Welcome back to the Klario Hypo Diaries, where we share the stories of inspiring individuals within our community.
Recently, we sat down with Cat, a sourcing and production manager turned freelancer, and avid cyclist who lives with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). Cat describes the sudden shock of an adult diagnosis, navigating a corporate environment that didn't fully understand her condition, and her mission to make the workplace safer and more inclusive for people with chronic conditions.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The shock of an adult diagnosis: what it meant to be diagnosed with T1D at 35 while managing a demanding career.
- Invisible weight at the office: The isolating comments Cat faced, and the reality of managing a chronic condition in a fast-paced corporate role.
- Becoming a workplace ally: Practical changes employers can implement to ensure colleagues with T1D feel secure.
To start off, could you give us a bit of your background? How did you find out you had Type 1 Diabetes?
I was diagnosed in 2024 at the age of 35. For about six weeks prior to that, I started having symptoms, but they were coming and going. They weren't symptoms that I knew to be symptoms of diabetes, because I didn't know what they were. I was thirsty, I was losing weight, I was really lethargic, and I kept getting really bad cramps because of low potassium levels, caused by needing the toilet so often. I put it down to jet lag; I'd just spent two weeks travelling in Asia for work as well as moving flat, so I had quite a lot on at that time. I thought, "Am I just really, really stressed?"
When I would not stop waking up needing to go to the bathroom, it was really affecting my sleep for a good two weeks. I called my doctor for an appointment and the receptionist said I wasn't urgent and I'd have to wait six weeks. If I hadn't taken myself to the hospital, who knows what would have happened.
The whole diagnosis was very stressful. There was no clear pathway of what was going to happen. I had a month off work, including three nights in hospital, to understand how this new life was going to be. At first, I was going out with ginormous bags of pre-counted food, thinking, "Is this what it is for the rest of my life?"
What was your role like at the time, and how did the diagnosis change your working day?
I worked in product sourcing for a global retail brand, travelling regularly to Asia to visit factories, with the day-to-day otherwise demanding in a different way – 7 a.m. calls to Asia, or staying up later to call people in America.
It's really scary looking back, knowing how high my blood sugars were on one of those work trips. I remember being taken out for pizzas, eating rice, eating cakes, and one meeting where I was surrounded by Sprite and Fanta tins because I was so thirsty. I remember sitting with my head in my hands, thinking I'd just got the worst jet lag ever. On reflection, it makes me feel sick knowing my sugars were 20mmol/L and my ketones were 4.2mmol/L. I was told I was hours away from going into DKA.
When I got back into work, I remember a couple of meetings where I would have to leave because my alarms were going off. Or I'd be sitting in a meeting with the alarm going off, showing I was 16 or 17, and I was too nervous to say anything because people didn't fully understand it. I knew I needed more time off, but I felt like I wasn't able to ask for it. I don't think people understood the 24/7 management the condition requires, which is what I needed time to learn.
I describe it as keeping a balloon afloat 24/7. I have moments where I think this condition is a joke, because I could literally be points away from death, and I just need to eat a jelly snake. It's crazy. People don't understand it - within 20 minutes your blood is back to normal.
You mentioned some difficult moments with colleagues in the workplace. What happened?
Because it's not a condition where you're in bed physically unwell, people just see you walking around. When I went back into the office for someone's leaving do, someone said to me, "Oh, so you're okay to come in for a drink, but you're not okay to come back into the office?" I remember that moment vividly, because I'd just spent a good hour trying to get my levels up after my insulin had been running so high. I could go hypo just from walking for five minutes, dropping and dropping. That comment was absolutely horrible.
I remember having lunch alone quite a lot, because I needed the space to be accurate - you're dealing with one of the deadliest medications in the world, so I felt I couldn't afford any distractions. Another time, a colleague said they didn't like sitting next to someone with a standing desk, while another laughed. That standing desk helped bring my sugars down when they were high, so I could get back to my emails and finish a piece of work.
A couple of months after being diagnosed, I made the decision to leave and go freelance – my diagnosis was one of a few factors, alongside wanting a different pace of life. In my final meeting, I wore huge cycling sunglasses to dull the bright lights, and still couldn't read the debrief document – a colleague had to read it out for me. No one in the room knew the eye drops from a routine nerve-damage check had dilated my pupils that much; they just saw the sunglasses and laughed.
You’ve been working on spreading awareness and sharing workplace experiences. What are the main things colleagues and employers can do to be better allies?
- A proper HR procedure to review any needs required for a condition. I had access to a fridge for backup insulin and wasn't hot-desked, so I could keep snacks and hypo treatments at a desk nearby – that's the kind of basic accommodation every workplace should have in place as standard.
- Education. Diabetes still isn't part of most first aid training, and workplaces need at least two people who understand the difference between a hypo and a hyper. People think glucagon pens are EpiPens, and that all these pens just bring someone back to life the same way, but it's very different.
- Ask questions and be curious, rather than making assumptions or fleeting comments. Towards the end of my time in that role, some colleagues found it genuinely fascinating; sitting with me at lunch, learning how food impacts blood sugar. That made such a difference to feeling less isolated, and built my confidence in managing my condition at work.
- Understand the legal context. Type 1 Diabetes is classed as a disability, protected under the Equality Act, and workplace policies need to accommodate flexible hours. It's not that people want an excuse to avoid the office – it's about allowing flexibility for the mornings you wake up with a 3.1 hypo that completely wipes you out.
Thank you to Cat for sharing her story and workplace insights so powerfully with us. Stay tuned for our next Hypo Diaries interview.