In 2023, Jackie Miller James suffered a ruptured aneurysm at 39 weeks pregnant. She underwent an emergency C-section and simultaneous brain surgery to save her life.
She was placed in a medically induced coma for three weeks, and after waking up, she underwent nearly a year of rehabilitation. Despite her grim prognosis predicting otherwise, she regained the ability to speak and walk.
The influencer, now 38, is currently living with expressive aphasia and she raises her toddler daughter and continues recovering with the help of her husband, sisters and parents.
It took a few days for Austin James to go hold his daughter in the NICU, where she remained for 12 days after her birth. It was a moment of joy he wasn’t emotionally ready to experience, and it was a moment of joy Austin was heartbroken to realize his wife, Jackie Miller James, would never get to share with him.
Even when he was finally able to go meet their baby, Knoxly Rose, he was haunted by the fact that Jackie probably wouldn’t remember her first time holding the infant, if she ever got to meet her at all. No one knew whether or not the new mom — who’d built a following as a beauty influencer — would survive the aneurysm that ruptured just one week before she was due to give birth.
Austin, now 41, was the one to find his pregnant wife after she collapsed at home due to a hemorrhagic stroke. Jackie was rushed to the emergency room, where doctors performed two critical operations. On May 19, 2023, she underwent an emergency C-section to deliver Knoxly and simultaneous brain surgery to address the severe bleeding caused by the aneurysm.
Courtesy of Nicelle Herrington
Jackie Miller James and her husband, Austin, while they were expecting Knoxly.
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Jackie underwent several more operations on her brain and was placed in a medically induced coma in the intensive care unit. Everything — the birth, the surgeries, the sudden turn into complete uncertainty — happened so quickly. Nicelle and Natalie opened a GoFundMe page for their sister, though there was little else the family could do to cope with the nightmare.
Instinctually, Austin held in his terror and fought to be a pillar of support for Jackie and all of her loved ones.
“I grew up in Alabama, you bury your emotions, keep trucking,” he tells PEOPLE, sitting beside his wife, now 38, at their home in Southern California nearly two years later. “There were so many people around me that were so emotionally damaged and in chaos and going through their own emotions that the event forced me to swallow mine.”
He adds, “There wasn’t a whole lot of processing if I’m being totally honest … There were moments where my father-in-law, who I have great respect for, was breaking down and crying in my arms.”
Instead of processing everything that was happening to his wife at the moment, as it was occurring, Austin pushed on. It wasn’t easy, he says, but “the only thing we could do was keep moving.”
“As long as we were doing something, continuing to move forward, we always had hope,” he adds. “And I think if we ever stopped and just accepted where we were, it was too big for us.”
Jackie Miller James/Instagram
Jackie Miller James with her husband, Austin, and their daughter Knoxly.
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That spirit has carried the couple and their family to where they are today, at a hopeful point on their long road to recovery. Her brain injury took an intense toll on Jackie, whose Instagram has evolved from lifestyle content to documenting her health journey — “Recovering in style,” as her account bio reads.
Her body has come a long way: she has more functionality than ever expected. Currently, she has no functionality in her right arm or hand, but Jackie can walk and talk. Her brain remains stunted by expressive aphasia, making the very act of communication a constant battle.
“Mentally, I think she knows exactly what she wants to say. It’s just the motor skills to get that out,” Austin remarks of his wife’s ability to carry on conversation. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, aphasia — which can be brought on by stroke or head injury — affects one’s ability to speak fluently.
Jackie’s hemorrhagic stroke affected the area of her brain that controls language. Originally, doctors warned her family not to expect either mom or baby to live. When they defied the odds, the surgeon told them the right side of Jackie’s body would not function again, and she was deemed unlikely to regain her ability to speak.
Jackie Miller James/Instagram
Jackie Miller James with her husband, Austin, and their daughter Knoxly.
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Days later, while Jackie was still in critical condition and no next day was guaranteed, her doctors found a second aneurysm. It had not ruptured, but if it did, the rupture would be fatal. To prevent the worst-case scenario, her medical team needed to open a blood vessel to her brain by inserting a stint. The stint failed to work.
Per a timeline provided by Jackie’s family, another surgeon, Dr. Wagu, opted for a “very new and cutting edge” method that involved injecting medicine directly into her brain through an artery at the groin. It was successful, and on June 16, 2024, Jackie was moved to Craig Hospital Englewood in Colorado.
Over the course of 119 days, a team of physical therapists worked with Jackie to continue beating the odds. With the help of high-tech machines and robotic aids, Jackie took her first steps. She progressed to climbing stairs. She relearned how to walk outside on various surfaces.
As Jackie continued to take literal steps in recovery, she also stepped into motherhood. With the help of her occupational therapist Kara Shidlofsky, Jackie learned how to change a diaper with one hand.
Jackie Miller James/Instagram
Jackie Miller James with her husband, Austin, and their daughter Knoxly.
Related: Influencer Jackie Miller James Wakes Up from Medically-Induced Coma a Month After Having Aneurysm
At the QLI rehabilitation center in Omaha, Nebraska, Jackie continued to work until she could walk unassisted, at which point she checked out and headed home. For 10 months, Jackie received monthly infusions of her own stem cells to help further her recuperation.
In March 2024, Jackie finally came home. Her neurologist, Dr. Huang, remarked that Jackie “was the most critical and complex case he has seen,” as the family’s timeline states.
Physically, the current goal is to help Jackie regain more mobility on her right side, specifically in her arm and hand, which currently do not function. Jackie remains hindered by her aphasia, and her medical team is focused on regenerating her lost brain tissue and mapping new pathways to help with the condition.
“We’re at this stage now where it’s all about the kind of work she puts in and the context of that work,” Austin tells PEOPLE. They’ve seen success with Neuro-Integrative Functional Rehabilitation And Habilitation (Neuro-IFRAH), which Austin describes as “a very specific targeted physical therapy” for people with neurological damage.”
Jackie’s older sister, Nicelle, says she’ll also be starting peptide therapy treatments with Dr. Darshan Shah of Next Health. By layering emerging technologies, like hyperbaric oxygen as well, Nicelle believes Jackie is “going to make great strides in this next year.”
Jackie Miller James/Instagram
Jackie Miller James with her daughter, Knoxly.
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However, it’s difficult to ignore the reality that Jackie, for her part, isn’t aware of how far she’s come from the initial prognosis, which saw her unable to speak or walk for the rest of her life. In some ways, Austin sees it as a blessing.
“Her brain has compartmentalized a lot of that journey,” he explains. “we didn’t know if she knew she had a child. And so the baby wasn’t introduced in her journey until quite a ways into it.
Her support system has experienced a different kind of blessing in watching Jackie make amazing strides.
“She couldn’t swallow when she woke up … when we saw her sit up for the first time, we were ecstatic. And we saw her stand up for the first time, we were ecstatic,” Austin recounts. “She was in a wheelchair for a long time, and then she walked for the first time and we were ecstatic. So there’s been these incredible milestones, things you take for granted.”
Her youngest sister, Natalie, recalls what it was like to see Jackie come out of her coma after three weeks. The doctors prepared her family for how it would be, “not like the movies where someone wakes up and is suddenly themselves again,” Natalie explains. The overall process of waking up happened over the course of months.
Courtesy of Nicelle Herrington
Jackie Miller James with her parents and sister Nicelle.
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“We wanted to celebrate every single win as it came, from the first time that when she opened her eyes to when she was able to fixate on us,” says Natalie. “The first time we felt she recognized us, when she was able to look at us, that was a win. The first time she laughed, the first time she said her first word, all of these little things, we felt we were getting her back in pieces and we celebrated every single time we saw more and more of her.”
As they continue to relish in her progress, the family also isn’t settling for anything less than a full recovery. They continue to push forward, encouraging Jackie and searching for the best possible care from the very beginning.
“We didn’t accept any of the prognosis the doctor said. We chose not to accept that,” Nicelle tells PEOPLE. “When the doctors told us that she wasn’t going to walk again, her right side of her body was 99% going to be dead, I chose to be like, ‘Okay, I’m not just going to take this one diagnosis at face value. I realize this is a serious situation and I’m going to dig and I’m going to do research and I’m going to figure out all the cutting-edge treatments that are going on in the entire world.'”
She adds, “I will do whatever it takes to find my sister the best therapies to get her better because I won’t accept anything less.'”
Jackie Miller James/Instagram
Jackie Miller James with her husband, Austin, and their daughter Knoxly.
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According to Nicelle, each family member has played a crucial role in helping Jackie along. She describes herself, Natalie, their parents and Austin as the “CEOs of [Jackie’s] health.”
“We all have the same goal at the end of the day, and that is for Jackie to be recovered. So I think as a family, we’ve done a really good job of debating all those topics,” says Nicelle. “At times it gets heated, at times it’s been tough, but we’ve all done a great job of communicating with each other and we work through it.”
Of course the family’s drive sources from their shared love of Jackie, but they also share the knowledge of how much she dreamed to become a mother. It was something she wanted throughout her life, however when Jackie woke up from her medically induced coma, they weren’t sure if she’d know she had welcomed her long-awaited baby.
“She’s not going to be able to tell you that first time she met her or what those moments were like because it’s all foggy still … the baby wasn’t introduced in her journey until quite a ways into it,” says Austin. “She’s a loving, caring person in general with all of her friends and her family, and she is an amazing mom. We knew she was going to be an amazing mom.”
Jackie fulfills her duties as a parent as much as she possibly can. With only one fully functional side of her body and trouble articulating thoughts, Austin says she still gets up and makes food for Knoxly. Jackie sits beside her daughter and entertains her during diaper changes. It’s what she can’t yet do that encourages her to keep up with recovery.
Jackie Miller James/Instagram
Jackie Miller James with her daughter, Knoxly.
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“She’s fully engaged, she’s a fantastic mother,” Austin adds. “She’s never been able to pick up her child. She’s never been able to give her a hug. I think that, if I’m being honest, is what motivates her to push forward.”
“I mean, baby is healthy,” Jackie tells PEOPLE. “And I’m finding that baby is also the best thing possibly ever.”
Generally speaking, Jackie has always been passionate about health, especially women’s wellness. Her career as a beauty influencer was paved with transparency, stripping down the vanity to ask questions like, “Is Botox really right for you?” and “How do you feel beautiful if you don’t look like someone else?”
“That was part of what made her who she was and that was what drove her community,” Austin notes.
Recently, Austin says someone asked him, “How could this happen to someone like Jackie, this light in the world?” The answer: “Because she can take it,” he says.
Courtesy of Nicelle Herrington
Jackie Miller James with her sister Nicelle.
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“I think that’s going to be her platform going forward,” Austin adds, reflecting on Jackie’s future as a content creator. “There’s a lot of darkness that she can speak to, a lot of emotions that she can speak to now that she couldn’t before. And so yeah, I think she’s excited to get out there and talk about that, but also advocate for things like what Dr. Shah is doing and some of these emerging technologies.”
The whole family has also grown increasingly aware of how inaccessible some of these technologically advanced methods can be. Even a routine brain scan — which they’ve been told could’ve prevented the aneurysm rupture in the first place — isn’t something everyone can afford.
“I think it is sad that insurance doesn’t cover a lot of these preventative measures that would actually save a lot of money in the long run. So we’re hoping by highlighting that, talking about that, maybe that will change in the future,” says Nicelle. “We have a very acute medical system. If you get run over in the street, it’s great for saving your life, but as far as recovery, this health system really needs to change.”
There’s also their collective mission to encourage families to advocate for their loved ones, even when a patient is up against a grim prognosis like Jackie once was. Natalie remembers times when they could’ve opted for shorter-term, easier treatments, like when doctors suggested Jackie enter a two-week inpatient rehab program closer to their home.
By choosing a 10-month program and chasing cutting-edge healthcare, the family believes they dramatically altered the course of Jackie’s recovery.
Courtesy of Nicelle Herrington
Jackie Miller James.
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“We would not have gotten that far if we had done the two-week rehab and went home,” Natalie continues. “It was that, supplemented with everything else that we’ve done. There’s been stem cells, there’s been oxygen chambers and peptides. There’s no way to know what one thing really helped. It all moved the needle together.”
Jackie admits the long road has been trying, but like those in her support system, she keeps her sights set on a future where she’s reclaimed her health.
“I mean it’s hard, but actually, I love it though. Progress is always key,” she tells PEOPLE. “Therapy is also hard, but strides … Austin and Knoxly and me just like keeping on pushing forward, never stops. Getting better all the time.”
Still, Jackie knows she’ll never be the same. She is cognizant of the differences in her life now, whether she’s thinking of the major things, like the pre-aneurysm routines she left behind or even smaller details, like her changed tastes in food.
She doesn’t like ice cream or soft drinks anymore. She can’t really go out to parties and hang out with friends in the same way. She describes it as her “old life,” and Austin frames it within a broader change in perspective.
Courtesy of Nicelle Herrington
Jackie Miller James with her sister Nicelle.
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“We lived in L.A., I think you get caught up in that life and you build a universe around yourself. And so it’s, ‘Can I be seen? Can I go out?’ Career or friends, all things that young people really care about,” Austin explains.
“After the aneurysm, I think she has a new perspective on quality time with the family, the fact that your family can be taken away from you in an instant,” he continues. “I think there’s this renewed focus on just doing nothing of any importance with people you really care about.”
Now Jackie spends her happiest days in their backyard with Knoxly, sitting on the sofa with her dad and spending time with her sisters. “Before it was concerts and influencer events and those types of things. Less of that now.”
Even with all the setbacks, motherhood is still everything Jackie hoped it would be. She tells PEOPLE she loves the very sight of Knoxly, who is nearly 2 years old. Austin has adored watching them bond, even though their relationship grows by means shaped by Jackie’s brain injury.
“Kids are sponges. They just pick up everything. So in Jackie’s development of her speech, there’s a couple of phrases that she says a lot, and we’re seeing the child pick those up, which is cute,” he shares.
Jackie Miller James/Instagram
Jackie Miller James with her husband, Austin.
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“Oftentimes Knoxly will come up and try to put her hand in Jackie’s brace, because she sees mama wearing it all the time,” he adds. “She’ll tell her mom to be careful on the stairs, and she’ll hold Jackie’s hand if she walks. That kind of stuff.”
He also notices overlaps between Knoxly’s development and Jackie’s brain remapping. His daughter is growing up, and his wife is growing back into herself.
“At night when we sit down to read a book, I’m actually reading it to both of them,” says Austin. It comes faster to Jackie, since she’s learned it all before and aided by treatments, but there are undeniable parallels, he observes. “It’s very similar to watch these things that you do with your child, these educational things and how Jackie’s latching onto them and using them to get better too.”
Read the original article on People
