Jimmy Carter announces in a press conference today, that in addition to the liver cancer, doctors have found 4 melanoma lesions on his brain.
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A small cancerous mass was removed August 3 along with about a tenth of his liver and doctors believe they got rid of all the cancer there, Carter said.
He said he thought he had “a few weeks left” when he first learned of the cancer in his brain but said he is now hopeful while being accepting of his condition.
At a news conference in Atlanta, the 90-year-old said he has melanoma that was initially discovered in his liver.
Carter will undergo four treatments of radio surgery, which will attack the four spots of melanoma on his brain. The original location of his melanoma has not yet been found, Carter said, and he expects that future scans will reveal other places where cancer has spread.
He and his wife have thought for many years about cutting back their work at the Carter Center, which he established in 1982 to promote health care and democracy.
He says he feels good, with only slight pain.
“I’m going to cut back fairly dramatically on my obligations”, Carter said. I have thousands of friends, and I’ve had an exciting and adventurous existence. This combination doesn’t produce the bad side effects that people may have experienced 20 years ago, said the former president’s physician, Dr. Walter Curran, executive director of the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University.
Carter received the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to promote social and economic justice.
By looking at him, you wouldn’t know he has cancer, but it’s a battle he’s been fighting since May.
In a wide-ranging interview last month about his life with Reuters Editor-at-Large Sir Harold Evans, Carter reflected on his childhood in a home without running water or electricity and his concerns about ongoing racial prejudice in the United States.
His first radiation treatment was set for Thursday (yesterday) afternoon.
Carter as asked if it was hard to go forward with treatment and if his faith played a role in his decisions.
Many said they were grateful for the work Carter has done as president and as a humanitarian.
During the longest ex-presidency in U.S. history, Carter has advocated through his eponymous foundation for peaceful elections, human rights and disease prevention in more than 40 countries. He said he would give the treatment regimen, slated to last at least three months, his “top priority”. He clearly worries about the risk of the disease spreading to his pancreas, a cancer that has killed four members of his family already.
“Clearly we treat the life threatening areas, his brain metastasis”, Cornelius says. He says he is still planning to teach Sunday School this weekend at his church in his hometown of Plains.
She said brain cancer is serious, but it’s not the end.
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His greatest accomplishment was marrying his wife, Rosalynn, he said.
