Hours after saying 'I do,' the bride was rushed to the hospital
The morning of her wedding, Amy Deike had a dull headache.
It was easy enough to push through. The ceremony went off so perfectly that a full rainbow appeared behind Amy and her husband, Matthew, as they posed for photos. The reception was great, too. Many guests commented on how much fun they were having.
Around midnight, a trolley took Amy, Matthew and other members of the wedding party from the venue – a lakefront lodge outside of Des Moines, Iowa – to a nearby hotel.
Exhausted and excited, Amy couldn't get comfortable in bed. Then she felt so cold that she started to shiver.
"Can you turn off the AC?" she asked Matthew.
Matthew thought it was an odd request. Odder still was that Amy's voice sounded deeper than usual.
He got up, turned on the light and asked, "Are you OK?"
"I'm fine. I'm fine," she said.
Her words came out slurred.
Matthew remembered a radio commercial about the symptoms of a stroke. He asked her to smile.
Only the right side of her mouth curved up. The left drooped.
"Can you stick out your tongue?" he said.
Amy could not. Nor could she raise her left arm.
"Oh my God, I need to call 911," Matthew said, grabbing his phone.
At the hospital, doctors struggled to diagnose her problem. Until a neurologist arrived. He thought she'd had a stroke. Tests later confirmed Amy had a stroke caused by a carotid artery dissection. That occurs when there is a tear or separation in the layers of the carotid artery in the neck, which can lead to a slowing or blockage of blood flow to the brain.
What caused the tear? Nobody knew. It can be the result of many things, including car accidents, prolonged neck extension or even forceful coughing or nose blowing.
When Amy heard she'd had a stroke, she struggled to...