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Teddi Mellencamp showed her scars and shed her tears to her million Instagram fans when she was diagnosed with melanoma. Now the disease has returned, but she is a fighter!
“Extra’s” Billy Bush spoke with Teddi, who got candid about her health and her best friend Kyle Richards ahead of the new season of “RHOBH.”
She commented, “This is crazy… Every time I think I get through it, I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m done.’”
Mellencamp has had 13 melanomas. She said, “This most recent one, when they checked it, they did a little biopsy. It came back. I had the wide excision surgery again and then the margins weren’t clear.”
Does she get scared about the future? Teddi answered, “I would say the biggest shock for me was when I got turned down for life insurance. Like, that was a big wakeup call. And then that’s when I kind of had the conversation with my family. Like, I need to like, do a last will and testament. Like I need to actually face these things and get it done because there are things you don’t necessarily go through at 42 years of age.”
While Mellencamp is undergoing a new immunotherapy cream treatment, her 11-year-old daughter Slate has gotten hands-on as her caretaker.
Teddi explained, “She wants gloves and the whole thing… She trusts no one else to do it. Like, she watched Edwin do it one day, and she’s like, ‘Dad, no, you have to go exactly at this spot.’ I think she has, like, a real eye for detail.”
Teddi isn’t concerned that her health struggles could be traumatizing for Slate. She explained, “As long as we have open conversations with it, like, ‘There’s nothing for us to worry about now, but thank you for taking care of me because there are going to be times where we all need to lean on each other.’”
That might also apply to Teddi’s former “RHOBH” co-star Kyle Richards, whose separation with Mauricio Umansky is playing out on the show.
Teddi noted, “I think Kyle is one of my best friends. I care about her. I think, you know, obviously we all know that they’re currently separated, but they’re very amicable. And I love them. I want what’s best for their family. And I think watching that trailer and watching the kids, it’s hard to watch.”
Teddi doesn’t know if Kyle and Mauricio are seeing other people amid the separation. She pointed out, “We’re all super close friends, and if that’s anything, then it’s not something I’m privy to.”
She added, “I think we’re just going to have to see what plays out. I think the entire family is great. I think they all love each other and have a lot of love and respect for one another. And I think that’s really going to be what we see, what we end up knowing.”
Kyle and Teddi are heading to New York first to appear on “Watch What Happens Live.” Teddi is also getting honored by the Melanoma Research Foundation.