Grey’s Anatomy star Kate Walsh explains the ’subtle’ warning signs she noticed before brain tumor diagnosis

She told Kelly Clarkson that her symptoms were dismissed (John Lamparski/Getty Images)

Speaking to Cosmopolitan in September 2017, she explained that she even believed her symptoms were due to menopause, noting ‘there are a lot of the same markers’ before stating that she had to advocate for her own health when others were unphased by her symptoms.

“I really pushed to see a neurologist. I just had an instinct,” Walsh 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.”

For her, that diagnosis changed everything- particularly how she views health.

“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.”

Just three days after being told the news, the actress had surgery to remove the growth, which was a benign meningioma.

Thankfully, she did not have a cancerous tumor, but the impact of getting a diagnosis and surgery and fear must have been overwhelming.