While Teddi Mellencamp may have feared the worst, Tamra Judge wasn’t willing to let her go.
On the March 13 episode of their Two Ts in a Pod podcast, the best friends shared a touching moment after Mellencamp, 43, opened up about struggling with migraines and mental fog before she was taken to the hospital for what her estranged husband, Edwin Arroyave, believed could be a “brain hemorrhage.”
After a CT scan, Mellencamp was diagnosed with multiple brain tumors. Once she received the news, Judge, 57, recalled getting a text message from the former Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star.
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“I don’t know if it [was] just me or I was in the group text, but you said to me, ‘You all thought I was mental, but actually, I’m on my deathbed,” Judge revealed, getting emotional. “And I remember texting you back and said, ‘No, you’re not, because if you’re on yours, then I’m on mine, because I can’t live without you.”
On Feb. 12, Mellencamp announced on Instagram that after dealing with “severe and debilitating headaches” for weeks, doctors discovered that she had multiple brain tumors that have been growing for at least six months.
At the time, she revealed that four of the tumors were surgically removed and “the remaining smaller tumors will be dealt with via radiation at a later date.” After the procedure, three more tumors were found in Mellencamp’s brain and two more tumors were found in her lungs.
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Elsewhere in the podcast, Mellencamp opened up about the pain she was experiencing before her diagnosis and admitted that she’s lived “some of my darkest, saddest days” since her diagnosis.
“I was at a horse show. I remember going to my friend Nicole like, ‘I have the worst migraine I’ve ever had in my entire life.’ I remember not being able to remember how to say certain words,” she recalled. “I started shaking really bad and I didn’t know where I was.”
Despite taking migraine medication, her symptoms continued for days and worsened.
“I remember being in such extreme pain. I could barely walk. I couldn’t see. I didn’t wanna do anything,” she explained. “I honestly didn’t know what to do because everything in my life is upside down.”
Though she has a long battle ahead, Mellencamp said she’s “feeling really positive” and revealed she was starting radiation on March 17 as well immunotherapy treatments for one day every three weeks.
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Noting that her brain tumors are a result of her past melanomas spreading, Mellencamp said she regrets not doing better at listening to her body. She admitted that her headaches were present for six months before seeking medical attention.
“I wish the second that I felt those headaches, I wish the second that I started not feeling like myself I would have gone to the doctor and gotten checked,” she said.
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