History Main / SoapOperaDisease

Common ailment found on the SoapOpera. It is notoriously difficult to diagnose and often exhibits vague symptoms. Often fatal, but the victim can linger on for a long, long time. Sometimes results in a lengthy coma which, upon the victim's recovery, may also manifest a radical change in appearance (see: TheOtherDarrin).

* In ''Anime/MyNeighborTotoro'', the disease that Satsuki and Mei's mother has is never revealed, though it is [[WordOfDante believed by many fans]] to be tuberculosis.

* ''Manga/IllBoyIllGirl'' has a disease that has no particular ill effects outside of (possibly) coughing up black blood. The only huge effect it has is that names, faces, and practically anything that relates to a person is, in the eyes of the infected, blotted out or obscured. The only faces they ''can'' see are other people who are infected.

* Kousei's mother in ''Manga/YourLieInApril'' died of an illness that left her wheelchair bound. [[spoiler:Kaori suffers from a similar disease that caused her to gradually lose the ability to play the violin or walk over the series. She dies of complications during surgery instead of the illness itself, though it was considered terminal]].

Common ailment found on the SoapOpera. It is notoriously difficult to diagnose, and often exhibits vague symptoms. Often fatal, but the victim can linger on for a long, long time. Sometimes results in a lengthy coma which, upon the victim's recovery, may also manifest a radical change in appearance (see: TheOtherDarrin).

Creator/JMichaelStraczynski has mentioned one riff on this, in which a soap opera writer supposedly put a character into a coma with very specific and carefully-researched symptoms, for a plot that was only supposed to last a couple of episodes... and then realized that if the character's recovery was delayed, he could continue to crank out script after script without ever needing to worry about a pink slip, since nobody else on the writing team knew enough about the disease to write the character's recovery. The actress didn't mind either, since she got a paycheck day after day for a few minutes' lying absolutely still in bed. The producers were somewhat less than pleased at this.[[note]]Rumor has it that a couple of years later, the same writer called the producers asking if they needed his services again; he was told that the producers were still in a coma.[[/note]]

* Similarly Tsukimi's deceased mother in ''Manga/PrincessJellyfish'' had a vague, deteriorating disease that apparently lasted a few years. Eventually she was hospitalized and died.

* In ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'', [[spoiler:Reinhard dies of a completely straight example of this. Which comes off as a little strange since he's in his early twenties and living in a future a couple of thousand years ahead of the present day in which one would think medical technology would be advanced enough to at least identify it. Especially considering they're dealing with the emperor of the entire galaxy. Rubinsky dies of a more explicit brain tumour]].

* Played with. While her sister, Ryuuko's illness was implied here and there in ''Through Thick and Thin'' as being cancer (i.e, her being a special diet and being treated with chemotherapy) and, in a prequel, outright stated to be "Non-Hodgekin's Lymphoma", Satsuki's illness isn't too spelled out, however, she was being treated at home on medication, before being hospitalized for surgeries, making her's more vague.
* ''Fanfic/LittleFires'': Lightfur has some sort of, possibly immune-related, illness that makes it very easy for him to catch other's sicknesses. As a result, he was put in the Elder's den [[DreamCrushingHandicap before even becoming a warrior]].

* Alzheimer's Disease, which normally takes years and years to build up, not only progressed ten times faster than real life, but then slew Mike Baldwin in a matter of mere ''months'' in ''Series/CoronationStreet''

* Series/IZombie: In season 4 Isobel is brought to New Seattle to be cured of Freylich Syndrome, which a quick search online will reveal does not actually exist. The only symptom given so far is nosebleeds, and that the condition is eventually terminal. In the meantime Isobel seems perfectly healthy.

* ''Series/{{Vikings}}'': In season 3, Ragnar's health slowly starts to deteriorate while besieging Paris. Whether it's from some illness, an accumulation of battle wounds, or a combination of the two, it's never revealed. When hey gets back to Kattegat, he's bedridden and everyone assumes that he's dying. However, he eventually makes a slow and equally unexplained recovery in season 4.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhostCoastToCoast'' episode "Terminal", where Space Ghost is supposedly dying of some undefined terminal condition, who's symptoms are things like "sometimes it hurts when I sit down" and suspiciously fake-sounding coughing. He spends the whole episode trying to be serious and wistful while nobody takes him seriously and accuses him of faking it for attention, until he finally falls over dead at the end [[spoiler: ...only to open his eyes after [[LeaveTheCameraRunning an overly-long zoom-in]] and remark "Huh. This isn't so bad."]]

* In VisualNovel/{{Clannad}}, Nagisa suffers from an undefined disease which prevents her from attending school from time to time. [[spoiler:Her daughter Ushio gets the same undefined condition. In both cases, it turns out to be fatal.]]
** [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope Or at least until the ]] ResetButton [[SubvertedTrope is used in the final episode/"true ending" of the game.]]]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' episode "Mother's Day", it's revealed that Chuckie's mother Melinda died about a year ago. How she died is left ambiguous but she apparently died in hospital, so she was either sick or seriously injured.

** Keine and, besides the fact it was terminal, the symptoms were only described as "pneumonia and lumps in her lungs".

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhostCoastToCoast'' episode "Terminal", where Space Ghost is supposedly dying of some undefined terminal condition, who's symptoms are things like "it hurts when I sit down" and suspiciously fake-sounding coughing. He spends the whole episode trying to be serious and wistful while nobody takes him seriously and accuses him of faking it for attention, until he finally falls over dead at the end [[spoiler: ...only to open his eyes after [[LeaveTheCameraRunning an overly-long zoom-in]] and remark "Huh. This isn't so bad."]]

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhostCoastToCoast'' episode "Terminal", where Space Ghost is supposedly dying of some undefined terminal condition, who's symptoms are things like "it hurts when I sit down" and suspiciously fake-sounding coughing. He spends the whole episode trying to be serious and wistful while nobody takes him seriously and accuses him of faking it for attention, until he finally falls over dead at the end...only to open his eyes after [[LeaveTheCameraRunning an overly-long zoom-in]] and remark "Huh. This isn't so bad."

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhostCoastToCoast'' episode "Terminal", where Space Ghost is supposedly dying of some undefined terminal condition, who's symptoms are things like "it hurts when I sit down" and suspiciously fake-sounding coughing.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhostCoastToCoast'' episode "Terminal", where Space Ghost is supposedly dying of some undefined terminal condition, who's symptoms are things like "it's hurts when I sit down" and suspiciously fake-sounding coughing.

* This is essentially the fate of [[spoiler: The Mother]] in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother''. The disease is fatal, and that's pretty much all we know about it.

* Subverted with [[spoiler:Shingen]] in ''VisualNovel/IkemenSengoku''. He appears at first to have a classic lingering soap operaish illness that's only vaguely defined by occasional [[IncurableCoughOfDeath violent coughing fits]] and the main character even comments that it doesn't seem to be pneumonia or any disease she's familiar with. However, the route where he receives medical treatment in modern times has a doctor diagnose him with the real-life condition [[https://www.hindawi.com/journals/crim/2011/939808/ endobronchial lipoma]] and even correctly describe it as a tumor that's benign on its own but can cause breathing difficulties and pneumonia. The game does still take some liberties with its portrayal of this disease, but it still gets big points for explicitly linking it to something that actually occurs in the real world.

* Played with. While her sister, Ryuuko's illness was implied here and there in ''Through Thick and Thin'' as being cancer (i.e, her being a special diet and being treated with chemotherapy) an, in a prequel, outright stated to be "Non-Hodgekin's Lymphoma", Satsuki's illness isn't too spelled out, however, she was being treated at home on medication, before being hospitalized for surgeries, making her's more vague.

* The first episode of ''MrShow'' opens with Ronnie Dobbs doing a PSA for his disease "Entitilitus." He notes that no one knows where it comes from or what it is, but "entitilitus kills." Toward the end of the episode, Terry sells the rights to make a {{Biopic}} of Ronnie [[spoiler:after he dies]]. In the film, the Ronnie reveals to Terry that he suffers from entitilitus [[spoiler: then dies in his arms]].

Common ailment found on the SoapOpera. It is notoriously difficult to diagnose, and often exhibits vague symptoms. Often fatal, but victim can linger on for a long, long time. Sometimes results in a lengthy coma which, upon the victim's recovery, may also manifest a radical change in appearance (see: TheOtherDarrin).

* Naruto's illness in ''Fanfic/AccidentalCompanions'' isn't named, however, he has been ill with it for a long time and is implied to have [[spoiler: died of it]]

* In "Magic Gift of the Snowman", Emery has a disease that can be fatal, and one of the symptoms is paraplegia. Modern medicine can't do much to treat it, but people who have the disease can fully recover if they want to recover enough. When Emery recovers, the symptoms disappear overnight, including her paraplegia.

* ''LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'' [[spoiler:Reinhard dies of a completely straight example of this. Which comes off as a little strange since he's in his early twenties and living in a future a couple of thousand years ahead of the present day in which one would think medical technology would be advanced enough to at least identify it. Especially considering they're dealing with the emperor of the entire galaxy. Rebuisky dies of a more explicit brain tumour]].

* Any Creator/KeyVisualArts game will have at least one IllGirl that suffers from this, with the exception of ''VisualNovel/{{Planetarian}}'' where the disease is [[spoiler:low battery power with no way to recharge]]. Thus one of the alternate titles for this page, "Key AIDS".