Twelve-year-old Kirsty, from Kent, England, was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour in 2024, she told RNZ’s Afternoons.
While undergoing treatment she launched a global fundraising campaign to help raise money for paediatric brain tumours.
“I started to lose my eyesight in that September, and then I lost my memory, and I started to fall asleep quite a lot," she says.
“And then we thought something was up, so we went into hospital. And soon after that, I was diagnosed with a grade 1 benign brain tumour.”
The treatment has been arduous.
“I had a long operation to remove some of it. And then I had my first chemo, which was about 70 weeks. And it wasn't too harsh, but it was tough.
“And I got through about 57 weeks of it before it stops working. And I changed to the 85-week course I'm on now. It's a lot harsher, but hopefully it should work.”
She had been busy crocheting to raise money before the Kirsty collection idea came along, she says.
“I am a crochet addict. I crochet all day, all night long. It is one of my biggest passions.”
It kept her occupied during the first phase of her treatment, she says.
“So, we were like, why don't we sort of like crochet for cancer? So, I crocheted 70 bunting triangles.”
That effort raised £120,000 (NZ$275,990).
Then she needed a new challenge, she says.
“Why don't we find all the Kirstys in the world we can?”
She soon realised she was one of the younger ones in the world - most of her namesakes she's found are in their 40s.
“I don't think we realised how far it's fallen out of fashion," her father, Matt Waugh says.
“What we found is probably because of that scarcity of Kirstys, Kirstys really love their name.
"It's amazing how passionate they are. I never knew there were so many. It turns out to have been the perfect name for it.”
She is mapping the global Kirsty diaspora on her website.
“I love looking through them. I know a lot of other people do too."
