Support Life-Saving Medical Care for Logan Rizzi

Two weeks. That’s all the time it took for the lives of seven-year-old Logan and his family to change in a devastating way. A visit to the pediatrician for a minor cough turned into a T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) diagnosis. The road ahead involves three years and several phases of chemotherapy, all to be completed at an out-of-network hospital. The first two phases are intensive and require setting up a temporary home near the hospital for the next six to eight months. The cost of Logan’s medical care and resulting housing costs will add up fast. This is why Logan and his family need your help.

Your donation will help fund Logan’s chemotherapy and medical care, the related temporary housing, and transportation costs as his parents split their time between caring for Logan near the hospital and caring for Logan’s sister, four-year-old Sienna, at their home.

Each and every donation counts and is appreciated, no matter the amount. Thank you on behalf of the Rizzi Family for your support.

Logan’s Story

Logan Rizzi is a bright, social, and brave seven-year-old. He loves playing video games with his dad and cousins, playing basketball and soccer, and spending time exploring outdoors with the Cub Scouts. Logan loves people and isn’t shy. As a toddler, he had a habit of greeting and chatting with strangers in grocery stores. At the park, he always finds a new friend to play with. Logan is also brave. He pushes himself to confront his fears, like challenging playground equipment or roller coasters, because he trusts he’ll enjoy it and will want to share it with his family and friends so they can enjoy it, too.

One Sunday morning, Logan woke up with a minor cough. He had just started first grade, so his parents, Laura and Sergio, chalked it up to classroom germs, except the cough wouldn’t go away. That’s not unheard of — kids’ coughs can linger — but they felt like something was off. His pediatrician said it was most likely asthma related to a respiratory virus. Laura insisted that this felt like something more than asthma, so a chest x-ray was ordered.

Laura, who is also a nurse, took one look at the x-ray and knew something was wrong. Within hours, Logan was transported to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital (LPCH) at Stanford, where invasive, diagnostic tests were performed. Because of the huge mass surrounding his lungs, heart and kidneys, the doctors recommended against anesthesia, so seven-year-old Logan lay awake enduring a lumbar puncture, a bone marrow aspiration, and a PICC line placement.

These tests, paired with CT scans, led to a diagnosis of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), which is the most common pediatric cancer. The treatment is intensive and strict, and includes three years of chemotherapy. The first phase of the treatment involves 28 days of inpatient care at LPCH, which is followed by several other phases totaling six to eight months of infusion treatments and clinic visits, which can last up to 10 hours at a time.

For the next eight months, Logan will need to live as close to LPCH as possible. This proximity mitigates the risk of complications by providing easy access to his care team. Laura and Sergio also have a four-year-old daughter, Sienna, and a dog, Baxter, who depend on them to care for them and to be at their home, which is more than 40 miles away from the hospital. They’ll not only have to arrange and pay for temporary housing — likely an extended stay hotel because AirBnBs are an impossible $10,000+/month — but also take shifts alternating between being with Logan at the hospital or hotel, and being with Sienna and Baxter at home.

So much of what lies ahead for the Rizzi Family is unclear, but one thing we know for certain is that the cost of Logan’s medical care and resulting housing costs will add up fast. As their friends and family, we ask you to please, if you can afford to, make a donation of any amount to help Logan and his family cover these new expenses so they can make it to the other side of this. Our hope is that, on that other side, Logan is back at school, healthy and thriving, and the family is reunited in one home. With your help, we know we can get them there.

You can also send your generosity directly to:

Venmo: @Laura-Rizzi-1