New nurse's daughter just diagnosed with Type 1

Hi all,
I just passed NCLEX on Thursday, 3 days after my 5 year old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Wow, I have studied diabetes in school, but I never realized how all of the changes affect your life. My daughter is such a trooper and my own personal hero. We were very lucky that we found the disease extremely early. My husband, who has no medical background, asked me she might be diabetic because she kept licking her skin and rubbing her eyes. His boss' son was just diagnosed and had similar symptoms. I told him absolutely not, I would not have believed it in a million years. But as I started thinking more, I realized that she had been peeing and drinking an awful lot. But I had been so busy studying that I didn't really think much of it. So on Monday, I went and bought a glucose monitor and her fasting glucose was 256. At that point I pretty much knew.

We met our Dr. at the ER where he said that she looked great and not like she had diabetes at all. Well, the blood work came back and she did. Luckily, she only had minimal ketones in her urine and was not acidotic. No one could believe that we caught it so fast. They told us that most kids are first diagnosed when they are in DKA and critically ill. She is doing great, physically. Now we are just trying to regulate the glucose levels. Her A1c was 10.1- her endocrinologist said that she has been running in the 400-500 range for the last 3 months.

I got her home from the hospital on Wednesday night and took boards on Thursday morning. I am really amazed that I passed, because I was exhausted from 3 sleepless nights.

I am just so glad that I had the medical knowledge to know that something wasn't right with her and glad that I trusted my gut to check it out. I was worried that I was just being a paranoid mother, as I tend to be usually. Now we are trying to get her in with Dr. Richard Guthrie- who is a well-known endocrinologist who works only about an hour away from our house. I have heard nothing about praise about him and I hope that he can help her. I also hope to find her a friend who is going through what she is, as she is very lonely and sad right now.