Hospital selfie of Thrones star who suffered 2 strokes
ACTRESS Emilia Clarke has shared photos of herself recovering from a life-threatening brain aneurysm.
The British star, 32, recently revealed how she nearly died after suffering two bleeds on the brain while filming hit fantasy drama Game Of Thrones.
Discussing the terrifying experience which came as her acting career was taking off, Miss Clarke admitted she had been in a ‘dark place’ and asked doctors to ‘let her die’.
The actress, who is seen here with tubes hooked up to her brain, had just finished filming the first series of Game Of Thrones when she had her first brain aneurysm at the age of 24 in 2011.
She said: ‘I was in the gym and the most excruciating pain, like an elastic band just went like “snap” in my head, like an enormous amount of pressure suddenly. And then very, very, very quickly I realised I couldn’t stand and I couldn’t walk. And in that moment, I knew I was being brain-damaged.’
She was quickly sent for an MRI scan where she was diagnosed with a subarachnoid haemorrhage – a lifethreatening form of stroke, which is caused by bleeding around the brain. A third of patients die immediately or soon after suffering one.
She had an operation but there was another swollen blood vessel in her brain, which caused another brain bleed two years later.
‘The first time it was difficult,’ the actress, who plays Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO series, told American news channel CBS. ‘ But with the second one, I found it much harder to stay optimistic ... There was a bit of my brain that actually died. If a part of your brain doesn’t get blood to it for a minute, it will just no longer work. It’s like you short-circuit.
‘And they [doctors] didn’t know what it was. They were looking at the brain and being like, “Well, we think it could be her concentration, it could be her peripheral vision [affected]”. I always say it’s my taste in men that’s no longer there.’
The star then suffered her darkest moments as she feared she may have lost her ability to act. ‘I really, really, really did,’ she said.
‘That was a deep paranoia. I was like, “What if something has shortcircuited in my brain and I can’t act any more?” I mean, it’s been my reason for living for a very long time.’
She said that while spending another month in hospital she sometimes lost hope and had anxiety and panic attacks, adding that she felt like a shadow of her former self.
A subarachnoid haemorrhage is a type of stroke which typically occurs in older people. It can be caused by a head injury or a ruptured aneurysm.
A third of patients survive and recover, another third live with disability, and a third die. Game Of Thrones will return for its eighth and final series later this month.