After returning to Los Angeles, the Her Friends and Neighbors star shared children Frances19, Molly15, and Heinrich11, with husband David Benioff— learned that her illness was fortunately “hormone receptor positive” and “HER2 negative,” which for a brief moment made her feel “happier than I had been before the diagnosis.” Her MRI later revealed a second mass in the same breast, which ultimately proved to be benign and did not require chemotherapy or a double mastectomy.
Amanda concluded her essay by describing her bittersweet farewell to her mother – who was battling Parkinson’s disease – and comforted her in her final moments.
“The morphine took forever to kick in and she was looking at the ceiling and whimpering, so I climbed onto her rented hospital bed to get into her line of sight,” Amanda remembers. “We looked into each other’s eyes and she calmed down, and then she and I continued to stare at each other for what felt like several minutes.”