Game of Thrones has been rocking all conversations for a variety of reasons but one of the reasons is also due to actress Emilia Clarke’s recent revelations about her health.
She revealed that she's had two life-threatening aneurysms, and two brain surgeries, since the show began.
In a first-person story published in The New Yorker, Clarke said she had been healthy all her life when she had the first aneurysm in 2011 at age 24 while working out at a London gym.
She wrote:
I immediately felt as though an elastic band were squeezing my brain. I tried to ignore the pain and push through it, but I just couldn’t. 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.
She was immediately rushed to the hospital where she was diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) which is often caused bleeding in the brain.
“I’d had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture,” she wrote. She underwent a “minimally invasive” for her condition.
A few weeks post her surgery, Clarke realised she was suffering from aphasia, a disorder which affects a person’s ability to communicate and use language. Clarke says she couldn’t recall her name.
She wrote:
Nonsense words tumbled out of my mouth and I went into a blind panic. I’d never experienced fear like that—a sense of doom closing in.
What Exactly is Brain Aneurysm?
WebMD defines brain aneurysm as “a weak spot in the wall of a blood vessel inside the brain. That area of the blood vessel gets worn out from constant flow of blood and bulges out, almost like a bubble.”
While most cases of brain aneurysms could go undetected, the bulge in the brain can grow in size in rare cases. This might lead to bleeding in the brain (called hemorrhagic stroke) which is a serious medical condition and requires immediate attention. In such cases, it might lead to coma or permanent brain damage.
While brain aneurysms develop as people age, certain people are also born with such a defect at birth.
Interestingly, data shows that women tend to be at higher risk of brain aneurysm than men.
After Clarke recovered, she was told that there was a smaller aneurysm on the other side of her brain that could “pop” at any time. The doctors said they would keep a ‘careful watch’.
The second surgery came after Clarke finished shooting the third season. The doctors told her that her smaller aneurysm had doubled in size and they had to “take care of it.”
While the doctors did promise her a “relatively simple operation, easier than last time”, her surgery failed as there was a massive bleed and the doctors said they had to operate again.
This time they needed to access my brain in the old-fashioned way—through my skull. And the operation had to happen immediately.
Though she feared she might lose cognitive ability again, even if she survived, but she recovered fully in the subsequent years.
In the years since my second surgery I have healed beyond my most unreasonable hopes. I am now at a hundred per cent.
She said that she shared her story in the hope to raise awareness about brain injuries and strokes, especially among young people. She has also started a charity called ‘SameYou’ to help people suffering with such ailments.
(With inputs from AP)
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