Last week I had interviews with 6 different possible future employers. All of them went well, but three of them were more interesting than the other. I was very difficult to decide which of them to turn down, but I managed to inform all of them about my final decision just before Easter. I have chosen to start as a research assistant in a group out at MBC. This position won the race because the leader of the group, who is a very sympatic guy, offered me my own project to start on. The project would lean agains one of a newly started Ph.D-project, but deal with another protein. In general, I see great opportunities for future research, including a Ph.D-position, in this group. They work with different recognition molecules of the immune defense, some of which are involved in autoimmune disorders. They were actually in need for a person to assist the former mentioned Ph.D-student, because her project involves use of mass spectrometry - in corporation with my supervisor from my Master's in fact - but she did not know much about it. I look forward to start a project in this group, getting more experience in experiments with genetic manipulation and research animals as well as being able to contribute with my knowledge about protein chemistry and mass spectrometry. I haven't given up upon the Ph.D-offer from Denver yet. In fact I see the possibility to combine the project in MBC with that from Denver, thus even enabling mass spectrometry to be part of the thesis, which was not readily an option before :-) Of course I don't know if it will be that way, but anyway I hope to be able to go abroad during my Ph.D - not least to get back on Jimmi for not going along with it in the first place ;-) I love him but I cannot help being a bit disappointed that he hasn't been willing to a least give it a chance and go with me to Denver to look at it before a final decision is made.
Today was the first day of the Easter holidays. This afternoon Jimmi and I took Jimmi's younger brother to the movies for Ice Age 2. That was great fun! Well until the last 5-10 minutes of the movie where I started feeling very tired. I acknowledged this as a symptom of hypoglycemia although I didn't quite see the reason for it with all the popcorn we had consumed during the movie. The movie theatre is located in the central train station of Odense, so before I went for my bike to go home I found a bench to check my bg. 1.8 mmol/l (32 mg/dl)! Ups! Down with 5 glucose tablets and a cracker waiting for it to work before getting on my bike for the 4.5 km ride home - with the wind very much against me! The bg is now back up on a nice 4.7 (85) and I am ready for this evening's Easter get-together at Jimmi's mother's. I am still a bit annoyed about that low, though. A couple of weeks ago my diabetes nurse along with Jimmi managed to talk me into giving the insulin pump a try. The nurse has tried hard to convince me the last 4 years, and it is not that I don't see the advantages of the pump, but I also see some disadvantages, so I am not that fond of it. Last week I was then started on the pump for a 3 month trial. I know that it takes time to adjust the basals and other routines when switching insulin regimen, but seriously, I feel like I have had more hills and valleys of my bg this last week than the last half a year on shots! That is very frustrating, but I have to be strong and go through with this, comforting myself with the fact that if I cannot adjust to this, I can go back to shots in 3 months and my nurse promised that she would then stop mentioning the pump for another year or so. I guess to understand why I talk about this as a trial, I need to inform you a bit about the Danish medical system. Danes, who needs medication, are covered by an "ingenious" grant system. The more medicine you need the less you have to pay yourself, but the system restarts itself once a year making you start all over paying the full price yourself again. Anyway, as for supplies for diabetes, all type 1 diabetics gets their testing supplies, needles, lancettes and so on for free. Most Danish diabetics on insulin use insulin pens to deliver the insulin, and since pens to be used with insulin pen-fills are free, so are the pump - at least for the diabetic. The costs of the pump and all its supplies are covered by the hospital ordering it, so I only have to pay for the insulin in a different form to use the pump. So far I am not convinced that the pump is the ideal solution for me, but maybe I will change my mind once the insulin doses have been adjusted to fit my daily routines.
That's it for now, I am of to the Easter get-together!
Today was the first day of the Easter holidays. This afternoon Jimmi and I took Jimmi's younger brother to the movies for Ice Age 2. That was great fun! Well until the last 5-10 minutes of the movie where I started feeling very tired. I acknowledged this as a symptom of hypoglycemia although I didn't quite see the reason for it with all the popcorn we had consumed during the movie. The movie theatre is located in the central train station of Odense, so before I went for my bike to go home I found a bench to check my bg. 1.8 mmol/l (32 mg/dl)! Ups! Down with 5 glucose tablets and a cracker waiting for it to work before getting on my bike for the 4.5 km ride home - with the wind very much against me! The bg is now back up on a nice 4.7 (85) and I am ready for this evening's Easter get-together at Jimmi's mother's. I am still a bit annoyed about that low, though. A couple of weeks ago my diabetes nurse along with Jimmi managed to talk me into giving the insulin pump a try. The nurse has tried hard to convince me the last 4 years, and it is not that I don't see the advantages of the pump, but I also see some disadvantages, so I am not that fond of it. Last week I was then started on the pump for a 3 month trial. I know that it takes time to adjust the basals and other routines when switching insulin regimen, but seriously, I feel like I have had more hills and valleys of my bg this last week than the last half a year on shots! That is very frustrating, but I have to be strong and go through with this, comforting myself with the fact that if I cannot adjust to this, I can go back to shots in 3 months and my nurse promised that she would then stop mentioning the pump for another year or so. I guess to understand why I talk about this as a trial, I need to inform you a bit about the Danish medical system. Danes, who needs medication, are covered by an "ingenious" grant system. The more medicine you need the less you have to pay yourself, but the system restarts itself once a year making you start all over paying the full price yourself again. Anyway, as for supplies for diabetes, all type 1 diabetics gets their testing supplies, needles, lancettes and so on for free. Most Danish diabetics on insulin use insulin pens to deliver the insulin, and since pens to be used with insulin pen-fills are free, so are the pump - at least for the diabetic. The costs of the pump and all its supplies are covered by the hospital ordering it, so I only have to pay for the insulin in a different form to use the pump. So far I am not convinced that the pump is the ideal solution for me, but maybe I will change my mind once the insulin doses have been adjusted to fit my daily routines.
That's it for now, I am of to the Easter get-together!
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