The Home and Away star's life changed dramatically after Tahnee Sims, his girlfriend of three years, forced him to the hospital because of an ongoing migraine.
"I was just at home and I had a headache, but everyone has headaches and you never think much of it," he tells Who Are You podcast host Pete Timbs.
"It had been ongoing and it just got worse and worse. It got to about 4 or 5 in the afternoon and I couldn't speak, I couldn't communicate with her [Tahnee] at all."
That's when Tahnee decided she had to take Johnny to the hospital. At first he was told it was just a migraine, but was told to stay overnight for testing. The next morning doctors rang Tahnee and revealed that her boyfriend had fallen into a coma, had a brain tumour and would have to undergo emergency surgery to remove it.
"Next thing I know I wake up on Tuesday and they say 'you've had a brain tumour removed'", he said. "When I finally came to I was like 'holy sh*t this is serious'".
Doctors told Johnny that if he did not go to the hospital when he did, he would have gone to sleep that night at home and never have woken up.
"I would have gone into a coma that night and Tahnee would have tried to wake up me the next morning and I just would have been out."
Johnny reveals more about his battle with cancer and why his career is on hold in the new episode of the WHO ARE YOU interview podcast – out now. iTunes http://po.st/RxVC07 or OMNY http://po.st/SedGya
