A dad whose eyes filled with blood while he was driving on the motorway says the terrifying incident was a wake-up call to start looking after himself.
Mike Begley was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of four and has struggled to manage the condition throughout his life. In 2010, the dad-of-three was travelling along the motorway when he suffered a haemorrhage due to Diabetic Retinopathy - which almost cost him his sight.
Instead of dwelling on the episode, Mike used it as an inspiration to make a change and started prioritising his health. Now 13 years on, the 43-year-old is celebrating after he completed last week's London Marathon in just three hours and 49 minutes.
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, Mike said: "I've been diabetic for 39 years. The first 35 years were quite difficult to manage.
"I was only four years old when I was diagnosed and I don't know how my poor parents coped. Back then it was multiple injections, multiple finger pricks.
"Going to sleep at night, there was an element of not knowing what was going to happen. We were blind to the ongoing life of having diabetes.
"I think, from the ages of four to 13 or 14, my mum and dad did a lot of the work for me, so I didn't have to think much about it. But then from my teenage years up until I was around 40, that was on me. I wasn't a very good diabetic.
"When you're in your teenage years and your early 20s, you want to go out and party with your friends. Because it wasn't convenient to be a diabetic - the finger pricks, having to watch what you're eating and the insulin - it was difficult. Sometimes I prioritised my social life over my health."
However, the retinopathy in 2010 was a turning point for Mike, who knew he had to start taking better care of himself. It led to him prioritising exercise. He said: "The reason the retinopathy happened was poor blood sugar control over a number of years and poor diet. I'd just done a Master's and that takes a good few years of work, I had a full-time job, my third child was just born and that was all in the space of five years.
"Because my diabetes was so difficult to manage, it was never a priority for me. It was just an amalgamation of years of poor glucose control.
"I was driving to Hertfordshire on the motorway in a roadworks section, so there was no hard shoulder. I just noticed a tiny drop of blood start from the bottom of my vision and then it went upwards.
"This was while I was driving, I had no idea what was going on. I had blood in my eye, couldn't stop and I just remember getting to the service station and panicking, ringing people to try and find out what was going on.
"Eventually it stopped and everything was ok. I got it all cleared up and I had laser surgery and it's been great ever since, but at the time, it was quite a scary experience."
Mike, who describes himself as a "hybrid athlete" that enjoys a mixture of running and weightlifting, was inspired by his dad to get into marathon running.
He said: "I started from a couple of weight sessions a week to now exercising up to eight or nine times a week - a combination of running and weightlifting.
"Dad is 75 now and he still tries to run . His goal was always to run the London Marathon and he never got in. It was something that I wanted to do while he's still with us."
"I'm quite a driven person anyway and I like to have goals and targets", he added. "It's also good for my health and I like to do things that are outside my comfort zone."
After lots of intense training and preparation, Mike achieved his goal of running the marathon in under four hours last Sunday.
"Four hours is the edge between being an average runner and a good runner," he said. "This has been a heavy training block to get to a sub-four hour marathon.
"At the end, I was very emotional. I'm normally quite stoic but it was the closest I've come to tears in many years.
"I would encourage absolutely anyone to do the London Marathon. The day itself is amazing.
"It feels like the closest you'll come to being a rock star, the support on the course just gives you a buzz. It's the best of humanity.
"The people running who are going through pain to get it done, the people supporting, it's a great day."
Mike said Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre 2, a glucose monitoring system with a sensor worn on the back of the upper arm, has also helped him in his fitness journey over the last four years. It allows him to monitor his blood sugar at any time and see how it has changed over the past eight hours.
Mike now finds his diabetes easier to manage and is looking forward to taking part in more marathons. His current goal is to get close to his dad's personal best of three and a half hours.
But more than anything, he hopes his story can show others with the condition that they can do anything if they out their mind to it.
He said: "My kids are a huge inspiration to me. Whilst none of them have got diabetes, I just want to prove to them that, no matter what is going on in your life, there's nothing blocking you. If you want to achieve something, put in the hard work and you can do that."
