Jamie-Lynn Sigler has revealed she nearly lost her life around a year ago following a horrifying encounter with sepsis after surgery.
The 43-year-old actress known for her role in The Sopranos underwent thetraumatic experience upon returning home from a spiritual retreat in India.
On her 'MeSsy' podcast, Jamie-Lynn, who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), shared: "A little less than a year ago now is when I went to India, and I lived in this ashram and I felt so awakened and connected and peaceful."
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Frighteningly, shortly after arriving home, she suffered a severe reaction to a surgical procedure and was stricken by sepsis, ending up in hospital, on the brink of death. Jamie-Lynn confessed: "And when I came home, two weeks later, I had a very bad reaction to a surgery and got sepsis and was in the hospital and almost died. I never told anybody this."
'Syndrome Celine Dion diagnosed with left me unable to put my socks on'During the ordeal, Jamie-Lynn hit an emotional low, stating: "I had never in my life been more sad, felt more low. But what I learned from India was I had an inability to escape it."
She reached out to friends and therapists for help and took measures to work through her feelings in a therapeutic way. "I had to sit in it. I would scream in pillows; I would cry to girlfriends," she said. "I reached out, I sat by myself, I got a therapist. I did all of these things I had never really done before and went through this process that was absolutely necessary."
In 2020, Jamie-Lynn opened up about embracing the "positive" aspects of living with MS. The screen star, who was diagnosed with a condition affecting the central nervous system more than two decades ago, has come to see her medical struggles as integral to her identity. She shared on 'People Now': "I have my bad days, as we all do."
She explained how her journey evolved from hiding her condition to embracing it publicly: "For me it was about fighting it and keeping it a secret and covering it up, then when I became public it was accepting people knew and now it's shifted into this thing where..." She also touched on the emotional toll of chronic illness: "I think people don't realise with chronic illness, it's so much physical stuff but emotionally it can affect you even more."
Reflecting on the impact of her condition, she added: "I'm realising all the things it has brought me, the positive things it had brought to me, who it has made me today I know I wouldn't be without it."
Despite her acceptance, she admitted: "Do I still wish I didn't have MS? Sure. But it's my thing in this lifetime and I'm dealing with it as best I can."