In an honest and incredibly brave profile published in Self magazine, “Modern Family” star Sarah Hyland reveals the private struggles from her frustrating health journey, opening up about her recent second kidney transplant after her body rejected her first transplant.
The 28-year-old actress was born with kidney dysplasia, a condition that develops in utero when one or both of the kidneys do not develop correctly and results in painful cysts, The Huffington Post reports. Hyland said her condition forced her to have a life where she was “always having to be looked after, having to be cared for.”
Because of her condition, Hyland’s kidneys eventually went into failure and her father donated a kidney to her, but her body began to reject the kidney.
Hyland revealed the struggles following her first transplant, saying she began to experience fatigue, fevers and infections four years after the transplant, as her body began to attack the organ.
“We did all of these tests and all of these treatments to try and save the kidney,” she told Self. ”Christmas break, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, my birthday, all of that spent in the hospital.”
The next year included regular dialysis treatments, as well as another transplant, this time from her younger brother Ian, ABC News reports.
But the failing kidney left Hyland feeling “very depressed.”
“I was very depressed. When a family member gives you a second chance at life, and it fails, it almost feels like it’s your fault. It’s not,” she told the magazine. “For a long time, I was contemplating suicide, because I didn’t want to fail my little brother like I failed my dad.”
“I had gone through (my whole life) of always being a burden, of always having to be looked after, having to be cared for,” she continued.
Hyland said that after sharing her suicidal thoughts with a loved one, she decided to move forward with the second transplant.
The actress said she wants other to know that it’s OK to ask for help.
“For anybody that wants to reach out to somebody but doesn’t really know how because they’re too proud or they think that they’ll be looked upon as weak, it’s not a shameful thing to say. It’s not a shameful thing to share,” she said.
According to HuffPost, Hyland received her second transplant in September 2017, and she and her brother are doing well.
Hyland, however, was diagnosed with endometriosis after her second transplant and discovered that an undiagnosed hernia was the cause of severe abdominal pain. She had laparoscopic surgery for her endometriosis, as well as an operation to repair the hernia, all together making a total of 16 surgeries for the actress.
While Hyland says that there will certainly be more surgeries, she is coping with it the best she can and remains optimistic about the future.
“That is a goal, to not just listen to my body more, but listen and do something about it because I tend to push myself,” she said. “I’m stable. I’m thriving. I’m super happy with life … I have the greatest family one could ask for. I’m on a show that is absolutely unbelievable and surreal.”