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Emilia Clarke is a survivor. The actress is looking back at the frightening medical emergencies she suffered while filming “Game of Thrones”.
The actress recently opened up to BBC Sunday Morning — while promoting her forthcoming West End debut in a production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” — and she looked back at her experience dealing with two brain aneurysms, first in 2011 and then in 2013.
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“It was the most excruciating pain,” Clarke shared, adding that it was “incredibly helpful to have ‘Game of Thrones’ sweep me up and give me that purpose.”
Both times Clarke dealt with her brain aneurysms, she required significant recovery time. Now, the actress says she’s just thankful for being able to live her life after the amount of damage that her brain went through.
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“The amount of my brain that is no longer usable, it’s remarkable that I am able to speak,” Clarke said, “and live my life completely normally with absolutely no repercussions.”
Clarke marveled that she is “in the really, really, really small minority of people that can survive that,” but revealed that there is “quite a bit missing” in her brain.
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“Strokes, basically, as soon as any part of your brain doesn’t get blood for a second, it’s gone. So the blood finds a different route to get around, but then whatever bit is missing is therefore gone,” she explained.
Clarke first opened up about the aneurysms in 2019 in a first-person story penned for The New Yorker, where she detailed the painful surgeries and rehabilitation processes she underwent. However, she also explained how she was assured that she was now healthy, and expressed gratitude for her survival and her neurological wellbeing.
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