I ATE MY WAY THROUGH GRIEF

When her son died, Claire Wright, 47, turned to food for comfort

- JENNY ACKLAND

Lacing up my trainers, I took a deep breath and forced myself out of the front door. Running didn’t come naturally to me and I was already considering giving up before I’d taken a single step. Although I’d recently lost a couple of stone with Slimming World, I was still a size 18.

But as I begrudgingly put one foot in front of the other, I knew I couldn’t stop. You see, it wasn’t just for me, it was for my beautiful son Jacob, too. We hadn’t been able to save his life, but I could still save mine.

Jacob had been born in December 2010. My husband Bob, then 39, and I had been so excited to be parents and we had everything prepared for our boy’s arrival.

At first, Jacob was placed in the Special Care Baby Unit because he had low blood sugar. Doctors weren’t sure why, but thought it might have been down to the diabetes I’d suffered during my pregnancy.

After he spent a week in Special Care, we finally took him home.

But at Jacob’s six-week check, something wasn’t right.

‘Is he smiling yet?’ the nurse asked.

‘No,’ I said – I hadn’t realised that he was even supposed to be.

His eye test picked up on a problem, too. He had no red reflex in one eye, meaning light wasn’t hitting his retina.

Two weeks later, at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, doctors checked his eye and found that he had a cataract. He’d need an operation to remove it.

He was still so small. The thought of putting him under general anaesthetic terrified me.