Sharon Stone Once Shared She Became Much Less Afraid of Dying After Her Stroke
Actor Sharon Stone once experienced a life-altering stroke that took some time to recover from. But the incident also offered Stone a new perspective on dying.
Sharon Stone felt like she’d been shot during her stroke
In 2001, Basic Instinct star Stone had a sudden stroke that briefly left her unable to move. When remembering the incident, Stone recalled that she was already going through a rough period beforehand. A detail that might have contributed to her stroke.
“Well I was at home and I’d been having a very stressful time, I was in a stressful period, I was having a stressful day. I remember walking across the hall into my television room and I suddenly just felt very strange and I felt kind of dizzy. As I started to turn around to move towards the sofa, I had this strange feeling in the side of my head, almost like I had been shot,” Stone once said in an interview on Parkinson (via TVSA).
The force of the stroke brought Stone to the floor. She wasn’t sure if she lost consciousness, but she already realized what was happening to her.
“I was laying there and I realized that I thought I’d had a stroke. I pulled the phone towards me to try to call someone for help and I just laid there,” she recalled.
Sharon Stone became less afraid of dying after her stroke
At the time, Stone didn’t think she was going to make it out of the situation alive. But the initial impact of the stroke didn’t last too long.
“I really thought that I was going to die, and then by the next day I felt a little bit better,” she said.
But the pain didn’t go away completely. Eventually, symptoms of Stone’s stroke returned and it had gotten worse enough for her to visit a hospital. While there, she was told that the source of her stroke was a brain hemorrhage.
Her trip to the hospital not only helped her find what the cause of her stroke was, however. It also made the Casino star much less afraid of dying.
“I had this very, very intense experience and I lost consciousness for a period of time. I was transferred to another hospital. But during that time I had a very deep spiritual experience that let’s me know that it’s ok. I feel very close in my faith now, I feel very close to God and I feel that I got to live for a reason,” she said.
Although Stone wasn’t sure where exactly her new attitude towards dying came from.
“I feel incredibly blessed but I don’t feel afraid. And I don’t know if it’s because I feel that I walk very close in my faith, or because I feel that I walked so close to death and felt so peaceful with it,” Stone added.
Sharon Stone had a 1% chance to live after her stroke
Stone was fortunate to eventually make a full recovery after her stroke. But perhaps the stroke wouldn’t have affected her the way it did if she went to a hospital earlier. It was a mistake she warned others not to make.
“If you have a really bad headache, you need to go to the hospital,” she told Variety. “I didn’t get to the hospital until day three or four of my stroke. Most people die. I had a 1% chance of living by the time I got surgery — and they wouldn’t know for a month if I would live.”
Stone had no idea how severe her own situation was until she happened upon it by an outside source.
“No one told me — I read it in a magazine,” she added.
