Latest / Tony & Sarah Unscripted / Ep 2: Joy After the Unthinkable

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Ep 2: Joy After the Unthinkable · Tony & Sarah Unscripted

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and Sarah Unscripted.
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We have a very, very special guest today.
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This guest was on our other podcast.
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Welcome back Cameron.
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Thank you for having me.
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So, Cameron, why don't you tell us how you know
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my co-host again, for people who don't know how you know Sarah.
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She's my mom.
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I'm lucky. Oh.
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So lucky. So, like,
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a lot of stuff has happened since the last time you were on the show.
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Yeah.
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And we thought it would be really cool to have you back and kind of talk about it.
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About it and.
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And we'll let you explain everything.
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Now, some of it you can't explain.
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And your mom's going to talk about it like we talked about before.
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But I just want to say before we start that
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you are like
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amazing to me, the strength and the resilience you had through
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all of this and are still having is just inspiring for a lot of people.
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So I'm glad you're here to talk about it.
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And we want you to know, like you talk about whatever
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you're comfortable talking about and as much detail as you want.
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So I'm going to hand the mic over to you and let's get going.
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Yeah.
1:22
So, about
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a few months ago,
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I was having a sleepover with my friend and I.
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For a long time.
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I've been dealing with a lot of health
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issues that we haven't been able to figure out still.
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Well, now I know a little bit more, but other than that, and I
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had just worked a shift on Friday night shift, like usual, and,
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I was home and I had a headache, but nothing out of the ordinary.
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And so I started feeling
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very nauseous and,
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trigger warning for a meta phobia,
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but I started throwing up, which is not like me.
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And I told my friend who is asleep, I was like, go,
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because she's I a sleepover at my house.
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I was like, I need to go get my mom.
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And so he went downstairs and he he got my parents and they came upstairs.
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And from that night,
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that's about the most that I remember.
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Really? Yes.
2:28
So I'm going to have your mom kind of the.
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Well, I'll start by saying that,
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I'm that Friday night also, you had sent a video.
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You guys had gone to target or somewhere, Walmart, Walmart
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and had sent a video to me of Cameron.
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Some one of his friends took a video of him, like
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doing this, like I was being really obnoxious in Walmart
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because it was late at night, but he had like his shirt
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halfway up and he was kind of doing the strap dance.
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I had these just because I had these pants on that were really loose.
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And so I had my phone in my pocket and I was just like twisty walking,
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and my phone was going back and forth, back and forth.
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And then I had I tucked my shirt like up.
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So I was right writing this like cropped up.
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People behind the were, yeah, so you can imagine what it look like.
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Right.
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So this is, this was this is at 10 p.m.
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on that Friday night.
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And then his friend came in to us about 4:45 in the morning on Saturday morning.
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So when we when I went upstairs, Cameron was over the toilet
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and he was throwing up and he just, he didn't look it at all.
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And I said, you do you need to go to the emergency room.
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And he said, yes.
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And I said, okay.
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And so I had his friend go down and get Joe or get my husband come up,
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because Cameron's bedroom is upstairs and we are downstairs.
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So let's talk about that for a second, because if his friend hadn't been there,
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there's no way that Cameron was going to get to us.
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We would not have heard him, nor would have been able
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to get down the stairs because he just couldn't really walk.
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So I also didn't have my phone on me at this time,
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so I couldn't have called or texted or anything.
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Right.
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So I don't think I would've been able to use a phone, right?
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So my husband picked him up and kind of
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was behind him as Cameron was sort of on, almost on his feet
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as he walked him and, brought him down the stairs.
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Luckily enough, we live maybe a minute from the E.R.
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and he was
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very he was still very, like, talkative and seemed okay.
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But I don't mean okay.
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I mean, he was with it, but in a tremendous amount of pain,
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even going down those ten steps that we had took it out in an hour.
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It was like we had to stop and sit and then, you know, people throw up again.
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And anyway, so then we got to the hospital and,
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we just that my husband stayed home.
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His friend came with me and thank goodness there was no one else there.
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So they let us straight in.
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And I sent his friend home because he couldn't come in with us.
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And I really was thinking
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that was going to be that he needed fluids, that he had a bug,
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you know, a bug that, you know, had a terrible migraine.
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But they ended up
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taking him for a CT scan, and then they came back
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and said he had a brain bleed and he needed to go to the hospital.
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When we first got there,
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Cameron wanted to go to the bathroom.
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So I walked with him to the bathroom.
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And then
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he still seemed kind of with it.
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But as time progressed, he definitely was beginning
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to say some like, strange things and not make a whole lot of sense.
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And by the time they got him, ambulance
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in the ambulance and two Yale-New Haven Hospital, he,
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his eyes, his pupils were completely blown or whatever it was.
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And, he wasn't responding really.
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And he had a massive brain bleed.
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Massive.
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So they sat down with my husband and I, and they said,
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we need to operate right now.
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They have to alleviate the pressure.
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Right now, all of this, the blood and the pressure is pushing on his brain.
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So of course we were like, what?
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What is even happening?
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Like, it's something that you never, ever expect.
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Yeah, right.
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So we were they needed our permission of course, Raqqa or whatever you need. So.
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And then they took him in to, surgery.
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And a few hours later, the surgeon who was fantastic
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came out to us and he said, okay, so we've removed half of his skull.
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And, that will stay off, because,
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you know, for the next few months or so because they need the,
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the bleeding to stop, they need the, the, pressure to go down.
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And mostly the, they needed to, to stop swelling.
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So in order to where they took the skull off, it was so that it could go
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the swelling could go out that way as opposed to down into his brain.
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Right. And so
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they then took him for what's called, I think, an angiogram.
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And that was to see if they could see what had caused this, what was the cause?
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Because I didn't have any like usually brain
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bleeds are caused by some sort of like trauma. Right.
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But I didn't hit my head or anything.
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So they, found that he has what's called an AVM
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anterior venous malformation, which basically is
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just a, like mix up
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where it's across of your veins and arteries in your brain.
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That's not.
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And then that's not supposed to do that. Yeah.
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And then, your artery pumps too much blood into your vein that, that,
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that it can, that it can take handle.
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And then it can rupture, which mind it
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and isn't like, because isn't it like, like less than 1%.
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Yeah. There's a very small people that have these.
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They rupture on their own. Yes. Yeah.
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So the people have, you know, people have them.
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They may never know that they have them or they may find them on
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some sort of MRI or CT scan or something they're doing for something else.
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They can also be all over the body, not only in the brain.
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And, and then a very small percentage of them will rupture.
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So Cameron hit that small percentage as he normally does.
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It was a very small AVM that's located very deep.
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So there's it's not surgical.
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They can't get to surgery wise. Yeah.
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So then he was,
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actually, that was what he does.
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Even he was a, on the breathing tube
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and out for about, nine days.
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And at the point where they said, listen, we're
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either going to.
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We're either
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he comes off the, the breathing tube by Sunday or if that doesn't happen,
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we're going to do a tracheotomy the next day.
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We were like, okay.
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To this point, I had gotten pneumonia.
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He'd got to see if he got pneumonia.
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He got, I mean, he had, to fight him and C
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deficiency scurvy, who knows where that came from?
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All sorts of like a pirate.
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Weird, interesting things.
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And so the other thing is, when you're.
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And I learned, obviously, so much more about this, and I knew.
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But when you are unconscious like that and so what they need to do, particularly
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with the neurological thing is, is lower the sedation
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in order to make you a little bit more conscious so that they can do
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a, neurological, neurological tests, which they would do numerous of times,
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and they would literally like yell at him, like, not like, not like angrily.
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But no, no, no, like Cameron Cameron, can you hear me?
9:36
Cameron, stick out your tongue. Yeah.
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And then I think, did you do it I mean I yeah.
9:40
Oh yeah. Like he said, you do.
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You remember that now my dad like he snuck like a video.
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So I see the video of my favorite ICU nurse
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and she was like, Cameron, stick out your tongue.
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Yeah. And I and I was like.
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And then they would do
9:55
these things where they would, like, pinch you in certain areas to get responses.
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And that.
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And that was hard to see. Right.
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As his parents like you're literally hurting him.
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But and then I'm also like, let me get in there.
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So that was nine days of that.
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Yeah.
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And so they take him off the sedation I mean though, or the sedation
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higher the sedation though with because he wasn't tolerating it very well.
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Yeah.
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And so that's when they were either like we're taking the breathing tube out.
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And you're going to, we're off to do a tracheotomy
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because that would help with a lot of the other stuff that he was going on.
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Anyway, long story short, he ended up being able to get off that breathing tube,
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that Sunday, that's amazing because I just want to share that,
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you know, you called me on a Saturday morning
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and you said to me, hey, I mentioned your name.
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And he smiles. Can you come up and see him? Yeah.
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So after crying for about 15 minutes, I got in my car
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and I didn't know what to expect.
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I've never been in an ICU before.
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But when I got in the room and you had the breathing tube in and I,
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you know, I touched your arm, and we were talking about your haircut,
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which I thought you looked like a badass. To be honest.
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You look like a badass.
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I loved it.
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I said something, and you'd open your eyes,
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and it was so, like,
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I thought I was going to be like, not that it was about me,
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but I thought I was a bit not going to be able to handle it.
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But as soon as you opened your eyes,
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I knew it was like you and you were going to be okay.
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It was this awareness feeling.
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Yeah, yeah, but I gotta tell you,
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I'll never forget that.
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I'll never forget that day.
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I can't imagine how you.
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I mean, you were there 24 over seven.
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Yeah, you were there 24 over seven.
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And I just want to say, you know, as a mom, you're probably saying,
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of course I was. Yeah.
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Some moms wouldn't have been. Yeah, yeah.
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You know. Yeah, I couldn't be anywhere else. I would go home. At
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one time, our church did a mass for him,
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and this is when he was awake and it was going to be on a Monday morning at 830.
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And I said to him, Cameron, they're doing a mass for you tomorrow.
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You know, is it okay with you if if I go?
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And he was like, no, can you stay?
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So I didn't mind that at all.
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I knew my place was wherever he needed me to be.
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But then when I would go home so I could shower or
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just have a couple hours sleep, I hated not being there cause he did.
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Not being there with him. So let me let me ask you this question.
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So you went from being sedated on a breathing tube.
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They take the breathing tube out. Yay!
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You're breathing, thank God. Right.
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What was the like?
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Did anything funky happen between then and then?
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Like you being up and awake and.
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Hey, what's going on?
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Like, there was what was that period like?
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Like, were you sure that Cameron was going to come out of this?
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Because there was a lot of uncertainty, right.
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Yeah. Especially with a brain bleed.
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Like, you know, is it going be able to read again?
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Is it to be able to talk. Right. He's gonna be able to walk.
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So what was that midpoint from getting off the breathing tube to okay.
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Sure.
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He really has survived this pretty well.
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The first
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we have a we have a video of me
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was that shortly after the baby came out and it was mom.
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And was it just you two?
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Yes. Asking me like questions like, do you remember what happened?
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And I was like, like I it was pure nonsense.
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Well, I wasn't nonsense, I was I was saying what happened
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because I did remember. But like I, my speaking was very
13:19
not good.
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And that was scary. Yeah.
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Because we didn't know if this was typical of someone that had just been
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on a breathing tube for nine days and out of it, or
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that was the if this footage was a new Cameron.
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Yeah.
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Because he just wasn't speaking correctly.
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And so as for his father and I would lean over the bed
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while he was talking and he would get frustrated with us
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because we couldn't understand what he was saying, talking over.
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We were talking.
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So we're talking to him. All Joe's on one side, I'm on the other.
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And so we're talking to him and we're like,
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and he'd say something and I'm like,
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what did you say?
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And you could tell he was getting frustrated.
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And then my husband and I would literally go in as close as possible
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to him, and he'd say it again, and we'd look at each other and Joe would be like,
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that's not my.
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And not a thing.
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We could, we couldn't, we couldn't understand what he was saying.
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But then we'd be like, I want him to get mad. So yeah. Yeah.
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You. Yeah, yeah.
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We just respond to that, right? Yeah. Yeah.
14:19
And then I would say them
14:20
just say it really slow and he would say with things really slow,
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but that let's say 2 or 3
14:27
days was very bizarre.
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And you don't remember even though you were fully awake
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or do you remember I remember like,
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like moments I remember moments of it
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I don't like I don't like flashes of it.
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I don't remember a lot the, the,
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the thing that I remember the most was seeing myself for the first time.
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Oh. That's talk about, talk about that if you want to.
14:56
It was awful because I
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pre that
15:02
we talk about how our, our like timeline is pre stroke.
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Post stroke.
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Yeah.
15:08
So pre stroke I, I had long brown not long but longish
15:13
brown curly hair that I loved I loved my my brown hair my brown curly hair.
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Wavy because my brother says you don't have the curly hair
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because he has curly hair. I just have wavy hair.
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And it was like my version of make up.
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Like if my hair looked good, then I felt confident.
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If my hair didn't look good, I didn't feel that.
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I didn't feel confident.
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And so I'm waking up and I'm hearing everything that that's happened.
15:37
And I look, I see myself for the first time, shaved head,
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half a skull, feeding tube
15:45
and a scar that goes from here and wraps around and goes to here.
15:50
Yeah.
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And I was like, oh my gosh, I it was
15:57
probably the one of the worst feelings that I've had
16:01
because I was like, main thing was my hair is gone, main thing.
16:05
And I still struggle with that because I'm like my hair.
16:07
I cut my hair, not like.
16:10
But you said you have the right to say, oh my hair.
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Yeah, the right to say that. Yes.
16:14
I just like
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I couldn't, I could not believe it.
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And it was like
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like a sinking feeling in my,
16:23
in my, in my chest because I was like,
16:26
I couldn't believe that was.
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And I have like, I don't have a lot of piercings,
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but I have a few piercings.
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That and like everything that made me me was gone
16:34
and not only that, but I also looked completely different
16:39
because my head was I had swelling, I had the the,
16:45
the sunk, the dent.
16:46
I don't know what to call it in my head.
16:48
I had the feeding tube.
16:50
I had two IVs and a central line like it was.
16:55
I could not believe it and I went from my memory from beforehand,
16:59
which was going to Walmart and being ridiculous.
17:02
I remember obsessing over a wicked toothbrush.
17:05
Because when you when you press the button, it played Defying Gravity.
17:09
That's awesome. Yeah, I know that.
17:11
I would have got that for you, I loved it.
17:12
I have a video of it because I loved it.
17:15
To then waking up to seeing that
17:18
and I was like, what happen?
17:21
Like I was like it was it took me forever to like,
17:27
come to terms with like, this is my this is what's happening,
17:30
and this is going to be my life now for a while.
17:34
But if I can talk about those few days, because they were
17:37
the most bizarre for me to see, that Sunday night.
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So he went off the breathing tube Sunday.
17:43
So that Sunday night I would sleep in the room with him,
17:46
and I was laying on the most comfy reclining chair, as you can imagine.
17:52
And I was about 12:00 and he was sleeping and I was trying to sleep.
17:56
And then I kind of woke up to him saying, gather around, campers.
18:01
And I went
18:03
like looking
18:04
around the room and I'm going, right?
18:08
I mean, I'll play along, right?
18:10
So I went up to the to the bed and he said,
18:14
clap, clap once.
18:17
If what if you can hear me? That's right.
18:19
He said to clap once. If you can hear me.
18:22
So I was there.
18:25
I could hear him. So I literally clapped.
18:28
He looked straight at my eyes and he goes, not you.
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I was like, oh, okay.
18:34
So I just guess who
18:37
who by which who else is in this room right now?
18:40
So I went back and and so then the other thing is that he couldn't have any water.
18:44
Yeah.
18:44
I was hoping you could talk about the water thing
18:46
because that was gosh, I remember, I remember
18:48
I this, I, I don't remember saying this, but.
18:50
Well actually no, I kind of do, but I remember sucking water off of a sponge.
18:55
Oh my gosh, that was torture.
18:57
He was so mad at me.
18:59
Mostly because he insisted that I was the reason why he couldn't have water,
19:03
because everybody else said I could have water.
19:05
I said, no, no, I didn't.
19:07
I said, yes, you did.
19:07
I said, but I think you're the only person that's saying that.
19:11
I can't have water. True.
19:12
But so every doctor, every nurse,
19:15
none of them said he could have water, right. Yeah. So he'd say things like,
19:19
do you want a coffee from Dunkin Donuts?
19:21
And I'd be like, oh man.
19:23
No, I mean, you know, now I'm good.
19:25
He's like,
19:26
okay, because if you were going to go,
19:27
I was going to ask you to get me a big thing of ice water.
19:30
I'm like, okay, I want it.
19:32
And then I and then I was going home and he's like,
19:33
can you, can you grab my water bottle for me?
19:36
I said, Cameron, I cannot give you.
19:38
But then, then Tony, it was like he was just mad at me.
19:41
He was. So it was a it was.
19:43
Well, because he didn't pass that swallow test on that Monday.
19:46
So then they didn't do it again until Thursday.
19:48
Yeah. Now I remember a story.
19:51
Didn't he. Get out of bed.
19:53
Oh my gosh.
19:54
So I have this helmet that I have that I still I still now have to wear.
19:58
Yeah.
19:58
To protect because my, my brain is not exposed.
20:01
Right.
20:02
So yeah.
20:03
So again it was like two, three in the morning and I wake up
20:06
and he's literally out of his bed,
20:13
down, crouch down.
20:16
And everything in the central line is in, like, everything is attached to him.
20:20
And so I jump up and I'm like, oh my gosh, my God, Cameron, what are you doing?
20:25
And so I'm trying to get him up and he's like not realizing anything.
20:29
He's awake, but he's like kind of like whatever.
20:32
I just wanted to get some water.
20:33
I think he said, there's a little sink in my room.
20:36
And so I'm calling to the nurses
20:38
to come in and they all come in and they help them get it back in.
20:41
And then his favorite nurse was on the day shift.
20:44
And so we told her and she came in and boy, she read him the riot act.
20:49
She's like, you cannot do that.
20:52
How can you know?
20:53
You can't leave telling him all the things it was going to happen.
20:55
But my favorite story, Tony, my favorite story.
20:57
And this is a warning of a bad word that I'm about to say.
21:02
My favorite story was when he again
21:04
first woke up and he, he said, I just, I just, I, you know,
21:08
I want water, but I also, I also want to go to my friend's bed.
21:11
And I said, boy, you can't go lay in your friend's bed.
21:15
Well, I don't understand why I can't.
21:17
I said, well,
21:19
because, you know, you just you just can't.
21:21
I mean, you you're in the ICU in the ICU.
21:23
You know, we're to stay here and you can't go in his bed.
21:25
And he looks at me and he goes, shut the fuck up.
21:30
And I looked at Joe and we looked at each other.
21:32
And he's never I mean, that's that is not how he ever speaks to me.
21:35
Shut the fuck up.
21:36
You are so disrespectful, disrespectful and rude.
21:39
So I don't know what else to say. Tori.
21:41
So I was like, okay, I'm sorry.
21:43
Okay.
21:44
And, Joe and I looked at each other and we were like, wow.
21:49
And then he would see things in the room, so and and he was sure, 100%
21:55
sure that his older brother, who at the time was in
21:58
Texas, had been there but then flew back to Texas.
22:01
He hadn't been there since I've been went.
22:03
Yeah.
22:03
After two came in and took his blood 100% sure.
22:06
So sure that he told my brother and his family
22:10
to the point that they were like they believed us.
22:13
And I was like, he didn't.
22:15
They took his blood.
22:16
I remember specifically because I remember like, hallucinating it.
22:20
I remember seeing him.
22:22
And so that's
22:23
what the doctors were saying, that the hallucinations are very normal.
22:27
When you were in the ICU.
22:29
Yeah.
22:29
For that amount of time, that was a good 2 or 3 days where I was worried is,
22:33
is this the brain, like, is this like like what are we dealing with?
22:37
So he went from ICU to Gaylord. Yeah.
22:40
So talk a little bit about Gaylord.
22:43
I went up to see you.
22:45
Yeah. You seem like you were the young.
22:47
You were always the youngest person pretty much on the floor.
22:50
And I remember as Sarah,
22:51
you were saying to me, like, you know,
22:52
they didn't have any room in the pediatric ICU.
22:55
And I said, good, because he's going to he's
22:57
you're treated a little bit different when you're the youngest person.
23:00
They were a baby and saying, he's such a baby.
23:03
Yeah. So so what was Gaylord like for you?
23:06
Were you were there for a couple weeks, two weeks, two weeks,
23:09
two and a half weeks at the in the ICU and then two weeks at Gaylord.
23:12
Yeah.
23:13
Yeah.
23:15
So Gaylord was I mean, I was the youngest person there by quite a bit.
23:21
But everyone was really wonderful there.
23:25
Either way, I, I wasn't, like, necessarily
23:28
treated like I was the youngest, like I was.
23:32
You're kind of just treated for the extent of your love while
23:35
you're there. But
23:39
Gaylord was interesting because I was doing
23:41
physical therapy and occupational therapy, speech therapy?
23:45
I was doing it all.
23:47
And it was interesting seeing what my abilities were
23:52
and what they weren't, especially as my memory started
23:54
coming back more, remembering being able to do certain tasks with ease.
24:00
I mean, you wouldn't even think twice about it
24:02
to not being able to do them at all.
24:04
It was really frustrating.
24:06
Especially because, like, learning about my I struggle
24:11
with this word deficits learning, like learning what my deficits were.
24:16
And still we still we still aren't sure what are my what our permanent deficits
24:20
and what our deficits due to not having the skull.
24:24
But things like my left sided weakness and like, simple like tasks,
24:30
like they had this pegboard that you have to pick one individual
24:33
and then put them all back and my doing it with, with pretty much ease
24:37
with my right hand, but not with my left hand,
24:39
because my left hand has a lot of weakness in it.
24:41
And so like gripping things I can't really do and like certain stuff like that.
24:45
And then
24:48
also learning to manage the pain because,
24:52
oh my gosh, the pain that comes along with this is it excruciating.
24:57
And so, there would be things that I'm doing at,
25:01
Gaylord to try to strengthen what I lost.
25:06
And I would just end with the most excruciating pain
25:11
that I would just be, like, stuck to the bed for the rest of that.
25:14
Because you do therapy from
25:18
nine in the morning to usually like three in the afternoon about.
25:21
Oh, wow, that's a long time.
25:22
Yeah, it's a full day.
25:23
It's a full day of therapies and it's a different therapy every 30 minutes.
25:27
But it was really it was great stuff, really wonderful stuff.
25:31
But it was just so painful.
25:33
So painful. And
25:38
I was by the
25:40
the end of my stay there,
25:43
I was itching to, to get out because
25:48
it was just it was just a lot.
25:50
There's this this episode of SpongeBob where where Squidward
25:54
is doing the exact same thing every single day, and you could see
25:57
his face start to get a little bit more like down.
26:00
And while he just does the same thing and everything around him is the same,
26:03
and he's doing the same thing every day, and it kind of started feeling like that.
26:07
And I have
26:09
we have three dogs at home, and one of them, she's like my shadow.
26:13
I mean, we are like typically inseparable.
26:17
And I'd been apart from her for almost four weeks at this point.
26:21
And I, I had this little plush that looked like her.
26:25
And every night I'd be like, Where's Luna?
26:27
Where's where's Luna?
26:28
And I would like be sleeping with this plush.
26:30
And I was just I needed to be with her.
26:32
And so one time mom and dad, like,
26:35
kind of not like, snuck her up, but like, I, you know, I remember this.
26:39
I think Toni said no.
26:40
Well, I'll tell you what I said, I'll tell you what I said.
26:42
You know what I said? I said, fuck the rules.
26:44
Just bring the dog.
26:45
Yeah, because bring the dog.
26:47
There were realize that you could go outside. That's what I said. Right.
26:49
So as long as you could go outside, we could bring the dog.
26:52
Yeah.
26:52
Because almost every day, at least once a day,
26:57
mostly more, we would go for walks outside because I loved it.
27:00
I loved the Browns are nice. Yeah.
27:02
Oh it's beautiful.
27:03
And the weather was pretty nice because it was like just turning into
27:06
not just turning into fall, but it was like the like
27:08
fall was just kind of settling because of that October and early November.
27:11
Yeah.
27:12
And so one time my dad was coming up and mom was like, we're going to go,
27:15
we're going to go up and see him instead of him come into the room.
27:17
I was like, okay, like, why can't he just come down to my room?
27:20
And then I, I, we like slowly
27:24
like get up there and see him and I see him holding the leash.
27:26
I'm like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
27:29
And then I see her and she runs to me and she, she gets so excited
27:33
when she sees people and oh my gosh that was the best.
27:37
That's so healing. So healing.
27:39
Oh my gosh it was so great.
27:41
Oh it's everything I needed because she's just I miss her so much.
27:45
And then after that I was like, oh,
27:46
I need to get the hell out of here so I can go back to living with her.
27:49
The other two are great, but they're very old and and, you know,
27:52
I mean, listen, I tell you, I have a favorite.
27:54
I have, but I have a favorite, too.
27:55
When I come to your house.
27:57
The same town.
27:58
Yeah, I remember she's so sweet.
28:00
But I will say regarding those headaches, they were the worst.
28:02
And Gaylord,
28:03
thank goodness they did begin to get better,
28:05
but to the point that we would have people come and see us and we'd be sort
28:08
of hanging in a room with them or whatever, and all of a sudden,
28:13
because if even
28:14
laughing was so bad,
28:18
so bad for him, and we have a friend, a couple of our a couple
28:21
who my husband and him, they are hilarious.
28:26
It's awesome not to laugh.
28:28
In fact, they do our bartending well.
28:30
Good fun guys.
28:31
Yeah, and they they're the best. It's impossible.
28:33
And I was like, okay, we really can't be that funny.
28:36
Like, you just can't be that funny because you are not.
28:38
If you could tell just like that.
28:40
I was like, looked at him and he's like,
28:42
you know, it just instantly came on and he would be done.
28:44
So tell me, like, where are you today?
28:46
Like, what's going on? What's the plan?
28:48
You know, how's the healing going? Yeah.
28:51
So luckily I don't deal with quite as frequent headaches.
28:55
I'm on, like a few different medications to help with that.
28:57
We, we joke about how I'm.
29:00
I'm like a pharmacy because I am on so many medications.
29:04
But I still
29:06
I still deal with, like, a lot of pain in my head.
29:10
But hopefully we'll be getting my surgery within the next month.
29:15
That's good news. Yeah.
29:16
And the surgery is to
29:18
put the skull back.
29:20
Yeah, put the skull back on.
29:21
But I still deal with a lot of, like, cognitive issues.
29:26
I'm now back at college.
29:29
Well, not back at college, but I do online classes.
29:31
And just, like, seeing where, like, I struggle with reading and,
29:35
like, comprehending what I read and, I deal with left sided weakness.
29:40
And I also often just, like, forget that it's that my left side is like, there,
29:46
so I just forget to use it.
29:47
I deal with some vision issues in my left eye.
29:50
I, develop seizures two weeks, I
29:53
yep, develop seizures, which is very new.
29:56
Which was really awful to deal with.
29:59
And just kind of my biggest issue is, is working through
30:06
the, the I get a lot of flashbacks
30:09
and stuff like that from everything that I went through medically.
30:12
And just dealing with the,
30:16
the deficits and just kind of learning the not new person that I am,
30:20
but because I'm like, I'm still the same, but like the new way of living
30:27
that I have to adjust to to make up for what I've lost.
30:31
So I'll tell you what I see when I see you again, I see somebody who's
30:36
super strong and resilient like you, but
30:39
I also see somebody who still finds joy.
30:42
Oh, yeah. And I'm just, like, amazed.
30:44
And for the people that are that are listening or watching us,
30:48
that might be going through some hard times.
30:50
And let's be honest, there's probably everybody
30:53
who is absolutely has something that they're going through.
30:56
Do you have any words of wisdom for them, like how do you still find joy
31:01
like you just said,
31:02
you know, like you having flashbacks and stuff when you have those flashbacks,
31:06
are you remembering that
31:08
you can't change what's happened?
31:10
Right? Like, you know, the past is the past.
31:11
And a lot of times we go back there and it brings us pain.
31:15
So any words of wisdom for people who are struggling right now
31:18
that are having a hard time finding joy and laughter in their lives?
31:22
Yeah.
31:22
I mean, as like cliche as it sounds, because everyone's like, oh, find the joy.
31:26
It's like, okay, yeah, right.
31:27
But there's literally joy in every single thing that you can look for.
31:33
Like for an example, the first time getting in the car after,
31:39
like, going home.
31:40
Well, other than going home being a joy, but like, the first time getting in a car,
31:44
I, we put on a playlist and my three favorite songs played in a row,
31:48
so it's like, that's a simple thing, but focusing on that,
31:51
other than focus in on the insane headache that I had was,
31:57
what, like
31:59
forcing yourself to focus on the positive because eventually
32:02
it does
32:05
force you to look for the positive in everything
32:07
and looking for the positive like being and sort of filling your your head.
32:12
Because I could
32:12
sit around and mope and be like, oh, this and that, which I do sometimes,
32:16
because sometimes you just have to, also looking for
32:21
like the little, little tiny positives can change your mood ever so slightly.
32:26
And the more that you do that, the more it'll change your mood, right.
32:29
And so looking for it because there is a positive in every situation,
32:33
I mean, the positive from when I'm in, when I'm in those flashbacks,
32:37
I also get like, it's hard because I'm remembering what I am.
32:41
It's like I'm living back to living what happened.
32:44
But I'm also like, I get to see, like I get to like, experience my nurses again,
32:50
who my nurses were the most wonderful people, most wonderful people.
32:54
I would not have done this well in recovery if it weren't for them.
32:59
They were incredible people.
33:00
So like getting to remember like the, the, the happy moments with them.
33:04
And like I there's one nurse who I drink a ridiculous amount of water,
33:08
ridiculous amount. Which is why I missed it so much.
33:10
And she, she was like, I drink like three Pepsis a day.
33:14
And I was like, you need girl, you need to drink some water.
33:16
And so these big, like, big cups of water
33:21
for every one of those that I drank, she would drink this little cup of water.
33:25
But that was our agreement. That was our agreement. So I would drink.
33:28
I would go through like four of those, at least at least four of those a day.
33:31
Right.
33:32
And she would so she would,
33:34
she would, she would be like, cam, you're killing me with this little cub
33:37
cam, you're killing me, I got it, I got to drink three of these.
33:40
I would be like, yeah, like you have to.
33:41
It was just there's there was moments where I must have laughed
33:45
or even when you were going through some hard stuff.
33:47
Yeah. So I guess, like, I believe in that too.
33:49
Like when you change, when you shift your thought,
33:53
the emotion changes and then your actions change.
33:56
Exactly.
33:56
So, so shifting from oh my God to oh, wait a minute.
34:00
Like I get to listen to my music, I'm going.
34:02
I mean, I love that's how I've survived.
34:04
My life is really taking some negative thoughts and saying, wait a minute,
34:08
what can I get at that thought that's positive.
34:10
So exactly, one of the most amazing things that Cameron said, was that most people
34:15
don't get to see how much they're loved until they had a funeral.
34:20
Yeah.
34:20
So Cameron got to see that.
34:22
Which is true, right? Yeah, he got to see.
34:25
I mean, I'm very.
34:27
And I'm very fortunate.
34:28
Like, not not everyone gets that kind of love
34:30
and support and so I'm very fortunate for that.
34:33
You got to experience and I got to experience it.
34:36
And it was just it also was just the most amazing thing.
34:39
It really helped.
34:40
I got to say some, dude, you are so loved and so are you, Sarah, the whole family.
34:44
I mean, talk about community, family and friends holding people up,
34:48
you know, like it was it was something that really
34:52
people were in shock, because it could happen to anybody.
34:56
That Saturday morning, it was like, we're it's not good. And I'm like, what?
34:59
What what?
34:59
Like it was you were on people's minds and so were you.
35:03
And you were in our hearts and you still are.
35:05
You know, we're still like right behind you cheering you on.
35:08
Thank you.
35:08
All right boys and thank you again for being on the show Sarah I mean me
35:11
thanks for co-hosting but really being on the show today.
35:14
Thanks for alongside Cameron because to Cameron, listen, you