Sharon Stone opens up about beating the odds and how doctors thought she was ‘faking’ a life-threatening stroke: ‘Women often just aren’t heard’

Sharon Stone shared that doctors thought she was ‘faking’ a life-threatening stroke.

In a new interview with British Vogue, the Oscar-nominated actress recalled the near-fatal stroke she suffered back in 2001, and the doctors who she says initially misdiagnosed her medical emergency and nearly sent her home untreated. 

The Basic Instinct star explained the pain in her head as feeling ‘lighting bolt-like’ just before being rushed to the hospital all those years ago.

‘I remember waking up on a gurney and asking the kid wheeling it where I was going, and him saying, “brain surgery,”‘ the actress recalled. ‘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.’

She maintains the medical staff didn’t take her description of her pain level seriously, and as a result they did not detect the brain hemorrhage: ‘They missed it with the first angiogram and decided that I was faking it,’ Stone told the publication. 

Getting real: Sharon Stone, 65, revealed she suffered from a brain hemorrhage in 2001, and that the doctors thought she was ‘faking’ it, in a new interview with British Vogue

The hemorrhage left her with a nine-day brain bleed and 1% chance of survival after surgery.

By the time Stone became fully cognizant of the doctors’ plan to do exploratory brain surgery, she did her best to let it be known she hadn’t signed-off on operation.

Now in hindsight, some two decades later, Stone has a new outlook on how patients are treated.

‘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,’ said the Meadville, Pennsylvania native.

It just so happens that Stone’s best friend by her side at the hospital, and was able to be her advocate, which ultimately resulted in her getting a second angiogram.

‘My best friend talked them into giving me a second one and they discovered that I had been hemorrhaging into my brain, my whole subarachnoid pool, and that my vertebral artery was ruptured,’ Stone explained, before adding, ‘I would have died if they had sent me home.’

Studies have shown that the medical gaslighting Stone experience is increasingly more common, according to the National Library Of Medicine’s National Center For Biotechnology Information. And that the ‘numbers among women of color who experience it are staggering.’

With the proper diagnosis now in place, the Casino star ended up being treated by esteemed neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Lawton, but her road to recovery was not without its own set of issues.

Medical emergency: ‘I remember waking up on a gurney and asking the kid wheeling it where I was going, and him saying, “brain surgery,”‘ the actress recalled. ‘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’; Stone is pictured in 2001, right before she suffered a brain hemorrhage

After having lost a significant amount of weight during her hospital stay, Stone struggled to walk and she had a stutter to her speech. 

‘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,’ she revealed.

As a result Stone now takes daily medication for the stuttering and severe brain seizures.

‘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,’ she confessed. ‘I can’t express how painful it all was.’

Earlier this month, Stone told People that her vision was also affected and that she suffered memory loss during the initial stages of her recovery.

The toll the whole experience took would also manifest in her experiencing long bouts of depression throughout her decade-long recovery.

Fast forward some 22 years and Stone is only now just comfortable in sharing her story because she had been worried about the reaction she’d get both publicly and within the acting industry.

‘I hid my disability and was afraid to go out and didn’t want people to know,’ says Stone, who credit Michael J. Fox in encouraging her to share her experience. ‘I just thought no one would accept me.’

Barring a few exceptions, the Mosaic star maintains those in Hollywood have not been supportive of her career in the wake of her health scare, and that she doesn’t get ‘hired a lot’ because she’s a ‘disability hire.’

Repercussions: Stone says those in Hollywood have not been supportive of her career in the wake of her health scare, and that she doesn’t get ‘hired a lot’ because she’s a ‘disability hire’; she is pictured in Cold Creek Manor, which is likely her first tole after her medical emergency

Second callings: Stone has found a second calling with her flourishing painting career, along with her time serving on the board of the Barrow Neurological Foundation, which supports the medical institute her brain surgeon Dr. Michael Lawton leads in Arizona

Stone has found some salvation in now being on the board of the Barrow Neurological Foundation, which supports the medical institute her brain surgeon Dr. Michael Lawton leads in Arizona. 

As part of her duties she’s the brains behind Neuro Night, a charity event that was held on Friday, October 27. All of the money raised will go directly to supporting Barrow’s scientific research into finding cures for brain aneurysms, tumors, and Parkinson’s disease.’

With the lack of acting roles coming her way, Stone’s second calling includes a flourishing painting career, where she gets to scratch her creative itch anytime she pleases.

And now, she pushes forward in her life firmly set in not letting her disability define her.

‘I think many people identify with their illness as “I am this thing,” and it cannot be your identity,’ she shared, before opening up about some of the losses she suffered. ‘In my case, so much was taken from me. I lost custody of my child, I lost my career and was not able to work, I was going through a divorce and being put through the ringer, I lost so much, and I could have allowed that to define me. But you have to stand up and say, ‘Okay, that happened, and now what? What am I made of?”‘

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