"Carried" — Survivorship Is Partnership in Action

Twenty-one years ago, Brady Lucas walked into Penn State Health Children's Hospital as an eight-year-old with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He was treated for thirty-nine months. He relapsed at thirteen. His younger brother Sean donated the bone marrow that saved his life.

He finished treatment in July 2008 — and never rang the bell, because the hospital did not introduce one until around 2013.

On September 2nd, 2026, he came back to Hershey to give the keynote at the first Childhood Cancer Awareness event the hospital has ever held. In the audience were the nurses who treated him at eight, two of whom drove in for the night. One of them had been his nurse both times he was diagnosed, in the same room, five years apart.

This episode is about what he said, and about what the people in that room said back. It is also about a sixteen-year-old named Lacey, who designed this year's awareness artwork from a coloring book she brought to chemotherapy.

And it is about a bell that nobody planned to ring.

Life on Pause is produced by Penn State Health and supported by Four Diamonds. New episodes monthly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Watch the full episode on YouTube

Penn State Health AYA Cancer Program

Learn more about Four Diamonds