With family members and staff by his side, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced today that he was diagnosed “a few days ago” with B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

“The truth is that I’ve learned over the past few days that this cancer is very advanced and very aggressive,”Hogan said at an Annapolis news conference.

Hogan called his cancer diagnosis, “a new challenge that I will be faced with. . . a personal one, one that will require me to once again be an underdog and a fighter – something I think I’m known for.”

The 59-year-old governor said he “had no idea of [his] condition” when he went on a recent trade mission to Asia. Hogan told reporters he first noticed a lump on his throat during the trip.

“I’ve learned a heck of a lot more in past 10 days or so,” he said, explaining that the condition is basically a cancer of the lymph nodes.

Hogan said he had some good news from his team of health care experts.

“The good news is that I’ve learned that although this cancer I have is a very aggressive one and that it spread very rapidly,” he said, “it also is one that responds very aggressively to chemotherapy treatment and there’s a very strong chance of success – not only a strong chance of of survival but a strong chance of beating it altogether and beating the cancer.”

(Here’s what the American Cancer Society says about survival rates for people diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.)

He joked that his chances of beating the cancer “are much, much better than my odds of beating Anthony Brown to become the 62nd governor of Maryland.”

Hogan, a Republican who was sworn in last January after his upset victory in heavily Democratic Maryland, said Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford would fill in for him at meetings as needed.

He said he is facing 18 weeks of “aggressive chemotherapy” treatment, feels good and plans to keep working, though he has little appetite.

The cancer, he said, has spread through his abdomen and is “pressing up against my spinal column.”