Seven words.
It was seven simple words from UCLA Health neurosurgeon Anthony Wang, MD, that made all the difference to Neha Pai after a life-threatening brain injury.
“She’s going to make a full recovery,” the doctor told Pai’s parents.
At the time, the 20-year-old UCLA student was in a coma after emergency surgery to treat an extensive brain hemorrhage. Pai would remain in a coma for weeks, spend many more weeks in intensive care and require months of intensive rehabilitation to restore her memory and physical functioning.
Today, she isn’t just fully recovered; she’s a newly minted UCLA graduate with a degree in bioengineering.
“I was so dead set on coming back to UCLA and finishing my bioengineering degree,” says Pai, who’s so lively and animated, it’s hard to imagine she suffered a life-threatening brain injury a little less than three years ago. “Because my team at UCLA was like, ‘She’s going to make a full recovery,’ those words were in the back of my head for months. I thought: if the man who saw my brain and did this surgery himself is saying that I’m going to be fine and I can do it, why would I listen to anybody else?”
The condition Pai faced – a severe brain hemorrhage caused by a ruptured aneurysm – required immediate intervention. Everything had to line up just right for her to be the 100% healthy 23-year-old she is today. Pai jokes that when she went to pick up her diploma in June, she asked about adding “30 honorable mention lines” to recognize the doctors, nurses, therapists and family members who supported her yearlong recovery.
Sudden crisis
The ordeal began Dec. 5, 2021, as Pai was cramming to finish a coding final during her junior year. She had just clicked “submit” and flopped onto the couch when, out of nowhere, she had a seizure.
Her roommate turned to ask her a question, saw what was happening and dialed 911.
An ambulance raced Pai to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where she had a second seizure. A brain scan revealed a serious brain bleed.
Dr. Wang was the neurosurgeon on duty that night. He called Pai’s parents in Waukesha, Wis., waking them up at 3 a.m., to let them know their daughter’s condition. By the time Pai’s father made it to Los Angeles, she was in a coma. That’s when Dr. Wang said those seven powerful words.
“She arrived in in a dire condition, one where a little bit of time can make a huge difference,” Dr. Wang says. “We were fortunate to have the opportunity to give her a shot at a full recovery.
“Treating a lot of patients with a wide range of diseases and prognoses, one of the things I have come to realize is we should never, never, never give up on kids,” he says.
Physical and mental rehab
Pai doesn’t remember any of this. She has no recollection of the seizures, the ambulance ride, the surgeries or the coma. She knows she spent a month at an inpatient rehabilitation center in Los Angeles before returning to her parents’ house in Wisconsin to continue with daily outpatient rehab in Chicago.
But she knew what Dr. Wang had said, and she clung to it like a life preserver.
Rehab – which involved physical, occupational and speech therapy – was grueling. Physically, she bounced back quickly. Mentally, things were hazy for a while. Pai couldn’t remember anything for more than a few seconds. She kept asking her mother where she was and why.
One of her first mental tasks was to memorize the timeline of events of her injury.
“For months, I didn’t actually have any concept of this is what had happened to me. I was just regurgitating (the facts),” she says. “It was like a random series of events that, at the time, I could not connect to actually being me at all. I think especially because I was so mobile, talkative, and – as far as I could tell – not looking or feeling like somebody that just had a brain aneurysm … I was like, ‘Why is everyone freaking out? I’m good.’”
It was through speech therapy that Pai began slowly rebuilding her ability to remember – something she’d need if she was to continue progressing toward her college degree. Dr. Wang reassured her that her memories and intellect were still intact. It was just an issue of accessing them.
Pai’s therapists in Chicago tried to dissuade her from returning to UCLA and pursuing such a challenging field of study. Maybe transfer to a school closer to home, they suggested, or switch to an easier major. But Pai was determined. Not only did she have Dr. Wang’s promise of a full recovery, but there was evidence her brain was still academically sharp.
While she was still hospitalized, her mom started quizzing her from an old AP calculus book, and Pai was consistently able to answer correctly.
“Fresh out of a coma, in your hospital bed, you were able to do calculus. I have no reason to believe you won’t be able to finish your degree,” she recalls her mom saying.
Brain aneurysms are extremely rare in young people: about one in a million. But when they do occur, they’re difficult to treat because they’re often far more complex than the more common aneurysms found in adults, Dr. Wang says. Aneurysms – a protruding bubble or sac on a blood vessel – generally go undetected until they rupture. Pai’s family has a history of aneurysms, she says.
It wasn’t just the surgeries that led to her total recovery, Dr. Wang says, but her determination to heal.
“You don’t just bounce back from that sort of thing. It takes a ton of work,” he says. “She is a great example of what both real tenacity – in terms of the work she put in – and what a can-do mindset is able to accomplish.”
A new life
Now, Pai considers Dec. 5 her “rebirth day.” She marks the occasion by sending handwritten thank-you letters to Dr. Wang and the team of medical residents that saved her life. When she graduated with her bachelor’s degree in June 2024, she thanked them in person at the hospital, wearing her graduation sash.
A success story like hers is profoundly meaningful to medical providers, Dr. Wang says: “Taking care of people and being able to provide them a future is why we get into this field. It’s a lot of work, and this is really the best reward.”
For Pai, it feels like a new life is unfolding. Everything means more now, from feeling the sun on her skin to spending time with her mom, dad and sister.
“Recognizing the fragility of life is a very big awakening,” she says.
Before her brain injury, she was singularly focused on getting her engineering degree and having a successful, lucrative career. “Now, I’m like, I want all that, but what’s more important to me is that I’m happy and healthy and that I have a loving family; that I have happiness and warmth in my heart.”
She believes “the universe brought her UCLA” because it was where she’d need to be when she faced a potentially fatal health crisis. She recalls checking out the campus on a whim and feeling like “this is the school I have to go to.”
And more than ever, she believes in the power of words, of possibility, and belief.
“Truly anything is possible,” Pai says. “There is no limit to the power of words. If you truly believe, and you have the right people that support you behind you, anything can get done.”
