Jamie-Lynn Sigler is reflecting on the scariest time in her life when her 11-year-old son Beau was hospitalized with a life-threatening autoimmune situation final summer season.
“Those were the hardest days I’ve ever had in my entire life,” Sigler, 43, advised Folks. “It was probably the most helpless I’ve ever been.”
Final July, “The Sopranos” alum’s “healthy, active” son, whom she has with husband Cutter Dykstra, had a excessive fever for every week, together with complications and the shortcoming to urinate. “He was screaming in pain,” she mentioned.
Beau was admitted to Dell Youngsters’s Medical Heart in Austin, Texas, the place he was identified with a uncommon autoimmune illness, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, which causes irritation of the central nervous system.
“He got worse every day,” Sigler mentioned concerning the two weeks spent within the hospital. “He misplaced his potential to stroll, after which to speak.
“Then he couldn’t eat or move his mouth,” the podcast host shared earlier than noting he additionally misplaced 25 kilos. “There was nothing recognizable about my son. My husband and I would look at each other like, ‘Is this really happening?’ ” Sigler mirrored. “Truly, we thought he was going to die.”
The mother of two stayed on the hospital with Beau for greater than a month whereas Dykstra, 35, was dwelling with their youngest son, Jack, 7.
In these occasions, Sigler drew from her personal well being expertise: dwelling with A number of Sclerosis for a few years.
“It was wild to watch my son have neurological issues that mirrored mine in very many ways,” she advised the outlet. “My experience understanding the body and inflammation and the brain helped. From 6 a.m. till 8 p.m., I was on it. I was a coach. I would speak to him and tell him he could do it.” However, she mentioned, “the nights were when I could fall apart and just be a mom and be completely heartbroken and terrified.”
Sigler credited her household and mates for supporting her by way of the powerful occasions, together with her “MeSsy” podcast co-host Christina Applegate, who additionally has MS. “She was there for me in a really scary moment. We sat in prayer together.”
“My friends joke that on my tombstone it’s going to say in quotes, ‘I’m fine.’ But for the first time in my life I was actually able to accept help because it wasn’t for me — or it didn’t seem like it was for me in that moment — it was for Beau,” she continued. “To realize how loved and supported you are, it’s something I’m going to take with me for the rest of my life.”
Fortunately, 33 days after he was admitted, Beau was in a position to stroll out of the hospital. “The care that we received, the attention that every family receives, was unparalleled,” Sigler gushed.
“We were just in a constant state of gratitude.” However, now, she mentioned, “There’s still a road of recovery.”
Beau has returned to high school, baseball and is working with a private coach to regain the energy that he misplaced.
“There’s some residual things physically we deal with, and because of what he sees me deal with, he knows I understand. I know it’s hard to not be able to do something that you used to be able to do,” Sigler added.
“Mentally he went through something profound and he’s trying to figure out how to integrate that back into life and still be the 11-year-old little boy he was,” she mirrored, regardless of Beau not with the ability to keep in mind something from his keep.
“When you have a near-death experience, there’s an intense amount of gratitude you have for life, and he constantly wants to express it, which is beautiful. He wants to go up and tell everyone he loves them and how amazing they are. But for another 11-year-old, that’s not how you do things.”
