Teddi Mellencamp is opening up about the toll her diagnosis is taking on her little ones.

On Friday, April 18, the mom of three, 43, who shares her children with her estranged husband Edwin Arroyave, spoke with Entertainment Tonight about the “debilitating pain” she feels on some days thinking about the worst-case scenario.

“I’m like, ‘I don’t think that you understand like the debilitating pain that I feel some days thinking about the fact that like my kids,’ ” she said, before pausing to push back tears. “My kids are young. I mean, I remember one day in the hospital, I was like, ‘I feel like today might be Dove’s birthday,’ and Edwin’s like, ‘It is. It’s her party today that you planned.'”

“And I was like, ‘Can they please just let me out for today?’ And he’s like, ‘You realize you have not only gone through massive brain surgery, but you have a hole in your head,’ ” she recalled. “And, I just remember in that moment he said exactly what I needed him to say. He’s like, ‘We’ll throw another one,'”

She concluded, adding, “But, like my heart broke because I wonder if will she remember that I wasn’t there.”