Here Comes Honey Boo Boo star Anna ‘Chickadee’ Cardwell, 28, has terminal cancer: Devastated Mama June opens up about ‘accepting’ her daughter’s prognosis in heartbreaking interview

Anna ‘Chickadee’ Cardwell’s cancer is terminal, her mother Mama June Shannon has sadly revealed.

The reality star, 43, said the family have ‘accepted’ Anna’s fate as she opened up about her daughter’s devastating health battle during an interview with Entertainment Tonight.

‘We know it’s terminal,’ the Here Comes Honey Boo Boo star explained. 

‘She’s stage 4. She’s not gonna go into remission,’ she added. ‘We’ve all accepted that, so I just tell people one day at a time ’cause you never know.’

It emerged earlier this year that Cardwell, 28, was battling stage four cancer in her liver, kidneys, and lungs after being diagnosed in January with adrenal carcinoma. 

Heartbreak: It emerged earlier this year that Cardwell, 28, was battling stage four cancer in her liver, kidneys, and lungs after being diagnosed in January with adrenal carcinoma

Mama June said the health battle is ‘always on my mind’ and has been ‘an emotional rollercoaster’ at times.

Her daughter, Alana ‘Honey Boo Boo’ Thompson, is ‘hoping’ her big sister will be able to put up a fight for much longer than five years. ‘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,’ Alana said.

Despite the battle, Mama June said her daughter is coping with everything well. ‘She’s actually doing pretty good,’ she said. ‘She’s handling it pretty good.’

Anna’s eldest daughter Kailtyn, 10, is ‘aware’ of what is happening to her mother, but Cardwell’s youngest daughter, Kylee, seven, is still ‘too young to understand.’

‘The 10-year-old is aware, I don’t think she fully understands,’ Lauryn explained. ‘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.’

As for Kylee, Alana said she is ‘too young’ to comprehend the situation.

‘She just knows Mama’s sick,’ Mama June added.

Lauryn ‘Pumpkin’ Efird said her sister ‘genuinely is OK’ and able to run errands on her own.

Difficult: Mama said the health battle is ‘always on my mind’ and has been ‘an emotional rollercoaster’ at times

‘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 told the outlet.

However, she added her sister ‘doesn’t have hair, she has no eyebrows, she doesn’t have any hair on her arms or anything like that.’

Cardwell has undergone four chemotherapy four treatments, her mother said.

‘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,’ Lauryn explained.

‘It does wear her body down sometimes, but other than that, she’s pretty good,’ Alana said.

Health battle: Cardwell has undergone chemotherapy four times, her mother said

With her chemotherapy treatments now complete, Anna can continue tackling the cancer with either immune therapy or clinical trials. However, Mama June isn’t sure if her daughter will proceed with either one. 

‘She just wants to see how it’s gonna go,’ Mama June 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.’

In May, Mama June revealed she would be moving home to Georgia to care for Anna as she battles stage 4 cancer.

Mama June would make the move from Alabama with husband Justin Stroud, she told The Sun.

She said: ‘I’m in the process of leaving Alabama now, and I’m in the final steps of my legal issues, so we’ll definitely be going back to Georgia.’

Claim to fame: The family rose to fame on Toddlers and Tiaras and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo

The legal issues pertain to Mama June and ex-boyfriend Geno Doak’s 2019 felony drug possession arrest in Alabama. The pair were infamously arrested with crack cocaine outside a gas station.

Mama June’s children had an extremely fractured relationship with her- following her public battle with alcohol and cocaine addiction in recent years – but she and Cardwell have since mended their relationship.

Mama June said: ‘The relationship with Anna was actually working before she found out that she had cancer, It didn’t just all of a sudden miraculously start working, like, [when] Anna had cancer.’

During an exclusive DailyMail.com interview in May, the star insisted that she was one of the few family members that have been taking the time to truly support Anna.

‘I’m hoping that she can pull through’: Her daughter, Alana ‘Honey Boo Boo’ Thompson, is ‘hoping’ her big sister will be able to put up a fight for much longer than five years

‘Honestly, the people that have been there for her since she’s been diagnosed is me and Justin, Eldridge and the girls,’ the star explained. ‘There’s no other family that come up there and sit with her during her treatments.’

She continued: ‘There is nobody that comes and checks to make sure that she’s good, to make sure that she got everything. It’s literally me, Justin, Pumpkin (Lauren Efird), Honey Boo Boo (Alana Thompson), Jessica. That’s it.’

The star then revealed the lengths she and her new husband Justin have been going to in order to do their part to help.

Mama June explained: ‘In the weeks that she has chemo, we take her to Atlanta. We stay there all week from Monday till Saturday, to make sure that she’s close to the hospital if anything major happens because it is two hours away.

‘So we say it there and then we bring her back home. Then that next week is kind of rough for her so we stay in Georgia to make sure she doesn’t need anything.’