Selma Blair Gets Candid About MS Battle with Throwback Photo: 'I Didn't Know What Was Happening'
If multiple sclerosis has taught Selma Blair one thing, it’s to appreciate every moment in life — even the bad ones.
The Cruel Intentions actress, who went public with her diagnosis back in October 2018, reflected on her early experiences with the chronic disease of the central nervous system in a touching message shared to Instagram on Thursday.
Blair shared a photo of herself, snapped during an outdoor dinner in Florida. As Blair explained in the caption, she was facing an exacerbation of MS symptoms (also known as an attack or flare-up).
“A beautiful summer night in Miami. My flare was already hitting. I didn’t know what was happening. But I sat outside and had a gorgeous dinner with my dear friend,” Blair, 46, wrote. “All we have is right now. This. Is the past. But I remember knowing to just feel the warmth in the breeze. The gift of this trip. Under the table my leg was dead. I couldn’t stay awake and my right hand couldn’t find my mouth. But I was happy.”
Blair went on to reveal that her 7-year-old son Arthur Saint Bleick was sitting next to her as she wrote the Instagram post. She told her followers that his presence helped her focus on the important things.
“My son is asleep next to me. I hear his breathing. That of a tender soul, a young boy who will wake full of energy. I am going to curl up next to him. Cause that is what this wonderful life can bring. The now. The now I love,” she said. “So… goodnight. ???. #now #twinkle”
Thursday’s post came nearly two weeks after Blair made her first public appearance since revealing her MS diagnosis, walking the red carpet at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills.
Dressed in a pink, mint green, ice blue, and black dress while carrying a custom cane to support her movement, Blair looked radiant.
Two days later, the actress appeared on Good Morning America, where she spoke to Robin Roberts about her health and revealed that she was in the midst of a flare-up, and was experiencing spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder which affected her voice.
“I am doing very well,” said Blair. “I am very happy to see you. Being able to just put out what being in the middle of an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis is like. So my speech, I have spasmodic dysphonia right now. … It is interesting to be here to say this is what my particular case looks like right now.”
Opening up about first receiving the diagnosis after seeking out numerous doctors, Blair said she “cried.”
“I had tears,” she explained. “They weren’t tears of panic, they were tears of knowing that I now had to give in to a body that had loss of control and there was some relief in that.”
Blair also recalled the interaction she had with Arthur after telling him the news, who asked if it would kill her, and explained how she sought out advice from Michael J. Fox, who has lived with Parkinson’s disease in the public eye for decades.
“I said, ‘I don’t know who to tell, I’m dropping things, I’m doing strange things.’ … [Fox] got in touch with me … but like really he gives me hope,” she said.
Though Blair was initially “scared of talking,” she was hopeful that her appearance brought awareness to the disease. And because her doctor said she could regain 90 percent of her abilities within the next year, Blair aimed to reunite with Roberts in 2020 to measure her progress.
Joked the smiling star to GMA, “No one has the energy to talk when they’re in a flare-up, but I do because I love a camera.”
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