Sarah Hyland broke down in tears while unveiling the scars from her 16 surgeries during an interview with Self magazine.
The 28-year-old confessed earlier this week that she experienced suicidal thoughts following her first kidney transplant failure.
‘For me, it’s always hard for KUPA to be on display,’ Sarah said while showcasing the scars.
‘Still, mentally it’s hard to get over that. I think personally for someone to be so tiny to have a stomach that looks like the New Jersey Turnpike, just shows who I am and what kind of character I have.’
The actress underwent her first kidney transplant, donated by her dad Edward James, in 2012 which failed in 2016.
‘We did all of these tests and all of these treatments to try and save the kidney, but they basically said that the transplanted kidney was like a house that caught on fire. You can’t unburn a house,’ she said.
Sarah then underwent dialysis three times a week – each for four-hour sessions between February 2017 and October 2017 and found out last year that her younger brother Ian was a match. The Modern Family star underwent a second operation in 2017.
‘When a family member gives you a second chance at life, and it fails, it almost feels like it’s your fault. And it’s not, but it does,’ she tearfully confessed.
‘When a second family member, someone, you’re supposed to look after, like a little brother, wants to give you a third chance at life, it’s scary because you don’t want to fail them.’
‘For a long time, I was contemplating suicide, because I didn’t want to fail my little brother like I failed my dad.’
Sarah admitted that during these tragic times, her boyfriend Wells Adams has been a huge support.
‘He was texting me in the morning before I went into surgery, and we were FaceTiming the entire time I was in the hospital.’
‘He’s seen me at my worst… He was there through all of that. I think that’s why I feel the most beautiful in his eyes because he still finds me beautiful after seeing all that.’