Teddi Mellencamp is opening up about her brain tumor diagnosis and recovering from her recent brain surgery.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 43, returned to her podcast Two Ts In a Pod on Thursday, March 13, and spoke about getting discharged from the hospital two weeks after her Feb. 12, operation — and the intense side effects of her surgery.
Mellencamp explained to listeners and co-host Tamra Judge that to be discharged, she needed to urinate, but because she was on a sodium drip and taking “disgusting sodium pills,” her body wouldn’t allow it. “I couldn’t pee, guys. I do not know why I could not pee.”
Her experience with the sodium pills was so tough, it impacted her stomach, too. “One day, I remember I had just thrown up, like, 85 times from the stupid salt pills,” she recalled.
After she left the ICU, she went to a hotel with a full-time nurse. Although “things were a lot better,” she confessed to Judge that she “got really, really sad.”
“ I think it was then — when your memory’s coming back and feeling a little bit better — you’re really acknowledging what’s going on,” Judge said of speaking to Mellencamp on the phone for the first time since she left the hospital. “That was the moment that I was dreading because then you knew what was going on with you.”
“Once I understood, then I got really sad,” Mellencamp said.
Mellencamp, who for the past two years has had 17 different spots of melanoma removed, first went to the hospital on Monday, Feb. 11, for “unbearable” pain. She explained on her Instagram Stories Tuesday, Feb. 12, that she was “dealing with severe and debilitating headaches” for several weeks. Mellencamp then received a CT scan and MRI, and doctors found multiple tumors on her brain, which were believed to have “been growing for at least 6 months.”
The next day, she underwent a craniotomy with a tumor resection, where four tumors were removed from her brain. The remaining tumors will be treated with immunotherapy and radiation.
Then, on Thursday, March 6, Mellencamp provided another health update to her Instagram profile, sharing that the doctors found three more tumors in her brain and one tumor in each of her lungs.
In Thursday’s podcast episode, Mellencamp revealed that she had “some of [her] darkest, saddest days” since the surgery.
Once at the hospital and given her diagnosis, she texted Judge. The Real Housewives of Orange County star tearfully recalled on the podcast what Mellencamp’s message read: “ ‘You all thought I was mental, but actually I’m on my deathbed.’ ”
“I remember feeling like this is actually it,” Mellecamp said of sending the message.
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Despite Mellencamp’s initial fears and upcoming health battle, she said she’s “feeling really positive” about the treatment process. She is set to start radiation on Monday, March 17, and will also undergo immunotherapy for one day every three weeks.
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