John Mellencamp’s Daughter Says She Can No Longer Write and Struggles to See After Undergoing Brain Surgery

John Mellencamp’s daughter is opening up about her health challenges. In a series of since-expired Instagram Stories, Teddi Mellencamp, the rocker‘s 45-year-old daughter, revealed how her life has changed since undergoing brain surgery amid her cancer battle.

Teddi was diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma in 2022. She proceeded to undergo multiple surgeries.

Then, in 2025, the cancer metastasized to her brain and lungs, which changed her diagnosis to stage 4. At the time, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum underwent emergency brain surgery. She’s been in immunotherapy treatments ever since.

“I’m not gonna try to be the old Teddi, but I’m gonna try to be the new and improved Teddi,” she said, per People, before sharing a video of her hands shaking.

“I have a little bit of this shake, and I have not been making my bed. All of this is going to change today,” she said. “I mean, not the hand shaking part, but I’m going to make my bed, have my medication. I’ve already got workout clothes on because I’m going to try to start to change my life today.”

Teddi Mellencamp Documents Her First Workout in Years

By getting on the treadmill for the first time in more than a year, Teddi said that she was “trusting that moving my body consistently will help both my mind and my body heal.”

However, when she got on the equipment, Teddi couldn’t remember her login information. That is not a totally unexpected experience in the wake of her surgery.

“I’m not good with numbers. I can’t write. It’s hard for me to see,” Mellencamp said. “All post-having-my-brain surgeries. That being said, I don’t want to keep feeling sorry for myself because that is what’s happening, and then I quit. So, I just want to feel OK being back in my skin again.”

Rather than trying to change the number on the scale through her workouts, Teddi said that she views exercising as “a choice I am making to feel better.”

Teddi, who works as an accountability coach, continued filming herself as she teared up.

“This is more gratitude, the amount of clients that have already messaged me and said, ‘Let’s go,’ and just that feeling of support around you… is huge,” she said.

Eventually, she was able to login to her treadmill and complete her first jog in years.

“I don’t care about becoming the old me again bc she wasn’t happy,” Mellencamp wrote alongside an old photo of herself and a new pic. “But [I] am excited to see where my new journey will take me.”

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for iHeartRadio

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