Cedarville big part of cancer recovery for former volleyball player

With help from her soccer-player fiancé and volleyball team, Cari Hyde completes comeback.

Ryan Hyde played three seasons for the Cedarville University men's soccer team. He played in 18 games in 2008, his senior year. On June 13, he married Cari Greetham, whose volleyball career at Cedarville was interrupted by leukemia. She is now in remission.

Scott Huck/University Photographer Ryan Hyde played three seasons for the Cedarville University men's soccer team. He played in 18 games in 2008, his senior year. On June 13, he married Cari Greetham, whose volleyball career at Cedarville was interrupted by leukemia. She is now in remission.

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Cari Greetham was a major contributor to the Cedarville University volleyball team as a freshman in 2005. But in 2006, she was diagnosed with leukemia. In 2008, with the cancer in remission, she returned to the court for her senior season. On June 13, 2009, she married former CU soccer player Ryan Hyde.

Scott Huck/University Photographer Cari Greetham was a major contributor to the Cedarville University volleyball team as a freshman in 2005. But in 2006, she was diagnosed with leukemia. In 2008, with the cancer in remission, she returned to the court for her senior season. On June 13, 2009, she married former CU soccer player Ryan Hyde.

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Wedding follows long cancer battle for Cedarville athlete

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By David Jablonski, Staff Writer 9:48 PM Saturday, July 25, 2009

CEDARVILLE — Libby Aker calls her friend and former teammate Cari Hyde the craziest person ever. Aker means that in the best way.

“She’s so alive and loves life,” Libby says. “She’s silly. She’s goofy.”

The story that best demonstrates that took place three years ago.

Hyde was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia on March 23, 2006, months after playing a key role for the best Cedarville University volleyball team ever assembled. The previous fall, the Yellow Jackets had posted a school-record 45 victories.

Hyde, then playing under her maiden name Greetham, was named to the all-conference freshman team. She planned to run track in the spring, too.

Instead, in April 2006, she prepared to undergo chemotherapy for the first time at the Cleveland Clinic. The entire volleyball team walked into Cari’s room, unsure of what to expect.

“We were serious because we didn’t know how she would be feeling,” says Aker, a Shawnee High School graduate. “We all had hats on, trying to make her feel better.”

Cari had her own plans for lightening the mood. She asked each of her teammates to braid a section of her hair, then to cut it off. She had long, gorgeous, blonde hair, says former Cedarville head volleyball coach Teresa Clark, who was there that day.

“We made it a party,” Clark says.

Hyde donated the hair to Locks of Love, an organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children. In that way, she turned a bad thing into a good thing. In the larger picture, she has done that with everything that has happened to her in the last four years.

“She was very strong,” says Cari’s dad, Fred Greetham. “She took this as the Lord’s will. This was the beauty queen, the all-state athlete, and she had everything taken away from her. It was very tough to deal with.”

The beginning

Cari has now been cancer free for close to three years. Her life has almost returned to normal, though she still suffers side affects of the fight against leukemia.

On June 13, 2009, she married Ryan Hyde, a Cedarville University graduate and former men’s soccer player who has experienced every step of Cari’s journey.

The two, both 22 now, first met in kindergarten at Westwood Elementary in Wellington, Ohio. They got to know each other in second grade while making a kite together in class.

“There are pictures of us holding the kite,” Cari says. “We look like little nerds.”

They began dating in ninth grade, attending a Wellington High School football game. Cari even remembers the date, Aug. 27.

They each decided to attend Cedarville, an easy choice for Cari, whose grandpa, parents, brother and sister all are Cedarville graduates. Fred Greetham, a record-breaking baseball player, is even a member of the school’s hall of fame.

Cari had always dreamed of getting married. She always wanted a family. It might have happened sooner if not for the cancer.

She started feeling sick in January 2006, not long after returning to school from Christmas break. She felt tired all the time.

Doctors told her she had mononucleosis. Tests didn’t show it, but they were confident the virus would show its face soon enough.

Then in March, Cari traveled to Florida with her family to watch her sister Jackie play softball with Cedarville in a spring-break tournament. Cari got so dehydrated one day she had to be hospitalized. Returning to school, her condition worsened. Not knowing exactly what was wrong made it more difficult.

Finally, on March 23, at Greene Memorial Hospital in Xenia, tests determined she had leukemia. The Cleveland Clinic is 45 minutes from her family’s house in Wellington, so the next morning, an ambulance transported her north.

“I wasn’t scared. I was at peace,” Cari says. “I knew God was going to take care of me. I didn’t really know anything about (leukemia). I didn’t know what a long and terrible journey it would be or what ramifications it would have on the rest of my life.”

The fight

The long and terrible journey remains a hazy memory, and maybe it’s better that way. Cari believes that God allowed her to forget some of the terrible things she experienced.

There’s no nice way to describe her experience with chemotherapy. Even Cari can’t put a positive spin on it, calling it awful.

She lost her vision for a week and experienced paralysis in her face. She had mouth sores the size of silver dollars. She lost her sense of taste and smell. Her hands went numb. She had ports placed in her chest and head to allow the doctors to inject the chemotherapy drugs into her body.

The first round of chemotherapy killed the cancer, but by June 9, 2006, it had returned. That meant another round of chemotherapy to kill the cancer, followed by a bone-marrow transplant.

“They had to go get the cancer again in order for me to have the transplant,” Cari says.

Cari lost her hair twice. Her eyelashes fell out 12 times. She ate almost nothing but pasta — sans the sauce — for four months.

Through it all, she remained Cari.

“She was incredibly positive,” Ryan says. “She was always encouraging other patients on the floor. She was always talking to the doctors.”

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