First Eye Exam: Diabetic or Not?

I took Samuel for his first eye exam today.  After indicating he was T1, the Tech asked me his A1c, average BG for the past month, and time since dx. Our Doctor came in and did the normal exam (20/20 vision), then she said there are 2 scans she does for diabetics.  I explained his A1c his been 5.0 - 4.5 for 3 years straight and was under the impression retinopathy occurred from high BG.  She readily admitted damage is from high/uncontrolled BG, but also felt the tests were a good idea to give us a base-line for his first exam.  I agreed.

She did an OCT test to check his retina thickness and look for leaking fluid.

Then she did a really cool retina picture.  It clearly showed his entire eye, all the blood vessels, macula, optic nerve, etc.  After this test she got really excited an animated.

Moment of truth...

"Despite only being 8yo, since he's had diabetes for 7 years, I fully expected to see some damage.  If you hadn't told me he's diabetic, I would have had absolutely NO idea he was.  And I've suspected people are diabetic before they've known and sent them to their GP where they've been diagnosed".

She then spoke directly to my son telling him that how his Mom & Dad take care of his diabetes is really, really great.  Then she pulled up some retina pictures of other diabetics and showed us the damage high/uncontrolled BG has done (my son's eye on the left/uncontrolled BG eye on the right...zoom in!).

I've been close to tears several times today.  Seeing something so visual (no pun intended) to validate the importance of what we do has been huge to all of us today.