WHEN it comes to medical emergencies, my husband and I are at opposite ends of the parenting spectrum. He is so laid back, he’s practically horizontal, barely looking up from his newspaper, and telling the boys not to make such a fuss, unless there’s blood gushing from a major artery.

When one of our sons, who has a potentially fatal reaction to wasp and bee stings, was stung in the garden one summer, he told him: “Go in and tell your mother,” while he continued cutting the grass.

I grabbed the boy’s adrenalin injection, called 999 and drove him to our get medical attention because it was quicker than waiting for an ambulance. His dad calmly finished the lawn. “I knew he’d be okay,” he said when we got back.

He always assumes everything’s going to be fine, while I tend to catastrophise, for good reason, because I’ve had to rush the boys to hospital several times in genuine emergencies over the years, on occasions when their dad was not around.

Having coped on my own with everything from a near-drowning to a sleepwalking incident which involved a fall from a bedroom window, is it any wonder I presume the worst is going to happen?

When the phone rang on Saturday, my husband, who was on a 60-mile organised bike ride with our 14-year-old son, said: “Can you bring an inhaler? Albert’s having an asthma attack.” I naturally assumed this was serious, especially as his older brother had collapsed from a sudden asthma attack at about the same age and had to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance, with flashing lights and siren blaring.

He ended up in a high dependency unit for four days.

So that was the scenario in my mind as I tore round the house looking for Albert’s asthma inhaler.

When I couldn’t find it, I called a friend and arranged to borrow her son’s. The phone rang again, but it was my sister, not my husband: “Asthma attack, can’t talk, call you later,” I blurted out as I ran for the door.

I’d just picked the inhaler up when my phone rang. It was my husband and he sounded impatient: “Where are you?” I began to explain that I’d had to call and get the inhaler from a friend’s house when he abruptly interrupted: “Where are you?” he said again before cutting off.

I pictured him breaking away, mid-conversation, because Albert had collapsed and he’d had to tend to him instantly. Panic-stricken, I called him back as I fired up the car.

There was no answer. The village they were in was about ten miles away. I drove at breakneck speed, heart-in-mouth, while repeatedly calling my husband, hands-free, from the car. No answer.

I arrived in the village, but they weren’t there. A text had come through on my phone. ‘Not now needed’ was all it said. But what did that mean? Had Albert gone to hospital? Had someone driven them to a medical station? Or had my laid-back and infuriatingly uncommunicative husband decided it was, after all, a fuss about nothing?

I couldn’t get a signal in the village to call them, which at least may have explained why he cut off earlier. So I phoned from the village shop. Again, no answer.

I flagged down a couple of Lycraclad cyclists taking part in the same event and asked them where the next feeding station was, hoping my husband and son might at least have made it to that spot, where there would be medics on hand.

Full of sympathy, the cyclists kindly gave me their route map and when I got to the feeding station there they were, sitting on the grass outside, eating chocolate flapjacks.

They smiled and wheeled their bikes across to greet me.

I had to force myself not to swear in front of all the other cyclists.

“Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” I inquired through gritted teeth, staring daggers at my husband as he casually retrieved his mobile from his pocket to discover he had about 15 missed calls.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise,” he said. “Albert seems fine now. I probably shouldn’t have called you really.

But thanks for bringing the inhaler anyway.”

Somehow, I managed not to reverse over my husband’s bike as I turned the car around to head back home. But it was difficult.