Country music star battling lung cancer at 33. Here’s the latest update

Many in the country music world have been following along and sending support as Joshua Ray Walker shares updates on his cancer battle.

The rising young singer first announced back in December that he was battling colon cancer, but recently he let his fans know on social media that the cancer had surprisingly spread to his lungs.

Walker said doctors told him that he would likely be Stage IV when they are finished evaluating him.

• WANT MORE COUNTRY MUSIC NEWS? CLICK HERE.

Things have moved rapidly in the short time sense, and Walker’s most recent update came Friday on Instagram, just a day after he had what sounds like a pretty serious surgery done to take a biopsy of his lung.

Walker told fans that surgeons had to drill five holes in his ribs, deflate his lung, cut out a section of it, sew it back together and then re-inflate it.

“They are going to be taking a drainage tube out later today, and I’m coming home a day earlier because I’m healing up so fast,” he said in the video on Thursday. “So, I’m in a good amount of pain. Breathing hurts. Coughing hurts. But, I’m here. I’m alive. I’m awake. I made it through the surgery.

“Now we wait on the results.”

Walker has yet to update his fans since that post, but he has been fairly transparent around his treatment and has promised to continue to try to keep fans in the loop.

He first announced his lung cancer diagnosis on Instagram earlier this month as well.

“Hey y’all!” he wrote. “Once again, I’ve got some good and bad news to deliver. The good news is that I’ve finished chemo treatment!! It was extremely tough, and I want to thank y’all so much for supporting me through this experience. My body handled it reasonably well, and I’ve begun to rebuild my strength and immune system! The bad news is that upon the completion of tests to check on the status of my cancer post treatment, multiple nodes of varying sizes were found in both my lungs.”

Walker said that prior to chemo he was told “I had a 90% chance of having clear tests post treatment,” he continued. “So to find completely new-growth in a new organ was something for which I was not prepared.”

Walker said this means his cancer will likely be re-staged to stage 4, and added that means the “odds have definitely shifted.”

“But I’m not going to publish them here,” he said. “It seems defeatist, and unnecessary. I’ll let you know what they were after I beat them. I’ve always lived life to the fullest and I will continue to do so.”