I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis-related diabetes (CFRD) in the summer of 2018. I think the official diagnosis came late August when I was first prescribed insulin, though it was my glucose tolerance test at my annual review appointment in April that first hinted at the diagnosis.

It was really my own self-awareness that ultimately resulted in me asking for insulin when I needed it, as I felt I couldn’t wait any longer for someone else to make that call. Knowing my body as well as I did, meant that I was making correlations that my Drs weren’t, and it may have saved my health from getting a lot worse. So, I wanted to share the things that led to me pushing for a CFRD diagnosis and the insulin prescription that I needed.

A lot of people have a job that negatively impacts their health to some extent. It might be mental health, or it might be physical health. Perhaps your stress levels are too high, perhaps you don’t sleep properly, perhaps you skip meals or buy junk food or have extremely low activity levels because of your job. If so, you need to make a change. 

Employers may tell you ‘health comes first’. But often, it seems insincere: something that HR have told them to say so that they don’t get sued for neglecting occupational health.

Sometimes when people have said it, ‘health comes first’, I’ve believed that they really do think that health _should_ come first. But does it? No. Not until you’re hospitalised (or threatening to leave your job) and they are forced to be accommodating or risk losing you permanently. Or, even if they believe it with every bone in their body, perhaps they just don’t have the resources or authority to actually make ‘health first’ a reality.

But whatever the situation, you should never let it get to the point where your health tangibly declines before you or your employer starts valuing it. 

It’s 100% true that if you do not make time for better health now, you will have to make time for illness later.

So, with this in mind, I quit my job.