A mum who was left fighting for her life in hospital just weeks after giving birth has revealed the moment she thought she was going to die. Elleyce Whiteley, from Wigan, had not long welcomed her son Jax into the world when she developed a life-threatening condition – with doctors telling her family she might not pull through. The 27-year-old had been diagnosed with diabetes type 2 during her pregnancy and was placed on insulin until Jax was born on January 10. READ MORE: ‘She promised she would never leave me’ – daughter’s heartbreak after mum dies in train station tragedy Following the tot’s birth, her sugars started spiking again. She was later prescribed semaglutide, a diabetes medication which shares the same active ingredient as popular weight loss drug Ozempic. The mum claims she was supposed to have her dosage increased after four weeks but miscommunication between medics meant this never happened. She claims this led to her medication running out after a month – seeing her blood sugar rise to dangerously high levels. As her condition continued to worsen, Elleyce began suffering from sickness, nausea and stomach pains. She also needed the toilet more often, couldn’t see properly, felt confused and had severe thirst. The mum claims she was passed between doctors around six weeks as her blood sugar levels continued to spiral out of control. But she claims that by the time she got an appointment and was put back on her medication, it was already too late – her blood had turned acidic, a terrifying and life-threatening condition called diabetic ketoacidosis. Elleyce, who works at the Armed Forces Hub in Wigan, initially thought she had post-natal depression due to her exhaustion. Just weeks later, she found herself fighting for her life in hospital. “It was quite a surreal experience,” she said. “My whole body just started to feel like it wasn’t my own.” Just before being rushed to hospital, Elleyce’s mum Laura offered to look after Jax so she could rest. The pair thought she was probably sleep deprived as a new mum. But within just five minutes of her mum leaving, Elleyce began gasping for breath while struggling to keep food or water down. An ambulance was called and the mum was rushed to hospital where doctors began resuscitating her. “I don’t remember getting to the hospital or the journey to the hospital,” the mum added. “I only remember being wheeled into the ambulance. When I heard my mum crying, I didn’t know how bad it was – but I wasn’t expecting it to be as bad as it was.” While doctors fought to save Elleyce’s life, they told her devastated family to prepare for the worst. There were fears she would need to be put into an induced coma but she thankfully began responding to treatment. As she began to recover, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and began taking insulin again. She spent six days in hospital before going home to recover – but did not regain her vision for two weeks in a terrifying turn of events. “I thought it was postnatal depression because I was physically and mentally drained,” she said. “I didn’t know I was so poorly, I thought I was just seriously sleep deprived which was making me poorly. “My son also was coming up on having cleft lip and palate surgery – which he had last week – so I just thought the combination of all this was making me poorly and I was just so emotional and crying all the time. Since I’ve been well, all the depression signs have gone.” Elleyce is now on the road to recovery and continues to take insulin while taking advice from a dietician. Now looking to the future, the mum wants to raise awareness for diabetes among young people and is set to raise money for charity Diabetes UK through its Million Step Challenge. “When I first came home, I spent the following week just randomly crying after it sunk in that I literally was on death’s door,” she said. “I only had another hour when I was in resuscitation to respond to treatment or they were going to induce me into a coma. “It made me think about the fact that I could have died and left my son with no safety net, so I’ll be taking out life insurance soon to make sure that doesn’t happen. “It’s so strange because it is surreal, you never think something like that could happen to you, and when it does, it just puts everything into perspective. “I’m just so lucky that I got amazing care whilst I was in the hospital and that I have the most amazing support network to rally round and look after my boy when I couldn’t.”
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