Douglas's story: I lost my beloved partner to DKA so I’m raising awareness of it

It was love at first sight for Douglas and Jane when they met in the chairman’s office at the London Metal Exchange, Douglas recalls. Jane, then 48, was the chair’s PA and Douglas, 51, had come to meet the chairman. He was hoping for an invitation to one of the state banquets Douglas organised for heads of state, as a ceremonial assistant to the City Remembrancer. 

Douglas, a former soldier said: “Eyes met and that was that. It never faltered. We lived in romantic love for the next 39 years. Jane was a great communicator – her profession was public relations and she had worked all over the world. She was very good at getting on with people and people loved her. 

Jane was diagnosed with diabetes around 20 years after they got together. Both her parents had had diabetes.

"I was 100% with her, making sure she was taking insulin. I’m a bossy person, she didn’t need me to check up!"

“I had lists in my kitchen of foods that Jane said she mustn’t eat, could eat whenever she liked and could eat occasionally and food she would never eat, to help me when I cooked a meal for her. Diabetes was just part of life.” 

Jane was a member of Diabetes UK. So, I let them know she’d passed away. And after that they kept in touch.  And on one occasion, they said, ‘Why don’t you come and have a walk?’ I wanted to do something in her memory. I’d done runs in the past for my local hospice but not a walk. 

I enjoyed the walk very much. I met other people and most of us had a notice on our backs to say why we were walking. One young girl’s said: “I’m 13 and I’m not living with diabetes, diabetes is living with me.” That was a very good response! 

Mine said: “I am walking because last year, I lost my dearly beloved partner of 39 years from DKA and I want to increase knowledge of it.” 

Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA) wasn’t something we were aware of and we had not heard of ketones or a ketone meter. The night she died, Jane woke up at 3am, screaming for me and vomiting. I dialled 999 and an ambulance arrived before I’d put the phone down.

One of the young paramedics immediately tested Jane’s blood sugar – which I had also done. He took out another meter and said her ketones were very high, and that she had to go to hospital straight away. But on the way to A&E, she had a cardiac arrest and they couldn’t revive her.

The pathologists took four months to decide the cause of death was Diabetic Ketoacidosis – (DKA) there was an autopsy. I only knew when I saw the words on the final death certificate. 

DKA was a new and strange term to me. I googled it and found a huge amount of information about DKA symptoms on the Diabetes UK website. Jane had been suffering at least 75% of the symptoms in the weeks before. In the meantime, she had seen her diabetes consultant – who she got on well with, her diabetes nurse and GP. She had mentioned the symptoms but no one said anything about ketones. 

Jane had diabetes for about 20 plus years but no one mentioned the word ketone or that you can get a handheld ketone meter. I just can’t think of her dying like that and that time, possibly unnecessarily. 

"If we’d known sooner about ketones and that they were doing something nasty to her blood we might have been able to do something about it. Although we can’t say that we could have saved her, we might have been able to prolong her life."
 

I take a lot of exercise and I eat properly. I'm 91 but my latest body track scan tells me my metabolic age is 75. So I was able to do the London Bridges walk non-stop and stay a happy man with no ill effects! 

My principal career was in the army. I was a soldier for 33 years, so quite a lot of that was keeping fit and it just carried on after I’d retired and through the rest of my life. 

I play golf three times a week and usually I’m at the gym the other two mornings, and that all helps. I do my own cooking. I eat fresh meat, chicken, and fish and lots of veg and fruit. I rarely eat red meat. Processed food rarely crosses my threshold because I enjoy cooking and the food I eat.    

"Although I’m still grieving very deeply, I don’t have problems at all with my emotional health. Jane would have been quite overwhelmed by my doing the walk and raising money."

It was quite easy. I emailed the fundraising link for this walk to selected friends and acquaintances – explained what I was doing and they all responded magnificently.