Rylie Nicholls decorates a tree at the Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Toni Nicholls

A long-awaited reunion for a Lake Country family is happening just in time for Christmas.

The family of four has been living apart since the summer, after their two-year-old was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and will finally be getting together Tuesday, Dec. 21.

Mom Toni Nicholls spent most of the past four months at the Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver helping her now three-year-old daughter Rylie endure difficult tests and treatments.

Nicholls hasn’t seen her son in over a month, and with the battle against cancer far from over, all Nicholls wants for Christmas is her family, together in their home. She and her daughter are flying home tomorrow morning.

“We all miss each other,” Nicholls said. “Rylie wants to see her older brother, they are very close. She needs to get away from a hospital setting for a while. My husband and I have been trying to keep some kind of normalcy for my son, but our worlds have been turned upside down. We need to rest and heal as a family.”

The Nicholls family will be together for Christmas at their home in Lake Country.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Toni Nicholls

Nichols said the long ordeal began in the summer when Rylie, then aged two, developed a limp.

“It got to the point she wouldn’t put weight on her leg so I took her the hospital where they took X-rays, did bloodwork and did an MRI,” Nicholls said. “We were told it was possible cancer was infiltrating her bones and sent to B.C. Children’s Hospital. Less than an hour later Rylie and I were heading to Vancouver in a ground ambulance.”

READ MORE: Kamloops toddler with rare cancer set to return home to family

The next morning Rylie had a bone marrow biopsy and the family received the cancer diagnosis. Nicholls said the following couple of weeks was a blur of endless medical tests.

“She had cancer in most of the bones in her body and a tumour inside her abdomen,” Nicholls said. “To think all that time she was battling cancer and we didn’t know.”

Nicholls said there are 18 months of treatments needed, and that is only if everything goes well. Rylie has completed four rounds of chemo, has been for radiation therapy at SickKids in Toronto, has had a stem cell transplant and surgery to remove the tumour.

Nicholls said her family is exhausted.

“There isn’t a space for self-care,” she said. “There aren’t breaks and as a parent that isn’t easy. Things change from one minute to the next, I am constantly on edge. Rylie has been a rock star with how she is handling everything but it is tough, she has had to mature a lot over the last few months."

Nicholl’s husband has been back at home in Lake Country running a business and raising their son. Some attempts at driving to the hospital were prevented by recent highway closures from flooding. Nicholls had to leave her job to be there for Rylie full time.

The future is uncertain and months of treatments, chemotherapy and radiation lie ahead for the family, followed by years of maintenance check-ups. 

“We feel optimistic she will beat it and don’t look at any kind of statistics,” Nicholls said. “There is a high possibility of long-term side effects we may have to deal with, the treatments available are very hard on children’s bodies. There needs to be more research on pediatric cancer treatments.”

READ MORE: Amputations performed at Kamloops Hospital despite desperate staffing conditions: Health Minister

While Nicholls doesn’t know how many days the family will be together for, she does know how she wants to spend them.

“We don’t know when she starts her fifth round of chemo yet,” Nicholls said. "This year Christmas looks different. We are going to rest and sleep, and not put pressure on us to do everything. As a mom you want to make everything perfect for your kids, but this year we might just stay in our pyjamas all day.

“Ronald McDonald House is amazing, and so are the friends we made there, but there is nothing quite like home.”

An online fundraiser has been set up to help the family with travel expenses and it can be found here.

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