Black people like Ball, outspoken father of two NBA playes and a rap star, are up to four times more likely to undergo diabetes-related amputations than whites.
When doctors discovered a potentially deadly blood infection, LaVar Ball, who has diabetes, wound up having to undergo three amputations, resulting in the loss of his right leg below the knee. Credit: Getty Images
Widely known as the father of two pro basketball players and a successful rapper, LaVar Ball has never been shy about promoting his sons — or himself. Because he keeps a very high profile, questions arose when Ball disappeared from the sports scene earlier this year because of an undisclosed illness.
But this week, in an essay published in SLAM magazine, Ball disclosed that he had been hospitalized and his right leg was partially amputated “due to not paying attention to my diabetes.”
RELATED: Black Amputation Rates Are High. Knowing Your Risk Can Lower It.
“I had an infection on my foot that started spreading through my blood,” he wrote. “First, they cut off a couple of toes. Then they cut off my foot. Then they said, We gotta go almost knee high for another surgery. Three surgeries. And then there were also the blood transfusions. Not one, not two, not three, four different times.”
‘Perfect Storm’
In addition to being one of the 4.9 million Black American adults diagnosed with diabetes, Ball’s harrowing illness put him at the center of what some researchers are calling an “epidemic”: a growing number of Black people losing limbs because of the disease.
“It is a perfect storm of poor health and lack of medical guidance,” Dr. Dean Schillinger, founder of the University of California-San Francisco Center for Vulnerable Populations, told The Guardian.
#DiabetesAwareness #HealthCrisis #LaVarBall
