Actor Amanda Peet recalled the time she was diagnosed with breast cancer and confessed to a difficult period that overlapped with her parents' final moments.
On the 21st (local time), U.S. entertainment outlet Page Six reported that Peet recently revealed in an essay for The New Yorker that she was diagnosed with breast cancer last fall. She said, "For a long time I was diagnosed with 'dense breasts' and had regular screenings," and recalled, "Just before the Labor Day holiday, thinking it was a routine exam, I went to the hospital."
But the situation changed dramatically when an abnormality was found on the ultrasound. Peet said, "The doctor performed a biopsy, and when he said he would take the sample directly to pathology, I already had a premonition," she confessed. The test results were delivered the next day, and she was told that although the tumor looked small, an MRI was needed to determine its exact extent.
What made it even harder was her family situation. She said, "My divorced parents were each in hospice in different regions," and added, "My mother had been there for months, but my father's was sudden." She went on to confess, "I headed to New York but was not able to be there for my father's final moments," evoking sympathy.
After returning to Los Angeles, she was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer and received results showing hormone receptor–positive and HER2-negative. Peet said, "I felt a brief relief, but then fear quickly returned," and conveyed, "A cancer diagnosis doesn't end all at once; it comes at you little by little."
Additional tests also found benign tumors, and she underwent a partial mastectomy and radiation therapy.
Peet calmly recounted her last moments with her mother. She said, "I climbed onto the bed to come into my mother's view because morphine wasn't taking effect and she was in pain," and recalled, "When our eyes met, my mother quieted, and we looked at each other for a while."
Meanwhile, actor Sarah Paulson publicly offered support for the essay, saying, "The most beautiful piece written while experiencing the grief of losing parents and a cancer diagnosis at the same time."
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