Dunham also points out that her hair had fallen out in “odd clumps” and that she’d dyed her remaining tresses electric blue.

“Because if you’re gonna spiral, why not SPIRAL,” she jokes.

The second picture, which was taken earlier this week, tells a very different story. In it, we see a smiling and relaxed Dunham – one who, she shares, “happy, joyous and (substance) free.”

“The last year hasn’t been all roses and Kenny G songs, but it’s been proof enough for me in the presence of the divine,” she continues. “It’s been there in the kindness of my family, friends, chronically ill folks online. It’s also been there in the moments where I cried myself to sleep, shocked by the sounds coming out of me. It’s in the light slanting on my comforter, the resilience of my best friend’s baby clonking her head then giggling, the new hairs sprouting at my temples.”

Concluding her post with a tribute to her inner warrior, Dunham writes: “Mostly I’ve found [divinity] in my own strength, because who the f**k knew. And I don’t mean strength as in powering through. I mean strength as in vulnerability, feeling it all, taking it as it comes and dancing even with a hospital grade pad in my underwear.

“I surprised myself,” she adds. “I bet you can surprise yourself too.”

Lena Dunham’s powerful rallying cry for hysterectomy patients everywhere