Celebrity

The Scarlett O'Connor depicter opens up on her battle with end stage nephroblastoma when she was young.

• Nov 13, 2015

AceShowbiz - "Nashville" actress Clare Bowen showed off her new pixie do on Facebook after chopping off her long hair. Along with the picture, the actress shared an inspirational message and explained why she decided to get her luscious tresses cut.

"When I was four years old," she wrote, "I had just been diagnosed with end stage nephroblastoma, after several visits to a GP who denied anything was wrong and dubbed my parents 'paranoid.' I'd overheard the doctors telling my family that the only hope of saving me, was an experimental treatment that might kill me anyway. But without it I had maybe two weeks left."

She continued, "Life in the White Palace (Granddad's nickname for hospital) meant I got to grow up surrounded by children just like me. We were mostly bald, all tubed, taped, bandaged up and stitched back together. We were all missing parts, some obvious like eyes or legs, others more hidden, like lungs and kidneys."

"Those who still could, tip-toed around like little fairies because chemotherapy had destroyed the muscles in our legs and it hurt to put our heels on the floor. But we were all together, so no one's appearance came into question. No one got laughed at or teased. We were all we knew."

"And then I got really lucky. I survived, my hair grew back and I got strong again. I look relatively normal on the outside, but on the inside, I am still the same stitched back together little creature, in a world where people are judged so harshly for the way they look. It has always been completely incomprehensible to me. How can people think there's time for that?"

Bowen added, "Every scar tells a story, every baldhead, every dark circle, every prosthetic limb, and every reflection in a mirror that you might not recognize anymore. Look deeper than skin, hair, nails, and lips. You are who you are in your bones. That is where you have the potential to shine the brightest from. It is where your true beautiful self lives."

She concluded by thanking her "Nashville" family, "Thank you ABC network and particularly our creator, Callie Khouri for letting me change Scarlett's hair, and my team, family and friends for helping me make the decision. If it makes even one person think twice about judging another, then in some small way, the world is better. Self-esteem takes a lot longer to grow back than hair."