A Georgia teen who was diagnosed with cancer during her senior year of high school is celebrating a momentous milestone this week.
Aubrey Barnett, 17, graduated from Walnut Grove High School in Loganville on May 20, just five months after finishing chemotherapy and ringing the celebration bell at The Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.
Walnut Grove Principal Lindsey Allen praised Aubrey's resilience and achievement in a statement to "Good Morning America."
"Aubrey Barnett's strength, courage, and uplifting spirit have inspired our entire school community," Allen said. "Her victory over cancer while continuing to excel as a student is a powerful reminder of what determination and hope can accomplish. We are very proud of her!"
Aubrey told "GMA" she first noticed a lump on her neck last summer but never thought it would turn out to be cancer. At the time, she was leading a busy life, running cross country and track, cheering for her school and working, as well as embarking on her final year in high school.
On Sept. 16, 2024, Aubrey received a life-changing diagnosis and learned she had Burkitt lymphoma, a rare and aggressive non-Hodgkin B-cell lymphoma that can cause rapid tumor growth in the head, neck, central nervous system and other areas of the body, according to StatPearls, an online library published in the National Library of Medicine, and the National Organization for Rare Disorders.
"I didn't really believe it," Aubrey said. "I was just living a normal life. I was like, there's no way I have cancer. I'm fine. And then when they told me, I was like, 'Are y'all serious?' Like, I didn't really know what to feel."
Chancey Barnett, Aubrey's mom, said it was "heart-wrenching" to hear her daughter had cancer.
"It went from an unnoticeable little lump to the size of her jaw. And so, it was obviously something," Barnett said. "It was just heart-wrenching to hear when they told us what it was. But just looking at her, I knew that it was going to be fine, because she's such a fighter, and she's so strong. I knew she'd be OK."
For three months, Aubrey underwent intensive chemotherapy, an aggressive treatment that included injections into the spinal cord, which caused her to have mouth sores and lose all of her hair.
"She had mouth sores so bad that she couldn't open her mouth because they were around her mouth, throughout her mouth, and down her esophagus," Barnett explained. "It was hard for her to eat, it was hard for her to talk, it was hard for her to do anything."
Despite the difficult treatment, Aubrey never gave up, and her fellow classmates even voted her to be their homecoming queen while she was in the hospital.
Aubrey is now in remission and plans on attending Emmanuel University in the fall, where she will continue running cross country and track. She said she plans to major in exercise science to become a pediatric physical therapist.
Chancey Barnett said her daughter's cancer fight has changed everything for her and her family, but it's also proof of Aubrey's unshakeable will and strength.
"It was just a never-ending up-and-down battle. But she made it through all of it," the mom of three said. "When she says she's going to do something, she does it."
For Aubrey, her message to anyone facing a challenge is to look for the positive whenever possible.
"Whatever you're going through, you can get through it if your mindset is right," she said. "I feel like that's the biggest thing is to have a good mindset, because if you just think about all the negatives, you're never going to be able to get through it. So you just need to think about the positives and that everything happens for a reason."
