I thought he might call me that night and ask if I wanted to come and hang out, but I was no longer the girl who waited by the phone. I went out gambling.
Over the next few years, I was happy to see him reconnecting with Wendy and Lisa and other people who’d been important in his life as well. He was always good at keeping track of the people he truly cared about. He’d have an assistant grab tapes of TV performances, appearances, articles, whatever they were doing. So I knew he was watching as I worked on movie and television gigs, some in English, some in Spanish, and one movie where I got to dust off my old German skills. Over the years, I did guest spots on Nip/Tuck, Las Vegas, Psych, CSI:NY, and Big Shots, and scored a nice recurring role on Army Wives.
In 2011, I agreed to do a reality show called Hollywood Exes on VH1. The opportunity to star in a series that could potentially last several seasons was a gift from God. It wasn’t exactly the artistic direction I had dreamed of for myself, but I was grateful, because I really needed a steady gig at that moment.
I had been diagnosed with MS.
This is something I had to keep hidden at the time and have spoken about very little in the years since, because it’s difficult enough to be a woman over forty in Hollywood. I want to keep up the impression that I am vibrantly healthy—because I am. I work hard to maintain my belly dancer body, and I don’t want people looking at me like I’m sick or wondering if I can hack it. When I feel the need to share my diagnosis with someone, I want them to be every bit as stunned and disbelieving as I was when I first heard it myself.
To this day, I’ve never experienced any of the typical large muscle symptoms of MS. I woke up one morning with a weird blurry spot in my vision. The optometrist referred me to an optic neurologist, who came in and casually said, “It’s optic neuritis. It’s a side effect of multiple sclerosis.” Before I could even wrap my head around what he was saying, I was in the MRI machine—my new home away from home—and the scans showed several lesions on my brain.
Which brings us once again to the cold pages of a medical text: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an abnormal response of the body’s immune system directed against the central nervous system, including the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. The myelin sheath protecting the nerve is damaged and sometimes destroyed, causing nerve impulses to slow or even stop. There is no cure. The goal is to manage the disease and preserve remission as long as possible.
“This can’t be right,” I told the neurologist. “I’m healthy. I eat healthy. I work out. I’m a dancer.”
“All that’s working in your favor,” she said, “but this is serious, Mayte. This is something we need to stay on top of for the rest of your life.”
She started me on a regimen of interferon injections, which I gave myself three times a week in the beginning, alternating thighs to control the spread of huge purple bruises, which didn’t exactly jibe with my work and life. One of my friends had been diagnosed with MS ten years earlier, and I sometimes gave her those injections. Now I was sticking my own leg and reading everything I could get my hands on. I quickly became fluent in yet another language I didn’t want to understand.
So the first great gift I got from Hollywood Exes was a new circle of fabulous friends at a moment when I really, really needed good friends. The show featured several women who’d married A-list celebrities, including Andrea Kelly (ex–Mrs. R. Kelly), who was a dancer, so right away, she and I had a lot to talk about. If you haven’t seen it, open a bottle of wine and watch it sometime. Right now, let’s fast-forward again. Because we’re getting to the good part. The best part. The life-changing part where everything that went wrong takes a hard right, because God is good and never banished me one bit.