Teddi Mellencamp is remaining hopeful as she fights Stage 4 cancer despite doctors warning she has a 50% chance of survival.
The “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star was hospitalized with multiple brain tumors earlier this year. During a procedure to remove the masses, doctors found two additional tumors in her lungs.
Mellencamp, 43, admitted that life expectancy rates for cancer patients has been on her mind while she’s undergoing immunotherapy for treatment.
‘REAL HOUSEWIVES’ STAR TEDDI MELLENCAMP’S SCARY SYMPTOM THAT LED TO BRAIN CANCER DIAGNOSIS
“I learned this isn’t the best question to ask if you’re doing immunotherapy, because immunotherapy has only been around 10 years,” she told Nightline.
She was initially upset to hear that immunotherapy has a “50/50” success rate.
‘REAL HOUSEWIVES’ STAR TEDDI MELLENCAMP HAS FOUR MORE BRAIN TUMORS
“It’s one of my favorite things to ask: ‘How long I got? What are my chances?’ And they oftentimes say 50/50,” she said. Mellencamp remembered telling the doctor, “50/50? I wouldn’t buy a car that’s only gonna drive 50% of the time. I don’t want this.”
She added, “And [the doctor’s] like, ‘No, it’s only because that’s how long immunotherapy has been around so that’s how long the study has worked.’ So that’s when I then try to find the positive.”
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Finding the positive has been a challenge at times.
“I really like to have control, and this is completely out of my control. And for the first time, I’m really scared,” Mellencamp said.
Her famous father, John Mellencamp. has remained a small, but assuring comfort during the process.
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“Yesterday, my dad calls me 11 times in a row. Finally, I answer, I’m like, ‘I’m in the bath. Let me live a little,’” Teddi explained on her podcast “Two Ts in a Pod,” which she hosts with fellow “Real Housewives” star Tamra Judge.
“He goes, ‘I just want to make sure you’re going to be in our group family mausoleum.'”
She went on to say that she instantly thought of her three children, Slate, 12; Cruz, 10; and Dove, 5, and where they factor into the family mausoleum in Indiana.
“He’s like, ‘Well, there’s going to be the top five and then we’re gonna have little areas around it, and then that’s where everyone’s going to get buried,’” she continued. “He goes, ‘You’re doing your will right now, so you may as well put it in there.’”
In the end, she said, “I think I agreed to be in the mausoleum,” and joked that someone she met not too long ago inspired her to get “hot girls never die” put on her tombstone.
Mellencamp told US Weekly earlier this month that she’s in the fight of her life after the cancer spread in her brain and to her lungs.
“I’m fighting for my life,” Mellencamp told the outlet. “But also for my family’s life and all the people I love.”
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In February, after medication became ineffective for her migraines and Mellencamp began feeling severe pain, she rushed to an emergency room with her estranged husband, Edwin Arroyave.
“The pain had become something I’d never felt before,” she said. “They diagnosed me with multiple brain tumors, but the [ER doctor] says he can’t take them out; they’ve got to get me into Cedars-Sinai [hospital].
“And I’m like, ‘Can’t you get me in tonight? I want to go tonight.’ I had six brain tumors and two lung tumors; they all came from melanoma that metastasized into these tumors inside of my body.”
Mellencamp began radiation and immunotherapy treatment immediately after her surgery, which took a toll on her body.
“I thought I was going to feel like how I felt after my neck lift,” she said. “My reaction is always a headache, and I found out that’s good news because it means that the immunotherapy or the radiation is killing your cancer.”
Mellencamp said on social media after undergoing both radiation and immunotherapy the day before that she feels “so tired and run down, but I know it’s going to get better again.”
“Something that everyone can keep in mind… I kind of thought that I’d already beaten it, and then, a couple days later, I found out I had four more tumors. So, there are so many different highs and lows, and yeah, but I’ve learned a lot.”
Fox News Digital’s Stephanie Giang-Paunon contributed to this report.
