As a healthcare executive, breast cancer survivor, and certified Imerman Angel Mentor, Rikki understands diagnosis from both sides of the system — and she is using that perspective to advocate for women under 45 navigating cancer in the middle of careers, motherhood, and everything life doesn’t pause for.

Four days before her 39th birthday, Rikki found a lump in the middle of the night.

Within weeks, she was navigating a double mastectomy, chemotherapy, breast reconstruction, and hormone suppression therapy that forced her into early menopause — all while raising two daughters under the age of three.

She had no family history.
No known gene mutation.
Just a life split into before and after.

At 35, she was labeled a “geriatric pregnancy.”
At 38 — four days before 39 — she was labeled a “young adult cancer patient.”

Too old for pregnancy. Too Young for Cancer.

This started with one diagnosis.

It is growing into a community of women under 45 who are rewriting what survivorship looks like — in motherhood, in marriage, in medicine, and in their own bodies.