If you’re a parent, you know that the birth of your first child is an incredible experience. For Steve and Camre, it didn’t happen at all the way they expected it to.
Steve got the call at work that Camre was at the hospital and had already delivered the baby. He dropped everything and drove there frantically, and he was confused because the baby wasn’t due for another 7 weeks.
He ran into the hospital, and the first thing he saw was his newborn son, Gavin. He quickly scrubbed up and held him for the first time.
What Steve didn’t know was that, at that moment, Camre was being put into a medically induced coma in order to save her life. He also didn’t know that when she would come out of that coma, she would have no memory of anything. She would not recognize Steve, and she wouldn’t even know she had just had their baby.
This is a Flashback episode. Steve originally told this story on the podcast about 5 years ago, so at the end of today’s episode we’ll get to hear from modern-day Steve, and he’ll tell us what’s happened since then.
Steve’s book:
https://www.amazon.com/Know-Love-Steve-Camre-Curto/dp/1693701502/ref=sr_1_1
Full show notes and pictures for this episode are here:
https://WhatWasThatLike.com/212
Graphics for this episode by Bob Bretz. Transcription was done by James Lai.
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Episode transcript (download transcript PDF):
If you’re a parent, you know that the birth of your first child is an incredible experience. For Steve and Camre, it didn’t happen at all the way they expected it to.
Steve got the call at work that Camre was at the hospital and had already delivered the baby. He dropped everything and drove there frantically, and he was confused because the baby wasn’t due for another 7 weeks.
He ran into the hospital, and the first thing he saw was his newborn son, Gavin. He quickly scrubbed up and held him for the first time.
What Steve didn’t know was that, at that moment, Camre was being put into a medically induced coma in order to save her life. He also didn’t know that when she would come out of that coma, she would have no memory of anything. She would not recognize Steve, and she wouldn’t even know she had just had their baby.
This is a Flashback episode. Steve originally told this story on the podcast about 5 years ago, so at the end of today’s episode we’ll get to hear from modern-day Steve, and he’ll tell us what’s happened since then.
Scott
Have you always wanted to be a dad?
Steve
Since I’ve been a little kid, I’ve always wanted to be a dad. I’ve dreamt of it swinging on the swing in my backyard. I’ve had an amazing father and it’s just something that has always been with him inside of me.
Scott
And now you’re living it.
Steve
I am. I am living it. Yeah.
Scott
Well, we’re going to get into the whole story here. But I got to tell you, prior to this conversation, I got your book that tells this whole story and it’s an awesome book. I highly recommend it. We’ll give you people the information about where they can get that here in just a few minutes. At the beginning of the book, you talk about the night or the time when you first met Camre, which is so amazing. I don’t want you to tell the story here. I’m going to let people read the book to find out, but we don’t want to ruin it. It’s just incredible the way you two came together. It was like an instant chemistry. You started dating. Then, what’s amazing, you planned this proposal for her to ask you to be your wife. The incredible part is that all that effort that you put into it to make it memorable and she doesn’t even remember any of it, right?
Steve
That’s correct, yeah. I really put some thought into it. We lived on a private little lake. We had the small little two bedroom cabin built in 1920. It was this cool little cabin lake home that we lived in. and we would always go on the water. I kind of decorated our boat, our pontoon boat as the love boat. It was on the 4th of July. It’s a free firework show. I told her, “Oh wow, look at that firework.” She turned around and I dropped down on a knee on her boat and I proposed and it was a memorable moment. It was something that anybody who gets engaged, these are things you don’t forget. Luckily, I have a few pictures of the love boat, of the sign. I just wrote it on a piece of paper, put some tape, nothing too fancy, but it was the thought and it was a special night, for sure.
Scott
Definitely. Well, let’s talk about, she became pregnant and there were some problems during the pregnancy. Can you just talk about what happened?
Steve
Shortly after she became pregnant and we were on cloud nine, we were excited. She was excited to be a mom and I was excited to be a dad, and our families were excited. I was 31 years old at this time – or 30 years old – and I think my mom thought I didn’t know time’s running out. She already had four other grandkids, all boys. So Camre became pregnant. Just kind of going through the first trimester was really good. The second trimester was really good and we were just kind of cruising along. As a first time father, you really don’t think about it. You just think, “Oh, you get pregnant like everybody else I see. And they have the baby and then you become a parent and you go on in your life.”
Well, for us, the third trimester hit her like a ton of bricks. She started to develop nausea. She was constantly throwing up and she just couldn’t hold food down. So we would constantly bring her into the hospital, back and forth, and they eventually put a Zofran pump on her to kind of keep the food in her, so she doesn’t throw up constantly. It was shortly after that we had the baby shower. She couldn’t even make that day. So she was on bedrest.
Scott
That’s got to be devastating that she couldn’t go to her own baby shower.
Steve
Yeah, I only opened a few gifts and I left the rest for her. I took them back and we opened it up together. That way, she still has that feeling of the baby. That way, I didn’t have to do everything. It was shortly after that, a couple of weeks after, when she developed some swelling in her throat. That’s when our real problems started to happen.
Scott
You really didn’t know what the problem was at that point, right?
Steve
Not at all. Well, we were constantly going back and forth to the hospital or to the OBGYN, and it was the same thing. “Well, we’ll rehydrate you, send you home, rehydrate you, send you home.” She had some swelling in her feet cause she stood around for work, so they had her on bedrest. I didn’t know what to expect. At the time, I think my expectations were, “Everything’s going to be all right. She’s going to be fine. I wasn’t too worried.
Scott
Neither of you had gone through a pregnancy before. I mean, that’s common here – when you’re pregnant, you throw up sometimes – so it was no reason to think that anything really unusual was happening.
Steve
Yeah, and she is such a strong person. She plays it off so well. “Yeah, I’m fine.” But she’s throwing up. As she’s throwing up, she’s telling me she’s fine, and that’s just the type of person she is. She’s incredible. She’s very strong and she’s strong willed. So I was like, “Okay, she’s fine.” Because she kept telling me she’s fine and I believed her.
It was shortly after that she had some swelling develop in her throat. We got her to the emergency room. They ran tests. Blood pressure and everything seemed to be fine. They didn’t know what it was. They thought maybe it could be an allergic reaction to the Zofran pump. They didn’t have the answers yet. So they kept her in the hospital overnight, just for observation. The next day, in the afternoon, she ended up having a grand mal seizure. She’s never had seizures before. She had a grand mal seizure with our child inside of her. She had undiagnosed preeclampsia. She actually went eclamptic. Her blood pressure shot, skyrocketed to the roof, had a grand mal seizure.
Scott
When this all happened, you were at work.
Steve
Yeah, I was at work.
Scott
I know she was in the hospital, but I mean, you had to go to work.
Steve
This time, she was on bedrest and we had a house together. Well, she was just staying with her parents. Her mom was a stay-at-home mom. Mom was at home, so her mom can kind of keep an eye on her all the time. I had to go take care of our dogs that night. Camre being herself, she goes, “Go home, take care of the dogs, go to work tomorrow,” and I’m like, “Okay.” So I went to work and I wasn’t going to work a half day. I was going to come back to the hospital. That’s when I got the phone call from– well, Camre texted me an hour before this happened. She told me she loves me, she’s fine, the baby’s fine, everything’s fine. She’s doing great.
Then, an hour later, I get a phone call from my mom on my work cell phone frantically, basically, crying and screaming that Camre had the baby! Camre had the baby! I just just dropped. I was in shock and I just hopped in my truck and I drove 90 miles an hour to that hospital. I ran from the parking lot to the delivery room. As I ran into the delivery room, I put my hands on my knees because I was out of breath and they were wheeling in Gavin as soon as I ran right into him.
Scott
So that’s when you saw him for the first time when you first ran into the hospital?
Steve
Yeah, two nurses were wheeling him into the NIC unit. I just kind of dropped to my knees. At the time, I looked at him and they said, “Are you Steve?” I said, “Yep.” And then they’re, “This is your son, Gavin, but we got to take him into the room. Go wash your hands. Wait for us to call you. We’ll put a wristband on you and you can meet your son.” So that’s kind of how we met.
Scott
Man. I just can’t imagine the overwhelming confusion and emotions. This is meeting your son for the first time and not knowing what Camre’s situation is – just overwhelming.
Steve
Very overwhelming. I was asking the doctors and the nurses, “Okay, how’s Camre?” because they’re telling me Gavin’s fine, and they’re like, “We don’t know yet. She’s in the ICU. She’s in a medically induced coma. She had a seizure. They saved the baby. She’s alive.” That’s basically the information I got. So I put my focus at this time just for a few, few minutes. I got the chance to meet Gavin and he grabbed my finger very tightly. My first thought when I looked at him was he looked just like his mother. I called him Camre Jr. and it brought the biggest smile to my face. He was healthy. He was 4 pounds, 1 ounce. He was premature. He was 7 weeks early, and he was 16.5 inches long, but he was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life and I was instantly in love.
I brought all the family in one by one to meet him. We weren’t able to go upstairs yet because they were doing their tests and everything with Camre. Finally, we got to go in that room and, if anybody’s been in a hospital before, you got the beeping and it’s just kind of from this happiest moment of your life to now the saddest moment in your life in the same day because you’re realizing– when you get a visual that you’re looking at the woman you love and she’s in a medically induced coma and she just gave birth to your son. And then I have this instant guilt that I wasn’t there which, for a long time, I was kind of. I kind of blamed myself, but then I realized, over a period of time, that, hey, really nothing I would’ve been able to do but, at the same time, you kind of wish I was there.
Scott
Yeah, of course. As a father and a husband, of course you’d want to be there but, as you said, over this time, you’ve realized that even if you were there, there’s nothing you could do. It was seven weeks before she was due anyway. It’s not like you could spend all your time in the hospital.
Steve
Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it. I was at the hospital most of the night before. I mean, I left at– it was, like, 1 in the morning. So, I was there for a long time. I got to take care of the dog, so that’s why I left. That’s kind of where I found myself going in between seeing our son and then to seeing Camre in this coma.
Scott
And then that kind of began a period of a lot of mystery as to what her condition was and what caused it and what the long term prognosis would be. It seems like your overwhelming feeling was frustration at just not getting answers.
Steve
Yeah, we were not getting any answers because they didn’t know. That was the frustrating part. You put all this trust in the doctors and they just had no idea what happened. I mean, they know that she had a seizure, they put her in a coma, they saved her life and Gavin’s life, but they didn’t know the extent of her injuries. In fact, they didn’t even know she had a brain injury. So that night, I spent the night in the hospital. I slept next to Camre’s bed as well as the next night. That next day and a half, they pulled the tube out of her throat and they let the morphine wear off and the drugs wear off. Then, we noticed something wasn’t right. She was hallucinating. She was talking to her hand. She just wasn’t coherent. She didn’t know that she just had a child. She didn’t know who I was. She didn’t know who she was. She didn’t know her own parents. She didn’t know anything. She thought she was in church, so she didn’t know she was in a hospital. So we were obviously like, “Okay, we want some answers. We want some answers.” And they’re like, “Whoa, we don’t know. Let’s get the psychiatrist.”
So they got the psychiatrist and his kind of quick diagnosis was that he thought that she had postpartum depression psychosis. We didn’t even know what that was at the time and then we were just kind of going with it. We’re like, “Okay, so there’s an answer.” We believed that was the problem but, shortly after–
Scott
Yeah, because what else can you do when a doctor tells you something? What else can you do other than say, “Well, he’s the expert.” Right?
Steve
Yeah, apparently, finds out he was not an expert. From the time that Camre gave birth to the time she was in this hospital, it was about five or six days. During that time, we just really weren’t getting any answers. In fact, she even went from– she was kind of coherent, and we tried to let her meet Gavin for the first time, but she was just not right. Something wasn’t right and everything was going wrong, so we ended up having her Life Flighted to a different hospital because we just thought, “You know what? Something’s not right here.” And we found out she suffered a severe brain injury and she lost all of her memory
Scott
And the other hospital was more equipped with neurologists and people who could tell what was going on better.
Steve
Yeah, the hospital we were at, it was not that they were bad. It was more of a residency hospital where it’s just like a learning hospital. So, at that hospital, it was more like a guinea pig. They’re trying to figure out what’s going on. The other hospital, they just laid down the law. I mean, they said, “Move out of my way. We’re going to figure this out.” And they just were so confident and they did. Within days, they figured out that she suffered a traumatic brain injury, severe brain injury from loss of oxygen because her throat was swelled up. So, when she had that grand mal seizure, she lost oxygen to her brain. Without that oxygen, she suffered a stroke, and that’s what happened.
Scott
And all of this leads back to preeclampsia, which was not diagnosed.
Steve
Which was not diagnosed. No, it was undiagnosed.
Scott
Has anyone told you why they miss that? Do you know?
Steve
No, we don’t know. We never really pursued that issue. We had a lot going on. We were asking questions. We have the medical records and stuff. We were trying to figure stuff out, but we never really figured out exactly what happened, but we do know that– most of our information came from the other hospital. So that’s how we kind of learned everything.
Scott
You sent me a picture of you holding Gavin. And that was when you held him for the first time. When you look at that picture now, what do you think of?
Steve
I think of a dad, for the first time, not knowing the journey that he’s about to embark on. Unbeknownst to me at that time, I had no idea Camre even had a brain injury in that photo. I was just happy to be a dad. I was happy my son was alive. I was happy that Camre was alive fighting for her life in the ICU because she still was alive. I see a dad who’s just beyond happy, beyond blessed, but at the same time not knowing what the future holds for him and not knowing the journey that he’s about to go on, and it has been an incredible journey.
Scott
I get the impression from you that you are a natural optimist. Is that how you would describe yourself?
Steve
Yeah, I don’t try not to look behind me too much. I think that with hard work and– I’m a firm believer in God and Jesus Christ. I have a lot of faith that has been built inside of me. I try to think positive thoughts and not negative thoughts. Negative thoughts will just bring you down a rabbit hole. You do not want to go down. I think the word that best describes me that’s helped me is hope. I always have hope that things are going to get better. If they might not be good today, they could possibly be better tomorrow and I’m willing to hope that they will be. So I think hope’s a good word.
Scott
I think so too. When you’re in a situation like that, that’s the best way to look at it because, otherwise, you could just crawl into a corner in a fetal position and just give up – probably, some people would.
Steve
Yeah, I think giving up is the easy route though. I mean, life’s not easy. I’ve always been a competitive person, but not with people – just within myself. So if I give up, I get disappointed in myself and I don’t like being disappointed in myself. I mean, sure, we all have disappointments, but I really try to just think positive and have that faith and really put my faith in God and knowing that he has a plan for me and not only for me, and now it’s for my family.
Scott
Can you talk about when you first started– Camre’s out of the coma now, and you would go into her room and try to communicate with her. What was that like in the early stages?
Steve
Well, it’s difficult because she didn’t know who I was. So, when I was trying to communicate with her– when she’s out of the coma, I’m trying to tell her, “Hey, you just gave birth to the most beautiful little boy.” She would look at his picture and she would smile at it, but she would not know who he was. I would introduce myself and she would not know who I am. When we learned that she suffered that brain injury and that she had no memory and it happened just beyond her memory lobes, life took a crazy turn because I was just heartbroken that the woman who made me a better person – that I love deeply and we just had a child together – now doesn’t know who her own child is, or myself. So, it was tough talking to her because she didn’t know who I was. I was just, “I am Steve,” and nothing would register at all. So, it was a tough time.
Scott
What’s amazing is that, even though she didn’t have memory of anything or didn’t really know why she was there, she wasn’t afraid of all these apparent strangers who were talking to her and everything.
Steve
She was so positive. She had a smile on her face. She didn’t freak out. She just went with it and she just kept going with it. You could tell her something, and she’d be like, “Okay,” but then she would forget what you told her right there, so it really didn’t matter. She was just this happy little person. When I think back to that time when she finally got released from the hospital, I would constantly remind her who I am, that we had a child. Now, at this time, too, I was working, so she had moved back in with her parents. She didn’t know we had a house. She didn’t know we had a child.
After the beginning stages, she got home. She got home before Gavin. Gavin was still in the hospital. She got home within 30 days and Gavin was like 35 days. So for five days, I would pick her up from her parents’ house after I got done working and I would bring her to– she didn’t know who I was. She didn’t want to get in the car with me, so I would try to convince her like, “Hey, I’m okay.” And her parents would say, “Hey.” She didn’t really know her parents, but she trusted her mom, it seemed. So our mom was like, “This is Steve. This is your–” In fact, we weren’t even married. We were engaged to be married at this time, so she wasn’t even my wife. She was my fiance. She would just hop in the car.
Eventually we would go drive up there and she said, “Where are we? Where are we going? Who are you?” We got to the hospital. “Okay. Where are we at? Who are you? Where are we going?” And it’s just this constant, “What’s going on?” She just had these questions of “What’s going on?” constantly because she literally had only, at that time, maybe, 30 seconds of memory, long and short. So it was just this constant– she had so many questions, but they were the same question over and over again, like, “Where are we at? Who are you? Who is this child?”
Scott
And she didn’t even know she was asking the same question over and over.
Steve
No, because she would forget. It’s hard. It’s hard to wrap your mind around that – if you lose all your memory. We hear stories of people losing memory, but I don’t think in this capacity – not only when you lose your memory, you keep losing it within seconds and seconds. And then, over a long period of time, it was a minute, but you can’t time it exactly. There’s no rule of thumb to her memory loss. It’s just the way it is, and you just have to accept it.
Scott
But this is what I just find so fascinating about this whole story – the mental aspect of it. So you guys would get to the hospital and she would ask you again, “Where are we? Why are we here?” But yet, she knew about a car. She knew she was traveling–
Steve
I don’t think she knew she was traveling. I just think she would forget instantly. It was instant. She was just kind of out of it and it’s really hard to describe. You really have to see it and live it. But, yeah, she questioned where she was and where she’s going and who people are, but she never questioned like, “Okay, I’m hopping in this car. Do I have to–” She never really overly questioned. She was just more curious about who you are. She had this trust. She trusted people. She had this innocence about her. She was just this beautiful, innocent woman who had no idea about who she, myself, her family, her whole life is. She lost everything still this day. She still doesn’t remember her childhood or our son’s life. All these memories are still gone
Scott
At some point, it seemed like you saw progress because she was starting to remember her own name. Was that the first sign that she might get better?
Steve
Yeah. Now, of course, like I’ve told you before, I was always hopeful that she’s going to improve. She was only 24 when this happened, so she had age and time on her hands. So, over a period of time, she remembered her own name, Okay, I’m Camre. And she would even question it. She’d say, “Okay, my name is Camre?” “Yes, you are Camre.” She got that repetition about who she is and she started there and it kind of worked. It just kind of kept going.
There were these little defining moments when you look back at her knowing her name and then her telling, like, the title of our book. She was telling me that she doesn’t know who I am, but she knows she loves me and she, accepting the fact, would just go with me when I would pick her up eventually. She would just come over and she trusted me, and we were starting to be a family. The first year, she lived at her parents’ house for well over a year. she would just kind of come over and hang out for a few hours, and then her parents would pick her up or I would drop her off. I was responsible for Gavin. I’ve raised Gavin. It was just me and Gavin at nights, and then I would drop him off at either daycare or parents’ house. And we’ve done that for a long time.
Scott
So that’s kind of your routine at the time.
Steve
Yeah, we had a routine where I worked 5-6 days a week, and Gavin would be with me at night. I would then take him, Camre, or just take him depending on if she came over. In the beginning stages, she wouldn’t come with me because she didn’t know who I was. She eventually started to trust me because I showed up every day. I think part of our story, too, is just showing up every day and not going away, not giving up, just showing up, and I always showed up. I was always at her parents’ house, ready to pick her up. Even if she didn’t want to go with me, I was ready to pick her up and ready to get Gavin and go start our family life at our house. It wasn’t an ideal situation, it’s not what I wanted, obviously, but I was happy enough and thankful enough that I still had my family intact and that’s what meant the most to me. I was willing and still am willing to do anything to keep my family together.
Scott
I think about this from the perspective of her parents and seeing their daughter have to go through this, they have to be just so incredibly relieved to have someone like you saying, “It doesn’t matter what happens. I’m here for her for the rest of her life. That’s what I’m committed to, and I’m going to take care of her.”
Steve
Yeah, I reproposed to her. I talked to her dad. I said, “I love your daughter. I love Camre. She’s the one. When I first met her, I knew it right off the bat.” So I think we have developed a fantastic relationship.
Scott
Was this about the time when she came home and you guys were all living at the same house?
Steve
Oh, it took about a year for her to move back in.
Scott
Okay.
Steve
It actually took longer for her to move back in. She just brought a to-go bag. She would spend the night. She started spending the night, but it took 8-9 months for her to spend the night. So that first, say, 9-10 months, she just brought a to-go bag. She would come over for a few hours, and then it would just kind of be me and Gavin at night. I got up every night and I did all the burping, the feeding, the bathing, everything. I was like mom and dad.
Scott
When their seizures started, was that after she had come back and was spending the night at your house or was that before she came back for good?
Steve
That was a year after her brain injury. She had her 1st seizure while she was at her parents’ house during the day. Obviously, the ambulance came and brought her to the hospital. She just started having seizure after seizure. This is where her parents are fantastic. She was at her parents’ house while I was working, so they gave me the opportunity to still make a living, still take care of Gavin, and that they were taking her to her doctor’s appointments during those days. A lot of times her mom had Gavin too and she would be at the doctor’s with Camre, with the little baby. So she had her hands full as well, so it hasn’t just been all me – takes a village, they say. That’s when she started developing epilepsy and then getting on different seizure medications, which entailed– the dosage of these medications is insane. Like, she couldn’t walk right – walking sideways – or it would knock her out. These medications are–
Scott
So those were side effects?
Steve
These are side effects, yeah. Side effects are memory loss, nausea, dizziness, and she’s only 110 pounds. So when you’re taking 2,000 milligrams of seizure meds, because her seizures are really bad, they developed– I mean, first year, she had no seizures, and then boom, it just hit her like a ton of bricks and she was having seizures every other day, and not just little. It’s grand mal seizures. So then our lives took a turn trying to figure epilepsy out. Not only when she was with me having Gavin, taking care of Gavin, but then she’s on the floor seizing, or in the car seizing, or we’re out grocery shopping or something, having seizures there. So then her seizures were a part of our lives and they still are to this day.
Scott
And she kind of can tell when one is coming on.
Steve
Yeah, she knows. She has this aura, she calls it. She has this little Ativan medicine she takes to hopefully kind of subside the seizures. It usually just cuts the seizure timing down. I mean, in the beginning, she used to have 12-minute long grand mal seizures. Yeah, she knows when they’re coming, and she’ll say, “Hey.” So anytime I hear the word, “Hey,” I freak out because I’m on edge. It happens quite often.
Scott
How far in advance does she know? When she says “Hey”, how much time do you have?
Steve
Seconds. I mean, cause she’ll stand for a while. I could tell you she’s strong. She’ll stand and have us here. She does not want to fall but, eventually, if I wasn’t there, she would just tip over, but she’s always looking for somebody. If she’s in the other room and I hear “Hey”, she’s already standing up and kind of coming towards me, she’s trying to find me and I usually just carry her and get her to a safe location. Over time now, our son has dealt with quite a lot of seizures. He’s seen a lot, and so he deals with them really well. He’ll get a blanket, a pillow, and kind of prop her feet up, and just say, “It’s okay, Mommy,” and he’s really good with it. So, it’s been his whole life, really.
Scott
Partway through or after a while, you became concerned, just from the legal aspect, that you were not a husband, you were a fiancé.
Steve
Yeah.
Scott
Can you talk about your thought process there and what happened?
Steve
Well, I asked her dad again to repropose. So I did another proposal on another July 4th and it was just in front of all our family and it was just to show I was so dedicated and I still am to her and our family, and I wanted her to be my wife, not just my fiancee. I’ve been waiting for so long. We’ve been through so much. It took three and a half years after her brain injury for us to get married – even the first proposal is still another two years after that, but it was when I know that she knew who I was, she knew my name, she knew who Gavin was, she knew our life together, she knew where we lived– she was improving. She showed tremendous signs of improvement and she was getting better and she was on the road to recovery. Even though she might not remember the day before, she was becoming more aware of her surroundings and kind of what happened to her because that took a long time for her to remember that she couldn’t remember.
Scott
Yeah, I was wondering about the same thing. Does she ever ask, “Why can’t I remember things?”
Steve
Now she knows. She would ask questions like, “So I have a brain injury?” You would tell her she has a brain injury, and then she would not remember that she has a brain injury or she couldn’t remember, and you explained to her, “You lost all your memory.” And she’s like, “I lost my memory?” She had a hard time, and then it just kind of faded away shortly after you would tell her. So she couldn’t remember that she couldn’t remember because she had short and long term memory loss. She couldn’t do it. But over time, as her brain is healed and she’s becoming more and more aware of her surroundings and what happened to her, she remembers now. She knows exactly what happened.
I’m not going to say it’s easy for her because it’s not. When you start realizing, she’s starting to realize what she lost and she lost her whole life. She lost her son’s childhood. She doesn’t remember her son’s childhood, or her own. So that’s a tough pill to swallow for her. But I give her a lot of huge credit. She doesn’t give up. She has her bad days, but she always is moving forward, and I try to be that positive light in her life. She has her son, she does it for our child. Where she wants, even though she might not remember doing things with Gavin, she knows that Gavin has a memory, and so she does it for him. So she’s just incredible.
Scott
Do you do a lot of video so that she can look at this and say, “Yep, that’s when we did that day.”
Steve
We take a lot of photos. We have some videos here and there. We just take a lot of photos. The hard part about photos though is she can’t place herself in that photo. For me and you, we can go back, “Oh look, we’re on the beach on this day,” or whatever. For her, she goes, “How did I get to the beach? Where were we? What were we doing? What’s behind?” There’s nothing behind that photo. We have our wedding video, which was an amazing day which, again, she doesn’t remember, but we have the video and she watches constantly.
Scott
You guys took a vacation to Clearwater beach, which is, like, 20 minutes for me, actually. I know you’re up in Michigan, but you guys went to Clearwater beach. She doesn’t remember any of it.
Steve
No. That was before the brain injury.
Scott
Yeah. That was way before. But do you try to kind of recreate those things for her now so that she does have a memory of it? I know it obviously is not the same thing as going through it, but does she remember now that– I mean, she doesn’t remember actually doing it, but does she know that you went to Clearwater beach that one time?
Steve
If I tell her, she’ll believe me. It’s like, “Did we?” Cause I don’t lie to her. I stay very honest and keep it real with her. So I’m not going to sit here and try to recreate her memories. I mean, I think that was kind of where the book came into play, where she doesn’t have our 10-year relationship, which is kind of why I wrote it out. I think, for us, it’s trying to live in the moment and make these moment memories, whether it’s going on vacation– we go to Great Wolf Lodge with our child or go up to her– we have a cabin up north. We were just in Florida. She has family in Sanford, Florida. We were just in Florida past June for grandpa. A lot of her family lives out in Sanford and we were just out there and she might not remember it, but we’re living in the moment. We’re not taking life for granted anymore. We appreciate every day, every opportunity, everything, every blessing that has gone our way. We appreciate everything. So I think that’s the difference.
I’m not going to recreate anything. I tried to recreate our own. The engagement– I didn’t recreate it on the boat. I just did something different and it’s just doing new things and trying new things and, hopefully, one day, these memories will stick. Hopefully, we’re working towards beating epilepsy. Like I said, these side effects of seizure meds are memory loss. So if we can get rid of some of these, maybe we’ll get out some more memories of her. So again, I’m hopeful for great things in the future. I’m hopeful she’ll drive one day. I’m hopeful that we can leave her alone with our child. It took five years just to be left alone with our own child. So we’re just grateful for anything. For anything that comes our way, we’re positive or negative. We just keep moving.
Scott
The brain is a pretty amazing thing and we don’t even know how amazing it is. So who knows how it can retrain and recreate itself to heal and come back from this. Obviously, she’s made lots of progress since the very beginning. How long does her memory go back now?
Steve
Couple of days.
Scott
Yeah. And before, it was seconds or less than a minute.
Steve
It was seconds. She can think back to something we did a week ago, but she can’t tell you if we did it a week ago. She doesn’t know when we did it. She can’t, “Oh yeah, I think we did that last Wednesday.” You know you did it, you know the specifics, it’s like a shadow. She knows maybe she did something but then, over time, that memory or shadow just kind of disappears. But if we have a picture of it and she can look back, even though she might not remember actually doing it, she knows that she’s living life and she’s doing things. I think her goal is just to get better, try to get healthier. She wants to get better. She’s strong. She’s a fighter. She’s getting better. She just wants to take some stress off me because I have the weight of everything on my shoulders, and she knows that, but it’s not her fault, and she wants to be a mom.
Scott
Does she struggle with guilt because of you having to do all the work?
Steve
Yeah, she wished she could do more. But I think, from my standpoint, I try to include her in, like, everything. We have a joint calendar. So, if something’s going on, I put her on it so she knows. We do a lot of things together. She wishes she could do more. She wishes she could just drive Gavin to school and she wants to go to the school and be that mom that all these other moms– she sees these other moms with their kids alone, driving, that hurts her because she wants that so bad, but she just can’t have it right now. I mean, not yet, but she’ll have it in the future. I know she will.
Scott
If you knew in the beginning what you were about to go through over the next several years, would you think you could handle it?
Steve
First of all, I’d tell you’re crazy because it’s been an unbelievable journey. I don’t know. I think I’ve handled it pretty well.
Scott
I think you have too, for what that’s worth.
Steve
Yeah, thank you. It’s just for me. It’s always been about family and just keeping our family together. We had this dream about, when we became pregnant, how happy we were when we found out Gavin was going to be a boy. We picked out his name together. We did all these things together and I didn’t want to lose her and I didn’t want my son not to grow up without his mom, and I didn’t want to live a life without the girl who I loved. Even though she might have not known who I was, I knew who she was and I knew how strong she was, so I wasn’t going to give up on that and I never will.
Scott
I think it’s great that you’ve written a book to describe this whole journey. What was her reaction in reading that book?
Steve
Well, she did. She’s read it three times. She doesn’t remember the book yet, but if she keeps reading it, she’s going to get all our– I think that was my mindset behind it. If she keeps reading, it’s a rote memory. If she keeps doing it, she’ll remember our 10 year life together. Then, maybe in another 10 years, we’ll write another book. But she enjoyed it. At the same time, I will be honest, it does remind her of what she lost at the same time. So it’s this, “Wow, look what we’ve been through.” She loves the fact that I wrote her a book but, at the same time, she realizes “I don’t remember this stuff” and that’s hard for her. So it’s kind of that Catch-22, but she handles it very well.
Scott
You know what amazes me? The parts of this story are kind of a medical story and a neurological story but, really, above all, it’s a love story.
Steve
It is, yeah.
Scott
All right, so this book, it’s called, “But I Know I Love You,” and that was because of a particular thing that happened which you can talk about if you want to. How do people find the book, and where can they order it?
Steve
Well, the title of the book comes from a time early on when she came home from the hospital, and she was at her parents’ house, and I was trying to get her to come home. She did not want to come back home with me, and I was sitting on her couch. She just looked at me and said, “I don’t know who you are, but I know I love you.” And that was that defining moment. For me personally, because she didn’t know who I was, but she says she loves me, I’m taking it. That was another huge amount of hope that I’ve always kept inside of me and knowing we’re going to build a new relationship and a new love. So that’s where the title actually came from, “But I know I love you.”
The book is available on Amazon. I self-published it on our 4th wedding anniversary and it just described our 10 year journey that we’ve been on from the first time I met her, from our first date, from baby shower, to the birth of Gavin, and then some other defining moments in our life, and the feedback has been incredible. I did not expect our book to get this much publicity. I didn’t know what to expect. I think I was kind of naive to the fact. I was hopeful that people would just read it and enjoy it. I think that’s what I want and I think that’s what’s happening. I think people are actually enjoying the book. So it’s been incredible. It’s just another blessing from God in our family – they just keep coming.
Scott
Yeah, and I think people enjoy the book because it’s such an amazing story. I mean, we can talk about it here for 45 minutes or an hour but, of course, you go into a lot more detail in what actually happened and what you were going through and everything. Yeah. So people can find this on Amazon. Do you have a website too? What is that?
Steve
ButIKnowILoveYou.com or you can follow us on Facebook at “But I know I love you”. I upload some family photos and just kind of maybe some articles that share our story. But I think, in the future, it’s gonna be more of just, if you want to follow our family, I’ll put some photos here and there. I don’t overdo it because I don’t put everything on there. I’m not that guy. I just put a few family photos here and there so you can get a little insight of our life.
Scott
So how old is Gavin now?
Steve
Gavin’s seven years old now, which is incredible to think. I can’t believe he’s seven
Scott
Seven…
Steve
Yeah, time flies.
Scott
I can tell you from personal experience, blink your eyes and he’s going to be off to college
Steve
Yeah. Even when he was first born, everybody says, “Enjoy it while it lasts because, before you know it, he’s going to be 18. He’s going to be moving out.” So I think that’s the mindset as a parent. I think for most parents, you just want to raise your child, build them up right, put the faith in them, and give them the confidence to succeed in this world because we do live in a crazy world, anything can happen, and life’s not guaranteed. We’re extremely proud of him. He is such a good kid. He’s good in school. He has one of the warmest hearts for a seven-year-old you’d probably ever meet. So, he’s an incredible child and we’re just extremely grateful that he’s ours.
Scott
I’m going to have links to all of what we’ve talked about here. We’ll have some pictures on the website in the show notes for this episode, so people can check that out. And if they want to contact you, they can do that through the website as well. It’s great to hear you guys are– I mean, people say, just, live in the moment, just live for today, and you guys are doing it on a pretty literal basis
Steve
Every day. And more for her, obviously, than me because I can reflect back but for her– it does make me not take life for granted and really appreciate each moment, even if it’s little like putting up a Christmas tree. Every year, I don’t take anything for granted every moment. I just cherish everything that’s been in our lives. So I’m just extremely blessed, grateful, and thankful that things are going well.
Scott
Steve, welcome back to the podcast!
Steve
Thanks for having me, Scott.
Scott
It’s been several years since we spoke, and I’m sure the thing that everyone is wondering is how is Camre doing now?
Steve
She is doing much better. Her short term memory has improved. Long term still the same. As the days and weeks go by, she does forget these events but, in the meantime, the short term, which really is for the day-to-day to have a good quality of life, she’s doing much better.
Scott
And I remember, when we spoke last, she was having seizures from time to time. Has that gotten worse or better? What’s the status of that?
Steve
They have gotten better – the overall length of them and the severity of them. For example, she did have a seizure this morning, actually, that lasted a minute. I gave her some Ativan and she came out of it. They’re not the 6 -12 minute long grand mal seizures. They’ve evolved into not as bad. She did have a couple brain surgeries a few years back. She had an RNS implanted into her head – it’s a regional nerve stimulator – and that has really been life changing for not only her, but for me and our family too.
Scott
Does that work to shorten the seizures? What’s the effect of that?
Steve
Yes, so what it does is– I mean, it takes several years and appointments to get it. I mean, there was a brain surgery for a testing to see where the seizures are coming from, where they drilled 20 holes in her head, stuck these rods in. We stayed at the hospital for 10 days. They weaned her off her seizure meds, and then she seized. They captured where the seizures were coming from. So once they get that data, then they implant this device and they put the rods right where the seizures are occurring, and it detects the electrical pulse. That’s what seizures are – they’re just like a negative electrical pulse. They detect that and it sends out this frequency and it kind of massages that area. And it works throughout the day because you could have a thousand seizures a day, and some of them– a lot of them, they don’t even break through, but it helps the ones that are breaking through. It’s just implanted in the back of her skull, and then two rods in both sides of her brain. She has seizures occurring from both sides.
Scott
You must be just astounded at how our lives are benefiting from technology now.
Steve
Oh, 100%. I mean, it would be hard for me to leave the house with her, the way she was having seizures. I mean, for many years, it was really difficult. Technology has definitely helped us out tremendously.
Scott
And tell us about your son, Gavin. I think he was only seven, maybe, when we did the podcast.
Steve
Yeah, I think he was about six. He is now 12. So it’s been about that long since we’ve last talked. So he’s 12 years old. He’s in 6th grade. He’s a really great kid. We do get compliments all the time about how well behaved and well mannered he is, and Camre and I are extremely proud of him. He’s a wonderful kid.
Scott
I’ve seen on your Facebook that he is a golfer.
Steve
He is. He’s a good little golfer. He’s won some trophies. He really enjoys golf and he’s been golfing since he was four. I kind of enjoy golf and it was something that we just started kind of doing together and it’s actually great. It works out for both of us in that aspect. But no, he’s a really good kid. He loves to cook and he has a good group of friends. So yeah, he’s in 6th grade and he’s just getting all A’s and B’s right now and he’s on the right road. So he’s a really good kid. We’re super proud of him.
Scott
I want to ask you one more thing. I understand there’s a possibility that there’s going to be a movie about your story. Is that right?
Steve
Yeah, it’s a possibility. A couple of producers from Hollywood reached out to us and just, “We’re very interested in the story. Obviously, it’s a pretty unique situation and story. We find ourselves here.” So, yeah, it was a few years ago. I don’t know. It could fizzle out, honestly, who knows. But we do have some interest and we did sign something with a couple of producers that we have a director on board – the director of Age of Adaline and I think they made the movie Tag. I mean, these are legit guys. But again, it’s Hollywood. This could disappear quicker than you know it. I don’t put all my eggs in that basket but, obviously, it’s something to think about down the road. It could be cool.
Scott
Yeah, it’s a fun thing to think about for sure. And you’re right. A lot of these things, they start off and then they just never end up happening. But who would play your part? Who do you think?
Steve
Well, you have to be good looking, so, I’d say, Brad Pitt. I’m just kidding. I don’t know.
Scott
Who knows? Well, who knows, but you’re right. It’s a fun thing to think about. And man, if it ever does happen, I will definitely promote it on the show so people can go hear it or go watch it because everybody here is interested in your story.
Steve
Yeah. No, I’d let you know if that ever came to fruition. I don’t know if it will, but it is something fun to think about.
Scott
Well, Steve, I appreciate you coming back on giving us an update and I wish you continued success. Good luck with Gavin. He’s heading into the teen years. That’s always fun.
Steve
Thank you. I appreciate having you back on and yeah, well, this is the fun part, right?
Scott
In the episode notes you can see an updated picture of Steve, Camre and Gavin – that’s at WhatWasThatLike.com/212.
If you’re in the podcast Facebook group, you probably saw the Tuesday Question I posted earlier this week – “What’s the worst second-hand embarrassment you’ve ever felt?”. You know, in some ways, it can feel worse to be embarrassed for someone else than it feels to be embarrassed for yourself. If you’ve had that feeling, come on over and tell us what happened in the comments. The group is free to join – WhatWasThatLike.com/facebook
Graphics for this episode were created by Bob Bretz. Full episode transcription was created by James Lai.
All right, let’s just get to the Listener Story, shall we? I know that’s what you’re waiting for. It’s one of my favorite segments too. If you have an interesting story you can tell in 5-10 minutes, I’d love to play it here for all the other listeners. Just record it on your phone and email to Scott@WhatWasThatLike.com.
This week’s story came from a previous episode. Back in 2021 I did a whole episode filled with crazy birth stories. If you haven’t heard that one, go check it out. And today’s listener story is one of the stories from that episode.
Stay safe, and I’ll see you back here next week with all new episodes on Tuesday and Friday!
(Listener story)
This is Christen, and this is the story of my first time giving birth. Actually, I was born at home, and I think that really influenced my ideas about what I wanted my giving birth experience to be like. So when I was pregnant, I was planning for a home birth. My parents drove out to Denver, where we lived and they were going to be there for the birth of my baby and a little bit after to meet their newest grandchild. So, the day that I was in labor, my mom and dad were there. My mom was making me food and rubbing my back. It was just really nice to have my mom there.
We were in touch with the midwife a little bit throughout the day but, every time we talked to her, she said, “Oh, it sounds like textbook early labor.” Later in the day, my water broke. That was one of the indications of calling the midwife to say, “Come now.” So we did. And so she said, okay, she was on her way. Then, after they hung up, my mom told my husband, “You need to call her back. I am seeing something when Christen has a contraction.” So we called her back and she told my husband to put her on speakerphone. I think the concern was that what my mom was seeing was the umbilical cord, but I still could hear her even though the phone was on normal level. I heard her say Christen needs to push really hard for her next contraction.
So the next contraction came and a foot came out. So, the midwife said hang up and call 911. So we hung up and called 911. They were on their way. We called the midwife back, and she stayed on the phone with my husband the whole rest of her drive over, and she got there and immediately put the Doppler in my belly, which is what hears the baby’s heart rate, and the baby’s heart rate was fine, which is a really good sign that the baby was not in stress, distress.
Then, about a minute or two later, the paramedics got there and, ultimately, I ended up having to climb off the bed with the foot sticking out of my body, get a robe on, and get on the gurney. They wheeled me to the ambulance. We took an ambulance ride to the hospital. My husband followed quickly behind. Once we got to the hospital, I was wheeled to the operating room and the doctor said, “I think she’s going to deliver this baby breech, but I just need to check the positioning first,” which was the most painful thing up until that point I had experienced. That’s when they discover that the baby was not only breech, but sunny side up, and then the other leg was externally rotated and bent, kind of like the tree pose from yoga. So he said to me, “We’re putting you under and we’re getting this baby out now.” Finally, they put a thing over my face and I finally went out.
I don’t remember that really, but the next thing I knew I woke up and my husband was holding this squishy little thing and said, “You have a baby girl. We had kept the sex of the baby a surprise.” I was pretty altered from the anesthesia and then the drugs, because I had an emergency C section. So obviously, I had drugs in my body. So meeting my baby in the first couple of days was all kind of a haze, which I don’t particularly love, but I have a safe, healthy baby who is now four and a half. And then, three years later, I did get my home birth experience. I had a successful VBAC with my son – which stands for Vaginal Birth After Cesarean – and successfully delivered a baby at home. So that’s it! My first home birth turned into an emergency C section of a breech baby who is now still just a little spitfire, amazing spirit, and my son is a mischievous little guy. Thanks for listening!