, and forgive me all the listeners, a little laryngitis. We're hoping to make it worse by the end of the show, but I will try to be as clear. Forgive me. I survived a coma at six years old, DKA coma. My mother and I had come home from a doctor a couple of days earlier. And sadly, this still happens today. I just read about a girl, little girl, oddly enough, Rob in Texas, who didn't make it because diabetes very often masquerades as something else. The doctor sent me home, more fluids, just tired, you know, same old, I don't know, forgive me, kind of half-assed diagnosis brought me home. Some doctors are amazing. Some lawyers are horrible. Every profession has people who phone in the job and got phoned in that day. About 48 hours later, my mother later described what she called the look. And sadly, that means something moments from now. That look, she threw me over a shoulder like a fireman. And next thing I know is running into the thousands at a hospital coming in and out of the coldest of sweats. I would wake up in my mother's arms. The look was from my older sister who died before I was born of diabetes complications of the same diagnosis masquerading as a common flu. My mother would lie down with her one night and she wouldn't wake back up. Where I come from is about the awareness from my sister, DZ, about the awareness that many people now still don't see or acknowledge and want to hear that their little one can get it. and sadly you grow up pretty quickly when you're diabetic at six years old so if i'm strong enough to hear it then i think more children people should be at least aware of of the lifestyle that can lead to it or or the signs to look out for more in particular you bring up a really a

[00:03:32] Rob Howe: couple of really pertinent things the first is that the masquerade of the signs of diabetes are often not extremely dangerous on their own. Thirsty, tired, frequent urination. These are things that happen to kids all the time. And if you're not aware that all of those signs point to diabetes, or if you have, like you shared, somebody who's phoning it in, or maybe just isn't educated on that topic. And I think especially when we talk about diagnosis with diabetes a few years ago, you know, we're talking 40 plus years ago for your diagnosis or in rural areas where there just isn't as much access to top-notch healthcare. These things happen. They still, unfortunately, like you shared, happen today. And the other piece is growing up at a very young age and coming to terms with your own mortality and understanding that if you don't have your low blood sugar snacks, or if you give yourself too much insulin at the young age of six years old, and you've got really not too many other extreme responsibilities at that point, it forces you to change the way you look at your life. What do you remember about those early years with you and your mom managing your life with diabetes?

[00:04:48] Taylor Lawrence: You know, it's interesting because I imagine, of course, it's so much more prevalent. And, you know, a lot of us by culture and upbringing, you didn't talk about politics, didn't talk about money. She really never talked about your diabetes. And God bless the amount of organizations and community and welcome groups there are today. But you know, you didn't tell your little girlfriend that you had diabetes. You know, it was kind of an island when actually you didn't meet a lot of diabetics in the wild that you could spot, you know, and go say hi to. I just said hi to a girl this morning on the corner and she thought I was a weirdo. I said, how are the numbers today. It's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, hey, you know, I hope you're doing well. But it was kind of a solo ride. I was the youngest of three older brothers. A couple brothers didn't, one brother didn't really make it easy because I really didn't know when you're the youngest, you know, everyone loves you and your family and he's got diabetes, no big deal. But it still was quite an odd concept to understand. I like to joke that I'm slightly dyslexic, just enough for a good sense of humor and for painting. But the concept of diabetes and number balancing and stuff like that, even today, I'm still sort of not so analytical about it. Still sort of just, it's a feeling. But I also felt very special knowing my town was diabetic. You know, when you play sports, everybody knows you're diabetic and it wasn't so heavy that way, but I'd wish this, the education and a little more stress on explaining about it. This is really why you need to do it. You don't just tell a kid, Hey, you don't drink alcohol and just say, no, you have to know why. And you have to tell them that other kids will do it and you won't do it and just accept it. And I was brought up in a broken home. So without my father, so not a lot of explaining was done at times because God rest my mother, last of the red hots, worked really hard to put us all through college, no college loans. My mom worked like a mother, as they say. So a lot of it was on my own. A lot of it was experimentation. You know, kids do stupid things when they go to college to deal with how those things affect your sugar and stuff. You realize that later on in life, you sort of decrease the odds of feeling terrible. And if that means giving up a few things to make sure you're having a good ride, you do that.

[00:07:24] Rob Howe: That's really interesting that you view it that way because I do as well. I kind of have a poet's heart from time to time. So highs, highs, low, lows, not even compared to the diabetes on that side. But when I am in those moments where I'm feeling low or I've got to change something, I go back and I minimize those variables. What are the things that I can count on? How can I make sure that I'm staying in range, so to speak, in my emotional health as well, mental health as well, and limiting some of the alcohol or drugs or what have you, or social environments like, hey, let me just take a breather and get back to the basics and calibrate myself and get myself back on track. I do want to go back though, because you talked about keeping it to yourself. Uh, and that's something that I really vibe with because that was my experience for the first 10 years. I w I thought I was being outward about my diabetes, but I, I didn't really know what that meant until I was a little bit more grown up. And so I was focused on going to college, trying to be a basketball player, like, uh, trying to start my career. And I wasn't as outward about my diabetes. I wasn't ashamed to share it, but it wasn't part of my identity. And so it was limiting me. I didn't have a lot of friends with diabetes. I wasn't really, you know, attracting people who could really help me. And so to look at you now where, you know, so much of your art is focused in the diabetes space, like, was there a time that changed where you felt like, you know, I don't want to keep this a secret anymore. I want to, I want to be more open. I want to, you know, talk about my diabetes externally a little bit more.

[00:09:02] Taylor Lawrence: That's interesting because I don't think that I kept it to myself. Again, I think it was sort of a generation where you just weren't in the habit of sort of talking about yourself as people do today. I never didn't. I was the one taking the shot right on the subway, you know, testing right in front of people, never had any gumption about that or telling people. But it's definitely not your opening line at a bar. Let's put it that way. But other times, no. And the only time, sadly, is when you feel ashamed. And I'm sure, sadly, that this is for millions of us, is when you're a caretaker and the patient in the same day. At the end of the day, all you do is grade the man in the mirror. You know, we had a meeting. You didn't prepare for that. You didn't look as sharp as you could because you were testing or low or sweaty or just read a stat a few years ago and not surprising. And I've actually had to defend it to people who didn't get the concept. The average person has 40 to 60,000 thoughts a day. The average diabetic has 80 to 120,000 thoughts a day. And I mentioned that to my friend. He said, that's impossible. And I said, what the original having 40,000 thoughts a day alone is impossible. I mean, things are spanned by your, your radar that you're not even really thinking about, but you're thinking about? The person's hat walking down the street in front of you? Somehow you thought about that. But I said, by the time you get your coffee and whatever your regime is in the morning, we've had to make 20 decisions already. What we're going to do that day, pack, wear. What you wear actually is a thought. Do I need extra pockets? Do I want to be light on my feet? Oh, I'm testing. I'm high. I can't eat. Now I got a low. I got to adjust. And you just had your second cup of coffee. That's three thoughts that you might have wandered around Sunday morning, aimlessly, not even thinking. It gets that heavy. And it gets that heavy again. When you're the guy who caused the high blood sugar, you're the one who overcompensated for the blood sugar. And now you're stupidly low. And you're just like this, when am I going to win? And it becomes an opinion on yourself, which is probably what I would say the lifetime mastery of saying, I did okay today. You know, I have a funny love hate with people who love to show the even bar, love to show that they had the unicorn day. There's nine out of 10 of us don't have the unicorn day. And we love you all to death. We're all good friends at the meetup. But stop showing me that you're a better diabetic than I am, where you're going to lie to yourself and think you're inspiring people. In my opinion, my opinion, I don't think you are. You're giving a natural heaviness to people who don't have the gadgets. They don't have the wherewithal, the everything to be in the best control. When we go on and off these things, you spend a day poking your finger. I think you made a joke about the little CVS guy. I had to do it 10 times in a day because that's how normal I'm doing it. And I'm like, holy crow, I'm jamming every finger.

[00:12:21] Rob Howe: I remember like we become so dependent on the technology, right? Like you can just anytime look down at your phone or scan your CGM or look at your Apple watch. And I just remember, you know, I look at my fingers now and they've mostly healed because I haven't had to do 10 sticks a day. But I remember days where, you know, if you'd stick yourself right, right exactly on a hole that you had poked before and like, it would just go down to the bone. And I just remember that pain and be like, man, when is this going to end? I do want to talk a little bit about the straight line because there's, I think, some toxic positivity in the diabetes online space where we are maybe projecting more than we anticipate or that there is some day that we'll wake up and be masters of the universe about diabetes and we won't have to worry about anything else. My perspective on this has changed a little bit recently because I was born in an able body, been able to do things that, whether it's sports or fitness or the demands of my kind of work life, I'm able to meet those largely out of no effort of my own, just because I had great genes and parents and the environment I was brought up in, I'm able to meet those demands.

[00:13:34] Taylor Lawrence: A lot of people never knew diabetics came that big. Yeah, that's true.

[00:13:38] Rob Howe: That's true. They didn't realize that they came this tall, stretched out, right? Because I used to think if I told people that my diabetes was really difficult, then that would make me feel like I was less of a person. If I was acknowledging and giving power to the impact that diabetes was having on me, it would affect me somehow. I believe in that mindset too. And I have benefited from it. But what I have learned is that not everybody has that capacity. and only recently, one of my now good friends recently had his lower leg amputated from diabetes complications. And he's younger than I am, a young man. And his attitude, he's like, Rob, it sucks that I had to lose my leg. He's like, but I feel better because the infection was really killing me. I had no idea. He's like, so it's weird to say that I feel better. But what I look at, because I came across a post that was someone had asked a child, like an uninformed question of like, oh, you have diabetes. Does that mean you're going to have an amputation? Or is that going to mean you're going to lose your leg when you're older? And the sentiment around the post was that, you know, no, that doesn't necessarily mean that. And I agree. We can live well with diabetes. But if we have complications, we're still deserving of love and respect. And so I commented on this post and I said, one of my friends recently lost his leg to diabetes, I still love him. We deserve to be seen and to be loved and to be celebrated, even with the scars, even with the difficult things. And I think that's something that it's easy to look past those complications. It's easy to say that's not going to happen to me, or that's not going to happen to my kid. But I don't think that sets us up for success if it does happen, because there might be a day where I get retinopathy or where I get neuropathy. And And even though I've done the best that I can to manage the disease, because diabetes is relentless, it doesn't choose its victims. It continues to impact you no matter how well you manage it, whether you have a straight line or not. That's what I want to get across is that even if you have complications, even if you have really struggled, you are still deserving of respect and acknowledgement and need to be seen and to be celebrated within the community.

[00:15:57] Taylor Lawrence: That's a really beautiful thing, Rob. I don't think a lot of people see that nuance because whenever you see somebody in a wheelchair, whatever comes to mind for most people, you know, a vet or just a car accident or something, my first thought is like, dude, wow, did it start with the toes and it went to your knee. and you know what they need that love and respect because I think that image is of the bad diabetic who was up all night and never took his insulin and missed his shots and we all know that person you know the person who just decided he didn't he didn't care you know enough about himself and then that just becomes a rabbit hole where you go on on you know that you've been faulted completely. And I must say, I've maybe as a young person had seen that and gone, oh God, he's died. You know, what happened? You know, my friend's father just lost his toes. And my first thought was not even heavy, just like, I can't even say it was an acknowledgement. It was just, oh, that's what happens when you don't take care of yourself. Yeah. And then you get, you know,

[00:17:07] Rob Howe: the Olympian who has the same problems. It's so easy to not see uncomfortable things, to look past them, right? And I think that's what I want, especially in the chronic illness community. I want us to look at the uncomfortable things and accept them just like we do the exciting accomplishments. I think it's amazing that there are people with diabetes who, you know, like Sebastian Sasseville, who climb Mount Everest or run across these, you know, crazy achievements or people who compete in the Olympics, like you said, Olympians with type 1. I want us to celebrate the people who it's not as easy to celebrate. I think that's something that, you know, the seeing those people and accepting them and loving them and bringing that energy that we do for the high achievers to the people who really need it most. I think that's going to help us a whole lot more than, you know, like you said, labeling them as bad, bad diabetics or like, oh, that's, those are the consequences for mismanagement because we don't always know

[00:18:04] Taylor Lawrence: the full story. Just to see that as an accomplishment, just to see going through the day, Right. You said, like we all know, I mean, the known and unknown joke, it's 24 seven. So for anybody who made it through the day without snapping at their dog, their spouse, their child, you know, and went, oh, yeah, I'm probably low. That's why I'm angry with you right now. We're touched on mental health when we do. But that is a huge score.

[00:18:31] Rob Howe: Sure. Well, like you said, even just making it through the extra 40,000 thoughts and not having one go sideways on you, it's a huge accomplishment. So you have done a lot to let diabetes be seen through your art. How did you decide to pursue that? Like, where did that inspiration come from? And how did you really get started on this journey of the vials and the work that's now

[00:18:54] Taylor Lawrence: seen all over the world? I probably, as an example of who I am at six years old, I refused to throw out any bottle of insulin. I've almost saved every bottle of insulin that's gone through my system. And, you know, you'd know as well as I do, but some people go, wow, that must be thousands. I've had it over 40 years. You go through 12 to 20 a year. It's not that much, but it's a big bowl full and I used to get a kick out of going oh April 1st 1992 wow and just have other diabetics go you still have that I can't believe it I've always been an artist always loved art always had a thing for street art not necessarily somebody's graffiti tag which in the suburbs is known as carving your initials in the trees so why anyone hates graffiti I don't really get but I liked Exit Through the Gift Shop I'm sure you know Shepard and madly in love with an old friend she's she's an artist and after that movie we went to Kinko's and just went out all over LA and it began there I'd always photograph stuff I'd always made things but the being more active and the thrill of running from cops and security people kind of added to it but and it made it more of a medium for me. Why have it be something that's sort of only talked about at conferences? And one of my favorite stories that almost gets me misty now is a gal I became friends with later would end up coming to shows and confiding to me that a piece I put up on the Lower East Side on this famous building on Bowery, which everybody covers, I managed to put up a big piece. I blew it up and hand embellished it. All Kinko's copies, but hand painted. And she had said she had it. She'd had it. It'd been too many days in a row and couldn't land a mark. It was just up and down. And since she saw a piece of my art and she started bawling because she knew it wasn't an advertisement. She knew that some diabetic somewhere had put it up. And that made my whole world. I mean, it reinforced things. I mean, I've done it for myself and for my sister and for plenty of other young families who, older, younger, whoever, to lose a child of any age, a wife, a husband, a grandfather. I have a phrase, we're too young for type 1. Everyone is too young to have this disease. And it made my day that it moved this person. And then it was all just me loving, loving the lifestyle as well. You know, it's, it's kind of fun. I've been arrested a couple of times in New York and LA once with actually twice with a German shepherd, my older German shepherd, but yeah, you know, that's where it really sort of, as you would expect it to, made my whole day. It made me realize that we're not alone, which was another huge thing. That's part of it. So I get a kick out of walking around my neighborhood and having people go, hey, just saw your piece and I'm diabetic. And it feels kind of cool, like some weird

[00:22:07] Rob Howe: gang signal that no one knows. Yeah. I definitely got that myself. I felt, and the first time I encountered one in the wild, I'll share this story. I was in Atlanta in 2018. I was one of my good college buddies. We had a surprise birthday party for him. His now wife had coordinated all of us getting back together. And so his party was on Saturday night. Then on Sunday, we were out as a fall day. We're all hanging out friends for a decade and been through, you know, really grew up together. And I'm writing like it was at the peak of those scooters were around and I'm going up and down the belt line in Atlanta. And I am like cutting it really close to my flight. So I've like hung out with my friends as long as I can and I'm booking it back. And something catches my eye as I'm going under one of the bridges. And I stopped the scooter and I looked back and I had my little point shoot with me and I snapped the photo because I was like, that is Appleton. That's Appleton's vial right there under the belt line. And, you know, again, it was just one of those really surreal moments. Like I, I had had a really great day with, with close friends who I really loved. I was physically burnt out from a long weekend of late nights and early mornings and long days. And I saw it at the right time. And I felt that like, oh, there's something here that I know. And I looked all around. Nobody else knew what I knew about who this was and what it meant. And I snapped that picture and I tagged you. And I think I shared it back then. And I was sending you that in our messages leading up to this interview. But it's really amazing how, yeah, it's not an advertisement. It is a signal though, a secret code that you're not alone, that there's somebody else who's going through what you're going through. And it's those things that bind us without any words being exchanged that I think makes that art so powerful. That it's working. Yeah, it's working. And even though you lost like your account, I know like your account got hacked or stolen or whatever the case is and technology, this and that, and you're building back your Appleton Pictures account and hopefully we'll get you back to where you were. But look, it took me looking back like through my phone's camera roll six years to go find that photo. That's fine. It was pretty cool. It was a pretty cool experience. So as we kind of look forward as well, going through the emotions of like this, this output, this creative output, the things that have come back to you, the people who have been now attracted to you and you've encountered, like, what do you wish that more people on the outside, people who don't recognize the vials. What do you wish that they knew about diabetes? And what do you wish that your work

[00:24:43] Taylor Lawrence: could convey to them? It's interesting because awareness just gets confused with being awareness. Oh, you're supposed to be aware of a disease. It's out there. Yes, that is one of the initial things to get people to understand diabetes masquerade as certain things, just to understand we all should be aware of Crohn's disease. We all should be aware of many other things. So the word awareness takes on sort of this innocuous tone. Oh, yeah, I get it. You're about diabetes awareness. No, to tell people how involved it is, there are no days off. There's a heavy mental burden that goes with being the smiley diabetic every day when you didn't have a good night or a good morning. You know, being aware of the financial burdens that, you know, that might be one way to tell somebody to take better care of yourself. When you're diabetic, you're out of pocket expenses are almost three times as much as your medical insurance. The all-encompassing of awareness to how people feel when you're dealing with a diabetic, that mood swings and, you know, or not mood swings. I'm generally angry with you. You know, those get confused. Maybe a little bit more patience, but a little bit more patience with other people who have afflictions. Being aware that you could consciously protect yourself or help other people or promote them or, you know, be involved in the world as a whole, where you feel you want to understand everybody and everything so that when you react with them and treat them, you know, it's not a trivial little illness. It's not you shoot and you get to eat candy, all the general things. Most of my life, I've been about the mental health that people don't give, you know, all the way through the guilt, you know, you caused it, you're preventing it. You couldn't do this or that. You know, as you get older, you're limiting travel of these things. You want life to be easier. You know, make sure you put your insulin in the same spot. I want to go back looking for it some of the time when you really need it. But, you know, mostly just a general understanding of the affliction, what it does to people of all ages, who it affects, and the personal caregivers. You know, I can't think of too many other diseases where you really depend on people who are close to you.

[00:27:05] Rob Howe: Especially when you're diagnosed so young.

[00:27:08] Taylor Lawrence: Yeah. You know, and to keep up the good spirit stuff and coming from a broken home, that was kind of a lot of weight was on the kid, you know, where you just sort of had to go. It was a good day and report to your mom that it was a good day, but it might not have been,

[00:27:23] Rob Howe: you know, when you think about like mental health and the impact of diabetes, because it's, it's a long disease, right? It's there's no cure.

[00:27:30] Taylor Lawrence: Science fiction movie is what diabetes is. I mean, you can imagine us writing in the fifties, a disease that never ends.

[00:27:38] Rob Howe: There's no cure. And it's, we got gizmos and alerts and alarms and beeps and yeah, it's, and you know, you got to keep yourself alive by eating gummy worms and you know, it's just.

[00:27:49] Taylor Lawrence: Right. Whatever your thing is, you're like a little cheesy, you know, when you're absolutely starving. I mean, I do find some of those moments where it's just you and you, and you sort of just laugh and go, wow, I'm in a corner at an airport, you know, just consuming something like a madman.

[00:28:07] Rob Howe: Yeah. We had Eric, Eric Dutcher. We just published this week on the podcast. He was running the first ultra marathon on Easter Island, which is the native language is called Rapa Nui. And he was saying he was climbing up this like false summit and he got up to this tree and he had to treat a hypo and he sat in the tree and he's like looking over the whole island. It's just him by himself eating his little candies. nice and it's just you know you got to have those moments where it's just you and you

[00:28:34] Taylor Lawrence: right especially oddly enough it's not like you're enjoying a banana it's like you've got to eat candy i i have a salt tooth myself so sweets are too you know i'd rather treat it with a taco than

[00:28:47] Rob Howe: you know okay i like it i yeah i've got a weird relationship with gummy bears i don't i don't really think of them as candy i think of them as medicine you know they i don't eat them for enjoyment. I eat them strictly to get me out of a bad situation. You're funny. Again, who knows

[00:29:03] Taylor Lawrence: where the education comes from and what you end up doing. My thing was Coca-Cola. My mom always gave Cokes and I used to be a little hockey player and I'd skate past the rink on a play. And I go like that to my mom. She'd bring a Coke to the team box and I'd drink it later on, but just such a wrong thing to be a Coca-Cola. And of course it was a fight. I had to hide Cokes in my house for my older brothers. Like there was no self-control. I had some of those

[00:29:32] Rob Howe: with some roommates that I had where I had my, I had these little Cokes, they were like 20 carbs each and you know, they were the small little cans and I would write, you know, for emergency use only. And you know, there was always that weird explanation every time a new roommate would come by, like what kind of Coke emergencies are you having around here? Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[00:29:49] Taylor Lawrence: I study late, you know, but yeah, plenty of those don't touch moments were kind of fun with how you

[00:29:55] Rob Howe: treated them. And, you know, now that we're talking about it though, it's interesting because when you're having hypoglycemia and your blood sugar is low, your brain is, is like, we got to survive. So it kicks in your appetite. And, you know, when you sip, take that first big gulp of Coca-Cola, not only does like the sugar and everything hits your dopamine, but like just your brain's like, yeah, yeah. More of this. It's man. It is one of the highest highs you can have

[00:30:18] Taylor Lawrence: when you just, you know, you hear the music in the background, you hear the Coke, you know, the commercials playing and it's just like, it's euphoric, man. It's unbelievable. No, that is really very funny. So I want to, as we kind of wrap up as well, you know, you,

[00:30:32] Rob Howe: you've lived over 40 years with diabetes, a pillar in the online community, in the arts community for somebody who was in that low place or who is trying to figure out where they fit into this whole world, or, you know, maybe the, the parent of the, of the six-year-old who's having a hard time, what would you say to them about what's coming for them in their life? What advice would

[00:30:54] Taylor Lawrence: you give them? There's always something beautiful. It is only momentary. These moods, the self-criticism, the feelings. As corny as it sounds, the day will come up, you'll see your dog, you'll see your gal, your husband. You'll take that deep breath and go, it's been easier and difficult before. I like a phrase, I've lived this day before and I lived through it. And one day was amazing. One day was horrible. And the day I thought it was horrible. I remember the other day that I lived through it. So you just decided that for that moment, you will, you're allowed to recharge. We're all allowed to go sit down and you're allowed to go to sleep and wake up and have a new helmet, a new next day. And you will have it. And some days it goes days in a row and days in a row. And it's an individual thing, but you measure the fights that you have. And I'll tell our friends out there, diabetics are a special breed. And if you weren't the day before, you are the day after. And as they say in the film business, you're in the business. You're diabetic, yet you're in it now. And you know all the platitudes when they were kids, the strong get diseases God gives them to people who can handle it and all that. Well, you know what? You're goddamn right. Because a few of us, you have the fortitude and you give it to other people as you do to out to your community for people who need a boost and see you and see me and go, wow, those guys are doing it. Somebody's climbing Everest. All right. You know, let's shake it off. And it's easier said than done. But when it's done, you go, nice try diabetes. You're not going to get me every day. You're not going to get me. And it's always, we all know it's a nice try because you try not to die every day. Take it from somebody who took too much Tresiba the other day thinking I was working on some humalog. So, you know, and vice versa, but to not be so hard on yourself.

[00:32:57] Rob Howe: That's great advice. And it's something I kind of came up with last year in that same vein was, you know, I've been hard to kill since 1988.

[00:33:05] Taylor Lawrence: right that's exactly one of my other mantras nice try and i'm not going out that way that's i have a deal with the lord i'm not going out any other way but by diabetes complications so we got it as long

[00:33:18] Rob Howe: as i can work against that you know all other possibilities are are not on the menu that's right well appleton thank you man for for coming on the podcast it's been a long time coming all all listeners check him out appleton pictures let's get his account back up to where it was and I cannot wait to see the next time I encounter one of your pieces in in the real world it's

[00:33:39] Taylor Lawrence: always very special always active thanks Rob appreciate you