Tatum O’Neal reveals she had a near-fatal stroke: ‘I almost died’

nypost.com:

People magazine.During the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the “Paper Moon” child star started abusing her prescription medication, prescribed for body aches and rheumatoid arthritis.A few months later, in May, a friend found the Oscar winner overdosed on pain medications, opiates and morphine in her Los Angeles apartment.The news did not surprise her son, Kevin McEnroe, 37, the oldest of her three kids with former husband tennis legend John McEnroe.“It was the phone call we’d always been waiting for,” her son confessed.O’Neal, 59, struggled with her mental health during the pandemic, “COVID, chronic pain, all these things led to a place of isolation.

In that place, I don’t think, for her, there was much hope.”The actress was rushed to the hospital and was diagnosed with aphasia, a disorder that results from damage to the part of the brain that is responsible for language, according to the NIH.“She was in a coma,” said Kevin. “She was thought to be blind, deaf and potentially might never speak again.”The Post reached out to O’Neal’s reps for comment.

O’Neal’s condition frightened her children, who witnessed her have several seizures and a cardiac arrest.“There were times we didn’t think she was going to survive.” When she came out of the coma, she could not speak, write, or read and struggled with her memory.While under medical supervision, she attended daily therapy sessions, twelve step meetings and worked towards regaining her memory.O’Neal admits, “I’ve been through a lot.”Five months after her stroke, O’Neal was allegedly suicidal and threatened to jump off the balcony of a home in Los Angeles, according to Page Six.“Emotionally, the things that made my mom want to take drugs in the first place, those things are.