“General Hospital” star Kirsten Storms revealed she is undergoing surgery to treat a brain aneurysm.
Storms, who previously underwent brain surgery in 2021 to remove a noncancerous cyst that was causing symptoms, told her Instagram followers on Tuesday that her neurosurgeon had been monitoring another cyst that wasn’t removed during the first operation and discovered an aneurysm on the right side of her brain during a follow-up scan earlier this year.
The actress admitted she was “majorly freaked out” when the aneurysm was discovered, sharing that she felt “my brain seems to be sorta lowkey rebelling against me.”
“I had a procedure done that weekend, where the doctor threaded a camera from my leg up to my brain,” she wrote.
Storms continued, “(It’s a routine procedure, but the path inside your body that they lead the camera through is *insane*… THE CAMERA GOES THROUGH YOUR ARMPIT, guys. Your. Armpit.) Anyway, because of the *slightly* complex situation with the aneurysm (nothing bad, just not typical), it wasn’t coiled that weekend.”
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, brain aneurysms are bulges in blood vessels that can leak or rupture. Endovascular coiling is a procedure in which a catheter is threaded through an artery from the groin into the brain to reach an aneurysm. Soft platinum coils are delivered into the aneurysm under X-ray guidance to promote clotting and block blood flow into the weakened vessel. Blocking the flow reduces the risk of rupture, which can cause “life-threatening bleeding and brain damage,” according to the research institution.
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Storms said her surgery is “being scheduled for sometime in the next two weeks.” She explained that she is currently staying with former “General Hospital” co-star and close friend Emme Rylan in St. Louis, Missouri, ahead of the procedure, since “neurology stuff makes me feel a bit of nervousness now.”
The “Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century” star noted that Rylan had been “by my side every day during my craniotomy and hospital recovery in 2021.” Storms said she and Rylan are “crocheting the most beautiful sweaters” while waiting for the surgery to be scheduled.
Rylan played Lulu Spencer, the best friend of Storms’ character, Maxie Jones, on “General Hospital” from 2013 to 2020. The duo recently teamed up to launch a new sweater collection called KickinIt.
In March, Storms, who has played Maxie since 2005, announced that she was taking a hiatus from the long-running ABC soap opera to move from Los Angeles to Nashville, Tennessee with her daughter Harper, 11.
Storms explained in her Instagram post that her health struggles contributed to her decision to leave L.A.
“Aneurysms (obviously) can be caused by stress,” she wrote. “Brain cysts? I believe that is possible too… and since the January scan showed a new, but very small, squatter (aka cyst) on my brain stem — it was clear I needed to change some things in my life asap.”
She continued, “For my own personal reasons, no longer living in Los Angeles was very important to me. The biggest reason for the move was Harper, but a lot of it was for my physical and mental health. And my overall happiness.”
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In the caption of her post, Storms shared, “I wanted to post this because even though my brain seems to be sorta lowkey rebelling against me, it does allow me to understand that we’ve all got times when things aren’t great.”
“If we can, we will do our best to do what is best for ourselves and loved ones,” she added. “Since I knew what an aneurysm was, the scan in January majorly freaked me out.”
Storms wrote that she also wanted to set the record straight after false online rumors circulated about why she had been hospitalized.
“A few days after I was discharged from the hospital, someone created a blog post that said I was in the hospital that weekend because I tried to ‘unalive’ myself,” she wrote.
“I couldn’t understand why a person would makeup something that terrible, when they had no idea why I was really there,” Storms continued. “There are a few really bad apples out there. We all know that…but there are people in my life who I am truly thankful to know.”
“One of those individuals just made a s— load of sweaters with me,” she added, referring to Rylan. “They are glorious.”
