Like many kids in the 80s, I remember my mother watching melodramas when I was little. In fact, there was only one in particular: “General Hospital”. She was wearing it while she folded her clothes or ironed them. I liked to sit with her when she followed the (sometimes absurd) journey of the characters, despite most of the adult-themed plotline being lost to me.
Then in 1993, when I was 11, it happened. Lucky Spencer, son of power couple Luke and Laura, has walked to Kelly’s diner for the first time. Something about young Jonathan Jackson started pounding my reserve heart a little faster. Suddenly, I was very interested in my mother’s show.
I have always wanted episodes involving my beloved Lucky as much as I could for a few years. But as a teenager, I had a non-fiction boy to contest, and I slowly lost interest in Port Charles’ good citizens.
Links to the past
For the next few decades, the show was completely off my radar. But one night in 2017, thanks to a case of furious insomnia, I headed out to rerun a recent episode of midnight. The nostalgia was powerful as I discovered that many of the characters I remember as a child were still appearing on the show.
I was also impressed by the sentimental value. Because it made me think about my mother. She unexpectedly passed away in a car accident in 2009, and the show gave me a sense of connection to my memories. So I kept watching and I got hooked pretty easily. As a therapist and mother of a small child, I was very much in need of self-care in the form of easy entertainment. This was something the doctor ordered (wink).
Then, like fate, in 2021, they did a particularly interesting storyline for me. Britt Westbourne (pictured by the lovely Kelly Thierbaugh), one of the young and brilliant doctors at General Hospital, discovers that she has Huntington’s disease.
Art imitates life
Hmm, Huntington’s disease. I was honestly a little mad at first. This was supposed to be my departure from reality, and instead forced me to think about one of the more difficult truths about myself. I had a history of the Huntington family.
More specifically, my maternal grandmother passed away in Huntington at the age of 55. But I didn’t witness it because she passed away before I was born. In fact, I knew little about it, as the illness was not discussed in my family. I wasn’t completely aware that it was genetic until I went to university and studied it myself.
My mother had no symptoms at the time. As a young, healthy woman, it seemed easy to convince myself that it was non-threatening. It could have seemed like I would alienate it as at least two generations felt removed from me.
That idea ruled over the next few decades. However, when I saw Britt Westbourne watching the process of being diagnosed, I couldn’t help but feel like my mother’s spirit was portraying the show’s shared love and invited me to see more of this unpleasant part of my ancestors.
So I began to rethink some things. HD is given to the child by parents, so my mother was able to inherit it from her mother. She never experienced any motor symptoms of Terutale before her death (even at age 55), but she was never tested for it in her lifetime. That meant that her genetic condition was uncertain, and that was what mine was. Mathematically, it could not be excluded.
I also started revisiting my mother’s symptoms. She seemed to be evident because of her lack of motor symptoms. However, she had depression and some of the unstable behaviors that could be common in the precursor phase of HD.
If I was honest, I would have done so too: I had been battling depression for years, and the very insomnia that led me to see GH again was due to the subtle neurological changes that were already taking place. The realization that I might actually be gene positive suddenly seemed inevitable.
Life imitates art
Certainly, art imitated life: my life. More precisely, art reflected something about my life, which inspired me to go deeper into my own journey.
My mother chose not to face her genetic inheritance, so I didn’t have a model of how to proceed. Instead, I took my clue from a fictional character. The Britt Westbourne story drove me into action, so when I chose to test it, I decided to deal with my fate head on.
So, for my mother: I have chosen the same path you did for many years and remained in denial. It was fascinating to believe that this illness left our pedigree when my grandmother passed away. But that wasn’t true. You carried it without knowing it and you handed it to me. It remained hidden for generations. I am now facing it in the hope that the more people choose to do the same thing, the more light will be swayed by the disease itself and that more science will continue to move towards treatment.
To the writers and actors of “General Hospital”: Thank you for choosing to focus on this rare disease, and for doing so in a way that honors us who actually live with it. It directly affected my life trajectory and inspired me to learn about my own history and defend on behalf of my at-risk children. This is the power of art.
And to the lucky Spencer (still skipping the beat in my mind): Without you, I wouldn’t have led to melodrama in the first place. To the full joy of my inner child, your character returned to the show last year. If your name holds the truth, it may evoke it, but we hope that we can bring good fortune to us who are now under this burden and place it in our lives only for the next generation. Always your biggest fan.
