General Hospital’s Willow has finally gone under the knife for her bone marrow transplant, but will she escape the Grim Reaper’s scythe?
Port Charles’s beloved weepy waif has been kept hanging on like the Supremes song, with the lightest possible case of Stage 4 leukemia, after months of delaying treatment and even getting married to Michael in a touching all-hands-on-deck family wedding. But now she finally has Auntie Liesl’s healthy bone marrow spreading fresh cells through her system. Can she — and we — breathe a sigh of relief?
“The transplant itself isn’t that different than a blood transfusion,” assured sudden cancer specialist TJ. “So all you need to do is sit back and relax.” (Relax? TJ, this isn’t like hanging out in your sweats at the gatehouse!)
If it’s really that easy, why wasn’t it done months ago? When she had, like, two weeks to live? We take soap operas with massive grains of salt, and enough suspension of disbelief to hold up several bridges, but Willow’s cancer arc has strained even our elastic credulity. Especially given her grandmother-in-law Monica’s 1995 breast cancer arc, which viewers still laud today as a heartfelt and realistic portrayal of the disease.
More: Will GH’s Nikolas evade the Reaper, too?
Putting Willow behind glass, having emotional phone conversations with Michael and Sasha, and her adorable moppets Wiley and Amelia, tugs at the heartstrings while also feeling really late in the game. Not since Jenny in 1970’s Love Story has a disease been this drawn out for maximum impact. And is it really going to end with her lifesaving surgery? After all, transplants don’t always take and she can languish in the hospital forever if need be.
Many viewers having been rooting for Willow to “just die already,” but given her placement as General Hospital‘s central ingenue and Michael’s wife, that’s highly unlikely. What’s probably going to happen is what’s happened with her story all along — a recovery wrapped up in neat little bows, ignoring the true impact of cancer on patient and family, while everyone gushes about how brave she’s been.
Whose suffering will end first? Ours or hers? We’ll find out soon enough!
Want to relive every moment of Willow and Michael’s epic love story? We’ve got you covered!
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