Staying strong. When it comes to her daughter Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell’s cancer battle, Mama June Shannon said there are good days and bad days.
“This round of chemo has been kind of different,” the Mama June: Family Crisis star, 43, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, May 4, while promoting the new season of her reality show. “She’s sleeping more. It was kind of rough, this round.”
Anna, 28, was first diagnosed with stage 4 adrenal carcinoma in January after she complained about painful stomach aches. The mother of two — who shares daughter Kaitlyn, 10, with ex Caleb Clark and daughter Kylee, 7, with ex-husband Michael Cardwell — underwent her first round of chemotherapy in February, one month before news of her diagnosis broke on March 30.
For as much as Shannon tries to act calm about her eldest’s difficult situation, the reality star told Us there are days when she doesn’t “know how to deal with it,” adding, “I can just imagine, like, if I’m feeling that way as her mom, how she’s feeling that her way as a person who is having to live with it day in, day out.”
Not to mention, the Toddlers & Tiaras alum said she’s been disappointed by the lack of support they’ve received from other family members amid Anna’s cancer battle. “The people that are only here is me, Justin [Stroud], Pumpkin [Lauryn Efird], Alana [Thompson], her boyfriend [Eldridge Toney], and Jessica [Shannon],” June stated. “Nobody else is here for Anna, nobody else goes to treatment, nobody else goes to her house.”
When it comes to how Anna’s kids are handling things, June noted that Anna’s diagnosis has made granddaughter Kaitlyn “more clingy.” Stroud — whom June married in March 2022 before tying the knot again in a beach wedding ceremony in February — also added that Kylee is “still just too young to really comprehend what’s going on.”
Fans will see June deal with her own health issues on the new season of Mama June: Family Crisis, which premieres Friday, May 5. A preview for the show’s new episodes shows the Here Comes Honey Boo Boo alum in the hospital for an issue June told Us she’s “still dealing with.”
Over the years, June has been candid about her struggles with weight loss and drug addiction and is currently over three years sober. Having struggled with addiction himself, Stroud told Us that their support for one another “helps more than any 12-step program.”
He continued: “We definitely don’t reminisce. We don’t even talk about it. No. We just — it’s something that we know we’re gonna do. Like, I don’t have no desire to be on drugs anymore, just like she doesn’t. You know, just being here and being supportive for each other, being mad at each other, being happy.”
June, for her part, noted that she doesn’t even “think about doing drugs” amid Anna’s cancer battle, adding, “I have a hundred more thoughts in my mind than worrying about going out and using drugs.”
Mama June: Family Crisis returns to WE tv Friday, May 5, at 9 p.m. ET.
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
