LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Sharon Stone opened up about her brain hemorrhage diagnosis in 2001 that led to a nine-day brain bleed and revealed that the doctors thought she was "faking" it.
In a recent interview with Vogue, the 'Casino' star talked about her break from Hollywood following the hemorrhage that resulted in a 1% chance of survival rate.
Sharon Stone says she 'would have died' if doctors sent her home
The 65-year-old actress recalled feeling a "lighting bolt-like" pain in her head and was rushed to a hospital.
"I remember waking up on a gurney and asking the kid wheeling it where I was going, and him saying, 'brain surgery,'" said Stone.
"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," the 'Basic Instinct' actress continued.
The staff at the facility missed the critical brain hemorrhage as they initially misdiagnosed her condition.
"They missed it with the first angiogram and decided that I was faking it," Stone said.
At the time, the Emmy-winning star's best friend advocated for her, convincing the medics to conduct 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," the 'Total Recall' actress said.
"I would have died if they had sent me home," she added.
Sharon Stone initially suffered memory loss
Speaking about the difficulty in her recovery after her hospital stay, Stone said, "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."
The actress suffered memory loss and issues with eyesight in her initial stages of recovery.
Stone said she experienced excruciating pain in the form of "weird knuckle-like knots" on the top of her head, a sensation she described as feeling "punched."
She further revealed that her health scare has significantly impacted her career as she was viewed as a "disability hire."
Currently, Stone serves on the board of the Barrow Neurological Foundation which supports the Arizona medical institute led by her brain surgeon Dr Michael Lawton.
