Teddi Mellencamp‘s kids are still making sense of her cancer battle — especially her 10-year-old son, Cruz.
“I think the girls are OK because they just are so chatty. They ask everything,” Mellencamp, 43, told Extra on Thursday, April 17. “Cruz, he is a little bit confused because he’s not asking questions.”
Along with Cruz, Mellencamp shares daughters Slate, 12, and Dove, 4, with estranged husband Edwin Arroyave. She recalled recent examples of her son’s struggle to understand what she’s going through.
“The other day I was taking a sip of something and he goes, ‘Can I have a sip?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ And he goes, ‘Never mind, actually you’re contagious.’ I’m like, ‘I’m actually not contagious, bud,’” she said. “He’ll come in in the middle of the night and check that I’m breathing.”
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The former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star, who was initially diagnosed with melanoma in 2022, announced earlier this year that she required surgery after doctors found multiple malignant tumors on her brain. She has since needed additional treatment to manage the tumors that were not able to be surgically removed.
“Today is a good day. I think what I’ve learned through all of this is some days, I’m gonna feel great. Some days, I’m not. Everybody’s journey’s different,” Mellencamp told the outlet. “I would say a big thing has been all of the people messaging me saying, ‘I went and got checked because of you.’ Or ‘My doctor only had me get this checked, and then I said, ‘No, you should also do this.’”
As her health battle continues, Mellencamp is determined to raise awareness.
“What we have to remember is that my cancer was skin cancer. The last time we spoke here, I had skin cancer — melanoma — on my back. This metastasized, which is still a form of melanoma, but into my brain, into my lungs,” she explained. “Before I had them removed, I had four plum-sized melanomas in my brain, and I hadn’t gotten a CAT scan. But I had gone and gotten my skin checked every three months.”
Mellencamp has another important appointment coming later this month, adding, “Wednesday, I go in and get my next CAT scan, where they’ll find out if these recent tumors are getting smaller, and then I also get my third round of immunotherapy. I always thought radiation was the one that was going to kick my butt, but it’s been immunotherapy.”
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Despite announcing her split from Arroyave in November 2024, Mellencamp confirmed they are still living under the same roof.
“We’re not together, but we put all the divorce stuff on hold because getting divorced is very stressful,” she noted. “It’s called nesting, but most of the time now since I’ve had these surgeries, he’ll stay at the house and then we kind of rotate around. But we’re separate bedroom-ing.”
She added: “He’s a good guy, and we’re having a friendship, which is what we liked about each other in the first place. We are making each other laugh and all of those types of things so I think it’s been really nice. We call it the divorce chronicles, where we just tease each other.”
