Wedding follows long cancer battle for Cedarville athlete

Ceremony is a tribute to Cedarville University volleyball player’s will and school support.

$Cari Greetham and Ryan Hyde were married June 13 in Wellington, Ohio. The former Cedarville University athletes have known each other since elementary school\uFEFF. Cedarville University photo by James Clark$

Submitted Cari Greetham and Ryan Hyde were married June 13 in Wellington, Ohio. The former Cedarville University athletes have known each other since elementary school\uFEFF. Cedarville University photo by James Clark

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Cedarville big part of cancer recovery for former volleyball player

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By David Jablonski, Staff Writer Updated 11:56 PM Saturday, July 25, 2009

CEDARVILLE — Cari Hyde doesn’t remember much about her darkest day of the last four years. The memory blurs with nurses and doctors surrounding her bed, rushing around, talking fast, trying to save her life.

They told her family she might not make it through the night. This came a week after the bone marrow transplant in September 2006 that was meant, once and for all, to save her from the leukemia that had thrown up a roadblock in her life and her athletic career.

That night, Cari’s mom, Joyce, called Teresa Clark, the volleyball coach during Cari’s freshman season at Cedarville University in 2005. Clark phoned Melissa Hartman, her successor in 2006. Hartman was with the team at a tournament in Cumberland, Tenn.

Hartman told Cari’s teammates her dire situation right away. Then for three hours, late into the night, crowding into one hotel room, kneeling around the beds, the players prayed for Cari.

“I didn’t know that stuff at the time,” Cari says. “It overwhelms my heart and makes me that much more grateful.”

The next day, Cedarville played and won, and Cari awoke, her fight continuing. Almost three years later, she can talk about what she remembers about that night.

Now she can compare it to one of her best nights of the last four years — June 13, 2009.

For while this is a story about a great athlete overcoming cancer and returning to the volleyball court — as Hyde did in the fall of 2008 — it also is a love story.

Cari, whose maiden name is Greetham, married Cedarville soccer player Ryan Hyde on June 13 at Camden Baptist Church in Wellington, Ohio. The two met in grade school, starting dating in ninth grade and had their lives turned upside down March 23, 2006, when Cari was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The disease halted any plans for the future. Ryan even left the soccer program in the fall of 2006 to be with Cari at the Cleveland Clinic. They waited until Cari’s health improved to get married.

Finally, the big day arrived in June. Everyone there that night agrees in calling it a fairy-tale wedding, made all the more emotional by the fact that, for so long, Cari and many others thought the day might never come.

“It was just like a dream come true,” Clark says.

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PTL! We met you and your family in August 2007 on the Alaska cruise. Congratulations on your marriage. What a blessing to see how the Lord worked in your life!

David & Mary Hiteshew
4:31 PM, 8/13/2009

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What a WONDERFUL story.God certainly had a part in the final outcome of this story.

Robert Barker
11:05 PM, 7/26/2009

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