Kate Walsh reveals secret brain tumour diagnosis

For years, actress Kate Walsh has been playing a doctor on TV, but it seems like she needed a push to visit a doctor when she got all exhausted.

In a recent interview with Cosmopolitan, the 'Grey's Anatomy' actress revealed that she was diagnosed with and underwent a surgery to remove a "sizable brain tumor," according to People Magazine.

In early 2015, Walsh began to feel exhausted, though that seemed to be a given with her busy schedule.

She said, "I had been working insane hours, maybe 80 hours a week, and also working out really hard, so I wasn't surprised. I figured, okay, I'll change up my workout routine, I'll go back to mellow stuff like hiking."

 

After wrapping starring in and executive producing 'Bad Judge' in January 2015, Walsh recalls feeling exhausted and attributed the symptoms to menopause.

"The exhaustion got to the point where I could drink five cups of coffee and still not feel awake or clear. And then around April, I started having more cognitive difficulties. It felt like aphasia, but it wasn't just not being able to find words; I would lose my train of thought, I wasn't able to finish sentences, and that was when I got really alarmed," noted Walsh.

Walsh saw a neurologist on "instinct" and pushed to get an MRI, which revealed a tumor in her left frontal lobe.

She explained, "The words 'brain tumor' were never in my zeitgeist. I went in for the MRI, and you know it's serious when they don't even wait, they're like 'hey, the radiologist wants to see you. Well, it looks like you have a very sizable brain tumor' - and I just left my body."

Three days after the MRI, the actress went into surgery where surgeons removed the benign mass. Though the immediate threat was taken care of, the actress knew she had to slow down during her recovery.

"I love to work hard and do 800 things at once, and this was a really amazing lesson in just submitting to the process of healing," she said, adding, "I did exactly what the doctors told me to do, and asked tons of questions when I had them, and got lots of support, and just took my time."

Despite the diagnosis occurring in 2015, Walsh feels that now was the right time to publicly address it, for her experience could be of service to those unaware of the importance of check-ups.

Walsh has now joined forces with Cigna to encourage everyone to get annual checkups.

"People in our culture are afraid of medicine and wait until they're sick, but (it's) the idea of preventive medicine as opposed to just being reactive as the way we go to the gym," noted Walsh.