June Shannon, also known as Mama June, and her family skyrocketed to fame after they appeared in an unforgettable episode of "Toddlers and Tiaras," but now one of her four daughters is making news for more upsetting reasons.
Shannon's oldest daughter, Anna Cardwell – known on the family's first reality show "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" as "Chickadee" – is battling cancer, and as Shannon revealed in a new update on her prognosis, doctors have told Cardwell that the disease will eventually kill her.
"We know it's terminal," Shannon, along with two youngest daughters, Alana "Honey Boo Boo" Thompson and Lauryn "Pumpkin" Efird, told "Entertainment Tonight."
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She added, "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."
Efird was more hopeful, saying, "Honestly, 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."
"Think about how quick they came out with a COVID vaccine and things like that. I truly believe eventually there will be a cure for some kind of cancer."
Thompson said, "It is crazy to think that she will not be here probably in five years, but I'm hoping that she can pull through and fight 10, 20 years."
Despite the grim prognosis, Shannon announced that Cardwell is "handling it pretty good," with Efird agreeing, saying that her older sister "genuinely is OK."
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She elaborated, explaining, "She can still go to the grocery store, she can drive herself, she's still able to take the kids to and from places."
She also said that Cardwell "doesn't have hair, she has no eyebrows, she doesn't have any hair on her arms or anything like that."
Cardwell hasn't been experiencing intense symptoms from the chemotherapy she's been undergoing, although Thompson admitted, "It does wear her body down sometimes."
Cardwell is Shannon's first child, and the two had been estranged for some time after a string of questionable and dangerous behaviors on Shannon's part – she infamously began dating a man that had gone to prison for molesting Cardwell when she was a child, which led to the cancellation of "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," and later Shannon began experimenting heavily with drugs.
Shannon's second child, Jessica Shannon, stays out of the spotlight, but her youngest daughters, Efird and Thompson, appeared on their mother's latest shows, "Mama June: From Not to Hot" and "Mama June: Family Crisis."
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The family crisis mentioned in the title refers to Shannon's issues with Efird and Thompson – the former took custody of the latter while Shannon was in the throes of addiction.
They all seem to be on good enough terms now – enough that Shannon is on speaking terms with Cardwell's children.
According to Shannon, Cardwell's oldest daughter, Kaitlyn, 10, understands what's going on with her mother's illness.
"Kaitlyn was always close with Anna, but now she doesn't go anywhere without Anna," she explained. "I get that because she's thinking if Anna goes somewhere then maybe Anna might not be at the house when she gets back."
Efird agreed, saying, "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."
The younger daughter, Kylee, is only 7, and Shannon said "she just knows Mama's sick."
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As for Cardwell's next steps, the family revealed that she's done with chemotherapy and now her other options are clinical trials to try a new treatment for the disease or immune therapy.
At this time, she's undecided whether she'll continue pursuing treatment or allow the disease to take its natural course.
"She just wants to see how it's gonna go," Shannon said. "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."
She added that right now, they're waiting to see "what is going to happen next now when the chemo starts to come out of her body," but all they can do is take things "one day at a time."
