25 | Unfortunate Brain News
Alive Again14 Okt 2025

25 | Unfortunate Brain News

What happens when the part of you that defines your identity begins to fail?

Dana Swanson was a rising creative force—an award-winning writer-producer at Adult Swim, a voice actor, a musical performer, and a self-proclaimed comedy nerd on the brink of big things. But in 2012, her world unraveled when she began to lose control of her speech. What started as a stuttered sentence became a devastating diagnosis: a rare brain tumor—neuronal neoplasm—lodged in a precarious part of her brain.

In this episode of Alive Again, Dana recounts the surreal journey from slurred words to a high-risk, eight-hour brain surgery that would change her life forever. With humor, vulnerability, and crystal clarity, she explores the collapse of identity, the death of an old self, and the painful but profound process of learning to live—and speak—again.

But Dana’s story doesn’t end in silence. It becomes a story of spiritual awakening, intuition, chosen purpose, and using her voice to help others connect to their own. From losing her father at 14 to channeling messages from the other side, Dana opens up about survivor’s guilt, intuitive healing, and embracing the power of reinvention. She reminds us that we all have “battle scars,” and that the ability to evolve—again and again—is the truest sign of being alive.

Cover Art: Daniel Garcia @Superduperfi

Story Producer: Nicholas Tecosky* If you have a transformative near-death experience to share, we’d love to hear your story. Please email us at aliveagainproject@gmail.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episoder(45)

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43 | Rip

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42 | Extraordinary Awakening: A Conversation with Filmmaker Jonas Elrod

42 | Extraordinary Awakening: A Conversation with Filmmaker Jonas Elrod

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41 | Angel Falls

41 | Angel Falls

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40 | The Bondage of Self

40 | The Bondage of Self

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39 | Maybe It Saved My Life

39 | Maybe It Saved My Life

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38 | Play The Tape Through

38 | Play The Tape Through

At UC Santa Cruz, Brooke Knisley fell more than twenty feet from a redwood while drinking and spent ten days in a coma. What followed was the long, messy work of living with a traumatic brain injury: ...

13 Jan 42min

37 | Threshold Metaphysics

37 | Threshold Metaphysics

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6 Jan 37min

36 | From Whom All Blessings Flow

36 | From Whom All Blessings Flow

When a falling rock shattered Rhesa Bailey’s pelvis at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, survival became immediate and bodily— improvised splints, a perilous raft run to the remote ranger station, a tur...

30 Des 202553min

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