told People<\/a> she is \u201cgrateful\u201d that she is alive following a period she described as the \u201cweirdest six months of my life\u201d.<\/p>\nKnown for Freaks And Geeks, Girls5eva and Cougar Town, Philipps said she did not present any obvious symptoms of having a tumour, such as seizures, and was reassured by her doctor that she did not need to have a scan, but felt she needed one regardless.<\/p>\n
After consulting a second doctor months later, she went through with a whole-body MRI screening in February, which led to the discovery of the grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a rare low-grade (slow-growing) tumour.<\/p>\n
In March she underwent a five-hour surgery, and a 2.6cm mass was removed from her brain.<\/p>\n
Speaking to People, Philipps said: \u201cI didn\u2019t know why I wanted to get this scan except for the fact that I just did.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are frequently told by doctors that there is nothing to worry about [when] you kind of know that there\u2019s something to worry about. There\u2019s nothing to be afraid of in having information. It\u2019s only empowering.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philipps said that over the past two years she would tell friends that her \u201cbrain feels broken\u201d and assumed certain behaviours were caused by perimenopause.<\/p>\n
Her doctor could not confirm whether it was related to the tumour or not.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI wasn\u2019t consciously aware that anything was really wrong, but there was something that was misfiring. Like, I could not get a handle on it. [And now] my brain does not feel broken any more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philipps debated cancelling the scan with her ex-husband, film-maker Marc Silverstein, as it came days after the death of her friend and former co-star Van Der Beek and just before an audition for a role in the upcoming legal drama Cupertino.<\/p>\n
She recounted: \u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018Maybe it\u2019s the best thing you could do for your friend this morning. Go get that scan.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
When neurologist Dr Orrin Devinsky told her the news, Philipps said she was \u201chyperventilating and trying to breathe\u201d.<\/p>\n
Two days after the surgery, she was back home recovering and said she \u201cwasn\u2019t in pain at all\u201d with more than 40 surgical staples in her forehead.<\/p>\n
Among the friends and family wishing her a swift recovery was Dawson\u2019s Creek co-star Michelle Williams, who she said arranged \u201cdelicious\u201d food service for her.<\/p>\n
Philipps soon started her \u201cdream job\u201d playing Natalia Boutella in Cupertino, but not long into filming the series she learned she had contracted a staphylococcus infection in her incision and needed debridement surgery.<\/p>\n
Despite this she said she felt grateful everything was caught early, adding: \u201cWhat am I? The luckiest girl in the world?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Busy Philipps has revealed she had a brain tumour removed, which was diagnosed shortly after her Dawson\u2019s Creek…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-582652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}