#474 Sitting in a Tree

Natalie and Stephen have a type 1 diabetes love story

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:11
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 474 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today, we're going to be speaking with a couple battling Stephen are very interesting because of their dynamic around type one diabetes. And for a number of other reasons that you'll find out as you listen. Hey, don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin.

You can follow the Juicebox Podcast on Instagram at Juicebox Podcast on Facebook at bold with insulin, and there's a private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. And of course, everything else that you need is at Juicebox podcast.com. If you're listening in an app, please don't forget to follow or subscribe. If you're listening online, you could listen to that it's pretty easy, but listening online is fine, I guess. Just not have the kids do it.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. g vo hypo Penn. Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. The episode is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Find out more at Contour Next one.com Ford slash juicebox. You may be eligible for a free meter, head over to the link and find out.

Natalie 1:54
Hi, I'm Natalie. I'm a software developer. And I've been with Stephen for maybe four years at this point and had no idea what diabetes was before but

Unknown Speaker 2:03
Stephen Who?

Stephen 2:05
Steven me.

Scott Benner 2:07
See you guys are getting this. This is fantastic. We don't do many with with more than two people. So I don't even know how good I am at it. Alright, so Steven, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Stephen 2:18
I'm Stephen and 32. Yeah, 30 to 30 figured out. It's hard to keep track. Steven, I

Scott Benner 2:28
don't know how old I am either. So

Stephen 2:32
I was diagnosed as type one diabetic. The summer before my last semester of college. I graduated in winter. That would be 2009 2000. January 2010 was the original official diagnosis. So I've been living with diabetes for about 10 years managing, managing and myself and then Natalie and I met and got married, like three years ago. And it's been a great ride since

Scott Benner 3:02
Natalie, did he trick you? Or is he? Is he still the same?

Natalie 3:08
No, he's the same. He told me about it while we were dating, although in kind of a roundabout way by asking how many carbs were in something that I cooked?

Scott Benner 3:17
Well, I meant that he trick you. Like, is he a jerk? And he was pretending that he was or something like that. But you've brought something up? That's incredibly interesting when that happened. And by the way, you were cooking for him in college?

Natalie 3:31
No, we met I was I've been working we worked at the same place. So we met four years ago and we got married like two and a half. Oh,

Scott Benner 3:41
my my questions are piling up. Okay, hold on. Have you guys ever like, fold around at work?

Natalie 3:48
Um, we held hands. And that's about it. I think he took me outside to give me a kiss once when I was nervous.

Scott Benner 3:54
Oh, that's lovely. So you cooked for him? How long? Had you known him before you cooked for him?

Natalie 4:02
I'm actually not that long. We weren't dating. I like to cook. And I'm that's how I show that I care for my friends. So we were going to go on a hike and I thought it would be nice to bring along a lunch.

Scott Benner 4:21
Well, I would have married you too. Is this what happens before? You're like she's way nicer than other girls.

Stephen 4:30
Yeah, it was a whole lot more involved than I expected it to be. I was expecting a peanut butter jelly sandwiches. But it was all Japanese foods. That

Scott Benner 4:40
was it the choices that took you by surprise and forced you to tell her?

Stephen 4:46
No, it was more. I have no idea what this is. And I've never seen something like this before. So she made it so maybe she knows. Gotcha. Now Steven,

Scott Benner 4:55
be honest for a second. We've heard from Natalie. She's delightful and She was just a friend, but you were trying to go out in that way, right?

Stephen 5:06
It's a little bit of a complicated story. I wasn't exactly looking to date at the time, I was just looking for friends. And it seems like girls are more willing to hang out with people. So we were hanging out. But it didn't take very long until I was definitely interested in certain pursuing her more seriously.

Scott Benner 5:27
Alright, nice. Well, I have to concur with you. I have a, I guess, a unique situation where I've been a stay at home dad for so long, that most of my interactions during the day are with women. And if I'm being 100% honest, talking to guys gets old, pretty quick. If you're interested in conversation, I think once you get past sports, boobs and cars, there's not a lot left. They don't, they don't start digging in on the big the big ideas of the day. And I'm generalizing, there are some guys, I've very good friends who can talk about anything. But for the most part, I've met a lot of guys that grunt in point. And, and that's sort of it. So I get your idea of like, you know, let's find some nice friends this way. How many carbs were in the food.

Natalie 6:18
I didn't realize that he was going that it would affect that we'd be hiking and his carb ratio was off. So he went low, but the number of carbs. It was like 30 from the rice 30 or 40. And I mean, this was years ago. And then there was another five or seven from the sugar in a miso paste. And then another five or 10 from a couple of other things that I barely remember.

Scott Benner 6:45
Natalie, this is how you got Steven, you knew that that day without knowing he needed to know. Yes. Wow. Why are you a savant? What is

Natalie 6:56
um, I had been tracking the macronutrients, so protein, fat, and carbs and food in college, because I was tired of packing your lunch go into class, eating the lunch, having another four hours of class and being hungry before the end of it. So I was trying to figure out different combinations that were satisfying

Unknown Speaker 7:15
kind of work do you do?

Natalie 7:17
I'm, I'm a software developer. I started out in biomedical engineering, and did research and didn't like the staying in the lab all day.

Scott Benner 7:25
Okay, I know you told me that. And I didn't mean to say what were you going to college for? But I'm not nearly as smart as you. So the words just came out wrong. Stephen, what do you do?

Stephen 7:35
I'm also a software developer. I started as a an IT tech basically, and work my way into the developer track. I'm like Natalie, who just jumped right into it. Well,

Scott Benner 7:46
she's brilliant. How would she not? Yeah, yeah. Seriously, I in my wildest dreams prior to diabetes, if someone would have said how many carbs are in this? I would have been like, what what do you thought just shut up?

Stephen 8:01
That's a curb. It's a food.

Scott Benner 8:02
Yes. Yeah. It's bread. So so he got low. So so you bolused or injected? I'm not sure which, and, but it's a Bolus, even if it comes through a needle, and you got low because then you went on a hike. And yeah, and Natalie, this not scare you away at all.

Natalie 8:24
Oh, I was nervous. Um, well, I guess we should correct it. We were about to go on a hike and he went low, his carb ratio was off very drastically. We learned later. Okay. And so we waited it out. We just walked around and talked. And when we started the hike, I guess the interesting part is maybe half an hour or an hour in he ran out of insulin completely.

Scott Benner 8:47
Way to go, Steven. So he's, he said you whip out the food. He's like, I need to know how many carbs it says because I have type one diabetes and I use insulin. He use too much insulin got low ran out of insulin. Yes, classic first date. I wouldn't count this as my first date either if I was the two of you, I think. So Steven, how does that happen? But how old were you back then?

Stephen 9:15
That was just four years ago. It happens because I live a mostly sedentary lifestyle and hiking wasn't usually on my activities to do. It's still the case now but I will be drastically affected by exercise or moving around. And my my blood sugar will just drop. I've been on several insulin pumps and just kept the same carb ratio and insulin sensitivity factor up until recently when we switched to a Doa algorithm. Yeah. But at that time, it was just I hadn't considered that when you're having meals right? Before activity, you don't just for the full meal. So it's just something that a lapse on my part. I,

Scott Benner 10:08
I was I was cracking up and holding it in when you said I'm usually sedentary like I imagined you, like, you know, I do need a friend this Stephanie girl seems nice or Natalie girl seems nice. Excuse me. And, and but she wants to go for a walk on a hill must have been like I don't do those things. And why is this happening to me? See, Natalie, he did like you he doesn't go for a walk for anybody. He doesn't know what he thought I'm I'm passing judgment right now. He was he was smitten already. Okay, so this is interesting. So you've moved from pump the pump the pump in your life, and just kind of blindly taken settings with you? Were you having great results, and therefore, you wanted to mimic them? And that's why you moved the settings? Or did you just not really consider them that that that? Well.

Stephen 10:59
I think I had gotten pretty much a decent idea of what it was from my initial diagnosis. So I had gotten them dialed in for my lifestyle at that time. But I believe that my Basal rate was too high, and my carb ratio was too low for that reason, or vice versa. I forget what it was.

Scott Benner 11:22
So I find I'm sorry, I find when people leave injections and go to pumps, they they end up falling into one or two categories. Either they were having this great success on MDI. And it's sometimes because their Basal insulin was heavier maybe than it should have been. And it was kind of masking mistakes with meals. And they were eating frequently enough to it for it not to cause them a problem. Or you know, sometimes doctors will scale all of your settings back and your blood sugar's will rise up greatly when you move to a pump because for some reason they want to fine tune from lesser to more. That's a bit but something's missing here though. I'm not sure what it is yet. Stephen, we're going to get to the to the core of this year. But how did you guys end up managing together? Like what? Because you just said something really interesting a second ago, Stephen, you said we moved to a DIY solution. You said we like you and Natalie are just like one brain on this is not the case.

Stephen 12:28
It's pretty close. Natalie, what do you think?

Natalie 12:31
I am, excuse me, I am pretty quick to check blood sugar. So I have a bit I think I usually have a better feel for where Stephen is at any given time. Not because I'm nervously checking it but because my I don't know what to do in this particular moment is pick up my phone and instead of going to some other app or checking the internet, the first thing I check is what student's blood sugar. Okay. And from doing that. More recently, I think I have a good feel for Hey, by the way, you need a sip of juice, or let's take a quick walk to kick things in a little bit faster and stop this stuff this trend up. But before we switch to the DIY loop, I was more just carb management.

Unknown Speaker 13:17
Okay,

Natalie 13:17
I really think but carbs are I mean, they're a pretty important factor. I trust his basil rates, right? So it was more just when we're about to mess up, whatever, whatever he's at. He needs to know accurately.

Stephen 13:33
So Steve, yeah. And God, please, I think that it started when she started making lunches for me when we we ended up working at the same places how we how we met initially. But I would bring prepackaged food and lunches with nutrition facts panels on them, and dose an estimate that way. But then sometimes I forget my lunch. And Natalie was making food and she offered to make lunch, just two servings instead of one. And so I started to rely on her for carb counts and things like that, because she made the food so she knows what's in it. And that just continued on. We really debated about switching to the DIY pump because it was an expense that wasn't going to be covered by insurance, but did a ton of research into it and figured it would probably be worth it. People are really saying that this is the way to go. And they have a whole lot more control over it. To give a brief history of the Thompson CGM that I've been on. I believe I started with an animus ping and then switch to the vibe or vice versa. And then that was after six months of being on MDMA and because of the initial diagnosis then NMS was Going away and I switch to a I forget to switch to something in between but then I was on the Medtronic six, seven ag because that was the first hybrid closes this whole hybrid closed loop system that was available for the market. And then we get really frustrated with that. That was after we had gotten married. And so it made the jump to DIY algorithm a little bit easier, and much more refreshing because it didn't have all the calibration, alarms and things like that. through that time with the animist, I had the Dexcom CGM, the g4 and then the G five. And then the Medtronic CGM with the 670. And now I'm back on the Dexcom g six, which is also so much better because no calibrations.

Scott Benner 16:00
Yeah, I wonder if your backgrounds don't lend to the, to the loop as well, right, being able to see more granularly how things work. And you guys must do Did you kind of seamlessly understand building the app and all that stuff that must have seemed like a walk in the park to you, right?

Stephen 16:18
It wasn't necessarily a walk in the park. But we actually tried to start writing an Android app before digging into the DIY one. So that brief tastes, we didn't get very far to the end to that at all. But that brief tasted, it was just Oh, it's another code project. And you click Build and put it on your phone.

Scott Benner 16:42
And that's that's how that works. So she's not like me sitting here, sweating and leaning over the desk and thinking that you're about to screw the whole thing up entirely, constantly while you're looking at it and people are texting constantly. I'm in a panic when I'm doing it normally. Although, you know, it's funny for me is that I can't my level of focus is it doesn't, it doesn't change for the situation. So I can't, I can't force myself to read through something. So when all that information comes up on the front, I just scan it for what I think looks important. I can't believe I ever got that thing belt even with help to be perfectly honest with you. There's something fascinating about the two of you, and we haven't figured out what it is yet. Natalie, why do you want to help him with this diabetes and Steven, then the question to you is did you want help? Or was it just there and you were like, Huh, cool. We'll do it together. chivo Kibo pen has no visible needle, and it's the first pre mixed autoinjector of glucagon for very low blood sugar and adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Not only is chivo hypo pen simple to administer, but it's simple to learn more about, all you have to do is go to G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox. g Vogue shouldn't be used in patients with insulin, Noma or pheochromocytoma. Visit g Vogue glucagon.com slash risk.

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Natalie 20:15
think part of it goes back to I said that I show care or affection by making food for people, it could be generalized more to helping. So I'm like in college, if a friend was sick, I was constantly bringing them things asking if I could run to the store for them. If someone was working on a project, I wouldn't leave their side until the project. Like, if we were working on a group project, excuse me, then I wouldn't leave their side until the project was done. Even when the other teammates said, well, there's only one part left. So we're out of here. And that's just my mentality. I have a good knack for remembering and noticing things. So what I noticed Stephen would forget to change the exercise mode on his pump while we were walking or something. If I remembered, why wouldn't I help? And especially if I want him? He's five years older than me. So if I want him to live roughly the same, like the time is diabetes.

Scott Benner 21:11
She's already planning for your death, Steven, okay. You know, 4050 more years. I'm gonna have to find another guy if he can't hold on. Wait, wait. So Natalie, not to play pop psychologist too much but divorced parents

Natalie 21:25
know. Uh, huh. I'm sorry.

Scott Benner 21:28
Did you have a sibling with an issue?

Natalie 21:30
No. My mom was concerned that Stephen had diabetes. When we were dating. She said, Are you prepared to deal with that? And I looked into it and the records I SAW said diabetics died 15 years before they normally would. And I was like, that's 20 years difference in women already live longer than men. That sounds very sad. So that became important to me. Sure, if this if I'm going to marry this person, and we're supposed to live together for the rest of our lives, then I'd like that to actually be for the rest of our lives.

Scott Benner 22:03
Wow. You're just a genuinely kind person. Alright, let's just real quick. You don't like? Like kick puppies, or there's nothing we're missing here about you. Right? Like there's like you're not running a cult. But nothing weird. Like, you're just you're seriously, why are you so nice. Dammit. I want to know, Steven, I can't move on till I find out why Natalie is so nice. What part of the country? You're from

Unknown Speaker 22:27
Tennessee.

Scott Benner 22:28
Southern. I see. Okay, now we're getting to why wait, wait, you guys don't have the accent Really?

Natalie 22:34
My mom is from Wisconsin. And my dad is from Texas. And I think they canceled out.

Scott Benner 22:39
I just heard the con in Wisconsin, so let's not get crazy. Okay, Natalie. I heard that a little bit. Alright, so that was okay. But you Steven, do you know what I'm saying? Did you all feel too good to be true? Does Natalie still feel stupid to be like I'm thinking of telling my wife to get out? And then I'm gonna go try to find Natalie. Is she like the kindest person you've ever met? What what? How do you see her?

Stephen 23:03
Well, I won't share. That's for sure.

Scott Benner 23:05
Yeah, well, I'll find you if I have to say that.

Stephen 23:09
You have to you have to just like Jakob insulin pump or something. But anyways, you won't

Unknown Speaker 23:14
be that hard to get rid of Steven, don't worry about you know how this way I can handle it.

Stephen 23:20
But yeah, she's she's been amazing. The best helpmate I could have ever asked for and more. All of our friends also say, you know, you guys are perfectly matched to because Natalie wants to help. And she gets into the insulin and diabetes just as much as you should.

Scott Benner 23:39
You should be better at diabetes than you are.

Stephen 23:42
Um, I may have helped with that being a more passive in it. But I think she's pretty great at it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:49
Well, and you can see her getting better at it. And have you learned Do you guys learn from each other? In this process? Like? Or is one of you more of the learner? And the other one just is like, Oh, that sounds reasonable. I'll do it.

Stephen 24:04
I will do a ton of research on things and not necessarily implement them. And then I'll share things with Natalie and she'll think about it too. She else is good at researching and actually acting on it. So I think that it's a it's a complimentary relationship.

Scott Benner 24:24
What Stephen what what stops you from being proactive once you have the information?

Stephen 24:30
If it's something that I'm excited about, then I'll definitely do it. But I'm more of a I need to know everything before I do something. So gather information for longer than I should. Before just working with what I have. Steven, you've

Scott Benner 24:46
heard that saying right? Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Stephen 24:51
I've heard it a lot.

Unknown Speaker 24:52
Yeah. Do people say it to you constantly. Natalie Is it is it frustrating?

Natalie 25:01
I think it can be. But I'm pretty patient and the fact that Steven is very patient with me saying, hey, by the way, do you think you could do this right now? Like, Hey, I see your rising, can you stop what you're doing and dose really fast or something like that. And it makes me way more forgiving. If he's trying, that's what I care about. So if he's willing to work with me, as long as somebody is managing it, I'm good.

Scott Benner 25:26
I have 40 more minutes to either break you guys up or prove you're the perfect couple. I'm not going to stop and so they get it because I'm, I'm very fast and like, I'm not judging you. I'm really fascinated about your interplay. It's, um, it's, it's uncommon. I would, I would think, Steven, you're ready that if Natalie is or has a baby, the baby will become her boyfriend and you will now be the guy who gets like, groceries right? You understand that? You'll become like a major Domo in the situation at some point.

Stephen 25:55
Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's that's definitely accepted. That'll happen. Good, but I already go. I already go on errands for and do things for that she needs so I think it will be too much.

Scott Benner 26:09
I'm resisting the urge to be sexist and crass and say that you must be amazing in other ways. Steven, things are good. Otherwise.

Stephen 26:25
Yeah, things are good.

Scott Benner 26:27
They are Natalie white. What are you? You're like a Svengali. Natalie.

Unknown Speaker 26:32
Do you know the word? actually don't

Scott Benner 26:34
Okay, hold on a second. We'll do it together. It's a it's an oddly spelled word. Don't worry. I think I can figure it out. There it is. Ah, okay. Oh my god, I mistakenly, some people from the northeast laugh about this. I mistakenly googled svengoolie which was like a guy on like, access television. I'm making myself laugh and you have no idea what I'm doing.

Unknown Speaker 27:07
I apologize.

Scott Benner 27:09
Svengali is like somebody who could who has like a like a magical type hold over somebody. Like you like your something's hot. Why? Why can't I figure this out? What's going on? Alright, let's dig deeper. Are we very religious?

Unknown Speaker 27:25
Oh, yeah. Both. Go ahead.

Natalie 27:28
Oh, I would say yes. But not in the militant sense.

Scott Benner 27:33
Okay. In the kindness and grace sense.

Natalie 27:38
We do have. Chris, we're both Christian. And we do act on that and practice it. But we're not in the group of people yelling at people on the sidewalk. Oh, does that make sense?

Scott Benner 27:52
I appreciate that. You're not yelling at me? And because there's no, you understand that I'm from the northeast, everybody listening is like why can't scotch just accept these people are crying. I'm accepting it. I'm trying to understand. Like, I don't know how you get to like listen alley, not for nothing You and I are really similar. So I, I care like very deeply about the people around me. I spend a lot of time paying attention to them. I you know, finally had a day off on Saturday morning last week. And I remembered that someone asked for sugar cookie. So I spent like three hours making sugar cookies. While I was making them. I thought I could be doing so many other things right now. But it made me happy to make the cookies and then you know, it's not like they're only a few cookies, people ate them and or didn't I make dinner and go shopping and I pay attention to everybody's needs. But they don't seem to excuse me. I don't think they your your your interplay here, like I said is really interesting because Stephens aware of it. Whereas when you do it for children, or even sometimes a spouse when you've been married for longer, I don't think they notice and even see sometimes that people can feel I don't want to say resentful, but when they notice you're concerned about them. It's almost like they don't want you to be but you guys have none of that going on. So I'm trying to figure out why you're so nice. So that's why I'm asking weird questions.

Natalie 29:20
I get that. I asked why Steven isn't upset with how much I care fairly often.

Scott Benner 29:26
Oh, you think he should push back and you're weirded out that he doesn't?

Natalie 29:30
I'm scared that he'll push back. And I'm very grateful that he doesn't,

Stephen 29:35
because you know, one day I'll just have enough of it. And he's like,

Scott Benner 29:38
stop helping me. Alright, so Steven, but you don't feel like that?

Stephen 29:42
No, I don't think so. I think that it's it lightens the load. If it was just me dealing with my diabetes and other things, then it would be something that I would be hiding or keeping to myself. And so if she's willing to assist, I would be happy if she was just aware of it. And you know, gave gave some small input when I asked for it, but she does so much more.

Scott Benner 30:07
Now it sounds like it like Natalie, could you manage other people to do you think? Like if I just like sent you somebody Dexcom graph, do you think you could make reasonable assertions about their care? Are you at that level?

Natalie 30:21
Um, while I might be able to I think the problem is I only have exposure to Medtronic. And he switched to the six seven, he actually pretty early into a relationship not it was before we were married, and then the current loop system. So with Medtronic, I didn't even realize that your receiver for the CGM data and the pump weren't always the same thing. So there are a lot of things that I'm like, wait, what, as we listen to this podcast, there, that's separate components, or you can actually just mess with basil rates, and it doesn't fight you on it, or so on.

Scott Benner 31:00
So the podcast so you guys, alright, so do you guys listen together or separately? Or does just you Natalie.

Natalie 31:08
Stephen started listening to it, actually. And then he had me start listening for the pro tip episodes, and then to hear about your experiences with the DIY algorithm. And I was really interested in the podcast, and we tend to listen to podcasts together. Anyway, we both work from home right now. And I frequently work from home while Stephen is a remote worker. So if we're both doing something that's a little bit monotonous, like building code, then it's nice to listen to podcasts. So we were already in that habit. And I think Stephen has been listening to a few without me and then starting the ones that I would find interesting.

Scott Benner 31:50
Okay. So you understand that I think it's lovely that you guys listen together, and it really warms my heart. And then the person inside of me who wants more downloads is absolutely, absolutely irritated that you're listening on one device. Excuse me, and not listening separately on different devices. I'm torn between the kindness of the story and my needs. But no, no, that that's so Steven, you found it first.

Stephen 32:20
Yeah. Back when I was working on researching the DIY algorithm. The there was discord that dealt with, or was a community for diabetics. And so I hopped under that. And also started looking for type one diabetic podcasts and found a couple, they had one that they mentioned. And then I think I found yours. That was really it. That may have been one of those that I started listening to and stuff listening to. But yeah, I listened to a lot of podcasts. So adding one more wasn't a terrible deal. And this was relevant to our lives.

Scott Benner 33:00
Can I take a detour for a second and ask you a question for myself? If you're a person who listens to a lot of podcasts, is this podcast good for a diabetes podcast? Or is it a good podcast? Be honest.

Stephen 33:16
Well, it is a good diabetes podcast. But I think that it's it's a good podcast in general, even if it's not going to be something that's applicable to us, we still enjoy listening because you have a great demeanor with the guests.

Scott Benner 33:30
I have my hands up over my head. I'm celebrating privately in my room. Thank you. It is my goal to do this, to do what you described. And and I understand that this is not a perfectly controlled setting, because you may feel pressured to answer that way. But I believe you mainly because you appear to be two of the kindest people in the world. And I feel like you would tell me the truth in a way that would break my heart. If you've not the opposite.

Stephen 33:57
has been definitely there definitely been podcasts that I've stopped listening to because they were boring or irrelevant, or, or other reasons. But we get a kick out of listening to Juicebox

Scott Benner 34:08
Podcast. Excellent. Plus, I must seem crazy to you. Do I Natalie, you are you answer this one place?

Natalie 34:18
Um, I think the only comments that I've had have been this guy is super nice. And he's very good. He's very well suited for an interview style podcast. You're using passionate but I wouldn't say crazy.

Scott Benner 34:31
Thank you. See, you guys could well you can't move to the northeast. Now. No one's allowed to move around the country. But you should come here. We're pretty nice. Some of us I know some horrible people too, but I'm sure there are horrible people everywhere. So this is I am very passionate about it. Natalie, I I genuinely believe in my heart that there's no reason for people to struggle, although there are you know, of course, 1000s of reasons why they do struggle. I'm I'm a big fan of getting good information into people's hands so that they can do their best with it. It sounds like you guys are doing that. So, Steven, can I ask what your a one C is?

Stephen 35:12
I don't have my most recent one. See? I know it was in the fives though.

Unknown Speaker 35:18
Well, Natalie,

Stephen 35:19
do you remember? It was 5.3? Natalie knows? Good.

Natalie 35:22
I think it was 5.44.

Scott Benner 35:27
Is that with what kind of variability? Are you guys tracking that kind of stuff time and range? coefficient? What does that I count

Stephen 35:36
deviation is usually usually around 30. I think. Recently, it's been a little bit wonky. So up to 40.

Unknown Speaker 35:46
I blame Natalie.

Unknown Speaker 35:48
I blame insulin.

Unknown Speaker 35:50
Yeah.

Scott Benner 35:51
How so Natalie, tell me.

Natalie 35:53
I'm Stephen switch to keeping his keeping, filling the vial more than he normally does and using it up. So it was going longer than the usual three days. And we were dealing with a lot of bad insulin days.

Scott Benner 36:07
This is the witch pump now.

Stephen 36:13
So the app is Android APS. I'm using it with the Medtronic. 753. Right. So the the reservoir goes up to 300 units, but I've never filled it that fill. I had been filling it to 200. But we've been exercising more recently. And so my insulin needs have gone down. So I really only need 100 units for three days. So having it in for a week was not not a good idea.

Scott Benner 36:40
Gotcha. Hey, um, for the life of me, I can't think of her name. But the person who developed this the the algorithm that you're using the Android APS, she's been on the show.

Stephen 36:54
Well, yeah, I think we listen to that episode. Katie. Decent. No,

Scott Benner 36:58
no, no, no, hold on a second. Wait, you're using? You're not using lube. You're using the APS?

Stephen 37:06
Oh, yeah, we're using APS.

Scott Benner 37:10
I have to think of her name now. Because I don't want to just skip over it. Because it's amazing. She was way out ahead of other people on this. And why can't I hold on a second?

I feel terrible. Because I had her on and her. Was it her boyfriend? Are they were they married at the time? I can't think

Stephen 37:35
Oh, yeah. The openaps. Yeah, yeah. Yes.

Scott Benner 37:40
Is that what you're using?

Stephen 37:42
So with? Yeah, we looked at that one versus one that was an app on the phone. We both have Android phones. Because that's my preference. And so open APS is something that you build with a little device that has a radio separate from your phone, and you can check with it. Check what it's doing on nightscout. Yep. Android, APS basically takes that algorithm and puts it on your phone. So I can control everything from my phone with the other link, similar to how the loop works. Yes. Yeah. How that works.

Scott Benner 38:15
And they are, and I have I, I did something that makes me feel Emma said, douchey. That's a word. I can say that. But I searched on my own site, which I don't know why it makes me feel silly. But it does. Dana Lewis. And it was her husband, Scott Lybrand. And they were actually in concurrent episodes number 63 and 64. And this was so many years ago, that it was just, it was just alien to me that, that she had built this algorithm and done all this. And now, of course, you know, there's loop as well. And, you know, all the companies are bringing their algorithms to market and it just it seems so normal at the point at this point, but, um, but yeah, okay, so Dana and her husband, Scott, I apologize for not to them for not being able to pull their names out of my head very quickly. So you are just an Android person, which I assumed being a developer. That makes sense to me, right? Why do developers like Android better than iPhone?

Stephen 39:19
I would say it's because it's more customizable. You can do more things with it. And it's not locked down to one system.

Scott Benner 39:31
Why do corporations prefer iPhone over Android?

Natalie 39:36
Exactly the opposite reason. It's less customizable, so they're better able to control the security on it.

Scott Benner 39:42
Okay. So that's interesting, you know, the, okay. I lost my thought, but that that that makes sense to me. So if you're going to build something, especially a medical device, and you're going to market it, you don't want people fiddling with it, for many, many reasons. And if you're going to make something That's actually DIY, then you have to give them the ability to, to work on it. And I guess with lube, it's through x code and being able to get in there and make changes if you want to. And with the other one, it's because it's on an Android platform, so it's more accessible to how much does your background help you with it?

Stephen 40:22
Um, I've been able to tweak a couple things in the code. But I haven't really messed with it too much. Mostly, I'm a participant on the outside, I've got an issue, Hey, what's going on here? And I'll ask other people for help with it. You provide feedback on something that I really want to dive into? Gotcha. I haven't spent too much time with that.

Scott Benner 40:43
I mean, if it works, right, so I mean, what what needs to be done to it? I would imagine, like your that's not your life developing this. You're just trying to live. And it's doing a great job for you. I mean, you're a one sees terrific, your deviation. Sounds good. You know. And it's interesting, too, that you were able to see so quickly. I talked about this a lot with your pump site or your insulin doing what you expect of it. And so is that how you Natalie saw right away that he shouldn't be loading the pump with so much insulin?

Natalie 41:13
Yeah, I was getting frustrated, because every three and a half days, suddenly he'd have a stuck on high. And we'd be walking, we'd be dosing so much insulin, and I was like, why does this suddenly doing this? What have we changed? and Stephen said he'd been filling his he'd been filling his reservoir more.

Scott Benner 41:33
Steven, what are you doing? You can't just go all like half cocked and do stuff by yourself. Obviously, Natalie needs to be brought into the decision making process. I mean, she's pretty much the brains of the operation. I'm, I'm getting that. Do you agree, Natalie? Are you in charge?

Natalie 41:50
There's a reason why I don't just grab his phone and do stuff. I feel like he should still be the one to always make the decisions because I don't have the background with diabetes. So there were certain things that I didn't know, like, I couldn't tell you how many units he would dose for anything. All I knew was carbs. And so I'm starting to get a feel for that I have two numbers that I use, and that's about it. But it's, I felt like there was more to it that I just hadn't. I didn't know because I wasn't touching the device. And I didn't want to, I guess infringe on his domain. for that. I wanted to give him respect.

Scott Benner 42:28
Yeah, of course. I mean, it is there it is diabetes, right. Like it's a there's got to be a line somewhere. Is there a line somewhere? Stephen, where you'd be like, hey, that's too much, or you just really comfortable with this setup?

Stephen 42:42
I'd have a lot of trust that I don't think it'll go too far. Yeah. I mean, sometimes if I'm not doing something, or if I'm busy, and really focused on something, then I'll just hand out my phone and say do it for me. But most of the time, it's it's a pretty good given take,

Scott Benner 42:59
Stephen. Tell me again, how old you were when you were diagnosed? Please.

Stephen 43:04
Gosh, that would be 20. I was 21. I think so you've never had,

Scott Benner 43:09
like a parent help you with this ever?

Stephen 43:13
No. It was, um, my mom took me to the endocrinologist office. Because I was home. I didn't have a car. But it was pretty much on my own. The endocrinologist knew I was technically minded. And so she was really she wanted me to get on the pump. But the insurance wouldn't let me get one for six months. Because they're stupid. Yeah, but my mom and dad haven't really, like done any insulin dosing or, or set changes or anything like that, like you have with. With Arden. What about

Scott Benner 43:51
when you were younger? Just in general, your parents very hands on with things like did you have a lot of parental involvement in your life that you were comfortable and happy to have?

Stephen 44:01
I would say that my parents are different in that a different enough in that my mom was the concerned parent and always wanted to help or do something for the kids when my dad was more like, let him fall. Let him bump their head, bounce back and be better for it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 44:20
You guys would understand. I imagine if we pulled 100 people, we don't have the obvious ability to do that. But if we pulled 100 people who had diabetes adults, I imagine some of them would think that this is incredibly not okay. And some people would think it's amazing. I would just think it's their experience one or the other. But I've seen people have that like, this is my diabetes. Don't tell me what to do. You know, I don't want help with it. I can see those people being like, oh, wow, it's it's strange that somebody is helping him and then I can see the exact opposite. You know, at the same time, people have struggled or just did General know that what a burden it is, and it can help I kind of don't see it. I see it the the ladder, I don't understand why it would be a problem. I mean, you, obviously, Steven, you can take care of yourself. And Natalie seems like she comes in and helps you when you know when you do the wrong thing, and you're pissing her off. And I think there's a real like, kind of genuine beauty to it. Do you imagine you'll do it like this forever?

Stephen 45:33
I imagine that at some point, the algorithm will take over. And neither of us will have to put nearly as much effort into it as we do now. But until that point, I don't see a problem of continuing as we are

Scott Benner 45:47
not least there wasn't an algorithm if it was just a pump, and it was on Stephen to count carbs. Do you think you'd be as involved?

Natalie 45:54
What? Well, when we switched from 670 G to prepping the Android APS algorithm, you had to go completely off auto mode, any kind of help any other than that, all right. And I think I was more involved in because I was scared. That was my first time. There was nothing that was going to help at night. I woke up every other hour. I think I didn't bother Steven. But I was just worried. I think it would have calmed down eventually, when I figured out how things worked. But I think my concern for the fact that there were no safety guards would make me more involved.

Scott Benner 46:33
Yeah. And have you ever I'm sorry to ask Have you ever lost like a close loved one? Or do you live with anxiety or anything like that? Or is this just the common sense concern because of the nature of the situation?

Natalie 46:45
I think it's a common sense concern. I mean, he can go into the 40s. And as long as I can see what's going on, and as long as we have some juice on hand, I'm fine. I've seen him go as low as the low 30s. And then I was really worried because that was one of the first times I'd seen him low. But now that it's happened a couple times, none 30s, of course, but now that he's gone low a few times, I've I'm just comfortable. But that doesn't take away my sense of responsibility, which is a very strong trait of mine.

Scott Benner 47:18
Yeah, no kidding.

Stephen 47:20
Do you still be quite concerned when I go into the 40s?

Natalie 47:24
Only if you're not coming up, especially if we're trying to go to sleep?

Unknown Speaker 47:28
Oh, yeah.

Stephen 47:29
That'd be the worst.

Scott Benner 47:30
Stephen, is it? Is it a common occurrence to get? Well, like that? We're lower?

Stephen 47:36
Um, no, we're tweaking a couple things on the algorithm to see if the Basal rates needed adjustment. So I have been, though, not in the 40s. But like close and maybe dipping in a little bit in the past, like couple days. But it hasn't been a common occurrence. Before this.

Scott Benner 47:58
I understand. Okay. Am I not asking you guys anything that I should be that I'm missing? Because I got really enamored with your situation. So I'm now forgetting Why the hell you came on. I like the whole time I'm talking. I'm like, I don't even care why they wanted to come on. This is fascinating. So I want to circle back around and make sure that I'm not, I'm gonna ask Natalie, because she seems like she she seems smarter than both of us, Steven, that way, is there anything we missed?

Natalie 48:28
Um, we originally I had sent you an email explaining how we handle carb counting when, or I guess dosing in general for food. When I don't cook the same thing all the time. Cool. I'm always switching it up. Though it's not too different. I think from the mentality that you have with a lot with just memorizing what you do eat, because you can just break it down more to ingredients. For the ones that you don't use very often, then you can just check the packaging or something. But what I do as I'm cooking, is, I start tallying up the total for the entire dish. So we were making pumpkin stuffed pasta the other day in a tomato sauce. So I looked at the jar for tomatoes and did the math that says how many servings are the container and how many carbs per serving. So just multiply those two together. And then I added the same thing for the pumpkin added the same thing for the pasta. And when we get done, when we start to eat, then whatever we pull out, you can see what portion of the dish that was. So like it was a six that time. Yeah, it's even put on his plate. So it's like okay, well, the total for the entire dish was I think it was like 437 carbs. So this one particular serving is this many carbs, but it's also high fat so that we're going to treat it like pizza. So over four hours, expect this amount of carbs to enter your system.

Scott Benner 49:58
I can tell you that when I'm putting Making this certain pasta for Arden, I have to put it in a certain bowl. And then I know how much insulin she needs for it. If you put it in a flatter bowl where it kind of like settles more, I look at it and I don't know what to do it because I don't even pay attention to the scooping. I just I know when it's in this bowl, and it kind of looks like this. This is 45 carbs. I don't know how I got to that point. Exactly. But it's a it's a really valuable it and to be able to be the person who's making the concoction and knows everything that's in it. I imagine you get pretty close on the carbs.

Natalie 50:41
Yeah, one big one carb awful change seven by five points. So we try to get it pretty exact. And I think we get it within within five grams a lot of time.

Scott Benner 50:52
Wow. He's that he's really sensitive to the insulin. I'm going to talk about you like you're not here now. Stephen. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 51:00
Thank you.

Natalie 51:02
Yeah, especially when we have regularly been exercising, that makes a huge difference. Yeah, on how he responds to food and insulin. And if we just miss exercising, like we tried to do it every other day. And if we just missed for a week, then all of a sudden his Basal rate drops. food makes him spike even harder. But yeah, for the most part, carbs especially we keep a we give him sugar by the half teaspoon, to get him bring him up when he's low.

Scott Benner 51:39
I am imagining then that he just basically has ratios that are their exercise, they ratios and non exercise they ratios. We're working on that.

Natalie 51:50
We may we're testing out a feature of Android APS, where you can just change the percent of the profile that you're using. So he's on his regular profile right now at 95%. So it's lowered the insulin needs by 5%. For everything across the board.

Scott Benner 52:06
It is interesting how different people think about it. Like I just, I just lie about the carbs to myself, basically. Do you know what I mean? Like I'll I'll say okay, this is this, this meals nine units, because it's probably about so many carbs. So I'll just pretend it's 20 less carbs. And then I'll do that. I, but you want it to be like a setting. And I don't think either is right or wrong. I just think it's interesting how people's like different people's brains want things to be and how it makes it easier for them. I just want to leave a note for myself right here. For my editing that I think I want to call this episode. Everybody needs a Natalie. So anyway, let's just strong strong contender right now Steven, just in case you're wondering, your name doesn't even get to go into it. So Natalie, are you? If you don't mind getting off the diabetes for half a second? Do you ever worry that you care too much about other people? Because I do sometimes about myself. That's why I'm asking you.

Natalie 53:12
I do for the reason that you sighted of people not wanting to help. So I think I get a good

Scott Benner 53:19
deal. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off, please.

Natalie 53:22
I think I get apologetic. But I still can't stop trying to help. Which is probably a problem. Because then I'm apologizing and still doing it at the same time.

Scott Benner 53:34
Stephens like Yo man, shut up.

Stephen 53:39
What do you do? definitely have a strong sense of responsibility on her side in her. Yeah. does it translate to be like, no, don't worry, it's not your problem. Whatever this thing is,

Scott Benner 53:51
Stephen does that does that feeling of responsibility? does it translate beyond you?

Stephen 53:57
I would say it's embedded in everything that Natalie does.

Scott Benner 54:02
Natalie wants you to go to see a therapist and report back to me and find out why this is I don't care if you're like this. And by the way, I just won't understand it better. It's a you can't point to anything in your life. And like how young Do you remember feeling like this?

Natalie 54:19
And Girl Scouts in early elementary school. I know. Somebody had to do something that was not pleasant. I don't remember what it was. But the first thing that popped into my head was if I do this, none of my friends have to do this.

Scott Benner 54:36
Hmm. take you on fear factor. That lead that cockroach. I went to $50,000 eat the cockroach.

Natalie 54:45
I've gotten out of doing that before I was supposed to eat a rhinoceros beetle.

Scott Benner 54:48
Whoa, slow down. Where did that happen?

Natalie 54:52
A college group we were playing a game where it What if your name was drawn you had to do something and they drew all the ahead of time, and somebody came up to me and said, Natalie, you're allergic to shellfish, right? I can't eat fish shellfish, you're fine. But I didn't want to. We weren't having either at the time. So I was like, it doesn't matter. Yeah, I'm allergic. So she went away. And I found out that got me out of eating a rhinoceros beetle. Because if you have shellfish allergies, you can't eat bugs.

Scott Benner 55:19
What kind of reasonable college lunatics? Were you around that they were double checking on people's allergies before eating beetles? That's those two things are in Congress. You understand that? Right? Seriously? Like we're gonna do something crazy, but first, let's double check and make sure it's gonna be safe. No one does that. You guys live in a different you're lying to me about where you live. You're in a magical land floating 20 feet off the ground somewhere where none of us get to go. That's so Oh, God. So no beetle eating for you. Stevens you ever eat anything weird?

Stephen 56:02
Not that I can recall specifically. There's probably been some concoction of condiments or something that college that people shoved together and said, Hey, drink this.

Scott Benner 56:13
You know, in the back of my mind, I was hoping you said I ate some Japanese food once when I was like Steven, pull this together. Do it for me. Come on.

Stephen 56:24
Yeah, that that does bring to mind. We have eaten some pretty weird Japanese food.

Scott Benner 56:29
If you want to try this again. Steven, do you ever eat anything weird?

Stephen 56:33
Yeah, there's a Japanese dish called Shikoku. are sure sure? Oh.

Unknown Speaker 56:39
Yes. Oh, cool.

Unknown Speaker 56:40
Yeah.

Scott Benner 56:42
Jesus. Natalie, where did that come from? Do you speak Japanese too?

Natalie 56:47
Definitely, not only a little bit my a few of my good friends live in Japan.

Scott Benner 56:54
And we only scratched the surface about you to what is going What else do you do? Are you like international spies? Anything? Like? Wow, if you are you wouldn't be able to tell me. I think Stephen is that like, do you have any favorite cooking shows? Because I love chef show on Netflix.

Natalie 57:13
We don't have cable but I used to watch good eats a lot because I loved the food science.

Unknown Speaker 57:18
Why don't you have cable?

Stephen 57:22
Too expensive. Not enough to watch.

Scott Benner 57:27
You guys come back on every week until I feel satisfied that I understand everything about you, please. You don't have Netflix. We do. We do. Okay, I told you. This is on Netflix now. Ah, your listening skills are deteriorating. I found a chink in your armor. Okay.

Stephen 57:43
No, no, no. Too much laughing.

Scott Benner 57:44
Is she apologizing? Right? Are you Do you mean that where you apologize? Don't apologize to me, please. If you're feeling that way? No, seriously, it's john fabbro. The like the movie director. And oh, god, I can't think of a chef that does this show with him. But I just enjoy. I enjoyed the chef's show. So there you go. Try it. See what you think. You probably like, I'll get a note in the mail. You're an idiot. You don't understand cooking. Your hand delivered. Like it'll be handwritten. And it'll come with a stamp and everything. And then that'll make me wonder like, why didn't Natalie mail that not email it?

Unknown Speaker 58:19
How did she get my address?

Scott Benner 58:21
Yeah. How well did you hear what happened? Do you follow me on the media so that our social.

Natalie 58:27
I am very bad at the social type medias.

Scott Benner 58:29
Me too. But someone sent me a gift to my house. And it was food. And it was amazing. Like they were like, I guess people would just call them cake pops. But it was like this chocolate stuff dipped in this vanilla. Chocolate. They were so good. And they got to the house. And I'm like, how that what are like How the hell did this end up at my house? Like who? Like so somebody figured out my address and sent me food. And I was like, Well, I'm obviously not going to eat this because a stranger sent me food that I opened it up and I was like, Huh, I was like Kelly try one of these. Like, 20 minutes later, she seemed Okay, so we ate them. They were really delicious. And then we found the person who sent them, who was really very kind and was just trying to say thank you for the podcast and I said to her, just send money next time. You really don't need to do this. And for everybody else, please don't try to figure out my address because you're creeped me out and I'll stop doing this podcast. Now somebody's gonna be like, that's how I get them to stop. But anyway, um I don't remember the point of what I was saying. No, I feel like Natalie's disappointed in me.

Natalie 59:48
We're talking about cooking shows. Ah, I don't remember. Or judgmental letter being sent directly to your house.

Scott Benner 59:55
See, I thought of mail and then I thought a food being sent to me and I'm a guest This is what ADHD looks like. I don't know. Very cool. What else about about meals Natalie's important to you, as far as you can tell about understanding how to like really decide about how many carbs are in things.

Natalie 1:00:14
Um, chunky things are a pain. So I'm talking pre mixed salads, we usually I've started just mixing individual bowls at a time, if any of the carb stuff goes into Stevens bowl only not into the entire salad and then divided into Stephens plate. Just it's too difficult all the curvy stuff goes to the bottom, and then he'll go low until the last meal, and then he'll go high. So those are frustrating soups I have. soups are also difficult if they're chunky, I really have no tips for that we just figure it out. But for things that are oddly shaped, were actually looking at the portion of the plate might be odd or something like spirally, pastas and stuff, they link together in certain ways where it's never going to be even then I actually just weigh the entire dish portion. Steven takes what he wants. And then we weigh the entire dish again and said, Oh, you had this proportion of it. Okay, that we do use the scale quite a lot actually.

Scott Benner 1:01:20
Have it was interesting that you just said like the carbee stuff falls to the bottom of the salad, meaning he eats it less even. Can you not just take your fork and like pasta salad every once in a while while you're eating it? Oh, I mean, the serving bowl. Oh, in the bowl, like it falls to the bottom you're saying? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So he gets to it later. And then the insulin hits him too hard. And he hasn't had any of the carbs.

Natalie 1:01:42
No. So we'll, I'll make more dishes at once. Like, let's say I'll make two meals worth of food for the two of us. So I would say I tossed the entire salad in a big bowl, the mixing bowl, okay, and then we get our food from that. But Tomorrow's Meal is what has all the carbs because that fell to the bottom. Okay, does that make more sense? Guys? I

Scott Benner 1:02:05
did. I wasn't falling. But I do now that makes total sense. Natalie, can I make a suggestion and this is not a learned suggestion meeting. I'm not a smoker, but I would love to see you get a little high and then try to guess carbs for a meal? Because I feel like you're alright. Are we a type A personality? Natalie?

Natalie 1:02:25
Um, that means everything has to be exact. Right? Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:02:28
Yeah. Something like that. Like, are you shooting for perfection a lot outside of diabetes as well as inside? Yeah, yeah. I want you to try to guess a couple meals. Would it kill you?

Natalie 1:02:39
I have, whenever we go out to eat or something like that? I do. That

Scott Benner 1:02:43
doesn't work.

Natalie 1:02:44
Um, I can get close. There are some where it's a complete guess. So we tend to guess low if we're far from supplemental carbs, or guess high if we have x?

Scott Benner 1:03:00
Yeah, that makes sense. And it works out mainly.

Natalie 1:03:03
Yeah. We really only measure when we're at home because it's there. So why not? Like we had some maple kettle corn last night. And well, we have to pour it into the boy anyway, if we're going to be sitting on opposite ends of the room. So let's just put Stephens bowl on the scale. He pours what he wants, okay, we have the grams. It's this many carbs.

Scott Benner 1:03:29
Why do you sit on the opposite ends of the room?

Natalie 1:03:32
We were playing some we were playing Dungeons and Dragons online. You probably

Unknown Speaker 1:03:38
should have left that out probably the podcast, I'm thinking.

Stephen 1:03:43
There's a good set of friends that we play with.

Scott Benner 1:03:45
So you were online gaming. So you weren't near each other literally. So there wouldn't be interference with microphones?

Natalie 1:03:52
Yeah, although that, so we'll often sit on the opposite sides of the room. I should say last night, we did not we were at the same table. But then we just use Stephens mic, because it's not as exact.

Scott Benner 1:04:04
Okay, so people can shut the podcast off right now if they want to, but I'm gonna keep asking questions. I've never played Dungeons and Dragons. I have a loose understanding of how it's played, like in person in a board situation. But how does it get played online?

Natalie 1:04:24
There's software that mimics the board. So you have a grid and little tokens that they're just drawing so they put on there, it's actually easier than on the table because then all the math is done for you.

Scott Benner 1:04:36
Okay. Steven, are you aware or worried that Natalie could probably cheat on you and you'd have to let it go because of your diabetes care? you'd just be like, Ah, that was horrible. But she is really good at figuring out my carbs. So like, do you see Do you see what I'm saying? Like she could probably like that. She probably had has more leeway than you do, don't you think? Like relationshipy? She brings a lot of tables when I'm saying,

Stephen 1:05:07
yes, you decision does. I think that I think that we're close enough that I don't have to worry about that. So yeah. But if something like that were to happen, then there would be some definite counseling and reconciliation needed to happen.

Scott Benner 1:05:25
No kidding. Seems to be in an office like, Listen, I am very willing to let this go. Natalie, I'm trying to empower you here. I think you could probably take a couple $100 out of the bank account. Nobody would say a word you know, I'm saying. Call it payment for understanding how many carbs are in food. You guys are so nice. You're freaking me out. I'm not certain if it says something about you. I think it's just something about me. I can't like I am having a hard time accepting that. How kind you seem. What do you think, Natalie? What do you think that means?

Unknown Speaker 1:06:02
Hmm.

Natalie 1:06:06
I think Stephen and I are in unusual match. Like I said, I keep questioning how this worked out so well. So I don't think you're crazy.

Scott Benner 1:06:17
I'm definitely seeing something right.

Natalie 1:06:21
Yeah, but why can't boys telling us to get together for this reason?

Scott Benner 1:06:25
Why can't I accept that? Not only, like, What's wrong with me?

Stephen 1:06:30
I don't know. you've interviewed nice people before. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:06:33
I don't understand them either.

Stephen 1:06:37
I guess that doesn't No,

Scott Benner 1:06:38
no, no, there's no, listen. I'm I think I'm a nice person. Do you agree with that from listening? Yes. Yeah. But there's, I don't know what it is like there's, it's not maybe your actions as much as it is? tone? Or, like, Am I just reading nice is not sarcastic. I can't decide. My, my head hurts from this. Like, I really, I don't know what's wrong. I feel like there's something incredibly wrong with me. I feel like I'm also inviting 1000 emails of you people telling me what you think is wrong with me? Would you trust me? Just send cakepops if you're gonna do that, okay. But But, but no, I mean, it's I don't know if it's some cultural if its geographic. I can't I can't decide what it is. But I don't know to people like you. Like, like, I seriously don't, I know really kind people. But you know, 20 seconds doesn't go by without them saying something beard sarcastic, you know, to me.

Stephen 1:07:44
A fun side story related to that. I'm actually born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. And my sister went to college in Jackson, Mississippi, and on orientation day or something. When she was getting into her dorm, she met another new student, and said, Hi, how's it going? Or whatever she said, and at some point in the conversation that came up, were, you know, where are you from? And they said, You're, you're from Maryland, but you're from the north, and you're nice. So it's probably just a family thing that we've got going on.

Scott Benner 1:08:23
No kidding. I don't imagine there's just like a magical line that when you get beyond it, you change. Right. Although maybe the race I think that's right.

Stephen 1:08:33
You get into the more changes. dense, dense population you're saying? Yeah, like all the all the big cities seem to have less? Less allowance for others, I think. How do

Scott Benner 1:08:47
you think you'd fare in that situation? Natalie be dead in a week because she tried

Unknown Speaker 1:08:53
Yeah, I don't think I would like it too much. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:56
Natalie, you would just you would, you'd short circuit.

Natalie 1:08:59
I feel really bad. Every time I'm in the north. I tried to smile and wave at people and open doors and stuff. And they don't seem to enjoy it.

Scott Benner 1:09:05
Now. They need you to get the hell out of their way. They're going somewhere. I'm a I'm a I say hello to people when I make eye contact with them a lot. And it it sometimes it you're shocked by how shocked they are, you know, but I'm comfortable here. I like the pace. And as a matter of fact, like if I've ever gone on a vacation, like a quiet, calm place where everybody's just super kind. It makes me feel odd for days. It takes me a long time to get accustomed to it. Like I don't understand why people aren't in a hurry. Like what like you don't I mean, like, after somebody says thank you or like the third time like Oh, I get it. You're nice. Let it go. Do you think what would happen? Let me paint a picture for you. Your children come out. They're super athletic, and not nice.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:02
Don't want to play Dungeons and Dragons. And they they're like, Ah, she's always trying to help me. What will you do?

Natalie 1:10:11
Let them scrape their knees and stuff.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:12
Yeah, I don't know. I

Natalie 1:10:13
think I'd I imagined that I'm not going to be the worried parent. I might try to help a lot. But I think my mentality is kids want you to be engaged in what they want. But you should leave them alone. And let them be independent whenever they want to try like you didn't give them a warning, but I feel like they'd resent you if you interfere too much.

Scott Benner 1:10:39
She's Sally, you got that right to what the heck. Stephen, would you like win a lottery? Did you find a genie bottle? Let's right now I'm talking to Steven Natalie. You'd be quiet. Do you find like a bottle and there was a genie in it? What happened? Like what did you do? Did you did you save like an airplane full of people from dying? Like, why are you being paid back?

Unknown Speaker 1:11:03
I don't know. God, I think God was just kind to me.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:07
That's it.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:09
That's what you're going with. Just

Stephen 1:11:16
now, I've been really blessed especially.

Scott Benner 1:11:19
Okay, now I can't listen, man. I can't argue with you. I think that your scenario is is is lovely. And it's I'm assuming there are a lot of people with diabetes right now listening. The adults are thinking I wish somebody would help me with all this or even just be interested enough to want to understand it. And to put the effort in. You know, and that's really all you're doing that like this isn't overwhelming your life I imagine.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:45
No, no.

Scott Benner 1:11:47
Steven it but it is making your life easier.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:51
For sure. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:11:52
What do you do to make Natalie's life easier? Here? I'm going to get you guys know a fight. I bet you don't do anything. You're a guy. Good Natalie. He's not trying hard enough, right?

Natalie 1:12:00
Oh, he does so much. Not.

Scott Benner 1:12:03
Okay. What's he do?

Natalie 1:12:06
Um, whatever. I'm not feeling well, which is a regular cycle. I'm sure you understand.

Scott Benner 1:12:11
I get the pun.

Natalie 1:12:13
cure of everything. one weekend, we were supposed to make sausage from scratch, like grind the meetup stuff in and add the spices stuff in the case. Of course

Unknown Speaker 1:12:21
you are keep going. And it

Natalie 1:12:23
kicked in right before the hard part. And I couldn't do anything. I just I had to go lay down on the couch and Steven took care of the whole hour long process of stuffing the sausage twisting it off. For me. He didn't complain he was still willing to make stuff later. Same with him going to the store for me. I could go on about students. Go ahead.

Stephen 1:12:49
Like getting medicine and stuff. I'm like, No, you're my wife. I'm taking care of you. Be quiet.

Scott Benner 1:12:54
I'm having trouble holding back what Arden calls that when her when her period comes because I feel like it's inappropriate. And you'll judge much. But I'm just gonna say it. I feel like what's wrong and should be like my hooch exploded?

Natalie 1:13:15
For me, it hurts about that bad.

Scott Benner 1:13:17
Yeah, it feels like that. And and he just jumps right in. Yeah.

Natalie 1:13:25
Super fast to handle anything for me. If I try to get up and do something, he'll come back over and gently push on my shoulder. That's it's kind of a joke. It's not like he's controlling me or anything like that. That's how he indicates now you

Scott Benner 1:13:41
do anything? Yeah, I'll take care of it. Jesus, I've even thrown in a couple of inappropriate sexual references here and neither of you've picked up on them.

Natalie 1:13:50
I picked up on it. But I'm so bad at responding to those.

Scott Benner 1:13:53
Yeah. I was really hard for me not to say anything when you said he finished stuffing the sausage and twisting them off. I couldn't say I literally we'd be in a completely different direction right now if I just allowed myself to go there. And nobody be listen. You know what I think nobody be listening. But I think people we like Finally, Scott's gonna get dirty on this podcast. But I got kids listening, so I'm stuck. I'm already feeling bad about saying it. But you know me little kids. Listen to the show. Yeah, killing me. I would love to curse more. But I think I'd lose a pretty large segment of my. So here I am. I know I'd lose the Mormons. which as you know, if you listen is a huge part of my listening audience. For some reason I'm huge in Utah. Do you know this?

Natalie 1:14:37
Actually, I didn't. We must have missed this. The podcasts that indicated that. Well,

Scott Benner 1:14:41
you get back and keep listening. I would prefer if you binge, please don't jump around.

Stephen 1:14:47
I think we're back in August at the moment.

Scott Benner 1:14:50
This year, it is really cool that you guys listen together. It seriously is because I know there are a lot of people who struggle with this. You know, I'm trying to get my spouse to listen. I'm trying To get them on board with what I'm doing, they won't listen. I did somebody told me the other day after explaining to me over and over again, how much time and worry and stress and anxiety is coming from diabetes management, I said, well, just listen to these, like 20 episodes, I think you'll really be, you know, find a benefit from them. And the person answering back and said, I don't have time for that. And I was like, I feel like you don't not have time for it. Like, how could you? How could you tell me how much time you're giving away all the time to these confusions? And and I'm telling you, it's very possible that the answers here, and I don't know it didn't make sense to me. You don't I mean?

Natalie 1:15:44
Yeah, we listen, because we listen to so many podcasts we listen on, Stephen, what time speed is it to?

Stephen 1:15:52
Well, it depends on the podcast, but most of them are double speed.

Scott Benner 1:15:55
How do I sound double speed?

Natalie 1:15:59
pretty normal. Like you sound like you talk fast. Whereas right now, which is one of the maybe three times I've heard you at one time speed. You sound not unreasonably slower, but it's I would consider it slow speech.

Scott Benner 1:16:14
Wow, that's interesting, because I speak really quickly compared to most people. But you guys have sped up so much. You're like teaching yourself to hear it differently.

Natalie 1:16:24
Yeah, it scared me when I first heard Stephen listening on two times speed to anything like what is going on?

Scott Benner 1:16:31
Alright, listen, I'm gonna ask this then we're gonna go. Okay. What's the distinction here? How do I categorize you guys? Are you dorks geeks? nerds? Where would you put yourself in? None of those things. I don't mean anything derogatory. I'm just trying to figure like your coding, and, and making sausages and and you're so nice. Like, how do you think of yourself? there? That's my question. Forget everything I just said, Natalie. If I asked you to describe yourself, describe yourself and then Steven, you describe yourself

Unknown Speaker 1:17:06
an awkward nerd.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:07
Okay, Steven.

Stephen 1:17:10
I think we've had this discussion before Natalie and I the difference between nerd and geek I would consider myself a geek, probably.

Scott Benner 1:17:19
Okay. Now, Steven, how do you how would you describe Natalie? She cracked awkward nerd.

Stephen 1:17:29
I would say I wouldn't use any of those words. I just say smart. Okay. But slightly awkward. Possibly.

Scott Benner 1:17:38
I thought he was gonna say beautiful butterfly. Not like But okay, Natalie. Now you described? Yes,

Stephen 1:17:42
there's that too. That's just assumed.

Scott Benner 1:17:44
I'm trying to help. Obviously, that right, those words are gone. And we just know that not only is he right about him himself. How do you see him?

Natalie 1:17:54
Let's see. You just said beak. Steven. That was it.

Stephen 1:17:59
You can add as much as you want. Don't worry.

Natalie 1:18:04
He is about right. But yeah, I guess it would The only thing I might add would be maybe passionate,

Scott Benner 1:18:18
passionate geek. Now what's a geek and what's a nerd?

Natalie 1:18:24
The only thing I have is that dictionary quote that I don't know where it came from where a geek is a person who goes as far as to bite off chicken heads for an audience's amusement. But

Scott Benner 1:18:35
I think we know why you're a nerd badly. I think you just made that completely clear. All right, I'm gonna look and see if there's like a real definite, I know the definition of like, I know what you're saying.

Natalie 1:18:48
I thought yeah, I always thought of nerd as more maybe scientifically data minded or something like that. versus a geek, which is which can get it more into maybe media fat, like books and series and stuff like that. Like Steven loves sci fi. On sci fi.

Scott Benner 1:19:14
So, alright, so dictionary you know.com has geek as an unfashionable or socially inept person. does that fit you Steven?

Stephen 1:19:26
I definitely don't pay attention to fashion. Yeah. And I have been not the best adapted social situations. But that's, that's been a thing. I've gotten better at.

Scott Benner 1:19:37
Okay. a verb geek engage in or discuss computer related tasks. Is that so kind of geek out i guess is where that is. And now it says nerd is a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills boringly studious.

Natalie 1:19:54
I mean, we've picked only derogatory terms.

Scott Benner 1:19:57
I don't even know what listen Thank you. If you didn't ask me to describe myself because I wouldn't, I'd have not the first idea of what to say. But but these are, but you don't, you're using these things in more colloquial ways. You're not thinking of them as like really definable ways. Right? So so to you nerd is a little more technical and geek is a little more whimsical.

Natalie 1:20:21
That was my opinion.

Scott Benner 1:20:22
Yeah, that's what I thought. So

Stephen 1:20:24
yeah, the definition. There is socially awkward and unintelligent, but single minded person obsessed with a non social, non social hobby or pursuit. And geek is a digital technology expert or enthusiast, and a person who has existed leucism before and some expertise about a specialized subject or activity. That's pretty, I would definitely say that she's the nerd. And I'm the geek with those definitions. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:20:49
And so your Stephanie became a nerd about the diabetes. Are you diabetes, Natalie, Stephanie, Natalie, excuse me, I'm sorry. You know, what happens to sometimes I look up, I see both of your names at the same time, and I must, I must really have, like an issue that I'm not aware of. Because I sometimes I am literally blending your names when I don't mean to.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:13
hope that makes sense.

Scott Benner 1:21:14
Yeah. Natalie, do you? Do you feel like that, like a diabetes nerd?

Natalie 1:21:18
Um, diabetes nerd cooking nerd? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:21
Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:21:22
No kidding. Do you get really into stuff when you start it?

Natalie 1:21:26
Yes. Very?

Scott Benner 1:21:29
Do you let it go then? Or do you just like add it to an arsenal of things that you're really into?

Unknown Speaker 1:21:35
Um,

Natalie 1:21:36
I think I go into it now with the mentality of I am going to let this go after a while, because it's just not sustainable. with diabetes, though. While we were dating, we were dating fairly intentionally we were looking for are we going to get married? Or are we not? And if we're not, we should just break this off now. So that was the mentality for dating. And it seemed It was 30. I didn't want to keep them dating me for too long if it wasn't gonna work out. But yeah, with diabetes, it was different. Because if we were going to get married, this was not a short term thing. So I didn't go into that with the mentality of discarding it. And worst case, I know more about diabetes, if I ever run into somebody else with it. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:22:22
All right. You guys are delightful. I really appreciate you doing this. I feel like I could go on forever asking you questions about things that I don't understand about the world and they feel like you have answers about, but I think I've held you long enough. So in fairness to you, I'm going to say thank you ask you if you have any closing thoughts and and let you go back to your life. Oh,

Natalie 1:22:47
thank you for having us on. Um, closing thought is we have to get some breakfast because Stephen was rising and dosed for a bit of it a little while ago since we went over.

Scott Benner 1:22:57
I'm sorry, Stephen. Better than that walk. You guys went on that time. What is for breakfast Natalie real quick.

Natalie 1:23:06
Um, I made some milk bread. I have a sourdough starter that I maintain. So homemade bread. And then we have blackberry jam that I made apple butter that I also made. And I'd probably have a little bit of scrambled eggs with some herb sauce.

Scott Benner 1:23:23
I just wanted to say if some sourdough bread show up at my house, I would not be upset about that. Seriously, Steven, what about you? Is there anything you want to close with?

Stephen 1:23:34
I'm just as long as you pay attention to a diabetes isn't, doesn't have to rule your life. And if you find a helper then it's 10 times easier.

Scott Benner 1:23:47
If that's a good message. You guys are really terrific. I hope you have a whole bunch of little like dorky babies that you can really get along with. And that one of them doesn't just be like turn into a football player because I can see the both of you just in the stands going like Oh crap, how did this happen?

Stephen 1:24:05
It could happen My brother is a foot and a half taller than me and like 100 pounds heavier. See,

Scott Benner 1:24:09
see and you'll just be in the stands going like, ah, I tried so hard. He doesn't care about anything we care about. It's just and I don't know. I just don't I hope it's gonna happen. But I don't wish it so seriously. You guys were terrific. I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yep, have a great day. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. g Vogue glucagon. Find out more about chivo Kibo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box, you spell that? g VOKEGL. You see ag o n.com forward slash juicebox. And also like to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and remind you that there's a ton of great stuff to learn at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. There are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox Podcast comm to these and all the sponsors of the show.

If you enjoy the Juicebox Podcast, please share it with someone. That's all I need you to do. I mean, unless you're like super motivated, you want to leave like a five star review where you listen, then, I mean, then you're like you're really cool that if you do that, alright, I ran out of steam here. I'll see you later.

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