With a broad smile and an upbeat attitude, former US president Jimmy Carter told the world on Thursday that he has cancer in his brain and feels “perfectly at ease with whatever comes.”
Carter said doctors had removed melanoma from his liver, but found four small tumors in his brain. Later on Thursday, he had the first of four targeted radiation treatments. He is also to receive more injections of a newly approved drug to help his immune system seek out and destroy the cancer cells wherever else they may appear.
Carter, the 39th president of the US, served in submarines in the US Navy and spent years as a peanut farmer before running for office, becoming a state senator and Georgia governor. His plainspoken nature helped Democrats retake the White House in 1976 in the wake of former US president Richard Nixon’s impeachment.
Wearing blue jeans and a blazer, Carter spoke with good humor and unsparing honesty, revealing that he had kept suspicions of cancer from his wife, Rosalynn, for weeks until the diagnosis was confirmed in June.
“Now I feel it’s in the hands of God, whom I worship, and I’ll be prepared for anything that comes,” he said.
Carter’s team of doctors at Emory Health Care includes Walter Curran Jr, who runs the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. Treatments for melanoma have improved tremendously and Carter’s prospects are good even at the age of 90, Curran said.
However, he cautioned against the idea that Carter can be “cured.”
“We’re not looking for a cure in patients who have a disease like melanoma that has spread,” Curran said.
“The goal is control and to have a good quality of life,” he said.
Doctors told Carter they had completely removed cancer from his liver during surgery on Aug. 3, but an MRI exam that same afternoon showed the spots on his brain. Carter said he went home that night thinking he had only a few weeks to live, but found himself feeling “surprisingly at ease.”
The former president did not discuss his long-term prognosis, but said he is to cut back dramatically on his humanitarian work while following the orders of a team that includes the world’s best “cancer-treaters.”
His treatment regimen is to include three more sessions three weeks apart. The tumors in his brain are to be blasted by concentrated beams of radiation and he is to get more injections of pembrolizumab, which was approved by the FDA for melanoma patients earlier this year.
“This is not a eulogy in any way,” grandson Jason Carter said, who is taking over as chairman of the board of trustees at the Carter Center, which promotes peace, democracy and healthcare improvements around the world.
Still, his grandfather’s responses to reporters often expanded into reflections on his life, faith and family.
“I’ve had a wonderful life,” Carter said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS