The Christmas tree in Andrea Richmond's Erie home has been up since Thanksgiving, her daughters' wishes for scooters and dolls long ago granted. Her family of five has been celebrating the holiday all month.

The moment they most eagerly awaited was not Christmas morning, though. It was a hospital visit Dec. 14, when the Richmonds were given final proof that the cancer that dominated their lives is receding.

Since 2006, Ms. Richmond, 33, her husband Dr. Jeff Richmond, 35, and their three children, Sydney, 6, Lauren, 4, and Tessah, 2, have lived a tense, hopeful existence. First Lauren and then Sydney were diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a cancer that occurs most often in young children.

After years of treatments and scares, Sydney's medical port, a device implanted underneath her skin to deliver chemotherapy, was removed last week. Lauren's port was removed in January.

"It doesn't seem possible," said Ms. Richmond. "How can it already be done with?"

The Richmonds were first featured in the Post-Gazette on Christmas Eve two years ago, when the family, formerly of Cranberry, was reeling from the news of Sydney's diagnosis. It is extremely unusual for two siblings who are not twins to be diagnosed with the cancer.

"We were blown away," said Ms. Richmond.

Lauren was taken by helicopter to the hospital after she suffered a seizure, a side-effect of her chemotherapy. For months, Sydney was too weak to walk; she had to be carried. Both girls were so underweight that their parents did whatever they could to nourish them. Lauren drank from a bottle filled with whipping cream; Sydney craved steak.

Ms. Richmond lost her hair from the stress.

"Life kind of seemed so crazy, so busy and hectic that you don't have time to look up," she said.

Since then, she said, she has found a quiet release. Focused by hardship, the flurry of life narrowed. Petty gripes faded. And gradually, her children grew healthier.

Sydney, who was diagnosed with cancer during her first week of pre-school, started kindergarten this fall. Lauren started pre-school. Tessah shows no sign of the disease that afflicted her sisters.

And for Christmas, Sydney's school, Our Lady's Christian School in Erie, collected toys and raised about $400 in Toys "R" Us gift certificates to donate to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, said Ms. Richmond. She could not think of an institution that helped her children more.

Interviewed by telephone this week, Ms. Richmond described how once-little things seem large: Lauren's playful inventions, made from things she finds around the house; Sydney pulling a sled up a snowy street.

"It's almost surreal that they're not undergoing treatment anymore," said Ms. Richmond.

"When you're in it," she said, "it just seems like it's going to last forever."

A year and a half ago, when the Richmonds moved to Erie, where Dr. Richmond is a pathologist at St. Vincent Health Center, Ms. Richmond still worried.

"They've been through all this stuff. They've had all these chemicals in their body," she said. "Are they focused at school? Do they make friends easily?"

Sydney loves kindergarten. She took her port to show-and-tell after it was removed. Lauren enjoys teaching Tessah things she has learned. Both girls, said Ms. Richmond, are unusually empathetic.

"They've both been given an endurance," said Ms. Richmond. "They're very courageous. They don't fear anything. They're willing to try new things."

"When you're that sick, it helps you develop a world beyond the body," she said.

The same nurse who was with Lauren the night she was diagnosed at Children's Hospital was working last week at the satellite hospital where Sydney had her port removed. She told Ms. Richmond she had thought of the girls many times.

Ms. Richmond now believes that her daughters will be OK. And in patches, her hair is growing back.

"The doctors told me to give it five years," she said.

She used to look in the mirror and lament the way she looked without hair.

Her concern has dwindled. Days go by when it doesn't bother her at all.

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