That's a wonderful phrase! I can see medical papers in a few years time saying, "On presentation, the patient displayed classic signs of puddled head."
Let me tell you about my experience of it to see if it helps "unpuddle" you.
You'll go through a riot of emotions over the next few months. That's natural, but you eventually unwind it, and it just becomes a practical, pragmatic case of realising you need to figure out this much insulin for this meal, and carrying sweets around with you.
You're going to resent it, thinking why me, my life's over, but I've come to terms with the fact that a bit of my body isn't working, so I need to help it out. I don't hate it: I co-operate with it. Think of it like a small child. Sure, they can be unpredictable, react differently on different occasions to the same thing, throw hissy fits for no apparent reason, but it's your child, so look after it. I take pleasure in a small way out of looking at my cgm traces running smooth for three or four days in a row, before the occasional tantrum where it's all over the place.
I turned up at hospital
very ill, only to be sent home, being told I just had a touch of "exam stress" by a spotty kid straight out of med school, and was then taken back next day unconscious, full-on DKA, with my folks being told it's 50/50. The spotty kid was man enough to come up and apologise, although it was maybe something to do with the senior consultant having, apparently, barked him out to an inch of his life for turning away the most obvious ever case of T1. One of the doctors thanked me later for displaying some Kussmaul breathing, because she'd only ever read about it in books!
In some ways, after being so hellishly ill, it was actually a relief to be told it was just treatable T1 and I wasn't going to die.
And then, sure, the shock kicks in - life long injections! But it turned out the needles weren't that big.
I lived in a small village at the time. I still remember the sheer number of people who came up to ask how I was doing, and
cared.
There was a lot of messy, unexpected hypos. You'll have those to look forward to, there ain't no way of getting round that. Bad hypos are like drowning, but you'll always surface. Keep lots of sugar very nearby, in pockets, beside your bed. Going to the kitchen when you're under isn't viable: keep the lucozade etc. very close. Docs understate the severity of hypos, mainly because they've only read about them in books. They're not painful, it's more the confusion of thought. If you can afford a cgm, go for that: they are a god-send in seeing hypos coming and stopping them before they happen. Priceless.
That last paragraph makes it sound bleak. But, while you'll definitely have a few bad hypos, it's really not that bad. Before dx, I went ski-ing, cycling, sailing, running a lot. I thought for a short time I was disabled in some way. Guess what? After a short time getting used to the rules, I just carried on ski-ing etc. Hasn't held me back in any way at all. I've had a moderately successful career in a stressful line of business. I've been away backpacking for 4 and 6 months. I go to the pub and have a few beers. Hell, I even have a sweet dessert after a meal! All I need to do is plan ahead a bit and carry sweeties around with me!
You've joined the club at an exciting time (although I know you weren't really consulted about membership!). There's lots happening on the cgm front, docs are figuring out how to wrap islets in seaweed alginates, there's HDV which taxis insulin direct to the liver, and someone has had a go at smart insulin which switches on and off in response to glucose.
If you want some inspiration, google Eva Saxl. She and her husband made her own insulin from water buffalo pancreases
during a war and saved several hundred other people to boot. Sure, it's a frustrating condition, but none of us can complain when Eva was as gutsy as that.
Honestly, it's a hassle, but you'll be fine.
