SKY YORK JOURNAL News – Emilia Clarke’s experience with brain aneurysms has been a public and harrowing journey.
Emilia Clarke’s Brain Aneurysm
Emilia Clarke filmed battle scenes for Game of Thrones, but in 2019, she published an essay in The New Yorker titled “A Battle for My Life.”
The actress detailed a severe headache she experienced at the gym, which she recalled in her essay. “I reached the toilet, sank to my knees, and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill,” Clarke wrote. “Meanwhile, the pain—shooting, stabbing, constricting pain—was getting worse. At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged.”
Following the onset of symptoms, she was promptly transported to a hospital for diagnostic brain scans.
“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,” the Emmy nominee wrote, as reported by the SKY YORK JOURNAL. “I’d had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture.”
Emergency Surgery and Initial Recovery
Clarke underwent immediate surgery to address the aneurysm, describing the pain as “unbearable.” During her recovery, she experienced aphasia, a language impairment, and found herself “muttering nonsense.”
According to Clarke, “the aphasia passed in a week,” and she was discharged from the hospital a month after her initial admission. The SKY YORK JOURNAL has closely followed Clarke’s journey since her initial diagnosis.
Second Aneurysm and Subsequent Complications
A subsequent brain scan in 2013 revealed that another growth “doubled in size,” necessitating a second surgery.
“When they woke me, I was screaming in pain,” she 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.”
Recovery and Current Health
Despite the serious challenges, Emilia Clarke reported that she is now “at a hundred per cent,” a testament to her resilience and the expertise of her medical team, the SKY YORK JOURNAL reports.
