John Norman: 160 Platelet Donations (Pt 2)

Everybody's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. We continue now what part two of our conversation with John Norman right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. The YouTube video I've seen a five minute YouTube video. Who made that?

Actually? The Blood Center that I go to.

To give yous use an example of a guy that's constantly given play.

With Yeah, exactly, And I don't remember exactly. I had been contacted before. I take that back years ago as one of their campaigns. They said tell us your story and this I'm like halfway through this journey now, and I'm like, I've been telling.

Stories, so I'm going to tell you about me telling stories.

And I got contacted and they did a little blurb on me on their website that which is great, but you have to you have to be somebody like I'm going to go to the Blood Center website today and look around.

Look there's John Norman did day.

How many people are hanging around looking at the blood side or website and wish you need blood.

Nothing against them because people do go there. But it was nice to be featured a little bit. I got I went out for a couple of photo shoots with them for some of the things that didn't end up happening, and then a couple of months ago, their media guy called me up and said, hey, we're looking to do some.

New emotional videos.

The cool part it wasn't just for external they're using it for internal uses. In the first place that they showed that video was in they're all hands meeting with all of their employees to remind them why they do what they do. All those vampires got into one room and watch the video about John Norman doing that stuff.

So I was like, wow, that's pretty cool.

That is cool. But here's the here's the thing, here's the reason I asked. The very last three seconds, it comes up and it says over eight over a period of eight years, John has donated.

One hundred and six five now would be one hundred and sixty five on.

Friday, one hundred and sixty five times. I've donated one hundred and sixty five times in eight years.

But that's and that is about five So I never.

Counted it that way, and until you asked me that just a little bit ago. So I don't I don't know how I would calculate those units. But one hundred and sixty times is for me. I just counted as ones going in, but it might be three times that I'm not sure.

So, And I think of some of.

The people that I've that I've talked about, one in particular, who just passed away in November, she needed ninety as just as part of her cancer treatment. One of the other people that I shared about had leukemia also and she needed three hundred units of blood and platelets or blood products to finish getting through her treatments.

So it's without them, yeah, or is being able to take treatment?

What I guess that's the thing is do you have you take the time to translate that eight years one hundred and sixty five times, which is five hundred units robbably translates to three four five hundred loves.

That's what they tell you.

You can save up to three lives with a blood donation or a platelet donation.

So yeah, I guess that's pretty good math.

What does it make phil like?

What? It feels great?

And frankly, just after eight years you talk about commitment and opportunity and passion, it's become a passion for me.

I'm committed to do it. The opportunity came once.

At my office, right with this blood drive and then that walk with my friend where I learned how important it was. I'm really excited because, look, I'm here with Bill doing a podcast that other people might hear, and that might increase that three percent to four percent. And if telling other people's stories in my history and convince some other people to do that, then that's cool. That feels really great. I was excited to come here just because of that.

Tell me a few of the stories that you've highlighted that our listeners will be like wow, wow, Not that any of them are more important than the others. I'm we're not trying. It's not a competition at all. But you've got to have a couple that are near and dear to.

Your there there are several that are near and dear to my heart. One of the first ones that kind of it got a little bit bigger for me was so I told you earlier before we started.

Today, I was in the biking community and one of you falling off your bike off and that was really impressive.

I don't know if I'd want to be part of that community, but ahead.

The bicycling community, it's amazing, and we did cyclic cross races, we did mountain bike races, and especially the mountain bike races. These are on on the weekends and it's everybody from six year olds through seventy year olds racing these races out in the woods.

But it's like a.

Big family camp out and it becomes a family for you. We take care of each other. In fact, when I did have that crash, it was the biking family that picked up the pieces, hooked up my camper and drove it over to the hospital. While well, Michelle and my kids were there with me. One of one of the fathers of a kid that raced with my son contacted me.

At the time, I think, maybe.

That's just breaks my work. You're already breaking my heart. And I even heard the story just lining up the words answer and seventeen years old, when you're supposed to be embarking.

On, you're finishing up high school, you're about to go to college, and you're about to start your life and answer, Oh, so we're going to do this event called peddling for Peyton, Like, well, that sounds cool through that and unfortunately I was not able to make the event, but it did become sort of a It became sort of my first story or several stories.

But I did get to meet her later. I had never met heered.

This was the best friend of his son, and our bike bicycling commuter community was from all over the state, so he didn't even live near us. But Peyton didn't only care about herself. She as a bar of her treatment, discovered the Ronald McDonald House and the fact that they needed blankets, just at least blankets because when people come and stay there, the Ronald McDonald House will give them blankets while they're there that they can take home with

And a couple of other people, and this weird old and this weird old dude.

Exactly who was this now fifty some year old guy just wandering in?

Can I tie blankets with you? I know you've never met me before?

I had, I had asked ahead of time. I was like, this might sound weird, but because of your friend, I want to know a little bit more about you.

It was.

It was a fun day. I don't tie blankets very well either, so but it was.

But she over over the years, ended up tying with her friends and community members hundreds of blankets that ended up going to Ronald McDonalds. She her cancer went into remission, really exciting, but then it came back. She underwent a stem cell transplant her own cells. I can't remember exactly what type of stem cell treatment that is, but my dad had it too, same thing my dad did. It's going through his cancer, but basically that that's stem cell treatment.

You with a super high dose of chemotherapy.

With the plan of killing all the cancer cells, but because it's so high dose, it kills all your bone marrow and everything else that needs to be in place for you to survive. So as soon as that's done, they put stem cells back in you with the hopes that your bone marrow will kick in again, producing everything live. And it works for some people. It worked for my dad for a while too. Lance Armstrong did this. He's

Do this, and it's important for me.

I'm missing they're doing a golf not golf outing barbecue foundering for the Peyton Alexander Foundation now that they've started, and I'm missing it because I'm here. But I said, this is pretty cool reason to mister barbecue. I'm going to Memphis and I can have some barbecue there.

Well where barbecue where?

Where this is in Milwaukee, they're calling it a barbecue whatever.

They want to if they should have a barbecue fundraiser.

Here, let's go to the fundraiser. That is heartbreak it is And Peyton connected me through you in starcoma as a childhood cancer. Mostly childhood cancer. It's the same cancer my dad had. It's only maybe one percent of adults. One of Peyton's I was connected to Katie, who is another one that I've really connected with and the family. Again virtually, I have not met Katie. She lives in Reno and Nevada. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But Katie was an amazing person who was also a giver and

If you look her.

Up, you give now.

If you look up Katie's collect on Instagram, you'll find everything you need to know.

You'll see, you'll see videos of that.

She was highlighted quite a bit because of how amazing she was and how she lived with her cancer. Her hashtag now that was created when she died is live life like Katie. She loved National Parks and it was her goal to visit everyone. I think she made it to twenty some and several of them a lot of them after she started getting cancer because she didn't want to skip out on life just because of this disease was in her. She wanted to live life. She didn't know when her last day was.

Could be.

We'll be right back, so we could say, wow, give all this blood and give all these cancer, all these playlets, and these people are still cancer. My answer would be quality of that life they get living with cancer. Good

So here's another statistic.

One hundred percent of us are not going to live forever, but so if by giving blood or platelets. You can let somebody live another day or a week, or a month or years. It's all the same thing. I mean, we just need to let people live. And if this can do it, then why not.

It's so simple, an army of normal folks candidly, I mean, we're not We're nobody's ever going to mistake Alex for being particular, right so or or no one's ever going to say, well, my goodness, look, look look at the look at the I mean, we should do a thesisis on billing this army. I mean, this is just simple stuff. It's normal people seeing here is the need filling it, celebrating those stories and hopes of surviving, hopes of inspiring

What also too, if you can't do it, they have volunteered drivers to drive this blood to the hospital. There's a volunteer that whenever I'm done, it gives me cookies and a can of cranberry juice.

When I'm done, you get cookies and cranberry juice.

That's enough reason to do it right now.

You guys have Panera bread here? Yeah, Panera donates their day old bread. Those boxes of Panera bread that I can pick up pick from.

Really they do that.

Yeah, there's always boxes of that there and good for bread by the way, a little plug for them.

Yeah, but sometimes that's what shapes the meal I'm going to cook that Friday night. Well, I'm not exerting myself.

Everybody should be doue. Yeah, and you don't have to have any skill set. You don't have to have anything. Just have a willingness and if somebody wants to follow. I'm not a social media person, Okay, I mean I'm on it and all that, but I don't know. I use the wrong words all the time. Now, excuse me, crap about it. You're not really on it.

There's you have an account, but you haven't been on it yourself.

See I get it.

Yeah, see, there you go. So how does somebody find your stuff?

So you can find on Instagram. My Instagram handle is port Norman, so port like Port Washington Norman like my last name JPN to my initials, so Port Norman JPN.

And pictures and the stories and the people that you're celebrating. Wow, donate.

Yep, you can read the stories and see the pictures. I always put pictures of them because there's always a picture of.

Me at the beginning.

So if you see me sitting in a chair, that's a trigger that this is going to be one of my platelet posts. And actually looking through it, there's more of those than a lot of my other Because I'm sixty years old now, I'm not really good at social media either. I struggled to get it shared on Instagram

On Instagram.

I leave it public because I want if I share about somebody and it can and it triggers somebody to say, hey, I want to try this, or you should read this story. I don't want them to send a link out to somebody and have it block.

I want to continue the story.

I get it. So when you go there, it's a picture of you first, and it's a picture of the person you're thinking about that day, yep. And then their story of their fight with whatever they're afflicted with, and why their strength inspires you to continue to do this all the time, all of which, if you ball up, is intended to inspire others. Yep.

That's pretty much it. Sometimes it's a short story, sometimes a little longer.

But after the Shop Talk episode, we army member Keith Bauch, he wrote us, and I'm telling you this because he gives Keith thank you all respect. Your post was wrong. You sit over there, hush Bill and Alex. Good morning from tropically cold Minnesota. Clearly this came from a few months one of my neighbors. I want to be part of the army that moves the amount of blood donors from three to four percent, even three to three and a half. I've given blood in the past, but never

Thanks for beer money.

I think that's for beer money. Yeah, it is for every buddy. But I shared your podcast with her to reinforce the benefits of what she is doing. Guys, keep doing what you're doing inspiring us normal folks. Here's why I'm calling that out just a little bit. We don't deserve the credit for doing what we're doing inspiring normal folks.

One time.

It's all of the stories and all the people that are inspiring. All we are is the conduit. I read that to you because this gentleman has clearly been inspired to do this very thing because of it's awesome. It's awesome. This guy your neighbor. Do you know?

I have no idea who Keith is. Never heard that name of it.

He's from your neck of the woods.

He's Minnesota. We don't talk about that. I'm a Packers fan. He's a Vikings fan.

I'm sure you don't know might have to reach out to this. I might lightly suggest that part of your Instagram stories could be about guys like him to inspire others as well. It doesn't just have to be the people getting the play. Someone who's been inspired by your story could maybe inspire someone else. When I read that we do. We get lots of emails and correspondence. I'll read every bit of it. I'll respond to every bit

Well, I think you should give yourself a little more credit though, too. I stumbled on your podcast and what are you doing? This is different than me. You're sharing other people's stories. It inspired me to reach out to you because I think the army of normal folks idea is it's so easy, like you said, and you do what you can do for one person. One of the books that I meant to bring I work at Harley Davidson.

I wrote this down because I had to. I had to go look it up again.

But what he.

Focuses on and his his theory is that the three things that you need to do to make people's lives better is to acknowledge them, honor them, and to connect with them. And by acknowledging, honoring, and connecting with people, you can change the world, one person at a time. That's always been in the back of my head too ever since reading that book, also at the beginning of the whole thing, and I think, I think that goes a long way. It's simple acknowledge, honor, and connect and

Normal, it is cool. And it's also only three rather than twelve, so it's a lot easier to remember than that.

Scouting still had to write it down, though, didn't they for sixty give yourself a break.

Memory, I don't know. So there you have it, folks. It's so easy to be an army of normal folks. And Alex some months ago made the really good point that I've kind of tagged on and I continue to say, which is you can serve without even leaving the house. There's typically people down the hallway that needs service. You can serve without starting some massive organization. You can go sit for two hours every two weeks with the new

Yep, yep, for sure, And I would I would love to get messages from people.

If you want to learn more, I'm happy to talk.

We'll be right back.

I got to share too, that I've hit one hundred and sixty donations. There are some people that there are people there every other week when I go that are the same people. Oh and Chris and a few other people that I've met, and they're kind of my platelet buddies.

Every other week.

There's not the same people because you know, you go on a trip and all of a sudden, you're every two weeks is off. But I know there's a person I've connected with in Sweden who is he's at two hundred.

There's a guy at Versity.

The blood center that I go to that is close to five hundred donations. That's he started donating platelets when in like nineteen eighty or something like that. Now he's eighty three years old and he's still going in every other week to donate platelets.

But see, as beautiful as those people are, that story is a little bit of the problem that you see the same people over and over again. Oh this is there need to be enough people giving that you don't know all of the people giving. So hopefully we can look. If this conversation moves the needle just a little bit, it's more life saved. And you are a beautiful example of what we are trying to inspire people to do,

Possible.

Not very hard to find the Red Cross, Nope, not very hard to find a blood center. If somebody wants to reach out to you and connect, let's best way to get in touch with John.

You can DM me through Instagram or if you want to just use a regular old email.

It's easy too.

So my email addresses John John at Portnorman's dot com. Port like Port Washington Norman like my name, with an s atdn dot com.

One thing that John and I talked about in advance of the interview too is listeners can reach out and share story ideas for him too. So people who are going through cancer, habit cancer, people who have been beneficiaries of blood products.

It could be great for Army members to share that is a really good point. You have somebody dealing with this right now, and you want to do one of the three steps and honor them, do another one of the three steps with and connect with John, and then John will do one of the three steps and maybe share their story.

Or hey, if you feel like doing just doing the same thing I'm doing. Sitting there in your chair. You got one arm free, you grab your phone and tell your story or tell someone else.

And then you can somehow connect you to it. Absolutely, you can share it.

Absolutely. Yeah, and shread this around a little bit.

That's right.

One more thing before you wrap up your routine beforehand is pretty funny.

So it has become a habit. And now it's also a routine. It's always a Friday morning at six o'clock. I've tried going in in the afternoons before, but as it turns out, I'm a coffee addict, and I will drink coffee all day. And you know, there's a problem if you drink coffee all day and then you go and sit in a chair and are expected to be still for two hours, it doesn't work.

I'm overhydrated and I'm gonna need to pee well up and it probably does jump.

A catheter.

They would offer one, I'm sure, but I'm not interested in going there at One of the things that our blood center used to do is it's similar to platelets. It's called granulocyites, and it's these are not universal. There's very specific to a person in the types of proteins that they have in their blood. And I was asked, actually,

Sites literally literally.

So it's one time where you knew exactly what you're doing and exactly where it's going.

Yeah, I mean, and they were, they were they were calling because this particular therapy that this is like a last ditch effort when they get to the point where they need granular sites like this. And they were lining up not just me, but five or six other people to donate every day for a five or six day period. And for that one they literally told me, I don't care if you have to beat you can, We'll get

And there's a person literally right there that if you don't give they die.

Good chance of that, yep, because they they they line you up and the striper're able to find out.

No, they for privacy.

But do you wonder I would love to meet a recipient someday I have actually been not mine, I mean, I've met all these other connections.

Sure, so it's it's pretty durrank.

Close to your morning routine, John, I'm.

Sorry they eat so my morning routine now on Friday morning, I get up at four point thirty.

I hit the snooze maybe once or twice.

I grab a shower, then I the blood center is about a half an hour drive from my house.

I stop at McDonald's.

I always get a sausage McMuffin with egg and a hash brown and a small coffee.

So clearly you don't have to eat healthy food to give platelets.

Well, they do tell you to eat, but they don't stay healthy.

And I'm figuring, you know, if I'm going to save three lives today, I can have a sausage McMuffin.

I actually love it.

It's like five.

Sorry.

The first thing they do when you get when you get there, those they take your blood pressure and I'm like, I often blame the hash brown because it's pretty salty and stuff.

I don't know.

Maybe it's a health check basically every two weeks and if I.

Can pass, and I'm like, yeah, so that's it.

That's it.

Then I go in and I mark the box it says I've done this before.

And your twin brother doesn't confuse them, no.

And they so it is a health check. They'll do.

There's a questionnaire that you have to fill out so that they can tell you whether you're eligible or and it's fifty questions every time, and it's and you so you notice this when you did your blood donation, right, It's everything.

It's what John's getting at. As they ask your sexual history.

They questions, have you ever been paid to have sex?

Have you had sexual contact with I mean, it's probably fifteen questions just about.

I think there's but it's I think there's time Lisa would pay me not to have sex. If you want to know the true that's an.

Add on question depending on how you answer the first one. But it's because they want your your blood product to be healthy for the recipient. Of course, it also gets tested, so I figure I'll be the first to know if I end up.

If you had up for something, you'll be the first to know.

Yeah, anything else you want to coverage, John, Not that I can think of.

The only the only thing that I was reviewing some of my notes this morning.

That and I think I may.

Have mentioned this to you Alex later on after our pre interview, was that my dad passed away from cancer in two thousand and four, of youing Saracoma. My mother in law died also. They both died at the age sixty three. My mother in law died of cervical cancer. And I didn't start this donation have it until twenty seventeen, so was that thirteen player. I didn't start telling the stories till after that, And I think that for me, the reason I have this Beyond Grief book here too

It has allowed me to process.

Some of the grief of me losing Dad, and it's allowed me to dig in a little bit deeper to what he went through with the answer and what I got out of being his son for sixty three years. Sixty three years, I'm sixty nine, say I was born, you know, just for being his son. And as I was reading through my notes of I did an Instagram take over for a week where I shared about my dad. This was in twenty twenty twenty, and that was so

So it's interesting the storytelling process that all this is actually healing for survivors very much.

So it's healing for me.

I like you've said so many times in your guests too. I get ten times as much out of this as anything I'm giving. I mean, I'm donating my platelets, but this is it's healing for me to tell somebody else's story and to learn more about my dad, just because.

It's a beautiful side benefits of the whole gig.

Yeah, it could be. You two, go give it a try.

That's it, John, Thanks for taking the time to come down here and share your story. Thanks for what you're doing, Thanks for bringing me, thanks for being an inspiration. And I really hope, against hope that people listening to us today will say, Okay, this is an easy one.

I'm gonna go, hope, So and let me know if you do.

Yeah, I want to let John know. He'll tell your story.

Yeah, there's a pyramid that gets.

An email us and let us know, because who knows who might read your name one time and Alex may call you up and bother you. You never know. Thanks for being here, buddy, Thank you appreciate it, and thank you for joining us this week. If John Norman has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by donating blood, platelets or something else entirely, please let me know because I am really interested in seeing if our country can move the needle beyond three pitiful percent.