If ever there was a year where we have an excuse to skip sending holiday cards, it would be this one. Even still, I convinced myself in October that I will definitely find time to prioritize holiday / thank you greeting cards to all our family, friends, and neighbors who supported us this year. Alas, by December 22nd I admitted that a blog post will suffice. Here is 2024 in review for the Rickards, including an update on my cancer journey:

January – March:

What can I say, we started like every other year, resolutions to get healthier, less screen time, more family time, etc. February hit us like a tsunami, ripping apart our hearts when we lost my loving stepdad rather suddenly to a battle with leukemia. As we tried to regroup in March, Ben’s 16th birthday rolled around and he got his license, Eddie turned 44, we were planning a beautiful beach getaway with some friends to sunny Florida…and the month rounded out with my devastating breast cancer diagnosis.

April – June:

The spring was a blur of end of school activities and more doctors appointments than I can count. I started chemotherapy, lost my hair, coached Addie’s softball team, got away with our friends to the Lake, served on Memorial Day with family for wounded veterans, and cheered Nolan on during baseball. Eddie was promoted at work! I completed the first 6 rounds of chemo, with ten to go.

July – September:

My mom hosted an epic fourth of July cookout with our family, some good friends visited our farm, we got to take a camping trip to a new to us National Park with my mom. I was able to go on a fabulous road trip with my mom, aunt and cousins to Dallas, TX. I beat COVID during chemo and rang the bell finishing all of my chemotherapy treatments on September 18. We attended and cheered on our boys at many Lindbergh Flyer’s football games, and Addie during many volleyball games. I also received news that I was promoted to a new position at work (voluntold is more accurate, and what an adventure it has turned into!)

October – December:

I was able to focus on just recovering from chemo, soak up a little of the fall, and remember for a bit how it feels to not be nauseous and fatigued all the time (that was short lived before surgery and radiation). Ben took his sweet girlfriend, Madi, to homecoming. Nolan’s football team played in the championship game and took second in the league! Addie made the girl’s Flyer’s Elite basketball team which Eddie is helping to coach, and I made it through surgery (a bilateral mastectomy with 3 lymph nodes removed). The best day in October was a phone call on my birthday letting me know pathology results showed a complete response in my lymph nodes, and near complete response elsewhere (one microscopic lymph vessel with a tiny amount of cancer which my surgeon removed). “We got it all”, the nurse stated. I was stunned and so relieved. Thank you, Lord! November rounded out the end of football and volleyball; I worked on recovery from surgery, and in December I returned to work, to my new job. December 18 – December 26, I completed radiation. We like to call this “the final throat punch” to knock out cancer once and for all!

All in all, it’s been a long, hard year. But wow. I cannot fathom the amount of love and support our family has received throughout everything. Every step of this journey, we have been surrounded, cared for, lifted up; from nourishing meals, to giftcards, to trips, to flowers, to house cleanings, to yardwork…to free head shavings from a friend…every little act of love and service has meant the world to us and made an impact. THANK YOU to all, and may you have a healthy and healing 2025!!