Chicago White Sox relief pitcher Liam Hendriks is on the verge of a return to Major League Baseball after completing treatment for state 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma that was diagnosed in December.

Although that's excellent news for both player and club, the 34-year-old revealed he may have been playing with cancer last season after finding lumps in his neck and hips in June, according to ESPN.

“As of now I have a clean bill of health,” Hendriks told reporters on Wednesday. “I'm currently in remission…But there's a damn well chance I pitched all of last year with lymphoma in my system. I'd like to think that was the reason I struggled to recover at the end of the year. I was damn well limping to the finish line.”

It's a frightening admission from Hendriks, who is completing his rehab assignment in Triple-A Charlotte over the weekend before his expected return to the White Sox next week.

“I never looked at it as a ‘why me thing?'” Hendriks remarked, per ESPN. “I looked at it as ‘why not me?' I tend to have a more rosy perspective on life than [the general population] so that was my process behind it. ‘I've got this. This is my next challenge.'”

Hendriks finished his last cancer treatment the same day of Chicago's home opener back in early April, and that's when it began to sink in that the end was near for the Australian.

“Knowing that that was my last treatment was a huge bonus,” Hendriks said. “I think that would have been much harder not having an end date.”

The hurler will be a huge addition to a struggling White Sox bullpen when he makes his eventual return; he finished last season with a 2.81 ERA and 37 saves, one off his career-high.

“No matter what we do as a team,” starter Lucas Giolito said at the end of Liam Hendriks' news conference, “this is the best news of the year.”