Spiking out cancer in Aurora volleyball tourney

Nicole Snyder's mother was faced with an impossible decision.

She could either lose her unborn child and begin cancer treatment or wait and risk having the disease become untreatable. She waited.

"I never want others to go through what my family had to go through," Snyder said Sunday during the American Cancer Society's Spike Out Cancer fundraiser at Great Lakes Center in Aurora.

Forty volleyball teams from throughout the Chicago area played in a daylong tournament to benefit the agency.

Michael Ochs, one of the tournament organizers, said the benefit hopes to raise nearly $60,000 in donations.

"Even in this recession, we shattered last year's record," Ochs said. "There's a lot of passion in these teams to surpass each other."

Many of the more than 250 people in attendance, like Snyder and Ochs, have had family or friends stricken with the disease.

Ochs lost his grandmother to cancer. He had booked a European backpacking trip during college within her final months. When he came back from his trip, Ochs learned his father was diagnosed with liver cancer.

"My family spent more than a month and a half trying to find me," he said. "When I came back, my dad looked nothing like I remembered."

Snyder first learned about the volleyball tournament through friends who regularly played volleyball. In the last five years, the Orland Park woman has raised more than $20,000 through collections from family and friends.

"It's our way of giving back," she said. "Just in the last year, I've had three people struck with cancer. Had they been diagnosed when my mom was, it would be the end. Now they have a chance."