Amanda Peet noticed a 'weird' change to her body before being diagnosed with breast cancer

An MRI sent Amanda Peet home believing she was in the clear, but doctors were still keeping a close eye on a ‘weird’ area of skin on her breast. A routine scan later led to a breast cancer diagnosis, and the actress is now describing what that early change felt like.

Appearing on Today on Thursday, the 54-year-old explained what first sent her to the doctor. “It just didn’t feel like normal skin, but it wasn’t the frozen pea that everybody talks about,” she said.

“I went and I even got an MRI and then they sent me away,” the Something’s Gotta Give star said. “So I thought I had a clean bill of health, but they were actually watching it.”

Peet received her first clear scan this past January after a lumpectomy and radiation.

Six months later, a routine scan turned up something concerning on an ultrasound. A biopsy followed, and Peet said her worry deepened when she learned her doctor would personally carry the sample to Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles on a Friday night.

When the results call came, her physician was unusually quiet, which told her something was wrong.

“I’ll never forget that moment,” she said of getting the diagnosis while her husband, Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff, and her kids were away.

Looking back, she said she previously ‘had such an old-fashioned notion about breast cancer.’ The mother of three first went public with the news in an essay for The New Yorker earlier this year.

The days that followed were filled with anxiety, as Peet received a ‘slow drip of information’ about what the ‘best treatment would be.’ “I had no idea it was going to take so long. So if you’re an anxious person, it’s your basic nightmare,” she said. After a lumpectomy and radiation, Peet received her first clear scan this past January.

Reflecting on her cancer being caught early, she added: “I think about how lucky I was in so many ways.”

Peet received her first clear scan this past January after a lumpectomy and radiation. (Photo by: Jesse Grant/NBC via Getty Images)

Peet was diagnosed with lobular cancer early last year, the second most common type of breast cancer. Mayo Clinic describes invasive lobular carcinoma as a cancer that triggers cell growth in the milk-producing glands, called lobules, and can spread to nearby tissue, lymph nodes and other parts of the body. Compared with the more common ductal type, it is less likely to cause a lump in the breast.

What are the symptoms of invasive lobular carcinoma?

The clinic says the disease often causes no symptoms at first, and may feel more like an area of thickening than a distinct lump.

Signs it lists include an area of thickening that makes part of the breast feel different from the tissue around it, a nipple that looks flattened or turns inward, and a change in the size, shape or appearance of a breast.

Skin changes can also appear, such as a change in color, dimpling or an orange-peel texture, and peeling, scaling, crusting or flaking.

The clinic urges anyone who notices a change in their breasts to see a doctor, even if they recently had a mammogram.