In a recent interview with Self Magazine, twenty eight year old actress Sarah Hyland revealed that she had a second kidney transplant.

Hyland, who has been Haley Dunphy on the sitcom “Modern Family” for ten years, was born with kidney dysplasia, which is when one or two kidneys do not fully develop in the womb.

In April 2012, Hyland received her first kidney transplant with a kidney donated by her father.

However, two years ago her body began to reject the kidney. When the kidney was removed in May 2017, an abdominal hernia was discovered.

In September 201, she eventually got the second transplant, this time her brother was the donor.

At first the thought of taking her brother’s kidney left her depressed and even contemplating suicide. She revealed in the video interview that, “When a family member gives you a second chance at life and it fails, it feels like your fault. And it’s not.”

Ian Hyland, Hyland’s twenty three year old brother, told the magazine that it was quite scary – the thought of losing a kidney but all that mattered was “if it saves the life of someone you care about, anything is worth it.”

In spring of 2018, doctors went in to fix the hernia and also to treat her endometriosis, making her surgery count go up to sixteen. Of those sixteen surgeries, six were in the last sixteen months.

Hyland even mentioned in the video that “Christmas break, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, my birthday, all of that spent in the hospital.” However, she tweeted that “I was born with so many health issues that doctors told my mother I would never have a normal life.”

After the last year and a half of having six surgeries, Hyland tells Self that she is “stable” and “super happy with life.”

Hyland hopes that people who are lucky enough not to have health problems now learn something from her and appreciate that they are healthy.

As well, Hyland urges, “For anybody that wants to reach out to somebody but doesn’t really know how because they’re too proud or they think that they’ll be looked upon as weak, it’s not a shameful thing to say. It’s not a shameful thing to share.”