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Before Game of Thrones fans were introduced to the fallen king and hunted, Daenerys Targaryen, the actress behind this role, faced a deadly battle. In a new essay for The New Yorker, Emilia Clarke revealed that she had had two brain aneurysms during her stint in the series, the first after filming Season 1 of the HBO series.
"Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to come true, I almost lost my mind and then my life," she wrote. "I've never told this story publicly, but now it's time."
It all began on February 11, 2011 – two months before the creation of the series. Clarke was working with a trainer when she felt "like an elastic band squeezing my brain". She continued, "I tried to ignore the pain and go through it, but I could not. I told my coach that I had to take a break. In one way or another, almost crawling, I went to the locker room. I reached the toilet. , knelt down and began to be violently, voluminously ill. Meanwhile, the pain – throbbing pain, stabbing, constriction – was getting worse. At one level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged. "
Finally, someone came to his aid and Clarke was transported to a hospital. It was there that she learned that she was suffering from a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which she described as "a type of cerebral stroke representing a danger." of death, caused by bleeding in the space surrounding the brain ". According to the actress, about a third of patients who suffer from it do not survive. Shortly after, she underwent her first brain operation.
The operation left him alive but in extreme pain. Later, in a series of cognitive exercises given by a nurse, Clarke realized that she no longer remembered her name. She was suffering from a case of aphasia. "Foolish words came out of my mouth and I panicked blindly," she writes. "I had never experienced such fear – a sense of unhappiness that was getting closer, I could see my life in front of me, and it was not worth living. remembering my words, now I could not remember my name. "
Aphasia took a week to pass and a month after his admission, Clarke left the hospital. She did so knowing that there was a second smaller aneurysm in her brain. "However, the doctors said that it was small and that it was possible that he remained dormant and harmless indefinitely," she said. "We would only watch carefully."
In the years that followed, Clarke often found herself weak, tired and suffering. "Season 2 would be my worst, I did not know what Daenerys was doing," she wrote. "If I'm really honest, every minute of every day, I thought I was going to die."
Then, after finishing season 3 of the series and spending some time in New York, Clarke performed one of her now normal brain exams. It was discovered that the smaller aneurysm had doubled in size and that she should again be operated on. Unlike the previous one, however, this procedure has not been so successful.
"When they woke me up, I screamed in pain, the procedure had failed," she recalls. "I had a massive haemorrhage and the doctors made it clear that my chances of survival were precarious if I did not intervene anymore. This time, they had to access my brain in a traditional way, through my skull. arrive immediately. "
Again, Clarke spent a month in the hospital after a brain operation. And again, it hurt him mentally. "I have again spent a month in the hospital and at times, I have lost hope," she said. "I could not look anyone in the eyes, there was terrible anxiety, panic attacks, I was raised to never say," It's not fair ", looking back on this experience for the second time, all hope has receded, I felt like a shell of myself. "
In addition, Clarke suffered in silence. She never made public the difficulties she was facing. Until now, that's it. "In the years following my second surgery, I healed beyond my most unreasonable hopes," she wrote. "I am now one hundred percent." Beyond that, Clarke has also launched the charity organization SameYou, which aims to provide treatment to people suffering from brain damage and stroke.
And now, she turns to another achievement: the end of Game of Thrones. "Arriving at the end of Thrones has something gratifying and more fortunate," she said. "I am so happy to be here to see the end of this story and the beginning of all that will follow."
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