Cardwell has stage 4 cancer and received her adrenal carcinoma diagnosis in January.
Mama June Shannon’s sharing a health update on her oldest daughter, Anna "Chickadee" Cardwell, who is battling a rare and aggressive form of cancer. It's a scary and heartbreaking ordeal, especially since it's fallen on Shannon to have the heart-wrenching conversations with Anna's two daughters about "the endgame."
Ahead of their Mama June: Family in Crisis premiere on Friday, Shannon and her husband, Justin Stroud, spoke with ET's Rachel Smith in New York City and shared that Anna's undergone a second round of chemotherapy to treat adrenal carcinoma.
"It’s very rare and very aggressive," Shannon says.
According to the National Cancer Institute, adrenal carcinoma is a rare disease in which malignant (cancer) cells form in the outer layer of the adrenal gland. It was announced back in March that Anna was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in January.
Before the diagnosis, Shannon says the ordeal started in August when Anna went to the hospital with back pain. Doctors soon found a cyst and removed it. But just a few months later, Shannon tells ET that Anna has "lost all her hair," the result of a fast-moving cancer that spread to her liver, spleen and lungs by the time she was diagnosed.
Anna's spirits, as one might imagine, are not high.
"Just depends on what day it is," Shannon says. "She sleeps a lot. She doesn't want to eat some days."
And for Shannon, a worrying mother has a roller coaster of emotions.
"There’s days where I don’t know [whether] to scream, get mad, or be happy," she says. "As her mom, we’ve had talks you don’t want to have with your child. We know what the endgame is and we are prepared for that. You're never prepared, but we know what could happen. Her children know about it, the 10-year-old more than the 7-year-old."
Anna shares her two daughters -- Kaitlyn, 10, and Kylee, 7 -- with her ex-husband, Michael Cardwell.
According to the National Cancer Institute, adrenal carcinoma affects one in one million people around the world, and it largely affects women more than men. Yes, it's a rare form of cancer, but Shannon says the family's hopeful.
Anna's due to undergo another round of chemotherapy next week and is scheduled for a scan on Saturday. The family will get the results of those scans on May 9.
Mama June: Family in Crisis premieres Friday on WE tv.
RELATED CONTENT:
