Christina Applegate Embraces Her New Normal — With the Most Glamorous Walking Sticks

After her MS diagnosis, the actress is proving that she doesn’t just talk the talk, she walks the walk.

In the Netflix series Dead To Me, Christina Applegate stars as Jen Harding, a widow who has a few issues with the truth. But unlike Jen, Applegate sees honesty as the best policy.

On Thursday night, Applegate revealed to the Twittersphere — and the rest of the world,  that as she prepares to re-enter public life, the use of walking sticks has become her "new normal." In the tweet, with an accompanying photo of a quartet of custom walking sticks, Applegate writes, "I have a very important ceremony coming up. This will be my first time out since [sic] diagnosed with MS."

For fans who may not recall, in August of 2021, Applegate revealed her diagnosis (also in a tweet) and said that the journey had been strange, but she was "supported by people I know who also have this condition." She added "It’s been a tough road. But as we all know, the road keeps going. Unless some asshole blocks it."

This tweet was met with an outpour of supportive messages, one of which came in the form of fellow actress Selma Blair, who also lives with MS. “Loving you always. Always here. As are our kids. Beating us up with love," she replied to Applegate’s tweet.

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Multiple Sclerosis, or MS as it’s more commonly referred to, is an autoimmune disease that impacts the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves and modifies the daily lives of everyone differently. Applegate has largely documented her journey with MS on Twitter, and though the day-to-day life may vary, a tweet on her 50th birthday last year revealed that it had been "a hard one" and encouraged fans to lift their heads, even though she spent the day with hers on a pillow.

Almost four years to the day, in October of 2018, Applegate’s longtime friend Selma Blair switched platforms and took to Instagram to reveal her MS diagnosis. In the post, she shared that with the help of Allisa Swanson — the costume designer for Netflix’s Another Life, which Blair worked on — "I have a job. A wonderful job. I am disabled. I fall sometimes. I drop things. My memory is foggy. And my left side is asking for directions from a broken GPS. But we are doing it. And I laugh and I don’t know exactly what I will do precisely but I will do my best."

She went on to list fellow actress and former co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar — with whom she starred in 1999’s Cruel Intentions — as a support system. And now, that moment has come full circle where she can offer the same support to Applegate.

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The "important event" Applegate has coming up could be the red carpet premiere for the third and final season of the aforementioned Netflix show, Dead To Me. While she certainly has other walking sticks — also called activator poles — which she uses daily, some of them are adorned with stickers that read "F.U.M.S." (you can take a guess what the initialism stands for). Applegate ultimately decided in another tweet that the other options "may not be appropriate," which is where the four handmade acrylic walking sticks from mobility aid company Neo Walk come in. One even has a large string of pearls as the hand strap.

Pal Selma Blair has long embraced the cane-as-fashion-accessory, mentioning it in a past interview with InStyle, saying, "I was so happy because it meant I could wear my heels," proving there’s no need to sacrifice form for function.

Not many things are certain, but one thing’s for sure — whatever road life decides to take her down, Applegate will have no trouble getting there. And no asshole will stand in her way.

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Read the original article on InStyle.