At HUP’s first annual inpatient “Light the Night Walk,” John Ragg told participants about his own battle on Rhoads 7 against adult acute myeloid leukemia in 2015. “I went through hell and back, but I refused to let cancer win,” he said. “I still call one of my nurses my angel in scrubs – she got me through so many tough times. All nurses have wings. It takes a very special person to do what they do, day in and day out.”
HUP partnered with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to create this “new” tradition. Cancer patients and their loved ones and caregivers who aren’t able to participate in the national Light the Night Walk can show their support and help raise awareness of the critical role of LLS in reaching a world without blood cancers. The nonprofit has invested nearly $1.3 billion in groundbreaking research, pioneering many of today’s most innovative approaches. The Penn Medicine team, which each year participates in the “official” Light the Night Walk, has raised more than $285,000!
Sporting special blue t-shirts and holding white “lit” lanterns high, patients on the four oncology units who are actively getting treatment and were feeling well enough to participate, and those in remission, walked around their unit with staff and family members, who were holding red lanterns in support.
“I think of this as a celebration, of everything that’s been accomplished through the year – the trials, the approvals, the new programs,” Ragg said. “It’s light breaking through the darkness of cancer.”