This Week’s Guests

Erik Douds - Founder, Diabadass

Erik Douds is an adventure filmmaker and educator living with Type 1 Diabetes. He is based outside of New York City. Yet, many nights are spent in the outdoors with his bike “Dark Roast.” His YouTube channel focuses on travel, technology, and managing type 1 diabetes. His stories have included biking across America, living in Ethiopia, hiking in New Zealand, two failed skydiving attempts, and other adventures.

Erik creates content for top outdoor brands like REI, Pearl iZUMi, Arc’Teryx, Revo, Adventure Cycling, Sea to Summit, and BioLite. Trips include biking the Trans America Trail, running the Copenhagen marathon, and touring Alaska.

Diabadass.com shares expert knowledge through online courses that use step-by-step video and written instructions to show others living with diabetes how to go anywhere and do anything.

He has spoken at American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure, competed for team Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund, writes for Diabetes Daily, and has been recognized as an exceptional donor by the Harvey E Nussbaum M.D. society.

In this episode:

What is the Take a Hike, Diabadass giveaway?
How did Diabadass start?
Erik’s bike ride across the US
What can we do to foster more unity in the diabetes community?
If Erik had a magic wand, what would he do with it?

and musical guests, Indubious:

Evton (a.k.a. Evan) and Skip Burton, the two brothers who (along with drummer Matty T. Wells) make up Indubious, the Oregon-based, Billboard Reggae Chart-topping trio, have each endured through a long ongoing battle with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). While it is rare for two brothers to both have CF, both Evan and Skip have been living for the majority of their lives with it, but they have managed to not only beat the odds of survival, but have thrived physically, mentally, and creatively. The latest proof of this comes in the form of their new album, The Bridge, which comes out April 9 on Easy Star Records.

CF is a progressive, genetic disease that causes persistent lung infections and limits the ability to breathe over time, and ultimately causes premature death. Both brothers were diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at a young age and were not expected to live past their teenage years. Thanks to some help from modern medicine, along with a positive, spiritual, holistic approach to life and health, Evan and Skip were able to beat the odds. They live by their own mantra, which they dubbed Mystic Vibrosis, which was born from the “‘mystic vibration’ of our own paths,” as they describe it.

Almost a decade ago, Evan was on a transplant list with an 8% lung function, as time was rapidly running out for him. Miraculously, his blood type was matched and after 15 hours of surgery Evan received a new chance at life. The song “I Can Breathe” from The Bridge outlines the incredible blessing it is to have the gift of life and breath. After Evan received the transplant, Indubious went back to performing and touring, and then Skip’s health, while not being nearly as bad as Evan’s pre-transplant, began to deteriorate and he was in and out of the hospital for years, until recently when a new drug changed his life - putting both Evan and Skip in great health simultaneously for an extended period for the first time since childhood. These health issues constantly stunted any progress Indubious made as a band – each time they felt like things were coming together, they’d be set back, but now they are stronger than ever, with their most personal album to date, and ready to tour when it safely returns.

“Live Indubiously” is the band’s tag line, and stems in part from their CF experience. The band explains, “Indubious means ‘undoubtful, or certain’ - and so we adopted Live Indubiously as a way of saying we look at everything we’ve been handed as a blessing, that CF was the greatest blessing that we could ask for, because it allowed us to look at what most people consider ‘bad’ as the single most amazing element to our evolution as people, the construction of our character, and knowledge of what really matters. A close affiliation with death, allowed us to truly live, to be grateful for the gift of life, and to strive to see the things we were most scared of initially as the catalyst to the greatest knowledge of who we were as people.”

Indubious has cultivated a dedicated fan base, affectionately called Indubians, with their impressive instrumental skill, powerful harmonies, and an electrifying stage presence. In addition to their memorable live shows, which have put them on numerous U.S. festival stages, as well as on tour with The Movement, HIRIE, Stephen Marley, Iya Terra, Wookiefoot, and others, Indubious are no strangers to chart success. Their 2019 album Beleaf debuted at #1 on the Billboard Reggae Chart and #2 on the iTunes Reggae Chart, which marked a new high for the band building on the previous success of their2017 album From Zero, which debuted at #6 on the Billboard Reggae Chart and #8 on the iTunes Reggae Charts. With The Bridge, Indubious is poised for a big breakout year.