WASHINGTON: Doctors
treating US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in
her head said blood thinners were being used to dissolve the clot and they
were confident she will make a full recovery.
Clinton didn't
suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she
had a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December,
doctors said in a statement Monday.
Clinton, 65, was
admitted to a New York City hospital on Sunday when the clot was found on a
follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said.
The popular
secretary of state and former first lady had already planned to step down
at the beginning of US President Barack Obama's second term, which begins
this month. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a
question.
The clot is located
in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right
ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners
has been established, the doctors said.
In their statement,
Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi
of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress
and was in good spirits.
Clinton's
complication "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a
concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or
head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a
neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center. He is not
involved in Clinton's care.
The area where
Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a
big vein inside the skull. It's how the blood gets back to the heart,"
Goldstein said.
Blood thinners
usually are enough to treat the clot, and it should have no long-term
consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological
damage from it, Goldstein said.
Clinton returned to
the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early
December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip
to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two
scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June
2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Her condition
worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home
alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced
Dec. 13.
This isn't the first
time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her
husband's second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for
the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose
a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.
Clinton's three-week
absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some
conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment
after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly
attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
Clinton had been due
to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the
attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State
Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility.
Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was
released, but she was not blamed.
Looking to the
future, Clinton supporters have been privately, if not publicly,
speculating how her illness might affect a decision about running for
president in 2016, when Obama's two terms are up.
Americans admire
Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll
released Monday - the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that
title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of
Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with
just 37 percent opposed. Websites have already cropped up hawking
"Clinton 2016" mugs and tote bags.
After decades in
politics, Clinton has said she plans to spend the next year resting. She
has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for
the White House after running in 2008. But the door is not entirely closed,
and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she
decided to run again.
Her age - and her
health - would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton
would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016.
Publicly, Democrats
reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.
"Some of those
concerns could be borderline sexist," said Basil Smikle, a Democratic
strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. "Dick Cheney
had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked
about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn't a
problem."
It isn't uncommon
for presidential candidates' health - and age - to be an issue. Both in
2000 and 2008, Republican Sen. John McCain had to rebut concerns he was too
old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.
Two decades after
Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity - and her political
strength - are ubiquitous.
Even Republicans
concede that Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.
"The Republican
Party today is incapable of competing at that level," Newt Gingrich,
the former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said in
December.
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