Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
The Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential candidate says he'll beat the cancer that killed his father. And he'll be campaigning again soon.
Feb 12, 2003 | For many Americans, the first glimpse at Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry -- perhaps the frontrunner for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination -- came on Tuesday evening when he announced that he had prostate cancer.
Wednesday morning, the senator announced, he would be undergoing surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore to remove his prostate, the walnut-sized gland that is crucial to the male reproductive system. Doctors say he has a 95 percent likelihood of being cured.
"They're going to take my 'aloof' gland out tomorrow, so I'm feeling better," Kerry joked to the throng of reporters who had assembled at the Senate Radio-TV Gallery, referring to one of the main criticisms political scribes and opponents have thrown his way. It's been a weird few weeks for Kerry; on Feb. 2, the Boston Globe reported that his paternal grandfather, apparently unbeknownst to the candidate, had been a Hungarian Jew who changed his name from Fritz Kohn to Frederick A. Kerry.
Of more consequence, perhaps, is Kerry's father, who died from prostate cancer in 2000. Second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer-related death among men, prostate cancer kills about 40,000 American males a year; those with a family history of prostate cancer are at greater risk.
At Tuesday's press conference, Kerry, 59, voiced complete confidence in both his surgeon, Dr. Patrick Walsh M.D., urologist-in-chief at the James Buchanan Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and his prognosis.
"I'm going to be cancer-free," Kerry asserted. Asked if he thought this health issue would have any effect on his presidential hopes, Kerry said: "I don't think it's going to have any impact at all." Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who later helped form Vietnam Veterans Against the War, was elected to the Senate in 1984.
Team Kerry took great pains to ensure that as much information as possible was available to reporters. His press office provided a packet of background information about Kerry's health, the disease, other prominent men diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer, and Dr. Walsh -- even going so far as to plug the surgeon's book, "Dr. Patrick Walsh's Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer" (Warner Books, $16.95).
"Senator Kerry is a poster boy for early detection," Walsh said in a statement distributed by Kerry's staff. "He's a very active 59-year-old in overall great health who took to heart the advice we give to all men his age and insisted on regular checkups. We caught this very early and for that reason the prognosis couldn't be more optimistic."
On Wednesday at 6 a.m., according to Kerry's office, there will be a "Photo op of Kerry entering Main Entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital" at the main entrance on Wolf Street.
Erring on the side of providing too much, rather than not enough, information is no doubt a politically savvy move. Health issues -- more specifically, questions about how open and honest the candidates had been about their health issues -- popped up in the campaigns of previous national candidates. In the throes of campaign for the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley was forced to admit that he hadn't disclosed information about his atrial fibrillation, in which the upper chambers of his heart contracted too rapidly. The administration of President George W. Bush has been accused of downplaying the severity of Vice President Dick Cheney's heart condition. The most glaring and tragic example, however, is former Sen. Paul Tsongas, D-Mass., who -- after being diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes and undergoing a bone marrow transplant -- did not completely level with reporters about his health during his 1992 presidential run. He died in January 1997.
Bearing that in mind, the Boston Globe -- which, like most hometown newspapers of presidential aspirants, is fairly aggressive in its Kerry coverage -- reported Tuesday that, thinking the senator particularly worn in appearance and noting that he drank a protein shake during a recent interview, a reporter asked Kerry 10 days ago if he was sick. "Why? Do I look bad?" Kerry replied. Asked again, Kerry denied being sick, as did several of his campaign staffers.
When accused by the Globe reporter, Glen Johnson, of not answering the question "truthfully" a week and a half ago, Kerry said that at the time he hadn't made up his mind about his medical treatment. More importantly, he said, "I believed members of my family deserved to learn not by reading the newspapers." He wanted, in short, to announce the decision on his own terms. "Sometimes, Glen, that's more important than a headline in a newspaper," he said.
Kerry said he hadn't told his sister about his cancer at that point. A source close to Kerry and his family adds that Kerry's daughter Vanessa hadn't been told at that point, either.
"I could parse the word 'sick,' but I'm not going to," he said.
According to Dr. James D. Brooks, an assistant professor of urology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Wednesday morning Walsh and his team will give Kerry a spinal anesthetic that will not knock him out, but will keep him numbed during the operation. Walsh will make an incision from Kerry's navel down to his pubic bone, an up-and-down incision between the rectus muscles. Kerry's bladder will be pulled back, exposing the prostate, covered by the translucent pelvic fascia lining. Taking great care not to cut the nerves, Walsh will remove Kerry's prostate, reconnect his bladder with his urethra -- which normally runs right through the prostate gland -- and sew him back up. The procedure takes anywhere from two to three hours.
Kerry painted a whimsical picture of his recovery: He hoped to return to Washington on Saturday, he'd be busy next week with meetings and on the phone, and in two weeks would be making a campaign trip to California. However good his prognosis, it's obviously a bit more complicated than that. For two weeks or so, he will likely use a catheter tube to urinate. Dr. Brooks adds that there is usually a delay of "several months" before a patient can achieve an erection. Though "some are so potent they can have one virtually immediately after the operation," he added.
