After announcing her exit from America's Got Talent season 16 to focus on her health, Jane Marczewski, a.k.a. Nightbirde, appeared on CNN's Cuomo Prime Time to give fans an update on how she's doing now.

Right off the bat, Nightbirde told Chris Cuomo, "I've been curled up in a ball like a cocktail shrimp, having an A-plus pity party for myself, because it's just been a bad, bad month. It's been really, pretty devastating."

On Instagram this week, the 30-year-old singer-songwriter, who won AGT judge  Simon Cowell's golden buzzer after auditioning with her original song "It's Okay," announced that her health had "taken a turn for the worse" and that the "fight with cancer" was demanding her energy and attention. As a result, Nightbirde made the tough decision to leave AGT ahead of the live shows. "Life doesn't always give breaks to those that deserve it — but we knew that already," she wrote in the caption of the post.

Reflecting on her decision, Nightbirde told Chris that it was "really, really hard" that she couldn't finish the show because she's "not a quitter."

"I got shocking news less than a week ago about cancer regrowth that has taken over my lungs and liver. So my liver right now is mostly cancer," she continued. "More cancer than liver in there right now. But like I said, I'm planning my future, not my legacy. Some people would call that blind denial. I prefer to call it rebellious hope. And I'm not stopping anytime soon."

Later on in the conversation, Nightbirde shared that she's still writing music, including a song with the lyrics, "Pretty beat up, but I still got dreams" (a line that happens to be in her Instagram bio). According to Nightbirde, holding onto a dream is sometimes all we need to get through.

"Don't you want to see what happens if you don't give up? Don't you want to see what happens? And that's what I keep saying to myself and that's what I say to everyone watching tonight," she explained. "Don't you want to see what happens if you don't give up?"

When Chris asked Nightbirde if she's "always been like this," she went on: "I don't know. I think when you're faced with so many blows to the gut in a row, like I have over the past several years, you find out what you're made of in a sense, and you're given the opportunity to choose what you want to become. So no, I don't think I was always this way."