‘I’ll be back soon,’ McCain promises
Senator upbeat after brain cancer diagnosis
WASHINGTON • Battling brain cancer, Sen. John McCain on Thursday promised to return to work, levelling fresh criticism at the Trump administration and aiming a good-natured dig at Republican and Democratic colleagues who were jolted by news of the six-term lawmaker’s diagnosis.
“I greatly appreciate the outpouring of support — unfortunately for my sparring partners in Congress, I’ll be back soon, so stand-by!” McCain said in a tweet.
The 80-year-old McCain, the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2008, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive type of brain cancer, according to doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, who had removed a blood clot above his left eye last Friday.
The senator and his family are considering further treatment, including chemotherapy and radiation, as he recuperates at his home in Arizona.
Showing no signs of stepping back from political battles, McCain issued a blistering statement through his office criticizing the Trump administration over reports that it was ending a program to assist Syrian opposition forces fighting the government of Bashar Assad.
More significantly, McCain’s absence is forcing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to delay action on health-care legislation. Republicans need his vote in order to move forward on repealing and replacing president Barack Obama’s law.
Meantime, prayers and words of encouragement multiplied on Thursday from presidents and Senate colleagues past and present.
“I called Senator John McCain this morning to wish him well and encourage him in his fight. Instead, he encouraged me,” said former president George W. Bush, who prevailed over McCain for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000. “I was impressed by his spirit and determination.”
According to the American Brain Tumor Association, more than 12,000 people a year are diagnosed with glioblastoma, the same type of tumour that struck McCain’s Democratic colleague in legislative battles, the late Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. The American Cancer Society puts the five-year survival rate for patients over 55 at about four per cent.
McCain, a former combat pilot, has a lifetime of neardeath experiences — surviving a July 1967 fire and explosion on the USS Forrestal that killed 134 sailors, flying into power lines in Spain, being shot down in October 1967 and falling into Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi, and going through 5½ years in a North Vietnamese prison.
“The Hanoi Hilton couldn’t break John McCain’s spirit many years ago, so Barbara and I know — with confidence — he and his family will meet this latest battle in his singular life of service with courage and determination,” said former president George H.W. Bush.