Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, one of the most popular President of Brazil, is undergoing treatment for cancer after he was diagnosed with the disease on Saturday.

His doctor, Roberto Kalil Filho said that Lula was in good spirits during a visit to the former president’s home in São Bernardo, which is located about 55 miles from São Paulo city. “I never got the sense that he was nervous or anything. But he is a human, so of course he is afraid,” Kalil told Folha de São Paulo, leading daily from the country.

Lula da Silva will undergo chemotherapy at the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital in São Paulo. The disease is in an intermediate stage and might be removed without surgery but if the therapy or other works do not work then surgery will be required, according to the doctor.

The former president was a smoker, but quit in January 2010. The doctors did not say that smoking is behind his disease as Lula has a genealogical history of cancer in his family. His close colleagues have also suffered from cancer.

He has contested Presidential elections three times before being elected in 2001 and was re-elected for another term four years later.