Appendicitis delays their wedding vows 0
When you're a bride who's focused on planning a wedding for 130 guests, it's easy to overlook a minor annoyance, like that your gangrenous appendix is leaking and about to kill you.
MELISSA CUMMINGS was ready to marry her Assumption College high school sweetheart, MACKENZIE SLIFIERZ, on the Saturday of the August holiday weekend. But the day before, she was rushed into emergency surgery with a doctor telling her fiance she was lucky to be alive.
"I thought it was stress from planning the wedding!" Melissa says. "I had no idea."
At least not until the wee hours of the morning when she was vomiting and in excruciating pain, right after putting the finishing touches to the wedding flowers.
At first, she was diagnosed with a severe case of food poisoning but a second doctor pushed for tests that showed the appendix had been leaking for two weeks.
That was the point where Melissa, who now lives in Windsor, became eternally grateful for the Brantford community.
It began at Brantford General Hospital where the operating room had been closed for an extensive cleaning job. Workers streamed back for Melissa's successful surgery,
When she woke up in a morphine-induced haze, Melissa was adamant that she was going to get married,
With the help of wedding planner CATHERINE MESLY from Creative Details, the determination of the entire wedding party and the co-operation of almost all the guests, the wedding was moved to the holiday Monday and proceeded apace.
"Everyone - all of the vendors, Whistling Gardens where we had the ceremony, the pastor, Moore's where we rented the suits and the hall where they also were catering the reception - everyone was amazing!" says Melissa.
"Only 10 per cent of the guests couldn't come. The DJ sent another DJ. All the rental people said we could keep the stuff an extra few days and no one charged any extra money!"
On antibiotics and painkillers, her tummy bloated by the surgical procedure and her skin bruised and blotchy from her near-death experience, Melissa still made a beautiful bride.
An expert makeup job, an accommodating photographer and a shortened ceremony that didn't force her to walk far or stand long made the day look perfect.
"Everyone kept asking if I was in pain but I was so hopped up on adrenalin that I felt great!"
The next day the pain hit again. Melissa had to return to the hospital for a week-long stay to get some complications sorted out.
She and Mackenzie recently returned from a two-week honeymoon in Europe.
"We could have faced another year of planning but everyone was so amazing!," said Melissa.
"It just shows you how much kindness and love there is in Brantford."
* * *
WALT TAYLOR was ready to cast his ballot in Monday's federal election in his pyjamas if he had to.
The 80-year-old was in Brantford General Hospital on voting day and had to get permission from his doctor so his children could drive him to his polling station in St. George. There he was whisked to the front of the line so he could mark his ballot before he returned to hospital.
"It wasn't easy, but I did well with my family's help," says Walt. "I wanted to vote for Stephen Harper."
But Walt says that his situation points to a deficiency in voting. While there was an advance poll at the hospital, it took place on the day Walt was admitted and he was in no shape to vote. There wasn't an option to vote at the hospital on election day.
"There was another lady here who wanted very badly to vote but she couldn't leave the hospital. How many others are there?"
Walt had been told there were provisions to vote in the hospital so his wife brought him his voter information card and his identification. Then the family learned hospital voting had taken place last Wednesday.
Walt's family called Elections Canada and found there was is no other option set up for hospitalized voters.
His son, MARK TAYLOR, helped his father to the poll in St. George.
"Voting was very important to him but this situation upset us. They let people in prisons vote but they can't let people here vote on election day?" says Mark.
According to the Elections Canada website, voters in hospitals and long-term care facilities can often vote at a mobile polling station where ballot boxes can even be carried from room to room. At BGH, that option was offered during the advance poll.
read more: wedding dresses glasgow
Post Your Ad Here
Comments