McDonough, you go Girl!

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http://www.aimpress.com/marybio.htm

Why McDonough is leading the Charge

(taken from a June 7, 1997 article in the L A Times)

To Earl Hamner Jr., creator of TV's The Waltons, McDonough will always be , the second youngest of -Boy Walton's three sisters, a woman possessed, says Hamner, of "the most angelic face I've ever seen." Now 42 and divorced, McDonough still exudes an air of innocence, though for the past 13 years she has endured what she calls a "hellacious" ordeal. Viewers of NBC's ER got a hint of that on May 1, when McDonough turned up as a patient stricken with lupus erythematosus, a sometimes painful, sometimes fatal disease in which the body's immune system attacks connective tissue, including skin and joints, as well as internal organs. Last March, after hearing she had won the role, McDonough made a stunning disclosure. "I said, 'This disease affects my life!'" she recalls. "And the producers asked, 'How?' And I said, 'I have it!'"

She is a lot luckier than her ER character, who needed a kidney transplant. For reasons still unclear to doctors, McDonough, like half of the more than 1 million Americans who live with lupus, will likely be spared damage to her major organs. But the disease can still be devastating: McDonough suffers from rheumatoid-like arthritis and risks skin rashes if she stays out in the sun too long. She says her condition, which went undiagnosed until 1995, derailed her acting career and caused her marriage to disintegrate.

McDonough believes her illness is related to the silicone breast implant surgery she had in 1984. Ironically, McDonough got the implants thinking they would advance the career she had been dreaming of since childhood. The second youngest of four siblings, she was only 9, she says, when "I bugged my mom about being on TV." Her parents, who ran an auto-transmission business in Van Nuys, Calif., agreed to let her audition for The Homecoming, a 1971 TV movie that became the pilot for The Waltons. McDonough grew up on the acclaimed series, which ran for nine seasons on CBS. "After the show ended [in 1981, when she was 21], I didn't have very good self-esteem," says the actress, who had been bulimic as a teenager. "I was always trying to be thin for my work. I had friends who were getting implants, and it seemed like a fun thing to do."

After the surgery, though, she began to develop odd symptoms. "I had fevers that would never turn into the flu, joint stiffness, the feeling that needles were shooting through your muscles," she says. Doctors--including a cardiologist ("because of an irregularity in my heartbeat") and a dermatologist ("I had this rash on my face")--were perplexed. From casting directors, she says, "my agents got feedback that I looked fatigued all the time. My career went downhill."

So did her eight-year union with Rob Wickstrom, a former actor whom she wed in 1988. The couple separated in 1995 and divorced last year. "It was hard for Rob because he had a wife who was sick and who wasn't able to do as much as she used to," says McDonough, who lives with their daughter Sydnee, who turns 5 this month, in a ranch-style San Valley home and remains friends with her ex.

"We didn't break up because she had lupus," says Wickstrom, now 39 and manager of the tape library at a Hollywood postproduction company. "But any serious illness can put a strain on a relationship. There were nights I'd just hold her and she'd cry from the pain and frustration. I felt helpless."

No more so than his wife. "Every day," she says, "I'd wake up feeling like I was hit on the head by a frying pan." Then in 1993 she got a call from a friend who also had had implants. "She said, 'I had mine removed and they found this golf ball-size cyst lodged behind the implant.' She was an angel," says McDonough. "I wanted to believe there was no link, but I needed to take away every variable."

When McDonough's implants were removed a year later, her surgeon found that their polyurethane foam shells had disintegrated. "All that polyurethane foam and silicone is now in my system," she says. "That can trigger an autoimmune response, and that in turn can trigger lupus." The surgery, she says, "has made all the difference." Her doctor Wallace, an expert on lupus, agrees. "Once she had the implants out, she felt a lot better. She still has headaches, fevers and aches, yet she's able to work."

With the help of anti-inflammatory drugs and homeopathic remedies such as Chinese herbs, which she says help ease joint stiffness, McDonough is rebuilding her career. Besides ER, she has a movie due in June--One of Those Nights, about the reunion of a divorced couple. Offscreen, McDonough speaks at rallies about her view of the perils of silicone implants, despite scientific studies that have shown little or no link between silicone and systemic diseases like lupus. Recently she joined a class-action suit against Bristol-Myers Squibb, which made her implants.

Fueling McDonough's activism is her concern over Sydnee. Though she appears healthy now, her mother worries that she may develop lupus in 10 to 12 years. "She has joint stiffness. She gets tired. She has unexpected bouts of vomiting. My daughter never chose this," says McDonough, her eyes welling with tears. "That makes me incredibly angry."

And motivated. "I thought my only value was being Walton," says McDonough. "There was a hole inside me. I thought if I were thin, if I had big breasts, that would fill the hole. But it wasn't until I got rid of the big breasts that I realized what was missing--my voice. Communication. And loving myself."

--MICHAEL A. LIPTON --PAULA YOO in Los Angeles

© 1997 LA Times