One day after undergoing brain surgery at
On Monday, Kennedy underwent a risky brain surgery in order
to reduce the brain tumor’s size so he could start chemotherapy and radiation
treatment. In May, the senator was diagnosed with malignant glioma after
running several tests at the
Just hours after the three-hour surgery that was “successful
and accomplished” the surgeons’ goals, Kennedy was feeling “like a million buck,”
as he told his wife Vicky. A day after the surgery, he is even better, walking
on the hospital’s hallways, “spending time with family and actively keeping up
with the news of the day. He looks forward to returning home to
Dr. John Sampson, the associate deputy of the brain tumor
center at Duke University Medical Center who was not involved in Kennedy’s
surgery or care, said patients who have no complication on the first day after
the surgery have the strongest prospects for recovery. He also added that the
“disastrous complications” usually happen within the first six hours or at
least the first 24 hours after surgery. Complications could appear in the
coming days as well but they are expected to be less serious.
Kennedy is expected to spend one more week at
Patients with the worst form of malignant glioma usually
survive about 12 to 15 months, experts say, but every patient is different and
there’s “a bunch of new treatments that are looking pretty good,” said Matthew
Ewend, chief of neurosurgery at the