Sorry, the above is a photo not a video. That said, I’m a big fan of Dr. Mark Hyman. Hyman is the Functional Medicine Director at Cleveland Clinic and a blazing advocate for “health-care” as opposed to traditional medical “sick-care.”

On his podcast, The Doctor’s Farmacy, Hyman interviews various experts in chronic conditions, the microbiome, healthy eating, social injustice and his podcasts areinformative, easy to understand for the lay person and passion-driven.

In fact, after just listening to the last one, Corruption in the Food Industry and the Challenge with Our Dietary Guidelines, as I was making dinner, I’m ready to join any advocacy group to put nutrition back into our diets, federal programs and communities. You probably know Trump has just managed to decimate Michelle Obama’s efforts to have schools offer healthy lunches.

If you want a worthwhile health podcast to listen to this is one of my favorites. Many of his interviews are also shown in video form on YouTube.

Hedia is perhaps the next generation of diabetes apps now available in Denmark and the UK. They aim to offer their services in the U.S. later this year. They approached me to share my experience living with diabetes and flourishing with the condition in a post.

The husband and I on our recent trip through South Korea and Japan

It’s quite ironic really, well the Danish part. Copenhagen appears a little hotbed of flourishing. The Steno Diabetes Institute  has invited me twice to share the Flourishing Approach. Why ironic? Because Copenhagen was where I gained 15 pounds my junior year abroad when I discovered the creamiest vanilla soft serve ice cream and decadent open face chocolate sandwiches.

Today I skill health professionals who work with people who have diabetes in a more humanistic approach, to help them help people with diabetes flourish. It’s joyful work. Living with diabetes, well, as you probably know, holds both highs and lows – every day and every blood sugar. Below a brief excerpt the post:

Could you tell us how you’re coping when having a tough day with diabetes? “Bad days take the wind out of me. I’m disappointed or frustrated by my blood sugars, they’re doing something totally unexpected, or I’m worried that a twinge or a tingle somewhere in my body means I’m getting a complication…”

Full post.

The headline is the story but first let me say forgive me for my absence here. For the past two weeks I have been helping a dear friend who was in the hospital. First as a patient advocate. Not in the diabetes sense, merely in the everyone in the hospital needs an advocate. I have told the husband this time and time again, “If I’m ever in the hospital, you better be watching over me like a hawk?” Second, I was helping my friend transition home the first few days after being released from the hospital.

I have learned a lot about how hospitals run and I’m more frightened than ever. While my friend was in a major, well reputed New York City hospital, the fragmentation of care and tactical application of care by the nurses made me feel overwhelmingly sad, then mad. I do believe the care of “tending” to one as a human being is integral to one’s recovery from any ailment.

But, on to other news. This story passed my desk and I think it’s well worth noting: it reminds me what we do does make a difference. The Team Type 1 Foundation who have long built a relationship with the Health Ministry in Rwanda helped Abbott, maker of the Freestyle Libre, donate glucose meters and nearly 12 million test strips to people living with diabetes in Rwanda. Amen.