Credit: CBS
Perhaps we should take The Bold and the Beautiful as a precautionary medical tale. After being convinced that she was dying of heart failure, Taylor refused follow-up tests, turned away from asking for a second opinion and just decided that she had to start saying farewell to everyone she cared about. That is, of course, until she told Ridge what was going on and he pushed her to fight for her life.
And it’s a good thing he did! Because it took exactly one day of seeking a second opinion to figure out what was actually wrong with Taylor. And boy would she have had egg on her face if she hadn’t gotten more tests and just went around telling everyone she was dying… only to keep right on ticking!
The problem, it turns out, courtesy of Dr. Buckingham, is broken heart syndrome, which is not just a poetic way of saying someone’s sad. (You can find out how it all went down in today’s recap here.)
We all know that stress can take a toll on the body, depressing our immune systems, screwing with our digestive systems and causing a whole host of problems. But it can also take a toll on our heart. And one of the ways it can do that is by causing broken heart syndrome, which can cause pains that mimic heart attacks and interrupt the flow of blood in parts of the heart. There can also be shortness of breath, irregular heart beats, fainting. So yes, it’s very real and very scary.
But at the same time, broken heart syndrome is rarely fatal and usually temporary. For awhile now we’ve been assuming that after everyone found out Taylor was dying, Brooke would tell Ridge to marry her on her deathbed so that she could die happy. Then, we figured, a miracle cure would be discovered just in time to save her, leaving Taylor and Ridge married, while Brooke fumed over giving her beau away.
That’s gone now, because Taylor isn’t dying. She’s just heartbroken. And since Ridge was right there with her for the diagnosis (he asked what we’re guessing a lot of folks did about whether it broken heart syndrome was real or not), there’s no pretending Taylor’s still dying and marrying him on her fake deathbed.
With that said, it still seems pretty clear what we’re heading for another “Tridge” reunion, one way or another. But hey, maybe this is better. The other way would have left Brooke constantly looking for a way to pull Taylor and Ridge back apart. This way, Brooke is likely to just want to wash her hands of them after watching the two circle each other and slowly grow close. Plus, with Katie rejecting Bill (again!) because Brooke is his true love, it sure feels like she’ll be heading back to Bill soon enough too!
