‘It’s remarkable that I am able to speak’ – Emilia Clarke opens up about life-saving brain surgery

By MiNDFOOD

91st Academy Awards - Oscars Arrivals - Red Carpet - Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 24, 2019. British actress Emilia Clarke from "Game of Thrones" wears Balmain. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni - HP1EF2O1QSR7M
91st Academy Awards - Oscars Arrivals - Red Carpet - Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 24, 2019. British actress Emilia Clarke from "Game of Thrones" wears Balmain. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni - HP1EF2O1QSR7M
British actor, Emilia Clarke, who played Daenerys Targaryen, the formidable mother of dragons on 'Game of Thrones', has revealed that she suffered two aneurysms and had brain surgery in between filming seasons of the hit show.

In an article for The New Yorker, Emilia Clarke shared her harrowing story, which began when she had just finished filming season one of the hit HBO show. She revealed that she has undergone two brain surgeries in the past eight years.

“My trainer had me get into the plank position, and I immediately felt as though an elastic band were squeezing my brain,” she wrote in the article. “I tried to ignore the pain and push through it, but I just couldn’t. I told my trainer I had to take a break. Somehow, almost crawling, I made it to the locker room. I reached the toilet, sank to my knees, and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill. Meanwhile, the pain shooting, stabbing, constricting pain was getting worse. At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged.”

Doctors diagnosed her with having a subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH), from which a third of sufferers die immediately or soon after.

Weeks after her initial surgery, Clarke recalled that she temporarily had trouble remembering her name, and it caused her to go “into a blind panic.”

A condition called aphasia set in, meaning she could not communicate and feared her acting career was over.

“In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug. I asked the medical staff to let me die. My job — my entire dream of what my life would be — centered on language, on communication. Without that, I was lost,” the actor wrote in The New Yorker.

Clarke recovered enough to film the second season of Game of Thrones – her worst one, she said – but she wasn’t out of the woods yet.

By 2013, a second aneurysm on Clarke’s brain had “doubled in size”, requiring invasive surgery through her skull.

“I had the consistent fear that I was going to have another brain aneurysm. I spent a lot time just being like: ‘Am I gonna die? Is that gonna happen on set? Because that would be really inconvenient. And with any kind of brain injury it leaves you with a fatigue that’s indescribable. I was trying so hard to keep it under wraps.” said the actress.

Speaking on the BBC’s ‘Sunday Morning’ with Sophie Raworth, she recalled: “It was just the most excruciating pain, huge vomiting, trying to regain consciousness; I kept asking myself all these questions.

“I hilariously kept saying lines from the show in my head. If you are throwing up and you have a headache, that is not good for your brain.

“I was 22 [when she had the first aneurysm] but it was helpful having Game of Thrones to sweep me up and give me that purpose.

“The amount of my brain that is no longer usable – it’s remarkable that I am able to speak, sometimes articulately, and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions.

“I am in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that.”

She added: “There’s quite a bit missing, which always makes me laugh!

“Because strokes, basically, as soon as any part of your brain doesn’t get blood for a second, it’s gone.

“And so the blood finds a different route to get around but then whatever bit it’s missing is therefore gone. It kind of shows how little of our brains we actually use.”

Despite thinking she would die, Clarke has now recovered beyond her “most unreasonable hopes”.

She said she wants to help others not just by sharing her story but encouraging donations to the charity, “SameYou,” which provides treatment for people recovering from brain injuries.

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