In December of 2018, at four years old, Kinsley was diagnosed with an extremely rare eye cancer.  In a matter of five days, she went from a typical preschooler – enjoying her days of playing with friends and painting pictures to being put under anesthesia for 8 hours for extensive exams, MRIs, port placement, and started chemotherapy. It was every parent’s worst nightmare. To hear your child has cancer is earth-shattering, soul-wrenching, and a true test of strength.

Kinsley’s tumor was considered large and advanced. Because of the risk of it spreading to her optic nerve and brain, which would have taken her life, the decision was made to have her eye enucleated.  One month after her fifth birthday, Kinsley had her right eye removed.

Kinsley underwent 6 rounds of chemotherapy.  During this time, her immune system was very compromised. She was removed from school and quarantined to her home.  In an attempt to avoid cabin fever, Kinsley took up a love of baking.  She baked almost every day and her signature cookies were placed in neighbor’s mailboxes, dropped off at her school, and passed out to family and friends.  Kinsley absolutely loved the joy that her cookies brought to others. Her cookies became very well-known amongst the community.

One day, she asked her dad if he would build her a cookie cart so she could sell her cookies and give the money to other little cancer fighters.  You see, Kinsley was in the fight for her life, yet still thinking of others.  Her dad, Adam, spent countless nights in their garage building her the perfect cookie cart.  It was from there, that Kinsley’s Cookie Cart was born. To date, Kinsley has raised $225,000 for pediatric cancer warriors.  Kinsley works hand in hand with the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation to fund clinical trials with the hopes of providing better treatment options for other warriors.

Although Kinsley beat cancer, she will continue to have annual brain and orbital MRIs for the remainder of her life.  She also has eye exams every 4 months and visits her ocularist to have her prosthetic eye adjusted every six months.