In October of last year, Selma Blair announced that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). Since then, the actress has spoken openly about her experience with MS, a neurological disease that affects the central nervous system with symptoms including but not limited to: vision problems, weak muscles, tremors, problems walking or balancing, fatigue, depression, and cognitive changes, according to National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
After her diagnosis, the 47-year-old began chemotherapy treatment to slow down or stop the disease activity. Of course, an outward side effect to chemotherapy is hair loss — an immensely personal struggle which the actress has just opened up about in a lengthy caption on Instagram.
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In her most recent Instagram update, Blair shared an overhead photo of her scalp and the short tufts of hair that have regrown post-chemo. In the caption, the actress addressed the battle she's gone through, both losing her hair and coming to terms with the regrowth.
According to the post, Blair actually cut her hair short before she began her chemo treatment to ease the transition to "impending baldness" for both herself and her son. As a result of the chemotherapy, what little hair she that remained fell out: "Of course it fell out. Shiny. Pale dome," Blair recounts in her post.
Then the actress transitions into the realities of her hair growth since the chemo treatment. "It took two months to begin regrowth, and it came in fine and pale and very sparse," Blair explains, adding that she then tried dyeing the hair brown — which stained her scalp. Ultimately, she decided to shave it short again. "After a week, I buzzed shorter with clippers and a few weeks later, here we are: A thinnish, patchy charcoal head."
For now, Blair plans to embrace her hair as it grows in. "I'll see how a pixie grows in, or I will buzz again," she writes. "It seems to be too much to have long hair again. So I will leave it short and grey, something I have never before wanted to do. I equated it with giving up. And maybe giving up long, brown hair, complete with time-consuming and expensive highlights and lowlights, isn’t necessarily a give up."
But she's not against colouring her hair in the future if the right opportunity arises. "[If] some fancy pants company with a thick checkbook wants to entice me out of dye retirement, then I will sing about the glories of processed hair," Blair stipulates. "So, until that wished-for day, enjoy the head."