Lyla has officially hit the honeymoon phase of diabetes. I’m not sure who named this phase. He/she must have a pretty crappy marriage though. For us, honeymooning has not been particularly fun.

Here’s the long and short of it — The islet cells in the pancreas make insulin. For some unknown reason, Lyla’s immune system started fighting off the islet cells. As they started to die, it became harder and harder for the remaining islet cells to regulate her blood sugar. When there were only a few left, they became overworked and under-appreciated so they decided to go on strike. Once the strike began, we started to see the signs and symptoms of diabetes. The few remaining islet cells spent a couple of weeks on vacation (doesn’t that sound nice?!?), having insulin injected to keep blood sugar levels under control. Once they felt rested, they decided to come back to work and contribute to the process. Unfortunately, they aren’t the best workers. They are sporadic and unpredictable.

So, what does this mean for us? It means Lyla’s blood sugars are wild and crazy and we have had almost daily “crashes,” where her body is making insulin and we are injecting it so she goes way too low. The first such crash happened last Saturday. I had gone running with my sister while Greg fed Lyla breakfast and gave her insulin. When I got home, he went ice climbing. Lyla had been pretty good throughout the morning, but her behavior deteriorated fast. She didn’t want to do anything and then she started crying for no apparent reason and wanted to lay on my shoulder. I checked her blood and she was at about 60, which is much too low (ideally she should be 100-200). Truthfully, I just assumed that her blood sugar was low because Greg had miscounted her breakfast carbs and given her too much insulin. It’s not that I don’t trust Greg, but more that I am very comfortable with the nutrition side of diabetes because of my professional training. So, I unfairly attributed it to Greg’s incompetence. I was wrong. I am sorry.

She crashed again on Sunday and twice more on Monday. I talked to the doctor and we slowly started decreasing the insulin we were giving her. On Tuesday morning she was at 270 as I was leaving for work. I gave her a half unit (which is a tiny amount) with breakfast. My mom called less than two hours later to say that she was down to 60 again. I could continue dictating the rest of the week, but really it is more of the same. She has been chronically low and we have been alternating between giving her fruit snacks to get it higher, and giving her less insulin. At this point she hasn’t had any insulin since Friday morning (2 days now). Her body seems to be processing the sugars just fine. It takes a little longer, meaning her blood sugar is high for longer, and she still gets too low sometimes.

Our doctor tells us the honeymoon period can last days, weeks, or months. Everything I have read has warned us that it will end and that she really does have diabetes, even though it doesn’t seem like it right now. In some ways it is really nice not to be counting carbs and giving injections. At the same time, it has made me even more nervous to leave her because she is so variable and her levels have been so wild. So, wildly unpredictable and hugely stressful . . . I’m glad our honeymoon wasn’t like that!