Celebrity3 min(s) read
Published 18:05 07 Mar 2022 GMT
Sarah Hyland has opened up about being unable to remember filming on Modern Family due to her health issues.
The 31-year-old actress was born with kidney dysplasia - a condition in which one's kidneys do not develop as they normally would in the womb.
Due to her condition, she has undergone more than 16 surgeries. Two of these were kidney transplants - the first from her father when she was 21 and another from her brother when she was 26 due to her body rejecting her father's kidney.
In an episode of the podcast Quitters, Sarah spoke candidly with Julie Bowen - who played her mom on the hit ABC comedy - about how kidney dysplasia affected both her personal and professional life.
She said: "I'm well. Everything's stable. I haven't left the house in a very long time right now, but everything is stable as of now."
Both of Sarah's kidney transplants took place in between filming for Modern Family, where she played Haley Dunphy. On the podcast, she spoke about the excruciating pain and exhaustion she suffered on the set.
"There are some episodes of Modern Family where I do not remember filming because I was asleep," she said. "Dead ass asleep. The episode where Haley asked [Luke for] money and he's like, 'Don't worry, I've got it on ice.' It's in the freezer or something. The entire episode I was asleep."
"You have to be a certain level of sick in order to receive a transplant. I was reaching that certain level of sick. I was not able to be awake for eight hours at a time. I was so exhausted.
"So I'd be on the set, I'd be dead asleep, my head on the table, I would hear, 'and... and my head would go up," she said, explaining that she would only stay awake from when the director called "action" to "cut."
Around the time of her second operation, the actor revealed how she suffered from suicidal ideations.
Hyland recalls questioning to herself: "'What if this [organ rejection] happens again?'"
"Plus, [my brother] is so young. What do I do?' That's where I felt suicidal," Hyland revealed. "I would avoid going into [organ] rejection and being on dialysis [again] at all costs."
The Modern Family star said the ideations were a culmination of "years and years and years" of suffering from chronic pain.
"Twenty-seven years of almost always being in pain," she added. "Always being in and out of the hospital. I don't think I've gone more than one or two years without being hospitalized."
Sarah also explained that she originally planned not to talk about her transplants for fear of being blackballed in the movie industry.
"I was not ready to talk about it at all. I was 21 years old. I didn't want to be known as the milk carton girl for kidney transplants — because there's so much more to me," she explained.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, please reach out for help and contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text HOME to 741741, or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.
