John Burnett, Jr

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It all began in the summer of 2017...my baby brothers fight with melanoma. He was working in the yard with his friend Josh who noticed a spot on his chest and told him that he needed to go get it checked out. John did what he said and the doctor told him it was a melanoma skin cancer. On September 11th, 2017 John had surgery to remove the spot. He was told that they got all the cancer and life went on as usual. 


Then comes July 9th, 2020. John had been playing golf that day and he went to shower and felt a lump under his armpit. He immediately called the doctor and scheduled an appointment but says he knew the cancer had returned. His doctor confirmed that he had swollen lymph nodes/mass under his armpit. He put John on 7 days of antibiotics to rule out infection and told him to return once he finished them. So on July 20th John was back at the doctor. There had been no change in the mass. They performed a biopsy and confirmed it was melanoma. John had surgery on August 11, 2020. They removed 32 lymph nodes and 2 of those had cancer. He had a drain and it took several weeks for him to recover. Then John started immunotherapy. He had five toxic reactions and it was a very scary time. He was very sick from the treatments and they were initially stopped. This lead to a few good weeks and John feeling like his old self.  The holidays came and we all celebrated Covid style. It was great to see him feeling good but heartbreaking that we could not spend alot of time together because of Covid. January 2021 finally arrived and like everyone we were hopeful that the New Year would bring better times....that brings us up to now.


Wednesday February 17, 2021...6 melanoma tumors found in Johns brain


I think we were all in shock that day...we just couldn't believe what we were being told. There have been lots of tears shed and lots of praying going on. We know that the battle continues but we have the facts and will do the next best thing.  John and Wendy met with the doctors in Greenville on Friday.  They want to start radiation immediately since melanoma is such a fast growing cancer. 


Today John and Wendy flew to Baltimore Maryland .They will meet with the doctors at John Hopkins in the morning and if the doctors there agree with the treatment plan that  the oncologist here in Greenville has put together they will fly back home.  We hope that he will be able to start the radiation treatment on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week with family by his side.


Please continue to pray for John, his family and his friends as we all fight this beast called.... melanoma!!!