That’s me. Some years ago I was told by my doctor that I should have my kidneys ultra-sounded or something that sounded like that because she had noticed a small trace of blood in my urine.

Next thing you know, I’m in the radiology room in the bowels of a well known local hospital. I was enjoying the icy touch of a metal table on my back , while discreetly trying to shut the “open to the world” gown I was forced to wear, which was sure to reveal my skinny legs and my flabby one-pack. Then, seconds after achieving closure, the curtain opened and in walked Nurse Kalish.

She was young and perky, with the voice of a preschool teacher, you know, with a high pitched chirp and a big smile. She discussed with me that I was there for some photographs of my kidneys, but couldn’t be more specific. I wasn’t at all worried, as I felt great and was almost enjoying the experience. Besides, nothing I’d ever feared was wrong with me had ever been anything. Plus I enjoyed all the attention.

She said she was getting positive karmic vibes about my future, although she’d turned out to be wrong the last time. A month after her karmic vibe about a guy, the man got hit by a cement truck and thrown into a wood chipper by some drug guys. Then she handed me a pair of those silly looking dotted no-slip socks.

After my first set of pictures, Nurse Kalish came back into the room and said the doctors wanted to take another image of my left kidney. I thought nothing of it, especially because I had a full hour left on my parking ticket.

I was escorted into a room that was dark and looked like a cheap Star Trek set. Standing in the room were six doctors with grim faces. One of the doctors said he was the head of radiology at the hospital, I glibly asked him why the crowd? Nurse Kalish’s chin sank as the doctor, a la a game show host, pointed to two illuminated x-rays on the wall.

These were clearly kidney looking with a stringy line running out the bottom. One of the kidneys had a pickle ball sized shadow in the middle of it. I asked what that was, and in Pat Sajak fashion, he said it could be one of three things. A kidney stone? Nope, too large. A blood clot? Doesn’t photograph like that. I guessed a membership at Planet Fitness.

He said he thought it was a tumor. I asked what the odds were that it was cancerous. He almost proudly pronounced “overwhelming.” Nurse Kalish had that no-socks-needed look as I shakily asked what the line was coming out the bottom of the kidney. He said it was my ureter. Desperate for some levity, I asked if that meant I wouldn’t be able to yodel anymore. He barked that it wasn’t my urethra and that this was the route my cancer spread. It had to go, along with the kidney.

I asked who would do this kind of surgery. He said Dr. Ransor was very personable. I shrieked “personable!” I said I wasn’t looking for a new buddy. I wanted someone good. He swore he was good and told me to be at the hospital for a scan on Monday at six a.m. The nurse actually walked me to my car, offering a not-too-comforting “I’m so sorry.” She then gave me the socks.

I drove home and was greeted at the door by my smiling “see, you worried for nothing wife.” They told me not to buy season tickets to anything. She raced behind me to the computer where my quick fingers yielded Renal Cell Carcinoma. I may have imagined it, but I swear the word “hopeless” kept popping up on the screen. Turns out it was pretty much true if this cancer had spread.

I spent the next three days contemplating my time left on Earth, basically feeling sorry for myself. How I’d miss throwing the ball with my son. Walking our funny looking basset mix. And my wife. I probably should have examined that order, but I was really too busy mourning myself. Also, getting my things in order. That’s a common phrase, but a daunting task, if you ever really try to get your things in order.

Anyway, my wife and I started to talk about her future without me. I tried to hyper-speed educate her about the intricacies of our financial positions. Turns out she knew more than I did and “jokingly” talked about the beach house in Malibu she’d always dreamed about owning.

We naturally had a discussion about whether she should remarry, and who in our universe would be a good match. I shot down all of her candidates, and she accused me of not really wanting her with another man, but instead wanting her to join a cult of celibacy. I of course denied it, but the conversation steered me to contemplate who I wouldn’t mind lying with if wifey should predecease me. We both agreed that this discussion was our way of dealing with my impending doom, although it did re-emerge some fantasies I’d had about my wife’s sexy cousin Brenda, the lawyer/pole dancer).

Monday morning at six a.m., I was being moved into this gigantic tube that was going to betray my fate. With me, besides my wife, was my internist. This was both comforting and at the same time worrying that she would consider it serious enough to be with me that early. I then went through twenty minutes of ear-splitting clanging and was told that the results would be available at two thirty that afternoon. As we left, I asked about Nurse Kalish. They explained that a Code Yellow had been called on her and that she would be “away” until she could get a grip on her tendency to project patients’ bad news onto herself.

As soon as I got home. I called my psychiatrist friend Wayne, explained what was going on, and asked if I could be in his office at two thirty. I felt it was a good idea to be near a shrink when I got the news that I was going to be a fond memory as soon as Thursday.

At the appropriate time, my wife and I were in Wayne’s office where I was so apprehensive, I was biting my wife’s fingernails. Then my doctor called. She said that there was nothing outside of my kidney itself, so that I might well last beyond seven months. We all considered this pretty good news and that my way of giving thanks was to go out and play nine holes.

Three hours later, I returned home to see my wife on the porch holding some flowers and a split of champagne. She explained that while I was playing golf, my doctor had sent my films to an über nephrologist in Belgium for a second opinion. He evidently guffawed at the first diagnosis. There was nothing wrong with my kidney at all. What the geniuses at radiology failed to realize was that a floppy part of my kidney, much like a fish tail, had folded itself back onto itself, creating the thick, dark image that was misconstrued as a tumor. There was nothing wrong with me but my putting.

The lesson learned via this adventure was that when you’re told you’re a goner, don’t go.

Stephen Neigher is a screenwriter who worked in TV and film in Hollywood for more than twenty years, a retired professor of screenwriting at UNC Chapel Hill and is considered by many to be quite good looking.

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