Busy Philipps, 47, reveals the results of her MRI scan six months after having surgery to remove rare brain tumor

Busy Philipps shared the results of her MRI scan with fans, six months after she underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor.

The actress, 47, was diagnosed with a grade 2 oligodendroglioma in February after undergoing a full-body MRI scan the day after her co-star James Van Der Beek's death from colon cancer at the age of 48.

And on Tuesday, she posted a six month video update to her Instagram, writing in her caption, '6 month MRI done! NO signs of tumor progression!'

However, she added that the scan did detect 'a clear sign of sinus infection!!' before quipping, 'Well…i guess i’ll take it!'

In the clip, Philipps shared her infection 'makes sense because my eye’s been red. My left eye, for the past week.'

'And if you, are somebody who’s followed me for a really long time, you know those sinuses, honey. They have been out to get me since day one. So I'm going to the sinus doctor tomorrow morning. See what we’ve got to do,' she said.

Philipps added that she had sinus surgery in 2018, before stating that she might need to do an anti-inflammation cleanse.

She then took off her glasses to give fans a closer look at her irritated left eye, which she said felt 'painful.'

The star added that she initially thought it was eczema. 'But now with the MRI saying I have a sinus infection, I don't know what the hell is going on,' she added.

'But no tumor, so, I guess I'll take a sinus infection over a brain tumor any day.' 

Last month, Philipps shared an array of snaps detailing her recovery.

After going public with her diagnosis for the first time a week prior, Philipps took to Instagram to assure fans she is 'totally fine'.

Sharing a snap of her recovering in intensive care after the surgery, she penned: 'everyone(mostly) has been so overwhelmingly kind in the past 24 hours so thank you so much for all your well wishes and love and prayers and support.'

'But just to reiterate, because the internet loves a clickbait, I AM ALREADY RECOVERED! You all have literally watched me recover since March 2, you just didn’t know it! I AM TOTALLY FINE! YAY MEDICINE!'

Philipps also shared a snap of her hair covered in blood following the operation as well as her swollen forehead after she picked up an infection post surgery.

Managing to work despite her health woes, she revealed she was icing her forehead periodically whilst filming to keep the swelling down.

Charting how far she has come, the last picture showed Philipps enjoying the sunset with her dog as she penned: 'me, yesterday with Gina enjoying the sunset together. no rare malignant brain tumor in sight!!!'

'Thank you to my kids and my friends and family and my new tv family at @cupertinocbs for helping to get me through these last 6 months as i recovered and tried to get back to feeling like myself which i really finally do!'

Philipps revealed that she underwent surgery in early March just weeks before she started filming her new show Cupertino, admitting: 'I'm grateful that I'm alive,' and adding it has been 'the weirdest six months of my life'.

The star said she had no symptoms of the grade 2 oligodendroglioma, a rare slow-growing tumour that is found in just 1,100 to 1,300 people per year in the US.

The lesion was discovered only after she was inspired to undergo the MRI scan, which checks for more than 500 conditions, after reading about it on Instagram.

Speaking to People Magazine about her health ordeal, Philipps explained how her scan was initially scheduled for January, but a blizzard forced her to push the appointment to February 12, the day after her friend Van Der Beek died.

Talking with her ex-husband and close friend, Marc Silverstein, she considered cancelling the scan amid her grief for Van Der Beek and a busy work period.

But Silverstein told her Van Der Beek would want her to find out more about her health. 'He's like, "Maybe it's the best thing you could do for your friend this morning. Go get that scan."'

The scan showed a lesion on her brain but thankfully glioblastoma, an aggressive cancerous tumor with no cure, was quickly ruled out.

Her doctor instructed her to get a follow-up MRI as early as possible to get a better look at the lesion. She recalled the phone call when her doctor told her: 'This is a real tumor, and it's inside your brain. And Busy, it's got to come out,' and she said: 'I was hyperventilating and trying to breathe.'

The actress underwent a five-hour procedure a month later to remove the 2.6cm tumor, with Silverstein, who is the father of her daughters Birdie, 17, and Cricket, 13, supporting her at the hospital.

Philipps recalled telling her daughters about the diagnosis and her eldest 'was kind of beside herself and really, really scared and overwhelmed with emotion'.

'I just kept saying to her, "Birdie, you’re just not in the movie where your mom dies your senior year of high school. That’s just not the movie that you’re in. I promise you."'

Meanwhile, Cricket's 'reaction when I told her was like, "Okay. You’re going to be fine?" And I was like, "I’m totally going to be fine."'

The tumor was biopsied and it was discovered to be malignant, with her doctor advising 'it has the best prognosis of all of the malignant gliomas'.

Philipps doesn’t need chemotherapy or radiation, but will get regular scans to monitor for a potential recurrence, with her doctor noting that 'she really has a great chance that this may not recur'.

In April, Philipps was back in hospital after she contracted staphylococcus in her incision, undergoing another surgery to clear the infection.

The infection was discovered when Philipps's dermatologist noticed the incision site didn’t look right during a Botox appointment.

'The second surgery really threw me. I just felt like I was back to square one, and I was really, really upset,' Philipps, who had just started filming her new show at the time, admitted.

She has now reflected that some of her 'extreme emotional reactions' she'd been experiencing over the past couple of years were a result of the tumor pressing on her frontal lobe, and not perimenopause as she'd always assumed.

Whilst her doctors can't be sure if these were symptoms, Philipps's best friend and Dawson's co-star Michelle Williams, who helped take care of her after her surgery, pointed out to her: '"Busy, you have been saying for the past two years, My brain feels broken." And she was right. I have. I've been saying this for the last few years... I wasn't consciously aware that anything was really wrong, but there was something that was misfiring.'

'Like, I could not get a handle on it. My brain does not feel broken anymore.'

Speaking on Instagram, Philipps explained that she had been keeping her loved ones up to date over the past six months via the Close Friends function on Instagram.

She said she wanted to keep the news to her inner circle in order to protect her daughters from 'having to deal with the added insanity of their mom talking about it publicly'.

She added that she also had to start filming her show Cupertino 'just four and a half weeks' after her first surgery 'and I just had to f****** lock in and just get through it'.

Philipps also told her followers how grateful she was that she decided to have the MRI scan, admitting 'to be honest I didn't even have a job when I did it and I was a bit like "this is a stupid amount of money that I'm spending" but I did it anyway.'

Whilst she has only just publicly revealed her diagnosis, Philipps did hint at her health issues in a March 19 Instagram post, writing that it had been 'literally weirdest 2.5 weeks of my life'.

'i can’t wait to write book 2…. here’s what i know. i know this: i love my daughters. i love my friends. i love my dog and cats. i love my ex-husband(legal husband still lol) i f****** hate war and the cold and ready for that to be over but seriously, how lucky we are to be anything at all?'

'Just to exist is a gift. happy new moon. plant the seeds. let’s move the f*** on. hand on my heart. hand on my stupid heart.'

Fans can next watch the star on the CBS legal drama series Cupertino, which is set to premiere October 8.