Upon her return to Los Angeles, the Your Friends and Neighbors star—who shares kids Frances, 19, Molly, 15, and Henry, 11, with husband David Benioff—learned that her illness was thankfully “hormone-receptor-positive” and “HER2-negative,” giving her a brief moment of feeling “happier than I’d been pre-diagnosis.” Her MRI later revealed a second mass in the same breast, which was eventually determined to be benign and would not require chemotherapy or a double mastectomy.
Amanda concluded her essay by describing her bittersweet farewell with her mom—who battled Parkinson’s disease—offering comfort in her final moments.
“The morphine was taking forever to kick in, and she was looking at the ceiling and whimpering, so I climbed onto her rented hospital bed to get in her line of vision,” Amanda recalled. “We locked eyes and she quieted down, and then she and I continued to stare at each other for what felt like several minutes.”