Despite being an 80’s child, this post most definitely isn’t a reference to the band of the same name (pictured here) it’s about starting a new job and the adjustments that kind of a move takes.

It’ been a month since I had my first day now and I absolutely love my job. The people are awesome, the location is incredibly convenient and the work is great but all that aside, I’ve had some interesting things crop up as a diabetic person over the last 4 weeks which I reckon are worth blogging about.

When I left my last job I ended up having to take two weeks off for various reasons to get some things organised, visit family in Nelson, get rid of some garbage at home etc and it was fantastic. Essentially, I got a two week holiday that I hadn’t planned on and I loved it. During that two weeks I started to have lots of hypos though and so I did some basal rate tests, adjusted and kept going. I figured that it was just cos it was winter or something but didn’t think too much about it. I then got back to work and the first week was lovely and easy but as things cranked up and there started to be more stress, I noticed that my BGs were starting to get higher and higher and higher. The ONLY conclusion that I could come to after doing yet more basal rates is that when I’m stressed I need more insulin.

I’m used to thinking about exercise effecting my basal rates and what have you but this isn’t really something that I thought would make a marked difference but I had to turn up my basals by 20% for some parts of the day so it’s not just a little different huh. What was strange was that the only parts of the day I had to adjust was after 9pm until 11am – from lunchtime till after dinner I didn’t have a problem.

While I seem to have three of four friends now that are on pumps but we don’t really talk about our basals rather, just how well our tests are going and if it’s been good in general so I’d love to hear from you guys about how often you have to amend, test and or revise your basal rates. I feel like it’s every week that I’m doing another adjustment and at times it grinds me down something chronic – constant battle and all that.

All the other stuff I thought might crop up starting at a new place like people being phobic of needles, not liking the sight of blood, asking stupid questions, being nosey, asking me if I ate too much sugar as a kid and so on are conspicuous by their absence so I’m happy about that. My boss thinks that my pump is awesome and keeps referring to it as my diabetes machine is which is endearing (for now) but no trouble on any fronts to speak of. I am however, developing an unhealthy addiction to chilled Twix bars from the vending machine in the lunchroom which needs some serious curbing ASAP…

Well, we’re about to get visitors for breakfast so I better go and make myself presentable for them. I’ll try to get back tomorrow though.

- Aaron