Diabetes at work

[whatadrain]

How do I deal with it?

Had a 14 hour day yesterday and was unable to take a break for a large chunk of it due to a big event. My levels are all over the place.

I'm not going in today, but I can't imagine anyone will be particularly sympathetic. I just feel like I'm always letting people down because of my diabetes.

Sorry to moan.

Nobody? Just me then.

If your employers know you are diabetic and you are doing 14 hour days, without regular breaks, then something is wrong in the employer/employee relationship. You know you need sensible, regular breaks to check blood sugars, eat etc. What is your role? How long have you been in the organisation? Do your line managers have any idea about the management of diabetes?

Over a year. They do know and have an action plan in place. Yesterday we had an open evening and due to staff shortages, I ended up manning an area on my own. In other areas, there were multiple members of staff and they all had breaks etc. Eventually someone came along to see if I needed help packing up but I had already packed everything away. It was not possible to get a message across yesterday that I really needed a break.

I guess communication needs to be improved. DH complained today as he was worried about me and I gather managers have had a bit of a ticking off, which actually makes me want to go to work even less tomorrow

Yours managers have a duty of care towards you and must take your disability into account when tasking you and must ensure that you have sufficient breaks in accordance with H&S and emply net law.
but you also have a duty not to endanger your health so you must not try to cover their inadequacies by trying to cope when it is making you unwell. You need to speak out and remind them that you have additional needs.

I used to work with someone who was diabetic (16 years ago this is) and I genuinely had no idea what it was like for her. Although I liked her very much and was sympathetic, I was clueless regarding the demands it makes on everyday life, not to mention a busy working life. Now, since ds has been diagnosed with T1, I can better imagine how hard it must have been.

I'm not making excuses for the people in your workplace, but they do need to be better informed. Do NOT feel you are letting them down, they are letting you down. All the T1s I know (including my amazing ds) have impressed me with their determination not to let T1 stop them from getting on with life.

Hi What

I'm sorry you had this situation at work - I've been diabetic 31 years now, and with my current employer for 12.

I've done quite a bit of work to educate my bosses about diabetes and what I need to stay healthy (I even had them set one of my annual work targets to keep my hba1c under 6.5!). I officially registered myself with HR as being diabetic, occupational health sent me to a doctor to verify everything & I submitted a statement detailing what I required as "reasonable adjustments" to my role / work environment, which they have to consider for any disability (type 1 is considered a disability, I presume you are type 1 from what you say about levels? Sorry if I've got that wrong.)

I think you might need to bite the bullet and help them understand better what you need. Sometimes stuff does come up that's unplanned and it's hard to dash off and get what you need, so I know how difficult it can be, I've been there many times... (And I work in events, which can involve long days, lone working at empty venues, that sort of thing - I was even helping de-rig an event at 6 months pregnant up til midnight!)

Do you have a sympathetic line manager or HR person? You don't have to go in all guns blazing, but you're perfectly entitled to call a meeting to discuss your health.

Get your GP to write a letter stating that you must have regular breaks and send it to your boss/HR department. DH is type 1 diabetic and his boss had the brilliant idea of letting staff have their lunch at 3pm, when the office is less busy. DH's GP wrote and said he could eat no later than 1pm. They had to abide by it.