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Kate Walsh Reveals She Was Diagnosed With a Large Brain Tumor 2 Years Ago: ‘I Just Left My Body’

Kate Walsh may have built a career on playing Dr. Addison Montgomery onGrey’s Anatomy, but two years ago, she found herself in the scary position of being the patient. The 49-year-old actress had been experiencing extreme exhaustion and a tendency to favor the right side of her body when she decided to get it checked out.

In June 2015 she was diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of a lemon, which was found to be benign after surgery.

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“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. And three days later I was in surgery having it removed,” Walsh told Cosmopolitan, revealing her diagnosis for the first time.

Walsh recalled the terrifying moment when her radiologist gave her the official diagnosis.

“She starts to say, 'Well, it looks like you have a very sizable brain tumor' — and I just left my body,” she said. “My assistant had driven me there, and I had to go get her so that she could take notes, because I was gone. It was never anything I would have imagined."

Thankfully, the surgeons were able to remove all of her benign tumor, but that didn’t make the experience any less scary. And after years of playing a doctor both onGrey’s Anatomy and Private Practice, she found she was no more prepared for her health scare.

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"It was the total opposite! You’d think that after playing Dr. Addison for the better part of a decade, where I spent more time on a hospital set than at my house, that I would feel somehow more comfortable, but I was such a little scaredy-cat,” she admitted. “In the hospital, I felt like I might as well be six years old. My mother gave me rosary beads, my friend gave me a stuffed animal to go into surgery with… I played a real badass on TV, but when it comes to being a patient it's such a vulnerable experience.”