LaVar Ball has confirmed that his leg was amputated due to diabetes.
A month after TMZ reported that the father of basketball stars Lonzo, LiAngelo and LaMelo Ball had his leg amputated, Ball confirmed the news in an interview with Slam magazine.
Ball, 57, told the magazine that he underwent the procedure in January – noting that the timing coincided with LiAngelo’s song “Tweaker” going viral.
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“I had an infection on my foot that started spreading through my blood due to not paying attention to my diabetes,” said Ball. “I ended up having to get my leg amputated. 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.’ ”
The businessman said that, in total, there were three surgeries and four blood transfusions.
Ball said doctors told him his infection had gotten so bad that they “were very close to having to shut it down.”
“But they were quick enough to give me the blood transfusions and keep that poison from going throughout my body,” said Ball. He shared that things would have probably gone worse if he had never gone to the doctor.
“If I don’t go at the end of last year during Christmas to get that infection looked at, [an infection] that’s been around for maybe a month or two on the bottom of my foot, this would be a different type of story,” he told Slam.
His loved ones were a big part of what got him through his health journey, making him realize that he is “here for a bigger purpose” — especially after he began to question “whether it was worth going through it sometimes.”
“I’m the Big Baller. I’m hard to kill. But I must admit that my boys kept me rolling. Cause a couple of times, I was like, ‘I can’t do no more blood transfusions. I can’t do no more operations. I’m just ready to shut it down. It’s enough for me,’ ” said Ball.
He hopes others are motivated by his story to take their health seriously and for those with diabetes to watch their sugar intake. The experience has left him with a different mindset.
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“I got a lot of limbs to come off. I’m hard to kill. I got some bigger stuff that the Big Baller still gotta do. And that guy upstairs put me here for a reason,” he told Slam. “And I’m gonna get it done.”
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