Mama June Battles Mystery Health Scare – Doctor Said to ‘Stop Lying About My Symptoms’ [Exclusive]
June Shannon, known as Mama June from reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Mama June: Family Crisis says the health scare she had during the first episode of season 6 continues. And no one knows why.
Shannon shared her frustration with Showbiz Cheat Sheet, revealing that doctors can’t figure out what is going on with her. Plus, in some cases, doctors have treated her differently when she tells them she’s a recovering addict.
“I’m still dealing with that and I’m still dealing with sometimes being exhausted. So I’m still having headaches and I’m having forgetness,” Shannon shared.
Mama June doesn’t know what’s going on with her health
“They don’t seem to want to help because all of my test results are coming back negative or they’re coming back and they’re not showing anything on the scans,” she said of the doctors she’s seen thus far. “So they don’t have any answers. And then they look at you and they’re like, ‘Well, then maybe you’re not having the symptoms.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, yes, I know I’m definitely having them.'”
Shannon was rushed to the hospital during the first episode of Mama June: Family Crisis. She was feeling lightheaded and had facial numbness. Doctors ran tests, but she couldn’t give her daughters any answers as to what was going on.
“They do have me on a couple of different meds,” she explained. “Some days they work and some days they don’t. But to get into the main doctor that I know that helped [daughter Lauryn] Pumpkin in the past, you need a referral. Because she had an amazing neurologist in Georgia.”
Judgmental doctors make getting treatment worse
Exacerbating the treatment process is judgment from some of the medical community about recovery, Shannon said.
“But, honestly, I’m actually trying to find the right doctor because when you are in recovery and you are going to the doctor, you tell them the real truth, that hey, I’m in recovery. Because I always start the conversation, ‘I am in recovery’ like I’ve been in recovery for three years,” she said. “Because I don’t want to hold back anything from anybody. And so when you do that, the doctor just looks at you like you got the plague like you got a very bad disease.”
She revealed that a physician dismissed her when she shared her symptoms. “So I’m not the only one to experience this because I’m sure there are other people out there in their recovery that have got judged by doctors. I was even told by one doctor that I need to stop lying about my symptoms and be honest with them. And I even had attacks in that office. Like you can’t fake stuff,” she shared.
Mama June focuses on her daughter Anna’s health now
Despite dealing with her own health issues, Shannon is completely focused on her daughter Anna ‘Chickadee’ Cardwell. Cardwell was diagnosed with stage 4 adrenal carcinoma cancer in January. She had just started treatment and all Shannon could think of was her child.
“I have put myself to the wayside a lot. I know that. But taking care of now Anna and doing all that, that has been my focus like the last few months,” she said. Shannon said Cardwell was doing chemotherapy and the entire family was listening to her doctor’s advice.
Shannon also said no one talks about prognosis. “[The doctor] didn’t want to tell us that she’s got three months or even six months to live or even a year,” she said. “Because say that he tells us six months or a year. And she dies in six months. Or she dies in three months, they don’t want us coming back and saying, well, you told me that she was going to live nine months.”
Thankfully, Cardwell recently had good news to share. “Well going on to round 3 of chemo,” she posted on Instagram. “This [was] yesterday it was a pretty good day.” She added, “Cracker Barrel was good going down but not up. But over all it’s going good and chemo is working. We come to find things are looking good.”
