Teddi Mellencamp, the reality TV star from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, has spoken about receiving cancer treatment for melanomas that had spread to her brain and lungs.
Reality TV star Teddi Mellencamp has said that doctors didn’t realise that her cancer was spreading to her brain and lungs. She’s also opened up about having not requested scans that could have spotted the metastasized tumours.
Teddi, 44, who is best known for having been on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, shared that she had been diagnosed with skin cancer in 2022. She’s since said to have had 17 spots of melanoma removed from her back.
Then, earlier this year, she claimed that doctors hadn’t realized the cancer had spread. She announced that doctors had discovered stage four tumors in her brain and lungs, adding that they had been growing for at least six months.
Teddi, who competed on the US version of Celebrity Big Brother the same year that she shared her initial diagnosis, had emergency brain surgery, radiation and immunotherapy treatment after the secondary cancer was found. She’s continued to share updates with fans since then.
Whilst interviewed by her pal and former RHOBH co-star Kyle Richards for Glamour magazine recently, Teddi spoke about having not questioned why she didn’t have certain scans after the initial melonamos were identified. It came after Kyle suggested that she would ask for scans to detect potential spreading if she had “that much” skin cancer and it’s “that aggressive”. She however said “that wasn’t ever brought up” to Teddi.
Teddi said, “When you go to a doctor, you just assume that’s it.” She admitted to not researching herself initially because she didn’t want to know “the bad things,” and told Kyle that she thought she was doing what she was supposed to do.
Teddi, who’s the daughter of singer John Mellencamp, added in the interview published earlier this week: “I never really thought about it because I was like, I go to a doctor every three months. Why wouldn’t they get me checked?”
She claimed that stage one of her “highest” melanoma was on her shoulder. Teddi claimed that because she “didn’t have” anything above stage one on her body, she was informed when she “finally followed up on it.”
Teddi also gave fans advice in the interview, including telling them to trust their gut feeling while saying she’s “patiently” awaiting the day she’s been told she’s “cancer-free.” She recalled not feeling well for “a long time” before turning to the doctor, who later admitted she had “self-diagnosed” rather than sought medical attention.
Her comments come after she announced in February that her cancer had metastasized to her brain. She said at the time: “For the last several weeks I’ve been dealing with severe and debilitating headaches. Yesterday the pain was unbearable and required hospitalisation. After a CT scan and MRI, doctors found multiple tumours on my brain, which they believe have been growing for at least 6 months.”
Teddi explained to the audience that the two tumors would be surgically removed, and that the remaining smaller ones would be treated with radiation. She continued, “I am blessed to be surrounded by my children, family, friends, doctors, nurses, and surgeons who are attempting to restore my health to its best level.”
Teddi then announced that two more tumors had been removed than “expected” two weeks later. She then claimed in March that she also had two lungs and that several tumors in her brain couldn’t be removed with surgery. She said, “My melanoma has metastasized to all of these.” The doctors are optimistic that immunotherapy will treat them well.
Teddi told supporters that “every tumour stage 4 (metastasized melanoma in my brain and lungs) shrunk or disappeared, so I need to go through six or seven more weeks of immunotherapy, and doctors believe I’ll be healed if everything stays on course.”
In her own words, she wrote in April: “It’s been 76 days since I went to the ER with unbearable headaches and quickly discovered I had multiple stage 4 tumors in my brain and lungs that are the size of plums.” We had no idea that the mammal had metastasized there and had been there for “6 months to a year.”
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Source: Mirror
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