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Busy Philipps was diagnosed with a rare, malignant brain cancer this year.
She had known that something was off. After a lot of debate, she went in for a screening.
The day after her former co-star James Van Der Beek passed away, doctors discovered a tumor.
47-year-old Busy had to tell her ex, tell her children, and plan an invasive brain surgery.
Busy Philipps feels ‘grateful to be alive’
Speaking to People, Busy revealed that she underwent two brain surgeries following her diagnosis with a malignant brain tumor.
Referring to the “weirdest six months of my life,” she expressed that she feels “grateful to be alive.”
Busy is very conscious of how deadly cancer can be, referring to herself as “the luckiest girl in the world.”
She had a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, which is a slow-growing but malignant tumor. A Prenuvo scan caught it on February 12.
Debate with different doctors — her primary care physician talking her out of a full-body scan in 2025, but a family member who was also a doctor encouraging her — led to her finally getting screened.
Busy recalled texting her ex-husband, Marc Silverstein, “OMG I have a brain tumor.”
She shared: “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.’”
It was not, in fact, benign.
“This is a real tumor, and it’s inside your brain,” Busy described a neurologist explaining to her. “And Busy, it’s got to come out.”
When the reality hit home, Busy was “hyperventilating and trying to breathe.” She also had to tell her two children.
The brain surgery to remove the tumor lasted for 5 hours
Fortunately, 18-year-old Birdie and 13-year-old Cricket are both old enough to fully understand what a brain tumor is — and old enough to process their emotions.
Busy recalled her eldest being “kind of beside herself and really, really scared and overwhelmed with emotion.” That makes sense!
“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 shared.
Meanwhile, 13-year-old Cricket “was like, ‘OK. You’re going to be fine?’ And I was like, ‘I’m totally going to be fine.’ And she’s like, ‘OK.’”
These are normal, healthy reactions. It also makes sense that the eldest child would feel more anxiety. Even just 5 years of life experience at that age can make the risk of death feel much more real.
On March 2, surgeons removed the 2.6-centimeter mass during a 5-hour procedure.
It is fortunate that they caught it relatively early.
Had Busy not gone in for a screening, waiting until symptoms became impossible to ignore might have meant finding a tumor significantly larger.
She did have to go in for a follow-up surgery after developing a Staph infection.
It is a relief to know that she survived that harrowing ordeal. Busy knows better than most that many people do not.
Busy Philipps Diagnosed With Rare, Malignant Brain Tumor was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.