Kamden Steffen '23 Recruiting Profile

I am a 18 year old Senior at MMCRU in Marcus, IA.  I started playing basketball in 1st grade for the town and quickly learned that basketball was my passion.  I have played various levels of basketball starting when I was in 2nd grade.  I played on an aau team that the kids were a year older than me and played with them for 3 years.  Then I went to an aau team for 4 years and competed at a higher level and really enjoyed it.  I would play for them in the winter and summer leagues.   Then the last 3 years I made an aau national team however only got the chance to play for 2 years with them as on November 11,2021 I had not 1 but 4 strokes.  I have also been very active being a multi sport player as I also played varsity football, varsity cross country, and ran varsity track, making it to state.  So September 2nd ,2021 I was injured in a football game, completely seperating my shoulder and broke my collar bone.  It never seem to be healing so we kept doctoring except on November 5, 2021 my little brother Kezden and I were home and I collapsed at the top of my stairs and had no feeling in my left side.  Kezden called my mom at work and her and my dad rushed home and brought me to the ER.  Once at the ER Dr's discovered I was having a stroke and sent me immediately to a bigger hospital to handle my stroke.  Once we arrived at the hospital they immediately  started running test and that's when they discovered I have 2 suedoanyuroisms in my cortid artery and I have had 3 little clots that had broken off and went to my brain.  Where they were located was a very tricky spot and so they finally decided that on November 11th I would have open heart surgery and they would go in though the heart and try to repair those anyerisums however that morning I woke up with no feeling on my left side again and a headache like no other so they rushed me down for a CTA and then I had my big stroke on the CTA machine. I was placed on a ventilator and rushed into surgery to remove my clot.  Once out of surgery my brain started to swell and shift.  I was on a ventilator for 3 days and then struggled to remove it.  Once removed and I woke up I have no movement on my entire left side.  No movement, no feeling.  I couldn't talk, walk, write, eat, Etc with my left side and I also had lots of pressure on my brain and was placed on a feeling tube.  After 5 weeks in the ICU undergoing therapy and recovery I was moved to Madonna Rehabilitation  Center in Omaha NE.  Once at Madonna it was discovered that my 2 anyurisums had grown into on large one and that it was now sitting on top of my lungs so I was transported back to sanford Health Care where they went in and put a Stent over my artery.  After a long recovery and complications from surgery I was then transported back to Madonna and spent the next 3 weeks rehabbing with them until I was released.  Once home I have been going to outpatient therapy 3 times a week in Omaha for speech therapy, OT and PT.  Currently I have completely recovered from everything except my left hand and fingers.  I believe I am a great team player and I really know what it takes to work hard and strive for what what you want.  With all my hardwork to recover and get back to the sport I truly love, it has definitely  showed me if you put your mind to something  with hard work it will pay off.