Charity || NancyStAlban.com


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Nancy supports The Myositis Association (TMA) and asks all of you for your help. Her mother (pictured right, with Nancy) was diagnosed with this debilitating disease several years ago and has been struggling just to do her day-to-day activities. Myositis is a chronic illness which turns the immune system on the muscles in the body, eventually destroying all the muscles in the body and leaving the patient bed-ridden or in a wheelchair. Nancy makes several donations a year to TMA, and donates her proceeds from her fan club.

You can help Nancy make a difference in the search for a cure. You can make donations to The Myositis Association at their web site: click here to make a donation.

Visit The Myositis Association Web Site

In this summer 2004 article by CBS Soaps In Depth, Nancy shares how myositis has affected her life and the life of someone she loves...

Many people have not heard of myositis, but it’s a disease that hit very close to home for GUIDING LIGHT’s Nancy St. Alban (Michelle): Three years ago, her mother was diagnosed with the inflammatory muscle disease. "It’s said to have affected about 50,000 Americans," sighs St. Alban. "But the leading doctor [for] the disease says that you can definitely add a zero to the end of that number because that’s how many people have been misdiagnosed or don’t even realize that they have myositis, because it has so many different forms. A lot of times, myositis is misdiagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis."

To help raise awareness of the disease, St. Alban has recently become involved in The Myositis Association, and is even spearheading a benefit in New Orleans at the end of August. "There hasn’t been enough research done on the disease, so I’m trying to raise awareness so people will donate money toward research," she says, adding that there has been no change in the treatment of myositis in the past fifty years. "Hopefully, they can find a cure. There are cures; there just haven’t been enough studies done to find one."

A Hard Road To Travel
The changes that take place in a person once myositis sets in are quite devastating, St. Alban notes. "It takes different forms, but most of the time it’s a muscle inflammatory disease. It’s believed to be an autoimmune disease, so the immune system attacks its own muscles by the inflammation. That causes the muscles to atrophy, so you basically lose use of your muscles. Most patients end up bedridden or in a wheelchair. Within a 10-year span, that tends to be the way it goes."

Myositis is not a disease that strikes only adults, either. "It affects children, which is incredibly sad," St. Alban adds. "It’s a really terribly, terribly tragic disease. It’s similar to multiple sclerosis. MS causes lesions in the brain, but your brain stays [unaffected] so you’re mentally there. It’s the same with myositis; there aren’t lesions, but your muscles weaken. You are mentally okay, but your body just can’t do it anymore. It’s really a horrible, horrible thing."

A Daughter’s Pain
For St. Alban and her family, her mother’s battle with the disease has understandably been a tough road. "She’s struggling along," the actress confesses. "She’s very hopeful that something will be found out [about a cure], but it’s not easy when your body gives up on you."

To watch her mother -- whom the actress says has always been the strongest person she knows both mentally and physically -- struggle with myositis is sometimes disheartening. "She had eight children," marvels St. Alban. "She could do just about anything, and she was always on top of the world. Everyone idolized her, her spirit and her energy. It’s so hard to see her still having all those desires and thoughts and not being able to act on them because she physically can’t."

St. Alban is hopeful that next month’s celebrity charity weekend in New Orleans will not only open people’s eyes about the effects of myositis but have them open their wallets, as well. "I think it will be a lot of fun," she says with a smile. "And there are a lot of GUIDING LIGHT fans in New Orleans, so there should be a warm welcome."