Teddi Mellencamp is urging others to prioritize their health as she faces stage 4 cancer.
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The daughter of veteran rocker John Cougar Mellencamp, 44, shared with Kyle Richards in an interview for Glamour last week that she believes doctors missed the spread of melanoma to other parts of her body.
Mellencamp was diagnosed with melanoma in 2022 and has undergone 17 procedures. In April, she shared that her cancer had progressed to stage 4, spreading to her brain and lungs, requiring surgery, immunotherapy, and radiation.
Mellencamp shared with Richards that, despite undergoing numerous medical checkups, doctors failed to detect the spread of her melanoma.
“When you go to a doctor, you just assume that’s it,” she explained. “I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. At first, I didn’t even really do the research on melanoma because I didn’t want to know all of the bad things.”
“But there’s a difference between self-diagnosing yourself and being an advocate for your own health,” she pointed out.
“I never really thought about it because I was like, I go to a doctor every three months,” the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum continued. “Why wouldn’t they get me checked? My highest melanoma on my shoulder was stage one. When I finally followed up on it, they were like, ‘We didn’t do the scans, because you didn’t have anything above a stage one on your body.’ But look what happened.”
Teddi Mellencamp Urges Others to “Trust Their Instincts” as Her Cancer Journey Continues
Without scans to monitor the progression of her melanoma, Mellencamp initially found herself puzzled by the sudden onset of severe headaches. She urged others to “trust your gut instinct.”
“There was a long time that I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t go to the doctor,” she recalled. “I thought I had migraines, I thought I was going through menopause. I had self-diagnosed myself with 500 things. And then one day, I couldn’t stand up. It’s being an advocate for yourself and your health if you’re not feeling good.”
“One of the biggest things that I wish people knew is that you’ve got to plan ahead of time,” she said. “You don’t need to wait until you’re sick to do things like life insurance. Have those hard conversations with your family, because you never know when it’s going to come.”
Mellencamp pointed out that she can’t get life insurance now.
“I always thought, I’ll do it when I’m older, and then never did. I couldn’t get it back in the days when I only had melanoma on my shoulder. If you get anything from this interview, it’s to get yourself some life insurance and some friends you can laugh with.”