Emilia Clarke: I Nearly Died
Game of Thrones starlet, Emilia Clarke, has opened up about facing two life-threatening brain aneurysms.
The 31-year-old actress has explained that she first realised something was wrong during a workout back in 2011, shortly after finishing filming season one of the hit TV-show. She was rushed by ambulance to the hospital for an MRI.
Clarke says: “The diagnosis was quick and ominous: a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), a life-threatening type of stroke, caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain.”
This type of aneurysm kills a third of patients immediately. The actress, lucky enough to survive, underwent emergency brain surgery, which left her with limited vision, difficulty speaking and unable to remember her own name during the recovery period.
Years later, after filming season three, Clarke had a brain scan which showed that she needed to have surgery again. However, when she woke up from surgery she was “screaming in pain.”
Clarke says: “I had a massive bleed and the doctors made it plain that my chances of surviving were precarious if they didn’t operate again. This time they needed to access my brain in the old-fashioned way—through my skull.”
The actress says that, after a month-long, painful recovery, she was finally able to leave the hospital. She also says that: “In the years since my second surgery I have healed beyond my most unreasonable hopes… I am now at a hundred per cent.”
Clarke has helped to develop the charity “SameYou”, which helps to provide treatment for people recovering from brain injuries and stroke.
