DEADLY Injury – TV Star Breaks SILENCE

Actress Emilia Clarke has opened up about a pair of serious brain hemorrhages she suffered during her stint on HBO’s juggernaut hit Game of Thrones, and her fears that, if she told the show runners what happened, she would be fired from the high-profile role of Daenerys Targarian.

The now 37 year-old actress, who was in her twenties at the time, suffered brain bleeds in 2011 and again in 2013. The injuries, she said, altered her life “on a dramatic level.”

The first bleed happened just after the first season of Game of Thrones wrapped. It took away her ability to speak and almost put her in a coma.

The second bleed put her into the operating room after imaging scans showed that the bleed area had doubled in size. Emelia has previously talked about how she was among the lucky few who have such injuries and manage to emerge with no long-term repercussions.

Both bleeds were of a sort called a “subarachnoid hemorrhage” when a blood vessel running across the surface of her brain burst at a weak point. Such injuries are most common in people between 45 and 70 years of age. They can lead to difficulty with sleep, extreme fatigue, loss of movement, headaches, and vision disturbances. Emelia suffered no such long-term after-effects. The surgery which saved her life left her with scarring on her head and titanium patches permanently affixed to her skull.

Brain injuries, she told Big Issue, altered her sense of self on a basic level. The experience quadrupled all the insecurities she experienced in the workplace. In Emelia’s case, the big headline fear was that the producers would deem her incapable of doing her job, and replace her.

Inspired by her experience, Emilia and her mother Jenny founded SameYou, a brain injury charity, because the young actress discovered, following her own injury, how shockingly understaffed the rehab services were. They’ve both been honored with MBEs for their efforts.