DoctorOz: Susan Lucci on Her Grandson's Cerebral Palsy & Family Journey | Oz Celebrity

New Year, which is an ideal time to motivate yourself to make health changes, but it's also the time of year when you're a little low on money. Who here, to be honest, everybody, is still paying off their credit card bills? A lot of folks, we are all there. It was a good time when we had it, but we got those bills. So today, what you can do to better yourself without a lot of cash. That's why we've got some $1 fast fixes that will save you this winter. Plus, we've got the Dirt Cure. It doesn't cost much, by the way. It claims it can transform your kids' health and behavior with just some simple food. We're going to dig a little deeper to uncover what it's all about. And finally, Daytime's biggest diva, Emmy award-winning actress, Susan Lucci, is here. She's revealing a very personal family health story that I'm very proud to bring to you. As Erica Kane, the woman you love to hate on All My Children, Susan Lucci became one of the most famous faces in daytime television. Now, she's a star on cable in the hit Lifetime series, Devious Maids. But it's her role of wife, mother, and grandmother that Susan cherishes most. Although that role has seen its share of challenges. In 2008, daughter Liza Huber gave birth to Susan's second grandchild, Brendan, born prematurely at just 4 pounds, 10 ounces. At 10 months, Brendan still couldn't sit up. At 19 months, he couldn't stand. That's when doctors told Liza that Brendan had cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that affects muscle movement. From the moment they got the diagnosis, Liza, Susan, and the whole family had been working together to help Brendan live a full life. And today, they are proud to report that Brendan, now seven years old, is an active child who likes to play with his friends and siblings, and is also a Cub Scout. Susan Lucci and Liza Huber, Please come on out. Thank you so much. You look like sisters. Oh, thank you so much. It's unbelievable. Thank you. Liza's my tall, blonde wish I was. I mean literally like sisters. You're not doing too shabby yourself. Let's talk about Brendan. He looks so wonderful in that video. But what is he like to you? Describe him to each of you. I'd love to hear your perspectives. Well, he's just a wonderful boy. He's so creative and imaginative and adorable, a great sense of humor. And I always say about Brendan, he's got velvet eyes. Because when he knows you and he's very responsive, he's very warm. So his eyes are very velvety. He also has such an empathy about him because he had such a hard start to life. I mean, if somebody trips on the playground, he's the first one to genuinely go over and really say, are you okay, and wants to help them up. He just, he's such a special boy with a really kind soul. He has an energy in the little videos we saw. He does. You could have kept this private. Many families would have. Why'd you decide to talk publicly about what Brendan has gone through? You know, we really thought, we have this wonderful platform. This is really something we wanna be able to talk about, cerebral palsy, and shine a light on the many different faces. And also, if I'm trying to hide it from him, what does that say to him? I want him to be proud of himself. I don't want him to ever feel bad at all. I want to just shout his accomplishments from the rooftop. That's such a good insight you have. Because so often we are ashamed of things we shouldn't be or scared of revealing truths that are there. But it sends a message, a very clear message that we're not happy with how they are. And we have to accept, especially our kids, as they are. They're getting there. Right, and everyone has something they're dealing with. Everyone has something. So let's talk about this condition. It happens usually either during childbirth or something happened in utero. it's happening because the brain while it's developing and connecting to your muscles isn't able to do it the way most of us were blessed to have it happen so it's non-progressive which just for everyone knows what that means it means it's not going to get worse but it's not going to get better either right so i think we're all tested when we know that the severity can vary quite a bit what would you like us to know about brendan's cerebral palsy so brendan has cerebral palsy spastic diplegia so it's in his legs uh he's he is able to walk independently which i feel very very uh grateful for of course he wears leg braces you know he's got challenges he has difficulty getting himself dressed um we're having difficulty learning how to swim you know kicking the legs of course with the tightness um but we're going to get there you know we're going to get there and he gets there eliza has a wonderful industrial size trampoline in her backyard with with the large fence around so nobody can come flying out but uh brendan has uh an older brother a younger sister another brother and they all run to the trampoline he may not be the first one to get there but he gets there he whips those braces up off and he's up onto the trampoline and i always tell him listen it may not be pretty but get it done just do it do it however you can do it but push yourself and do it because you can do it and he does what did you feel when you first heard the diagnosis when you first realized that he wasn't going to be exactly like his siblings oh it was he was just about two years old and it was really a flood of emotion. It was every emotion you could think of. It was sadness because I knew he would have to be dealing with cerebral palsy for the rest of his life, but also tremendous gratitude because he would be able to walk and many others could not. You must have had, I'll speak as a grandparent now, pain that your child was going through. Pain. And I just, I wanted to be there in whatever way I could to if my presence in any way could comfort Liza. And you were tremendously supportive. You really broke your back to be there for me. But all through this, just to bring everyone up to date, you were in Dancing with the Stars. At the beginning, yes. And for the first six weeks when Brendan was in the neonatal ICU, as born as a premature child, so it started back then, you were being pulled away from the family all the while you were in this competition. Yes, that's true. I was working on both coasts at the same time. But we were on the red-eye Tuesday night after the show, Tony Dovolani, my husband, Howard Huber and me, and we would get to New York and take a little nap, take a shower, go to the hospital, go dance with Tony, do all my children on Thursday and Friday, and when we would finish shooting, then I would go to the late visit with Liza to the neonatal intensive care unit. And one thing, Liza's younger brother, Andreas, had been in the same neonatal intensive care unit when he was born for different circumstances, but there for four weeks. And it was a very emotional place to go, but it had a happy outcome for my son. And I hoped in some way that Liza would be comforted now to see her brother, a big, strong, strong man. Those doctors, those nurses, they're just so incredible in the love and what they do. they're the true heroes they really are what kind of care does Brendan get right now so Brendan um gets physical therapy five days a week because really with cerebral palsy you want to keep that range of motion because once you lose it it's very difficult if not impossible to get it back so we have physical therapy five days a week we also do occasional Botox treatments which is kind of counterintuitive you know you inject Botox in your face to freeze wrinkles but yet it you know releases the muscles and people with cerebral palsy and there also is a surgery that we are investigating. So that's going to be a journey that we're on that I'm going to be writing about on my blog, Healthy Spoonfuls, if you want to follow along. Yeah, we'll push to it. What do you want folks to know about cerebral palsy? Well, I mean, I think most people, just speaking for myself as well, I knew nothing about cerebral palsy. And working with UCP of New York City, I started to learn that it's a large umbrella with many different stages and that you can live this fantastic life because these are modern times and they're making strides all all the time and i love Liza's attitude how she is with Brendan i think this kind of upbringing too encourages him to be the best Brendan he can be and he's fantastic he's a great boy you know i love about your story obviously the fact that the family came together it means a lot but we're judged by how we take care of the weak among us and we make them strong so they can become the leaders and too often we think of quick fixes in medicine give me the quick solution sometimes there aren't quick solutions this is an example but there's incredible meaning and joy that comes from that anyway yes absolutely thank you for sharing i know it's a very private story i know it can be uncomfortable thank you again thank you for watching don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss out on new videos to live the good life