Mama June Shannon Says Daughter, Anna ‘Chickadee’ Cardwell is ‘Doing Pretty Good’ After Four Rounds of Chemotherapy

Mama June Shannon recently sat down for an exclusive interview with ET to talk about how her 28-year-old daughter is doing since finishing chemotherapy.

Mama June Shannon recently sat down for an exclusive interview with Entertainment Tonight to talk about how her 28-year-old daughter, Anna Cardwell, is doing now that she has completed four rounds of chemotherapy. Cardwell revealed in March that she was diagnosed with stage 4 adrenal carcinoma. 

During the interview, Mama June said her daughter was ‘doing pretty good’ and ‘handling it pretty good’ since finishing chemo. “A lot of people thought that it was gonna make her sick and stuff like that, [but] she’s able to bounce back pretty quick,” June said – adding that the family is taking it one day at a time. 

 
As for what’s next, Anna Cardwell is currently trying to decide whether she wants to move forward with clinical trials or immune therapy – there’s a chance she moves forward with neither. According to her mother, Anna ‘just wants to see how it’s gonna go’ – though they fully accept that the disease is terminal.

Mama June Shannon was accompanied by her three other daughters – Jessica ‘Chubbs’ Shannon, 26, Lauryn ‘Pumpkin’ Efird, 23, and Alana ‘Honey Boo Boo’ Thompson, 17. Lauryn and Alana agreed that their sister is doing ‘pretty good,’ but Alana added that chemo ‘does wear her body down sometimes.’

“She can still go to the grocery store, she can drive herself, she’s still able to take the kids to and from places,” Lauryn explained – adding that she “doesn’t have hair, she has no eyebrows, she doesn’t have any hair on her arms or anything like that.” She also discussed how Anna’s two children are handling it. 

While Anna’s 10-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, is aware of the diagnosis and knows that ‘Mommy is sick,’, she’s still a little too young to fully understand what’s going on. Mama June added that Kaitlyn has rarely left her mother’s side since the diagnosis and likely understands her mother won’t be here much longer.

 

“She’s 10, but she’s a lot more mature than that because she’s been raised around older people,” Lauryn said of Kaitlyn. Meanwhile, Anna’s 7-year-old daughter – Kylee – knows her mother is sick, but doesn’t exactly understand the extent of the illness. Still, the family embraces every moment they have together.

Mama June Shannon emphasized that, while the family has accepted the fact that Anna Cardwell won’t go into remission, they aren’t giving up hope for a new treatment or potential cure. They take things one day at a time, but hope modern-day technology can provide a miracle for cancer patients everywhere. 
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“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,” Mama June Shannon said. “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.”
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Meanwhile, Alana hopes her sister can continue to fight this disease – something we all know she’s capable of, though it won’t come easy. “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,” Honey Boo Boo said in the interview.  

Over the past couple of months, Anna Cardwell has been open about her journey since discovering her cancer diagnosis and throughout the chemotherapy process – she posts video updates on TikTok regularly (when she’s feeling up to it, of course). We’re wishing her all the best moving forward!