It’s a cute story – unfortunately I don’t buy it.
Several things are inaccurate on both “professors” parts. For one, modeh ani is not thousands of years old – the earliest source we have for it as far as I know is the Seder HaYom from the time of the rishonim (it also doesn’t take most people 12 seconds to say modeh ani), and physiologically I believe that the Professor McMaron quote is incorrect (i.e. I doubt it was ever said) – blood would, if anything – get thrown away from the brain.
That shouldn’t take away from the fact that Hashem “set that up years ago” with regards to … well … everything – but this isn’t necessarily the best anecdote as far as I can tell