Latest Updates Health Situation GH Star John J. York Approaches Cancer Diagnosis

Latest Updates Health Situation GH Star John J. York Approaches Cancer Diagnosis

The ‘General Hospital’ star tells PEOPLE that if his asking people to sign up for organ donation with BeTheMatch.org saves one life, “that’s huge”

General Hospital star John J. York isn’t letting a cancer diagnosis get him down by any means.

The soap opera veteran, 64, who has played Mac Scorpio on the ABC daytime drama for 22 years, announced last week that he had been diagnosed with two forms of cancer — myelodysplastic syndromes, or MDS, and multiple smoldering myeloma — two blood and bone marrow disorders. But because he has battled ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease since he was 17, his feeling is, “It’s just another thing that I gotta now take care of.”

“I went through life with colonoscopies, medicines, the whole thing, and always had to be under doctor’s care,” he tells PEOPLE, adding with great positivity, “and living life. Everything’s good.”

York had periodic checkups on those pre-existing conditions, and each time his doctor told him he had a spot that just doesn’t want to heal. As a result, he was put on mild chemo in a pill form. However, in October 2022, the hematologist — a doctor specializing in blood conditions — suggested a bone marrow biopsy. Then, on Dec. 9, 2022, York recalls with clarity, the doctor walked into his office with a big stack of papers, dropping them on his desk and saying, “Is your wife available for a conference call?”

“I thought, ‘Well, that can’t be good,” York laughs.

They got York’s wife of 37 years, Vicki, on the phone. “She was a mess,” York remembers. “[The doctor] was explaining all these different things and cells and all different levels and words that had, you know, 25 letters in them. And I didn’t understand. And Vicki finally came out and said, ‘Does John have cancer?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ And I’m sitting there, I’m really just like a fly on the wall, listening to him talk to Vicki because she was the one asking all the questions.” At the end of his doctor’s conversation with Vicki, York’s one question was simple: “Why do I feel so good?”

“I feel great,” York says. “I mean, I walk three miles a day and I’m in great shape. And my diet is great and my appetite is great. [The doctor] said that was because we got it early.”

‘General Hospital’ Star John J. York Reveals 2 Blood and Bone Marrow Disorder Diagnoses: ‘This Isn’t Goodbye’
Although chemo treatment was set to begin through UCLA and the doctor that made the diagnosis, York and Vicki were in the process of moving to Tennessee, where their daughter Skyler lives with her family. He didn’t want to tell Skyler of the diagnosis over the phone and instead wanted to wait until the move was complete.

But after a couple of sleepless nights, York asked Vicki to call their daughter with the news. Skyler’s husband suggested that rather than York flying back and forth from Tennessee to LA for treatments, he do everything at the nearby Vanderbilt and its “amazing university and cancer center.”