Jamie-Lynn Sigler Thought 10-Year-Old Son Was ‘Dying’ During 4-Week ICU Stay: ‘Most F—ked Up Thing’
Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s 10-year-old son, Beau, has spent the last four weeks in the hospital.
“Nobody could understand why he was getting worse and not getting better. It was and has been like the darkest hardest, most f—ked up thing I've ever been through,” Sigler, 43, shared during the Tuesday, August 6, episode of the “MeSsy” podcast. “Every time you would get, like, a little bit of good news, you would get slapped in the face with something else.”
Sigler recalled Beau feeling sick and his pediatrician telling her husband, Cutter Dykstra, that it was a virus. However, Beau started to spike a 105-degree fever, which led to multiple hospital visits — all of which were unsuccessful. (The actress and Dykstra, 35, also share son Jack, 6.)
“I just didn't wanna f—king leave the hospital. Like, there was something inside me that f—king knew,” Sigler recalled, sharing that they made an appointment with an infectious disease doctor.
While on the way to see the specialist, Beau started “screaming” in the car. “He was screaming in pain in a way that no mother should ever see her kid scream,” she added, noting that they ended up going to the hospital again. “He's screaming through morphine how much pain he's in.”
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Beau had a catheter put in, went through an MRI, received a brain scan and was eventually diagnosed with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM).
“It's a very rare neurological autoimmune response that kids can get to a simple virus like a cold or strep,” Sigler shared on Tuesday. “[The doctors] said it's compared to getting struck by lightning. That it’s the most rare thing.”
Instead of giving a diagnosis, medical professionals had to “rule out all these other things.” At one point, Sigler admitted she was waiting for a nurse “to walk out to tell me if my son was f—king dead or not.”
Sigler, who was holding back tears the entire episode, explained how the last month “feels like a blur.” Beau would take one step toward a recovery and three steps back, eventually losing the ability to use his legs and mouth.
Sigler noted that Beau “hasn’t slept,” but after 16 days of various tests and treatments, he finally started to get a little better.
“We got transferred out of the ICU because his vitals were stable, which is a win. We're in a rehab floor now, where he will be for at least another month as we try to see what the trajectory of his recovery will be,” she continued. “My win yesterday and today is [that] he's regained his ability to walk. It's a miracle. It's amazing. His body is strong. It's an example of healing.”
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Despite his physical improvements, Beau has since “developed severe psychosis” which causes him to “loop” and repeatedly discuss “different obsessions.” One thing keeping spirits high is Beau’s humor throughout the ordeal.
“During one of his rants, he called me a motherf—king slow walking bitch, which I think will now be the title of my book,” Sigler joked. “That's not my son, though. It's not him. He asked me to move his ass blast and bulls—t pillow. We laugh. It's like the only thing we can do in these moments is laugh.”
Sigler, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was 20 years old, got emotional while talking about the “weird and f—ked up” part of Beau’s illness.
“My son always used to write me little texts from his little Apple Watch being like, ‘I wish I could take your pain away from you mom. I wish I could take this away from you. I would die for you. I love you,’” Sigler recalled. “The three things he has wrong are issues with his bladder and his hip flexors and his feet — and that's me. I'm thinking, ‘My son's taking away my pain.’”
