'I was training for marathon and thought headaches were dehydration - I was so wrong'

A marathon runner blamed her headaches on not drinking enough water while training - only to discover it was a brain tumour as big as an orange. Emily Bahan started experiencing headaches in January 2025 while training to run the Edinburgh marathon. The 25-year-old says she blamed the 'dull' headaches on not drinking enough water to accommodate her intense training schedule. The nuclear course leader says she was strength training three times a week in addition to running distances of up to 24km [15 miles] multiple times a week. Emily increased her daily water intake from one litre to between two and three litres, but says this didn't help to ease the headaches that were happening up to three times per week. To see more of the stories you love from The Mirror and to find them easily in Google then make us your preferred source. Free and easy-to-do, just click on the link here to find more from The Mirror at the top of your feed. On March 21 Emily was rushed to hospital after suffering a seizure, believed to have been triggered by norovirus - a year after a seizure in March 2025 that was believed to have been caused by the flu. In a bid to rule out epilepsy, Emily was referred for an MRI scan and was told that she wouldn't be able to run the marathon she had been training for. The scan revealed an orange-sized brain tumour and Emily underwent surgery on August 7 to remove as much of the grade two diffuse astrocytoma as possible. Emily, from Whitehaven, Cumbria, said: "I started experiencing headaches at the start of the year and I thought it was because I was dehydrated. I'd never really been good at drinking enough water. I was training to run the Edinburgh marathon in May 2026 so my training had gone up quite significantly. "I was running a hell of a lot more - I just thought my body wasn't coping with the amount of exercise I was doing. Every weekend I was running more than half a marathon, so I didn't think I was drinking enough water to cope with that." Sporty Emily, who ran a half marathon in September 2025, says she tried to increase her daily water intake from one litre to between two and three litres in order to combat the headaches. Emily said: "They were quite dull headaches, they weren't anything I needed to take painkillers for. "I tried to drink more water. I thought I was dehydrated because I was only drinking one litre per day. I tried to increase it to between two and three litres per day, but it didn't help with the headaches." On June 7 Emily underwent an MRI scan to check for epilepsy after experiencing two seizures in March 2025 and March 2026. Emily said: "When I came out of the MRI the radiologist told me that they'd found something on my scan. They sent me down to A&E so a doctor could speak to me - at that point alarm bells rang because you usually just get your MRI results in the post, or at a follow-up appointment. "A brain tumour never crossed my mind, so I never thought that's what it would be. They [the doctors] showed me the scan and told me it was a 4.5cm tumour, the size of an orange. "It was a huge shock - I was expecting to just go in for the MRI scan and then be able to go home." Runner Emily says she didn't expect the diagnosis because she was so active. She said: "I was going to the gym every day and running two or three times per week - I was really active. "You expect that the fitter you are, the less likely it is that something like that will happen to you. It just shows that it can happen to anybody, at any age." Emily underwent brain surgery on August 7 for a biopsy and to remove as much of the cancerous tumour as possible In January 2027 she will undergo an MRI scan to reveal how much of the tumour was removed. Meanwhile, she will begin taking medication at the start of October that doctors hope will help to slow down the growth of the tumour. Emily said: "Where the tumour is located it can't be completely removed because it's near the movement line for my left side. One of the side effects could have been paralysis on my left arm or my left leg. "When I woke up from surgery I was paralysed completely on my left side - I had to learn to walk again and learn to use my arm again. "At the moment I'm not sure how much of the tumour they were able to get out because I've not had my first MRI, that's in January. But the tumour is definitely not 100% gone because it would have caused permanent paralysis if they'd done that." Now, Emily is urging others who feel like something is not right with their body to 'trust their gut'. She said: "If something doesn't seem right then always trust your gut. "I wish that I'd pushed for an MRI the first time and not waited another whole year before it [the seizure] happened again. "I'm just so lucky that I've had the best support network to help me get through this - my family, friends and boyfriend have been my rocks in this and I couldn't have done it without them." What is a brain tumour? A brain tumour is a growth of cells in the brain that multiplies in an abnormal, uncontrollable way. Symptoms vary depending on the exact part of the brain affected. Common symptoms include headaches, seizures, feeling sick, vision or speech problems and progressive weakness or paralysis on one side of the body. Treatment options include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. (Info from NHS)