“I lost three to four weeks of my life,” Janel Reynolds Brack said. “Some things I’ve been told about those four weeks by my parents were experiences that I simply didn’t recall.”

What robbed Janel of her memory was a sudden, near-fatal brain aneurysm that struck while she was visiting relatives in Canada. With her life hanging in the balance, she was flown to UT Southwestern in Dallas, where a skilled neurosurgery team awaited her arrival to perform the delicate procedure to stop the hemorrhage and save her life.

But surviving the complex surgery was just the beginning. The long, challenging road to recovery tested the mental and physical resilience of the then-27-year-old. Thanks to the expert care of her surgical team – and Janel’s determination – she made a near-total recovery. Today, Janel’s family is paying it forward with a planned gift through the Reynolds Family Trust to support UT Southwestern’s Department of Neurological Surgery, honoring the extraordinary care that gave her a new lease on life.

Life-altering event

Janel grew up in Hammond, Indiana. Her parents, John and Roxy Reynolds, divorced when she was 7. Subsequently her father later remarried, and together, John and his new wife, A-Lan, raised Janel in a small, close-knit family.

Janel completed high school in Oklahoma and then attended Texas A&M University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in genetics. In July 1999, while visiting relatives with Roxy in Saskatchewan, Canada, she woke up with a severe headache that quickly escalated into a medical crisis.

She went downstairs to get Tylenol to knock the headache out, and “that’s when my aneurysm hit me as if someone were stabbing my head 100 times,” Janel said.

A race against time

Janel’s aneurysm led to a subarachnoid brain hemorrhage, a life-threatening stroke caused by bleeding on the surface of the brain. Upon hearing of her condition, John and A-Lan immediately traveled to Canada. They were told that their daughter was unlikely to survive and that they should start planning her funeral.

“On hearing this,” A-Lan said, “John and I stepped out into a waiting room, and we said to each other that ‘no, we don’t accept that she’s going to die.’ We had to get her back to the States to try to find the right specialists there.”

During the two weeks Janel spent in the ICU in Canada, her family’s employers searched the U.S. looking for the best surgeon for her condition. Mobil Oil Corp., John’s employer, discovered that one of the nation’s preeminent surgeons for brain aneurysms, UT Southwestern’s Duke Samson, M.D., was here in Dallas, their hometown.

When A-Lan called UT Southwestern, she was met with compassion. “They not only fully listened to our story with great humanity, but they said that if Janel could take a CareFlite immediately, they would hold a place for her right when we arrived at the operating room,” she said. Janel was placed aboard a medical jet courtesy of Mobil Oil in Regina, Canada, on August 11, 1999, accompanied by Roxy, and a few hours later they landed in Dallas. She was operated on the next day.

The skill of a legendary surgeon

Dr. Samson, who retired in 2020 after 38 years at UT Southwestern, was ready when Janel arrived. Her condition was critical. She was paralyzed on her right side, and the aneurysm had caused severe bleeding at the base of her brain.

“Well, quite simply put, he saved my life.”

“Her condition was something that we at UT Southwestern were very engaged in treating, as we had quite a lot of experience with patients sent to us with exactly this kind of condition,” said Dr. Samson, who was also Chair of Neurological Surgery at the time. “What we grappled with is that once an aneurysm has hemorrhaged, there is a high likelihood that the initial hemorrhage could produce a second bleed – and that carries a fatality rate of almost 70%.”

In the multihour surgery, Dr. Samson and his team successfully located and clipped the aneurysm, preventing further bleeding. They also installed a catheter – a small tube – to drain excess spinal fluid from the base of Janel’s brain.

“What we were looking for was to avoid our biggest fear, which was a complication from this type of hemorrhage where the blood vessels spasm, reducing flow to the remainder of the brain and producing a fatal, permanent stroke,” Dr. Samson said. “Our surgery and subsequent treatment would become not a sprint, but a real marathon.”

Long road to recovery

After the intense operation, Janel was in a near-catatonic state for a month. Her organs were barely functional, and she could not speak or swallow.

“She lost the ability to form words with her mouth and to use her voice box,” A-Lan said.

As the weeks wore on, Janel struggled with the limitations of her body.

“At that point, I’m pretty scared,” Janel said. “When I started going around in circles in my wheelchair, that’s when I started crying. Then late one night, I had an epiphany: I was alone in my hospital room, and though I couldn’t communicate, I just looked up and silently asked to go to rehabilitation with the right attitude.”

The turning point came when she was transferred to Pate Rehabilitation in Dallas, where she received intensive therapy. With the support of a dedicated nurse, she gradually regained her strength. “That nurse was phenomenal, as she helped me in so many ways, from getting to the bathtub to allowing me to help cook while I continued my occupational therapy,” Janel said.

It would be at Pate where Janel went from relying on a wheelchair to taking her first steps with the aid of parallel bars. Her father vividly recalls the moment she took those steps. He said, “I have to be the luckiest father in the world, seeing my daughter take her first steps – twice.”

Janel’s next milestone in her 18-month rehabilitation was relearning how to speak.

“I really couldn’t communicate at all,” she said. “My right hand was essentially attached to my chest. My face was totally droopy on one side. I couldn’t ask for anything, not even socks to cover my cold feet. All of this was scarier than the aneurysm itself.”

But, a mere year and a half after her near-fatal aneurysm, Janel actually walked into Dr. Samson’s office. He became so emotional that he started to tear up.

“I recall him saying to Janel, ‘You are an absolute miracle,’” A-Lan said.

A gift of gratitude

A planned gift from the Reynolds Family Trust was formally established by A-Lan and John before he passed away in 2022. Their trust set up an endowment dedicated to Southwestern Medical Foundation for the benefit of UT Southwestern Medical Center’s Department of Neurological Surgery. The endowment is named The Reynolds Fund for Neurosurgical Critical Care in honor of Dr. Duke Samson.

“With this gift,” A-Lan said, “we wanted to be sure that UT Southwestern’s Neurological Surgery Department, and its teaching aspect, would continue to turn out doctors like Dr. Samson.”

Dr. Samson expressed his gratitude to the Reynolds family for their generous contribution to the program.

“This brief note,” Dr. Samson wrote at the time of the gift, “is written simply to offer my personal thanks. I remember your daughter vividly. … The most rewarding aspect of my career has been the opportunity to be involved in the care of wonderful people; their gratitude, and that of their families, has been a bonus blessing.”

Speaking recently of the Reynolds family’s gift, Dr. Samson said, “I’m not only grateful for it, but also humbled by the recognition. I hope its primary impact will be to aid those very sick patients to survive what is a horrible event.”

As for how Janel feels about Dr. Samson: “Well, quite simply put, he saved my life,” she said. “One of my most special memories of him was my last visit with him when I got up to walk from his office and he stopped me and gave me a huge hug. It was a beautiful moment from someone who saved my life.”

As for the unexpected silver lining from her harrowing experience, she said, “Finally, it taught me that I am much stronger than I thought.”