Clay’s Story: A Full-Circle Moment at Studer Family Children’s Hospital

Over a decade and a half ago, in January 2010, Clay’s life changed in an instant. What started as flu-like symptoms quickly escalated. His parents brought him to their local ER, worried about his health. Within hours, Clay was life-flighted to Studer Family Children’s Hospital at Ascension Sacred Heart. There, he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and just days later, he began intensive chemotherapy treatment.

As a young child, Clay entered a world no child should have to face. But from the very beginning, he was surrounded by a care team that refused to let him fight alone. Among them was Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, the pediatric oncologist who would oversee Clay’s treatment from diagnosis through remission, walking with him every step of the way until he turned 18. Clay often says he owes his life to Dr. Schwartz and the dedicated team who stood by him during the toughest years of his life. For their guidance, compassion, and relentless pursuit of healing, he is forever grateful.

Through years of treatment, long hospital stays, and holidays spent on the pediatric floor, Clay’s nurses, doctors, and care team became more than medical professionals, they became a 2nd family. They filled his hardest days with kindness, encouragement, and joy, helping him feel like a kid even in the middle of a cancer battle.

Now, more than ten years later, Clay returned to Sacred Heart cancer-free and thriving. But this time, it wasn’t as a patient. It was as an adult and working professional, returning to the very place and the very people who helped save his life. Standing beside the same nurses who once stood beside Clay during and at the end of his treatment, Clay’s full-circle moment is a powerful reminder of the lifelong impact compassionate care can have.

At Sacred Heart, we don’t just treat patients we walk with them through every chapter of their journey.