Joshua Ray Walker revealed that the cancer has spread to his lungs, and he’ll likely be restaged to Stage 4 in the coming days.
The singer and songwriter has set up a GoFundMe to cover living costs and out-of-pocket health expenses as he fights his way back to good health.
- Joshua Ray Walker’s most recent album is Thanks for Listening, released in February.
- After revealing his colon cancer diagnosis in December, he underwent surgery on Jan. 3.
- He’s been candid about treatment, including an update from earlier this summer that shared he was set to wrap chemotherapy in two weeks.
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“Before I started chemo,” Walker writes, “I was told I had a 90% chance of having clear tests post treatment. So to find completely new growth in a new organ was something for which I was not prepared.”
The discovery of nodes of varying sizes on his lungs came during a post-treatment checkup. He’ll start radiation soon, but cautions that he still doesn’t have all the information.
His odds of survival have shifted, he admits.
“But I’m not going to publish them here. It seems defeatist, and unnecessary. I’ll let you know what they were after I beat them.”
The GoFundMe was launched on Sept. 9 and quickly raised over $13,000 of the $300,000 goal. An anonymous donation of $1,000 and an additional $1K donation from Luke Combs helped Walker greatly. Artists like Lainey Wilson and Jake Owen have shown support previously.
The Texan has several dates on his 2024 and 2025 tour calendar, including a show at the Ryman Auditorium in December. Upon announcing his diagnosis, he admitted that the song “Thanks for Listening” began to take on new meaning.
“What started as a simple ‘thank you’ to my fans, ended up having a much deeper meaning, including my mortality, but this is in no way a goodbye,” he shared.
Billy Dukes is a Senior Editor and Executive Producer of Video Content at Taste of Country. He specializes in country music interviews, trend analysis and the Secret History of Country Music. Additionally, Billy covers Yellowstone, 1923 and related television shows through the Dutton Rules podcast. To date, he’s written more than 13,000 articles for Taste of Country and produced over 3,000 videos for the Taste of Country YouTube channel.
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