October 14, 2020 • 52 mins
Two dads of T1D daughters, on a podcast, trying to figure it all out.
This is another of our episodes that we live-streamed but also edited down for your pod-listening pleasure - so just a heads up re some of the steam-related goofiness that you might hear in this ep.
Goofiness was essential for this one though, as the dads discussed the virtues or otherwise of remote learning, something every family with school-age kiddos has had to deal with to some degree or another the past few months. It's certainly been something that's heavily impacted Anna and Ella, though their experiences differ greatly.
As dads of kids with T1D, decisions re what to do and when have largely been dictated by our concerns over possible diabetes-related complications should Anna or Ella contract COVID-19. Increasingly, though, those determinations are being more and more influenced by what might be best for our children's mental health...
Please do check out our wonderful Dads and Diabetes show sponsors...
Glucose Revival @ https://glucoserevival.com/
Dia-Be-Tees @ www.Dia-Be-Tee.com
This is another of our episodes that we live-streamed but also edited down for your pod-listening pleasure - so just a heads up re some of the steam-related goofiness that you might hear in this ep.
Goofiness was essential for this one though, as the dads discussed the virtues or otherwise of remote learning, something every family with school-age kiddos has had to deal with to some degree or another the past few months. It's certainly been something that's heavily impacted Anna and Ella, though their experiences differ greatly.
As dads of kids with T1D, decisions re what to do and when have largely been dictated by our concerns over possible diabetes-related complications should Anna or Ella contract COVID-19. Increasingly, though, those determinations are being more and more influenced by what might be best for our children's mental health...
Please do check out our wonderful Dads and Diabetes show sponsors...
Glucose Revival @ https://glucoserevival.com/
Dia-Be-Tees @ www.Dia-Be-Tee.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Me and Mark telling stories, andthat nothing that we say here is intended
to be medical advice. This isstrictly from our point of view as two
dads telling the stories of our Tone D kiddos. Also, just to
remind people that we want to maintaina perspective in this podcast. Regardless of
what Alan and I or our familiesare dealing with. We understand that it
doesn't amount to a hillabeans compared towhat our daughters or anyone diagnosed with type
(00:22):
one diabetes is dealing with. Sowe just want to maintain that perspective.
Feel free to dance. How aboutthat add some kind of flavor to it?
(00:48):
Like it all right? Intro?Please? Ah, okay, here
we are always we are not quitesure wind to come in when we do
this? Asked the world of livestreaming. Exactly we are live streaming.
This is one of our live streamingepisodes. This will also go out as
a regular pod as well. Ifyou're tuning in, you know already that
(01:12):
this is Dad's and Diabetes, justtwo dads of T one D kiddos on
a podcast stroke live stream. I'mtrying to figure it all out. I'm
Mark still as always two years onand you are. I'm Alan, Yes,
you are got the mood lad Alzheimer'scheck. This last stream is going
(01:36):
to my head. Man. Ah, it's a it's assist another one of
those hobbies. Dude, I can'tI can't seem to fund a way to
stop. I don't know. You'reOCD, you really are, I am,
I am. That's pretty cool tohave OCD friends sometimes when you need
something done. So it was goodto see you, my friend, get
good from you and to see you. Yeah, man, you too.
(01:59):
Wells the what's been going on?Well, it's it's been a couple of
weeks, that's for sure. Youknow, it's interesting you and I are
always kind of tossing around different ideasthat might form kind of the lynchpin to
any given episode, and we actuallyhad another one in mind for this episode,
(02:21):
but both of us have had happeningsover the last couple of weeks that
really informed the twenty twenty the topic, yeah, indeed the topic of this
particular episode. You know, we'veskirted around coronavirus COVID nineteen through several episodes.
We've kind of made mention and dippedin, dipped out, not really
(02:46):
sensed an episode around it, butgiven what's gone on in the last couple
of weeks, we felt like wewanted to go ahead and do that.
So so yeah, it has It'sit's been an interesting couple of weeks.
We're recording this, Alan, Theirony of this does not escape me.
We're recalling recording this on National MentalHealth Awareness Day. Ah, yeah,
(03:08):
I celebrated every year. I'm practicingday A right, I feel like,
um, I felt already know we'repracticing just about every day exactly. Yeah,
twenty twenty has been has been interesting. That's vicious now, you know,
(03:29):
I think, and I put itin our in the description for the
title antory of the live stream,that we're gonna talk about virtual school,
and you know, we had achoice. And of course everybody's been listening
to the podcast knows that we havedifferent size school districts. You obviously live
in Austin, Texas. I livein BF and so our school has just
(03:50):
a few few hundred kids and uhand coronavirus is everywhere obviously, um it's
inescapable at this point. So inany case, you know, we've had
our occasional UM positive tests here andthere, and Uh, it's not really
the positives that gets you, justthe contact tracing, which we don't have
(04:13):
to get into all that because makesabsolutely no sense because TAG doesn't have to
have to quarantine. But Anniston gotcaught up in quarantining because we volunteered to
do face to face school or inyou know, live school, which is
an odd that we're even having tosay that, so we in person school
and UM. Yeah, so shestarted it a couple of times. She
(04:34):
almost got popped another time where shewere twenty two kids. I believe her.
Our twelve kids were called and shedidn't have to but she got popped
this last time, so where shehad to quarantine and um, and so
she's now doing virtual school and shehates it with everything that's in her being.
(04:55):
UM. I talked to her aboutit a little bit, um because
she's very yeah, okay together.Yeah, I want to guess I feel
like you skate it over kind ofthe reason. Oh not intentionally, but
I want our listeners to have thebackground I have, so that exactly used
term popped. But I don't knowif that's what I'm you know, if
(05:15):
all our listener is necessarily going tounderstand that. So why has Anna specifically,
why has she had to transfer fromin person's school to remote learning.
Well, when you start looking atthe when someone when a childhood was a
positive test or from a child orfrom a teacher or instructor administration staff.
Uh, we have the state ofArkansas in there are in there opening up
(05:39):
plan how to have seating charts andso that it would be easier to contact
trace if someone and when we saypot positive, everybody just kind of someone
tested positive for coronavirus. Well,the it inevitably always happens outside of school.
Someone goes somewhere where they shouldn' beesor whatever the case may be,
(06:01):
and somehow they get caught up.We've had no illnesses, but the first
couple were done through DHS visits whereyou have foster children and that's part of
the DHS visit. They tested positive. Many children are testing positive, all
asymptomatic. And a girl who Idon't know where she maybe at church.
(06:25):
She possibly was exposed and she testedpositive because she through contact tracing, because
it goes through the Department of Health. They contact you because if you test
positive, they will ask you whoyou've been around, and so the names
and information are giving or given out. Typically you want to contact the person
(06:46):
first. We've learned a lot oflessons from friends the hard way on that
one. You do want to probablycall your friend to tell them you're positive
before you just give their name tothe Department of Health. Yeah, just
common courtesy and covid UM. Soanyway, Yeah, Aniston got so there
was a little girl in her classand that was on her basketball team and
(07:09):
volleyball team that tested positive. Soanyone in her vicinity, depending on what
activity or what class it's in,UM, you have to quarantine for fourteen
days. So that's how she got. That's how we got the official phone
call. They let you know thatthere was an exposure and that there will
(07:30):
be contacting the parents. So twoor three days a week. It seems
like you're waiting for a phone call, the official phone call of you know,
it's like waiting to see if yougot into a college or not or
that is not. But on theon the opposite end, she waiting on
a phone call. Yeah, it'slike waiting for your boss says, hey,
uh, have a great weekend Sunday. I'm gonna call five of you
(07:53):
guys. Um to not come backto work. So you're waiting to find
out, so you're waiting to funout of your quarantine. Sey, she's
quarantine but the and you know,and we'll go through the process of what
I was going on about the virtualschool and things. But that's how she
that's how she wanted up being quarantined, uh and doing virtual school U.
And it's different than when they shutthe schools down. Totally different process,
(08:16):
totally different mode of learning. Umi, and I think we touched on it,
skimmed on it a little bit onthe last episode or episode before that,
and I'll go into that a littlebit as you tell your story.
So, um, yeah, sowhy is Ella doing virtual schooling? Yeah,
so let's put pinning that for rightnow. We's seeing for both of
(08:37):
our kids, and then we'll talkabout the ramifications wore we do that.
We are on live stream and wejust got to hay from Michael Gallagher.
So hey Michael, Hey, Michael, appreciate you share the share the thingy.
Let everybody know that we do thething ease where it goes to other
thingies and now all those social mediastuff. So regular listeners to the show
(09:00):
that Ella has been doing remote learning, as has her older brother Ethan,
since well all school year, they'vebeen out of physical school and working from
their bedrooms. And the first thingI'll say is, I mean, obviously
this centers around Anna and Ella,so I want to keep our focus there,
but I do want to mention thatto A's Allen's point of Anna not
(09:22):
enjoying that remote learning experience, Ethanhas loved it. He's on the other
end of the spectrum. But herewe have a kid who doesn't really enjoy
structure, likes that flexibility, ishappy doing his homework at ten o'clock at
night, so you know, he'shappy rolling out of bed five minutes before
class and sticking out a record onhis record player and then going on line
(09:46):
and you know, doing what needsto be done. Ella, though similarly
to Anna, has really not enjoyedthe process. I think initially it was
she was okay with it because youknow, it was new and fun and
different and being you know, athome was kind of cool. And and
(10:09):
then I think over time the socialimpact has really started to ramp up with
her. And I mentioned before we'rerecording us on Mental Health Awareness Day.
Certainly we have seen negative impact interms of her mental health and oh not
overblow this, but certainly in termsof her personality and just it's been rough.
(10:35):
Man, it's been rough. It'sbeen really it's just take a little
emotional there, Yeah, it hasn't, right, Yeah, it just um,
I think the worst thing about aboutthis whole COVID situatly not the worst
(10:58):
thing. I think one of themany things that make this COVID thing suck
is a sense of powerlessness. Youknow, you have this this phantom menace
coin style wars for a moment thereand you're not you know, you're not
show who who has COVID, whodoesn't, if they're asymptomatic, if it's
(11:20):
obvious, if you know there area couple of days in, if they're
a couple of days from being donewith it. The whole thing is just
it's it's so maddening. It reallyis. It really is. And it
I think as adults we recognize themental toll that's taking on us because we're
trying to look out for ourselves.But of course we're trying to look out
(11:43):
for our families, particularly when youhave kids who are designated more vulnerable or
indeed, if you have you know, older parents in a similar situation.
But I don't know that we necessarilystop and take stock of the impact it's
having on our kids. I thinkmaybe we look at it like, Okay,
(12:03):
we're sheltering our kids, we're protectingour kids, but doing all the
things we need to do to keepthem safe. So that's good, right,
that box is checked. Okay,cool, I'll turn my attentions elsewhere.
Not recognizing what your kids are dealingwith, what they're internalizing, and
how it's impacting them emotionally and mentally, and so that has really come to
a head here in the last coupleof weeks. Anyway, I'm gonna draw
(12:24):
a line under that for right now. On a transition back to Anna,
I don't want Tom applies the pod. And so now we know that Anna,
obviously we went back to school.That was great, had the situation
flare up. So she's being aremote learning now Alan for how long she
like a weekend? Yeah? Yeah, I think she finishes Wednesday. Yeah,
(12:45):
her and Trump, because that's inthe fourteen days. Yeah, okay,
yeah, all right. You know, yeah, there's a lot of
good things that you had said there, and we had noticed that, you
know, from all the way throughwe felt that it would be a return,
which is why we wanted Anna inschool is a It wasn't so much
(13:05):
that we just wanted her to goto back to school. We loved having
the kids at home, but wecould tell, especially in a rural area,
the social interactions all these kids have. I mean, they're socially distant
when they go back, when theygo home every day, they're socially distant.
Unless you unless you're in some kindof extracurricular activity, you're autumn.
(13:28):
By default, you're socially distant.So being at school as a social activity
as well as the learning, andit also is for the teachers for their
mental well being, and we couldtell a difference. Number One, And
I know that your parents already knowthat, so I'm not telling you anything
you don't know. I know,Mark Ordinals just we've talked about it.
(13:50):
But you know, we can doour best to hide our emotions from our
kids, but they can feel theenergy in the room. One, because
this is causing an enormous strain ofwell across the world, especially so in
the United States, coupled with everythingelse is so politically charged and socially charged.
And then and the global pandemic,and it affects our jobs, it
(14:13):
affects our health, mental health,or you know, all the things that
you were saying. So it's muchmore than even just an illness that is
quite effective at scaring the crap outof people, because personally, I think
we have an epidemic of fear,not of necessarily of illness. Not to
make that it's definitely not a uhthat's definitely had effect. It's definitely many
(14:37):
people have passed away. Thankfully we'vegotten better better treating it and things of
that nature. But all that stuffaside um the fear that it's caused is
some people I think are taking aright amount of fear where you're protecting yourselves
and you're doing the right things andusing common sense. And but I think
we've learned over the last several acouple of months, and it's just it's
it is the it's this thing outthere that you you try your best,
(15:01):
and we have friends that have triedtheir best, um, medical professionals,
you name it. People that havestayed sheltered in place still get it.
Um. But that's the whole thing. I you know, I'd made a
decision for our family that we weren'tgonna live in any kind of fear of
it. Um, not making lightof it. But if you can't stay,
(15:24):
your life cannot go away or shutdown just because of this. So
so in any case, you know, the kids could feel the fear that
we had. All right, thenwe would notice that we started noticing the
changes in them personally for not havingthe social interaction uh that they that they
(15:46):
craved. It was all virtual.It was either through gaming or over the
phone or FaceTime. And so wewere ecstatic about going back to school.
Second, changes in your kids thatwas manifest well, you know, mostly
there was some I wouldn't say behavioralas far as a lot of acting out,
(16:10):
um, because there would be thingswhere typically we could you know,
well you know how we kind ofhow we do our kids. We're pretty
strict parents, but we do everythingwith definitely with love and things of that
nature. But the sorry, guys, that wasn't out of making a really
good point. Now that was myring doorbell. Anyway, I just we
(16:33):
just didn't started a couple of weeksago, and they go it goes off
all the time. Yeah, Igot motion cameras and all stuffs up in
my bedroom. But that's not Wehave a new system and dads and diabetes
particularly, you get points in thislittle bower that goes off, congratulations on
three points that have been our dad'sshorts. We'll make clips of that now.
Um So, but it manifested thefact that I noticed, I mean,
(16:57):
Leslie talked about that we can't letthis psychological strain that we're we all
decided to choke back and putting ourminds just so we could function. Everybody
did that, went back to work. Um, you had to put on
you had to be stoic at somepoint for your children, correct, I
mean, you couldn't be scared todeath. So and also as a financial
(17:18):
you know what I do for aliving. Um, most people don't want
to see their financial advisors saying we'reall gonna tie. Okay, So that's
not the best way to handle things. And so you know you have to
get a you have to get that. I to this. I told Leslie
that, you know, just lookingat it from a thirty thousand foot perspective,
you know, um of and thentaking it all, you know,
(17:41):
take it, put it all backin perspective, and what are we looking
at? So we started you knowtrying to make changes where we would because
we were taking it out on thechildren, actually where we would notice things
that normally would not bother us startedbothering us. But we weren't mad at
them. We were mad at theat basically ron of Harras, we're mad
at the whole situation. We're madat twenty twenty. But and the only
(18:07):
physical really men inceifestation and I wantembarrass him, but Tag had a couple
of acts said in so I'll justleave it like that, and it's and
it bothered him. I mean he'sten and it's it's it really bothered him.
But for um, but I willsay to him if he happens to
ever watch this, because he knowswhat I'm talking about. And some people
(18:30):
probably awesome I'm talking about, Butthe same thing happened to me last year
when Emily and Alexey if everybody rememberswhen they got married basically within the same
month of each other, or weknew the dynamic of our household was about
to change dramatically. I had anaccident to nights in the row before Lexei's
wedding, and for sure I didthe exact thing to everybody should do.
(18:53):
You immediately start googling medical symptoms andtypically your top two or it's either stress
or cancer. So immediately it wascancer. Um, but it was it
was stress, you know. Andso as soon as I said, okay,
after the wedding is still going home, we'll talk. But yeah,
(19:15):
tax try to manifest in the samesymptence, I said, due to stress.
You said, but I don't feelsweest, I said, I said,
because well, at the time you'renine, you don't know what stress
is, but your body does.Your body knows something's different. You get
the thought to your best buddy everyday, but it's over FaceTime. You
get to do all this stuff,but it's everything's virtual. When's the last
(19:37):
time you hugged your sisters, Whenit's the last time you high vibe your
friend. I said that, youknow, just like the Bible says it's
not good for man to be alone. I mean, there, we are
social creatures. We just you know, one of the things that we need
is affection. And I think hashad a dramatic impact on our older Americans
(20:00):
and because we're seeing it every daywith Leslie's mom, I mean, when
you're socially distancing and trying for theirsake, but the affection that our parents
and grandparents and and things without nature, if you're still fortunate enough to have
your parents and grandparents, they needaffection and it is really devastating. So
(20:25):
to not trying to damp put adamper on it, I mean, but
it is what it is. Sowe have to face it, and we
have to choose how we're going torespond to it, and we can't be
reckless, but at the same time, it can't be dominated by it.
So at some point you gotta givethem, you gotta get on with living,
you know, at some point wegot to decide that it's not our
job to decide who lives and dies. Our job is just to is to
(20:49):
try to live. Because we have, as Americans especially, we have a
very bad habit of believing that somethingbad cannot happen, that the worst not
happen, and we're proving wrong,and it proves that we're not in control.
And as soon as we lose thatsense of control, that's where the
fear sets in because we all tryto say we don't we know we're not
in control, but we're lying toourselves. We think we control everything,
(21:11):
and when we don't it freaks youout. And when we couldn't control this,
we couldn't control the narrative, Wecouldn't control what we were hearing.
We couldn't control what the scientists weresaying because they didn't know because it was
novel. Well, the kids hearthat, they pick up on it,
and it depending on where you live, you heard different things. So the
(21:36):
kids, you know, we wereso looking forward to getting back to some
sense of normalcy, which was school, and at the same time it was
different because every day is it's goingto be the day that shut the school
down. Because once we hit Ithink Arkansas's like, if we have to
be quarantined, they closed the schooland we've been fortunate to avoid that.
(21:57):
But it really manifested in some physicalbut physical reactions with us On tag physical
reactions with us where we were alot more short tempered, things got to
us a lot easier. We weremore emotional. Um, you know,
we at the same time expecting agrand baby during this time, which was
(22:19):
totally unfair. Uh you know,um Emily was says she was pregnant and
the next thing, you know,we see her again, you know,
and she's waddling out of her outof her apartment, and it was like,
we missed the entire thing, youknow. So it's and I'm not
it's not a pity party because everybody'sexperiencing this thing, people not getting to
go to their parents' funerals. Imean, it's all these weird things and
(22:44):
if and kids are resilient, butthey do absorb it and they so they
need that social interaction. So tous that was the most important thing.
And for my for Anniston, andI'll stop talking, uh and let you
talk, But for Anniston, Ithink, you know, really I was
more definitely ready for her to goback to school, and Leslie was to
(23:08):
just to have some sense of normalcy, but that fear resides there. And
she talked it through for a longtime with their INDO and who also made
it clear. And Stacy Sims wasthe first one that brought this up to
me when I did it that panelwith that or that Zoom deal that one
time where she had thought where theINDO had told her that you know,
if if it's a if you're ifthe time, if you're if your T
(23:32):
one D is well managed, thenyou're no different than someone else that doesn't
have it as far as a childand so, um, their their immune
system, if they're taking if theytake control of it, there is not
as it is not compromised. Um. And once and then that was confirmed
with our INDO who said the samething when her and as a one se
(23:53):
is better than my one s orand her Leslie's a one see, well
then that kind of was like,yeah, okay, we're sitting we're sitting
her to school and so that's uh, that's that's what my decision. That's
how all this stuff manifest and itwas and it was tough and so but
everything's been going fairly well until thisquarantine. And now she's doing virtual school
(24:17):
and Anniston hates it with a passion. I want to I want to hear
you talk a little bit about whatyou think the challenges are with Ella and
how does that work with with yourschool district, with your virtual I mean
the school. Yeah, the schoolhas done a great job I think of
structuring not online learning offering, dida really good job as well of making
(24:37):
sure that the appropriate technology is therefor their teachers, you know, cameras
and microphones and and everything else.Um. I've been really impressed actually with
how they've gone abounce it. Butyou know, to my earlier point and
piggybacking really off what you were saying, Alan, You know, adults are
obviously impacted by what's happened here inthe last six months, mentally in some
(25:02):
cases physically, in terms of theiremployment, in terms of their social engagements,
and I just don't know that we'vewe've given it comes back to the
whole thing. If you know,kids are very resilient. I just don't
know that we've given enough mind toquite the impact it's had on our kids.
And so although I hate to thinkthat there's a social experiment, I
(25:23):
think Ella being at home doing remotelearning for her entire school year so far,
seeing the impact of that has beenit's been really unsetting. So the
way it's manifested for who I thinkis more explicit than it has with Anna.
I think Anna generally, you know, it just doesn't like learning from
(25:44):
what I gather from you, Andshe's just vocal about that. But she's
got her head down, she's gettingthe work done. It's a two week
span, right, so at leastit's a limited term and then she'll be
back at school with La. Youknow, she doesn't see like the end
of the tunnel right now, becausewe haven't really had that conversation, not
because we're overly cleaning, super protectiveparents who just don't want to have that
(26:06):
conversation, but we thought that bothof our kids were doing okay right now,
and we've begun conversations about okay,so what happens next week and what
happens the week after. You know, we're looking at getting them back in
on campus, of course, butthey didn't really seem to be any urgency.
In the last couple of weeks though, things have started to really ramp
up with Ellas, so she's definitelybecome you know, here's the irony of
(26:29):
the whole not having the social contactthat you talked about, Alan, which
has been the only social contact thatyou really have with people. It's through
FaceTime or phone calls or texts.You would think that people would lean into
that more heavily, right, Kidswould lean into that more heavily because that's
the only way they're able to communicatewith their friends right now. But in
fact, over an extended period oftime like we've experienced, I think they
(26:51):
begin developing fatigue for that and theystart to lose an interest in it.
Yeah, right about. There's areal difference to being part clearing a room
with someone, seeing them smile,being able to touch them, hug them,
and almost all of your communication suddenlytransferring to being text yes, which
is most of what Ella's been doing. So I know, for instance,
(27:11):
that Ella hasn't really communicated at allwith Anna in the last few months.
I've noticed that the same is truewith her friends back in Colorado, the
same is true with her soccer team. She has just basically shut down kind
of clothes and an and she's reallyonly communicating with one of her friends from
school, who right now is probablyyou know, her bestie, and they
(27:36):
communicate pretty frequently. But but thatthat, that for us, was kind
of the first red flag, andthen it just kind of seemed to snowball.
So she just seems to have losther passion for soccer right now,
oh just entirely just engaged with it. And looking at that, I think
there's a couple of different things goingon there. I think part of it
(27:57):
is puberty, and you know,things are changing, and you know,
mentally she's just kind of in adifferent place and there are demands being placed
on her at this level now,I mean, she's on a competitive,
very high level travel team. Ithink she's struggling with that little bit.
How much is she really enjoying thatdynamic despite the fact she has a great
(28:18):
coach, she's on a winning team. But I think also we can't underplay
the COVID component, which is,you know, she came into this new
team what three months ago, Alan, and in that time hasn't really been
able to forget touching teammates, highfiving teammates after goals and whatnot. When
the coach brings them in for ateam talk. All of the kids are
obviously trying to keep their distance.Ella more so than the others. She's
(28:44):
just very mindful of this. Andand so there's no camaraderie building right there's
no connection with team happening. Andso on the surface of it, she's
looking at like, I've got thiscoach I don't really know, despite the
fact he's a great coach, Theseteam mates I've not really jailed with.
I mean, this high pressure situationI'm feeling kind of anyway, And she
(29:08):
she just doesn't want anything to dowith it right now. She has nothing
to do with it. So wegot her into school playing school volleyball.
So I'm going to come onto thisin second. So there's your manifestations,
right, losing interesting, communicating remotely, losing interest in the sports and pastimes
that you enjoyed previously. And thenwe had the icing on the cake,
(29:33):
which is that her grades began tobe impacted. So Ella has always been
a straight A student. This yearwe knew there was going to be a
challenge because she's seventh grade and she'san honor role class, which I means
she's doing high school. She's actuallydoing high school math, for which she
will get high school credit this year. So that's pretty awesome, right,
right, But that's obviously going tobe challenging. It's gonna be challenging if
(29:56):
you sat in the classroom in frontof the teacher. Now, layer in
the fact during your bedroom and hermath teacher is very good at the discipline
I mean the discipline of mathematics,I mean discipline the kids. She understands
math really well, but I don'teven know that in class that she's necessarily
the best communicator. Again, layerin, now that we have distance learning,
(30:18):
right, layer in that Ella isa pretty shy girl and it is
not going to shout into the michey, hey miss miss, I don't
get that, can you strike?Ain't going to happen, right, Everything
Ella does is going to be throughthe chat box. Well, it's not
reasonable to expect a teacher to beglancing at the chat box all the time
when she has a full class infront of her. So now you've got
all those dynamics going on. Sothat has ultimately led to several of Ella's
(30:41):
grades being impacted, but Math moreso than any others, because arguably that's
the lesson that she's most vulnerable.Right now, she's the youngest in class.
She's learning concept that no one elseis learning in a grade level.
It's challenging, as it should be, and she's just sliding and she doesn't
seems seems bothered. But when weget after her, when we re emphasize
(31:03):
the importance of this work, ratherthan getting the old school l which would
have been very earnest, very upset, very oh gosh, I'm letting you
down. I want to do better, we get blank stairs not not I
don't care almost, but kind ofreading between the lines, it's I'm struggling
to really even give up. Yeah, and so we have these three things
(31:30):
happened in the last few weeks,and so yeah, so you know,
getting emotional earlier, it's it's beena lot, it's been a lot school
volleyball. We recognize that putting herown a gymnasium with a bunch of other
kids who you know, who knowswhat they're doing during the school day,
who knows what they're doing at homeright and can bring with them into the
auditorium people up in the beaches.We recognize this isn't the best situation to
(31:55):
reintegrate her, but we're at apoint where we're like, we need to
get her doing something. And whilewe were at one of the volleyball games
the other day, one of theteachers came over one was talking with Kim
with my wife and said, it'sgreat to see out here playing volleyball.
It's it's really fun that she's outhere with her friends again. You know,
you guys thinking about her coming backto school now her their school have
had no cases. They've done aremarkable job in terms of all of the
(32:19):
processes and structures and whatnot, Andso we actually feel really emboldened by that.
We're really really we're happy with whatthey've done, and so we have
been having those conversations. But theteacher was saying to Kim, Hey,
you know, you guys thinking aboutthat, and Kim said, yeah,
yeah, absolutely, you know weare. Actually, you know, she
might be back here within the nextweek or two. And the teacher said,
I'm so glad to hear that,because this isn't the Yello we know,
(32:45):
she said, we when I seeher out there practicing for volleyball,
she doesn't she's not smiling, she'snot bubbly. This isn't the Yello we
know. And that, so youknow, it's kind of like she's got
diabetes. Alan. I look backon it now and I kicked myself and
I'm like, oh my gosh,how stupid was I that I didn't see
(33:06):
this deterioration, physical deterioration in herthat ultimately led to rushing out of the
hospital. Well, you don't ceasethat because you see it incrementally every day,
so you maybe don't register the seriousnessof it. Right here, we
are dealing with this erosion over timeof Ella's mental state and her you know,
(33:28):
her happiness and how she's engaging withthe world, and we're seeing it.
It's kind of coming up in bitsand pieces and we're going, hang
on a second, what's going onhere? And then you get somebody like
this who hasn't seen Ella for twomonths, two and a half months.
Ella suddenly shows up a volleyball practiceand immediately this teacher registers, WHOA,
who's this girl? This isn't thehello we know, right, And that
just punched me in the stomach.It really really flawed me. So when
(33:52):
I say it's been a few weeks, it's been a few weeks, my
friend, I totally understand, andI feel for you and breaks my heart.
They hear that, Um, inif we would have made if we
would have made that choice, yeah, I dare say it would have been
(34:13):
the exact same way. Um,kids they do, they need each other.
Um. I'm not judging anybody who'dmade a decision to keep their child
at home. And we know thatthey can't make the medical decisions for themselves
or what and they don't always knowus in their best interests. But when
this all occurred and they shut schoolsdown, some kids took it as great,
(34:37):
We're on spring break for the nextfew months. That's what is that.
That's That's exactly why I expected kidsto think like I think about me
as a kid. If someone saidto me, you don't have to be
at school. You can stay inbed until five minutes before class, and
you want to have teachers chasing yourown campus, and you're going to get
this for like two, two anda half three months, I would have
(34:59):
been like, WHOA. I thinkI would have been right. But now
that we've been through it, alot of people thought that, and a
lot of people have found out theywere wrong. The reason why we think
that we would have done that isbecause we never went through it. Understand
and I may be wrong. Thisis my first pandemic, but I think
(35:20):
that looking back on it, whatyou're saying, millions of people are saying.
What you're saying is what the scientistsare saying. What you're saying is
what doctor Fauci was saying. AndI'm not going to get political, but
everybody talked about we're following the science. Man on both sides, you're freaking
lying to yourself, because if ifthe science is Tony Fauci, he said,
(35:46):
your children need to be back inschool, if nothing else for psychological,
for emotional support. Most of yourtop side of child psychologists said your
children need to be in school.Uh did not, because they're gonna fall
behind all learning. That's that's theteachers jobs. But and we have very
(36:07):
good teachers. Depend that depends onthis. You know. That depends on
the school district, and you workingup in the school districts know that.
And it's this. They learn somuch through their friends. They learn how
to socially interact. They know howto have a group of friends lift them
up. They know how to liftup and be a leader, and a
group of friends they know how tofollow that. There's so many things that
(36:30):
you can't really what's the word I'mlooking for. There's little nuances that they
pick up in their behaviors that comeonly from being in a group. Um.
They need, they need their peers, they need to learn how to
abstain from peer pressure. They needall that. But if you take them
(36:51):
and just put them in a vacuum, and not that you did that.
My point being is we're making allthe right rational decison visions, thinking that
we're going to do what's best forour child. We have Thankfully, we're
living a time of technology where theycan do it virtually then we learn,
holy crap, what's going on?And you know again, we started seeing
(37:15):
it some over the summer. Butthe reason we saw what you're describing with
Ella, I could see that usgoing down that path if it wasn't for
the fact that we were already sociallydistant because of where we'd live, which
is why we started doing We startedgoing places, we started doing things.
(37:36):
We started going visiting and visiting friendsand doing things even though we would stay
socially distant, just to be inthe same vicinity. And then as we
learned more of kids not being evenif they test positive or whatever, they
don't get sick, which was reallyour biggest worry. But if if you
(37:57):
are, but if you're both,if both children especially are being smart Washington
washing hands then given a hand sanitized, wearing a my ask. It made
us. We saw a change immediatelyonce the social interaction started. Where I
think one of the things I likeabout this podcast and having this opportunity is
to talk with you, is itdraws out the commonality, but it also
(38:22):
helps our listeners see the diversity.Right You're you're in a small rural community,
you've been there, you're pretty muchyour entire life, right right,
and you're established, you're well known. You've got this group of friends that
we've been able to stay close toand connect with during this time. You
(38:43):
know, our family obviously moved toa new city less than a year ago.
I don't know anybody. As afamily, we go out a lot.
We go out and do you know, go to events. We go
to restaurants a lot more than weshould do. So a lot of our
activity is predicated on jumping in thecar and go somewhere else, right right,
So that's been greatly minimized. Obviously, I don't have the benefit of
(39:05):
having my family in close proximity.There's the pesky instance of an ocean between
us. Even Kim's family. Althoughthey're in Dallas, that's still three three
and a half hour drive. Socan you get there and back the same
day just to kind of pop inand say hi and make that physical connection.
Yeah, I mean, I guessyou could kind of a drag though,
I mean, was in the car. Yeah, yeah, it's it's
to do that. So, andyou know, we try to be good
(39:28):
in terms of pods because obviously Kim'sparents are older and we don't want to
show up and bring anything to theirhouse and they're being so conscientious, And
so I guess that is to saythat. And then when you say,
if you've done, if you keptdown at of school, then probably you
would have seen the same happen withher. Yeah, maybe you would have
done, but I think maybe itwould have manifest slightly differently. Maybe it
would have taken long longer to getthere. I don't know. I mean
(39:50):
some of this also is down tothe individual, right speculation. Yeah,
we're not everything. Yeah, yeah, because we look at Ala at Ada
and we've kind of been together forthe purposes of this podcast because we're two
dads, the t one d Keettos, right, but our kiddos, although
they share a lot of similarities andare good friends, obviously very different in
a lot of ways as well.So you have all that kind of facted
and also so so yeah, sowhen I felt like I needed to say
(40:13):
that, because as our listeners arelistening to this, Alan, you know,
you've been very good to say,I'm not judging anyone. I'm not
saying anyone should have done this outof the other. So I want to
just kind of underscore that from myperspective and to say, you know,
Alan's story, Anna story, mystory, Ella story, our family stories.
They're just that there are stories.This isn't I don't think Alan.
(40:34):
I think what I've learned from thisis that what we did with Alan wasn't
wrong, right. We maybe justweren't as mindful of charting, of routinely
checking in and charting with her kindof the progress of where she's at.
Instead, it took those physical redflanks right there. They're not wanting to
(40:54):
do soccer anymore. The you know, uncommonly slipping grades those kind of things
for a suddenly you whoa whoa whoawhoa hang out and it's happened to happen
or within a concentrated period of timethe last few weeks. Yeah, so
have. If I had my timeover, I would probably do the same
again. I would just be farmore cognizant of the impact it might be
(41:14):
having on Ella. And again keepsaying this, but the fact that she's
going through puberty that undoubtedly has animpact on her, of course physically,
but to some degree mentally as well. That is all to say, though
we have made the decision and we'rerecording this on Saturday, the you have
no idea. What date this istenth happened birthday, Emily, if you
have one. Yeah, I thinkI think she's gotten up ground board after
(41:39):
Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, you'reabout to make a Yeah, we've talked
with the school leaders. I've beenthrough the processes and protocols with them.
Obviously, Ella's been in volleyball nowthe last few weeks, so she's been
in and around her peers. Sowe have taken the decision. Ella is
physically going back to gool on Mondaysou upping Monday the twelfth. So I
(42:04):
think that's a really good thing.She's very excited about it. And I
will tell you to get emotional againa third time on this party. But
it's the whole, the whole thingof how did I not see this before?
Looking back on it now, whenwe told let you know what,
honey, you were going to sendyou back to school, it's the first
time in sometime her face lit up. He had a big smile on her
face. Yeah, really excited.And that just made me feel good too,
(42:30):
warmed your heart, he does,you know? And yeah, you
made the you made the right decision. Here's the thing too, you know,
looking looking back on it. Everybody'slooking through this thing with the review
mirror. And but I'll live thatwith my work, right of course.
(42:51):
But the stop market, you know, because I was supposed to know,
and did you not pick up onall the cues? Who did? Nobody
did? Because if they picked upon all the cues, all the kids
will be back in school. Butyou know, and that was a generalized
statement, easy for me to say, but anecdotally, I got my very
(43:12):
good camera left. I got avery good friend right here who's living proof
of that. It's not right foreverybody. I'm not saying that, but
they need interaction. We've got tohave that affection and social interaction. Ella's
got to be able to say thisfricking sucks to somewhat to a girlfriend of
hers and she says, this reallydoes blow. When is this going to
(43:35):
end? Because our timeline, andyou know it, COVID years is working
like dog years, it feels like. And so imagine it to a kid
with time being relative to how oldthey are, you know, relative to
how long they have lived. Sowith their lifespan, if you look at
a period of time where we've goingon now, you know, for for
(43:57):
six months and you're talking about akid that's ten years old. They've only
been on this earth for one hundredand twenty months. So if you've taken
six you know, if you're you'rebasically taking five percent of that not knowing
what to do? Everything changes,how to be safe changes, do we
go by school? Do we notgo by to school? All of these
things that are adult decisions. Ifpeople had things to do over again,
(44:21):
would you would you keep proud school? Sure? You know we would have
loved to kept down and we lovehaving them home. We just did it
for straight strictly for the social inaction, and again we saw the red flags
earlier. If it's reaction right,yes, yes, he was loving life,
killing a cork on the tide.You know, like, okay,
this is working, this is working. Right. If if Ella would have
(44:45):
been demonstrating some of those things twoor three weeks before you made the decision
where you had to go virtual ornot, you may have made a different
decision. So give you need togive yourself a break there that not because
you're dealing with quite a lot,right, Yeah. I feel like we
spent the last forty five minutes justbasically going around around the houses, to
(45:07):
arrive at the fact that people misspeople when they don't have people, which
I think we could have done itabout three thirty seconds. Yeah, people
loving people because you know you're exactlyright, but you have to talk.
We have to talk through it.And yeah, it's interesting. You need
validation. You need validation too.I mean, I'm not always right.
I could have been dead wrong.But I'm seeing it now because she's home
(45:29):
and she and I asked her beforewe did before we went live. I
wanted to I said quickly, Anna, what do you love about what?
What's the What do you love aboutdoing the virtual What do you hate about
it? She said, what Ilove about it is Mama's home and I
get to have a breakfast, lunchand with Mama, and I don't have
to work about my sugars. Idon't have to mess with the school nurse.
(45:50):
And you know we love our schoolnurse. Mama was right there take
care of all that in the Annistonbecause when they do virtual school, you
got to be sitting at the tableeight at eight oh five. You're in
class and you can see your classmates, you see your teacher, they know
you're there virtually, and then yougo to the next class. Nothing changed.
It's it for pe right, andso she loves that. Everything else
(46:14):
she hates with a passion. Andso you know, she just likes being
being home with Mama that but justyou know, knowing that. Essentially,
what she's saying is it's not thelearning, because she's doing She's doing fine
in her grades. And I'm sureshe stayed home long enough they would slip.
But she's doing fine in her grades. But she just craves being around
(46:37):
all the other kids. That's reallyall it is, laughing and joking and
doing silly things and acting, especiallyat her and Ella's age, it's time
to act silly and make fun oftime talking about boys. But you know,
all of that stuff, it's thattime, yeah, and it's healthy
and good for him. So yes, it's just what Yeah. But as
(46:58):
we bring this still clothes, Ido want to make our listeners aware of
our next episode. Often oftentimes willtease a future episode if we have something
exciting coming up, and I reallythink we do so. Next month,
obviously it's November, it's National DiabetesMonth World Diabetes Day, and as well,
regular listeners to the show will knowas well that Ella was diagnosed in
(47:19):
the month of November, ironically enough, so it's a It's certainly a significant
month for us as well, andof course that will mark our two year
anniversaries a podcast. Our podcast beganon purpose during the month of November as
well. I've given the significance ofthat month to the t one D What
was that? What did you justdo? That was our That was that's
(47:42):
that could be any I'm gonna tellyou off, Mike what I think.
That's how it's like. But anyway, I could have did what? So
don't get me started next Okay,we'll go ahead. Sorry, all right,
rain it in Nalty next month.Remember the fourteenth, our episode will
(48:06):
feature no one but two guests.We're really really excited to have joined us
two prominent members of the t oneD community, folks who have their own
businesses that serve the t one Dcommunity and who we are proud to call
sponsors of this show. We willhave Chris Maynard from Gluco's Revival and Rachel
(48:27):
Price from Diabets. And there's aperfect segue for us, the player of
sponsors, so I can get themon the podcast. Oh okay, cool,
that's a second. So let mejoining us for next month's podcast,
talking about their their stories, theirdiagnosis stories, talking about their businesses,
both of which, honestly, wereally did handpick them as our sponsors.
Alan and I were so impressed bytheir businesses, by the work they're doing
(48:51):
in their communities. I ripped themapart a guy in a Gluco's revival.
It's a bit more serious and it'sfocus on, like Alan diabetes, some
necessary levity. But the two ofthem combined, we just think fantastic sponsors,
wonderful business owners, and we're reallyexcited to have them join us next
month. So we think that'd bea treat for our listeners. We know
(49:13):
they've featured on other podcasts as well, so you might be familiar with their
stories to some degree, but Idon't know they've been on a podcast together.
That would be interesting that dynamic worksout. Yeah, so well,
I do need to play their sponsorsand we'll do that all of that.
But let me go ahead and let'sstart off with the first one. Did
you know, Stephen, will yougo for we go? Stephen Truett just
jumped in, Hey Steven, thanksfor watching my friend. He's a regular.
(49:36):
Hey, Hey, Stephen, didyou know seventy five percent of EMTs
can't give glucagon and that there's seventyfive percent use Gluco's jowl instead. Additionally,
did you know that ninety percent ofgewels on the market are for endurance
athletes, which means they don't kickin for nearly twenty to forty minutes.
They thrive and thrive. Junior necklacesby Gluco Revival enable t one DS al
(50:01):
those supporting them to get quick accessto fast acting, potentially life saving glucose.
To learn more about their unique necklacesand about why their t one D
founder created them, check out GlucoseRevival dot com. That's Glucose revival dot
com. N diabets That's da dashBee. Dash te S is the brainchild
(50:30):
of a Type one diabetes survivor andmom who wanted to increase awareness and visibility
of diabetes through cool, funny,unique T one D themed clothing. Diabetes
also supports fellow survivors and fighters withJDRF receiving a donation for every shirt sold.
We need a cure, but untilthen, we want to have some
(50:52):
fun with our shirts and raise awarenessat the same time. Check out diabetes
dot com. That's da dash bdash t e e s dot com and
share the diabetes love. Oh allright, so he is that club.
You can get a better voiceever personthan that. Good grief, Zach,
(51:14):
I apologize. We're gonna butcher this, Zack Baghamari bagh of Mary. It's
not bag of Mary, bagamery,but I'm good. Yeah, you know
what probably is? Is it?Is it bagamery? We've got We've got
fifty bucks on right on this putit in the chat box, was phonetically
Zach. Either way, what reallyappreciate your silent what would it be the
(51:39):
armory? All the a's are silent. It's a way. We appreciate the
love. Thanks man, thanks thelistening to the podcast, and we appreciate
the kind comment. Okay, folks, we're gonna bring this one home.
We here we go. Thank thankyou, thank you, thank you,
(52:00):
thank you, maybe just thank you. So the Mary silad and you have
to do it and you have todo it out of you. Zack's close
enough. Okay, good deal,all right, alan naxt join joining me
today, mate is always having you. Thanks for joining me as well.
(52:21):
Yeah, absolute, dude, I'mso used to saying that because I usually
host a show, we're co hostingon this one, I've gotta stop saying,
Oh, and thanks for joining me. You're like, dude, this
show is the two of us.What are you talking about? Yeah,
I'm along with the ride baby,I'm just my co host, my friend,
my confident on I appreciate you,brother, and I appreciate you joining
(52:43):
me again on Dads and Diabetes.So all right, folks, we're out.
Yeah, I thought to you later
Me and Mark telling stories, andthat nothing that we say here is intended
to be medical advice. This isstrictly from our point of view as two
dads telling the stories of our Tone D kiddos. Also, just to
remind people that we want to maintaina perspective in this podcast. Regardless of
what Alan and I or our familiesare dealing with. We understand that it
doesn't amount to a hillabeans compared towhat our daughters or anyone diagnosed with type
(00:22):
one diabetes is dealing with. Sowe just want to maintain that perspective.
Feel free to dance. How aboutthat add some kind of flavor to it?
(00:48):
Like it all right? Intro?Please? Ah, okay, here
we are always we are not quitesure wind to come in when we do
this? Asked the world of livestreaming. Exactly we are live streaming.
This is one of our live streamingepisodes. This will also go out as
a regular pod as well. Ifyou're tuning in, you know already that
(01:12):
this is Dad's and Diabetes, justtwo dads of T one D kiddos on
a podcast stroke live stream. I'mtrying to figure it all out. I'm
Mark still as always two years onand you are. I'm Alan, Yes,
you are got the mood lad Alzheimer'scheck. This last stream is going
(01:36):
to my head. Man. Ah, it's a it's assist another one of
those hobbies. Dude, I can'tI can't seem to fund a way to
stop. I don't know. You'reOCD, you really are, I am,
I am. That's pretty cool tohave OCD friends sometimes when you need
something done. So it was goodto see you, my friend, get
good from you and to see you. Yeah, man, you too.
(01:59):
Wells the what's been going on?Well, it's it's been a couple of
weeks, that's for sure. Youknow, it's interesting you and I are
always kind of tossing around different ideasthat might form kind of the lynchpin to
any given episode, and we actuallyhad another one in mind for this episode,
(02:21):
but both of us have had happeningsover the last couple of weeks that
really informed the twenty twenty the topic, yeah, indeed the topic of this
particular episode. You know, we'veskirted around coronavirus COVID nineteen through several episodes.
We've kind of made mention and dippedin, dipped out, not really
(02:46):
sensed an episode around it, butgiven what's gone on in the last couple
of weeks, we felt like wewanted to go ahead and do that.
So so yeah, it has It'sit's been an interesting couple of weeks.
We're recording this, Alan, Theirony of this does not escape me.
We're recalling recording this on National MentalHealth Awareness Day. Ah, yeah,
(03:08):
I celebrated every year. I'm practicingday A right, I feel like,
um, I felt already know we'repracticing just about every day exactly. Yeah,
twenty twenty has been has been interesting. That's vicious now, you know,
(03:29):
I think, and I put itin our in the description for the
title antory of the live stream,that we're gonna talk about virtual school,
and you know, we had achoice. And of course everybody's been listening
to the podcast knows that we havedifferent size school districts. You obviously live
in Austin, Texas. I livein BF and so our school has just
(03:50):
a few few hundred kids and uhand coronavirus is everywhere obviously, um it's
inescapable at this point. So inany case, you know, we've had
our occasional UM positive tests here andthere, and Uh, it's not really
the positives that gets you, justthe contact tracing, which we don't have
(04:13):
to get into all that because makesabsolutely no sense because TAG doesn't have to
have to quarantine. But Anniston gotcaught up in quarantining because we volunteered to
do face to face school or inyou know, live school, which is
an odd that we're even having tosay that, so we in person school
and UM. Yeah, so shestarted it a couple of times. She
(04:34):
almost got popped another time where shewere twenty two kids. I believe her.
Our twelve kids were called and shedidn't have to but she got popped
this last time, so where shehad to quarantine and um, and so
she's now doing virtual school and shehates it with everything that's in her being.
(04:55):
UM. I talked to her aboutit a little bit, um because
she's very yeah, okay together.Yeah, I want to guess I feel
like you skate it over kind ofthe reason. Oh not intentionally, but
I want our listeners to have thebackground I have, so that exactly used
term popped. But I don't knowif that's what I'm you know, if
(05:15):
all our listener is necessarily going tounderstand that. So why has Anna specifically,
why has she had to transfer fromin person's school to remote learning.
Well, when you start looking atthe when someone when a childhood was a
positive test or from a child orfrom a teacher or instructor administration staff.
Uh, we have the state ofArkansas in there are in there opening up
(05:39):
plan how to have seating charts andso that it would be easier to contact
trace if someone and when we saypot positive, everybody just kind of someone
tested positive for coronavirus. Well,the it inevitably always happens outside of school.
Someone goes somewhere where they shouldn' beesor whatever the case may be,
(06:01):
and somehow they get caught up.We've had no illnesses, but the first
couple were done through DHS visits whereyou have foster children and that's part of
the DHS visit. They tested positive. Many children are testing positive, all
asymptomatic. And a girl who Idon't know where she maybe at church.
(06:25):
She possibly was exposed and she testedpositive because she through contact tracing, because
it goes through the Department of Health. They contact you because if you test
positive, they will ask you whoyou've been around, and so the names
and information are giving or given out. Typically you want to contact the person
(06:46):
first. We've learned a lot oflessons from friends the hard way on that
one. You do want to probablycall your friend to tell them you're positive
before you just give their name tothe Department of Health. Yeah, just
common courtesy and covid UM. Soanyway, Yeah, Aniston got so there
was a little girl in her classand that was on her basketball team and
(07:09):
volleyball team that tested positive. Soanyone in her vicinity, depending on what
activity or what class it's in,UM, you have to quarantine for fourteen
days. So that's how she got. That's how we got the official phone
call. They let you know thatthere was an exposure and that there will
(07:30):
be contacting the parents. So twoor three days a week. It seems
like you're waiting for a phone call, the official phone call of you know,
it's like waiting to see if yougot into a college or not or
that is not. But on theon the opposite end, she waiting on
a phone call. Yeah, it'slike waiting for your boss says, hey,
uh, have a great weekend Sunday. I'm gonna call five of you
(07:53):
guys. Um to not come backto work. So you're waiting to find
out, so you're waiting to funout of your quarantine. Sey, she's
quarantine but the and you know,and we'll go through the process of what
I was going on about the virtualschool and things. But that's how she
that's how she wanted up being quarantined, uh and doing virtual school U.
And it's different than when they shutthe schools down. Totally different process,
(08:16):
totally different mode of learning. Umi, and I think we touched on it,
skimmed on it a little bit onthe last episode or episode before that,
and I'll go into that a littlebit as you tell your story.
So, um, yeah, sowhy is Ella doing virtual schooling? Yeah,
so let's put pinning that for rightnow. We's seeing for both of
(08:37):
our kids, and then we'll talkabout the ramifications wore we do that.
We are on live stream and wejust got to hay from Michael Gallagher.
So hey Michael, Hey, Michael, appreciate you share the share the thingy.
Let everybody know that we do thething ease where it goes to other
thingies and now all those social mediastuff. So regular listeners to the show
(09:00):
that Ella has been doing remote learning, as has her older brother Ethan,
since well all school year, they'vebeen out of physical school and working from
their bedrooms. And the first thingI'll say is, I mean, obviously
this centers around Anna and Ella,so I want to keep our focus there,
but I do want to mention thatto A's Allen's point of Anna not
(09:22):
enjoying that remote learning experience, Ethanhas loved it. He's on the other
end of the spectrum. But herewe have a kid who doesn't really enjoy
structure, likes that flexibility, ishappy doing his homework at ten o'clock at
night, so you know, he'shappy rolling out of bed five minutes before
class and sticking out a record onhis record player and then going on line
(09:46):
and you know, doing what needsto be done. Ella, though similarly
to Anna, has really not enjoyedthe process. I think initially it was
she was okay with it because youknow, it was new and fun and
different and being you know, athome was kind of cool. And and
(10:09):
then I think over time the socialimpact has really started to ramp up with
her. And I mentioned before we'rerecording us on Mental Health Awareness Day.
Certainly we have seen negative impact interms of her mental health and oh not
overblow this, but certainly in termsof her personality and just it's been rough.
(10:35):
Man, it's been rough. It'sbeen really it's just take a little
emotional there, Yeah, it hasn't, right, Yeah, it just um,
I think the worst thing about aboutthis whole COVID situatly not the worst
(10:58):
thing. I think one of themany things that make this COVID thing suck
is a sense of powerlessness. Youknow, you have this this phantom menace
coin style wars for a moment thereand you're not you know, you're not
show who who has COVID, whodoesn't, if they're asymptomatic, if it's
(11:20):
obvious, if you know there area couple of days in, if they're
a couple of days from being donewith it. The whole thing is just
it's it's so maddening. It reallyis. It really is. And it
I think as adults we recognize themental toll that's taking on us because we're
trying to look out for ourselves.But of course we're trying to look out
(11:43):
for our families, particularly when youhave kids who are designated more vulnerable or
indeed, if you have you know, older parents in a similar situation.
But I don't know that we necessarilystop and take stock of the impact it's
having on our kids. I thinkmaybe we look at it like, Okay,
(12:03):
we're sheltering our kids, we're protectingour kids, but doing all the
things we need to do to keepthem safe. So that's good, right,
that box is checked. Okay,cool, I'll turn my attentions elsewhere.
Not recognizing what your kids are dealingwith, what they're internalizing, and
how it's impacting them emotionally and mentally, and so that has really come to
a head here in the last coupleof weeks. Anyway, I'm gonna draw
(12:24):
a line under that for right now. On a transition back to Anna,
I don't want Tom applies the pod. And so now we know that Anna,
obviously we went back to school.That was great, had the situation
flare up. So she's being aremote learning now Alan for how long she
like a weekend? Yeah? Yeah, I think she finishes Wednesday. Yeah,
(12:45):
her and Trump, because that's inthe fourteen days. Yeah, okay,
yeah, all right. You know, yeah, there's a lot of
good things that you had said there, and we had noticed that, you
know, from all the way throughwe felt that it would be a return,
which is why we wanted Anna inschool is a It wasn't so much
(13:05):
that we just wanted her to goto back to school. We loved having
the kids at home, but wecould tell, especially in a rural area,
the social interactions all these kids have. I mean, they're socially distant
when they go back, when theygo home every day, they're socially distant.
Unless you unless you're in some kindof extracurricular activity, you're autumn.
(13:28):
By default, you're socially distant.So being at school as a social activity
as well as the learning, andit also is for the teachers for their
mental well being, and we couldtell a difference. Number One, And
I know that your parents already knowthat, so I'm not telling you anything
you don't know. I know,Mark Ordinals just we've talked about it.
(13:50):
But you know, we can doour best to hide our emotions from our
kids, but they can feel theenergy in the room. One, because
this is causing an enormous strain ofwell across the world, especially so in
the United States, coupled with everythingelse is so politically charged and socially charged.
And then and the global pandemic,and it affects our jobs, it
(14:13):
affects our health, mental health,or you know, all the things that
you were saying. So it's muchmore than even just an illness that is
quite effective at scaring the crap outof people, because personally, I think
we have an epidemic of fear,not of necessarily of illness. Not to
make that it's definitely not a uhthat's definitely had effect. It's definitely many
(14:37):
people have passed away. Thankfully we'vegotten better better treating it and things of
that nature. But all that stuffaside um the fear that it's caused is
some people I think are taking aright amount of fear where you're protecting yourselves
and you're doing the right things andusing common sense. And but I think
we've learned over the last several acouple of months, and it's just it's
it is the it's this thing outthere that you you try your best,
(15:01):
and we have friends that have triedtheir best, um, medical professionals,
you name it. People that havestayed sheltered in place still get it.
Um. But that's the whole thing. I you know, I'd made a
decision for our family that we weren'tgonna live in any kind of fear of
it. Um, not making lightof it. But if you can't stay,
(15:24):
your life cannot go away or shutdown just because of this. So
so in any case, you know, the kids could feel the fear that
we had. All right, thenwe would notice that we started noticing the
changes in them personally for not havingthe social interaction uh that they that they
(15:46):
craved. It was all virtual.It was either through gaming or over the
phone or FaceTime. And so wewere ecstatic about going back to school.
Second, changes in your kids thatwas manifest well, you know, mostly
there was some I wouldn't say behavioralas far as a lot of acting out,
(16:10):
um, because there would be thingswhere typically we could you know,
well you know how we kind ofhow we do our kids. We're pretty
strict parents, but we do everythingwith definitely with love and things of that
nature. But the sorry, guys, that wasn't out of making a really
good point. Now that was myring doorbell. Anyway, I just we
(16:33):
just didn't started a couple of weeksago, and they go it goes off
all the time. Yeah, Igot motion cameras and all stuffs up in
my bedroom. But that's not Wehave a new system and dads and diabetes
particularly, you get points in thislittle bower that goes off, congratulations on
three points that have been our dad'sshorts. We'll make clips of that now.
Um So, but it manifested thefact that I noticed, I mean,
(16:57):
Leslie talked about that we can't letthis psychological strain that we're we all
decided to choke back and putting ourminds just so we could function. Everybody
did that, went back to work. Um, you had to put on
you had to be stoic at somepoint for your children, correct, I
mean, you couldn't be scared todeath. So and also as a financial
(17:18):
you know what I do for aliving. Um, most people don't want
to see their financial advisors saying we'reall gonna tie. Okay, So that's
not the best way to handle things. And so you know you have to
get a you have to get that. I to this. I told Leslie
that, you know, just lookingat it from a thirty thousand foot perspective,
you know, um of and thentaking it all, you know,
(17:41):
take it, put it all backin perspective, and what are we looking
at? So we started you knowtrying to make changes where we would because
we were taking it out on thechildren, actually where we would notice things
that normally would not bother us startedbothering us. But we weren't mad at
them. We were mad at theat basically ron of Harras, we're mad
at the whole situation. We're madat twenty twenty. But and the only
(18:07):
physical really men inceifestation and I wantembarrass him, but Tag had a couple
of acts said in so I'll justleave it like that, and it's and
it bothered him. I mean he'sten and it's it's it really bothered him.
But for um, but I willsay to him if he happens to
ever watch this, because he knowswhat I'm talking about. And some people
(18:30):
probably awesome I'm talking about, Butthe same thing happened to me last year
when Emily and Alexey if everybody rememberswhen they got married basically within the same
month of each other, or weknew the dynamic of our household was about
to change dramatically. I had anaccident to nights in the row before Lexei's
wedding, and for sure I didthe exact thing to everybody should do.
(18:53):
You immediately start googling medical symptoms andtypically your top two or it's either stress
or cancer. So immediately it wascancer. Um, but it was it
was stress, you know. Andso as soon as I said, okay,
after the wedding is still going home, we'll talk. But yeah,
(19:15):
tax try to manifest in the samesymptence, I said, due to stress.
You said, but I don't feelsweest, I said, I said,
because well, at the time you'renine, you don't know what stress
is, but your body does.Your body knows something's different. You get
the thought to your best buddy everyday, but it's over FaceTime. You
get to do all this stuff,but it's everything's virtual. When's the last
(19:37):
time you hugged your sisters, Whenit's the last time you high vibe your
friend. I said that, youknow, just like the Bible says it's
not good for man to be alone. I mean, there, we are
social creatures. We just you know, one of the things that we need
is affection. And I think hashad a dramatic impact on our older Americans
(20:00):
and because we're seeing it every daywith Leslie's mom, I mean, when
you're socially distancing and trying for theirsake, but the affection that our parents
and grandparents and and things without nature, if you're still fortunate enough to have
your parents and grandparents, they needaffection and it is really devastating. So
(20:25):
to not trying to damp put adamper on it, I mean, but
it is what it is. Sowe have to face it, and we
have to choose how we're going torespond to it, and we can't be
reckless, but at the same time, it can't be dominated by it.
So at some point you gotta givethem, you gotta get on with living,
you know, at some point wegot to decide that it's not our
job to decide who lives and dies. Our job is just to is to
(20:49):
try to live. Because we have, as Americans especially, we have a
very bad habit of believing that somethingbad cannot happen, that the worst not
happen, and we're proving wrong,and it proves that we're not in control.
And as soon as we lose thatsense of control, that's where the
fear sets in because we all tryto say we don't we know we're not
in control, but we're lying toourselves. We think we control everything,
(21:11):
and when we don't it freaks youout. And when we couldn't control this,
we couldn't control the narrative, Wecouldn't control what we were hearing.
We couldn't control what the scientists weresaying because they didn't know because it was
novel. Well, the kids hearthat, they pick up on it,
and it depending on where you live, you heard different things. So the
(21:36):
kids, you know, we wereso looking forward to getting back to some
sense of normalcy, which was school, and at the same time it was
different because every day is it's goingto be the day that shut the school
down. Because once we hit Ithink Arkansas's like, if we have to
be quarantined, they closed the schooland we've been fortunate to avoid that.
(21:57):
But it really manifested in some physicalbut physical reactions with us On tag physical
reactions with us where we were alot more short tempered, things got to
us a lot easier. We weremore emotional. Um, you know,
we at the same time expecting agrand baby during this time, which was
(22:19):
totally unfair. Uh you know,um Emily was says she was pregnant and
the next thing, you know,we see her again, you know,
and she's waddling out of her outof her apartment, and it was like,
we missed the entire thing, youknow. So it's and I'm not
it's not a pity party because everybody'sexperiencing this thing, people not getting to
go to their parents' funerals. Imean, it's all these weird things and
(22:44):
if and kids are resilient, butthey do absorb it and they so they
need that social interaction. So tous that was the most important thing.
And for my for Anniston, andI'll stop talking, uh and let you
talk, But for Anniston, Ithink, you know, really I was
more definitely ready for her to goback to school, and Leslie was to
(23:08):
just to have some sense of normalcy, but that fear resides there. And
she talked it through for a longtime with their INDO and who also made
it clear. And Stacy Sims wasthe first one that brought this up to
me when I did it that panelwith that or that Zoom deal that one
time where she had thought where theINDO had told her that you know,
if if it's a if you're ifthe time, if you're if your T
(23:32):
one D is well managed, thenyou're no different than someone else that doesn't
have it as far as a childand so, um, their their immune
system, if they're taking if theytake control of it, there is not
as it is not compromised. Um. And once and then that was confirmed
with our INDO who said the samething when her and as a one se
(23:53):
is better than my one s orand her Leslie's a one see, well
then that kind of was like,yeah, okay, we're sitting we're sitting
her to school and so that's uh, that's that's what my decision. That's
how all this stuff manifest and itwas and it was tough and so but
everything's been going fairly well until thisquarantine. And now she's doing virtual school
(24:17):
and Anniston hates it with a passion. I want to I want to hear
you talk a little bit about whatyou think the challenges are with Ella and
how does that work with with yourschool district, with your virtual I mean
the school. Yeah, the schoolhas done a great job I think of
structuring not online learning offering, dida really good job as well of making
(24:37):
sure that the appropriate technology is therefor their teachers, you know, cameras
and microphones and and everything else.Um. I've been really impressed actually with
how they've gone abounce it. Butyou know, to my earlier point and
piggybacking really off what you were saying, Alan, You know, adults are
obviously impacted by what's happened here inthe last six months, mentally in some
(25:02):
cases physically, in terms of theiremployment, in terms of their social engagements,
and I just don't know that we'vewe've given it comes back to the
whole thing. If you know,kids are very resilient. I just don't
know that we've given enough mind toquite the impact it's had on our kids.
And so although I hate to thinkthat there's a social experiment, I
(25:23):
think Ella being at home doing remotelearning for her entire school year so far,
seeing the impact of that has beenit's been really unsetting. So the
way it's manifested for who I thinkis more explicit than it has with Anna.
I think Anna generally, you know, it just doesn't like learning from
(25:44):
what I gather from you, Andshe's just vocal about that. But she's
got her head down, she's gettingthe work done. It's a two week
span, right, so at leastit's a limited term and then she'll be
back at school with La. Youknow, she doesn't see like the end
of the tunnel right now, becausewe haven't really had that conversation, not
because we're overly cleaning, super protectiveparents who just don't want to have that
(26:06):
conversation, but we thought that bothof our kids were doing okay right now,
and we've begun conversations about okay,so what happens next week and what
happens the week after. You know, we're looking at getting them back in
on campus, of course, butthey didn't really seem to be any urgency.
In the last couple of weeks though, things have started to really ramp
up with Ellas, so she's definitelybecome you know, here's the irony of
(26:29):
the whole not having the social contactthat you talked about, Alan, which
has been the only social contact thatyou really have with people. It's through
FaceTime or phone calls or texts.You would think that people would lean into
that more heavily, right, Kidswould lean into that more heavily because that's
the only way they're able to communicatewith their friends right now. But in
fact, over an extended period oftime like we've experienced, I think they
(26:51):
begin developing fatigue for that and theystart to lose an interest in it.
Yeah, right about. There's areal difference to being part clearing a room
with someone, seeing them smile,being able to touch them, hug them,
and almost all of your communication suddenlytransferring to being text yes, which
is most of what Ella's been doing. So I know, for instance,
(27:11):
that Ella hasn't really communicated at allwith Anna in the last few months.
I've noticed that the same is truewith her friends back in Colorado, the
same is true with her soccer team. She has just basically shut down kind
of clothes and an and she's reallyonly communicating with one of her friends from
school, who right now is probablyyou know, her bestie, and they
(27:36):
communicate pretty frequently. But but thatthat, that for us, was kind
of the first red flag, andthen it just kind of seemed to snowball.
So she just seems to have losther passion for soccer right now,
oh just entirely just engaged with it. And looking at that, I think
there's a couple of different things goingon there. I think part of it
(27:57):
is puberty, and you know,things are changing, and you know,
mentally she's just kind of in adifferent place and there are demands being placed
on her at this level now,I mean, she's on a competitive,
very high level travel team. Ithink she's struggling with that little bit.
How much is she really enjoying thatdynamic despite the fact she has a great
(28:18):
coach, she's on a winning team. But I think also we can't underplay
the COVID component, which is,you know, she came into this new
team what three months ago, Alan, and in that time hasn't really been
able to forget touching teammates, highfiving teammates after goals and whatnot. When
the coach brings them in for ateam talk. All of the kids are
obviously trying to keep their distance.Ella more so than the others. She's
(28:44):
just very mindful of this. Andand so there's no camaraderie building right there's
no connection with team happening. Andso on the surface of it, she's
looking at like, I've got thiscoach I don't really know, despite the
fact he's a great coach, Theseteam mates I've not really jailed with.
I mean, this high pressure situationI'm feeling kind of anyway, And she
(29:08):
she just doesn't want anything to dowith it right now. She has nothing
to do with it. So wegot her into school playing school volleyball.
So I'm going to come onto thisin second. So there's your manifestations,
right, losing interesting, communicating remotely, losing interest in the sports and pastimes
that you enjoyed previously. And thenwe had the icing on the cake,
(29:33):
which is that her grades began tobe impacted. So Ella has always been
a straight A student. This yearwe knew there was going to be a
challenge because she's seventh grade and she'san honor role class, which I means
she's doing high school. She's actuallydoing high school math, for which she
will get high school credit this year. So that's pretty awesome, right,
right, But that's obviously going tobe challenging. It's gonna be challenging if
(29:56):
you sat in the classroom in frontof the teacher. Now, layer in
the fact during your bedroom and hermath teacher is very good at the discipline
I mean the discipline of mathematics,I mean discipline the kids. She understands
math really well, but I don'teven know that in class that she's necessarily
the best communicator. Again, layerin, now that we have distance learning,
(30:18):
right, layer in that Ella isa pretty shy girl and it is
not going to shout into the michey, hey miss miss, I don't
get that, can you strike?Ain't going to happen, right, Everything
Ella does is going to be throughthe chat box. Well, it's not
reasonable to expect a teacher to beglancing at the chat box all the time
when she has a full class infront of her. So now you've got
all those dynamics going on. Sothat has ultimately led to several of Ella's
(30:41):
grades being impacted, but Math moreso than any others, because arguably that's
the lesson that she's most vulnerable.Right now, she's the youngest in class.
She's learning concept that no one elseis learning in a grade level.
It's challenging, as it should be, and she's just sliding and she doesn't
seems seems bothered. But when weget after her, when we re emphasize
(31:03):
the importance of this work, ratherthan getting the old school l which would
have been very earnest, very upset, very oh gosh, I'm letting you
down. I want to do better, we get blank stairs not not I
don't care almost, but kind ofreading between the lines, it's I'm struggling
to really even give up. Yeah, and so we have these three things
(31:30):
happened in the last few weeks,and so yeah, so you know,
getting emotional earlier, it's it's beena lot, it's been a lot school
volleyball. We recognize that putting herown a gymnasium with a bunch of other
kids who you know, who knowswhat they're doing during the school day,
who knows what they're doing at homeright and can bring with them into the
auditorium people up in the beaches.We recognize this isn't the best situation to
(31:55):
reintegrate her, but we're at apoint where we're like, we need to
get her doing something. And whilewe were at one of the volleyball games
the other day, one of theteachers came over one was talking with Kim
with my wife and said, it'sgreat to see out here playing volleyball.
It's it's really fun that she's outhere with her friends again. You know,
you guys thinking about her coming backto school now her their school have
had no cases. They've done aremarkable job in terms of all of the
(32:19):
processes and structures and whatnot, Andso we actually feel really emboldened by that.
We're really really we're happy with whatthey've done, and so we have
been having those conversations. But theteacher was saying to Kim, Hey,
you know, you guys thinking aboutthat, and Kim said, yeah,
yeah, absolutely, you know weare. Actually, you know, she
might be back here within the nextweek or two. And the teacher said,
I'm so glad to hear that,because this isn't the Yello we know,
(32:45):
she said, we when I seeher out there practicing for volleyball,
she doesn't she's not smiling, she'snot bubbly. This isn't the Yello we
know. And that, so youknow, it's kind of like she's got
diabetes. Alan. I look backon it now and I kicked myself and
I'm like, oh my gosh,how stupid was I that I didn't see
(33:06):
this deterioration, physical deterioration in herthat ultimately led to rushing out of the
hospital. Well, you don't ceasethat because you see it incrementally every day,
so you maybe don't register the seriousnessof it. Right here, we
are dealing with this erosion over timeof Ella's mental state and her you know,
(33:28):
her happiness and how she's engaging withthe world, and we're seeing it.
It's kind of coming up in bitsand pieces and we're going, hang
on a second, what's going onhere? And then you get somebody like
this who hasn't seen Ella for twomonths, two and a half months.
Ella suddenly shows up a volleyball practiceand immediately this teacher registers, WHOA,
who's this girl? This isn't thehello we know, right, And that
just punched me in the stomach.It really really flawed me. So when
(33:52):
I say it's been a few weeks, it's been a few weeks, my
friend, I totally understand, andI feel for you and breaks my heart.
They hear that, Um, inif we would have made if we
would have made that choice, yeah, I dare say it would have been
(34:13):
the exact same way. Um,kids they do, they need each other.
Um. I'm not judging anybody who'dmade a decision to keep their child
at home. And we know thatthey can't make the medical decisions for themselves
or what and they don't always knowus in their best interests. But when
this all occurred and they shut schoolsdown, some kids took it as great,
(34:37):
We're on spring break for the nextfew months. That's what is that.
That's That's exactly why I expected kidsto think like I think about me
as a kid. If someone saidto me, you don't have to be
at school. You can stay inbed until five minutes before class, and
you want to have teachers chasing yourown campus, and you're going to get
this for like two, two anda half three months, I would have
(34:59):
been like, WHOA. I thinkI would have been right. But now
that we've been through it, alot of people thought that, and a
lot of people have found out theywere wrong. The reason why we think
that we would have done that isbecause we never went through it. Understand
and I may be wrong. Thisis my first pandemic, but I think
(35:20):
that looking back on it, whatyou're saying, millions of people are saying.
What you're saying is what the scientistsare saying. What you're saying is
what doctor Fauci was saying. AndI'm not going to get political, but
everybody talked about we're following the science. Man on both sides, you're freaking
lying to yourself, because if ifthe science is Tony Fauci, he said,
(35:46):
your children need to be back inschool, if nothing else for psychological,
for emotional support. Most of yourtop side of child psychologists said your
children need to be in school.Uh did not, because they're gonna fall
behind all learning. That's that's theteachers jobs. But and we have very
(36:07):
good teachers. Depend that depends onthis. You know. That depends on
the school district, and you workingup in the school districts know that.
And it's this. They learn somuch through their friends. They learn how
to socially interact. They know howto have a group of friends lift them
up. They know how to liftup and be a leader, and a
group of friends they know how tofollow that. There's so many things that
(36:30):
you can't really what's the word I'mlooking for. There's little nuances that they
pick up in their behaviors that comeonly from being in a group. Um.
They need, they need their peers, they need to learn how to
abstain from peer pressure. They needall that. But if you take them
(36:51):
and just put them in a vacuum, and not that you did that.
My point being is we're making allthe right rational decison visions, thinking that
we're going to do what's best forour child. We have Thankfully, we're
living a time of technology where theycan do it virtually then we learn,
holy crap, what's going on?And you know again, we started seeing
(37:15):
it some over the summer. Butthe reason we saw what you're describing with
Ella, I could see that usgoing down that path if it wasn't for
the fact that we were already sociallydistant because of where we'd live, which
is why we started doing We startedgoing places, we started doing things.
(37:36):
We started going visiting and visiting friendsand doing things even though we would stay
socially distant, just to be inthe same vicinity. And then as we
learned more of kids not being evenif they test positive or whatever, they
don't get sick, which was reallyour biggest worry. But if if you
(37:57):
are, but if you're both,if both children especially are being smart Washington
washing hands then given a hand sanitized, wearing a my ask. It made
us. We saw a change immediatelyonce the social interaction started. Where I
think one of the things I likeabout this podcast and having this opportunity is
to talk with you, is itdraws out the commonality, but it also
(38:22):
helps our listeners see the diversity.Right You're you're in a small rural community,
you've been there, you're pretty muchyour entire life, right right,
and you're established, you're well known. You've got this group of friends that
we've been able to stay close toand connect with during this time. You
(38:43):
know, our family obviously moved toa new city less than a year ago.
I don't know anybody. As afamily, we go out a lot.
We go out and do you know, go to events. We go
to restaurants a lot more than weshould do. So a lot of our
activity is predicated on jumping in thecar and go somewhere else, right right,
So that's been greatly minimized. Obviously, I don't have the benefit of
(39:05):
having my family in close proximity.There's the pesky instance of an ocean between
us. Even Kim's family. Althoughthey're in Dallas, that's still three three
and a half hour drive. Socan you get there and back the same
day just to kind of pop inand say hi and make that physical connection.
Yeah, I mean, I guessyou could kind of a drag though,
I mean, was in the car. Yeah, yeah, it's it's
to do that. So, andyou know, we try to be good
(39:28):
in terms of pods because obviously Kim'sparents are older and we don't want to
show up and bring anything to theirhouse and they're being so conscientious, And
so I guess that is to saythat. And then when you say,
if you've done, if you keptdown at of school, then probably you
would have seen the same happen withher. Yeah, maybe you would have
done, but I think maybe itwould have manifest slightly differently. Maybe it
would have taken long longer to getthere. I don't know. I mean
(39:50):
some of this also is down tothe individual, right speculation. Yeah,
we're not everything. Yeah, yeah, because we look at Ala at Ada
and we've kind of been together forthe purposes of this podcast because we're two
dads, the t one d Keettos, right, but our kiddos, although
they share a lot of similarities andare good friends, obviously very different in
a lot of ways as well.So you have all that kind of facted
and also so so yeah, sowhen I felt like I needed to say
(40:13):
that, because as our listeners arelistening to this, Alan, you know,
you've been very good to say,I'm not judging anyone. I'm not
saying anyone should have done this outof the other. So I want to
just kind of underscore that from myperspective and to say, you know,
Alan's story, Anna story, mystory, Ella story, our family stories.
They're just that there are stories.This isn't I don't think Alan.
(40:34):
I think what I've learned from thisis that what we did with Alan wasn't
wrong, right. We maybe justweren't as mindful of charting, of routinely
checking in and charting with her kindof the progress of where she's at.
Instead, it took those physical redflanks right there. They're not wanting to
(40:54):
do soccer anymore. The you know, uncommonly slipping grades those kind of things
for a suddenly you whoa whoa whoawhoa hang out and it's happened to happen
or within a concentrated period of timethe last few weeks. Yeah, so
have. If I had my timeover, I would probably do the same
again. I would just be farmore cognizant of the impact it might be
(41:14):
having on Ella. And again keepsaying this, but the fact that she's
going through puberty that undoubtedly has animpact on her, of course physically,
but to some degree mentally as well. That is all to say, though
we have made the decision and we'rerecording this on Saturday, the you have
no idea. What date this istenth happened birthday, Emily, if you
have one. Yeah, I thinkI think she's gotten up ground board after
(41:39):
Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, you'reabout to make a Yeah, we've talked
with the school leaders. I've beenthrough the processes and protocols with them.
Obviously, Ella's been in volleyball nowthe last few weeks, so she's been
in and around her peers. Sowe have taken the decision. Ella is
physically going back to gool on Mondaysou upping Monday the twelfth. So I
(42:04):
think that's a really good thing.She's very excited about it. And I
will tell you to get emotional againa third time on this party. But
it's the whole, the whole thingof how did I not see this before?
Looking back on it now, whenwe told let you know what,
honey, you were going to sendyou back to school, it's the first
time in sometime her face lit up. He had a big smile on her
face. Yeah, really excited.And that just made me feel good too,
(42:30):
warmed your heart, he does,you know? And yeah, you
made the you made the right decision. Here's the thing too, you know,
looking looking back on it. Everybody'slooking through this thing with the review
mirror. And but I'll live thatwith my work, right of course.
(42:51):
But the stop market, you know, because I was supposed to know,
and did you not pick up onall the cues? Who did? Nobody
did? Because if they picked upon all the cues, all the kids
will be back in school. Butyou know, and that was a generalized
statement, easy for me to say, but anecdotally, I got my very
(43:12):
good camera left. I got avery good friend right here who's living proof
of that. It's not right foreverybody. I'm not saying that, but
they need interaction. We've got tohave that affection and social interaction. Ella's
got to be able to say thisfricking sucks to somewhat to a girlfriend of
hers and she says, this reallydoes blow. When is this going to
(43:35):
end? Because our timeline, andyou know it, COVID years is working
like dog years, it feels like. And so imagine it to a kid
with time being relative to how oldthey are, you know, relative to
how long they have lived. Sowith their lifespan, if you look at
a period of time where we've goingon now, you know, for for
(43:57):
six months and you're talking about akid that's ten years old. They've only
been on this earth for one hundredand twenty months. So if you've taken
six you know, if you're you'rebasically taking five percent of that not knowing
what to do? Everything changes,how to be safe changes, do we
go by school? Do we notgo by to school? All of these
things that are adult decisions. Ifpeople had things to do over again,
(44:21):
would you would you keep proud school? Sure? You know we would have
loved to kept down and we lovehaving them home. We just did it
for straight strictly for the social inaction, and again we saw the red flags
earlier. If it's reaction right,yes, yes, he was loving life,
killing a cork on the tide.You know, like, okay,
this is working, this is working. Right. If if Ella would have
(44:45):
been demonstrating some of those things twoor three weeks before you made the decision
where you had to go virtual ornot, you may have made a different
decision. So give you need togive yourself a break there that not because
you're dealing with quite a lot,right, Yeah. I feel like we
spent the last forty five minutes justbasically going around around the houses, to
(45:07):
arrive at the fact that people misspeople when they don't have people, which
I think we could have done itabout three thirty seconds. Yeah, people
loving people because you know you're exactlyright, but you have to talk.
We have to talk through it.And yeah, it's interesting. You need
validation. You need validation too.I mean, I'm not always right.
I could have been dead wrong.But I'm seeing it now because she's home
(45:29):
and she and I asked her beforewe did before we went live. I
wanted to I said quickly, Anna, what do you love about what?
What's the What do you love aboutdoing the virtual What do you hate about
it? She said, what Ilove about it is Mama's home and I
get to have a breakfast, lunchand with Mama, and I don't have
to work about my sugars. Idon't have to mess with the school nurse.
(45:50):
And you know we love our schoolnurse. Mama was right there take
care of all that in the Annistonbecause when they do virtual school, you
got to be sitting at the tableeight at eight oh five. You're in
class and you can see your classmates, you see your teacher, they know
you're there virtually, and then yougo to the next class. Nothing changed.
It's it for pe right, andso she loves that. Everything else
(46:14):
she hates with a passion. Andso you know, she just likes being
being home with Mama that but justyou know, knowing that. Essentially,
what she's saying is it's not thelearning, because she's doing She's doing fine
in her grades. And I'm sureshe stayed home long enough they would slip.
But she's doing fine in her grades. But she just craves being around
(46:37):
all the other kids. That's reallyall it is, laughing and joking and
doing silly things and acting, especiallyat her and Ella's age, it's time
to act silly and make fun oftime talking about boys. But you know,
all of that stuff, it's thattime, yeah, and it's healthy
and good for him. So yes, it's just what Yeah. But as
(46:58):
we bring this still clothes, Ido want to make our listeners aware of
our next episode. Often oftentimes willtease a future episode if we have something
exciting coming up, and I reallythink we do so. Next month,
obviously it's November, it's National DiabetesMonth World Diabetes Day, and as well,
regular listeners to the show will knowas well that Ella was diagnosed in
(47:19):
the month of November, ironically enough, so it's a It's certainly a significant
month for us as well, andof course that will mark our two year
anniversaries a podcast. Our podcast beganon purpose during the month of November as
well. I've given the significance ofthat month to the t one D What
was that? What did you justdo? That was our That was that's
(47:42):
that could be any I'm gonna tellyou off, Mike what I think.
That's how it's like. But anyway, I could have did what? So
don't get me started next Okay,we'll go ahead. Sorry, all right,
rain it in Nalty next month.Remember the fourteenth, our episode will
(48:06):
feature no one but two guests.We're really really excited to have joined us
two prominent members of the t oneD community, folks who have their own
businesses that serve the t one Dcommunity and who we are proud to call
sponsors of this show. We willhave Chris Maynard from Gluco's Revival and Rachel
(48:27):
Price from Diabets. And there's aperfect segue for us, the player of
sponsors, so I can get themon the podcast. Oh okay, cool,
that's a second. So let mejoining us for next month's podcast,
talking about their their stories, theirdiagnosis stories, talking about their businesses,
both of which, honestly, wereally did handpick them as our sponsors.
Alan and I were so impressed bytheir businesses, by the work they're doing
(48:51):
in their communities. I ripped themapart a guy in a Gluco's revival.
It's a bit more serious and it'sfocus on, like Alan diabetes, some
necessary levity. But the two ofthem combined, we just think fantastic sponsors,
wonderful business owners, and we're reallyexcited to have them join us next
month. So we think that'd bea treat for our listeners. We know
(49:13):
they've featured on other podcasts as well, so you might be familiar with their
stories to some degree, but Idon't know they've been on a podcast together.
That would be interesting that dynamic worksout. Yeah, so well,
I do need to play their sponsorsand we'll do that all of that.
But let me go ahead and let'sstart off with the first one. Did
you know, Stephen, will yougo for we go? Stephen Truett just
jumped in, Hey Steven, thanksfor watching my friend. He's a regular.
(49:36):
Hey, Hey, Stephen, didyou know seventy five percent of EMTs
can't give glucagon and that there's seventyfive percent use Gluco's jowl instead. Additionally,
did you know that ninety percent ofgewels on the market are for endurance
athletes, which means they don't kickin for nearly twenty to forty minutes.
They thrive and thrive. Junior necklacesby Gluco Revival enable t one DS al
(50:01):
those supporting them to get quick accessto fast acting, potentially life saving glucose.
To learn more about their unique necklacesand about why their t one D
founder created them, check out GlucoseRevival dot com. That's Glucose revival dot
com. N diabets That's da dashBee. Dash te S is the brainchild
(50:30):
of a Type one diabetes survivor andmom who wanted to increase awareness and visibility
of diabetes through cool, funny,unique T one D themed clothing. Diabetes
also supports fellow survivors and fighters withJDRF receiving a donation for every shirt sold.
We need a cure, but untilthen, we want to have some
(50:52):
fun with our shirts and raise awarenessat the same time. Check out diabetes
dot com. That's da dash bdash t e e s dot com and
share the diabetes love. Oh allright, so he is that club.
You can get a better voiceever personthan that. Good grief, Zach,
(51:14):
I apologize. We're gonna butcher this, Zack Baghamari bagh of Mary. It's
not bag of Mary, bagamery,but I'm good. Yeah, you know
what probably is? Is it?Is it bagamery? We've got We've got
fifty bucks on right on this putit in the chat box, was phonetically
Zach. Either way, what reallyappreciate your silent what would it be the
(51:39):
armory? All the a's are silent. It's a way. We appreciate the
love. Thanks man, thanks thelistening to the podcast, and we appreciate
the kind comment. Okay, folks, we're gonna bring this one home.
We here we go. Thank thankyou, thank you, thank you,
(52:00):
thank you, maybe just thank you. So the Mary silad and you have
to do it and you have todo it out of you. Zack's close
enough. Okay, good deal,all right, alan naxt join joining me
today, mate is always having you. Thanks for joining me as well.
(52:21):
Yeah, absolute, dude, I'mso used to saying that because I usually
host a show, we're co hostingon this one, I've gotta stop saying,
Oh, and thanks for joining me. You're like, dude, this
show is the two of us.What are you talking about? Yeah,
I'm along with the ride baby,I'm just my co host, my friend,
my confident on I appreciate you,brother, and I appreciate you joining
(52:43):
me again on Dads and Diabetes.So all right, folks, we're out.
Yeah, I thought to you later
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.