Chloe’s story: “In June I started to lose a lot of weight. I didn’t look myself. I was sleeping all the time.

“At the time it was my school play and I love things like that but I wasn’t enthusiastic at all, and people were starting to notice some dramatic changes in me: the weight loss, sleeping all the time, going to the toilet all the time, and drinking a lot.

“After my mum took me to the doctors. In 10 minutes I was in the hospital with a diagnosed condition called ketoacidosis – meaning a diabetic condition where the body starts to fill up with nasty toxins.

“This is a condition that if left too long can cause death. I was hospitalised for two days. But now with the help of my friends and family I am a long ways from being dead. I am a lot better”.

Chloe Devlin is 15, a year 11 pupil at Our Lady and St John’s High School, Blackburn.

I met her on Tuesday.

She’s bright, enjoys dancing and drama, and has an incredibly sunny disposition.

She led a normal kind of life, until July when she started feeling odd, and Type One diabetes was quickly diagnosed.

Now she has to give herself up to four insulin injections a day, and carry all kinds of kit in case she gets a “hyper” or a “hypo”.

A “hyper”, is when your blood sugar goes too high and as Chloe explained, you feel sick, may want to go to the toilet all the time.

A “hypo”, more dangerous, is when your blood sugar goes too low. You feel weak, dizzy, have headaches, and may slip into semi-consciousness.

Type One diabetes develops due to a diminished production of insulin. It affects people – like Chloe – who are otherwise healthy.

It represents the majority of diabetes cases in children.

Type Two is due to increased resistance to insulin, and is the form of diabetes most often diagnosed in adults.

Untreated diabetes can lead to blindness, heart and liver problems and much else besides.

I’ve known something about diabetes for a long time.

But why is it now on much more my mind? It’s because my meeting with Chloe was not by chance, but part of a Lobby of Parliament organised by the main diabetes charity, Diabetes UK.

If you are ever cynical as to whether lobbies of Parliament can work, don’t be.

Part of the reason why the lobby worked so well was because of people like Chloe.

The best way to learn about something is to hear first hand from someone who is affected by it, and Chloe certainly made an impression on me.

She has had to come to terms with some really fundamental changes but is doing brilliantly with the help of friends and family – and also because of her own determination to adapt to a new life.

And because she joined that lobby of parliament and made an impression on her local MP, she’s helping to change other lives too.

Good for her, and more proof that our system, while not perfect, really can work for the better.