Beloved TV Star Busy Philipps Faces Surprising Brain Tumour Battle at 47—What’s Next?
How many low-key existential crises do we put off each week—waiting for a “better” moment to check that weird ache, make that call, or finally book that full-body MRI (as if those were just casual Tuesday plans)? Busy Philipps didn’t schedule hers because of a lingering headache or a psychic with questionable Yelp reviews; it was a gut feeling, knocking on the door of her busy life right before the launch of her TV show, Cupertino . Fast-forward to a February that read more like medical drama than red carpet moment: a rare brain tumor, emergency surgery, and a daughter reeling at the thought of losing her mom before senior year… If life were a movie, this would be the plot twist nobody begged for. But Busy, with her signature humor and candor, reminds us—sometimes, that little inner nudge knows more than Google MD ever will . Curious how she navigated it all (with only a modest dose of hyperventilating)? LEARN MORE.
Busy Philipps has revealed that she was diagnosed with a rare brain tumour in February.
After getting a full-body MRI, the 47-year-old underwent surgery in early March, just before filming her new TV show Cupertino.
“I’m grateful that I’m alive,” she told PEOPLE.
“I didn’t know why I wanted to get this scan except for the fact that I just did.”
When Busy lost her friend and Dawson’s Creek co-star, James Van Der Beek, to colon cancer in February, a blizzard in New York City forced her to postpone it for several weeks.
However, her ex-husband and close friend, Marc Silverstein, advised her not to put it off any longer.
“He’s like, ‘Maybe it’s the best thing you could do for your friend this morning. Go get that scan,’” said the White Chicks star.
Beverly Hills internist Dr Justin Donlan initially told her that he spotted a lesion on her brain and that it should be inspected further.
After getting a full-body MRI in February, Busy Philipps found out she had a brain tumour (Bruce Glikas/WireImage)
She explained: “The texts to my ex-husband are comical. While I was on the phone with Dr. Donlan, I texted Marc, ‘OMG I have a brain tumor.’ And he wrote back, ‘Busy, what? What are you saying? What are you talking about?’ I was like, ‘It looks fine. It’s probably benign. I don’t know.’”
After the MRI, Busy was then told: “‘This is a real tumor, and it’s inside your brain. And Busy, it’s got to come out.’
“I was hyperventilating and trying to breathe.”
Busy says her daughter Birdie, 18, ‘was kind of beside herself and really, really scared and overwhelmed with emotion’.
“I just kept saying to her, ‘Birdie, you’re just not in the movie where your mom dies your senior year of high school. That’s just not the movie that you’re in. I promise you,’” she added.
Marc Silverstein told Busy to get the scan (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Busy underwent a five-hour operation on 2 March, during which surgeons removed a 2.6cm mass from her brain.
A biopsy identified it as a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a rare tumour characterised by specific genetic alterations.
Her neuro-oncologist said only around 1,100 to 1,300 cases are diagnosed annually in the US.
Dr Alexandra Miller, Philipps’s neuro-oncologist at NYU Langone, told PEOPLE: “It is considered malignant, but it has the best prognosis of all of the malignant gliomas.
“It’s sort of defined as a cancerous tumor based on the ability of the tumor to regrow over time, rather than it looking very malignant under the microscope.”
Although her recovery proved to be complicated because of a staph infection in her surgical incision, requiring another operation on 27 April to clean the wound and remove a titanium tack from her skull.
Doctors said the infection had fortunately been caught before becoming deep.
Thankfully, she will not currently require chemotherapy or radiotherapy but will undergo regular scans to check whether the tumour returns.
Her surgeon said she has a ‘great chance’ that it may never come back.
“We are frequently told by doctors that there is nothing to worry about [when] you kind of know that there’s something to worry about,” Busy added. “There’s nothing to be afraid of in having information. It’s only empowering.”
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