Missing a wedding is not just a headache, but this groom's migraine that ruined his reception was even more serious.
After marrying his current wife Katie Vaughan (née Glass), Nathan Vaughan was forced to miss his wedding reception in May due to a “severe” migraine, and instead of celebrating, he spent the night “blacked out” in a Cambridgeshire hotel room.
He initially dismissed the headaches as pre-wedding jitters, but when they continued for three days, he went to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with a brain tumor that required surgery.
“I took some painkillers and migraine medicine and thought it was just a bit of pressure caused by wedding-day nerves, but the nerves didn't go away and just got worse and worse throughout the day,” Nathan, 30, told Kennedy News, adding that he was “fine” until 2 a.m. on the day of his wedding.
“[For it to be] A wedding day is crazy.”
Even the photographer noticed the groom looked “a bit off”, and Nathan ended up confined to bed with “the worst headache of my life”.
“I thought, 'I'll never forget this,'” he recalled.
“My first thought was, 'My wife is alone on our wedding day.' I lie upstairs wracked with guilt for leaving her alone.”
But Katie, 26, said she was “disappointed” that her groom fell ill on their wedding night but “carried on brilliantly” and “carried on with the reception alone”.
“I said to the kitchen, 'You can cut the cake,' and we went ahead and did just that,” she recalled. “My dad danced with me at the end of the night, and I was so grateful.”
But after three days the pain continued, so Katie rushed Nathan to hospital, where doctors diagnosed him with a benign pituitary tumour, about the size of two thumbnails.
“I was bleeding in the morning. [of my wedding] “He had a brain hemorrhage,” he explained, adding that it had put pressure on his optic nerve, affecting his vision, and required a four-hour operation to remove it.
“I don't think Katie expected to be looking after me so soon after saying 'in sickness and in health'. It's going to be a long recovery.”
While the couple are grateful that things could have been much worse, they are raising warnings about a little-known symptom of brain tumours that closely resembles a migraine.
“I can imagine that a lot of people would just assume it's a headache and never think to get it checked out,” Nathan said, explaining that many people could have the condition their whole life and not know it.
“If it had happened the day before, the wedding would not have taken place, and if it had happened the next day, he would have blamed it on a drinking hangover and probably wouldn't have been seen.”
Luckily for the couple, they weren't planning on honeymooning anytime soon – otherwise, the tumor would have put an end to that trip – and instead they're heading to the Greek island of Kos next year, where they'll be treated to “blue skies, beaches and, hopefully, no migraines.”
“It was a strange time,” Katie said, reflecting on their big day. “It's fun to look at the pictures, but at the same time, it was a really strange day. It wasn't how I imagined my wedding day to be.”
While Nathan is “grateful” to have “seen my wife walk down the aisle,” the couple are inviting all guests to celebrate once again with a re-do reception on their one-year wedding anniversary.
“Let's have the first dance in a year, then my speech and the cake cutting,” Nathan said. “Better late than never.”
