https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/howard-stern-reveals-cancer-scare-trump-regrets-details-a-dishy-new-book-1208773by Lacey Rose
May 8, 2019
On Wednesday, May 10, 2017, for the first time in memory, Howard Stern abruptly canceled that day's show. His listeners, a famously loyal subset of SiriusXM's 36 million subscribers who've made Stern a part of their lives since he rose to prominence in the '80s as radio's boundary-pushing "shock jock," were understandably alarmed. Reddit lit up with crackpot theories, and a handful of dogged reporters tracked down the host's elderly parents to check up on him.
By Monday, the self-described king of all media was back on the air, poking fun at the hullaballoo, as many hoped he would. It was just the flu, he told his audience: "Why is it such a big deal that I took a bleep day off?"
Turns out, he was lying through his teeth.
On the morning in question, Stern wasn't home with a fever or runny nose; he was being carted into surgery. For the better part of the previous year, he'd been shuttling between appointments as doctors monitored a low white blood cell count revealed during a routine checkup and, later, discovered a growth on his kidney. The chance that it was cancerous: 90 percent.
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