“Grey’s Anatomy” star Kate Walsh is opening up about a health scare she faced years ago.
During a recent appearance on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” the 57-year-old actress recalled being diagnosed with a noncancerous brain tumor in 2015 and shared how the experience changed her approach to health.
“Thankfully, it turned out to be benign, so I was very, very fortunate,” Walsh said.
The “Private Practice” alum explained she noticed “very subtle” warning signs ahead of her diagnosis.
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“It was like, ‘Hey, I’m really tired,'” Walsh recalled. “And then it’s like, ‘Oh, the right side of my body is dipping.’”
Walsh told Clarkson she was uncertain if she had a health problem at the time, since people around her were initially dismissive of her concerns.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, you’re off.’ I’m like, ‘No,'” she said. “And then, walking the dog, I’m like, ‘It must be a little bit of a windy street.’
“It was just sort of very subtle and then very kind of, ‘Oh it’s ADD. I can’t really focus. Oh, I’ve been scrolling too much.’ That kind of stuff.”
Walsh continued to worry about her symptoms and decided to seek medical attention.
Looking back, the California native shared that she learned a valuable lesson from the experience.
“I know how important it is to advocate for one’s own health because people were like, ‘You’re just depressed.’ It was right after [my TV show] ‘Bad Judge’ got canceled,'” Walsh recalled.
“Your show got canceled. You’re just depressed,'” she remembered people telling her. “I’m like, ‘No, something’s off.'”
Walsh first revealed her brain tumor diagnosis in a September 2017 interview with Cosmopolitan.
The “Emily in Paris” actress told the outlet she had physical and cognitive problems before doctors discovered a tumor in her brain the size of a small lemon. Walsh told the outlet she initially believed her symptoms were due to menopause, noting “there are a lot of the same markers.”
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“I really pushed to see a neurologist. I just had an instinct,” she recalled. “I had to really advocate because they don’t hand out MRIs so easily. But I got an MRI and, thank God I did, because it turned out I had a very sizable brain tumor in my left frontal lobe.”
Walsh told the outlet she was stunned after receiving her diagnosis.
“I just left my body,” she said. “My assistant had driven me there, and I had to go get him so that he could take notes because I was gone. It was never anything I would have imagined.”
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Three days later, Walsh had surgery to remove the growth, and it was later determined to be a benign meningioma.
According to the Mayo Clinic, meningiomas are “brain tumors that start in the membranes around the brain and spinal cord” and they are the most common type of benign brain tumors.
While appearing on “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” Walsh shared that she has a family history of cancer. Her father died due to complications from lung cancer, and her mother was a breast cancer survivor.
The actress emphasized the importance of early detection and screening but acknowledged that it can be difficult for people to speak out about their health concerns.
“It’s a hard thing when you have everybody looking at you going, ‘Hmm, I think you’re just this or that. You’re tired.'”
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