The 'Sopranos' star gets candid about what would happen if she wasn't able to protect her kids.
Jamie-Lynn Sigler is getting candid about her greatest fears while living with multiple sclerosis.
The Sopranos star was diagnosed with the disease 17 years ago and kept it a secret until 2016. In an emotional essay for Shondaland.com on Monday, Sigler revealed that she's most concerned about how MS will impact her role as mom to two young boys.
"The one area in my life where that fear really gets me now is motherhood. When I learned I was pregnant with my first son, Beau, six years ago, I was terrified," wrote the actress, who shares Beau and 1-year-old son Jack with husband Cutter Dykstra. "All of a sudden, I had to think about how my MS would affect someone else. (I say this, because my husband has made me feel since day one that this disease had no negative effect on us as a couple.) But with my son, his safety depended on me! His survival!"
Sigler shared that this anxiety over survival has led her and Dykstra to have serious conversations over protocol if tragedy were to ever strike.
"I even, sadly, had to have the talk with my husband about what we'd do in the worst of circumstances, where I thought out loud: If there ever was a mass shooting, you have to take the kids and run, and trust I will do my best to stay safe," she said. "Just thinking about this still makes me tear up."
The 37-year-old actress went on, explaining how MS has become her "whole family's disease." While she admitted to sometimes resenting the illnesses, she shared that it's also "made me see how strong I am."
"I have two little boys now... I am there for them each and every day. I walk Jack every day in his stroller, around the block, no matter how long it takes me. I take Beau to hockey and karate and baseball, and sit on my chair and cheer him on," she wrote. "I am definitely participating in life the way I always dreamed, but it's not without challenges."
"My body can ache, and not do the things I want it to do, but in the face of the daily fears that I have of not being enough, my two little boys give me all the love and reassurance I'll ever need," Sigler concluded. "They only know this one mommy. They don't ask why I move the way I do, why I need help up stairs sometimes, or why daddy rubs my legs a lot. They don't care. They have shown me that I don't need anything, good or bad, working or not, disease or no disease, to be deserving of love."
See more on Sigler in the video below.
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