We’re over the moon to marry – but we accept Mairi will die
Poignant wedding brought forward for couple as bride battles terminal cancer
“IT’S a happy story tinged with sadness,” says David Keatley, proudly holding the hand of his new wife Mairi Macphail on their settee.
Her skin is yellow with jaundice, her voice shallow and quieter than a whisper as she sits tucked beneath two blankets.
The 66-year-old is battling a 21cm tumour in her bile duct, described by one doctor as the largest he had come across.
They used to call the tumour Boris. As it got bigger and nastier, they renamed it Putin.
After medical advice to push their wedding day forward amid fears for deteriorating Mairi, the newlyweds changed their special day from May 15 to Easter Saturday, April 16, at St Barnabas Church, Erdington.
“Our day couldn’t have gone better, the service was great, the weather was beautiful,” her 65-year-old husband recalls fondly.
He speaks from the lounge diner where Mairi now lives at their Yardley, Birmingham, home, with her bed set up where the dining room table once stood.
A sea of beautiful flowers from loved ones fill the room as David continues: “We’re over the moon that we got married, that day was very special.
“We did have lots of plans but we plan day to day now. We have both accepted that she is going to pass, but we both believe when you pass you go to a better place.
“We arranged the wedding in nine days. We hadn’t given any thought to any rings, I went to a jeweller, got a measuring tool, went back to the hospital, measured her finger and got the rings the next day.”
Invites were sent out via WhatsApp, a family member made the three tier cake and some of the 110 guests who attended the celebrations captured the precious moments on their phones.
Inspired by their fast-tracked wedding, Mairi’s son proposed and planned his wedding to his girlfriend of 15 years within days, so his mum can see them married before she dies. They will tie the knot in Redditch on Wednesday.
Mairi even received a special message from Aston Villa midfielder John McGinn, who wished her all the best for her “last moments” with her family.
David, who met his wife 33 years ago in a Broad Street nightclub, said: “I asked her to marry me a long time ago. There was always something more important to do than getting married. We left it, we were happy together.
“We thought it would be good to get married before I retired, then Covid came. So that didn’t happen and just over a year ago Mairi was
We did have lots of plans but we plan day to day now David Keatley
diagnosed with cancer of the bile duct.”
She had been suffering from symptoms for three or four months, but due to the pandemic, “there was always more important things to do,” her carer and husband explained.
“She had an uncomfortable feeling in her side and bloating, but thought it was irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). She started to get a bit tired as well.
“Eventually I was badgering her, saying, ‘something’s not quite right, go and get it checked out’.” Medics carried out blood tests before they saw Mairi, with the results later showing “something wasn’t right”.
David, who is a Villa season ticket holder alongside his wife, added: “When the doctor examined, he said: ‘I think you’ve got some sort of tumour and, quite frankly, it’s the largest tumour I’ve ever come across’. It was 14cm at that point.
“They called another two doctors into the surgery to have a feel.”
Mairi then quietly pitches in: “You could even see it.”
She stopped working as a client accountant in April, shortly after the diagnosis.
Mairi underwent chemotherapy from June until September in the hopes of shrinking the large tumour, with the possibility of surgery if it reduced in size.
But a scan in September sadly confirmed the tumour had only grown.
“It grew to 19cm. It had laughed in our face and said I’m still growing,” David says. “We called it Boris to start with, now we call it Putin because it’s really nasty now. At that time in September, a doctor said she’d never seen a lady with a tumour the size she’d got look so well.”
After the news, the couple began searching for drug trials, but all four were unsuitable for Mairi’s rare type of cancer and the stage it was at. Another bout of chemotherapy began from October until early January.
“Another scan found it hadn’t shrunk, it had grown a bit more to 21cm,” he explains. “They stopped it, there was no point carrying on putting more poison into her body. She then spent from mid January to mid February in hospital, her temperature kept spiking.
“Eventually it took a long time to rule things out, including sepsis. Temperatures were coming from the tumour.
“When she was in hospital she lost weight. She came out of hospital and she was visibly weaker. It was then decided that the only course was to have palliative care. They could do things to try to prolong life.”
At the end of March, David noticed Mairi’s eyes were yellow and he took her to A&E. There wasn’t a bed available and she was taken to ward 23 at Heartlands the following day to be assessed.
While at the hospital, she suffered a fall and broke her hip – which meant she could not walk down the aisle on her wedding day. Instead, she had to be wheeled down by her son in a wheelchair.
District nurses now come daily to top up her medication, which is given via a “driver” and includes morphine. “She was waiting to have another CT scan. When she eventually had that, they realised it would be too invasive to do anything to help the jaundice,” he recalled.
“By this time they knew of our plans to get married, because I asked her a few days before she went into hospital. I was making arrangements to get married on May 15.”
Because they are both divorced, the couple had to obtain permission from a bishop for a special licence.
“Mairi rang me up and said they know of our plans, the doctor suggests if we could bring the date of the wedding forward, we should.
“There’s another wedding next week because Mairi’s son has asked his girlfriend to marry him. They’ve got a special waiver, that’s next Wednesday.
“They decided once they knew that we decided to get married it was the catalyst for them to do it, Stuart realised perhaps his mum hasn’t got a lot of time left and she’ll be happy to see them married.”