#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.

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#473 Sneaking Food

The Psychology of Type 1

Erica is a licensed marriage and family therapist who herself has had Type 1 diabetes for over 30 years and who specializes in working with people with diabetes and their families and caregivers—from those newly diagnosed to those experiencing it for decades. She and Scott discuss sneaking food and constructive ways to prevent it. http://erikaforsyth.com

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+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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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 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 473 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today, Erica forsyte this back. You know Erica, she's the licensed Marriage and Family Therapist from California. She's been on the show a number of times, and she's here today to talk with me about how to address sneaking of food. Please remember, while you're listening 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, or becoming bold with insulin.

California residents if you're looking for a therapist, look no further than Erica forsyth.com. I'd like to remind you that if you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes or the defining diabetes episodes, they are right here in your podcast player. But you can also find them at Juicebox Podcast calm or diabetes pro tip calm. If you're listening in a podcast player, please hit subscribe or follow. Thank you very much. The T one D exchange is looking for type one adults and type one caregivers who are us residents to participate in a quick survey that can be completed in just a few moments from your computer or phone. This survey is 100% anonymous, completely HIPAA compliant, and does not require you to ever see a doctor or go to a remote site. Why you say what a survey require that? Well, because this data is actually helping people living with type one diabetes, and I wouldn't want you to get confused and think oh, this is a trial. I might have to go see a doctor, huh? No, no, you can actually help people with type one without being in a trial. And without visiting a physician. You just go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Click on join our registering now, and then simply complete the survey. Once you've done that, your information, which again is completely anonymous, will be used to help other people living with Type One Diabetes and it supports the podcast. Past participants like you have helped to bring increased coverage for test strips, Medicare coverage for CGM, and have brought changes in the ABA guidelines for pediatric a one c goals. And I'm excited to imagine what your participation may lead to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. There's also a link in the show notes at Juicebox. Podcast comm a bunch of people who listened to the show sent in questions for you. And you distilled them down into topics. Is that fair? Yes. Okay. Great. Great. And so as I'm looking at them here and trying to decide where to start, I feel like I want to start with sneaking food. Are you comfortable with that?

Unknown Speaker 3:18
Absolutely.

Scott Benner 3:18
Okay. I am at a, I'll just say that I'm at a loss when people ask this question of me. And it does get asked of me a ton. You know, Mike, I don't know what to do. And I'll tell you what, it's almost heartbreaking. Because it usually ends up being these people who have figured out they think they've got it all figured out. And then they keep seeing these like anomaly type blood sugars, and they kill themselves. Maybe it's the basil, maybe I didn't Bolus the meal at lunch, right? And it's protein coming. And they really they just they're killing themselves trying to figure out what it is. And then one day they realize that their kids are eating innopolis thing for it. And it's um, it seems heartbreaking when it happens to them to the parent, you know, but I want to understand I mean, obviously I want to let you talk your way through it but I feel like what we want to understand here for the parents perspective is why does this happen? And how do you work through it? Does that make sense?

Unknown Speaker 4:20
Yes the why and then the house okay

Scott Benner 4:22
yes great. So I mean go What do you think

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 4:26
first of all, I think removing type one out of the equation this can happen in you know with children and teens anyway. of sneaking food but with looking at it through the lens of type one. I would consider has it become has a certain what type of food are they sneaking Is it is it just sweets? Is it crackers? You know what is has a food group in your house become known as bad or forbidden? And is that what the what your child sneaking. Okay. So are they, they're feeling like oh my gosh, I'm not supposed to eat candy. And that's just eat crackers, whatever it is, I would want to examine, has it become a forbidden fruit sort of speak in your household? And is that why the child is seeking it? Because they know they're not supposed to have it? And, and really just looking at, okay, why? Why has that? If that is the case? Why has that become forbidden? Is it because you don't feel comfortable? bolusing for it, is it that your child just you cannot figure it out, and your child reacts in a certain way? So I would look at is it? Is it something that they have learned, or they've been told that they're not supposed to have it? And that implies, like some excitement around maybe it's like, they don't really even care, but it's exciting to sneak it. And so that's kind of I would look at that is those first two things? Is it? Is it forbidden? And maybe they're getting some kind of emotional response out of it to?

Unknown Speaker 6:05
Go ahead?

Scott Benner 6:06
Is it not possible that it could have become forbidden by mistake? Meaning maybe the kid has seen you have some weird reaction to a number at some point. And you've said like, Oh, this, you know, cereal? Always does this? And then maybe they think, well, I don't want to put that on my parents.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 6:26
Yes. And I think they're trying to avoid maybe any shame that has been, like placed on them by accident. Or, you know, gosh, I when I eat this cereal, and I go high, and then mom or dad gets frustrated or angry. And maybe they're not frustrated or angry with me, but they're angry at the number, but it's pretty common then for the child to internalize. I've been a bad kid. I've been a bad, whatever. I've made bad choices. I'm not supposed to eat this food. I don't want mom and dad to be angry. I don't want to see that number. So I'm just going to sneak it and pretend like it didn't happen. And then to avoid the shame, but then we know that you know, shame can just creep in and grow. So yes, I think it can happen by accident. Absolutely. Not necessarily just by like clear, don't eat this food ever write statements.

Scott Benner 7:23
So what you just said made me think of one thing. And I have a second question. But then Couldn't it be possible that adults living with type one who have no one watching them? Like you're not even like a spouse? Like somebody that's there could end up in some odd way stealing food from themselves by not bolusing for it? Is that the same problem? Like I do you see what I'm saying? Like if you know that this Bolus is going to go poorly. Is it easier to just like say, well screw it, I'm just going to eat this anyway. And I'll deal with it later. Rather than put myself as a scenario where I make a Bolus, it doesn't work. And then the whole thing feels like a failure throughout.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 8:00
Yes, I would say yeah, and there's a lot of right, there's a lot of steps that you're going through in your mind. And it may be just becomes a pattern to behavior, where I somehow have either learned or establish this pattern in my life, where if I eat this certain food, whatever it is, I can never get it right. I'm just going to eat it. And then I'm going to figure it out later, I'm going to try and correct it later. Or I'm just going to avoid the whole thing. And just move on without my day. And then you're running high. And you kind of go to the next thing, right? So I think even as adults, you can if as a kid, you have learned that you weren't supposed to eat a certain food group. And this, this happened for me for sure. As a child, 30 years ago, I wasn't allowed to eat sweets. And so of course, I snuck them. And then in that pattern, I became like, it became shameful to eat. And then the other issue that I think is maybe ask answering the question, why is that maybe as a child or even as an adult, you've been eating a cookie in public, and maybe some kind of peripheral friends or peers or colleagues know you're diabetic? And they say, Are you allowed to eat that? I mean, this happens to me still. And it depending on how I want to respond, I'll just say yep. And keep going. Or if I feel like I want to give a response, I'll explain how I can eat it. But that can if you're hearing that question all the time, particularly as a child who might not have all the development, developmental, you know, ability to kind of process through Yes, I can eat it and it's okay. They're not trying to shame me.

Unknown Speaker 9:47
That happens and so you that you then feel like oh my gosh, am I supposed to have this? Why does everyone keep asking if I can have this?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 9:53
So forget it. I'm not going to eat it in public. I'm going to go hide this and ate it in my room.

Scott Benner 9:57
So So shame Right is, in this scenario, the diabetes, like the function of the diabetes and how it impacts blood sugar gets commingled, it gets melded with who you are. And that's why you feel shameful about it. Is that I mean, yes, because I hear people all the time talking about, especially like old time type ones, they're very careful to warn people about not conflating you with your diabetes. And I've always understood, like, I've always felt like, I've understood that, but in this specific scenario, I can see now as you're discussing it, where the impact comes in, if I am my diabetes, then the failure of my insulin use is a failure of me. This all gets pulled together into one thing, and therefore, I'd rather not have this experience even for myself, but I but also not let somebody from the outside see it.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 11:02
Yes. And and then equating, if you're saying, Okay, and then I'm bad. I'm a bad person, not even just even a bad diabetic. Yeah, I'm a bad person. If I've eaten this cookie, and I didn't Bolus correctly and now I'm 300. And I, I'm a terrible person.

Scott Benner 11:21
And inside in your brain and your psyche, there's no difference between that number and you at that point.

Unknown Speaker 11:26
Correct. Correct. And so

Scott Benner 11:28
when you hear somebody who loves a person whose, by the way, is sneaking food the right way to say it? I'm not usually the word police. But is, is that? I guess it really is. Right? It's

Unknown Speaker 11:40
it's eating? Well, I

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 11:40
think Bolus Yes. Yeah, I think eating without bolusing is one thing. But if you're doing it, or even bolusing correctly, but if you're doing it in a way that you you're taking food, and either you're actually physically hiding while eating, which I know happens. Or you're sneaking it without kind of if you are under that's I'm thinking from more from the lens of like a child, and you're eating something without disclosing it. Which sounds so terrible, right? Like without saying, Hey, Mom, I want Hey, Dad, I want to have this apple. So are you sneaking it? I guess it just that it's a tough? Yeah, eating without your eating without bolusing. But then I think there is a category for you actually are sneaking the food, hiding it because you've you've learned and you're hiding and you've learned and you feel like you weren't supposed to eat it. So you're going to hide it hide it

Scott Benner 12:36
you for a moment, if we take a side shoot here for a second, if we take diabetes out of this for a second. People sneak food, right?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 12:44
Absolutely. I mean, particularly if like, let's say you're on a diet, you will say oh, I'm not supposed to have this, I'm gonna sneak this in into my diet, or as a kid who knows that they can have maybe one treat a day. But then they find, you know, some old Halloween candy in a cupboard. They might sneak it because then they feel like it's it's like forbidden. It's not allowed.

Scott Benner 13:07
What about adults that hide food from family members and co workers and stuff like that? Are we really just replacing the acceleration of blood sugar with the acceleration of of weight? And so all the rest of it's the same. It's the it's just the thing that you're trying to hide is different. Does that make sense? Well, yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:27
yes. And I think then you ask the question, Well, why is that person hiding? whatever they're doing? Yeah, because they have developed this kind of shameful pattern thinking that, like, I'm bad. I'm not supposed to do this. So I don't want anyone else to see it. And so I just, I need to hide and do this. before. It's sad. You know, it's It is sad.

Scott Benner 13:47
I have one more question before I go to my next. My next question, which is okay. In a person's psyche. Is it possible to hide something from yourself?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:58
Interesting, is it? Well, you can think that you're hiding it from yourself, right? by either mind mindlessly doing something, right. Like if we're staying on the topic of sneaking food, and you're thinking in through the lens of also diabetes, like, Okay, I'm going to pretend like I'm not eating this. I'm thinking about, like, let's say you have a piece of pie, or a whole pie. And people just say I'm just, I'm just cleaning off the edges, right? Like, you think that you're not really having a piece of pie because you're just having a little bite, but then by the time you go back and do that 20 times you've had the piece of pie. Yeah, I think they're, you're kind of like trying to pretend and not trying to sneak or hide it from yourself, but

Unknown Speaker 14:43
kind of make it like you're not

Scott Benner 14:44
really eating it. Does that make sense? It's excuses. That's like it. Yeah. So there's a thing when I'm when I'm eating lower carb for myself, I get a sweet tooth. I try to have a little dark chocolate. Right. And that works great for me. But it's a little bit of dark. If there's a time where I started seeing myself having the dark chocolate too frequently throughout the day, like Normally, it would just be once there is there's a part of me that's like, Oh, I just used the dark chocolate too. But there's the, the rational part of me is like, you're about to break this diet you're on. And this is the way you're getting into it. Like, I can feel it happening. And I'm intellectually I understand it's happening. But I am able to lie to myself for sometimes a day or two, before I go, Oh, come on, you know what you're doing. And put a stop to it. It's just, it's really I mean, you're not lying. You can't lie to yourself, right? Like, you can't, you can't punch a hole through a wall and tell yourself, you're picking flowers. But you but you, you can say, It's okay, if I punch this hole on the wall, I'm giving myself permission to do it. I know it's wrong, generally speaking, but I'm not going to punish myself over this right now. And and I wonder if that because because like, with so many things with diabetes, sometimes we look so hard at the type one, or the diabetes in general, that we forget that, like, people who don't have diabetes go through the same thing. It's like exactly what I mean, like the that's where the idea of real people set comes from, because people, right, because people with diabetes, tried to blame everything on their diabetes. And sometimes you just, you know, there's a difference between sneaking food because you don't want somebody to see because of a blood sugar thing, etc. Because it's become verboten somehow in your life. And maybe just the fact that you're just sneaking food for other reasons. And I just wanted to be clear about that. So then, here's the next heartbreaking part of this, especially when it's a child. Someone will say, I, I've been working on this for years, I figured out there, basil. I know how to Bolus for anything asked me I can Bolus for anything. I figured it out so that they can be healthy. It's not hard. It is not difficult to do we do it every time. Why would they sneak food and cause themselves a problem? When it's not even necessary, when we're so good at this, that it wouldn't be a problem to eat whatever thing it is they're thinking of. And that part for me is particularly interesting. Because I just I'm gonna tell you the 20 minutes before I came up here, Arden and I intersected in the kitchen. And she's hungry, but she didn't know for what she's like, I don't know what I want. And she's kind of there's nothing in the house like that whole dance. Like you're like, Well, what about you name nine things now? Like no, right?

Unknown Speaker 17:30
Yeah.

Scott Benner 17:32
And so then I was like, you just want a bowl of cereal. And she said, I don't have time to eat that. And I was like, What do you mean? I said, Sure you do just Bolus and we'll we'll do it. No, there's I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait for the Pre-Bolus She told me. So I was able to say Don't worry, we won't wait for the Pre-Bolus will over Bolus it. But I know how to handle not Pre-Bolus even even for something like vicious like cereal, right. And so I know how to over Bolus that meal, so won't cause a big problem. And even if it gets out of whack a little bit, we'll I'll knock it back down and show it or show Bolus again or however, you know, whoever intersects with first. But why would a kid knowing that you are proficient at diabetes? avoid something still, like that, to me is the thing that I watch parents, they can't make any sense of it, especially after they've put so much time and love and effort into figuring it out.

Unknown Speaker 18:31
Mm hmm. What do you think?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 18:33
I think it's Yeah, it's a very common question and concern and struggle really because I would look at I would want to know, it's hard to kind of give blanket say without like, choosing an age because I would say Are they they had an age of trying to demonstrate some independence or control over their life and is this one way of them feeling like hey, I can eat this on my own without anyone telling me what to do or how to Bolus or you know, feeling like is it that is it the wanting to have some control over their own life and decision without consultation? Is it is it wanting to maybe be like their peers if it's in a peer group situation and they're all quickly deciding to go eat whatever it is hamburgers or ice cream? And they just don't want to deal with it? Are they Is it is it I want to I don't want to be different I want to be like appear. Or maybe going back to the basics of you know, when this worked for one family where they went shopping with their child to the grocery store, and they said pick out everything you'd ever want to eat, you know, from all the aisles, whatever, no judgement, nothing. And just really kind of demonstrating to this this exercise helped for the family and for the child. The See, look, you can eat anything, I mean, Grant grant it within the guidance of maybe the family's expectations of eating or protein, vegetable and car, or whatever, whatever they're well about nutrition looks like. But to say you can also you can eat the Oreos, you can eat the Doritos, whatever you want, whatever kind of, quote, junk food or food that you think we don't approve of, you get it, buy it, let's fill up our cart, and take it home. And let's lay it on the counter. And you just get all we need to know is, you know, before you want it, let's Pre-Bolus or whatever, whatever the decision that works or to do what you're you're able to do with Arden. And so really kind of going through that exercise of allowing the child to see to feel to have control over picking what their favorite snacks are at the grocery store, and giving giving them some control of their life in that way. I guess. Yeah, I'm saying, and that bleeds

Scott Benner 20:53
into everything, right? Like, you know, what you're making me realize, like, You're making me think of something. So when I was growing up, there was a public school and a private Catholic school, kind of in the neighborhood. And as you got older, this thing would happen when the Catholic school girls would graduate, they'd all cut their hair, it was the strangest thing, right? Or they would start dressing completely different. Or in some cases, like having a lot of sex that they didn't have in high school, like they they made, like, big changes to their life. And I always felt like that was because they had grown up. So I kind of controlled, and I carried that remembrance into my parenting. And, and I did, I didn't give my kids like, you know, drugs when they were 10 and stuff like that. But but I tried to let my kids have a lot of agency over themselves, and to make as many decisions as they could on their own. And I'll tell you, it's a pain in the ass. Sometimes when you're raising kids, and you give them a lot of input, because there are times where you're just like, Alright, well, let's go figure out what the seven year old wants. Now, you know what I mean? And you're like, and you just need to go where you need to get something done. But it ended up paying off long term. Because my children do not feel like they're being controlled by us as much as they could. And trust me, they still do because they're young people. And you're always gonna feel like there's something to break away from. But is this another place where we're conflating diabetes with just being alive? Is what made me wonder when you were discussing it, like, I get the I get the Pierce thing, we're all out, we're gonna stop somewhere real quick, I don't have time to Bolus for it, or to count the fat in it, and then do an Bolus for the fat like, you know, you're 14 trying to decide how much fats in french fries, you know, like that kind of stuff? Like, hold on a second, there's a simple equation my mom taught me. Oh, my God, let's go over that while we're joy riding. You know what I mean? I understand that I understand. But I do also understand just the idea of wanting some sort of control over your life. And I'm wondering if you're able to hand that control to them in other places? Would it lessen their desire to find that control in this?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 23:17
Absolutely. And I think yeah, that's, I think we, we've talked a little bit about that. In our we talked about teens. I know, we'll probably talk about that as well later. But I think, yes, giving them finding the opportunities and the kind of Windows where you feel like you can hand over that control instead of micromanaging every aspect of your child's life and gret. And obviously, this changes over time and developmentally what they you feel like your child can handle and demonstrate that responsibility? But yes, I think giving them some other opportunities to say, okay, you can decide whether you want to wear your pink sweater or your blue sweater, you know, just like building that in letting them have those decisions in their lives where it doesn't really matter, I think will help in the long run. Yeah.

Scott Benner 24:04
So from a caregiver perspective, I, my two questions are, how do they approach this problem and address it? And what could I be looking in to myself for that would get in the way of me handling this? Well? Because I feel like that, like why would they do this, to me, is a vibe I get from parents sometimes, like I put all this into this, why is this being like, why are they doing it? And you need to understand like, your kids are not doing anything to you. Like it's not an attack, but it feels like it. You know what I mean? And I think sometimes it feels like it more to some people than others. And I would imagine that has something to do with their problems growing up. But those are my two questions that I'm interested in what you think about the rest of it?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 24:47
Yes. Okay. So how how to kind of move how to address the issue. You've seen your child, Snake food just based on either evidence of the blood sugars or you've caught them in the act so to speak. Or they've shared with you later, I think the first and foremost, I would always want to, if your child does come out and say, Well, yeah, you know, I did eat this two hours ago, to immediately go to just being grateful and thankful that they were being honest, as opposed to kind of going down the pathway of punitive. Because I think when we Google grant, we don't want to punish, at least from my perspective, personally, and then from my experience, collectively, professionally, working with families, children, if they are punished for making bad choices, or high blood sugars, that is going to spiral into the shame and avoidance and sneaking further, but saying, gosh, thank you so much for for sharing this with me. Let's How can we and having a dialogue, even if they're five years old, or two, or even three, I mean, granite younger than that might be challenging. But let's say 345 10, whatever age your child is, even up into teenagers, like how can we avoid this wetter and asking them like, are there? Are there foods that you feel like mommy or daddy or whoever's your caregiver doesn't allow you to eat? Because they might make a list of things that you have never, like we talked about in the beginning, you have maybe never have said you cannot eat these foods. But somehow they have learned that from yet externally public shame or questioning or from your response that you weren't aware of when you saw the number. And so asking them, are there things you feel like we can't You can't eat in this house? Right? I would start there. And then I would also go to, okay. What if they're a little bit older? If they are able to break it down? Like, were you thinking anything before or was I not around, and without assuming that they were sneaking to, maybe you were on a phone call, maybe you're busy, maybe they were just really hungry, and just were like, I need to eat this food right now. They get you know, they can be impulsive.

Scott Benner 27:10
I have a note here right to myself to remind my to say at the end of this, that to be careful not to blame people if you're not 100% certain to because you could actually cause the problem. And you're just saying like, what if I just got so hungry, and I'm four years old, that's not sneaking food. It's right, I'm hungry. Yeah. You also made me remember that this might be a little too much. But um, when I was growing up, when I was 13, my father left my mom. And my brothers were five years younger than me, and five years younger again. So I'm 13, that makes my middle brother eight, and my youngest brother three. And my mom goes off to work to try to make up the difference. And I'm basically raising these two little kids after school. Now, I'm 13. Trust me, I did not know what I was doing. And you know it now in present time, I'll joke with my brothers all the time. And thank them, because I really got a lot of my bad ideas out on them. And really saved my as a

Unknown Speaker 28:09
child parent,

Scott Benner 28:10
is it Yeah, as a 13 year old parent, teaching myself to drive and take care of a three year old and stuff. But nevertheless, I saw that with my younger brother, I didn't know what to do. And punitive was the way any bad thing was addressed. Because it's all I could think of. And I will tell you that that was tough for him. And all it would do is cause him to hide things. Like we used to have this joke like Rob's either in trouble, and you're aware of it, or getting in trouble and you haven't found out yet. And and as we joked about that, and that rang in my head while you were talking, it really made me realize that all he was doing like, I didn't curb his behavior. He just hit it better. And that's not a resolution for him or me. He's okay, right now, for anybody who's listening. He's Yeah, he's not jail or anything like that. But that is, that's what you were making me think of when you were saying that. I don't know why I said that. But it felt like Yes, yeah.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 29:11
Because you think you know, as a four year old who's coming home from preschool and needs a snack, they and they know where the snack buck bin is, or whatever, and they eat and that's it, you know, the child doesn't have type one, then you're not going to say well, how could How dare you go and get a bag of pretzels without telling mom? Yeah, I'm assuming mom, baby as we know, it could be dad or whoever is in the home. But I so I think we have to remind ourselves like okay, how would I yes, he has type one and I want to prevent the highs and I'm fearful of long term complications, because I think that's the sequencing. You know, your thought pattern, is that right? Or at least from what I've been told, and so going back to like, Okay, he's four, he's hungry. How can we How can we address this next time? Is it like, okay, like, and maybe going back to like, why as your second question is, okay, why the parent has clearly has solid competence and confidence and Bolus and for any food. And you've told your child time and time again that they can eat anything. And reminding them that we just need to Bolus beforehand whatever the timeframe is. And okay, so why is the child doing it couldn't be all of those factors. And now it's a you had all those conversations you've eliminated, okay, the child knows he can eat anything the child knows, he just needs to tell the parent that he wants to eat something. And yet he's still doing it, I think I would then look at Okay, how often is that happening? Is it is it a one off experience, because you know, just like, as caregivers, we are going to make mistakes, we are going to, we're not going to Bolus enough, we're not going to Pre-Bolus in enough time. And we have to practice that grace and forgiveness towards ourselves. We can offer we can model that for our children, and seeking from like a caregiver lens. And then we can also offer that to our children, because they're going to make mistakes. Now, if visit isn't happening every day, then I would go to my first two points of Okay, the child must feel like he can't have it. Or maybe he's just hungry, and we need to figure that out. But if it's a one off occasion, then I would just say you know what? We need to you know, offer that grace and forgiveness and you correct and move on.

Scott Benner 31:41
Right? Hey, and if it happens over and over again, as a parent as the adult, do you at some point have to look at yourself and say, there must be some way I'm impacting this, it's causing this behavior to some degree.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 31:54
I think that would be a helpful first or second step. Yes. If you've asked all the questions and say, Okay, how am I? What kind of messaging Am I giving whether explicitly or implicitly whether it's my facial expression, or noise, like you're looking at the if it's CGM, or meter, and you're like, right, like these simple things aren't, you know, toddlers can pick up on those noises and those size and even your body language, right? And so maybe kind of checking in with yourself is what is your your kind of gut response when you're looking at the numbers? Yeah,

Scott Benner 32:30
so you and I haven't recorded together that much at this point. But I have learned one thing about you that I can't ask you to make a blanket statement because you won't do it. And but I do want to ask you because I want to close out this episode, but I want to just do one thing. How much of an adult's actions are they unaware of? Like, how many times do we do something for what we think is one reason, but really, it's not for that reason? Is it frequently throughout the day?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 32:58
even as a child, how much are they aware of no idea

Scott Benner 33:01
as an adult person who thinks that we're control of what we're doing? Like? How many how many times? Are our actions driven by something that we don't understand?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 33:12
Wow, yeah, that's a whole nother episode. I don't know. I think it depends on how self aware are you?

I mean, have you done the work in learning what your your thought patterns are? And how your thoughts affect your feelings? which affect your actions?

Scott Benner 33:28
Let's say no. Right?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 33:28
Like that. That's all connected? Yeah. Let's Oh, no, then yeah, you probably don't have a whole lot of self awareness. And so everything from you're raising your eyebrows, very subtle things that others can pick up on, you know, eyebrow raises size hands, like you haven't said a word and you've communicated a lot. Yeah. And so I think if you're not aware of, of your thought patterns, which connect to your actions, and also your feelings, then you probably are, you're communicating a whole lot more than you might even you are aware of.

Scott Benner 34:02
Okay, and I want to add to that, thank you. I want to add to that, that it takes longer to fix than you think it would, because I've been absolutely I've been battling with this for a decade and a half now. And I'm much better today than I was. But at the beginning, anything that went wrong with diabetes, I was like, like it, like I just edit. And it just felt like it felt like you were trying to conquer something and you were falling off of it all the time. And I never had any intention of mirroring that to anybody in my life, but I did the people around me were like, Oh, my God, he's upset. And so I never felt upset. I just felt like God dammit. Like those little micro things. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure to put that in there. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 34:40
This was wonderful. He welcome. Thank you.

Scott Benner 34:52
I want to thank Eric again, and remind you that if you live in California and are looking for a therapist, go to Erica Forsythe Calm, there's links in your show notes. If you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes, they begin at Episode 210 in your podcast player, or you can find them at diabetes pro tip.com or at Juicebox Podcast comm if you're just finding the show and getting started with management ideas, I really think you should begin with the defining diabetes series, which is also available diabetes pro tip comm or in your podcast player. And if you're listening in a podcast player right now you haven't subscribed or followed the show, please do. If you're enjoying the show, please share it with others. If you'd like to find some good conversation about type one diabetes, I suggest you check out the private Facebook group for the show Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, answer a couple of quick questions to make sure you're a real person and you'll be let right then and there you will find GS over 10,000 listeners just like you talking about type one diabetes. I'm going to remind you again to go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box and fill out that survey just takes a couple of quick minutes. If you're a type one yourself, or the caregiver of a type one, as a US resident, you'd really be helping other type ones and the show if you took the time to fill it out. And I thank you very much for considering that. This episode did not have any ads today. But I still want to thank the sponsors the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, g Volk hypo pen and touched by type one.org. There are links everywhere to all the sponsors. And all I ask is that if you're looking for a great CGM, an accurate meter, a tubeless insulin pump for some really cool glucagon use my legs and of course, touched by type one is it touched by type one.org. They're also on Instagram and Facebook. I hope you go find them and check out what they're doing. Because what they're doing is wonderful. So if you're considering getting a Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, please use the link in the show notes or type in dexcom.com Ford slash juice box hey you know you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash tubeless insulin pump on the pod comm forward slash juice box Arden uses the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and I find it to be the most accurate and easy to use blood glucose meter she has ever had. Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box find out about the G vo Kibo pen the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo glucagon comm forward slash juice box. I want to thank you again for listening to the show for making it the most popular type one diabetes podcast around and for sharing it with others because that is truly how it grows. There are days and today is one of them where I wish I could give you everything that I have recorded right now. Because there's so much good stuff coming. I feel weird, not just releasing at all but things don't work that way. And if I did that you'd never find it. So come on back next week, where there'll be three new episodes of the Juicebox Podcast just like every week. We'll see what we can find that fits your needs. I hope you know how much I enjoyed making this podcast for you. I'll talk to you soon.

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#472 After Dark: Living with Bipolar

ADULT TOPIC WARNING. Today's guest is a type 1 living with bipolar disorder and thyroid issues.

TRIGGER WARNING: This is a frank discussion with a female living with bipolar disorder.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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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 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 472 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is another in the after dark series, the After Dark series deals with topics that people don't often speak about out loud topics such as, believe me, and type one diabetes, heroin addiction, PTSD, sexual assault, bipolar disorder, divorce, intimacy from both male and female perspectives, in all, a lot of things that you just don't talk about that frequently in mixed company, but we talked about it here on the podcast, I'm always looking for more people to add to the afro dark series. So if you've had an experience that you think fits, or you'd like to talk about something that's normally a little taboo, send me an email.

Even though in Episode 384, we did bipolar disorder and type one diabetes. That episode was with a guest who was much younger, and had different perspectives. Today's guest is a little more mature, has been dealing with type one and bipolar for longer. And to be honest, their story's completely different than the first one we heard. I hope you enjoy it. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you'll hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. or becoming bold with insulin. You're going to hear short gaps of silence in today's episode. That's where the guests name was spoken, and we later took it out. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is here to help you the SH m h essays national helpline is free, confidential, open 20 473 65. their phone number is 1-800-662-4357 where you can find them at www.samhsa.gov. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, find out more and get started dexcom.com/juicebox. Want to find out if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash tubeless insulin pump omnipod.com/juicebox. And of course, whenever you want to see good things being done for people with type one diabetes, all you have to do is go to touchedbytypeone.org or find them on Instagram, and Facebook.

Anonymous Speaker 2:54
My name is and I've been diabetic since December 12 1994. So this December will be 27 years and I was diagnosed with bipolar on September of 2003. And I don't work right now. No one else's.

Scott Benner 3:16
It's so hard for people to describe themselves as fascinating. It's my favorite part of the show. I'm going to a clean piece of paper here on my thing. How old were you when the bipolar came?

Unknown Speaker 3:28
2323.

Scott Benner 3:30
And you probably thought, well, things can't possibly get worse. And then next year you got diabetes?

Anonymous Speaker 3:36
No, I was diagnosed with diabetes in 1994.

Scott Benner 3:39
Oh, how much? So how old were you when the diabetes came?

Anonymous Speaker 3:43
I was a month after turning 14.

Scott Benner 3:46
Oh, I'm sorry, 14. Let's just do that joke backwards. So you got diabetes, you probably thought this can't get any worse. And then right? Yeah, nine years later. I got it. Okay, we're good. Okay, now I understand. Oh, wow. So I guess let's talk first, about your recollection of diabetes through your teens in high school, etc. Well, I

Anonymous Speaker 4:09
was just listening to your interview with Caitlin. And we sound very similar. I actually didn't have to go to the hospital. When I was first diagnosed. They told me I was tied to and then pretty soon after that, I went to a place in Denver called the Barbara Davis center. And it was like an intensive Type One Diabetes camp. And then I don't know I remember going to the grocery store. And like bawling because my mom was like, Oh, you can't have this anymore. I can't have this anymore. You have to have sugar free and it was really emotional.

Scott Benner 4:44
Yeah. So your mom took you to the grocery store to show you all the things you couldn't eat.

Unknown Speaker 4:49
Yeah, that's horrible.

Scott Benner 4:50
Oh, nice. That's great guy. Does anyone remember Cocoa Puffs, as if it was a version therapy. Do you think she was like She wasn't smacking you as we're looking at. No.

Anonymous Speaker 5:03
No, I think she was trying to be honest.

Unknown Speaker 5:05
I know I understand hit

Unknown Speaker 5:06
me hard.

Scott Benner 5:07
I can't imagine it wouldn't at 14 like it is interesting. I have to say from a parenting perspective. You try to be very honest with your kids. And honesty comes, I mean, at least for me, it comes in, like sort of a dry adult way, like, hey, you're going to get a test today, they're going to draw blood, this is going to happen, like you're trying to lay it all out. It is almost impossible as an adult to put yourself in a child's shoes when they're hearing it. Like, yeah, you're kind about it, and you want to be gentle. But you also want to be factual. And at the same time, I don't know if there's actually a way to impart some pieces of information that are Stark and an in, like, firm contrast to how you've been living your life prior. without it being upsetting. You know, I mean, can you you don't I mean, like, what, what would the way have been? Exactly. And how long ago was that? You're 14? Would you say? 20? How long ago? Was this? 27 years?

Anonymous Speaker 6:07
Yeah, yeah, this December will be 27. So,

Scott Benner 6:11
I mean, what could anybody have possibly taught your mom about Type One Diabetes 27 years ago? That's probably what they told her. Right?

Unknown Speaker 6:19
Yeah. Yeah.

Anonymous Speaker 6:20
We went to the Barbara Davis center, and the nurse bless her heart was having my parents give her a shot. The poor lady had this arm, and she probably gotten how many shots from people learning. So instead of putting in an orange, she had my parents do it in our arm. And that was an interesting experience, having to deal with arm shots. But then they first put me on regular, right, and NPH and I had to wait 30 minutes before I could eat and my mom would freak out. If we go to a restaurant and the food took a little longer. She's like, she needs to eat something right now. And she would freak out.

Scott Benner 7:01
We're getting to this. So you met a sadistic CDE in Colorado, who was getting strangers to help her with her love of being stuck with needles. It sounds odd.

Unknown Speaker 7:15
Yeah. Like why

Scott Benner 7:16
not a banana or an orange or something? Like why my arm? Do you think? Oh, all right. We can't dig into that. But if that woman's listening, you're on the show. I want you. And is your mom. Is your mom alive? Yes. Okay. Are we going to is she is your mom. reactionary? in general? Or did this really get ahold of her? Do you think?

Anonymous Speaker 7:41
I think it really got a hold of her.

Scott Benner 7:43
Yeah. I can imagine we wish she married then.

Unknown Speaker 7:47
Yes, she still is.

Scott Benner 7:48
So was your dad. Like? Like, I mean, was it like classic? Dad? 30 years ago? Was he like, I'm just gonna go make money while you girls take care of all this? Was it that vibe? Yeah, it was. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 7:59
he nailed it.

Unknown Speaker 8:01
I'm gonna go to work. You guys. Good luck. Yeah, as my dad was like, we see people arguing he just he just like, boom, right out the door.

Scott Benner 8:13
Goodbye. My job. Title doesn't include Listen, everybody yell at each other for some reason. While that sucks? Is there any? Do you guys ever talk about it now in present day?

Anonymous Speaker 8:27
Um, she's still old school and on things that I can't have anything with sugar in it. And when I do, she really kind of glares at me. Which, which is kind of hard because I'm trying to explain to her I can't I can't have it. I just watched myself like I test afterwards and stuff like that. But she thinks that I should live in eliminate it completely. So I'm under a lot of stress when she's here. Not only with the bipolar, but with the diabetes, too.

Scott Benner 9:01
Yeah. Oh, so she's just she got indoctrinated at a certain time. And you probably only I mean, how long did you live with her after you had diabetes?

Anonymous Speaker 9:11
Well, I was in eighth grade. So three years, five years.

Scott Benner 9:15
And then that's it. So her her understanding of diabetes is 27 years old. And that's it. And she stuck on that. Yes. Yeah, that seems fun for you. And when you when you explain it to her, she doesn't care to hear it. Have you stopped trying to explain it to her?

Anonymous Speaker 9:30
I really want her to listen to 371 your episode that explains it. And I think that would be a less of a blow. Like it's nicer than me saying, Oh, I can't eat it and like starting an argument.

Scott Benner 9:44
I have to tell you, the older I get, the more I believe that people who you are close to need to hear things from somebody besides you. Exactly. It really is difficult for people to accept new or challenging information from someone that's too close to them. It really I it's just you just need to hear it from somebody who you don't have other entanglements with, I guess, you know what I mean? Like, who doesn't look at you like you're a little kid, or right? Or even? I mean, I know, a couple of people who are bipolar. And as supportive as I see their family be like, to their face, like behind their back. I always, it's, it's judged as a you know, it's a mental disorder that is judged by other people. Like, it just really is. It's how do you find that? I mean, I'm sure you have like, some people in your life, we're just like, you're that's that. But are there other people who don't see it that way? You mean, like, do you think? Do you think you're judged harshly by others? For the bipolar? Like, you know what I mean?

Anonymous Speaker 10:58
Yes, yeah, I try and keep it hidden. But then sometimes my, I act impulsively, or I go on, spend a lot of money or do something that kind of, I'm embarrassed on myself. And that's when I'll be like, well, I am bipolar. And this is what's going on and talk about my mania. And just say, this is one of the symptoms my my brain isn't working correctly. I'm sorry, I said something. mean, I didn't mean it harshly. I don't know my tone.

Scott Benner 11:26
Yeah. So you can't I get your so you can't have it. In a moment when it takes over. You can't not explain it to somebody.

Anonymous Speaker 11:35
Yeah, do you? Sometimes it takes me a little bit to apologize, because I don't realize they did it.

Scott Benner 11:40
So yeah, let's um, do you mind digging into that? Like, what's their? What's the, the general flow of how this goes? Like? Does it go in blocks? Like are you like, like manic sometimes? And how long does that last? And then what like, what's the transition? Is it just in a circle? Does it just happen over and over again? How does it work?

Anonymous Speaker 12:03
Um, when I was first diagnosed, I was on my honeymoon. And it's hard to describe, my husband can explain it better than me. But he's told me that I would hide myself in the place that we slept and I would lock the door, and he would freak out. And then I wouldn't sleep when I walk around the boat. And I want to we came back because we were on a cruise boat, we came back into to the emergency room, and they didn't know what was going on. So I think my diabetes is kind of put on the back burner, because of me dealing with a bipolar. And I've been in the hospital twice. And both times I needed to change my medicine drastically, in order to see an inpatient to see how it's gonna affect me before they let me go. Um, but I, I know that we try and stay under the best control and my husband has like this radar. And he's like, Okay, we got to nip this in the bud before you have to go to the hospital again.

Scott Benner 13:07
So there are things he sees behaviorally that indicate medication needs to be fine tuned. Exactly. Okay. So can you stay in front of it that way? I mean, I realize you're waiting for a symptom to change the medication so you're not really in front of it. But that's the goal. You're just it's sort of like changing basil rates for for a woman who's of menstrual age, like you just like you're like, oh, something's happening. More basil here, like, and then you go through the cycle and you're like, take it away. But do you ever take it away? Or is it always just increasing?

Anonymous Speaker 13:41
No, I'm fall as usual, my hardest time of the year. That's when I was first diagnosed. And just because everything happens within the span of four months. Um, so we have taken away over the summer.

Scott Benner 13:57
Oh, so not not completely gone. But

Anonymous Speaker 14:00
no, not completely. We've lessened it.

Scott Benner 14:02
Right. Wow. And he's helping you. I'll tell you what, first of all, good guy. I might have jumped. Oh, yeah. I'll be honest, I've been like, I don't know. I haven't been around that long. I got to go. on a cruise ship. Yeah. Oh, my God. That sucks. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 14:21
don't even know another way to say that.

Scott Benner 14:23
You were on your honeymoon on a cruise ship when someone realized you had bipolar disorder. And may I ask what happened that made someone realize was it just the locking in the room thing? Was that it?

Unknown Speaker 14:37
Oh, no.

Unknown Speaker 14:38
There's a story.

Unknown Speaker 14:40
There's what?

Scott Benner 14:41
There's got to be a story like you were in Puerto Vallarta at a stop and what happened? You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing.

Anonymous Speaker 14:48
Well, my mind wasn't really there. Like my mind was racing so much. I remember like waiting in line for one of the buffets and getting pizza or I don't remember what food was. But I, my mind was racing so much that I felt like everybody else was moving really, really slowly. And so I flipped out. And we had landed, or we had docked someplace and my husband was snorkeling or something like that. And I freaked out not knowing where he was, like, had a run in the water. We knew something was going on. But it took a while to get the diagnosis.

Scott Benner 15:26
Do you? Um, there's, there's a little bit if you do some googling, right? bipolar and immune, autoimmune, are a little connected, aren't they? Do you? Do you ever? Have you ever read some of the articles that say that?

Anonymous Speaker 15:43
No, I've always felt like I'm the only one.

Scott Benner 15:45
One of the more recent discoveries in the study of bipolar disorder is that autoimmune disease may play a role and it's in the conditions development. Studies have found that having an autoimmune disease or suffering a severe infection increase the risk of also having bipolar disorder. I mean, you got to be like the third person who's on the show who's like, hey, I've type one diabetes and bipolar disorder. And I'm thinking that I remember, you know, when you meet somebody you don't really know about their extended family, like my wife has extended family that I've never met, like, real extended. And I feel like there's a bipolar person back in her line to somewhere just super interesting. Like I I mean, I don't know, obviously, anyone who listens to the show realizes I have no medical training, but I just I make sure wonder, I mean, it just, it's weird. For certain I don't know that you're the only one Have you never heard Jonathan on here?

Anonymous Speaker 16:43
No, I'm actually new to listening to the podcast. Oh, wait, he was the child right.

Scott Benner 16:50
Now, there's another person, another person you? I'll show you later. But there's a there's a an afterdark, about bipolar? And so how does it? How does it intersect with the diabetes? Because you said it one's got a backburner? And I understand what you mean, you know, there's only so many hours in the day to apply to trying to figure out your medical things, call doctors get appointments, do stuff like that make changes the medication? Does. Does your diabetes take a big hit? Like Where does your a one c set?

Anonymous Speaker 17:25
Um, the last time that I was supposed to go in to get my a one c tested, because I go every three months? It was right around seven. But when I was pregnant, it was in the sixes.

Scott Benner 17:38
Yeah, well see, that's not too bad. But you're saying that sometimes you just you can't think about it. Because like, what, what keeps you from thinking about it? I guess is my question.

Anonymous Speaker 17:49
I guess I'm so focused on trying to be normal. And having both of these conditions makes me not be normal in my mind. So I guess I try and pretend like I'm not diabetic. And I try and watch what I say and watch what I do. And to not make it obvious that I'm bipolar.

Scott Benner 18:15
So you don't want to be in a situation where somebody just real really sees either of those things about you

Anonymous Speaker 18:22
know, right. And usually I talked about being bipolar or diabetic over being bipolar. Because sometimes my blood sugar will drop or sometimes that I, I can't drive because on the Starburst haven't kicked in. And that's when I'm like, Oh, yeah, I'm diabetic.

Scott Benner 18:40
I have. I can't drive right now. Are there any people in your life who know that you have one, but not the other thing?

Unknown Speaker 18:51
Um,

Anonymous Speaker 18:53
you mean like family members? Or just people?

Scott Benner 18:55
I don't know, right? I'm not sure what I mean. Like, I'm wondering if you've like, had to tell somebody about the diabetes, but the other things never come up. So that just stays away. By the way, everyone has medical issues. No one runs around telling everybody about them. It's it's the stuff that's forward facing that might impact somebody else, like you're saying, so you feel like you have to say, you know, my outburst or I'm sorry, I'm dizzy or that kind of thing. That's just I guess, common sense, honestly. But nobody, like I have, you know, I struggle with like low iron. It's not anything like this, but I don't meet you and go Hey, how are you? Sometimes? Not the second thing that comes out of my mouth when I meet somebody and I really understand the idea of wanting to keep it private. Especially when, hmm, but but how much of a struggle is that for you? Like, is that a portion of your day? like trying not to tell people you have these things?

Anonymous Speaker 19:48
Oh, yeah, trying to hide it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:50
the best that I can show the hidings a job.

Anonymous Speaker 19:55
I really don't feel like I like to explain it to like I almost want to say okay, bye color. This is what happens by,

Unknown Speaker 20:02
huh?

Scott Benner 20:02
Have you ever seen that? That card that Steve Martin carries? It's a business card, and it said you've had a brush with greatness. And when people ask him for a signature or something like that, he just hands it to them. Maybe you need that.

Unknown Speaker 20:17
That's great.

Scott Benner 20:19
Maybe you need to like, you know, bump into somebody yell at them for no reason. Just pull a card out of your pocket and go, boom, here you go and wander away from them.

Unknown Speaker 20:28
I wonder if.

Scott Benner 20:32
So my question is when you do end up telling people, is it bad?

Anonymous Speaker 20:38
Now most of the time, they're very receptive.

Scott Benner 20:41
So then, you know, the question, I'm gonna ask you Next, right?

Unknown Speaker 20:45
Why don't you

Unknown Speaker 20:46
get why are you bothering hiding it from them?

Anonymous Speaker 20:49
If it's cost, I want to try and be normal, I think.

Scott Benner 20:54
Listen, those two things feel in Congress just so you'd like. Because what we've learned so far is, it doesn't seem to my people don't seem to mind when you tell them but you don't like explaining it. But once they know it's no problem, but hiding it from them is stressful.

Unknown Speaker 21:11
You nailed it.

Scott Benner 21:12
Thank you. And I've googled Steve Martin's card. It's signed by him. So he's not a not a deck. He actually signs it. But it says, this certifies that you have had a personal encounter with me, and that you found me warm, polite, intelligent and funny. Steve Martin.

Unknown Speaker 21:31
There you go.

Unknown Speaker 21:32
Let's get you a business card company. I think we're

Unknown Speaker 21:35
all love that idea.

Scott Benner 21:38
Oh, my God. Apparently, Nathan Fillion does it too. This is to certify that you just met Nathan Fillion. How did you do? Great. He was impressed and now calls you friend. You called him captain. And it was good. It was friendly. Oh, it's got like choices for you to tell people about what people are geniuses. Alright. Can you imagine? How many people bother Steve Martin?

Unknown Speaker 22:03
You know, they

Scott Benner 22:03
mean, like if Steve Martin, I think I would like a little girl yell. Oh, my god, you're Steve Martin. Then he'd be like, Yes, I know. And people tell me every 25 seconds. Thanks so much. Here's a card Leave me alone. Even the cards probably not fun anymore. But okay, so back to you. Seriously, listen, everybody in the world does something that doesn't make sense, right? Because of some sort of, you know, you know, an internal reason. But I don't you just described something. It sounds like you like better when you tell people but you want to be normal, but I don't know what normal is. So

Anonymous Speaker 22:43
I feel like I have to be in the mood. Like I understand. When I had the insulin pump, I whip it out and I do my Bolus and train my banglori or cover it in the movie theater. I said when I first got it, like, that's when you turn on the light is when you're in a movie theater, and you have to cover it with insulin. But if I pull it out, and you're like, Oh, that looks like a pager? Or what is that kind of thing, then sometimes I'd go into detail as much as I wanted to. And other times, I'm like, it's just an outside pancreas. Don't worry about it.

Scott Benner 23:16
So when we sit in a movie theater, if we're right up on people, I will turn to the person next to me and say, Hi, how are you? And then they have a horrified look on their face because they're trying to see a movie and not gonna bother you again, just wanted to let you know my daughter has type one diabetes, I might have to take my phone out to give her insulin, I'll do my best for it not to bother you enjoy the show. And then I turn away from them. And that's that. But I am not encumbered by the need to feel normal, which I'm assuming everyone listening is not laughing about because they know but I don't have like I don't have that I heard somebody talking about recently about people rush through lines, like when you're in, you know, in line getting food and there's people behind you that a lot of people rush to they feel very pressured that there are people behind them. And I thought Huh, I've never really felt that way. Like I mean, I want to do I am one of those people like I sit at a traffic light and when it's my turn I go because I am cognizant that there are people behind me. I am cognizant of other people, but I don't feel rushed by the knowledge that they're there. And but it feels awkward to see you have a much different like, you know, story like you were diagnosed when you were 14. When did you first get a pump?

Anonymous Speaker 24:38
Right before I went to college in 1999. I had good old Kaiser. So I did do all kinds of readings and my agency and I think I had to fast and I think the two things I could have or mustard and celery and get blood sugar readings for that. So it took a while. That's actually the only time

Scott Benner 25:00
What you just said something that most people can't even fathom? That's how long ago you've had diabetes. So you had to prove what did you have to get to show them fasting blood sugars? Yes. Because if they were still high, then you needed a pump.

Anonymous Speaker 25:15
Apparently I needed to be under good control to be enabled. Yeah, it's kind of backwards.

Scott Benner 25:22
It's all just inch. I bet you I have no idea but I bet you it's all just insurance bs that they were just looking for ways to restrict what they had to pay for for some people. Because that, that literally sounds like three people have never seen anyone with diabetes. You forgotten a room. I was like, what should we do to make them get a pump? We can make it a little girl eat celery. That'd be great. Let's do that. My maniacal laughing. So you had to prove to them you needed a pump. You got it right around college. That's a real new thing at that time in the world. So that's definitely something you were trying to hide. I imagined but yet, not real high level back then. Right?

Unknown Speaker 26:03
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 26:05
How are you?

Anonymous Speaker 26:06
Well, it was able to be hidden because at that time, people had pagers.

Scott Benner 26:12
Oh, so you can play it off that way?

Unknown Speaker 26:14
Right. Gotcha.

Unknown Speaker 26:16
Can you just pretend that you're a drug dealer?

Anonymous Speaker 26:21
Well, I heard I actually went to diabetes camp, and one of the lady said that she was giving herself her insulin in the bathroom. And someone came in and saw her and she they thought she was taking illegal drugs.

Scott Benner 26:37
So they called the cops

Anonymous Speaker 26:39
now that I think they just approached her and they're like, what are you doing? And she's like, Oh, I need to do this. It's okay. Please don't turn me in. See.

Scott Benner 26:50
I my friend Mike used to just tell people he was shooting up. And then he would say things like, I can't I can't deal with you guys. Unless I'm high. Like stuff like that. I had to, you know, and he would shoot right in his stomach. Do you remember where you would give it like, you know, I said, the ordinary day, you've never given yourself a needle in your stomach. And she's like, people do that. Oh, yeah. All the time. She goes, Oh, I'm not doing that. I was like, okay, she went to her buddy there. Oh,

Anonymous Speaker 27:20
I have a funny story about that. My, my routine when I was in high school is I would test my blood. And then my mom would leave a needle and then I take my insulin, do my shower, get ready and stuff like that, and come up and have breakfast. And before that she used to give me a shot. And she did it in my butt and got a big old bruise. And after that happened, I was like, okay, you're you. It's my turn. From now on. You lost your excuse me? You lost your privilege. Yeah, you're not doing that again.

Scott Benner 27:52
Isn't that great? She hit a blood vessel and you're like, that's your fault. Aren't we be like you she stills? Like, we don't do it that often. But we do it so infrequently that everyone looks at it sort of like Pulp Fiction, you know, where it's just like, remember how to do this. Let's try here. It's just it's interesting how, how things have changed, but at the same time you hit off the college. any signs of man, can you look back in retrospect and see bipolar coming? Or does it just come like a light switch? How does it start? Was it a slow progression or quick?

Anonymous Speaker 28:34
Honestly, I think the stress of the wedding just finally caught up to me. And then you would think that honeymoon would be like I would be relaxed and not a stress. But I think that leading up to it didn't really cause a bipolar but kind of made it come into fruition.

Scott Benner 28:55
You just got pushed over a line. You hadn't been passed, but was planning a wedding. That's stressful.

Unknown Speaker 29:01
Yes. Is it? Yeah,

Scott Benner 29:02
I don't know. If I got my wife and I decided to get married. And we're married like I think seven days later so I didn't have a lot of Oh my goodness. Yeah. But that's so what is it like a year lead up to a wedding and you're like buying cakes and dresses and is it pressure from outside? What makes it stressful wanting it to be nice or people's expectations?

Anonymous Speaker 29:28
Well, both of those and also financially. Ah,

Scott Benner 29:31
so you're trying to hustle money to pay for it as well? Yes. We got married to park I think we had to pay a fee of $20 to the park for us. For them to let us use it and we had to pay a justice of the peace. I think $100 to show up and do the ceremony. The whole Wow. Yeah, that we went on the cheap. We did buy a dress for Kelly. Very nice.

Anonymous Speaker 29:55
We got married at the top of Vail pass and Um, my father in law helped build some cabins up there. Yeah, for cross country skiers. So we did it off season. And it wasn't for everything that we chose to do.

Scott Benner 30:18
Yeah, I am. I remember, one of my sister in laws was getting married my father and I was like, I'll just give you $20,000 if you don't have a way. And, and I think if you found her today, she'd be like, I should have taken that 20. But I understand it, I understand the idea of it, and I get the pressure. So the pressures building because of the wedding, it just you make it to the thing. So not that like if you said to your husband, like, How long were you guys courting before you were married?

Unknown Speaker 30:51
Um,

Anonymous Speaker 30:53
I had just gone to college in August, and then I met him that January or that February? So I told him, I wouldn't marry him until I graduated. So in May of 2003, I graduated. And then that September, we got married.

Unknown Speaker 31:10
Yes, you did college stress and marriage stress on top of each other? Yes, that's interesting. And I said, courting, which I've never said before in my entire life.

Scott Benner 31:22
I really don't know where that came from. Sorry. I'm all over the place today.

Unknown Speaker 31:28
We might want Okay,

Scott Benner 31:31
we might want to test me. I just there's a lot to wrap your head around. When you're when you don't really understand that a lot. And it just is. It's a it's hard not to feel like a lot of compassion for you when I'm talking. And at the same time, I don't want to in any way in for pity, because I don't feel pity. You don't mean? Like it's it's hard to try to be compassionate without seeming or maybe that's just my hang up? I don't know. But I wondered if the medication for the bipolar affects your blood sugar at all?

Unknown Speaker 32:15
Um,

Anonymous Speaker 32:18
I think it depends on which medication I'm on.

Unknown Speaker 32:22
does it vary?

Anonymous Speaker 32:24
Yeah, it's changed throughout the years, but I really don't think it affects it because I've always thought that stuff with hormones checks it. But all the medicine that I take is anti psychotic or seizure medication and mood stabilizers. So in all honesty, I don't think it affects my blood sugar, but other stuff that affects my blood sugar, but not my meds.

Scott Benner 32:49
do those things have other impacts? Like what are some of the side effects of the meds that you take?

Unknown Speaker 32:56
Well,

Anonymous Speaker 32:59
I recently had a colonoscopy, and they put me on oma protocol. And I have to wake up an hour beforehand, because I also take thyroid medication, and then I have to test my blood and then eat 15 minutes later. So my morning is pretty chaotic, and then I have to take medicine throughout the day.

Scott Benner 33:19
Okay, so it's like scheduling, it definitely throws you off. So I hear what you're saying. So the weight the oma persol What is that for? What do they find in your colon?

Anonymous Speaker 33:28
know if something my stomach, your stomach, like some, some juices or I don't know, I could look at it, but don't

Scott Benner 33:34
pick with stomach juices. That's better for the podcast. Okay, so they found some weird stomach juices put you on a med, but you can't overlay that med with your thyroid medication you left out? Are you hypo or hashimotos?

Anonymous Speaker 33:49
Um, I don't know the difference, but I know that I'm on a pretty high dose. Okay. And they took it out completely. Oh, it's gone.

Scott Benner 33:56
Gotcha. Was there a cancer?

Anonymous Speaker 33:59
They had, they had ultrasound it. I guess that makes sense. And so they checked it and they found some nodules. And then when they checked it a year later, they had gotten bigger and they're like, we don't want to mess with his he's got to come out.

Scott Benner 34:14
Okay. So when they found the nodules the first time did you go on medication?

Unknown Speaker 34:19
Not then. No.

Scott Benner 34:21
What year was this? Where are you living in the country? We need to get you to a to a population center so you can see a doctor. Wait, no. Wait, so wait, what year did you find out about the thyroid?

Anonymous Speaker 34:32
Um, not that long ago. Okay, maybe three or four years. I guess the dates kind of mixed up on

Scott Benner 34:38
that but three or four years ago, they find nodules on your thyroid, but don't give you thyroid medication, which by the way, would have helped with that. And so what did they tell you like your your? You they tested you and said you're in range? Did they tell you that bullshit?

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They tested you and said you're in range.

Anonymous Speaker 39:02
Yeah, I think they did test my blood. But then they also gave me the option of taking out half of it.

Scott Benner 39:08
But they never just tried to give you like Synthroid

Anonymous Speaker 39:12
not until I was sticking out

Scott Benner 39:14
until it was until it was gone. Okay. Alright, so you need to the Synthroid, you take and it needs to be away from food or other medications. So that's what I'm talking about. So you have to get up in the morning. Take the Synthroid, wait 30 minutes, take more and then eat or something like that. So your whole morning's kind of like screwed up like that. Yes. And Okay. And then the, what's the cocktail for the bipolar? Like? Do you mind sharing that?

Anonymous Speaker 39:42
You mean the specific drugs?

Scott Benner 39:43
I mean, if you want to if you don't want to, if you don't have to,

Anonymous Speaker 39:48
um, I take Seroquel. Um, I take Depakote and what's the other one? lamotrigine,

Scott Benner 40:03
I don't know why they can't give you things better names. And

Unknown Speaker 40:07
would be easier to remember.

Unknown Speaker 40:09
Really,

Scott Benner 40:10
why not call it like, I don't know, nevermind, I just I don't I actually understand the naming system through the FDA and why they make it, why they make them do it like this. But it's just, it's just difficult to remember when someone's on a drug their whole life, and they can't say it, that's a problem happens to everybody. So you take these three medications, that they have to be with food, or at certain times a day or anything like that.

Anonymous Speaker 40:34
Um, the circle needs to be spaced out through the day. Um, I take a pretty high dose that night, and then I take the other one in the morning. And then in the middle of the day, I take another one at lunchtime. And it usually makes me sleepy. So I'm probably the best time for me to drive is in the afternoon before dinner. So this is because of the medication. So

Scott Benner 40:58
this is one of these things has a very short half half life in your bodies, you have to keep taking it to keep the efficacy built up. Is that how that works? Yeah. Okay. And if you don't take that, what happens?

Anonymous Speaker 41:12
Um, the mania starts kicking in.

Scott Benner 41:14
Okay. Do you know what mania looks like? Or do you not know, you're like, do you not recognize like, I'm talking to now the person you are right now on using the medications? Do you fully understand what it looks like when you're not? Or do you not have that kind of recollection of it?

Anonymous Speaker 41:32
Um, I'm aware of it. But my impulse control is not there my tone, I could go to the grocery store. And in my mind, saying, I, I need this when it's actually a want. So I'm like, oh, like throwing things in the cart that I don't need. But my mind, I'm like, Oh, I, I need this, I just don't want it. And then so I spend a lot of money. And then I don't have a filter. So certain things that I say, should not be said to a certain person, or they can take offense to it. And that's not what I'm doing. And for some reason, I send out a bunch of cards, to friends, and like people that I know is thank yous and stuff like that. And if I start like, doing five or seven a day, it's kind of a red flag.

What else happens? I can't think of anything else that happens right off the top of my head. Well,

Scott Benner 42:30
greeting cards is, I mean, at least it's not like I kill five or seven cats a day, it's I send five or seven greeting cards. I mean, there's a high side here for certain, but spend a lot of money like, have you ever gotten in a situation where you've had to go and say, Look, this happened? I need to return these things. Like, is it been that bad? Or is that always something you guys can kind of cover on your own?

Anonymous Speaker 42:54
My husband really doesn't like returning anything. So he just kind of holds it over my head. Like,

Unknown Speaker 43:01
is there a mania room full of stuff you don't use?

Anonymous Speaker 43:04
No, it's actually not that bad. Because we usually hate sometimes when I'm at the store, I have to contact him and I'm like, Can I get this? And he'll either say yes or no. But I went to Costco, and which is not a very good place to go when you're manic. But I had bought this huge thing of powdered Parmesan cheese. And I and then I returned it and he needed it. He's like, Well, where is it? I'm like, well, you got so mad at me I returned it.

Scott Benner 43:39
Just imagine you're carrying a 50 pound bag of Parmesan cheese or something. He needs three pinches for something then goes for it. It's not there. And so some stuff, but we had 50 pounds of it now I just need three little benches.

So So anything you ever tried to hurt yourself or anything like that,

Anonymous Speaker 44:00
um, I was on material for a little while. And one of the main symptoms that got me was confusion. And that's when I had suicidal thoughts. with one eye when I was confused again, it's different from psychosis. psychosis is my mind. wouldn't let me go to sleep and it would just keep running. And then like I would walk around in my underwear, I would do like weird stuff. Like I would stare at the ceiling. It was bizarre, so I forgot where I was going with that.

Scott Benner 44:40
You were just telling me about psychosis. But I think we all got lost imagining you're walking around in your underwear and thinking we all thought holy real psychotics because it was walking around in my underwear like two hours ago. psychosis may occur as a result of psycho psychiatric illness. like schizophrenia and other instances that may be caused by health conditions or medications or drug use. So this one medication gave you these, these symptoms, you had to stop taking that. Yes, gotcha. How do you feel? Like, personally, can you separate the illnesses from you? Like, are you sad that this happens to you? Or have you made your peace with it that this is like how your life is? Do you not? Or you're not able to think about it that way?

Anonymous Speaker 45:33
No, I feel like I'm still in denial that I have it. I wish I could get over it and just kind of embrace it.

Scott Benner 45:41
Yeah, I don't I mean, how old are you again? 40. You're halfway there. I mean, I know we all want to think we're gonna live forever. But yeah, I saw my mom trying to get out of a chair the other day. Trust me. If you're still alive. It's not great. You're not in a you're not in a commercial. hanggliding 78 years old? Yeah. You're at home going? I hate the news. But I watch it. So Well, look, I gotta be honest with you. It's gotten me this far. I don't know that that's a terrible thing. And I don't is it denial? Or is it just the idea that you don't want to say it out loud? Because you're afraid of what will happen? Right? Because it's not Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 46:30
I don't want to be judged.

Scott Benner 46:32
But it's not like you think the bipolar thing will go into another gear, if you just say, I'm bipolar. And I have type one diabetes and all this stuff, socks, but this is what I got to do. You don't think it'll get worse if you like, just give yourself over to it?

Unknown Speaker 46:49
You mean?

Scott Benner 46:51
Like, I guess what I'm asking is, are you worried that you're on a precipice, and by not fully accepting that you have bipolar disorder that you're stopping yourself from? something worse happening? Or he just is to just suck to say out loud?

Unknown Speaker 47:10
It just sucks to say it out loud.

Unknown Speaker 47:11
Okay. All right.

Anonymous Speaker 47:14
That's why it was so scared. Like, that's why I kept emailing you and be like, Okay, I need to prepare for this. I don't know what I'm gonna say. Can you ask me the questions beforehand, so I can be ready with the answer. Well,

Scott Benner 47:27
that's why that's why my next question was going to be why in the hell did you want to do this? Is this you're trying to accept it. thing?

Unknown Speaker 47:35
Yeah. No,

Unknown Speaker 47:36
do you think it's gonna work your help?

Anonymous Speaker 47:39
Well, I can listen to it as many times as I want. You definitely can.

Scott Benner 47:43
Hey, that's a good point. If I just had enough people with enough problems, come on, I could get my downloads up by them just re listening to their basically, free therapy thing that we do here on the podcast.

Unknown Speaker 47:54
That's why I'm feeling it's like,

Scott Benner 47:56
is it hell? I mean, we're 45 minutes in How are you feeling?

Anonymous Speaker 48:01
Like I have more to say. lay it all out.

Scott Benner 48:05
Yeah. Well, then go ahead. What do you want people to know.

Unknown Speaker 48:09
Um,

Anonymous Speaker 48:11
one kind of fun thing is when I went to diabetes camp, they were called juice ferries. And because you're so active, and you had to walk to do everything and walk to the bathroom and walk to eat and stuff like that. They would test you before you went to bed and they would come and they would test your blood and give you juice and graham crackers with peanut butter. And they're called the juice fairy and then they leave you alone.

Unknown Speaker 48:39
So the juice fairy comes and Jacks up your blood sugar and then lets you sleep.

Anonymous Speaker 48:43
Yeah, basically. Well, if your blood sugar was high enough, obviously, they wouldn't give you anything. But

Scott Benner 48:51
I'm just thinking that the next time I have to go into Arden's room, I'm gonna say, hey, the juice fairies here. Never thought that before my life, but now I say it out loud. Yeah, I don't it's that that makes sense. It. The juice fairy is a is a nice way to how old were you when people you weren't like 20 years?

Anonymous Speaker 49:14
No, um, I think it was right after I was diagnosed. I was diagnosed in December. And because I was 14, I was still able to go to diabetes camp. Yeah. So I hadn't been diabetic for very long before I went there. Okay, I guess is what you do.

Scott Benner 49:32
I think if I ran a diabetes camp, it would look much different than other people's diabetes camps. And back in the day, I mean, 20 years ago, I did use very makes a lot of sense, but I was just thinking about that. I was like, what would you do? I get everybody together and we get their bases all straight and get their blood sugar stable, and then we go do a bunch of stuff. And that'd be it.

Anonymous Speaker 49:54
No, this is when everybody was on shots.

Scott Benner 49:56
Yeah, right. Just shooting and Hoping and if you got dizzy ate something

Anonymous Speaker 50:03
that was like a bonding time.

Scott Benner 50:06
I get that, like you're all waiting around to be dizzy. Did it happen to some people more than others? Yeah, were you one of those people? Or were you fairly? Not Not so much. So

Anonymous Speaker 50:21
what cuz I was still trying to figure out what to do. I think they had to test me a lot. Yeah.

Scott Benner 50:27
All right. Okay. Listen, a minute ago, you were like, a split second from your coming out party. And I was like, tell people what you want to know. And you're like, there were juice fairies a diabetes camp. That is not the way I thought you were gonna go? Did you check it out? Or is that the first thing that popped into your head?

Anonymous Speaker 50:44
No, when I was going over this morning, in my head, what I wanted to talk about that was the first thing that I thought was kind of fun,

Scott Benner 50:50
cool. It's definitely fun. But I want you to unburden your soul. Like, I want you to get out of this at the end and be able to walk around and treat your self the way you want to be treated. Because I feels like you want to be one way and you're stopping yourself. Because you don't want people to know. But I mean, you're aware, because I have not hidden it from you. I got a lot of people are going to hear this. So you're good now, like you told people and it's green because as many people here it, probably not one of them will know you. So it's true. Yeah. So you have you get the you get to have the reality of unburdening yourself and telling people without the unpleasant part of your dentists looking at you and going, I didn't know you had diabetes, or you know, something like that. So, I mean, I guess put yourself in that position, somebody is in front of you, and you want them to know, but you don't want them to judge you. What do you want them to know? You said, What do I sorry? You just cut out? No, I'm sorry. What would you want them to know? about you?

Anonymous Speaker 51:58
I think that I'm, it's not my fault. Like, I want them to know that. Because I have bipolar, there's something in my brain that's not working like you would think. And then it wasn't my fault that my pancreas decided to die. Like, I want to be able to express that and explain why I do the things that I do. And it's not my fault, that what I do, yeah. Does that make sense?

Scott Benner 52:26
No, it does. So similar to the idea of, you know, you're afraid if you if you if somebody is afraid if I say I have cancer, someone's gonna think well, what did you do to get it? diabetes? What did you do to get it you? Do you? I hope you understand, and maybe you don't, but my belief is that that reaction from other people is self defense. Like, they don't want it to happen to them, which is an obvious reaction. And the end, because it's nebulous, because there's no reason why you have bipolar, and I don't, or my daughter's thyroid works, not as well as someone else's. There's no reason for that. So the fear when you see it happen to other people is Oh, my gosh, this could just randomly happen to me. I don't want to deal with that feeling. So I have to ascribe a reason why this happen, and then avoid that reason. So you smoke, you have cancer, that's your fault. I don't smoke. I'm never going to get cancer. And then which isn't true, but makes people feel comfortable. Yeah. And, and for you, the most important thing is for people to know, like you didn't make some bad decision that made you bipolar, or, you know, eight, you know, 819 pounds of sugar, like some people just seem to assume that's how diabetes happens. And yeah, and that makes a lot of sense to me. It really does. Because, like, you didn't like smoke some like laced crack or something like that. And like, all of a sudden, you were bipolar. It just happened. Right, right. And even if you did, by the way, I want to say, I've never said this before. If you did smoke crack, and it messed you up, it's still not a good reason to just like, make you feel bad about it later. Like, I mean, it already happened. You don't mean, you didn't hurt anybody but yourself if that's what happened. So I don't know. I definitely understand what you're saying. So what's the fear? What happens to you if they say to you some version of what did you do to yourself to make that happen? If that's what they think, why does that matter to you?

Anonymous Speaker 54:41
Basically, I shut down.

Scott Benner 54:43
Ah, okay. So just the assumption that they think you've done something to cause it kind of pushes you into a different and bad place.

Unknown Speaker 54:54
Yeah. Got it. Okay.

Scott Benner 54:58
So you can't just ignore it. The way I would write, alright. Like, I don't actually care what other people think. I mean, I do in some very specific and important situations, but like in the grand scheme of things, small things that don't matter, your opinion of, you know, my politics, I don't care about you like that kind of thing. Like, you know, if I, my neighbor cuts his lawn in a really specific pattern that makes me think he has a mental illness. And I just sort of go around the perimeter of my house and cut wherever, like, I don't think I've ever cut my lawn the same way twice. I'm just like me, and I got the edge and it means nothing to me. I don't want to wake up And see the lines in the grass. I don't care. I just want the grass to be shorter. But if someone said that to me, like you don't cut your lawn, right? I'd be like, what? Whatever. And then that would be and then I would never think of it again. But that could actually make you go inside and say, I don't cut my lawn right? And you shut down, then how long does? How long does that last for? If you get pushed into that situation?

Anonymous Speaker 56:10
I think it depends on the person.

Scott Benner 56:13
So how much you feel it from them dictates how long you feel badly about it afterwards? So it would mean more coming from your husband or your mother than it would from someone you just met in the store or something like that?

Unknown Speaker 56:28
Yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 56:31
You alluded earlier that having your mother talk to you about your diabetes was not good for you? How often does is she involved still? How often does she get to say to you, you shouldn't eat that?

Anonymous Speaker 56:47
Only when she comes to visit? Oh, well, we ever since COVID, we've been talking or playing a game called trickster online. So we're able to play cards with with them in Colorado, because we're in South Carolina. And she doesn't really get to say what I eat until she gets here. And then my anxiety is going up because of her visit. And then my blood sugar's way out of whack.

Scott Benner 57:17
And just saying to her, Mom, I need you very I need you not to comment on my food. Why? And I don't want to see any side eye or stinky face or anything like that, when you see me do anything, because it really is bad for me. That wouldn't stop her from doing it.

Anonymous Speaker 57:33
I don't know what happened because I've never tried it.

Scott Benner 57:36
This is while we're playing trickster, we start we start talking about this a little bit. Or maybe you just have to. I mean, I assume the obvious answer is you need to call her on the phone and say, hey, look, there's no way you would ever know this. And I'm certainly don't want you to feel badly about it. Although I imagine you might. But please try not to for long. This is got an impact on me, I really need for this not to happen, you know, very matter of factly. Like, this is what happens. This is how it makes me feel. Can you please not do that? I know you have an understanding of diabetes that's a couple of decades old. And I appreciate everything you did for me back then. But the way people manage is really different now. And so when you tell me not to eat something or judge it, it's really hard for me, I really need you not to do that. Would that not put an end to it? Do you think

Anonymous Speaker 58:32
wide open would open our eyes to how she's been acting and that she's is living in the 1990s rather than in the 2020?

Unknown Speaker 58:46
range? feel bad, but a long time later. Right?

Anonymous Speaker 58:51
Yeah, don't. But that's why I want her to listen to your episode. And then we can talk about it afterwards. And I can like you, you know, I've kind of been feeling like when you come here I'm attacked. And that's not healthy for either one of us.

Scott Benner 59:09
Yeah. Well, you know, normal situation. By the way, it's not healthy for either one of you. But you have an extra layer with the bipolar. By the way, why could it not get a better name than bipolar? Maybe it's

Anonymous Speaker 59:21
exactly what used to be called manic depressive. manic depression.

Unknown Speaker 59:25
That's not it either.

Anonymous Speaker 59:27
No, that's not

Scott Benner 59:28
what's the name of that elephant in that Pixar movie? Maybe they should just pick like a random word. You know, Billy, and then just go you know, Billy, oh gal upset. And then I think it would be nicer anyway. We are not having a contest to rename bipolar disorder here on the podcast. Well, I hope that helps. I hope that um, that letting me basically let me do the heavy lifting part and then you come in and say, Hey, you heard that like, please don't do that anymore. Yeah, well, if she ever Listen to this like, Mom, you know, ease up. It's not that big of a deal. Like just she's doing something you don't understand and, and people don't. She's not using that old what we're using back there regular and mph mph. Yeah. Your daughter's using this fast acting insulin now it works so much differently. You don't have to do things the way you used to. And you can still get really great outcomes. And and you know, reduce variability. Are you going to CGM. Now surely I'd like you to have a CGM. But do you think it would make you nervous or upset?

Anonymous Speaker 1:00:41
No, I did try it probably in the pre stages. And I couldn't figure out how to make it. Oh, it wouldn't beep when I would become an arranger, because I was, I probably should have learned more about it before I put it on. But it would wake me up in the middle of night and he get mad. So I got so frustrated with that I even donated all the supplies back to my endocrinologist. But I I do feel like I've had it for long enough that I can tell when I'm higher low and I just have to test to confirm it.

Scott Benner 1:01:17
Okay, two things. Did we just assign the pronoun heat to bipolar? Or were we talking about your husband, he would get mad

Unknown Speaker 1:01:25
husband, okay.

Scott Benner 1:01:26
It's like maybe we're renaming bipolar right now. Just calling him. And that's not how that's gonna work like you. So you don't stop it from beeping, by learning how to turn the beeping off. You stop it from beeping by learning how to use your insulin. So you don't leave the range. Right? Yeah. But you didn't have the time like so you basically threw it on before you knew how you were going to use it. And then that starts beeping all night long. And I will say this, and I mean this with love. How you feel is not important to what your blood sugar is. If if people could just know what their blood sugar was by how they feel, then that's what everyone would do. And no one would be wearing a CGM. But the truth is, is if you put a CGM on and you can start looking at how different foods impact your blood sugar's you can start making different decisions about when the insulin goes in and stop those spikes and those falls. I know you haven't listened to the podcast that long, but if you ever feel like digging into the pro tip episodes, it was it'll walk you through all that stuff. And CGM work. I mean, I don't know how long ago you tried it the first time? Which one? Did you try it? Was it the Medtronic back then? Or was it the Dexcom? Like, seven plus, which one did you have? Do you remember?

Anonymous Speaker 1:02:44
I think, yeah, cuz I was on a mini med pump.

Scott Benner 1:02:47
So you had the Medtronic one. It is widely accepted that that Soc. So so now that Now Dexcom has something called the G six, or the g7 should be out pretty soon. There's another company called libri. That does like a flash CGM where you like hold your phone up to the thing and it gives you your blood sugar so you can see it more frequently. There's a lot of different ways to do this, where you could really kind of like manage your stability. And not I would tell you that I think that most most days, my daughter's blood sugar does not go over 140 even with food. And a major mess up would be 180.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:36
Wow. I used to have to calibrate it.

Scott Benner 1:03:39
Not anymore.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:41
Oh, wow.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:41
I mean, that was huge.

Scott Benner 1:03:42
Yeah, the caliber it used to be had to calibrate like every number of hours or something like that. g six does not require calibration. I have found sometimes at the end of a sensor, it you know, it starts to get a little wonky, then it might need a little help to get you to the last day, but it's fascinating. I'm looking at her last 24 hours now. And actually to go to our last 12 hours. Arden's blood sugar has been between 112 and 71 for the last 12 hours. And over, over 24 hours, there's Chinese food in there.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:22
Oh, wow.

Scott Benner 1:04:23
On a pump after a pump change, so her pump ran out of insulin, right. And we changed it and ate Chinese food in the same 20 minutes. 169 was our highest blood sugar. Wow, it only lasted for about 30 minutes before we got back to 118. So I think you can do that. I think anybody can do that. be perfectly honest with you. And I do wonder how much better you'd feel. If you cut some like spy And variability out of your life. Like maybe maybe you could maybe you could take some of the, you know, the thinking you have to do around diabetes and lessen it over time. Like I'm not saying you would learn in a day. But if you gave yourself time to absorb the ideas, listen through the episodes, got a CGM, I'd say six months later, you'd be in a better place. And you wouldn't have to rush yourself in that. Do you have the the my real question is do you have the ability to do something like that without letting it overwhelm you? Or do you? Can you do that?

Anonymous Speaker 1:05:37
If I take small steps?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:39
Yeah, you should.

Scott Benner 1:05:42
I mean, you should pick something. Tell your mom. Get a CGM. Do one of those things. Seriously, right outside your house right now. yell out loud. I have diabetes and bipolar disorder. Okay. By the way,

Unknown Speaker 1:05:58
if anybody's listening, well, that's

Scott Benner 1:05:59
perfect. Then you get the freedom of feeling like you did it. No one knows. So you said something earlier that I just have to ask about you said you. You were pregnant. Like how many children? do you have?

Anonymous Speaker 1:06:11
Just one, one of them?

Scott Benner 1:06:12
How weird is it to make a decision to have a baby when you have bipolar?

Anonymous Speaker 1:06:18
Well, when I was pregnant, it was under pretty good control.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:21
Okay.

Anonymous Speaker 1:06:23
I don't even remember it. She's 12. So it's been a little while. I was vegetarian at the time working in on the pump. So I would have to go to see the endocrinologist every week, every other week. And then the times in between those I went to get ultrasounds to make sure that she was okay. And diabetics typically have bigger babies. So she was nine pounds, nine ounces. And she was one day shorter being three weeks early.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:52
So

Anonymous Speaker 1:06:55
that's my pregnancy in a nutshell. Can

Scott Benner 1:06:57
you take the meds for the bipolar while you're pregnant? See, that's

Anonymous Speaker 1:07:00
what I was wondering. I think I had to lessen or I didn't have to have any at all.

Scott Benner 1:07:06
You had to for the baby. Yes, gotcha. But it's so longer you don't really remember the whole thing like,

Anonymous Speaker 1:07:14
this is not that long.

Scott Benner 1:07:15
Are you kidding me? What would you give to me? 12 years younger? I mean, I don't think I'd murder a stranger. But I think there are some things I would do to be 12 years younger, like, I think you can pretty much get me to probably like commit a small crime. I think 12 years is a lot I would take it. But there's no fear about like, even just like, did you think about what if I have a baby that ends up having type one diabetes? Was that a concern? Yes. Okay.

Anonymous Speaker 1:07:47
She's actually had the antibodies test and she passed it. So it it supposed to predict whether she has antibodies in the next five years to develop type one.

Scott Benner 1:07:59
Does she have What does she have any of the anybody's if there's like five they test for?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:04
Nope. Oh, that's lovely. She's good to go.

Scott Benner 1:08:07
Excellent. And do you worry about the bipolar thing? Like do you owe yourself like, try not to stress her and things like that?

Anonymous Speaker 1:08:16
Right. And try not to call attention to it. Anything if I start seeing symptoms in her I don't want to make her even more self conscious. Yeah, right. She's, she's in middle school and wants to fit in. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:08:30
And aren't there certain ages? That bipolar rears more than others? preteen teen like 1314 and then college age, right? Aren't those the two? I think I think it seems to come it's more specific ages. But I don't know if you've ever heard that or not?

Anonymous Speaker 1:08:50
No, I have.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:51
You have?

Scott Benner 1:08:55
Yeah, I mean, that would I just I think in general. I feel like that all the time. Like with the kids. I'm like, oh, if you can just get them past this age right here where this stuff usually happens. And then this you don't I mean, like you always just sort of feel like, I mean, while it's nothing you can you really can't control anything, right? Like what are you going to do just not be stressed out your entire life? Yeah, doesn't seem reasonable. The average age of onset is about 25. But it can occur in the teens were more uncommonly in childhood. Okay. So, you talked a lot about mania, but do you get depressed?

Unknown Speaker 1:09:33
No. You

Scott Benner 1:09:35
get more on the manic side but you don't ever get depressed. That's interesting. So is that definitely bipolar.

Anonymous Speaker 1:09:44
I don't even know if it's should be considered bipolar because bipolar obviously with the by it's the depression and the the mania or the anxiety. And you could also be rapid cycling. So you could have both but No, not really.

Scott Benner 1:10:01
Alright, I'm googling mania without depression. Okay, I'm gonna second.

Anonymous Speaker 1:10:06
I'm curious to know what it is to.

Scott Benner 1:10:08
You shouldn't go to all this stuff but I will Don't worry about there are lows minutes depressed. Wait, what's bipolar two? bipolar two involves a major depressive episode. Well, it's not you mean he is.

Anonymous Speaker 1:10:29
Bipolar two usually doesn't have psychosis. But

Scott Benner 1:10:32
do you think that's from the medication?

Anonymous Speaker 1:10:37
For type one,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:39
or type two? No. Do

Scott Benner 1:10:40
you think the psychosis came from that medication? Or do you have that with or without the medication?

Anonymous Speaker 1:10:45
When I was first diagnosed it, I had no medication. Right.

Scott Benner 1:10:49
Oh, okay. And that was what was happening. Yeah. So you there's so many different like, so self centered concerns and attitudes inflated self esteem, grandiose ideas. Do you have any of that?

Anonymous Speaker 1:11:03
grandiose ideas? Yes. Okay. Like you feel like you can take on the world and you, I can do all these projects in the house. And I'm like, I'm going to clean my closet and give everything away. And I'm going to clean every room in this house. So it's like speaking spans, so people can come over and visit and usually I don't finish the projects. Like in my mind, I'm like, Oh, yeah, it's gonna happen. But then I get distracted. You're very swell.

Scott Benner 1:11:29
You're so sweet. Like you thought of grandiose ideas is cleaning the house not like I think I can fly like nothing like heightened levels of energy, decreased need for sleep. Increased physical activity, feeling jumpy. any of that. Yeah, all the above. Okay. Rapid abstract speech. Excessive talkativeness. talkativeness. Frequent interruptions.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:50
Yes.

Scott Benner 1:11:52
You're not doing that today.

Anonymous Speaker 1:11:54
But I am random today.

Scott Benner 1:11:56
No, I am, too. It's not very helpful. Plus, I didn't like whoa, hold on. We'll talk about that in a second. racing thoughts, abrupt changes of mind frequent shifts in topic?

Anonymous Speaker 1:12:06
Yes. randomness. When it first starts happening. And my husband tells me afterwards, we'll be at dinner. And sometimes I make like they'll be talking about spaghetti and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, what about meatloaf and it completely Besides its food? It just completely blindsides everybody.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:26
You keyword it,

Anonymous Speaker 1:12:27
I didn't see that bridge

Scott Benner 1:12:29
you keyword jumpers that even more random than that, like, I know.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:33
It's topics.

Scott Benner 1:12:35
Like I know somebody like you could be talking about the fall of the Roman Empire. And and at some point in that conversation, like someone could just say, it was it was there were blue skies that day, and they're like, we should go on vacation. Like Like, right, like that. Okay.

Anonymous Speaker 1:12:51
Right. But in my mind, it makes sense.

Scott Benner 1:12:54
Yeah, well, why not your blue skies. Hyper focus on non essential tasks excessive and idealistic planning for future conduct? restlessness, motor agitation, like, I guess your limbs. Not so much. Not so much impulsive decision making poor judgment, reckless behavior, what's the most expensive thing you've ever bought? That you shouldn't have bought.

Anonymous Speaker 1:13:21
Um, I went to my eye doctor and had gotten my eyes dilated. And I told my husband that I was going to go to Costco and get like those really cheap glasses, like reading glasses, or universe caption but get the frames that are really cheap. And I went to the I looked in the Yellow Pages and found an ophthalmologist and went to see them. But $600 frames are with my glasses. He was not happy.

Scott Benner 1:13:52
You really are delightful. Like your biggest like, even with bipolar disorder. Your biggest spending spree was a $600 pair of glasses. Yeah, is that you didn't buy a car or person like you didn't like nothing crazy, right? You didn't like you didn't get involved in like human trafficking. Like you just just bought a pair of glasses. See your I think it's possible. This isn't as bad as you think it is. No, but seriously, it's it's very, I think, I think quite obviously the medications working like if you didn't have this medication, you'd you'd be out like yacht shopping or something like that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So well, that's good. That's really great. Your husband's not independently wealthy or anything like that.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:39
No, no.

Scott Benner 1:14:42
worries. doesn't tell you. A giant pile of money somewhere. He's like, Oh, we can't tell.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:50
So take it go.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:52
Oh my god show by so many parents.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:57
are like by the glasses by the sunglasses.

Scott Benner 1:15:00
I thought for sure you're gonna tell me like you got laser eye surgery or something like that. Like you're like I, you know, decided screw this I'm getting my lenses reshaped. They're doing that now. Did you know that there? It's sort of some version of like the cataract procedure, but it's for nearsightedness, so you don't need reading glasses anymore?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:19
Wow.

Scott Benner 1:15:20
I'll tell you, I might do that. I hate that. As I get older my visions. Like that's one of the things that bothers me more than anything else. It's just like me complaining to you.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:32
I can't read close up. Here's like my pancreas. Working.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:41
Sorry.

Scott Benner 1:15:45
Oh, my gosh, you are really lovely, by the way. Oh, thanks. Yeah. What was the concern about not knowing what we were going to talk about? While we were talking? How did that make you feel?

Anonymous Speaker 1:15:58
anxious. Well, excited and nervous. Also,

Scott Benner 1:16:02
did it end up mattering? where an hour and 15 minutes into this didn't matter? Oh,

Anonymous Speaker 1:16:07
my goodness. Seriously?

Scott Benner 1:16:09
Yeah. Did it end up mattering to you? No, no. Is that a lesson that you can do? Is that a lesson you can take with you? Or will it not work that way?

Anonymous Speaker 1:16:19
No, it's definitely a lesson.

Scott Benner 1:16:21
Yeah. I there's a handful of people and I don't remember them by name anymore. But it's fascinating like, because I'm very loose about how I booked the show. Like, there's, there's certain little protocols you kind of jumped through. And then once you've done that, you have to pick a time to record that significantly in the future. Now, you didn't have to do that. Because I've learned that people who have depression, or anxiety or mania, that kind of stuff, it's not good to put something too far off in the future for them. Like for the same reason, I'll put your episode up sooner, I will not make you wait six months for this to come out. Because it'll kill you. Like I've learned that. It's so I know out of kindness to you, this needs to go up pretty soon, right? You need a little time to think about it. And then it needs to appear. But for most people, most people have to like there are it's February right now. Actually, my son's birthday today. And oh, well, happy birthday to him, I will definitely tell them that. And I can tell you that I can scroll forward. There is someone booked to record this show as far out as the latest one I have right now is a woman named Leanne who's recording on November 2 2021. And there are so many recordings between now and that date, like well set up. And then so you have to want to be on the show because you have to book something out in the future then. And then I do very little to make sure that you're here. There's like I think two automated emails you get right, like one the day before and something. And then, but do you know that I've never turned this thing on and the person's not been there. They're always here. And that's how I make sure that I get people who really want to be on the podcast. Right. But that process did not work for you at all, and has not worked for a handful of people in the past. And I've learned to like accommodate that. But the problem is, I don't know what I'm going to talk to you about. And so I can't give you questions ahead of time. That makes me feel terrible. But I felt like you handled it. Okay. But I probably had to reassure you four to four times you think

Unknown Speaker 1:18:37
at least

Scott Benner 1:18:38
Yeah, we were married there for a minute. I was like, hold on let me help. But, but you never got to to work. Like you were worried. But it seemed like every time I I explained it to you were okay again. Was I reading that writer? Were you not okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:57
No, you were reading it right. I just need to be reassured.

Scott Benner 1:19:00
That's what I thought. Yeah, like, it's gonna be fine. Don't worry, it's gonna be great. You're gonna be great. I'm not gonna ask anything you don't know the answer to. And you even before we started, excuse me, you said like if I asked, like, if you ask something that I don't want to answer, what should I say that I come close to asking you something you didn't want to answer. Can you hold on a second? I apologize. What's a question? I don't know if this is the right thing to ask or not. But what question Could I have asked you that you would have said no, I'm not going to answer that.

Um, it does one come to mind without even telling me.

Anonymous Speaker 1:19:51
Um, maybe the fact that I've been hospitalized because it's such a stigma that in Till now, I don't like to talk about it.

Scott Benner 1:20:03
Interesting because the craziest thing I thought of asking you that I didn't ask you was Has this ever led to any weird sexual encounters that you regret? that literally is one of the questions I had.

Anonymous Speaker 1:20:16
That was one of the symptoms of bipolar Taiwan, right?

Scott Benner 1:20:19
I don't know. I'm just I just been like, since you emailed me months ago. I'm like, I wonder if they just run around banging people before they know about the medication and stuff. Does that but I don't want to ask like that. Because well, seems rude. But that's that's one. You don't have to answer by the way, but like, that's one of unless you want to

Anonymous Speaker 1:20:38
know, I can answer. It's not that's not the case.

Scott Benner 1:20:41
Didn't happen for you like that. No. Does it happen to some people?

Unknown Speaker 1:20:45
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:20:47
Everything's just bang, bang time. Right, just based and that's the impulsiveness. And I would imagine there's impulsiveness involved feels like there's probably that whole like intensity and love. And like all that stuff probably gets mishmash together.

Anonymous Speaker 1:21:04
That's no conscience.

Scott Benner 1:21:05
Yeah. So it's just you don't have to worry that you don't know the person or anything like that. But that hasn't happened to you. does it impact your personal sex life?

Unknown Speaker 1:21:18
Stop

Scott Benner 1:21:18
jealousy. We found one I knew I could be if I tried hard enough. So yeah, you don't I that's, that's, that's all I was saying earlier. Like, just say, Don't ask me that. So now, how do you like knowing you're not going to have to answer that question? Does it still make you uncomfortable that it was asked? Yes. Gotcha. Did I ruin something? Like, Did I ruin your day? By asking that or? No?

Unknown Speaker 1:21:44
I'll get over it.

Scott Benner 1:21:46
But it sticks with you for a second. Gotcha. Does it like? Is it like being excited or scared? Does it feel like somebody walked up behind you and said, boo? Or is it deeper than that?

Unknown Speaker 1:21:57
Think it's deeper? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:21:59
that's really interesting. I appreciate you sharing this, because there's no way for me or other people to know about any of that. And the only way is going to be if people like you are willing to tell stories and answer questions and tell other people how they feel. Because there's no way for me to like I've had people ask me questions that I didn't want to answer. And, you know, eight seconds later, that experience is over for me. It's really something I'm sorry, by the way that this happened to you because it is really random. And you obviously didn't do anything to cause any of this. just bad luck, right? Is that how you want to think of it? What guide I'm sorry to mean to stop you.

Anonymous Speaker 1:22:44
I don't remember as in say, maybe that's a symptom of my medication.

Scott Benner 1:22:52
Seriously, it's just the thing that happens when you get to 40. I had a little glitch here. And then we had to stop for a second. But we were just really kind of up on it. And I wanted to, I wanted to thank you for doing this and see if there's anything left that we didn't talk about that you wanted to talk about.

Anonymous Speaker 1:23:11
When I was reviewing in my mind what I think I wanted to talk about, um, you had mentioned that asked me if I become depressed? And I said no. And it's usually because the little things in my life. Like I love wearing fun earrings, and I love wearing fun socks. And like my socks right now have little mice and cheese on them. So I think that's kind of puts my mind in perspective to not be depressed.

Scott Benner 1:23:40
So you have like, just little like things around you that that help you stay kind of focused on happy stuff. Is that fair?

Anonymous Speaker 1:23:48
Yeah. Yeah, pictures and good movies. And

Scott Benner 1:23:52
that's excellent. I that so that that's a part of your process for for living? Well. That's excellent. That and how did you figure that out?

Anonymous Speaker 1:24:06
Like, well, I was. I don't know about the Sox. I feel like that's always happened. But after I got my ears pierced at 10 it was just fun exchanging them and being like, okay, it's Halloween. So I'm going to put a jack o' lantern on my ears and it's gonna be Fourth of July. So I'm gonna put on red, white and blue and stuff like that.

Scott Benner 1:24:27
Just a happy memory from when you were a little.

Anonymous Speaker 1:24:30
Well, that's my golden birthday. Because I was born on the 10th of the month.

Scott Benner 1:24:35
Your golden birthday. I don't know what that means. Tell me what that means.

Anonymous Speaker 1:24:39
Well, whatever day you were born, like the number day, it's your golden birthday when you turn that age.

Scott Benner 1:24:45
Oh, so if I'm born in the 10th when I turned 10 years old. Yes. I think I've never heard that before my life.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:52
Did I make it up?

Scott Benner 1:24:53
I don't know if he made it up. But I totally missed my golden birthday when I was 12. I wish someone would have said something At least had to have been worth an extra gift. And now I got nothing out of it 24 maybe I can, I already missed my 48th I'm gonna have to wait forever for the next time for it to come around. Alright, I got this I got screwed. I I never know why people in situations similar to yours want to do this. But I'm always very grateful that they do. I think that for you this hour and a half will be one thing. And I think for people listening, it'll be something completely different. And so I wanted to share with you something that a listener shared with me recently, they said that they've learned so much about the world listening to the podcast beyond type one diabetes, because so many different people come on and tell stories that aren't, you know, specifically connected to type one all the time. And, and they thought they said that, you know, it's just, they never thought they would learn something about, you know, I, you know, I forget what the example was back then. But they learned something completely disconnected from diabetes from the show. And I think that you sharing this will help somebody else understand how you feel, and maybe that'll maybe that'll move people's opinions in a certain direction. So that one day someone in your position won't have to worry that, you know, a person will believe that they broke themselves or, you know, did something on purpose or, you know, by being just not careful and led to something like diabetes are order bipolar. So, I think you did that I think you definitely explained to so your, your you spoke to me for the last hour and a half. And I have to tell you, and I I don't know if you would believe this, but if you didn't tell me you had bipolar disorder, we could have just talked about diabetes, and I would have known. Well, that makes me feel good. I'm just gonna say, Are you aware of that? Or do you think that the minute you open your mouth, people are looking at you going there's something wrong?

Unknown Speaker 1:27:05
Um,

Anonymous Speaker 1:27:10
I don't know how to answer that. That's okay. Because it might be both.

Scott Benner 1:27:15
Well, okay, that's fair. But from my perspective, it's not. And I talked to a lot of people, a lot of people. So you don't, you don't make me think like, Oh, I wonder what else is going on here? You know what I mean? Like, it just doesn't, it doesn't seem like you're a person who's got some deep, dark secrets that they're hiding. You seem very real and honest. And then, yeah, you're lovely. You just seem nice. Cheers. Thank you. You're welcome. Plus, you said he threw you threw me off in the beginning, because you said Barbara Davis. But then you said bless their heart in like the same five seconds. How'd she get from the south to Colorado? And then I didn't want to get I didn't want to get sidetracked. So I didn't ask you. But But no, you honestly, if you think that people are looking at you thinking something's out of your out of line? I mean, I can't see you. But from talking to you, I have no, like, if you're wearing like a tinfoil hat, then maybe. Maybe you're not are you?

Unknown Speaker 1:28:20
No. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:24
I think you're okay.

Scott Benner 1:28:28
Can I ask you one last question before we stop? Yes, sir. Do you have any idea of how it feels for your daughter? To have a parent who has bipolar? Like, what's her? What's Is there a change to her life because of that or not particularly?

Anonymous Speaker 1:28:45
She definitely is her personality being an only child that she likes to be bossy. And when I would go through that confusion state, she would always say that she flips being a child to being an adult and to take care of me. So that's her, and she's very proud of it. She'll tell anybody. She's like, I gotta take care of my mom. She needs my help right now.

Scott Benner 1:29:12
Probably like being a lion tamer in those moments. Sharon a whip, right? She's like, I'm trying to keep her from buying glasses and a big bag of Parmesan cheese.

Anonymous Speaker 1:29:25
Well, she's just as bad as me when we go to the store.

Scott Benner 1:29:29
Well, listen, everybody loves to go shopping. I don't know. I think that there'd be a great game show or a reality show where we just take you off your medicine from it and give you $1,000 and see what happens.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:40
Oh, my.

Scott Benner 1:29:42
I feel like he would just buy bulk food. Oh my god at least promised me that the next time you lose it and go do something like that you pie something fun. Get yourself some air pods or something? I don't know. Oh my god. Alright, let's Let me say goodbye. And thank you very much for doing this.

Well, I want to thank you very much for being on the podcast today and opening up about her life with Type One Diabetes, or thyroid issues. And her bipolar disorder. Not only did we hear a real vibrant, lovely person, we have a better understanding now of bipolar. We heard it from a person who has a wonderful sense of humor, and a great sense of purpose. coming on the show to share these things cannot be easy. I really appreciate it when people do it. Thank you. Thank you very much. I won't say your name. Because I don't wanna have to bleep myself again. But I really appreciate you doing the show. You know what else I appreciate it, appreciate Dexcom on the pod and touched by type one. In fact, thank you to all the sponsors of the podcast for supporting this kind of content. Find out more about the Dexcom g6 continuous glucose monitor dexcom.com/juicebox. See if you're eligible for that free 30 day trial the Omni pod dash tubeless insulin pump at Omnipod.com/juicebox and of course, the greatest things in the world seem to happen at touched by type one.org. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player links at JuiceboxPodcast.com where you can just type those addresses into any internet browser. I'd also like to thank you for listening today for supporting and sharing the show and for leaving those amazing reviews. Wherever you listen. If you have a story that you think would be great on the Juicebox Podcast, either in these after dark series or otherwise, send me an email. I currently have some space available in the last third of 2021 for some recordings, maybe it'll be you.

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