Every year just after Christmas I would take our boys home to the UK to visit family. My husband would stay in Mallorca and look after the dog, this was just an excuse, he loved being in Mallorca and rarely wanted to visit the UK. He knew that he had to be careful and to look after himself as he was alone, he also knew that he had to keep in touch and answer his phone as I would worry about him.

One day we went shopping and I decided to buy my husband some new shoes as they were difficult to get in Spain. He had special requirements for his feet as they were deformed from surgeries over the years. I decided to call him to check on his shoe size and he didn’t answer.

My blood ran cold, it sounds stupid that I panicked so easily but I just knew that he wouldn’t miss a phone call when we were away. I looked at my eldest son and he looked at me and we both knew what the other was thinking, we didn’t need to say anything.

Then we started to convince ourselves that he was fine, he was in the shower, he had gone to the toilet, that he would call us back. Two hours later with no return call and numerous unanwered calls to him we asked a friend to go and check on him.

Then we got the telephone call we were dreading. They could see John through the window, he was conscious but unable to move and lying on the kitchen floor. On top of this he had locked himself in the house so they were going to have to break in! Thankfully he was able to break in through a downstairs window and get to John pretty quickly. John was unable to speak properly, he was slurring his words and could not move. This is not unusual with very low blood sugar or hypoglycemia so I intstructed my friend to call an ambulance and to get the glucagon from the fridge and to prepare to inject him with it whilst we waited for medical help to arrive. It did not occur to me or to anyone else that this was anything other than extremely low blood sugar.

It turned out to be much worse and much more complicated that we could ever have imagined.