A Diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes; What does it mean?

We are at the hospital emergency room because the pediatrician sent us here to have them do a blood test to see if our son has diabetes.  They keep asking us why we are here and I tell them because the pediatrician told us to come.  They ask why we went to the doctor and again and again I'm telling them about how I thought he had strep, but it doesn't matter, the doctor thinks he has diabetes.  

They do a number of blood tests on our son who is handling things very well even when they messed up and had to repoke him a few times.  Then, they even put an iv port in his hand in case they need to give him fluids later, and he handles it like a champ watching every step of the way.  

We are there for hours wondering what is going on and what the results may be.  

In the end, the diagnosis is in.  

"Your son has Type 1 Diabetes."  

"Is that the insulin dependent diabetes?"  I ask.

"Yes."  

Was this real?  How did this happen?  I thought back to all of the tootsie roll wrappers I had found hidden in the back of the pantry and of all the candy bar wrappers I had recently found when doing his laundry.  Oh, is it my fault?  I didn't catch him sneaking so much candy!  

But no, the doctors told me there was no way I could have caused him to get diabetes.  It doesn't work that way.  It actually runs in families.  But in our family, there is no one.  He will be the first.  

OK, but what did this all mean?  What were we supposed to do now?  Could he never eat sugar again?  Was this the end to Halloweens, Christmas and Easter candy?  What happened next?  

The hospital staff said they were going to admit our son for the next 3 days!  I was confused by this, as he still had a bit of a fever, but he wasn't acting sick and definitely not sick enough to be in the hospital for 3 days.  Why did they want to do this?  What was going on?  They said for the next 3 days they needed to start giving him insulin and monitoring him to figure out his levels and do some sort of educational training for us.  How do they give him insulin though?  I imagined them hooking him up to IV bags of insulin that they would be pumping through him for 3 days or something.  This was not the case though.  

Really, we didn't know anything about Type 1 Diabetes.  I remember vaguely some times where a friend commented that they were picking up their husband's insulin, and I remember a coworker saying she had to go do her insulin before she ate a dessert, but I had no clue what all of that was really about.  I assumed there was something to do with injecting insulin, but when and how?  

As we waited to be admitted into the hospital we began learning a little bit about what was to come and what we would be doing for the rest of his life.  

It was taking so long that they were going to let him eat lunch in the ER.  But to do this, he had to have insulin.  I remember ordering the meal on the hospital phone and them asking if we were on a "carb counting" meal plan.  I had no idea what they were talking about, but I guess that was the diabetic meal plan.  It sounded like some sort of exercise/diet plan.  As we soon learned, for every carb he ate, he had to have a certain amount of insulin to cover it.  And this was going to be for every meal he ate, and forever.  I couldn't get that into my head.  There was no cure for this.  This was it.  This was forever.
FOREVER.

We watched as the nurse came and gave him a shot of insulin before he could eat.  A vile of fluid, a long needle, and injection---this was something he was going to have to do 3 times a day and then even more?  It seemed unreal.  This was just a teeny view of what we were to learn, as for the next 3 days we were going to be overwhelmed by how much we needed to know and remember.  

I was still thinking he couldn't have much sugar ever again and how were we going to change everything and deal with everything with the rest of my family and kids.  How did this all happen?  Why?  It didn't run in our family.  How could this be?  How would we handle all of it?  I didn't say much in the ER though.  Here was my brave 12 year old who was the one being poked and injected.  I had to be strong for him and make it seem like everything would be OK.  Really, I was kind of clueless anyway, so I figured it wasn't that bad.  I still didn't understand why we had to be there for 3 whole days.  I would soon find out.