Neuro Note -- GOT Emilia Clarke

  

 In the article A Battle For My Life, Emilia Clarke tells her story about experiencing two aneurysm right after filming season one of Game of Thrones. For those that are unaware, Emilia Clarke plays the role of Daenerys Targaryen, also known as Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Lady of Dragonstone, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons.

    Growing up Emilia never thought of herself as being “unhealthy.” She states that she did sometimes get light-headed and dizzy because of low blood pressure and a low heart rate, or having such bad migraines that it kept her in bed for a couple days. Emilia never would have thought these could be warning signs of what was yet to come. On the day of the incident, Emilia went to the gym like she always did however this day she felt different. She experienced a headache, some fatigue, and nausea. She stopped her workout and immediately headed to the locker room where she tried to push through the shooting, stabbing, and constricting pain, however a fog of unconsciousness settled over her. After being taken to the hospital, she was sent for an MRI scan where she was quickly diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage. A subarachnoid hemorrhage is a life-threatening type of stroke that is caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain. Most patients who experience this type of hemorrhage usually die immediately or soon thereafter, however for those that survive they are at high risk for a second.
Post aneurysm, Emilia suffered from expressive aphasia which was a consequence of the trauma her brain had suffered. Expressive aphasia is a communication disorder that makes it difficult to produce speech and occurs due to damage to the Broca’s area of the brain. With her entire career revolving around language and communication she was distraught and had no idea what she was going to do. Thankfully her aphasia passed and she was able to speak normally again. The show must go on and she was dedicated to see it through!

    I chose this article to write on because I love Game of Thrones and I love Emilia Clarke. I never knew of what she went through during filming, so this article was a must read for me. Her story about how she kept pushing and filming all while struggling to take care of herself from having any future aneurysms is truly inspiring. To further my learning, I looked into the charity organization Emilia helped start called SameYou. SameYou works to develop better recovery treatment for survivors of brain injury and stroke. They work with global partners to find and test new holistic treatments (we love this) and help make these available to survivors. I learned from viewing their website that “1 in 3 people will have an acquired brain injury at some point in their life. Almost half feel abandoned when they leave hospital due to the lack of rehab therapies” (SameYou).

Clarke, E., Sacks, O., & Levitin, D. J. (2019, March 21). Emilia Clarke, of "Game of Thrones," on Surviving Two Life-Threatening Aneurysms. The New Yorker. A Battle For My Life

SameYou. (n.d.). https://www.sameyou.org/