Thankful People: Couple weds after bride beats cancer

After her normal day of teaching third-graders at St. Augustine School in Kelso, Mo., is over, Renee Scroggins coaches the school's junior high cheerleaders to cheer for their basketball team.

This year, Renee and husband Matt have something of their own to cheer about.

The Scrogginses were married July 17 at St. Augustine Church, about nine months after doctors told Renee that she was free of cancer.

"The wedding was amazing," Renee said. "All of our friends and family were there. We were celebrating not only the wedding and our marriage but the fact that we had made it through and beaten cancer."

Matt and Renee, who met as students at Southeast Missouri State University, had been engaged since October 2008 after dating for more than a year. "We wanted it to be a long engagement," Renee said. "We didn't want to have to rush in our planning, and we wanted Matt to be finished with school before we got married."

When Renee was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma Feb. 16, 2009, she and Matt were glad that they hadn't planned to marry until the summer of 2010.

"We were engaged for a year and nine months," Renee said. "Six months of that I was going through chemo and had no hair and was really sick."

While Renee was optimistic about her battle against cancer, Matt was more worried.

"I told a lot of people at the wedding that I didn't know if we were going to make it to this date," Matt said. He said that after learning about the cancer diagnosis, "I thought that it was going to be the end for a little while, until things started looking better."

Renee underwent six months of the discomfort and side effects of chemotherapy. Matt endured a different kind of pain.

"It was pretty hard on me watching her in pain and not being able to do anything," Matt said, "I prayed that her pain would go away and that she wouldn't be so sick."

Today, the Scrogginses are not much unlike other newlywed couples. She has settled into her job at St. Augustine, which Renee says is "where I'd always hoped to be." Matt is looking for work in a field that will allow him to use his bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Southeast. Renee returns to the doctor every three months to make sure the lymphoma is still in remission. But the ordeal of Renee's battle with cancer has benefited them, they say.

"It has definitely made us a lot stronger," said Matt. "It's brought us a lot closer together ... faithwise and everything."