Dealing with a cancer diagnosis is stressful enough, but actress Amanda Peet recently revealed that she had to battle breast cancer while both of her parents dying and in hospice care.
In an essay in The New Yorker, Peet shared that she first found out she had breast cancer during a routine doctor’s visit on August 29th. After having an ultrasound, her doctor took a biopsy and identified a small tumor. To make the situation even worse, her dad died that weekend.
Peet wrote, “I didn’t make it before my father took his last breath, but I got to see his body before it was taken from his apartment.” She added, “As soon as my dad’s corpse was out of sight, I was free to panic about my cancer again.”
Meanwhile, her mother was battling Parkinson’s disease. She didn’t tell her mother about her cancer diagnosis or her father’s death. Peet explained, “She still recognized me, and sometimes answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to my questions, but always reverted to an empty stare.”
To make matters even worse, Peet’s doctors discovered a second tumor in the same breast, but thankfully. This time, it was benign.
Peet ended up having a lumpectomy and radiation. She did not need chemotherapy or a mastectomy.
Peet was able to be with her mother during her last moments before she died. She made her mom’s funeral arrangements just two weeks after getting her first all clear cancer scan.
While Peet didn’t tell her parents about her cancer diagnosis, she did tell her three children, Frances, 19, and Molly, 15, and son Henry, 11. She explained, “Molly cried, and Frankie − FaceTiming from her college quad − clapped her hand over her mouth and kept it there until she was able to process the excellent portion of the news: that it appeared I was Stage I and wasn’t going to need chemo. Both of them were afraid that we were still withholding information or sugarcoating my prognosis.”
Watch the video below to learn more about Peet’s cancer diagnosis.
