John Mellencamp tells PEOPLE exclusively that he talks to daughter Teddi Mellencamp “every day” amid her stage 4 cancer journey
Teddi still has “10 lesions in her brain,” he says, and while they aren’t cancerous, they “interrupt her thinking”
Mellencamp is preparing to go out on his Dancing Words Tour — The Greatest Hits this summer
John Mellencamp says he talks to his daughter Teddi Mellencamp “every day” amid her treatment for stage 4 cancer — and that she struggles with the side effects of “10 lesions in her brain.”
“She’s been going through hell the last year,” the rocker, 74, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “She has 10 lesions in her brain … even though the lesions are not cancerous right now, they still interrupt her thinking, and it’s in her frontal lobe,” he says.
According to Cleveland Clinic, the frontal lobe is the area of the brain that controls thinking, emotions, and personality.
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Teddi Mellencamp and father John Mellencamp appear on ‘Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen’.Charles Sykes/Bravo/Getty
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While the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum, 44, was able to have some lesions removed, she is undergoing radiation therapy for those that remain. “The lesions are still there, but the cancer’s not,” Mellencamp explains. “But that doesn’t mean she’s home free; it just means right now there’s no cancer. So she has to keep on this treatment for who knows how many years.”
The “Jack and Diane” singer echoed what Teddi herself shared on the Oct. 3 episode of the podcast she usually cohosts with Tamra Judge, Two T’s in a Pod, when she revealed “no detectable cancer.” But, she said, she would continue immunotherapy for at least a year, explaining, “I’m still going to be having days when I’m feeling sick and stuff because I still am in immunotherapy, so I’m still fighting because you have to be.”
As Teddi explained at the time, “I’m not considered in remission or anything like that.”
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