Diabetic Recipes
A number of you left comments on my post about leaving little clues about my diabetes diagnosis for my boss in an email. Several of you were pretty critical of my actions.
Long-time readers of my blog, though, will know that I’ve decided to take a different approach at my new job. When I was diagnosed, I was less than a year into a job I loved with people I loved and respected. I had no problem telling just about everyone about my diagnosis. In fact, I felt relieved knowing everyone knew.
When I started my last job in May, it was important to me that the people I worked with knew about my diagnosis and how to treat me if I was having problems. I decided to take a different approach with my new new job that I started in August. I decided not to talk about diabetes, to make sure I had adequate supplies to treat a low, to go about my daily diabetes life, to attempt to seamlessly integrate this disease into my work life.
That post was not meant to "bemoan" my boss's possible lack of knowledge or understanding about diabetes. It was meant simply to show one slice of work-life with diabetes, particularly since not everyone with diabetes is "out." And, yes, if a friend of mine or co-worker had a chronic illness, I would learn as much about it as I could.
Right now I’m teetering on a fine line. On one hand I really want to just come out and say, “look guys I have diabetes so if I’m ever acting weird or if I ever ask you to get me a regular soda, this is why”, and be able to answer questions about diabetes, blood sugar management and my pump. (I suspect they already know since I'm not secretive about testing or my pump.) And on the other hand I want to be able to take care of it myself and just have it fade into the background.
Some of you have wondered, rather bluntly, why it’s so important for other people to know we have diabetes. It’s incredibly important mainly from a safety standpoint. We can’t control everything when it comes to diabetes. No matter how well controlled we are, no matter how many times we test, no matter how carefully we count carbs there are still variables that we can’t always account for.
I can think of two instances right now where I thought I did everything right and still ended up at 29 and 40. And how absolutely thrilled was I to have had people with me or near me who understood the urgency of “Can you get me a non-diet soda?”
hello everyone. not new to diabetes (type 2), but new to this site. yes, i'm still trying to cope with my diabetes, which was being treated with oral meds, but has moved to insulin shots, 30 units. i could manage my diabetes if i could control my ADDICTION to food. my addiction is worse in the evening than it is during the day. i'm jokingly think of myself as a vampire, appetite suppressed during the day, but rages when the sun goes down. i've sat on my hands and watched the clock to keep from going out and finding something in a drive thru or gas station or all nite market. i can plan my meals, eat right, the whole nine yards and ruin it all in the hours after 9 or 10 pm. then i cry in the am when my blood sugars are between 189 and 235. i'm at my wits end. tried oa doesn't work for me. call friends, get online, watch an intriguing program on tv, watch something about someone whose in a situation worst than mine. i pray to g-d, i cry to g-d, i scream (but not at g-d and not to loudly, don't want to wake my family). i'm screaming for help. i understand the alcholic and drug addicts plight. but they can do without those things and still live. i'm fine til i put that first bite in my mouth and i'm off to the races. any comments, anyone else feel like i do.
mamayemi,
Go to the message boards and post on the Type 2 Clubhouse board. You'll get a lot of helpful and understanding responses. You won't get the help you need posting this as a response to a blog.
Rebecca
I prefer to and do disclose my diabetes to people spend time with. When my sugar drops I can become Attilla the Hun - I get angry, argumentative and downright mean. when it goes high I get hyper and yappy. When it gets really high I get tired and dopey and listless. These changes (often sudden) mess people up. I feel it is only fair and safe to disclose the diabetes. I need the people around me to know how to deal with me and what to look for and what to do for me.
So, if you feel incredibly safer if people at work know about your condition, tell them!
You say yourself in this post, if someone close to you has a chronic illness, you will learn about it. You don't say you have a general interest in chronic illness. Perhaps your co-workers will be more interested when they know you better. Will that make you feel better? In the meantime, if this is just a safety issue, you'd better speak up and /or be sure to keep your sugar supply close at hand.