Listen up caregivers, this one's for you.
Brimming with courage and resilience, 18-year-old Logan Nobriga joins his GMA , Suzi Landolphi, as he recounts his 2x battle with leukemia. Diagnosed at the tender age of 5, he navigates us through some of the highs and lows, and he emphasizes the importance of maintaining friendships. Logan provides some advice to parents with children facing similar trials and the importance of safeguarding their child's social connections.
Listen to Logan's reflections on how his physical strength, high pain tolerance, and his life-altering experiences have helped shape his outlook on life.
Music credit to Kalvin Love for the podcast’s theme song “Bee Your Best Self”
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Contact Suzi at suzigma@gmail.com or (818) 470-2013 and share your story.
suzilandolphi.com
vetsandplayers.org
wildhorserescue.org
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
Listen up caregivers, this one's for you.
Brimming with courage and resilience, 18-year-old Logan Nobriga joins his GMA , Suzi Landolphi, as he recounts his 2x battle with leukemia. Diagnosed at the tender age of 5, he navigates us through some of the highs and lows, and he emphasizes the importance of maintaining friendships. Logan provides some advice to parents with children facing similar trials and the importance of safeguarding their child's social connections.
Listen to Logan's reflections on how his physical strength, high pain tolerance, and his life-altering experiences have helped shape his outlook on life.
Music credit to Kalvin Love for the podcast’s theme song “Bee Your Best Self”
Tune into our CHW Streaming Radio and the full lineup at cominghomewell.com
Download on Apple Play and Google Play
Online-Therapy.com ~ Life Changing Therapy Click here for a 20% discount on your first month.
Contact Suzi at suzigma@gmail.com or (818) 470-2013 and share your story.
suzilandolphi.com
vetsandplayers.org
wildhorserescue.org
Thank you for listening! Be sure to SHARE, LIKE and leave us a REVIEW!
I'm Susie Landolfi, and welcome to Be Crazy. Well, I promise you, logan, this will only be 10 or 15 minutes. I don't know if you know this, but teenagers do not want to talk longer than 10 or 15 minutes to anybody. Like, am I right? Like you can talk shit? He can talk shit to people like for three minutes and get so much in, and of course, I want to go on and on. Welcome everybody to Be Crazy. Well, I'm his Gima. This is my grandson, logan James Nobriga, and I asked him to be a guest on my show and he messed me up because he said yes, I was not expecting it.
Speaker 2:So the reason I'm asking him is because he's gone through something, and something happened because of lots of things happened because of it and I wanted to share his story because part of his story involves combat veterans and sort of what happened. So step right up here, young man, so that they can hear you. Logan Jake Glazer, the founder of MVP, spoke your name yesterday on Instagram and I'm following with.
Speaker 2:I said, oh, jay's on, so I'll just listen. And he goes. And then this young man, logan Nobriga, came to the huddle one day and blah, blah, blah, blah, and he helped start MVP. And I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. So tell your story from your memory and I'll keep asking you little questions if you want just to prompt, like what happened. So you're five years old, what happens to you?
Speaker 1:I was diagnosed with AOL leukemia and then, pretty near the end of that four year cycle, we met Jay and that was kind of another fox, like broadcast guys were at the hospital that day and then we got really close to Jay and Jay ended up inviting me to one of the unbreakable huddle sessions and I got to meet a lot of like the veterans, the women, the guys and talk about my story and their stories together and that was honestly a great experience pretty far, really interesting.
Speaker 2:That wasn't the time you danced with Gronk.
Speaker 1:No, that was another time.
Speaker 2:Okay, so this is why I asked him to be here. So this eight year old shows up at this huddle of MVP with a bunch of combat veterans and retired professional athletes and he tells his story of going to leukemia. At that time was only one time right? It was the first time. Little did you know that you were going to have three months of reprieve and in remission and then it came back worse. So now you got to go through it again. How did you do that?
Speaker 1:I think you get a choice.
Speaker 2:I love that. You don't have a choice how you deal with it, though you have a choice How'd you deal with it?
Speaker 1:I think the second round just was a lot easier to go see friends, and I just talk about it. Friends were important, always Number one.
Speaker 2:Number one friends, All right. So if a family is watching this right now and parents are watching it and they have a child that's just been diagnosed with something, you're telling us right now from your experience, that you're 18 now you've been in remission for a month.
Speaker 1:Well, after that young I mean just when you're young like that all you want to do is see your friends. So it's like it's easy if you just bring your friends to the hospital or haven't meet there, whatever the case may be. Make it a lot better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your mom and dad did something kind of unique that they thought they were going to get Outputting sports. They put you in sports Like you wanted to keep playing baseball. Yeah, do you remember one of the days going from the hospital to the baseball field? What do you remember?
Speaker 1:Well, I had a lumbar puncture that day. I remember I got off surgery at like whatever one something and I was still off the anesthesia and then I just remember changing on the way that they came in the car.
Speaker 2:Right Out of LA.
Speaker 1:I was super tired but I was like I don't want to go play baseball.
Speaker 2:Right, and you aballed yeah, look at his hair now. We didn't know what he was going to look like for years. We had no idea. Your head was as big as a watermelon and we didn't know. And do you remember throwing up in the trash can?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you threw up in the trash can and then you had a hard time walking. Do you remember your balance wasn't great, not at all Right and he went out into the outfield and my daughter and I are looking at each other and he's kind of like walking like I walk now because I'm old and we thought he was going to tumble over. But they put him in the outfield. That means he has to run, and do you remember someone hitting the ball to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was fine. I think I was just locked in the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you ran and you got it and you made the person out. And you know what your mom and I did I don't know if he ever told you this we burst into tears and we started hugging Because when you face someone you love that could die I mean, that's a fact you could have died. It was medicine you got that could have ruined your heart and all that kind of stuff. So we want you know. So we're crying while you're out there like this. Do you remember any other times in the hospital that we used humor that helped you, because we were kind of the funny family, even though we were sad at times?
Speaker 1:we did some kind of thing. I don't know you guys would like bring the goddamn spin bike in, like that show was hilarious. So I, fucking Jonah Hill, offered to help mom because she was like she'd be carrying up like a Sherpa, like a shitload of stuff, and she would just remember that was pretty funny seeing her come to the room. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Just bringing the whole house with her was pretty funny. What else?
Speaker 2:I'm sexy and I know it. That's a new video.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:I'm going to send you the video, guys, so you can watch that. It's pretty cute.
Speaker 1:Many basketball hoop in the room was always amazing.
Speaker 2:Tell them what happened when you were alone shooting basketball, why you were hooked up to an IV in your heart. Tell them that story.
Speaker 1:I had the saline tube running to my portacath right here and it was like a metal. It's almost just like a metal piece that stays in you for like injections and like all the medicine you need to receive, and I remember it has like this long, clear cord with it shooting hoops, and the ball landed right on the cord and just ripped it out and so I had like this like small metal piece, just like sticking out right here, just barely holding on blood gushing down. It didn't feel painful, but like it was just. That was an experience. There was blood all over the floor, what?
Speaker 2:did you do? We weren't there at the time. Mom was downstairs or somewhere.
Speaker 1:Oh no, mom was pissing me off because she was laughing at me. She was laughing at my face and I was like yo.
Speaker 2:So you gently went back into bed and had to call the nurses and I came in and I was like, oh, that's my dad. I don't know what happened. Yeah. So wait, was the coach of the lake, not the Lakers, was it the Clippers, the? What Clippers, clippers? And I was like, oh yeah, now it was the.
Speaker 1:Lakers and I was like I'm not a Laker fan of a Clippers fan.
Speaker 2:He's doing that. The sky comes in. He's just, you know, going around. I can't find his name.
Speaker 1:What was his name? He was the old Lakers GM, literally the GM of the Lakers.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I forgot that. I know how it is nameless.
Speaker 2:And so he walks in the room to say hi to all the kids and and Logan. At first we didn't know who he was. He was just someone tall because everybody's tall to me and then he tells you who he is and you know he didn't tell me that was the thing.
Speaker 1:That's why it was funny. If you asked if I like the Lakers, I was like no, I like the Clippers. And then I talked to him in front of two minutes and he left and turns out he's the GM of the Lakers. His daughter was staying in the room like two rooms over. I was like oh he did that.
Speaker 2:So how did you navigate after? Like you missed a lot. You know men and women that go down range or even play a professional sport. They miss so much of their family life. Right, and you did too. You're in the hospital. There were times it seemed like you in there 200 days out of the year. We always slept in there. Well, how did you navigate and what did you notice that you missed when you got out and you didn't have to go in the hospital anymore? And what should parents do and not do?
Speaker 1:I think parents Should not try to instantly engage their kid back into the norms of life. I guess, like I still struggle with school, like going every day I was horrible. I think they should not. I Think when they get out, I think they need to realize give them like a couple weeks just like see where they're at, because it's like, honestly, like you know, it's a completely different life again, even though it's normal for everyone else. It's a it's a little hard to get back into the rhythm after you're out of it for so long. I Think something that they could do is definitely recommend sports or something. Definitely get active, because I Just feel like that's the best way and I you're always happy when you're active or running around or something. As long as you're moving, I feel like that's pretty good. How important were video games to you when I was just about to say definitely let them play video games, because that is where they are Going to succeed most likely, but Also not too many, but like when you could put the headsets on?
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 1:I was super, super. I don't know. It's comforting, yeah, being in like a room, you know, because that's where you were the whole time. Like just sitting in a room having people no, put different shit into you, different shots, all that. But like I guess it's kind of similar to video games, just sitting in a chair putting heads on, like it's pretty, it's kind of relaxing.
Speaker 2:How about when you could talk to another friend while you had headsets? Yeah, that was fun. Yeah, so you're sequestered in a hope in a hospital room, but yet eventually you could get online and talk to friends that way as well, right? Okay, I remember trying to play them with you, except I hate being chased. Yeah, it's not a good feel for me. So all I did was sit on the other side and, instead of trying to get them off the games, I said okay, I'm just gonna watch the left side of the screen and I'll tell you when somebody's coming to remember that, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:I helped you play them right, instead of taking him off, sort of figuring out what you were figuring out. How about making a big deal about the fact that you had Cancer when you first got out? I remember you not Not wanting us to tell a lot of people that you want to get as close to normal as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the normal aspect, I guess, was different because, like I Know, everything's kind of done for you and like it's not normal, but to you it is when you're back in, like normal life and just society. You kind of want to Just fit in easily. But it's not like that simple because obviously you're missing hair still here, no, the meds you take, and like it's just harder. So I would definitely say you know, go out with your family or a lot. Definitely your friends, it's always gonna be friends. That was the easiest thing for me because they make you feel like a lot better. I mean, it's a lot easier to be around your friends, especially them, it's like you know you can also have a good time.
Speaker 2:So your mom and dad don't live together, and actually didn't even even when you were really little, when you're first born, they decided not to be, you know, boyfriend and girlfriend. They've got to be just co-parents and they did that. How important is it for parents not to argue and to be a good team when a child is going through?
Speaker 2:something it's not in front of you, I'm sure it's finally so they can argue, as long as it's not in front of you because I don't know you want the most support around you or what seems like support Definitely will help.
Speaker 1:You know they're gonna shit's gonna happen in there Mm-hmm. So as long as you have someone you know you're like, you can bank on both of your parents and you. That's a good enough support. Honestly, it'll ask you for a while. Oh, For me it was a little different, because I wanted to see my friends more, because it was still elementary school.
Speaker 2:But he still loves seeing his friends. There's always somebody here. Yeah, I want to tell you a story that I haven't told you in a long time. You're sitting on the couch in the apartment in Santa Monica. At the time You've got the port. Now You're just starting to get chemo.
Speaker 2:I don't even know how many weeks it was since you were diagnosed and your mom's on the phone with the doctor because you're beside yourself in discomfort, like you're sad and you're hurting and you just can't and you're just and not even Screaming. He's just weeping, like and he says these words to me and I'm sitting there with him and he says Jim, I can't take this anymore. Now, when you hear a six-year-old say that it's devastating, like you're saying words that somebody might say that wants to die right Because it's so uncomfortable, and this is what I said to him and this is what he says back, I start holding back my tears as best I can and I said Logan, I'm so sorry you're going through this. This is terrible. If I could go through it, I would take that look and remember saying that taking that used to call leukemic. I go, take that leukemic out of you, put it in my body. I would like get, take off any part of my body, of my. And he says what part? He stops crying. And you literally think about that for a second. You stop crying, you go. What part I go? My arm goes, what else? My legs? I'll take anything off of me in order to get that out of your body and not to do that.
Speaker 2:So I do have to say that there's a part of our family that has a very good Sense of humor. Yeah, we really do not to minimize it, because we had our our shares of tears. You know we had our fear and we also tried to bring some joy as well. How has it made you different? What are the good things that you've acquired from having to battle that at such a young age?
Speaker 1:I Mean at 15, I guess I could process my emotions Way better than even most adults. I think that's like the hardest part was just dealing with it after, just like how your emotions they're just like kind of flow everywhere and it's not really like controlled, but Couple. Years after, probably two years after I realized I was really good at controlling my emotions. Talking to grown up is a lot easier. Definitely, like you know, I'd have a full-on conversation. I Just felt like it excelled, my you know, maturing to like a different degree, like you don't feel like a kid, even at like 15 years old. I felt like I could easily have conversations with people twice through times my age, like I.
Speaker 2:Found you to be very competent. Yeah, like, even though a lot of stuff was done for you, you figured out how to be alone. You figured out how to do things. You are physically very strong. You'd have a high tolerance for pain, I mean you don't Nothing really.
Speaker 1:I mean, I Guess, like the shot you'd have to go through, some of those painful things, you can take that huge needle, so like physical pain was definitely lowered. Like you know, never scared by the doctor visits again. Also, I guess, just in, I Guess, when you have to deal with shit like a younger age, like even 18, I guess it's pretty hard. You know, most kids like don't really know what they want to do and they're all like kind of confused. But I guess I got all that confusion like out of the way when I was a little because I was just sitting there with my thoughts for so long Like what do I do, what am I gonna do? That I kind of just not want to weigh.
Speaker 1:But like I'm not as worried about like life in general because I've already lived on the edge. So like people who, like I, just are scared of everyday shit, you know, fear that like something could go wrong. Well, some shit can always go wrong. So it's like you know you just lived day to day, one step at a time. You know they have to. You're not really as scared as life, you know the love life, of what it could do to you or like how it could come at you. You're not really as scared as that because you know you can handle a situation in the moment. It'll be okay.
Speaker 2:I'm so lucky, I'm so blessed. I want to tell you that you don't know this, but you taught your mother and I and your dad stuff Like we had to at times, had you be the leader and for you to teach us, because we weren't going through it the same way he was. We were going through our own experience. So I want you to know that one of the things that you did for me, logan, was Stop me from being I know it all all the time, trying to control, listening to you, trusting your opinion, trusting your thoughts and they don't have to be perfect I don't have to work out all the time, because mine don't either, but that's what you did for me and I want you to know that, and I I invite Everybody to take a look at their kids in a very different way and learn from them.
Speaker 1:Let them be the teachers sometimes definitely listen, definitely hear their opinion here, what they're thinking about. I mean 99% of the time you ask them how they're feeling and say I'm good or something like that 99% of the time. But like you may catch them on the off chance where they'll tell you how they feel or what they're thinking about, you know, just do your best to accommodate to it, see what they need to, what they mean anything else you want to say before we end. Um.
Speaker 2:You can think back. That's important to. Do just there's no fuck it oh, he also swears, but I'm good with that. He doesn't say it in anger, so I'm good with that, because he does live in our family and you know we are from Boston and we say that word more times yeah and a sentence than anybody else can. I'm so proud of you. I'm so happy for you. You've beat it and you're off on to your life. Yeah, and I can't wait till I'm in a wheelchair and you have to push me around.
Speaker 2:They care of me, by the way he's the only one in the family that every time he gets off the phone and every time you leave the house without fail Says I love you, yeah. Every single time you leave the house Without fail says I love you, yeah, every single time, dude, love you.
Speaker 2:I said it first. See that, I said it first. All right, everybody be crazy. Well, bless you, make it peace, love. All right, thank you. Oh, there's my crazy dog. All right, everybody, welcome to be crazy. Well, that was my grandson, logan James Nobrica, and we're gonna do more of that story, of what it's like. We went through it twice eight years. My dog's now barking at him. So I Don't have to say other than I'm so grateful for this platform, thank you. Coming home Well, how important that is that he came home from the hospital. Well, that's what we wanted. So I'm just letting you know that it's very, very important to us.
Speaker 2:Hang on I gotta let that dog in, because he's just gonna keep barking and Listen to the Theme song. Be your best self, because that's what we believe here. Always be your best self. All right, peace out you.