In 2001, Sharon Stone, who won an Emmy, had a brain hemorrhage, and in a recent interview, she shared that the doctors initially didn’t believe her symptoms.
Back in 2001, Sharon Stone had a stroke that caused bleeding in her brain for nine days. Her chances of survival were only 1%, so she took a break from her work in Hollywood.
In a conversation with Vogue magazine, the actress, who is famous for her role in “Basic Instinct,” remembered that she went to the hospital because of a sudden and very severe headache.
She said, “I remember waking up on a stretcher and asking the person pushing it where I was going. He told me, ‘brain surgery.’ A doctor had decided, without my permission, to do exploratory brain surgery on me.”
She continued, “What I learned from this experience is that, especially when you don’t have a female doctor, women’s concerns are often not taken seriously in a medical setting.”
The medical staff initially missed her brain hemorrhage because they didn’t believe her. Stone said, “They didn’t see it on the first angiogram and thought I was pretending.”
However, her best friend stood up for her and convinced the doctors to do another test, which revealed the hemorrhage. “I was bleeding into my brain, and my vertebral artery had ruptured. I would have died if they had sent me home.”
Recovery was very tough for her. She had trouble walking, lost a lot of weight, and her face drooped on one side. She also had speech problems and memory loss. She experienced excruciating pain during her recovery. She felt like she had painful lumps on her head, and the pain was intense.
Twenty years later, she decided to share her health struggles with the public, although she was worried about how people would react. She admitted that she had hidden her disability and was afraid to go out because she thought people wouldn’t accept her.
She also mentioned that her health issues had a significant impact on her career, and she didn’t get hired for roles as often because she was considered a “disability hire.”
Now, Stone is part of the Barrow Neurological Foundation board, which supports the medical institute led by her brain surgeon, Dr. Michael Lawton, in Arizona.