Britain’s Got Talent star Tom Ball and living with diabetes

SussexWorld

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.

Transcript

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.

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