I work in a large store for a busy retail chain. My position is sales associate for Home/Kids which is the entire back of the store plus I have to answer customer calls and run to the front of the store to be on the register. Needless to say my blood sugar drops often. I eat before I go to work and then I have a 15 minute break in the middle of my shift. I really think that retail, etc. is definitely NOT a job for a person with diabetes. They want you to work crazy hours, do the work of 20 people, and look down on you when you have to go to the back because your sugars low! Because I also have a seizure disorder & frozen shoulders which cause me pain, I'm currently thinking of applying for Social Security Disability because my body can't take this kind of work anymore and I'm not qualified for any other "easier" positions. I wish I could work full-time like everyone else but unfortunately I can't.

...working in the medical field is great because diabetes has given me insight into what patients are dealing with, and also I gain insight from patients I encounter.

This is the 2nd time I've written this. I hope I can remember it all.  I have been on a sixty carb per meal diet for the last six or seven years. My a1c hasn't been over 5.9 in six years. I run 2-4 miles 4 days a week, and walk 30 minutes a day six days a week. My last doctor visit was Monday. He said my number are better than his. I once checked 3 times a day, then once a day now once every couple days doctor's suggestion. I live my life to control my diabetes not it me.

norm

I forgot to add that before I was diagnosed going to the bathroom every 30-45 min was a pain. Several of my co-workers that were diabetics began to notice my patterns and advised me to go to the Doctor and get checked out. Going to the bathroom that much was beginning to slow my work production down (at the time I was still a mechanic). Having several others at the time helped me ease into my treatment plan that my PCP prescribed. At least I had someone to talk to that understood what I was going through since by the time I was diagnosed both of my parents were deceased. I really couldn’t talk with my sister because of her dementia and brain tumor diagnosis. Both of my parents and sister, as well as both of my grandmothers were diabetics. However I wouldn’t say that any of them were positive role models since all of them (except my fathers mother) were on insulin and ate what ever they wanted so they all had uncontrolled sugars. During the later parts of my sisters life when she was diagnosed with dementia my brother-in-law before he died was beginning to control what she ate as well as the amount, however at the time I didn’t realize why. My father’s mother was the only one on the pill but she lived 8 hrs away from me that I don’t really know much about her diet other that the fact that I do know that she cut out eating “sugar” all together and sometimes would go low enough to be hospitalized because she would refuse to eat or drink anything sweet when she started going low because her Doctor told her not to eat or drink anything with sugar in it.

Working with others that are diabetics has helped me learn how to manage my diabetes, but sometimes we become each others diabetic police without meaning to and during those times it we probably do the opposite of what we should do, I know I sometimes do. As far as my non-diabetic co-workers go, since I am the only female on the shift they tend to watch out for me and sometimes get on my nerves with are you sure you need to eat that, but if I start acting funny they will be the first to say that I need to check my BS and if it’s low someone will go to the coke machine and get me a coke.  Sometimes they know I’m going low before I realize it myself.  A couple of them will remind me to ride my bike even if we’re really busy to help me with my weight loss exercise, unfortunately the only thing I can’t get them to do right now is exercise with me like walking on the days that I can’t ride my bike, but I’m working on that.

Gima

Mechanic Foreman (or should I say Foreperson being that I'm female) for a Utility Company. We work on anything from a 5 passenger car to a Bantum Crane. Was a mechanic for 20 yrs here before becoming a Foreman.

Gima