IT’S something we all take for granted.

But for little Tom Royal, seven, making his own red blood cells would be a dream come true.

The Witchampton youngster is just one of 125 people in the UK suffering from Diamond Blackfan Anaemia (DBA), a very rare condition in which producing haemoglobin is impossible.

Without a bone marrow transplant from a matching sibling, the outlook is one of regular blood transfusions.

Playful Tom’s little brother Harvey, two, tested negative at birth.

Loving mum Katie Royal said: “It was a shot in the dark to be honest.

“It’s all for his future. I wouldn’t put him through it at the moment.”

Tom started showing signs of the illness at 12 weeks.

“He had a cough like a very old person on their last legs,” Mrs Royal, 34, said.

“The fluid that should have been blood was building up on his lungs.”

His haemoglobin count was critically low, at 3.2 rather than a ‘normal’ 12 to 14.

The episodes kept recurring and he was diagnosed at six-months-old.

Tom takes steroids to stimulate his bone marrow, which lowers the number of transfusions he has to have at Poole Hospital. Like the families of the other 60 children in the country with DBA, Mrs Royal, husband Andy and eldest son Max, 10, are no strangers to admissions.

Because DBA is so rare, there’s little research or improvements to treatment. Up until around 10 years ago, the iron overload could dramatically limit sufferers’ lives.

Tom may need to go on a pump 12 hours a day, five times a week.

In the meantime, he’s making the most of life at St Catherine’s School, in Colehill, where he has a love of football and maths.

“What happens next depends on the transfusions he has,” Mrs Royal added.

“There’s no hard and fast rule. We take each day as it comes. Crashes can spring up out of nowhere.”

• FAMILY friend Darren Rodriguez, from Bearwood, is running the London Marathon for Tom.

Darren, 35, said: “Tom has so much character about him.”

The dad-of-two, whose wife is Katie’s best friend, added: “When he needs a transfusion he can get quite low.”