Ben Feldman feared he was going to die during spinal surgery.
The 'Superstore' actor recalled how "horrifying" it was to be told he needed an operation urgently because two discs in his neck had broken down after he'd spent years ignoring back pain, and he was so worried about the procedure, he wrote out a will before going into hospital.
Speaking on the 'Hypochondriactor' podcast, he said: "When I was 24, I was shooting a movie in Toronto, was in like a hotel gym and I was like, 'I feel a pain in my back.' But I'm 24, so obviously, that will go away soon. And then, it just never did. And then, I had all of these back problems forever."
The 41-year-old star's wife, Michelle Mulitz, eventually persuaded him to go to the doctor ahead of the coronavirus pandemic and was told his discs were "really bad" but he didn't need an immediate operation.
However, after undergoing further scans last summer, Ben was told something had to be done right away.
He recalled: "The doctor goes, 'Oh, wait, never mind, this is immediate. Even your window for getting the surgery is closing.' And it was like, the fluid around my spinal cord … was just gone. It was just bone to cord...
"I wrote a will on a napkin in a hotel. I'm concerned I'm going to die, so I wrote a will."
Fortunately, the procedure - which involved drilling out the calcified discs and putting in artificial ones - and the recovery period turned out to be pretty "easy".
He joked: "After I got the surgery, it was so easy that I was bummed because I wanted people to be like, 'Oh, my god, I'm so sorry, Ben, that must have been awful.'
"So I talk it up. I talked about the fear that I had, because I can't talk about the actual procedure, which was two hours and then a couple of drugs and then about two weeks of watching 'Love Island U.K.' in bed with my wife and then it was fine."
And the experience has taught the actor not to ignore his pain.
He said: "My takeaway was, go to doctors more. Because if I had ignored this, and had someone had bumped into me going skiing or whatever, I wouldn't be able to pee correctly anymore."
