As a child, Karen experienced the self esteem issues of her paralyzed father who didn't like to be seen by the public because of the life changes due to his paralysis, caused by an accident. He didn't feel a sense of normalcy. As an adult, she changed his wardrobe and saw his self esteem rise again. Many years later, he passed away from cancer. It was a hard pill for her to swallow and watch her Dad succumb to cancer, thus became her vision for helping and raising the self esteem of seriously ill children and her advocacy of childhood cancer.