Busy Philipps underwent two invasive surgeries this spring related to a malignant tumor in her brain.
The first, a five-hour procedure on March 2, removed what turned out to be a 2.6 centimeter oligodendroglioma, according to People, which published an
X-ray of the tumor along with its new interview with Philipps. The tumor could have caused seizures, headaches, and neurological issues if doctors hadn’t caught it when they did. The second surgery, on April 27, removed a staph infection from the site of the previous surgery.
“I’m grateful that I’m alive,” Philipps told the magazine. Both surgeries occurred around her shooting schedule for the upcoming TV series, Cupertino. She called the period surrounding the health crisis “the weirdest six months of my life.”
Doctors discovered the tumor when Philipps, 47, decided to get a full body scan despite her general practitioner telling her she was too healthy to need one. When her husband’s cousin told her, “knowledge is power,” she booked the scan. At first, doctors told her the mass was benign. Then a neurologist, who reviewed the findings, told her she should take it seriously.
“‘This is a real tumor, and it’s inside your brain. And Busy, it’s got to come out,'” Philipps recalled the doctor telling her. “I was hyperventilating and trying to breathe.”
Dr. Alexandra Miller, Philipps’ neuro-oncologist, told People that oligodendrogliomas have “the best prognosis of all of the malignant gliomas,” because it’s defined by how it grows rather than looking malignant in a microscope. Had Philipps discovered the tumor after experiencing symptoms like seizures, it “would have been two or three times the size,” Dr. John Golfinos, who performed the operation, told People. “It might have been much harder to take the whole thing out.”
Philipps told the magazine she was up and walking around the hospital within a day. “I wasn’t in pain at all,” she said.
A visit to her dermatologist for Botox about a month later revealed the staph infection, prompting her second surgery. “She’s like, ‘That doesn’t look right. I’m not going to touch it,'” Philipps said. “‘Can I take a picture of it and will you send it to your surgeons right now?’… And I did and they immediately were like, ‘That doesn’t look good.'”
A doctor put her on antibiotics and a trip to the hospital revealed the diagnosis of staphylococcus, requiring debridement surgery to clean out the infection and remove a titanium tack from a previous surgery, which was keeping a bone in place. “The second surgery really threw me. I just felt like I was back to square one, and I was really, really upset,” Philipps said, though Dr. Golfinos said the actress “bounced right back.”
Philipps said she hopes her experience inspires others to get checked out. “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,” she said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of in having information. It’s only empowering.”
Cupertino, the show Philipps strove to film, will premiere on Paramount+ on Oct. 8. Her co-stars on the series include Mike Colter and Rachel Keller.
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