The Heartbreak of TickledyBumptyBoom

And does she respond well to that?

Yes. Because of the way I told her, you can have a cold, or you can have the flu, or you can have MS, it's just a thing. . . . She sees people in wheelchairs and stuff, and I [remind her that] mine hasn't reached that far. But even those people are taking medicine and taking care of themselves and doing the best they can. She understands that, and that's good. I think it's going to make her a better person. I hope so, anyway.

Has she ever watched you do your injections?

Oh yeah! She does. And she's now used to it. I do it in the bathroom, and she'll be [nearby]. And she'll say, "Did you do your shot?" "Well, yeah." "But you didn't say, 'Good girl.' "

I give myself my shot and I go "good girl" to myself. So I'm teaching her those little things. That it's a positive thing, it's a good thing to help yourself. It's hard to get through to them sometimes, but I think I am.

That's one of the most important things to me, raising a good child. It's so important to help other people, too, but I try to make that [raising her daughter] a priority. Which is so different from being an actress in Hollywood, which is one of the good things that has come from this. It's changed my whole perspective of life.

Yet you still are an actress in Hollywood.

I'm very big, dahling, very big.

I keep working, but, as I like to say, in Hollywood, I don't know what's worse, being an actress over 50 or being handicapped.

I work as much as I can. But I have to say, I really, like, enjoy helping people and talking about being positive and appreciating the things that I have.

You just described yourself as handicapped.

A handicap in Hollywood is -- anything negative and you're out. It could be a hangnail. I don't consider myself handicapped. But I think others do. I think that's one of the reasons I'm talking about it, because I want to say that not all people with MS are necessarily handicapped.•

Jennifer Huget is a regular contributor to Health and author of the Kidlife column.