ok, first off I can 100% guarantee you that by October you will feel like this is old hat. I promise you. Right now you're just swimming in confusion with so many things. the early weeks - shudder - the worst. So you have my most heart felt empathy.
Ok, so second will be deciding how much candy your other kids are allowed, and how much you would have allowed this child to have prior to diabetes. My 2 cents is that you allow that same now, or make a plan for all the kids. But the worst thing to do would be to say "sorry kids, we're not going to have candy this year because of Dd's diabetes". I've seen it. It's a one way ticket to sibling hatred of D (not that they don't already think that DD is getting aaaaalllll the attention, because they do ) So first work on how you want to handle it in general. And get that squared away. That's half the battle. Deciding how we as parents are going to handle the situations. There are no rights and wrongs. Just what works for you.
3)head over to CWD if you haven't already forums.childrenwithdiabetes.com and see this very comprehensive list of Halloween carb lists.
http://forums.childrenwithdiabetes.com/showthread.php?t=45074
as halloween gets closer figure out what candy your child is likely to eat and make your own little cheat sheet.
4) by october you'll probably have a much better handle on extra shots for extra food, and you'll also have a greater handle on how to increase insulin to cover extra foods. Candy is probably one of the easiest things we deal with as it's just so quick that if you dose it right there's hardly a blip of blood sugar spike with very little lingering after effects. So over the next few months your endo team will be helping you (if they haven't already) learn how to adjust on your own. That's everyone's ultimate goal, because this isn't something you deal with only in the doctors office -it's 24/7 at home. After Halloween one of my favorite things to do is to stick an extra piece of candy in my son's lunch box every day. Most of those tiny pieces are only 3 - 5g of carbs each.
5) no, disney does not provide any carb counts (unless the food is prepackaged). Get a good food app for your phone (I like the one put out by fat secret) Calorie king is also another good resource. If you need to, because you're new, bring along a travel scale or measuring cups. We did our first year. It saved us a lot of bad carb counting.
6) remember - it's vacation. If BGs are crazy...they're crazy. You'll fix later. We have a lot of trouble because all the food seems so high in fat but usually that helps off set any lows from all the walking during the day. But on vacation I leave the log book at home.
and remember above all else, your daughter is a child first. The diabetes is your deal right now, not hers. It will be hers for all her life, but for now, and for a long long time still to come, the responsibility is all yours. The foundations that you're laying now are going to set the tone for how she views diabetes going forward. I often stop and think "what message am I sending? What message do I want to send? " when I have new situations come up. (recently for us it's the issue of field trips without mom or a nurse ...eek..) My son was also diagnosed at 5, he's almost 12. The decisions never end. But each time we do something new, it's a moment for teaching them an important lesson that they'll take with them as they move towards independence in their teens and ultimately when they head off to college.
good luck!! you can do this. You will do this. Your family will love every minute of it.
I'd much rather hang out with fun stuff on the disboards. LOL!!
