This was a bit of information that brought about much shock for the fans of the Game of Thrones actor.
Emilia Clarke had revealed last year that she suffered two brain aneurisms that required to have some life-changing surgeries.
The actress, who became widely popular for her portrayal of Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO show, said that she wasn’t even able to remember her own name due to the hemorrhage, and had to be kept in intensive care.
The 33-year-old actress shared her story for the first time through an essay for The New Yorker and spoke about how her health problems started developing in February 2011, right after she had been done with shooting the first season of Game of Thrones.
The symptoms
She revealed that she had been working out with her trainer in London when she suddenly experienced a painful headache which felt like her brain was being squeezed by an elastic band.
The pain went to such degrees that she had to “almost crawl” to her locker room, but soon collapsed and became “violently, voluminously ill.” The pain showed no signs of stopping, and the actor realized that her brain had been damaged in some way.
She was rushed to the hospital immediately, where she received a diagnosis that she had been experiencing a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is a rare form of stroke, which is caused by bleeding on the brain’s surface.
She revealed that a third of the patients who suffered from SAH die as soon as the aneurysm ruptures. The only way to attain closure was to get surgery, and even that had no guarantees.
The surgery wasn’t fully successful and left her in a state called aphasia, where the patient experiences difficulty in speaking. Clarke also forgot her own name at that time. But in a week, the condition passed.
She returned to work after resting, but in 2013, her second aneurysm started, this time worse than before, and she had her second operation.
Long story short, she is over her brain troubles, and the actor said she is at a hundred percent. She launched a charity called SameYou, which focuses on helping young people with brain injuries.