Pregnant runner beats cancer while training for races
Samantha Salway was diagnosed with breast cancer while pregnant, but found her strength in running throughout her treatment in Aurora, Ohio.
Teddi Mellencamp sat stuck in traffic in early May on her way home. “Oh my gosh, hurry up,” she thought. The delay really bugged her, which is no surprise. If there’s anything the Type A, former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star and daughter of John Mellencamp is known for, it’s punctuality. At least in the Bravo universe.
But the 43-year-old has been stuck in a different way these last few months, in the fight of her life amid a stage 4 melanoma diagnosis. Her skin cancer spread to her brain, and to her lungs. She had surgery, radiation, immunotherapy. Shaved her head, grappled with surgery scars and bald spots.
Her frightening diagnosis, though, hasn’t curbed her resolve. She’s taking it day by day. “I’m feeling positive, but I also would say that my mood and my overall energy level shifts by the hour,” she tells USA TODAY over a bright, bubbly phone call from her Los Angeles home on May 6. Mellencamp spoke with an optimistic, open outlook about her prognosis.
Of course, “there’s moments of fear and there’s moments of whatever, but as long as I’m moving my body and taking action, then I seem to be in a more positive mindset.” Sitting and letting her anxiety get the best of her? That’s when she’s worse.
‘No one thought to check this?’
Mellencamp and melanoma have to stop meeting like this.
The podcast host and wellness accountability coach was first diagnosed with cancer some years ago, after pal and former “Real Housewives” co-star Kyle Richards noticed a tiny spot on her back looked different than when they started filming together in 2017.
About 16 different, melanomas popped up on her back, and she kept going for skin checks every three months, seeing both a dermatologist and an oncologist. When headaches appeared about a year ago, she didn’t think to mention them.
“I had really decided I had migraines, and it was something I developed,” she says. “And then I went online and saw that you can get migraines when you’re going through early menopause. So then I had self-diagnosed myself with early menopause.” She wonders now, “If I would have just said, I have, you know, this, this pain or this, you know, maybe it would have changed things, but who knows, or maybe it wouldn’t have?”
Several months ago, the headaches grew unbearable, unrelenting. Right after she worked an event for the Super Bowl, when she got home, weakness took over. Her legs began to give out. She felt faint. A trip to the emergency room followed. The diagnosis? Plum-sized tumors all over her brain and lungs. They’d been festering for six months to a year. She didn’t realize melanoma could metastasize like this.
“Nobody had ever said you should go get something else checked,” she says.
Melanoma makes up just 1% of all skin cancers in the U.S. but it’s also one of the deadliest and can indeed spread to other organs. Patients should pay attention to spots on their body that are asymmetrical, have strange borders, contain multiple colors, the width is larger than a pencil eraser, and they should note if there are rapid changes to any new or existing skin spot.
Anger swelled in Mellencamp upon her diagnosis. “I was very upset, because I was like, ‘How have I been going in and getting checked? And no one thought to check this?’” Sadness followed when she made the “mistake” of Googling. But she also knew stage 4 was something she wanted to discuss publicly.
“I wanted to make sure that other people didn’t follow some of the same mistakes I had made by not getting certain checks,” she says, “and not trusting my instincts when I first started getting headaches and all those different things. I wanted to make sure people were going to take action on their own health.” But that’s also invited commenters describing what they went through, and scaring her in the process. “It’s a double-edged sword.”
‘I’m really beyond grateful’
What’s been the most grueling for Mellecamp? Surgery, radiation, immunotherapy? “The unknown, above any treatments,” she says, recounting a trying 17-day ICU stay. Coming out of surgery was difficult because of a rough reaction to the steroid prednisone. Radiation cost her her hair but was otherwise seamless (apart from a “Silence of the Lambs”-like mask she wore). The immunotherapy hits her four or five days after each treatment.
Her prognosis keeps changing. Two weeks ago, doctors gave her a 35% chance of surviving because her tumors had still grown despite radiation and immunotherapy. Following another round of immunotherapy, her doctor told her that all her tumors shrunk by massive amounts. And she’s had no headaches the last two weeks, either.
“My next immunotherapy is next Wednesday, and then I have another round of scans and stuff like that, and then we kind of go from there, what the next level of treatment will be. But I’m really beyond grateful to everybody involved, because it’s pretty much been a miracle.”
Heads up: Watch out for these signs of skin cancer, experts say
‘I’m not going to push myself’
As a wellness accountability coach, Mellencamp isn’t used to sitting still. Even amid this treatment she still takes time to move her body. Not running miles or going to Barry’s Bootcamp a few times a week, per se, but going for a jog (fast-walking, then jogging for 45 seconds on and off) or getting up and taking a bath. It’s all relative.
“You should 100% do anything that gives you life and makes you feel good,” her doctor told her. She’s surrounding herself with people she loves and cares about, and recently made a red carpet appearance for a cancer event with Kyle Richards.
That said, “I’m not going to push myself,” she says. “I know if I push myself how I feel at the end of the day, and then I can’t give myself the way that I want to give to my kids or anything else.” Mellencamp shares four kids with ex Edwin Arroyave: Slate, 12, Cruz, 10, and Dove, 5, plus stepdaughter Bella.
Big deal: Teddi Mellencamp reveals her tumors have ‘significantly shrunk’ amid cancer battle
‘Go to the doctor’
If there’s one thing she wants people to know: Step out of your self-diagnosis spiral and “go to the doctor.”
And if you know someone going through cancer treatment, don’t ask for a response when checking in. Just let them know you’re there for whatever they need. Also, as morbid as it seems, look into life insurance and planning your will earlier on.
“Having to do your will when you’re stage 4 cancer, you’re very emotional,” she says.
As stuck as Mellencamp may feel at times, she’s doing everything she can to break out. And that means going for that jog.
