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The most influential radio shock jock in the history of the medium, Howard Stern, has been asking the most probing, personal and sometimes crude questions of his celebrity, political and otherwise famous guests for most of his career.

But the 65-year-old has been notoriously mum about his personal life - especially about his health and the cancer scare that left him in fear of losing his signature mane - and more importantly his life...until now.

In his new book, Howard Stern Comes Again, the shock jock details his (almost) brush with death.

He never missed a day of his morning talk show even if it meant driving through ten feet of snow to get to the radio station in Detroit - until May 10, 2017.

The show was suddenly off the air and  a vacation was scheduled for the following Thursday and Friday.

Reporters called his parents house and the press was asking, ‘What’s going on. It’s like he disappeared!’

He had disappeared - into a state of fear, suddenly facing his own mortality and it terrified him.

Howard Stern reflects on his long, successful career in the radio industry in his forthcoming memoir Howard Stern Comes Again, out Tuesday. The infamous shock jock (above on May 9) reveals that his biggest regret was his interview with Robin Williams in the early 90s

Stern's doctor suggested a full body scan at his facility in LA. Stern had kept the whole event from Beth but confessed and they decided to head out to LA

After his annual physical in 2016, he expected to hear his doctor say, ‘Everything’s good’.

Instead, his doctor did a double take at his chart and said ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa’.

‘Nothing too alarming. It’s just your white blood count looks a little bit low. Let’s do another blood test in a month’, Howard reveals in his new book.

Checked a month later, the white blood cell count was even lower and his doctor suggested a round of chemo if it kept dropping and assured Stern they could treat it.

‘Treat what?’ I said. ‘What are we talking about?’

But he really wanted to be kept in the dark -- being so paranoid about my health’.

‘I was in a panic, I was angry and I was thinking, ‘This is it. This must be how I go. This isn’t supposed to happen to me. My grandfathers had long lives, and my parents are in their nineties. This can’t be happening’, Stern writes.

He followed doctor’s orders to get a monthly blood test at Sloan Kettering, the renowned cancer treatment and research institution in New York City, a heavy atmosphere where patients are facing life and death battles with the dreaded disease.

He needed more answers and decided to contact cancer expert, Dr. David Agus, the doctor who treated Steve Jobs, founder of Apple who died of pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Agus asked if Stern and his wife ate a lot of fish. The answer was yes, twice a day and no meat or poultry.

Agus told Stern to get his mercury level checked. Normal is seven, Stern’s was in the thirties.

After being treated at the famed cancer hospital Sloan Kettering in New York, Stern needed more answers and decided to contact cancer expert, Dr. David Agus (left), the doctor who treated Steve Jobs, founder of Apple who died of pancreatic cancer

He cut back on the fish and his white blood cells went up.

‘If not for him, I might have been at Sloan Kettering hooked up to a slow drip of chemo and deprived of my Samson-like mane’.

That wouldn’t be the worst part of chemo ‘but just imagine my face with a bald head. Not a pleasant thought’.

‘My hair has always been the lone redeeming quality of my appearance. I need my hair’, Stern writes.

‘I don’t wear a wig and I don’t use dye. A full head of dark, luscious curls is the only natural gift I’ve ever possessed, and I wasn’t ready to give it up’.

Dr. Agus suggested that next time Stern was out in LA where he teaches at USC, he could get a full body scan at his facility and know for sure all was well.

Stern had kept the whole event from Beth but confessed and they decided to head out to LA.

He went for the body scan and everything looked great – but for one little spot on his kidney.

Maybe just a benign cyst but get an MRI when you’re back in New York, he was advised – and he followed through.

The MRI was sent to a kidney specialist who read what sounded like a death knell – ‘There’s a ninety percent chance it’s cancer. You’ve got to get his thing removed’.

‘Now I was really flipping out’. Surgery was pitched as a simple procedure with seven incisions in his abdomen.

That didn’t sound so simple to Stern but he scheduled surgery.

‘I wanted it out of me’.

He never talked about it on the air because the stories never end well. People call in and say, ‘Oh yeah, my relative had that and died’.

Stern was scared.

His co-host, Robin Quivers had just experienced her own nightmare with endometrial cancer – chemo, radiation, a 12-hour surgery.

Stern cried at the thought of losing Robin, a close personal and professional friend of 38 years.

He got an early call for his surgery and when he woke up, he was told it went great.

The results showed – just a tiny little cyst.

‘It was nothing. Nothing was wrong with my kidney’.

‘The thought that I had gone through all of this for nothing really screwed with my head.

‘I was so angry at myself for once again being overly neurotic about my health.

Stern stayed overnight in the hospital and news stories broke about how he missed work – a first and a mystery.

‘I was lying in my hospital bed wearing one of those gowns where your ass hangs out thinking,’ Are you kidding me? I might have had cancer’.

But ‘that surgery knocked me on my ass. It really walloped me’, he confesses.

Seven scars and only a year later could he move around comfortably.

He suddenly understood what Robin went through.

‘It wasn’t just the pain, it was the fear. I never had any kind of health scare, and I certainly never spent a lot of time thinking about my death’.

Getting older with your body breaking down, ‘it does get you thinking about your legacy, what you’ll leave behind, what you’re proud of’’.

He had never thought about his own death before. 

In the book, Stern also reveals his enduring guilt over not getting the chance to apologize to Robin Williams after he badgered the comedian about leaving his wife for his son's former nanny when interviewing him in the early 90s. 

The world's highest-paid radio personality reflected on his 33 years in the business and admits that he was a 'maniac' during the early years of his career. 

'My narcissism was so strong that I was incapable of appreciating what somebody else might be feeling,' Stern writes in the book, which hit the shelves on Tuesday.  

'I have so many regrets about guests from that time. Possibly my biggest regret was my interview with Robin Williams.' 

Stern, who is infamous for asking his guests about their sex lives, interviewed the 'Mrs. Doubtfire' actor in the early 90s. 

Williams had recently divorced his wife of 10 years Valerie Velardi after cheating on her with their infant son Zach's nanny Marsha Garces. He married the mistress in 1989, one year after the divorce, while she was pregnant with their first child.  

Stern said he regrets never getting to apologize to Williams before he died by suicide in 2014. The comedian is pictured around the time of the interview in 1996

'I was attacking the guy, and he was justifiably furious with me,' Stern writes. 'Years later, I realized I finally needed to apologize.'

He continues: 'I didn't know what Robin's reaction would be. He could have hung up on me. He could have cursed me out. I had to do it. 

'It took me twenty years to work up the nerve. I was in the midst of tracking down his phone number, and the next day he died,' Stern said, referring to Williams' death by suicide in 2014.

'I'm still filled with sadness over his loss and remorse for my failure to reach out sooner.'

The interview with Williams was one of many that Stern feels he botched because of his own arrogance.  

He says he deeply regrets having asked Gilda Radner if her costar Gene Wilder 'had a big penis' during a 1983 interview that left the Saturday Night Live comic in tears. Stern wasn't able to apologize to her before she died in 1989.

Rapper Eminem, actor Will Ferrell and singers Carly Simon and George Michael were among the people Stern felt the need to apologize to after their interviews.  

'George Michael's band Wham! — everyone I worked with said: "Whatever you do, don't ask them if they're gay. Do not ask them if they're gay." Within twenty seconds, I asked them if they were gay,' he writes in his new book. 

During his cringeworthy 1995 interview with Simon, Stern brazenly asked the singer: 'Can I squeeze your buttocks?'

Stern says it wasn't until he began psychotherapy treatment in the late 90s that he started to re-evaluate how he was approaching his career.   

'I really wanted to get out there and tell people that psychoanalysis works, to not be afraid,' Stern told the New York Post of his book. 

'It took me five years to call this psychiatrist I saw. I didn't want to admit I needed anyone. I didn't know what it was all about. I found it incredibly intimidating.

'In fact, one of the reasons I included Bill Murray in the book … he sums it up by saying: "You take a good hard look at yourself and sometimes you don't like what you find." And that's true. 

'When you do [take a good hard look], real profound change can happen.' 

Stern is pictured during the debut of his Sirius XM Satellite Radio show in January of 2006. The 56-year-old remains the world's highest-paid radio host after some 33 years in the industry

Stern is pictured with wife Beth Ostrosky in November. The pair have been married since 2008

HOWARD STERN COMES AGAIN: FULL EXCERPT

'I'm not proud of my first two books. I don't even have them displayed on my bookshelf at home. I think of them, and of the interviews I did with my guests during those first couple decades of my career, and I cringe. I was an absolute maniac. My narcissism was so strong that I was incapable of appreciating what somebody else might be feeling.

'I have so many regrets about guests from that time. I asked Gilda Radner if Gene Wilder had a big penis. Great question. Drove her right out the door. George Michael's band Wham! Everyone I worked with said, "Whatever you do, don't ask them if they're gay. Do not ask them if they're gay." Within twenty seconds, I asked them if they were gay. Eminem came on the show once then never again. Same with Will Ferrell.

'Possibly my biggest regret was my interview with Robin Williams. When Robin came on the show in the early nineties, I spent the entire time badgering him about how he had divorced his first wife and remarried his son's former nanny. I was attacking the guy, and he was justifiably furious with me. Years later, I realized I finally needed to apologize. I had already done this with some other people. I called them and tried to make amends. Some were gracious. A radio guy I had been awful to said, "You know what, man? I'm so glad you called. I actually felt bad for you that you were carrying around so much bitterness and ugliness inside, and I'm happy you don't have that anymore." Others were angry. A famous comedian I had bashed said to me, "I appreciate that you called, but I don't know if I could ever forgive you. I had to go through a lot of misery, because your fans were brutal." I didn't know what Robin's reaction would be. He could have hung up on me. He could have cursed me out. I had to do it.

'It took me twenty years to work up the nerve. I was in the midst of tracking down his phone number, and the next day he died. I'm still filled with sadness over his loss and remorse for my failure to reach out sooner.

'Telling Carly Simon how hot she was for a half-hour or spewing sex questions to Wilmer Valderrama – this ultimately led to nothing. It wasn't good radio. It was meaningless. It was just me being self-absorbed and compulsive about asking something that would provoke and antagonize. Those weren't really interviews. They were monologues. Instead of a conversation, it was just me blurting out ridiculous things. I had some real issues.

'Then I started going to a psychotherapist.

'This was in the late nineties. I had no idea how therapy worked. The only thing I knew about it was what I saw in movies and on television, where people would just sit there and tell stories. So that's what I did. My first session, I sat down in the chair and began telling the therapist anecdotes as if I was on the radio. I hit him with all my favorite routines. I did a thorough and involved set on the Stern family tree, complete with impressions of my family. I put together a few minutes on marriage, then moved into the pressures of the radio business, and closed with the trials and tribulations of raising a family.

'After I was finished with my stand-up, the therapist instead of applauding said, "There's nothing funny going on here. Quite frankly, some of this stuff sounds pretty sad." My first response was to get defensive. Who was he to say that? I could tell that story and laugh. I had done it many times. Gradually, after a few more sessions, I realized he was right. He was the first person who ever said to me, "I take you seriously." I had always been hungry for someone to confide in like that, but I had pushed away my hunger. That's often what people who are traumatized do. In order to protect themselves, they act like nobody else matters. They tell themselves they don't need anyone.

'The irony is that I've always had an appreciation for others in my work. Yes, it's called "The Howard Stern Show," but I'm at my best when I have a bunch of people around me, when I can call on them and collaborate. Whether it's my co-host, Robin Quivers, or my producer Gary Dell'Abate or our jack-of-all-trades (sound effects, impressions, and so much more) Fred Norris; the staff of incredible writers and brilliant engineers; my front office, including chief operating officer Marci Turk and senior vice president Jeremy Coleman; my agent, Don Buchwald, and my executive assistant, Laura Federici; my bosses and the sales department at SiriusXM – I consider everyone a part of the team. What we do is like music, in a way. It's like a symphony. That is truly how I've always seen myself: as an orchestra conductor.

'Yet that generosity of spirit didn't extend to my guests. I should have treated them as talented soloists and welcomed them to join in our performance. I was just too afraid that the audience would be bored when they didn't get their fix of outrageousness – as if some quiet notes would have destroyed the concerto. Everything had to be one loud, crashing crescendo.

'Initially, I went to therapy twice a week. Then the therapist had me up it to three times. Eventually he recommended I make it four. I thought, "Man, I didn't know I was that screwed up." I was reluctant to make such a big commitment, but I did it. I completely gave myself over to the process.

'The more I went, the more that translated into how I interviewed my guests. I found myself changing my approach because I had experienced what it was like to have someone genuinely interested in my life. Therapy opened me up and enabled me to appreciate how fulfilling it was to be truly heard. That led me to the thought: "You know, somebody else might actually have something to say. Let's just sit here and listen and not make it all about you."

'At first, not making it about me was difficult. I had to learn to say no to myself. Stop talking. Start listening. Let someone else shine and have a moment. Trust that the audience will remain there.'

Excerpt from Howard Stern Comes Again by Howard Stern. Copyright © 2019 by One Twelve, Inc. Published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. on May 14.