Rickie Redeemed

50-year-old fitness addict Rickie Lennox does not see herself as a likely candidate for breast cancer; but in Rickie Redeemed, cougar Rickie has her comeuppance as the “Big C” thrusts her into the next phase of her personal evolution. Between mammograms, sonograms, and waiting-room jitters, she reveals the story of her dream date with Swedish actor Rolf Halverson and its shocking denouement when he discovers a lump in her perfect left breast. Her life post-Rolf quickly descends into a vortex of diagnostics, chemotherapy, and the attendant discomforts; but her relentless belief in self-healing also provokes her to explore alternative remedies, meditation, and chiropractic—as well as doses of supportive bonding with friends and family members. When her course of treatment is almost over she encounters a new challenge in Ian Shamano, the radiation therapist to whom she is irresistibly drawn, though he sees her damaged breast on a daily basis. The outcome is a testimony to both her survival and the real cure she achieves in Rickie Redeemed.

Smokin’ hot 50-year-old divorcee and fitness addict Rickie Lennox is not a likely candidate for breast cancer, but getting diagnosed for exactly that possibility is where she starts her personal narrative as she relates, between procedures, how her dream date, Rolf Halverson, first found the breast lump which led to the gauntlet of diagnostics she is about to endure during her visit to the Breast Health Imaging Center. Between mammograms, sonograms, and waiting-room jitters, she tells the story of her chance encounter on the Friday night bar-scene with Rolf Halverson, the 35-year-old actor she’s had a crush on since he started working out at the Gold’s Gym in Pasadena, California, where she works as a personal trainer. They have a first date which shows every sign of leading to a committed relationship, then unravels the next morning as Rolf finds the suspicious lump. The discovery puts their relationship on hold as her life descends into a vortex of diagnostics, chemotherapy, and the attendant discomforts, but which she confronts with an inquiring mind and a firm belief that her doctors and all their debilitating therapies cannot be the sole author of her cure. She resolves to take her medicine, nevertheless, for her family’s sake; but she also takes the reins of her inner health by implementing non-traditional approaches to wellness in the form of holistic healing, meditation, and chiropractic—as well as doses of supportive bonding with her closest girlfriends, her children, and even her ex-husband. When the tumor is finally defeated, she must struggle with a new challenge when she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the radiation therapist who sees her damaged breast on a daily basis until her treatment is completed. The outcome is a testimony to not only her survival but to the real cure she achieves for herself in Rickie Redeemed.

When both Trudi Knoedler and her husband, Richard, fell prey to unrelated cases of cancer, she resolved to live her life as fully as possible and began pursuing her passions of theatre, acting, and creative writing. The women’s fiction novel, Rickie Redeemed: Chronicle of a Cure, was a product of this resolution, and was begun while she was fighting cancer in 2007-2008. To tell the story she enlisted the witty, sexy, Rickie Lennox to usher readers into the never-say-die world of middle-aged breast cancer survivors who leave the battlefield with their humor and libidos intact. Of heroine Rickie’s controversial approach to battling cancer, she says, “Think of her as Kris Carr, but without the videos or the juicer. I hope my readers take her discoveries and advice to heart.” For readers who enjoyed the heroine Rickie Lennox, Ms. Knoedler has written a prequel entitled Rickie’s Regression: Anatomy of a Desperate Dalliance, in which Rickie strays from her 25-year marriage to Pete Freeman into a delusional love triangle with a much younger man she believes was her lover in a devastating past life. When Ms. Knoedler is not writing, she enjoys visiting with family and friends, performing on the stage, attending plays or movies, and encouraging others to attain their creative potential—especially her sons Erik and Adam and daughter-in-law Alison. She lives in San Gabriel, California, and still goes to the gym three times a week with Richard.