Game of Thrones' Emilia Clarke reveals that she almost died during filming.
Emilia Clarke has laid bare her biggest struggle in an essay for The New Yorker, where she reveals she suffered not one but two brain aneurisms.
She said the first happened after a gym session in North London in 2011, just after wrapping up season one of Game of Thrones. She said she began to feel a headache; then her condition rapidly declined.
"For a few moments, I tried to will away the pain and the nausea," she wrote in The New Yorker. "I said to myself, 'I will not be paralysed'.
"I moved my fingers and toes to make sure that was true. To keep my memory alive, I tried to recall, among other things, some lines from Game of Thrones.
Emilia was rushed to hospital where a brain scan revealed she was suffering from a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a life-threatening type of stroke. After going through her surgery, she said woke up in immense pain.
Clarke said: "I had no idea where I was. My field of vision was constricted. There was a tube down my throat and I was parched and nauseated."
Medical professionals checked in on her to see if her mind was holding up and when she was asked to say her full name, all that came out was gibberish. She was diagnosed with aphasia, which is an inability to speak.
This sent Emilia into a dark spiral, fearing she'd never be able to speak for the rest of her life.
"In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug. I asked the medical staff to let me die," she said. "My job-my entire dream of what my life would be-centred on language, on communication. Without that, I was lost."
She eventually recovered and got on with filming Thrones, but in between seasons, she went for a scan and was quickly admitted for surgery after doctors noticed a growth on one side of her brain had doubled in size.
The surgery didn't work and she woke up screaming in pain. They told her they'd need to go in again immediately, but this time it wasn't going to be minimally invasive; this time they'd be going through her skull.
Thankfully this procedure was more successful, but she now has a scar (which you can't really see) going from her scalp to her ear and parts of her skull are now titanium.
She said: "After keeping quiet all these years, I'm telling you the truth in full. Please believe me: I know that I am hardly unique, hardly alone.
"In the years since my second surgery I have healed beyond my most unreasonable hopes. I am now at a hundred per cent."
What an incredibly brave story and so good to see her come out of it on the other side being this positive and this proactive.
