An Angus woman who is critically ill from the effects of diabetes has had her wedding dreams dashed.
Caroline James, of Brechin, had planned to celebrate her 50th birthday by marrying her long-time partner John James in Memphis.
He is a devoted Elvis Presley fan and all the arrangements had been made. One of the flower girls was to be Carsyne Underwood, the youngest child in the US with the same condition as Caroline, whom she met at a conference in London last year.
After two weeks in hospital and rapid loss of weight, Caroline has been told she needs a stomach pacemaker and doctors have agreed she is too ill to fly.
“Sadly we’ve had to cancel our wedding in Memphis on November 30,” said Caroline yesterday.
“We are now going to Gretna Green and have started to inform all our guests.
“We’ve lost a £1700 deposit we paid and Carsyne won’t be able to attend. It’s a real blow.”
But she will still have a part Caroline has been told she has made her a special gift to be unveiled on the day as a surprise.
And as guest of honour, her consultant Dr Ewan Pearson, clinical senior lecturer at the biomedical research institute at Dundee University, the man she credits for saving her life, will still be able to attend.
In recent years Caroline’s life has been transformed after a breakthrough in diabetes research. She has monogenic neo-natal diabetes, a rare but severe form of the disease with only 188 other sufferers in the UK and around 400 worldwide.
But she was given that diagnosis only two years ago after taking part in a research project at the request of Dr Pearson.
It led to pills replacing her daily insulin injections. The pills, which mimic the pancreas and produce insulin, only work in patients who were diagnosed with diabetes in infancy.
Sadly for her the disease had taken a huge toll before the breakthrough. But she has led a successful campaign to have genetic testing for the condition made routine through the NHS.
She was determined others would be spared the life-threatening complications she has suffered through a lack of diagnosis and treatment.
She was just 33 days old when she was diagnosed with type one diabetes and started on insulin.
Despite missing a great deal of school, she managed to gain a place at Dundee University and graduated BSc in nursing. But she was forced to take early retirement from Dundee’s Royal Liff Hospital.
She is now registered blind due to diabetic retinopathy and is in stage four of diabetic kidney failure and needs a transplant.
She has also suffered diabetic neuropathy or nerve damage in her hands, arms, feet and lower legs, leaving her without feeling.
In addition, she has gastroparesis, which means her abdominal muscles don’t work properly and she has difficulty digesting food.