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Age-defying American actress Sharon Stone, best known for her racy role in Basic Instinct, recently revealed that she suffered a stroke in 2001 and that the recovery process caused a major setback n her career.
In an interview and nude photoshoot for Harper's Bazaar magazine, 57 year old Sharon explained that she suffered a haemorrhagic stroke after the vertebral artery in her brain ruptured. She had been feeling sick for a number of days before she decided to go to the emergency room. There, after two angiograms, doctors revealed her diagnosis to her.
She remembers asking the doctor if she was dying and he responded saying, "You're bleeding in your brain."
Sharon had to undergo an emergency procedure where doctors used 22 platinum coils to repair the damaged blood vessel. She suffered from haemorrhaging (bleeding) in the brain that lasted 9 days and suffered a number of devastating effects.
After she was released from the hospital Sharon was left suffering from impaired speech, loss of feeling in her leg, blurry vision and memory issues, Stuff New Zealand explains. Sharon took two years to recover from the incident, returning to acting in 2003.She explains that she had difficulty remembering her lines whilst filming a guest appearance on the T.V show Law and Order in 2010, describing the incident as "humiliating". During this time, her marriage to Phil Bronstein began to take strain and he filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences". In 2004, when the divorce became final, Sharon lost custody of her adopted son Roan.
Sharon says that the ordeal completely changed her body and that her brain "isn't sitting where it used to be" any more. But despite all this, she says that she was left stronger and more "emotionally intelligent." ABC reports that she is also is less concerned with how she looks now, "I’m aware that my a** looks like a bag of flapjacks but I’m not trying to be the best-looking broad in the world."
14 years after her stroke, Sharon seems to be getting her career back on track. She will be the executive producer and star of a new television series, Agent X, where she will play the vice-president of America. The show is set to air this autumn in the U.S (Spring in South Africa).
Read more:
Novel stroke treatment saves South African lives
Real life story: what it feels like to experience a stroke
Women, stroke and heart disease
Watch:
Woman records stroke with selfie video
TED Talk: My stroke of insight
Image: Sharon Stone from Shutterstock
