Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke has been left feeling “overwhelmed” and “profoundly moved” by the response from fans after she opened up about suffering multiple brain aneurysms.
Earlier this week in a piece written for The New Yorker, the actor revealed she was lucky to be alive after suffering two aneurysms in 2011, which led to her having brain surgery.
After being inundated with messages of support from fans, Emilia shared an thank you video on social media, in which she was overcome with emotion.
She said: “Hi everyone, I had to put a video up to say thank you.
“The response to my story has been overwhelming and deeply and profoundly moving so thank you so much.”
Captioning the post, the 32-year-old wrote: “A million million thank you’s to everyone who has read shared and sent love for my story, it’s a beautiful thing to behold and I can’t quite believe how many of you this has affected!”
In her article, Emilia previously wrote of how she was doing a plank during an exercise routine when she had an uncomfortable sensation in her head, which she likened to an elastic band squeezing her brain.
Taking a break, she rushed to the toilet where she was violently sick. “Meanwhile, the pain—shooting, stabbing, constricting pain—was getting worse,” she wrote. “At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged.”
She was rushed to hospital where she was sent for an MRI scan and medics discovered she had a subarachnoid hemorrhage as a result of the aneurysm.
Roughly three in five people who have a subarachnoid haemorrhage die within two weeks – and half of those who survive are left with severe brain damage and/or disability.
During one of the tests after the aneurysm, she couldn’t remember her own name. She said it was particularly terrifying for her, as being an actor she needed to be able to remember her own lines.
After a number of surgeries, Emilia has now made a full recovery and is supporting the charity SameYou, which provides treatment for people recovering from brain injuries and stroke.