Corto was seven months pregnant when she started experiencing strange symptoms such as nausea.
“She got nauseous and stuff, and one day her throat was swollen,” Steve, now her husband, told Inside Edition. “Her mother took her to the hospital very quickly and she ended up having a major epileptic fit.”
Doctors concluded that Corto suffered from preeclampsia, a common pregnancy complication with serious symptoms including high blood pressure and swelling in the hands and feet.
Because Corto was not treated in time for preeclampsia, it developed into the less common preeclampsia, in which high blood pressure began to cause seizures. Corto was placed in a medically induced coma after undergoing a C-section.
When she woke up, she didn’t remember anything. She did not recognize the father of her son. She did not know who her parents were. Little did she know that she had just given birth to a son.
You didn’t know her name. Doctors concluded that she had suffered brain damage from preeclampsia that had erased her long and short-term memory. Corto worked with therapists to relearn his life, but brain damage also impaired his ability to form new memories.
She had to learn memory training tricks and use memory aids like taking lots of notes.
Kurto and her husband wrote a book about the experience, But I Know I Love You, which came out last year. Preeclampsia can have a slow or sudden onset. It causes very high blood pressure, which is why it is important for a pregnant woman to check her blood pressure regularly.
Other symptoms include nausea, headache, and blurred vision. The only way to prevent serious complications or death is to terminate the pregnancy immediately with childbirth.
