Actress Stone finds peace on road to recovery

By Ann Oldenburg
USA Today

Sharon Stone says she still gets some headaches, but has a clean bill of health. Associated Press

"I certainly had a white light experience. Had a real close walk there. It's really nice to be alive," she said from her San Francisco home. She spoke extensively for the first time since the October ordeal.

After suffering a severe headache, the actress was thought to have suffered an aneurysm, then a hemorrhage.

Finally it was determined that internal bleeding was caused by a tear in an artery at the base of her skull.

"We think it's possible that it was an injury from a horseback riding accident, made worse by chiropractic adjustments," she said. "And we think (the 1998 sci-fi movie) 'Sphere' — when I wore that heavy diving gear — really agitated things."

She added: "It was a very painful journey to have that, and it's been a long and arduous journey back. There's that old-timey kind of gospel song called 'A Closer Walk With Thee.' I think that's what the walk back has brought me. It's been a very peaceful and lovely thing."

The actress, 44, said she still has "some headaches. I'm still in a little bit of the process of recovery. But I'm processing through it. I have a clean bill of health."

At last month's Oscars, in which she presented an award with John Travolta, she wanted to prove that.

"A lot of people didn't know if I could walk or talk, let alone dance. So to let the Emperor Travolta twirl me was perfect. People were, 'Hey, she walks, she talks, she twirls.' It was a sweet, lovely way to come back."

Last week, she walked and talked on stage in Chicago to receive the Global Conference Institute's Healthcare Humanitarian Award for 2002 for her volunteer efforts in the battle against AIDS.

"At first I said to my husband (San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein), if I'm being honored, no one's doing enough here. He said, 'Haven't you raised tens of millions of dollars?' " She realized she has.

"I designed this vanity case for Louis Vuitton a year and a half ago, and 15 percent of the money that it makes in my lifetime goes to AIDS research. In the last year and a half, the 15 percent has come to $1,644,081," she said. "I couldn't believe it."

She took a break to wipe 22-month-old son Roan's hands. "Close the door, sweetheart," she said to him.

How has motherhood chang-ed her? "I don't need other things," she said.

But she is reading scripts and takes the phone away to instruct an assistant to "find the one with the note from David Paymer on it." She's also heading to Cannes to be part of the film festival's jury. And she is helping her husband recover from being bitten by a Komodo dragon at the Los Angeles Zoo last June.

"Very few people's husbands actually go and fight a dragon. Mine would, wouldn't he? It has a certain mythological proportion."

This week, she gets another award, from TeenLine, devoted to helping teens in trouble. "I think they're just so darn surprised I didn't die," she says, adding, "Hi, I'm still alive."