'Game of Thrones' actress Emilia Clarke says she's had 2 aneurysms NEW YORK - AP "Game of Thrones" actress Emilia Clarke revealed March 21 that she has had two life-threatening aneurysms, and two brain surgeries, since the show began. An unknown actress before landing the role, Clarke had just finished filming her first season as Daenerys Targaryen, the "Mother of Dragons," on the HBO fantasy series when she had the first aneurysm in 2011 at age 24 while working out at a London gym. "Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to have come true, I nearly lost my mind and then my life," Clarke writes in a first-person story in The New Yorker. "I've never told this story publicly, but now it's time." Clarke said she had been healthy all her life, but was suffering from serious stress when the artery burst in her brain. Much of it came from constant press questions about the nudity of her character, a conquering queen, in the show's first episode. "I always got the same question: some variation of 'You play such a strong woman, and yet you take off your clothes. Why?'" Clarke writes. "In my head, I'd respond, 'How many men do I need to kill to prove myself?'" She said she suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which can very easily be fatal. She was unable to speak her full name even weeks later. The second surgery, which was more invasive and involved opening her skull, came after Clarke finished shooting the third season. "I looked as though I had been through a war more gruesome than any that Daenerys experienced," Clarke writes. "I emerged from the operation with a drain coming out of my head. Bits of my skull had been replaced by titanium. These days, you can't see the scar that curves from my scalp to my ear, but I didn't know at first that it wouldn't be visible." And, she adds, there was "the constant worry about cognitive or sensory losses." She recovered fully, however, and was able to keep the problems from the media with one exception. "Six weeks after the surgery, the National Enquirer ran a short story," Clarke writes. "A reporter asked me about it and I denied it."<doc-sep>“Game of Thrones” star Emilia Clarke revealed on Thursday that she suffered from two life-threatening brain aneurysms that have prompted her to launch SameYou, a charity to advocate for stroke and brain-injury patients. The British actress, 32, has since healed beyond her “most unreasonable hopes” and is “now at a hundred per cent,” she wrote Thursday in a personal essay for the New Yorker. The bubbly star is best known for her role as the dragon-commanding Daenerys Targaryen in the hit HBO fantasy-drama that launched her career and kicks off its final season next month. In her essay, she wrote that “there is something gratifying, and beyond lucky, about coming to the end of ‘Thrones.’” The Emmy Award nominee, who has since starred in “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” “Me Before You” and “Terminator: Genisys,” contextualized her health struggle with filming the series. Soon after completing Season 1 in 2011 she became “violently, voluminously ill” and felt “shooting, stabbing, constricting pain” in her head that landed her in an English hospital. Advertisement “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. I’d had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture,” Clarke wrote, saying that about a third of SAH patients die immediately or soon thereafter. Not long after, at age 24, she underwent a minimally invasive procedure — endovascular coiling — to seal off the aneurysm. She then suffered from aphasia and, at her “worst moments,” she wanted to pull the plug at the hospital and have the medical staff let her die. Doctors also told her that she had a smaller aneurysm on the other side of her brain, and it could “pop” at any time. She kept her condition quiet, but filled in her “Thrones” bosses and began filming the next season of the globe-trotting series in Croatia. “Season 2 would be my worst. I didn’t know what Daenerys was doing. If I am truly being honest, every minute of every day I thought I was going to die,” Clarke wrote. Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen in Season 5 of the HBO series “Game of Thrones.” (HBO) By 2013, around the time of Clarke’s short-lived Broadway run in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” a brain scan indicated that her small aneurysm had doubled in size. She had another minimally invasive procedure, but it failed, and resulted in a surgery that required opening her skull and “an even more painful” recovery. “I looked as though I had been through a war more gruesome than any that Daenerys experienced. I emerged from the operation with a drain coming out of my head. Bits of my skull had been replaced by titanium,” she said, adding to concerns about her cognitive or sensory losses. Advertisement She spent another month in a Manhattan hospital, which she described as “dark days” that her mind has blocked out. She said she “lost all hope,” had terrible anxiety and panic attacks and was convinced that she “wasn’t going to live.” With the launch of her charity — and maybe because she previously denied her struggle in a short National Enquirer story — the actress was emboldened to share her story. “I know from personal experience that the impact of brain injury is shattering,” Clarke said in a statement from SameYou. “Recovery is long-term, and rehabilitation can be difficult to access. Brain injury can be an invisible illness, and the subject is often taboo. We must help young adults take control of their recovery and allow them to open up without fear of stigma or shame.” Twitter: @NardineSaad<doc-sep>"Game of Thrones" star Emilia Clarke, best known for her work as Daenerys Targaryen on HBO’s Emmy-winning series, has penned a lengthy essay for The New Yorker in which she details how she survived not one but two brain aneurysms. After she wrapped filming the first season of “Game of Thrones,” Clarke, then 24, was working out in February 2011 when something went wrong. “My trainer had me get into the plank position and I immediately felt as though an elastic band were squeezing my brain,” she wrote. “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.” Emilia Clarke arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Richard Shotwell / AP She was taken to the hospital where she was diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage, “a life-threatening type of stroke, caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain. I’d had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture.” She had to undergo emergency three-hour surgery while her life hung in the balance. “As I later learned, about a third of SAH patients die immediately or soon thereafter,” Clarke, who's now 32, wrote. “For the patients who do survive, urgent treatment is required to seal off the aneurysm, as there is a very high risk of a second, often fatal bleed.” She woke to excruciating pain and trouble with her vision, but more complications were on the horizon for the Emmy-nominated actress, who soon couldn’t remember her name and could only mumble. She had a condition called aphasia, which affects the way people communicate through speaking and writing. “I knew I was faltering. In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug,” she wrote. “I asked the medical staff to let me die.” She returned to intensive care, and the aphasia subsided. She soon could remember and speak her full name — Emilia Isobel Euphemia Rose Clarke. A month after she first went to the hospital she was released. “I went back to my life, but, while I was in the hospital, I was told that I had a smaller aneurysm on the other side of my brain, and it could ‘pop’ at any time,” she wrote. “The doctors said, though, that it was small and it was possible it would remain dormant and harmless indefinitely. We would just keep a careful watch.” In 2013, Clarke was appearing in a Broadway play and had five days remaining on her Screen Actors Guild insurance coverage when she underwent a brain scan, which found the growth in her brain had doubled in size. Her doctor said it’d be an easy procedure, but things didn’t go according to plan. “When they woke me, I was screaming in pain,” Clarke wrote. “The procedure had failed. 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. And the operation had to happen immediately.” Coming back from this aneurysm proved to be an even bigger challenge than the original one. “The recovery was even more painful than it had been after the first surgery,” she wrote. “I looked as though I had been through a war more gruesome than any that Daenerys experienced. I emerged from the operation with a drain coming out of my head. Bits of my skull had been replaced by titanium.” Clarke would remain in the hospital for a month. In addition to her brain problems, she was fighting anxiety and panic attacks as despair set in. “I felt like a shell of myself,” she wrote. “So much so that I now have a hard time remembering those dark days in much detail. My mind has blocked them out. But I do remember being convinced that I wasn’t going to live.” Today, Clarke says she is doing great. “In the years since my second surgery I have healed beyond my most unreasonable hopes. I am now at a hundred per cent.” Clarke's story, while extraordinary, is not necessarily unique. “One in 50 people are living with an undetected brain aneurysm, one rupturing every 18 minutes,” the Brain Aneurysm Foundation said in a statement. “Of the 30,000 people each year that suffer a rupture, 40 percent will die, and of those who survive, 66 percent will endure permanent neurological deficits that limit their ability to resume a normal life.”<doc-sep>Actress Emilia Clarke published an essay for The New Yorker today about the never-before-told story of how she survived not one but two life-threatening aneurysms. The first happened in February 2011, just after she finished filming the first season of the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. She was just 24 years old when she had her first aneurysm while working out at the gym. Emilia Clarke penned a shocking essay for The New Yorker in which she shared the never-before-told story of how she survived not one but two life-threatening aneurysms while filming the hit HBO series Game of Thrones, based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Emilia plays Daenerys Targaryen, a.k.a. Khaleesi Mother of Dragons on the show. When she was first cast, Emilia said she took up exercise to relieve stress and anxiety as the show gained popularity. ("I was a television actor now, after all, and that is what television actors do. We work out," she wrote.) But on the morning of February 11, 2011 Emilia said she felt a bad headache building as she got ready for a session with her trainer, and felt incredibly fatigued. She pushed through the first few exercises, but it all came to a sudden and serious halt when her trainer had her get down into a plank position. "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," Emilia said. She made it back to the locker room where she "proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill"; the pain was getting worse. She was rushed to the emergency room where an MRI scan gave a quick diagnosis: a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), a life-threatening type of stroke, caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain. "I remember being told that I should sign a release form for surgery. Brain surgery? I was in the middle of my very busy life—I had no time for brain surgery. But, finally, I settled down and signed. And then I was unconscious. For the next three hours, surgeons went about repairing my brain. This would not be my last surgery, and it would not be the worst. I was twenty-four years old." Did you catch all these details in the season 8 trailer? She was discharged from the hospital one month after being admitted, and in a matter of weeks, was scheduled to be back on the set of Game of Thrones to begin filming Season 2. "On the set, I didn’t miss a beat, but I struggled, "Emilia said, stating that Season 2 was her worst of the show's eight-season run. "If I am truly being honest, every minute of every day I thought I was going to die." But in the years since (which included another two more brain surgeries to address a second aneurysm found in her brain), Emilia has "healed beyond my most unreasonable hopes," she says. Just proving once and for all that the Mother of Dragons is the most badass woman there ever was. This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io<doc-sep>
"Game of Thrones" actress Emilia Clarke penned an emotional essay revealing that she suffered two brain aneurysms, one in 2011 after filming the first season of the hit HBO series, and another in 2013, following the third season of the show. In a lengthy article for The New Yorker, the 32-year-old actress, who plays Daenerys Targaryen on "Game of Thrones," said she suffered her first aneurysm while in the locker room of a gym in North London in February 2011. "I was so fatigued that I could barely put on my sneakers. When I started my workout, I had to force myself through the first few exercises," she wrote. "Then my trainer had me get into the plank position, and 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." Clarke said she left the workout class and once she made it back to the locker room she became "violently, voluminously ill." A woman in the locker room came over to see if Clarke needed help, and the next thing Clarke said she remembers was someone calling her parents and telling them to meet her at the hospital. The actress, who said acting has always been her dream, was diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a life-threatening type of stroke caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain, and would need a "minimally invasive" surgery that did not require doctors to cut open her skull. Over the next month Clarke was hospitalized, she suffered from vision issues, "unbearable" pain and memory loss. "I’d never experienced fear like that — a sense of doom closing in. I could see my life ahead, and it wasn’t worth living. I am an actor; I need to remember my lines. Now I couldn’t recall my name," she wrote. According to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation, aneurysms are fatal in about 40 percent of cases and of those who survive, just over 60 percent suffer permanent neurological deficit. About 15 percent of people who had a brain aneurysm die before reaching the hospital. The actress said she suffered a second brain aneurysm in 2013 while in New York for a play she was in. After going to the doctor for a brain scan, Clarke said she was told that a growth on the side of her brain that she became aware of during her first hospital stay had "doubled in size" and required surgery. "This time they needed to access my brain in the old-fashioned way — through my skull. And the operation had to happen immediately," she wrote. Clarke said that the procedure left her looking as though she had "been through a war more gruesome than any that Daenerys experienced." "I emerged from the operation with a drain coming out of my head. Bits of my skull had been replaced by titanium," she wrote. Clarke, who wrote that she was previously asked by a reporter about her health troubles but denied it, said she is now ready to tell her "truth in full." She also said she has taken up another passion besides acting — helping people recovering from brain injuries and stroke through a charity she helped develop called SameYou.