Teddi Mellencamp Breaks Down Over ‘Debilitating Pain’ of Stage 4 Cancer Battle

Teddi Mellencamp is opening up about the “debilitating pain” she feels as a mother of three fighting stage 4 cancer.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 43, choked up during a new interview with Entertainment Tonight while thinking about how her treatment is impacting children Dove, 5, Cruz, 10, and Slate, 12, whom she shares with estranged husband Edwin Arroyave.

“I’m like, ‘I don’t think that you understand like the debilitating pain that I feel some days thinking about the fact that like my kids—’” she said in Friday’s interview, fighting back tears. “My kids are young. I mean, I remember one day in the hospital, I was like, ‘I feel like today might be Dove’s birthday,’ and Edwin’s like, ‘It is. It’s her party today that you planned.’”

“And I was like, ‘Can they please just let me out for today?’ And he’s like, ‘You realize you have not only gone through massive brain surgery, but you have a hole in your head,’ ” she recalled. “And, I just remember in that moment he said exactly what I needed him to say. He’s like, ‘We’ll throw another one.’ But, like my heart broke because I wonder, ‘Will she remember that I wasn’t there?’”

Mellencamp and her ex have decided to be “up-front” with their children about the Bravo alum’s stage 4 cancer diagnosis, Arroyave revealed during the April 3 episode of The Eds podcast.

“I tried my best to again not sugarcoat it too much,” he explained. “I called it the way it was. It’s like, ‘Hey, there’s some tumors that your mom has in her brain.’ And I said, ‘It sounds worse than what it is, but this is what I think is, this is what we think is going to happen. This is sort of how we’re going to deal with it, and this is why I’m confident that she’s going to make it through.’”

Earlier this month, Mellencamp looked back on her cancer journey in an emotional Instagram post. “What a difference 4 months makes,” she wrote on April 9. “Sometimes I am so focused on ‘being strong’ that I forget I am allowed to be sad, cry it out, and feel very alone.” She added, “I love my kids, friends, and family so much and am forever grateful to them but dang today is one of those days.”