@fiona – blood sucking may be bonkers perhaps, but it saves carting around loads of tissues! And it’s good for you. Probably. 
I know how you feel about the suddenness of it all – I actually had to go and register with a GP when I had my diagnosis consultation. I just hadn’t needed to go to the doctor since I had moved to Scotland 7 years before!
I think if you have a neatness obsession you’ll do well with diabetes! I think it requires a slightly OCD level of organisation to live with it easily. If you’re well organised you’ll always have a cache of sweeties nearby for hypos, if you have a kit bag you’ll always have your meter with you and spare supplies. These and other minor things make, for example, having a hypo when you’re out and about a minor inconvenience rather than a disaster. Organisation rocks!
The lack of control will get better – I was diagnosed quite early in phase during which my beta cells were being killed off. So to start with my insulin needs were very modest; then a few more cells would die off and I would have readjust my food:insulin ratios and background lantus. This went on for months, during which I couldn’t get good control.
However my GP reassured me that high BGs during the first few months wouldn’t cause any major long term damage; so I didn’t worry too much about the myriad cock-ups I went through after that!