Life On Pause is a podcast for and by young adults living with cancer. Each month, young adult cancer patients from Penn State Health share honestly about their cancer diagnosis, treatment and life afterwards. As cancer causes the group to reflect on issues both large and small, surprisingly relatable stories and themes emerge. From relationships to body functions, nothing is off the table.
Recent Episodes
Jan. 13, 2026
Finding Your Voice After the Bell: A PhotoVoice Journey of Young Adult Cancer Survivors
What happens when treatment ends but the journey continues? For young adult cancer survivors, the ringing of the bell marks not an ending, but the beginning of something more complex — survivorship. In this powerful episode o...
Dec. 23, 2025
Mind Over Matter: Health Maintenance After Cancer
What does health maintenance really mean when you're a young adult cancer survivor? Eliot and Hailey—both acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) survivors—share the reality of life after treatment: checkups every six months, scho...
Dec. 11, 2025
When Heroes Meet Heroes: Life Lion's Impact on Cancer Families
When a Life Lion flight nurse saves a teenager's life, he never expects to meet him again. Ten years later, that young man returns—not as a patient, but as a father—to say thank you. Ten-year-old William, a leukemia survivor,...
Nov. 28, 2025
The Tape Job: How Cancer Taught Tony Campisi to Redefine Heaven
Tony Campisi, a two-time cancer survivor, shares a story about hockey, resilience, and discovering that heaven doesn't have to look the same to still be heaven. Diagnosed with an astrocytoma tumor on his spinal cord at age fo...
Nov. 18, 2025
The Long Way Around: Living With Osteosarcoma at Age 12
At twelve years old, Ariana was living for sports — two softball teams, church basketball, and constant motion. Then her knees started hurting. What seemed like a sports injury turned into an osteosarcoma diagnosis that would...
Oct. 29, 2025
From Provider to Patient, Part 2: Karen Powell on Early Detection, Tough Choices, and Self-Advocacy
Karen Powell, a nurse practitioner at Memorial Sloan Kettering who specializes in breast cancer care, returns for Part 2 to share the night everything changed: her own diagnosis at age 39. A lifelong runner, healthy eater, an...
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