And it makes me so terribly sad for those families for whom the diagnosis is much worse. And for those who have lived through a family member or friend dying of the other types of cancer, aggressive, relentless killers, or dementia and Alzheimer’s, or any other condition that steals a life.

This is a weird place to be.

And I don’t mention it because I want to scare anyone, but because it is a weird place to be.

I’m going to have a kidney removed in late June because it contains what appears to be a tumor that for all odds is cancer. They won’t know for sure until the tumor is removed and biopsied, but as I’ve told relatives, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck.

That’s the really horrible news. And a month after being told, it is still horrible news.

But then, turns out, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

A month ago I passed a kidney stone. During the follow-up to ensure that the stone had passed, an ultra sound exam picked up what was called a “renal mass.”

Three weeks of tests later — I’ve had so many CT scans, I could rent myself out as a night light – it was determined that the mass was a roughly 2-inch tumor in my left kidney.

It has been there for 10 years, when a scan found a tiny spot, but whoever did the scan was not looking for a spot on my kidney, but for something else I have forgotten about.

It took 10 years for it to grow enough to be noticed for what it actually is, a tumor.

Researching the disease, and discussions with the doctor, reveal that kidney cancer is a somewhat odd thing in the cancer world. Sometimes it involves other organs and tissues, and grows aggressively, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Mine didn’t.

It is wholly contained inside the kidney, so removal of the kidney will remove the tumor, the doctor said.

There is no involvement of any muscle or fat tissues, or any other organ. This type of kidney cancer spreads first to the lungs, and a test last week showed it has not spread.

It was clear that Dr. Lai was relieved to tell me that.

Granted nothing in the medical world is guaranteed, so even after I lose my kidney, they will test for cancer in the area vacated by the kidney.

That’s why this is weird.

I kept my foot on the brake when the light turned green and the tractor trailer that ran the red light didn’t broadside me. The falling tree landed in the other direction.

I got lucky. It seems.

And it makes me so terribly sad for those families for whom the diagnosis is much worse. And for those who have lived through a family member or friend dying of the other types of cancer, aggressive, relentless killers, or dementia and Alzheimer’s, or any other condition that steals a life.

I suppose I should be running around hair on fire,

But I’m not. And I wouldn’t be if the diagnosis was worse. No buckets lists, no righting of wrongs, no apologies for the jerk I might have been.

Life is about ups and downs, success and failure, great joy and disappointments, loss, remembrance and happiness, usually all at the same time.

This is not acceptance or giving up.

This is – and we all do this daily by living — raging against the dying light, not by complaining about fate, but by living, doing and being.

The last song that was playing on the truck radio the other day was Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good.”

And it has been.

That’s why I’ve been lucky.

We’ll see what happens.