For the first time since surviving a life-threatening health crisis during her Japan honeymoon, San Antonio’s Sarah Danh is speaking out about her recovery process: “It honestly feels like I came back from the dead,” she wrote in a Thursday Instagram post detailing her harrowing experience. 

Danh, a registered labor and delivery nurse at Methodist Hospital Stone Oak in San Antonio, was hospitalized and diagnosed with acute liver failure on April 9 – just two days into her Japan honeymoon with her new husband Luke Gradl. As she fell into a coma, the condition triggered several serious health issues for Danh, including jaundice, vomiting, body aches and “extreme” hepatic encephalopathy.

While her condition progressed, her kidneys began to fail and she struggled with intracranial brain pressure, Gradl said. After being medically evacuated from Japan to San Antonio on April 21, she underwent an MRI brain scan – which revealed that she had suffered a stroke that resulted in “what appeared to be severe bilateral brain damage” before returning home, Le wrote in an April 26 post.

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However, upon returning home, Danh underwent what her family described as a miraculous recovery. 

“The… neurologist explained that the brain injury appeared to be caused by the hepatic encephalopathy-and that, unlike many other types of brain injuries, it could be reversible,” Danh in her Thursday Instagram post. “Then something incredible happened. My liver slowly began healing itself. The swelling in my brain started going down.”

Danh, who had been in a coma since suddenly falling ill, woke up on April 29. After that, she was transferred to the TIRR Rehabilitation in Houston to continue her recovery. While Danh still has “so many questions” about what triggered the sudden decline in her health, she said the experience helped her gain a new perspective on life. 

“This experience changed me,” she wrote. “It taught me how unbelievably fragile life is. It taught me that tomorrow is never promised. It taught me to love louder, forgive quicker, and appreciate the ordinary moments we so often take for granted. And most importantly… it taught me that miracles do happen.”

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This article originally published at San Antonio nurse speaks out for the first time since near-fatal health crisis in Japan.