The wedding cake, that is.
“We’re going to have a wedding today!” nurse Kelly Byerer informed Hamblin, Good Samaritan Hospital’s nurse manager of medical/oncology.
Jeremy Johnson, who was waiting for a kidney transplant, made up his mind the night before that the time was right to marry his lifelong love, Amanda Eggers. He wasn’t certain how long he’d be hospitalized and didn’t want to wait.
The couple, who grew up in Huber Heights, has a 19-month-old daughter, Hailey, and have known each other since kindergarten.
“He took me out on my first date and we’ve been best friends ever since,” Amanda said.
Jeremy, 32, followed in his family’s footsteps working in air conditioning and heating. Amanda, who hopes to complete an education degree, works in the cosmetics department at the Dayton Mall’s Elder-Beerman. The two have been dealing with Jeremy’s illness since he was diagnosed with cancer at age 22 and later faced kidney failure.
“Two years of chemo brought my kidneys back for 10 years,” he explains. “But last year I got pneumonia and my kidneys shut down.”
Now on dialysis three times a week, Jeremy is going through the difficult process of looking for a live kidney donor, a search that can take months or years. On July 20, he was admitted to the hospital.
“It just felt right now,” Jeremy said of the couple’s decision to marry immediately.
It didn’t take long for word of the wedding to spread.
“It was totally amazing,” Hamblin said. “Everybody was rushing around. The entire hospital was excited and everyone wanted to participate and give in whatever way they could.”
Nurses gathered flowers from their station and fashioned a bridal bouquet. Dieticians planned a wedding feast based on the couple’s favorite dishes. In addition to the wedding cake, there were gluten-free cookies for the bride baked by Stacy Oxman, the wife of Jeremy’s doctor.
With Jeremy’s approval, it was agreed that on such a beautiful summer day, the couple would wed in front of the fountain in the hospital courtyard.
Plans hit a snag when Amanda got to the Dayton courthouse and learned that in order to obtain a marriage license, a signed affidavit from the doctor would be required.
“And a court investigator had to come to the hospital to make sure Jeremy was who he said he was and swear him in,” she said.
When those things were accomplished, it was time to find a wedding dress.
“I was in-and-out of Elder-Beerman in Trotwood in 25 minutes,” said Amanda, who found a dress on the sale rack.
By the time she arrived on the floor, everything proceeded as planned. Staffers made sure there would be wedding photos to preserve the day, including a look at Amanda gazing into a restroom mirror.
At precisely 6 p.m., Amanda walked down the aisle on the arm of Jeremy’s doctor, Mark Oxman. Good Samaritan Pastor Lysanders Nelm officiated.
“God painted that picture,” says Hamblin of the wedding scene. “Everybody was crying like babies, it was really magical. We all felt like family.”
Following the ceremony, an announcement was made on the loud speaker throughout the hospital: “Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, who were just married in the hospital courtyard!”
During the wedding feast in a private room, staffers stopped by to congratulate the newlyweds. When they returned to Jeremy’s hospital room, they found it transformed, filled with helium balloons and streamers. Rose petals covered his hospital bed.
Hamblin said everyone on the staff is praying hard for Jeremy.
“One of the reasons we wanted to make sure it happened for him is that part of healing is taking care of the soul, heart and spirit,” she says. “You have to have all of that in place to help a person get well.”
Before the ceremony, the Johnsons had discussed their wedding vows.
“We’ve done the sickness and poorer,” quipped Amanda, “now we’d like the health and richer.”
“Till death do us part” had special significance for the newlyweds.
“We knew that my kidneys would fail and that it could happen at any time, but didn’t know when,” said Jeremy, who was in remission for 10 years. “I didn’t think it would happen at 32.”
The new Mrs. Johnson agreed.
“When you feel like you might not get another day, you want to make today the way it should be,” Amanda said. “Any of us could be gone tomorrow. Today, if you love someone, you should be with them.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2440 or MMoss@Dayton DailyNews.com.
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