Help with Kingston’s ongoing medical costs

Hello,

My name is Ashly and I am the sister of Nikki Franco and aunt to Kingston. Kingston was born a healthy, beautiful baby and older sister Johanna and older brother AJ couldn’t have been happier. At 8 months old, Kingston was taken to Wheaton Eye Clinic because they thought he needed glasses to correct a lazy eye. Nikki took him alone thinking that it would be a quick in and out to do a vision test and was left speechless when they told her that her beautiful, innocent baby had cancer. They were referred to a specialist and started treatment almost immediately at UIC. Kingston was diagnosed with bilateral retinalblastoma. This was a huge surprise because it meant that he had cancer in both eyes and they weren’t sure what his outlook for so many obstacles would look like (and still don’t). Kingston was also diagnosed with having the gene for cancer which means that he has an increased risk of the cancer spreading anywhere throughout his body, for his entire life. Kingston has been going through chemo at UIC and was recently sent to Luries Children because they have better camera abilities to see if his cancerous tumors are improving. The first chemo sessions showed improvement but the most recent scan showed no improvement. We pray and hope that one day Kingston will be cancer free and be able to live the life that every child deserves to have.

Kingstons first birthday is this Thursday so as a family we wanted to create a fund to help Nikki and Tony during this terrible time. They have been driving back and forth from the drs appointments and hospital stays downtown and have been unable to work for days at a time each month. Kingston has weekly counts each Monday and then has chemo 2 or 3 days where they have to stay downtown. This renders them unable to work during those days as they have to be with their child during this difficult time.

We are hoping to rally together and help ease the financial burden they are experiencing, because we all know the mental burden is hard enough without the financial aspect of it.

Thank you for reading this and please consider donating if you can. If you are unable to donate, please consider helping in other ways. Consider sharing this fund, consider reaching out to Nikki to check on her mental well-being, if you’re a local mom- ask how you can help her for an hour with her kids so she can catch up on something that has been weighing on her mind, or even give her a hug if you see her around.

Thank you again!