Speaker 1: Everybody's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. We
Speaker 1: continue now what part two of our conversation with John
Speaker 1: Norman right after these brief messages from our general sponsors.
Speaker 1: The YouTube video I've seen a five minute YouTube video.
Speaker 1: Who made that?
Speaker 2: Actually? The Blood Center that I go to.
Speaker 1: To give yous use an example of a guy that's
Speaker 1: constantly given play.
Speaker 3: With Yeah, exactly, And I don't remember exactly. I had
Speaker 3: been contacted before. I take that back years ago as
Speaker 3: one of their campaigns. They said tell us your story
Speaker 3: and this I'm like halfway through this journey now, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, I've been telling.
Speaker 2: Stories, so I'm going to tell you about me telling stories.
Speaker 3: And I got contacted and they did a little blurb
Speaker 3: on me on their website that which is great, but
Speaker 3: you have to you have to be somebody like I'm
Speaker 3: going to go to the Blood Center website today and
Speaker 3: look around.
Speaker 2: Look there's John Norman did day.
Speaker 1: How many people are hanging around looking at the blood
Speaker 1: side or website and wish you need blood.
Speaker 3: Nothing against them because people do go there. But it
Speaker 3: was nice to be featured a little bit. I got
Speaker 3: I went out for a couple of photo shoots with
Speaker 3: them for some of the things that didn't end up happening,
Speaker 3: and then a couple of months ago, their media guy
Speaker 3: called me up and said, hey, we're looking to do some.
Speaker 2: New emotional videos.
Speaker 3: The cool part it wasn't just for external they're using
Speaker 3: it for internal uses. In the first place that they
Speaker 3: showed that video was in they're all hands meeting with
Speaker 3: all of their employees to remind them why they do
Speaker 3: what they do. All those vampires got into one room
Speaker 3: and watch the video about John Norman doing that stuff.
Speaker 2: So I was like, wow, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That is cool. But here's the here's the thing, here's
Speaker 1: the reason I asked. The very last three seconds, it
Speaker 1: comes up and it says over eight over a period
Speaker 1: of eight years, John has donated.
Speaker 2: One hundred and six five now would be one hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty five on.
Speaker 3: Friday, one hundred and sixty five times. I've donated one
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty five times in eight years.
Speaker 2: But that's and that is about five So I never.
Speaker 3: Counted it that way, and until you asked me that
Speaker 3: just a little bit ago. So I don't I don't
Speaker 3: know how I would calculate those units. But one hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty times is for me. I just counted as
Speaker 3: ones going in, but it might be three times that
Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: So, And I think of some of.
Speaker 3: The people that I've that I've talked about, one in particular,
Speaker 3: who just passed away in November, she needed ninety as
Speaker 3: just as part of her cancer treatment. One of the
Speaker 3: other people that I shared about had leukemia also and
Speaker 3: she needed three hundred units of blood and platelets or
Speaker 3: blood products to finish getting through her treatments.
Speaker 2: So it's without them, yeah, or is being able to
Speaker 2: take treatment?
Speaker 1: What I guess that's the thing is do you have
Speaker 1: you take the time to translate that eight years one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five times, which is five hundred units
Speaker 1: robbably translates to three four five hundred loves.
Speaker 2: That's what they tell you.
Speaker 3: You can save up to three lives with a blood
Speaker 3: donation or a platelet donation.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess that's pretty good math.
Speaker 1: What does it make phil like?
Speaker 2: What? It feels great?
Speaker 3: And frankly, just after eight years you talk about commitment
Speaker 3: and opportunity and passion, it's become a passion for me.
Speaker 2: I'm committed to do it. The opportunity came once.
Speaker 3: At my office, right with this blood drive and then
Speaker 3: that walk with my friend where I learned how important
Speaker 3: it was. I'm really excited because, look, I'm here with
Speaker 3: Bill doing a podcast that other people might hear, and
Speaker 3: that might increase that three percent to four percent. And
Speaker 3: if telling other people's stories in my history and convince
Speaker 3: some other people to do that, then that's cool. That
Speaker 3: feels really great. I was excited to come here just
Speaker 3: because of that.
Speaker 1: Tell me a few of the stories that you've highlighted
Speaker 1: that our listeners will be like wow, wow, Not that
Speaker 1: any of them are more important than the others. I'm
Speaker 1: we're not trying. It's not a competition at all. But
Speaker 1: you've got to have a couple that are near and
Speaker 1: dear to.
Speaker 3: Your there there are several that are near and dear
Speaker 3: to my heart. One of the first ones that kind
Speaker 3: of it got a little bit bigger for me was
Speaker 3: so I told you earlier before we started.
Speaker 2: Today, I was in the biking community and one of
Speaker 2: you falling off your bike off and that was really impressive.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'd want to be part of
Speaker 1: that community, but ahead.
Speaker 3: The bicycling community, it's amazing, and we did cyclic cross races,
Speaker 3: we did mountain bike races, and especially the mountain bike races.
Speaker 3: These are on on the weekends and it's everybody from
Speaker 3: six year olds through seventy year olds racing these races
Speaker 3: out in the woods.
Speaker 2: But it's like a.
Speaker 3: Big family camp out and it becomes a family for you.
Speaker 3: We take care of each other. In fact, when I
Speaker 3: did have that crash, it was the biking family that
Speaker 3: picked up the pieces, hooked up my camper and drove
Speaker 3: it over to the hospital. While well, Michelle and my
Speaker 3: kids were there with me. One of one of the
Speaker 3: fathers of a kid that raced with my son contacted me.
Speaker 3: He said, you know, we're doing a charity event for
Speaker 3: best friend of my son, Peyton Alexander, who has discovered
Speaker 3: that she's got ing saracoma canceled seventeen.
Speaker 2: At the time, I think, maybe.
Speaker 1: That's just breaks my work. You're already breaking my heart.
Speaker 1: And I even heard the story just lining up the
Speaker 1: words answer and seventeen years old, when you're supposed to
Speaker 1: be embarking.
Speaker 3: On, you're finishing up high school, you're about to go
Speaker 3: to college, and you're about to start your life and answer, Oh,
Speaker 3: so we're going to do this event called peddling for Peyton, Like, well,
Speaker 3: that sounds cool through that and unfortunately I was not
Speaker 3: able to make the event, but it did become sort
Speaker 3: of a It became sort of my first story or
Speaker 3: several stories.
Speaker 2: But I did get to meet her later. I had
Speaker 2: never met heered.
Speaker 3: This was the best friend of his son, and our
Speaker 3: bike bicycling commuter community was from all over the state,
Speaker 3: so he didn't even live near us. But Peyton didn't
Speaker 3: only care about herself. She as a bar of her treatment,
Speaker 3: discovered the Ronald McDonald House and the fact that they
Speaker 3: needed blankets, just at least blankets because when people come
Speaker 3: and stay there, the Ronald McDonald House will give them
Speaker 3: blankets while they're there that they can take home with
Speaker 3: them keep. And she said, you know what, I'm going
Speaker 3: to do a blanket tying event down our local library.
Speaker 3: If you can come, bring some blank go buy Walmart
Speaker 3: and get a bunch of five dollar blankets and we'll
Speaker 3: cut them up and tie them together and make some
Speaker 3: more blankets for Ronald McDonald house. Like so, I couldn't
Speaker 3: make your event, but I want to come meet you
Speaker 3: and learn more about you. And I show up and
Speaker 3: it was Peyton and a bunch of her high school
Speaker 3: friends and her parents.
Speaker 2: And a couple of other people, and this weird old
Speaker 2: and this weird old dude.
Speaker 3: Exactly who was this now fifty some year old guy
Speaker 3: just wandering in?
Speaker 2: Can I tie blankets with you? I know you've never
Speaker 2: met me before?
Speaker 3: I had, I had asked ahead of time. I was like,
Speaker 3: this might sound weird, but because of your friend, I
Speaker 3: want to know a little bit more about you.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It was a fun day. I don't tie blankets very
Speaker 2: well either, so but it was.
Speaker 3: But she over over the years, ended up tying with
Speaker 3: her friends and community members hundreds of blankets that ended
Speaker 3: up going to Ronald McDonalds. She her cancer went into remission,
Speaker 3: really exciting, but then it came back. She underwent a
Speaker 3: stem cell transplant her own cells. I can't remember exactly
Speaker 3: what type of stem cell treatment that is, but my
Speaker 3: dad had it too, same thing my dad did. It's
Speaker 3: going through his cancer, but basically that that's stem cell treatment.
Speaker 3: They take your platelets for a while, the patient's pay platelets,
Speaker 3: and they keep them and then they zap.
Speaker 2: You with a super high dose of chemotherapy.
Speaker 3: With the plan of killing all the cancer cells, but
Speaker 3: because it's so high dose, it kills all your bone
Speaker 3: marrow and everything else that needs to be in place
Speaker 3: for you to survive. So as soon as that's done,
Speaker 3: they put stem cells back in you with the hopes
Speaker 3: that your bone marrow will kick in again, producing everything live.
Speaker 3: And it works for some people. It worked for my
Speaker 3: dad for a while too. Lance Armstrong did this. He's
Speaker 3: still alive, so it's it's a treatment that sometimes works. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: she was in remission for a little while longer, but
Speaker 3: came back and and and Peyton passed away a number
Speaker 3: of years ago, But going to that was the first
Speaker 3: funeral that I ever went to with somebody that I
Speaker 3: had connected with told the story about. But I've been
Speaker 3: talking with Kim, her mom, before coming here, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I hope you're okay with me mentioning your daughter's name,
Speaker 3: because I want to honor her as part of why
Speaker 3: I still.
Speaker 2: Do this, and it's important for me.
Speaker 3: I'm missing they're doing a golf not golf outing barbecue
Speaker 3: foundering for the Peyton Alexander Foundation now that they've started,
Speaker 3: and I'm missing it because I'm here. But I said,
Speaker 3: this is pretty cool reason to mister barbecue. I'm going
Speaker 3: to Memphis and I can have some barbecue there.
Speaker 1: Well where barbecue where?
Speaker 3: Where this is in Milwaukee, they're calling it a barbecue whatever.
Speaker 1: They want to if they should have a barbecue fundraiser.
Speaker 3: Here, let's go to the fundraiser. That is heartbreak it
Speaker 3: is And Peyton connected me through you in starcoma as
Speaker 3: a childhood cancer. Mostly childhood cancer. It's the same cancer
Speaker 3: my dad had. It's only maybe one percent of adults.
Speaker 3: One of Peyton's I was connected to Katie, who is
Speaker 3: another one that I've really connected with and the family.
Speaker 3: Again virtually, I have not met Katie. She lives in
Speaker 3: Reno and Nevada. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But Katie
Speaker 3: was an amazing person who was also a giver and
Speaker 3: an advocate for cancer research. She just passed away in November.
Speaker 3: But I wouldn't have known about Katie or the amazing
Speaker 3: things that she did. And if you look her up,
Speaker 3: I'll give you a link later.
Speaker 2: If you look her.
Speaker 1: Up, you give now.
Speaker 3: If you look up Katie's collect on Instagram, you'll find
Speaker 3: everything you need to know.
Speaker 2: You'll see, you'll see videos of that.
Speaker 3: She was highlighted quite a bit because of how amazing
Speaker 3: she was and how she lived with her cancer. Her
Speaker 3: hashtag now that was created when she died is live
Speaker 3: life like Katie. She loved National Parks and it was
Speaker 3: her goal to visit everyone. I think she made it
Speaker 3: to twenty some and several of them a lot of
Speaker 3: them after she started getting cancer because she didn't want
Speaker 3: to skip out on life just because of this disease
Speaker 3: was in her. She wanted to live life. She didn't
Speaker 3: know when her last day was.
Speaker 2: Could be.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, so we could say, wow, give
Speaker 1: all this blood and give all these cancer, all these playlets,
Speaker 1: and these people are still cancer. My answer would be
Speaker 1: quality of that life they get living with cancer. Good
Speaker 1: happen out bludd. Even if they don't survive and go
Speaker 1: into permission, their lives are still enriched and prolonged by
Speaker 1: this gift, the simple gift of sitting on your for
Speaker 1: twenty minutes for blood two hours or platelets and giving
Speaker 1: so that you or someone you love will have what
Speaker 1: they need.
Speaker 2: So here's another statistic.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent of us are not going to live forever,
Speaker 3: but so if by giving blood or platelets. You can
Speaker 3: let somebody live another day or a week, or a
Speaker 3: month or years. It's all the same thing. I mean,
Speaker 3: we just need to let people live. And if this
Speaker 3: can do it, then why not.
Speaker 1: It's so simple, an army of normal folks candidly, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're not We're nobody's ever going to mistake Alex for
Speaker 1: being particular, right so or or no one's ever going
Speaker 1: to say, well, my goodness, look, look look at the
Speaker 1: look at the I mean, we should do a thesisis
Speaker 1: on billing this army. I mean, this is just simple stuff.
Speaker 1: It's normal people seeing here is the need filling it,
Speaker 1: celebrating those stories and hopes of surviving, hopes of inspiring
Speaker 1: more to do more. Right, this is so simple that
Speaker 1: we have had on some guests with some pretty complex
Speaker 1: things and that they would have to have a certain
Speaker 1: skill set to actually go do those things. So while
Speaker 1: we celebrate them and hopefully inspire them, there's really a
Speaker 1: small community people that can do what some of those be.
Speaker 1: Everybody can do this pretty much as long as you
Speaker 1: pass it. But at least everybody could go get tested
Speaker 1: to do it, and then two thirds of us can
Speaker 1: do it, you know.
Speaker 3: What also too, if you can't do it, they have
Speaker 3: volunteered drivers to drive this blood to the hospital. There's
Speaker 3: a volunteer that whenever I'm done, it gives me cookies
Speaker 3: and a can of cranberry juice.
Speaker 2: When I'm done, you get cookies and cranberry juice.
Speaker 1: That's enough reason to do it right now.
Speaker 3: You guys have Panera bread here? Yeah, Panera donates their
Speaker 3: day old bread. Those boxes of Panera bread that I
Speaker 3: can pick up pick from.
Speaker 1: Really they do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's always boxes of that there and good for
Speaker 2: bread by the way, a little plug for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but sometimes that's what shapes the meal I'm going
Speaker 3: to cook that Friday night. Well, I'm not exerting myself.
Speaker 1: Everybody should be doue. Yeah, and you don't have to
Speaker 1: have any skill set. You don't have to have anything.
Speaker 1: Just have a willingness and if somebody wants to follow.
Speaker 1: I'm not a social media person, Okay, I mean I'm
Speaker 1: on it and all that, but I don't know. I
Speaker 1: use the wrong words all the time. Now, excuse me,
Speaker 1: crap about it. You're not really on it.
Speaker 4: There's you have an account, but you haven't been on
Speaker 4: it yourself.
Speaker 2: See I get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, see, there you go. So how does somebody find
Speaker 1: your stuff?
Speaker 3: So you can find on Instagram. My Instagram handle is
Speaker 3: port Norman, so port like Port Washington Norman like my
Speaker 3: last name JPN to my initials, so Port Norman JPN.
Speaker 1: And pictures and the stories and the people that you're celebrating. Wow, donate.
Speaker 3: Yep, you can read the stories and see the pictures.
Speaker 3: I always put pictures of them because there's always a
Speaker 3: picture of.
Speaker 2: Me at the beginning.
Speaker 3: So if you see me sitting in a chair, that's
Speaker 3: a trigger that this is going to be one of
Speaker 3: my platelet posts. And actually looking through it, there's more
Speaker 3: of those than a lot of my other Because I'm
Speaker 3: sixty years old now, I'm not really good at social
Speaker 3: media either. I struggled to get it shared on Instagram
Speaker 3: and Facebook at the same time. And Facebook, I think
Speaker 3: if you just look up John Norman, I don't know what,
Speaker 3: there's probably a ton of them, but you could probably
Speaker 3: that Instagram is going to be more easy because I
Speaker 3: don't On Facebook. I share more to my friends and
Speaker 3: not public.
Speaker 2: On Instagram.
Speaker 3: I leave it public because I want if I share
Speaker 3: about somebody and it can and it triggers somebody to say, hey,
Speaker 3: I want to try this, or you should read this story.
Speaker 3: I don't want them to send a link out to
Speaker 3: somebody and have it block.
Speaker 2: I want to continue the story.
Speaker 1: I get it. So when you go there, it's a
Speaker 1: picture of you first, and it's a picture of the
Speaker 1: person you're thinking about that day, yep. And then their
Speaker 1: story of their fight with whatever they're afflicted with, and
Speaker 1: why their strength inspires you to continue to do this
Speaker 1: all the time, all of which, if you ball up,
Speaker 1: is intended to inspire others. Yep.
Speaker 2: That's pretty much it. Sometimes it's a short story, sometimes
Speaker 2: a little longer.
Speaker 1: But after the Shop Talk episode, we army member Keith Bauch,
Speaker 1: he wrote us, and I'm telling you this because he
Speaker 1: gives Keith thank you all respect. Your post was wrong.
Speaker 1: You sit over there, hush Bill and Alex. Good morning
Speaker 1: from tropically cold Minnesota. Clearly this came from a few
Speaker 1: months one of my neighbors. I want to be part
Speaker 1: of the army that moves the amount of blood donors
Speaker 1: from three to four percent, even three to three and
Speaker 1: a half. I've given blood in the past, but never
Speaker 1: on a consistent basis. I'm going to do my best,
Speaker 1: try and give once a month from now on. Your
Speaker 1: guest has inspired me to do this. It was interesting
Speaker 1: because about a week after your episode, I was listening
Speaker 1: to another podcast about the need for blood, plasma and
Speaker 1: platelet donations. Another reason for me to give. I have
Speaker 1: a daughter in college that gives plasma twice a week.
Speaker 2: Thanks for beer money.
Speaker 1: I think that's for beer money. Yeah, it is for
Speaker 1: every buddy. But I shared your podcast with her to
Speaker 1: reinforce the benefits of what she is doing. Guys, keep
Speaker 1: doing what you're doing inspiring us normal folks. Here's why
Speaker 1: I'm calling that out just a little bit. We don't
Speaker 1: deserve the credit for doing what we're doing inspiring normal folks.
Speaker 2: One time.
Speaker 1: It's all of the stories and all the people that
Speaker 1: are inspiring. All we are is the conduit. I read
Speaker 1: that to you because this gentleman has clearly been inspired
Speaker 1: to do this very thing because of it's awesome. It's awesome.
Speaker 1: This guy your neighbor. Do you know?
Speaker 2: I have no idea who Keith is. Never heard that
Speaker 2: name of it.
Speaker 1: He's from your neck of the woods.
Speaker 3: He's Minnesota. We don't talk about that. I'm a Packers fan.
Speaker 3: He's a Vikings fan.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you don't know might have to reach out
Speaker 1: to this. I might lightly suggest that part of your
Speaker 1: Instagram stories could be about guys like him to inspire
Speaker 1: others as well. It doesn't just have to be the
Speaker 1: people getting the play. Someone who's been inspired by your
Speaker 1: story could maybe inspire someone else. When I read that
Speaker 1: we do. We get lots of emails and correspondence. I'll
Speaker 1: read every bit of it. I'll respond to every bit
Speaker 1: of it. But when I read this and then I
Speaker 1: think about how you reached out to us, and I
Speaker 1: think about your story and the connectivity of it all
Speaker 1: kind of makes the fact that Alex about a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago made me start doing this dumb
Speaker 1: thing all worth it. So respectfully, I don't feel like
Speaker 1: we're inspiring anybody to be one normal folk one at
Speaker 1: a time.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you should give yourself a little more
Speaker 3: credit though, too. I stumbled on your podcast and what
Speaker 3: are you doing? This is different than me. You're sharing
Speaker 3: other people's stories. It inspired me to reach out to
Speaker 3: you because I think the army of normal folks idea
Speaker 3: is it's so easy, like you said, and you do
Speaker 3: what you can do for one person. One of the
Speaker 3: books that I meant to bring I work at Harley Davidson.
Speaker 3: This is so This is a Bike, a book that
Speaker 3: kind of reached out to me literally from a Minnesota
Speaker 3: used bookstores I was walking through and it's called Nice Bike,
Speaker 3: Nice Bike, and it's it's a collection of stories that
Speaker 3: the author put together, Mark Sharon Brock, I think is
Speaker 3: his name, and I want I want to read.
Speaker 2: I wrote this down because I had to. I had
Speaker 2: to go look it up again.
Speaker 1: But what he.
Speaker 3: Focuses on and his his theory is that the three
Speaker 3: things that you need to do to make people's lives
Speaker 3: better is to acknowledge them, honor them, and to connect
Speaker 3: with them. And by acknowledging, honoring, and connecting with people,
Speaker 3: you can change the world, one person at a time.
Speaker 3: That's always been in the back of my head too
Speaker 3: ever since reading that book, also at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the whole thing, and I think, I think that goes
Speaker 3: a long way. It's simple acknowledge, honor, and connect and
Speaker 3: that's that's what we do. That's what you're doing. You're
Speaker 3: you're honoring people for the cool stuff that they do,
Speaker 3: even if it's.
Speaker 1: Normal, it is cool. And it's also only three rather
Speaker 1: than twelve, so it's a lot easier to remember than that.
Speaker 2: Scouting still had to write it down, though, didn't they
Speaker 2: for sixty give yourself a break.
Speaker 1: Memory, I don't know. So there you have it, folks.
Speaker 1: It's so easy to be an army of normal folks.
Speaker 1: And Alex some months ago made the really good point
Speaker 1: that I've kind of tagged on and I continue to say,
Speaker 1: which is you can serve without even leaving the house.
Speaker 1: There's typically people down the hallway that needs service. You
Speaker 1: can serve without starting some massive organization. You can go
Speaker 1: sit for two hours every two weeks with the new
Speaker 1: in your arm and save three lives. You have taken
Speaker 1: it to a whole other level by honoring and acknowledging
Speaker 1: the stories of these people that you hope will inspire
Speaker 1: others to give. And it's worked because Keith from Minnesota
Speaker 1: send us an email saying the very same thing, Keith,
Speaker 1: I hope you are listening and we'll reach out to
Speaker 1: John and y'all connect. You're too close to one another
Speaker 1: not to because apparently that's the third activity I spike
Speaker 1: is to connect.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, for sure, And I would I would love
Speaker 3: to get messages from people.
Speaker 2: If you want to learn more, I'm happy to talk.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: I got to share too, that I've hit one hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty donations. There are some people that there are
Speaker 3: people there every other week when I go that are
Speaker 3: the same people. Oh and Chris and a few other
Speaker 3: people that I've met, and they're kind of my platelet buddies.
Speaker 2: Every other week.
Speaker 3: There's not the same people because you know, you go
Speaker 3: on a trip and all of a sudden, you're every
Speaker 3: two weeks is off. But I know there's a person
Speaker 3: I've connected with in Sweden who is he's at two hundred.
Speaker 2: There's a guy at Versity.
Speaker 3: The blood center that I go to that is close
Speaker 3: to five hundred donations. That's he started donating platelets when
Speaker 3: in like nineteen eighty or something like that. Now he's
Speaker 3: eighty three years old and he's still going in every
Speaker 3: other week to donate platelets.
Speaker 1: But see, as beautiful as those people are, that story
Speaker 1: is a little bit of the problem that you see
Speaker 1: the same people over and over again. Oh this is
Speaker 1: there need to be enough people giving that you don't
Speaker 1: know all of the people giving. So hopefully we can look.
Speaker 1: If this conversation moves the needle just a little bit,
Speaker 1: it's more life saved. And you are a beautiful example
Speaker 1: of what we are trying to inspire people to do,
Speaker 1: which is just give where you can. And you've turned
Speaker 1: it into a passion and a story and everything else,
Speaker 1: and that's awesome. But it's so easy give when you can.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I think the Red Cross receives
Speaker 1: almost forty percent of the blood given.
Speaker 2: Possible.
Speaker 1: Not very hard to find the Red Cross, Nope, not
Speaker 1: very hard to find a blood center. If somebody wants
Speaker 1: to reach out to you and connect, let's best way
Speaker 1: to get in touch with John.
Speaker 3: You can DM me through Instagram or if you want
Speaker 3: to just use a regular old email.
Speaker 2: It's easy too.
Speaker 3: So my email addresses John John at Portnorman's dot com.
Speaker 3: Port like Port Washington Norman like my name, with an
Speaker 3: s atdn dot com.
Speaker 4: One thing that John and I talked about in advance
Speaker 4: of the interview too is listeners can reach out and
Speaker 4: share story ideas for him too. So people who are
Speaker 4: going through cancer, habit cancer, people who have been beneficiaries
Speaker 4: of blood products.
Speaker 1: It could be great for Army members to share that
Speaker 1: is a really good point. You have somebody dealing with
Speaker 1: this right now, and you want to do one of
Speaker 1: the three steps and honor them, do another one of
Speaker 1: the three steps with and connect with John, and then
Speaker 1: John will do one of the three steps and maybe
Speaker 1: share their story.
Speaker 3: Or hey, if you feel like doing just doing the
Speaker 3: same thing I'm doing. Sitting there in your chair. You
Speaker 3: got one arm free, you grab your phone and tell
Speaker 3: your story or tell someone else.
Speaker 1: And then you can somehow connect you to it. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you can share it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, and shread this around a little bit.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 4: One more thing before you wrap up your routine beforehand
Speaker 4: is pretty funny.
Speaker 3: So it has become a habit. And now it's also
Speaker 3: a routine. It's always a Friday morning at six o'clock.
Speaker 3: I've tried going in in the afternoons before, but as
Speaker 3: it turns out, I'm a coffee addict, and I will
Speaker 3: drink coffee all day. And you know, there's a problem
Speaker 3: if you drink coffee all day and then you go
Speaker 3: and sit in a chair and are expected to be
Speaker 3: still for two hours, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: I'm overhydrated and I'm gonna need to pee well up
Speaker 2: and it probably does jump.
Speaker 1: A catheter.
Speaker 3: They would offer one, I'm sure, but I'm not interested
Speaker 3: in going there at One of the things that our
Speaker 3: blood center used to do is it's similar to platelets.
Speaker 3: It's called granulocyites, and it's these are not universal. There's
Speaker 3: very specific to a person in the types of proteins
Speaker 3: that they have in their blood. And I was asked, actually,
Speaker 3: twin brother thing. They called me up and they said,
Speaker 3: your brother sent us your way because we need somebody
Speaker 3: with exactly your blood type in this protein combination to
Speaker 3: donate granular sites for a cancer patient that is in
Speaker 3: the hospital waiting for your granular.
Speaker 2: Sites literally literally.
Speaker 1: So it's one time where you knew exactly what you're
Speaker 1: doing and exactly where it's going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and they were, they were they were
Speaker 3: calling because this particular therapy that this is like a
Speaker 3: last ditch effort when they get to the point where
Speaker 3: they need granular sites like this. And they were lining
Speaker 3: up not just me, but five or six other people
Speaker 3: to donate every day for a five or six day period.
Speaker 3: And for that one they literally told me, I don't
Speaker 3: care if you have to beat you can, We'll get
Speaker 3: you depends or something. But you're going to stay here
Speaker 3: until we got everything that we need to get out
Speaker 3: of you. And with with with platelet donations. If they
Speaker 3: have trouble getting the needle in and it doesn't work,
Speaker 3: then you just try again another day with the granular sites.
Speaker 3: They're like, we'll keep sticking the needle in there until
Speaker 3: we find the right spot. This arm doesn't work, we'll
Speaker 3: use the other arm. If that doesn't work, well, pray
Speaker 3: a leg or something.
Speaker 1: And there's a person literally right there that if you
Speaker 1: don't give they die.
Speaker 3: Good chance of that, yep, because they they they line
Speaker 3: you up and the striper're able to find out.
Speaker 2: No, they for privacy.
Speaker 3: But do you wonder I would love to meet a
Speaker 3: recipient someday I have actually been not mine, I mean,
Speaker 3: I've met all these other connections.
Speaker 2: Sure, so it's it's pretty durrank.
Speaker 1: Close to your morning routine, John, I'm.
Speaker 3: Sorry they eat so my morning routine now on Friday morning,
Speaker 3: I get up at four point thirty.
Speaker 2: I hit the snooze maybe once or twice.
Speaker 3: I grab a shower, then I the blood center is
Speaker 3: about a half an hour drive from my house.
Speaker 2: I stop at McDonald's.
Speaker 3: I always get a sausage McMuffin with egg and a
Speaker 3: hash brown and a small coffee.
Speaker 1: So clearly you don't have to eat healthy food to
Speaker 1: give platelets.
Speaker 2: Well, they do tell you to eat, but they don't
Speaker 2: stay healthy.
Speaker 3: And I'm figuring, you know, if I'm going to save
Speaker 3: three lives today, I can have a sausage McMuffin.
Speaker 1: I actually love it.
Speaker 2: It's like five.
Speaker 1: Sorry.
Speaker 3: The first thing they do when you get when you
Speaker 3: get there, those they take your blood pressure and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I often blame the hash brown because it's pretty salty
Speaker 3: and stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's a health check basically every two weeks and
Speaker 3: if I.
Speaker 2: Can pass, and I'm like, yeah, so that's it.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 3: Then I go in and I mark the box it
Speaker 3: says I've done this before.
Speaker 1: And your twin brother doesn't confuse them, no.
Speaker 2: And they so it is a health check. They'll do.
Speaker 3: There's a questionnaire that you have to fill out so
Speaker 3: that they can tell you whether you're eligible or and
Speaker 3: it's fifty questions every time, and it's and you so
Speaker 3: you notice this when you did your blood donation, right,
Speaker 3: It's everything.
Speaker 4: It's what John's getting at. As they ask your sexual history.
Speaker 2: They questions, have you ever been paid to have sex?
Speaker 3: Have you had sexual contact with I mean, it's probably
Speaker 3: fifteen questions just about.
Speaker 1: I think there's but it's I think there's time Lisa
Speaker 1: would pay me not to have sex. If you want
Speaker 1: to know the true that's an.
Speaker 3: Add on question depending on how you answer the first one.
Speaker 3: But it's because they want your your blood product to
Speaker 3: be healthy for the recipient. Of course, it also gets tested,
Speaker 3: so I figure I'll be the first to know if
Speaker 3: I end up.
Speaker 1: If you had up for something, you'll be the first
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anything else you want to coverage, John, Not that
Speaker 2: I can think of.
Speaker 3: The only the only thing that I was reviewing some
Speaker 3: of my notes this morning.
Speaker 2: That and I think I may.
Speaker 3: Have mentioned this to you Alex later on after our
Speaker 3: pre interview, was that my dad passed away from cancer
Speaker 3: in two thousand and four, of youing Saracoma. My mother
Speaker 3: in law died also. They both died at the age
Speaker 3: sixty three. My mother in law died of cervical cancer.
Speaker 3: And I didn't start this donation have it until twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: so was that thirteen player. I didn't start telling the
Speaker 3: stories till after that, And I think that for me,
Speaker 3: the reason I have this Beyond Grief book here too
Speaker 3: is because it's a double whami sometimes. And I got
Speaker 3: introduced to the grief community through the same habit by
Speaker 3: meeting these two people, and.
Speaker 2: It has allowed me to process.
Speaker 3: Some of the grief of me losing Dad, and it's
Speaker 3: allowed me to dig in a little bit deeper to
Speaker 3: what he went through with the answer and what I
Speaker 3: got out of being his son for sixty three years.
Speaker 3: Sixty three years, I'm sixty nine, say I was born,
Speaker 3: you know, just for being his son. And as I
Speaker 3: was reading through my notes of I did an Instagram
Speaker 3: take over for a week where I shared about my dad.
Speaker 3: This was in twenty twenty twenty, and that was so
Speaker 3: cathartic for me. Part of it was about the cancer,
Speaker 3: but part of it, part of it was about him
Speaker 3: living life like Katie. He was the first example of
Speaker 3: live life like Katie. Katie was a reminder for me.
Speaker 3: They revisited this and got into these stories.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting the storytelling process that all this is
Speaker 1: actually healing for survivors very much.
Speaker 2: So it's healing for me.
Speaker 3: I like you've said so many times in your guests too.
Speaker 3: I get ten times as much out of this as
Speaker 3: anything I'm giving. I mean, I'm donating my platelets, but
Speaker 3: this is it's healing for me to tell somebody else's
Speaker 3: story and to learn more about my dad, just because.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful side benefits of the whole gig.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be. You two, go give it a try.
Speaker 1: That's it, John, Thanks for taking the time to come
Speaker 1: down here and share your story. Thanks for what you're doing,
Speaker 1: Thanks for bringing me, thanks for being an inspiration. And
Speaker 1: I really hope, against hope that people listening to us
Speaker 1: today will say, Okay, this is an easy one.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go, hope, So and let me know if
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to let John know. He'll tell your story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a pyramid that gets.
Speaker 1: An email us and let us know, because who knows
Speaker 1: who might read your name one time and Alex may
Speaker 1: call you up and bother you. You never know. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being here, buddy, Thank you appreciate it, and thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us this week. If John Norman has
Speaker 1: inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action
Speaker 1: by donating blood, platelets or something else entirely, please let
Speaker 1: me know because I am really interested in seeing if
Speaker 1: our country can move the needle beyond three pitiful percent.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear about it. If you donate blood,
Speaker 1: or patments, plasmo or any of it, let me know
Speaker 1: we got to do better. You could write me anytime
Speaker 1: at bill at normalfolks dot us, and I promise I
Speaker 1: will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share with friends
Speaker 1: and on social subscribe to the podcast, rate it and
Speaker 1: review it. Join the army at normalfolks dot us. Consider
Speaker 1: becoming a premium member There any and all of these
Speaker 1: things that will help us grow an army of normal folks.
Speaker 1: I'm Billboard. Until next time, do what you can