'The love in this town is just amazing': Destin teen fights rare cancer, voted Prom Queen

Last week, seniors at Fort Walton Beach High School walked out the door with a diploma in hand. Holly Burke did it against some incredible odds.

“I wanted to go off to college and move out — just live college life,” said an 18-year-old Holly. “That’s changed.”

The change in her plans began on her birthday in September with a pain in her right shoulder.

“It started hurting,” she said. “It always looked like my shoulder was dropped and hunched forward.”

The pain was bothersome, but fell off the radar when Holly contracted mono around the same time. Surgery to remove her tonsils and adenoids (and the accompanying pain medications) put the shoulder pain out of mind for a while.

But the pain returned in November, prompting a visit to a Sacred Heart doctor who ordered an X-ray of the area.

“I definitely know more about the human body than before,” Holly said, glancing down at the scar stretching several inches across the front of her right shoulder.

The X-ray revealed an “unknown mass” that concerned doctors enough to refer Holly to Shands HealthCare in Gainesville for a biopsy. Just a few days before Christmas, Holly’s ailment was given a name — clear cell sarcoma.

“It’s a rare cancer that only 300 people in the world have been diagnosed with,” said mom Carol Burke.

Clear cell sarcoma, also known as soft-tissue melanoma, is a cancer that strikes mostly younger people with tumors in the soft connective tissues. Surgery is the most effective means for ridding the body of the cancer, since it is resistant to chemotherapy.

It’s nature is aggressive. Holly said the tumor in her neck went from the size of a Jelly Bean to the size of a golf ball in a month.

Doctors had to act quickly.

Since January, she has had three surgeries and three rounds of radiation at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, where Holly and her mother have been living this year at Target House.

The two stay comfortably in their own apartment in the housing for patients receiving long-term treatment at St. Jude.

“It’s like a job,” Holly said.

The 13 weeks of radiation she’s endured has required her to be at the hospital all day, every day for treatment. Holly has been out of school since her bout with mono in September, but has kept up with her studies online, graduating on time with the rest of her classmates.

“In between all of the surgeries and the pain, she pulled it off,” Carol said.

Though she’s missed most of her senior year, Holly, didn’t let cancer keep her away from her senior prom. Angel Flight, a non-profit of volunteer pilots, transported Holly home to attend FWBHS’s prom, where she got a nice surprise.

She wore the crown as Prom Queen.

With high school behind her, Holly is concentrating on the next chapter of life with cancer.

“There really is no reason to worry about things I can do nothing about,” she said, exuding a sense of humor about the treatment and surgeries she’s been through.

The cancer has changed life for the entire Burke family. Carol managed a condo cleaning service before the diagnosis and has quit her job to be with her daughter in Memphis.

And as cancer is well-known for, it has made things almost impossible financially.

“I never know when the tears are going to come,” said Carol, as she wiped her eyes and began to explain how a handful of neighbors have been donating their time and money to get her cottage-style home in Crystal Beach ready for summer renters.

“The love in this town is just amazing,” she said.

Two other families have helped care for Holly’s younger brother Scott, 10, as he finished his fifth-grade year at Destin Middle School. He’s spent six weeks at Target House with his sister.

If radiation does not work, Holly’s next step is to try an experimental drug.

“I take it a day at a time,” she said. “It’s all I can really do.”