Ailing Ted Kennedy Leaves Hospital And Goes Sailing
Posted May 21, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy gave a thumbs up to well-wishers and kisses to relatives as he walked out of the hospital Wednesday, a day after learning he has a cancerous brain tumour.
A square bandage at the back of his head marked the spot where doctors performed a biopsy Monday that led them to diagnose the Massachusetts Democrat with malignant glioma. Experts say such tumours are almost always fatal.
Kennedy’s dogs, Sunny and Splash, met him at the hospital door. Hospital workers and well-wishers greeted Kennedy with applause. Before he and his wife, Vicki, got into a dark Chevrolet Suburban, he kissed his daughter, Kara, and his niece Caroline Kennedy, and embraced his son, Representative Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.)
The senator departed with a wave as television news helicopters followed his 120-kilometre trip south to his Cape Cod home. Along the way, he could be seen waving to nearby motorists from the front passenger seat of his SUV. He took a walk on the beach with his two Portuguese water dogs as soon as he arrived.
“Good to be back home,” he told waiting reporters before heading off for a sail on his sloop, “Mya.”
Doctors announced Kennedy “has recovered remarkably quickly” from the brain biopsy. They said he will recuperate at his home over the Memorial Day weekend while awaiting further test results that will help determine his treatment plan.
“He’s feeling well and eager to get started,” said Dr. Lee Schwamm, a top neurologist at Massachusetts General, and Dr. Larry Ronan, Kennedy’s primary care physician.
The 76-year-old senator, the last son in a famed political family, was diagnosed with a malignant glioma in his left parietal lobe — which helps govern sensation, movement and language — after suffering a seizure in his home Saturday morning. Malignant gliomas are diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year.
“It’s treatable but not curable. You can put it into remission for a while but it’s not a curable tumour,” said Dr. Suriya Jeyapalan, a neuroncologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
In an e-mail Tuesday, Vicki Kennedy told friends the grim diagnosis was “a real curveball” that left the family stunned even as Kennedy joked and laughed with them. She expressed pride in how her husband was handling the news.
“Teddy is leading us all, as usual, with his calm approach to getting the best information possible,” she wrote in an e-mail Tuesday to friends.
“He’s also making me crazy (and making me laugh) by pushing to race in the Figawi this weekend,” she wrote, referring to the annual sailing race from Cape Cod to Nantucket.
The diagnosis cast a pall over Capitol Hill, where the Massachusetts Democrat has served since 1962.
Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest-serving member of the Senate, wept as he prayed for “my dear, dear friend, dear friend, Ted Kennedy” during a speech on the Senate floor.
“Keep Ted here for us and for America,” said the 90-year-old Byrd, who is in a wheelchair. He added: “Ted, Ted, my dear friend, I love you and I miss you.”
In a statement, President George W. Bush saluted Kennedy as “a man of tremendous courage, remarkable strength and powerful spirit.” He added: “We join our fellow Americans in praying for his full recovery.”
Kennedy has been active for his age, maintaining an aggressive schedule on Capitol Hill and across Massachusetts. He has made several campaign appearances for Senator Barack Obama.
“He fights for what he thinks is right. And we want to make sure that he’s fighting this illness,” Obama said Tuesday. “And it’s our job now to support him in the way that he has supported us for so many years.”
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said: “Ted Kennedy’s courage and resolve are unmatched, and they have made him one of the greatest legislators in Senate history. Our thoughts are with him and Vicki and we are praying for a quick and full recovery.”
Kennedy has left his stamp on a raft of health care, pension and immigration legislation during four decades in the Senate. In 1980, Kennedy unsuccessfully challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The Kennedy family has been struck by tragedy over and over. Kennedy’s eldest brother, Joseph, died in a Second World War plane crash; President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963; and Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968.
Kennedy shocked the country in 1969 when he drove his car off a bridge to Massachusetts’ Chappaquiddick Island and a young female campaign worker drowned. Kennedy, who did not call authorities until the next day, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a suspended two-month jail sentence.
Kennedy, the Senate’s second-longest serving member, was re-elected in 2006 and is not up for election again until 2012. Were he to resign or die in office, state law requires a special election for the seat 145 to 160 days afterward.
Photo credit: Darren McCollester/Getty Images
A timeline of Senator Edward Kennedy’s life:
Feb. 22, 1932: Edward Moore Kennedy is born in Boston, the youngest of nine children of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy.
May 1951: Kennedy is caught cheating on an exam and leaves Harvard College. He enlists in the army and serves for the next 16 months and later re-enrols at Harvard.
June 1954: Kennedy graduates from Harvard and enrols at the University of Virginia Law School. He graduates in 1959.
Nov. 29, 1958: Kennedy marries Virginia Joan Bennett.
Nov. 8, 1960: Senator John F. Kennedy is elected president of the United States.
March 1962: Kennedy resigns as assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Mass. He announces his candidacy for his brother John’s unexpired Senate term.
Nov. 6, 1962: Kennedy is elected as a Massachusetts senator.
Nov. 22 1963: President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas.
June 1964: Kennedy’s back is broken in a plane crash that kills his aide and the pilot.
Nov. 3 1964: Brother Robert Kennedy is elected to the Senate from New York.
March 1968: Senator Robert Kennedy announces his candidacy for the presidency.
June 5, 1968: After winning the California primary, Robert Kennedy is shot in Los Angeles and dies the next day.
July 18, 1969: Kennedy drives his car off a bridge at Chappaquiddick, Mass., and manages to escape. His passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowns. Kennedy later pleads guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, a misdemeanour, and receives a two-month suspended sentence and a year’s probation.
July 25, 1969: Kennedy delivers a television address to explain his actions at Chappaquiddick.
Nov. 3, 1970: Kennedy is re-elected to the Senate, but he loses his majority whip position. He chairs the Senate Health Committee.
November 1979: Kennedy announces his candidacy for the 1980 presidential election.
January-August 1980: Kennedy wins Democratic primaries in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, California, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and New Jersey. The rest go to the incumbent, President Jimmy Carter.
August 1980: In an emotional speech to the Democratic National Convention, Kennedy withdraws his bid for the presidency.
December 1982: Kennedy announces he will not run for president in 1984. After 24 years of marriage, he divorces his wife, Joan.
Dec. 19, 1985: Kennedy announces he will not run for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.
March 1991: A woman accuses Kennedy’s nephew, William Kennedy Smith, of raping her at the family’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate. He is later acquitted of the charge.
June 11, 1991: A conservative political group files an ethics complaint against Kennedy, alleging that he violated Senate rules by his actions relating to the alleged rape. Kennedy raised questions when he left Palm Beach, Fla., without speaking to police, who had made attempts to contact him.
June 19, 1991: The Senate Ethics Committee dismisses the complaint against Kennedy.
July 11, 1991: Kennedy’s son Edward M. Kennedy Jr. says in statement he spent three weeks in an alcohol treatment centre because drinking was “impairing my ability to achieve the goals I care about.”
Oct. 25, 1991: Kennedy takes responsibility for “faults in the conduct of my private life” and pledges to reform his lifestyle, in a speech at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
September 1992: A book by former administrative assistant Richard Burke depicts Kennedy as a former partygoer, womanizer and cocaine user. Kennedy calls the book “a collection of bizarre and untrue stories.”
July 1992: Kennedy marries Victoria Reggie, a Washington lawyer.
Oct. 13, 1994: The Senate Ethics Committee dismisses allegations of sexual harassment and drug use by Kennedy.
Jan. 4, 1995: Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy, son of the Massachusetts senator, becomes the youngest member of the 104th Congress.
Aug. 21, 1996: A major health care bill sponsored by Kennedy and Senator Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kan.), is signed into a law. The law protects workers from losing health insurance when they change jobs or from being denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
July 1999: John F. Kennedy Jr., nephew to Kennedy, and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, perish in a plane crash in the waters off Martha’s Vineyard.
Feb. 10, 2000: Kennedy is released from a hospital after being treated for bacterial pneumonia.
January 2002: No Child Left Behind, in which Kennedy co-sponsored, is signed into law. The legislation is designed to give states and school districts more freedom over how they spend federal dollars, but requires them to raise student achievement.
April 5, 2004: Kennedy says Iraq has become “George Bush’s Vietnam” and compares him to former President Richard Nixon.
May 4, 2006: Representative Patrick Kennedy, son of the Massachusetts senator, drives his vehicle into a Capitol Hill security barrier.
June 13, 2006: A judge sentences Patrick Kennedy to drug treatment and a year’s probation after he pleads guilty to driving under the influence of prescription drugs.
November 2006: Kennedy easily wins an eighth term that will extend his Senate career to an even 50 years in 2012.
May 2007: Congress approves an increase in the federal minimum wage, a longtime priority for Kennedy.
Oct. 12, 2007: Kennedy has surgery in Boston to clear a partially blocked artery in his neck.
Jan. 28, 2008: Kennedy announces he is endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for president.
May 17, 2008: Kennedy suffers a seizure at his Cape Cod home.
May 20, 2008: Doctors diagnose Kennedy with a cancerous brain tumour.
Source: The Associated Press and PBS
