“I will be strong all the time” (exclusive)

The “Full House” actor opens up exclusively to PEOPLE about his cancer diagnosis

Dave Coulier was diagnosed with stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The Full house The 65-year-old actor tells PEOPLE exclusively that he was diagnosed in October after an upper respiratory infection caused severe swelling in his lymph nodes.

When his swelling rapidly increased and an area grew to the size of a golf ball, he says his doctor recommended PET and CT scans and a biopsy, which ultimately gave him news that changed his life.

“Three days later my doctors called me back and said, ‘We wish we had better news for you, but you have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and it’s called B-cell lymphoma and it’s very aggressive,'” he recalls .

“I got a bit of a cold and then got cancer and it was pretty overwhelming,” he says. “It was a really fast roller coaster ride.”

Related: James Van Der Beek’s cancer diagnosis

When Coulier learned of his diagnosis, he said he and his wife, Melissa Bring — along with several of his close friends in the medical field — immediately worked together to meet his diagnosis “head-on.”

“We all put our heads together and said, ‘Okay, where are we going?’ And they had a very specific plan for how they were going to deal with it,” he says, noting that a bright spot in his diagnosis was the negative result of his bone marrow test. “At that point, my chances of recovery dropped from a low to 90%. And that was a great day.”

Two weeks after his diagnosis, Coulier said he began chemotherapy immediately. As a “preemptive strike,” he shaved his head and continues to talk about his experiences on his podcast Full House Rewind with Marla Sokoloff.

“I started the podcast with a hat and said I’ve always been a man of many hats, but this hat has a special meaning because I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma a few weeks ago,” he says first Episode in which he talks about his diagnosis. “This was really a conscious decision, I’m going to face this head on and I want people to know that it’s my life. I won’t try to hide anything. I would rather talk about it, open the discussion and inspire people.”

Coulier says he chooses to maintain a positive attitude throughout his cancer journey, especially towards his wife and son Luc, who he reveals is expecting his first child. “I looked at the impact those words had [Melissa] and I thought, you know what, I’m going to be strong all the time, not just for myself, but I’m going to be strong for her.”

On this journey, Coulier was inspired by family members, many of whom also had cancer. “I lost my mother to breast cancer. I lost my sister Sharon to breast cancer. She was 36 years old. I lost my niece, Shannon. She was 29 years old,” he says, adding that his older sister Karen also had cancer.

“I saw what these women in my family were going through and thought to myself, ‘If I can be just a tenth of a percent as strong as them, then I’ll be fine,” he says.

During his treatments, he says he relied on his sister Karen – and their shared sense of humor – to keep his spirits up.

“My sister was a trained nurse, so she saw this from a different perspective than I did,” he explains. “She was so supportive and funny. So we joke about it. One of my jokes is that I went from a Virgo to a Cancer in four short weeks. I’m a big ice hockey fan. So when they said, ‘You’ve got the NHL,’ I thought, ‘I finally made it to the NHL.'”

“When I first got the news I was of course stunned because I wasn’t expecting it, and then reality set in and I was remarkably calm about whatever the outcome was,” he says. “I don’t know how to explain it, but there was an inner calm through it all, and I think that’s part of what I experienced with the women in my family. They really instilled that in me and inspired me in a way because they were great at what they went through and I just thought, ‘I’m okay with that too.’ I’ve had an incredible life on a journey with incredible people around me and I’m fine. It definitely changes your perspective.”

Coulier has already completed the first of six chemotherapy treatments and is taking everything day by day.

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“I have my good days. I have my bad days,” he says. “Some days I feel nauseous and dizzy, other days the steroids kick in and I feel like I have tons of energy. I actually went ice skating with some friends here in Detroit yesterday. We were just running around shooting pucks and it was wonderful to just be out there doing something I love and just try to focus on all the great things that are in my life.”

This also includes preparing for being a grandfather: Coulier’s son Luc, 33, and his wife Alex are expecting a little boy in March. “I have to teach him to play hockey,” he says. “There’s a lot to look forward to.”

Ultimately, Coulier hopes that by sharing his own story, he can inspire others to get tested early.

“Take good care of yourself because there is a lot to live for,” he advises fans. “And if that means talking to your doctors or having a mammogram, a breast exam or a colonoscopy, that can really make a big difference in your life.”