As some or most, or even none of you may know, I own CSI Marketing Solutions. Owning my own business has been one of my dreams since I was a kid. It is extremely cliche to hear from just about every entrepreneur, “I had a lemonade stand when I was 6, hustling in the neighborhood.” Yes, I did have a lemonade stand, but majority of kids had a lemonade stand when they were kids. I never knew exactly what sort of business I wanted to own, even going into college. Until about my junior year of college I wanted to have my own financial advising firm, but obviously that never happened. Read More
Category: Office Diabetes
Working at Home with Diabetes
You may remember last week I write about how I left my job at an interactive marketing agency to go back to running my own company full time. There are a lot of risks that I have taken in doing so, but all risks that I am willing to deal with in order to reap the rewards. One of the positive outcomes that I am already starting to see is better control of my diabetes. Working at home with diabetes has become a lot easier for me than working away from home in an office.
First, all my supplies are right here. There were plenty of times in the past when an infusion set fell out, and I forgot to pack a few extras in my bag and had to drive all the way back home. Now, everything is either in the room I am working in or the next room over. If an infusion set is bad or has fell out, no big deal, I have more right here with me.
The next diabetes related item that has improved is my eating habits. I have been very strict with keeping a tight schedule while working at home and continue to have a lunch break from 12-1. There is no more eating out because I “forgot my lunch at home.” If there were no left overs from the night before, than I can simply spend the time to make a nice, healthy lunch as opposed to going out and grabbing a slice of pizza or a sub. That is only lunch, dinner is an even better story. Before, I wasn’t getting up until after 7 p.m. and I was always so tired to make a nice dinner. Well, I typically end my day at 5:30 in order to start cooking dinner for when Amanda gets home from work. We have been done eating and cleaning by 7 in the first week of doing this.
Next on the list of things that have been going better since I began working at home is the increase in exercise. My exercise bike is 10 feet from my desk. I have found myself just getting on the bike and riding for 30-45 minutes once a day. There is no more excuses that I don’t have time to do it and that I am too tired to do it after I get home from work. Starting tomorrow, I am actually going to begin riding the bike in the morning and get a good hour workout in before the day even gets started.
Finally, my blood sugars have been better because I am testing more, and honestly, I am just not as stressed out. My blood sugars would get high throughout the day because I was so stressed at work. Then, I would come home, and still have about another 4-6 hours worth of work to do and I wasn’t getting to bed until about 3 a.m. This just was not good on my blood sugars at all. I am also sleeping a lot better too. I have gone to sleep by 11, almost everyday in this past week. That is most likely due to change tonight, since I have a few deadlines for tomorrow.
Looks like the health reasons for going back to working from home and running my own company again are slowly taking shape. The financial reasons, well, let’s just hope they stay on track as well.
Have a great night everybody.
Appreciation is Nice
What are the rewards for the things that we do? There are a lot of rewards that come with blogging and helping other diabetics out. That is one of the main reasons that I continue to do this. It also helps me cope with any issues that I may have, but I know that it is helping others too. From time to time it is great to see physical examples of the appreciation of the work that you do.
So, now let me get to the point of this post. Every Friday at my job they send out a company newsletter highlighting some of the work that we have been doing for clients as well as spotlighting several other fun things. The other day in the cafeteria I was talking to the head of our Marketing and Communications team who supervises the weekly newsletter about diabetes and my blog and some of the goals and initiatives that I have with my blog. He was very excited about it and told me to send him the links to the blog and Facebook page.
Yesterday when I read the newsletter, this is what was included (please click to view larger):
Quote – ” We know that we all work with amazing people, but this is just awesome. Did you know that Chris Stocker is a national leader when it comes to advocating for people with diabetes? He has an informative and motivating blog and Facebook page, so please check them out and give him some “like” and re-tweeting support. Great work Chris – you’re an inspiration to us all!”
This is just awesome. It doesn’t matter that it was spotlighting me, but the fact that it was spotlighting diabetes and how diabetes awareness was spread to over 150 people instantly with an e-mail. This makes you feel that what you are doing is well worth it and that you are accomplishing things.
By the way, #dsma got some face time too with the banner.
My Strike Against Pizza
On Friday at work I had a quick discussion with one of my co-workers about diabetes. He knew enough about it, but not everything there was to know. We had a quick chat about how I need to lose weight in order to get my diabetes under better control. Him and I both eat at this pizza place near the office, which has the best pizza and meatball subs I’ve ever had! He came up with the idea that we should both try and lose 10 pounds in the month of April. I said Deal!
The way we are going to do it, which we may not make the 10 pounds, but we made a deal that we won’t eat pizza for a whole month. It is going to be tough for me to do, especially on days that I forget to pack a lunch, but then I did some quick calculating. Not only will I lose 10-15 pounds by bringing my own lunch, I will save approximately $100-$150 a month on not paying for lunch. The costs of the lunch ranges from $5-12 and I usually eat out 3 days a week.
So, that is my plan for the month of April, but why not start today? Today I start my strike against pizza.
Office Thanksgiving Pot Luck
Ohhh man. Today was the office potluck lunch for Thanksgiving and I thought at first it was going to be bad news because i am trying to eat healthy until Thanksgiving actually comes. Luckily by the time that i got up ther to eat there was not a lot of food left so i did not each much. Potlucks are always difficult because you have people like me thAt are diabetic then you have vegetarians, or vegans, or those that have a gluten free diet, or allergies. I don’t really care too much because if i want to eat something then i will eat it and just take insulin for it.
This is a short post because I have a lot of stuff to get done tonight. But what is your signature pot luck dish?
Is is some sort of diabetes friendly dish or a sugar free dessert?
Have a good weekend.
Diabetes in a Meeting
Earlier today I had to go to a client meeting and knew it was going to be about a 40 minute drive there, an hour meeting and then about another 40 minute drive home. Whenever I have to sit it on meetings, I get nervous that my blood sugar is going to get low, and I hate pulling out Skittles in the middle of the meeting because people look at you weird, like are you serious, in the middle of a meeting you have to eat? If they knew I was diabetic, then there would be no problem, but I don’t introduce myself as, Hi Im Chris, nice to meet you and I’m diabetic. If I feel my blood sugar is low, I will not hesitate to pull the Skittles out and eat some because my life and health is more important than any meeting that I will ever be in.
Before I left for the meeting I tested my sugar and it was at about 155. At that level and with a small lunch that I ate, I knew that it would go below 100 before the meeting was over. I took a small bag of Skittles with me and headed to the meeting. We were a little early so we stopped at Starbucks and I got a regular coffee, but sprinkled some Cinnamon on it, (which is my favorite way to drink coffee from Starbucks.) I knew that this would also raise my sugar a little and keep it from going too low during the meeting. Once we got to the meeting, I realized that I forgot my meter back at the office so I couldn’t test again. I just ate a few Skittles before we went into the meeting, because I would rather my sugar be around 170-200 during the meeting then it drop to 70-90 and start to get sweaty and start to think less clearly during the meeting.
To sum things up, it was all good. The meeting went exceptionally well and my blood sugar did not go down at all and by the time I got back to the office, it was not high either, it was right around 160-ish, don’t remember exactly right now what it was.
This leads me to asking you all, how do you deal with having to go into meetings with diabetes? Do you bring in juice, candy, do you let the people in the meeting know that you are diabetic and may need to excuse yourself? I’d love to hear all of your comments on how you handle.
5 Tips When Starting a New Job with Diabetes
Working for two straight days, I’m definitely not used to this. I haven’t worked over 16 hours in a two day period in a very long time. This makes managing and planning things out for my diabetes a lot more important. For the past 9 months, I have been on my own schedule. When I was consulting with Volvo, I was making my own hours and when I worked from home I obviously made my own hours. I haven’t worked a salary job since I worked for that joke of a diabetes, well it’s actually like a pet store now, but that’s besides the fact. I love my new job, it is effin’ awesome if I must say. The people are awesome, the office is cool, and I love doing what I do, so how can you argue with that?
I haven’t had many diabetes talks with people yet. I mentioned it to several people and they at least knew what diabetes was, not sure if they knew all the ins and outs, but I didn’t get into any of that. I decided to make a list of my 4 tips for going to work with diabetes.
- Be Prepared – being prepared has to do with several things. Make sure you have candy or glucose tabs to eat just in case your blood sugar goes low. Also, I work 45 minutes from home, so going home to insert a new infusion set is just not going to happen, so bring along an extra vial of test strips and an extra set, reservoir, and insulin.
- Take time to test – I work an office job, meaning that I sit at my computer for pretty much 7 hours a day. From time to time I need to take a break to get a fresh start, so why not test my blood sugar? While at work, I test every 2 hours, so 4 times while I am there. This helps me prevent any lows before meetings or drive home.
- Take a walk – once again, if you are sitting down all day, take a 5 minute walk. This will help circulate the blood through your body because you know as a diabetic, we have some issues with blood flow, don’t know if you have heard that yet.
- Let people know – Don’t be afraid to let people know that you have diabetes. Wouldn’t your rather somebody in the office know what to do in case your blood sugar goes low? Or would you rather keep quiet and then if something happens, nobody knows what the hell to do?
Have a great day everybody!
Starting a New Job with Diabetes
Well, yesterday I mentioned that I had some exciting news. This probably isn’t exciting news for you, but it is for me. I have put the independent work to the side and decided to get back into the office / team environment and get a “corporate” job. After a good search, I was given word last Thursday that I am now hired. So, that’s the news. I will be starting a new job next Monday as an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Specialist. I am so excited to get back into an office environment and start working again. The hours are long and it is going to be tough at first, but it is doing something that I love, so you can’t go wrong with that. The hardest part of starting a new job with diabetes is introducing diabetes to everybody.
It can be like the first day of starting at a new school. I don’t know what that is like because I never moved and had to change schools in the middle of the year, but I was always nice to the “new kid” in the classroom, because I couldn’t imagine how hard it was to leave your friends and go somewhere near. Anyway, getting off subject, back to diabetes. There are so many things that you have to prepare for when starting a new job with diabetes. I feel that it is my responsibility to let as many people know as possible that I am diabetic and what to do in case something bad happens. I put candy in my desk, I leave a meter and strips at my desk and I usually keep some infusion sets, reservoirs, and an emergency vial of insulin there as well. The office is a 30-40 minute commute, one way, so it’s not like I can just come home at lunch break to change out an infusion site.
This also means more questions I am going to be asked, and I love that. I can educate people on diabetes, what else is better than that. I remember at my old office when people asked me questions when I was refilling a reservoir at work. It felt to educate them and let them know what I was doing, and what that loud priming noise was. I don’t know if there are any other diabetics that work there, but I’m sure I will find out quickly. It is awesome to meet a co-worker with diabetes.
One thing this does mean is that there will be less time I will be spending on Twitter during the day and being able to read blogs. I won’t be getting home until about 7-8 and won’t have much time to do anything else. I will continue to keep up with my blog and try to read as many of yours as possible. I am leaning towards doing more video blogs because it only takes 3-5 minutes to record, about a minute to upload and post, since there is no editing in it.
Well, I hope you are all as excited as I am!
Have a great day.
Refilling a Reservoir at Work
Yesterday I had to refill my insulin cartridge at work and it made me think about a couple of things. First, what reaction am I going to get from people who walk by? Why do I have two vials of insulin in my laptop bag and both have 2 refills left in them? Why is this thing so damn loud when it is priming?
Well here were my answers to all of those questions.
Reaction from People
First and foremost, I don’t really care what their reaction is to it. I am doing something that I need to do in order to survive, so get over it. Do I look at you weird when you breathe or when you drink water or when you eat? No, didn’t think so, so keep on walking. But I do find it funny what most people say. The most common phrase I hear is, “What are you shooting up or something?” Some people mean it in a sense of am I shooting up insulin, but I think we all know what most others are referring to, obviously a joke. I usually say, “Well, I’m already high, so I need to shoot up some more.” That is when the other person doesn’t get the insulin and high blood sugar reference and thinks that I am just making a drug comment back to them.
What kind of reaction do you get?
Two Vials of Insulin
When it comes to insulin, I try to have only one open vial at a time, but that tends to not happen very often. The reason is usually that I open one and put it in my laptop bag because that thing goes with me to work, home, and travel. That way the insulin will be with me at all times. Then there is usually one on my desk at home, maybe it’s empty and I forgot to throw it away, so when I see it, I think that I just finished one and go and open another one. As soon as I used it to refill the reservoir, I throw it in my laptop bag and now I have two opened in the same location.
Do any of you do this as well, or am I just being a bad diabetic?
Loud Priming
The last part of what was going through my head was why this insulin pump is so damn loud when it is priming. It beeps so many times, and it is extremely loud, so when my co-workers are working, they hear it beeping and then all the questions start. Normally I don’t mind the questions, but when I am busy and trying to get work done so I can get home and start working on some other clients work, I’m not usually in the mood to lecture on diabetes.
Do you all refill right at your desk or do you go to restrooms or cars, or somewhere else to take care of it?