Ricky Woodard is a regular at Eskenazi Health Center’s Diabetes Education Program and other lifestyle medicine programs, where he learns “different ways to eat, different ways to prepare food and the equipment that you need at home to check your blood pressure and how to read your meters …. ”

The groups are led by Eskenazi Health dietitians and include sessions with other team members such as primary care providers, pharmacists, physical therapists, lifestyle wellness coaches and mental health professionals.

Woodard is surprised by the healthy food he’s willing to sample during the hands-on cooking sessions in groups he’s attending, including “one I fell in love with. It’s called tofu,” he says, laughing. “Tofu!” His sister Lisa, a vegetarian, had been trying to get him to try it for ages.

Now 58, Woodard was shocked when he discovered he had diabetes in his early twenties, saying he “never was sick.” He was busying himself with his social life and work to dull his pain over his mother’s death when a health concern brought him to the hospital. That’s when he found out he had a chronic disease.

Diabetes wasn’t the only health setback Woodard faced before he’d even turned 25. Heading home from his job on the night shift, he rolled his car and wound up at what was then Wishard Hospital (now Eskenazi Health). He says being treated for what had caused the accident — an aneurism in his brain — kept him hospitalized for weeks.

“If it weren’t for the doctors over at Eskenazi [Health] … I probably would have been dead,” he says. “I’m blessed to be here.”

After he got home, “I was down about two years,” he says, “trying to recuperate.” One outlet in these years of recovery that has continued since is a favorite hobby: DJing on the radio. “I can talk all night and all day,” he laughs. One topic he’s covered on air is diabetes. He used to attend group sessions offered elsewhere, but when Eskenazi Health Center locations began their own programming over 12 years ago focusing on diabetes as well as on nutrition and exercise, he quickly joined, pleased that groups were being offered regularly by his primary care team.

He gathers insights from his peers in these sessions, most recently at Eskenazi Health Center Grande. “It’s a bunch of us in the class,” he says. “But we all know we all got diabetes …. We listen how different medications help different people.”

Woodard agreed to be an occasional speaker at these groups, sharing wise — and often humorous — tips on healthy coping. During a recent session, he warned his peers not to cheat themselves of the occasional small indulgence or they’d fall into his usual trap: going to Long’s Bakery for donuts and “getting a dozen,” only to “get home, and the dozen is gone.”

He asks peers to commit to the lifestyle changes that diabetes requires: to improve nutrition, watch their A1C levels and keep up with their check-ups and medication. “If you don’t want to do that,” he says, “think about your loved ones and think about your life because this is a chronic disease.”

“We learn, read your labels. See what you’re putting in your body,” he says. “You can live a normal life as long as you take care of yourself,” he says. For him, part of that normal life is walking his dogs, who he says have “kept me going.” His family is aware of his love for canines: “Everybody leaves, gets sick or goes out of town, I wind up with their dog,” he jokes.

Woodard is honest about mistakes he’s made. “I’m not touching another snow shovel,” he says. “My shoulders hurt; everything hurts. Things you used to do, you just can’t do.” As far as depression, he says matter-of-factly, “you’re gonna have that,” adding that those with diabetes should “find someone that you can talk to” and “don’t judge it.” He also advises peers coping with the disease to retain their humor. “We all need some laughter in our life, I tell you,” he says, “because everything ain’t easy, and everything ain’t gravy.”

After attending a recent session, he confided in the group leaders, “I wish this class was here 25 years ago, the way it’s run now ’cause y’all have done so much and have taught me so much in a short time.”

“I’m just thankful,” Woodard says, “that I’m still here and able to move around and feeling better and getting better and [am] beating up diabetes. Beating it up!”