Kinleigh Brooks

Family and friends of Kinleigh Brooks are raising money for the nonprofit Help Hope Live to fund uninsured medical expenses associated with a Catastrophic Illness. Kinleigh has chosen to fundraise with Help Hope Live in part because donations are tax deductible for contributors and will only be used to cover medical and related expenses.

Kinleigh is seeking sponsors to help her achieve her service dog expenses.   She is currently on the wait list to be matched with a dog and to be scheduled for training.  The non-profit providing the dog is in North Carolina and we will be traveling back and forth a lot during the whole process.  We are hoping to be matched and start training by the Fall 2025. The cost of an alert service dog is $20,000 and they require a full payment before you can bring your new companion home.  Any sponsors, contributions, and donations will be such a blessing to Kinleigh.

Kinleigh was born in March of 2012, in Hopkinsville KY, to Ty and Kellie Brooks. Ty served in the Army as a Chief Warrant Officer with the Special Operations Community.  After discharge Ty was deemed 100% service-connected disabled from 5 deployments.  We moved back to Richmond VA in 2012 when Kinleigh was just a baby to be near family and pursue our careers in our related fields. Ty is a disabled veteran but still works for the federal government in IT. Kellie is a Certified Registered Nurse and specializes in Mother Baby and OBGYN.

Kinleigh is the youngest out of her siblings. We are a blended family, and Kinleigh has 3 sisters and 1 brother. Kinleigh is a well-rounded young lady who enjoys fishing, four wheeling, shopping, cheering, listening to music, traveling to Disney, Dollywood, NC beaches and being around friends and family. Kinleigh likes all genres of music, from the 80’s, to Stevie Nicks, to Dolly. Kinleigh was able to make one of her dreams come true by seeing Dolly Parton from a distance in real life at her hotel.  It’s still a dream of hers to meet her face to face.  Kinleigh loves to meet celebrities.  On the same trip she was able to meet Lainey Wilson and had a wonderful conversation with her.  She has also met Kane Brown’s band members who gave her a guitar pick, the playlist from the concert, and signed her boot.  She was so excited that she would not put her boot back on and walked all the way to the car carrying her boot.  This is just one example of the drive that she has to accomplish her goals.  Once Kinleigh has a goal, she wants to accomplish she will not quit until her goal is reached.

Kinleigh was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes 11/11/2021, yes on Veteran’s Day. It was a complete shock to us all. Thankfully, we caught it in time before she was ever hospitalized and our lives changed thereafter. Ty and Kellie have had no family history of Type 1 Diabetes, to their knowledge. Kinleigh had been healthy and had no signs of this life-changing diagnosis, prior to her being diagnosed. Kinleigh was 9 years old when we found out.

Over the last 3 years, we have learned and adapted to this new part of her life and ours. Kinleigh has a Dexcom G7 sensor that connects to her phone and ours to show us her blood sugar levels. Kinleigh also has an insulin pump she wears 24/7.  She typically has to change it every 2 to 3 days with a new cartridge of insulin. Since having the pump, her A1C has been great, and she has been within range of her target blood sugar level. Kinleigh sees her Endocrinologist every 3 months for checkups.

Kinleigh’s blood sugar levels are affected by every single aspect of her life. Her levels could be great one day, and then change for reasons such as stress, anxiety, hormones, what she eats, the cold, the heat, not eating enough, medications, and the list goes on. People/kids who are not Type 1 Diabetics take daily activities and food they eat for granted as we did before this diagnosis.  Many people believe it is no big deal, and that technology fixes it all.  This is a huge misconception from people that do not understand.  There is a significant amount of stress that is put on Kinleigh and the family.  She must calculate everything she eats to treat herself for any carbs she eats. Then even if she does everything perfect her pancreas could decide to either work harder or less then it was an hour ago and she could have a severe drop in sugar levels.  This is where a service dog will help Kinleigh stay safe and protected from a catastrophic event.  Kinleigh is also a deep sleeper, and she does not hear her pump alarm or her phone alarm when her blood sugar drops.  Kellie, her mom receives the alert, and gets up and treats her with juice, snacks, candy, anything to bring up her blood sugar levels, depending on how low they are. This can happen multiple times a night or week.  There is always a scare that the technology could malfunction, and an alert dog can save her life.  We do all we can to keep her safe, but an alert service dog is the best detection by far. 

Kinleigh is on a waiting list with EENP for a diabetic service dog. We feel like this is the next step Kinleigh needs to mature.  She needs to have her own companion to help her with her disability. The service dog will sense Kinleigh’s blood sugar before it drops critically low and get her attention.  This will give her the chance to treat herself before it drops below a safe range. If Kinleigh gets so low that she is starting to lose cognitive abilities the service dog will get her juice, snacks, or an emergency bag with lifesaving medicine in the form of injections.  The service dog will also alert both parents if it is unable to wake her up. This is so important to Kinleigh to allow her to continue to grow with her disability and manage her care with diabetes.

Thank you for taking the time to learn a little bit about Kinleigh and our family.  We really need your support, and we appreciate you taking the time to consider a donation.

Thank you and God Bless.