Sharon Stone has claimed that doctors thought that she was “faking” what turned out to be a brain haemorrhage in 2001.
That year, Stone was hospitalised after suffering a stroke that led to a bleed on her brain – something that lasted for nine days. The Basic Instinct star was given just a one per cent chance of survival after the incident.
In a new interview with Vogue Stone recalled waking up in hospital in LA with a crippling headache.
“I remember waking up on a gurney and asking the kid wheeling it where I was going, and him saying, ‘brain surgery,’” the actress said.
“A doctor had decided, without my knowledge or consent, that he should give me exploratory brain surgery and sent me off to the operating room. What I learned through that experience is that in a medical setting, women often just aren’t heard, particularly when you don’t have a female doctor.”
She continued: “They missed it with the first angiogram and decided that I was faking it. My best friend talked them into giving me a second one and they discovered that I had been haemorrhaging into my brain, my whole subarachnoid pool, and that my vertebral artery was ruptured. I would have died if they had sent me home.
“I bled so much into my subarachnoid pool (head, neck, and spine) that the right side of my face fell, my left foot was dragging severely, and I was stuttering very badly.”
Stone added that she must now take medication daily to address the side effects from the experience, including stuttering and severe brain seizures.
She explained: “For the first couple of years I would also get these weird knuckle-like knots that would come up all over the top of my head that felt like I was getting punched…I can’t express how painful it all was.”
Speaking about her reluctance to share details of her condition, Stone continued: “I hid my disability and was afraid to go out and didn’t want people to know. I just thought no-one would accept me.”
The actress previously revealed that she suffers from seizures if she doesn’t get eight hours of sleep a night because of the condition.
Stone is now a board member for the Barrow Neurological Foundation in the US, which treats brain and spine conditions.