Stay Tranquilo - From Heartbreak to Hope: The Live Like Bella Story w/ Raymond Rodriguez-Torres #LiveLikeBella

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Today’s episode is a powerful reminder of purpose, service, and love. We sit down with Raymond Rodriguez (Co-founder of the Live Like Bella® movement) to share Bella’s story—her fight, her joy, and the mission that carries her legacy forward: helping families battling childhood cancer and accelerating research.In this conversation:Bella’s journey and the moment “Live Like Bella” was bornHow a viral tribute (LeBron James & Dwyane Wade) turned into a global movementWhat families actually need during treatment—and afterThe research push, policy wins, and why speed matters in pediatric cancerPurpose as a daily practice: “Live like Bella” in your own lifeChapters00:00 Intro01:05 Raymond’s roots & family story03:40 Bella’s diagnosis, resilience & lessons10:40 The birth of #LiveLikeBella16:45 What families need: treatment, bills, memorial support24:05 Funding research & building state-level models29:45 The next 5–10 years: from cure to chronic, treatable31:10 Biggest wins & the comprehensive pediatric cancer network33:45 Purpose, service, and living like Bella—every dayJoin the mission:Comment below: What does “Live Like Bella” inspire you to do this week?If this moved you, please like, subscribe, and share—it helps more people discover stories that heal and mobilize.#LiveLikeBella #ChildhoodCancerAwareness #Miami #CafecitoYCroquetas #PurposeOverEverything #ChildhoodCancer #CancerResearch #Hope Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Cafesito and Croquettas. Today, we're joined with Raymond Rodriguez from Live Like Bella. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here and being able to one share your story, your knowledge, and a lot of the work that you're doing. So thanks so much for being here. It's wonderful to be here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely.

So before we get started, I want to kind of highlight a little bit of what we're going to touch on. Obviously, your story with Bella, your daughter, and what it's led to today, right? obviously the amount of impact that you've had and the journey that I'm sure that you've lived over the course of the last few years have been an emotional roller coaster probably to say the least. But before we start, I just want to, one, just tell us a little bit about yourself, you know, what you do now. And then we can, of course, talk about Bella and the initiatives that you guys are working on. Sure. So I grew up in Miami. I call this place firmly home. ironically I was born in Toledo, Ohio, which not a lot of Cuban-American kids are born there, but that's a story for another day. In any event, Miami is very much home.

As a young man, I'm a person that's always planned my life many years in advance. I'm the baby of my family, and so you'll learn that babies of families tend to do that, and I'm no exception. And so, for example, I knew for certain the year I would get married, and I did. I knew for certain the year that I would have children, and I did. And I knew without equivocation. that the woman that I would fall in love with and marry would be Cuban, Catholic, submissive, and a great cook. And that's the first time I learned that God has a sense of humor because the woman that I fell in love with and I'm still very much in love with

was an American Jewish woman who is tough as nails and cannot make a bowl of cereal that's obstruction. And yet my wife, Shauna, has been an immense blessing in my life and the life of many. And in 2002, precisely when I thought I had planned it, we were as excited as anyone would be to be expecting our first child. and it was a little girl named Bella. And so we started our family. At the same time, professionally, I spent 21 years in the pharmaceutical industry.

I currently serve as the CEO of ALC Home Health, which just turned 20 years here in Miami. And, you know, I was a young man, young in my career, young in my marriage, and excited to be having our first little girl. And unfortunately, her labor and delivery was very challenging when Bella was born. My wife was in labor for 13 hours. and because of that, she suffered a series of strokes in her brain due to the low oxygen that would reveal themselves later in developmental delays, primarily speech and comprehension. And so it was a challenging time, but we had resources, thank God.

You know, my wife is a special education teacher. I had excellent health insurance as an executive in the pharmaceutical industry. And my father, who's my best friend who just turned 99, is a pediatric cardiologist. He was the head of Miami Children's Hospital for 20 years. So despite her developmental delay, we had every ability to help our little girl close her developmental gaps. And until 2007, when something happened that would change our life forever, and Bella suddenly became paralyzed overnight.

And without warning, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, alveola rhabdomio sarcoma with nine different tumors throughout her body. It was never expected that she would ever walk again and recover from her paralysis. and her life expectancy at the time was estimated at a matter of weeks to months. And yet, by the grace of God and extraordinary medicine and support from all around the world, miraculously Bella regained the ability to walk, run, and jump. She didn't live a few weeks or a few months. She battled valiantly for six years.

And at the age of 10, then, she did go to heaven and pass away and took her last breath in my wife's arms. And on the night that she went to heaven, LeBron James and Dwayne Wade, the Miami Heat wrote hashtag live like Bella on their shoes during the finals and it went viral. And so much so that the week after Bella went to heaven, President Obama at the time flew to Miami. We had the opportunity to meet with him and discuss the number one disease killer of children, childhood cancer. And so it was in the garage of our home and at the kitchen table that we decided that we also were going to live like Bella. And we were going to do what she would have wanted, which to her to live like Bella men to serve others. And so we attempted to help her friends. And so we attempted to

help her friends. And so I had the privilege of giving the eulogy at Bella's funeral. And it's a very difficult thing to consider that I am a man that held my little girl in her first breath on earth and in her last. But I said something then at her funeral that was true then as it is now. And that is that when you read in the obituary that Bella Rodriguez Torres died, don't believe it. Because she's more alive than she's been in her entire existence. And the proof of that has been in what's happened precisely with Live Like Bella, where now we have surpassed $40 million in research that we've been able to help make possible, and we serve families in 38 countries and across the United States. So while we miss her terribly, Bella is very much alive, a very big part of what we do,

and it's a privilege to share her story and our journey with you. No, absolutely. And again, I can't speak from experience because I've never definitely experienced anything like that. And I always pray. I still don't have kids right now. I'm 30 years old, but obviously want to have kids one day in my life. And just the thought of someone having to go through that is painful. It's challenging. It's so many different things, probably so many words that I'm not even able to come up with right now. But I remember my cousin a couple years ago had stage four cancer and very similar situation was basically said, hey, you have maybe a couple of weeks to live. Here we

are four years later and she's alive and well, a teacher, done amazing things. So it's a testament one, I think, obviously, to maybe the growth and the awareness that has come from initiatives like Live Like Bella that you maybe see now directly with someone that I'm close to in my own family and being able to see that medicine works and all these things work to be able to provide the resources to help families avoid maybe something that you guys went through. But I want to be able to touch a little bit more on that time when Bella was going through cancer and everything that she was going through and just talk about what were like the emotions going on between you and your wife and how Bella almost maybe carried you guys through that moment.

Absolutely. I am a father that can say that I learned a lot from my child. And I also believe that Bella was a celestial being who was here. for a short period of time. While I wish that her appointed time on Earth would have been to the age of 85 and certainly after me, her appointed time on Earth was to the age of 10. And the reason why I know that is because when she was young and before she became paralyzed and diagnosed with cancer, her life was very challenging and it was for us as young parents. Because of her developmental delays, she was frequently made fun of at birthday parties and marginalized and we weren't invited to certain play dates with other parents. We had instances where she had Shawna and I would go out to dinner with Bella when she was little in because she couldn't speak, she would moan and make noise. And we would have strangers come up to our table and say, hey, listen, your daughter is disturbing our meal. You guys need to learn how to be better parents. And so that wasn't easy to swallow. And yet despite that, we tried to maintain optimism, right?

Because we had resources. Who better than us? Who better than us to tackle this thing? And then all of a sudden she becomes paralyzed overnight. That in itself, you know, cancer is horrible. But to have a paralyzed child is absolutely incredible. difficult from every aspect of cleaning them, caring for them, their aspect on life changes to a seated position. I mean, there's a series of things that change, having ramps at your house, all of those

things, and then stage four cancer, right? So now we have a direct threat to her life. And so the first thing that I found myself to answer your question was the day that I received the call that Bella was paralyzed. It was very early in the morning. I was traveling for work as I normally did. I immediately made my way home. Bella was originally thought to have a different type of illness other than cancer. We didn't find the cancer until about five days later. And so she was being treated in the pediatric intensive care unit at what is Nicholas Children's Hospital today. Great irony, my best friend, my father, founded the first pediatric intensive care unit in the history of the United States in 1966 in Brooklyn, New York.

Imagine the irony of my father founding the first unit, and now I'm in there as a dad. And intensive care units, they're extraordinary. I call them PICU nurses, pediatric intensive care use, I call them ninjas, because the care there is one-on-one. But the entire environment is glass. And the reason why it's glass, you know, taking away the privacy of it, unfortunately, is because when a patient is crashing or in an acute need of care,

all of those nurses converge. They leave their one-on-one care. They converge on the patient that's crashing or that needs immediate attention. And as soon as they stabilize the patient, they immediately go back to their respective stations. And as I was there, that first night with Bella that she was paralyzed, I was in disbelief. I said, how can this be that my daughter is paralyzed like this? And when the nurses weren't looking, I would say, I'm going to fix this.

Daddy's going to fix this because that's what Daddy is supposed to do. And when the nurses weren't looking, I'd pinch her toes as hard as I could. Move, but they wouldn't. And I was entirely impotent to fix that problem. that night I saw two children die right before my eyes because of those glass walls and windows. And that was the first time that I looked up in earnest in my life and said, God, why me? What have I done to deserve this? What we didn't expect was that what once was a problem, which were her developmental delays, later became an enormous blessing.

Because because of the fact that she was developmentally delayed, Bella could never fully comprehend the severity of her illness. She couldn't comprehend that she had a death sentence from day one. So she was joyful. She was fearless. And all she cared about were her friends. You know who ended up being Bella's friends? Primarily the other children in the hospital. She had difficulty relating to other kids in the world,

but not to those that had to undergo cancer treatment. And so it was extraordinary to see the lessons that she taught us. And one of the things that I would like to share with you and your viewers is the picture that I'll share with you of Bella dressed as a clown. So because of her innocence, the therapeutic clown care unit at the hospital made her an honorary clown. And although she couldn't walk, she had this contraption that I made for her that with wheels and on the slick floor of the hospital she could get along.

And she asked, they made her scrubs, clown scrubs, as you can see in the photograph, and they dressed her as a clown. She lost all her hair, obviously, and she was actually taking chemo in this photo. She asked for something very unusual, and this is at four years old. She asked for very large pockets to be made. And the reason why she did was because when you go to a pediatric cancer center, usually they hit the children with chemo at night with the intention of, with all the side effects that they're going to have,

the idea is to give them as much sedation as possible, so they'll sleep through those terrible side effects as much as possible. So when you walk up and down the hallways of a pediatric cancer center in the evening, usually what you hear is horrible retching and vomiting up and going down. Bella never suffered from that. amazingly she never did. So the reason why she asked for those pockets in her scrubs is because she used to fill them with lollipops.

And she would go and visit her friend's rooms after they had had that retching and vomiting and give them lollipops as clown Bella so that they had something sweet in their mouth after that horrible experience. So with that lesson and so many others that she taught us, how could we not? How could we not then later take that example

and follow her lead to live like Bella? That's incredible. And, you know, just kind of listening into that, right? I think it's almost like Bella's legacy was built the moment she was born, right? Like, she was unfortunately through a very traumatic situation, but was destined to leave a legacy, like how you mentioned, like she's not dead. She's still here alive and well and making an impact in so many lives. And even in her short time, she carried that legacy by doing exactly that,

going around the rooms and being a light. And I think that's just obviously a testament to what you guys are doing now and what live like Bella really means at the end of the day. It's providing joy in moments that necessarily don't really translate to joy. And I think that's such a hard thing, I think, for a lot of people to digest, right? I mean, whether it's through financial problems, it's health problems, all these problems that we see in the outside world. But then you hear stories like this and moments.

like this and it really just puts things into perspective of like how powerful we are as human beings to be able to garner love and good emotions through really really really tough times and be able to see someone like Bella and the impact that she carries now for years after and forever right like it's not going to go away it's only going to continue to grow and the fact that you guys be able are able to carry on her legacy I think is one of the most powerful things and all of this. So I, one, want to give you guys your flowers, too, for being able to handle that adversity and carry on her legacy through such a beautiful moment now. We had a good teacher. She was bald. She was three foot nine, but she packed quite a punch.

And I'll share with you, you know, during September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, we have our busiest month of the year in many respects. And one of the things that I enjoy doing more than anything is visiting schools where I get to walk into auditorium sometimes with up to a thousand children and they are wearing gold which is the color of childhood cancer awareness and they're saying to live like Bella is cool and I always pray the same prayer in September when I'm in a scenario like that and I say honey you might not have fit in then but boy do you fit in now and what I think it was the broader lesson of Bella to to me and to the world was to believe in something greater than ourselves.

Because a little girl who could barely speak, who was marginalized, who was made fun of, whose life on the surface was so seemingly insignificant. It's so profound to circulate the world to motivate people, to do acts of charity, to give of themselves, to help others that were in need. All of those things from a little girl that could barely speak.

And I think that what they saw in those eyes and in that smile was something greater than themselves. So fortunate and blessed am I, to have served as Bella's daddy for the time that she was supposed to be here. I know I'll see her again. No, not a doubt. And obviously it's led into the work that you're doing now with the Live Like Bella Foundation. And I want to hear one, obviously there's that moment that you said,

hey, I'm going to do this. Me and my wife are going to do this and we're going to carry on her legacy. But talk about a little bit of, you know, what were some of the problems that you guys face and treatment and funding and just accessibility maybe through her treatment? that has led to now helping other families that are maybe dealing with something very similar in their situations. So it was alarming when Bella was diagnosed to learn that less than 4% of the National Cancer Institute's budget goes to pediatrics, meaning that overwhelmingly 96% of the more goes to adult cancers.

Now, there's a multitude of reasons why that is, but in addition to that, there are very few medications for childhood cancer. The majority of the chemotherapies that are used in children are, if you would, dose down or watered down versions of adult cancer. There are 12 major types of pediatric cancers, and they are very different than the adult cancers. For example, you and I know what we're doing and what are exposing ourselves to if we drink alcohol, if we smoke cigarettes, we accept the risk, right? Bella was not drinking or smoking before she became paralyzed. These children are not polluting their bodies.

In fact, they're not even old enough at the moment to even pollute their bodies, right? So pediatric cancer has a very different genetic component to it than do adult cancers. In addition to that, we also found that the moment a child is diagnosed, even if you have a two-parent household, one parent will inevitably have to start working almost immediately. This is not the kind of situation where you can just take your four-year-old, drop them off at the clinic for chemo, and then go to work for a few hours. Immediately, if it's a two-income household, one, if not both, will eventually have to stop working. And so there is an enormity of financial challenges that present a family. And then also we learned in a very painful way the sad reality, which is true in so many respects of life, but even more so in a scenario such as this, that you make friends with the company you keep.

And for so long, the company that we kept, my wife and I were other cancer families who overwhelmingly above 80% of the time their children died. And it was heartbreaking to see our friends after everything they'd been through, after now having to bury their child, not be able to afford a proper headstone for their child. Now, when I go, a pine box is fine. You can throw me in the ocean. But when it's your child, you want something different. I visit Bella's Groveside personally every 10 days, if not more than that. And it's different when you have to visit your child's grave.

And so all of those lessons taught us that there was massive need to raise awareness of funding, to provide assistance to families when they were going treatment, and lastly, if their child should die. And so live like Bella, addresses those three points. And one story that I'll tell you, especially about the most poignant of those, which is the headstones and the burials and the memorial support that Live Like Bella provides. When Live Like Bella started very organically in the kitchen of our home, that my wife was actually the founder of it, we knew we wanted to fund research, and now we've been able to do that. We knew we wanted to pay for all the

ancillary expenses of families that had children undergoing treatment, and we do that now all over the world. But the third leg of the stool, which was the memorial support, didn't come until a Saturday morning, At that time, we had volunteers that would answer the phone at Live Like Bella in redundancy. So it bounced from one person to another to another until a volunteer would answer Live Like Bella, and they may not even be in Florida. But on the weekends, my wife and I used to put ourselves higher in the call queue to give the volunteer some reprieve. Live Like Bella started like a rocket, and still is that way today. And I'll never forget, it was a Saturday afternoon around 3 p.m.

There was a mother calling from the parking lot of a cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina. and her five-year-old had just died after an eight-month battle with a brain tumor. He had been treated at Duke, but he unfortunately passed away. And the mother and the family were told to be at the cemetery at that hour to bury the boy. And imagine getting dressed and putting on your best to go do the unthinkable. When they arrived there, they were informed that there was an $1,800 balance on the account, and that unless they were able to pay that in that moment, they weren't going to bury the boy, and they were going to send his body back to the city morgue.

So this poor mother is inconsolable, goes out to the parking lot, gets on Google, finds Live Like Bella, calls. That Saturday afternoon, the person that answered the phone was my wife, Shawna. When Shawna speaks to a mom like that, it's not a volunteer saying, hey, I think I know how you feel. No, Shauna knows exactly how you feel. She says, please give me the number to the office, the cemetery right now. She called, and she said, listen, we're not, we're live like Bella. We're a nonprofit in Miami. We're not going to pay you $1,800.

We're going to pay you $1,500. But we're going to pay you right now. and you're going to stop torturing that family, and you're going to bury that boy immediately. And that was when we realized that that was another area that we had to move into, and it's very painful, but it's necessary. And in essence, that is the existence of Live Like Bella,

is to go to where the light is dim and be Bella's presence there. That's incredible. I mean, I imagine in that moment specifically for that family, it's already the worst possible situation, then you're there somehow making that situation that much. worse and you know the divine god what you know however you want to call it to be able to come across live like bella in that moment and not get the call picked up by a volunteer but to get get it picked up by your wife is just i mean i have goosebumps just even thinking about that it's obviously

a testament to to what you guys do and just god connecting people with you guys showcasing like hey what you're doing is right and this is exactly what what you need to be doing because I think in whatever walk of life that you're in, it's moments like that that are just like those reminders that you need to be like, hey, what you're doing is the right thing. Because I'm sure there was moments of doubt for you guys while going through the foundation and kickstarting it and trying to do all these things. And on paper, it all sounds great. But at the end of the day, there's a challenge to be able to execute all of this. No question. I mean, it's not easy to build any organization that's going to do meaningful work.

and I still have a day job, right? So I'm a volunteer. Sean is a volunteer. We don't take any money from Live Like Bella. Never have, never will. Everyone that serves on the board of directors does so voluntarily. So I have a day job. And it's not easy to bring people together that believe strongly in the mission

to join themselves to something like this where we are trying to put ourselves out of business. We want to, and we fully believe, that Live Like Bella will contribute to ending childhood cancer. Hard stop. And so we have been incredibly blessed with the team that we have at Live Like Bella because they give of themselves fully and entirely. And these are incredibly talented professionals

that could be making a whole lot of money somewhere else. And I look forward to the moment that childhood cancer no longer is an immediate threat to the lives of our children, helping each and every one of them go run a major company somewhere. because each one of them are amazing. And I have the privilege of interviewing the majority of them and in their final interview with me, I say to them, this is not.

Live like Bella is not a full-time job. Live like Bella is not a part-time job. Live like Bella is an all-the-time job. And to give you an example going back, I hate to go back to the headstones and the funerals, but when Shauna and I wrote the bylaws for Live Like Bella, we gave ourselves the authority to only approve an expense, a single expenditure to up to $10,000.

Why? Because we want to make sure there was absolute transparency in every penny entrusted to us to do the work that Live Like Bello does. So what does that mean? Oftentimes, believe it or not, a burial costs more than $10,000. But we wrote in the bylaws that we are allowed to vote electronically.

So any expenditure over $10,001, I have to take to the board of directors. If it's 2.30 in the morning and a child has just died and we have to bury that boy or that girl the next day, everybody's awake. And that text threat is going. And I've never heard anybody from Live Like Bella say, hey, guys, this is after hours, or I'm tired, or I'm asleep. Everyone's all in.

And that is an incredible blessing. That's a testament, obviously, to everyone trying to achieve the same mission. And when you do that, it's an unstoppable force for the greater good of the organization and the mission that you guys have in Bella's legacy, right, more than anything. But you talked about some of the initiatives that you guys work on that you've raised about $40 million. up to this point. Talk to me a little bit about the research component that, obviously, your goal is to end childhood cancer. So talk to me a little bit about the research and some of the growth that you've seen in research as far as that. So in the early days, Live Like Bella was funding research straight out of our own checkbook. And what we found was that,

you know, to really move the needle in scientific research, you need a lot of money. Absolutely. You know, selling T-shirts and socks and bake sales is a very noble thing to do, but we're not going to be able to move the needle as quickly as we'd like to. And, and childhood cancer, I do have to make note of this, time is of the essence. You see, you and I stop growing at the age of 26, okay? When a child is growing, their cells are rapidly dividing. So a childhood cancer is far more aggressive than would be in our instance. We're done growing. You add a malignancy to an entity in an organism that's growing, time is ticking, okay? And so because of that, we need to be very expedient. And so we made a very unique arrangement

and partnership with the state of Florida six or seven years ago now, where if something was created called the Live Like Bella Research Initiative. And that research initiative, in essence, agreed upon taking $5.3 million from the legislature every year and putting it into a fund that the Department of Health called the Live Like Bella Research Initiative. The funds from that primarily come from the cigarette sales tax in the state of Florida. And the rationale behind that was simply this. We wanted to use state funding to fund pediatric cancer research. We didn't want to add an additional taxpayer burden on people. So how do we do that? Well, we net it out on the cigarette taxes and say, look, we wish people wouldn't smoke, but if you're going to smoke,

why not take some of the revenue from that tax-wise and use it for the benefit of children battling cancer? I've even had people tell me, I think I'm going to take up cigarettes. You don't want to do that. But yeah, so this is how we created that. And through this program now, we have 75 studies ongoing in the state of Florida right now, which is unheard of. I mean, at one point I was one of the executives at Genentech, which is the largest bioancology company in the world, and we didn't have 75 trials going on at once.

And so we've seen remarkable advances at light speed using AI and different methodologies that would have been a dream during the time that Bella was. Bella's protocol, to give you an idea, was approved just after the Second World War. And the majority of the chemoes that Bella was on are incredibly toxic, heterogenic compounds, some of the same things you would find like an automotive brake fluid, I mean, that toxic. So to see the advancement that has been made, not just, through live like Bella, but around the country and around the world, I'm very encouraged. But yes, we have seen some really, really slick stuff that is saving lives right now of children

in our community and around the world. That's incredible. And it's incredible, but it's also a bit of a shame, right, that, you know, things like this need to happen for change to occur. But at the end of the day, as long as that change is occurring for the greater good, that's what we want, right? And it's unfortunate that, you know, 50,000. 20 years ago that some of these processes were not in place, but the fact that we are evolving

and we're making those changes across things like this, that, okay, hey, we're making the market and we're leading the charge. And I'm sure there's other organizations that are involved in these type of initiatives. But, you know, even what you just mentioned with the cigarette tax, right, like that could be a blueprint for other states to follow and say, hey, you know, it's working over there for them. Why are we not doing this? Like, this is clearly a need. We've been trying to find us solve for this problem, and they're doing it in Florida, and they're doing a very good job of it. Yep.

And so to that point, you know, recognizing our bandwidth in terms of being able to be everywhere at once, it would be impossible for us to think that we can do that. We have recently been involved in different coalitions around the country, state by state, sharing the gospel of Florida, if you would, or live like Bella, and saying, look, you can do this, too. I can tell you that in this very polarizing and politically intoxicated environment that we're in right now,

at least in this aspect, with that kind of plan, everybody was in agreement and singing from the same hymnal in Florida. And I believe that that is a blueprint which could be modified in any way and it doesn't have to be called, live like Bella, can be called whatever they want to call it,

in other states. In fact, last week, I was very proud that for the first time in history, California signed a similar piece of legislation into law where now when the residents of California file their state income taxes, a portion of that can be deducted to childhood cancer research. So it's not entirely the same as what we have here, but it's a good first start.

And I'm very proud of that, and we did have a hand in helping our partners in California get that going. There you go. And those are the steps. Like you said, you can't conquer the world by yourself, right? But if everybody can do their part to help and assist and do it the way that may work better over there, right? I mean, not everything's going to be a carbon copy across the board. But if there's something that they could take from what you guys did and be able to implement it in their state, or in their area, that's the change I mean because if not, here we are 20 years later and

nothing's been accomplished, right? Correct. It's awesome. So before we kind of wrap up here, I want to hear a little bit about what's the five, 10 years ahead look like for you guys. What are some of the things that you guys want to continue to achieve and look forward to? So I'm confident that before I see Bella smile in heaven again, we will find a cure for childhood cancer. I'm very confident of that. Before that, I believe that we will make childhood

cancer a chronic treatable disease. In a similar way where children are born with HIV, but now, today, because of medication that they have to take for the rest of their life, do not develop AIDS and die from it, I believe that soon we will see childhood cancer turn into a chronic treatable illness. And so by doing so, live like Bella's focus, God willing, will shift to support those families while they are undergoing their treatment and through the longevity of those life in any way that we can. With ultimately being the reality where Live Like Bella no longer needs to exist. No, my God, that would be incredible. And that just shows the advancement that you guys are making that you feel confident in making that. What would you say is your proudest moment

since starting Live Like Bella? You know, when I speak to a parent who tells me that their child is still alive two years or longer after their life expectancy because they were in a clinical trial that funded by Live Like Bella, that's a very special moment for me when I get to hug that child even more so because that's one of Bella's friends. When I speak to a family who in their depths of despair thank me for the fact that we were able to pay for the burial of their child and for their headstone, um, Those are difficult moments, but they're very proud moments for me. And most recently, in terms of the most audacious goal that Live like Bella has ever set,

was the announcement that we received a $2 million grant this year to launch the first ever comprehensive cancer network in children. Wow. And so that is a huge undertaking. It is the most audacious goal that Live like Bella has ever set forward, and we're just starting to bring together some of the brightest minds around the world in putting this together, and that's the next big step. That's amazing. That's incredible.

Like, it is, sorry. It is so amazing to see, you know, good come out of such a bad situation. Like, moments like that are what, they're honestly what fuel me every day. You know, I try to live a life of purpose, right? And it's something I actually want to ask you about. But I feel like so many people

lost in like all the wrong things every day, you know, politics, whatever it may be. And I'm just using politics as an example, but, right, like you hear all this evil going on in the world, but here we are sitting down and there's actually so much good going on in the world. And to be able to see what you guys have done and have purpose be what drives everything forward. And like you said, it's 2.30 in the morning and we're answering text messages to make sure that we're getting the things that we need to get done. Nothing else matters. one purpose is that front and center of everything that you do. And I guess my last question to you would be like, how much does purpose drive your life? Obviously, Bella is that purpose. But what is

that driving force and how does Bella drive that purpose for you every single day? I would say every moment of every day. I speak to Bella multiple times a day. And especially when I go into very big meetings or things that could be very significant to move this calls. forward or in anything. I know that I can't see her, but I know that she's standing in the podium next to me to trying to advance something. And I think the concept of purpose is directly tied to the concept of service because it is true I have found in my life that it is better to give than to receive. At the end of our lives, I can assure you that we will not be laying there saying, man, if I only would have sent that one last email, or if I only would have made that

final post my life would have been complete. I've been, I've attended more funerals of children than I would want anyone ever to attend. And I've never seen an instance where the focus was on anything but the purpose of someone's life. For me personally, if I could just share with you, I'll put you on the spot after the show. If you had to write your own obituary, what would you write as you stand today? And how does that compare to what you'd want it to say? I've done that exercise and it's helped me all right i've heard that before and you can't it kind of shakes you up a bit right if like one i i honestly don't know what i would say right because like you're you're going every day just thinking about living but what what happens if that that life is taken away from you

i mean nothing's guaranteed in this life right i mean we see it all the time and and it's just the reality and it's those moments that make you think about those type of things and and for me i you know i always think about like, you know, what's my legacy that I'm going to leave behind? And if if it's not something of good, then I feel like I didn't live my life the way that I wanted to live. So if I could just remind myself, and death is that reminder to you. It's like, the moment you think about it, it's like, okay, well, I'm going to go through the whole lifetime that I just lived and say, hey, did I live the life that I wanted to live? And if that answer is no, well, start today to make sure that you do live that life. That's right. And it's never too late. You

You know, when Live Like Bella started organically before the foundation, it started as a hashtag. And if you go back to 2013, the circumstances upon which hashtag Live Like Bella were born, Bella had just gone through an 18-hour surgery. We were at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. It was our final attempt after six years and six relapses to save her life. It was a Hail Mary. And we didn't even think that Bella would survive the surgery, frankly. She did.

And when she came out, it's a profound operation where they open the patient entirely, from the bottom of their neck all the way to their pelvis. They open the patient entirely. They remove everything they can take out surgically. And then they take a chemo called carboplatin and they boil it. And then they lavage the interior of the patient. It's medieval. To cut someone open and boil them is medieval. But the premise of that is that the heat penetrates the cancer cells better. but it also boils every organ that it comes in contact with.

And so they put the patients like Bella in a coma because otherwise the pain would be excruciating. And so it was a Saturday morning Bella had come out of this procedure that's called High Peck. And my wife didn't post any pictures of Bella, obviously, because it was a very gruesome site, but she said today's a beautiful Saturday morning in Houston. Bella's in a coma.

She can't go out and do the things that she would normally do. So you go out. you go out and serve others. You go out and pray for others. Go out and belly laugh. Sing at the top of your lungs. Eat something delicious. You go out and you hashtag live like Bella.

And from that moment forward, this is before the foundation was ever even conceived, people started hashtagging live like Bella in beautiful ways and posting it. Today I went out. I hadn't left my house because of crushing anxiety for over a year. I'm living like Bella. I reconcile the relationship that I should have a long. long time ago. I'm living like Bella. Today I went out and I bought homeless people some food.

I'm living like Bella. So ultimately, I have no other choice. I'm her daddy. I have to live like Bella. And I will continue to do so until I'm reunited with her. Amen to that. Again, so much props to you guys. And I feel Bella here right now. I'm not, I'm not going to lie. I do. I do. and it's amazing. I just want to say thank you. I've taken so much out of this conversation, and it just hearing live like Bella just makes me want to live like Bella. It really does.

It really does. But thank you so much for the work that you guys are doing. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this and share your story. And the impact, obviously, that you guys are doing. I know, and you know that it's helping so many people when we're excited to see that change. and we're excited to see childhood cancer be something that could be treated and help all the families along the way.

So thank you. Thanks for sure.