NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio — A big-screen actress and a local mom share a unique experience and are now speaking out about it.
Both survived horrible brain aneurysms.
On the HBO show “Game of Thrones,” Emilia Clarke is known as the “Mother of Dragons.” But she recently wrote in the New Yorker about a real-life fight with two aneurysms that nearly killed her.
Monica Puleo of North Royalton can relate.
In February, the 51-year-old mother had the worst headache of her life but did not see a doctor. She believed she could sleep it off instead.
On President’s Day, her kids found her unconscious in her bedroom.
“My head hurt worse and worse and I actually went to bed, which I never do in the afternoon,” she said. “I needed to contact my daughter at the dentist and I was trying to text her on my phone and I was lying in bed and dropped my phone -- and that’s all I remember.”
She woke up weeks later in the hospital, shocked and surprised, after doctors said she had an aneurysm.
“I work out all the time, I’m very cautious of what I eat,” she said.
Brain aneurysms are most common in adults ages 30 to 60 and are more common in women than men.
Both Clarke and Puleo required life-saving surgery and struggled with memory.
“I am an actor, I need to remember my lines.” Emilia Clarke wrote. “Now I couldn’t recall my name.”
“It should have phased me,” Puleo admitted, adding she focused too much on getting things done as a wife and mother.
She said she is now living life a little more slowly and allowing people to help her.
“I’m seeing things differently now,” she said. “Not everything is such a crisis, or everything has to be done right now. Try to enjoy my children a little bit more.”
She plans to return to work and will drive again.
She regrets not seeing a doctor sooner about the headache, one of the most common signs of an aneurysm.
She urges others to get help right away if they have similar symptoms.
Fast facts on brain aneurysms:
- They are most common in adults ages 30-60
- They are more common in women than men
- Nearly half of all ruptured brain aneurysms are fatal