Teddi Mellencamp undergoes 'pretty painful' surgery to treat melanoma

Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave is on the road to recovery after undergoing another surgery to treat her skin cancer.

"The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" alumna, 42, provided fans with an update Wednesday on Instagram. 

“Surgery went well!” she captioned a carousel of photos and a video of her in a hospital bed. “I specifically went through a ‘wide excision melanoma, soft tissue defect reconstruction with adjacent tissue rearrangement.’ Basically they cut out the area of my shoulder and replaced it with a flap of skin from below on my back.” 

In one photo, she flashes a thumbs up, and in another, her back is shown with pink scars and blue markings post-surgery.

“The outpouring of love and prayers in the comments and DMs has left me speechless (which is tough),” she wrote. “I wish I could respond to everyone but please know I am forever grateful.”

In the video, Mellencamp said she was just out of surgery and thanked her doctors for doing “such a great job.”

Eating a saltine cracker and soda, she described being on the “struggle bus” and said her back was “pretty painful.”

“Now I'm just waiting to be discharged to the nursing facility,” she wrote, and that “the pain and discomfort are all worth it.”

She added: “Please get your skin checked. I promise you do not want to go through this.”

Teddi Mellencamp's skin cancer journey, timeline

Mellencamp has been open about her skin cancer journey.

She shared on Instagram earlier this month that immunotherapy treatment "did not work on my melanomas." She wrote: "I had a wide excision removal on my most recent melanoma last week to see if it did and sadly it did not."

According to the American Cancer Society, immunotherapy is a "treatment that uses a person's own immune system to fight cancer. Immunotherapy can boost or change how the immune system works so it can find and attack cancer cells."

Mellencamp and her doctors, she wrote, decided that "the best next course of action" is to have surgery "to remove a larger portion of (the) problematic area."

"I don’t like going under and my anxiety is popping off but I have faith all will be OK and that the reason this is happening to me is because I am able to raise awareness," she wrote.

"After surgery, when god willing my margins are clear, we will continue to monitor my body closely every 3 months," Mellencamp added. "In the meantime, I am so looking forward to spending Christmas with my loved ones and hope this is a reminder to book your skin checks for the new year."

Mellencamp shared her Stage 2 melanoma diagnosis last year, writing on Instagram: "Moral of this story: if a doctor says, 'come in every 3 months' please go in every 3 months. I so badly wanted to blow this off."

"I continue to share this journey because I was a '90s teen, putting baby oil and iodine on my skin to tan it. Never wearing sunscreen or getting my moles checked until I was 40 years old," she added. "This has been such a wake-up call for me, and I hope to all of you, to love and protect the skin you’re in."

What is melanoma?

Melanoma accounts for about 1% of skin cancers but is more likely than other types to grow and spread, making it more dangerous. It "causes a large majority of skin cancer deaths," according to the American Cancer Society.

It occurs when "melanocytes (the cells that give the skin its tan or brown color) start to grow out of control." For people with lighter skin tones, melanomas are more likely to start on the legs for women and on the chest and back for men. Other common sites are the neck and face.

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, "When skin cancer develops in people of color, it’s often in a late stage when diagnosed." For Black people, "skin cancer often develops on parts of the body that get less sun like the bottom of the foot, lower leg and palms."

Should you get screened for skin cancer?Here's what to know.