One day after saying goodbye to James Van Der Beek, her co-star on ‘Dawson’s Creek’, Busy Philipps underwent a full-body scan. Her own primary care doctor had told her she didn’t need one.
Hours later, a family member called to let her know they had seen something unusual in her brain. An MRI confirmed the worst: a real tumor measuring 2.8 by 1.8 centimeters, lodged in the right frontal lobe. The 47-year-old actress says she ran out of air and began hyperventilating the moment the neurologist confirmed it over the phone.
She underwent five hours of surgery to remove it completely, and weeks later she needed a second operation because of an infection. Today, Philipps says she feels grateful to be alive: the tumor was a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, and according to her neurosurgeon, if they had found it later, it would have been two or three times larger.
