Most of you probably recognize Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Meadow from The Sopranos. She starred in the hit HBO series from 1999 all the way to its finale in 2007.
These days, Sigler has stepped away from acting and is busy being a full-time mother. The 43-year-old star lives in Austin, TX, with her husband, Cutter Dykstra, and their two sons, 11-year-old Beau and 7-year-old Jack.
Last summer, their peaceful life turned upside down when Beau had a life-threatening autoimmune condition called ADEM. It’s a rare illness that can develop after a viral or bacterial infection.
During a recent conversation with PEOPLE, Sigler recalled how Beau had a headache and fever for a week, and then one night, he complained that he couldn’t urinate. “He was screaming in pain,” she remembers. They rushed him to Dell Children’s Medical Center, and that’s where he was diagnosed.
But the nightmare was just beginning…
Over the next two weeks, he lost his ability to walk, and then to talk. Then he couldn’t eat or move his mouth. He lost 25 lbs. There was nothing recognizable about my son. Doctors put him on a 24-hour IV of epinephrine to keep him alive because the inflammation in his spine and brain prevented him from regulating his own blood pressure and heart rate.
He was in the hospital for over a month. Thankfully though, on day 33, he was able to walk out.
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He’s now back in school and back on his baseball team. Sigler says he’s working with a personal trainer to try to get his strength back.
And while Beau doesn’t remember much from the hospital, he still knows he suffered from a near death experience, and he’s still battling the psychological trauma that comes from such an event.
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.
