NEED TO KNOW

• Kate Mansi reflects on her 2015 endometriosis diagnosis after a life-saving surgery revealed a ruptured ovarian cyst
• The actress shares how her condition has impacted her life in honor of March’s Endometriosis Awareness Month
• Mansi directed a General Hospital episode addressing endometriosis to raise awareness and encourage open conversations

General Hospital star Kate Mansi is reflecting on the moment a life-saving surgery led to her endometriosis diagnosis, and why she’s dedicated to speaking out about the condition.

In honor of March’s Endometriosis Awareness Month, the 38-year-old actress spoke to PEOPLE about her unique experience with endometriosis, the reproductive condition in which uterine tissue grows outside of the uterus, causing cramping and chronic pain.

Mansi didn’t grow up with abnormal periods or cramping, so a condition like endometriosis was never on her radar. However, one day in 2015 she started experiencing severe pain, heavy bleeding and nausea, and her stomach became distended.

“It had been going on for a couple days and doctors just kept dismissing it,” she recalls.

“I think as a society we are so ingrained to just listen to what the doctors say and abandon what we feel,” she says. “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 was calling and visiting her doctor several times for four days straight. During that time, she was still trying to push through her pain and continue working. She says by the end of the week, her stomach was “so distended that I couldn’t even zip up my pants.”

The actress even recalls her makeup artist telling her she looked “green and pale” but Mansi pushed to make it through on set.

“I’ve never gone through childbirth, but it felt like I was having extreme contractions. They would say action, I would do my scene, and then the second they said cut, I was literally doubled over in pain,” she says. “It got unbearable that I ended up driving myself to the emergency room that day.”

Mansi’s mother — along with her stepfather, who is an OB-GYN — met her at the hospital. After testing, scans revealed an 11-centimeter mass in her abdomen. She says doctors “jumped to conclusions” and called an oncologist. However, her stepfather advocated for an immediate surgery.

“My stepdad was so frustrated — and because he’s my stepfather, so it’s 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,” she says. “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.”

“The ovarian cyst coincidentally was sitting on top of a blood vessel. So when it burst, it hit the blood vessel and then it leaked a liter and a half of blood into my abdomen,” she explains. “All the blood had coagulated together into this 11-centimeter mass, cutting off blood and oxygen. He obviously took it out, but then he found all this endometriotic tissue.”

Mansi remembers the entire ordeal being “so scary,” but it ultimately led to her diagnosis.

“When I came out of surgery, I had lost so much blood that I needed blood transfusions. And my stepdad told me, ‘You have endometriosis and this is what that means.’ And that was the first time I had ever even heard that word,” she says.