the honeymoon

The honeymoon. the doctor keeps referring to THE Honeymoon.

Honeymoons are supposed to be happy, a celebration, a fun time. this is not fun. nor a celebration. I see the honeymoon title as an oxymoron. a dark, sad, time. It's like an iniation into a secret, dark, club. it's the remaining time of being normal into being not normal ever again. It's like a vampire in one of Anne Rice's novels. New vampires are created when an established vampire bites a human. then the vampire has the human drink the vampires blood. the vampire's blood mixes with the humans blood and the human slowly becomes a vampire. there is a waiting period where the vampire Lestat describes it as "the body slowly dying" then the new vampire wakes up in a sense and is completely vampire and has to learn how to live again.

kind of graphic description but very accurate. Her body is slowly dying and killing itself of producing its own insulin. as the body sputters and recognizes that it can still make insulin, it suddenly does and then conflicts with the manufactured insulin. this creates sudden lows in the newly diabetic child because its suddenly too much insulin for the body. its like the body desperately clinging to life, trying not to give up the fight. but the sad reality is by introducing the manufactured insulin, the natural insulin becomes a nusiance, a problem, because it throws off our medical intervention. so we are waiting for her body to use up its last attempts to survive on its own, to become 100% manufactured insulin dependent.

how is this a honeymoon?

its a sad sad thing.

her little body is trying to fight and work properly and yet we already know the end result. like in the titanic. trapped in a room that is slowly filling with water. you might find a chair to stand on as the room fills with water, but eventually you will still drown. that's the honeymoon period. if we didn't have medical intervention, this is when the doctors would say "you have about this many months left to live." "this is your honeymoon" enjoy it. when your honeymoon is over, you will be dead. but in reality, probably sooner because as we found, with only 20 % of her insulin making cells left, she already was dying.

I know this is harsh and morbid. but this is the sad reality I carry with me when I try to just go buy groceries or try to buy a coffee. I don't feel normal anymore. I don't feel carefree anymore. I feel like a doctor on call already. everytime I leave the house, I get a phone call or a text and either have to coach my husband as how to handle the situation or call the doctor myself. As I was typing my last entry "yesterday" I had a call from my husband that she had dropped from 376 at 6:10 pm to 79 by 7:30 pm. what should he do? I told him to call the doctor. that was a drastic drop. She advised give her carbs now to bring her back up. and then I needed to call her back in an hour to get new instructions for tommorow. I did call her back in between these two blogs and I was given several details and changes to make for tommorow. I wrote several notes on the back of an old calendar page in my mom's kitchen. I can't ever walk away from this burden and heartache I carry now. I just sit in silence, shaking my head in disbelief. How can this be real?

I miss my dad so much. I wish he were here to comfort me and listen. He used to always be in the room right down the hall from where I am typing now. He would sit and journal his thoughts on an old typewriter everynight, prior to blogs. He would be hearbroken by the fact that it touched such a precious little delicate child such as her. This isn't an adult that can understand. this is an innocent little child that trusts me to keep her safe. How did I do that? I couldn't protect her from this and she got it. Just like when my other daughter broke her leg when she was three. I dropped her off at school that morning. and that evening we greeted her in recovery in a full body cast from a freak break to her femur bone off the play structure at school.

Even though I did nothing wrong. I feel responsible. I am their mother. I'm supposed to be trustworthy. If I say they will be okay, they are supposed to be.

I know there are so many stories mothers carry of tragedies that befall their children. I know I'm not alone. But this is my story and I strive hard. I want the very best for my kids. of course, we all say we do too. but I, as a teacher, saw many kids that weren't given what they deserved. I saw parents that didn't care and didn't live upto their responsibilities. I mentored their kids to make up for what they didn't do.

Yet my children have still suffered.

Right before my daughter had broken her leg, we read a devotional about a lizard that lost its tail and how God designed lizards to be able to lose their tails to stay safe and how God does amazing things to help his creations survive. we didn't know at that time what we were to go through.

right before our youngest daughter was diagnosed with diabetes, she had been walking around the house saying "ou ch" "ou ch" she was practicing her "ch" sound. I thought, interesting. days later, diagnosed.

God speaks to us. He does promise to take care of us. He loves our children even more than we do. God warned me through the devotional and our youngest one's practicing of her new word of what was to come. It's not coincidence. it's purposeful. when my dad died. God warned me over and over that week he was going to die. He knew it and he was reassuring me that it was his plan, his timing, what was to come. God will speak to us. we need to pay attention and listen.

This is how we survive. this is how life becomes full of meaning and not just random bad things we are surviving through.

I praise God for yesterday, today, and tommorow. I am heartbroken but reassured. I follow God's plans wether I like them or not. Because he knows where he is leading me and I'm sure it will be a fantastic ending.

so for now, we deal with our daughter's lows and highs. She had two big lows again today. sudden drop to 50 at lunch and 79 tonight I already mentioned. I follow directions and just go through the motions and stay calm. just like we need to do in life.

Just follow directions. whether we like it or not. God's plans are always better than ours.

Lord, I continue to pray for your blessings and encouragement in this tough adjustment time. Amen.