Teddi Mellencamp is sharing a health update — mental and physical — with her followers as she prepares for another week of radiation amid her cancer journey.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, who first revealed that doctors had found multiple tumors on her brain in February, shared a candid Instagram Stories video before bed on Saturday, March 15 — and got real about the extreme ups and downs of her cancer treatment.
“I know I speak a lot about all the fun and amazing things that I’ve been doing since all of the tumors, and I have been doing them, and it’s been my way of peace, of coping, finding happiness, but I also wanted to send a reminder and a gentle, like, ‘I feel you,’ if you’re going through this, going through a hard time, that is also normal,” said Mellencamp, 43, while lying down in bed.
“We all find our new normal, and we do the best that we can to feel as good as we can in that moment,” Mellencamp continued. “Some nights [are] really hard. Tonight’s one of them.”
The former reality star updated fans again the following day, sharing a post on her Instagram Stories about everything from how she decides when to wear a wig to the sports drink she has been (very reluctantly) drinking amid her treatment.
The “story of my life,” she began in the March 16 clip, “is always to be having to drink Powerade” — a fact she demonstrated by panning her camera over to a bottle of the beverage.
“I’m here to tell you, it’s not my favorite,” Mellencamp, who was visibly low-energy, went on to admit. “Trying to suck down a bottle of this every morning is a real dream, but I guess it’s supposed to help.”
“My immunotherapy kinda kicks your butt, guys. It kinda kicks your butt, but it waits a little bit — and then it kicks your butt,” she continued, before adding that on Monday, March 17, she is scheduled to “start a week of radiation.”
The star also addressed why she wears a wig, a topic she said she’s “been getting lots of questions” about. “They’re like, ‘Why not just rock the shaved head?’ And guys, sometimes I do,” Mellencamp said. “Yesterday, I didn’t wear a wig in the afternoon and I’ll be honest, I felt a little insecure. So I’m going to do whatever makes me feel the best.”
She concluded her updates with another video shared immediately after, giving fans — and herself — a silver lining as she heads into a week of intense treatment.
“But [I’m] always trying to find a little bit of the positive,” Mellencamp said. “Apparently, I mean I’m not a doctor — I barely made it through high school — but apparently, the more immunotherapy kicks your butt, the more it’s working, is what I was told.”
“That’s why I do immunotherapy every three weeks,” she added, “whereas my radiation, for example, that I start on Monday, I do for a week straight.”
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Mellencamp previously said that after undergoing surgery for her brain tumors, she has since had “some of [her] darkest, saddest days” — including one day in which she threw up 85 times.
The RHOBH alum — who has had 17 different spots of melanoma removed over the past two years — first received her brain tumor diagnosis after going to the hospital on Feb. 11 for “unbearable” pain. She later explained on her Instagram Stories that she was “dealing with severe and debilitating headaches” for several weeks and, upon receiving a CT scan and an MRI, doctors found multiple tumors on her brain.
On March 6, Mellencamp provided another health update on Instagram, sharing that doctors had found three more tumors in her brain, as well as one tumor in each of her lungs.
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