Kinlee’s Krew: The Stinky Karter Foundation

09/11/2026

DAY 11 OF 30 | THE RARITY PENALTY

Childhood cancers are considered rare.

Within childhood cancer, many individual diagnoses and molecular subtypes are even rarer—sometimes affecting only a few hundred children across the entire country each year.

That creates a devastating problem.

The FDA has acknowledged that children with rare and ultra-rare cancers represent a smaller financial incentive for companies to develop innovative therapies.

Read that again.

The number of children affected can influence whether developing a treatment is considered financially worthwhile.

Smaller patient populations also make research slower and clinical trials harder to fill. The science is difficult. The market is small. And children are the ones forced to pay the price—with outdated treatments, limited options, and diseases that still have no cure.

But “rare” does not mean insignificant.

Rare does not mean less devastating.

Rare does not mean less worthy of research, funding, treatment, or survival.

No family should ever be left wondering whether a cure failed to arrive because too few children were diagnosed for the investment to be considered profitable.

A child’s chance to live should never depend on market size.

These diagnoses may be rare to the world, but the children living with them are everything to someone.

Rare should never mean forgotten.

Sources: FDA Pediatric Oncology Program | FDA Pediatric Oncology Drug-Development Materials | National Cancer Institute

09/11/2026

I got a text from my sweet friend, Jessica, Aanylah’s Mama, and she said “I’m sending you something. You’re going to love it”. Jessica and I became friends last year because both of our girls were diagnosed with DIPG. Kinlee and Aanylah had such similar journeys. Jess and I spent so many late nights messaging back and forth during hospital stays, FaceTiming, talking on the phone just sharing stories and information. I’ve said often that I always see Kinlee in these other kids with DIPG, but our girls really did favor. They really did act alike. Full of sass and personality. Always making someone laugh. They left behind parents who would have moved Heaven and Earth for them. They left behind siblings who would irritate them beyond measure, but would fight for them in a heartbeat. They had futures ahead of them. They both should be here. But even though our Mama hearts are broken, I am so thankful for Jessica and other mamas I speak to that truly know the hurt and pain of DIPG. People who can truly relate. Thank you SO much for this beautiful gift, Jessica.
It meant so much to me. We love you guys, and we will NEVER stop advocating for our girls, and we will FOREVER say their names!

09/10/2026

SIX MONTHS WITHOUT YOU

At 11:21 p.m. on March 10, 2026, my world split into two completely different lives:

The life we had with Kinlee—and the life we have been forced to live without her.

Today marks six whole months since my little girl took her last earthly breath and received her heavenly healing.

Six months.

Half of a year.

I do not know how the world has continued turning for half of a year without her in it. I do not know how morning has continued to come, how seasons have started to change, or how life has kept demanding things from me when a part of me is still sitting in that moment on March 10.

This week has felt unbearably heavy. My heart knew this milestone was coming long before I allowed my mind to face it. The grief has been louder. The silence has felt deeper. Her absence has occupied every room.

That is the thing people do not understand about losing a child: you do not lose them only once.

You lose them again every morning when you wake up and remember.

You lose them in every family picture with an empty space.

You lose them when school begins and they are not there.

You lose them at football games, holidays, dinners, car rides, ordinary Tuesdays, and every moment when you instinctively think, “Kinlee would love this.”

You lose them in every future they were supposed to have.

Kinlee should be 11 years old. She should be starting middle school, choosing the perfect outfit and shoes, complaining about waking up early, filling our house with music, aggravating her brother and sister, talking back with one of her quick-witted responses, and telling all of us exactly how she thinks things should be done.

She should be singing. Shopping. Drawing. Worshipping. Laughing.

She should be growing up.

Instead, she is forever 10.

People see her name on shirts, banners, graphics, and the foundation we created in her honor. They tell me how many lives she has touched and how beautiful it is that her legacy continues.

And I am proud of her. I will spend the rest of my life making sure the world remembers her.

But the truth is, I never wanted Kinlee to become a legacy.

I wanted her to become a teenager.

I wanted her name written on school assignments, birthday invitations, a diploma, and one day, a life of her own—not memorials created because the world had to keep going without her.

I did not want to build something in her memory.

I wanted to call her name through the house and tell her to hurry up because she was taking too long choosing her shoes.

I would trade every shirt, every banner, every post, every fundraiser, and every word ever written about her for one more ordinary day with my baby.

One more laugh.

One more hug.

One more “Mama.”

I know where she is. I know she is whole. I know DIPG can never hurt her again. I know she is standing in the presence of Jesus, worshipping with the same beautiful faith she carried here. I believe with everything inside of me that I will see her again.

But faith does not cancel grief.

Knowing she is healed does not make me miss her less.

Heaven having her does not make her bedroom less quiet, our family less incomplete, or my arms feel any less empty.

A mother’s heart will always believe her child should have been safe here too.

Kinlee was not the moment she took her last breath. She was ten years of pink, music, makeup, shoes, art, Disney magic, big church, worship, laughter, love, faith, opinions, and enough sass to keep every one of us on our toes.

She was Karsen and Kylynn’s baby sister.

She was Daddy’s best friend.

She was my baby.

She was our princess.

She was our Stink.

And she was so much more than this world ever had the chance to see.

Six months without you, Kinlee Karter.

Six months of loving someone I can no longer reach.

Six months of carrying a pain that has no ending because the love that created it has no ending.

The world has lived half of a year without you.

Mama still does not know how.

Forever my baby.
Forever our princess.
Forever our Stink.
Forever 10.

I love you more than every yesterday, every today, and every tomorrow I am forced to face without you.

Until I can hold you again. 🩷

09/10/2026

DAY 10 OF 30 | DIPG HAS A NAME

Day 10.

March 10.

She was 10.

At 11:21 p.m. on March 10, 2026, after 15 months of fighting DIPG, our beautiful Kinlee Karter Owens received her heavenly healing.

In the United States, approximately 300 children are diagnosed with DIPG each year. Half survive less than one year from diagnosis. Only 10% survive two years.

Kinlee fought for 15 months.

To someone reading a medical report, she may have been one patient with a rare diagnosis. To us, she was our baby. Karsen and Kylynn’s little sister. A granddaughter, niece, cousin, classmate, and friend.

She was witty, sassy, faithful, artistic, and full of life. She loved music, makeup, pink shoes, Disney, and making everyone around her laugh. She had dreams that extended far beyond the ten years she was given.

She should have turned 11 on April 7.

Instead, cancer made her forever 10.

Statistics are easy to scroll past until one of those numbers has a name, a face, a bedroom, a laugh, a favorite song, and a family that would give anything for one more day.

Her name was Kinlee.

She was never just a statistic.

DIPG may be called rare, but there was nothing small or rare about the life it stole from our arms. Until families are offered more than borrowed time, we will continue speaking her name, telling the truth, and fighting for every child who comes after her.

Her fight is now OUR fight.

Source: National Cancer Institute—Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma | NCI—Cancer in Children and Adolescents

09/10/2026

DAY 9 OF 30 | THE SURVIVAL NUMBER

You have probably heard it:

“About 85% of children with cancer survive.”

That progress is real. It represents decades of research, treatment advances, and children whose lives were saved.

But 85% is an average.

It is not every child’s chance.

Overall survival statistics combine many different cancers, subtypes, ages, and outcomes into one comforting number. Some childhood cancers now have five-year survival rates above 90%. For others, survival remains devastatingly low.

A child diagnosed with one cancer may be offered a path toward a cure.

Another child may be offered treatment meant only to give them more time.

Both children are included in the same overall statistic.

Five-year survival also does not mean a child is cured, healthy, or free from the lifelong effects of treatment. It simply means they were alive five years after diagnosis.

An average can show how far we have come while hiding the children who are still being left behind.

Progress for some is not a cure for all.

In Day 10, we will name one of the diagnoses hidden beneath that 85%—the one that took Kinlee from us.

Source: National Cancer Institute—Cancer in Children and Adolescents

09/09/2026

We were honored to be represented at the Lufkin High School Volleyball Gold Out Game! Thank you to SKY High Balloons for the BEAUTIFUL set up! Thank you to the parents and kids that supported. Thank you to all three teams for participating and wearing gold in September. Thank you to Coach Stewart, Coach Tullis, and Coach Johns for allowing us to come together. I also want to thank the Volleyball Booster Club for making this possible! And an extra shout out to those LHS Varsity Athlete boys who ALWAYS support their “little sister”, and always have a hug ready for their other mama! I hope this is a tradition that can start to be carried on throughout the district, year after year, raising awareness for Childhood Cancer!

09/09/2026

DAY 8 OF 30 | CHILDHOOD BRAIN TUMORS

The word “benign” makes people breathe a sigh of relief.

But inside a child’s brain, benign does not always mean harmless.

A brain tumor does not have to spread to another part of the body to cause devastating, permanent damage. Even slow-growing, low-grade tumors can press against healthy brain tissue and affect how a child sees, speaks, hears, learns, eats, walks, moves—or even breathes.

The location of a tumor can determine whether it can be safely removed and which pieces of a child’s life may be changed forever.

Brain and other nervous-system cancers are the leading cause of childhood cancer death in the United States.

A tumor does not have to spread to steal abilities, independence, memories, or a child’s future.

It only has to grow in a place where there is no room to spare.

30 Days. 30 Truths.
Because families deserve more than softened words. They deserve the truth.

Sources: National Cancer Institute | NCI Childhood Brain Tumor Research | SEER Childhood Brain Cancer Statistics

09/08/2026

DAY 7 OF 30 | CHILDHOOD LEUKEMIA

Childhood leukemia is sometimes described as “the good cancer” because survival rates have improved.

But there is no good childhood cancer.

Leukemia represents approximately 1 in every 4 new childhood cancer cases among children and adolescents ages 0–19 in the United States.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia—ALL—is the most common childhood cancer. Treatment typically lasts 2–3 years.

For a child, those years can mean chemotherapy, steroids, lumbar punctures, transfusions, infection risks, hospital stays, missed school, and pieces of childhood that cannot simply be given back.

The progress in survival is real—and it matters.

But high survival does not mean easy treatment.

Children deserve more than treatments that help them survive. They deserve safer, kinder treatments that allow them to live fully after cancer.

30 Days. 30 Truths.
Because awareness should lead to action.

Sources: National Cancer Institute | NCI Treatment Information | SEER Childhood Leukemia Statistics

09/08/2026

09/07/2026

This was 3 or 4 days after she was airlifted to Texas Children’s Hospital. They told us they didn’t know if she would open her eyes again. They didn’t expect her to make it through the weekend. Her heart rate dropped down into the 30s when they laid her back trying to get an MRI due to the pressure in her brain. Despite the medicines, despite the shunt, DIPG was causing an obstruction in her ventricles that caused severe hydrocephalus. My baby spent the last 2 month of her life in the PICU. She fought this monster for 15 months. No child should be looked at and told “There’s nothing we can do”. Treatment for DIPG hasn’t advanced in over 60 years. Kinlee deserved more. She deserved better. She is why we go gold in September. This should scare every parent to death because it could be your child. On 12/17/24, pediatric cancer didn’t affect me. On 12/18/24, it did