Brooke Shields can’t help but compare how differently doctors treat men and women.
On Monday, January 13, the model-actress appeared on Good morning America and opened up about why she decided to touch on women’s experiences in the health care system in her new book, Brooke Shields must not age.
“Women go through all kinds of things. We have to be able to say, ‘This is not fair.’ We have to be able to stand up for ourselves,” she said.
“I had a seizure not too long ago and two doctors said, ‘Are you restricting yourself for dietary reasons?’ And I said, ‘No. I’m a 59-year-old woman who looks younger. Give me some chips!’ You wouldn’t say that to a man.”
“And the book is not that, it doesn’t reduce it to male, female – we like men in our lives,” she continued. “But it’s time to sort of explore this without yelling, without anger. I tell my girls… we don’t have to shout louder. We just have to be sure of what we believe in and be heard, because we’re not going to get anywhere just by screaming.”
Shields is candid in her book about aging and taking control of her body. She even writes about the moment when she discovered that she had undergone a medical procedure that she did not agree to.
ABC News correspondent Rebecca Jarvis asked on the show if anything scares Shields at this point in her life.
“No,” Shields replied. “I would be very disingenuous if I did not come to share my truth.”
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Brooke Shields.
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Shields was the first to talk about her health scare in her Glamour Women of the year 2023 cover story. She said the seizure happened before the performance of her one-man show, Previously owned by Brooke Shields, at Café Carlyle in New York, a renowned performing arts venue and restaurant.
“I was getting ready for the show and I was drinking so much water and I didn’t know I had low sodium,” she recalled. “I was waiting for an Uber. I go down to the bottom of the stairs, and I’m starting to look obviously weird, and [the people I was with] were like, ‘Are you okay?’ ”
Shields explained that she left home the night of the seizure, but her attendants kept asking her if she was “okay” and if she needed coffee. She said she “walked” to the “corner” outside and felt confused before going to nearby New York restaurant L’Artusi.
“I go to the sommelier who just took an hour to look at my check… Everything starts to go black. Then my hands drop to my sides and I go headfirst into the wall,” said the actress at the time.
Then a major seizure began, he described it as “foaming at the mouth, completely blue, trying to swallow his tongue”.
“The next thing I remember is being loaded into an ambulance. I have oxygen. And Bradley fucking Cooper is sitting next to me holding my hand,” she shared.
Ultimately, Shields said doctors determined that “low sodium” caused the seizure after she drank “too much water.” “I drowned. And if you don’t have enough sodium in your blood or urine or body, you can have a seizure.”
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Source: HIS Education