Mama June Undergoes Emergency Eye Surgery as She Worries About Going Blind

Mama June Shannon has her sights set on the future, but she’s grappling with the possibility that she could one day lose her vision completely.

“My eye problems started when I was born. I was born with cataracts and nothing was ever done,” Mama June, 38, said on Friday’s episode of Mama June: From Not to Hot. “I went blind in my right eye four years ago and now my good eye is really bad.”

In a terrifying moment, Mama June woke up from sleeping and was unable to see anything. “I literally can’t see anything out of either one of my eyes. I can’t see anything!” she told her boyfriend, Geno, who came to the bedroom.

Immediately, Geno, along with Mama June’s youngest daughter Alana “Honey Boo Boo” Thompson, rushed the reality star to the hospital, where she underwent emergency eye surgery.

“The reason why you’ve been having problems with your vision is because you have a detached retina,” Mama June’s ophthalmologist told her. “So we need to get you into surgery ASAP.”

“We are prepping the operating room right now,” the doctor explained. “We’re going to have to give you what’s called a scleral buckle. The buckle will help to reattach the retina to the surface of the eye.”

Ahead of her surgery — which is intended to reattach her retina and make her sight go back to what it was before the detachment — Mama June admitted to feeling “nervous.”

“I mean, I don’t wanna go blind. It may take the blackness away from what I’m seeing now. But then who’s to know when like they put this eye buckle on that it just makes the black go completely,” she said.

As she contemplated the reality that she could go blind, Mama June vocalized her fear that she “may not be able to see Pumpkin’s baby.”

Mama June added: “I am totally scared about losing my vision. I feel like I’m going to lose my independence and it’s really starting to weigh on me.”

After the surgery was completed, Geno and Honey Boo Boo took Mama June to a hotel, where she rested and recovered. “It’s really starting to set in because if the retina doesn’t attach back properly, I’ll just go blind. I’ll just lose my vision completely within time,” she said.

Despite their heated argument days earlier, pregnant Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon visited her recovering mother, who expressed her concern that she wouldn’t be able to one day see her granddaughter.

“The thing I’m most concerned about with this eye surgery is that it’s a 50-50 chance that you could either get your vision back or you can’t,” explained Pumpkin. “And my worst fear for her is that she won’t get it back, because I do want her to be able to see her grandbaby.”

Mama June: From Not to Hot airs Fridays (9 p.m. ET) on WE tv.