Cancer.

Man, I hate that word. Six letters that, when put together, change your world forever.

For me, that moment came on July 25, 2016. No one saw it coming. Not me, not my primary care physician. I was scheduled for a CT scan that morning because the week before my doctor had detected an abnormality in one of my lungs during a routine examination. I had been through two bouts of pneumonia within a year’s time, so scarring was a distinct possibility, as was an undetected birth defect. Either way, the scan was planned, and I didn’t think that much about it.

About a half hour after I walked out of Vidant Beaufort once the scan was completed, I received a call to come to Chocowinity Vidant to discuss the results in a few hours. I went on about my business, running a few errands, visiting a friend and tracking down a source for a Pamlico Life newspaper feature so I could take a couple photos.

When I arrived at the doctor’s office, the nurse casually asked if I had anyone with me. When I said I didn’t, she said she’d call my parents and then slipped out the door.

Hmmm, this didn’t look good.

My parents arrived shortly afterward (thank God for parents!), just as dumbfounded as I was. Then things got real. My doctor said there was no good way to ease into it, and then he told us I have lung cancer. And there were indications it has spread to my liver.

A whirlwind of activity ensued. A second CT scan and an MRI scan were scheduled for the following morning, which did indeed show lesions on my liver. But there was good news: there was no sign of cancer on my brain, which was a huge blessing.

Two days after that I found myself meeting with an oncologist at the Leo Jenkins Cancer Center at Vidant in Greenville. More tests were scheduled for the following week, but as fate would have it my condition suddenly worsened, and I was admitted to the hospital on Friday afternoon, four days after my initial diagnosis.

Doctors first suspected an allergic reaction to the dye used in my earlier scans, but they later decided my symptoms were cancer-related. So my lung biopsy was moved up several days, and I settled into a hospital stay that lasted until Monday evening.

Shock had set in, and everything felt as if it were happening to someone else. But there was a calmness, too, that I can only attribute to the prayers that were being sent up on my behalf. I knew that, however things turned out, I could face the news head on.

So, on Aug. 4. I returned to the LJCC in Greenville with just one hope. I wanted a fighting chance. I did not want to be sent home to die. And I got that chance. That very day I began a shot of hormone treatment that will hopefully slow the growth of the cancer, and I began at-home chemotherapy treatment in pill form the next day.

I am richly blessed. Not only do I have the best family in the world, my work family and my friends have reached out, and I know I am not in this alone.

When the Daily News offered me the chance to share my journey through this column, I jumped at the opportunity. Not because I am a cancer expert by any means, but if I can share a little hope with others then this journey will be more than worth it.

My journey is just beginning. There will be dark days ahead, I know, but that just makes the good days even sweeter. And I am taking this a day at a time.