Saturday 3 November 2012

Working Girl!

I have been ridiculously busy recently from applying to colleges through UCAS (more on that in later posts!) to knitting christmas projects (I know its early but its a cheap way to make presents this year so I can save money! - I also know that knitting makes me sound like and old lady!) to starting work, which leads me onto this post.

I haven't really had a 'proper' job before, and by that I mean I had a small amount casual work at my parents business which I don't count as a proper job as I didn't have to do a lot of work to get it and I also didn't have any regular hours as such. So now I have a job in the Christmas department of a garden centre which is lets not lie pretty boring but also raises a few questions in terms of working and diabetes.

The first question I have come across is when, how and who do I tell about my diabetes? 
I think this is probably up to the individual and what sort of work place it is, I told the person senior to me who I am going to be around most of the time, after the interview and when I had got the job, this was because I'm worried about the interviewers seeing the long term disease and thinking 'It's not worth the risk, what if she's always off ill and isn't at all reliable?' I don't know how much of an issue this actually is but it does niggle in my mind a fair amount.
I explained about having type 1 in a casual manner i.e. 'Something you should know is I have Type 1 diabetes. It shouldn't affect my work but may mean that I need to do a blood sugar test at some points during the day.' If I'm honest she didn't really know what to do with that information and just sort of said 'oh ok then.'

A second issue when it comes to working is all the stuff you have to lug around with you everywhere you go when you have diabetes.

I have 3 vital things to carry
  1. My pump: Carried in a handy leather case which it came with from Animas. This looks a lot smarter than being simply clipped to my trousers or tucked into my pocket.
  2. A BG tester: Which I put in a SpiBelt around my waist under my T-Shirt with the tester at the small of my back. It can't be seen but isn't awfully comfortable.
  3. A treatment for hypoglycaemia: I carry GlucoTabs with me at all times in a tube as they are easy to eat, at work I put the tube in another SpiBelt around my waist the same as my tester.
I'm have just ordered a SpiBelt with two pouches in so I only have to carry one belt which could be a bit more comfortable than carrying two.

How to handle lows? How do I test?
These are questions that can be different every time, obviously I can't really test right in front of customers on the shop floor so when it is busy testing becomes a slight issue, I try and find a quiet area to do a quick test discretely but that isn't always easy and can be made harder if I'm low and trying to get my tester out to actually do a test! There is a small desk I can 'hide' my tester behind to do a test but I still feel really conscious of doing where other people are, I'm not normally conscious but whilst working I just want to be a normal person! To prevent lows I have been using a lot of temporary basal rates generally of -50% and if I am low I just have a GlucoTab and continue at a slower pace! Being low is never the best time to explain to someone what being low is actually like!

So theres some of the things I'm finding difficult at work. It would be nice to hear some of your issues and tips for working in this environment! 

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