Mama June Gives Health Update on Daughter Anna ‘Chickadee’s ‘Terminal’ Cancer Prognosis

Mama June Shannon is opening up about her eldest daughter Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell’s battle with stage 4 adrenal carcinoma. Speaking with Entertainment Tonight just over three months after news of Cardwell’s diagnosis broke, the Mama June: From Not to Hot star discussed the “emotional rollercoaster” of the past few months, acknowledging that she and her family “know it’s terminal.”

Cardwell was diagnosed with cancer in January, and, according to Shannon, who was joined by daughters Lauryn “Pumpkin” Efird and Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson, has completed four rounds of chemotherapy. While Thompson said “a lot of people” thought the treatment was going to make her sister “sick and stuff like that,” Cardwell has been “able to bounce back pretty quick,” though the treatment “does wear her body down sometimes, but other than that, she’s pretty good.” Shannon said the next step in her daughter’s treatment would be immune therapy or clinical trials, but Cardwell is not yet sure if she will move forward with either option, as she “just wants to see how it’s gonna go. We don’t know what to expect because the cancer is very aggressive and it grew from nothing to something huge on the left side of her body really fast.”

Shannon added that despite her health struggles, Cardwell, 28, is “actually doing pretty good. She’s handling it pretty good.” Efird said Cardwell “can still go to the grocery store, she can drive herself, she’s still able to take the kids to and from places,” though she added that she “doesn’t have hair, she has no eyebrows, she doesn’t have any hair on her arms or anything like that.” According to the family, Cardwell’s two children, Kaitlyn, 10, and Kylee, 7, are handling things as best as they can, though Shannon said neither fully understands.

“The 10-year-old is aware, I don’t think she fully understands. I think she understands that Mommy is sick and Mommy might not be here for a while… She’s 10, but she’s a lot more mature than that because she’s been raised around older people,” she shared. “Kaitlyn was always close with Anna, but now she doesn’t go anywhere without Anna. I get that because she’s thinking if Anna goes somewhere then maybe Anna might not be at the house when she gets back.”

Shannon admitted that the ordeal is “scary,” adding that they don’t know “what is going to happen next now when the chemo starts to come out of her body.” She said the family is trying to take things “one day at a time…For me, it’s an emotional rollercoaster sometimes. Mentally it’s always on my mind.” She added that the family knows “it’s terminal. She’s stage 4. She’s not gonna go into remission. We’ve all accepted that, so I just tell people one day at a time ’cause you never know.” However, the family is holding out hope that there will be a breakthrough, Efird telling ET, “Who’s not to say a year from now they’ll have a cure? The medical field is growing every single day. There’s always something.”