West Sussex-based Britain’s Got Talent star Tom Ball, with a debut album coming out and his music career taking off phenomenally, says he feels a responsibility to talk publicly about a happy and successful life lived despite years of diabetes.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers, and it's
00:06always truly lovely to speak to our very own Britain's Got Talent star, Tom Ball. But Tom,
00:11today you're talking about something really, truly important, your battle with diabetes
00:17over many years, and the fact that you've emerged with so much hope and so much positivity
00:22about it that you are on top of it, especially with new technologies. How have you managed
00:28it? You were diagnosed at the age of 8, weren't you? Yeah, so I was 8 years old, I displayed
00:33the classic symptoms of type 1 diabetes, of thin, thirst, tired, and toilet, needing the
00:41loo a lot. And so I went into hospital quite quickly, I was very fortunate to catch it
00:46early so that we could start treating it before it got, before, you know, something too severe
00:51happened. And do you remember being, really feeling unwell at that time? Yeah, absolutely,
00:56I remember finishing a whole bottle of water before the school day had even started, which
01:01isn't a normal behaviour to exhibit. And so, yeah, I felt unwell, and I was really hungry
01:08as well, a lot of the time wanting to eat, but then eating, which we later found out
01:14was actually not helping with it, because it was sending my feelings higher. And so
01:18it was, it was a challenging time. But, you know, I was very fortunate to have incredibly
01:22supportive family around me. But at that point in your life, inevitably, it was quite
01:26limiting in what you could and couldn't do. Yeah. Yeah, I was on two injections a day,
01:31and I was having to do finger pricks, which quickly ramped up to five injections a day.
01:35And by the way, that's the minimum, those are the routines, you've got to do five injections
01:40a day, it was always more than that, because you had to do correction doses as well. So
01:44on a single day, I was probably doing upwards of maybe 30 blood tests and injections combined
01:50a day, which is a lot for someone to handle. And now, you know, as technology has improved
01:55and progressed massively, I don't even inject, I have a pump. So I have a permanent needle
02:02in me. And I can do corrections as many times as I like during the day, without having to
02:08re-inject myself, which is game changing. It's astonishing, you clearly live in a decent
02:14era to have diabetes, the transformation between an eight-year-old Tom and Tom now,
02:19you are on top of it. Yeah. On top of it, everyone has bad days. And any type one diabetic
02:29will say, there are really bad days, and then there are really good days. But on the whole,
02:35I'm trying to have as many good days as I can. Absolutely. And where do those good days
02:40come from? How much is it mental? You're saying that you did for a while think, why me? But
02:44you've moved on that why me thought, haven't you? Yeah, when I was younger, especially
02:50during school, when you're with friends, and they're eating whatever they like, and I was
02:56on injections. So at the time, food was a little bit more limited about what I could
03:01have and couldn't have. Once you go into a pump, it opens the doors just a little bit
03:05more, and you can have pretty much anything within reason. And so during that time, I was
03:11definitely thinking, why me? I want to be having 20 flapjacks at lunchtime. But I couldn't, or if
03:19I did, I'd become very unwell. And so, yeah, I definitely felt that during that time. But I
03:24suppose at some point, you kind of have to accept it a little bit. It's not going anywhere. For the
03:30time being, there is no cure. And so you move past that moment, and you then start kind of
03:42looking after yourself a little bit better. Yeah. And a real game changer, you were saying,
03:46is what's slightly inaccurately called the artificial pancreas.
03:50Yeah, yeah.
03:51That's something you learn about your personage, 24 hours a week, seven days a week, and it makes
03:56a hell of a difference.
03:58Oh, it makes a massive difference. It's like having someone constantly just looking over
04:03your shoulder and giving you a helping hand. It's not the cure. We're still a little way off
04:08that cure. But it is a massive step in the right direction to support absolutely everyone. And
04:14obviously, the NHS have just announced that they're going to be rolling this out to everyone
04:19over the next five years, which beforehand, because this technology has been in the UK for
04:25the last four or five years, or really readily available in the last two. But to have everyone
04:32to have access is incredible, because beforehand, it was very much a case of where you lived in
04:36which clinic you belonged to, is whether you'd get access to this technology or not.
04:41It's such a phenomenal thing, the NHS, isn't it? It's the best thing I've ever done for myself,
04:45isn't it? And the lovely thing you were saying, interestingly, is that you do feel a responsibility
04:51in a public domain with your career, etc. A new album, a platform. You have to be good with your
04:58diabetes, don't you? Yeah, or at least talk about it in a very real way. You know, I'm more than
05:05happy to talk about the negatives and my bad days, but also my good days and try and be a role model
05:11for every diabetic, but newly diagnosed and younger people to show that it's never going to limit you.
05:17It can't limit you, it won't limit you. You know, just for example, everything I have achieved in
05:22the last two years, in spite of my type 1 diabetes, but, you know, to be that responsible
05:29kind of role model to show them that there's a way forward. And to show that if you look after yourself,
05:35you can do it. Encouragement, absolutely. It's the old cliché, isn't it? The experience is not about
05:41what happens to you, it's what you do with what happens to you. Absolutely.
05:45You are absolutely right, I think. Well, congratulations on the positive message.
05:50Really lovely to speak to you again, Tom. Thank you so much. Thank you.