General Hospital star Kirsten Storms undergoing brain surgery for aneurysm

General Hospital star Kirsten Storms is preparing for brain surgery.

The 41-year-old actor revealed that she’s undergoing treatment for an aneurysm — a ballooning of the blood vessel in the brain — in a Tuesday Instagram post. She explained that in January, she “had a new scan done” of her brain, since her neurosurgeon “has been monitoring” the cyst that he left on her brain in 2021, after removing a different one that was causing her problems at the time.

However, during the scan earlier this year, her doctor discovered the aneurysm in her brain.

“The January scan happened because I had symptoms that the doctors thought could’ve been brain-related,” Storms, who took a leave of absence from General Hospital in June to be with her daughter, wrote in her Instagram post. “When I say that I was shocked when the doctors told me they found an aneurysm on the right side of my brain… welp, I basically launched into a standup comedy routine.”

“I had a procedure done that weekend,” she continued. “Where the doctor threads a camera from my leg up to my brain. (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.”

However, due to a “slightly complex situation” that weekend, the aneurysm wasn’t “coiled,” which is a minimally invasive procedure that blocks blood flow to the aneurysm to prevent it from rupturing.

“I checked in with my super smart surgeon, completed my first few months at work, started my hiatus, and left California,” she added.

“Aneurysms (obviously) can be caused by stress... 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,” Storms continued. “For my own personal reasons, no longer living in Los Angeles was very important to me.”

In the caption, Storms also explained why she was talking about her health so openly.

“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,” she wrote. “If we can, we will do our best to do what is best for ourselves and loved ones. Since I knew what an aneurysm was, the scan in January majorly freaked me out.”

In June, Storms, who has played Maxie Jones on General Hospital since 2005, announced her move to Tennessee. She also said she’d be taking a step back from the soap opera, after having a conversation with the show’s executive producer, Frank Valentini, in March about her desire to move out of California. However, she still wants to stay on the show.

“Now, when you approach a job like this, they can always be like, ‘Forget it. We will let you out of your contract if you’re going to leave the state’,” Storms explained. “But GH did not do that. Which was kind of amazing because I also asked for some time off.”

She said she completed her “final taping day for the year,” teasing that she might return as early as November or December. Storms also assured fans that her character’s storyline during her absence is “kind of incredible.”