General Hospital- Shock: Kate Mansi Reveals Her Stepfather Did This to Her in the Operating Room.
March is Endometriosis Awareness Month, General Hospital star Kate Mansi (Kristina) is opening up about her own endometriosis diagnosis and the dramatic, soap opera-worthy way she found out that she how learned that she was suffering from the chronic condition after her own stepfather performed emergency surgery that saved her life!
Telling Her Story
Back in 2015, while Mansi was starring as Abigail Deveraux on Days of Our Lives, the actress began experiencing pain, nausea and bleeding, and her stomach became distended.
“It had been going on for a couple days, and doctors just kept dismissing it,” Mansi recalled to People. “I think as a society we are so ingrained to just listen to what the doctors say and abandon what we feel.
I went into these appointments, and they said, ‘Oh, maybe the pain is because your IUD is turning.’ And then I would do an ultrasound.
No, it’s not my IUD. ‘Okay, well maybe it’s just a bad period.’ I was getting really nauseous and I had been throwing up for days and they said maybe I had the flu. Maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that.”
Mansi continued to report to work at DAYS but was in so much pain that she struggled to get through the day.
Eventually, she drove herself to an emergency room, where she was met by her mother and her stepfather, who is an ob-gyn.
Scans showed an 11-centimeter mass in her abdomen, and while doctors wanted to consult an oncologist, her stepfather pushed for surgery.
“My stepdad was so frustrated,” Mansi recalled, “and because he’s my stepfather, so not a blood relation, he scrubbed in himself and was like, ‘I’m not waiting for an oncologist. I’m gonna do the surgery or she’s not gonna make it.’ And he did a surgery that ended up saving my life. I was in the worst pain of my life and it turns out, I had an ovarian cyst rupturing, and I was working through it for days.”
During the surgery, Mansi’s stepfather discovered endometriotic tissue and confirmed that she had endometriosis, a condition that affects roughly one in 10 women of reproductive age and occurs when tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside the uterus, causing inflammation, scarring, chronic pain, and in some cases complications affecting fertility or nearby organs.
The actress reported that her symptoms have changed constantly over the years, but they are “much more stable now.”
On GH, Mansi’s TV sister, Molly, played by Kristen Vaganos, was diagnosed with endometriosis back in 2023, and in the March 16 episode of the soap, she will have an in-depth discussion about the condition with her boyfriend, Cody (Josh Kelly). This show was directed by Mansi herself, who had previously helmed the November 18, 2025, episode of GH.
“As someone who’s been in this industry for a while, I’ve never even read a script in my life to this day, apart from here, that even mentioned endometriosis,” she shared. “
So I was so proud of ABC and [GH Executive Producer] Frank Valentini and the writers for telling this story. I was so honored, and it should be something that is represented more.”
