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

When Vivienne Connor was fourteen, she found a lump under her arm and told her mom she didn't think it was anything. By that fall she had a diagnosis: Stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. She did everything a cancer story is supposed to do. Three rounds of chemotherapy through the winter. A clear PET scan on March 7th. A bell on the wall of the oncology floor, her mom in the room and her dad on FaceTime. From the outside, it looked exactly like an ending. Eighteen months later, a routine checkup tu

When Alicia Dixon's son Dakota was six, a headache and a facial droop sent them to the ER. She read his CT results off her own phone before the doctors reached the room — and knew, with her medical background, exactly what she was looking at. It was an aggressive brain cancer, and there was no time to waste. In this episode of Life on Pause, Alicia tells Dakota's story herself — the seven-year-old "spitfire genius" he was before cancer, the eight months and three stem-cell transplants that

When Vivienne Connor was diagnosed with Stage 2 Hodgkin's Lymphoma at fourteen years old, her family faced two conversations almost simultaneously — one about cancer treatment, and one about her future fertility. The decision had to happen fast, before chemotherapy could begin. In this episode of Life on Pause, Vivienne and her mom Meg share what it was like to navigate fertility preservation during one of the most overwhelming moments of their lives — including Christmas Day appointments,

🎥 VIDEO EPISODE NOTE: This story was made for video and includes powerful visual moments from both sides of the THON 2026 Hospital-to-THON Bridge — from patient rooms at Penn State Health Children's Hospital to the floor of the Bryce Jordan Center. Watch the full episode on YouTube for the complete experience. — — — Every year, THON happens for the kids who can't be there. This year, THON came to them. Delaney Clemens is sixteen years old. A two-sport varsity athlete — field ho

At twenty years old, Eliot Dean was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. For weeks, his world shrank to a single hospital floor he couldn't leave — a window with a good view, a lot of sunsets, and the slow, difficult work of getting through treatment. Five years later, in remission, Eliot thought the worst was behind him. Then routine blood work came back suspicious. Same markers. Same diagnosis. A different kind of fear. In this episode of Life on Pause, Eliot shares what no one t