FORMER Towie star Leah Wright took to Instagram last night to share a heartbreaking photo of her son lying in a hospital bed.
In the picture Christopher, 8, who has type one diabetes, can be seen comfortably dressed in loose fitting clothing with his eyes shut, laying in a white hospital bed surrounded by wires and monitors.
Leah Wright’s son Christopher needed hospital treatment[/caption]
The worried mum shared a picture from A&E on Instagram[/caption]
He has one hand resting on his stomach next to a partly drunk bottle of water, the other resting by his side wrapped in a bandage.
A brown cardboard bowl can be seen sitting on Christopher’s lap in case he might be sick.
Fortunately Christopher is now ok, with Leah, 45, adding in text over the top of the photo, “Happy Sunday all ok now though” followed by an exasperated open-mouthed emoji.
It’s been around five and a half years since Leah got an official diagnosis of Christopher’s diabetes, posting a captioned photo of her son to Instagram at the beginning of the year to commemorate the milestone.
She wrote: “5 years ago today you my precious boy was diagnosed with #typeonediabetes I’m so so proud of how far you’ve come.
“It hasn’t been easy as anyone with this illness knows. You have cried, I have cried for you. But you have given me the strength to take care of you.
“I salute all the mums and dads taking care of children with type one diabetes.”
Leah featured on the highly popular ITV show, The Only Way Is Essex, between 2011 and 2015, spanning series’ 2 and 9 as well as 11 to 14.
She first joined the show following the success of cousins Mark Wright, 38, and Jessica Wright, 39, who each featured for a number of years before Leah’s Towie debut.
Leah left the show after five on-and-off years to pursue presenting work and start her own recruitment business, ‘V Recruitment Solutions’.
Fans of the TV personality may also remember Leah featuring in the film Dracula’s Raven House back in 2018: a horror number set in London during the late 1800s.
In the past year Leah has been passionately speaking out about domestic violence, as a survivor herself, and doing what she can to raise awareness of struggles people may be facing inside the home.
Collaborating with the charity, Refuge, Leah spoke on their podcast about topics including economic abuse, feeling isolated from friends and family, and how a person being domestically abused might not at first realise it’s happening to them.
Leah pictured with James Argent on Towie[/caption]
Type 1 vs type 2 diabetes
There are two main types of diabetes, which causes a person’s blood sugar level to become too high.
Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong condition where the body’s immune system attacks and destroys the cells that produce the hormone insulin.
It affects around 344,000 people in the UK.
Type 2 diabetes on the other hand is far more common, accounting for more than 90 per cent of the 4.4million adults with diabetes.
It occurs when the body doesn’t produce enough insulin, or the body’s cells don’t react to it properly.
There are no lifestyle changes you can make to lower your risk of type 1 diabetes.
But you may be at higher risk of type 2 diabetes if you are overweight or obese, eat unhealthily, have a family history of the condition, take certain medications for a long time, have high blood pressure, and have had gestational diabetes during pregnancy.
People of Asian, Black African or African Caribbean origin are also at increased risk.
Source: NHS and Diabetes UK
