Teddi Mellencamp shows off meaningful new tattoo over surgery scar — with a connection to her famous dad

Teddi Mellencamp is showing off her new, sentimental ink a month after giving an “exciting” update on her ongoing battle with stage 4 cancer.

On Thursday, the former “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” star shared a picture of her back on Instagram, flaunting a brand new tattoo down the center.

“Can you guess what my new tat says?” the 43-year-old wrote in her caption. “We did family tat day yesterday and of course this is what I picked.”

In a since-deleted Instagram Story, a close-up image of the ink clearly read, “Life is short even in its longest days” — a sweet lyric from her dad John Mellencamp’s 2008 song “Longest Days.”

“For my dad @johnmellencamp,” Teddi added over the snap.

While the body art goes vertically down her spine, it also covers a portion of her scar from when her doctors “cut out” a large area of her shoulder that was plagued with melanoma and “replaced it with a flap of skin” from her lower back in January 2024.

A “family tat day” means Teddi wasn’t the only one who received fresh ink yesterday.

As seen on an Instagram Story from tattoo artist @wyldwess, the “Jack & Diane” crooner, 73, also got a new tattoo on his wrist, though it’s unclear if Mellencamp matched his daughter.

She’s been leaning not just on family but also friends during this time, inking more light-hearted matching tats with BFF Kyle Richards earlier this year.

The mom of three was diagnosed with skin cancer last year, but, in February she announced to her Instagram followers that doctors discovered “multiple tumors” on her brain as well.

After going through surgeries and immunotherapy treatment, however, things are looking up.

On Instagram last month, she shared, “I just finished with all of my scans and my tumors have significantly shrunk, which doctors believe means that this [treatment] all will work and that I will be back to myself and feeling good!”