Jordy Ponce

And I was like, this is not good.

And then he seemed to be getting more and more nervous, and finally he came out with it.

He said, Jordy, we found what appears to be cancer throughout your liver.

And I was like, what?

And then I distinctly remember him breathing a sigh of relief and saying, oh, I just hate delivering life-changing news like this.

And being a psychologist, of course, I said, I thought you did great.

How do you feel about it?

As they wheeled me up to the inpatient units like some sort of Faberge egg, I thought many things, one of which was, what am I gonna tell Moffitt Cancer Center, my future employer?

I mean, how do you make that call?

Hi, this is Dr. Ponce.

How firm would you say that start date is?

Meanwhile, hospital machines are like beeping in the background.

So I decided the first person I would actually call was my attorney.

That's what I call my sister because she's a criminal defense lawyer in Tampa.

And within about 20 minutes, she was Tokyo drifting into the parking lot of the hospital, bounding up to my room and saying, I've already talked to multiple people about getting you in to see a specialist.

I was just really happy to see a familiar face.

Soon we were playing rock, paper, scissors to see who would have to call our parents.

I won, but somehow I still had to call them, which is what happens when you have an attorney in the family.

They were soon racing frantically up to meet us.

I eventually did call Moffitt.