Jordana Brewster is pulling back the curtain and revealing what it was like to undergo brain surgery six years ago.
“I didn’t have to shave my head entirely. I was really relieved about that. I didn’t have to have half my head shaved. So they shaved this part and then they opened my skull. I was on my side and there was someone in front of me showing me cards and sort of testing my language and two brilliant neurosurgeons behind me,” Brewster, 46, said on the Tuesday, June 30, episode of the “She MD” podcast. “If I couldn’t come up with a word association or if I couldn’t answer a question they knew, ‘Oh, OK, we’ve hit a part of the brain we shouldn’t hit and let’s stay away from there.’”
She continued, “What’s so weird about — I think it’s called aphasia, when you lose your language — is, you think it, you know the answer, but you’re not able to say it. Which is a really weird feeling and it also made me question, ‘Wait, what about patients that are in a coma or what about patients that can’t articulate what they want to say but it’s there, which is really frustrating?’”
Brewster shared that she had been diagnosed with cavernous malformation (CVM), an abnormal cluster of thin, fragile blood vessels located in the language area of her brain, at age 28. CVM can cause seizures and potentially life-threatening bleeding, which can be controlled by medication, diet and sometimes surgery. She decided to undergo an awake craniotomy in 2020 when she experienced two “break-through” seizures, causing concern that one day she would seize while driving or holding her children.
“The surgery was successful, thank god. They got it out,” she said. “I’ve been seizure-free, symptom-free for six years now and I’m so grateful.”
Brewster, who is a mom of two, shared that she “kind of overhauled” her life in 2020. (Brewster and Andrew Form divorced in 2020 after 13 years of marriage. She tied the knot with Mason Morfit in 2022.)
“I think that helped also to give me the bravery to do something about the CVM,” she shared. “I got a divorce, I found the love of my life. It was like Eat, Pray, Love on steroids. … With brain surgery.”
She continued, “I just wanted this out so that I wouldn’t be burdened by it anymore. It was this constant cloud where I was like, ‘Oh, my God, what if.’ … I’m a control freak too — to lose control and to convulse in front of people or to lose control if you’re with your kid —- that was always a constant fear. I’m so relieved that I’m able to talk about it now, hopefully help others and get it off my chest.”
