As she pretended to shop with a baby doll in tow, Ariel Hunsucker, 3, had a smile on her face that could illuminate the tower lights of the James and Connie Maynard Children’s Hospital in Greenville.
As of Wednesday, Ariel was a few days into a stay at the hospital as part of her ongoing nine-month battle with cancer. She pretended to feed food to facility dog Sam and bounced between activities playing house. For a few minutes she could slip into her imagination and forget about tests, needles and procedures.
“She would be doing this at home,” said Alexandria Gardner, Ariel’s mother. “There’s nothing different besides the bad days where she’d just be in bed on her tablet.”…