Dress The Heroes

18 The 48-year-old actress has ap- peared in scores of films and television series, including “Cruel Intentions,” “Legally Blonde,” “Hellboy,” and “The People v. O.J. Simpson.” Ms. Blair suffered for years from a variety of symptoms, including fatigue, vision problems and numbness, before being diagnosed in 2018. “The diagnosis was not the hard part; the hard part was not knowing why I felt so crummy for so many years,” Ms. Blair says. “Getting diag- nosed was the validation that I need- ed,” to understand that her ongoing symptoms weren’t just laziness or working-mom stress. Ms. Blair knew little about MS be- fore her own diagnosis, and one of her biggest goals as an advocate is to sim- ply raise awareness. “A lot of people still don’t know what MS is,” she says. Ms. Blair went public soon after her diagnosis. “I felt I didn’t have a choice,” she says. In Los Angeles, she was often photographed by paparazzi, and she was sure her movement issues would be apparent. In addition, she says, she wanted to publicly thank the produc- ers and wardrobe staff at Netflix for their help and understanding while she was filming the recently released series “Another Life.” Ms. Blair received chemothera- py and a stem cell transplant, using her own stem cells – a treatment that is considered experimental for MS though it is approved for use in some cancer patients – in 2019, after previous treatments fell short and she was “real- ly getting debilitated,” she says. But she (left) Blair with son, Arthur - SELMA BLAIR - Helping people makes me feel so much better.”