Actress Busy Philipps has shared photographs from her intensive care recovery following surgery in March to remove a rare brain tumour, reassuring fans she is completely fine.
The 47-year-old star went public with her diagnosis for the first time this week, posting recovery updates to Instagram on Thursday after undergoing treatment earlier this year.
Philipps revealed she was diagnosed in February after taking a full-body MRI scan on February 12, the day after her former co-star James Van Der Beek died from colon cancer at age 48.
Van Der Beek starred alongside Philipps in the hit television drama series Dawson's Creek, which ran from 1998 to 2003 and launched both actors to fame.
Writing on Instagram on Thursday, Philipps thanked fans for an outpouring of support over the previous 24 hours, noting that friends and followers had been overwhelmingly kind with well wishes, love, prayers, and support.
She emphasized that her recovery took place months ago, writing: "everyone(mostly) has been so overwhelmingly kind in the past 24 hours so thank you so much for all your well wishes and love and prayers and support."
"But just to reiterate, because the internet loves a clickbait, I AM ALREADY RECOVERED! You all have literally watched me recover since March 2, you just didn’t know it! I AM TOTALLY FINE! YAY MEDICINE!" she added.
Along with her message, Philipps posted pictures documenting the medical process, including a photo of her scalp covered in blood after the operation and an image showing her swollen forehead caused by a post-operative infection.
Despite her health struggles, the actress managed to continue working while managing her recovery symptoms. She revealed that she periodically applied ice packs to her forehead during filming to keep facial swelling down.
A final photo showed Philipps enjoying the sunset with her dog, Gina, which she captioned: "me, yesterday with Gina enjoying the sunset together. no rare malignant brain tumor in sight!!!"
Philipps expressed gratitude to the scanning provider and her healthcare team, writing: "Thank you @prenuvo for the scan that saved my life, there’s a code in my bio for a discount if you’d like to get one. Thank you to all of my doctors and nurses."
She also thanked her children, family, friends, and castmates on her upcoming CBS television series Cupertino for helping her recover and return to feeling like herself over the past six months.
Discovery of the Brain Lesion
Philipps revealed on Wednesday that she underwent a five-hour surgical operation in early March to remove a 2.6 centimetre tumour, just weeks before she began filming Cupertino.
Reflecting on the experience, she admitted it was the weirdest six months of her life, adding: "I'm grateful that I'm alive."
The actress experienced no physical symptoms prior to the scan. Doctors identified the growth as a grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a rare, slow-growing brain tumour diagnosed in only 1,100 to 1,300 people each year in the United States.
An oligodendroglioma is a type of glioma that originates in the oligodendrocyte cells of the brain and central nervous system, which insulate nerve fibers.
Philipps decided to book a full-body scan, which screens for more than 500 conditions, after reading about the procedure on Instagram. Prenuvo is a preventive health company that offers whole-body magnetic resonance imaging to detect early-stage cancers and diseases.
Her scan was originally scheduled for January, but a severe winter blizzard forced her to reschedule the appointment to February 12, the morning after Van Der Beek passed away.
Overwhelmed by grief and facing a busy work schedule, Philipps considered cancelling the appointment while speaking with her ex-husband, Marc Silverstein.
Silverstein, a screenwriter and director who was married to Philipps from 2007 to 2021, encouraged her to attend the appointment, telling her: "Maybe it's the best thing you could do for your friend this morning. Go get that scan."
Diagnosis and Surgical Removal
The MRI scan detected a lesion on her brain, though medical staff quickly ruled out glioblastoma, a highly aggressive and incurable form of brain cancer.
Her doctor instructed her to obtain an immediate follow-up MRI to evaluate the mass. Recalling the moment her doctor delivered the news over the phone, Philipps said: "This is a real tumor, and it's inside your brain. And Busy, it's got to come out."
Philipps recalled hyperventilating and struggling to breathe as she processed the diagnosis.
One month later, she underwent a five-hour operation to extract the 2.6 centimetre growth. Silverstein, who shares daughters Birdie, 17, and Cricket, 13, with Philipps, remained by her side at the hospital throughout the procedure.
Before undergoing surgery, Philipps explained the diagnosis to her two daughters. Her eldest daughter, Birdie, was frightened and emotional.
Philipps reassured her daughter, saying: "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."
Her younger daughter, Cricket, asked if her mother was going to be fine, to which Philipps replied: "I’m totally going to be fine."
A subsequent biopsy revealed that the tumour was malignant. However, her physician noted that oligodendrogliomas carry the best prognosis among all malignant gliomas.
Her medical team determined she did not require chemotherapy or radiation treatment. Philipps will undergo regular monitoring scans, with her doctor noting she has a strong chance that the tumour will not recur.
Infection and Recovery Challenges
In April, Philipps suffered a setback when she contracted a staphylococcus infection in her surgical incision site, requiring a second operation to clear the affected tissue.
The infection was discovered by chance during a cosmetic Botox appointment when her dermatologist noticed that the scalp incision did not appear to be healing correctly.
The secondary surgery took an emotional toll on the actress as she prepared to begin production on her new television show. "The second surgery really threw me. I just felt like I was back to square one, and I was really, really upset," Philipps recalled.
She also reflected on how the brain tumour affected her health prior to diagnosis. She realized that extreme emotional reactions she had experienced over the past two years were caused by the tumour pressing on her frontal lobe, rather than symptoms of perimenopause as she had assumed.
The frontal lobe is the region of the brain that controls executive functioning, emotional expression, impulse control, and personality.
Her close friend and former Dawson's Creek co-star Michelle Williams, who assisted in caring for Philipps after her surgery, reminded her of past conversations.
Williams told her: "Busy, you have been saying for the past two years, My brain feels broken."
Philipps agreed, reflecting: "And she was right. I have. I've been saying this for the last few years... I wasn't consciously aware that anything was really wrong, but there was something that was misfiring. Like, I could not get a handle on it. My brain does not feel broken anymore."
Keeping the News Private
Philipps explained on Instagram on Wednesday that she kept her diagnosis secret from the public for six months, updating only close contacts through Instagram's Close Friends feature.
She made the decision to keep the news within her private circle to protect her daughters from public media scrutiny while they coped with her health condition.
She also noted that she had to begin filming Cupertino just four and a half weeks after her initial brain surgery, saying she simply had to lock in and get through the production.
Philipps admitted she hesitated over the cost of the full-body MRI when she booked it, as she was unemployed at the time and felt it was a significant amount of money to spend, but expressed immense relief that she proceeded with the scan.
Although she kept her diagnosis quiet until this week, Philipps hinted at her health struggles in an Instagram post on March 19, describing the preceding weeks as the weirdest 2.5 weeks of her life.
In that post, she wrote: "i can’t wait to write book 2…. here’s what i know. i know this: i love my daughters. i love my friends. i love my dog and cats. i love my ex-husband(legal husband still lol) i f****** hate war and the cold and ready for that to be over but seriously, how lucky we are to be anything at all? Just to exist is a gift."
