Removing Drama from Type 1 Diabetes for 58+ Years

57 Years as A Type One Diabetic: Perfection is Over-rated, Just Be Good!

Love to hear your feedback, text us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2318160/open_sms] EPISODE 7: Fifty-seven Years as Type One Diabetic, Don’t be Perfect Just Be Good    This podcast introduces a series of priorities that have paved the way for me to enjoy 57 years as a Type One Diabetic, and still counting.  Knocking on wood here, but to this day, I am still lucky to have avoided hospitalizations and emergency room visits for unstable blood sugars during those years.  Even more important, I have been fortunate to have minimized and averted many common complications of Type Ones who’ve had the condition as long as I have.  Still active, still engaged, and I remain positive about the future.  I even have all my original equipment ! In this podcast, I lay out the priorities that have made my lifetime journey enjoyable and rewarding.  The biggest surprise so far, “you don’t have to be perfect, just be good” in managing Type One every day!  Listen to this podcast and several others to follow, for more details !  Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2318160/support]

Diabetes Can Be Wild: Mingling with Elephants of Makhanda, South Africa

Love to hear your feedback, text us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2318160/open_sms] EPISODE 6 PART 5 “Diabetes Can Be Wild:  Mingling with the Elephants of Makhanda, South Africa”  Well, at long last, here is the second and final part of my podcasts about how I navigated Type One diabetes on safari in rural southeastern South Affrica --- Mahkanda, to be exact.  It recounts my 5 days of encounters with the amazing elephants of Makhanda, how beautiful, respectful and, yes, how playful the elephants were, as my family and I mingled among them.  Using some special family footage dating back to the 1960s,  I add a bit of nostalgia, as I thought what it was liking splashing, playing and eating by the river back home during one of  my own family’s summertime picnics.  My safari vacation also includes re-telling some special encounters with the wonderful residents and vendors of Camps Bay, in Capetown, at the end of my family vacation.   Finally, looking back one year, I share results about the impact that 10 days in South Africa has had on managing my own Type One. The results may surprise you ! During this podcast, I am sure you’ll discover some amazing footage of the elephants in summertime, and my own family from 60+ years ago !  Truly beautiful creatures and special family times !   Let me know any comments you have about my wild adventure, and of course, and those of your own.   Leave them at @BrianBalicki-type1-1953 or “fanlist.com/the juice”.  Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2318160/support]

Diabetes Can Be Wild! Navigating Type One and Big 5 on South African Safari

Love to hear your feedback, text us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2318160/open_sms] EPISODE 6 PART 4 “Diabetes Can Be Wild:  Navigating Type One and the Big 5 while on Safari and in Capetown South Africa”  In this podcast, I reflect on 10 days of personal experience as a Type One Diabetic in South Africa.   My 10 day family vacation occurred during the Xmas season in South Africa, their Springtime to be exact.  The experience was truly an adventure.   I was reminded how I navigated my earliest days as a Type One, 56 years earlier.  It was an entirely new frontier back then, as it turned out to be recently in South Africa.  Fast forward to today, South Africa served as the backdrop for an experience in which I relied on family, along with a network of “frontier” professionals to navigate the daily, sometimes anxious and tense encounters with the Big 5 and other challenges of the South African Bush. Like my support back in 1968, this network was multi-skilled and multi-disciplinary, for sure, but with a key difference. They were not health care professionals.  Instead they were highly experienced in veterinary medicine, environmental sciences, natural resource management, South African healthy cuisine, and sincerely nice people from the land down under. All of this combined to help my family and I to NOT just survive, but to MINGLE with the Big 5 in a very profound, personal and dramatic manner.  Yes, “Diabetes CAN be Wild” in the South African Bush.  Check out the podcast.    Let me know any comments you have about my wild adventure, and of course, and any of your own.   Leave them at @BrianBalicki-type1-1953 or “fanlist.com/the juice”.  Happy Holidays !    Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2318160/support]

Episode 6, Part 3 (Multi-media) Into and Out of Africa

Love to hear your feedback, text us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2318160/open_sms] In this podcast, I compare my earliest days as a Type One, back in 1968 – 1970, to parts of a recent trip to South Africa that were eerily similar to those early days.  I review  some early thoughts when I prepared for my trip.  I also talk about certain  anxieties, and how they were grounded in actual experiences from prior vacations over my 56 years as a Type 1.  I also review important personal health metrics that set the stage for changes that followed during and after my travel.  This time, I was traveling to one of the most southern parts of the planet, to a region where diabetes is an equal, if not greater public health issue, than here in the US.  And, I would be on safari, where any number of things could have “gone south”.  On many occasions, I was within a “stone’s throw away” from the Big 5, just to add even more drama to the experience.  There were surprises before during and after the trip.  Tune in for more details about my travels “Into and Out of Africa”.  Also, be sure to listen in on the Premiere of Mark Short and the local Makhanda Orchestra’s “Seven Generations” at the Makhanda Festival in 2022, the year before my trip.  GREAT STUFF for jazz buffs with a little South African twist! Let me know any comments you have about my “early days”, and of course, your own.   Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2318160/support]

Ep6 Pt 2 Dead Endocrinologists Don't Lie 100124

Love to hear your feedback, text us! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2318160/open_sms] “DEAD DOCTORS DON’T LIE”, SEASON 1, Ep6, Pt2 This podcast is the second in a 3 part series, and reviews my earliest days as a Type One diabetic.  It’s an episode that is relevant to all Type Ones and Twos, who may be struggling, frustrated, anxious, dissatisfied, or just plain disappointed in their progress managing themselves.  Looking back, I felt that way many times in my earliest days as a Type One.  I guess it was human nature to feel that way.  But the most important personal lesson that I drew from that time was, you don’t need to be perfect managing yourself, just be good.  That approach ensures you may experience a longer, rewarding, enjoyable life time, than otherwise.  I recall my experiences being treated by my first “endocrinologist” back in 1969.  I was not under his care for very long, as he was very demanding of me back then, and probably not as demanding of himself, in managing his personal health.  He himself passed away at a young age.  I learned “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie”.  Listen in for more details about that experience.  Support the show [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2318160/support]